#when i say i love grant ward i mean it like from a character perspective

[beachesgetpeaches]

grant ward i hate you but i love you

[bigskydreaming]

Also its important to remember that canon has context too, and like....I refer back to canon as often as I do because IT is the context for fics and fanon.....but in the case of canon itself, the context is often the knowledge and perspective and even biases of the writer writing a piece of canon.

And that example from Batman and the Outsiders that @nightwingmyboi included for Dick’s conversation with Cass about his behavior towards her is a significant example of this because like......it has an extremely narrow context, with no sign in the narration there of any context OUTSIDE of what the writer is referencing.

What I mean by that is.....Dick actually was originally quite welcoming of Cass. He got along great with her, taught her all sorts of things, did his best to help her adjust.

The time when he wasn’t welcoming specifically, and seemed to take her adoption badly, is like.....directly about the time when Cass’ adoption first came up at all....in a story called Redemption Road.

Make no mistake, Dick very much acted like an ass to Cass there. Oh, even then not without reason, like, his behavior was characterized as him being suspicious due to the fact that Cass had recently been brainwashed into working for Deathstroke and killed again due to his control, and nowhere did Dick express that his issues were with Cass herself but rather that he was worried about taking it for granted that the brainwashing was gone and dealt with. With this particularly juxtaposed against the fact that Good Dad Bruce Wayne was very much on display throughout this story and Bruce was consistently characterized as being fully in Cass’ corner and showing none of his usual paranoia or concerns about something like whether they could trust someone who was recently brainwashed. Thus Dick kinda stepped into that role in the absence of Bruce assuming it as he normally would.

Now, personally, as much as I don’t LIKE how Dick acted towards Cass in that story, I’ve never considered it OOC....as I’ve always headcanoned it as being a bit of a prodigal son situation. In my mind, Dick was either consciously or unconsciously paralleling these circumstances with things like the time when he was brainwashed by the Church of Blood for a year....and he very much did NOT get a free pass on anything he did during that time (despite people promising they did understand it), with ‘decisions he’d made’ during that time frequently being brought up and thrown in his face afterward. 

So my read of that story was always in light of that, and the fact that Bruce was very much removed from Dick’s life at that specific time and was a non-entity in helping Dick recover from all of that......and so I headcanoned that Dick’s attitude towards Cass was at least a little bit influenced by him being resentful of seeing her get the unconditional support and understanding from Bruce that Dick got none of in an EXTREMELY similar situation, and very much could have used at the time. 

(Especially of relevance here IMO is the fact that Dick was very much in Limbo when it came to Bruce at that time, with the Church of Blood storyline happening when he was nineteen and thus no longer Bruce’s ward or legally bound to him in any way, estranged from him in every other way, and it would be years more until he was actually adopted....whereas in Redemption Road, Bruce’s actions were consistently geared towards getting Cass to accept that he didn’t blame her for what she’d done while brainwashed, that he did still very much want her to be part of his family, and here was his offer of adoption if she wanted it, as a result. Like....it was beat for beat EXACTLY what I imagined Dick wanted to happen in his own parallel circumstances back then, dreamed of happening, but very much DIDN’T happen...and here he was watching it happen with no acknowledgment whatsoever of when he experienced no similar drive from Bruce to show that he was understood, forgiven and wanted, at a time when he desperately wanted and needed all of that).

And thus Dick was acting and behaving towards Cass here in much the same manner as everyone had treated him when it was him in that position....with this not being hypocritical so much as him internalizing the idea that SOMEONE had to express this skepticism/judgment towards Cass here, in order for Dick to not raise long-dead and buried resentments of how all his friends and loved ones expressed that very same attitude towards him when it was him in this place. In order to be okay with that, he had to kinda internalize the idea that their behavior was valid and necessary and earned....which in turn made him internalize that it was valid and necessary and earned that someone express that behavior here and now.

BUT its not remotely in Dick’s nature to make excuses for his own behavior, or to cut himself slack....so its perfectly in character in my opinion for him to express the sentiments he’s expressing to Cass in that example. To focus SOLELY on his poor behavior and make the time when he wasn’t welcoming to her stand as if it was the entirety of their history together...when it wasn’t. At all. It was one small slice of their history, with a very specific context, that Dick certainly wasn’t about to bring up.....and that no one else brought up either, and thus it might as well not have existed.

So if I were writing that story, personally, I wouldn’t necessarily have done anything differently in characterizing Dick. I might have even had him say those exact same things to her about how he hadn’t been welcoming to her and had an issue with her adoption at that specific time.

BUT.....I would have contextualized this as being unreliable narration on his part, and used OTHERS, or even just him having other conversations elsewhere, to provide the context that I felt was necessary to explain WHY he’d acted the way he had, even without Dick himself offering that mindset up as an excuse.

Like, and there’s so many ways to contextualize that scene. You could have Cass herself push back against the idea that he was just wholly unwelcoming to her, and express that he had been really great at first and she’d really appreciated that, or even frame it as her expressing confusion as to WHY he’d acted that way towards her later, when he’d been so much more open with her before.

Or you could have Dick have conversations about that with others in his life, even in the form of making further self-recriminations against his behavior, like, getting down on himself for being such an ass to her there.....BUT using friends who knew him well to push back against the idea that this is just who he is rather than it being born of specific circumstances and his own issues....like maybe him talking about this with Roy or Kori and them raising the possibility “hey, I know this is a sore spot, but do you think that maybe the reason you reacted so badly to Cass there was because it brought up a lot of old stuff about that time you were brainwashed for a year?” Dick wouldn’t even have to agree with their assessment in the end, but it being raised as a possibility at ALL would at least allow readers to enter that context into their own interpretation of his actions and behavior and decide for themselves whether it played a role.

Or you could have Dick have a conversation with Bruce about it, with maybe even Bruce being the one to say, I’m a little surprised how harsh you were with Cass, as it doesn’t seem like you....and with this opening the door to Dick finally airing some long pent-up grievances in the form of him maybe only then just realizing himself that y’know what, it ISN’T like me, and now that I think about it its because it had nothing to do with Cass really, and it was more about me reacting off of how you were acting with her....and dealing/not dealing with the reality that it was exactly what I’d always wanted to see and hear from you back then, but you were nowhere to be found, and you certainly weren’t stepping in to protect me from people giving me crap for my brainwashed actions or expressing doubt about my trustworthiness/capabilities the way you were stepping into protect Cass from me expressing doubt about her trustworthiness, etc.

See what I mean? SO many possibilities there, all of which provide so much more meat and context to that particular story than Dick just being a douche to Cass because generic daddy issues or whatever.

But you gotta actually DRAW those connections in a story you’re writing, to go alongside the unreliable narration you’re having color Dick’s view of his own actions or behavior.....or else, those connections just flat out aren’t going to exist for most readers to be aware of or factor in to provide CONTEXT to Dick’s unreliable narration.

[megashadowdragon]

It has been called many things- the unwalkable disease, gutta (drop), podagra, arthritis of the rich, and the disease of kings (which sounded suitably dramatic for a title).

But we more commonly call it gout.

Doran Martell suffers from an advanced stage of gout, perhaps even exaggerated, since he has had his movement restricted to such a degree that nearly all motion is difficult without severe pain. (I'm not a doctor so, I can't say for certain)

Gout as a Facet of Doran's Character

We know that Doran is in constant pain, that it prevents sleep, and he finds no hope in medical treatment curing his disease.

The prince turned his chair laboriously to face her. Though he was but two-and-fifty, Doran Martell seemed much older. His body was soft and shapeless beneath his linen robes, and his legs were hard to look upon. The gout had swollen and reddened his joints grotesquely; his left knee was an apple, his right a melon, and his toes had turned to dark red grapes, so ripe it seemed as though a touch would burst them. Even the weight of a coverlet could make him shudder, though he bore the pain without complaint.

For comparison here is a testimony from a patient with gout in a single leg:

"The patient goes to bed and sleeps quietly until about two in the morning when he is awakened by a pain which usually seizes the great toe, but sometimes the heel, the calf of the leg or the ankle. The pain resembles that of a dislocated bone ... and this is immediately succeeded by a chillness, shivering and a slight fever ... the pain ..., which is mild in the beginning ..., grows gradually more violent every hour ... so exquisitely painful as not to endure the weight of the clothes nor the shaking of the room from a person walking briskly therein."

That is what Doran endures each day, constantly. Even the weight of a sheet would make the man shudder.

It is no wonder to me that he loves watching the little children splash and laugh and play in the Water Gardens. I imagine each glance must be bittersweet- imaging a time when he could run and splash with the other children, or watching Oberyn and Elia do the same. Knowing that now, his mobility, his autonomy has been taken from him, just as his siblings have been taken, leaving him unable to move, and unable to act.

Doran must be quite aware of how the children view him, and he takes special care to put them at ease, even at his own increased pain.

Then nought would do but he must say farewell to several of the children who had become especial favorites... Doran kept a splendid Myrish blanket over his legs as he spoke with them, to spare the young ones the sight of his swollen, bandaged joints

That splendid Myrish blanket sounds heavy with adornment (or even fabric) knowing that even a light coverlet's pressure pained him before this must be agony. It is my opinion that this blanket is as much for Prince Doran as it is for the children. He invites many children to the Water Gardens, a virtual safe haven free from class differences, a near oasis, the Prince entertains them, and it seems he must speak with them and come to know many of them. So much so, that he must say good bye.

Prince Doran carefully guards his image, this is part of the reason they left Sunspear nearly two years ago- he was getting sicker and needed to retreat from the whispers that filled the Shadow City. In the Water Garden's he is better able to project strength and wellness- his people clearly are unaware of how far his gout has progressed.

That this performance also extends to the children speaks to some form of painful self awareness on Doran's part- he doesn't want to expose his legs and upset them. I think he also doesn't want to see the children's faces and face their questions if they saw his legs.

Mobility and Autonomy

Something as simple as walking, is a thing we often take for granted. Doran can't get up to pour a glass of water, he needs help sitting up each day, he cannot support his weight enough to stand. It's paralyzing, it shrinks your perspective down to minute motions where every move is weighed by how much pain it will cause.

I think we can see this same restriction in his political moves as well- a painful reflection of his limited physical autonomy.

Hotah slid his longaxe into its sling across his back and gathered the prince into his arms, tenderly so as not to jar his swollen joints. Even so, Doran Martell bit back a gasp of pain... Hotah bore him up the long stone steps of the Tower of the Sun, to the great round chamber beneath the dome

The Prince of Dorne had to be carried from his seat, in the arms of his guard, up the steps of a tower to his bedroom. For a man in such a medieval martial society, that frames its conceptions of strength over acts of physical strength and war, which scorns physical disability, this must be a humiliating experience.

A Thimble of Poppy

It's after this day of bad news, of constant increasing pain, that we finally see a true crack in Doran Martell's armor. First the letter, which brought news of his brother's death, then his nieces repeated threats and calls for war (Obara, Nymeria, and Tyene), and humiliation from each we see him ask for a thimble of milk of the poppy. I'm not certain why, but these words (even after watching Maester Caelotte worry over possible poisoning) were very sad to read.

Doran has reached a wall, a point where he doesn't care anymore about keeping a clear head and frame of mind. He just wants relief, that constant spike in every joint, to be muted and fade to the background for a while.

Treatment

It seems that his gout has grown quite worse in the last few years:

Two years ago, when they had left Sunspear for the peace and isolation of the Water Gardens, Prince Doran’s gout had not been half so bad. In those days he had still walked, albeit slowly, leaning on a stick and grimacing with every step

Although gout has been treated in our own history for more than 2,000 years, it does not appear that the more advanced medicine of westeros (compared to our medieval history) has developed even basic treatments.

Since the time of Hippocrates we have known that gout was linked to lifestyle, and since Galen we've known that there are genetic factors associated with its development. For both of these periods gout was treated with a flower called the Autumn crocus- a powerful purgative (colchicine) was derived from it.

Strangely, there doesn't appear to be much help for it in westeros.

Maester Caleotte remained behind. “My prince?” the little round man asked. “Do your legs hurt?” The prince smiled faintly. “Is the sun hot?” “Shall I fetch a draught for the pain?” “No. I need my wits about me

In my opinion, this implies that the treatment automatically given is milk of the poppy. A pain reliever which would impair Doran's judgement- and milk of the poppy seems to fit (barring a more specific remedy we haven't heard of).

We also have reference to:

the maester helped Doran Martell to bathe and bandaged up his swollen joints in linen wraps soaked with soothing lotions

Although, I don't expect Hotah to be knowledgeable about the exact methods the maester uses to treat Doran- Hotah is in the third best position to know how the Prince is being treated (after Maester Caelotte, and Doran himself).

Lifestyle

Doran does not appear to have been given treatment options regarding his lifestyle.

A serving man brought him a bowl of purple olives, with flatbread, cheese, and chickpea paste. He ate a bit of it, and drank a cup of the sweet, heavy strongwine that he loved. When it was empty, he filled it once again.

This is, perhaps, the worst dinner Doran could have eaten in regards to his gout. Yet, it also is terribly mundane (by which I mean- likely a meal consumed regularly and not an indulgence). It is a staple meal- flatbread, cheese, and hummus. Simple, and certainly not King's Landing fare. But it is loaded with sugar, salt, and alcohol. All things which make gout worse- much worse.

We have another example:

He had decided to break his fast before he went, with a blood orange and a plate of gull’s eggs diced with bits of ham and fiery peppers

This is just as bad- sugar and meat- another food which exasperates his condition. One of the first lifestyle changes used as treatment was the elimination of alcohol, sweet foods from the diet.

It doesn't appear that Doran is remaining sick with gout to raise his popularity (as it was in our own history)

Gout (Everyone's Doing it These Days)

"The common cold is well named – but the gout seems instantly to raise the patient's social status", and to another in Punch in 1964, "In keeping with the spirit of more democratic times, gout is becoming less upper-class and is now open to all ... It is ridiculous that a man should be barred from enjoying gout because he went to the wrong school."

Nor does it appear that the gout is being used to ward off other more serious diseases (the gout seems extremely concerning)

In earlier times, attacks of gout were also seen as a prophylactic against more serious diseases. According to the writer Horace Walpole, gout "prevents other illnesses and prolongs life ... could I cure that gout, should not I have a fever, a palsy, or an apoplexy?"

My Takeaway:

I took a course on the intersection of disease, medicine, and history a while ago as a fun class- after reading this chapter again (Hotah I AFFC) I don't find him boring or lackluster anymore. If anything, Doran is incredibly human, and extremely relatable once you break him down.

He lives very much inside his own mind, I imagine wherever he is, Doran is always in the Water Garden's in his own head, seeing himself, Elia, and Oberyn shouting and splashing, as they were never able in childhood.

(Note: This is all said in the context of this one chapter, I haven't reread the next in the Dorne storyline yet.)

comments : I am not a medical student, so probably take my words with a grain of salt. Based on the source I listed below, it’s very universally known that sweets, alcohol, and meat (even sugar from fruit) exacerbate gout. The “drops” (Uric acid that builds into crystals in joints) is worsened by large amounts of sugar. (Like in the strongwine that Doran enjoys)Cherries do have sugar, not as much as other fruit, but I think they might have been referring to a combination of cherries and allopurinol which is used to reduce the amount of uric acid.Some older treatments of gout (that originated in the 19th c) basically attempted to purge the body of uric acid through urine. To my knowledge they use other methods today, but it must have been at least mildly effective (I remember reading about negative effects of such purgative treatment- so I’m not entirely sure).

[nerdylittleshit]

Thoughts about Spn 14x13 AKA EPISODE 300!!!!!

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!

I HAVE A LOT OF EMOTIONS! This episode was really something truly special. Admittedly I’m not the biggest fan of John Winchester and I wasn’t looking forward to his return. But man, I really loved how they pulled this of. It was really close to perfect. It was a big character piece and very  self-referential. But whereas the 200th episode (“Fan Fiktion”) was a love letter to the show and the fans, this felt like a closing chapter, going back to the start, letting go and finding closure. And of course the show ain’t over yet, but it addressed by now its two original wounds, Mary’s death and John’s absence, to let Sam and Dean truthfully move forward. It answered some question and shed a light on a few unanswered questions as well. And I feel by now the show has come full circle in so many ways, so when it eventually will end, and they give us episodes like this, it will be a great end.

But, as always, let’s take a closer look.

Lebanon

Despite the fact that the Winchesters live in Lebanon since season 8 we haven’t really seen much of the city. I wish we would have seen an entire episode from the town’s perspective, but I’m glad with what we saw here so far. The Winchesters, whose family business is to track down Urban Legends have become a Urban Legend in their town by now. We see them interact with the people in town, they are familiar, and this warms my heart. Because again it brings us back to the original concept of the show, a road movie every week. And while this element is still present they also have a home now, a place they can return to, people who know them.

I also love that they go by the name Campbell in town, Mary’s maiden name. Of course the Winchester brothers are officially dead (more than one time), but it also connects them more with Mary. The show started with them known as John’s sons, but they are their own men now (more about this later), and they also acknowledge Mary’s side of the family through that.

The three teenagers can be interpreted as tem free will mirrors, with Max, the girl who loves plaid and classic cars, as a Dean mirror who falls for a brunette. Make of that what you will.

I love that the little case of the week included John Wayne Gacy, representing both Sam’s worst fear (clowns) and his special interest (serial killers). Just like Dean gets his biggest wish granted but there is a downside to it as well.

I also love that we learn that to heaven Lebanon is ‘muddy’, that there is some sort of interference, probably because of all the warding in the bunker.

Finally, the title of the episode doesn’t seem to make much sense at first. Of course the episode takes place in Lebanon (but so did many others) and we get to see more of the town and its inhabitants and how Dean’s wish affects them. But this episode is about family at its core (just like the show is). The family is the centre of every home, of Dean’s heart, just as Lebanon is the geographical centre of the US.  

What your heart desires

Of course the plot of this episode is a bit constructed. All of sudden Dean gets a magical pearl that grants him his biggest wish, what his heart desires. But it doesn’t really matter how we get there, but more what it tells us about Dean and what happens next. For one we see that what Dean thinks is his biggest wish is different from what his heart truly desires. We are the most unreliable narrators of our own stories. Second, as typical for this trope, be careful what you wish for. Sam knows this, so his immediate reaction is to think about the consequences of their actions. Because they learned the hard way that nothing in life is for free and you always have to pay the prize.

So, let’s take a look at what actually happens. Den wishes for his father and they summon John from the year 2003. Therefore dad goes missing two years earlier than in their original timeline (and will likely never return). As a consequence Sam and Dean are not reunited; Dean still hunts whereas Sam becomes a TED-Talk giving whatever. Sam never dies, Dean never makes a deal and goes to hell, Cas never rescues him and remains a loyal servant of heaven. The apocalypse never starts. Mary never returns.

We can debate how much of that would have actually happen like that. My biggest complaint is probably Sam. I just don’t see him becoming this person who totally distances himself from the entire concept of family. I mean he still would have met Jess, fall in love with her, propose to her. And it is still possible Yellow Eyes ordered to kill her to get Sam back in the life, to prepare him to become Lucifer’s vessel. Did Jess still die but Dean wasn’t around so instead of hunting Sam dedicated his life to his new career?

And is it possible Zachariah, just as the Winchesters, still remembered the original timeline? He says to Cas “You wouldn’t [understand that reference”, implying the original Cas would have. He notices the interference of time and says Sam and Dean were supposed to play a role in the apocalypse. Either way, by now Sam, Dean and Jack have killed all a version of Zachariah (Dean the original one, Sam this new one and Jack the one in the AU). It’s a family thing.

And even though they killed Zachariah they don’t kill Cas, despite this new Cas trying to kill Cas, because I don’t think they could have. In the end though it is not (or not entirely) the change in Cas that makes them realize that John has to return to his timeline, but the prospect that with John staying Mary will fade away. John choose her life over his own, saying it is no real choice. I do wonder if this is foretelling in some way, that one character will choose another one’s life over their own, perhaps even in a romantic context.

The first conversation we see is that between Sam and his father. It seemed to me that Sam didn’t really wanted to be alone with his father (he immediately asked where Mary is) and that he was unsure what to do and what to say. Sam and John parted with so many things unspoken, with a huge fight shortly before John died, and Sam blamed himself for not making things right. What I loved is that John is aware that he messed things up, that he wasn’t the best father, and that he apologizes. It means a lot. But it is also interesting to see Sam’s reaction: he forgives his father, and in doing so he forgives himself. Sam truly lets go of the past, of his complicated relationship with his father, of the guilt he felt regarding his father’s death. Sam forgiving John wasn’t just for giving John peace, but to give himself peace as well. Forgiveness isn’t about whether someone deserves our forgiveness or not; it is about our own ability to let go, to find peace, to heal.

Interesting despite the fact that it was Dean’s wish I thought Sam needed this sort of closure much more, more than he even realized. Dean seems more confident facing his father, like he already made his peace and needed this final conversation to close this chapter of his life. John tells Dean that he was proud of him. Back in 1x22 it was because John told him the exact same thing that Dean got suspicious and realized that his father was possessed. Dean needed to hear this (I needed to her this because this scene always makes me very emotional for personal reasons). John also says that he had wished for his son to get a normal life, once their mission of killing Yellow Eyes was completed. This is surprising as John throw out Sam for wanting to live a normal life. And it brings us back to a very old theme of the show: Dean vs the apple pie life.For as much Dean denied in earlier seasons to want a normal life we this is not true, but neither the hunting life or the normal apple pie life with Lisa and Ben had made him completely happy. Now though he has the best of both worlds: he still hunts, he still does in his eyes do something meaningful, but he also has a home, has a family, and he tells his father exactly this. It might not be a family in the traditional sense (that we then see at the family dinner) but it is a family all the same. However it made sense to me that neither Cas or Jack were present for the family diner, as this episode was so much about going back to the beginning, so it was about the core family that started this show.

In a later conversation with Sam we see how much Dean has grown, how mature he acts. Even though the idea of sending their father back with the full knowledge of what will happen (giving him peace but also risking he will change the past) is tempting, Dean doesn’t really think about it. He knows that if it wasn’t for them some other people might had to save the world, might have been given their burden. He acknowledges that his life has been hard, has been painful, that both his parents are partly to blame for it. But he wouldn’t have it any other way. Because his life made him who he is, his choices made him who he is, and that is the Dean he is at peace with, the Dean he wants to be, the one who sacrificed so much because he couldn’t live with himself if he wouldn’t. Dean acknowledges that their lives are theirs, that they are their own man now, writing their own stories. In a show that deals so much with losses of agency, with the concept of fate vs free will (especially again in this season), this means a lot.

When the time arrives to say goodbye John once again tells his sons that he is proud of them, and that he loves them. Dean returns the “I love you”. After Mary and Sam this is the third time he tells someone he loves them, and it leaves some space because there is yet one person left that he hasn’t told yet he loves him (I’m talking about Cas of course). And while, as I explained, it made sense that Cas wasn’t around for the family diner, it also made sense he was there at the end. Because he is part of Dean’s family, and mirrors what John was to Mary (also, any bets on what John and Mary did in their alone time when Sam and Dean were out grocery shopping?).

John won’t remember what he learned about the future, though it would have given him some peace to see what would become of his sons and that Mary would return to life. It is nice though that at least he remembers some things as a dream, which made gave him shortly some comfort. But in the end this wasn’t so much about John, but about Sam and Dean. It is different than Mary’s return. It plays with the idea to have one final conversation with a loved one you lost, to find a chance to say goodbye, to find some peace and closure with it. To let them know that you are ok after all, to look back at your own life and find peace with who you are.

So much about this episode was going back to the start, to show how they have come, how they changed. Much of it felt like an ending. Episodes like this make me positive than when this show will eventually end they will do it in a satisfying way. They know their characters and their stories so well by now, that so much about the last seasons doesn’t feel like stretching the story out but rather coming full circle. The show is becoming its own epos.

And finally huge respect for all the acting this episode, but especially Jared and Jensen’s performances, who brought me to tears. To everyone who works on this show, before or behind the camera, who gives their best every week: thank you.

[bobbiamorse]

lance hunter deserved better

A response to a series of arguments in the fandom of why Lance Hunter is a bad character, as well as some other things I want to get off my chest, because I’ve seen a lot of Lance Hunter hate and my sunshine child deserves better.

His trauma is ignored. I’m going to put a disclaimer here that a lot of characters’ traumas are ignored, because that’s not something AoS does particularly well, but the point still stands. In the matter of 24 hours, Hunter has to cut off his best friend’s arm, witness the deaths of two of his closest friends, and then be kidnapped by the United States government. All of this is happening to a character who already has a pretty good chance of having PTSD, given his background, but that could be a whole other post. This is bad enough, but later in the show, he’s then expected to work with the man who killed his friends!? Creel was brainwashed by HYDRA, yes, but it was still his body who did those things and having to reconcile that with the person he works with would put a huge mental strain on Hunter. The other members of the team had to do this as well, with Ward, but it was acknowledged that Ward was a horrible person who did horrible things to them, in a way that Creel’s actions against Hartley and Idaho never were.

He’s treated as expendable by all of his team members. I’m not going to say that Hunter shooting at his team members to take down Creel was the right thing to do. I will offer that it is a very human response to what he went through, and the lack of support he received after. Revenge is a strong motivator. Hunter shooting his team members with ICERs was wrong. But, he did apologize for it, several times. The only time he’s said to be “even” with May is when she shoots him... with a real bullet. ICERs are designed to be non-lethal, but if you are shooting at someone or something with a real bullet, you are prepared to kill it. The only reason he wasn’t injured more seriously is because he was wearing a bulletproof vest. Granted, this was to keep Hunter from shooting Jemma, but as far as Hunter was concerned, he was shooting at  HYDRA agent, as he had been instructed to do. To add insult to injury, Trip said “[he] wanted to be the one” to shoot Hunter. I don’t care how annoying someone is, joking about shooting someone who is on your side is, frankly, sickening. 

Argument: Lance only stayed at S.H.I.E.L.D. because of Bobbi. It’s true that Lance told Bobbi that he was thinking about leaving S.H.I.E.L.D., and that permanence wasn’t his thing. However, that’s the first time that we’ve heard him mention anything of the sort; before this conversation, it was assumed that he was going to stay. The only reason he gives other than that is telling Bobbi “S.H.I.E.L.D. was always your thing” which does nothing to tell us about how he feels about S.H.I.E.L.D., except for that he’s seen it as Bobbi’s domain for a long time. If anything, I would say him giving her that out of sorts is a responsible, healthy thing to do. It gives them both the chance to choose to be coworkers instead of being tossed into it. Even if he was in S.H.I.E.L.D. only for Bobbi - May said in the first season she was only there for Phil. Why is Lance held to a different standard?

His skill set is ignored. This is more a complaint with fanon than canon, but Hunter is not a useless team member. He’s not S.H.I.E.L.D. trained like the other team members, but that doesn’t mean anything as far as usefulness; in fact, if anything, it gives him a unique advantage, since he has a different perspective on issues than the agents might. I don’t know if any of you have looked at what is required of the SAS recruits, but suffice to say, it’s a lot. An equivalent to the SAS that you may be more familiar with is the Navy SEALs. Talbot is impressed with Hunter’s record when they take the helicopter ride together. A Brigadier General is impressed with Hunter’s record! In addition to his SAS skills, Lance has also been shown to be able to tell when Bobbi, a trained S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, is lying to him, indicating his skill set is even broader.

He’s held to impossible double standards. Going after Ward, Hunter was told to do whatever he had to in order to make Ward dead (“Don’t die out there.” / “And Hunter? Make sure he does.”). I’m not entirely certain why May and Coulson thought that Ward would have just let Andrew go if Hunter hadn’t shot at him, but suffice to say: Ward probably would not have let Andrew go. May wanting to protect Andrew, her ex-husband, is somehow seen as different than Hunter wanting to protect Bobbi, his ex-wife. May gives Hunter a lecture in Parting Shot about how you have to do things for the greater good instead of just for yourself and the people you care about, and to me, that is about as close to her saying ‘you were right to have shot at Ward’ that she could’ve gotten... yet it’s spun the exact opposite way, like Hunter was wrong to have shot at Ward, the antagonist for the last two seasons! 

Argument: Hunter only cares about himself. I’m not entirely sure where this idea comes from. There are about a hundred instances in the show that I could point out to refute this, but I feel like the most telling one is in Parting Shot. Hunter told May that he would gladly take a bullet for any of his teammates, and later that episode, he proved it. I feel like this is glossed over, but Hunter thought he was going to be sent in front of a firing squad. Both he and Bobbi thought that he was going to die. They have a conversation about this when they were put together in the interrogation room. And he still did not give up S.H.I.E.L.D. I don’t understand how you could say that Hunter, who would have died for his friends, only cares about himself. 

He sacrificed his own safety and freedom to help Fitz. This post is a great list of all of the things Hunter did to help Fitz in Rewind, but I feel like it demands repeating. Hunter, one half of Marvel’s Most Wanted (note the “most wanted”!), decided that he would go to a high-security prison and break out his friend with minimal backup and a plan that depended on ferrets. This takes some serious guts, as well as some serious love for his friend, and I feel like that is the epitome of Lance Hunter. He does stupid things sometimes, but he goes balls to the walls for the people he cares about, and doesn’t stop until he gets them what they need. 

[miasmusiings]

An important thing to note when it comes to writing with my Phil Coulson.

Under the cut there are spoilers for Season 3 of Agents of SHIELD, and mentions of a character death. There’s also a lot of talk about why I disregard certain aspects of canon/why I don’t like it. I do not dislike Agents of SHIELD or the MCU by any means, but Phil Coulson is a character I feel very passionately about.

I have loved Phil Coulson since 2010. I wrote him a long time ago, back in 2012, just prior to The Avengers coming out, so I’ve had an idea of who Phil is as a character for the last 5 years, almost. That’s a long ass time to be thinking about a character from a writer’s perspective. If it wasn’t for my OC Mel, he would probably the oldest character on my damn blog, in terms of the time that he’s been with me. 

Now, I put off watching Agents of SHIELD for a while. It’s only within the last year that I finally got around to watching it, and now I’m at the point of Season 5 and I can’t bring myself to finish it. While that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with what I’m about to say, it should tell you that my knowledge of AOS is fairly recent. I started watching it roughly in April/May 2018, and then I had to wait till the summer for the Season 4 DVD to come out. I think got the Season 5 DVD when that came out too, and I’m about halfway through it now.

In the following inevitable essay, I’m going to be explaining to you why I think the show canon does not follow what was canon for Phil in the movies, and why Phil’s killing of Grant Ward is not incorporated into my canon. 

I am of the opinion that Phil Coulson’s character was changed by the alien blood in him. We see it in obvious ways in the TV show, but I also believe that it changed his character in subtle ways. 

We know that Phil Coulson was trained at the Communications Academy in SHIELD. Based on Phil’s behaviour, compared to other agents, I’m going to be explaining some theories I have about the Communications Academy compared to the others.

We know from the short “A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Thor’s Hammer” that Phil is more than capable of defending himself without using lethal force. I would also ascertain that it’s perhaps a preference of his not to use lethal force. He could have shot either of those men, with his gun or their own. The only shooting done was by one of the men, when he went to shoot Phil and ended up shooting himself in the foot. 

From what I remember of 4x14, Phil only went to that Russian mine for the purpose of speaking to the people there. It was May who did a lot of the fighting (please correct me if I am wrong). I would say that the Communications Academy trained your standard field agents. The ones who go out in the world and communicate with people, whether it be to seize things that are considered contraband/too dangerous to leave with them, or to ask them questions. These agents are still trained to be able to defend themselves, but without quite as much of a focus on that. When and where possible, they are to leave their targets alive, and use words to get what they want. When that fails is when the Specialists get called in.

From the first Iron Man film, all the way up to the Avengers, what is the key thing we see Phil Coulson do?? Talk to people!! The only instance we see Phil Coulson need to resort to violence is during that attempted robbery in New Mexico, and that was only out of need to protect himself and the woman working at the store. The violence was enough to keep the men apprehended until the police could get there to arrest them, when he then went on his merry way, and returned to his job of communicating with people. 

Why am I saying all this when I’m going to be talking about that Season 3?? Because this highlights my point. When there is a way to do something without a casualty, Phil will do it. At the Specialist Academy, people are taught to make the hard choice. The one people wouldn’t want to make. At the Communications Academy, people are taught to make the humane choice. Movie Phil wouldn’t have returned Grant Ward to his abusive brother. He’s aware of the way that Grant was treated, and the fact that Grant was just as abused by John Garrett. That decision was not Phil Coulson. When I write Phil, I write it that it was instead a deal with Talbot to give Grant over, who in turn gave Grant to his brother.

This then brings me to Maveth.

Phil didn’t have to kill Grant on Maveth. He could have easily gotten lost and ended up stuck there on his own. That is why I also disregard Phil intentionally killing Grant. If I actually write him in a verse that he did kill Grant, I write it more as an accident, instead of a conscious choice, because Phil Coulson would make the choice that doesn’t end with a casualty, no matter what that person’s relation to him was. He is Humanity’s Shield. That means protecting everyone, even those who do bad shit.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you have anything you’d like to add, or don’t understand something, feel free to send me an instant message, where I’ll be happy to clear it up for you.

[didanawisgi]

Toting the Gat: Black Women and Gun Culture

​“For the Black female, the solution is not to become less aggressive, not to lay down the gun, but to learn how to set the sights correctly, aim accurately, squeeze rather than jerk and be overcome by the damage.”

                                                           --Angela Davis

​The first gun I recall seeing was in my grandmother’s house in Tennessee. My father was checking out her .38 BB gun; however, he was having difficulty cocking it. Granny shook her head, walked right over to her son-in-law, and carefully took the weapon from his hands. “It’s like this, Greg,” she instructed, and then cocked it with a finesse that impressed my then 12 year old self. When my mother asked her if she still kept guns in the house, she responded unapologetically, “Of course we do. This is Tennessee, honey. We still got Klan around here.” Years earlier, it was Otha Collins, my father’s mother, who would bestow upon him his first pistol: she also owned a sawed off double barrel shotgun in her Chicago home. Granny Ruth and Granny Otha, both born and raised in Mississippi, were women of the South—resilient, no-nonsense, and, like many other Black women of their time, owned guns for the utilization of self-defense.

​There is a complex history between Black women and gun ownership in America; such history is inextricably linked with questions concerning agency and whether or not Black women have the right to defend themselves against toxic masculinity and white supremacist actions of the state. It is reported that Black women who are murdered by men are almost always killed with a gun, and most likely be someone that they know, particularly in domestic violence disputes. In 2015, 15 Black women were killed by the police, a counter-narrative made possible by the organizing efforts of Black queer women in the Black Lives Matter movement. As there is a history of abuses against Black women inter-personally and by the state, it is important to state that Black women have always been resilient against violence—and the obtainment of weaponry, from Emancipation to hip-hop, was a symbolic gesture of bodily autonomy and dedication to survival.

​It is white men who are historically celebrated in the American imagination as brave and charismatic gun-slingers. Westerners portray white men as heroic purveyors of new territory, with a shot gun in hand. The glaring differences of how white male gun ownership is perceived in comparison to those who are Black reflects deep-seated racism, stemming back to the era of slavery. “Django, Shaft, and a few other Black action figures notwithstanding, most glamorized gunmen are white. For Americans, the notion of Black people carrying guns conjures fear rather than admiration or nostalgia,” says writer Charles Cobbs. Due to the history of slavery, Black folks with firearms (and Black women in particular) were seen as especially dangerous, capable of inciting masse uprisings during enslavement and upsetting the power dynamics of Jim Crow.

In the South, it wasn’t uncommon for a number of Black women to easily obtain weapons, as “the South’s powerful gun culture and weak gun control laws enabled Black people to acquire and keep weapons and ammunition with relative ease.”  “It was common knowledge in Sunflower County, Mississippi, that Lou Ella Townsend, the mother of famed civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer, could be dangerous if pushed too hard,” Cobbs continues. “Walking out into the cotton fields to work, Mrs. Townsend would put a pan on her head and carry a bucket in each hand. One of them was always covered by a cloth and in that bucket there was always a 9mm Luger pistol. Once, when a plantation overseer hit her youngest son in the face, she warned him not to do it again. Laughing, perhaps as much in disbelief that she could or would do anything to stop him, the overseer grabbed Townsend, spun her around, and raised him arm to strike her. She caught his arm and forced him to the ground. When she let him up, he fled; he never bothered her children again.” Older Black women didn’t hesitate to use firepower as an aid in exercising their rights. Cobbs adds that, “A story Stokely Carmichael liked to tell was of bringing an elderly woman to vote in Lowndes Country, Alabama: ‘She had to be 80 years old and going to vote for the first time in her life. . . . That ol’ lady came up to us, went into her bag, and produced this enormous, rusty Civil War-looking old pistol. ‘Best you hol’ this for me, son. I’ma go cast my vote now.’”

​If Black women’s possessions of weaponry made whites uncomfortable in Reconstruction and the Civil Rights eras, it downright frightened them in the Black power period.  No longer were activists keeping it low-key that they exercised their right to self-defense against state terrorism. While there were many phallocentric theories by men of the Black Power movement concerning weapons, it was personally gendered for women in the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army.  “By wielding guns, revolutionary women of the 1960s and 1970s claimed full citizenship,” writes Laura Browder. “And yet, they sought to change, and in some cases worked actively to dismantle, the nation. The gun came to be both a badge of citizenship and a symbol for dismantling an oppressive state.” In the 1970s, as Blaxploitation cinema emerged, Pam Grier, Tamara Dobson (Cleopatra Jones), and Jeannie Bell followed the example of Black Panther women in film by playing autonomous, radical lead characters who could aim, shoot, and fire at their assailants.

A number of Black women in hip-hop culture also frequently weaved gun talk into their lyrics, as a stance against gender imbalance in the genre and a defiant act against sexism. Lil’ Kim in “All about the Benjamins”: “And I kick shit like a nigga do/Pull the trigger too/Fuck you”, and Foxy Brown’s verse “Might breeze through Prada, Chloe, or Tiff’s/ Other than that, it’s just me and my 6”, were most notable in spitting bars that alluded to an embrace of self-preservation. Perhaps most poignant is Eve, whose record, “Love is Blind” chronicles the killing of an abusive male partner who is responsible for her friend’s death:

“And before you had a chance to get up

You heard my gun cock

Prayin' to me now, I ain't God but I'll pretend

I ain't start your life but nigga I'ma bring it to an end

And I did, clear shots and no regrets, never

Cops comin' lock me under the jail

Nigga whatever my bitch, fuck it my sister

You could never figure out even if I let you live

What our love was all about.”

​While there is a rich history of Black women utilizing weapons for self-defense, such acts of self-agency are increasingly met with push back by the state. In 2010, Marissa Alexander, a mother of three in Florida, fired a warning shot into a wall to ward off her abusive ex-husband, who had a history of being abusive, threatening to kill her. Two years later, she was sentenced to 20 years in prison on a murder charge. The court’s refusal to evoke the “Stand Your Ground” law in Alexander’s case sends the message that Black women are not supposed to fight for their survival, and to do so means that they will surely be punished. “If you do everything to get on the right side of the law, and the law does not apply to you, where do you go from there?” Alexander stated.

​While it has been a year since Alexander’s release (due to a retrial), her case is not unusual. Eisha Love, a Black transgender woman, was criminalized for defending herself against transphobic attacks and booked on aggravated assault, despite her assailants taunting her into an altercation in 2014. Cherelle Baldwin, another Black mother, was convicted of murder after she was attacked by her ex-boyfriend in her home in 2013. Baldwin tried to flee from her home, but her boyfriend came after her, and attempted to choke her with a belt. When she tried to escape the car, it rolled over her leg, and ended up crushing her ex-boyfriend. While the state is unable to provide for the safety of Black women, they also penalize them for enacting any type of method for survival. (Left: Marissa Alexander)

Understanding the history of guns in America from the perspective of Black women is crucial in understanding what liberation for our community will look like in the future. While firearms do not completely eradicate the threat of white supremacy and misogynoir, they are indisputably a traditional act of defiance for Black women, whom society refuses to grant autonomy. The embrace of firearms by women in the Black community demonstrate a brilliant sense of resilience. By actively working to dismantle the prison system, challenging the penalizing codes of the court systems, and working to end white supremacy and toxic masculinity, only then can the power of the gun in the name of self-defense be fully utilized.

​

Sources:

Amber, Jeannine. “In Her Own Words: Marissa Alexander Tells Her Story”. ESSENCE. 3/04/2015. Accessed 01/25/2016.

Browder, Laura. Her Best Shot: Women and Guns. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.

Cobbs, Charles. This Non-Violent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement. New York: Basic Books, 2014.

Henderson, Tanasha. “Black Domestic Violence Survivors are Criminalized from All Directions”. Truthout. 06/04/2015. Accessed 01/25/2016.

“Black Women Murdered by Men are Most Often Killed with a Gun, Almost Always by Someone They Know, According to New VPC Study Released Each Year for Domestic Violence Awareness Month”. Violence Policy Center. 09/19/2012. Accessed 1/24/2016.

Vincent, Rose Addison.  “State of Emergency for Transgender Women of Color”. Huffington Post.  09/16/2014. Accessed 01/25/2016.

[scheelelillies]

“Steal the Spotlight” by Honeylass ( @honeylass​ ) [Mature] [CH 1 – 23] [word count: 52,604] ★

Features: detective!Deku, quirkless!Deku, angst, childhood trauma

Featured Characters: Midoriya Izuku, Naomasa Tsukauchi, Yagi Toshinori, Midoriya Inko

Plot Summary: Izuku is a quiet, withdrawn and somber nineteen-year-old detective, who is subconsciously annoyed whenever someone brings up that he is “young and quirkless”. He is unwillingly roped into a police / hero initiative to improve occupational public relations. He moves with his mother to the new district to begrudgingly begin the new initiative, hoping more or less to get it “over with” than to actually improve relations.

Izuku shows a lot of signs of childhood trauma: claustrophobia, lack of spirit and hope in his fieldwork, distaste for heroes and for being treated like a child. He heavily relies on his mother for emotional and personal support, meeting up with her, talking with her, and allowing her to be the one person in the world who is allowed to see him in the midst of a mental breakdown / when childhood trauma returns to haunt him. It’s clear she’s been acting as his therapist (though through maternal and not professional means) for a very long time, preventing him from breaking more than he is already broken. Though the police / hero work bothers him, he has some resolve to not run away from his problems anymore – even though they are clearly tearing open old wounds.

Criticism: The introduction of Izuku as a detective does not drag: it’s explored very well situationally rather than descriptively, allowing the narrative to fully flesh out Izuku’s muted personality. His aged!up character is believable. There’s a wonderful balance between police and hero work, in which Izuku and the hero he is paired-up-with-at-the-time have immensely different reactions to the cases they are working on. For example, Izuku will focus on cracking a phone’s passcode, while Toshinori signs an autograph for someone they are trying to get information from. They approach the cases from different perspectives, and these are conveyed amazingly well both in the situation at hand and in conversations between the characters about proper methods. Mental health issues and the childhood trauma are dealt with realistically and exceptionally well, delving into coping mechanisms (said mechanisms not always working, too).

The story flows well and the original arcs are captivating, alternating well between narrative and dialogue. It is not difficult to visualize, but the way the arcs are written leaves the reader continually guessing – and, all-in-all, it is very well-paced. There are a few occasional grammatical and structural flukes, but nowhere near large enough in quantity to derail interest in the story. The writing itself has been improving throughout the chapters, too, and it’s pleasant to see a work used as a learning experience! Looking forward to reading more!

Case Notes are spoiler-heavy, so they are included below this cut.

Case Notes

Case # 01: To his dismay he learns he is to work with his ex-childhood Hero All Might – who calls him “Shounen Detective / Midoriya Shounen” -- on a missing persons case, Tachibana Kana. Izuku sees the joint police / hero work as an irritation because the heroes usually get in the way of his work without meaning to. They track Kana’s last whereabouts to a nightclub called ‘Widow’ (temporarily working with Midnight after the USJ incident). They learn Kana was in love with a club owner, and that another female-only club called the ‘Honey Bee’ was involved. Kana shows up unannounced at the station, but appears to have been coached. Izuku cross-dresses to scope out the Honey Bee, eventually learning that the owner, Juliet Queen, was likely involved in Kana’s kidnapping. He ends up drugged by Juliet’s pheromones, but Toshinori steps in in-time. Izuku has a panic attack and convulses in the car after the arrest, waking up in the hospital from the drug overdose.

Case # 02: Investigation of a suspicious suicide, Ai Mino, and working in a partnership with Kamui Woods. They find a suicide note addressed to her newborn child, citing an abusive quirk marriage as a major reason why she 1) killed her husband Mao, and 2) committed suicide, but Izuku knows that Mino died before Mao was killed. He speaks with the nanny, Amare Grant. A thorough investigation reveals body-swapping / possession quirks, once again resulting in Izuku being attacked. Meanwhile, a suspicious psychologist named “Anna Kane” is nosing about Izuku’s past.

Case # 03: Inko relays the sports festival via a phone to her son, who is still in the hospital. Izuku notices a member of an anti-quirk gang at the festival. Inko tells off the man, but she, Izuku, and several heroes are left to diffuse the bomb. Anna Kane is offered a temporary job at U.A. to give lessons on villain psychology, working hand-in-hand with the Police Liaison.

Case # 04: Izuku is asked to explain the police department to future heroes at U.A. Tsukauchi learns a psychiatrist was found dead along with Izuku’s medical files stolen.  Izuku teaches self-defense to students of 1-A, but the school goes into a lock-down, and Izuku uncovers a plot to render students temporarily quirkless. He finds Katsuki allegedly stabbed by a student, and the attacker knows something about Izuku’s past. Izuku wakes tied up in front of Toshinori and Shouta after Shouta intervened in Izuku’s attack on the student. Izuku is fully hearing voices at this point, but the captured student is revealed to be a spy. The student commits suicide to show that he is a “good boy”, while Izuku implied not to be. Izuku asks Inko to come to the school, shaken by what is going on.Izuku meets with the students of U.A. from time-to-time, including to interview damage left from the USJ incident (he is older than his canon!counterparts in this fanfiction, and he does not have a childhood history with Bakugou Katsuki). Toshinori has realized that Izuku appears “broken” and attempts to investigate it for himself by speaking with Inko – thinking he has probably met the woman before, only to get side-stepped answers and more questions. Toshinori also learns that Tsukauchi chose Izuku for the initiative, as he is young enough to help with trafficking cases and has worked ninety-eight operations before, most of them undercover.

Izuku shows a lot of signs of childhood trauma: claustrophobia, lack of spirit and hope in his fieldwork, distaste for heroes and for being treated like a child. He heavily relies on his mother for emotional and personal support, meeting up with her, talking with her, and allowing her to be the one person in the world who is allowed to see him in the midst of a mental breakdown / when childhood trauma returns to haunt him. It’s clear she’s been acting as his therapist (though through maternal and not professional means) for a very long time, preventing him from breaking more than he is already broken. Though the police / hero work bothers him, he has some resolve to not run away from his problems anymore – even though they are clearly tearing open old wounds.

Hints to keep in mind for the future reveal include:

Izuku’s remembrance of his younger self screaming in the dark: “P-please let me out. Please … please! Please don’t leave me here! I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to die here.” à indicative of captivity and his current claustrophobia; vague mentions of a “box” / dark punishment room as well

the trauma likely occurred between six and eleven years old; Inko hinted he’s needed her presence for eight years, and that his room hasn’t looked like a child’s room since he was six. Hints of Izuku staying in a ward for some time, visiting a psychiatrist between the ages of nine and ten, and that his medical files are sealed. All Might is likely indirectly involved, as he remembers Inko from somewhere and she blames “All Might” for not reaching out to him

he sometimes hallucinates others saying words, as well as blood on his hands

internalized harassment: Izuku talks about his quirk as though it’s a “defect”, and about himself “as a monster”

Izuku has an alternative coping mechanism: a teddy bear

Ame from Case # 02 possesses Izuku, but has a mental breakdown from feeling the trauma inside

other children, including the attacker in Case # 04, have gone through what traumatized Izuku

Izuku falls on the precipice of a breakdown when his emotions slip from his control and when too much attention is focused on him. He tends to find somewhere private to go, and calls his mother for grounding support

[butheresthething]

Waverly’s See It To Be It Moment

I may be turning into a bit of a one trick pony here but, yep, I’m writing about Waverly again. On the other hand, her kiss with Rosita is only incidental to what I’m thinking about so hopefully I’m not just rehashing what others have already said.

There was so much that happened in episode nine. Initially, I had a hard time settling on where to focus. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find the thing that brought me into those weeds I’m so fond of (yes, I’m aware of how that sounds and I’m going with it anyway). But after chatting with other Earpers about the episode and rewatching it, I realized I kept coming back to Waverly’s state of mind. I think there are many valid interpretations of what was going on with Waverly’s in this episode, and I think there’s truth in most. A pretty compelling argument can be made that she was feeling betrayed and blindsided by someone she trusted, or that people are always hardest on the ones they love the most. I certainly believe that confirming she isn’t genetically an Earp threw her and was a big part the choices she made in 209. I think all of it played a part. But, as I thought about it I decided there was yet another thing weighing on Waverly throughout the episode. Waverly isn’t just coming to terms with not being an Earp, she is processing the belief that she might be part revenant (full disclosure, I have yet to be convinced this is true) which I think is particularly terrifying for Waverly. In a theme that compliments Wynonna’s season long struggle with fate vs. choice, she is struggling with ideas of nature vs. nurture that play into all the feelings of inadequacy she had growing up thanks to Ward and Willa (I mean, fuck Willa).

Let’s step back and think about Waverly’s history and what she’s known her whole life. Until her conversations with Bobo at the end of season one, Waverly defined herself as an Earp first and for most. She was the most categorical in her views of the curse and the most excited to take it on. While she seemed to know she had a special relationship with Bobo specifically, there was very little gray for her about whether revenants were good or bad. She spent her whole life listening to what the curse meant and being told that her family were the heroes and revenants were monsters they were meant to hunt (some day I’m going to have a lot to say about Wyatt Earp the “hero”, but that’s likely a conversation for Season 3). Unlike Wynonna, Waverly didn’t have any personal experiences with revenants that would complicate to her view of them beyond Bobo, who she still assessed as a pretty bad dude. She could show mercy or pity them because she’s a kind person, she could be indifferent to the ones that were less dangerous because they weren’t worth her time, but whether they were inherently good or evil was never really a question Waverly grappled with in a serious way. It was something she just took for granted. Remember it was Waverly who thought the obvious thing to do was kill Jonas in episode 7, even before she saw just how awful he was.

Then add to the mix that her mom seemingly abandoned her and her dad and one of her older sisters treated her like an unwelcomed intrusion. To quote Nicole from season one she “spent whole life tailoring who she is to the people she’s with” perhaps looking to earn the approval she never got from her father, and never would after he died. A whole life of trying to be what others wanted and expected her to be, which was often the ray of light and positivity that earned her the title nicest person in Purgatory (I have thoughts on Waverly’s niceness too, for another day). Then she not only finds out she isn’t an Earp, she comes to believe she may actually be part revenant? How does one even process that at all, let alone process it in a healthy way? Her identity was not only taken from her but replaced with a belief that played to all her feelings of being unworthy and proved Willa and Ward right (of course they weren’t, and seriously, fuck Willa. And Ward). If revenants were monsters, and by nature evil, what does that make her? Didn’t Bobo and Goonnoa tell her she had unexplored darkness? Worse than that, if revenants are the “sworn enemies” of the person she loves most, Wynonna, what does that mean for their relationship? Wynonna has repeatedly expressed how amazing she thinks Waverly is, if she’s a revenant will Wynonna see her differently? All of these questions would have been swirling in her head with the anger she felt towards Nicole and everyone who lied to her about being an Earp.

So what does all this have to do with the choices she made in episode 9? Well, my interpretation of Waverly is that she is not as good at dealing with her own negative feelings as she is talking to others about theirs. In other words, Waverly is incredibly empathetic and compassionate to others but is more inconsistent when it comes to doing that for herself. Feeling angry is a lot less scary than the more complicated feelings she must be having about maybe being part revenant on top of not being an Earp. I think Waverly is wrapping all of those feelings into her anger at Nicole and holding on to it tightly, just like Nicole held tight at her identity as a protector when she felt insecure (you can read all about that in what I wrote last week about Nicole & WayHaught).

There is something that Brené Brown says about our instinct to blame that feels relevant here. Brown says that when something bad happens the first thing we look for is who’s at fault, even if we decide it’s our own fault. She says it gives us a sense of control, and of course, right now things feel very out of control for Waverly. Brown goes on to say that blaming people for things that go wrong is the discharging of pain and discomfort, citing research that says it actually has an inverse relationship to accountability. So when people focus on who’s fault it is and who they should be angry at, they aren’t actually doing anything to address the hurt that person caused. We use blame like a shield that allows us to distance ourselves from more difficult conversations and more vulnerable feelings. For Waverly, a conversation like that with Nicole would have been difficult enough. There is no discounting that what Nicole did hurt her and crossed a line. That alone means addressing some really uncomfortable truths. But in her case, the conversation would also lead to a discussion of what they learned from the DNA test, what she believes to be true, how that makes her feel, as well as risking Nicole seeing her the way she’s seeing herself right now. All of which sounds pretty brutal and scary particularly with a person who, at the moment, she is less inclined to trust.

Instead what we see her doing in the first part of episode nine is going out of her way to be, essentially, cruel to Nicole by taking shots at her in front of Dolls and Jeremy. There’s no reason for her to do that. Under normal circumstances her reaction, while understandable, seem almost out of character. People have done things that hurt Waverly before, and I’ll acknowledge it’s different because it’s Nicole, but this feels like a more pointed anger than we’ve ever seen in Waverly. We’ve seen Waverly turn inward when she’s hurt and on occasion express her anger, but we’ve never seen her be intentionally nasty (not that I can remember anyway). Later she shuts down a chance to have that needed conversation with Nicole when they’re at the police station after Beth leaves. This particular interaction might be more because Nicole used the phrase “trust me” when that is exactly the thing Nicole broke in the last episode, but whatever the cause, at this point Waverly is continuing to wear that anger like a badge of honor and is not ready to let Nicole make amends. @beep33TV points out, there is no "in character" when your whole world has been turned upside down. And that’s really the point. This is about more than being upset with Nicole, it's about everything she thought she knew being upended and made uglier than she could have imagined. It’s about feeling like there is something wrong with her and, to paraphrase Brené Brown again (I mean if I’m going to be a one trick pony I might as well own it), letting her shame gremlins, the things that whisper in your ear that you aren't worthy, cloud her judgement.

But it’s not just in her interactions with Nicole that indicate there’s more going on with Waverly than anger. This episode was also the most we’ve seen Waverly respond to positive feed back since probably season one. First with widowed (although not technically widowed) Beth of all people. Lady in black Beth portends kindness to Waverly and tells her how exceptional and lovely she is and Waverly responds with the same smile she gave Doc back in season one when he told her how impressive her research on the curse was. Then she does it again when Rosita tells her she has backbone in the hot tub. Right before she defiantly sends that epic train wreck of a text to Nicole. Waverly seems to be regressing in this episode, looking for other people to validate her just like she did before finding her voice in season one. Frankly, before she started a relationship with Nicole and reconnected with Wynonna, the two people she feels least able to trust with her insecurities right now.

Enter Rosita, who ends up offering Waverly some perspective that no one else could and helps pull her out of her spiral of self-doubt. I think she does this in three ways. Three ways that had to occur in the order they did to be effective. First, Rosita is more or less a neutral third party. Before they go to the spa together, Rosita is someone Waverly likes but has no serious emotional investment in. Rosita also has no expectations for Waverly to live up to. That immediately relieves some of the pressure Waverly must be feeling and makes her less protective of herself and thus more open to what Rosita has to say.

More specifically to Rosita, the second important thing she offers is her speech about champagne and perfection. I know that in the moment Rosita was referring to Waverly’s relationship with Nicole, but at least in part, Waverly seemed to internalize some of that to be about her. Waverly has always been a people pleaser and as a result, I think put a tremendous amount of pressure on herself to be a perfect. Now she’s a perfectionist who thinks she has proof she is an imposter and somehow inherently defective because of where she might have come from. It’s important for her to hear, that perfection shouldn’t be the goal and that imperfection is what creates the magic in life. The look on Waverly’s face hearing that seemed to me to be one of relief. She takes that breath right before deciding to kiss Rosita, and it felt like at least in that moment she let go and allowed herself the compassion she often only gives to others. It makes a lot more sense that she would respond to Rosita by kissing her if she heard “YOU are amazing because you’re imperfect” and not “your RELATIONSHIP is amazing because it’s imperfect.” The other important part of all of their interactions before the reveal that Rosita is a revenant is that Rosita gained Waverly’s trust and good will. Before Waverly has time to judge Rosita as a revenant she has established herself as a good person and allowed Waverly to see her kindness, courage, and humanity.

And then comes the big one, Rosita reveals herself to be a revenant and Waverly is given a chance to see that revenant doesn’t mean inherently evil. She is allowed to see herself in Rosita which opens her up to new possibilities for what all this might mean for her. To borrow a phrase about representation, "you have to see it to be it". Waverly up until that point wasn’t really capable of accepting that being part revenant didn’t change who she was or dictate who she could be because she had no concept of it. Despite being a revenant, Rosita seems to remain the person she was as a human (as far as we know) and didn’t “lose her soul.” If Rosita, a full revenant, wasn’t defined by that, then why would Waverly be. It’s clear that as weird as Waverly thought it all was, she isn’t upset about it. There was no distrust or anger that Rosita has been a revenant this whole time, hiding in plain sight. Not even a moment of hesitation in accepting that Rosita was still her friend. You can see the almost delight in her eyes when she stares at Rosita at Shorty’s. Waverly’s whole demeanor is different after the reveal. Some of her natural lightness and looseness is back when she talks to Rosita in the bar because a little of her burden has been lifted. And even though it started after she sent that awful text, it’s really at Shorty’s that we see Waverly begin to think more clearly about Nicole and open up to the idea doing what needs to be done to repair their relationship.

It’s doubtful that this one afternoon is enough to undo years of learned behavior or magically make her forget all the things she grew up knowing as unquestioned truths. It’s also clear from the promo that Waverly isn’t going to have much time to dwell on her feelings about being a revenant in episode 10. But I think this was the opening Waverly needed. This is the moment, the turning point, that moves her perspective just enough to stop from spinning out into that cycle of blame and anger. Rosita saved Waverly from Tucker, but perhaps she also saved her from the ghosts of Willa and Ward (did I mention, fuck Willa, and fuck Ward) and from her own gremlins. I mean least until it’s actually revealed she’s not a revenant and this whole conversation becomes moot.

Brene Brown on Blame: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZWf2_2L2v8

Listening to Shame: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psN1DORYYV0

[ciceroisthefamilycat]

I reread Shadow Kissed and Blood Promise as part of my reread (the last post on Frostbite is here)...

VA and FB are great, but SK and BP are the highlights of the series for me (not looking so much forward to SP and LS).

Before I get into that... I did reconsider something on Frostbite: I really rather hope that they have Rose manage to convey some information on their location to Adrian when he visits her dream (or even she has a second dream). And, I would like for she or Mason to suggest to Christian and Mia that they drink from their human captors- I can see Christian being totally reluctant, and them reassuring like “we won’t let you kill them and turn, but you need to be able to move”- even if Christian still refuses, I would like for Mia to at least consider it. These are things that are maybe a bit controversial (taking blood from the unwilling is not a Moroi trait), but I feel like the escape could have used just a bit more dark pragmatism. Eddie’s out of it on endorphins and blood loss, meanwhile Mia and Christian have to basically carry him despite being really feeble themselves (especially Christian after his magic use) while Rose and Mason are trying to clear everyone out. They’ve just realized after like four days, hey wow, we should have used magic sooner, I would think they would question some of their other ingrained lessons.

OK, now Shadow Kiss.

I said before a combined season for VA and Frostbite, and I still actually stand by that. But for SK (and BP) I want a full season (honestly 13 would be preferred to 10 but I’ll take what I can get).

I think one realization I had this time that maybe I hadn’t had before was that in chapter 8, when Rose and Christian go to the Feeders, it’s busier than usual- including Brandon Lazar (a member of the Mana)- I remembered well enough that Mason always showed up after a Mana “initiation” but I don’t recall putting together that  it was why Brandon, and Jesse and Ralf, were all there at the time. I also realized: the rumors that everyone was hearing about Rose and Adrian? I don’t think those arose naturally- I feel certain Jesse and Ralf (as participants in Mia’s VA campaign) were compelling people to believe Rose/Adrian were a thing, and Ralf may have passed that tidbit on to Priscilla Voda. Jesse was the first to bring up Rodrian in Christian’s culinary class, Mason (who threatened them into coming clean about the earlier rumors) has just died... it seems to me like a petty vengeance thing. And if I’m right, that’s the type of plotline that they should make more apparent in an adaptation. 

Adrian... is more pushy and discomforting than I remembered. Like, rich, white guy trying to pull this shit will rightly get criticized by show fans if they keep him as written. I’m not saying rush all of his character growth, and I have to admit I love the “Rose is in red but never in blue” scene but they’re going to have to do better with him. One solution is to focus on his and Lissa’s relationship as much as they can, because I honestly really like that friendship/fraternal relationship too and it brings out the more justified reasons for Adrian being there. Also, I’m just going to reiterate (here and elsewhere in the post) genderbend Adrian please... but if not, at least make him less “creepy young adult lurks on campus of school he didn’t even go to to hit on Rose.” Genderbending would create issues for “Tatiana wants to engage Adrian to Lissa,” unless they instead frame something like “Tatiana wants Adrian to be Lissa’s new best friend, replacing Rose and maybe helping Adrian clean up his act”, and I do buy that it could work- it doesn’t work quite as neatly at making Christian irrationally jealous when Ralf informs him of Tatiana’s wedding scheming (and the subsequent Adrian & Christian fight during the Mana initiation) but... idk, get Aaron back or something, since he comes back in BP anyway (and maybe Jesse compelled them to fight each other when he was breaking the rumors to Christian).

Moving on, I’ve always had a soft spot for the Bromance, of sorts, between Rose and Christian. This is the best of the books for that and I love it so much. Whoever plays Christian would get so much more mileage out of these scenes. The same goes for Eddie, who probably gets to shine more in SK than in any other VA book (and even in Bloodlines, where the focus on Sydrian deprives him of the page-time he deserves). Those guys are going to have some great stuff to work with, including the little bit of hurt Christian feels at Rose’s reluctance to have him as her probationary protectee. I hope she apologizes to him for that one, honestly, while I also hope she gets to throw in a one-liner about how he and Lissa aren’t allowed to ever have a nooner again (because that was a part in why she was so upset that morning and honestly... she deserved to be pissed).

Let’s see... I’m curious how they’ll portray Rose “absorbing” Lissa’s spirit darkness. Like, I wonder if they might start showing us scenes of Lissa practicing auras and then we do get Lissa healing Rose from Adrian’s perspective as he’s studying the healing. The ghosts are also going to be... intense- especially the scene on the plane. And then when Lissa breaks from the torture, Rose calms her and absorbs it, and then she goes crazy. The actresses are going to have some real challenges that I’m excited for. Including later when Rose is grieving. This book honestly has the biggest action pieces and I’m excited for it all: the visit to Court (Ambrose and Rhonda! Mia! the trial!), the Guardians’ practice attacks, the “initiaton” (uggh) and Jesse’s compulsion and then the Cabin, the Invasion (ooof- they’re going to have to trigger warning for that one), and then finally the Cave. I think the Initiation Night, The Invasion, and The Cave will each have to have their own episodes, and I think I would end the Invasion episode right before they go into the Caves honestly (though I would advise releasing those episodes together even if they do a weekly release schedule).

So my pet projects, as pertains to this one:

alive Andre? ok, I’ve given up on this one Scratch that, though I really was ready to; have him at Court (maybe Tatiana’s plotting on marrying him off to Adrian) and build up what that might mean for Lissa’s future... also if he overhears Rose mentioning this “water user from the lower school named Jill Mastrano” let us get our hints about her paternity

I really need full focus on Rose’s mental state in this and how much “they come first” is destroying her at this point; especially in contrast to that brief Mia appearance (which does have to happen) where Rose observes that the best in Mia has come out; also how special that manicure is to Rose

the aging up: I realize it makes Lissa and Lehigh work less well and it also means that instead of Rose leaving on her 18th birthday, her departure date would seem more arbitrary (even if it’s her 21st), but it’s still feasible and still what’s best from a responsible storytelling aspect

ah... this is dark... but a potential departure from the books: Rose decides to visit Jesse before she leaves (yes I realize she wasn’t even going to say good-bye to Lissa but) and makes sure she lets him know that the wards failing were his fault... that he and Ralf looked down on Christian for being the son of two Strigoi, but that when Christian had been deprived for a week of blood he still never considered betraying the dhamphir with him in Spokane. Jesse was so willing to try to compel others to lay their lives down for him... he’s a monster, not Christian. And now the man she loved, a better man than him, and about 20 people overall, are dead because of him and his actions. And she’s going to hunt monsters- he better never cross her again, or she will stake him like any other monster. But... she doesn’t realize: she��accidentally killed Jesse during the Initiation rage, and Lisa (not even realizing it) resurrected him... he is now also shadow-kissed... he steps out of the gate at some point to sob, and while the wards are down... he sees spirits of those whose lives he cost

And now Blood Promise

um, I am hornier than Rose for Strigoi Dimitri and I realize this is wrong of me, I just feel the need to put that out there before I continue; also note that Dhamphir Dimitri is not at all responsible for the Strigoi’s actions and if we get that far and people start hating on Dimitri overall and pretending that he himself is an abuser I will be defending Dimka

THIS BOOK! Look, SK destroys me, but this is on another level...

for one, HI SYDNEY (my daughter) KATHERINE SAGE, you’re here and beautiful and oof I am sad about you and food but I am so happy you have Red Hurricane and your handwriting is proper and you are light and life

Ok, now: the biggest problem with this book is something I forgot about: Richelle messes up the time alignment on Lissa’s segment. Like, Rose leaves Baia on Easter Sunday when Lissa has already been at Court for a little while (even though it’s only supposed to be a weekend trip)... and then Rose has been in Novosibirsk for at least a week but Lissa and them are only just leaving Court (and it’s not multiple trips because Jill’s there the whole time). Like, they’ll have to do better with distributing plot and timelines. And granted, I get that Rose stopped looking in for a little while there (because of pain and then her addiction) but it’s a major ??? that Lissa’s weekend lasts so long (if they wanted to portray it as Spring Break, that could work). Also, please give Eddie and Christian something to do at St. Vlad’s, I miss them- if they went with the Jesse thing that could even be an element to the story (and if Jesse wakes up after kissing Aaron... lmao). I am curious how they’ll handle the differences in location in this book.

The Baia segments, and Rose with Dimitri’s family, are so fantastic, but I need Sonya to have more of a role, because I wait the way Rose kind of looks down on her <3 Also, I get that Mark and Oksana weren’t exactly eager to leave home, but I’m pissed that I don’t remember ever seeing them again in the books (also Rose could have asked Sydney to let Denis, Tamara, and them know she was alive). Actually, you know what I want? A standalone episode from, say, when Dimitri was a senior novice, maybe visiting home for a short summer break, and we see Robert Doru hanging out with Mark and Oksana, and we get some Abe and Janine interaction (and some Tatiana- why is this 60 something year old holding it against a woman 20 years her junior having a relationship with Abe?! I guess her dumbass relative who is Dimitri’s father can show up, though hopefully to get beat down), and also maybe this is around when Galina got turned in Prague... I want a flashback episode for this setting, maybe in an episode while Rose is lackadaisical in Galina’s estate, and seeding in the idea that maybe spirit can save Dimitri... but Rose doesn’t know that when an episode or so later she stakes Dimitri... (lol... sob)

Speaking of flashbacks, I would prefer if they could move Rose tending to Dimitri’s wounds during the novice-guardian practicum into the actual Shadow Kiss adaptation (because I do love the scene and we deserve that softness sooner), and instead they can do a scene of him talking about the gilded books in his mom’s house back in Baia. But I really want the snow angel scene. I can imagine the gifsets comparing it to them in the garden at Galina’s estate already. I’m curious how they’ll do the the final showdown against Avery since so much of that is... mental-ish? Hints of auras in mindscapes? Also, I kind of feel like they’ll have to give Rose a manifestation of herself that’s trying to get through to her when she’s high on the Strigoi bites. The Dimitri and Rose actors are both probably going to have some really challenging material (his will be more the physicality and coldness of Strigtri). I am looking forward to the various fights and Rose being a badass taking Strigoi down left and right, I can’t lie (I also really look forward to Nathan’s death- I will enjoy that a bit sadistically... I still want to know his last name).

As for the Lissa arc, let Andre be alive like I’ve said (even if it hasn’t really paid off until this point), and then she shows up with Jill and Andre has the very sad news for her... Dad was a cheater. Hits her spiral harder (which is a challenge considering how bad she was spiraling). Also, there’s more weight to her being annoyed with Jill rather than the irrational assumption that Christian has a thing for the poor babe, but Jill’s still blameless and ugh I feel for her in this book. I hope training with Mia was worth the trip to Hellsylvania with creepy Reed.

Oh, also I really liked Adrian in the second half of this one- I think it was because his savior complex was out in the second half for Rose and he was less “let me hit on her relentlessly.” Anyway, Janine content was also excellent (her offering to take over as Lissa’s guardian, the visit to St. Vlad’s, though why would she come from Nepal for like 4 hrs maybe of hanging out? idk), and the “I’m Zmey Jr, Zmeyette?” from Rose is one of the best lines Richelle ever wrote in this series. I want to see it delivered.

Idk, I love BP but I have fewer thoughts on its adaptation except that I want it.

[avengerofiron]

a new kind of love || self para

Summary: Tony gives a very long winded, off the cuff speech from the back of a napkin at Danny and Colleen’s wedding. He holds back tears. He’s very proud of himself. Word Count: 1940 Characters Mentioned: Danny Rand @immortalweapon, Colleen Rand @colleenrand Trigger Warnings: mention of past addictions

When Danny asked Tony to be his best man, his first response was to ask if he was sure. Ward had been shooting him looks throughout the day, clearly warning him to play nice, and if someone wanted a civilised ceremony and party afterwards … Well, Tony wasn’t exactly famous for being civilised. In fact, it was quite the opposite. He was known for a good time, and that didn’t correlate to trusting someone to show up for suit fittings, to organise your bachelor party, to stand up at your wedding and give a speech about the love you and your new wife shared. It implied a certain level of trust that Tony didn’t truly think he deserved, but Danny had given it to him nonetheless.

It was just another testament to how good of a person Danny was, how little Tony deserved to have him in his life -- but if he was going to be in all the wedding photos, and if his voice was going to be broadcast as everyone laughed and clinked champagne glasses, then he was going to do something amazing. He was going to pull himself together, and he was going to swallow any kind of panic that rose in him at the concept of that four letter word, and most importantly, right before he stood up and cleared his throat, he was going to look across the crowd at her.

(Zatanna smiled, and he pulled at the knot of his tie, and he could breathe. He used to love public speaking, could pull it off even now with only a moment of preparation -- and today was happy. He was happier than he had been in months.)

“Okay, okay,” Tony said, tapping the side of his glass. The murmurs started to quiet, but not completely. “If you don’t all shut up in the next five seconds, I’m blasting the roof and paying for damages.”

SIlence, apart from a few hints of laughter. Tony let out a breath, moving to set his drink down, and then deciding to keep it in his hand while the other one took the microphone. (Less shifting involved, that way. Less sign of nerves, less chance that his hand would twitch when his voice catched, less opportunity for people to see him falter -- even if today, he had permission to. Even if today, he could.) “My speeches are usually varied and provocative,” he started off, “but the man of the hour asked me to stand by his side today, and he’s already shown he’s capable of good choices by choosing Colleen to spend the rest of his life with. Let’s show him he can make bad ones too, huh?” he asked, punctuated by a quick wiggle of his eyebrows in the direction of the crowd.

Laughter, again. Nerves bolstered, Tony set down the drink for only a moment, reaching into his back pocket to unfold a napkin and set it on the table in front of him. “Growing up, my dad made it a point to prepare me for a world that most kids could never even imagine,” Tony said. “For me, being a public face wasn’t just highly likely. It was a certainty. It meant that I needed to be prepared in any circumstance, and it meant I needed an image. My father never quite managed to hit casual in front of a crowd, so that’s what I aimed for. In a fit of teenage determination, fuelled by enough angst to power a continent, I decided I’d make up for where he failed.” He looked back up. “Speech writing is for presidents and pussies. All you need is a theme on a piece of paper, and you make up the rest as you go along. Themes and research -- those are enough to take you forward.”

He cleared his throat. “I only wrote two things on this napkin, four weeks ago: history, and love. Pretty broad topics to get into, and I know you’re all just dying to get in front of the band and start the embarrassing dad dances of wedding past, so I’ll keep it brief.” Tony waited a beat, then shrugged a shoulder. “Relatively brief. I’m a super genius, you should all feel honoured that I’m bestowing advice. I know Danny is.

“That’s where I wanted to start, actually. Because when I think about history, Danny Rand is a part of mine. Even when he was gone, he was in my head, asking questions, pulling me apart. He was a kid never afraid to say what he thought -- a kid that always looked up to me like something special, like I was worth fighting for. There’s no point pretending you don’t all know what I have been-” what he was, “-so I’ll just speak bluntly. I couldn’t get through the day without snorting something, or shooting up, or drinking so much I couldn’t remember what I said to those crowds until headlines popped up the next day, or I woke up in cuffs. Everyone who ever loved me had given up, but Danny?”

Tony turned to the side where Danny was sitting at the top table, reaching to squeeze his shoulder. “Danny didn’t care where I ended up on a Saturday night,” he said. “Danny didn’t care about my money, or my reputation, or what I needed to do to get through the day. He didn’t judge. And I thought for the longest time that was something specific to my cousin -- something that he had in spades and the rest of the world simply lacked. But then I met Colleen.

“Perfect matches are cliche -- and as far as I’m concerned, they don’t exist. That would imply that two people fit seamlessly together, that they don’t even have to try, and from what I’ve learned in the past fifty years … that doesn’t mean jack shit.”

More laughter, louder this time. “People who choose to work together, who promise to be there even when the going is tough for years at a time, those are the people I admire. Those are the couples I take inspiration from. And if I had to choose two people to look to, it would be Danny and Colleen. They don’t judge. They open up their home, their hearts, their lives to the less fortunate, every single day -- myself included. They provide warmth, and safety. Instead of using what they didn’t have as an excuse, they used it to give all of those things and more to people who asked for them, and those who don’t.

“Good people come rarely. They deserve to be respected and appreciated when they do. More than that, they deserve to be loved.”

And then came the hardest part. Tony looked back down at the napkin, allowing it to bolster him instead of the crowd listening attentively until his words sped up to a point where he could stand on his own once again. “Love has always been a difficult concept, for me,” he said. “The word was never particularly correlated with anything good. But I loved Danny, undoubtedly, from the day he was born -- and I know Danny loves Colleen. I know he has for a long time, know that he always will. But I wanted to unpack, for just a moment, what that means.

“I did a lot of reading, before I spoke today -- like I said, research -- and there were a lot of very long, corny speeches about love being quiet days on the beach, or someone bringing you back a milkshake from Burger King when you were sad. That’s part of it, I’m sure, but a thousand people have done that for me in my life and they’re not standing here today. The ones who stick around, the ones who truly show what love means … There’s something special in that, something intangible. Something unexplainable.

“But I’m a scientist, so I tried out a few hypotheses. The first -- love is a chemical reaction. You meet someone, and for whatever reason, the unique make-up of their cells, their thoughts, their reactions, their feelings, they combine with yours and create something cataclysmic, the Big Bang in reverse -- everything narrows down to that one person. But I look at Danny and Colleen, and that theory’s bullshit. Sure, they see each other. They look at each other, and they don’t look away. But they see the world, too. They see other people, they care for each and every person in that community centre. Their love for each other doesn’t make them blind -- it gives them perspective. It makes everything else, every other relationship, stronger because of it.

“So I refined the theory a little more, and I thought -- love isn’t a chemical reaction, so it must be a choice. If it cannot be defined by physical means, we have to go down the route of psychological. Not exactly my forte, granted, but I’m a quick study. And yes, like I said before, they choose to be with each other. They chose to be here today. Instead of looking at Danny and Colleen for this one, I looked at myself.”

Tony sucked in a breath, and looked back up at the crowd, at carefully attentive faces.

“There are people I would’ve chosen to be with forever,” he said, “and they told me they felt the same. I trusted them enough to believe it was the truth, and it may have been -- but choice isn’t enough, either. Not exclusively. Choice involves walking away, sometimes. Coming back … that has to be a force of nature. It has to be a red string of fate, pulling you back. So I came to my final, steel-clad conclusion: love must be magic.”

He set the drink down, finally feeling that familiarity that came when he was on stage long enough to remove himself from what he was saying and simply imagine what was going through the minds of the crowd, instead. Tony Stark had always sold things he believed in, but this was perhaps the closest to the chest: the thing that made the arc reactor speed up the most. He wouldn’t do it for anyone but them. (Well, maybe for one.)

“Love must be a combination of choice and fate. Love must be greater than what you put in, and what you get out must be cosmic. To risk the heartbreak and the devastation over and over again, to put your heart in someone’s hands and trust that they won’t crush it at a moment’s notice … it has to be the best damn drug out there.”

More laughter, and Tony squeezed Danny’s shoulder once more, reaching past him then to touch Colleen’s arm. “You two gave me faith that love, whatever the hell the word means, doesn’t have to end. You showed me that even if it does, the ride will be worth it. And if I had to think of someone I trusted with my cousin, the list is very short -- it’s just your name, Colleen, right at the top, highlighted and in bold.”

Tony held out his drink to the crowd. “To love,” he said, “and how it can rewrite history.”

The wedding guests held up their own drinks, echoing his sentiment. As everyone else took a drink, Tony was looking at his cousin.

“You guys did good,” he said to the couple. “Don’t get big heads about it.”

[shineyma]

1st, I am beyond excited and grateful that you took the time to write all this!! I asked for a rant, Amy, you delivered. 2nd, /I/ should apologize because my reply's probs gonna be long. (Half an ask already. Ugh, I'm hopeless, and you extremely polite.) I'd seen Fitz said Deke's the worst to be their grandson, but not that he persisted! GO, FITZ!! Didn't Iain use to say back in S1 that he didn't want FS to happen? I loved him for it, esp when Liz can't seem to do anything other than wax (1/9)

the rest go under the cut because it’s a lot of asks XD

poetic about FS. (Whyyy, Liz?? Seriously, does she talk about anything other than FS?) LBR though, Fitz is #relatable here. I’ve watched 3 S5 eps and seen many spoilers, and Deke’s 95% a dick, right?? I think TPTB might’ve been going for that particular FS brand of determined, unapologetic, do-what’s-necessary but their compassion and drive to protect were always evident even in their “harsher/colder” actions/attitudes/treatments. (I’m missing the right words but you know, right??) /But/ (2/9)

they missed the mark by 100 miles. Anyway. Frankly, Amy, Jemma fighting viciously Fitz’s pessimism and fatalism, esp by putting forth a positive twist on fatalism (for lack of a better word) has rubbed me so wrong for so long. It’s not necessarily ooc?? But it’s also not Jemma in a right mental and emotional state?? (You’re getting a terrible description of what I mean but I’m no good for anything else right now.) Like she’s broken, resigned, fighting for some thing that just happened, (3/9)

that she didn’t consciously choose, it was forced on her through guilt of her own and of others’ making, and through others pushing for it, and she’s sort of accepted it, it’s just part of her life now, vaguely, automatically placed under the “good stuff” category, and everything around her is in chaos, so she just fights for /it/? I don’t know. There’s a difference between “the universe says we’re gonna be together, look at the signs!!” and “we want to be together and we’ll work for it”. (4/9)

About the logic fail, Jemma probs grabbed onto that “my mom told me the ‘right direction’ thing which her mom had told her”, ergo she raised her some, and coupled with the need to make Fitz feel better and the talk with yet another always unhelpful team member (😒), she just went for that stupid line. Does that make it not ooc? Well, /no/. *makes a paper plane out of your last 3 bullet points and shoots it @ TPTB, yelling “TAKE NOTES!”* Amy, in the AOS house we don’t perform surgery to the (5/9)

tune of melodies that calm and steady and help us concentrate. In the AOS house, we perform surgery while conversing on things that test our ability to hold back tears and shouts and shaking and violence, because we’re hardcore. So, the dog thing. @ Hydra WTF??!!?! Yeah, I’m glad I missed that. And OK, can someone finally confirm if Ward shot Buddy??!! It’s getting ridiculous. I say probs nah, because John used to prod him too often for not being cruel enough, but… I don’t know. Also, (6/9)

I’m so glad Ward didn’t attend Hydra’s School for Young Octopi!! I mean, everything does point to that!! :D Teen!Ward busted out at 17 and dumped in the woods, switching to Brett!Ward still in the woods, John alluding to Ward shooting Buddy and finally leaving the woods as the end of his training and immediate beginning of his SHIELD career… If he attended any Academy, that was SHIELD Ops. It’s canon! New Ward backstory! I LOVE IT!! OK, because Hydra has that elitist vibe, I’m imagining (7/9)

more of a posh-secret-club-inside-the-academy kind of thing?? You know, like the actual Piggate scandal with the UK PM, and there’s many a movie too that show secret societies inside colleges etc, whose members are wealthy kids of old families, and their fathers were members before them, and their grandfathers, and they have weird, twisted rituals. You know the kind. Malick, his daughter and the council of people they had brought to meet Hive, they remind me of that. Anyway, I’m still not (8/9)

forgiving Ruby for what she did to Elena, but the dog thing and the Hydra-engineered super-baby thing are something…?? I’d have to watch S5 to pass judgement and LOL NO, I ain’t about to do that. I thiiink I’m done. Man, I hope that was some damn good strawberry shortcake. I’m gonna need all the favor I can get. 😇 ❤❤❤❤ Also, what’s a strawberry shortcake and why are people discriminating against its physique??? Ah, and why do you use that squiggly line (~) at the end of some words??? (9/9)

Okay! Here we go! XD

First off, I…..go back and forth on Liz’s support of fs. On the one hand, it’s silly to hold it against her; it’s not like attacking her own storyline would be a smart move, either with fans (who for some reason overwhelmingly support it) or with Jed&Mo (who, after all, have made clear that they based fs’ relationship off their own). Sure, Iain got away with it, but look at the way the show treats Fitz vs. Jemma……he’s clearly the favorite. *side eyes aos* Plus, fs being together gets her more scenes with more people (gotta have everyone reminding her how destined~ she and Fitz are after all!!), so it’s understandable she’d like it.

That said….HOW CAN SHE NOT SEE HOW TERRIBLE IT IS? I DON’T UNDERSTAND.

And we could talk about that all day so…moving on!

Deke started out as the harsh/cold/doing what’s necessary to survive in a terrible environment character (he SOLD DAISY TO KASIUS because he was afraid her search for Jemma would endanger the rest of them), but the show kind of….dropped that? And tried to switch him to the lovable moron instead? It’s weird.

As for Jemma’s optimism……I guess I can’t totally blame her. Like, she does love Fitz, that’s clear enough. I personally don’t think she’d have gotten there if she hadn’t been constantly pushed towards him, or if he hadn’t made a big deal of “I can’t be just friends,” therefore forcing her to choose between a romantic relationship with her best friend or NOTHING AT ALL of him, but. Whatever.

My point was, she loves him. And he is CONSTANTLY going on about how they’re cursed and they’re never gonna work out and how ‘doesn’t sound great for the girlfriend’ and ‘I don’t deserve you’ and blah blah negativity. And it is just super not fair to her that she has to forever fight this attitude of his and try to keep him positive about THEIR RELATIONSHIP, something he should be excited and positive about ON HIS OWN. Ugh.

So from that perspective, I guess I can see why she’d cling to this, as evidence~ they’re not doomed and they’re gonna be okay. Good point, nonnie!

And another good point: I’d forgotten about the daughter saying that her mom had said the steps in the right direction stuff! to her That makes Jemma’s logic fail a little less egregious, I feel better now.

Oh, right, silly me. Of course aos is way too hardcore to want to focus on the situation at hand when surgery is underway!

I think the show kinda confirmed that it was Grant who shot Buddy? In 2x21 when Bobbi was trying to talk Kara out of the whole….torture thing that was about to happen, she tried to convince her that Grant was grooming her and that he probably started small and probably was started small himself, and Kara was like “yeah, Garrett made him shoot his dog.” So that probably counts as confirmation.

(But I am all about #denial so I choose to ignore it. Alternate explanation: Garrett was the one who did it but Grant wanted to use the story to connect to Kara, so he was creative with the truth. See? It still works!)

And yep! Garrett said, when he finally got Grant from the woods, that he’d gotten him into the ops academy! Which admittedly was four whole seasons before this mess and probably they didn’t know yet they were gonna give Hydra its own Academy, but why would Garrett make Grant do the dog test in the woods if he was about to go to Hydra and have to do it all over again? Doesn’t make sense! So yes, definitely Grant went to SHIELD Academy.

As for the “posh” sense you get of Hydra, nonnie, you are SO NOT WRONG. Hydra’s Academy was seriously SO prep school vibes, I can’t even fully describe it. They had UNIFORMS, nonnie! Suit and tie uniforms with HYDRA LOGOS on the breast pocket!!!! It was…….ridiculous. Ri. di. cu. lous.

And right? TOTALLY NOT COOL that Ruby cut off Elena’s arms, but I have some sympathy for her now. Some.

And thank you for asking, the strawberry shortcake was DELICIOUS! And it’s not discrimination (XD; I literally lol’d, nonnie, thanks for that)—strawberry shortcake is a dessert with sliced, sugared strawberries, whipped cream, and a kind of cake that’s called “shortcake” because of its crumbly, sometimes crispy texture. It is THE BEST and I’m so sad it doesn’t exist in your life. I’m sorry, nonnie.

ETA: sometimes people use spongecake instead of shortcake when making strawberry shortcake. these people are wrong and should not be trusted.

As for the squiggly line, it’s hard to explain! 

Sometimes, I use it to add a note of sarcasm or mocking. Since tone is hard to convey online, it helps me get my meaning across (and feels necessarily mean, in such statements as “Jemma and Fitz are destined~”)!

Other times, it’s more…..hm…..like a gesture, maybe? Like in my rant I wrote “the glory of Hive~” and the sguiggly was meant to convey a kind of handwave, like “the glory of Hive and all that stuff the Hive-worshiping parts of Hydra would concern themselves with.” Does that make sense?

I don’t know, it’s kind of like the tumblr habit of randomly capitalizing words in the middle of a sentence, you know? Sometimes it’s for emphasis, sometimes it’s for sarcasm, sometimes it’s just because it feels right. I hope that makes at least a little sense. XD

Thanks very much for the conversation, nonnie! Sorry it was such a struggle getting your thoughts to me!

[her-bookshelf-tells-her-story]

Book Review - Four Weeks, Five People by Jennifer Yu

Genre: YA realistic fiction

Rating: 3/5 stars

Synopsis (from Goodreads):

They're more than their problems Obsessive-compulsive teen Clarissa wants to get better, if only so her mother will stop asking her if she's okay. Andrew wants to overcome his eating disorder so he can get back to his band and their dreams of becoming famous.Film aficionado Ben would rather live in the movies than in reality. Gorgeous and overly confident Mason thinks everyone is an idiot. And Stella just doesn't want to be back for her second summer of wilderness therapy. As the five teens get to know one another and work to overcome the various disorders that have affected their lives, they find themselves forming bonds they never thought they would, discovering new truths about themselves and actually looking forward to the future.

Review:

*Received free ARC of this novel through a Goodreads giveaway*

I appreciated certain elements that show up in this book, as a novel told exploring several multiple illnesses in teenagers. Told through the perspectives of five different characters over a span of four weeks, readers enter this therapeutic wilderness camp with Andrew, Clarisa, Stella, Mason, and Ben in the hopes (well, this was my hope anyway) of getting a realistic look into living with - and trying to recover from - mental illness as a teen under pressure.

Unfortunately, I was pretty underwhelmed by this. But before I go more into that, let me outline some of what I appreciated here (will try to make it spoiler-free!):

- It briefly spotlights the pressure teens feel from their parents to be "normal". While there's undoubtedly pressure from [Western] society as a whole to fit within certain acceptable standards of sanity, there's a more painful kind of intimacy through which we experience pressure from family and friends. Even if that pressure is misperceived, the stress of trying to be a good son, daughter, or non-binary/trans offspring is most definitely a stressor that deserves more recognition when it comes to teens struggling with mental illness.

- There were some really insightful/realistic passages in there through the perspectives of the characters. By insightful, I mean in their consideration of providing a realistic lens through which to view anorexia, manic depression, anxiety, etc. Just a few gem lines here and there were able to provide depth to what the characters were experiencing on the inside, regardless of how they portrayed themselves on the outside to the rest of the world.

- IT DOESN’T PERPETUATE THE GROSS TROPE OF TREATMENT CENTER ROMANCE. Disregarding any truth to the cringe-worthy trope of finding the love of your life in a psych ward or treatment center for a psychiatric disorder, I was really pleased that it is instead viewed with a more critical lens here. While these spaces are somewhat perfect to create long-lasting, intimate relationships with other people due to the emotional intensity of the environment, it’s also important to be able to understand the importance of boundaries and recognizing how relationships made between people who are ill can become unhealthy and ultimately harmful to one or both sides. And I do believe the author explores this rather well in the last half of the book.

Now, the overarching criticism I have regarding this novel is that there is an underwhelming lack of development, both with the plot and with the characters. Granted, a couple characters get some appreciable development by the end, but overall, the progression of this was disappointing.

I don’t necessarily support the criticism stating disappointment about the characters not recovering by the end or whatever, because that would have really made it unrealistic to me. Four weeks, people. You don’t recover with happy rainbows and a unicorn ride to the best future imaginable in four weeks.

But maybe the larger thing is that, by the end, it seems that the novel has explored the relationships between the characters more fully than their mental illnesses; which isn’t bad, necessarily, but might make the synopsis somewhat misleading?

In addition, I’m not sure the multiple-POV thing works. Splitting into five different character POVs made it difficult to form attachment to the characters. One idea: just totally kick Mason out of the story. Think about how much space that would open up. Because, for real, I’m not sure what his purpose as a character is. He experiences absolutely no character development - I would argue, based on his sections even at the end - and basically serves to be the asshole of the novel. Maybe he symbolizes the ignorant stigma so many people still place on those who struggle with mental health, but goddamn, you’d still hope by the end then that he would have learned something. But nope. Does everybody who spends time with mentally ill individuals come out on the other side more educated and sympathetic? Nah, I doubt it. But within the context of this book, I don’t think Mason’s character served any purpose, and that bothered me.

Description of the setting was also lacking. There was little mention of campers outside of the five MC’s block, and little mention of staff outside of those that attended them directly as well. Everything was confined, and especially in choosing such a setting for a book, you’d expect it to be expanded upon more fully, particularly in its institutional structure and all. Instead, there’s description of the physical setting - the woods, the Safe Space cabin or whatever - but little space given to explaining how the program is supposed to work.

I don’t think this is a bad novel. There are some bad novels out there that butcher both the treatment setting and mental illness through gross stereotypes. I don’t get that vibe here really at all; mostly, it’s just a lack of development. There could have been more. Which is weird to say considering how long this book is, because I don’t feel like it needs to be longer per say. I just find myself wondering how it could be so long and still feel so bare. It reads as kind of a skeleton outline only half filled-in. It could have done more in exploring the different mental illnesses the characters experience, it could have done more to explore the various factors that affect psychological health, it could have explained the wilderness camp program better, etc.

Kudos to the author for her debut novel though. Thank you for not butchering what it’s like to struggle with mental illness.