#this actually ties into something else i've written

[secretmellowblog]

Jean Valjean's Canon Toxic Unhealthiness around Romantic Love

( alternate titles: “Does Jean Valjean is Gay?”, or “Does Jean Valjean is Asexual?” Or: “Why is it so difficult to slap an identity/sexuality label onto Jean Valjean?” Or “LGBTPTSD+”)

I was looking at the responses to this poll about whether people interpret Jean Valjean as gay/asexual/straight or something else….and it got me thinking again about Jean Valjean’s canonical intense, complex, awful, toxic, and overwrought emotions around identity/ romantic love. I want to talk about that for a bit because I think it often gets overlooked in fandom!

I've noticed that Les Mis fandom/analysis often tends to interpret Jean Valjean as being far more content, more "at peace with himself," and more "comfortable in his own skin" than he ever is within the novel. This is also a common change in adaptations. The musical's version of Jean Valjean is great-- but he also seems a lot more self-actualized, more like he's gotten himself completely "figured out" by the end of the story. Other, bad, Les Mis adaptations — the adaptations that generally portray Jean Valjean a worse more violent person — also usually make Jean Valjean more confident in himself, more confident in his own feelings/desires, more certain that he’s entitled to certain things, and more willing to demand or take what he wants.

But one major aspect of book Jean Valjean's personality is that he does not have a healthy relationship with anything about himself. He has a tortured broken relationship with his own identity. He repeatedly thinks about “Jean Valjean” as a person outside of himself, a person who he finds frightening, repulsive, savage, and horrible— like a wild animal he needs to sedate, or beat into submission. He is obsessed with self-denial and self-repression. He is fixated on the idea that he is subhuman, that he is not allowed to want things or to pursue having any kinds of relationships with other people-- and that the most heroic thing he can do is "grab himself by the collar” and violently force himself to stay away from the things he wants. He is desperate to be loved and fixated on being unworthy of love and on denying himself love. He is absolutely not at peace with his identity: to paraphrase Jean Valjean in one of the later chapters, he believes he can only gain inner peace by “eviscerating his own entrails.”

He is never truly content with who he is, what he wants, or what kind of love he wants— and he never learns to be. The novel ends with him cutting himself off from his only family, breaking ties with the only person who loves him, and essentially slowly killing himself out of self-loathing.

There are other characters in Les Mis who seem very content with who they are and what they want. Enjolras is self-assured in his identity, and doesn’t appear to feel like there is any kind of love that is missing from his life. Whether you interpret him as gay or ace or trans or w/e, book!Enjolras is written as someone who is extremely self-assured and has a loving support system that is enough to keep him happy. But I don’t think that’s true for Jean Valjean at all XD.

And that’s why it's hard to apply labels like “aromantic” or “ace” or gay/straight/etc to Jean Valjean, when talking about his canon characterization. Those labels imply the person has a basic level of comfort with acknowledging their own desires/lack of desire/identity. And Jean Valjean never achieves that level of comfort. What “label” do you give to someone whose relationship with their identity is “I do not belong in a family, I have no right to want things, I have no right to be happy, I am outside of life, and I will never be at peace until I eviscerate my own entrails?” Is there a “self-disembowelment" pride flag? XD I've seen a lot of interpretations that go "Jean Valjean never expresses any interest in romance, he's perfectly content just to have his relationship with his daughter" but I honestly don't think that's true. Jean Valjean tries to content himself with having only Cosette. But part of why everything explodes so catastrophically in the end of the novel is because he needs more than just a paternal relationship. He doesn’t try to have a “normal” father-daughter relationship with Cosette, he tries to force his relationship with Cosette to be literally everything and everyone to him, for her to be his entire world: and it doesn’t work.

There’s a passage in the novel that talks about how all the love Valjean is capable of ends up being suppressed/sublimated into his relationship with Cosette. The love of a brother, of a friend, of a father, of a husband, the love of everything he is capable of, gets repressed so that he can throw every part of himself into being a father. There are Bad les mis adaptations that incorrectly misinterpret that passage to mean that Jean Valjean is incestuous/grooming Cosette. But in context, that’s not what the passage means at all.

The passage specifies very explicitly that Jean Valjean “did not love Cosette otherwise than as a father,” that “no marriage was possible between them,” that his feelings for her are absolutely paternal. But the passage does show how Jean Valjean is doing a very different unhealthy thing: he’s relying on Cosette to fill every single emotional void in his life.

He’s relying on parenthood to fill the grief/emptiness left behind by all the other kinds of love that he has wanted, but never been given.

To quote a bit of that passage:

Jean Valjean did not love Cosette otherwise than as a father (…) Let the reader recall the situation of heart which we have already indicated. No marriage was possible between them; not even that of souls; and yet, it is certain that their destinies were wedded. With the exception of Cosette, that is to say, with the exception of a childhood, Jean Valjean had never, in the whole of his long life, known anything of that which may be loved. The passions and loves which succeed each other had not produced in him those successive green growths, tender green or dark green, which can be seen in foliage which passes through the winter and in men who pass fifty. In short, and we have insisted on it more than once, all this interior fusion, all this whole, of which the sum total was a lofty virtue, ended in rendering Jean Valjean a father to Cosette. A strange father, forged from the grandfather, the son, the brother, and the husband, that existed in Jean Valjean; a father in whom there was included even a mother; a father who loved Cosette and adored her, and who held that child as his light, his home, his family, his country, his paradise.

Jean Valjean reminds me of a Failmode I’ve seen in a lot of different real-life parents? There are parents who cope with their own hard lives by telling themselves that parenthood is their sole reason for being alive, and who obsess over their child’s success as their only source of purpose, meaning, love, happiness, community, and validation. But it’s a bad idea to rely on one child to provide the emotional support that should be shared by friends, parents, siblings, every possible loved one, etc etc—- One child can’t actually heal you from your trauma, be a replacement for your broken relationships, pull you out of your grief, save you from your adult loneliness, etc etc etc etc.

When I see the common interpretation that Jean Valjean is perfectly content just to be the father of Cosette, I think of this line:

Thus when he saw that the end had absolutely come, that she was escaping from him, that she was slipping from his hands, that she was gliding from him, like a cloud, like water, when he had before his eyes this crushing proof: “another is the goal of her heart, another is the wish of her life; there is a dearest one, I am no longer anything but her father, I no longer exist”; when he could no longer doubt, when he said to himself: “She is going away from me!” the grief which he felt surpassed the bounds of possibility. To have done all that he had done for the purpose of ending like this! And the very idea of being nothing!

On one hand, the terrible Les mis adaptations that portray Valjean as Incest Creep are incorrect and wrong. On the other hand, though, Jean Valjean IS unhealthy about Cosette— just in a different and actually sympathetic way.

He has made fatherhood his only purpose, to replace every other purpose he could have in life. So he can’t be “just Cosette’s father.” He can’t imagine her becoming an adult and leaving the nest, like children do. What does he have if he’s not taking care of her? What is his purpose in life if she doesn’t need him to be her parent? He's not just being her father, he's relying on her to be his entire reason to exist. He hasn't been allowing himself to have things outside of her.

And speaking of things outside of Cosette: segue time. This post was supposed to be about Jean Valjean and romance, so let's switch gears and talk about his canon 'romantic experiences' more:

We’re told that in his youth he “never had a sweetheart” because he “never had time to be in love.” There is no indication that Jean Valjean never wanted to be in love. The opposite is implied. Hugo frames it as a tragedy that Jean Valjean’s does not experience young love; it’s the horror of poverty taking yet another thing from him.

Within prison, Valjean is “gloomy” and “chaste;” when he traumadumps to Montparnasse about it, he talks about women looking on galley slaves with horror and disgust. Romance, at least “normal” heterosexual romance, is no longer something that is permitted for him. Jean Valjean knows very little about romance/love/sex and it repeatedly messes up his life. He spends 19 years in the all-male environment of prison, then about a decade in the almost-all-female environment of the convent. He has very little experience with how men and women are supposed to interact. The oppression Fantine faces as a sex worker, and Cosette's relationship with Marius, are both two big 'blind spots' that he struggles with.

At one point romantic love is described as “The only misery Jean Valjean had not yet experienced, and the only one that is sweet.”

In his massive confession to Marius, he agonizes over how he is not allowed to be part of a family, and is incapable of being part of a home. He compares himself to someone sick and diseased, that poisons good and normal people with his presence, and cannot be allowed to make himself part of their families.

So Jean Valjean doesn’t frame Romance as “a thing he doesn’t want:” it’s a thing “he is not allowed to want,” it is one of the many things he is banned from wanting. It's impossible to tell what kind of things he would want, if he were allowed to want them.

One of the most interesting things to me, however, is his general attitude towards Marius/Cosette.

Obviously his first reaction to Marius snooping around is fear and resentment— he doesn’t know to interact with romance, having never experienced it, and immediately begins catastrophizing. He views Marius as a privileged booby ruining his life for something as frivolous as a love affair: it reads to me as partially envy, envy of the fact that Marius lives the kind of safe comfortable life that allows him to experience young love.

Jean Valjean added: “What does he want? A love affair! A love affair! And I? What! I have been first, the most wretched of men, and then the most unhappy, and I have traversed sixty years of life on my knees, I have suffered everything that man can suffer, I have grown old without having been young, I have lived without a family, without relatives, without friends, without life, without children, I have left my blood on every stone, on every bramble, on every mile-post, along every wall, I have been gentle, though others have been hard to me, and kind, although others have been malicious, I have become an honest man once more, in spite of everything, I have repented of the evil that I have done and have forgiven the evil that has been done to me, and at the moment when I receive my recompense, at the moment when it is all over, at the moment when I am just touching the goal, at the moment when I have what I desire, it is well, it is good, I have paid, I have earned it, all this is to take flight, all this will vanish, and I shall lose Cosette, and I shall lose my life, my joy, my soul, because it has pleased a great booby to come and lounge at the Luxembourg.”

But, even though Jean Valjean views romance as something he isn’t allowed or have or to want, views it as a threat and catastrophizes over how it will ruin his life……he seems to also put heterosexual romance on a pedestal.

The way Jean Valjean idealizes marriage is one of his weirdest character notes for me.

He views marriage as Cosette’s “happy ending.” It’s her “happily ever after” point where she won’t need him anymore, where she won’t need anyone outside of her husband. A Man And a Woman Are Meant to Get Married, It's Fate, and It Means They Will Live Happily Together Forever. Marius is “the goal of her heart, the wish of her life; her dearest one.” Nothing outside of that matters anymore.

He treats her marriage as if romantic love is inherently always more important than any kind of platonic relationships, and always takes priority over them. He later dismisses the unconventional family structure he has with Cosette, saying that despite his love for her he was only a "passerby" and was not actually her real father, because they were not biologically related.

There's a moment where Jean Valjean is described as someone whose ideal is to be angel on the inside and a bourgeois on the outside. Jean Valjean's worship of bourgeois social norms, norms he can never truly be a part of, is one of his character flaws. He has a similar "guard dog" energy as Eponine does when she defends Rue Plumet from her parents.....Eponine and Jean Valjean both become the guard dogs of a kind of romantic relationship they believe they are banned from having. Jean Valjean believes that getting Happily Straight Married in a Middle-Class Home with a Picket Fence(tm) is the ideal path for life....but believes himself broken/incapable of ever following that path. And so he instead throws his entire life into securing that future for Marius and Cosette.

In what manner was Jean Valjean to behave in relation to the happiness of Cosette and Marius? It was he who had willed that happiness, it was he who had brought it about; he had, himself, buried it in his entrails, and at that moment, when he reflected on it, he was able to enjoy the sort of satisfaction which an armorer would experience on recognizing his factory mark on a knife, on withdrawing it, all smoking, from his own breast. Cosette had Marius, Marius possessed Cosette. They had everything, even riches. And this was his doing.

TL: DR:

Jean Valjean's gender/sexuality label is “idk but he’s super fucked up about it.”

[genericpuff]

All That Glitters is Not Feminism - An Analysis of LO's Brand of "Feminism" and What Remains of its Fanbase (The Twist)

Alright y'all, I've been waiting a hot minute to talk about this because I wanted to see how it fully panned out before saying anything about it. And it's not even specifically about LO, but I do think it's very adjacent to it in a way that I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear. Much of it speaks to how we prop up white writers even at the expense of POC.

This is 'the twist' attached to my first post that I made just a couple hours ago that concerns an entirely other topic but I feel ties into this subject very well.

If you haven't heard, there's this author who recently fucked around in the Del Rey publishing scene.

Her name is Cait Corrain.

In the original tweet calling this person out, names were not dropped, but it was made very clear that what Cait did was unacceptable behavior.

You can read the entire thread that started it all from Xiran here:

There's also a GREAT recap thread from one of the affected authors, Bethany Baptiste:

I want to make it clear that Cait Corrain isn't just a debut author.

Cait Corrain is - or now, was (foreshadowing is a literary device that-) - a debut author who had an agent, a publishing deal with Del Rey (an imprint of Random House which is a MAJOR publisher) and even an upcoming Illumicrate deal - meaning, her book was going to be packaged in a monthly loot crate subscription shipped directly to people's doors, quite possibly one of the best marketing deals a debut author could ever get, usually unheard of in this industry. All the pre-reviews were strong and positive.

Cait's book was literally set up for success. All she had to do was sit back, relax, and watch the fruits of her labors roll in. She had written the book. It was ready for release. The hard part was technically over.

But I guess the racism brainrot got to her because as it turns out, since April - for EIGHT MONTHS - she's been making alternate accounts on GoodReads to review bomb the indie and debut works of her friends and peers, most of whom were POC and did not have the same opportunities set up for them as she did. There are loads of receipts to back this up that you can find in those above threads ^^^

To say that this is appalling is an understatement. This was an intentional and deliberate act of racism by a white queer writer who claimed to be "jealous" - of what, I can't imagine - so much so that she deliberately sabotaged her peers, people who had supported her and her book.

And then when she got caught? She doubled down on it and claimed it was a "friend", also an alternate account she made up.

The exchange between her and this made-up person is actually the funniest shit out of this entire thing, it's so poorly written and as soon as people noticed the time stamps were out of order, that was when it truly cemented her newfound clown status.

"oooooh he's standing right behind me, isn't he?" energy right here LMAO

yes keep expositing cait, that's really selling the "this is a genuine conversation that really happened with a real person" bit 🤡

Anyways, it became abundantly clear that Cait was just going to continue to dig her heels in over something she caused.

This has been a hot topic in the UnpopularLO Discord, not just because of how crazy of a situation it is that we had to talk about it - and we have people within the community who work in the literature and media sector - but because we noticed one very telling thing in the list of series that she had review bombed in her very own personal act of wrath.

You see, Cait made one fundamental mistake that led to her undoing - she didn't just review bomb the works of her peers, she positively reviewed her own book and others.

What's her book about though?

It's an Ariadne x Dionysus retelling set in space.

It's literally another "modern retelling" of Greek myth.

And wouldn't you know it, guess who else created a modern retelling of Greek myth that she included in her positive review raiding while she was sabotaging the work of her actual peers?

Now, I think it goes without saying that what I'm about to say should be taken with MOUNTAINS of salt, I'm sure a lot of you are reading the headline and going, "Ugh, really? You're gonna make this about LO? Could you give it a rest already???"

I need you to understand, with the current state of Rachel's fanbase and 'modern' Greek myth literature as a whole, at this point Lore Olympus - and the works that are literally inspired by it such as A Touch of Darkness - has basically become the shopping cart litmus test of basic decency. It's like when someone says they like Harry Potter - you can't take it automatically at good faith anymore, because there isn't a whole lot separating someone who simply liked Harry Potter as a kid and still rewatches the movies from time to time from someone who fully supports the politics and agenda of J.K. Rowling. No, not everyone who still watches the movies or reads the books fondly is a TERF by default, but it's justifiably a reason for suspicion when the consequences are often too dire to risk.

There's this thing that's been happening in the LO fanbase that I frankly saw coming, but has really recently started to hit its peak. It's what I call the "Kanye Effect", where the comic has become so absurd and backwards in its misogyny and white feminism that the only people who seem to be left supporting LO are the people who are legitimate white feminists and misogynists - because all the normal level-headed people fell off the comic ages ago (or transitioned into the critical side of the community).

I mentioned it in my last post, but it bears repeating - Rachel's fanbase has literally been shipping Hera, a victim of abuse, with her abuser, Kronos. I'm really hoping a lot of them realize how fucked up that is now that Hera herself has called it what it is - abuse - within the comic, but I also can't count on the LO fanbase picking up on that or even noticing it with how quickly people swipe through it each week, it's very apparent at this point that most of LO's readers don't know how to chew their food and don't pay attention when Persephone and Hades aren't onscreen.

But I'm digressing. Or am I? We're talking about Crown of Starlight after all. The debut Dionysus x Ariadne sci-fi/fantasy romance that was quite literally advertised using Lore Olympus as its baseline-

This. This is what the ongoing cultural erasure and white feminist uwu-fication of Greek myth is doing to the literary zeitgeist surrounding Greek myth as a whole. This is why we criticize Lore Olympus and works like it that are created by disingenuous people who only seek to use the assets of Greek myth material as a way to shoot themselves up into fame and stardom. This is why we demand better standards in the literature and webcomic industry, so that people like Rachel and Cait can't use their privileges to quite literally erase the source material that they used to make themselves famous in the first place.

If anything, Cait's actions didn't just affect the people she negatively review bombed, or the people she was affiliated with, but also the people she positively reviewed. While I don't support what Rachel creates, she wasn't the only one who Cait went out of her way to review positively from her alt accounts, there were many others as evident in the Google Doc - but all this really does is tarnish the legitimacy of these books and their ratings by artificially jacking up their numbers that are advertised to others.

Making Greek myth fanfiction or fun creative retellings was never the problem, but it's now being sabotaged alongside so many other genres and mediums by toxic white individuals who can't even keep themselves from committing hate crimes, let alone create something purely for entertainment that's transparent in its illegitimacy, lest it destroy the illusion that these people are qualified to speak over those whose voices are being stifled, often by these very same people. Many of these writers get caught and are still allowed to continue what they're doing - that was certainly what we feared with Cait.

Until today.

It was revealed today that Cait's book will no longer be featured in the Illumicrate May 2024 box.

Del Rey has dropped Crown of Starlight from their publishing schedule.

Daphne Press will be hopefully following suit.

And, most telling of all, Cait's own agent has severed ties with her.

For anyone not familiar with the inner workings of the publishing industry, Cait has essentially been blacklisted. Without an agent or a publishing house, she'll have to entirely rely on her own resources through self-publishing. Unless she manages to sneak her way back in under an alias (which I wouldn't put it past her to try) she no longer has access to the mainstream publishing industry that was already guaranteed for her before she let her 'jealousy' get the better of her.

Her career was already made for her. She had a red carpet laid out for her debut. Her book was getting good pre-reviews and she had quite literally nothing keeping her from her success. The best thing she could have done was nothing. Somewhere in her head, she made up a threat that didn't exist, and sealed her fate in acting on it, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I think in these situations such as with Cait Corrain, Rachel Smythe, and - also recently and relevant - James Somerton, we need to become increasingly aware of how white voices are still overpowering POC voices, not just in their actions, but in the opportunities they're given over others which they then use to further stifle the voices of those they feel "threatened" by or feel entitled to speak over. While neither James nor Rachel have used sock puppet accounts to "take out the competition" (at least as far as we know lmao) James did quite literally steal the words and voices of queer writers who were deserving of their time in the spotlight, and Rachel's work is being quoted as "rewriting Greek myth" as if its blatant gentrification and appropriation should be marketed as some sort of positive.

It's all too common for these deeply-rooted prejudices to rear their ugly heads and for the people who carry them to act out in this way while justifying it as "jealousy" or "a mistake". This isn't jealousy. This isn't a mistake. This isn't someone "starting drama". This is genuine, targeted hate, with the intention of snuffing out the voices of others who should be empowered, not silenced.

All that time and effort, and for what? Racism and petty jealousy? It just goes to show, it doesn't matter how many opportunities you're given, how high up on the ladder you already are - it won't fix the deeply-rooted insecurity and racial pettiness that spurs people on to do such horrible things.

I've spent enough of my time and words today talking about Cait, and James, and Rachel. So to end this off, I want to join in with all the others who have highlighted the books that were review-bombed by Cait, and help in uplifting them so they can have successful debuts. I'll be pre-ordering a few of them, so I'll be happy to make dedicated posts for them in the future after they release. Please consider purchasing them for yourself if you want some new reading material <3

The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste:

So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole:

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X Chang:

Mistress of Lies by K.M. Enright

Voyage of the Damned by Frances White:

(I'm sure there are plenty others so if I missed any here, please let me know so I can add them here and check out their books!)

If there's any silver lining to this, I hope that it makes people aware of the media they consume and who it's being created by. I hope it makes people more willing to seek out the books that aren't getting the same opportunities as Cait Corrain and Rachel Smythe. I hope it's a wake-up call to the industry that matters like this need to be taken seriously and that POC writers are still being silenced under their own noses. And most of all, I hope it's a reminder that we shouldn't even need at this point that this behavior is not okay, no matter what level a person climbs to - that just because someone is part of one minority doesn't mean they're not capable of sabotaging another. It sucks that that has to be said, it sucks that despite these groups being so intersectional there are still people within them who submit to their deeply-rooted insecurities and find ways to feel threatened that they use to justify hateful behavior.

Having a platform is a privilege. It should never be weaponized against your own peers or those who you simply feel "threatened" by for no reason beyond your own imposter syndrome or doubts or internal struggles. Because as much as you may feel like you've earned where you are, that never gives you the right to weaponize your opportunities against others who were never given those same opportunities in the first place. "Feminism" is not using your power to crush "other women". "Progressiveness" is not exclusive to the progress that only benefits you.

I wish only the best to those who were affected by the actions of Cait Corrain. You deserve to be heard and seen and appreciated for the work you do and the abuse you've had to tolerate. I look forward to your debuts in 2024 <3

[wellofdean]

I wanted to make a separate pose to big up these excellent tags on this post about how a show can be about misogyny when it's about men from @deangirlism101 :

#by virtue of watching the show long after it stopped airing and after years of exposure to the fandom#I've experienced a very interesting phenomenon wherein i went in expecting a very straightforward male fantasy#specifically in regards to dean#and was continuously surprised by how dean was around women who were actual characters and not caricatures#with caricatures of women dean also becomes a caricature of a womanizer#but with woman characters? with victims and friends?#dean is constantly paternal/brotherly#endlessly protective and respectful#in fact dean's utter lack of sexualization of the complex women around him in the first few seasons#kind of had me thinking he might just be straightforward gay#additionally it's interesting to point out that dean is the only one of the three winchesters who does not have a#''symbolic woman'' that drives his narrative#i.e. of the three winchesters he is the one who engages with the women around him as people and not someTHING to give him ''purpose''#which ties pretty well into his own role in his family being a typically femenine one#john endlessly relies on dean to serve the role of his mother yet he resents him when he does it so naturally#which from a queer lense is pretty much spelling out ''john can't put his finger on it but something (queerness) about dean bothers him''#anyways it just surprises me how#the fandom has perpetuated this image of the characters#and how#ironically#that image is the exact caricature dean so obviously puts on and we so obviously are supposed to KNOW he puts on

Some really nice points here, and bang on target:

Dean is not called to his adventure/journey because a symbolic woman dies like John and Sam are; he is put upon it by his father and his own sense of responsibility and love before he has the agency to choose. He wants his father's approval, his brother's love, and he wants not to be alone in a world of monsters...and...is HE a monster? A killer? Is everything his fault?

John resents Dean because what he needs from Dean (obedience, domestic work, emotional labour) is feminine. It's what women are for. Dean internalizes that resentment. Sam defies John and is driven by his own losses, and John can respect that, but Dean becomes the family repository of what they've lost. Dean is the eldest daughter who can never do enough.

John has chosen to abandon normal life and live on the fringes to pursue his revenge quest, and Sam is fighting to get back to the center -- left his family, hot girlfriend, Stanford Law, credit in the straight world, friends. But Dean? He has accepted that he will never be normal. He has accepted that he will always be a lonely, liminal weirdo who knows something terrible about the world that most people are spared from knowing.

Like:

If you leave Supernatural season 1 without realising that everything Dean pretends to be is pretty much the opposite of what he is, then you are not watching it right, full stop. The Dean Winchester he pretends to be is a character invented by a terrified, homeless, wounded little boy who doesn't know how else to protect himself.

Second, if you can't see how totally fucking queer all that is, I CAN'T HELP YOU. And,

you cannot hit that many nails on the head without knowing where you're swinging your hammer, and in conclusion, Dean was always deeply queered, and that was in the DNA of his character.

The truth is, that Dean is a very cohesive character. He is written and performed beautifully, and with intention. He is not an accident, he is an artistic creation, and he is excellently drawn. I am not "giving the writers too much credit", I am taking an Occam's Razor-type view of it, and coming up with the simplest explanation for what I see on the screen.

That said, if by some insane magic trick they managed to make Dean this queer by accident? It doesn't matter what they intended, because THE TEXT IS WHAT IT IS. I don't need the permission of the authors to see a church by daylight, and Dean is THAT OBVIOUS.

[witchinatree]

i have posted a LOT about the issues i had with season 4 of TUA but i'm going to say everything i've been thinking right here right now. i cannot get this shit out of my head.

i think a lot of it ties back to the flaws i noticed in season 3, they tried to take on too much and abandoned the previous storylines that were waiting for them (viktor's traumatic relationship with leonard, five's trauma in general, lila's parents dying because of five, DAVE, etc etc) and we were all expecting them to tie it all together in season 4

instead they just.. added more..???? jennifer and abigail were thrown in late season 3 and were just suddenly supposed to be super important to us (they were not.) the subway that takes you to other timelines (objectively cool as fuck, why is this only introduced in the last season of The Timeline Show)

and i'm still really upset that reginald is an alien because it makes no fucking sense. i always assumed he created the mystery 43 babies (why else would he seek them out and already have a plan for them) but the alien route was.. ill-fitting. i think it would've worked better if he fell in love with abigail, who was an alien and created marigold, and then his hubris and curiosity was what unleashed it into the world and doomed the timeline. "sure this mystery chemical destroyed the planet my wife is from but i'm reginald hargreeves so that won't happen to me!" [happens to him] also i wish abigail was not just used as "see! abuser not so bad! abuser have wife! he love wife :]" because. what. and then her weird complaints about reginald in episode 6 that came out of nowhere confused me. they just should've written her entirely different if they were gonna have her at all

AAALSO i hated that they regressed all of the characters back to how they were in season 1 (or worse??). luther was living in the old umbrella academy building because apparently he will never leave it?? after everything?? diego's life was different but he was still doing this weird job shit (discount batman and mail carrier are the same thing) and he was miserable with his loving wife and kids (who ARE you.). allison's husband left her again (what the hell raymond) and she was still the neglectful single mother of claire?? after EVERYTHING I KNOW I ALREADY SAID THAT BUT GOD. klaus actually had something going for him, if only his recovery wasn't made into a joke, and then he relapsed and got kidnapped and was just very.. season 1 klaus.. but with no ghost ben anymore. five.. eugh. he was not season 1 five he was just NotFive. crazy how they had a magnus archives crossover and just brought in NotThem to take five am i right guys. ben's also different because it's not the same ben from season 1 but they just made him really fucking mean. like worse than season 3 because there wasn't that underlying "please i just want to be loved" thing. crypto bro ben was funny as fuck though. and VIKTOR just fucked off by himself after working so hard to be part of the family again. glad he got to transition and become canada's #1 manslut but jesus, just abandoned everything you did to be part of the family huh.

my vision for the ending of TUA would go something like this

ending of season 3, pretty much the same but they all have their powers and reginald's head getting sliced in half did not reveal him to be some alien freak. also at some point abigail would have been introduced. i don't feel like rewriting season 3 too okay i'm cutting corners.

luther finds sloane when he goes back to where the umbrella academy building used to be, but it's now a very lovely apartment that the two of them live in together. they host all of the family gatherings for sentimental and space reasons. i think luther would explore the stripper idea but decide not to follow it because of sloane. sloane would be fine with it but luther would still get worried.

diego and lila live in the same house somewhat nearby. lila's family (they do get to be alive but lila does have to overcome the trauma of losing them while simultaneously getting them back) are their neighbors, it was the compromise they came to because diego wanted their house to be their space but lila wanted her family close. they have three kids who are each loved and names get to be in the fucking show. (looking at you mystery twin. grace and coco (?) didn't really get much attention either). they have a big backyard that the kids all play in together when they're visiting

allison and ray are still together and they have claire (maybe another kid...) they also live somewhat nearby the rest of the umbrella family because i refuse to let them separate. i don't have much to say about them other than RAY DID NOT WALK OUT ON HER.

klaus and dave live in allison and ray's neighborhood. maybe they adopted a kid? maybe they didn't? i think their family would be really cute either way. klaus is still overcoming his addiction and dave supports him through it. it's not made into a joke and actually gives klaus a lot of depth and emotional moments. also just in general dave meeting the rest of the family would be really really sweet

five gets to retire. he lives with viktor in my mind. full circle on viktor being the person who always waited for him and offered him a place to stay after he got home in season 1. five would not actually be getting a retirement pay because he has never had a real job so he's just vik's roommate now. he could have a romance plotline with a woman working at the department store down the street named delores. she looks familiar.

ben lives alone and works at a tech company? honestly i don't know what i would do with him in the pre-plot but it would not be put him in jail?? me personally. i think he would probably move further away than everyone else but stay close enough so he could visit sloane sometimes. he still feels like an outsider but doesn't know how to tell the umbrellas he wants to be their brother now

and viktor lives with sissy harlan and five (previously mentioned). his transition gets to actually be explored (PLEASE.), harlan is in therapy, and sissy is a strong working woman!! again i don't really know what to do with him pre-plot. just know he's the happiest he's ever been!!!

and just in general, a lot of this happiness from all of them comes from their powers and that they can finally be one big happy family together (whether ben likes it or not). setting up the inherent tragedy that comes with perfection

episode 1 opens by showing everything i just explained, the tragedy of getting everything you want or whatever the title was. their powers are still integral to their lives. they're either tied to their careers (luther would probably be like a wrestler or something again, diego could try police work again because i want that to be explored) or other aspects of their existence (allison still finds herself doubting how much of her life is real, klaus' relapses are always caused by his trauma surrounding ghosts, five sometimes space jumps when he wants to be alone [also i think he could feel some sort of shame/guilt because he lives with viktor and can't really contribute much without the commission. not really his fault though because of his insanely fucked timeline], ben uses the squid to carry things or grab things that are far away, and viktor plays the violin to help him remind himself that he is in control of his power now, and he won't end the world again)

the main conflict starts when ben meets a new woman named jennifer and shakes her hand when introducing himself (starting the marigold/durango reaction that builds very slowly throughout the season.) it could be romantic but i think it's just devestating. they're slowly realizing they're losing everything they worked so hard for because of something they can't control

yadda yadda yadda figuring shit out while also having conflicts in their life from the earlier seasons and it culminates in the old umbrella academy building, viktor is the only person who can remove the durango and marigold from ben and jennifer and save the world. he finally gets to be the hero, be the one to stop the end of the world instead of cause it, but he needs to take the marigold from each of the siblings in order to balance the amount of durango jennifer had (no idk why he would let the other like 30 something marigold kids keep theirs i really don't know how to fix that. why would they do this to me)

each of the siblings have to give up part of their lives, part of their identities, and it's hard for them!!! they struggle a lot to agree to do it!!! and it's also harder for them because they don't know if viktor will survive doing this. but he's the only one who can? is his life more important than the existence of everything and everyone? ultimately, they all give up their marigold, and viktor takes all of it and the durango to save everyone. it cancels itself out and stops the cleanse reaction, and i think it would kill viktor (but it doesn't have to). we see that same clip of the 'perfect world' but they get to be in it. they were never the problem. lila and diego play in the park with their kids. allison ray and claire are walking together. klaus and dave are talking on a bench. luther and sloane are carrying a large basket of food. ben and five are helping them set up the picnic. harlan is sitting in the grass with sissy next to him. each of the adults have a small violin tattoo on their wrists. their lives will never be as perfect as they were before, but they can finally just rest and move on. because it was never their fault.

also reginald dies. fuck that guy

[mysterycitrus]

i know you've been talking about jason lately so i'll ask about smth different... robin jason (sorry)

idk idk lately i've been wanting to take a peek at his robin comics for the sake of writing fic (ofc...) but i'd like to hear what u think before that, a summary of sorts if u may (i also wanna contrast what u say with what i get out of it so yeah)

i feel like his robin days are so muddled by his identity as red hood later on, and even before that it was his death. u had people constantly blaming jason for dying in text (or else they'd have to admit bruce can make mistakes and everyone in dc is allergic to doing that) and painting him like someone reckless and violent (classist editorial u need to DIE), and then people in fanon painting him like a sweet fella who would do nothing wrong and as well as being bruce's Only Actual Son etc etc for the sake of making the situation around him all the more sadder (yeah yeah pathetic meow meow we've all seen it)

and i'm just curious bc i rlly wonder what the actual comics say about him, most likely something in the middle of this? exams are killing me but my god i'll come back to life after im done just to read jason robin's days... have a good day !!!

the difficulty with reading about jason as robin is that there are three primary periods that all differ fairly dramatically from each other — pre-crisis jason todd is a strawberry blond acrobat who’s almost adopted by dick grayson before becoming robin; post-crisis jason todd is a kid from crime alley who steals the wheels off the batmobile before becoming robin; and post-crisis, post-utrh jason todd is a very angry, very violent kid who becomes a cautionary tale after he gets himself killed (something he is often blamed for).

we can walk the line here. pre-crisis jason isn’t particularly relevant because so much of robin!jason’s stories depend on his reinvention after the reboot. all the crucial factors leading up to death in the family — growing up in the alley, both his mothers, his relationship with the robin mantle, his developing relationship with dick grayson, his slow schism from bruce, his relative isolation from other superheroes — are all crucial to who he is, especially after his death.

fanon about jason is annoying because there are valid criticisms that can be made about how he’s written with regressive, classist stereotypes, but as always it pivots way too far in one direction. jason wasn’t the “happy” or “angry” robin in the same way that dick wasn’t the happy or angry robin — they’re both characters that possess more than a single emotion. it’s true that jason was later written to be more explicitly violent (to contrast him with dick) but also like… they’re both pretty similar characters that differ in interesting ways. dick created robin to be a symbol of hope and joy. jason carried that on when he took up the mantle. they can both be angry at stuff without the world falling apart. it’s not that serious.

the dialogue about dick being a child soldier but jason being the true son makes me want to tear my hair out. jason became robin because bruce missed dick and was afraid of being alone. they’re both his gd kids. acting as though bruce wayne doesn’t love dick grayson so much that extra-dimensional beings can clock it is so fucking stupid. it once again ties into fanon’s obsession with each character only getting to be “one” thing. tim is smart, which means he’s the smartest. jason said robin made him magic, which means he’s happy all the time. dick chased after zucco in a grief spiral, which means he’s the violently angry one, with no other character traits. dick can’t have been nice to jason because he’s nice to tim, etc. seems a little silly, no?

i think i’ve only read jason’s brief run as robin once, though ive gone through a death in the family + a lonely place of dying a bunch of times, so ig my advice for reading him is to keep in mind the context in which he was created. dc comics was reeling from losing dick grayson as robin, and were really throwing anything at the wall to get something to stick. many, many negative tropes are baked into his introduction, and thanks to writers like jeph loeb and scott lobdell they have compounded over time. jason’s updated backstory is, with actual critical intent by the writer, a really good examination of how poverty and class will affect how someone views the world. his death was not his fault — and removing sheila haywood from that warehouse purposely makes his story less tragic. he was a good kid! and he was angry for a good reason. if jason had lived, i believe he would’ve carried on the robin tradition and left bruce behind once their differences became insurmountable.

[maple-the-awesome]

Happy New Year! ||

Pairing: {Any} Link x Reader

Words: 923

Overview: It's New Years in Hyrule and you plan on finally living out one of the most famous holiday traditions. Here's a very last minute New Years piece that I decided to write within the last hour because I've done it for other characters before, so why can't it be Link's turn? Happy New Years everyone 🥳

Zelda Masterlist 🎉 Fandom Masterlist

You’re certain even the inhabitants of Death Mountain can hear the current celebrations taking place in Castle Town right now. If not, then the gorons of this kingdom must’ve invested in some pretty efficient earmuffs.

How anyone actually enjoys parties like this is beyond you. You can barely hear yourself think over the obnoxious shouting of the crowd, let alone enjoy the music being played by a band Hylia knows where. 

Is this street lined with cobble? Going off of what you remember from when you first arrived this morning, you think it is, but there’s no point in trying to confirm it now. It’s been forever since you’ve seen so many people in one spot, packed together like sardines that wear colorful hats and clothing, but you definitely don’t miss being tossed this way then that way by such obvious mobs. 

At least the night will be ending soon. Although you doubt that will put an end to this overwhelming party, it will give you the freedom to return to your comfortable room at the local inn which you PRAY is soundproof or else you’ll really be cranky tomorrow, but for now, you must blink away the sleep and continue on your path since there are far more important matters at hand than a good night’s sleep.

“Where are we going?” The question might as well be whispered during a storm. You don’t hear a word of it, your only hint towards its existence being the way Link’s lips move in the corner of your eyes. They’re turned upward in slight amusement as he follows after your swift pace. The only thing that’s keeping you from being separated into a wave of sweaty bodies is your tightly interlocked hands.

Around another corner, shoving past a drunk trio and into the first breath of fresh air you’ve had in the last four hours. It’s not necessarily ‘quiet’ with the festival only a few feet behind, but you suppose it will have to do. 

“What’s with that sour look?” Link pokes the corner of your lips, earning himself a swat and a misdirected glare; a consequence of your disappointed pout.

“...This isn’t what I had in mind.”

“And what is it that you had in mind?” He raises an eyebrow teasingly, his grin growing naturally when you cross your arms while tapping your foot like a frustrated rabbit.

“I-I don’t know. A garden filled with roses. A lone fountain sprouting glittering, moonlit water - Something more romantic than this!” You gesture ahead to the narrow alley which is filled with only discarded boxes and untouched by any moonlight due to its position between two tall buildings.

“At least it doesn’t smell,” Link points out, but your scrunch up nose tells him that his optimism isn’t helping much, so he wraps his arm around your waist, tugging you against his side where you stubbornly stand with mocked annoyance written all over your face.

“...I suppose it will have to do,” You eventually sigh, leaning your head against him yet keeping your arms crossed as emphasis that you don’t really care for this ‘compromise’. You just don’t want to venture back into that crowd nor do you have the time for it, “...A garden would’ve been much better, though.”

“Agreed.” 

“You must be wondering why I’ve dragged you here.”

“To escape further social interaction?”

“No - Well yes, but that was only an added benefit; a type of ‘kill two birds with one stone’ situation. What I really brought you here for is tradition,” You pivot your body so that you can stand in front of him. 

Almost automatically, he fixes both of his arms around you, keeping them low against your hips as he watches you straighten his tunic, “Tradition? What kind?”

You hum and take your time in answering him,  “...It’s tradition in my world to share a kiss at the stroke of midnight during the New Year. Supposedly it brings good luck or something like that. I’ve never done it with anyone before, but you seem like a decent fellow; I’ll take any good excuse to kiss you.”

“That so?” Link chuckles, gently lifting your chin to look up at him.

You merely nod. Out on the street, you can hear the crowd’s voices begin to fall in sync until they form one joyful rhythm and familiar countdown. Leaning closer, you let your breath fan Link’s lips, your flirtatious smirks a mirror of each other’s, “One kiss for a year of good luck. A worthwhile trade, wouldn’t you say?”

Moments ago, you were forced to walk through a town of drunk people who had forgotten how to behave in public, so it’s surprising how well they all suddenly know how to count: 10…9…8…7…6…5…4…

“Fool. You know I don’t need any reason to kiss you,” Link whispers, meeting his lips to yours which acts as the perfect distraction that pulls you away from the eruption of shouts and crackling fireworks that shake Castle Town to its core. What was once so difficult to drown out is officially mute against your ears as you wrap your arms over Link’s shoulders and allow him to dip you into the kiss that molds both of your smiles together.

"Does that make up for the lack of romantic settling?" He pulls away only enough to ask his question, each movement of his lips brushing yours.

"Very much so," With that, you pull him back in for another kiss, after all, who said you'd have to stop after midnight?

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

What do you think about theory that Lila is Manon from future?

I am vaguely aware that this is a thing, but I'm also assuming that it's a joke and not a serious theory because that would be one of the most asinine things that I've ever seen. This fan theory is even worse than the pigeon feather thing in terms of absurdity. It should be reserved for crack fic and nothing else. However, this show never fails to impress me with its poor-quality writing choices, so let's take a quick moment to talk about why this wouldn't be a good twist.

The issue isn't the time travel thing. Lila being from the future is perfectly in line with the sort of crazy stuff that Miraculous does to the point where I wouldn't be shocked if Lila is from the future! Maybe Ladybug and Chat Noir "wronged" her and so she came back in time to try to stop them from being a thing or something like that? It fits her characters. Lila has been shown to be incredibly petty and, whatever is going on, it's clear that she came to Paris with an agenda otherwise why go the multiple identities and parents route?

However, if this from-the-future twist ends up being a thing, then Manon would be the worst choice for Lila's true identity because Manon is a well established character who shares no obvious traits with Lila. The only things that the two characters have in common are their hair and eye colors (or, at least, the hair and eye colors that Lila now has). Nothing else ties them together.

Yes, Manon does her baby-doll-eye manipulation thing, but that's not a sign that she's secretly a master manipulator or a compulsive liar! It's just a thing that little kids do. Boundary pushing is par for the course at that age.

For Manon to be a good baby Lila, we'd need to see Manon doing some actual quality manipulation tactics that trick people instead of just standard little kid pouting and boundary-pushing techniques. There's no point at which Manon is successfully lying to get what she wants. Her requests are always rather blatant and no one but Marinette falls for her "manipulations" because everyone else knows how to deal with little kids as we see in these two exchanges from Puppeteer:

Nadja: Alright, now give the doll back to Marinette. Manon: NO! I wanna keep it! Marinette: She can if she wants. I told her she could borrow it. Nadja: And that's sweet of you, Marinette, but Manon already has so many toys at home, I wouldn't even know where to put it.

Marinette: Manon! What are you- Manon: I left my bag here! Can I have Ladybug? Marinette: You heard what your mom said. Manon: She wouldn't know if I hide it!

Not exactly gold star manipulation tactics here. They'd fail if Marinette had a backbone.

Could you really picture Lila acting like this? I can't and that's the problem. Because Manon is an existing and well-established character, they have had time to make her into baby Lila. Time to set up the twist. But they haven't. They've just written your standard boundary-pushing little kid. Her behavior is really not all that different from Ella and Etta's (Alya's little sisters), so why would Manon be Lila and not one of them?

That's another problem. If you're going to have a big twist like this, then Manon needs to feel different from the other kid characters and she doesn't. Really think about this for a minute! As far as the kid characters' behavior goes, what's the difference between Puppeteer and Sapotis? I'd argue that there isn't one. In both episodes you see little kids pushing boundaries, leading to them being punished, leading to them getting akumatized.

In Puppeteer we get this:

Manon: But, Marinette wanted me to have it! Nadja: You disobeyed me. I told you the dolls were to stay at her house. You won't be needing these anymore. Manon: NO! Mommy, please don't! Nadja: I'm not happy about this. Wait for me here.

In Sapotis we get this:

Ella and Etta: It's not us! It's the—! Alya: That's it! (picks up the twins) Ella and Etta: Come on, Alya! We won't do it again! Alya: Yeah? Well, it's too late! (takes off both twins' propeller hats) We'll all go to the park when you can behave, some other day! Now go to sleep!

Extremely similar scenes with extremely similar outcomes.

Another similarity is Manon, Ella, and Etta's behavior in Simpleman. They're basically interchangeable in that episode, further killing this theory.

If this twist was going to be a thing, then I'd also expect us to see Lila and Manon interact at least once since we do let Lila talk to the kids on a few occasions. And if we didn't get that, then I'd definitely expect us to see a moment between Lila and Nadja or even a moment where Lila avoids Nadja. Anything to establish some sort of tie between Lila and this little family that she was once a part of. As-is, canon has done diddly squat to tie them together so I don't understand why the fandom is making this tie. Do people just really dislike Manon and want her to be evil?

In summary, Lila is - at most - a decade older than Manon, so we should see seeds of Lila already starting to form, but we don't. Lila holds grudges, Manon doesn't. Lila lies left and right, Manon doesn't. Lila plots, Manon doesn't. Lila hates Ladybug and Chat Noir, Manon adores them. In other words, nothing in the text backs up the idea that Manon would become Lila in a few short years, so where did this theory even come from?

[hailqiqi]

Old Sun, New Morning

This is quite possibly the fluffiest thing I've ever written for this fandom. Not sure what that says about me. Mid-TCS, set in the boys' shared room after all of the explosions. We need more boys' sleepover fics.

Words: 4,096

Read in full below or on AO3 here.

>>>>>>>⚔︎

The room at the Old Sun Inn was crowded, but comfortable. And quiet, but not in the…not in the black, starless, cold way. Morning sunlight kissed the edges of the old floral curtains, and from the other side of the glass Lockwood could hear plenty of things — birds, murmuring, the occasional siren and car racing past. Certainly exciting sounds for the country, but they weren’t intrusive, not like the odd groaning of the Spectre on the landing the night before, or the screeching from the circle the night before, or the sound of pounding footsteps over crunching frost or his heartbeat in his ears or his breaths in the frigid air or Lucy when she—

He flipped over onto his back, letting his feet hang off the end of the little camp bed. Metal joints creaked in protest, and he breathed, opting to feel instead of think. Exhaustion seeped into every inch of his body, weighing him down and making him want to be one with the camp bed. Could a person dissolve like that? Could the skin bubble and melt down, the flesh slough off the bones, their whole essence and being just seep away from them and intertwine with something else?

It would be nice to be a camp bed, probably. Camp beds didn’t get their plans and belief in reality ripped to shreds in a single night. They just sat on the floor, being too short but still strong enough to hold teenage boys.

Would it hold him and Lucy? He shifted his weight, bouncing in place slightly, as if to test its strength, and the bed creaked in response. Probably not. But he could dream, plan, scheme… How would he even get Lucy in bed with him? It wasn’t like he could simply ask her — oh Lucy, by the way, would you like to sleep with me? No, not like that, though like that is fine too, if you wanted, but — sighing, he pushed his fringe off his forehead and flopped his arms backwards, over the top of the bed.

It was a train of thought that had proven very pleasant to pursue in the past, but right then Lucy could have looked at him with her big green eyes, smiled that shy, warm smile, and said ‘Lockwood, please’ in that sweet, breathy voice she used sometimes…and Lockwood would simply lean forward, wrap his arms around her, and try to nap on her shoulder. He was tired.

He stretched out with a groan, feeling his knuckles brush the floor as he tried to make his limbs reach further and further from the cramped camp bed, as though he was tied to a rack in a torturer’s chamber. Maybe Lucy was feeling the same, wrung out and worn out and in need of a good nap. If he tilted his head back, closed his eyes and dreamt, he could almost feel her there: her warm weight sprawled on top of him, solid against his chest. Her hair would tickle his chin, and her fingertips would play with the cuff of his t-shirt — and they’d breathe together, slow and calm and alive, hearts beating in sync, chest to chest and thigh to thigh, the chill of her toes pressed against his ankle.

Another siren went past, but it was distant.

She’d mumble something incomprehensible, her lips barely brushing his skin. Did Lucy talk in her sleep? She seemed the type. Her body would be warm, and the weight of her would be pleasant and grounding, and she’d burrow her face into his chest and murmur in her sleep and it would be so nice—

‘Are either of you actually asleep?’

Lucy’s warm weight dissipated instantaneously, and Lockwood groaned. ‘Fuck off, Kipps.’

‘Tetchy,’ George chimed in, voice hoarse and weak as Kipps made an offended noise. ‘What’s got your goat?’

Lockwood ignored him, instead rolling to lay on his side. A sliver of sunlight glowed on the dusty wallpaper, catching on the metallic accents and giving it a silvery, frosty look. He quickly averted his gaze to the ceiling.

‘We’ve all had a long night.’

Kipps sounded fairly reasonable, the wanker. Lockwood grunted and closed his eyes. ‘We have, and I’d rather not go over it again.’

There was a quiet murmur of assent, a shifting of blankets and bedsprings, and then the room fell blessedly quiet again. Sleep wouldn’t come easy, but it was warm, and peaceful, and comfortable…

And then another siren went past.

George swore roundly, putting voice to the general mood in the room in the wake of a shattered promise of peace. Lockwood shifted again, pressing the top of his head against the metal frame of the bed and wondering if he could somehow knock himself out on it. The pressure hurt slightly, but maybe his skull would split open, peel apart, and just let the frame slice through him bodily and then he could dissolve and his shoulder would be one with the hessian—

‘Look, none of us are sleeping with all the noise outside. We might as well talk about something.’

Frankly, Lockwood was tired enough to sleep through it if they’d just shut up. But George was grunting and groaning in agreement, so evidently that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. He sighed heavily. ‘Fine. But I don’t want to go over everything again.’

Both him and Lucy had spent much of the walk back to the village explaining what had happened on the other side of that circle, and the words had been hard enough to get out then. The warm, slightly-stifling half-light in their little room was about as far away from where they’d been as it could get, and Lockwood had no interest in marring their little bubble of safety with unpleasant memories.

‘That’s fine,’ Kipps said, nonchalantly. ‘So…what happened with Lucy?’

‘I literally just said I didn’t want to talk about—’

‘No, I don’t mean that. I mean, what else happened?’

‘Oh yeah!’ George exclaimed. ‘Have you asked her back yet? It went great with Holly.’

‘Oh,’ Lockwood said. Holly. Lucy. The company. Right. ‘Yeah. Yeah, she said she’s coming back. We obviously haven’t hammered out the details yet, and I think she wants to run it by you, but yes. I asked if she’d like to rejoin us properly and she agreed.’

He didn’t mention that the details were unhammered because he hadn’t gotten round to bringing it up until they’d been stuck in that iron circle, but in his defence he was operating ahead of schedule on that one anyway. There had been a plan, of course — Lockwood scoped out her mood a little bit in the afternoon, and then George was going to pair with both Lucy and Holly later and see if he could encourage them into working together as a team, with the idea being that Lockwood would then have a better idea of how to entice her back for good by the time they got back to London. Somehow Lockwood’s own impulsiveness — normally so easy to keep in check — had kept threatening to bring the whole thing crashing around their ears (George had had to remind him multiple times not to bring it up on the train ride over), but it had worked out in the end.

‘That was quick.’

‘Yeah,’ Lockwood agreed, dazedly watching a mote of dust float in the crack of sunlight underneath the curtains. ‘It must have gone really well with Holly.’

Of course Holly had apparently had nothing to do with why she’d left, but George didn’t need to know that. At least not until Lockwood had gotten some more sleep, anyway.

Kipps made a disgruntled noise. ‘I’m not talking about that, either. I’m talking about this afternoon.’ The sheets rustled. ‘Tony, did you kiss her?’

Lockwood choked, his brain screeching to a halt as George started wheezing. ‘Ex—Did I what?!’

Kipps sighed, and — speaking very slowly and clearly — asked again: ‘Did you kiss her?’

‘What?!’

‘You know — mwa mwa, smoochy smoochy, snogging, all that stuff.’  George’s wheezing laugh had evolved into a full-on cackle. ‘You do know what kissing is, right?’

‘Of course I do,’ he scoffed. ‘But why the hell do you think we would have— Lucy would have—’

‘Tony, are you serious?’

‘Give it up, Kipps,’ George said, and Lockwood would have been grateful if he hadn’t sounded so downright gleeful. ‘He’s never going to get round to it.’

‘What do mean get round to it?!’ Lockwood spluttered. ‘It’s not— we’re not—’

‘Tony.’ Kipps cut him off again, his tone serious as blankets shifted. ‘Tony, sit up for a second. I mean it, sit up and look at me.’

He could have rolled over and told him to fuck off again. Technically, Lockwood was in charge here, and he didn’t have to listen to a word Kipps said. Factually, Lockwood had zero interest in trotting his less-than-professional feelings for Lucy out for examination, especially when the board was so new he was still studying the set-up to work out a possible play. Physically, he was wrung out and exhausted; mentally, he was running from the enormity of the night before; and then while the others might have been having trouble sleeping he’d been dozing just fine until Kipps had decided Lucy would make for good conversation.

However… Lockwood was all too aware that he had little experience in this area and, as reluctant as he was to consider it, Kipps likely had more — he was older, and gossip travelled faster than light in their profession. Some of the rumours had to be true.

So he shifted obediently, turning on the narrow cot and pushing himself up as his muscles protested and the bed frame screamed. Kipps was already sitting up straight, his air of superiority somewhat ruined by the dark circles under his eyes, the messy hair, and the flowery quilt bunched up on his lap, and beside him George had propped himself up, one pants-less leg hanging off the bed as he watched with shameless glee.

They’d never survive without George, but in that moment it took more self-control that Lockwood knew he possessed not to fire the nosey arsehole. Instead, he faced Kipps and summoned what he thought should be a confident glare. ‘What?’

‘Tony,’ he began solemnly, with what Lockwood thought was excessive pomp and ceremony even for Kipps, ‘Tony, in all my 23 years of life—’

‘You’re 22.’ George grinned.

‘—in my almost 23 years of life, I have never seen a girl as begging to be kissed as Lucy Carlyle when you look at her. Put her out of her misery already.’

His heart leapt, choirs of angels sang, and everything in the room suddenly looked infinitely more beautiful — and Lockwood flopped back onto his campbed, ignoring the way the frame jolted with the force of it, and the way his head hurt from banging it against part of the frame, and the way his heart was racing, summoning a scowl to scoff: ‘Yeah, right.’

Kipps gave an exasperated sigh. ‘I’m serious, Tony. Just set something up and lean in already. Stop squandering your chances.’

‘What chances?’ he grumbled. They hadn’t even seen each other in four months; when was he supposed to ‘lean in’?

‘You were nice and cosy under that cloak earlier, from the sounds of it.’ George sounded far too amused.

Lockwood closed his eyes and considered the merits of nothingness. ‘We were running for our lives, George. Not exactly romantic.’

‘I was surprised to realise nothing happened in the woods this afternoon, to be honest,’ Kipps chimed in. ‘I figured that was why you suggested the walk.’

‘We were checking out Gunner’s Top.’

‘Work, work, work. You’ve gotta fix that tunnel vision, Tony. Your Talent won’t last forever.’

‘Pffffft.’ Lockwood rolled over, resting his forehead on the metal frame. It was highly uncomfortable, but so was the conversation. ‘It was just a walk, anyway.’

Kipps made a sound of pure frustration. ‘Tony, a walk is an opportunity.’

Lockwood grunted.

‘As much as I hate to agree with Kipps, he’s right, you know.’

‘Oh, fuck off. Not you, too.’

‘Look, Tony, the sun was shining—’

‘I bet there were birds singing in the trees, all chirpy and romantic like girls like—’

‘It was the two of you, all alone—’

‘Nobody to interrupt, not even that bastard skull—’

‘Sunlight filtering through the leaves, making her look ethereal—’

‘Lucy? Ethereal?’

Lockwood pushed himself up and chucked a pillow at George for that. ‘Leave her alone.’

‘Oooooh,’ George teased, laughing as he squeezed the pillow and leant his head on it. ‘Someone thinks she’s ethereal.’

Kipps was laughing too. ‘Leave off him. What we’re saying, Tony, is there must have been some opportunity there. Are you seriously going to tell us that you didn’t even have a moment?’

‘They have moments over tea and toast, I don’t think a romantic setting’s going to make any difference at this point.’

‘It wasn’t romantic,’ Lockwood protested, but it sounded feeble even to his ears.

Truth was, there had been a moment. He’d spent most of the walk itself torn between trying to brainstorm connections between the village, its hauntings, and the Institute, and trying to stop himself from reaching out to grab Lucy’s hand as they walked.

And then there’d been that moment in the grass, lying side by side on the hillside. The sunlight had been warm, the thrill of discovery had been thrumming in his veins, and Lucy had lain next to him, close enough for her presence to be madly distracting. They’d looked at each other and for a second, Lockwood had been sure he’d never seen anything so beautiful — her eyes had sparkled, her smile had been delighted, and that a rosy blush had dusted her cheeks. He’d wanted to reach out, pull her close, find out if she’d turn the fire in his blood to fireworks or maybe something new altogether. 

Instead he’d said something about the others waiting back in the village and pushed himself to his feet, making far too much effort to stay cool and calm and not scramble. Now he wondered if he should have offered her a hand, helped Lucy up next to him and then leaned down and—

A pillow landed on his face with a thump. ‘Because you absolutely look like someone who’s not thinking about anything romantic.’

‘Oh, fuck off.’ Lockwood left the pillow on his face and blindly flipped Kipps the bird as George sniggered. The darkness was somewhat pleasant, and if he left it alone he wouldn’t have to look at the smug bastards. And they wouldn’t be able to see him.

‘That’s the third time you’ve told me that.’

‘Maybe you should try it.’

‘You asked me here, let me remind you.’ 

‘And I’m having regrets about it.’ Sometimes it really did feel like no good deed went unpunished.

A sigh, and the mattress groaned under shifting weight. ‘Look, I’m not going to pry into your personal life—’

‘Trust me, it’s futile.’ Lockwood flipped the bird in George’s direction, too.

‘—but Tony, do yourself a favour and just go for it, okay? Sooner, rather than later. She came back this time, but she won’t wait around forever, and there’s plenty of boys waiting to take your place. Trust me on this.’

He should have told him to fuck off for the fourth time. Lobbed the pillow right at his face, or chucked one of the shoes from under the bed; rolled over and feigned sleep, until he actually fell asleep. But something made him pause.

Maybe it was the sincerity in Kipps’ voice, maybe it was the exhaustion; maybe it was because the last person Lockwood could remember offering him life advice with such blatant care in his voice was Gravedigger. It wasn’t often that Lockwood felt conscious of their age difference (unless they were in the field and he had to make up for Kipps’ lack of Talent), but suddenly he felt younger.

Miracles seemed to follow Lucy around, but if he screwed this up, she’d never come back. And he had no idea what he was doing.

‘Anyway—’ George yawned— ‘as fascinating as this is, it’s about time to—’

‘How do you know?’

The question was quiet, muffled by the pillow, and his voice sounded small even to his own ears, but the room fell silent anyway.

A beat, and then Kipps answered, uncharacteristic kindness in his voice: ‘How do you know what?’

‘If—’ Lockwood swallowed, then pulled the pillow off his face and hugged it to his chest. He rolled onto his side and took a breath, willing confidence back into his voice to ask— ‘How am I supposed to know if she likes me back?’

There was a choked laugh from the bed, then the sound of flesh being slapped (George, probably) that Lockwood resolutely ignored.

‘Well,’ Kipps said, businesslike. ‘You need to pay attention.’

He rolled his eyes — he was always paying attention to her. ‘To what, exactly?’

Kipps sighed. ‘Just look for signs, Tony. Do you even see what we see when Lucy looks at you?’

‘How am I supposed to know what you see?’

‘Desperation,’ George sang gleefully, then: ‘Ouch! Kipps!’

‘Shut it,’ Kipps said firmly. ‘Tony, Lucy is always looking at you. Her eyes follow you around, no matter what you’re doing. She wants to be near you, all the time, and she smiles at you way more than she smiles at anybody else.’

Lockwood frowned. ‘She smiles plenty.’

‘Yeah, at you.’

‘I told you, he’s hopeless.’ George gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘Look, I told myself for my sanity that I wouldn’t get involved, but since you’re asking — no, shut up, just listen — Lucy is alwayslooking at you. She smiles at you more than she does for anyone else—’

‘That’s because I smile at her!’

‘—I told you to shut it. Where was I? Right: she’s always willing to try anything you suggest. If I say “Hey, Lucy, let’s try this mad scheme where we might die” she’ll rightfully call me bonkers, but if you suggest the same thing all she’ll ask is time, place, and dress code while fetching her rapier.  She laughs at those ridiculous notions you call “jokes”, she happily listens to you rambling about fencing history and society events, she has no notion of personal space where you’re concerned, and she looks like Christmas has come early every time you tell her even a little bit about yourself.’

‘Oh.’

Lucy had always been like that, though.

‘Shall I go on? I can keep going all morning, if you need me to, but I could hand you a file with dates, times, and photographic evidence and I still don’t think you’d believe me. You should use that silver tongue of yours and just ask her, Lockwood.’

His fingers played with the corner of the pillow. ‘Or I could not.’

‘Sure, you could not,’ George confirmed, making Kipps grumble as he shifted back onto his pillows. ‘Or you could save my sanity and fucking do something about it.’

Kipps laughed. ‘Honestly, Tony, that’s a pretty good list. I was just going to say that she’s much nicer to you than she is to anybody else—’ Lockwood let out a bark of laughter at that— ‘and she’s always blushing around you.’

‘She is not.’

Though her blush the afternoon before had been beautiful as she’d smiled at him, eyes sparkling in the sunlight, so close he could feel her breath on his cheek.

‘Maybe you should pay more attention next time you see her, if you really think she doesn’t like you back?’

He opened his mouth to respond, but George beat him to it.

‘He’s too busy pining over her to pay proper attention, Kipps — don’t you dare throw that shoe at me! — Anyway, look, it’s late, and I for one—’

A soft knock at the door cut his grumbling off, and all three boys fell silent.

‘Is anyone awake in there?’

Lucy. And there he sat on the campbed, shoe in hand, staring wild-eyed at his friends in the bed who laughed back at him. Kipps made a shooing gesture and mouthed ‘go!’

‘Just a minute!’

And then Lockwood was scrambling up from the campbed before he knew it, practically falling out of it in his rush to slam the shoe back on the floor and get to the door. He flung it open with far too much force, inwardly wincing at his impulsiveness as he barely managed to stop the doorknob from leaving an indent in the wall, pasting on his sunniest smile and aiming for suave instead of hoarse as he said: ‘Hey, Lucy.’

Sniggering erupted from the bed behind him, and he shifted forwards, trying to block her view of the boys in bed who had started making kissy faces (he would never, ever let them forget about them sharing a bed for that, not for as long as he lived). It ended up with him leaning awkwardly against the doorframe, sort-of hunched down towards her, and his heart raced as he was suddenly all too aware of his less-than-stellar posture, his stupid pyjamas (why did he pack the pink ones?), and the absolute mess his hair must have been.

Lucy, though, didn’t seem to notice the pitiful display he was putting on — she was too busy trying to peer around him, trying to figure out what was going on in the room. ‘Is everything—’

‘Lean in!’ Kipps yelled, and Lockwood could’ve killed him.

She looked up, her eyes meeting his curiously. ‘Lean into what?’

‘Each—’ The rest of George’s yell was muffled, and perhaps he’d let Kipps live after all.

‘Er, nothing,’ he said quickly, hoping to smooth things over. ‘How can I help you, Lucy?’

‘Oh!’ she said, suddenly flustered. ‘I was just wondering— I couldn’t sleep, and Holly had said there’s ingredients to make scones, but she’s still asleep and I thought if one of you were awake I could ask for company…?’

Her voice trailed off, the end of the question somewhat unsure, but the way she was looking made him think that ‘one of you’ actually meant him. The scant space between their bodies felt electric, and, exhausted as she was, she looked beautiful right then, gazing up at him in the soft morning light with rosy cheeks. Lockwood thought he could look at her like this forever.

She’s pretty when she blushes, he thought. And then— Oh god, she’s blushing. They said she would and now she was and…and…What was he supposed to do now?  He was too tired for this. Maybe he’d just go back to bed and—

‘Me and George are fast asleep, but Tony can help out, can’t you Tony?’

They both jolted, and he realised they’d just been staring at each other in the doorway. Lucy blinked, and leaned forward — right into his personal space, her shoulder brushing his chest — to peer into the bedroom. ‘Kipps, I can see you’re both wide awake.’

‘No,’ George said with a sigh. ‘We’re actually asleep. Take Lockwood though, he’s being a right pain in the arse.’

‘Yeah, please, Lucy, put us out of our misery already. Take Tony and lean in.’

Lucy frowned. ‘Lean into what?’

‘Nothing,’ Lockwood said quickly, taking her gently by the elbow to turn her around and she didn’t shake him off. How had he never noticed she let him touch her all the time? ‘Give me five minutes to get dressed and I’ll meet you in the kitchen?’

The raised eyebrow indicated that she clearly didn’t buy a word of it, but thankfully she acquiesced anyway. ‘Sure. I’ll see you down there.’

The door closed with a quiet click, and he leant against it for a moment, then shot a glare at the bed. ‘Not a word.’

George sniggered again, his head half under the blanket. ‘We’re asleep, remember?’

‘I’ve been told I talk in my sleep, though,’ Kipps added, wearing the closest thing to a smile Lockwood had seen on him in…well, in forever. ‘But I think you know what I’m going to say.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ he grumbled. ‘Lean in.’

The night had been cold and dark in more ways than one, but the morning was bright and sunny. And maybe — just maybe — it could be the start of something else, too. If it meant he got to find out, then maybe Lockwood would give this leaning in thing a go.

Maybe.

⚔︎<<<<<<<

Thank you for reading! Please reblog if you liked it.

Morning Scones idea stolen shamelessly from @womaninwinter's Sweets for the Sweet. For more reading material, @synestheticwanderings has also written a brilliant Kipps-centric fic that draws from the above convo called Unholy Ghosts.

[inanimatefan1]

Did not go as planned (Collage roommate Sneaker TF Story)

My roommate Tyler like new sneakers, i was dying to know what it was like to be his sneaker, so when he left the room to go to the bathroom, i transformed into a pair of sleek, brand-new sneakers, for him, nothing will go wrong, i thought.

My perspective has radically shifted; seeing the room from the sneaker's point of view and him coming out of the bathroom. I feel Tyler's feet coming closer, and before I know it, his socks are slipping into me. It's a weird feeling, not unpleasant, but I am suddenly very aware of how sweaty and smelly feet can get. I can't move or express any emotion, but internally I'm both thrilled and apprehensive.

"Wow, these feel great!" Tyler exclaims, oblivious to the fact that his new kicks are actually his friend, me, transformed. He ties the laces, securing his feet snugly within me.

That's when I notice Tyler reaching for a marker on the table. He uncaps it and scribbles something on the sneakers tongue. I feel a slight tickling sensation but can't see what he's written. Instinctively, I know that Tyler's just marked me as his property. My heart sinks, realizing the gravity of what that might mean for my ability to change back. I frantically focus, trying to muster the energy to revert to my original form. But nothing happens. I'm stuck, and the panic begins to set in. My situation worsens as I remember Tyler's reputation for making his belongings quickly smelly and worn out. I'm about to become one of those belongings, I think to myself, but all I can do is "exist" as a pair of his sneakers.Tyler starts walking around, and I can feel his weight pressing down with each step. The warmth and moisture from his feet start to make me feel more and more like a regular pair of sneakers, and less like Josh trapped in this form.

Finally, Tyler heads to his friends college dorm room, where he meets up with some friends, notorious for their messy habits. They're impressed with Tyler's new sneakers, giving them a few admiring glances, completely unaware that I am those sneakers. Tyler kicks me off, throwing me casually into a corner where I land next to other worn-out shoes and discarded clothes. The smell is overwhelming, a cocktail of sweat, dirt, and who knows what else. As I lie there, waiting for what comes next, a sinking feeling washes over me. Tyler and his friends start a video game marathon, and I know it's going to be a long night. Even worse, Tyler's got a track meet tomorrow, and I've got a front-row seat—or perhaps more accurately, a foot-row seat. All I can do now is be the best pair of sneakers I can be, because for the foreseeable future, that's all I am. And as much as I'd like to change back, it looks like I'm stuck in this form for a while—Tyler's smelly, well-worn sneakers. And there I am, Josh, trapped as a pair of sneakers with no way to communicate or revert to my original form, subjected to whatever Tyler and his college buddies have in store for me.

Over the course of several weeks, I come to realize that my efforts to transform back are futile. Each day, Tyler's activities—whether it's a long run, a gym workout, or simply walking around campus—intensify the smell inside me. Initially, the stench was overpowering and unpleasant, but a strange thing starts to happen as the days pass. With every wear, the scent permeates me more deeply, and I find myself becoming increasingly disoriented yet oddly calm. It's as if Tyler's distinctive smell has become a potent aroma that affects my very essence. I become more accustomed to the smell, and the sharp edges of my previous panic and anxiety start to blur. As Tyler slips his feet into me day after day, something within me starts to change. What was once a nauseating odor has become, inexplicably, comforting. I feel more attuned to Tyler's rhythm and routine. It's like I'm enveloped in a sensory haze, somewhat akin to a high. When he takes me off at the end of the day and tosses me into the smelly corner of his room, I no longer dread it; I actually look forward to joining that pungent pile of worn clothes and old shoes. After a few weeks of this, I find myself in an almost zen-like state whenever Tyler wears me. My earlier thoughts of changing back into my human form have all but vanished. It's as if Tyler's smell has a hypnotic quality, grounding me in this new existence. And so, I find a strange form of peace in my new life as a pair of sneakers, completely intoxicated by Tyler's scent. My worries, my former life, and even my sense of self become distant memories. I'm not just a pair of sneakers; I'm Tyler's sneakers, and strangely enough, that has become my entire world. I don't know if I'll ever change back, or even if I want to. For now, I'm oddly content, basking in the heady atmosphere of Tyler's college life. And so, I continue to exist, half-aware and half-lost in a fragrant fog, a small but integral part of Tyler's world.

I can't imagine anything better than being Tyler's smelly sneaker…

First part of at least 4 parts.

[desultory-novice]

Marionettes' Pavane, Chapter 5 Part 2

"The Sweet Taste of Home" (conclusion, 10 pgs)

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"MariPav" is a strangers to friends to......... fan comic about Marx and Magolor's meeting and their zany adventures in the days before Return to Dream Land. It was written before RtDL DX came out, so expect inconsistencies with current game lore!

[Previous] [Main]

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...After :cough: over a year of real-world time :cough: Magolor finally got a teeny, ti~ny taste of delicious, homemade cake - and a large taste of what his life of withered dreams was missing all this time.

Could his inescapably annoying jester companion be bringing something more than just chaos into Magolor's world...?

Up Next: Chapter 6 Part 1 "Let Me Play Amongst the Stars" ...Where the two go sphere hunting in earnest!

[Previous] [Main] [Next - coming soon] [Chapter Bonus: "Style Savvy"]

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A/N: So, fun story, when I was first drafting the plot of MariPav, for the longest time, this chapter was just the phrase, "Space Boyfriends Cooking Chapter! XD" I was constantly re-arranging story beats to figure out what scenes should even go here. In the end, it turned into a somewhat significant chapter despite starting out as a joke / lighthearted story tucked in between more serious events.

While MariPav isn't (and can't ; _ ;) be canon to the Magolor of DX, I did think it was funny how several aspects of his character actually do mesh pretty well with DX!Magolor, one of them being Magolor's soon-to-be obsession with preparing food! (At least, I saw Helper Magolor bringing Kirby a constant supply of healing treats to be indicative of him actually kind of liking food prep!) MariPav Magolor has definitely caught the fever for baking after this adventure!

By the way, most of the script you're seeing here is completely unchanged from my pre-remake final draft but I did end up adding the line, "...a delicacy favored by the wizard kings of ancient Halcandra" (and "Your monarchy ate rocks?!") after seeing the role the gem apples played in the Magolor Epilogue and their ties to the Master Crown. Gem apples sure seem to be made of / grown with magic, yet we know they can be eaten too! If such a food existed, it would be no surprise that wizards would love to dine on highly sweet, concentrated magic power! (The "concentrated magic" part is why they explode, of course. That stuff is pretty volatile!)

...Oh, and also, this is canonically when Marx first coins the nickname "Mags" for Magolor. I know it's confusing because I've used that nickname a lot in side material already, but it starts here!

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Lastly, for the eagle-eyed readers who noticed the cook book uses the New World Font and thus, ought to legible in English, I'll spare you the trouble by copying the text I used here:

So we're finally here. The end of the cooking chapter. Has it really been a whole year? Amazing. Anyway, I'm finally learning how to implement 3d models successfully. Like that cake.  The one in the book is the defeault.  I modified it a bit for the one they make... Uh, what else can I fill this space with? Oh yeah. I was really proud that I wrote about Magolor quickly becoming addicted to sweets before he showed up in DX always dropping cakes and other food on you. There's a few things I felt MariPav predicted despite all that it got wrong.

[agentrouka-blog]

i always love your responses because i think you do such a good job explaining things (even though some of it is just common sense)... so i was wondering if you could read this meta? i've come across this sort of idea about sansa before in their circles, but this is the first time that i've seen them try to argue that she is somehow inherently unloveable *rolls eyes*

-Something I find really interesting is that for all Sansa craves admiration and “love” from others, she’s not especially good at making friends or inspiring supporters. When people do decide to support or “befriend” her in the story, it is always with ulterior motives—almost all of which serve themselves. This includes characters like the Hound, whose connection to Sansa is built off his own ideology concerning knighthood and gender in their social system.

Her inability to create that support system is partially due to her environments: King’s Landing and the Vale, neither of which are necessarily forgiving places. However, despite her hostage status and shamed House, Sansa is still a valuable person to befriend, even if only for ladies. She’s pretty, performs her ladyhood well, has a famous bloodline, and is tied to the very wealthy ruling family. What’s more, she’s obviously mistreated (for a portion of her time in the capital) and without much actual power. If anything, she should garner sympathy friendships, but with everything else in mind, she should attract at least some love, some support that isn’t totally disingenuous or self-serving, however minuscule. And yet even that eludes her for some reason.

The way similar characters—her siblings particularly—so easily find friends and supporters throughout the books really draws Sansa’s lack of them to the forefront. Jon, for example, finds friends in both the Night’s Watch and amongst the wildlings. Bran forms close friendships with Jojen and Meera. Arya literally makes friends in nearly every place she goes, be they high- or lowborn. Daenerys finds companions in her ladies and Missandei and gathers loyal supporters in people like Ser Barristan. Even Catelyn as Lady Stoneheart earns the support of the Brotherhood. Granted, many of these supporters operate in their devotion to specific Houses, but they’re not doing it to serve their own wants and desires, which is a stark contrast to those “supporters” who surround Sansa at various times.

All in all, I’m intrigued at the way Sansa’s desire for love—genuine or affected—evades her while many of her contemporaries, misfits and traditional characters alike, garner it quite easily. Aside from her environments, what is it about her specifically that seems to repel genuine relationships? And what does this persistent inability to gather loyal friends, companions, and supporters indicate about her future role, if there is one?-

if you can probably tell its written by an arya stan

I laughed. 😂 Anything to cling to the idea of queen Arya - or rather not!queen Sansa.

As if being a hostage of the royal family in the royal palace in the royal capital, surrounded by enemies and spies is not the entire reason Sansa is isolated. Do they even consider how much more risk is involved in even casually approaching her, than there is for anyone having a chat with "Arry" or "Nan" or "Cat"? There is nothing "partially" about it. She is a well-guarded hostage and no one safe and well-intentioned enters the perimeter of her prison, end of.

Once Sansa is in the Vale, she is still more difficult to approach by anyone than a "simple" lowborn girl, as the bastard daughter of Littlefinger (soon Lord Protector) - who takes pains to control who she interacts with and how. And still she begins to form tentative bonds to the people around her - mindful to keep her emotional distance to a degree after what happened with Margaery and Dontos.

Which highlights another crucial aspect. Arya's bonds? Generally represent her attachment to others, not the other way around. She declares Hot Pie and Gendry her pack and feels betrayed that they have their own lives and plans, she never asked them if they feel the same way and I doubt it - and yet her bond to Gendry (also on the run, no threat to her!) - is the single most genuine mutual attachment she forms after she becomes a fugitive. Do they think Yoren helped her because she's uniquely worthy and not because she is Ned's daughter? Do they think Jaqen has no ulterior motive? Or Harwin and Beric? They are kind because they can afford to be but their motives are their own ends. Do they think Lady Smallwood would have somehow withheld this same kindness from Sansa? The captain of the Titan's Daughter knows she is connected to the Faceless Men, ffs. And what possible risk is attached to the women of the Happy Port being kind to a beggar girl?

To her vast credit, Arya forms quick and genuine attachments to other people. More so than Sansa, whose situation also doesn't allow for it. But these attachments don't represent a support system and they aren't deep bonds.

This distorted representation of their ability to connect to people certainly doesn't allow for some kind of speculation how Sansa would act and be perceived in a safe environment and or in a role of political leadership.

[another-lost-mc]

I love how you did a better job with the worldbuilding than solmare ever did. I’m literally still interested in this game because of your blog. I had a discussion with my sister about how annoying it is that some characters always behave the same, like beelzebub being hungry all the time. I dislike how solmare didn’t put a lot of effort into understanding the sins. They were just like, 'Oh, gluttony? Let’s make this demon hungry all the time' while the actual sin is more about overconsumption in general. So, I was curious how you felt about that lack of depth. Like for example when you write about your oc’s or other characters where the sins play a role, do you have like solmare’s version in mind or do you go think deeper than that?

Oh, that's such a nice compliment that you enjoy some of the world building nonsense I like to ramble about. 🤗 I can literally talk about this stuff all day.

The upside to Solmare's neglect of those nitty-gritty details is that players have more room to explore the other possibilities. I love how everyone in this community has their own headcanons and beliefs to shape their view of the game world and its characters. This community is so creative! I've read so many other ideas that are fascinating and more in-depth than what Solmare have written themselves, and while my ideas won't appeal to everyone, it's nice to have this space to explore them anyway.

When it comes to my personal worldbuilding, sins are really important to fleshing out all the different motivations and goals characters have. I agree that a lot of the characters have the odd moment to shine, but otherwise are lumped into the lazy stereotype of their character. It's really annoying.

Part of the problem with having so many characters and trying to give them screen time is that none of them get developed beyond easily recognizable traits: Beel eating nonstop, Satan being obsessed with cats, Mammon complaining about being broke, Asmo's narcissism and flirtations. Even with the events, some of their choices are missed opportunities to highlight characters in ways we don't normally get to see. Beel being the highlight character for a Fangol or sports-themed event? Nah, throw Barbatos in there because Beel can show up when there's food around. Like yes, okay, we get it. But what else is there? If Solmare won't explore beyond the bare minimum interpretation of their sins, the players just have to do it themselves.

My personal solution for that is two-fold: assigning a secondary sin for each character to add more nuance/depth to their view of the world and their place in it, and expanding the interpretation of their sins beyond the literal meanings. Demon royalty, as leaders of the Devildom and the most powerful embodiments of sin, may have multiple sins that influence their leadership styles and priorities.

(I have some ideas for angelic virtues and elemental alignments, but that's a subject for another post.)

Some other ideas tied to my headcanons about sins include:

Demons have extremely long life spans and I think it's natural for their secondary sins to shift over time as their environment and circumstances change. (I think in extreme situations, a demon's primary sin may also change - this is something I imagine happened with Diavolo's father.)

Certain types of demons are naturally drawn to one sin more than others. Crow demons, as a part of Mammon's cohort of demons, tend to be Greed-aligned. Not all Lust demons are incubi, but all incubi/succubi are Lust demons. Lesser demons - the ones that make up the foot soldiers of the Devildom's legions, tend to be aligned with Wrath or Envy which empowers their capabilities in times of war with the angels/other realms.

Demons that are exorcised and respawn later may have different sin alignments than their previous incarnations.

Fallen angels demonstrate early "warning signs" of their sin(s) at some point prior to being cast out of the Celestial Realm. Their natures truly manifest once their transformation from angel to demon is complete after falling to the Devildom.

The canon cast and OCs all have designated primary and secondary sins. I know some of the combinations for the OCs in particular might seem a little...odd...but that's because the interpretation of their sin goes beyond "greed = money-hungry" or "gluttony = over-eating". Some of the sins have some overlapping tendencies too. Here are examples of how the OCs' primary sins manifest for them:

Karasu & Greed - Karasu might not appreciate spending or earning money the way Mammon does, but he appreciates wealth of all sorts. Not only money, but knowledge. His nest is a hoard of the riches he's accumulated over his long life, earned through his lifetime's work. Other hints of this sin peek through in his romantic relationships: he wants to be praised, to worship and be worshipped, to have his lover's time and attention and focus solely on him. He gives all of himself in return - an equal exchange, but not one made lightly either.

Azra & Lust - It's not just about sex, but it does play a significant part in how his sin manifests. After a long list of poor choices made with good intentions, he ultimately fell from the Celestial Realm because what he wanted - his relationship with Meta, one that he didn't think was possible if they remained angels under Father's strict thumb - outweighed everything else in his mind. When he fell, he became an incubus, and in a way it damned him to a life where he is forced to feed his sexual appetites with anyone but the one person he desired most.

Tenebris & Gluttony - He was obsessed with finding ways to make himself powerful and worthy in the eyes of the nobility and his father. He embarked on a very selfish and relentless pursuit of knowledge and power that would enhance his naturally gifted magical abilities. Those efforts led to him gorging himself not on food but on humans. Not just their souls either, but their flesh and blood and bones - all harvested without guilt or shame, to be used for his magical experiments and to fuel his spell work. He nearly killed himself in the process but he justified it in his mind as necessary. It was only his indirect involvement in Bathin's exorcism, and the shame and guilt that came after, that finally convinced him to stop and reflect on what he had done.

Related world building posts:

Primary and Secondary Sin Alignments

Demon Royalty & Sin

Diavolo's Father: Sins of the Demon King

[thats-alittle-gay]

"Taylor Swift only writes about her Ex's!!"

Here is a long list of songs not about an ex or current boyfriend. If I missed any of you would like to add to the list, please let me know. I did this off the top of my head so there's a good chance I missed some.

1. Lucky You (unreleased track) First song she ever wrote. It's about a girl named Lucky

2. Who I've Always Been (unreleased track) About calling out someone who buys their way into fame vs putting in the work for it

3. Permanent Marker (unreleased track) Rumoured to be about her brother's ex

4. A Place In This World is about her finding where she belongs in the world

5. The Outside is about being lonely

6. Tied Together With a Smile was written for a friend with an eating disorder

7. Stay Beautiful was about a boy she never dated so it counts for this list.

8. Mary's Song was written for her neighbor

9. I'm Only Me When I'm With You, despite the "small town boy and girl" line, was actually written for Abigail.

10. Christmas Must Be Something More is about Jesus

11. Fearless is about her, at the time, ideal first date. Not about a real date she's been on.

12. Fifteen is about high school and kinda the typical teenage girl experience. Also for Abigail.

13. Hey Stephen is about a guy she never dated.

14. Breathe is about losing a friend

15. The Way I Loved You has been debated but is rumored to be a fictional story about someone dating a guy who is perfect but missing the old relationship.

16. The Best Day is about her mom

17. Change is about how things will change and get better.

18. Untouchable isn't her song she just reworked some parts to make it her style. Luna Halo gave her a writing credit.

19. We Were Happy is also rumoured to be fictional and about being the one to ruin the relationship because she fell out of love.

20. Speak Now was written about a friend who found out their ex was getting married.

21. Mean was about a critic who said she couldn't sing and didn't write her songs

22. Never Grow Up about not wanting to grow up and for a friend's baby

23. Enchanted is about Adam from Owl City who she never dated.

24. Innocent is about Kayne and the 2009 VMA incident

25. Long Live was written for the fans and her band

26. When Emma Falls in Love is about a friend

27. Castles Crumbling is about how the media turned on her and her depression/anxiety feelings

28. Best Days of Your Life was written with Kellie Picker

29. You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home is sung by Miley Cyrus but written by Taylor for the Hannah Montana movie.

30. Two is Better Than One was a collab with Boys Like Girls

31. Both of Us was a collab with B.O.B

32. Eyes Open was for the Hunger Games soundtrack

33. Safe & Sound was also for the Hunger Games

34. 22 is about turning 22

35. Stay Stay Stay was supposedly fictional and about her wanting someone who will stay even when she gets mad and frustrated.

36. The Lucky One is about a celebrity who got overwhelmed with fame and disappeared and how Taylor sometimes thinks about doing the same.

37. Starlight is about Ethel and Bobby Kennedy.

38. Girl at Home is about a guy who was hitting on her while being in a relationship with someone else

39. Ronan is about a 3 year old boy who died of cancer

40. Nothing New is about the fear of being replaced with a new singer and getting pushed out of the industry

42. Forever Winter is about a friend who unaligned themself

43. Highway Don't Care is a collab with Tim McGraw and Keith Urban.

44. Sweeter Than Fiction was written for the movie One Chance.

45. Welcome to New York is about moving to New York

46. Blank Space is about how the media portrays her as a crazy serial dater.

47. Shake It Off is about ignoring the criticism.

48. Bad Blood is about her feud with Katy Perry

49. This is What Came For was a collab with Calvin Harris

50. I Did Something Bad is again, about who the media calls her names for her dating life, society trying to cancel her, and calling her a snake. Also aimed towards Kim and Kayne

51. Look What You Made Me Do is about Kim and Kayne and how they turned most of the world against her with an edited phone call

52. This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things is about Kim and how she attacked her.

53. I Don't Wanna Live Forever was for 50 Shades of Grey

54. I Forgot That You Existed is about learning to not spend all your time thinking about a toxic person

55. The Man is about the double standards in society and how things would probably be easier if she was man.

56. The Archer is about anxiety and fear of being alone. It's been debated about whether it's about Joe or not. Depends on your interpretation, I guess.

57. Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince is about a failing government system.

57. Death By a Thousand Cuts is based on the movie Something Great

58. Soon You'll Get Better is about her mom recovering from cancer

59. You Need to Calm Down was written to show support for the LGBTQ community.

60. Only the Young is about politics

61. Beautiful Ghosts was written for CATS

52. cardigan is about a fictional girl named Betty. The song is part of a three song story.

53. the last great american dynasty is about Rebekah Harness and Holiday House in Rhode Island

54. my tears ricochet is about losing her masters

55. mirrorball is about changing herself to fit in with society.

56. seven is from the pov of a little girl who has a friend with an abusive father.

57. August is part of the three way love story. This is from Augustine's pov who was the other girl in the story

58. this is me trying is about her trying her best.

59. illicit affairs is a fictional story about an affair

60. mad woman is about her anger with Scooter Braun

61. epiphany was written for her grandfather. It's about grief and PTSD

62. betty is the third part of the three way love story. This is the pov of a 17 year old boy named James.

63. the lakes is about isolating yourself from society

64. tolerate it was inspired by a novel called Rebecca

65. no body no crime is about a cheating husband that unalived his wife when she found out

66. dorothea is about an old friend

67. ivy is about an affair

68. Marjorie is about her grandmother

69. closure is about someone reaching out to help her get closure

70. it's time to go is about different situations where sometimes the best thing you can do is walk away

71. Renegade was a collab with Big Red Machine

72. The Joker and the Queen Remix is a collab with Ed Sheeran.

73. Carolina was written for the movie Where the Crawdad's Sing

74. Anti-Hero is about her insecurities

75. You're On Your Own Kid is about being on your own and pushing forward despite being afriad

76. Vigilante Shit is about revenge on an enemy

77. Bejeweled is another debated song but most see it as her being confident with herself and not letting anyone tear her down

78. Karma is about Kayne

79. Bigger Than the Whole Sky is about losing something that never happened

80. Dear Reader is Taylor giving advice about things she's learned.

81. Florida!!! Is about having regrets and wanting to start a new life.

82. But Daddy I Love Him is a grey area to some but the way I've seen it interpreted the most was her telling the world that it's not up to them to judge her relationships and she'll date who she wants.

83. Who's Afraid of Little Old Me? Is about all the negativity she gets and how haters want to claim she's being petty and intentionally blocking other artists.

84. I Can Do It With a Broken Heart is a little about losing a love but it mostly directed towards the audience who is always pushing for her to release new stuff all the time and how she has to just fake a smile because she has a job to do.

85. Clara Bow is about the never ending cycle of society comparing women to each other and telling them how they're like the current "It" girl, but better in these ways.

86. The Albatross is a hard one but the way I thought of it was that an Albatross is sometimes used as a symbol for feeling of being a burden. My interpretation was that she knows what it feels like to be criticized and hated on and wants the other person to know that if they go through it too then she's there for them. Could also be similar to peace where she's telling her lover that you may get dragged for being with her. But music can be looked at in different ways. This was just my view of it

87. I Hate It Here is about having a mental safe space to help yourself cope when you're in a situation you hate.

88. thanK you aIMee is about Kim Kardashian

89. The Prophecy I've also seen looked at in different ways. The common theme is whatever it's a lover or just someone in general, she's begging to not be alone and to have someone stay with her

90. Cassandra is based on the Greek mythology of Cassandra the Seer who was cursed so no one would believe her prophecies. The parallel is her saying she never gave Kayne permission to use her name in the song Famous and no one believing her because Kim edited the phone call. Also about how when it's time to hate someone everyone has something to say but when the truth comes out no one speaks. Similar to how the fake video drew a lot of attention but when the real one leaked it didn't make the headlines and didn't blow up like the fake one did. There are still people four years later who don't know the real video was leaked.

91. Robin is about childhood. May be her's or someone else's. Robin is the name of her collaborator Aaron's child.

92. Us was a collaboration with Gracie Abrams.

[velvet-vox]

Notes of my final Murder Drones rewatch before ep 8

(These thoughts are uncollected and unrevised, proceed with lowered expectations)

Originally, I was about to make a three-part long post before episode eight comes out.

In the first part I would have analysed Cyn's character and showcased her possible depth and ties to N's character arc.

Then in the second part I compared the Doll, Cyn and J trio to Uzi, N and V, showing the parallels between each member of their respective squad, which would then lead to the final part.

Part 3 is my defacto theory on how certain elements of episode 8 would have played out, with J as a main focus in it, due to her being the V parallel, but then, as the day passed, I realised something:

I'm an analyst, not a theorist, and while it could be fun to make a theory on episode 8 to see how right and wrong I was in retrospect, it's not an activity that I'm particularly fond of, plus, while my opinions on Cyn have changed with time (I'm going to get there), the reason why I kind of like her now completely hinges upon head canons that hopefully are going to be confirmed, because otherwise, my opinion on the character could get even worse than what it once was.

One of the main reasons as to why I wanted to realise this project was to see if I could get invested into Cyn in the same way I got more invested into Rebecca with the analysis I've made on her, but why bother doing that when I'm sure episode 8 is (hopefully) going to fill me in on her character?

I'm not finding the time nor willpower that I wished that I had to complete any projects lately, and due to my constant need for perfectionism (need that it's being deliberately ignored in the writing of this post), I just keep shooting myself in the feet.

Anyway, let's just skip the intro and directly segway to the important stuff:

Uzi:

Uzi is a complicated character for me. She was my favourite character in the Pilot and dropped down massively after that, and I never understood why: I came up with a bunch of explanations for myself, such as "her development isn't engaging" and "she doesn't get challenged in interesting ways that isn't just plain torture" and "she's the most enigmatic character in the show, her actions don't make any sense to me", and I was particularly sure of that last one, not in the sense that Uzi was evil all along, but in the sense that Uzi was being written as a twist villain in the same way Goultard from Wakfu had been coded as such before the third season of that series revealed us why;

But this last rewatch finally made me understand what my problem with her was.

Aside from the rushed development, which is something the entire series struggles with, I've realised that there's an extremely subtle layer of complexity to pilot Uzi that her show's self lacks: see, despite Uzi acting like a gremlin at various points in the pilot, one thing that really surprised me about how Uzi was initially characterised is that, aside from her moments of emotional impulsivity, Uzi... is actually relatively chill?

The best way I could describe it is that serie's Uzi to me is a child to take care of; I would act nice, kind, patient to ep 1 through 7 Uzi just to get on her good side so that she wouldn't bother me as much as she bothers her peers, hopefully helping her grow up as an individual and stop acting so horribly, and help her find someone else who appreciates her for who she is, so that I wouldn't have to deal with her any longer, while pilot Uzi is someone I would genuinely like to spend time with as she's secretly a pretty chill gal, even if I would still be afraid of her, just like the rest of her classmates.

The pilot makes it extremely clear that Uzi's angsty teen persona is just that: a facade. It's not the real her. This added a layer of intrigue to Uzi in the pilot, where it felt like there was so much more to her than what we were shown at first;

But nope. The rest of the show comes out and Uzi is just that: a wild, emotionally unstable teenage gremlin-girl, who isn't even at the centre of the story despite all of the screen time that she has.

I always thought that Liam didn't want me to sympathise with Uzi, as I thought his modus operandi was "Make the character interesting, don't make them sympathetic" but as the show went along and it fell down even further into a classical good versus evil plotline (something that requires is own post), it kind of became harder to shrug off how genuinely unlikable she is to me. I like N a lot, and I kinda like V whenever her fans are nowhere to be seen, but I don't really sympathise with either of them, I just find them to be engaging.

I like the Murder Drones cast because they are interesting characters, not because they are good people. Yet, from the way Uzi is written, it feels like I'm supposed to consider her the hero, when in reality, she feels more like an unwilling plumber forced to take out the clog (Absolute Solver) unwillingly.

(Also Doll is a much better foil to Pilot Uzi than she is to canon show Uzi, but that's a discussion for another time)

But that's enough of that. Let's talk about the episodes:

Episode 1 through 3:

I plan to do an in-depth ranking of all 8 episodes of Murder Drones once the ending comes out, so consider these my rapid fire opinions on each and every single one of them.

The pilot is the best aged episode of Murder Drones to me even if a lot of its elements have been decanonised, and it could as well end up becoming my favourite episode of the show when it's all said and done.

Episode 2 is as weak as ever, but one thing that always bothered me about this episode is the ending where Uzi just decides to go back into the colony with Khan.

Now, it's no secret that Murder Drone's everything is extremely rushed, but for most of its runtime, this episode gave me the impression that Murder Drones was going to be a slow burn, long running mystery series, only for the ending to come along and leave me dumbfounded by what the pacing of the show was going to turn into.

Heartbeat is also the only episode where my opinion hasn't changed since first watching it. I thought it was mid at first, and I still consider it to be so.

My thoughts on it are a little bit more complicated than that, but I'm reserving them for the future.

You can slice it however you want, but episode 3 has aged HORRIBLY, it's not even in my top 5 best episodes anymore, and yes, it's exactly because of the focus character of this episode turning out the way she did in episode 7.

Say whatever you want, but to me, the third episode is not an Uzi episode, it's not an N episode, it's barely a V and Lizzy episode and partially a Nuzi episode, and it's certainly not a Khan episode.

For the most part, The Promening is a Doll episode; she's the character the episode is wasting most of its runtime on, introducing her, her parents, making her a mysterious threat; in comparison, the Nuzi and V stuff is mostly secondary, and could have definitely been developed further if the episode didn't have someone else as it's main focus.

Doll:

I never wanted Doll to survive the season; I never wanted her to live, I never wanted her to die, I never wanted her to be redeemed, nor did I want her to stay evil till the end; all I ever wanted, was for Doll to be well-written, and as it stands, I don't think Doll does enough or is explored sufficiently as a character to justify her relevance or existence, especially since a lot of other characters could benefit from some extra screen time, and while a lot of people might think that just bringing her back to life would fix some of her problems, I don't think they really understand all of the underlying issues that come with such a choice:

If Doll were ever to come back, she for sure would get a redemption arc, because what else is there to do? She lost all of her screen presence, she's no longer even remotely threatening, her story is so divorced from our current one to be straight up disposable, a lot of people see her as just a joke after the seventh episode, and in general, she's no longer a credible villain to see on screen.

And yet, I don't think a redemption arc would work for Doll at this point. Her character wasn't built up enough aside from being mysterious for the sake of it, I don't think a redemption arc would work, because it would require too much time for it to work, and time is the one thing Murder Drones always lacked, what makes you think a second season, let alone one episode would even fix?

I'm pretty pessimistic about episode 8, unless it's all one giant ruse and there is, in fact, a second season. The math just doesn't add up, episode 8 can't possibly be a satisfying conclusion or an unsatisfying conclusion done right, I fear it will be one giant clusterf##k.

Cabin Fever, Intermission, and Home:

Episode 4 is about as good as I remember it to be, and aside from noticing a couple of new details useful for my analyses, I don't have much to say about it.

I got the chance to watch @ghoulinfuschia 's Murder Drones Intermission together with the other episodes this time around, so now I finally have the chance to praise it a little bit.

Murder Drones Intermission is a fan made episode of Murder Drones set between episode four and five, made entirely by a crew of fans.

It's an amazing product for what it's worth and by how it was made, and while it's not perfect and I consider it far from possibly being canon, it does fill in nicely into the show's timeline, and improves a lot on some of the weakest story beats of the series. It was definitely a nice break from me while rewatching all of the episodes, and I recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who wants to check it out.

It's pretty ironic how episode 7 retroactively managed to worsen episode 3 and improve episode 5, but that's genuinely how I feel about Home now:

I'm about to be real with you, Tessa being dead all along was the only tid bit of major character's death that wasn't wasted, as now that I know why Tessa's wasn't the episode's protagonist, I'm much more accepting of the way in which episode 5 played out; it's clear that Liam never wanted us to get attached to Tessa beyond any simple "she's a nice, abused, teenage girl that treats N nicely" type of feeling, also the tradeoff for her death and humanity apparent extinction was well worth it in my opinion, which is something I can't say for V or... her.

But now it's finally time to talk about the actual main character of this episode:

Cyn:

I'm about to say something that I've never thought I would end up saying for real:

Did you know, that Cyn, is an actually interesting character in her own right?

I never did.

Quite frankly, I kind of heavily hated Cyn up until some time ago.

To me, at the start, Cyn was just a cool visual threat that would have hopefully been fleshed out in the future, but then, not only is she still remaining just a one note villain at this point of the show's runtime (aka the "finale"), but she also ended up killing a far more nuanced and slightly more fleshed out antagonist, while also not really doing anything to fulfill the compelling character void left by the aforementioned character.

Hot take: the fandom's portrayal of Cyn as this unbelievably silly creature of pure autism ruined her character, as well as the general discourse surrounding her.

To me, mass murderers should only be blorbified once their first major focus arc in a story has been concluded. It's why I'm fine with the blorbification of characters such as Qilby and William Afton, and I'm not with Cyn.

The thing about blorbifying is that, you are actively distorting canon for your weird fantasies, which is something that I'm fine with, but only once said characters have received their narrative catharsis.

I don't really view Cyn as a serious or heinous threat at this point in time, and that's all due to how much the fanbase ended up babyfying her to no end, giving her the Jax treatment with the main difference being that Jax has had is funny blorbo illusion already shattered, while Cyn still has it at this point in the show's runtime where she should be at her most evil and intimidating yet.

But that's enough of that; as I've already stated, now that we know that adult Tessa was Cyn all along... Cyn has just become such an interesting character to me, not for the mystery and creepiness surrounding her, but for the ways in which she could end up paralleling N.

... If that's actually what's going to happen.

It all hinges upon Cyn actually being worth the hype and the rushed developments, because otherwise, she could go from being my third favourite character to my absolute least favourite.

Episode 6 and 7:

I appreciate the Jurassic Park section of this episode for being a break from everything going on and for setting up the plot twist in the following episode.

Although her section bores me a little bit, I'm just gonna come out and say it: Alice is in my opinion the best humanoid antagonist in the entirety of Murder Drones, and unless that changes in episode 8 (which I doubt, sorry Cyn but I don't have a lot of faith in you), I'll make an entire post dedicated to her detailing why that's the case.

As for who or what I think is the overall best antagonist of the show...

It's the Sentinels, and it's not even close.

I'm still as emotionless as ever when it comes to V's demise. I believe it was stupid, but there are more passionate V fans to talk about it.

And last but not least, I can finally agree with what everyone else has said: Mass Destruction is the best episode of Murder Drones, and for me, it's all due to how genuinely funny it is.

I've become pretty apathetic to Murder Drone's horror elements due to how excessively prevalent and misused they are throughout the course of the series, so now the comedy actually hits harder, and this episode is extremely funny and comedic, even Doll's death is now hilarious to me, even if for other reasons, and the pacing finally feels appropriate now that the show has completely given up being a mystery adventure and fully embraced the end of the world battle shenanigans.

The episode did feel too fast paced when I first saw it at release, but it was mostly because of how slow the previous episodes were, now after a while the pacing finally feels normal, even if the episode is just bombarding me with lore left and right.

Ah.

.

.....

We're doomed.

[ninjaturtlemaniac]

You have a headcanon/idea for broppy proposal (they both proposed at the same time and it's cute)

But what about other brothers. Did they propose? Were they proposed to? Any ideas?

TROLLS PROPOSING

I keep changing my mind how I picture the Broppy proposal. My post planned out what basically everyone else is doing during, but not really the whole set up for the actual proposal.

Branch and Poppy Proposal

Poppy is hard to surprise.

If he steps one TOE into a jewelry store, the whole village would immediately know what's coming, so he makes the ring himself.

All those invitations he kept? He used them to spell out 'Will You Marry Me?'

And you know as he was actually speaking the words she also pulled out a ring and asked him.

Clay and Viva Proposal

With the Bergens help they moved a bunch of the Hole n Funs buildings to Pop Village.

It left the Hole n Fun practically empty.

Viva knew this was a good plan but it was still a sad sight to see her former home stripped bare.

Clay had a plan.

Clay appreciated the symbolism of 'starting a new chapter'

He organized a campout with all of the PuttPutt Trolls on the last night there.

When Viva wasn't looking, Clay had the PuttPutts take turns leaving the group and arranging the leftover fairy lights.

Later in the evening, the lights were switched on and they formed a path.

Viva followed them to the highest spot on the course, where Clay was waiting for her.

Right at sunset.

He had a very long, carefully worded speech written ready to go but when the time came he was tongue tied.

So Viva asked him. 😏

And boy does Clay love a good plot twist.

And he cried.

All the PuttPutts were like "FINALLY!"

In celebration the PuttPutts threw the biggest, the loudest and the craziest party ever.

John Dory and Sable Proposal

Everyone was joking about it for months.

Clay and Bruce telling Sable to go for the bouquet at Branch and Poppy's wedding and she's like "Awww you guys want to be related to me so badly huh?" "We like you more than John Dory." 😆

Her elderly mother and father are the kind to make jokes about how she's 'not getting any younger' 😑

They were in the middle of an argument when Sable sarcastically said something like "OH, I GUESS WE SHOULD JUST GET MARRIED THEN?!" And JD is like "YEAH WE SHOULD!"

...

JD "Was that an...actual-?"

Sable "I ugh... maybe now's not the best time to be talking about that. John, we're in the middle of an argument."

"I think that makes this the best time."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I don't know if you know this but Trolls like to argue with me a lot."

😑 "You don't say?"

"But for some reason I love when you argue with me the most!"

🥹

JD "I've spend a lot of time alone, waiting for things to happen and I don't wanna do that anymore. No more wasting time."

"When I'm here, with you, I'm not a former pop star or the Kings brother or nothing. I'm just... John Dory and you make me feel like I'm enough."

🥹

"So Sable, wanna maybe go get married?"

"You've rehearsed this haven't you?" 🥹

"I'll tell you when you answer the question." 😏

"You are such a moron but you are my moron. Yes, John Dory I would very much like to marry you."

*Pumps fist* "YES!"

"This does not mean you won our earlier argument."

"Yeah it does! I win! Woo!"

John Dory made their bands out of pieces of her old wooden leg and his leather glove.

Floyd and Boom Proposal

Boom asks Floyd.❤️

He visits Dom's grave to ask permission. 💔

By this point, Branch is officially King of Pop so Boom asks him as well.

He proposed after the last show of a tour, he invited a confused Floyd on stage.

The huge screen on the stage played photos and videos of the two of them.

His brothers were in the front row.

There were a lot of tears. (Floyd)

[arson-09]

How people are trying to change fandom (the rise of hatred against non-canon media)

This was inspired by the rise of backlash against the "Rhysta" ship.

Traditionally throughout the history of fandom spaces on social media, a very important factor has been creativity of course. Art and Fics by fans being the backbone of a fandom. Including non-canon ships, Aus, etc. And of course there was drama (when is there not drama?) BUT there wasn't as much hate because there was an understanding that it's not REAL. People in fandoms understood creativity and thinking outside the box (canon)

But something interesting happened in 2020 with the pandemic, people who weren't apart of fandom spaces started joining cause what else were you going to do? but there started the divide. These people wouldn't have joined fandoms originally because they didn't have that sort of creativity. Which isn't a bad or negative thing, everyone is different and that what makes the world go around, but these people were not used to fandom spaces and that divergency. To them, things have to be how it was written and non-canon things, ships or au's that can't hurt you or become canon, were blasphemous. Because why change the foundation if you liked the original media? this also ties into the "why do you read or interact with this media?" questions when people engage with media in their own way even if they dislike the majority of it. which is valid to do, I do it personally with acotar. I dislike the majority of acotar from the way it's written to lots of the characters, but I interact with a certain subset of the fandom that shares a love for the same characters as I.

But these people, these mostly neurotypical, TikTok people, intrude into these safe creative spaces and cause a ruckus over non-canon Aus and ships. for no reason! Ships like Rhysta are harmless, of course people who make and consume this media don't think it's going to be real, and that's the misconception! Making and consuming non-canon media doesn't mean you think it's going to happen or want it to happen, it's just existing. existing for the sake of existing and stretching creative muscles. You can't grow as an artist if you do not break from the mold, from the restraints of canon.

What you are doing by constantly harassing and posting shit about non-canon media is showing you lack a fundamental understanding of Fandom. Policing what people do is a fruitless endeavor. of course, calling out actually problematic creators is okay, when what they're doing is actually harmful and not them being creative or God forbid, a little weird.

There has been and still needs to be respect in the places. Filtering tags for things that upset you and blocking creators you disagree with is key to being someone people will actually listen to and respect. If you refuse to do that, no one you harass, or attack will take you seriously. and maybe that's not your objective but that means you're going to be blocked on main and made fun of. And this segment is somewhat targeted at someone who has been consistently harassing my mutuals, but I've seen so many people like this and it's a real issue. And its such an issue in Booktok popular books and shows, and media that becomes popular with the masses.

Fandom spaces aren't meant to follow canon to a T. People will have non-canon ships, opinions on how they think the series should have gone, opinions on characters, etc. Constantly harassing and targeting creators won't change that.

I know this won't stop this behavior, it will continue to happen but it's been bothering me and maybe this will change some people's minds on how they interact with the media they like, and they hate.

I love rhysta, I think that the dynamic is very interesting and that people are free to explore that and say whatever they want about how it could have gone in canon. None of that means i think its going to happen or that it should. Lord, people are just having fun. Like they should in fandom places.