#i did not put as much effort in this poster as the others lmao | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

unforth · 1 year

Text

I've been trying for ages to figure out how to put something into words about The Youth In Fandom and I still don't think I've quite got it but I did reach an insight about it that I think is valuable enough that I'm gonna take a stab at writing it.

For starters, I want to make it clear, there is no "The Youth In Fandom Problem." Based on my efforts running the art sideblogs for danmei fandoms, I can say with a fair degree of confidence that a vast minority of people of all ages are antis, purity wankers, pro-censorship, ageist, etc. Even among people who mark their bios with their age, it's a shockingly low percentage of people under 18 who are being super weird about this stuff, and I think that's something a lot of older folks bemoaning The Younger Generation could stand to know and be reminded of. This isn't a majority, it's just a vocal minority, and tbh...that vocal minority has always been there, at least in my own fandom experiences.

That said, I've personally been the target of "y r u in fandom, old woman? Go take care of your kids!" bullshit, and yes it's definitely real and yes it definitely happens. (I am not old, I am not a woman, I was here before the people who said that to me were born, and I spend all the rest of my time taking care of my kids, so...).

All that introduction is to posit a theory:

The kinds of people who say "you should grow out of it, you're too old for fandom, etc." don't actually really...like what they like.

I know that sounds batshit. They're here blogging about it 24/7, of course they're obsessed! But I really genuinely find myself wondering...like...are they actually obsessed? Or are they just performing obsessed because that's what their peer group is doing? Are they just following along with their friends, mimicking their friends' enthusiasm, going with the flow because they're scared of what will happen if they say "actually I didn't think that show was very good"?

I ended up with this as a theory to posit because is to arrive at "you should grow out of it," you have to start with "I will grow out of it." And to get to "I will grow out of it," you have to start with "I may be into this now but I will definitely Change." And to get to "I will definitely Change," you have to start with the base assumption that loving certain types of media isn't just part of who you are, but rather a temporary persona you've assumed overlaying some deeper Self that will be revealed with time - or that's already been revealed and that you're deliberately masking for whatever reason.

Lemme put it less abstractly (but more longwindedly, lmao).

When I was 16, I was fucking terrified. There were all these things I loved - Star Trek, Hercules and Xena, Babylon 5, Slayers, Evangelion, Fushigi Yuugi, the Wheel of Time, many others - some I'd been into for years, some I'd only just discovered. And I looked at the adults in the world around me, who didn't sleep with stuffed toys, who got into long-term romantic and sexual relationships, who settled into careers that they stuck with for 20, 30, 40 years, who had heaps of responsibilities, and it was so frightening I literally had trouble sleeping at night. My senior year of high school, I trained myself to sleep with a pillow instead of a stuffie because "what would people in college think if they saw me snuggling a stuffed wolf?" That was something I was prepared to sacrifice to be An Adult (tm), something I was (irrationally) ashamed of, something that wasn't so much a part of my personhood that I couldn't give it up. When I left home to go to school at 17, I left my wolf at home. (I brought him with me a year later, and he's now on my bookshelf. Less disposable than 16-year-old me thought, as it turns out, but that's another story.) But there were things about myself I wasn't prepared to sacrifice to fit in during college. I still wore my Star Wars shirt. I still hung my anime posters. I still listened to J Pop. My roommate might judge me. My classmates might judge me. My professors might judge me. I didn't care. Loving those were part of who I was, and I wasn't prepared to give that up.

I found solace by looking at the adults in my life who hadn't had to give up their "childish fancies." I looked at my mother, who introduced me to Star Trek, and thought if she didn't have to stop loving Star Trek to be An Adult, then why should I? I looked at my grandfather, on whose bookshelves I first found the Lord of the Rings, and thought if he didn't have to give up LotR to be An Adult, then why should I? They might not wear fandom shirts, they might not go to conventions, they might not engage in the same way that I did, but they still loved these things, and it gave me hope.

When I was saw adults who still did fan things, who dressed how they wanted, who had cool hair styles or colors, who had tattoos, I thought "wow, what a cool person. I hope I get to grow up to be like them. I hope I'll be that comfortable in my own skin when I'm that age, because I'm sure not that comfortable in my own skin NOW."

I'll have to change in some ways - find A Career, figure out this "attraction" thing everyone keeps fucking talking about, buy a house, all the rest - but I'll be able to love the things I love.

I will still be "me" when I'm an adult, just Me-Plus-More.

I wanted to grow up to be that adult. I was prepared to take figurative arrows, to fight, to slog through, to retain the part of me that felt most valuable - my ability to love the things I loved without apologizing for it. And I knew I could do that, because I already had. Man, the shit people gave me in middle school for being an out-and-proud Trekkie? smh. It was baaaaad.

Time passes. Now I'm 40, and yes, I have changed. I've had more than one career. I got married. I figured out I never did have to figure out that "attraction" shit because I learned asexuality existed and. uh. Oh. I had children. I bought a house.

And I still have a bookcase of manga and I still have a Tumblr blog and I've found new fandoms - many, many new fandoms - nearly all for franchises that didn't even exist when I was 16 and so so scared that I used to literally break down and cry over the prospect of "having" to "give up childish things."

I got myself through on the belief that I'd still be me, and I was right. More than 20 years later, I AM still me.

And that's what leads me back to "why do The Youth think they'll age out of fandom?" And it leads me back to "I can only assume their fandom participation is mostly performative." Because look. This is who I was when I was 10 and read Lord of the Rings, and it was who I was when I was 12 and I started watching Star Trek when Voyager debuted, and it's who I was when I was 17 and I pulled an all-nighter to watch the second season of Fushigi Yuugi, and it's who I was when I was 21 and spent my birthday totally sober and gaming with my friends, and it's who I was at 26 when I got buried up to my eyeballs in Supernatural, and it's who I was at 37 when I watched The Untamed and knew as easy as breathing oh my god I've found the next obsession.

If it's an embraced, realized, adored part of your persona, there's absolutely no reason to think it's going to go away. And there's no reason nor need for it to. There are always gonna be people who judge others for having passions, and there are always gonna be people who embrace others for having passions, and you just gotta identify and avoid the former and find and adore the latter. If you're young, and you love fandom, and you're afraid you, too, will "have to" give up childish things...congratulations! You've got nothing to be afraid of! You never have to change that aspect of yourself!

But...I know these teens on Tumblr who are bullying others already know that because they can see us everywhere. And instead of going, as I did, "oh wow, those older people who still love the things they love are cool! how reassuring! I can be like them!" they think "EW OLD PERSON NOT ALLOWED THIS IS MY ROOM DO NOT ENTER."

And that's weird. When I try to think, "What kind of mentality would lead someone to feel that way, act that way, etc.?" I arrive at: being in fandom is something that they're embarrassed about. Something they're ashamed of, that they think is shameful. Something childish and therefore only for kids, even when the media they're a fan of is entirely made for and by adults. Something they think is made for them in that moment but that they'll be able to easily discard when they move on to more important parts of their lives. Something they know in their heart is transient. Something they're just doing because their friends are doing it.

That's when they'd think "why would an adult still do this?"

When it's something you "know" will be "just a phase," you don it like you don the identity of "high school student," something that'll get shucked a minute after graduation.

And while I found the idea of giving up fandom terrifying, I again can only assume that for these type of person, NOT giving up fandom becomes something terrifying. "Of course this is transient. Of course I'm going to change. I can't wait to change, I hate who I am now! Why did these so-called adults not change? Changing to not like this kind of thing is a sign of Maturity and Adulthood that I am eagerly waiting for, because I believe there's something wrong with being this way, and therefore I assume the adults I see doing this are immature, have something wrong with them, are childish, cannot be Doing Adulthood Right, because they didn't give up the thing."

"I know, in my heart, that I can't WAIT to change, so if they don't want to change, if they haven't changed, something must be wrong with them."

And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is the only reason. People are way too complex for there ever to be One Explanation Of All. I'm sure some of the teens who engage in ageist bullying just think they're ~cool~ and ~different~ and their name is Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way. Others are just uncomfortable with adults, with or without cause, and think "you don't belong in the same space as me." Some surely have drank the conservative kool-aid even as they've tried to change and are pantomiming the bullshit they were fed by those around them in new and unpleasant ways. Some think "this media was made for people like me and anyone who isn't like me can't possibly be engaging it in the Correct And Proper Way."

Some will grow out of it - out of fandom, or out of thinking that being an adult in fandom is wrong/bad/inappropriate/immature/whatever.

A few especially unpleasant ones...won't.

Unlike young!me, who looked at fannish grown ups and thought "wow, I could grow up to be like them, they're so cool!", you think "ew, I hope I don't grow up to be like them, they're so weird!"

And if that's you...why are you here?

If you don't actually like who are you when you're in fandom, that's okay. You don't have to stay. If you lose your friends because your interests change, then those friends stink and you didn't need them anyway; people who actually care about you will always keep by your side even if your interests and theirs diverge. But just cause YOU are performing your interest in fandom...doesn't mean the rest of us are. Some of us genuinely like it here. And you might think that's fucked up of us, but it's honestly none of your fucking business. You do what you gotta do to grow up, and leave the rest of us already-grown-ups alone.

And if you do genuinely love it and you're just scared because you think you'll have to change - that you'll reach some mystical age of majority and suddenly wake up a different person...you won't. For better and for worse, you'll still be you, so if there's things about yourself you don't like, it'd be better to start working on unpacking that psychological baggage now, because there's never gonna be a miracle point where you Feel Better And Like An Adult unless you put in the effort to change.

Teenagers...you will not grow up to be a new person. You will never give up who you are. You will grow up to be You-Plus-More.

And if that's something you hear and go "omg that's great news!" then I'm glad to be the one who told you. Take heart. There's hope. You can be you and that WILL be okay. You can face up to and grow from the things about yourself you don't like. You can learn more about yourself. You have time, and you will be able to improve yourself, to become more like the parts of yourself you like and less like the parts you hate.

And if that's something you hear and go "oh god no that's the worst" then you need to stare that reaction in the face and understand that the only way change is coming is if you make it happen for yourself. No one is strong-arming you into being a fan. If it's not for you...then stop. It's literally that easy. But don't take out your uncertainty and fear on other random people who are more comfortable with themselves than you are. Most of us are not here because of fear. We're here in the face of our fear, as a fuck you to our fear, because we also grew up being told we'd have to give up so-called childish things to be An Adult, and it turns out that was a pile of bullshit and we can have careers AND anime posters. And we can afford more anime posters, cause our parents are no longer telling us how to spend our money.

If your participation in fandom is primarily performative...just stop performing. Be yourself, and find your OWN passion, and stop shitting on the people who have managed to be more true to themselves and their own interests. You're not cool and edgy and different; you're just an asshole and a bully, and I pity you.

Anyway as you can tell from this rambly mess of a post, I haven't really gotten my finger on my point yet, but idk. I've been thinking about this and I think there's something there???

#unforth rambles #drama #hopefully now that I've written this I can finally get it out of my head #my posts like this pretty much always flop but that's okay #if it helped me think things out for myself #about why some people are Like That #then its job is done #anyway I wrote this post in between helping my daughter get dressed #and getting my son on the bus #and making tea #and straightening up the living room #and now i gotta start work in three minutes #the big difference between teen me and adult me is that now I have to fit the fanning into these miniscule windows of time #between all the More Important Things That Need Done #it's tiring but it's worth it

129 notes · View notes

waitingforeddyneddy · 5 months

Note

you know i don't think there's anything wrong with people "defending" cc, people can like more than a cast member simultaneously and it doesn't mean they're faking liking simone. in fact i think some people made up some crazy ass theories about cc that are pure speculation that were repeated so many times that people convinced themselves they were true. i say that as someone who has no feelings for her at all and i cringe thinking about how people created whole fanfiction in their heads about her. however, i do judge when some people's knee-jerk reaction is to throw simone under the bus to "defend" others or speak in that way that many stans do (like ironically being a hater) about her constantly unlike they do with the others. literally just some months ago a few recognized that jb dresses terribly and just because one started and others decided to do it too, when he has worn ill-fitting stuff for years now

Some of the fucked up things CC said are recorded or put black on white in interviews, the way she behaved on twitter with fans is too. I wouldn't call all these things speculations or crazy conspiracy theories. They're simply there. The way Simone was ignored by that production and fellow cast members was plain to see. Actors, producers, director Tom Verica, behind the scenes videos, wedding dress, scripts...what do these things have in common? the collective effort from the people behind bridgerton to make CC feel at the center of season two. We can't simply dismiss all this stuff as conspiracy theories. Am I blaming CC? No, I still wonder why they didn't just chose her as Kate at this point. I'm grateful they didn't cause no matter how much they tried to hide Simone, she was the one who gained massive love and popularity. CC definitely suffered from having to share the spotlight. she talked about going through some temper tantrums on set, if she behaved like she did on twitter when a fan edited the poster without even tagging her, I believe everything people said about her. Sorry not sorry. I don't like her

also the producers/writers of her new movie are all from bridgerton so lmao, conspiracy theories my ass

also her refusal to answer that question about simone or the jack the ripper reference are both disgusting, can't like a person like that

#simone ashley #bridgerton #kanthony #charithra chandran #jonathan bailey #asks

2 notes · View notes

recreancyrpg · 2 years

Photo

WELCOME TO RECREANCY, GABE!

You have been accepted for the role of ANDROMEDA TONKS!

It's not that she believes in this stupid blood supremacy, she doesn't! But this is part of her mental gymnastics, she still has the voice in the back of her head that so often whispers: you are a Black, you are better than. And in a conscious effort, she puts her husband, the one person she admires the most over all else, into the spot of everyone else. Of course muggleborns are powerful – Ted is. Of course muggleborns deserve equal rights – Ted does. Of course she's going to fight this war for them – Ted's one of them. At the end of the day, if she needs this direct reference, can one even say she has truly broken out of her beliefs?

Please take a look at the new member checklist and send in your account within 24 hours!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME & PRONOUNS: Gabe & she/her/hers

AGE: 24 (soon 25 hehe)

TIMEZONE: GMT-3

ACTIVITY LEVEL: I have kept up activity even in the chaos of uni finals, so I'd say I'm at a pretty good level! ahaha I should also have a little more time now in july since it's a full break, so I would say I'm doing well. Disclaimer that this weekend I'll have a wedding (and Stranger Things, it's tradition to watch with my sister), so I will probably be really scarce, but I will be lurking and plotting so I think it'll work out just fine!

ANYTHING ELSE: hehe nope

CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME: Andromeda Tonks (née Black)

AGE: 29

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Cis woman, bisexual. This is no mystery and there is no story to be told, Andromeda has always been pretty sure of herself.

BLOOD STATUS: Pureblood

HOUSE ALUMNI: Slytherin

ANY CHANGES: I feel like a dumbass but after agonizing about alternate FCs for a lifetime, I actually felt pretty sold on Anne Hathaway again, so I request no changes! LMAO (at one point I was SO sure of another face, so I'm scared of changing my mind again, I'll let you know if I change it before acceptances, but I THINK we're good now ahahsajh)

CHARACTER BACKGROUND:

PERSONALITY:

Andromeda was not born to be told what to do. Plain and simple, as if the stars themselves had sprinkled a little too much self-righteousness when they made her, she'd come out of the womb kicking and screaming, and she wouldn't stop. Three full days – that was how long it took for her to stop wailing out her sorrows when they brought her home as a newborn. She almost drove little Bella insane. The irony.

The Black sisters were not raised to keep their heads down. They were fed on golden spoons this belief that they were better than everyone, that their name meant something grandiose, that they were never to be made to feel lesser than certain people – lesser than any wizard, lesser than any half-bloods, lesser than any muddily-blooded creature out there. These ideals were no small task for a child to internalize, and while Andromeda saw no way around it as a kid, the sticky-sweet speech eventually turned sour.

She was no longer being fed grandiosity from a spoon, she was having her mouth pried open and poison dripped down her throat. Yes, she was better than everyone – why did that mean she couldn't mingle with the people she chose? Yes, she was better than everyone – why did that mean she had to sit pretty and listen to everything her parents had to say? Wasn't she a Black, wasn't she the ruler of everything her eyes laid upon, wasn't she supposed to have her cake and eat it, too? It was a double-edged sword, a paradox to haunt every other pureblooded family out there. Her lineage had created its own traitor.

People will talk. It's easier to make her into the poster child of what could happen if one chooses to stray from their family's beliefs, which she considers to be hilarious. Ah, yes, the horrors of going against her family's bigotry: just look at her now, happily married to the love of her life and with a healthy, lovely child! It's easier to pretend she's some crazy blood traitor, as opposed to being the very thing her parents raised her to be.

Of course her downfall would be Hogwarts. Away from her parents' clutches, she could hold her nose up high all she wanted, but that would hardly last long. She'd sit pretty with her classmates in the common room, she'd trail after Bella like a lost puppy all of her first year, but she'd always been too defiant to spend all of her teenage years like that. In a way, her parents always knew, she thinks. They'd always had an inkling – or at least that's how she remembers them now, always giving her a harder time, always trying to tie her down a lot more often than her sisters.

It started when she'd argue with her classmates. Armed with a tongue sharp as a dagger, Andromeda found immeasurable joy in arguing just for the sake of it. There was something much too pleasurable in watching the chubby cheeks of her housemates fill up with blood, their voices raising, high-pitched and out of control, while she remained an icy statue with the same smirk plastered on her lips. She wasn't one to pick fights, no, she had no desire to throw out hexes and get herself expelled, by any means. But she picked enough stupid arguments until she was dodging hexes, that she did.

It was enough to bother the status quo, the one Slytherin who made everyone else's life so unnerving in school. She was just a dumb teenager then, high on the power that she felt by making people angry, feeling so much better than everyone by not participating in the boring circle-jerk her housemates seemed to be on.

Quickly enough, that led to befriending people from other houses. Already enough of a tragedy, to the Blacks. She remembers Bella bursting through the door into their manor on winter break one year, loudly announcing to the entire house, after they'd just had a fight: mother, Dromeda has made friends with a nasty Gryffindor!

Still, she kept pushing. She kept being curious. Her parents warned her of the consequences, threatened her with everything under the sun – but wasn't she better than them, too? Wasn't she good enough to make her own decisions, should she not keep her head high, and not bow down to anyone? Sure, she still cared what they thought, but that was a distant feeling, one she would not feel the true weight of until she was burned off the family tree.

And then she met Ted. The boy who charmed her immediately, the one who managed to break down every single barrier she may have kept up, the one who so easily tipped the crown off her head and made her into a puddle of something gooey. It wasn't love at first sight, it could never be with Andromeda, so far up her own arse as she was back then. But it was something else, something better. She fell in love with him by complete accident, she never knew how far off the deep end she'd gone until it was too late to turn back.

She stands by saying it's the best decision she's ever made, unconsciously or not. But it wasn't easy. The girl who prided herself in being so self-sufficient, the one who constantly found new ways to defy her parents, suddenly found herself lost. What was she, if she was no longer a Black? Perhaps only then, she found that she loved them – her parents, her sisters. Sure, she had found out about a whole other side of the wix world, Ted's side, and there was no turning back on finding out that her family was filled with people with horrible views (always this, always people with horrible views, not horrible people). But she loved them. She had spent her entire life with them, they were everything she knew, everything she'd been made out to be.

It was an easy decision to choose Ted, but it wasn't as easy to see her family shut her out. To the girl who'd been taught she could take a bite out of the world any time she wanted it, she wanted to have it all. Ted and her family.

Dealing with the guilt was something that came naturally, with time. She found herself in safety with her husband, with their daughter, but the war raging on caught up to them, as it would catch up to everyone eventually. She was doing what she never ought to do, she was keeping her head down. She was made into a ghost story, the girl who'd been disowned, and she'd been shoved into a bubble of false security that couldn't last for long. She needed to do something.

Andromeda is lonely. In the same way she knows she can never understand the struggles Ted goes through as a muggleborn, he can't understand hers as a pureblood. He will never understand why she can't so easily walk away from the throne that she'd sat on for most of her life – and it's something she doesn't share with him. She knows it would be difficult to talk about how she still misses them, how hard it is for her, when they are the ones helping a system that makes his life so much more difficult. It simply isn't fair, on all sides. She still remembers the look on her sisters' eyes when she walked out of the door for the last time. It still comes back to haunt her dreams.

This is her now, a ghost, a transparent thing with so much to say and no one she can share it with. Maybe this is why she throws herself into war so willingly, this is why she leaves behind a life of perfecting house chores spells and chooses to fight. She can regain some control this way, she can feel herself the same powerful woman she'd once been, picking arguments and crushing the world in the palm of her hand – but the age old question, the doubt that keeps her awake at night and chews at her brain: can she still do that, without the Black household watching her back?

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY:

She loved them.

She loves them.

That is all she wrote, this is the beginning and the end of the story. She can't walk away from them, not even after erasing the Black name from her records to replace it with her loved one's – with a pang of hurt, with pride all-encompassing to push down the pain. She loved Ted, she loved starting a family with him, being a Tonks. But it didn't mean she was ready to give up on the people who made her.

This is the secret Andromeda keeps in a tiny room on the back of her heart: growing up in her home was good.

She was the middle sister of two others, and they had once been kindred spirits. This was the safety net she'd always had. Sure, her parents weren't strangers to neglect, and the strict set of rules they'd put in place could feel extremely grating after so many years. There was a right and wrong for everything – a right way to sit at the table, a right way to dress, a right way to speak. There were screaming matches every so often and the house was never too quiet.

But that was the beauty of it, too. The house was never too quiet – it was always filled with life, even if it meant anger, even if it meant fighting, this was the chaos she'd grown up in and the atmosphere she'd thrived in. The walls were filled with other sounds, too – whispers under blankets when the sisters would gossip far past their curfew, muffling giggles into the pillow to not alarm their tattling house-elf.

Andromeda was the middle sister. She'd grown up looking up to Bellatrix, and feeling a sense of responsibility over Narcissa, and if you ask her, that was the perfect place to be. And no matter what the stories may tell you nowadays, they were close. Up until the very day Andromeda had to walk out of the manor, they loved each other. She still loves them. The dozen scribbled out, unsent letters in the locked drawer of her desk could tell you that.

It is a difficult thing, to be caught up in a war against her kin, when she still finds it hard to let go of them completely. She was raised in their world, built up to think she was much greater than any muggleborn could ever be. It hadn't been difficult to burst that bubble, once she found herself under the bucket of cold water that the boy she'd set her eyes on was, in fact, a muggleborn.

But bursting out of one's bubble doesn't mean completely erasing the way one was raised. Andromeda had been fed all of these beliefs for all of the formative years of her life, they were ingrained into the way her mind thought.

She still finds herself tripping over herself. She'd never dare utter the muddy word used against muggleborns – but it doesn't mean she gets what the big deal is. And she holds them as equal, she believes they are no lesser than – but only because of Ted. Because she loves him so dearly, of course her views have changed, wholeheartedly. But this means that her bias lies in imagining Ted into the shoes of every other muggleborn or half-blood that she listens to.

OCCUPATION:

Andromeda works at the Ministry of Magic, in the Invisibility Task Force division. Working on the same level as her husband was (usually) a pretty good treat. The job had come to her as most things came to a Black – handed over on a shiny silver platter. She lost the name when she married, still so young and fresh out of school, but her blood never changed; at least not in the eyes of the Ministry.

In their opinion, it would do well, it would look good, to have such a well-known pureblood working on the department in the level of magical accidents and catastrophes. And working alongside so many muggleborns! Look at how politically neutral the Ministry is! Their attempt at saving face was performative – Andromeda knew why she'd been called. A former Black, even after marriage with a muggleborn, they expected her to hold the same old ideals her family had brought her up with. She painted the perfect image for them: a pureblood who looked good on paper, and behind the curtains, was still working for the same oppressive agenda they secretly wanted to keep.

She took the job out of spite, knowing this. She decided she could be one good egg in the system, at least, instead of giving up her chair to someone with much harsher ideas on how to conceal things from the muggle world. It turns out, she found herself pretty in love with the job, all these years later.

LIVING SITUATION:

Andromeda lives with Ted and their daughter, Nymphadora, in a small house away from the wildest hustle of the city. Small may be an overstatement, but it certainly isn't the manor Andromeda was used to growing up. The place still has a fair amount of space, more than enough room for little Dora to run around in, Andromeda made sure of it. She'd always wanted a garden and a big open area, as much space as they could get – she didn't fancy being confined to a flat, or squeezed into a spot in the middle of the busiest streets; that was no place to raise a child, after all.

ORDER OF THE PHOENIX:

The Order has brought her back.

For the first time in forever, sitting into her first official meeting, her legs crossed and one heel rhythmically tapping onto the floor, she felt alive.

She'd felt alive a lot of her life, of course, it wouldn't be any different. Andromeda wasn't built to ever be bored, she'd rather pull her teeth out and lose her wand than let boredom consume her routine. Raising Dora had been a wonderful moment of her life, she soaked up every minute she could with her daughter, she felt incredibly fulfilled being a mother.

And then Dora goes to school. The house is empty, quiet, in the way Andromeda has never known how to deal with.

Joining the Order had been a fun slippery slope. She won't admit it to herself, but she was high on the power again, suddenly feeling like a teenager – the world at her fingertips, her tongue a dagger. She had let herself take on the role of a present mother for eleven years, and it had been wonderful, and it had been necessary. But now, she couldn't keep her head down any longer. She had to do something.

It is another secret she will not share: fighting in this war makes everything seem worth it. Sitting at home and hiding from battle makes everything seem like it was in vain – as if losing her family, being disowned, it was all in vain. She wants to make it count. She wants to sink her teeth into the world and go down swinging, because if she's already suffering from the effects of it, if this is already such a weight in their lives, then she might as well throw the first punch.

She worries about what tying her name to an organization like this means to her when it comes to her sisters. Bella and Cissy are clearly not on the same side of the fight and Andromeda finds herself wary to reveal her allegiance. In a perfect world, maybe she could use this as leverage, beg her sisters for a truce – no one makes a move and everyone comes out clean. In reality, she knows she has nothing to offer for a deal like that.

If she meets with one of her sisters out on the field, she'll choke. She hasn't told any of her Order buddies this, but she curses the day she'll have to see one of them standing on the opposing line. She's not above hurting them, sure – the several instances of hair-pulling and kicking from their childhood couldn't be ignored –, but she knows she's unable to meet them with the same wrath she'll face anyone else. Andromeda is well aware she is capable of killing someone for their cause, for their safety, for what she believes in. Just not her sisters.

Apart from this, within the group, she offers her expertise from years in the Invisibility Task Force to anything the Order might need from her.

RELATIONSHIPS:

TED TONKS: Andromeda is much too stubborn to let the love of her life slip away from between her fingers – she won't even admit to herself that it feels like that, sometimes. He's been giving her the cold shoulder, growing distant, but she knows they'll figure it out. She'll make up for that distance herself every time, she will strip away her pride and chase after him all he needs, because she's not letting him go. She loves him to death. It was easy to choose him when they were only eighteen, and it's easy to choose him now, still, every day after that. She's so certain of their love that she won't even let this rocky moment in their marriage worry her – but sure, it does worry her, it gnaws at the back of her head, threatening to build doubts.

They had been stupid and young when they chose each other, and her family made everything in their power to make her see that. But it'd been the right choice, Andromeda knew then and she knows now. She loves him, she loves him until her bones hurt, she loves him until it's a menace sitting in her chest, and it's the only way she knows how to love.

SIRIUS BLACK: The favorite cousin, the closest connection she still has to the family that shut the door on her over a decade ago. She always thought Sirius would be the person who understood her, the one she could fully open her heart to, the one who could listen to the pain she carried after all these years. But he wasn't. Sirius is different, he hates them – in a way she never could. In the end, they are built on the same brick foundation, and they have formed a good friendship over these years, but she can't be fully herself with him. She can't tell him about how she still loves them, still yearns for contact with her sisters, still misses the chaotic family dinners every Thursday. It'd be unfair to unload this on the boy who'd walked out on his family for much more different reasons than she did. So instead, she tries to be a steadfast presence in his life, someone he can count on, in the hopes that he, at least, doesn't feel so alone.

GWENOG JONES: Surprises come in all shapes and sizes, and Gwenog is no different. Andromeda never expected the witch to have so much fire in her, but upon every conversation, Andromeda found that she saw more and more of herself on the other. It helps that she loves Quidditch, too. She's simply fascinated by Gwenog's presence in the Order.

GWENDOLYN LOCKHART: A muggle. A full on muggle is brought into the Order. Sure, a muggle with a lot of knowledge on the wix world, but what exactly is the point? What's next, are they going to start recruiting in the streets of muggle London, picking up any kind-faced person out there to join a war? It simply makes no sense to Andromeda – it's a hazard for all of them, Gwendolyn especially, if she can't even protect herself properly in the case of an attack. It seems wildly inappropriate, that's all.

DILARA YAXLEY: The one who can understand, for the most part. Dilara might be everything Andromeda hoped for, a friend who can actually listen to her without judgment, knowing how it feels – and yet. She finds herself staying quiet a lot of the time. It turns out Andromeda has spent so many years hiding all these feelings about her family, being disowned, everything that happened, that she has started to see them as her own dirty little secrets. She doesn't think she can ever let them out anymore, maybe not entirely. They're hers to keep, and her to deal with.

OOC EXPLORATION:

SHIPS/ANTI-SHIPS:

I am a big shipper of Ted/Andromeda, to be honest, but I am also very open to wherever the rp takes it! In war, things can get pretty messy, and I don't mind exploring something else if it comes to it. Obviously anti-ships include Andromeda and anyone in the Black family, but other than that, I'd say it's all good.

INTERPERSONAL STRUGGLES:

Sometimes, she feels like the sore thumb sticking out.

She's not the only pureblood in the Order, not even the only Black one in there, but maybe because she knows what's in her heart, she feels herself standing out. She knows she's in her own type of section. She's better at recognizing her own biases than someone like Alice Longbottom, but on the other hand, she still wishes her pureblooded family well. It's a weird standpoint to have – she's in this fight to win it, but she hopes it leads to her having more of everything, not less.

She's not ready for the loss that comes with it. In her utopic world, and it's the sort of dream she hangs onto, they can finish this once and for all, and her family gets to see how much better this side is.

But on the outside, at least, Andromeda is just like the rest of them. She doesn't bring her inner struggles up to anyone, so they can continue thinking she's just the same old ghost who carries a vengeance towards her evil pureblood family. This makes her a friendly face around, she thinks, although she's pretty sure some people still feel too afraid to come up and talk to her – that makes her oddly proud; she's still got it.

When it comes to meetings and planning, she's not letting her opinion go unheard. She's a menace well-known by anyone who organizes a mission, a manicured hand shooting up in the air before they finish their first sentence discussing their ideas. They will listen to her, and they will see her, even if she has to raise her voice for it.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO?

I am looking forward to having a much different character than Remus! So many more angles to explore with Andromeda, very different outlooks on life, different struggles… I love her bio, and have loved it since it first came out ahah so I'm excited. This would be my first time writing her, and I think I'll have a lot of fun!

PLOT DROP IDEAS (OPTIONAL):

I'm very open to anything, of course! I think there's a lot of possibilities with Andromeda's ties to her sisters still – do they know she's in the Order already? Don't they? How long until they find out, how long of Andromeda sort of hiding this somehow, if she even can? And what sort of consequences will come from everyone finding out about each other? Besides this, I'd also love to have her help with something very specific to her job, I'm sure it must be useful to have someone that works with her area of expertise.

ANYTHING ELSE? Nope! Thank you for reading!

#recreancyaccepted #andromeda tonks app

7 notes · View notes

deaddovemaybeeat · 2 years

Text

Routine - James Buchanan Barnes

character: pre tatws! bucky barnes

word count: 504

warnings: angst but it’s not that bad, mention of nightmares, mention of therapy, bucky is struggling, kinda happy ending, let me know if i missed anything

main masterlist

summary: bucky is a mess but he’s slowly starting to find routine

A/N: whoop whoop my first fic!!(yes it’s really short but idc) i finished writing this at 2:29AM lmao so if there’s anything that needs to be edited lmk!

“Routines are important, James”

He could hear her stern voice echo in his head

Even as the harsh Sunday morning rain hit the ground, and echoed through the already loud streets of New York

He could here her repeating

“The first steps you need to take towards recovery don’t need to be huge or grand. You need to start small, like having some sort of routine for yourself”

He inwardly sighed

“You need to become accustomed to civilian life, and it’s going to take a lot of effort from you”

Effort.

Everything in life takes effort, not just healing

So if that’s the case why is it so much harder to put in the effort to be better for yourself than it is to just work.

But he’s not a soldier any more

He’s trying to be normal

He needs to be normal

So he try's to take Dr. Raynor’s advice and at least try to find some sort of routine in his life

He smirked to himself as he turned a corner

The nightmares could be considered a routine...

But that’s not really all that healthy now is it Bucky?

No...

He tried running in the morning like Steve did, but god so many other people run in the morning he just couldn’t

It didn’t matter how early he woke up there was always way too many people for his liking

He runs at night an hour and a half after he eats dinner

And he’s not always hungry at the same time so the time changes, then again sometimes he’s not hungry at all so he doesn’t end up running

That’s not really a routine now is it?

He got a subscription to a hard copy of the news paper because he hates reading screens, he really doesn’t understand how all the people of the twenty-first century do it.

Thank god for the news paper because that’s how he finds his saving grace

That’s where he finds his routine

One dull morning while scanning through obituaries Bucky spots an advertisement for a local movie theatre, he recognizes the address, the street it’s on is only a couple blocks from his apartment.

What really catches his eye though are the posters they used because he recognizes them all

For the first time since reconnecting with Steve Bucky has actually found something familiar to him

It’s the best he’s felt in decades and he’s not even that happy, just surprised

The Capra Theatre

Movies Of The 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s& 60s Playing Every Sunday

General Admission $8.99

This Sunday The Capra Theatre Proudly Presents: The Thin Man

That was Thursday.

This was Sunday.

Bucky was now less than 20 ft. away from the doors, at this point he was practically running towards the theatre

Sundays in the past were him reading until he was bored of his book

Sundays of the future were now full of hopefulness and good movies

For once he wasn’t dreading the thought of seeing Dr. Raynor on Monday.

16 notes · View notes

littlecafe · 2 years

Note

!!definitely, no company operates independently if 80 something percent of it is owned by a parent company, its just basic business. and they just released a shoot video for their next boygroup trainees? the timing is just very off

oh ya i agree completely the graphics have significantly downgraded since merging, nuests last album cover was so weird (but at least there was more effort in those teasers) and it was the same with their merch too...and now this one its just black text and pixelated numbers fdhsks

i saw theories this album was supposed to be for april...but now its a a disbandment album. even the concept to me doesnt match what a goodbye album would look like from them? the blank white previews really do make it clearer that they werent ready :(

ahh youre not wrong the two who resigned had the most schedules going on as of recent, so it made sense to me at first when they said the other three didnt sign...

(thanks for ranting w me i appreciate being able to talk about it >< ♥)

exactly!! i honestly can't believe there are people that don't see or understand that, even if this is kpop it's business and business runs the same everywhere

did they really??? a new boy group...wow.....oh wait i just searched it up i've seen this group mentioned before didn't they have a show or something i remember seeing some lyrics controversy but i won't derail this anymore lol but the timing sure is...something even if it's just a coincidence it's still rubbing some salt into the wounds....

even before the merger pledis has always been lazy with design lmao either that or they just don't budget a lot for it if they're paying someone for these (but what else is new, pledis is cheap) which reminds me of a nancy unboxing i watched a while back (i had to go find it, linked to timestamp), she mentioned that a fan found out one of svt's album color version was literally a direct inverse(?) of another one aka there was zero thought being put into color scheme....

i honestly try to erase romanticize's design choice out of my head like i gasped the first time i saw their teasers come out with that pls sakjhfdksfhs it was so ugly but i feel like another group had some similar design with some atrocious font spacing but i can't remember now i can only think of svt's the ode album but that "minimalistic" design would be more in line with what they did for nu'est the nocturne album which were also both......an interesting take on minimalism, font focused design (nct did something similar with their regular irregular era posters which i found much cuter)

honestly with pledis designs there's no vision which makes them pretty unmemorable, they're lucky the boys are pretty enough to make it work lmao their best work for me would be happily ever after album along with the website they made for it

yea...i've seen people suspecting the 10 year anniversary promos were supposed to lead up to the new album in april, it's so obvious this album was still in the works and got repurposed to be a goodbye album bc you're right the concept just doesn't make sense at all and they virtually have no design shdsfsdfdsf looking at the listed album goods too it's like nonexistent compared to any of their other album releases, they were really not ready to put this out

ugh...ok i thought so....this is 100% my cynical side speaking now that i've had more time to sit on it but i really don't like how they somehow managed to keep those with higher amounts of individual schedule (and possibly individual appeal) while the others just magically decide not to renew, sounds like someone was trying to min max profits, since despite nu'est doing well in korea, there's no doubt that managing 2 successful solo acts will be easier and less costly than kpop group promotions

also i was just so shocked jr would be one of the ones to not sign like maybe i'm delusional but that was like..did i read this wrong?? i just don't believe if he was given a proper chance to stay as nu'est that he would refuse that

but yes ofc!! it's nice to have someone to talk it out with since the situation got so ridiculous so fast, we all went from shocked and sad to collective frustration practically overnight lol

#talking about design tho and the merger yea that said parent group i'm not keen on their design vision either it's so hit or miss #but they have min heejin now but she's mainly working in their other division for girl group debut so she doesn't do any of the bg releases #search for her old work with sm and you'll find a ton! she really creates a good vision for designers to make good work #sm has been going more downhill now in the design without her i used to defend their design department so much #now they just embarrass me but their work for dream's hot sauce was good fingers crossed for glitch mode #key's bad love but he was his own creative director so lmao but they really brought his vision to life for real #yuehua has cute designs too i like woodz's equal and woops! eras #everything from scheduler to teasers to packaging was on point for those #astro's dream part 1 is also a memorable kpop design for me!!#i try not to think too much about the photos when taking in the designs unless it's meant to be photo driven #nice design is just a great added bonus for me in kpop which is why it's been so sad ever since covid bc it hit the visual sector the most #another group that puts out decent design concepts almost all the time during these times would be tbz #they have a lot of sm's old crew working for them too #absolutely derailing in tags but tying it back despite that company's world building their design has never been on par #once min heejin's work comes out for the gg whenever that will be then i will see again #question

3 notes · View notes

feckin-zicons · 3 years

Note

that's why i hate larries, i hate them with all my heart. besides being boring they are hypocrites 🙄

Hey nonnie, sorry its taken me so long to reply but if you’re following me you know I’ve been travelling lately and have been more scatterbrained than usual. Not that I’m ever not scatterbrained, but its been just a little crazier than usual!

Now I wouldn’t go as far to say I hate Larries. After all their delusions can be pretty funny sometimes!

Joking aside, I don’t hate Larries, I love Larries, I’m a Larry, so I really hesitate to tarry the whole group with the same brush. However I do strongly agree with you that there are those who are complete hypocrites. Nothing annoys more more than when Larries ™ treat the other boys, other celebrities, their friends and even family as one more side character to the Larry Show.

In particular when Larries ™ flood comment sections asking or in some cases, ordering people to confirm rumors/the couple being together. The absolute fucking disrespect. Not just because they’re flooding comment sections in videos streams, tweets, what have you, that sometimes have nothing to do with the couple in question, but because its presumptuous and rude as fuck to think they’re owed a coming out- just because they’re fans of the boys.

Stop it. Thats fucking ugly as hell.

While I have no doubt all the boys will one day be out (as referenced by their continued efforts in fighting the closet. I don’t get the sense the boys will just stop at being freed from their contractual obligations). It should and will be on their own terms. Provided they’re not forcibly outed some other way.

Coming out is a deeply personal experience and no one, no one ever, has the right to out someone else. I’ll never not be absolutely furious at the Larries ™ who posted about having ‘receipts’ that would out the boys. Which… tbh weren’t receipts at all but thats a whole other story. I’m also still angry at the reactions after Liams Attitude spread that wouldn’t have been as bad if not for the entitled fandom that peddled ridiculous claims beforehand about Liam confirming Larry to be real.

I mean… What the actual fuck. Setting aside the fandom experience of the time, and boy was it an experience. What right would Liam have confirming Louis and Harry’s relationship? I mean, get some perspective? It doesn’t help that a lot of fandom adults were the ones coming up with, and reblogging those theories and the younger fans ate it up. It would have made more sense for Louis and Harry to do it but idk maybe I’m still out of touch for thinking so. I mean, it felt like every other week someone was talking about Larry coming out. It was such a shit storm oh my god.

Biggest issue I still have with them is that the entitled behaviour hasn’t stopped. For some it seems like, Larry coming out is it for them. Like pack it up, goodbye, shows over, Louis and Harry are gay and in a relationship and everything is rainbows, we get to see cute pictures of them and everyone lives happily ever after.

Yeah, no. Coming out, for anyone, is just the beginning, can’t even begin to imagine what its like for them. They’re still going to need everyones support, and it irritates me that for some fans it seems so fucking conditional.

Time and time again, I’ve seen tweets, and posts, and videos, whatever, going on about Larry coming out and it reads like a fucking wattpad story. Not just that but its always on the assumption by the poster, on the off chance they consider the other 3/5ths of the band and Ziam being a possibility, that Larry will come out first?

What?

I’m sorry but, what?

Everything I’ve seen from the boys tells me they’re all in this together, they support each other and are working through the bullshit as a team. We have all seen the No Judgement music video yes? The merch, posts, double speak etc referencing each other, yes?

I mean, I suppose if you only look at Louis and Harry, like so many do, sure. Only Larry matters, everyone else is a side character in their life.

(Lemme just, scream for a second).

However, that kind of thinking leads them to the wrong conclusions. Like… assuming the SBB/RBB countdown was attributed to nothing, when it counted down to Liam finally being free of Sophia. In the years since, I’ve seen Larries ™ backtrack on claiming the bears had anything to do with the boys, that they weren’t behind it at all, or that they were just trolling the fandom.

You know, despite all the proof otherwise, and some really, really good posts breaking down clues about what the boys were trying to tell us. The moment something might not actually be about Louis and Harry its like all their thinking shuts off. Its frustrating. Really fucking frustrating.

Seriously, fans of the other boys as individulas, not just Ziams, have been talking about the stunts too and how they fit together. Its why we tend to be right, because we’re considering the entire group. They’re still a group. They’re not free until all of them are free.

Just for that Nialls coming out first. Lmao. I’ll call it now. Lets go Niall, whens the baby coming. We all wanna know. Its been years.

Imagine, imagine! Acting like coming out is some race to be won. The fucking audacity.

Go outside and touch fucking grass you absoulte ninny.

I get it, you want to be vindicated, you want to be rewarded for putting your faith in two celebrities being together.

Newsflash you dandelionfluff, its not a race, Louis and Harry coming out isn’t a fucking prize. Thats not what supporting a relationship looks like.

Its worse when someone admits they don’t know much about Ziam or the possibility of Niall being LGBT+, and claim they’re open to it, but then immediately tweet or reblog or sub tweet or tag comment a post or answer an ask from another Larry ™ talking about how Larries ™ are the most marginalized and persecuted group.

???

In what fucking world?

IN WHAT FUCKING WORLD?

If we wanna play that game, boohoo, the media claims Louis and Harry aren’t friends anymore because of crazy shippers. Meanwhile Zayn publicly isn’t friend with anyone and “left” the band… despite the Ziam fandom calling the stunt about either Louis or Zayn “leaving” and getting it down to the exact week (the second article coming out a week before about the Ziam kiss pretty much cemented it for Zayn leaving. Which did a lot to fan the flames of the already rabid fanbase when Ziam got two articles confirming a Ziam kiss over the years and Larry got nada. Like that actually means anything).

Not to mention Larries ™ using the hetties and management tactics against the other parts of the fandom to silence them.

Who cares what the media says anyway! TPTB, 1DHQ, The Sun, The Mirror, Simon and his minions and their unpaid interns have used the media to split the fandom apart and it worked.

Who the fuck cares if the media calls the 1D stans delusional, you know the truth! The truth it out there and you’ve seen it! The truth is coming! Who gives a damn about what some two bit “journo” who failed out of their creative writing course writes? They get worse by the year. If it wasn’t so pathetic and hilarious I might actually feel embarrassed for them. They can’t even come up with new stories and have just taken to copying old articles, but you’re upset with them??? Give it a rest. Honestly.

The sense of disconnect, entitlement and victimhood of some Larries ™ is absolutely ridiculous.

Oh my god they’re Karens. I’m not trying to be insulting, but thats exactly who they remind me of.

I’m not going to say its a surprise to me that so many in the Ziam fandom are POC, LGBT+, and Neurodivergent and any combination of those, but I am going to say I’ve read a lot of Larry fics that just have Het sex made gay. Those in the Ziam fandom just tend to look at facts in a different way than Larries do due to their life experiences. A interfaith, interracial, relationship where one or both partners fall under the Bi umbrella (not saying Louis or Harry can’t be or aren’t Bi+ but rumors, and the way the fandom markets them, puts them firmly in the gay category) looks very, very different than gay or straight relationship. Both looking from outside and being in one. There’s just different dynamics at play that aren’t often realized or understood by the gays and hets.

Its not a bad thing. All relationships are different. The issue is that theres a lot of biphobia/racism/religious prejudice etc that arises from people being unwilling to understand the inherent differences.

Taking myself for example, I’m bi, like, bi as hell, and I don’t understand how gays and hets only like one gender. I just don’t. Can’t wrap my head around it. If someone asks me to choose one gender over the others to prefer I can’t. Its so stressful. My brain goes into panic mode and it feels like I’m being torn apart. My sense of identity is shaken- its a shit feeling. I just can’t lie to myself like that. If other people feel the same well, its no wonder bi+ have such high rates of depression and suicide. Its not about choosing who to like, there is no choice, I just feel attraction to everyone. Aces, I get. Its similar to being the opposite of what I feel, or not feeling an attraction to someone I’m not interested in. Easy. Gays and hets? I’m completely lost on.

Completely, and I know I’m not the only one who feels that way. But that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to try and understand where they’re coming from. Its alien to me, personally, but I’m not going to shut down the fact, that theres a fuck ton of people who only like one gender or try and make up reasons as to why they’re actually bi+

I digress, none of the boys fall neatly into the gay stereotypes, its just that parts of the Larry fandom have boxed Louis and Harry into certain roles to fit preconceived notions (likely do to them initially fitting in better with the white, sassy, somewhat effeminate twink thats been plastered all over Hollywood as their “LGBT+ representation” for years. Gag), they can understand better, and only look for proof to back up their theories but don’t look at things objectively.

They really need to get out more and make some LGBT+ friends that aren’t on the internet and talk to some gay elders. They need educating that’s not the often sanitized and insulting Hollywood version, that’s all I’m saying.

They made Louis and Harry more palatable for themselves and its… really gross.

I don’t know, I don’t get it.

Some Larries ™ turned the boys into their fandom and fanfiction stereotypes when they’re so much more than that. The Sony leaks should have been enough to dissuade the fandom, and prove that the brand sold to the broader audience is just that- a brand, and yet… Niall only talks about food and golf and Ireland and is only allowed to be straight or ace. If he exists at all its just to be Capt Niall. Liams slow and dumb and depending on the day he’s either Capt Liam or a horrific abusive homophobe. Zayns just The Worst, a unstable drug addict, and the boys hate each other, and they should have kicked him out of the band sooner because he never wanted to be part of them anyway, etc.

It drives me absolutely around the bend some days. They’re real people who don’t owe anyone anything, especially not coming out.

Yes, I think they will. But they’re not obligated to. They can change their minds, I’ll support them regardless of an “official” coming out or not.

Look, a part of me gets it. They wanna be right, they wanna prove the haters wrong, they want to be able to say I called it all along! The vindication will be sweet.

But like, it takes a quick look at someone other than Louis and Harry to realize theres something hinky going on with Liam, Zayn and Niall. Please listen to their fans who have spent just as much time as you have looking into Louis and Harry compiling together evidence.

It might take a weekend to watch the ILYSM and pterodactyl bros videos and a few more hours looking into some Niall blogs, which isn’t much compared to the hours I know they’ve spent looking into Larry. At least then they’ll have enough information to form an opinion on things.

I wonder, for some, what would happen if Larry didn’t come out, or didn’t come out first, or one of the other boys was outed against their will. Because… I don’t know. It seems like some would rather just be proven right at this point.

I get it. We’re tired. Its been eleven long years. But this isn’t a television show were everything can come to a head with a s3 or s4 cliff hanger and fixed in the series finale. Its real life, and they started off as boys trusting industry veterans who never had their best interests at heart.

Iduno. I just want some Larries ™ to take a step out of the echo chamber, realize life isn’t The Larry Show & co. And especially. ESPECIALLY, that every instance were someone, friends, family, co-works, industry peeps etc support the boys they are SUPPORTING THE BOYS, NOT THE FANDOM. They are not “confirming Larry for the fans” they’re doing it to support the couple, not to cater to the fandom. Please stop confusing the two. There’s a huge fucking difference. Learn it.

#Honestly it should be the Liam Payne the three guys who’ve had a crush on him and the one who married him.#aka the hill I'll die on #lmao #sorry not sorry #IM SORRY IT LOOKS LIKE I HAD A LOT MORE TO SAY ABOUT THIS THAN I THOUGHT I WOULD #ASDFGHJKL;#also please don't think I'm calling anyone out specifically #these are a lot of generalizations and trends I've noticed after being in fandom for nearly 11 years they pop up all the damn time #circles we're just going in circles #I've been following Ziam in particular since the Nov 2011 interview #but suspected Liam had a crush sometime before when I saw a gifset of him talking about Zayns birthday presentsbc he as acting the exact sa #e way I was when I was crushing on a girl I knew #I saw myself in him and ignored it for another day #lmaooo #ziam #larry tunnel vision #larry vs ziam #Larry vs Niall #fandom bs #ask

9 notes · View notes

senor-cummies · 3 years

Text

I request that you ignore how cringe the first part of this is lmao i wrote it like 2yrs ago. Happy post a wip Saturday! this is for my wip 'to covet anonymity' which is the prince!link/bounty hunter! revalink au, or, as my horrible disgusting friend mike likes to call it 'the revalink mandalorian au'

The sound of thundering hooves still echoed in the forefront of his mind. It soaked him in a fear that was completely alien to him. The fear of being caught. The fear that, despite his efforts, he’d fail. That he’d be taken away from the confines of his safehouse and thrown in a jail cell, or worse, into the bed of the person he was meant to marry four days ago. The fear swamped him, overwhelmed all of his senses until he knew nothing but it. Until he was lost in a thick fog of immeasurable consternation with no means of escape.

He was drowning in it, a thick, viscous, never-ending ocean of horror that permeated his tight-wound barrier. A constant pounding, taunting, sense of vehement trepidation that struck him with a force that rivaled a title wave. The salty winds off the Akkala Dead Sea, running through his hair even at this low point on the Ulria Grotto where he was seeking refuge, carried with them the twinge of dismay, each rise and set of the autumn sun that brought him closer and closer to his judgment day.

To the inevitable.

Overstimulating anxiety pounding against his skull, screaming for any way to escape besides red hot tears and muffled screams into his bedroll. He willed for sleep to take him, to succumb to something other than existential dread, for a break from perpetual suffering even if only for a moment. And all he got in return was the sound of cool wind and rushing water.

No rest, no sleep, no freedom, just crickets, and owls. Deer in the distance, mysterious rustling that made him go reaching for the broadsword sheathed at his bedside.

He’d never get any sleep at this point, any attempt to do so was worthless. He had to head to the stable up the coast in the morning anyway and, given by the moon, he only had a few hours of night left till sunrise. He’d just hoped, wished, he might be able to sleep. Link hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep, even a bad night’s sleep dammit, since before this whole engagement nonsense. Maybe, if he was willful and believed hard enough, he could manage to milk even 30 minutes.

With a deep breath, he settled into his bedroll, holding his blanket tight to his body, before shutting his eyes and trying one more time to rest.

A drop of water fell on his cheek.

Then another.

And another.

One more...

A shower of rain poured down upon him as if the goddess herself was telling him to move. That it, too, was fate.

Still, he stayed laying in his covers that slowly got wetter and wetter as time went on. He could afford to lay a bit longer, at least until the first thunder crack.

(he tried his best to pretend he just didn’t hear the quiet rumble of thunder in the distance as he rolled over onto his other side.)

alpha

Link stared at the bounty poster of himself on the stable wall, next to an advertisement for Beedle's new Akkala shop location and a warning sign for a lynel herd that moved into a field in the gulch. It was like looking at a ghost. He could barely recognize the hylian looking back at him.

He looked so...Sad. So out of place. He fit in much better out here.

Link frowned, ripping the poster off the wall and stuffing it in his bag of tinder.

He turned, walking over to the check in shelf to peruse the newer, dry, non falling apart at the seams, tunics.

"How can I help you?" The clerk greeted. Link looked him, bringing his arms out from under his cloak.

'I'd like a child's traveler's shift.' The clerk reached behind him, grabbing it.

"Just the shift right?" Link nodded, looking around the room as the clerk sorted through to find his item. He looked back at a navy blue rito.

Do I...Know them?

They stared back at him, eyes slits. Link scrunched up his face, pulling his hood over his eyes.

"Alright, that'll be 20 rupees for the shift." Link nodded, reaching into a small pouch on his hip.

There was a loud ruckus outside, the sound of pounding hooves, casting over the clerk's voice as he attempted at small talk.

"It's probably the knights again," theg groaned. Link tried to silence his anxiety.

"Oh, he comes around about twice a week looking for that 'lost prince'. You know, I don't think he's lost. I don't think he was abducted at all, I think the poor sap ran off. You hear he was supposed to be shipped off to Ganondorf? Join his harem? I woulda done it too." Link tuned him out, his breath picking up.

The hooves grew louder and ceased at the stables entrance, the entourage casting a shadow over the inside of the stable. Link gulped, giving the man his rupees taking his shift and leaving, stuffing it into his bag as he made a mas face and he gulped.

“No one leaves until we’ve searched the entire premises, okay?” Link made a mad dash to the back door, covered in the bedlam that was the King’s arrival. A large wing was shoved into his face, the impact of it knocking him to the ground.

“Are you deaf, elf? Nobody leaves.” Link cursed, moving to pick up his things that were dropped in the collision.

"How many times are you going to keep bumping into me, bird guy?"

"I don't like it any more than you do." They crossed their arms, watching Link scramble to pick up his things. "And don't call me bird man."

"Don't call me elf,"

The rito huffed, leaning down to help.

"I'm fine," Link mumbled, voice quiet in an attempt to not be recognized.

"I don't care about you, it's just taking you a pathetically long time to pick up your things." Link rolled his eyes, picking up his books and clothes.

"Well, would you look at that..." Link looked up from the shirt he was refolding to the rito's wing. Sitting in it's navy blue feathers, was the diadem he'd snagged off his bedside table. His eyes widened.

"Give me that!" He cursed, snatching it up out of his wing.

"Now, now, I recognize this." Link whined, following their wing to try and grab it.

"Where did you get this?" Link huffed, dropping his arm, the rito inspecting his diadem closely.

"Where did you get this?" They repeated.

"I don't see how that's any of your business." Link hissed, grabbing the rito's wrist and snatching thr diadem out of it's wing. Link shoved it into his bag, stomping away from the stable. He could hear the rito behind him.

"What do you want?" Link groaned.

"That's the prince's diadem." Link bit the inside of his cheek, still walking back towards the grotto.

"If it is, than I bought it for a hell of a steal."

"Bought it from who?"

"What's it to ya?" He yelped as he was grabbed, slammed against the hard bark of he tree. He looked up with flushed cheeks to meet piercing green eyes.

It only made him blush harder.

"I am going to make myself clear, hylian. I ask a question. You give an answer. I asked who you bought it from." Link panted quietly, shaking like a leaf. Somehow, he still managed to muster up a smirk.

"What's it. To ya."

The rito struggled not to slam him into the tree again, for fear he might knock thr hylian out.

"If I tell you why I'm asking, will you answer?" Link shrugged. The rito gripped him harder, grinding him up against the harsh tree bark.

"Yes! Ow!" The rito dropped him, backing away. Link groaned, rubbing at his arm from where thr Rito had him.

"My name is Revali. I'm a bounty hunter chosen by the king to lead the search for the Lost Prince. That is the prince's diadem, now, if he give two shits about your life and your freedom I'd say who sold it too you. Withholding this information is a crime, you know?"

Link nodded.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know. I bought it off a pawner at the Ridgeland Stable, near the Coliseum? Sold it to me for 800 rupees. Had I known it was Prince Link's I would've asked for more..."

Revali stared at him, his hood and hair still hanging in his face. They sat, staring at each other for a few minutes before Revali sucked in a gasp.

"Put it on." Link's eyes widened in panic.

He doesn't...How could he?

"Doesn't fit."

"Put. It. On."

Link rolled his eyes, trying to conceal his fear as he reach into his satchel, pulling out the diadem. He pulled his hood back, his hair spilling out in long, silky, tendrils across his shoulders. Slowly, fearfully, he placed the crown on his head, staring at the bounty hunter.

Revali stared at him in shock and awe.

"Are you--"

"No." Link took the diadem off, putting it in his bag.

"I'm not the prince, I've never been to the castle, my name isn't even Link!"

"You look like a Link..."

"You look like an overgrown cuckoo!"

#link botw #botw #loz #tloz #botw revali #revalink #to covet anonymity #tca #paws #post a wip Saturday #mandy writes shit

7 notes · View notes

bigskydreaming · 3 years

Note

Have you seen Linkara's review of The Dark Knight Returns? He goes into why the view of Robin as a soldier, popularized but by no means invented by Miller, is so dangerous.

I have not, but I need to refresh my memory before I go check it out because I’ll either agree with it or be infuriated by it and I can’t remember which just at the moment but would like to before I restart that argument ten years later.

LOL, so like, I knew Linkara yeeears and years ago. We were both regular posters on Gail Simone’s messageboard on CBR like fifteen years ago, maybe longer. Pretty sure we even met in person a couple times at Gail’s annual SDCC breakfast meetups, but not sure. I do know for sure though that he and I were both involved in a three way argument about this very topic with another guy.....I just can not remember if he was the one who agreed with me or the one we were both fighting with about it, LOL. I THINK we were in agreement as while I wasn’t like.....as pro-DC as most YABSers were given that it was Gail’s board and I mostly hung out at the X-boards and just swung by YABS once a week or so BECAUSE I couldn’t stand all the ass-kissing that went on at that board so that DC writers and artists would hang out and post regularly, LOL, like I’m pretty sure I remember Link as being one of the less....vehement of the pro-DC camp.

(Tbh, one of the biggest ways in which I disagreed with Gail on stuff is I UNDERSTOOD her feeling a need to be civil with other DC pros even if she didn’t like them personally, I just....couldn’t manage the same and didn’t feel any desire to try. Like for example, not sure how many people know who Ethan van Sciver is, but he’s a long time high profile DC artist, best known for his GL stuff.....but he used to hang around YABS pretty regularly. EvS is ALSO a haaaaaardcore conservative, Trumpian, and all around terrible person. And he always was.

Like he’d play it civil back then but his opinions were downright hateful on a variety of topics, particularly towards marginalized groups, but he was good at picking just the right moments to half-assedly walk something back the second he took something ‘too far’ - so like, the end result was he said it and everyone saw and remembered, but before anyone could react he’d drop the mea culpa card and be like oh I’m sorry I know that was out of line, I was just caught up in the moment and it’s all good cuz this is all friendly debate anyway right? We’re just talking here.

And he’d pull this crap all the time but because he was a DC pro, people would let him get away with it and warn people off coming down on him so he didn’t feel unwelcome at the board. Now the painfully ironic twist here is that shockingly, totally unexpectedly.....fast forward to about five or six years ago where good old Ethan burns a shit ton of bridges and decides well why not make things a dumpster fire for everyone in my vicinity....and he became the driving force behind a bunch of alt right comic book fans starting their own weak ass version of Gamergate, only called Comicsgate. It never was nearly as....big...as Gamergate was, but it was still ugly. And the thing is, Ethan sicced his sycophants on other industry pros he’d worked with over the years but always disagreed with on politics.....like really let the ugly fly....and most of these pros included Gail as well as a bunch of the other DC professionals from back in the YABS days.

Because thing was....that was literally WHY he’d hung out at YABS so much back then, despite being so far in disagreement with most of the progressive leaning board. He was always just interested in stirring shit up, he never actually had the slightest interest in debate or seeing the other side of anything....he just knew how to play the right cards to get the right people to come to his defense and cool things off rather than run him off, in the name of keeping things civil and such...all so he could start it all up again a couple weeks later.

And this is literally why that kind of thing doesn’t work for me at all. Because he wasn’t really that subtle even then, most people knew all along exactly what he was doing, and letting him get away with shit that would have gotten anyone else banned purely because he was a industry pro just meant that his opportunities to subject anyone in his vicinity to just vile, hateful shit ended up more protected than all the marginalized posters on that board who didn’t come to it to see his shit but had to constantly listen to it anyway because people were more interested in making excuses for him than making it comfortable for everyone else.

And in the end, he ended up turning on the very people who’d protected him from everyone else ripping into his hateful viewpoints with the directness they merited. Which just. Sigh. To me just smacks of a whole lot of unnecessary years spent putting up with his barely veiled bullshit until he didn’t bother even veiling it anymore....even though the reality is NOBODY was ever buying into his veil of it in the first place and we all knew what was right behind it all along. Anyway. Not that it matters LOL, but good old Eth, was one of the primary reasons I decided not to go into comics when I had a couple of opportunities come up, as I decided to focus my efforts on Hollywood at the time instead. Lmao, I figured if I was going to have to keep my mouth shut about coworkers whose opinions I vehemently disagreed with in the name of professionalism, I might as well focus on the profession that would pay me more money to keep that to myself. Look, at least capitalism is useful when ADHD and trying to pretend to be decisive about life choices.)

Long ramble nobody asked for aside, like I said, I can’t remember Link’s take on this particular topic but it’s likely the one I agreed with for the most part. My own take has always been that Miller sucks and if he said it chances are I said he was wrong because he is about everything and my religion is people saying so and by people I mean me. My religion’s also big on self-actualization. Not sure what else, I did just make it up and I think I’ll probably just stop there so I don’t accidentally make it a cult.

But yeah. I mean, maybe it’ll surprise people given how critical I am of the abusive elements of canon, but I’ve never applied the child endangerment/child soldier argument to sidekicks. It’s obviously not that they don’t get hurt in these stories and even traumatized, it’s not that they’re NOT in danger as kids....it’s just why I put such an emphasis on it being their choice to fight crime and be heroes and NOT something that Bruce or any other mentor or parent pushed them into.

Because this is one of the reasons why death of the author more often than not just doesn’t work for me. Authorial intent matters. Readers are always free to interpret a text however they want, regardless of authorial intent....but IF a writer has a specific intent behind a narrative choice, chances are most interpretations that refuse to align themselves with that viewpoint aren’t really all that RELEVANT to the story the writer was trying to tell in the first place.

Don’t get me wrong. Those other interpretations can still exist. They’re allowed to exist. People can abide by them all they want. But if someone’s takeaway from a story is a deliberate choice to read it entirely different from the story the writer intended it to be.....like, their interpretation is all well and good, but it’s not actually at all a RELEVANT commentary on or review of the story the writer was actually writing. They’re not actually saying the writer did a poor job of telling the story or was wrong in how they did it....because they’re not actually talking about the story the writer was actually telling.

Thus their commentary on it exists. But it’s just not that relevant. Because nothing in it even CAN offer an opinion on how else the writer could or should have written that story....because the story they ARE talking about isn’t the story the writer was even interested in writing.

Now, there are some times when authorial intent DOESNT matter. And when criticism of it is entirely fair and earned even if it’s of something the writer didn’t consciously or deliberately write into their story at all. But these things are almost ALWAYS unconscious. Unlike what I was just talking about, where the writer was very consciously writing the story a certain way for a reason, and thus people who aren’t interested in reading the story the way it was written to be read just can’t offer up a commentary that says anything useful or meaningful about the story that was actually written...the flip side of this is when the writer puts things they don’t intend into the text, but still are very much there all the same.

And this sort of thing applies to things like micro aggressions or racism, homophobia, sexism....things where a writer didn’t sit down intending to be offensive or alienate their readers but still put in things that they don’t think to view as offensive due to their own privilege and lack of experience EXPERIENCING the microaggressions that marginalized readers might be all TOO familiar with and thus can’t avoid reading into a passage where the writer might not have INTENDED harm or offense, but delivered it all the same. Because they didn’t think to put it into their story, they weren’t TRYING to....but they didn’t think to avoid putting it in there either, even if it’s because they didn’t know to until it’s pointed out to them that it’s there.

And this also applies to when the writer puts into their story, via whatever viewpoint they’re writing from, things that herald from their own viewpoints, how they view the world, even in terms of unconscious biases or expectations....but things that readers can still interpret as something they vehemently disagree with, even if the narrative seems to condone it. Because a lot of these viewpoints are things where the way they’re written....even just not coming out as clearly not condoning or agreeing it can effectively be read as tacitly condoning it.

So to apply all this to the idea of child sidekicks and child soldiers:

They’re not one and the same, and thus treating them as one and the same or interchangeable is IMO an inherently flawed perspective that doesn’t ever have anything USEFUL or RELEVANT to the stories that most people are trying to tell with child heroes and sidekicks.

With the notable exceptions of Miller, Ennis and certain other writers who by their own admission usually aren’t even trying to write about superheroes but rather deconstructions of the genre as a whole.....the vast majority of comic book writers, even the ones I dislike LOL, aren’t writing about child soldiers when they write characters like the Robins. Because CONSCIOUSLY, with INTENT, they’re already trying to write something completely different:

Child heroes and sidekicks are almost universally written to be child (although to be really fair, for the most part they’re largely teen) empowerment allegories. They’re youth power fantasies.

They’re stories about kids, about teens, getting to be the ones to save the world. About kids who don’t need adults to save them because they save themselves or their friends. Kids saving other people, other kids, grown adults. Stories about child HEROES are written as metaphors of hope for the future and the promise of the younger generations, or power fantasies where kids who feel helpless and powerless in their own lives can read these stories and vicariously imagine through the characters the idea of one day having the power to save themselves or other people, what that would be like, what they’d do with that.

But here’s the important part, and why people interpreting these teen and kid heroes as child soldiers doesn’t really offer relevant commentary to stories that are written to be allegorical youth power fantasies, regardless of authorial intent or death of the author....

And that’s because the key ingredient here, the thing that’s not really up for debate or open to interpretation....is that these stories can ONLY ever be allegorical.

Because like I said before, child heroes and child soldiers are not the same thing. There simply IS NO REAL WORLD EQUIVALENT for child and teen heroes as comic books style them.

And that’s why the fact that with most every child hero in comics, no adult makes them be a hero. They choose that for themselves, it’s almost universally characterized as a self-determination or empowerment moment rather than one of coercion like Miller likes to characterize it. His choice to characterize Bruce essentially drafting Dick as Robin to fight alongside him does nothing to provide commentary on any other superhero story, no matter what he’s told himself or his fans, because his story is the only one where Robin was drafted!

You can’t condemn narrative choices that nobody but you has actually written and then act like you’re saying something about any narrative other than your own fsjsjfshfzgzfhgs.

And you also can’t claim that you’re just seeing in the text something that’s inherently there and the other writers didn’t just see to avoid like I was talking about being a valid critique....because what’s being commented on there isn’t anything that was written unknowingly. Other writers consciously wrote the same things as Miller in terms of a child engaged in all that violence....but they deliberately wrote those moments to be metaphors of a kid that gets to save themselves and other people and CHOSE that, which is inherently opposed to the interpretation of a kid who is ONLY in harm’s way because he was forcibly drafted by a more powerful figure or force who cares neither what he wants or if he gets hurt.

These two ideas are mutually exclusive. They can not coexist in the same narrative because a character can not be powerless and self-empowering about the exact same specific choice. And thus anything that’s said about one of these narratives is inherently unable to say anything that’s relevant about the other....because the other is not written by its writer TO BE the kind of narrative that particular commentary is dissecting. It’s not TRYING to be that narrative, so no review of it can possibly say how flawed it’s execution is of an idea it’s not actually trying to execute.

And the differences between child heroes and child soldiers are not just limited to choosing that or being drafted and these other differences are equally key.

The biggest being that child heroes can not be seen as ‘basically’ the same thing as child soldiers.....UNLESS you are also perceiving adult heroes as basically the same thing as adult soldiers. And not even law enforcement or police or temporarily deputized or whatever else you want to spin it as....SOLDIERS, specifically. You don’t get to bring up something as charged as child soldiers and then get vague with your terminology when the close scrutiny that brings to your analogy stops working in your favor.

If sidekicks are child soldiers then you must in conjunction view adult superheroes as soldiers. And not in the abstract one man war on crime way Miller likes to consider Batman in his attempted deconstruction of superheroes. ACTUAL soldiers. If there’s no room in your comparison for child heroes to differentiate from real world child soldiers, there’s no wiggle room for the adults either.

And again, except for Miller, Ennis and specific others who by their own admissions are not TRYING to view superheroes the same way most other comic writers are, but fail to see that genre conventions are largely interpretive and thus seeing room for different interpretations of superheroes isn’t actually a commentary on how other people see and write those same heroes....like except for these select few, most writers are not writing superhero soldiers unless they’re Captain America or Captain Atom. Yes I know there are other superhero soldiers but let me be pithy. Even those aren’t really the same as their real world equivalents.

See, real soldiers don’t make distinctions about whether or not they’re willing to use guns. Their personal views on killing are not prioritized over whether they’ve been told to use lethal force to accomplish their objective. They have a chain of command. No matter the rationalization, they pledge their loyalty to singular nations and the aims and objectives of those specific nations over the abstract of acting in defense of the whole world.

Now again, maybe that applies to Captain Atom, but for the most part can you say the majority of comic book writers are TRYING to write Superman, Batman, Green Arrow, Wonder Woman etc through that lens? No. So while Miller really thinks he said something when he wrote his Batman with guns, fighting in the Middle East, killing people left and right, none of that actually ‘showed’ people that at the end of the day, Batman is no conceptually different from a real world soldier like. No all he actually did was write his own take on Batman, and said look, he’s a gun toting murderous asshole, huzzah I have deconstructed the modern superhero!

Like. Shut up Miller. Honestly.

But seriously. Superheroes do not have a real world equivalent and neither do child heroes. Even when it comes to nonpowered ones like the Batfam, they’re still deliberately written in a larger than life, four color perspective that requires a suspension of disbelief at the front door. We ALL know and understand that they aren’t a blue print for how to go out and be a real world vigilante. Even real world vigilantes exist. But they don’t look anything like the Batfam and it’s disingenuous to pretend they do for the sake of teh discourse. Nobody honestly believes that there is even the OPTION of going out one day and deciding to become a comic book style vigilante like one of the Batfam. It’s why even they’re termed superheroes despite the lack of superpowers. On a CONCEPTUAL level it’s understood that the stories being told about them require an extrahuman medium. You can not simultaneously write characters according to a mythic scale but then attempt to interpret that very writing on a real world one. It doesn’t work.

Which brings me to my final piece of this pie. Or puzzle. Idk I’ve been doing this response for awhile I forget what this is.

And that is again, the difference between interpreting a story in a way the author probably didn’t intend and understanding when a story isn’t meant to be interpreted in the way you’re trying to.

And this difference is how I can understand and reconcile the idea that it’s not inherently abusive for Bruce to allow his kids to fight crime at all, even though that would inherently be child endangerment in the real world, but at the same time, I can view him as abusive in other ways that don’t make allowances for the differences between real life and comics.

Basically it boils down to: CAN this specific element of a story be duplicated in real life or mirror a real life action or idea? Is there a direct parallel to a real world equivalent at all?

I can view Bruce fighting crime or saving the world alongside a child Robin without viewing that as child endangerment or inherently abusive, even when Robin gets hurt in the process....because there is no real world equivalent to those parts of a story. NO ONE, child or adult, is going out there and doing those things Batman and Robin style. Even the people who dress up in their own real life vigilante personas basically just do niche neighborhood things like walk people home from the bar. And even people doing real life vigilantism in terms of taking out criminals, like, that’s usually more of a personal revenge thing and not one where they’re trying to attract attention via a costumed persona. When you think real world Batman and Robin, nothing comes to mind for a reason.

And thus this says nothing inherently abusive about their dynamic, even according to real life parallels of child endangerment, because it’s not a real scenario. And thus it’s not TRYING to say anything about real life. It’s innately allegorical. It’s power fantasy emphasis on the fantasy.

In contrast, when you have something like Bruce hitting one of his kids.....no matter who the characters are, that specific interaction and the dynamic it presents DOES have a real world equivalent. That’s just parent/child abuse. And thus even if the writer didn’t intend for it to be interpreted that way, it’s still a valid interpretation. If it looks like a parent hitting their child, you can call it a parent hitting a child.

Batman and Robin fighting killer mind controlled plants together? Can’t happen. I’m not going to call it child endangerment when it’s not a realistic scenario and not meant to be, and I’ve already been presented with a valid alternative interpretation of this being a child empowered to help save people alongside his superhero father. There’s no point in condemning a dynamic that CANT be translated to a non allegory in real life.

But Bruce hitting his son? A father no matter how good hearted normally, being affected by extreme stress or grief or something else that makes his behavior take a turn for the worse and reach a point where he physically lashes out even if he never would have in the past? Nothing remotely allegorical about that. That story has too many real world equivalents to dismiss as having nothing to say about abuse in real life. Even if the writer didn’t intend for this to read as abusive because they were thinking of how much worse Dick has been hurt fighting alongside Bruce and never held that against him even though technically it was Bruce letting him get hurt....doesn’t matter. That interpretation still requires viewing through a lens that can’t exist in reality. No kid can ever excuse a parent hitting them by thinking of how much worse they got hurt taking down their local mob together and if he didn’t blame his dad for that cuz he wanted to do it to help people then how can he blame his dad for hurting him in a moment of anger? Umm. Doesn’t track see? They’re not the same thing at all.

Or another one that really bugs....I’ve heard people defend shipping a Robin while underage with an adult by saying if they’re old enough to make the choice to risk their life and have that choice respected, they’re old enough to choose who they want to be with. Umm. No. That’s not just apples and oranges that’s genetically modified grapes and seventeenth century cannonballs.

That logic doesn’t apply because neither of those things is the underage character choosing ANYTHING. They’re fictional. Everything they choose is just what their writer wrote them choosing. But again, one of those choices is one that an underage reader CANT choose in real life and have respected by every adult in their life, and thus will never have a bearing on their life as anything BUT an allegory they have to interpret and translate into something actionable they can apply to their life and choices. The other choice is them being written as presented with an option that’s actually a textbook real life grooming technique and something abusers use to justify the relationship they’re trying to cultivate with a minor by saying aren’t you mature for your age, aren’t you old enough to know what you want or to do this or that in which case you should be old enough to make this choice?

See the difference? Putting on a cape and going out to fight robots? Not directly applicable. Saying yes to the grown man saying he wants to have sex with you and thinks you’re old enough given this other choice you’ve made that highlights your maturity? That’s a choice that can be presented both to a Robin or a real life minor, but a writer justifying that choice for that Robin by saying well he’s already previously made this other choice that has no real life equivalent.....that creates a pretty misleading interpretation to people reading that story and not stopping to think through the distinctions between what KINDS of choices the writer is presenting these characters with and then justifying via their narrative.

And while I haven’t watched the video you’re referencing, anon, I would definitely agree that this is an example of how viewing child heroes as child soldiers is....not great. Aside from being cynical, misusing the idea of death of the author and helping to validate Miller’s choices and thus ego which is NEVER a good look LOL....it also intentionally or not paves the way for putting fictional types and MEANS of harm on an even playing field with real life ones and acting like it’s all one and the same with no distinctions to be drawn. And this doesn’t actually offer anything substantive or constructive about holding characters accountable for reasonable expectations of harm, when the sources of harm have no reasonable equivalent and thus only exist in the medium of being a youth power fantasy in which the child involved is fictional and can’t truly be harmed, with the harm done the second the scene ends and where the character can be back in fighting form the very next scene. Thus the only lingering element there IS the power fantasy.

Nope, all it actually does is muddy the waters in the REVERSE, and make it so it’s actually easier to justify or rationalize types and means of harm that DO have a real world equivalent, but by pointing to examples from a fictional medium and emphasizing the fictional character’s lack of being harmed while de-emphasizing the fact that the writer has full control over depicting this in a solely positive light that doesn’t ALLOW the fictional character any angle from which to voice that this CAN result in harm when not written for fictional characters according to a writer’s specific intent.

And that’s that about that. My opinion: you have it.

11 notes · View notes

sanchoyo · 3 years

Text

danny phantom, season 3, episodes 7-13 thoughts! cannot believe im finishing this series so fast. ...cannot believe it ended like that...uh. one of the weirdest finales to a show I think I've seen, it really stood out against the rest of the series, and not in a good way, in my opinion. I paused to yell in caps lock...several times, I think, out of anger... BUT. ANYWAY, HERE WE GO.

see prev episode thoughts in this tag <3

-the fentons putting the kids to Work in the lab, with NO SAFETY GEAR. AT ALL. THEY JUST GOT BACK FROM SCHOOL AND ARE TIRED!!! and when jack asked how danny his day was and danny tried to say it was bad jack cut him off :( for the 400th time, i am stealing these kids.

-maddie and jack IMMEDIATELY SELLING THEIR LAB AND WORK FOR A LOT OF MONEY. and danny cant get into the portal anymore, oh no!!! he could always just steal vlads I Guess.

-THEY ARE VLADS NEW NEIGHBOR. OH MY GOD. this is a sitcom format. a butler came with the new mansion. i would absolutely try a kiwi fudge milkshake, why is the butler disgusted.

-the..guys in white bought the lab to shoot a missile. into the ghost zone thru the portal. bro i hate these guys

-jazz straight up setting her new bedroom up in the library. i am very very jealous

-"RATED E, FOR ENTRAILS"

-I like how the 14 year olds very quickly realize if the giw destroy the ghost zone itll destroy OUR ZONE because its just. like. the other side of the quarter so to speak. and the giw, a fully funded government agency, didnt consider that...(or worse, are willing to risk that anyway...)

-a...graphic novel version of the constitution? what in the world have you been READING SAM

-'cool, I always wanted to be called a meddling kid!' scooby doo reference...

-can they keep the butler. I love him.

-ecto latte....I also want to try that. is ectoplasm edible...

-YESS I KNEW DANNY WOULD USE VLAD'S PORTAL. vindicated.

-DANNY WHY DIDNT YOU JUST ASK JOHNNY NICELY. STEALING HIS BIKE IS SO SO RUDE.

-youngblood is also into astronaut stuff, thats really cute. and him being like 'phantom, dude!! :D' ALL EXCITED. THATS ADORABLE.

-the slapstick comedy of the giw slipping and falling and running into shit in the lab. is funny, but also, because this lab has NOOO safety codes in practice. god its a wonder dannys the only one to have died here...

-JOHNNY, SKULKER AND YOUNGBLOOD HELPING DANNY!!! I keep saying it but the other ghosts helping him. is my fav thing in the world. and, it's a really good thing the missile in the real world was harmless...otherwise the fentons wouldn't have had a home/lab to come back to...

-WULF WANTED POSTER!!! we havent seen wulfy in so long :( very funny the box ghost is offended by how much these ghosts are wanted for. first off, what do ghosts even DO WITH MONEY. does the ghost zone have its own currency??? what are ghosts BUYING

-the box ghost is So Funny, im so glad hes still got his bubble wrap. u are VERY wanted in THIS house box ghost. you are SO scary king. dont give up on ur dreams

-this needs to be a meme format. I made a transparent version, very very messily, for future use.

-this is a Fellow and a Friend

-box ghost accidentally bringing lunch for everyone, and giving people at the mall free shoes. SHOES ARE SO EXPENSIVE, ID BE SO GRATEFUL. helpful king. i feel SO bad for him lmao, he's putting in SO much effort. he wants the evil aesthetic So bad but hes Just Too Silly. I understand your plight, box ghost....

-oh my god. pandoras BOX. 'THOSE OF US IN THE BOX TRADE' HOW MANY ARE IN THIS BOX TRADE. I WANT IN. pandora is a multi-armed ghost goddess and i love her.

-SKULKER WHY ARE YOU RUNNING FROM THE EVIL UNICORN?? YOURE A HUNTER!! JUST SHOOT IT!!!!!!! JUST HUNT IT!!!

-box ghost...where did you get the cowboy hat. I respect it, i just want to know

-JAZZ COMING IN WITH THE BAZOOKA TO FIGHT THE 10 HEADED DRAGON!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!!! and the rest of the fentons I Guess

-ignoring the sam/danny moments. I simple do not see them.

-...why doesnt danny just fly over the maze. or do the whole 'real world people act as ghosts in the ghost zone' and turn back!!! I know its just to show off the ghost greek monster designs. but STILL.

-danny being like. um. hi pandora. i found your box. >< polite...PANDORA IS SO GIANT. GIANT GHOST WOMAN. SHES GOING TO BEAT BOX GHOSTS ASS. another ghost thats nice to danny to add to the list :) and HER FORCING BOX GHOST TO APOLOGIZE. and having sandwiches with danny after making box ghost clean up. I LOVE HER.

-DANNYS 'BEWARE' AT THE END JAKHDJFKN

-okay, when dash pulled out danny's seat and was calling him buddy, for half a second I was like 'this is a prank, hes gonna pull it back' BUT THEN FRIGHT KNIGHT MY BELOVED IS BACK. AND EVERYONE STARTS CHANTING FOR DANNY TO BEAT HIS ASS WITH GHOST POWERS AND DANNY DOES WAY TOO EASILY, and im like, yup, this is a dream LMAO

-danny is getting an A+ in science :) my smart son

-DANNY WAKING UP FROM THE DREAM RIGHT BEFORE KISSING SAM AND BEING LIKE 'that was a dream...no, a NIGHTMARE!' same. not to be a hater but, shouldve been val. maybe I am a hater

-...danny running and checking the 'tapes'...why is his whole house constantly being recorded. hes been in ghost form/fights plenty of times in his house. does he have to run and wipe the tapes after?? every single time?? god

-letting this image speak for itself

-this is SO cursed

-NOCTURN'S DESIGN FUCKS SO HARD. the Venice mask vibes. also his space pattern not moving while the rest of his animation does is big chowder vibes. but this guy is basically the sandman but Evil, huh. I love dream plots. also, nocturn's design feels very similar to clockwork, like, red eyes and a scar over the same eye, but also just the purple, and the Cosmic Vibes. I want to see them fight. anyway nocturn's va was also avatar roku AND alfred in several batman cartoons.

-the 'sleepwalkers' designs were super cute in shape (kinda remind me of oogie boogie! pillow-cased shaped, which is appropriate for the 'king of dreams's minions) until I looked closer at their eyes. why do they look sewn shut!! (they open their eyes a few times, so they aren't, but they look like it...)

-I like how this show has been pretty consistent (with a few exceptions) about a Ghost Being Huge (or getting larger) = Very Powerful

-2 months of summer camping??? wtf, do camping things usually take that long?? I've never been to a camping...thing like that. but isnt that basically their entire summer??

-'the entirety of nature is your bathroom!' and thats why I do no camping despite loving nature LMAO.

-sam, at least TRY TO BE NICE TO THE OTHER GIRLS YOU'RE GOING TO BE SHARING A CABIN WITH. also, the amount of times people in this show have their SHOES ON THE BED!!! IM DISGUSTED

-swamp creature Is A Ghost. Big Foot is a Ghost. starting to think in this universe, every single cryptid or legend is a Ghost Actually

-paulina crying not only because star is missing, but because SHE FORGOT HER SUNBLOCK AND SHE BURNS SO EASILY!!!! okay girlfriends

-ghost cops are the real monsters at the camp. i.......I mean. fair. no one missed you walker

-WULF!!!!!!!!!!! WULF IS BACK!!!!!!!! MY FRIEND WULF :D MI AMAS VIN!!!!! kaj danny lernis Esperanto :)

-'relax kid, we arent here to do any harm' *immediately shoots danny* yeah. ghost cops. and also danny bringing walker 'wulf' and walker IMMEDIATELY SUCKING DANNY IN A THERMOS. FUCK OFF

-haha walker Bald. and haha walker Frozen Now

-the fenton thermos can...reverse its polarity to close portals? okay

-LIBERA MIA AMIKO. :")

-ohhh they end the ep with them star gazing, thats pretty cute...

-dani is back! ...with a new voice actress? wiki says AnnaSophia was in 3 diff movies in 2007 when this aired, so she was probably too busy... (including, bridge to terabithia aka the movie that ripped my heart out that I mentioned in the first ep Dani was in...kinda wanna rewatch it now)

-shes still scared of vlad, who's still being creepy and spying on her. 'shes hardly going to come home to daddy!' I WONDER WHY. also does vlad's cat look more evil than last time? love the concept of him going shopping for cats and being like 'give me your most EVILEST looking cat, please, so I can pet it in my spinny chair dramatically!' ...oh god white cat hair on his black suit. I have a black cat and her hair is still way too noticeable..

-vlad has a big 'valerie' button in his office. can he be pressing that button every episode, thanks

-'theres a GIRL called dani phantom?' yeah valerie. no relation, obviously, even with her looking EXACTLY like danny. so sad valerie just wants to help her dad and her get out of the place theyre in now and vlad using her. ill MAUL HIM

-dani having to STEAL FOOD. :( and valerie immediately being like oh poor kid :(( and trying to help her!!! and then dani immediately helping valerie!! this episode is starting SO well

-...and then valerie catching her. DAMN IT. and being surprised dani knew danny?? HELLO VALERIE I KNOW YOURE SMARTER THAN THIS. I AM SO SORRY THEY WROTE YOU THIS WAY. I STILL LOVE AND BELIEVE IN U !!!

-valerie lying her ASS off for a chance at gettin danny. ok <3 also 'they couldnt catch a ghost if it was living under their own roof' JSDHKJHNK

-danny. why dont you just tell valerie!! this would be so much easier if he was direct. there is NO way valerie would hurt danny (fenton) she'd be HORRIFIED. esp since she got on board helping dani!!

*is held* :)

-look at valerie and danny. flying together. about to go beat vlads ass together <333

-DANI SCREAMING AS VLAD IS MELTING HER. WHAT THE FUCCCK

-...fucking vlad convincing valerie hes a good dude with his stupid duplication. FUCK. DANNY JUST TELL H E R

-jesus christ how many times has danny had to watch loved ones die. even if she didnt stay perma-dead. glad they fixed her...

-valerie and dani pranking danny when he came out, oh :( cute...them havin fun and laughing together...babies

-BUT THEYRE JUST LETTING DANI LEAVE, AGAIN??? SHE WAS PREVIOUSLY STEALING FOOD. CHRIST GIVE HER A PLACE TO LIVE. OR A FAMILY. actually, I think it'd be really cute if, since danny isnt ready to out himself, dani went and lived with valerie?? dunno if her dad would have the money but,, it'd be a cute concept. big sis valerie...

-'tomorrow, it's game on!' 'and ill be ready to play!' THE FLIRTING....DANNY/VALERIE REAL

-oh my god,, valerie found out about vlad in the end. But he doesn’t know she knows!!! the DRAMA!!! HOLY SHIT THAT ENDING.

-this episode was. SO Much and probably one of my favorites out of s3. (I mean, there has been a gross lack of valerie this whole season, so thats not a hard choice to make...)

-FINALE EPISODE TIME.

-the title screen looks different! so no title card...

-vlad has his own fucked up satellite that looks like him?? okay. why does the animation look so different?? are they mixing cg in?? for what. anyway, vlad and the gang in SPACE. danny is 100% living his astronaut dreams rn

-'defeating frostbite' YOU BETTER NOT HAVE. YOU STOLE HIS COOL MAP. FUCK YOU VLAD

-wait oh my god. vlad is the final series boss, isn't he. I half expected a fake out, for another boss to show up midway, and for him to finally have to have a real truce with danny for this ep. ITS THE FINALE. VLAD FEELS SO UNDERWHELMING.

-And it's like-- his character isn't bad, i just feel like..he has more potential! they WANT him to seem like some smart super evil genius, but the way he's written makes that SO hard to believe...but the solid backstory and design is THERE and its FRUSTRATING.

-...DANNY CALLING VLAD OUT SAYING HE NEEDS THERAPY LMAOO THATS WHAT IVE BEEN SAYING.

-my grandpa technus is in the finale too :) 'well look on the bright side, at least im not downloading them illegally!' he says while stealing dvds. feels like hes calling me out. im watching this series on a bootleg website lmao. anyway, him turning the tech into a transformer. love that

-mASters BLASters sTOp diSAsterS shut the fuck up. you will never be valerie or danny. bite chomp kill. violence

-like this if u crie everytiem

-my god the 3d/cgi mixed in looks SO BAD IT DIDNT AGE WELL AT ALL

-the white stripe in dannys hair kinda rules tho. did he just KILL HIS GHOST HALF??? 'revert his human half back to normal' UM. you ever unkill yourself. why are his friends/jazz so mad about it, he'll be in a lot less danger!! christ. they can still hunt ghosts!! as humans!! if they want to!! hes 14 if he wanted to be normal. let him. vlads stupid little team has things COVERED apparently. why are they acting like this. jazz would never act like this. is this fake whats going ON

-oh my god jack was in a college band. vlad was also in the band. what did instruments they play. i didnt need that headline to tell me they sucked, but i want to KNOW MORE REGARDLESS

-valerie was here for 0.3 seconds.

-sam calling danny selfish. the audacity. no one is stopping YOU from hunting ghosts, girl. valerie does it!!

-I'm halfway through the episode and incredibly underwhelmed so far.

-why would they send jack and 3 teens to space to destroy the asteroid. why not professional astronauts. not even the 3 teens that have already been to space this episode...

-jack getting beat up by teenagers. ON TV. IN SPACE. I GUESS. I GUESS EVERYONE AGREED TO SEND JACK BECAUSE..VLAD SAID SO? we know it was to embarrass jack, but why would everyone agree. why didnt any other space program Do More or whatever, they sent like, 3 rockets/missiles tops?? no way

-danny attempting to punch vlad in the face. i WISH HE WOULDVE LANDED THAT HIT.

-vlad outed himself on live tv, on purpose? and BLASTED AT THE TEENAGERS HE HIRED. LMAO. HES HOLDING THE WORLD HOSTAGE, MAKING THEM PAY HIM BILLIONS TO STOP THE STUPID ASTROID. THATS YOUR GRAND PLAN??? REALLY. REALLY. im like. lmfao

-jack just now, on the last episode GETTING TOLD HE MADE VLAD A GHOST. THIS SHOULDVE HAPPENED WAY SOONER. jack's reaction was one of the only times in this entire show hes seemed human. 'an old friend? no. you? yes.' GET HIS ASSSS ACTUALLY. HE STRAIGHT UP LEFT VLAD IN SPACE. GOD DAMN. that is a Murder! I mean, I guess vlad could fly back to earth, but...I mean, he'll have to, right? no food in space. (that we KNOW of...)

-'thE WHolE EArtH, INTangiBLe?!' oh my god.

-...the white strand of hair somehow still had ghost dna, I guess, and getting blasted turned him back into phantom. I GUESS. I GUESS.

-the fentons being the first to clap for danny despite not knowing hes phantom...that was sweet. and very sudden character development, not at all gradual over the course of time or episodes like it probably should have been...

-sam and danny kissing. IT SHOULDVE BEEN VALERIE, BUT OKAY, I GUESS. also, its a little underwhelming, considering theyve kissed already...

-ALL of the ghosts being ready to beat danny's ass? really. no they wouldn't, they've worked together before, and some of those ghosts are friendly!! cringe. why is the last ep written like this. I mean they came thru at the last minute but. was really cringing for a minute there, why did they write it like that

-valerie is there for another 0.3 seconds! ....she should've been more involved. dani is also there! for also like 0.3 seconds. almost fast enough to miss. (btw, I think shes still homeless at this point, are, we going to...do ANYTHING ABOUT THAT IN THE LAST 5 MINS OF THE SHOW)

-the cgi smoke or whatever it is. this whole post is me saying the cgi is bad, but IT IS.

-'danny or should we say. DAAANNNNY.' this is like the 3rd or 4th time hes been outed damn, but to the whole world, again. and valerie saw, and is just. an extra in the bg clapping. bro im so mad.

-TUCKER IS THE NEW MAYOR? WHAT THE FUCK?? HES 14.

-i think. this is still linked to the dream ep a few times ago. hes still dreaming. this is a plot a 14 year old would write. this feels like a bad fanfic. so much got rushed, and not tied up. vlad wasnt really even the villain this episode, a fucking. non-being asteroid was.

-they kiss again. ok. sure. whatever at this point.

-VLAD IS NOW A FREE-ROAMING SPACE NOMAD. I GUESS. THATS. SURE. WHATEVER. THE END, I GUESS. cannot believe I'm saying this, but: they did vlad dirty.

-IF YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE HIM A VILLAIN, MAKE HIM A VILLAIN!!! DON'T MAKE IT A METEOR!!! STOP BEING WISHY WASHY WHO WANTS TO SEE DANNY VS ASTEROID!!! I didnt even WANT vlad to be the final villain because his character is SO back and forth (esp this season.) but he has done some FUCKED UP SHIT AND I WANTED THE WRITERS TO DOUBLE DOWN, PERSONALLY, IF THEY HAD TO MAKE HIM THE FINAL BOSS. the cabin ep where he basically held danny and maddie hostage? FUCKED. THE DANI THING? FUCKED. FUCKING COMMIT AND MAKE HIM ACTUALLY SCARY OR HAVE HIM FUCK OFF AND AGREE TO A TRUCE!! WHAT IS THIS DYING IN SPACE NONSENSE. (and, he will (fully) die out there, right? still half human, still needs food and water. I imagine he'll like, slowly half-die but this time his human side is dying. will he come back 100% ghost? we dONT KNOW. WE DONT GET TO SEE, ITS PLAYED LIKE SOME FUNNY THING AT THE END, THEN THATS IT!!! WHAT!!!)

-I don't know how to articulate how FRUSTRATING THAT IS. having him basically out himself and ''hold the world hostage'' does not track at all in my brain. like. he's always been scary because he is HUMAN, TOO. like, if he was 100% ghost, he'd be LESS scary, but vlad MASTERS has more power and influence than vlad PLASMIUS because of his position as mayor, his money, too, and his (supposed, s3 made me doubt it) intelligence/manipulation skills, and his being in good graces with jack made it HARD FOR DANNY. him outing himself for,, money and to 'control the world' i guess?? MONEY WAS NEVER HIS LIKE, MAIN GOAL. yeah obv he likes money and is materialistic and values his Rich Life, but hes got billions, the end goal? 1. getting maddie (and or danny as his son, but to me he always treated that as secondary) 2. ruining jack. this feels like they wanted to say 'oh he just wants POWER' which is. HMM?? OKAY?? obv he /does/ want power (usually over certain ppl, tho), but seeing him try to get it like this FELT WEIRD SOMEHOW. weird like the ep where he tried and failed to take over various historical civilizations, because like,, how is that realistically going to do anything for him?? just, being in that time forever and never seeing maddie aka Goal #1 again?? HELLO??? this was like that, but worse

-this was such a weird ending to an entire show. why did season 3 only have 13 episodes?? why did it feel so weirdly paced?? WHY WAS THE ENDING LIKE THAT. I think. I am going to pretend I did not see that. fucked up, dudes. I'm like...hm. I shouldn't have watched that because now I'm mad. valerie sweetie im SO sorry you shouldve been more present. it felt like..if they knew this season was going to be short, and the last season, they should've spent more time wrapping up EVERYONE'S plot lines for the entire season. imagine how cool it wouldve been if every single ep of season 3 was working towards something, a big, nice wrap up at the end, with nothing feeling TOO rushed because they'd been heading towards the End for the whole season....

I will probably end up writing a follow up full series thoughts post. In a couple of days so I can sit with my thoughts. BUT. overall, I really liked the show! (ignoring the finale and some of the moments that aged pretty poorly...) it was charming and a fun concept and very fun to watch in general :) and I am pretending the finale didnt happen <3 and I’m gonna dive RIGHT into the dp tags and mix fanart and posts in my queue, very excited to run and look at that 🏃🏻 (and, of course, make more fanart myself hehe >:3)

#dp thoughts #danny phantom #sanchoyorambles

6 notes · View notes

chrysalispen · 3 years

Text

EPILOGUE. of truths sunk too deep for war

it’s done. now i take some time to finish some one-shots and plot out the next arc (which will take us through ARR, possibly to 2.55, though i am pondering making the CT raids its own separate multichapter fic because it’s so much on its own...) anyway, thank you all for reading ;A; i hope you enjoyed it and i look forward to starting on the next part!

... though i think... maybe not today LMAO i need some sleep

AO3 Link HERE

================================================

(||Feel||))

Aurelia sank into darkness so deep and vast that time had no meaning. It might have been minutes, hours, days of wandering aimlessly, set adrift in a fathomless ocean stretching malms past any known horizon.

And as she drifted, she dreamt.

Snatches of memory caught at her mind’s eye like errant flotsam curling in eddies about her soul.

She saw herself at a dying man’s bedside, a Roegadyn woman weeping inconsolably while watching her kiss him goodbye, unable to save him.

She saw the parting of clouds as black as pitch as Dalamud descended over the fields of Carteneau, a terrible secret still locked within its flaming belly.

She saw her adolescent self curled upon the carpeted steps of a cold marble staircase in the middle of one of Garlemald's eponymous blizzards: shivering beneath a coverlet she'd dragged from the bed hastily made for her, trying to weep as quietly as she could while her new guardians fought over what they felt should become of her.

She watched broken shards plummet to the earth from the heavens, bathed in brilliant fire. An impression of white and gold, sobbing both in rage and in heartbroken agony. Tears seeped into the fabric wrapped about her fading form like rainwater into soil.

(don’t cry. don’t cry, I’ll save you---)

The trail of fire twisted this way and that before it faded into the background of an intricate vine pattern she recognized. Green brocade wallpaper imported from Thavnair. This was a memory from her early childhood.

Aurelia stood silent in her parents’ bedchamber as if she were a neutral onlooker rather than reliving her own memory. L'haiya’s strong hands were braced firmly upon the shoulders of her younger self, expression flat and stoic and sunset-colored eyes dark with grief. They fell upon the dying woman who lay in the bed: a great four-poster carved from Eorzean mahogany.

The figure weeping over that wasted frame, clinging to a pale and withered hand, was likewise one she knew. Julian rem Laskaris, begging his wife not to die and leave him alone. Promising he’d save her if only she’d try to stay with him a little longer.

If only.

If only-

As soon as she thought about her mother the scene was gone entirely. She was, instead, lying in the grass in the middle of a garden she recognized by scent if not sight. Sunlit warmth spread like a gentle embrace over her skin and into her bones, and dappled patterns like leaves rustling in a breeze beneath the summer sun cast their soft furred impressions behind her eyelids.

A burbling noise caught her ears and she listened for a few confused moments before she realized what it was. The fountain, she thought. Of course, that sound was the little fountain with the Doman koi in it. Father had had it installed in the garden as a conversation piece for visiting officers. It sat among the beds of lavender Elle had helped her plant when they’d pulled out the weeds. Althyk lavender, a rare variety and the only kind that would grow in a place as arid as--

Gyr Abania.

Something high and yearning rose in her. Home. She was home.

A cool, dry breeze fluttered in small wisps through golden forelocks that had escaped their confines. Wrapped snugly in her favorite grass-green pelisse, feet bare beneath her muslins, Aurelia sighed. Her fingers flexed, curled into a handful of soft ryegrass, and as she opened her eyes she saw overhead the strangely shaped leaves and heavy twined branches of a persimmon tree. Nearby was the old zelkova that framed the artfully arched parlor windows that faced the Menagerie promenade.

She was propped head and shoulders in someone’s lap. She could feel slim fingers carding gently through her hair and she could smell jasmine and tea rose, a mild and gentle lady’s sachet.

Her breath caught in her throat. That was a scent she knew.

When she opened her eyes to look upon her companion, the face smiling back was not L’haiya’s. She took in a wealth of long auburn curls, soft brows and fair skin, the delicate pearlescent oval in the center of the forehead that marked the woman as a pureblooded Garlean. Dark blue eyes, the exact same shade she saw every time she looked in a mirror.

Aurelia only barely remembered this face. She had been so young, and so many long years had passed that it was one she could now recall with true clarity only from paintings and daguerreotypes. But she knew it well enough to speak a name.

“Mama?”

The word was spoken in a voice that sounded hoarse, almost rusty, as though it had languished from long years of disuse. Vittora cen Remianus only smiled, tracing a small path from her daughter’s hairline to the upper rim of her third eye with the edge of her thumb.

“Hello, sunshine,” her mother said. “It’s been a very long time.”

Why are you here?

Misgiving swept over her in a small flood. Her mother had never seen their house in Ala Mhigo. After Vittora’s passing, there had been a small memorial in which her ashes had been spread over the Estersands. That was several months before Aurelia’s father had put in his transfer request to the XIVth Legion.

She certainly shouldn’t be in their garden.

...Where am I?

Aurelia had to know. “Am... I’m not dead, am I?”

“No, of course not.” Vittora was still smiling, but it had taken on a pensive cast, and she seemed to be looking at something Aurelia could not see. “Not dead. You’re just very deeply asleep. Come and see for yourself.”

Her limbs seemed to weigh several tonzes apiece; merely bracing her elbows against the grass felt like a heroic effort, but after a great deal of strain she managed it well enough to sit up.

She followed her mother’s gaze and her eyes went wide.

The boundaries of the garden she remembered began to fragment at the edge of the fountain, in segments of empty space that were uncannily symmetrical. A few years ago during one of her summer lectures, Aurelia had had the opportunity to watch students at the Imperial Magitek Academy researching Allagan tomestones from excavations further afield. She remembered the same sense of unease at the sight of a screen showing the compilation process.

It had looked very much the same as this. Empty blocks where the tomestone data was corrupted or truncated. Or missing.

Beyond the garden lay… nothing, as far as the eye could see. Shimmering lines of aether lapped at the edges of this facsimile, borders receding and advancing in turns like waves upon an ocean shore moving with a great and ancient tide beyond her understanding.

“Where is this?” she asked, in a small voice.

“A place that you will not see for, I hope, many more years to come.” A pale, slender hand folded over Aurelia’s, and a mote of light caught Vittora’s wedding band as she squeezed. For the first moment since she had laid eyes upon her, Aurelia realized how weightless her mother’s touch felt. Indistinct. “Our souls return here at the end of our mortal coil. They are drawn to the Lifestream and swept away on its currents.”

The edges of the mirage garden trembled with Aurelia’s agitation. She bit her lip.

“Then why did you bring me here?”

“Me?” Her mother seemed genuinely surprised. “Oh, sunshine. I didn’t bring you here. You brought yourself.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Most mortals will never see the aetherial sea while they live. A small number may take to its currents only by way of forbidden magicks, and not without considerable peril to body and soul.”

A chill ran down her spine. With an abrupt swish of her skirts, she regained her feet and reached the edge of the tableaux in three long strides. At the lip of the fountain, she held her fingers beneath the running water.

There was no pressure and neither warmth nor chill. Her hand came away just as dry as it had been before.

“But you are different from most,” her mother continued. “Your soul may travel here and can even resist the Lifestream’s call for a time. Because of your gift.”

((Hear. Feel. Think.))

“My gift,” Aurelia echoed. “Is that- do you mean the conjury?”

“Yes and no, although this selfsame gift does allow you to harness and manipulate aether. You should not be able to do that, either. And yet here you are.”

“But why all of this now? Why me?”

“Why not you? Our star holds many mysteries. Some are readily explained and still others have yet to be unraveled, and this may well be one of the latter.” Vittora’s hands folded primly at her waist as she approached her daughter’s side; between thumb and index finger she spun an errant blossom. The petals fluttered with each rotation back and forth. “But I doubt you came to ask for answers I don’t have.”

Aurelia opened her mouth, then shut it, her brows knotted in hapless frustration.

“I don’t,” she wrapped her arms about herself, cupping her elbows in her hands and staring out over the star-shimmer shore, “I don’t know that any of it matters, Mama.”

“Why not?”

“I tried to set out and make my own path. Uncle and Aunt wanted me to make a match with a family of their choosing.”

“Many a soul has chafed beneath the weight of others’ expectations,” Vittora said. “You are far from the first scion of the imperial aristocracy to have put off a betrothal until they felt themselves ready to commit to a marriage, and I sincerely doubt you will be the last.”

“It was never a matter of readiness. I would have been perfectly happy finishing my schooling and leaving the capitol for good.”

“I see.”

“ ‘His Radiance’s Will’ can go hang. It would have done no harm for Uncle to allow me to choose for myself or not at all.”

Vittora’s brows raised. “Something tells me that Janus would not see the matter thus.”

“He didn’t. But he and Aunt could not very well prevent me from serving out my enlistment. I thought it would give me that much more time to decide.” She made a helpless gesture at the wide emptiness of the sea. “Instead, I lost everything.”

“Endings are as much a part of the vagaries of life as aught else, Aurelia. Your father rejected that truth. I would not see you do the same.”

Aurelia did not answer for a long time. Her mother moved closer, and with her drifted the watery, delicate scent of her sachet.

“Mama, I’m worried.”

“Why?”

She didn’t have enough left in her to dissemble. “Because I don’t know if any of the choices I've made have been good ones.”

“Sometimes there is no good choice, sunshine. Sometimes there are only choices.” Vittora bowed her head. The expression she wore was something like sadness. “But be they for weal or woe, the one thing you cannot do is be so afraid of making a bad choice that you do not let yourself make any decisions at all.”

The rebuke was gentle but pointed.

“If I were stronger then perhaps I would not concern myself so much with the outcome.”

“You are strong. I remember the girl you once were. And I think you are far stronger than you have been given cause to believe. You will make the most of what you have been given- as our people have ever done in hard times.” A pale hand patted her cheek. “It could be that you were meant to come to Eorzea all along.”

“Perhaps. But I think I could just as easily have elected to follow Uncle Janus and Aunt Marcella’s wishes, then called it destiny if the outcome were personally beneficial,” Aurelia said. “Life is what we make of it.”

Vittora laughed, the sound of it somewhat dry. “That rather sounds like something a certain Dalmascan would say.”

“What do you believe, Mama?” Aurelia watched the lavender blossom spin out of her mother’s fingers and float in lazy drifts to the grass. “Do you believe in destiny?”

“That is a difficult question to answer. But I think- I hope- that it is both. And in any case, I think a lack of belief in a higher power makes your capacity for kindness all the more precious. Please, sunshine, don’t ever lose that compassion.”

“Mama, I became a chirurgeon to help others. I should hope that compassion is the least virtue to which I could lay a claim.” She couldn’t take her eyes off the scattered petals of the blossom. “...But you have my word.”

The shade released a long, soft sigh, something that sounded very much like satisfaction..

Before her eyes, the outline of that slim, graceful figure began to warp into something that reminded her of heatwaves upon stone in summer, the facial features becoming slowly and steadily translucent. Aurelia’s heart lodged in her throat.

“No,” she said. She thought she had cried it aloud, but sound did not carry in a place like this. “No. You can’t go yet.”

“I must.”

“There’s so much more I want to talk to you about. Please.”

“You don’t belong here.”

“But-”

“No, sunshine. Your place is with the living. Go back to them.” Vittora’s gentle smile returned, and she reached up to tuck a stray curl behind her daughter’s ear. “You are very young yet and your future is still uncharted. It waits only for your pen to fill its pages. Take the new life you have been granted, and live it.”

The steady burble of the fountain had ceased. Flowers and trees and stone all began to disintegrate, leaving in their wake only the otherworldly glow of shining white-capped waves.

Her mother’s transparent hand fell to her side, and Aurelia felt its withdrawal as the faintest whisper of a breeze against her cheek as Vittora cen Remianus stepped forward into the line of stardust foam that surged onto the shore. Aether washed around her ankles and lapped at the hem of her skirts but she did not appear to mind or even notice as she took another step, and then another, and another.

The cascade of bright auburn curls Aurelia recalled so well turned to sepia before fading entirely as that lonely figure drew farther and farther away and disappeared, leaving her daughter to linger upon the edge of mortal consciousness.

Leaving her alone again just as she had done all those years ago. Aurelia’s eyes burned.

“Remember me,” the shade of her mother said as it walked out into the aetherial sea, drawn back into its vast currents. “Remember me, and I will always be with you.”

No, she thought. No, you can’t just leave me alone like this-

She made to step into the sea, to follow- and was soundly denied. A deep, resonant chime echoed from somewhere within the living currents of her own soul as her feet defied her mind’s order to move.

An unknown and unseen Something was pulling her back.

I can’t-

(Remember.)

There were words. Words that

||Hear. Feel||

echoed like a mantra as her eyelids, suddenly heavy as lodestones, fell shut once more.

(Remember-)

She could hear birds.

For a long moment, she did not move. Her eyes shifted beneath the curtains of her lids, following the dapple-pattern of shifting leaves while she turned her attention to the nearby trilling. A warm breeze brushed her cheek like a mother’s touch, soft and soothing, and water burbled steadily from someplace not too distant, and she knew she lay upon something (a bed? a lap? She wasn’t certain) soft and yielding.

Mama, she thought, and opened her eyes.

There was no sign of her mother. She lay on a small infirmary bed barely larger than an army cot, tucked under a light blanket. Someone had taken the trouble to wash her and dress her in a plain hempen robe. Her gaze peered through the fine folds of a transparent cloth the likes of which she had not seen in so long that it took an embarrassing few moments to realize it was some sort of protective netting- probably, she thought, intended to keep out midges and chigoes. High overhead a canopy of leaves danced in the gentle wind, turning like troupes of tiny dancers upon their branches.

On the right side of her bed, she sensed a soft weight. Aurelia blinked slowly, once, twice, and the world came into focus as she looked down.

A small Miqo’te girl dozed with her head pillowed upon the edge of the mattress. Her short dark hair spilled over the blanket in an unruly mess, eyes shifting side to side beneath their lids, and one ear flickered in tiny erratic twitches even as her tail lay curled limp and unmoving on the grass. In that brief moment of silence, Aurelia heard a tiny snore escape her slack lips.

Despite the sorrowful ache that still lingered in her own chest, she smiled and carefully slid a hand from beneath the blanket to rest it upon Vahne’s shoulders.

“The conjurers said she’s not slept since we arrived here.”

The voice came from the infirmary bed next to her. Its occupant sat atop the mattress with her back propped up by a pile of pillows, a tome in one hand with her fingers marking the page. Her right arm was in a sling and, like her leg on the same side, it was encased in plaster. More pillows cushioned the woman’s heel, and like Aurelia she was clad very simply in a hempen robe. Her auburn hair had been cut short.

“She’ll be happy to see you up when she awakens,” Rhaya Wolndara said. “She’s been very worried about you. She was furious with me when she found out I’d sent you packing. Wouldn’t talk to me for the better part of a sennight.”

“I-”

The word came out as a croak. Without further prompting Rhaya set her book aside, reached for the tin cup and water pitcher on the small stool between them serving as a side table, and poured. Aurelia accepted it gratefully and took small sips, sloshing the water around her dry mouth before swallowing as Rhaya watched.

“Take your time. You’ve been asleep for the past two suns.”

“Where is this?”

“You don’t recognize your own guild?” Aurelia squinted through the netting and canvas and finally spied the huge old tree where she had conducted much of her training. As Rhaya had said, they were in the Stillglade Fane, abed in the infirmary area reserved for patients that were not in dire need of treatment. “The Wailers dragged us out of that ruin. Brought all of us here for treatment. You collapsed. From exhaustion, I suppose.”

“The last thing I remember was-” She paused, straining to recall. The taste of soot seemed to linger on her tongue. “...The fire. Did-”

“Sergeant Epocan told me what happened. One of the village Wailers - a Lieutenant Daye, I think he said - was able to sneak out and run to the Druthers for help. It was fortunate he did. Their commander set a brushfire from the creek embankment that spread very quickly, but the Wailers and some conjurers from Quarrymill were able to put the fires out. With the village’s help, of course.”

Aurelia watched a grimace flash across Rhaya’s face as the other woman shifted in her bedclothes.

“On that note,” she said, her voice curiously brisk, “I owe you an apology. ‘Tis like my captors and I would have died in that fire without your intervention.”

Sewell.

“Sewell didn’t make it, Rhaya.”

“I know,” she sighed. “I was told. He came through in the end, though, didn’t he? Poor man. To have come so far only to die like that...”

Aurelia stared down at the small, spindly shoulders under her hand.

“He wanted me to tell you he was sorry for everything that happened.” The ache in her chest intensified, crept up her throat. “I did try to save him.”

“Come now, I see those tears. You’re only one woman; you can’t bleeding well save the realm entire, you know,” Rhaya chided her, taking the emptied cup from her hands to set back upon the stool. “Not a soul could reasonably ask more of you. You helped run the Empire out of a village full of people who could well have turned on you the moment they found out what you were.”

“Sergeant Epocan told you about that?”

“Only because you had told him that I realized you were a Garlean. That was a very brave thing you did, you know. You took a big chance on all of them, revealing yourself like that.”

“I like to think that most of them would at least have the sense to see I was on their side. Although I imagine,” Aurelia said dryly, “that stealing a flash grenade and using it to incite them to riot didn’t hurt.”

“I’m sorry for my part in it. I shouldn’t have said those things to you- no, let me finish. I knew when those men fled that they’d be back, and at the time I… well. Your friend set me straight on a great deal.” She eyed the small girl. “And this one too. If she hadn’t run to you for help, I don’t know that I would be here now.”

“She’s a good girl.”

“She is. She still has some growing to do yet, but she is.” Rhaya’s smile faded. A pained expression tightened the corners of her mouth. “My youngest sister Kheni got herself mixed up with some bad sorts when Vahne was younger. The one sensible thing she did was to leave the girl with me. I never meant to raise children of my own, and it’s been bloody hard going it alone.”

“Sergeant Epocan tells me that Keeper families are often large,” Aurelia frowned. “Did you not have other siblings who could have helped you?”

“Aye. Two sisters and a brother, all younger than me. We weren’t on speaking terms.”

She did not miss that past-tense had. “You talk as if something happened to them.”

“They answered the Twin Adder’s call to fight the Empire last spring. My brother was cross with me when I didn’t do the same; I suppose he had grand notions of the Wolndara family fighting the Garleans in the same unit, or somesuch. Anyroad, I felt it were naught but folly to risk my life and leave Vahne without anyone to look after her, and I told him thus. And he- they,” Rhaya took a deep and visible breath, “they all three of them marched off to join the main force at Carteneau and - just like a lot of other folk - they never returned. Vahne is all I have left so I feel responsible for her safety. But… mayhap I have been a little too strict as her guardian. Just a little.”

Her gaze on Vahne’s slumbering form softened.

“I’m proud of her.”

"So am I.”

"Good." Aurelia lay her head back and shut her eyes again. She was still very tired. “I think I’ll let her be a little while longer.”

“I’ll call for one of the conjurers,” Rhaya said. “Rest. You still need it.”

She thought she nodded her response, but she wasn’t sure. The other woman’s words seemed to float into her ears and spin in small drifting circles, like lazy eddies of water, as she lapsed into another light doze.

This time her sleep was peaceful and dreamless.

~*~

27th Sun, Fifth Astral Moon, Year 1 of the Seventh Umbral Era

“Up!” the voice shouted. “Put your backs into it! Mind the bleedin' base!”

Summer was winding down, but something of it lingered still in the air. A flock of sparrows descended upon the nearby fence with a great flutter of wings, trilling beneath the afternoon sun’s warm and benevolent gaze, and Aurelia Laskaris listened in an absentminded way from her vantage point in a fallow field. She was watching the villagers' combined efforts to raise the walls of a new house. The ropes went taut as a section of wall lifted by ilms, ash planks and iron nails to be lashed in place as the joints met.

“Hoist!!” the voice shouted again, and among the ensuing calls to coordinate the teams, she could hear the steady clattering clamor of tools working the wood.

“You lot have made an art of this,” she said. At her side Frieda Miller let out a small cackle.

“We work quickly,” the weaver shrugged, gently jostling the infant girl in her arms. “It’s the neighborly thing to do. Though if you told me this time last year we’d be doing something like this outside the village...”

She trailed off, hesitation crossing her features, but Aurelia thought she knew what Frieda meant. The people of this small and secluded forest village seemed to have taken if not a kinder view of outsiders, at least a slightly warmer one. They had unknowingly harbored a Garlean for moons and when Aurelia’s countrymen had attacked she had sided with them against her own kind: something none of them would have expected. Not only that, the hamlet’s entire defense against imperial incursion had been spearheaded by a Keeper Miqo’te: a man whose people were so often jettisoned to the fringes of the Shroud, and treated with suspicion and disdain by many.

Their familiarity with him, and with Aurelia, had forced many people to re-examine their assumptions about their world, and while some still clung stubbornly to old grudges and commonly-held wisdoms, others had made friendly overtures one by one. For better or worse, change had come to Willowsbend, heralded by the fall of Dalamud, and it appeared to be here to stay.

Whatever they might think of her, or of the surrounding events, Aurelia could only hope that their attitudes towards their neighbors continued to soften.

“So,” Frieda continued, “you two are to leave on the morrow.”

“So I am.”

“Are you sure you don’t have any plans to stay here? The Guild could always take Trevantioux back instead.”

She smiled, a little ruefully.

“Hardly any need for a third wheel, now that he and Noline have called things off.”

“He seems to be taking it rather well.”

“Ah. Well enough, all things considered. I’m still sorry I couldn’t be there with you to help deliver Isa, but-”

“Oh, never you mind that, Aurelia! What you did gave me a safe place to bring her into the world and that’s just as important.” Frieda grinned. “At any rate, no harm would have been done, I can trust Trevantioux to do his work properly. The man might be a bit of a jackass and a fool in love besides, but he’s a good conjurer, and he’s earned his place in the village.”

“Then it seems to me that you’re in good hands.”

Despite her words, Aurelia couldn’t help the pang of sadness she felt.

It was likely she could have remained in Willowsbend did she wish it, but there had been Trevantioux to consider. The events of that fateful night had changed him. Ever since he had made the hard decision to break his betrothal, he had seemed a shell of his previous self, rendered nigh desolate by Noline’s infidelity. His work was all he had left- and he had been tending to the village under Ewain’s tutelage for four years.

As fond as she had become of Frieda and Hugh and all the others in her own short stay here, Aurelia couldn’t bring herself to take his home from him on top of everything else. Thus, it seemed trivial to contact E-Sumi-Yan and explain the situation - and even more so to formally request an end to her current assignment, seeing as there would now be no open position to fill. It was an olive branch, but one Trevantioux had accepted with a great deal of grace. These days there were no sour remarks about her origins or sullen glares when she went on rounds. He had even been the one to offer the village’s assistance in rebuilding the Wolndara homestead, something that had surprised everyone - not least of all Rhaya herself.

Maybe that was the most important part of the whole outcome. If someone as stubborn as Trevantioux could change his tune, it should be no hard task for the rest of them.

In Frieda’s arms, little Isa made a loud blatting noise and swatted at a stray lock of her mother’s hair- and was thwarted by the casual sidewise tilt of Frieda's chin. “Be that as it may, know that you’ll be missed by myself and the boys, at the very least. Do you promise to come and visit us when you can?”

Aurelia smiled. “You wouldn’t forgive me if I didn’t at least make the attempt.”

“I’ll make sure to have my best pies ready and waiting for you to take tea with me. Speaking of which,” Frieda said, “it looks like you’ve a friend coming up the hill.”

She followed the woman’s pointing finger and saw a willowy figure loping towards them across the empty field. The Miqo’te had grown a good two or three ilms over the season and showed no signs of stopping, but she was still more child than adolescent yet. She nigh vibrated with excitement, her tail lashing against her leg as she drew to a halt.

“Miss Aurelia, Shadow’s having her kittens!”

“Be well, Frieda.” She patted the woman’s shoulder. “Give Rauffe and the boys my love.”

“I will.”

At the foot of the incline, Vahne fidgeted, rocking from side to side as she waited for Aurelia to reach her. Some yalms distant, another section of heavy oak beams began to lift from the newly packed ground, and carpenters’ hammers continued to mark increments of time and progress in short beats.

“They’re moving very fast,” she said, smiling. “I daresay they’ll have your house finished in the next fortnight.”

Vahne nodded, in a vague sort of way - she supposed the particulars of housing construction didn’t much interest a young girl. That small face looked troubled despite the tranquility of the day and after a moment, she burst out,

“I don’t want you to go back to Gridania!”

“Vahne, darling, I must. It’s not up to you or me.”

“Can’t you just stay here? With me and Aunt Rhaya? We have plenty of space and since you two patched things up she'd be happy to-”

Aurelia sighed. She had been dreading this. “I can’t. It’s not that easy.”

“But I don’t understand why,” Vahne protested. “You could just leave the guild and go anywhere you chose if you wanted to, couldn’t you? You could become an adventurer! People do it all the time!”

There were a great many things that she thought she could have said in that moment. She could have lied, spun some bit of fiction she knew Vahne would accept. She could have attempted to tell the truth, to explain all of the sordid details and confluence of events that had brought her to Willowsbend, and hope that she might understand.

Instead, she reached for Vahne’s hand.

“Part of being an adult means having to make choices. Sometimes it means hard choices, even when you know it’s the right thing to do. Do you understand?” At the girl’s nod, she said, “Those choices don’t ever stop coming to your door. I would love to stay, Vahne, but I can’t. My choice to leave Willowsbend for good lets a man keep his home and it keeps the rest of you safe from the Garleans besides.”

“Safe from what? Those men are gone. You killed their leader and now-” Aurelia was slowly shaking her head, and Vahne’s lower lip began to tremble. “Please don’t go. You’re the first real friend I’ve ever had.”

“I will visit when I can, but life is taking me elsewhere. I can’t say when I’ll be back to stay,” she said gently. “It’s quite possible the answer is never.”

“I hate this! I hate saying goodbye. I feel like it’s all I’ve done my whole life.”

“It’s true that sometimes life feels like nothing but goodbyes, but sometimes in order to have a beginning you have to have an ending.” Vahne, to her credit, didn’t cry, but the hand around Aurelia’s felt almost crushing. “When I leave, I want you to do me a favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

“Visit Goody Miller when you can? She’ll be in need of a friend herself and now that the villagers know you and your aunt, I’m sure you’ll be able to make even more friends.”

Vahne didn’t look altogether convinced, but the nod she gave Aurelia was slow and solemn.

“In the meantime,” the Garlean righted her posture, her tone briskly cheerful, “let’s cheer up, shall we? Tomorrow hasn’t arrived just yet, after all. It is still today, with plenty of light left in it, and I believe you were saying something about your barn cat.”

The Miqo’te brightened; her rain-grey eyes seemed to come alive at the reminder.

“Oh, yes! Have you ever seen newborn kittens?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t, no.”

“Good! That means I get to show you your very first litter.” She squeezed Aurelia’s hand and began to tug her arm in the direction of the reconstructed barn, rather impatiently, in the way a girl half her age might have done. “She’s made her nest in the back of the chocobo pen.”

Feeling unexpectedly light-hearted for the first time in what felt like forever, Aurelia followed her young friend. The grass parted for their passing and concealed their steps as though they had never traveled through the field at all.

What the villagers built here wouldn’t replace Rhaya’s home nor the memories that had formed within its walls. No force in the world could turn back time to recover the things they had all lost, she thought. Not truly- and perhaps that was for the best. A new home blessed with companionship would provide ample space for new memories and the promise of new friends. It was a symbol of renewal as sure as any spring.

In short order the pair had retreated into the stable, itself still smelling of sap and fresh-cut hay, to bear witness to these small new lives. And as men rebuilt and the forest resumed its vigil, time turned its inexorable wheel into the cusp of a new Age.

#reborn by fire #epilogue: of truths sunk too deep for war #aurelia laskaris #garlean warrior of light

16 notes · View notes

autisticlalna · 3 years

Note

BRUH!!!!! the pmv was so gorgeous and cool!!! all the scenes from all the tales were so ahhhh, like karl looking up at liaria, the sword legit looked terrifying, and the EGG, bro, the egg looked so cool!!!! and honk in the library!! honk in the in between!!!!!!! bruh all the parallels between honk and karl both looking at the books, putting up the posters, that bit where honk handed karl the book in the in between oh my gosh!! and honk's development, going from yellow and angry to getting white and friendly and then at the end, like honk alone in the library all sad like he took karl's place as the only one keeping the tales like????? bro that was so cool thank you so much for making it and sharing it and ahh!!! are you willing to talk about it at all, like little symbolism or cameos or cool bits folks might miss their first time watching?

AAAAAAAAHHHH OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDD [SOBS] THANK YOUUUUU

im! really glad everyone liked it so much,, i put a lot of effort into it making sure i got the vibes right and everything flowed together the way i wanted while still fitting the lyrics, and it was deffo a learning experience lmao,, im so so glad i was able to get everything across >w<

i have!! a lot to say about the pmv!! so thank you for giving me a reason to HLKDJXHDF im gonna put it under a cut bc im about to go off

the idea that kickstarted the pmv was basically like. so karl’s shadow is “corrupted” by the inbetween, and part of that includes him gaining the memories karl loses. so... what happens when karl loses all of his memories? is there a point where honk is more like karl than karl himself is? honk is fully aware of this possibility, but he can’t do anything about it-- karl Needs to keep traveling, and because the inbetween is using honk as a way to guide karl he can’t tell karl to stop. not that he’s sure karl would listen to him in the first place, and the situation is out of their control anyway. neither of them want to be like this.

my fav panel is this one:

bc its like, its got Exactly the vibes i was wanting for it and also even tho i detest drawing the inbetween bc architecture is difficult i really like how the background came out XF,JKHFKJ,, honestly both of the big reveal panels came out great but this is one i wouldve used as a thumbnail if not for it being a twist (and also wanting karl to be in the thumbnail as well bc. he’s the other focal point.)

liaria’s sword is an actual sword i found after googling “fancy rapier”:

its like, a flamberge rapier? and it was VERY HARD TO DRAW and it looks so impractical i love it. the idea for it was that when everyone went murdermode at the masquerade, they grabbed a weapon sir billiam had on display-- like, this man is stupidly rich, he hosts balls with the goal of everyone dying at the end, he definitely just has display cases of swords lying around for people to conveniently grab. ranbutler was also supposed to have a fancy sword but after struggling to draw liaria’s rapier i did Not want to bother so he has like. a cutlass? i guess?? he was originally going to be holding the sword overhead to stab down on karl, but there wasnt a way i could pose it without his face being obscured or the angle being super weird

im pretty sure a couple of my friends will not forgive me for this:

which HURT to draw. i wasnt entirely sure how to clearly get across karl Forgetting stuff & freaking out over it, so obligatory photos w/ faces scribbled out-- quackity’s wearing 2 rings from both karl & sapnap, and sapnap’s photo was intended to be candid but he realized what quackity was doing and wasn’t fast enough to fully block the camera

also, my roommate caught this detail, but ranbob’s silhouette is the dream blob!:

ON A LIGHTER NOTE, my fav stupid background detail is this sequence:

sapnap’s chilling out in the background while karl is talking to honk at kinoko (he’s making sure honk is included in things! “we have to go together”!), george yells at him to stop being lazy (despite ALSO slacking off), and then runs for his life as sapnap decides to start up the game of “kill george” again, which he also did offscreen in the beginning of the pmv:

my fav segment overall is probably karl&honk setting up the libraries, like w/ karl setting up the og library near party park and honk setting up the one at kinoko! and then also this bit during the village that went mad:

that segment was one i could see REALLY clearly in my head when first planning this out and it came out p much exactly as i wanted to and it was SO cool. LIKE, DANG, speaking of village, the person holding the axe is intended to be jack! bc at this point karl is just an observer from up on the tower writing everything down. the writing in his book was supposed to be the actual tale summary in the library, but i couldnt find it anywhere so its just squiggles.

uhh what else OH when honk is being summoned during the “i am currently under construction / thank you for your patience” verse, he gets more detailed with each panel-- its a bit hard to see in the finished pmv bc of transparency, but here’s the unedited panels:

with that last panel being more detailed than i drew karl in the entire pmv :,D SYMBOLISM, I THINK,

i also managed to get through the entire pmv with making only one (1) art mistake that’s right at the end orz im surprised i managed to keep the swirl colour on karl’s hoodie consistent w the time of each segment. honk changing colour as things progress also ended up being VERY HELPFUL to show at what point things are happening, bc things are a bit out of order with like, flashbacks & flashforwards and shenanigans

i think thats about it! if anybody has any questions abt specific panels they can ask and ill ramble :D

#leos reply #dsmp #shadow people au #Anonymous #leo.txt

4 notes · View notes

xenoredux · 4 years

Note

can you please go into the big sibling pony lore?? im very interested

Damn I am so ready for this, I’ve written down too much about these guys at this point lmao. You asked for it anon, here comes a text dump.

(There’s also a smidge of Twinkle-Eye lore in here, but I promise it’s relevant. Btw, there’s some body horror and familial abandonment in the mix, so tread lightly if you don’t like those things okay thanks)

Big Siblings (a very old nickname given to them by ancient pony communities for their almost familial dedication to the vulnerable) are a subspecies of Earth pony defined by their shared ancestry, an ancestry other pony species are aware of but don't always grasp the depths of. All Big Siblings are descendants of one Bonnie the Great, a Clydesdale-esque miniature horse who is a part of many different cultures' legends. In the lore of some animals she's a bothersome, self-righteous stuck-up, but in the mythology of the ponies she's a bastion of wisdom, strength, and kindness.

Bonnie would go on to have children with an Earth pony, and their children would go on to form their own families, and so on and so forth. In this way Tex is maybe like 1/32nd related to Bonnie, but that's plenty to define him as a member of her bloodline.

This genetic throughline has lead to the frustrating habit of other ponies to assume anyone especially tall is a Big Sibling, or that if you have recent miniature horse ancestry then you MUST have descended from Bonnie. These statements are untrue, of course. Some Big Siblings are actually pretty short and lithe, and there's plenty of equine species outside of ponykind who can and do intermingle with ponyfolk.

Bonnie's bloodline has always held her heroism in high esteem, and so it's a part of their culture to pursue the same values as she did. We're talking about a culture that takes generosity and philanthropy very seriously. This means that every Big Sibling decides upon a mission to dedicate their lives to until they've either completed it or passed away. This mission may be passed down from one nuclear family's generation to the next, or it might be decided upon by the pony themself, or it might be related to a subculture they're familiar with. Doesn't matter how they come to discover their mission, all that matters is that they have one before they turn 18.

e.g. Tagalong Tex's mission is to protect Paradise Estates from The Gloom Witches, a grody little family line that goes back as far as his own. He initially picked them out because he was terrified that they were ruining the lives of the Estates' populace, but he quickly came to realize they suck too hard at what they do to make much of an impact. But alas, a mission cannot be abandoned, so he's stuck biding his time and gently snuffing out their efforts to wreak havoc with his friends.

Something else to keep in mind about these personal mission statements is that once a mission is complete, another one has to be selected. A Big Sibling is a protector from the beginning to the very end of their adult life, and they MUST choose another mission to undergo if/when they complete their first.

This cycle continues until the pony passes. It's a part of their moral code and is so ingrained in their culture that those who retire after a completed mission, even if it took them their whole lives to get through and they just wanna chill out in an easy chair and watch their stories, are shunned by not just their immediate families but every other one of Bonnie's descendants. This means that if ever the Gloom Witches are defeated, Tex will be forced to pack up and move elsewhere to help a different herd with their problems if he doesn't wanna be dead to everyone he's related to.

Another big part of the Big Sibling history is their alliance with Twinkle-Eyed ponies (I promise this is relevant lol). They've got the opposite of a blood feud going; even if two individuals from these subspecies don't like each other, they will respect each other.

See, generations back there was a Big Sibling named Applejack. Nobody can recall whether they were a boy, a girl, or neither, but they remember the pony's exploits. Applejack was even more nomadic then most Big Sibs, and they were very prolific. On a blizzardy February night where the moon was full, Applejack wandered into what the nearby pony populace called "The Haunted Mineshaft" as laying the townsfolks' fears about it to rest was their mission at the time. When they'd entered and followed whispery voices into its depths, they found a true horror.

Tens of ponies of all creeds, ones Applejack recognized from missing posters and newspaper stories, where chained up and being forced to mine gemstones from the cave walls. The slavedriver behind all of this was a Weremole named Pilferpaw. The hulking, ugly creature had used dark magic (from a stolen tome, of course) to remove the kidnapped ponies' eyes. He told them he'd return their sight to them if they "earned it back" with manual labor, but in truth he never had any way of restoring their sight and had planned to kill them when they'd outlived their usefulness.

Obviously Applejack was piiissed. The horse's great size made short work of the Weremole, and he was shoved into the deepest bowels of the cave, forever to be trapped in the dark. With the evil defeated, Applejack lead the prisoners into the sunrise, and each of them rejoiced. The only problem was that many of them desperately missed their vision, and so Applejack's next mission began.

Applejack spent months researching magical medical intervention before settling on a solution: they'd use a magical conduit to grant the ponies back their sight. The conduit they chose was something the survivors found both plentiful and ironically empowering. That conduit was, as you've probably guessed, the gemstones from Pilferpaw's mines.

The gems were placed painlessly into the ponies' sockets and each pony was enchanted during the next solar eclipse so that the spell would last forever and their vision would never be harmed again. Given the enchantment was backed by a celestial event, all descendants of Twinkle-Eyes have those same characteristic gemstone eyeballs, and they annually honor Applejack's memory in a celebration where all Big Sibs and Twinkle-Eyes are invited.

This is also part of why Trinkette has a thing for Tex. In fairness she mostly likes him because he's a gentle soul who is unconditionally supportive, but she also sees a lot of Applejack's legacy in him. Plus he's got, like, HUGE muscles and she's into that. It hurts her to know that if ever the witches are put away for good, he'll be forced to move away or risk being ostracized by his entire culture.

#asks #my little pony #mlp #pony words #g1 was the best gen so thats why i take so much insp from it #dont @ me

12 notes · View notes