#doom digresses
Note
Have you ever drawn Angel and Alastor- like where Angel keeps endlessly flirting with him, and sitting on Alastor's lap, and Alastor just leans back and his face is just an awkward smile.
Not quite! This is about as close as I’ve gotten to that specific scene, but maybe I’ll have to fix that 🤔
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Just because a relationship doesn’t work out, doesn’t make the love any less real. People seem to think that if two people are in love, it always ends in a happily ever after, and thus they dismiss certain ships as being real.
Just because it didn’t end well doesn’t mean the love isn’t real. Please absorb this into your head.
#tamlin loved feyre pls be fr rn#even rhys says it#feylin#SUZANNE said coryo and lucy loved each other#snowbaird#i could include loads of doomed ships but i digress
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(Long ghostkicks ramble incoming)
I think in the beginning of season 1 william saw Dakota as this breakable person, someone who would always be there and was a true hero. He’s always admired Dakota from the start. And some of this hasn’t changed; william still thinks Dakotas the strongest of them all and is the greatest hero. However I think a major shifting point for Williams view on Dakota was episode 13 of season 1 where Dakota nearly died because of the sword through the torso. William audibly is choked up during this scene and is the most obviously worried one out of all of them (s1 ep19 parallels). I think it’s at this point that William sees Dakota as more “human”. Although he’s still one of the toughest and strongest people he knows, Dakota still has weaknesses and can die just like the rest of them. And even more so than that was the new growing fear of losing Dakota. After the timeskip William makes it clear how much he fears losing Dakota again. To quote William from s2 ep1, “The only reason I ever even thought about getting stronger, or whatever that means, was because I met [Dakota]”. “…’cause I don’t wanna lose you for, well, I mean, ever again. We’re what we’ve got.” It all makes me wonder how William coped after Dakota disappeared for ten months with only a note left behind. And it makes me wonder what Williams full thoughts were when he said that him and Dakota eventually falling out “bound to happen”. How much has he thought about it? Was he just uselessly clinging to the friendship they still had with the impending doom caused by their differing morals hanging above them? How the fuck is episode 34 going to go??? More “Feelys” to quote the editor???? Would Dakota pick his best friend over his morals????? What if I literally ate drywall
Honestly I want bitter fighting. I want Dakota to be so frustrated and confused and angry and disappointed and I hope their fight draws blood (metaphorically or physically) and I hope I throw up and die and voluntarily become the joker. I also hope Dakota looks in Williams eye and can’t see how the person who fought so hard for Dakota to live and stay by his side is the same one who would lie and kill someone. Or maybe Dakota does look at William and can’t help but still see the awkward teenager who would hide behind his back like a shield, then the person who grew into wanting to protect him in return, the person who has put his moral faith into him and only him, the person who fucking sucks ass at driving, the person who would do anything for him, the person he trusts so so much, William Wisp.
Really all roads lead to tragedy. Maybe william knew this, and maybe that’s what he meant by it being “bound to happen”. Dakota chooses to leave William and/or turn him into the authorities? Classic tragedy. They’d be leaving behind everything that they made each other, which not only includes the heart transfer, but the way they grew because they inspired one another. William and Dakota have this reoccurring thing where they say they’re proud of each other, originating all the way back from s1. and although it’s kinda silly, even Dave and sweet summer child William from the rolleds are constantly saying how they wish to be like the other one day. It might not mean anything about og ghostkicks, but I believe since it’s still alternations of themselves that it’s worth mentioning. Dakota and William are practically parts of each other. they’re almost the definition of “paired package do not separate” with how they always end up together no matter what universe or alteration of themselves there are. (See ssc William and Dave, William Wight and Kota Kill [they have a whole thing going on it’s not healthy but I support it])
Now if Dakota chooses to stay with William? Still a tragedy in that Dakota would be sacrificing his morals and the standards that he holds himself to. And William would have to live with what he became, forcing his own friend to temporarily give up a part of his ideals from what he did, compromising far more for him than what either of them usually do. Because In Dakota’s hero way of seeing things, William should be locked up or at least put onto trial. He literally killed someone (even if it was accidental), unknowingly attempted murder on three more people, assisted in unauthorized and unconsensual surgery, and mentally tormented someone (David and X) twice. Now I’m no expert in law, but I know all of this breaks a LOT of them. As of right now, Dakota doesn’t know all of what William has done. but I doubt William would be able or willing to lie to him more in ep 34. I’m just really excited for July 1st
I had more in my head but I forgor 💀 anyways very big thanks if you got to the end of this ramble it’s probably a unintelligible and messy. please forgive me I am not a writer but I had to get these thoughts out. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk goodnight 💤
#this is all from my notes app. don’t feel pressured to read all of this rambling into the void is just fun ^^#it’s probably very hard to read my thoughts were everywhere#was in a particularly ghostkicking mood 2nite. made a playlist for them. had to lay down and think about them.#normal things to expect from your local ghostkicking soldier#EDIT: the thing I forgot to write down was gown#ghostkicks is yuri. im too tired to fully explain it now but keep it in your mind#their closeness could be the doom of each other? yuri. thanks you#also they’re kinda yaoi I guess since I think they’re both incredibly transmasc#and sometimes lose a majority of their thinking skills when around each other and not in battle. but i digress#talking.txt
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I believe the costume designer has spoken about how she was inspired by Malaysian headpieces for Rhaenyra's headpiece in episode 7 (you can see from the concept art the original design is much more simple with a gold base and red jewels) but the detailing in the finished piece definitely makes it look more like a kokoshnik.
Oh interesting!! @kitsnicket mentioned it looked Byzantine-inspired, I need to research these fashion styles more, it’s really fascinating to me. I honestly want to see more Valyrian fashion.
#i want to see more valyrian *everything* but i digress#a show about the doom would be super cool#asks#anonymous#old valyria#hotd#asoiaf
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it took me a long time to accept anger as an emotion I'm allowed to feel without being a bad person bc I associated anger with the abusive people in my life. like obviously my friends and other people could get angry occasionally and I would be like of course they're only human and tbh usually they're justified imo but if I got angry my brain was like no you're no better than your abusers. but then I was with my ex who was constantly angry and I was like see this person can be angry without being abusive. you are allowed to be angry. and then once we closed the distance and i was there for them to be angry at instead of other people it turned out they were abusive. so once again other people are allowed to remain good people in spite of getting angry but I am a bad person if I get angry. my brain works so good and I am soooo well adjusted ! when I lost access to all psych meds that was a good and smart thing to happen ! #affirmations or whatever
#tbc it wasnt them being angry in my vicinity that i saw as abusive it was like actual acts of abuse and manipulation brought on by it#that hadnt presented overtly until we were living together instead of spending maybe a couple weeks at a time together#like now i see the patterns and red flags from earlier in the relationship but at the time i was like#oh their anger is justified and wow theyre really in a situation where the people theyre near are all out to get them#which. in retrospect is itself a red flag yknow. but i digress!#i got annoyed for a second that my manager makes us actually call into work like over the phone if we're sick bc im deaf so like. fuck that#and im really not about to hop on the video phone in a cold sweat coughing every two fucking seconds#and then i was like oh no im a piece of shit for being annoyed by this! cue doom spiral#um actually im right to be annoyed about it bc if it happened to anyone else i would advocate for them#and it isnt different just because its me#except it is 🤪#anyway this is all brought to you by the feelings wheel i religiously studied from 2019-2021. thanks for giving me emotions. fuck you. etc
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Shout out to my poor poor friend who keeps sending me video game songs trying to pin down my music taste like oh buddy I'm so sorry but Penny's battle theme is so small beans compared to the stuff I listen to
#rat rambles#listening to it did make me kinda sad I dont like it more tho#it has a rly cool opening and I love the beat but its just too electronicy for my taste unfortunately#it also doesnt carry that thump like neat from the beginning for all of it which is another reason the full thing let me down#can you smell the b&w fan on me yet lol#but yeah I dont generally listen to a lot of video game music except for like. a few splat tunes#well ok Ill listen to certain soundtracks if Im in the mood but if Ill rarely add them to my main playlist#I am having fun watching them try to get a sense of my music taste tho even if I know its a doomed mission djdnfjdv#I can feel them underestimating me soooo bad maybe one day theyll just send me a video of screams and a drawer full of pots and pans being#spilled all over the place and then Ill be like ah yes a true banger#tbf I do listen to other stuff too its not Just noisey shit but that has less of a trend to it I think#like I have to train myself to like a lot of slower songs loud shit just hits#and hey Ill even occationally listen to more low key breakcore stuff#not a lot mind you I tend to actively dislike a lot of low key ~relaxing~ breakcore but I digress#go listen to faith and suspicion by autonon its soooo unit swap kanade core#it has such a strong vibe and manages to be not that intense while still holding its weight and not feeling flat#I wouldnt call it a favorite of mine but it is good and I rarely skip it in playlists so thats smth at least
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So the project I'm working on may have arrived at a useful insight into resolving any lingering questions regards to the matter of the death of United States President John F. Kennedy. See, we've been working overtime to clone the man- at first I think we were planning on running some kind of quasi-Arthurian King-in-the-mountain-returns kind of scam to unify America behind a universally-appealing figurehead, and these days we're mostly just trying to figure up what was up with his hair. All that's a digression. The point is- and I'm willing to admit that the accelerated aging techniques we've been using to speed up production might be fudging this a bit, but what we've found, right, is that it probably doesn't matter who shot him because any individual sharing JFK's genetic code appears to be ontologically doomed to be killed in their biological forties by massive head trauma of some kind. It's just fate. Doesn't matter what we do, doesn't matter what measures we put in place, it just keeps happening. So far we've lost three to bog-standard out-of-the-blue aneurysms, four to shower accidents, two to horseplay, one to a secret handshake gone horribly wrong, three to baseball accidents, two to football accidents. One fatal Croquet incident, two fatal Crochet incidents. There was a thing with a falling sandbag when cohort 54z was doing their amateur production of Cats. Something really stupid happened last week that involved the compound dumbwaiter, I didn't even want to know the specifics. We took one birding and he brought the binoculars up to his eyes with too much force. We lost a dozen at once during a group trip to a travelling carnival, most of them to that strength-testing hammer game. One of them did a netti pot and there was exactly one single brain-eating amoeba in it. It never ends and it's super fucked. Honestly it's really good that we stopped teaching them what death is or else they'd be super fucking stressed all the time for no reason
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Haven't had a chance to talk much about the Ginyus yet, so here we go. Talking about the Ginyu Tokusentai/Ginyu Force/Dairy Special Forces requires putting them into context with the greater Dragon Ball universe around them.
Something that has always been incredibly limiting for Dragon Ball's worldbuilding is that, despite much of the brand being about presenting Goku with new ladders to climb, Goku doesn't climb ladders. He leaps from ladder-top to ladder-top.
What this means is, Toriyama had a tendency to be hyperbolic with the challenges Goku was presented. Toriyama doesn't pit Goku against powerful foes. He pits Goku against the most powerful foe, then has to sit back and figure out another arena for Goku to go fight the champion of.
This creates issues of perspective. We don't get to see a lot of development of the worlds Toriyama creates because Goku only shows up to fight the Very Most Powerful Guy and then leaves. And this also means we don't get to see what being the Very Most Powerful Guy means relative to people who are not.
If you followed Dragon Ball Super, you might have noticed that issue with the Tournament of Power. The way the story leaps straight from "Multiple universes exist" to "Goku vs. The Strongest in Universe 6" and then to "Goku vs. The Strongest Guy in the MULTIVERSE!" without even stopping to breathe.
What is that universe even about? Who knows? But this guy sure is their STRONGEST GUY. And that's something that's been with Dragon Ball... honestly, since all the way back at the 21st Tenkaichi Budokai when his second arc adversary was the Earth's legendary ultimate martial arts master.
The whole concept of aliens enters the Dragon Ball universe by way of Raditz introducing the Strongest Alien Race in the Universe.
Shortly after that, Goku is fighting the Strongest Saiyan, who is technically referred to as Strongest in the Universe... right up until a retcon introduces the Planet Trade Organization and Goku fights Frieza, the Actual Strongest in the Universe For Realsies.
So. Yeah. It's hard to get a sense of perspective for how powerful our guys are when they leave Earth because they only ever brush elbows with outlier titans.
But to give some idea, we already know that Earthlings are considered to be a pretty weak species.
Raditz's arrival retroactively explains Goku's destructive Oozaru transformations. This thing?
This is the Doom of the Earth. The planet-killer meant to exterminate every last human being on this planet. Boy, sure would be fun to be in the ring with that, huh?
It's also clearly touching down outside of the ring so I don't know why this wasn't a ringout. Since when is the waiting room's rooftop considered part of the stage? But I digress.
When Goku was three years old, his Oozaru was measured to be sufficient to slaughter this world. That is how weak Earth is on the scale. By contrast, Namek is considered to be one of the more powerful worlds. Vegeta describes Namekian fighters as "extraordinary".
That's something we get to see for ourselves, when Extraordinary Namekian Fighters happen to Frieza Force soldiers like a typhoon.
This is what's considered extraordinary on a standard galactic scale. These are three warriors from one of the stronger races in the universe tearing apart soldiers whose job is to exterminate races. Once they start fighting, Dodoria reads their battle powers as 3,000.
For comparison, Raditz was said to be equivalent to a Saibaman at 1,200. We never got a read on Nappa but he found the idea of Kakarot being at 5,000 unbelievable enough to go into denial, and he shit himself over 8,000.
So, with that in mind, we can understand that these nameless Namekian nobodies are pretty fucking tough, well within the realm of Saiyan ability. They're also familiar with advanced martial arts concepts like ki suppression that the Planet Trade doesn't understand.
There's probably a reason why, despite Namek apparently being well known to the Planet Trade, nobody's seen fit to gentrify this one yet. This is a fight Frieza's more elite forces can win, to be sure. But also, there are easier pickings to be had.
And then we have the Saiyans, said to be the most powerful race in the universe. Raditz, a loser scrub who doesn't know a thing about martial arts, is able to thoroughly humiliate Goku and Piccolo in terms of sheer stats, even after Goku's been trained by Popo.
This guy is the Saiyan equivalent of Appule. Goku's been personally trained by God's right-hand attendant, and Piccolo is the reincarnation of God's evil counterpart; These are not humans of this planet, but two guys who demonstrated five years ago that they're in a realm beyond the humans.
And this loser is still doing this to them. This is what a low-rate Saiyan looks like.
And this is what a Saiyan elite looks like:
Like I said, we're never given an official reading on Nappa but he found 5,000 BP to be ridiculous for Goku to have and 8,000 to be unthinkably terrifying. The Daizenshuu pegs him at 4,000, but they also peg Piccolo at 3,500 which would mean Piccolo and Nappa are closely matched.
I don't know about you but I don't see it. But that may just be me.
In any case, this gives us a general understanding of how powerful the races of the universe are. Earthlings weak. Namekians strong. Saiyans strongest. And then there's outliers.
Throughout the universe, there are... mutants. On rare occasions, an individual is born to a race who have vastly, unbelievably, ridiculously, stupidly tremendous ki.
The Planet Trade employs these mutants for their upper staff. Zarbon and Dodoria are mutants, as are the Ginyus and even Frieza himself. Especially Frieza. The reason we've never gotten elaboration on Frieza's race is because Toriyama didn't want Frieza's traits to be taken as indicative of a whole people.
According to interview, Cold was born with abnormally high power and cruelty for his race, and these traits were passed down to his son Frieza. Whatever species they came from, it is nothing like them.
They're not the only ones. The Planet Trade collects and employs these uniquely ultra-powerful mutants for its elite forces. The Saiyans are the strongest race in the universe, but these mutants are the strongest individuals in the universe.
To grasp how powerful these guys are relative to the rest of the universe, we need to talk Saiyans again for a moment. Raditz? Raditz was the yardstick for what the bottom-tier of Saiyans was. He made Earthlings look like trash, but he would have been eaten alive by those unnamed Namekian warriors.
However, a Saiyan's true strength lies in the Oozaru. Goku as an Oozaru was meant to be able to reduce the standing population of the Earth to 0. Raditz, as an Oozaru? Would still have gotten his teeth kicked in by Vegeta, the Saiyan super-elite. He is so ridiculous, he could win a straight fight with the planet-killing Oozaru.
...I mean, not after being beaten within an inch of his life and taking a Genki-Dama to the face, he can't. But if Vegeta were still at the top of his game, this would be a very different fight.
Meanwhile, the Ginyu Force.
So. Yeah. By the time we get to them, we are far beyond the ordinary limits of the universe. Saiyans are the strongest race, and Vegeta's pressing up against the limit of Saiyan ability. He's one Zenkai away from breaking through the Saiyan ceiling. Goku already has.
And these mutants they're up against are the most powerful freak aberrations of unexplained super-ki ever to have occurred anywhere in space.
IIRC it's never directly stated but for reference, Broly would probably be considered a mutant. Whether he is or isn't, he makes as a pretty solid equivalence. These guys are to their respective races what Broly is to Saiyans. What Uub is to humans.
This is all vital context for understanding the way the Ginyu Force fights.
Because.
Like.
You need to understand.
These guys suck.
On purpose.
From a technical standpoint, they're not good fighters. They're sloppy. Poorly trained around big showy moves that are meant to look cool. Style over substance.
This is because they can get away with it. They are the most powerful beings in the universe; Powerful on a scale that is an order of magnitude beyond everybody else that exists. Even the Saiyans look like shit next to these mutants.
Saiyan super-elite hits Recoome with everything he's got right in the face at point-blank range.
And the mutant takes it like a fucking champ. Vegeta's about to be killed by a man who keeps pausing to do this.
The Ginyu Force is badly trained on purpose. Which isn't to say that they're trained to lose fights, but rather that they aren't trained to compete with an equivalent rival. They can afford a martial style focused entirely on showmanship because there is no competition for them. They're too powerful to ever lose fights. Nobody else in the known universe even compares to their mutant might.
Which, as previously noted, is something Frieza is also afflicted by, in different ways. There is no reason for the Ginyus to hone their skills the way the Earthlings do because. Like. Who's going to challenge them? They're naturally born into being top of the field by a wide margin. They're going to auto-win every fight they ever involve themselves in, so their idea of self-improvement is centered instead on looking as cool as possible while they do it.
This is precisely what the Muten-Roshi worked so hard to prevent Goku from becoming.
Something else I mentioned before is that Trunks demonstrates his serious goal-oriented nature by never naming any of his techniques. He has some distinct and identifiable moves, but none of them have a formal name that he shouts out when firing them. He's here to get the job done, not to show off.
The Ginyus are in the opposite boat. They know they can't lose fights, so they are absolutely, 100% here to show off. They name the shit out of their techniques.
Flying knee? Nah, bro. That is a Recoome Kick.
Running in and throwing a punch? Nuh-uh. Recoome Mach Attack.
Lobbing a ki blast at the opponent? Crusher Ball.
These basic attacks are given huge, flashy names. And, I need to specify, they're English names. Moves like the Kamehameha or Taiyoken or Sokidan or Makankosappo also have names but they tend to be Japanese names with descriptive meanings.
Turtle Destruction Wave, signature move of the Turtle School of martial arts.
Fist of the Sun, an intense blinding art.
Winding Ki Bullet, a remote-operated bullet of ki that Yamcha can manipulate how he likes.
Demon Piercing and Killing Light Gun, a Mazoku technique that pierces and kills.
This is not the same thing. These guys are screaming exotic English words to look cool while throwing hands. "RECOOME KICK!!!" Recoome screams in English as he throws a kick.
There is only one other character in Dragon Ball who fights like this.
That's right. Recoome Kick is the same kind of thing as Satan Miracle Special Ultra Super Megaton Punch. All shouted in English as well. The Ginyu Force is what Mr. Satan would be if he was as formidable as the world believes he is.
They're showmen, even moreso than the Earthling martial artists who were born for a tournament stage. Hell, some of Recoome's moves are inspired by pro wrestling.
They are the ultimate demonstration, both of the unquestionable might of the Planet Trade's human resources, and of the absolute waste that is the Planet Trade's capitalist philosophy towards martial arts. The PTO doesn't train warriors; They scout the strongest guys their money can buy and give them marching orders of "Get 'em." Their super-elites are no exception.
Except the Captain.
Much like Vegeta was with Nappa, Ginyu is the only one who gets it. He sees Goku's reading and immediately assesses that Goku's suppressing his ki. Ginyu knows his shit. He's just never drilled this kind of information into his soldiers, opting instead for cool-looking battle poses.
It makes sense that he understands ki suppression. He's Frieza's highest-ranking officer, and Frieza is the universe's unparalleled master at ki suppression. The lengths Frieza has gone to for the sake of suppressing ki....
But he hasn't taught it to his men. They're learning flashy modeling poses instead of martial arts.
I guess I can see the logic. Powerful as they are, why would it matter? Those three extraordinary warriors earlier were also suppressing their ki, but a range of 1k to haha actually 3k doesn't mean shit to the Ginyu Force. If nobody's true strength can match them then why waste time on tactical study?
But unlike his soldiers, Ginyu himself has the spirit of a martial artist. He doesn't waste time on battle poses or scream "GINYU FLYING PUNCH" in English when he throws a punch or do elaborate two-minute windups for his signature moves.
He's even pretty good at reading people. Ginyu lowballs Goku at 60k before the fight, but reassesses after he's traded blows with Goku a few times and estimates 85k instead.
Goku's official non-suppressed Battle Power at this point in time is 90k. So 85k is a pretty fucking good estimate for a guy who can't sense ki. Ginyu knows his shit. He's as reliant on tech as the rest of the PTO but he's experienced enough to have a strong understanding of what various levels fight like.
This is especially impressive when you remember that he's never fought someone at 90k before. Remember, further up, when he first judged Goku as 60k? He was getting excited about his lowball 60k estimate and saying he's never had a chance like this before.
If he's never fought 60k, he's certainly never fought 85k. He just. Knows enough about how lower levels fight that he can apply that knowledge and extrapolate to higher levels. It's an impressive estimation that demonstrates his experience. Ginyu isn't just the second-most powerful guy in the Planet Trade. He's the best martial artist in the Planet Trade, bar none.
He's also got a... theoretically cool ultimate technique that utterly sucks in practice: Body Change.
He may be the best martial artist in the Planet Trade but he's got nothing on martial arts master and analytical counter-fighter Son Goku. It takes Goku no time at all to realize that Ginyu's technique sucks. He doesn't know how to fight with Goku's ki.
Ginyu-Goku thinks this body will give him 180k BP because that's what he read on the Scouter when Goku used the Kaio-ken. But not only does Ginyu not know how to perform Kaio-ken, he doesn't even know how to use Goku's ki at all. It's not his. It doesn't work the same way. In Goku's body, Ginyu's reduced to a distressing 23k BP when Jeice reads him.
He's not just failing to put out Kaio-ken power. He's getting his teeth kicked in by Krillin. It's embarrassing.
I've heard the theory go around that Ginyu started out weak and worked his way up via Body Changing anyone that was ever stronger than him, but I'm not convinced that's the case. Because this right here? This seems like a critical flaw. It's hard to believe he'd be entirely ignorant of this drawback if he's ever seriously used this technique before.
Ginyu being incompatible with a Body Changed host's ki doesn't seem like something an experienced Body Changer would need Goku to explain to him. In practice, the hypothetically awesome technique is bad for reasons Ginyu wasn't able to foresee, not unlike when Tenshinhan brought Shishin no Ken/Multiform to the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai. Or Goku's first time attempting Super Saiyan 3 in a living body. Cool in theory but a massive fucking oversight costs him the entire fight.
This seems more likely to be something Ginyu, the only real martial artist in his crew, developed in his own time and showed off to his men. Something he's never actually stress tested, that he's been sitting on and waiting for an opportunity to use in the field.
Whatever the case, it pins an unexpected and interesting capstone on the Ginyu Force. They're a group of clowns who can get away with clownishness because they were born into unparalleled privilege. And they're led by a shockingly well-educated and capable martial artist who's never worked the kinks out of his ultimate technique for lack of adequate competition in a universe that could rarely hope to ever challenge even his weakest man.
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Hey all! I have some news concerning my Etsy shop and art prints going forward.
As of the 15th, Printful (the Print On Demand company I use) updated their copyright policies and I had a couple print samples flagged. So while it seems like everything currently in my shop is safe, I will not be able to use Printful to sell new Hazbin prints going forward.
I am in the middle of moving back to the US and once I’m settled I will start working on alternatives to keep the shop going. Likely, mid March.
This means the Valentine print will be delayed a bit for now, but I’m working on it!
In the meantime, I would LOVE to know what y’all prefer in the art prints you buy; favorite print sizes, glossy vs matte, interest in foil/holographic prints, etc.
The more information I can gather about what my customer base is interested in the better!
I’m also looking to expand into other products like stickers or enamel pins, so if you have any recommendations or requests, I will be happy to take those into account as well. I’m excited to branch out!
This Printful thing is a bit of a hiccup but I’m determined to use it as motivation to expand the shop.
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THE ONE THING THE LOCKED TOMB FANDOM GOT WRONG (in my humble opinion)
everyone is always saying how my girl Gideon is doomed by the narrative, but, guys, the narrative adores her
she had so many moments where she could have died, starting right at her birth, she survived the spaceship crash, she survived the gas at the nursery, even her fucking sperm was still kicking when it was not supposed to. but these were all instances where she was saved by her divine nature, idem for the avulsion room.
other times was because of mere chance (the spaceship she didn't get on) or because someone spared her (Cytherea), you get where i'm going? all these moments where she almost met her end, she never really fought to escape death, it kind of just happen.
even when she actively chose to die, the universe Harrow refused to let her. she decided to die, and she couldn't even do that. SHE IS LITERALLY BLESSED BY THE NARRATIVE, which can be considered as bad, if not worse, but i digress.
but Harrow?
Harrow whom challenged death every time she pushed her limits, who almost died in a bone cocoon in a basement. Harrow who was almost murdered in her own ospital bed as soon as she committed the greatest sin of her life. Harrow who was almost murdered by the saint of duty like 15 times, Harrow, whom God himself asked to kill. Harrow who was gently taught how to tie the knot by her parents. and how easier would have been to have died then? how easier it would have been to follow Abigail in the river?
Harrow who was already a walking corpse for every single one of her brothers and siaters in the Mitraeum, who wasn't supposed to survive the night. who was almost posessed, who was almost murdered with her own sword, Harrow who is already 200 dead children in a trenchcoat.
Harrow who fought every time with her teeth and nails (literally) to stay alive, who made possible the impossible to save herself, Harrow who refused to die.
all i'm saying is, for how many times Gideon grazed death she always found herself alive because of things outside of her control, as of now is literally impossible for her to die because God decided to have her reborn as his indestructible weapon.
Harrow is the doomed one. Harrow who's fucking lineage of tombkeepers wasn't even suppose to be born. Harrow who's house wasn't supposed to exist. Harrow who's doomed by the narrative, but refuses to give up till she got breath in her lungs. Harrow who yet again says fuck the narrative, i will stay alive for my House, and my Love, and for Her.
#i will write 10 thousand posts like this#the locked tomb#the locked tomb spoilers#the locked tomb analysis#harrowhark nonagesimus#gideon nav#foggy thoughts#gideon the ninth#harrow the ninth#nona the ninth#griddlehark
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My Incredibly Spoiler Heavy Thoughts on Nightbringer
TURN BACK IF YOU HAVE ANY INTEREST IN PLAYING THE GAME AT ALL. I MEAN IT.
Hello. I have completed all 10 lessons on the Normal difficulty. These are my thoughts:
First, a disclaimer. All of this is my opinion. If you feel differently about a character or plot point, that's fine. This is all just as I see it.
Holy hell, I love the setup here so damn much. The Nightbringer story so far is truly more than just a rehash of the OG plot, largely because of all the small stuff that keeps happening in background. Yes, we're befriending the brothers again, but we don't know WHY. Why are we in the past? Who sent us there? What do they want from us, or... what do they want out of somebody else?? 👀 I have to hand it to the writers for coming up with this premise, it's soild. Will they stick the landing...? We'll see.
The New! (Old) Cast
Lucifer:
Whelp, Luci is being colder to us than ever... But far more openly involved with his brothers than we saw previously. You can really tell that this is fresh off of the War and he's just trying his best to keep everybody corralled and (somewhat) comfortable.
He still holds onto his Celestial Realm prejudice against demons, so he doesn't trust MC at all which is an interesting turn on the dynamic from before. As a human, Lucifer saw us as weak and insignificant so he didn't give us much time of day. But as a "demon," and someone more knowledgeable about the Devildom than himself, he has to suck it up and rely on MC even if he wants them to stay away.
By the end of Lesson 10, it's safe to say whatever trust he had in MC is going to be shattered. MC has talked their way out of a lot, but even Dia looks shaken by their abilities this time... I'm curious to see if they can reestablish a relationship with him when he was already keeping them at arms length to start with.
Mammon:
Ah, Mammon... Once simp, forever a simp across time and space. Bless him. I guess he's just doomed to always fall first when it comes to MC. It DOES NOT take long for him to be down bad even if you don't romance him specifically (I would know because I'm trying to stay mono-Levi this go around).
Aside from his tsundere-ness, though, we do get a look into more of his insecurities. I find an interesting pattern developing in him where he just tends to latch onto a person and follow them unfailing. He did that with Lucifer before the Fall, he didn't even think about the consequences before going through with it. You could see him doing much the same with MC. I think it stems from a lack of confidence in himself and his own abilities, constantly relying on others to guide him through big decisions and provide him with validation. Add another poor thing to the list...
Leviathan:
I swear to God, the devs realized that Levi's charm lies in his pathos, so they went out of the way to make him EVEN MORE pathetic than normal. I still love him for it, of course. But seriously, Levi starts out practically afraid of his own shadow when the story starts. It makes sense, Levi would have probably one of the more negative impressions of demons of the seven, having fought them head on. He was a shut in before the War and now he's even more terrified to leave the house, let alone his room... (I can't be the only one who's wondering how the hell Dia's going to look at him and go, "Ah yes! I see Admiral material right there!" right?)
I do like that the writers took the time to show that he's one of the more empathetic brothers, right alongside Asmo and Beel, even if he's bad with people. Levi is quick to sympathize with beings and creatures who don't fit in and it's always very sweet to see. I also guess that Simeon wrote TSL in secret or after the War? You think he would know of it at least having lived so long with the author... Anyway. I digress.
There's a lot of... small things around Levi that I think hint at the inner feelings of the brothers, though (of all seven of them, he has the WORST poker face I swear). I may touch on those in another post because I need time to gather my thoughts on how it all connects there... Anyway, he's still my favorite and I'm going to try to see if there's any truth to this "you get a deeper connection if you stick to one brother" thing. Wish me luck.
Satan:
Okay, load your guns now because I think Satan is the real star of the show here. They're actually pulling way more than the "He's mad because he's seen like Lucifer" card. We're at a point where Satan doesn't even consider himself associated with the brothers AT ALL. That means something and has consequences on the story. He didn't even go with them to check on Beel, despite having enough fire power that he could have probably helped a lot.
Now before someone goes screaming at me that they've devolved him into comic relief, I'd first like to ask what did you think he was going to be? OG Satan told us himself that he used to feel nothing but anger. He's going to be pissed, irrational, and violent. He's Wrath.
What truly they're giving us under all of that is a look into a vulnerable guy who doesn't know anything about the world around him and is trying to pick it up on his own because his brothers can't (and maybe won't) teach him. They keep chaining him up (which I hate btw) and talk about him like he's a beast. But it's partially because they're such terrible communicators that he flies off the handle so often to begin with.
Satan is more alone than really anybody else is the Devildom. His brothers already have all this history together and memories shared during their time as angels, stuff he has no context for and could never experience himself. He's still an outcast among demons for his association with them, despite being a fully fledged demon in his own right, and he doesn't know why he has to be linked to them because he barely knows them anyway. He's taking baby steps to understand the world, but when he goes to his brothers to ask questions they lampshade him for even having clear thoughts. All they see him as is a roaring beast. This version of Satan is fascinating to me. How does he start here and end up the eloquent, emotionally-controlled bookworm with a planet's worth of connections? I gotta know!!
Asmodeus:
They FINALLY started giving Asmo his proper flowers! I still think it could have been more, but he's gotten way more depth than he had before. I know that Asmo part technically involved MC's input the least out of all of the brothers, but I think that was by design.
Asmo is a surprisingly introspective individual under his urge to perform. MC didn't have to give much input because he just didn't need as much. He knows himself very well (unlike some of the others). He's an emotionally intelligent guy who can sort out his own inner problems and remain empathetic enough to want to help his brothers in his own way. I wanted to hear more from this side of Asmo, honestly, but the game seems to make it clear that he's content with his spot of being the family's brightest smile. I hope it makes more appearances as we go on.
Beelzebub:
This one is tricky, because lesson 10 leaves off on a cliffhanger related to Beel... So I think Beel's feelings will have more consequences than the other brothers' on the story. Most of all that we see of Beel is, unfortunately, him being hungry or off being wholesome with Belphie but lesson 10 did give us some eye-openers regardless.
First, apparently if he flies off the handle, Beel is quite the challenge to handle. It takes Dia himself to restrain him, which is pretty insane for the sixthborn in the line-up. It's possible some outside magic is cranking up his power somehow, but we won't know until the next lessons are out.
Secondly, I find it very interesting that Beel's "heart-to-heart" moment with us is being saved for last... It was definitely the most surprising one of the secrets in the teasers (in my opinion). Beel and Belphie are glued to the hip and share everything together so for him to have a secret "not even Belphie" knows is pretty shocking. I hope it's not just that he saved Belphie instead of Lilith since we all already know that. It'd be a pretty cheap pay off to all this buildup... Not that I haven't been disappointed before or anything.
Belphegor:
Similar to Beel, Belphie doesn't get much attention until the end and it isn't much that we haven't heard before, unfortunately. You kind can't blame them, since plumbing out Belphie's inner trauma about the War was the entire climax of the first game. It's nothing we don't already know. That being said, I think there's some more interesting things that are being said about Belphie or left unsaid by the others that I find more fascinating to keep track of.
TLDR, I think there's some weird distancing going on between Belphie and the others. It doesn't seem super apparent, but Levi dropped some weird bombshells early on and I can't help but notice how he just never seems to be without Beel. Those two are close, yeah, but in this game they're practically a unit. I'm pretty sure Belphie is using Beel as a security blanket of sorts. He's also the ONLY one to mention Lilith in any great detail. Unsurprising, but it's worth noting that the others haven't really brought her up despite it (supposedly) starting the War.
Diavolo:
Somebody give this guy a vacation and a raise... So apparently, the brothers were cast down, the old King took one look at them and counted to seven, then conked out. Now our boy has to rule the kingdom. He's... the same really. As far as I can tell. You can really see how much he's taken to the brothers' antics though, which checks out in the other game too.
WAAAY more fascinating to me is apparently there's some kind of body called the House of Lords who think that Dia is too young for the job. What's the House of Lords?? Who are they? Are they like a council or advisory board...? Or is this a UK setup? Is there a Parliamentary board?? I dunno, could just be my Poli Sci talking but I'm now so lost on how the Devildom operates now...
Barbatos:
Oh my God, if there is any character I could live vicariously through, it was Barbs here. For whatever unnamed reason he is NOT having any of Solomon's shit right now and I'm living for it. Setting my delight aside, we don't get to see very much of him and what we do see doesn't really differ from the norm, which only makes his detest all the more shocking.
Through Barbs, we also see just how potent the power of the pacts can be when Solomon summons him and more or less forces him to do as he says. Nothing seems to stop him from retaliating after the fact, as he sent Solomon off who knows where, but seeing that kind of power wielded over a being who's almost unattainable to us is... Well. I feel bad for Asmo.
Simeon:
There's a lot to unpack with Simeon... and a lot of it is in the stuff that goes unsaid. First, I already found it strange that he didn't seem surprised to see Satan in the House. Or if he was, he didn't say it or bother introducing himself which is... telling for a guy like Simeon. He's back to being Luke's minder in front of demons, but I can't help but notice that he doesn't do much to counter Luke's tirades. He only indicates that it's impolite to say them, so he may still harbor the very same feelings.
Simeon and Lucifer have something of a heart to heart together that they never would in the OG title where Simeon admits his biggest regret. It isn't that he didn't follow Lucifer, as we might think, but that he doesn't feel like did enough to reach out to him before he made his decision. Lucifer dispells this, but I think it goes to show that Simeon stands behind his decision to stay and that it was the better option. Lucifer also confront Simeon on why he didn't take a high position (seraph) and instead settled for archangel. It's left open ended what his real motives for that would be, but I suspect that it has something to do with Simeon's troubling streak of going against the grain, even in subtle ways. Or he has too much anger about what happened to accept taking Lucifer's old position.
I found it interesting how easily these two seemed to talk about intimate topics together here where Lucifer barely even acknowledges Simeon's attempts to reach out in the OG story. I wonder what may have happened to sour their relationship so severely...?
Luke:
Luke the Racist Chihuahua returns!! Okay, I'm being a little mean but he's pretty much just self-righteous little kid the whole way through. I will admit, it is a little funny that the person who came up with the nickname was actually Lucifer. I think it's now retconned and confirmed that Luke and the brothers never knew each other before the Fall... though Luke seems to know OF their former selves in some capacity. I could be misinterpreting things though.
The Rat Bastard Solomon:
I swear to God this was me playing through the whole game tied to this guy.
He's lying. A lot. Constantly. And it pisses me off to no end. I was wondering why things he was saying and the stuff he was doing weren't lining up and OF COURSE it's because he's either working his own agenda or being outright deceitful. I hate him so much, y'all, you don't even know...
That aside, as an impartial observer Solomon is pulling a lot of work to support MC and you can TELL how down bad he is for them, which actually has significance for the plot I think. He's keeping them in the dark about something, but considering his feelings I say we can at least be charitable and assume it isn't to hurt them or cause them any suffering... intentionally. He's also as unscrupulous as ever, considering how he ordered a very angry Barbs around and more or less took advantage of a life or death situation to make a pact with Asmo.
So. At the end of the lessons, we're reintroduced to the mysterious Nightbringer. The character who actually sent us back in time at the start of the game. Yeah, it wasn't Barbatos... probably. At least not our reliable neighborhood butler anyway. They seem to be different entities but I THINK they might share some connection....
I have to wonder who disguised MC when they first arrived. The marketing made it seem like it would be Solomon but the marketing has been hit or miss on actual accuracy about the game we're seeing. If it was Solomon, then he had to have known where the MC was before he called. If it was Nightbringer then... well actually. We need to touch on that first.
Nightbringer:
Now, much of this is just me speculating so take things with a grain of salt. Nightbringer's name is blocked out, but it seems like it identified itself to us in the beginning before sending us to the past. It appears like it wants something from Solomon.... to fully corrupt him maybe? And it's using MC as leverage against him.
I suspect that all of the weird stuff that has been happening is tied to its meddling in some way, but to what end is unclear... Sending Levi and MC into TSL, tricking Asmo then trying to feed everyone to a spider, and, likely, whatever is going on with Beel. I can't tell if it's trying to push MC and the brother's closer together, or just making vaguely comical attempts at homicide by fictional characters, spider, and Gluttony incarnate.
The situation with Adam does give us a hint into its nature. It appears to be some kind of dark, trickster being that gives a person what they desire, but never the way they intended. A walking monkey's paw, if you will. Solomon says that Nightbringer made him what he is today, so perhaps he worked under it or is simply under the influence of one its "deals." Their relationship is adversarial, though. When they're speaking, they talk about the two supernatural sides, Angel and Demon, and Nightbringer seems to want to force Solomon to make a choice between them. Lose his humanity, maybe?
I'm not quite willing to say that Nightbringer is a demon just yet, at least not one of the ones we normally encounter. Something about it seems... older. More powerful than that. But we'll have to wait for more info.
My crackpot theory?
Solomon has made a deal with Nightbringer in order to go back in time and do... something. He's after something. Nightbringer agreed, but dragged MC along as collateral for Solomon to get it done within a certain amount of time or makes sure he honors his part of the bargin. Barbatos knows this, either because he is linked to in some way to Nightbringer or saw it happen in the doorway, and is disgusted by his actions but unable to speak about it due to the pact. Or, you know. That's our present Barbie also dragged along for the ride and he's pissed that he's been essentially hijacked and taken away from present Diavolo, but forbidden to speak about it.
#i may do ONE LAST analysis post#over my speculation#and just weird stuff I saw#but after that#it’s back to the normal content#obey me#obey me shall we date#shall-we-date-obey-me#obey me nightbringer#obey me analysis#obey me nightbringer analysis#om spoilers#omn spoilers#obey me spoliers#obey me nb spoilers#obey me nighbringer spoilers
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I’m not so sure about this post, I’m not really confident in any of it, it’s mostly just wild conjecture and aimless rambling. I’m open to discussion and to changing my mind, this is just what I’m thinking at the moment. Thank you to everyone cited for inspiration❤️
I’m really fascinated by what Jacob said about how the longevity of Louis and Armand’s relationship has led to both tenderness and resentment. The reasons why Louis might resent Armand are PLENTIFUL, but what possible reason would Armand have to resent Louis? Obviously it’s not going to be a “good” reason, but that makes it all the more delectable.
Right now I kind of have this theory that Armand resents Louis in part because he thinks Louis’ shows of affection are disingenuous. Put more accurately, his suspicion that Louis’ affection is disingenuous and his ensuing resentment underlie a deeper fear that Louis doesn’t love him.
HOWEVER, the kicker is that Louis does still feel some kind of affection for Armand. Just like he felt for Lestat when he and Claudia (mostly Claudia) were planning their escape, Louis feels some love for Armand still, but he’s able to leverage it in pursuit of his goal. What exactly this goal is remains to be seen (although I have some serious guesses…well mostly one guess).
Whatever it is, I think Louis has been planning very carefully for a long time to get to it. As @likethemodel points out here, their bed is literally a chessboard, like the one Claudia played in order to best Lestat and get under his skin in s1. The IWTV cast and crew have repeatedly describe the dynamics in Dubai as “3D chess”, and it doesn’t get much more 3D than using yourself as a chess piece. This is what the major question in Dubai is for me: not “did he fuck that old man” or “did Armand alter Louis’ memories”, but rather “What is Louis’ agenda, why has he brought all of these pieces together in this way?”
If my theory is correct, I think it would tie in nicely with the book. As @nativehueofresolution said in this post, Louis in the book does love Armand, but not in a way Armand understands at that point. If this was translated into the show, it could take the form of Louis still loving Armand in some way, like his few displays of affection such as kissing him in bed and squeezing/rubbing his shoulder during the interview being at least partly genuine, but also strategic.
So even though Louis’ affection in these gestures may be somewhat genuine, the context is still performative in order to accomplish a higher goal, though exactly what remains unclear. This much I think Armand can see and he resents, but I think he misinterprets it to mean Louis doesn’t love him at all. But the love is there and it is mutual to a degree, just not in a way Armand can see, which is kind of poetic justice and the absolute least he deserves.
Digressing a bit, even though Louis is being genuinely affectionate at times, even if it was totally without ulterior motives, it still could never be enough for Armand, because what he views as love is simply not something Louis can give.
In an interview posted here by @diasdelfuego, Hannah Moscovitch says she thinks that “Armand is Louis’ creature”, and agreed with the interviewer that Armand “serves a god” in his relationship with Louis. I interpreted this to mean that Armand has *made himself* into Louis’ creature, Louis’ disciple. And like Judas in the artwork in their bedroom (post also courtesy of @diasdelfuego), Armand becomes resentful and thinks Louis doesn’t love him because Louis doesn’t treat him the way Armand thinks a disciple should be treated.
The problem (well, one of MANY) is that this dynamic Armand has tried to create pretty much dooms him to never get back the kind of love he wants from Louis right now. In deciding he ‘serves a god’, Armand has made it impossible for Louis to love him in the way Armand craves, because Louis is not a god. Armand has made himself a disciple to a god that doesn’t exist, and feels betrayed when that nonexistent god doesn’t respond to his worship. Again, it’s poetic justice, but only the very tip of what he deserves. Lukewarm justice.
It’s surely not lost on Louis how stupid (more accurately, hypocritical and insulting) it is that Armand worships him like a god, and yet Armand himself holds godlike power over Louis’ life. A disciple does not control a god, and Louis knows this, he’s chronically Catholic. He knows the control Armand has over him, and I think this interview is partly a way for him to circumvent that power. Armand’s attempts to manipulate and “protect” Louis doom his quest for all-consuming devotion even more. I love messy bitches who create their own problems.
The god-worship is probably one aspect of Louis’ resentment toward Armand, but again this is something that’s so deeply, painfully layered. Between forcing Louis to turn Madeleine and killing Claudia (assuming, as most of us are, that the show is following the book in this way), the depth of Louis’ resentment for Armand is abyssal. Which would make the fact that Louis does still love him (per my aforementioned theory) even more shocking and scrumptious, and his plotting all the more emotionally difficult.
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so with the recent discourse, i was thinking about how, as he's presented in tvc, armand's biggest flaws as a narrator are that he tends to tell massive lies of omission or rewrite people's atttitudes/motivations (including his own) to suit his own purposes.
discussions of csa under the cut
(the only time i can recall someone being accused of inventing an event altogether is lestat claiming louis fabricated their meeting at the end of iwtv, but i digress.)
one of the biggest examples of this is how armand presents his turning in tva. as armand tells it in tva, marius was against turning him all along and he only relented when armand was at death's door. however in iwtv and tvl, louis and lestat respectively show armand telling them that marius turning armand was a pre-meditated decision.
marius in b&g takes it one step further, portraying himself as always having intended to turn armand from the time they met and having only delayed as long as he did so as to have more time to groom armand into being his vampiric 'companion'. (also noteworthy he generally portrays armand as being pretty miserable a lot of the time in venice and terribly missing his family, which is not something armand dwells on in any account.) marius does also depict armand as being seriously wounded and having to turn him right away because of this, but, as marius tells it, he and armand had literally had a conversation the night before armand was attacked where marius confirmed his intent to turn armand.
so armand's tva version where marius's hand was 'forced' is not something he arrives at by inventing events out of thin air; rather, he ignores things like a conversation the day before explicitly contradicting this narrative and ascribes to marius different motives so that it would better fit his 'vampirism is bad and only foolish humans ask for it and ignore the vampires telling them it's a bad idea' moral for sybelle and benji - which is the whole reason he's dictating tva. it seems to me that's the biggest reason his account in tva differs from what he told louis and lestat - he has an explicit moral to the story he's pushing this time. (perhaps he's also trying to present himself as having more agency than he did; he persistently asked for vampirism so marius gave in, when in fact that was marius's plan all along.)
to further emphasize his point, he explicitly compares marius turning him to his turning of daniel, and says he only gave daniel the dark gift because he had no choice and he knew all along it would spoil their love and look he was right, why won't humans ever listen 😞 (there's also an element of armand being bitter about his failed relationship and trying to act like it was always doomed from the start, instead of something that fell apart due their failure to make it work. he also talks about louis as being 'easy to abandon', despite having stayed with him for a hundred years trying to revive their marriage.)
and the kicker is that in the end, after he does all that, marius straightforwardly decides to turn benji and sybelle with no handwringing or justifications beyond possibly thinking it would be a gift to armand. armand went out of his way to rewrite marius into someone trying to save armand from himself by denying his vampirism, but that doesn't change who marius actually is. he wrote this story to try and warn people he loved not to ask for it, but the truth is it didn't matter if they wanted it or if armand wanted it, because that was never the reason for what happened. what happened was that marius decided what he wanted to happen and imposed his will onto others.
i don't think you can separate armand's backstory, or any of anne rice's work, from her pedophilia/slavery/rape apologia. the series is never going to truly acknowledge the horror of what it's depicting because anne rice didn't think it was wrong. but i do think it's interesting that within the series, it is implied that armand is intentionally rewriting his time with marius in a way that is ignoring the reality of what the situation was and downplays his pain. it is absolutely not a substitution for the text understanding and acknowledging the evils it is depicting, but it does provide some insight into armand as a narrator.
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i think what a lot of ppl miss about the nuance when it comes to the retcon is that the POINT of it is that its a bad ending. homestuck is designed to be a tragedy and it was never going to end well; its frankly ridiculous to try and shoehorn in a scenario where none of the current main characters are dead when the story is ABOUT death. its not narratively satisfying at all like this! but thats not what the kids wanted (and, more to the point, thats not what the FANS wanted. newer fans DEFINITELY miss the fact that homestuck was written as a conversation between hussie and the fans, a conversation that turned into an argument halfway through and led to a lot of things being taken in bad faith on both sides. but i digress; this is a watsonian post)
the retcon powers are very VERY explicitly described as the ability to change the alpha timeline. the 'whats supposed to happen' of it all, the premeditated narrative the story was written to fill. conversely, when aranea used the ring of life to come back and meddle, she is explicitly described as 'causing a doomed timeline.' and like, the thing about doomed timelines is that theyre meant to happen as much as theyre meant to be fixed. theyre how paradox space accounts for and incorporates time travel, and the existence of the doomed timeline is often NECESSARY for the alpha timeline to function. thats how you get davesprite, thats how the aradiabot that brought gamzee's honkHONK code back from his crazy murder timeline contributed to doc scratch's creation, thats why every dead dave helped the alpha timeline dave figure out what to do. if vriska was meant to have never died in the first place the timeline wouldve been doomed long before game over. the ring went to the wrong person, and thats the kind of simple fix sburb was expecting to solve with some time travel to get things back on track
the ring was supposed to go to someone else. probably vriska! from the alpha timelines perspective, it wasnt that long after her confrontation with john that she really changed and grew as a character. that she became someone who deserved a second chance. imagine: john uses his retcon as normal time travel, the way sburb comprehended it through the limitations of its code. he takes the ring before aranea can, goes to the dream bubbles, and has another conversation with vriska. maybe she doesnt even really want the ring anymore, and thats exactly the kind of thing that would convince john to give it to her. and she agrees, because he tells her terezi is waiting for her. they go back, they have the final fight, and people die. maybe they dont come back. but its the group of characters who earned the ending, who we watched grow up for three years
but thats not what happened, and it was never going to be what happened, because as narratively satisfying as it could have been? john and terezi wanted something different. john wanted everything to be OVER and terezi wanted the chance to make a different choice, even if it was wrong. theyre selfish; theyre kids. theyre tired of being characters in a story, of someone else pulling their strings. thats what typheus's choice was about, you know? and john made the wrong choice. some other version of john could have fixed things the "right" way, had our john decided to die instead. to accept the consequences of the doomed timeline and let pardox space fix it. hell, between roxys first instinct to just sit and let the void take her and terezis pointy horns offering a counterpoint we have some pretty blatant devil/angel on the shoulder imagery! and john making the same wrong choice he did when terezi first told him to fly to the seventh gate, except this time there was no davesprite on angel wings, no one left alive he cared about enough to listen to. because as much as john felt like he was SUPPOSED to fall for roxy, the girl version of his fathers lover, someone strongly associated with his half of karkat's shipping chart but without the complication of being a lesbian, someone HUMAN to repopulate the world with cut out of his apocalypse movie fantasies...... terezis way of thinking has always appealed to him more. because as much as he pretends its not true, john doesnt like to take things lying down, and he doesnt like when other people do either. he gets bored! hes attracted to the danger and morally grey self confidence terezi and vriska exude, so. he listened to terezi, and they brought vriska back.... without any of the character development she had gone through.
and its a bad ending, because of course it would be. and thats the point :) it was stupid to think two kids could meddle with the fate of the universe and it was stupid to think that these kids could have a happy ending so easily. but can you really blame them?
#it me#homestuck#retcon#john egbert#terezi pyrope#vriska serket#roxy lalonde#johnrezi#vrisrezi#so anyway my official stance on the retcon is 'its a bad ending but i liked it anyway'
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Two: there goes the fear again
Your Hand In Mine | Joel Miller x female reader
Summary: When Joel finds you on your self-assigned insomnia bench one night, it sparks an unexpected friendship that quickly develops into more.
Finding peace in the middle of an apocalypse always seemed impossible, but being with Joel feels natural, like a missing piece has fallen into place at last.
When a ghost from your past threatens to destroy the peace you’ve found in Jackson, everything will change.
Word Count – 4.3k
Chapter Warnings - 18+ blog minors DNI, description of a nightmare, insomnia, mentions of Salt Lake City, reader had a backstory and her age is not specified but an age range is lightly implied in this chapter, secondary characters and ocs, reader is a parent.
Notes: Thank you so much for the kind feedback and comments so far - I’ve been honestly quite blown away by it all. As it's Joel's birthday today, I wanted to push myself to get this chapter out. So happy birthday Joel, sorry about the outbreak? 😂 Chapter title is from There Goes the Fear Again by Doves.
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The memories come back to you in flashes, framed with distorted static like an old VHS. They usually start in the years Before, nostalgia tinged memories that lull you into a false sense of security that tonight may not be so bad.
Sometimes you welcome it, the reminder of your family and life before. It was normal, it was filled with love and normality and peace. You had problems, like anyone else, but schoolyard bullies, your roommate and class assignments seem so trivial compared to what the world is now.
You’re by the beach, listening to the soothing rhythm of the waves, watching Sean surf as you pretend to study, scrunch your toes in the sand. You can feel the heat of the sun of your skin, the way you scrunch your toes in the sand and want to soak in every moment of this summer. You daydream of what’s going to happen once you start college. Will Sean still be your best friend as your paths start to digress? Will anyone even like you there?
You were still agonising about those trivialities on the night that the world ended right in front of you. In hindsight, you’ll notice the signs in front of you that day that something was coming, something was wrong. It was just a normal day though. The last one. You remember it all. So much loss, so many mistakes, so much fear. The memory of your family; of the last conversations you had with them, of how unsatisfactory that was.
Then it’s you and Sean and his little sister, Isabella, and you’ve got to find a new path. College feels like lifetime ago now.
It’s here the replay of your past becomes distorted; all black and white static and poorly compiled edits after that, time jumps and skips and sequences completely out of order.
You’re in the woods and there’s blood stains on your clothes and you’re running and it’s never going to be far enough, it’s never going to leave you. It doesn’t matter how far you run; it’s buried under your skin now.
And then your mind goes to that place. To every nightmarish thought and the memories you avoid. It’s too much.
The blood. The flames. The shame.
It’s the fact you’ve bought a child into a world where monsters are real and you don’t know if you can keep them safe.
More memories.
Then it’s the fear; the unspoken terror that one day soon you’ll lose everyone, that you’ll just watch it unfold in from you. That you’ll be the only one left, doomed to loneliness and emptiness. That you’ll watch as everyone you love is taken from you; by illness, or violence, or such an innocuous looking fungus.
You’ll be left all alone and then they’ll find you.
Tendrils of anxiety twist around your body, constricting with each thought, each memory, each possible future, until you feel like you’re suffocating and your heart is racing and surely you can’t wake up from this.
It’s not real.
It’s not real.
It’s not real.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Joel asks placidly as you walk over to the bench, your rucksack casually slung over one shoulder. It’s clear that he’s been here for a while already but he’s left one side clear and ready for you.
“Just here for the view,” you say calmly, stuffing your hands into your pockets as you try and push away the lingering unease from your sleep.
“Aren’t we all?”
You sit next to him, playing your bag by the edge of your feet.
It’s been more than a week since he first came to your bench and since then you’ve had more run-ins with Tommy’s brother. The two of you have seen several sunrises together in a wordless peace. Neither of you have truly acknowledged each other outside of the bench, nothing beyond polite nods in the community hall at mealtimes and the pleasantries you both would surely afford to any other member of this community.
You’ve spent each night on the bench observing Joel. You’ve quietly noticed his features; the freckles and sun marks, the way his eyes warm when he smiles or and the depths in them when he’s avoiding a subject.
There’s a lot you still don’t know about him.
Neither of you have talked much about the substance of your lives before Jackson. It’s to be expected though. These days, it’s safe to assume that if you’re still alive, it came at a cost and perhaps you don’t need to dwell on that.
You know Joel a little more now - each of you have given small hints about the person you are. Not a lot, not everything, but it’s just enough that Joel feels more real to you.
“I heard it was a rough patrol yesterday,” you say after a moment. Beau had told you all about the horde of infected they’d bumped into. He told you that him, Bonnie, Tommy, and Joel had almost been surrounded at one point.
Sometimes you almost forget about the infected. For a little while anyway.
For the past twenty years, most of the true terror you’d felt was at the hands of humans, not cordyceps. Were you frightened of losing people to it? Of course. Had your few encounters with clickers or runners been terrifying? Yes. Were you terrified of the world you’d leave your son one day? Naturally.
It was just in the QZs, in the worlds you’d moved in between then, you always encountered more humans than infected. The outbreak had changed everything and it had amplified so much; there was no court of law now, no shallow allusions of propriety no order outside of dictatorial QZs, so in some places, the anticipated lawlessness and loss of humanity was your true fear.
Jackson is an exception.
Joel looks down for a moment after you speak and you wonder if you shouldn’t have bought up the patrol at all.
“It was fine,” Joel says gruffly.
“Okay.”
“Do you go on a lot of patrols?” he asks.
“Sometimes,” you say. “Only when it’s my rotation. I’m mostly based in the library and sometimes I help Sean in the greenhouses too.” You pause and wonder if you should add more that you’re good with a bow and arrow now, but you still freeze in close contact.
After a while, as the breeze reaches your fingers and you regret not packing gloves, you reach down and pull a thermos out of your rucksack. You take a long sip, savouring the hot liquid and warming your fingers on the container.
You look over at Joel and then down at the flask in your hands.
“It’s just chicory coffee,” you say, offering the thermos to him politely. “A little dandelion root too I think.”
He looks at you curiously.
“Why?”
“I’m getting chilly, and it seems rude to sit here and drink coffee and not offer any to you.” Jackson has burrowed its way under your skin now; there’s no way you would have done this a year ago. Or perhaps it’s the bench, the magic of this place in the middle of the night. It’s like the rules you’ve built over the years can ease slightly here. The air feels just minutely lighter.
“Thanks.” Joel accepts the battered thermos, takes a long look at it, and then takes a tentative sip of the drink.
“Still nowhere near as good as the real thing,” you say wistfully. “And it’s caffeine free, but sometimes I can pretend it isn’t.”
“Better than nothing, I guess.”
“Exactly.”
“Where do you get it from? I know FEDRA had regular supplies and they grew it out in one of the QZs.”
“It grows wild around Wyoming and Sean’s cultivated a patch of it in the gardens too. Esther, in town, she makes it all. Esther’s definitely a good person to befriend if you want to keep a supply of it. She’s nice too.”
“Yeah, Tommy mentioned her.”
You smirk, imagining exactly the nature of the conversation between the two brothers.
“What’s that for?”
“Nothing.”
“Sure it is. Just you really seem to be settling into Jackson now.”
Joel shakes his head with a smile. “Don’t you start.”
“Okay, I won’t. So, how’s Ellie? I saw her in the library today, well, yesterday now,” you say lightly.
“Oh yeah?”
“Uh huh, she’s going through our space section pretty quickly. We’ll have to see what we can find on patrols.”
“Yeah, she’s really into space.” You can hear the affection in his voice; the deep love he has for her and that sense of pride that he knows this about her, knows about her interests.
“If any new books come in, I can put them aside for her.”
He looks at you with an unreadable expression. “Thanks.”
“It’s nothing.” You pause. “I think I get it. I never had a space phase, but I spent several months really fascinated with deep sea exploration when I was a kid. We moved to the coast and suddenly it was right there and I’d never thought about it before. I mean that I get where she’s coming from.” You have no idea where this sudden burst of honesty came from and you feel your face heat at what you’ve said.
“We’re a long way from the coast now,” he says softly. “Don’t think I’ve seen a beach in years.”
“No?” You smile sadly. “Me either. We’ve mostly only travelled inland since - well, since everything and sometimes I really miss it. Sean and I, we’ve been friends since we were kids and we used to just spend every weekend by the water.” You remember the start of your dream and fold your arms around yourself.
“What about you?” you ask, eager to change the subject and curious about the man beside you. “What was your thing?”
“I um,” Joel pauses as though he’s genuinely bewildered by being asked this question “I was into, uh -” He looks away from you. “The usual stuff, football and uh, all that.”
“Really? Just football?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Joel asks, folding his arms.
“Nothing, nothing at all.”
He exhales and stretches his long legs out on the bench more. You follow the line from his feet up to his body and eventually his face. He looks uncertain, as though there’s something he wants to add, but he’s not sure.
“I wanted to be a writer, or to work with books, or words in some way. Had all these ideas about being an investigate journalist, or an editor, or just ... I think I just wanted to make art of some type. It’s probably why I’m so focused on the library now.”
“Music,” he whispers. “I was really into that.”
“So, you played … something? Guitar?” You look at him and decide he was most definitely a guitarist. He has the look, might even have the hands for it.
“Maybe,” Joel says,
“Please tell me you were in a terrible garage rock band at one point?” You smile at the image this conjures of the broad and elusive man next to you.
“In high school, for a brief moment. Then uh, things changed for us all and I - I had other priorities in my life than music.”
“That’s a shame.”
“It was the right call.”
“Still, if you loved it … it’s never too late? Did you know, they sometimes do open mic nights at the Tipsy Bison, but it’s … ropey, some of it.” You grimace at the memory of the last one that Sean and Beau had dragged you to a few months ago.
“You’re really selling this to me, sweetheart.”
“Hey, until you’ve heard Seth sing karaoke, you truly haven’t hit rock bottom.”
Joel scoffs, a small smile on his face that crinkles his eyes and warms every feature.
You thought you would hate sharing your bench, or having an intrusion on your solitude, but you don’t.
Over time, you’ve perfected sneaking back into this house. There’s a way to shut the back door just so to prevent anyone hearing you wander in. You avoid the bottom stair which creaks, and the other creaky floorboards on the landing.
Every time you do this, you feel like a teenager again. You grew up reading books and watching movies where teenagers snuck out to and from parties, but that had never been your life. You were studious, deferent to the rules. Your focus was singular; college, success, making a name for yourself. Sean used to try and persuade you to join him at parties or even just when he and his friends would hang out at the beach in the evening after surfing. You had thought you had time.
The world had different plans for you all though.
By the time you’ve crept back to your room, changed, and got ready for the day ahead, you can hear the familiar sounds of cupboards being opened and closed in the kitchen below.
“Mornin’ sweetie,” you say, squeezing Gabe’s shoulder as you walk into the kitchen.
Your son squirms but smiles lightly when he meets your eyes. The last twenty years have been an unending endurance test, painful and exhausting, but now you have Gabriel. You weren’t ready for him; you felt too young, too scared, too everything. He means everything to you now though.
He wears so many of your features and mannerisms, or features you remember seeing in your family. You find it uncanny; that mix of uniqueness and familiarity all at once.
“Is anyone else up yet?” you ask, stifling a yawn as you scan the kitchen for additional cups or plates, any sign the others are awake.
“Beau’s still asleep but Sean said he’d be down in five -”
“Which means he’ll be down in ten,” you both say together.
You were offered separate houses when the four of you first arrived in Jackson. There was an entire house that Maria told you could just be for you and Gabriel. After almost a decade of living in a small, crapped apartment in Kansas with too thin walls and continual threats it had seemed unbelievable. Sean and Beau had been offered the house opposite you too. Maria had recognised how close you all were.
There’d been too much death along the way though; too much loss. You and Sean had been together so much of it all too. You were close friends before the outbreak and now hopelessly and hideously co-dependent on each other. Even back in Kansas, your apartment had been next to his and Beau’s. For more than a decade, you haven’t had more than a single wall separating you.
The idea of being so separate, of being more than a wall away, in a new community prettified you. You were frightened about what Jackson really could be; what it could be hiding, how quickly you may need to run. You felt like a deer in the headlights, a wild animal being stalked by prey. For the first weeks in Jackson, the town itched your skin and filled you with anxiety. There had to be a dark side, it couldn’t be that simple. You all needed to be ready to run.
The four of you had decided to stay together, to stay close, just in case. It was meant to be temporary.
It’s been two years now.
It also means you never have to worry about Gabe when you sneak out at night, it means your son has his uncles in his life every day. It means you’re not alone throughout everything.
They’re only people you have left now - the family you both found and made. They are the ones who have shaped the last twenty years of your life.
You take a sip of your tea and smile at your son.
“So, small bit of news I asked if Uncle Beau could take me on patrol next week,” he says quietly after a moment. “He said yes.”
“No. Gabriel, you’re -”
“I’m sixteen.”
“I know.” You swallow and look at him carefully. You remember him being so small you could hold him in one hand but now he’s sitting opposite you and he looks both so young and like a man all at once. Patrols? That’s normal for him now, that’s the way of life in Jackson. He’s still so young though.
You hear a creak on the staircase and listen carefully as your son continues making his case.
“It’s time I started learning about this and Beau will watch out for me if you’re worried. He said the route next week is the best to get started with,” he says, brow furrowing with concern at your reaction. “I’m ready though.”
“I’m sure you are. I know Uncle Beau will be there with you, I’m glad of that.” It’s better if he goes with Beau. You know him, you trust him and he will ensure that your son is safe.
“So how do you feel about that, patrol? Is this your idea or have you been volunteered?” Your son starting on this path is one thing if it’s his choice, but if he’s only going along with this because he thinks he’s supposed to, or because of teenage peer pressure? Well, the consequences are a lot worse in your son’s world, than chunky highlights or double denim could ever have been.
“It’s my idea. I’m fine with it,” he says quickly, avoiding your gaze.
You put your cup down and raise an eyebrow at him.
“Ergh, look, okay Jesse did his first patrol last week. Please - I can do it, I know I can. I want to.”
You’re tempted to reply, ‘and if Jesse walked off a cliff, would you?’ If you say it out loud though, there is no way you can deny you are turning into your mother, so instead you take a long sip of your drink.
It feels like a losing battle. Patrols are part of normal life in Jackson. However, if he’s with Beau then maybe that’s okay. If you know anything about Beau it’s that he is fiercely protective of the people he cares about. These days, that’s pretty much only Sean, you, and Gabriel.
“If you feel you’re ready and if Uncle Beau agrees and it’s a sensible patrol route … It needs to be in daylight, and just a short one.”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay.”
He beams in response.
“I’ve got classes, I better go.” He stretches and stands up, downing the rest of his drink.
“Okay, I’ll see you later. Love you. ”
“Yeah, you too, mum.” he says quickly, looking around as if one if his friends could secretly be listening by the window. He looks back at you and his face turns softer before he quickly moves away. “Hey Uncle Sean,” he says as they cross in the doorway.
“Morning Gabe.” Sean looks over at you and says good morning to you, says your name with a cheerful smile as he pours himself a tea and then sits down opposite you at the kitchen table.
“How much of that did you hear?”
“I started eavesdropping when Gabe mentioned Beau and patrols. I thought you handled it beautifully, by the way.”
“You’re only trying to make me less mad at Beau.”
Sean raises his hands in mock surrender and then leans back against his chair.
“Anyway, are you going to tell me about where you went last night?”
“Where I went?”
“Heard you leave, sweetie.”
“I … shit. Sorry, I thought I was quiet.”
“You are.” He sighs heavily. “So, where’d you go? Got a late-night Jackson booty call I don’t know about?”
For some unknown reason an image of Joel fills your mind, his unruly hair particularly. He often comes to the bench with mussed up hair from where you imagine he was in his own bed, trying to sleep. You imagine other ways his hair could get messy like that; your hands in his hair as he ...
No.
No.
Absolutely not.
“You do have a hook up?” Sean asks incredulously.
“No. No. I don’t. I just go for a walk is all.”
“Alone?” Sean waggles his eyebrows mischievously.
“Yes.” Technically you walk to the bench alone and then you and Joel only walk back together so that doesn’t count … and his house is before yours anyway It really doesn’t count, right?
“Okay,” Sean says, frowning. “Are you having nightmares again? Do you need to talk about it?”
You shake your head, biting your lip. “Do you?”
“I’m okay.”
You and Sean have been friends since you first moved to the beach town you spent your teenage years in. The bond between you is irrevocable. He’s your brother, your best friend, one of the people you love most in the world.
You share scars.
The same turmoil and trauma and ghosts have buried under both of your skins in different ways. He’s been there through it all for you. You’ve been there through it all for him.
He’s the only person in the world who will ever understand the parts of you that you keep locked in boxes you can never open. And for him? For him, you know the secrets that he hasn’t even told Beau.
“Gabe … he’s been asking me and Beau about … before. He’s asking questions again,” Sean says after a moment, looking around the kitchen carefully and speaking in a low voice. “I wondered if this patrol thing was about that at first, about what we all said and … it’s getting harder to not give him any specifics.”
“Me too, but I think it’s because Jesse went on his first patrol recently.” That’s what you’re hoping anyway.
“Huh, how about that? Look, it doesn’t matter because this isn’t going away. He’s going to keep asking.”
“This all seemed so much easier when he was a baby.”
Sean raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, I remember sixteen years ago, I wouldn’t say any of it was easier back then. It’s just the kid believed whatever we said with no questions.”
“Sean, tell me he still thinks …”
“Yeah. He just needs some details, honey. I know it hurts to talk about, but you have to give him something. He’s almost a man now and he’s got valid questions. I can - I would have been the same, so would you.“
You swallow and look out of the window. “I’ll handle it, Sean.”
You don’t flinch when you hear the crunch of Joel’s boots. You’ve come to expect it, anticipate the sound.
It makes you smile.
The bench doesn’t quite feel the same without him anymore.
“Howdy,” he says, the slight twang of his southern drawl more pronounced than usual.
You wave for him to come and join you on the bench.
“I didn’t see you here yesterday,” Joel says softly.
“Oh, I uh - was wiped out and I - I guess I just slept?” You notice how surprised your voice is there; you’re surprised you had a good night’s sleep for once, and you’re surprised that Joel noticed you weren’t there. In fairness, you had been due a night’s sleep as the exhaustion from your insomnia finally won out over your overthinking and anxiety. Gabriel had been on patrol with Beau that day and you’d worried yourself to the point of complete exhaustion.
Joel noticed though. He noticed you weren’t here.
“Were - were you here?”
Joel nods.
“Guess I’ve got sorta used to you being here too now.”
“I mean, it’s more the other way around. This was technically my bench first.”
“Really?” he says your name in a low, teasing voice. “You really wanna go there, huh?”
“I’m just saying. I’ve been here longer, technically and I’m saying this as a mere technicality, I have dibs on this bench.”
“An’ here I thought no-one truly owned anything in Jackson.”
“Benches are exceptions, everyone knows that.”
The two of you laugh, it’s light and somehow more soothing to you than the cup of herbal tea you’d drank before bed in the hope of repeating the night before and sleeping for once.
“I’m willing to consider joint custody or a small timeshare though,” you say.
“Oh wow, I’m real lucky.”
“I know. I wouldn’t bestow that right on just anyone.”
“I hope not.” Joel smiles and oh, you love it when he smiles. It’s so captivating.
“It got me thinkin’ though-“
“Sounds dangerous.”
“You know it. Anyway, I was thinking,” Joel looks away from you, towards the horizon and he wrings his hands together. “I guess it reminded me we have this whole world outside this bench.”
You’d thought the same thing, but you can’t say it. The words fall heavy on your tongue, your mouth feels like it’s filled with cotton.
“I wondered if maybe, you wanted to get a drink one day?” He’s not looking at you. “It’s a stupid idea.”
“No, no, it’s not. Why? Why would you want that with me?”
“Maybe I just want a drink with you,” he says.
You pause. Deflection is your standard response to something like this. The idea that Joel could want to spend time with you outside of your insomnia ridden nights surprises you. Why would he want that?
You can’t lie to yourself though; there’s something about Joel that draws you in. He’s easy to talk to and despite appearances and town mumbling, you can tell he’s not a bad person. He’s kind to you, thoughtful and you’ve thought about him.
You’ve thought about him a lot.
“Technically we’ve shared my thermos of coffee multiple times now,” you say weakly.
“That doesn’t count, sweetheart.”
“Wow, now you’re spurning my chicory coffee now, huh? That’s not good enough for you?”
“A real drink.” You can hear the meaning behind his words and it doesn’t fill you with the caution you would normally anticipate.
“And does this drink happen to be served somewhere this isn’t this bench?”
“As long as it ain’t karaoke night.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Joel Miller.” You pause for a moment, tilt your head in mock contemplation. “Okay, a drink.”
You meet Joel’s smile this time.
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#joel miller x reader#joel miller x you#joel miller x female reader#joel miller#the last of us fanfiction#pedro pascal character#joel miller fanfiction#the last of us#your hand in mine fic
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I couldn’t reblog the og post bc ig Tumblr’s ruined the code, so this is a copy of it. Please give credit to the og posters.
milf-percy
It dosen't really matter that Percy isn't hurt by Annabeth insulting him all the time and sometimes even being physically violent to him(he should be because that's a realistic response from an abuse and bullying survivor but i digress),not just because he's a fictional character and not a real person with free will,but also because that's Annabeth's way of showing she fucking hates him.Her treatment of him has literally not changed since they were 12 yet nobody in this dumbass fandom can shut up about how ~developed~ their relathionship is cause they make out now and are planning on having a dysfunctional cishet marriage while trashing the characters of color for being 'annoying'.
Percy and Annabeth are not 'made for eachother' because Rick wrote everyone in-universe as telling them that and i'd like to remind y'all that this is the same guy who wrote Luke,an adult serial abuser and ped0phile,as a 'hero' because of the Great Prophecy.Destiny means jack shit and Annabeth and Percy-ESPECIALLY Percy,who's been doomed to trauma over and over again despite his best efforts to escape it-should've been allowed to choose who to love instead of having it shoved down their throats by both everyone in their franchise and the creepy weirdos in the fandom too
@southasianpercy
chaoticcerise
Hi! As someone with ADHD who's been in several abusive relationships before, I figured I'd add something about why it IS actually realistic that he doesn't appear hurt, but that's actually even more alarming. So it starts with meeting them (obviously) and especially if they don't really have any healthy romantic IRL relationships to compare it to (which the books go out of their way to emphasize that this is the case) then it can be really hard to notice when red flags like that start to come up. "Oh it'll get better!" "They're still adjusting to it!" All of which are valid! There's healthy relationships that start rough and there's relationships that start really well and then something happens that doesn't go super well and it turns bad real quick. I've been in a few of both. The problem comes when it still happens after they're asked to stop, which is what happens in Percy Jackson. This can lead to things like "Oh they're just kidding, surely they don't mean it!" "Oh that's just how they flirt/show they love me!" Which, again, is fine IF IT'S WELCOME. However if it's not then eventually it's "Oh they're just like that." "Oh it's fine I guess, it's not like I can stop it." Just because someone doesn't complain doesn't mean that they're consenting. It means they're resigned to the abuse. And that means that he's internalizing and normalizing it. "We don't hear any real negativity towards Annabeth in Percy's thoughts though!!!" Well no but we don't hear any love either. We don't ever hear any thoughts about her really ever. Nothing about how pretty she is or how cool she is or anything. Percy Jackson has thoughts about EVERYONE. As someone with ADHD, this level of no thoughts is concerning and no basis for a relationship. He deserves someone who will treat him well. She deserves someone who thinks about her fondly. Both of them deserve better but they both need to undergo some character development and serious therapy first.
#anti percabeth#anti annabeth chase#anti rick riordan#rick riordan critical#Percy Jackson#Percy Jackson criticism#rr critical#rr crit#anti Percy Jackson#rr
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