Will and Nico weren't "forced" into the darkness/sunshine dynamic every character and their mother has commented on Nico being creepy and shadows hanging off of him and darkness following him or whatever, and Will is described as CLEARLY an Apollo kid from literally everything about him and his literal sun tattoo only enforcing it. I'm sorry the characters in other books didn't take all the time in the world to wax poetic about Will/Nico (the most we got was Apollo's pov, since that's the only pov we got of these two dating, and when I do my comprehensive comparison I'll be able to give direct examples of how he describes them, cause I'm pretty sure he goes with the idea of dark Nico and sun Will)

Also in terms of the theorhetical darkness/sunshine dynamic, that trope usually includes the sunshine character being all positive and the dark character being all negative, and Will is a more positive guy but he wasn't all sunshine and roses he was miserable

Intro Post + FAQ!?!?!?

STRIPES TRUTHERS DNI!!!!!!!! (this is a joke)

I'm not replacing my pinned post because I like my pinned post. it's special to me. it describes my blog in a single gif. but I'll link this in my bio.

hi! I think this was long overdue. first of all, introduction!

I'm pink! she/her, 19, filipino-chinese, 🇸🇬

I am an asexual sapphic on the aro spectrum! I'm not repulsed in either department though, I consider myself mostly sex-neutral and romance... idk, ambivalent irl, favourable in fiction.

keep in mind that hazbin hotel itself has a lot of explicit humour, so canon-typical level of that kind of humour should be expected here. however, outside of text-only nsfw jokes, I typically don't post or reblog nsfw art (and IF I did, I would use community labels/appropriate tags). I may also tag certain text-only nsfw joke posts as #suggestive, just as a precaution.

and now the FAQ...

FAQ

Other than one-sided RadioStatic, what do you ship?

I've actually done this before, but decided I'd update it a bit.

cherrivel is only there because of the need for velvette to have someone at the hotel to be obsessed with, refer to this post. it is currently unserious and could easily never come up in my posts I just thought to include it because of that one time I brought it up. other crackships may come up if I find it funny (ie adam x mammon).

this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, I do not like any reciprocated romantic alastor ships, I'm not here to police anyone for what they do in fanon, but all I ask is no one send me anything of the sort. I interpret alastor as a repulsed aroace, and the dialogue in which his asexuality is implied in canon implies to me he would never pursue dating (rosie knows alastor wouldn't be dating charlie because he is aroace, which implies she knows he is an aroace that doesn't date**). so that is how I choose to portray alastor in my posts.

**TO BE CLEAR, there IS nuance to this. because action =/= attraction. funny situations such as a fake date with vox as a distraction that he doesn't like at ALL entertain me. but I do not believe he is the type to pursue it under normal circumstances.

regarding qprs... well, as you can see, I really only care for qpr radiorose, but this is the part where it comes down to personal preference. qpr radiostatic largely depends for me, maybe if it's like an au where they never had a falling out or something but otherwise, I don't personally really see it, but that isn't to judge anyone who does. HOWEVER, I do like thinking about their past friendship, here's a post I made before regarding alastor's side on it.

Who's your favourite character?

unfortunately, it is the stupid tv man in my pfp. alastor is my second favourite though if that's not immediately obvious (wow tumblr user @onesidedradiostatic's faves are vox and alastor who could've guessed?)

Do you know [insert pre-series information here]?

I need to clarify, I am NOT a pre-series hazbin fan. I only got into hazbin properly at episode 5-6's release, prior to that I had only watched episode 4 out of curiosity due to twitter discourse. any information I have regarding pre-series stuff comes from the wiki, tumblr posts or anons who have informed me of stuff. my main source of information is the main series, that is how I first consumed hazbin after all.

What the fuck is the "Lucifer's Commissions Saga"?

it all started with an anon talking about the most unrealistic thing about vox owning an alastor body pillow being that alastor was able to be printed on it without glitches. I then dropped a stupid idea I had in my head for a bit about lucifer being offered 50k to make a sexy alastor painting for vox. one reblog later. well. it turned into vox commissioning lucifer for the body pillow. and then a bunch of asks came in related to it and it turned into a saga which is now my legacy. feel free to scroll through this entire thing. also a fanfic of it by ChaoticAce2005 now exists. go check it out. AN ANIMATIC BASED ON ONE OF THE POSTS BY NATAKARANIA ALSO NOW EXISTS. CHECK THAT OUT TOO.

The original post mentions Val commissioning Lucifer for the art for Vox, Val is canonically a talented artist, why would he do that?

in my defence, I kinda forgot about that when I posted the original joke. later asks, I've mended that val HAS drawn for vox before but vox nitpicked too much and val's not always willing to do a fully rendered sexy alastor... so vox has to outsource. and he just happens to do so to the king of hell.

Hey, hey, listen! What if Vox doesn't have a crush on Alastor but wants XXX instead!?

hey, I respect you! I respect your opinion and hc. but this blog is built around that concept specifically, I like vox wanting something he can never have, wanting romance from a guy who literally cannot feel the same way about him. so I'm probably not gonna be as passionate about other takes. but your opinion is valid! I'm just not really sure what you want me to say other than respectfully disagreeing.

Why don't you use RadioSilence for one-sided RadioStatic?

radio silence is the name of another book made by the author of heartstopper, alice oseman (which I heard also has a canon aspec character!). even though it is already a used tag for this ship, I refuse to contribute to flooding the book tag with hazbin hotel. it's already an issue I see even when searching #radio silence with the space, I think those in that fandom should be allowed to search for content without being flooded by content from another fandom. please understand.

I instead use #onewaybroadcast in accordance with this poll. I still use the regular #radiostatic and #staticradio tags in addition to it for more reach and because vox's side still technically counts under it, if anyone doesn't like specifically one-sided radiostatic for whatever reason, they may filter out the specific tag or block me.

read more about the tagging issue here

Why haven't you answered my ask?

you see. once upon a time I used to answer every ask in my askbox. but then trying to come up with intelligent responses to every single ask was kind of draining so I gave up on that. so nowadays I just answer whatever I feel like, if you don't see your ask answered for a while it may still be answered later cause I do go back to old asks sometimes (and sometimes I just forget about asks I'd wanted to answer before). currently my askbox stands at 180ish unanswered asks going back to as early as end of february, that's how much I kinda just gave up trying to clear my askbox. DON'T be discouraged from sending new asks though! I'm actually more likely to answer new ones that I'm able to form a response for immediately.

Wait, I checked your time zone, why are you posting at 2-5am?

I haven't had a normal sleep schedule for like at least 4 years now, don't think too hard about it. and don't rely on my time zone for my active hours, I could be active at literally any hour 😁👍

Can I write a fic about [insert idea posted on this blog before]?

OF COURSE!!! I would actually be honoured if you did!! credit for the idea would be appreciated (although it depends if it's mostly me or my anons' ideas, sometimes it's a combined effort), but otherwise go ahead! and do send it to me if you please, if I have the time or motivation I may read it!

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

more may be added at a later time, but this is what I can come up with for now. I've been holding back on this for a while, trying to phrase every single little thing with tact, just understand that a lot of it is personal opinion!

Tags

#osrs.txt - all text posts, including asks #osrs.art - self-explanatory, art done by me #osrs.mp4 - videos which can range from compilations, shitpost edits to high effort edits #osrs.helluva - my helluva boss reactions/liveblogging and related stuff

#radiostatic parent trap subplot - the short series of asks joking about the torn picture vox has reminding them of the parent trap, turning into a crack subplot #projecting irl experiences onto radiostatic squad - where a bunch of anons came together to recount irl experiences with incels and say "yeah this is vox" #the ays - angel dust realising he and alastor are the reason for the vees' focus on the hotel and decides to brand both of them as the ays #lucifer's commissions saga - everyone's favourite as explained above, and also the biggest arc on this blog (my legacy) #alastor's modern sexuality label crisis - started with alastor misinterpreting "asexual" as asexual reproduction, continued on to him misinterpreting more modern sexuality labels #vox's stupid fucking turtleneck - it started with me trying to start up a debate on the colour of vox's turtleneck in the vox and val photo and escalated into people in my notes and askbox trying to gaslight me into thinking the turtleneck has stripes instead of it being a KNITTING PATTERN. this is what the STRIPES TRUTHERS DNI is referring to btw #cursed yellow val - tag name taken from andy-solo1, started as a response to the turtleneck discourse, I believe the turtleneck is a similar colour to val's wings therefore yellow turtleneck truthers are implying val's wings are also yellow #respectless anons - started with an anon trying to correct colour names and saying "not to be velvette..." and ended up with other anons being kin assigned characters #all the fucking parodies - there's been 2 parodies for you didn't know and 2 for respectless by others based on shit from this blog now, this tag is needed #the fanon val killjoy beef - tag made for the made up concept of valentino and katie killjoy beefing, started from this post

10 and 24 for the violence ask game!! i want the drama!!!!!

also your askbox name is so funny like are we supposed to submit guys xander might've fucked or what cause if so can we go cross-ip or is it just buffyverse people

asfgjkl my thought process was basically if anyone is coming into my ask box to talk about literally any guy my stance is that xander probably fucked him at some point. the cross-ip thing has potential tho who did you have in mind bc I personally think Xander could have the stupidest babies with Scott Pilgrim

10. worst part of fanon

There is this. version. of Buffy Summers that I see in fics. Mainly tbf ones not about her, usually mlm stuff bc that's what I'd be reading but I feel like pops up a lot in general where she's like. This judgmental bitch who looks down on everyone and could do with being brought down a peg or two. With a big vibe being that the Scoobies are all a bit sick of her attitude but no one's willing to call her out until the writer has somebody turn to her like Buffy shame on you, how could you fail to consider that Spike is sorry now and he's so hurt by your rejection of his five minute redemption, Buffy why do you always have to be so stubborn, Buffy why do you always see things in black and white. And just. Who IS this girl. Its like people base Buffy’s entire personality on the I Am The Law speech out of context, that she is undeniably fighting for good but just wants to kill everyone who steps out of line and has no capacity for forgiveness, her friends can't and shouldn't go to her with their problems bc she'll immediately judge them, and she always needs a rational word from Giles or Willow or somebody to reel her in and see someone else's perspective. It makes me unwell. Negatively.

24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

literally any attempt to hold a character accountable for capital E Evil they commit, to explain why a ship is bad or why fans of that character are bad or whatever. Not saying people can't swear off a character who did something they can't stomach but more the idea that stuff like Angel eating Holtz's family or Anya's history of horrific punishments against guys she admits did Not all deserve it or yeah, even that a not-insignificant percentage of the cast have committed sexual assault should mean the characters should be written off. Obviously this comes up most in Spike vs Angel wars as a way to say which one is the worst when their body counts really truly do not matter on the character front. If Angel has killed like a thousand more people than Spike does that really mean fucking anything if Spike has still killed thousands of people. This is a 'verse where The Forces of Evil are very much like. A thing. Demons who kill people for no reason that we need to fight once a week exist. But hey what if one of them like Angel or Anya or Spike suddenly had to stop killing and get a job and try to maintain a friend group. That's what this shit is all ABOUT. Its FUN. And it vitally requires a cast full of people who have DONE HORRIBLE THINGS. We would have no story if they hadn't

Thanks for the ask 🤟

ohhhh i have so many questions to ask now that i apologize beforehand for throwing you questions instead of actually giving a response-reply to your ask 😭

1) “i like thinking about jason-robin's relationship with bruce the most but i like tim as robin best” plss if u could pls elaborate on this? this is so interesting bcs for a second i thought it would be jason robin or even dick robin since hes the first one!

2) ”i think i was mostly thinking bruce/jason since i was talking about johndean” this is interesting too bcs i was hyperfocused on comparing dean’s devotion to dick’s, hence my ask & why i bring dick robin specifically, and now im curious abt your comparison :D

3) “i'm going to be actively problematic and say that bruce sees dick as something less than his partner and something more than his son” is it like what i think it is is it more in line with smth smth owning smth smth *eyes emoji*

4) your tags!! thats interesting too that you prefer jaytim as batcest, instead of like timdick whos more like brothers or jaydick with jason’s “envy” (to simplify it) at dick’s golden boy ness (also to simplify it) which could be a source of conflict between jason & bruce

haha no worries, i did totally set you up.

1.yeah so tim is my favorite robin <3 relatively unpopular opinion to have in my immediate circle apparently. though probably not as unpopular as saying damian is your favorite. but like, tim's the underdog! the odd one out!! he understands the meta-narrative role that robin plays in batman's life and tries to fulfill it. he's such a deeply interesting character not only in how he views himself as the weakest robin/the robin batman didn't choose, but also in how the other robins, canonically, view tim as the best out of them (because he's the most like daddy). i don't mind as much when fanon obfuscates his characterization because he really can be such a blank slate, more or less. as in, meta-narratively, tim decides to be whatever/whoever is best for batman, erasing the part of himself that is tim drake in favor of coalescing with "robin". he's the only robin who really is robin. which is really very tragic if you think about it. but also makes for fantastic bruce/tim fodder :) i would expand more on my love for tim but this ask would get WAY too long. read Liminal Space by Calamityjim on ao3 if you've watched young justice and have read the red robin 2009 run (an EXCELLENT read btw) if you want the gist of the angst.

as for the others, i think jason has had the best character evolution —not just in the batman storyline but as a comic character in general. i really think his death, and to a much lesser extent his rebirth, is the best/most impactful development in all of superhero comic history. superheroes as we know them today would largely not exist without his character. dick is fine, i like him third best. just because he was the first doesn't make him special to me lmao. the fact that others came after him is what makes him interesting to me, in addition to his relationship with batman— which is currently the most interesting batman-robin romantic relationship to me rn. i've seen some insane meta about him around but mostly based on somewhat outdated runs, which really doesn't mean anything when it comes to comics i guess. i don't think he's been in anything interesting/good in over a decade. i also wish i could mail tom taylor anthrax <3 damian is... my least favorite (skipping steph, sorryy i do love her but there's not enough canon for me to have an actual opinion). i think damian's interesting but only as a source of conflict (and ofc his dynamic with dick-batman). he doesn't really stand on his own and he's annoying.

2. i don't necessarily think that bruce/jason is closer to johndean than bruce/dick is (i actually think bruce/tim is closer relatively, but there's not a comparable pairing imo. i also just don't think dick is necessarily "devoted" to batman as much as tim is. his goals, like mentioned, align more with being able to call himself bruce's equal, which could be conflated with desire i.e. in bruce/dick). but there are a lot of functional aspects of the jason-robin & batman dynamic that is parallel to the relationship between dean and john as hunters imo— mostly having to do with consensual practices. is dean/jason-robin in control of his narrative purpose as a hunter/sidekick or are they doing what is necessary to survive? what does it mean for either of them when duty and pleasure are conflated? etc. i really love the headcanon that jason was a child-prostitute, which would be a functional role that carried over in being robin for another older man, so that was mostly where i was coming from. child soldiers... can't get enough of em.

3. haha i don't really know what the "something" is that i was referring to, just some vague middle ground that's gonna go undefined because where's the fun in defining the relationship that a man shares with the preteen ward in his possession who he may or may not want to be his son but who he treats like a spouse because mentally & emotionally he hasn't moved on from the day he was 9 years old and his parents died. maybe dick grows up but bruce never will :'). well, maybe he grows up a little when each robin leaves him

4. and yaaaa jaytim, favorite pairing of all time. they can be enemies to lovers. the ghost and the haunted. rebecca and the narrator. brother-rivals trying to become their father but who are held back by the lack of a quality that the other possesses (see nearmello death note). i'm gonna go the fanon route and say jason was tim's robin (even though, timeline wise, it could totally have been dick). so there is that adoration-envy (that tim would have for jason) that jason would have for dick in jaydick (which is a pairing i also like, don't get me wrong! i just maybe like it as a one-sided thing. or we could have the worst love triangle in the world with damian->tim->jason->dick->bruce all unrequited lmao). but in jaytim there's the addition of the danger element— jason at one point or another did want to kill tim. and not only was jason tim's robin, he was also his ghost story! an example of what would happen to tim if something went wrong. so adoration-envy-fear which transmutes to sexual interest. very sadomasochistic route we could take there. and for jason, tim is the kid who replaced him! who's evidently better at being daddy's favorite! he can die psychosexually mad about it. neither timdick or jaydick have that enemies/lovers edge that i really like (see kurokura hunter x hunter). they also just have some interesting canon history that writers never get into— like batman-jason trying to conscript tim as his robin during battle for the cowl. i am TRYING to write a jaytim fic but i keep getting distracted by other pairings. i thought i was gonna get to it after finishing the one i'm working on but i might just do brudick next so we'll see. send more questions/responses if you have them <3

"Harry Potter? Who's that? Oh, a random child raised by abusive relatives? That's a pity, I'm sure sooner or later it'll get better for him <3"

Excuse me while I faceplant into a concrete wall hard enough to crack it.

Also we know literally 0 about her canon personality, what they're thinking about is fanon Euphemia. For all we know she could have believed Sirius guilty and left him to rot. Remus and Dumbles sure did.

I literally just saw a tiktok of a woman picking HP characters and which one she’d save and then all the comments were like “you can always tell they’re a potterhead when they call Uncle Moony (🤓🤓🤓) ‘Lupin’” and “picking this character over James (aka the guy who died a decade before the series began) is a crime” and “sometimes I forgot not everyone is a Marauders stan” (I see this comment ten times a day, like do Marauder stans just have no originality whatsoever??).

Like why do they refer to fans of Harry Potter as “ew omg Potterheads” as if that isn’t the series they’re creating literal non-existent personalities from?? 😭 Y’all aren’t superior “fans,” some of us actually like characters with screentime who’ve been mentioned more than twice in 7 books. <- We also actually know how old our “favourite characters!!” are; that concept must be so new for Marauder stans.

Honestly, I legitimately don’t have much of a problem with them creating personalities for characters (their insistence on one very specific interpretation is a bit of a red flag tho), but the problem is when they start acting like literal OCs are better than fleshed out, nuanced characters in canon and then acting like they’re superior to fans of the ACTUAL series. I literally love the Marauders era (the DEs + Snape and the Marauders) but WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE Y’ALL ARE PULLING OUT OF YOUR ASSES?? Exploring what little was shown of their characters and making valid headcanons of their personality is ofc okay… but straight up stealing the personalities of other characters in canon, giving their OCs all their qualities, and then acting like they’re somehow superior is downright insanity. 🤠

Also we know literally 0 about her canon personality, what they're thinking about is fanon Euphemia. For all we know she could have believed Sirius guilty and left him to rot. Remus and Dumbles sure did.

It’s actually so sad for them, they have NOTHING, they live off of the crumbs of crumbs. I don’t think her name was even said in canon 😭 at least not more than like two times-

Also I think Euphemia was fond of Sirius because 1. she likely knew how close he was with James for years 2. Sirius lived with the Potters at some point so she and Fleamont had to have gotten a good impression. But like… why do they pretend like she automatically fawned over “her bAbY,” he did come from the Black family so I think it’s safe to assume she and Fleamont were at least somewhat wary of him at first.

(I hate myself for forgetting about your ask 😭 when you sent it to me I immediately started writing my answer then saved it in drafts and didn’t remember until I saw you liking some of my posts 🥲 forgive me pls <3)

Because you said we could ask anything I wanted to ask about the whole meta level to the whole "rpf but not rpf" thing? I feel dense for not picking up on whatever is being commented on but I haven't been able to pinpoint anything.

Then again I'm not an RPF person at ALL but I've been following your stuff and I blew through WFU like it was nothing so there must be something special going on.

Before I get into it, this is the first time I've tried to put any of these thoughts in writing other than in rambly DMs, mostly I've thought about this out loud or talked in voice chat or a few times in person, so it may be a bit incoherent!

I'm also tagging in @gaypiratebrainrot, who I'm sure will have a quite different but intersecting take - I took what they did and ran with it in my own way. (I feel exceptionally fortunate to have had them both as an editor and as a friend who encouraged my various ramblings on this topic.)

That said, below the cut are my thoughts about the "meta level", which I think fall into two categories: constructing characters and the role of fanfiction inside of the story.

First, the whole process of constructing characters. For me, it was a very deliberate thing; with Ed and Stede, it's figuring out how to balance the canon characters and (the public perception of) the people who perform them. This, with the bonus complication of the actors having talked about how they feel about the characters in relationship to themselves, for me at least makes for a very self-aware writing experience. (And an entirely new conception of parasociality, I think it permanently changed my mental landscape!)

In WFU this is also addressed directly in the text by the characters themselves talking about AUs:

“It’s sort of like, you take the essence of the characters and their dynamic, and see how they might behave in different worlds,” Wee John says. “It’s experimental. You’ve got your coffee shop alternate universes, your sci-fi alternate universes, your actor alternate universes—” “Yeah, but, like, isn’t this the actor alternate universe,” Frenchie says, gesturing around them. “Like, Stede and Ed are kinda like alternate timeline Rhys and Taika.” “No, no,” Wee John says. “It’s all about transporting enough elements of the character for it to read like the same person, just living a different life. You couldn’t just write a story about Ed and Stede and call them Rhys and Taika.” “It’s kinda like, reinforcing the idea of some inherent self, though,” Frenchie says. “Like, as if we have some kind of soul that would be consistent across circumstances, instead of all of us being dynamic living bodies that are massively shaped by the events of our lives. Whole thing sorta reeks of cartesian dualism.”

There was a great post that I saw recently that talked about AUs and understanding what are the core aspects of characters in the canon and how to translate them into a new setting, using the term "concretes", which I immediately added to my vocabulary. So these guys, WFU Ed and WFU Stede, have this strange mix of concretes (both canon and fanon), and in writing my piece, I'm also trying to match the concretes of WFU while expanding out the universe that they exist in. (This is true to a lesser extent of other characters who have a one-to-one match canon to IRL, which hasn't yet come up in my work but does a little bit later tho it is in my other fic of WFU, a secret third thing.)

Which leads me to the construction of Mary and the unnamed wife (her interior-to-my-head name is Carlita, fwiw; I actually have a "alignment chart" of variations of her name that maybe I'll throw onto this post) - because they don't match that pattern. Which made me conscious on a different level of how I was creating these amalgams: the vanishingly small amount of information I know about either Rosie Carnahan-Darby or Rita Ora or Carly Rae Jepsen, and deliberately so! I didn't want to write RPF; I wanted to match the not quite one thing or the other of WFU, and so these two women are amalgams in a different way, with different ingredients, and they're also constructed from archetypes: the Manager Wife and the Pop Star, and the whole cultural soup around those ideas.

(I have a whole separate thought about the character of Javid Denkins but that's kind of a spoiler at this point. tl;dr: It's a very goddamn funny joke that ends up having bonus meaning.)

I am forever grateful for a specific little bit of canon that was in WFU, because it let me do something different in my work: Ed takes his coffee with seven sugars (and a little bit of godawful creamer), and so when Mary and the wife meet and have coffee, suddenly that has meaning in comparison to Ed. A canon bit of goofery can become something about diet culture, and that gets to be a whole new thematic thread through the story.

And then there's fanfiction as a story element within the fanfiction. We handle it very differently, I think, between my work and WFU, because we're looking at different aspects and from different perspectives. Among other things, it fundamentally changed my approach to learn that both Rita and Carly Rae had RPF written about them over a decade ago, when both women were in their 20s.

But in both cases, fanfiction is woven through as both contrast and mirror to the story, which is of course itself fanfiction. In both stories, Ed's fic reading habits say something about him and Mary's attitudes (about RPF in particular!) say something about her. The wife's reactions to both of these things, as well as her prior experience, shape how she interacts with them. The existence of tropes or characters say something about us, the readers and writers, as well as about the world that these stories' characters live in.

For me, both the fanfiction element and the character construction end up being partially about how much is it ever possible to know anything about another person. The obvious limits, in the case of someone who is in the public eye - I love this bit from WFU: "built [...] from a handful of Youtube interviews, my Twitter feed, and a level of horniness that would fix the climate crisis if only we could harness it for renewables", and I started joking that the wife was "three youtube videos and an architectural digest article in a trenchcoat", even though it's quite a bit more complicated than that.

But not just famous people: Mary makes assumptions about Ed and his wife based on their public personas; Ed makes assumptions about Mary based on pieces of past history through the lens of his feelings for Stede, and the wife's exploration includes piecing together information from Mary's social media and Ed's fic reading habits. All we can ever know about another person is what we observe, whether that's a public persona or their words and behavior. (There's a secret third level of how much can one ever know about oneself, but that's probably a different post.) And that circles back around to the writer and the reader: how much do we know about the canon characters? the famous people? the characters in the story?

(MASSIVE shout out to the phenomenal beta team of @gaypiratebrainrot, @veeagainsttheday, and @emi--rose for pointing out where I needed to really boost this question of who knows how much of what and when. Their incredibly smart observations did so much to help me bring out that theme among others.)

I don't know if that even answers your question, but it's some of the extra material that's been in my head as I've been writing and editing. I also had never read any RPF (with the curious exception of a notable No Reservations - Narnia crossover) before WFU and it basically melted my brain, which I have continued to process through the experience of writing for the benefit of all the broken hearts. So yeah, something different going on here for sure.

I think if I could somehow mail a single TPB to every Batman fan on the planet for them to really read it would be the Death in the Family/Lonely Place of Dying trade paperback collection.

Like, I’m not saying that these stories are The Best Batman Stories Ever Told, or even that they’re particularly good. (I personally think LPoD is a great story, but that’s neither here nor there.) I do think, however, that these two stories are foundational to SO much of the modern Batman mythos as we know it (or interpret it, as it may be) and people are at a disservice by not understanding

a) That Bruce loved Jason and that Jason’s death was an unquestionable, morally indefensible tragedy

b) That Bruce went Totally Bonkers immediately afterwards, to the point of Superman having to get involved

b.2) That Batman and Superman are more than just co-workers, and that they’re actually friends

b.3) That Superman and Batman still have to exist within larger systems (though this point and everyone’s personal take on the whole U.N. situation varies, because sometimes comics sure make bad choices)

c) That Bruce was devastated by Jason’s death, and went into a death spiral of his own

d) That his friends--namely Alfred--did in fact see this happening and were summarily rejected by Gruff Bruce

d.2) I wish that, in this fantasy world, I could also mail The Caped Crusader Vol. 1 so that people could contextualize what Bruce was like immediately before and immediately after Jason’s death, and how people like Gordon reacted to this obvious and immediate change.

e) That people could see the actual origin of Tim Drake. Like, really, what he actually did rather than all the misconstruction and fanon telephone that is natural, but not entirely correct. This would then hopefully have the consequence of informing everyone’s understanding of Tim’s place as Robin--yes he’s a little crazy. A little intense. A little over-eager and afraid at the same time. But very importantly a character defined by connective tissue.

f) That Dick and Alfred have very interesting roles in those two stories. I mentioned Alfred already in DotF, but in LPoD those two are also cruising on the crazy train (both the normal vigilante one and the dead-Jason express) and picking up speed.

f.2) There’s a lot of Dick character work that happens here in short order--his circus roots, his relationship with the Titans, and then the beginning of his relationship with Tim as brothers. But it also establishes the way that Dick cannot become Robin again, that he can’t regress--Nightwing is who he’s supposed to be. Not being Nightwing, the identity he created for himself, is a disservice. This will color his time at Batman, and dovetails neatly into his held truth that he cannot save Bruce from Bruce.

f.3) Alfred is an interesting case study here in how quickly he jumps onboard with Tim, considering how opposed he is to Bruce’s self destruction in the endless war on crime... unless he views Tim and the dangers of Robin as an appropriate stopgap to hold Bruce from absolute destruction. That sure is a lot of burden to be put on one teen, however, so there’s another interesting wrinkle.

g) That this trauma never goes away. Even once Jason comes back in Under the Red Hood, the pain of losing him is still something that all of the aforementioned people still deal with because the death of a child is something you never fully get over. And it’s not like Batman didn’t try to do anything--he was fully ready to kill Joker. He was ready in the U.N. building and then left him for dead on a crashing helicopter. That’s part of what makes Jason’s return in UTRH so tragic, but the potency of that tragedy (you didn’t avenge me, Bruce) is amplified.

Anyway, this got to be much longer and much closer to a rant than I anticipated, but this thought has been rattling around in my head since I saw one too many things that made me think “this person has not actually read A Death in the Family,” so this is my soapbox.

Hi, could you show me to the support group for Edith Eadig addicted readers?

I've been scouring every platform for Godwin fics until I found yours on here. Masterpieces, every single snippet, and I adore their story (as you might have noticed from my spam liking and reblogging).

I noticed that in the Godwin-centric fic, he and Edith really met in secret and engaged in a real sexual relationship, but that was never (I think) in the other ficlets. I'd be super interested to read their first real sexual encounter and how their relationship transitioned from fake courtship to "booty calls" (if I got that right).

I'd also love to read more about you headcanons for both of them -- pre-show and S1&S2.

I'm not sure whether you're even currently writing for them (ignore this if you don't), but if you do, could you write for Edith during Season 2? Perhaps the moment she realises Godwin is only using Aelfwynne for his own advancement? I'm not sure whether you'll have him marry Gytha or whether Edith can spoil his plans. If she can, perhaps you could write their meeting afterwards when Godwin has realised that he was crossed and cannot help but admire Edith's skill while at the same time also being in a terrible mood for not having achieved his goal?

I'm sorry, these are three and a half requests in a trenchcoat; let me know if you want me to send them individually!

HI HELLO WELCOME. You can join @muse-oleum (and maybe @therealvikingstrash?) on this adventure. This is a very small support group.

I'll start at the end - the reason I stopped writing isn't anything bad, just that my Netflix subscription expired shortly after the show aired and (while I did see all of S2) the slightly more plotty nature of that season meant it was really hard to go back and try to write fic without having the show to reference. :(

BUT that doesn't mean I can't try to answer your questions!

So this is interesting - because in my head, and I think in what exists on paper, they've never gotten to that level of physical intimacy. They've both thought about it, but never committed to it. (I know exactly which piece gave you that idea, though.)

I had thought that after the need to deceive Aelfgifu has passed, it would be natural for them to look at the lie they just spent a few weeks selling and realize they both weren't lying and then have sex. Knowing that Godwin does eventually marry Gytha, even before S2 aired, I also had thought that Edith might be his mistress for a little while.

Season 2 presents a problem in that regard, though. For starters - Aelfwynn was new. She kind of fills in the space Edith occupied in my fanon timeline. Godwin's love life was going to be a little crowded with the both of them there. If Godwin has this plan to make himself indispensable to Canute and undermine Emma by creating suspicion around Aelfwynn, a plan that it seems like he has been sitting on for a long time, if I'm interpreting the show correctly, it seems to me that he wouldn't stop to have or start that relationship with Edith. Too many loose ends.

It felt cleaner for them to have never gotten physical, for him to say 'okay, that's one thing finished, on to the next' and leave Edith sad, frustrated, and now highly suspicious. (Emma, of course, was out of town for all of this and has no idea it happened, so she skips immediately to 'oh so Aelfwynn is a thing now' and Edith never tells her about it. If Edith had said something, it seems to me that would be one more reason for Emma to be suspicious of Godwin quicker than she is.)

I did write one or two small things for season 2, which I think you've already ready - but I think I'd have to watch the show again to figure out where Edith is during Godwin and Gytha's wedding.

ALL OF THIS TO SAY - thank you for the compliment of saying you need a support group. That means so much to me.

Any Tardif backstory ideas? The existing info leaves a lot of room for fanons

You'd have enjoyed the discussion we had a few days ago in the Vestal's Secret discord, anon. Mostly we discussed Tardif's national and ethnic origin (for the purposes of this post I will just use real life terms instead of "the DD equivalent of blablabla" because it's easier).

His helmet is very reminiscent of the Gjermundbu (Norway), Broe (Gotland), Vendel and Valsgärde (Sweden) helmets. I mean look at this. Now, Tardif is a French name, so when this came up I immediately thought of the Normans: the region was invaded by Scandinavians and it became a mixed Gallo-Frank/Norse culture.

But since I really enjoy cyn's and casper's portrayal of him as Arab or part-Arab, I came up with this little idea that Tardif's dad was a Norman mercenary acting in the Mediterranean (historically they settled there too!) and meeting his mom. Eventually this small lady gets up in this absolute brick shithouse's boat and tells him to sail because she decided he's taking her home and dude was into that.

I see them as the sort of couple that sounds romantic when you describe it but in practice are a mess because they were too young, barely spoke each other's language and only had one braincell between them. Eventually, Tardad dies in battle, leaving the home situation more complicated. I believe he has siblings, I don't know why, I just don't see him as a single kid.

He'd have grown up learning basic tactics and how to use the axe, which were the main skills he took with him when he decided to bail and strike out on his own. I see him starting off with mundane mercenary work, preferring stuff like bodyguard duty to open battles and raids. Slowly he gets mixed with the wrong lot, makes underworld connections that are profitable and *sound* reliable...

Then he gets stabbed in the back. Hard. "How did this dude come out alive holy shit"-hard. It's a moment in which not only he realizes people have turned on him, but the ones that didn't are too scared to help him and will still sell him out to save their skin. Needless to say, man's paranoid after that. I also think he may have searched and killed a few guys down as a way to protect himself at first, before he realized 1. this could be his new gig 2. it sends a message to the big crime bosses that he's coming for them next 3. he really, really enjoys hunting people down.

There you have it, my notes on Tardif's potential backstory so far!

smth abt the way both marvel and the fandom is so ableist towards bucky is so disheartening :/

it's bad enough that so much of stucky fanworks basically just deletes bucky's existence and have an oc date canon steve (which doesnt even make sense bc the characters' stories have always been so connected that doing that would wipe out so much of steve that they're giving endgame a run for its money) but then it becomes more exhausting how it's so obvious most fans who claim to love the characters would rather just replace bucky with a random abled person to project onto

it feels like fans wish canon had "conveniently" erased bucky's disabilities the way it erased steve's disabilities with the serum so it's one less "obstacle" in the way of projecting a separate character onto him

and it's not like marvel is the only ableist fandom, not by a long shot even if only counting ableism in sci-fi media, but i've had a much easier time in other fandoms celebrating disabled characters in the piece of media

but the way bucky gets treated feels like a whole other level, like everyone working on canon and fanon despises the fact that he's disabled and wishes it went away so they can have as much as a blank white slate to paint whatever they want on

This immediately made me think of a post I saw floating around that was an anon asking someone, wait, Bucky has a disability? And the blog answering with something like, dude, he's missing an arm!

It is disenheartening to see people forget large parts of characters.

Although, personally, I haven't experienced much of the OC-ification of Bucky, but that doesn't mean it isn't there--I do inhabit a very small corner of the fandom. I see a lot of works of different iterations of Bucky, but I also see the same with Steve so it doesn't strike me as anything but charming, I like watching these idiots falling in love over and over in all different universes. But, again, I'm sure there is treatment of Bucky in that way out there. So, I can't totally speak to that.

But, I think a lot of the erasure of Bucky's disabilities are due to the source material and the larger context of where the source material came from. Marvel doesn't show Bucky has having a disability or did Marvel show Steve as having disabilities, as you said. And Western society does not fucking like disabled people, it likes to pretend they don't exist (or worse, it likes to get rid of them completely). So, it makes sense that fans would be seemingly strangely unaware of Bucky's disabilities or feel uncomfortable talking about them. I understand the frustration and tiredness around fans not speaking about it or not acknowledging it. I do. But I can see why it happens, and I've tried to find fandom spaces where his character, along with Steve's character, is treated in a way I like. It's work, but I find it worth it since I can't control other people, lol.

(It also goes without saying that, yes, there are going to be some bad apples in the bunch that do use Bucky as an OC and/or purposefully disregard his disabilities. And that the fandom could certain benefit from widespread discussions about this topic.)

This reminds me, though, that I should pay more attention to disability details. Every time I read a fic with Bucky's or Steve's disabilities mentioned or expressed thoughtfully, I am reminded that I don't do much with that. There are rich details I could add, but I don't. And disabilities don't always have to be mentioned in smut, but having it from time to time, especially when I write canon stucky, would be a good thing. You have to be aware of mental and physical limits in kink, especially, so I should be better about inputting those details myself.

Okay this might be a little too spicy to ask, so feel free to ignore, but do you have any THG fanfic/fandom characterization/headcanon pet peeves? Aside from I assume one-note Careers. Mine is the way people erase the mentorship bond! I see so much Finnick stuff especially where he tells the writer’s chosen lover for him that they’re the “only one who sees the real him,” and I’m always like, hello, MAGS???

oh hard agree, plus I'm not a super fan of that even without the mentor thing. like don't get me wrong I love a good, codependent fictional relationship that would be absolutely destructive in real life (delicious) but everyone should have more than one person. there can be MULTIPLE codependent relationships! codependent fractal! a weird group of people with a weird shared experience that nobody else can hope to understand. FEED ME THAT LIKE SKITTLES.

(don't come for me about my fictional preferences. leave me and the fellowship ALONE)

on a similar note I also used to get tired of how everyone made all the mentors sexually and/or romantically involved with their victors (like Beetee/Wiress, Brutus/Enobaria or Finnick/Annie where he's her mentor, whoever.) like no shade to people who read or write it BUT I feel like there was a weird period where no one could envision ANY close relationship without writing it into a pairing. Maybe it's my aroace coming to the surface but I got a bit grumpy. So I wrote an endless permutation of complicated, intense relationships with absolutely no sex or romance aspect. what are ya gonna do about it!

one of my less controversial peeves is "peeta starts out dating glimmer who is vapid and promiscuous and cheats on him so he can get together with katniss who is perfect" like an early taylor swift song. it was E V E R Y W H E R E for a while. if there was a modern AU, Peeta was dating Mean Bitch Glimmer and she'd get her comeuppance around the end of Act I. why. please. one of Katniss' actual, literal, canon character arcs is realizing Glimmer was a person who was forced to act the way she was (her interview dress chosen by her adult stylist was SEE-THROUGH) and she died, alone, for an audience who immediately forgot she existed. and you're gonna "not like other girls" her for your wish-fulfillment barista AU. cool.

on the other end of the scale -- and this is a very personal trigger, so I don't blame anyone for liking it -- the District 5 repro girls / thin girls fanon that was rampant in 2012-2014 fanfic. a bunch of people incorporated it into their stuff but it is such a violent, visceral nope for me that if a story uses it I close the tab immediately.

characterization-wise, there is a fic i still see floating around where rue makes me scream. listen. rue is the oldest of 6 kids AND her father died when she was even younger than katniss. she has been working full time to support her family in a job where you are literally murdered for mistakes since she was nine years old. rue is calculating and intelligent, she tells katniss that peeta is "okay" when she knows he's bleeding to death because if katniss realizes he's dying she'll leave. PLEASE. respect the hustle, the girl is not naive.

ok you did say spicy so i will give you ONE (1) hot take. it drives me bananas when fanfic uses Cato Hadley and Clove Kentwell. they first appeared on wattpad in 2010, when fandom tossed a few names around for a while and hadley and kentwell were the ones that stuck. but IT'S NOT THEIR REAL LAST NAMES STOP ADDING THEM TO THE WIKIS AND TELLING PEOPLE IT'S CANON AAAAAAAAA.

there's my one petty hunger games post, lol. i am pretty live and let live, generally if I don't like something I scroll past or filter it out. the annoyance happens when it's stuff like, trying to read fic about Careers and the first page of results is just them background tagged in an ensemble fic about the main characters -- but that's a minor character in juggernaut fandom problem, that's EVERYWHERE. i do the "search within results summary: name" trick to solve that

I saw your take on how we have to stop using shipping goggles for everything because it misses out on the nuance of a lot of relationships and I agree so much! Especially with Kaveh and Alhaitham who are everything and more. It's best summed up in Kaveh's voiceline about Alhaitham "It's complicated." They were friends, best friends, who had a horrible falling out and then spent the next years arguing with each other in academic papers. And then Alhaitham found Kaveh in a tavern and immediately knew that he was in trouble and Kaveh, even though they were no longer friends, told him everything even though he's not comfortable with doing that. And then Alhaitham took him home. They are mirrors and foils who exist to show each other their flaws and strengths and their hypocrisies and every little thing in between. They are each others closest person in this life and they will never find another person who understands them like they do or who can *truly* see right through them like they do. They have hurt each other but came back together regardless and they care about each other so so much. The misunderstandings are still there and it's hard because they want to be that close again but they don't know how to get back there so they just bicker and bring each other food and turn their house into a home. This complexity is really lost when you view it as only romantic because they were first and foremost best friends who were partners. And it's simultaneously a mix of platonic/romantic and a third other thing. Sorry this is getting really long but I love your posts and analyses, and yeah Kaveh and Alhaitham are so much more then just ao3 romance tropes (like their annoying fanon selves will lead you to believe) and they're relationship timeline is a tragedy and it's so complex and so interesting to think about. I really want to die when I think about them for too long. They make each other better and that's just the facts and when they go home at the end of the day it's to each other where they help each other understand the other side of the mirror, the other half of the world. Like that can't just be summarized as either strictly platonic or romantic, it's just so much more!!

hi. holds your hands. you understand me. you really do. i love you. very much

i really agree it annoys me when ppl just brush them off like Oh theyre boyfriends. its like well idk it seems kind of flippant… idk.. i think people forget that before everything they were friends. like really best friends and also neither of them had any family to support them. alhaithams grandma was far away from him when he enrolled and his parents were already dead and kavehs mom had already moved to fontaine and his father had just recently passed. they were both very alone in their early akademiya days. ironically even though theyre such opposites theyre the only ones who could ever fully understand each other. they were so isolated that when they did end up becoming friends, when they found that they were able to understand each other, their relationship became much more significant to who they were

they cant really stand to call each other friends, but if you looked at a list of things friends do for each other, they do it all. they pack leftovers for each other and worry about each other and know about the other’s schedules and careers. alhaitham picks kaveh up at the tavern whenever hes too drunk to get home by himself. in alhaithams story quest, as soon as kaveh got all his comments out, he asked alhaitham if he was okay. alhaitham even allows kaveh to just redecorate their house as he pleases. kaveh obviously isnt just a tenant. and the reason they bicker so languidly is because they know so much about each other. its easy to find areas to make jabs at because they know each other best, more than anyone

because theyre mirrors, they have more insight into each other than anyone else. if they reflect upon their own actions compared to the other, theyll find that theyre simply the equal and opposite reaction. im really excited to see kaveh in the event and his eventual hangout. i would love for more things to pick apart and analyze concerning him and the most important person in his life

Hi your posts about Kon were really thorough and gave me a lot of information that I didn't have as I like that other anon just haven't read the old series or anything lmfao I am a terrible comic fan but anyway could you please show us if its not a bother Clark's actual first interaction with Kon? I know they have a parent/son relationship but I see everywhere that Kon was immediately rejected for a long time and the cartoon did it too but I never see anyone have the scans anyway thanks!

You will never see those scans because they don't exist in the context you mean. This is fanon. That particular conflict between Clark and Kon was for the Young Justice Animation.

This hostility was absent from the comics, and even then they did not have a parent/child relationship.

Superboy #94

Their relationship in the comics was more cousinly/brotherly as Clark accepted that Kon was his clone, and if someone is your clone genetically the closest relative would be a sibling, not a child. This was the route that the comics went with and it is the type of relationship Clark accepted and continued with when Kon came back into continuity in 2019 although with a slightly altered perspective.

Action Comics #1028 There ARE times when Kon is casually referred to as Clark's "boy" as Batman did when he confronted Clark about Kon dating Cassandra, but Clark was not a parental figure to Kon. In fact Clark's usually confused when someone asks about his "son" pre-Jonathan Kent. Clark is more like a mentor or role model; like the distant older brother who is enrolled in college to Kon than a parent.

(I am sorry please someone tell me the exact issue # for this I poured through my collection and have lost track of the issue #, I was only able to find this page via googling the meme it is associated with, I gave up after 2 hours) Clark respects and trusts Kon to make his own decisions and make his own relationships so he generally leaves Kon alone to lead his own life. This does get Kon into trouble eventually which I will explain below. Clark occasionally comes around in Kon's comics to help him or drop nuggets of wisdom, or to ask him for help in things (like keeping an eye on Cadmus's genetic practices and alerting him if he sees anything dubious or questionable) but he never rejects him. Supergirl for a brief moment in time did reject Kon and claimed he was not worthy of wearing the S Shield, but not Clark.

Superboy #59 Clark accepts Kon into the S-Shield family, into the House of El and later into the House of Kent. Clark has always thought very highly of Kon and he trusted him. As far as Clark and the entire world was aware of Kon had a stable life setup for him by Cadmus with Dubbilex and Rex Leech in Hawaii so Clark had no real reason to suspect Kon was in need of any additional personal "help" from him or anyone. Also as far as Clark was aware of Kon had a guardian who was mature and trustworthy to make sure he would be safe and stay out of trouble. Then things fell apart for Kon, he could no longer live in Hawaii and then he lived at Cadmus for a while until the whole lab was shut down and he was essentially homeless for a very short time.

Kon left to his own devices found residence at an apartment complex in Suicide Slums as a live-in maintenance person as he had no income. Kon was being (once again) exploited and taken advantage of and he didn't really have the skills to prevent this from happening to himself. Kon's time in that apartment came to an explosive (literally) end and that is when Clark took him away from the situation and set him up with his parents as Conner Kent.

Superboy #100 During this time yes someone should have come in and intervened immediately when Kon was homeless. It would not have to have been Clark necessarily, but someone who would have Kon's best interests in mind because up until this point there were very few people who genuinely did and had the skills to keep him safe.

This is the one major re-occurring flub of the entire run in my opinion; that no one stepped in to help Kon when he really truly needed it and no one saw that he was not in the best situation even in Hawaii.

One of the main themes you can glean from Kon's comics is his persistent exploitation by others. You can argue that Clark failed to not notice this and perhaps he should have been more present to notice, that he at worst was a negligent and oblivious brother/mentor to Kon, but he never flat out abandoned him or rejected him because -again- Clark assumed Kon was alright. Even so you can make a fair argument that he as a hero, and as his mentor/brother/cousin/responsible adult should have intervened sooner. So anon, I am sorry but you were mislead by fanon and carry-over from the Young Justice Animation. There just is no comic support for the claim that Clark abandoned and rejected Kon. I do actually appreciate what Young Justice did in this telling of Clark and Conner (I can't call that Superboy Kon) because it shows that even heroes can fail and fail horribly. It's a great narrative to have however it is also important to know that the Young Justice Animation is its own separate universe and is wildly different from the comics. Both narrations ARE canon but only to their respective worlds. I hope this breakdown sorts some things out for you.

hey. hey psst. grian & purpled friends au is a banger. you um, you got any more? mayhaps?

Ok so you're gonna have to bear with me for aa few moments since this au is made by someone who hasn't watched Evo in a hot second and someone who I believe hasn't yet finished watching it, so we are mostly working off of fanon and my terrible memory for Watcher stuff

With that said, you've heard of Watcher!Grian, now get ready for Watcher!Purpled too :D

So you’re probably wondering how in the world we got here. It started with Peggy mentioning that Purpled got a clean view of both Tommy’s duel with Dream and Phil taking out Wil. That’s enough for me to start the Watcher propaganda babey!!!

“They watch but cannot be seen”

I'm pretty sure I yoinked this quote from a sign that showed up in some Watcher thing at some point. Purpled sure does watch. I also believe he has done some messing around with replay mod to see inside the prison or something? So yeah, Watcher boy be looking. And the “cannot be seen” part? He’s constantly falling into the background, almost forgotten, and maybe it's in his very nature.

Grian and Purp were both Watchers, though their time as Watchers only briefly overlapped. Purpled was already a Watcher during Evo times, having been picked up by the Watchers while traveling the void in his spaceship. They had promised him he would become something greater than himself, he would be part of something important, he would have a legacy. Purpled went along with them, at first, it wasn’t like he really had anything better to be doing. Besides, the magic and wings he got out of the deal were pretty cool.

It was when the Watchers started looking to recruit Grian that Purpled started to question why he was there. That legacy they promised him, he wasn't sure if they ever delivered on that. If anything, it was the Watchers that were benefiting off of him. The Evolutionists were the only people who were confident in their existence, and even then, they only knew of the group as a whole. They had no idea how many of them there were or of any of the individuals within. He doesn’t think that was ever what he wanted out of joining the Watchers... He wasn’t actually sure what he had wanted out of them.

Purpled noticed the Watchers focusing their attention on Grian, he saw how they worked to break down his will to rebel. Sure, he had joined them, but it wasn't like he had been told all their rules upfront. Naturally the guy who had continuously tested the limits of their patience when they had been some unknown power wouldn’t stop that just because he was one of them now. Grian would push the limits of what he was allowed to do, finding loopholes, dancing around the rules, and even outright breaking them at times. The two interacted a few times and Purpled liked the guy well enough. He liked him enough to break the rules himself and not report Grian when he caught him breaking some rules, he even pointed out a few spots in the rules where the phrasing could be exploited. Still, he recognized the opportunity Grian’s presence provided him. Purpled was no longer the newest Watcher, no longer constantly under their gaze. He could just leave, and if he was smart about it, he could get away and have plenty of time before anyone noticed.

So he did. With a final o7 to Grian, Purpled left. Their final encounter within the Watchers domain went something like this:

Purpled: Hey do you want some advice?

Grian: Sure

Purpled: *walks away never to be seen again within the Watcher’s domain*

It was only later that Grian realized what the advice was, long after he began sneaking out, began testing the limits of what he could do. It was long after he figured out that an eye couldn't really look within itself and he could use the very powers the Watchers had given him to hide himself from them, long after he'd made his own domain, long after he'd slipped away to a land he created specifically to stay out of their sight and reach that he realized what the advice was. Purpled had left. His advice was to leave. Grian had—albeit unknowingly—followed that advice.

Purpled had taken a much different method to getting away. Instead of making himself untraceable, he hid in plain sight. He went to Hypixel and made a name for himself playing Bedwars. With each game he won, with each game he clutched, he amassed supporters. Players, believers and doubters alike, began to bet on the outcome of his matches. Purpled had made himself seen. He knew the Watchers knew he was there, but that was the point. They couldn’t reach him, not without breaking their own rules, at least. Unlike the two Players turned Watchers, the original Watchers cared deeply for and were bound by their rules. Even if they had tried anything, Purpled managed to create his own legacy, making for himself what they never could. Beyond that, he'd found friends, he'd built a community, surrounded himself with people who would look for him and make themselves a problem for the Watchers if they tried to make him go back. They were forced to sit by and do nothing as he continuously broke their most important rule.

Purpled didn't need the Watchers, he never did.

Grian didn't really know how he felt about the Watchers. He didn't think he hated them, not really. The Watchers had given him a taste of true freedom then immediately began to restrain him. They'd given him wings and the power to create worlds in mere seconds, something which would not only take a regular Admin a much longer time, it would require a significant amount of preparation. He was given the world at his fingertips but was limited by the long list of rules the Watchers enforced. He doesn't regret joining them—he wouldn't give up his wings for the world—but they just weren't enough. The more they tried to make him fit their mold of a perfect little Watcher, the more sure of that he became.

It was almost funny, the Watchers had become stricter in order to prevent another Purpled situation. They were trying to ensure Grian wouldn’t leave them too, but in doing so, they had given him reason to. He was a bit curious though, he wondered what Purpled was up to now. Grian hadn’t gotten news about him since he’d left the Watchers.

So Grian went to Hypixel, he wanted to see if he could track down Purpled. He knew the other was there, judging by the leaderboards, but he couldn’t seem to catch him around the hub. He managed to track down gamblers betting on Purpled's victories. Grian followed that lead, tailing the person who was updating them on the results of Purpled's matches. Somehow that person continued to find intel without Grian catching where Purpled was. It made no sense, and if he was being honest with himself, it had long since reached the point of being frustrating. Eventually, after an infuriating amount of dead ends Grian decided he may as well play a few games before calling it a day and heading home. He tried a few solo matches of bedwars and while PvP wasn't really his thing, he had to admit throwing fireballs at people was pretty fun.

Grian finding Purpled wasn't even intentional on his part. At that point he wasn’t even actively looking or playing the game properly. He’d simply started building houses after politely asking people to leave him alone with varying levels of success. After a few games, he received a friend request from the person who had won the last match with a message inviting him to join them for some doubles. Grian accepted after a moment of thought, they seemed polite enough. They had left him for last when it would’ve been way easier and much more convenient to just continue their clockwise sweep.

It didn’t take Grian long to realize that his new companion was nicked, though to be fair, he was too. It’s not that he particularly cared when someone was nicked, but his curiosity was getting the better of him. There was something about this person, the way they held themself, the general energy around them, something that just felt so familiar. Try as he might, though, Grian couldn’t quite figure out what it was.

It was when he noticed the absolute confidence and ease in which his companion threw themself into the void that Grian finally gave in to his curiosity. Players usually avoid the void, and even if they did jump into it for strategic purposes, he's never seen anyone

recover as fast as his companion did. While they ran off to go stab someone who was getting too close to their area for comfort, Grian tried to look past their disguise. He was met with resistance, surprisingly. Usually looking past a Player being nicked was no issue. He pushed harder, it was more than just curiosity at this point, he needed to know who this was, why they were able to resist him. Somehow the results were worse this time. Grian realized with increasing bewilderment that he could no longer even see his companion. His teammate was just gone, there one moment and gone the next.

Grian blinked away the purple in his eyes, focusing on his surroundings. There were no new bridges leading away, his teammate was still in the game, and they hadn't died. Where could they have gone? He continued to scan the island when he was suddenly hit with the overwhelming sense of being watched. There, standing beside him was his teammate, eyes glowing the same purple Grian's had moments before.

"Something wrong, Grian?"

It all clicked for him then. His nicked companion was the guy he had been looking for the entire time, he’d only just now decided to reveal himself. Of course Grian’s Watcher abilities hadn’t helped, Purpled had way more power here than he did. He was just a guest in the other’s domain, he never had a chance of finding him if he hadn’t wanted to be found.

“Y’know, you could have been a lot clearer.”

“Rule 7. Besides, you figured it out, didn’t you?”

Once they reunited, the two realized they still got along well. They agreed to keep in contact, and they did. Grian would sometimes hop onto Hypixel to join Purpled for a few games—always nicked, they didn’t want the Watchers to realize they were in contact— and other times he'd drag him off to a creative world to challenge him to a game of build swap or various flying courses he’d created. The two often swapped tips and tricks for things they were good at. Grian would give Purpled lessons on building, block palettes, and flying (he argued the other only ever really using his wings while voiding didn’t count). In exchange, Purple would try to give him advice on various things he’d picked up from playing bedwars: block clutches, speedbridging, and general PvP.

When Purpled was invited onto the DreamSMP, he was fairly excited. He loved what he had going on with Hypixel and his friends there, but part of him had always wanted this. Ever since he was with the Watchers, overlooking everything on Evo and worlds before that, part of him had wished to be on the other side of things. This desire only grew stronger as he heard the tales of what Grian got up to on Hermitcraft.

The Dream SMP was nothing like he expected it to be. It turned out to be a hardcore world, only 3 “lives” allowed per player. There were also seemingly infinite respawns, though, which made no sense. He wasn’t sure which was more annoying: the unclear respawn rules or the fact that he was never told about them before he agreed to join.

Besides that, there was also some entity with a great amount of power, even more than the admin himself. Purpled had noticed their presence fairly quickly upon joining and he was immediately on edge. He had no information on the being, their power, their motives, nothing. And that felt dangerous. Purpled had unintentionally ended up falling back into old habits from working with the Watchers as he tried to establish himself in this world. He claimed land for his own, carving out his own domain within that of the unknown god while trying to avoid catching their attention. Eventually, once he was comfortable enough within the world, he began trying to reach out, trying to get involved in the things that were happening. He heard there was a war brewing, and if he learned anything from Grian, things were about to get really fun.

They didn’t.

His attempts to involve himself mostly failed, so he went back to doing what he had before. He claimed more and more land and continued watching over events from the sidelines. Things got serious, conflicts got personal, and unless he was directly pulled in by someone he considered a friend, Purpled just watched.

Anyway my excuse for whatever is going on with their designs is that Watchers can control how they are perceived. This is my city and I want them to have cool wings. Also Peggy was supposed to be my impulse control but the memo got lost in the mail and she never got it, so she enabled me instead. Now we have both funky dragon/parrot vibes on Grian and vague alien/phantom/vex vibes on Purpled

https://matthewfairchildfanclub.tumblr.com/post/622613826051932160/okay-im-ranting-because-i-started-re-reading-the

What do u think about this? I'm kinda struck. I didn't read it that way? It didn't feel ooc to me? I am just stunned how many ppl agree with this because...thar entire thing was cardan and jude being dumb and sad and... Jude is a strong protagonist and ever scheming and persistent but she's...like human? She has feelings and is allowed to be sad??? Idk it's just strange to me

okay first thing's first: i'm not trying to start beef with OP (or anyone who agrees with OP). that is their opinion. they're allowed to have it. Jude and Cardan aren't real, but the person on the other side of that blog is.

second. i really only briefly skimmed the post because, honestly, it's the same argument i've seen everyone who doesn't like QON make. they think because Jude wouldn't burn down villages to get back into Elfhame after having her heart broken, she is, therefore, OOC.

let me tell you why i, personally, disagree with that statement. (TW: discussion of mental health and dissociation under the cut)

i'm going to split this into two parts. one is more anecdotal and the other is more character based.

as you point out, nonnie, Jude is strong. she is fierce, she is determined. but again, she is human. with human feelings. teenage human feelings, at that.

anyone who is not convinced Jude would feel pretty shit for a while after going through her first heartbreak is either too old to remember the rollick of teenage emotions mixed with the legless lord of young love, or they've simply never had their hearts broken before.

if the first, they're looking at Jude's situation with years of maturation behind them, years Jude doesn't yet have at that point. i think people forget this sometimes. Jude is just a teenager. and they probably want her to keep fighting because it's what they didn't do, but wished they had.

if the latter..... oh, my sweet summer child.

when i was young and in love (kind of) and then suddenly had everything ripped away from me within the span of a month, i honestly couldn't tell you what happened that summer. because i don't remember. i was backpacking but all i remember is sleeping well into the afternoon almost every day. lashing out at my friends for stupid shit. not eating. taking every chance i could get to isolate myself. being fine one moment, then in the next feeling like i was going to burst into tears out of nowhere. i had my first dissociative episode. it lasted for three days.

now, i'm probably not as scary as Jude. but i'd like to think i'm stubborn and spiteful enough to warrant some shadowy semblance. what i became was not who i or anyone else wanted or expected me to be. i wanted to be angry and rage and seek revenge, but i couldn't. people expected me to get over it, but i didn't. i was just stuck in this awful liminal place.

heartbreak isn't a single moment where your heart is shattered and then you immediately begin to pick up the pieces. that's unrealistic. heartbreak shatters you and then steals what's left away into a dense fog and laughs as you fumble around blindly on your hands and knees, searching for the lost pieces of yourself.

so, as nonnie pointed out, it is okay for Jude to be sad. it is more than okay. it's what we should expect.

okay, now on to my character based argument. to me, anyone who has this interpretation of QON has severely misjudged Jude's character throughout the series as a whole.

it's true, Jude might put on the facade of tough scary lady with sword–and sure, to a certain extent that is part of her. but Jude is not inherently wicked or menacing or unforgiving, even if she can be at times.

just because we can be a thing doesn't mean we are that thing. mere adjectives simply do not have the breadth to define us, your honours. we exist in multitudes, or however the fuck that Walt Whitman quote goes.

i'm not going to comb through the entire series for moments where Jude is not scary or menacing because, frankly, there are a lot. if you're not actively looking for the moments where she is terrifying, i think you'll see her kindness, her gentleness, even at times her grace, quite plainly.

i'd also like to point out that the times in which Jude is any of those scarier things are all when she is literally terrified for her life. it's a survival tactic. be scared or be the scariest thing in the room. easy choice from where i'm standing.

now in terms of Jude's exile, Cardan is a little dumb here, but not in the fanon himbo Cardan way. just in the normal "dude madly in love" way. by exiling her to the mortal world, he thought he was giving her what she wanted: safety and a clever riddle to solve. because she can't break, right?

he also sent her away for selfish reasons. her safety was more absolute in the mortal world and he couldn't risk losing her again. plus, he wanted to show off his cleverness, smug prick that he is.

but what Jude actually wanted were the things he promised her in his vows: to be the Queen of Elfhame, and, ultimately, him. she wanted a place to call home and Cardan by her side. he took the only things she truly desired in the world away from her by exiling. so yeah, homegirl has every right to be sad.

to close, i think people with this perspective of QON have the same view of Jude as Cardan once did, and it comes from a place of well-intentioned misunderstanding. he thought she could not break. so did the anti-QON crowd.

they were wrong.

–Em 🖤🗡

more thoughts on Emotional!Jude

more theories & analysis

The Black family / Walburga Black / canon.

As I said before I do not care that much about canon/fanon/headcanon because transformative works by definition include a wide variety of different interpretations. However, I am forever perplexed when I see uncompromising opinions on the Black family - particularly the unwavering certainty that Sirius Black’s parents were psychotic abusers. All personal opinions aside - why is this so popular?

I mean - it’s absolutely ok to headcanon this version and to play with it - but saying 'don’t you dare say they did not physically and emotionally abuse Sirius' is a little strong, isn’t it?

This is a mystery to me. So…let’s discuss my favourite subject…Again.

Let’s stick to the facts. The frequently cited things proving the abuse in the Black family are as follows:

Sirius said his parents were awful maniacs (pureblood ideology)

he ran away from home

he was severely depressed in OoTP

Kreacher

Portrait

So…when you say that Sirius’s parents were abusive…you mean exactly what? These people got cold feet when they saw the real nature of Voldemort - I guess it somehow implies that they did not share his methods…that they were against violence as a tool to get purebloods in charge.

But then it usually goes this way: ‘well at least he was verbally and emotionally abused by his family’ - but is it so? Is this based on the portrait of Sirius's mother? She insulted strangers who took over her house and her runaway son - how does this prove anything about how Sirius and Regulus were raised and treated when they were kids? I agree it’s rather impolite - jkr did a good job showing how purebloods perceived others ( those below them) -but in all honesty, this has very little to do with Sirius and his childhood.

Why to make Sirius a victim at all? - c’mon he was tougher than this, he spent 12 years in Azkaban; are you actually saying that a portrait throwing insults at everyone is worse? I doubt that. And is it such a surprise that a mother who lost her son (that said son actually ran away and abandoned his duty) would be that furious at him when seeing him again...even if it’s only a portrait...I believe it to be a rather unpleasant experience for a parent when a child runs away.

We already talked about the portrait a lot - I don’t even want to mention it here- - I feel we should rather pay more attention to the fact that Sirius himself was not an angel.

I am not saying the colourful vocabulary of Walburga Black should be used…but Sirius himself upon seeing Snape  immediately  recognised his weakness and went for it without any hesitation …we are talking about Sirius who in fact was quite a renowned bully ( I mean - we know for a fact that from time to time Sirius and James got carried away)…

And it was Sirius who sent Snape to meet and chat with a real werewolf (yes, I agree - he was not thinking this through - he probably was just vexed and fed up with Snape and thought he wouldn’t go there, would get cold feet or idk run away…But it actually changes nothing. If a drunken driver hits someone it will be 100% his fault whether he means it or not. Whether he is in a fragile mental state or not - such situations are definite. It’s the same with Sirius - even if he did not mean anything bad he should have understood the cost of his mistake - all teenagers make silly things but not all of them send their classmate to meet a werewolf - James thought it not a very good idea as I recall… -

So we see that Sirius was not an angel from the start and I can hardly believe he was a victim by nature. His behaviour loudly manifested that he used to get what he wanted with no thought of the consequences.

And all those pictures of bikini-clad girls on the walls in his room prove that he was quite a spoiled boy who had nothing to fear from mum and dad. Harry himself noticed «Sirius seemed to have gone out of his way to annoy his parents». All this shows that Sirius was not afraid of his parents at all. What kind of masochist would suffer for motorbike posters? That would be ridiculous.

Let’s move to Kreacher: If Sirius’s mother had been a monster why even mention her heart?  JKR wrote this for a purpose and this heavily implies that Sirius's situation was never meant to be ‘the abusive heartless parents vs the poor helpless victim’.  

The fact that Sirius ran away and hence broke his mother’s heart says against the popular idea that he was not loved by his family, that he was always the second one, that they abused him. I’m 100% certain that Kreacher told the truth in that scene. Why would he say something like this if it were not the truth - something like…that his beloved mistress having been so upset over Sirius running away that it broke her heart. Just tell me one reason that would have justified such a lie - why to say this at all?

Then this: “Leave?” Sirius smiled bitterly and ran a hand through his long, unkempt hair. “Because I hated the whole lot of them: my parents, with their pure-blood mania, convinced that to be a Black made you practically royal … my idiot brother, soft enough to believe them … that’s him.”…. “He was younger than me,” said Sirius, “and a much better son, as I was constantly reminded.”

I’ve already said it before - this ‘better son than me’ is exactly what insecure 14-year old kids like to say. Well...he’s a bit older but it’s not as if he had a life and a chance to mature. Moreover, I don’t know if it comes as a great shock but a lot of teenagers like to badmouth their parents…usually, it involves something like ‘those bloody uptight retrogrades know nothing of the real world’ (it fades away when they get closer to thirty).

To be serious, I find that it’s just another example of similarities between Sirius and his mother. They clearly did not know what it means to be composed, polite, and respectful. Yeah…I think that, on the whole, parents are owed their children’s respect (unless they are completely inadequate - somehow I don’t believe this was the case). Someone should teach both of them what mutual respect means. Anyway, there is nothing in this quote that says that Sirius was subjected to any forms of abuse - it’s about how Sirius justified his running away,  how he saw the situation.

There’s also the fact that Sirius was incredibly unhappy because he was back at his childhood home and having to spend time around anything that reminded him of his family: “Hasn’t anyone told you? This was my parents’ house,” said Sirius. “But I’m the last Black left, so it’s mine now. I offered it to Dumbledore for headquarters — about the only useful thing I’ve been able to do.” Harry, who had expected a better welcome, noted how hard and bitter Sirius’s voice sounded”.

Here it comes…the severe depression that makes people question the severity of his abuse… I have thought a lot about this because it is the reason why some consider ‘the abusive blacks' canon while others believe it was more of a tragedy of the family rather than the banal brutality.

Of course, Sirius was upset in that house - but I don’t think he suffered the memories of his unhappy childhood - I think he suffered from the strong feeling of guilt. Being in that house meant an everyday reminder that he was a failure. And it’s not even a lie. If you look at his whole life you’ll see that he literally failed everyone in his life: he failed James and Lily - they were dead and he unwillingly became the reason. It was his plan that turned everything into a tragedy.

And, to some extent, he failed Harry- he was not around him like James and Lily would have wanted. Sirius did not give him the real family - he only promised they'd be the one «when it’s all over».

And finally - he failed his parents, his brother, his own family.

Is it possible to live with so much guilt in your heart?

I don't think that Sirius completely forgot who he was born to be. If the family keeps traditions and can trace its existence back in centuries you can't shake it off even if you want. I doubt Sirius switched it off just because he had griffindor friends. He was the last Black - it is tragically poetic that he was once the hope of his family and then this family died with him. If Sirius had heart (and I truly believe he had a heart) he knew exactly what it meant to be trapped in the house that represented the death of his family. A constant reminder  that he was the last one.  

“The others’ hushed voices were giving Harry an odd feeling of foreboding; it was as though they had just entered the house of a dying person”. 

I think that the scene when he threw his father's ring away - he threw it away because it was all over for his family. It was the end of the dynasty - and for him it was all over long before he met Bellatrix for the last time.

Well, I admit Sirius' situation is open for wide interpretation but I don’t think the abusive black household is a canon thing - of course, it’s fanon. It makes Sirius a hero who broke the chains when in fact he ended up being a victim of his own life.

You know, it always seems strange to me that fandom when discussing Walburga usually overlooks the simple truth of life - that even if you are clever enough and mean good for your loved ones it is still possible to end up on the losing side, on the dark side.  However, mistakes don't automatically turn humans into monsters.

To some extent Sirius’s story represents the consequences of war.  No-one is protected; the whole families could be wiped off the face of the earth. It’s a simple yet profound idea. It correlates with the main idea of hp books far better than the ‘abusive psychopaths’ (there are already Voldemort and Bellatrix - there is no-one who can beat them in this department).

All I say - it’s okay to imagine them bad if you want- your right - but don’t write everywhere that it’s canon because it is not.There is no need for such inflexibility especially when it comes to the fandom - a place where everyone should be welcomed and their views on the books be respected.