#i never really thought about the parentage of the not human characters
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Senshi is such a grandmom I love him so much, his need to feed others and make sure they're all balanced in nutrition and stuff, I'm convinced he had really sweet parents who did the same for him or something passing down the love in foooodd
#dungeon meshi#dungeon meshi spoilers#he was such a daddd with izutsumii#like geez#senshi#senshi i love youu#i mean marcille had nice parents#i never really thought about the parentage of the not human characters#i guess they're allndead huh#thats sad
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Thoughts on Jon Snow as a character? He's my fav so far
I like him!
He didn't start out as a character I felt especially drawn to. I mostly pitied him, especially in ASOS, and he's very dour if that surface level dramatic melancholia and dry resignation isn't your cup of tea. I never hated him, but... he was just sort of there. And every projection for his future plot I found while casually perusing the fandom was bland. Secret Targ, okay. What's the point of that, then? Connecting the Wall plot to the dragons? Grand Tragic Secret Heir and Grand Dramatic Dragon Queen Do Grand Dramatic Tragic Destiny stuff dramatically? Zzzzzzzzz.
After delving into the theory of Jonsa, I obviously engaged more with the character, and I have grown very fond of him. Lots is lurking under the surface that I had never paid attention to in depth.
And what I find the most crucial is that his story is at its heart so small and domestic and emotional. It's relatable for being ordinary at its heart. It's about healing and reconciling after a burdened childhood, finding out what you really want and discovering you can have it. Not in grand gesture but in self-worth and honesty.
The most engaging and the absolute hinge of his characterization is his attachment to his family, his home, and the North. Being a bastard prevents him from living this out and creates The Obstacle he chafes against. It causes him to strike out looking for Importance in adventure and glory, and he fails. And learns. But it is ultimately that deep love and attachment that truly guides him in everything he does. And that makes him actually extremely interesting as a character, because it shifts his arc away from being about Magic and Apocalyptic Drama as some abstract excuse for heroics, toward that of inner conflict. It's a small, very relatable story about longing for home, playing out on a big canvas for background. All Jon does during his adventures away from home, his frustration struggling with his compassion, his understanding of the world being wittled down to questions of basic ethics, it's all based on his understanding of himself as a Stark, serving the duties and values of a member of House Stark. To belong to his family and himself in his own heart, if he cannot belong otherwise. And it highlights why those popular speculations about him are so bland. They don't touch his core. Dragons? What do they have to do with House Stark and Winterfell and his pack? Nothing. They, too, ultimately represent an Obstacle between himself and his deepest desire of truly belonging in his home without reservation, by removing his paternal connection.
Except, it's replaced by the maternal connection. One that matters just as much. That has been nagging at him all this time. It actually cements his identity, rather than dismantling it. Not shameful burden but valued and protected. This, too, takes Jon out of the realm of Bland Male Heroics (Rhaegar's special destiny boy) toward a story of inner healing and equilibrium. It's self-acceptance. Very human. Very ordinary. Very powerful.
And as a special twist - and this is why Jonsa is so brilliant as a theory - his parentage is also the key to actually granting him those impossible secret wishes of replicating his childhood the right way through his own marriage and family. But only if he is worthy of this through his actions and choices, worthy of being loved and recognized as a metaphorical prince. He get's to be a fairytale princess, essentially, raised from humility to fulfillment. Because of who he is. Who he has chosen to be again and again, because of his fundamental love. Everything else, the heroics, the missteps and recoveries, is just window dressing. Exciting ways to tell a simple story.
His story doesn't work with a tragic ending of repeated exile. It's all building toward balance and peace. It's extremely moving.
I'm a big fan.
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Wondering your thoughts on something I’ve noticed a lot in the Sandman fandom - namely, that every fanart or fanfic involving Daniel (based on the show!!) always portrays/describes him as white, despite the fact that show!Danny’s dad is a black man…
i think there's a few factors at work. first (and foremost) people trying to incorporate bits of the comix in the absence of "official" casting (almost every fanart and a lot of fanfics defaulted to Destruction as a white, red-haired man before the actor was announced). Danny in the comix is a blonde baby and then a sort of...ghostly amalgam of a young man who never existed and Morpheus as we knew him (disheveled hair, gaunt figure, sharp cheekbones, dark eyes). what would that look like in the show? i don't know! i'm hoping there's at least a nod to Daniel's human parentage (he's blonde in the comix BECAUSE he's Lyta Hall's son, and in the comix she's blonde), but i think there are a few ways that it could be cast. Danny!Dream as mixed, light-skinned, and/or racially ambiguous could be both really tragic and really compelling: the erasure of where he came from as metaphor for his personal losses (of family, of childhood, of "personhood" in a human sense), and the insistence on some reminder of his parents, his past, as a counter to his "function." i'd love to see that explored in fic! (as someone who also defaults to comix!Daniel - though there IS a reasoning behind this choice in the LA guard dog universe and non-Dreaming aus.)
at the same time, i think it's partially a function of fans getting attached to Tom Sturridge's portrayal of Dream. when s1 came out, i saw some discourse circulating about how already people weren't ready to "lose" him (and i think some of this filtered into the whole "retired" Dream headcanons, though that's another discussion). and i get that if someone else is cast as Danny, there's going to be a...reaction to both the actor figured as a "replacement" for Tom and the character as a "replacement" for the Dream that fans became attached to. which then becomes a possible burden on the actor. Rose's actor, Vanesu Samunyai, got significant backlash for being a Black woman to play a character who was white and blonde in the comix, and i could see that kind of racism seeping into people's reactions to Daniel. (also a fan grief/sadness at the tragic ending used as a "justification" for racism.) it's not clear to me how much support nonwhite actors like Vanesu get when they're cast in these roles where fans might "expect" a white actor. (like...Riordan told Leah Jeffries in the new PJO series not to listen to the haters because he chose her, which is great and all, but...is production working to ensure that she has someone she can safely process her experiences with, is she given reasonable accommodations, is someone else moderating her socials so she doesn't have to deal with trolls?) so that's another consideration.
(obviously the "solution" isn't to never cast nonwhite actors, but there's been an increase in "diverse representation" in media without a discussion of how these predominantly white spaces have material impact on nonwhite creatives.)
last thing is just that i've noticed the sandman fandom generally seems...more reluctant to engage in alt. casting than say, musical theater fandoms, where there's an expectation that the principal actor won't always be in a role or present when you witness the performance. there's this automatic turn toward finding someone who fits, for example, Delirium from the comix in the absence of an official show casting, rather than playing around with the uncertainty. (personally i'm out here championing Bailey Bass as my Delirium face cast, and tbh if they cast the rest of the Endless sibs as white, she and Stephanie Hsu will remain my primary Del references.) which i think is common in fandoms that rely on a visual "text" for reference, and even more so for Neilman tv fandoms, where fans seem to want/expect "word of god" affirmation. again, another discussion, but i'll just say for now i think the fandom suffers for it.
#sandman#sandman netflix#part of me DOES think it would be funny to just slap a white wig on Tom Porridge for TKO and just end it there#as a sort of...refusal to engage#it'd also be extremely lazy and i think unfair to Danny as a character and who he's been set up to be#but also...let's see if the show makes it that far#i'm already tentative given how much the neilman seems willing to bend to fans in adaptations#and given how gomens has gone...i don't feel 100% confident he'll commit to the story he's already told#ask box
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For the character ask game: Ena
First impression:
I actually knew a fair bit about her right off the bat, since my sister had been researching Tellius to see if we should play it and she gave me all the details haha. I always thought Ena was interesting, even though I didn’t know much about her personality.
Impression now:
She’s so cool… Possibly my favorite thing about her is how although she’s a woman whose only goals are to help her love interest and family, she’s never sidelined or denyed any agency. She has a “save-your-doomed-lover” storyline in PoR, in RD she mostly just supports Kurthnaga, and through both games she’s carrying the royal family’s child, but she’s also her own person. One thing I love about Tellius is that it really respects women with traditionally feminine roles and skills. Ena is a fiancée and a caretaker and a mother, and that doesn’t make her “lesser” than anyone else, it just means she has to fight and scheme and struggle for those specfic goals. Ok this got kinda long but anyway. I love and respect her so much <3
Favorite moment:
The scene before her boss fight at Daein Keep in PoR. She’s so badass that she figures out Ashnard’s true intentions, convinces the troops to obey her through pure logic alone, and then goes out to fight for a country of humans that hate her when she’s not even a soldier.
Idea for a story:
AU where Soren grows up as the prince of Daein and Ena convinces him to join her and help save Rajaion…….
Unpopular opinion:
I genuinely don’t think I’ve never heard anyone in fandom talk about her, so idk.
Favorite relationship:
I like her relationship with Ike actually! I think they don’t really understand each other that well, but nonetheless they have immense trust and respect for one another whenever they work together.
Favorite headcanon:
I don’t think her parentage is really elaborated on, but I see her as being 3/4 a Red Dragon and only 1/4 White Dragon. I imagine mixed laguz can probably choose whichever class fits them best, so she went with Red Dragon as that aligned more closely with her stats.
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So, I just finished Carnival Row season two. Here’s my thoughts (spoilers ahead).
I really liked it at first, but it just kept going downhill. Season one had a twisty storyline, but pretty much all the pieces fit together in the end. This season felt way more convoluted and much less character driven. They tried to do stuff with characters’ motivations, like exploring Philo’s guilt over suppressing his fae heritage and “siding” with humans. It’s just that none of it felt as authentic or compelling as it did in the first season. As a writer myself, there’s a difference between “the characters did this” and “the writers made the characters do this.” It’s a hard difference to explain, but this season felt like the latter. Stuff just happened because it could, with little attention paid to actually exploring character depth in meaningful ways. Overall it felt too rushed and convoluted.
Other points:
If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you’ll know I love Philo. This season, however, he felt far less humanized (which is ironic, because the writers were trying to do just that). His arc in season one was so focused on helping people — he was so defined by his compassion — and I really didn’t feel that was present in season two. He felt significantly less sympathetic.
I couldn’t bring myself to ship Vignette and Tourmaline. Their relationship was a major focus in season one, and it was established that Vignette chose Philo, and that she and Tourmaline were better as friends. I just really hate it when a show establishes two characters as a couple and then totally changes direction in the next season. Philo and Vignette were written as endgame in season one, including the finale, and this season totally erased that. It felt like narrative whiplash.
Why did they bother establishing a connection between Tourmaline and Darius and setting them up to be a cute couple to then do nothing with it? And then just kill him? Lazy writing. Make it flow.
I actually really liked Imogen this season. Her growth in season one was great, and it was cool to see her spunk and competence this season especially in the last few episodes. Also, having her kill Ezra felt narratively fulfilling. He had it coming based on how he’d treated her, and I didn’t feel sorry for him at all.
I will never forgive this show for killing Sophie Longerbane. She was 100% the most interesting character on the show, and just as she was getting even more interesting, they killed her. Let smart, fascinating, ambitious women live, thank you. Seriously. Her arc was so good, and I was so excited to see what she’d do next, and then she DIED. How dare you.
Honestly, the show was more interesting before Sophie and Jonah were killed.
What happened to Philo’s “I’m Breakspear’s son and I’ll be chancellor to help people” plot line? It disappeared after like episode two and only appeared again in the epilogue. For a show about fantasy politics, this season almost totally ignored the most interesting political stuff in its own plot.
Speaking of the epilogue. I like what it did, but holy crap that was too rushed. I need at least a few more episodes to explain how everyone got to that point. I love happy endings, especially to stressful stories, but this felt like a cop-out from actual storytelling. I want the story of Philo revealing his parentage and becoming chancellor. Do Imogen and Agreus get married? I need way more development for Vignette and Tourmaline’s relationship. I just need more. The middle of the season felt like a lot of filler; they could easily have cut that and done a couple more episodes to ACTUALLY wrap up the show.
As always, the costumes and sets were STUNNING. This season had better win awards for that.
#carnival row#carnival row season 2#spoilers#rycroft philostrate#vignette stonemoss#tourmaline larou#imogen spurnrose#agreus astrayon
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how do you feel about yi city? i don't really go there but i know i've read some meta about how it's like 3zuns and a lot of people compare jgy and xy and was wondering what you thought.
I don't go there either and writing a post deconstructing the idea that there are parallels between Yi City and 3zun could get messy, but I'll make an attempt. Here goes, this got quite long.
As far as I'm aware, fandom when it conflates Yi City and 3zun draws parallels roughly thus:
JGY = XY
LXC = XXC
NMJ = SL
Well there sure are three guys in each group! I mean actually Yi City has four key characters but AQ is a girl and who cares about those right? Right? Fandom, as always I am regarding you disapprovingly over my lorgnette.
Character parallels (or a lack thereof)
XY is hyperviolent and takes excessive revenge for the smallest of slights and takes pleasure in extreme violence and cruelty. JGY endures an onslaught of slights with smiling forbearance, and while he commits acts of extreme violence always does so under duress or in service of a larger goal (though he can certainly enjoy it to a degree). He even outlines his personal philosophy to XY in Villainous Friends, which XY not only rejects but doesn't even fully comprehend.
XXC is an idealist with limited experience of the depths of human cruelty, vulnerable to being preyed on by bad faith actors exploiting said ideals, and when those ideals are shattered he is unable to endure it. LXC's entire deal is that he has a clear understanding of the gap between ideals and reality; witness, he is the one constantly pointing out how few options JGY has and how that informs his actions.
SL is a man of upright morals who wants to break from traditional clan-based practices. When he loses his temper with XXC in a highly emotional context, he subsequently feels deep shame and tries to find him to make amends. NMJ is a moral stickler, but hypocritical and obsessed with the blood-based legacy of his clan. He flies into regular rages which over time escalate to become more and more murderous; he never attempts to make amends for anything he has done during said rages.
Narrative parallels (or a lack thereof)
Again from what I can tell, a proportion of fandom seems to have decided that JGY is some kind of XY lite, hiding behind LXC's skirts and making a diabolical neko face as NMJ points out how evil he is and LXC blithely ignores it. This is then being conflated with XXC being tricked by XY and SL being the one whose arrival at Yi City blows up the status quo.
Except this isn't really accurate to either group.
LXC and NMJ are not partners in ideals or ambition. They each have very different ways of seeing the world and are each responsible for their own clans. They're good friends, but we know that LXC's motivation for suggesting the sworn brotherhood is to improve relations between NMJ and JGY i.e. to protect JGY from NMJ's wrath, and we know NMJ's motive is to regain authority over JGY. There's no indication that they would have entered into a sworn brotherhood with each other if JGY hadn't been present. They're good friends but they're just not a matched pair like XXC and SL.
JGY does not intrude on some cosy scenario and cuckoo his way into LXC's life by means of deception. He saves LXC's life, protects him, gives him the funds to rebuild his clan, and is upfront about who he is and what his parentage is from the beginning. Obviously he keeps secrets from LXC, but he doesn't enter LXC's life under false pretences. I presume people think JGY's use of Turmoil can be compared to XY's use of corpse powder, but there is an ocean of difference between using your friend's house key to steal a piece of paper you need in order to take out your mutual friend who has repeatedly and recently literally tried to kill you and ... literally tricking your friend into murdering a bunch of innocent villagers and laughing about it.
LXC knows a high percentage of what JGY has done and isn't defending him due to ignorance of his actions but due to a sincere belief in their necessity and/or an understanding that JGY's options are limited and he is doing the best he can in the circumstances. This attitude continues in the temple, when he refuses to turn aside from questioning JGY in an effort to reconcile JGY's additional secrets with the man he knows. Meanwhile, during the confrontation between XXC and XY, XXC is steadfast in his rejection of XY's thesis statement and when he succumbs it is to despair rather than to XY's justifications.
Rather than being oblivious to the danger JGY poses, LXC is not fully confronting the fact that NMJ is incredibly dangerous and an ongoing threat to JGY's life; and, for that matter, the lives of others too. Remember NMJ cut down plenty of his own cultivators under his qi deviation, and said qi deviation was merely accelerated rather than created by JGY's playing of Turmoil. SL is no danger to anyone and continues to selflessly travel and do good where he can. He takes ownership of his mistakes and commits to doing penance in the hope that he can ultimately make amends.
It really cannot be overstated how dangerous NMJ is both to JGY and everyone around him. He's a ticking time bomb and that is not remotely comparable to SL, a genuinely upright man who makes a huge mistake and in trying to put it right stumbles into a twisted situation and gets horribly murdered. SL isn't obsessed with the potential for destruction exhibited by a man who is doing his best to navigate an impossible situation because he has to follow his father's awful instructions or be eliminated; he's trying to stop the man who massacred his temple, maimed him, and used his own best friend as a murder weapon for the fun of it.
It's not that XY doesn't have affection for XXC; he clearly does love him in his own way, and XXC is the shizun cum father cum big brother he never had. It's notable that XY stops with the corpse powder after a while and settles into his domestic life with XXC and AQ (remember her). But he very obviously has no understanding of XXC's moral framework, and it's not that he learned better so much as he no longer has a desire to revenge himself on XXC and can't quite bring himself to examine that.
Miscellaneous dynamics (oh no, I'm going to talk about pairings)
Guys, A-Qing is there. She is there, like, she is super there, she is our viewpoint character, she is not some optional add-on. She's crucial to the entire dynamic and whenever I have dipped a toe in Yi City I'm usually frustrated to see that the miraculous plot change that has spared XXC has omitted to spare AQ. Or, if she is spared, she gets relegated to daughter or little sister status while XY is elevated to being one corner of the Songxuexiao triad.
So let's talk about pairings. Here is my position, which I must stress is based on MDZS not CQL.
If there is any significant potential for a romantic read on the relationships between any of these characters, it's solely between XXC and SL. They are completely committed to each other, love each other deeply, and are each the most important person in the other's life. SL is committed to finding XXC to right the wrong he did him, and XXC is so committed to SL that when he thinks he's to blame for the death of SL's surrogate family he literally gifts him his own eyes.
The dynamic between XXC and XY is really more of a familial or mentorly one. XXC is providing guidance and support that XY has never received in his life, and XY is responding as a child experiencing actual care for the first time. He's still not capable of understanding or accepting that his past actions are wrong, but, like a child, he thinks he can sweep them under the rug and go on as though they never happened. It's not that he's learnt better; it's that he doesn't need to commit mass violence any more.
But even if you could make a successful argument for XY's feelings being romantic, and even if you could successfully argue that XXC returns them (a massive stretch), whatever kind of relationship they have is fundamentally unworkable and doomed. Sooner or later, even in a scenario where SL survives, XXC will discover the truth and reject XY utterly. In their final confrontation he is hurt, appalled, trying to understand... but he's not trying to understand so he can find his way back to the XY he thought he knew. He's trying to understand in the way a shell-shocked soldier is trying to understand. He shows no openness to XY's explanations and no indication whatsoever that any reconciliation is possible.
XY doesn't understand this at first, but when he does realise it—that's the moment he reveals the presence of SL's fierce corpse. The moment of no return is years in their past, but XY only grasps this when XXC refuses to accept or engage with the narrative he's created in his own mind about how justified his actions are.
It's very telling that, when XXC is being slammed with revelations, the moment that finally breaks him is when he finds out that SL is dead by his own hand. And, to loop back round to dismantling false parallels between Yi City and 3zun, this should really be compared to LXC's reaction to his minor role in NMJ's death. He's appalled in the moment, but it doesn't even come up during the temple discussions and he's constantly seeking explanations and accepting the logic of many of JGY's responses.
#ask#testblog-54#roquen meta#outing myself as a sl fan#i'm sorry sl#for all the ryvita jokes i made about you and xxc in the past#ur actually my fave#if writing unpaid fanfic were my full time job#i'd have written that postcanon sl fic i want to do#alas there are not enough hours in the day#once again i write meta for mdzs NOT cql#yi city is something where the dynamics differ significantly between novel and adaptation#still no support for the common fandom conflation of yc and 3z in cql though
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TELL ME ABOUT AMY POND AND VAMPIRISM AND DON'T HOLD BACK (I have yet to answer one of your Amy x Dracula asks so I'm hyped about that too!!!!)
OK!!! AMY + VAMPIRISM (or, more accurately, vampiric traits)!!!!
taking this FAR too seriously and breaking out the various essays+articles about vampirism to make this post!!! and I imagine it will be egregiously long but heyho!!!
Paul Barber outlines four different ways a person can become a vampire in Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality:
Amy definitely fits into these categories:
Predisposition - "people who are different, unpopular, or great sinners are apt to return from the dead. (P. Barber)" "one universally recognised member of this category would be the suicide. (J.A Thilmany)" - Amy, the local mad girl, who both hints at suicidal thoughts during her time as companion ("Listen to me. I understand. Really, I do.") and actually commits suicide, on various occasions (Amy's Choice, The Girl Who Waited, The Angels Take Manhattan) AND comes back from the dead in some form or another on those occasions and others....if anyone matches the description of those predisposed to vampirism, it's her.
Predestination - "frequently people become revenants through no fault of their own" "a revenant is born with two hearts, one of which is dedicated to the destruction of humanity." (P. Barber) - those predestined to become vampiric are often people who come from "abnormal" parentage, Amy's parents Do Not exist when we first meet her. And, even when they have been brought back, they only show up in part of one episode before becoming non-entities again (it's a flaw in the writing more than anything else but it still emphasises her "abnormal parentage").
"a revenant is bloody and blood is red; redness, therefore, must predispose toward vampirism." (P. Barber) - The redness is an obvious link: red hair, red clothes, the red houses, the apple....she's red.
Events - "people become vampires by being bitten by one." (P. Barber) - She's bitten by a Saturnyne Vampire in The Vampires of Venice.
Nonevents - "Lack of burial is itself, then, a sufficient reason for murder victims and suicides to become revenants" "another common explanation for their transformation is that they have not lived out their allotted span of life." - In most of Amy's deaths, she goes unburied. Again, this is usually because she's due to be revived but that only really emphasises the connection. In the one case where she is buried, TATM, she's a victim of the Weeping Angels; their whole thing is feeding off the potential life that their prey leaves behind, the life unlived, thus, she does not live out her allotted span of life.
So, Amy fulfils each category of the causes of Vampirism.
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She also displays various "vampiric traits" - the main one being the idea that those afflicted with vampirism become locked in one phase of their life/body, never able to grow up past the point of their turning.
Similarly, Amy never quite moves past her garden, her waiting. A big component of her character is that she can't let go of the Doctor + her childhood. Though the writers claim she does, they never go past just saying it, we're given very little reason for her abandoning her faith in the Doctor. In fact, they often emphasise the opposite (the shot of her waiting at a window at the end of The God Complex, the S7 promo where she's pictured waiting at a phone for the doctor to call, "is it bad that I've really missed this?" in AoTD, "I can't not wait for you." in DoaS.). It's arguable that she remains trapped in this phase of waiting/hoping for 11's return up until her death. Even in some of TATM's deleted dialogue, she expresses a worry that he'll stop coming back for her out of boredom.
Just as a vampire is stuck in the body that they had at the time of their turning - Amy is stuck waiting for the Doctor for her entire run as companion.
Another of her vampiric traits is summed up by J.A Thilmany in “Draining life forces: Vampirism in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights”:
Amy’s last proper appearance on the show takes place inside the TARDIS, though she dies outside of it. She returns to her home as a ghost, or a daydream.
A slightly different take on the above trend is presented by Nina Auerbach in “Our Vampires, Ourselves”:
The “confined space” in Amy’s story is the garden that she constantly returns to. It ties in with her vampiric inability to move on/grow up as the garden is the home of her waiting. She can’t escape “the girl who waited”, because she often doesn’t try to - instead choosing to return to the garden (as she does in TGWW).
Returning to her final scene on the show, her appearance right at the end of 11′s life presents another vampiric trait. The scene echoes one from TATM where Amy is present for an older Rory’s death, holding his hand as he dies.
In both instances, Amy is the figure marking the death of one of her loved ones, mirroring this trait referenced by Barber:
And again by Thilmany:
Amy’s presence in both scenes is presented as the thing allowing Rory and 11 to pass on. They see her again, meaning they can die somewhat peacefully. Obviously, this isn’t a feeding as presented by the two extracts above but the scenes present something equivalent to that.
Another feature of final the scene that presents a vampiric trait is the fact that it’s not actually Amy, the figure is strongly implied to be a figment of 11′s imagination. This mimics another idea outlined by Barber:
Amy is still buried in New York, but an apparition of her is in the TARDIS performing her equivalent to feeding.
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Having outlined how Amy fulfils both the causes of vampirism + the traits of traditional vampires, the last thing to talk about is the transformation that is characteristic of vampire mythology, particularly the transformation presented alongside women vampires.
As most of Amy’s vampiric traits link back to the Doctor, it makes sense to argue that his introduction into her life is what marks her “turning”.
When 11 meets her, she’s a child, and so she’s “pure” and “virtuous”. She’s the fairytale girl. She’s not entirely “perfect” and she presents the traits of those predisposed to vampirism: she’s from abnormal parentage/familial history (”I don't have a mum and dad. Just an aunt.”), she’s othered + different to the residents of Leadworth (”the Scottish girl in the English village”) and she presents a connection to supernatural (or preternatural) forces (”at night there's voices”).
So, she enters the story as the fairytale girl, predisposed to the vampiric condition. The Doctor makes a promise and then he leaves, having set the change in motion.
The next time we see Amy, she’s become the corruption of a fairytale, just as women vampires often represented the corruption of traditional femininity. She’s changed her name, dubbing it a “bit fairytale”, she’s noticeably more volatile and violent than her 7yr old self and she’s overtly sexual, a trait that is common in most women vampires.
This transformation of “purity” to “corruption” (please note that I use these terms with heavy amounts of distaste) is extremely common in stories about woman vampires (the biggest example being Dracula’s Lucy Westenra). And so Amy’s movement between the two, though it’s the product of age in the narrative, does mimic a traditional vampiric transformation.
The Girl Who Waited only further emphasises the idea of the fairytale corruption + vampiric transformation.
Amy’s base in the episode is described as a lair and the HandBots view her as diseased + in need of treatment. The lair calls up connections to monsters + wild animals but also refers to the Scottish term for “a burial plot in a graveyard” - both of which are spaces that vampires traditionally reside in.
The idea that Amy is “diseased” falls in line with the concept that vampirism is an affliction or virus rather than a transformed state. Throughout her time as companion, Amy is shown to have been subjected to various forms of involuntary treatment (highlighted in this post by @mikaelson) furthering the idea that she’s viewed as sick despite not being unwell at all - just different or “transformed”.
Her death in this episode also highlights a vampiric state, as she stands outside the TARDIS doors, unable to enter without being allowed in, invited in.
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Basically, to conclude, she’s not a vampire....but she could be :)
#Doctor Who#Amy Pond#Amy Pond Unrelated Media Universe#word count: 1479 words#so relatively insane for a tumblr post about vampires + doctor who#got side tracked in the last section but what the fuck ever#used fucking academic texts for this btw#in case anyone was wondering how seriously i treated this#stupid and silly but i had fun so :)#also - some colour symbolism in there for you jo - as a treat
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Grumbling about Carnival Row season 2
Because of course all shows should follow what I want! XD
And I wanted a show about Philo and Vignette, who fought so hard to be together and find true love in dark times, to be badass rebel partners working together to help the fae. Sneaking kids out of the barbed wire to safety, possibly safety in some other country where Imogen and Agreas ended up… Instead the writers are like, “Nah, they break up!” Gaaaaah!
As I watched the last few episodes I started to notice things that just felt… missing. Like there were bits I expected to see and they never turned up, leaving previously important bits of plot to dangle in the breeze.
-Tourmaline being taken over by evil magic. She needs to stop doing magic or it’ll completely take her over! Then she… does a bunch more magic but she’s fine. Could we at least have had a scene at the end where she does a cleansing ritual or bathes in a sacred spring and says she feels much better knowing the haruspex’s icky spirit is gone forever? Maybe the kiss of true love banished it.
-The fae plague. There was a plague! People were dying! Then the plot just kind of moved on. We never got a search for a cure. Vignette didn’t catch it, which I thought she might. We didn’t learn it was the humans poisoning the wells, which I also thought might have been happening.
-Imogen’s sudden freakout at Agreus. they’re in love, some terribly traumatic things happened, and suddenly she was breaking up with him because he was just another man trying to control her—and then the plot moved on, Agreus gets kidnapped, and then they were back together. It makes sense that Imogen might have gone off the rails due to trauma but I feel like we missed a scene where after his escape she runs to him and they kiss, and then a later scene where she says, “Sorry I wigged out there, but being controlled by men is something that bothers me a lot.” and Agreus says, “Totally understandable what with your entire history. Let’s talk about how we can make sure you never feel like I’m trying to get the upper hand.”
-Philo’s whole parentage. He almost reveals his lineage, the plot gets in the way, then it’s never mentioned until the end where he’s refusing to become chancellor with an impassioned speech. And what about being greater than his father? Killing the sparas was pretty badass but I don’t think it counts as full on greatness. There was a whole heckin’ prophecy!
-Philo’s evil twin he was hallucinating after one too many whacks to the head. I mean I’m glad that didn’t go on, but it’s another thing that just kinda randomly stopped.
-Tirnanoc is… saved? It was all so off screen, the Pact was driven out, the Burgish government was planning underhanded stuff to conquer it themselves (instead of just taking the refugees out to sea and dumping them overboard like I thought the reveal would be) and then… the plot moved on. Did we get anything in the very pretty happy ending to suggest why the next chancellor won’t go out and conquer it again?
-Jonah and Sophie. Jonah had so much character potential. Was he a decent person underneath? Was he going to see through Sophie’s blandishments and stand up as a decent guy or fall into corruption? Could he and Philo have any kind of relationship, for good or ill? And what were Sophie’s plans now that she owns half the manufacturing in the Burgue? What else was she up to behind the scenes? What’s up with her faun friend? This plotline wasn’t abandoned but suddenly cut off, but I was really keen to see where it was going!
I know this is just my opinions but did the end of the season hit anyone else this way? I didn’t hate the second season or anything. I love the visuals of the show so much, I was invested in what was happening, and watching Imogen come into her own was just a joy. But this feeling that the story was trying to go places and never quite getting there..!
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What draws you to incest ?
*sighs* Ok, here we go. I'm a real card carrying Jonsa now aren't I?
Anon, listen. I know this is an anti question that gets bandied about a lot, aimed at provoking, etc, when we all know no Jonsa is out here being all you know what, it really is the incest, and the incest alone, that draws me in. I mean, come on now. Grow up.
If I was "drawn" to incest I'd be a fan of Cersei x Jaime, Lucrezia x Cesare, hell Oedipus x Jocasta etc... but I haven't displayed any interest in them now, have I? So, huh, it can't be that.
Frankly, it's a derivitive question that is really missing the mark. I'm not "drawn" to it, though yeah, it is an unavoidable element of Jonsa. The real question you should be asking though, is what draws GRRM to it? Because he obviously is drawn to it, specifically what is termed the "incest motif" in academic and literary scholarship. That is a far more worthwhile avenue of thinking and questioning, compared with asking me. Luckily for you though anon, I sort of anticipated getting this kind of question so had something in my drafts on standby...
You really don't have to look far, or that deeply, to be hit over the head by the connection between GRRM's literary influences and the incest motif. I mean, let's start with the big cheese himself, Tolkein:
Tolkein + Quenta Silmarillion
We know for definite that GRRM has been influenced by Tolkein, and in The Silmarillion you notably have a case of unintentional incest in Quenta Silmarillion, where Túrin Turambar, under the power of a curse, unwittingly murders his friend, as well as marries and impregnates his sister, Nienor Níniel, who herself had lost her memory due to an enchantment.
Mr Tolkein, "what draws you to incest?"
Old Norse + Völsunga saga
Tolkein, as a professor of Anglo-Saxon, was hugely influenced by Old English and Old Norse literature. The story of the ring Andvaranaut, told in Völsunga saga, is strongly thought to have been a key influence behind The Lord of the Rings. Also featured within this legendary saga is the relationship between the twins Signy and Sigmund — at one point in the saga, Signy tricks her brother into sleeping with her, which produces a son, Sinfjotli, of pure Völsung blood, raised with the singular purpose of enacting vengence.
Anonymous Norse saga writer, "what draws you to incest?"
Medieval Literature as a whole
A lot is made of how "true" to the storied past ASOIAF is, how reflective it is of medieval society (and earlier), its power structures, its ideals and martial values etc. ASOIAF, however, is not attempting historical accuracy, and should not be read as such. Yet it is clearly drawing from a version of the past, as depicted in medieval romances and pre-Christian mythology for instance, as well as dusty tomes on warfare strategy. As noted by Elizabeth Archibald in her article Incest in Medieval Literature and Society (1989):
Of course the Middle Ages inherited and retold a number of incest stories from the classical world. Through Statius they knew Oedipus, through Ovid they knew the stories of Canace, Byblis, Myrrha and Phaedra. All these stories end more or less tragically: the main characters either die or suffer metamorphosis. Medieval readers also knew the classical tradition of incest as a polemical accusation,* for instance the charges against Caligula and Nero. – p. 2
The word "polemic" is connected to controversy, to debate and dispute, therefore these classical texts were exploring the incest motif in order to create discussion on a controversial topic. In a way, your question of "what draws you to incest?" has a whiff of polemical accusation to it, but as I stated, you're missing the bigger question.
Moving back to the Middle Ages, however, it is interesting that we do see a trend of more incest stories appearing within new narratives between the 11th and 13th centuries, according to Archibald:
The texts I am thinking of include the legend of Judas, which makes him commit patricide and then incest before betraying Christ; the legend of Gregorius, product of sibling incest who marries his own mother, but after years of rigorous penance finally becomes a much respected pope; the legend of St Albanus, product of father-daughter incest, who marries his mother, does penance with both his parents but kills them when they relapse into sin, and after further penance dies a holy man; the exemplary stories about women who sleep with their sons, and bear children (whom they sometimes kill), but refuse to confess until the Virgin intervenes to save them; the legends of the incestuous begetting of Roland by Charlemagne and of Mordred by Arthur; and finally the Incestuous Father romances about calumniated wives, which resemble Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale except that the heroine's adventures begin when she runs away from home to escape her father's unwelcome advances. – p. 2
I mean... that last bit sounds eerily quite close to what we have going on with Petyr Baelish and Sansa Stark. But I digress. What I'm trying to say is that from a medieval and classical standpoint... GRRM is not unique in his exploration of the incest motif, far from it.
Sophocles, Ovid, Hartmann von Aue, Thomas Malory, etc., "what draws you to incest?"
Faulkner + The Sound and the Fury, and more!
Moving on to more modern influences though, when talking about the writing ethos at the heart of his work, GRRM has famously quoted William Faulker:
His mantra has always been William Faulkner’s comment in his Nobel prize acceptance speech, that only the “human heart in conflict with itself… is worth writing about”. [source]
I’ve never read any Faulker, so I did just a quick search on “Faulkner and incest” and I pulled up this article on JSTOR, called Faulkner and the Politics of Incest (1998). Apparently, Faulkner explores the incest motif in at least five novels, therefore it was enough of a distinctive theme in his work to warrant academic analysis. In this journal article, Karl F. Zender notes that:
[...] incest for Faulkner always remains tragic [...] – p. 746
Ah, we can see a bit of running theme here, can't we? But obviously, GRRM (one would hope) doesn’t just appreciate Faulkner’s writing for his extensive exploration of incest. This quote possibly sums up the potential artistic crossover between the two:
Beyond each level of achieved empathy in Faulkner's fiction stands a further level of exclusion and marginalization. – pp. 759–60
To me, the above parallels somewhat GRRM’s own interest in outcasts, in personal struggle (which incest also fits into):
I am attracted to bastards, cripples and broken things as is reflected in the book. Outcasts, second-class citizens for whatever reason. There’s more drama in characters like that, more to struggle with. [source]
Interestingly, however, this essay on Faulkner also connects his interest in the incest motif with the romantic poets, such as Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron:
As Peter Thorslev says in an important study of romantic representations of incest, " [p]arent-child incest is universally condemned in Romantic literature...; sibling incest, on the other hand, is invariably made sympathetic, is sometimes exonerated, and, in Byron's and Shelley's works, is definitely idealized.” – p. 741
Faulkner, "what draws you to incest?" ... I mean, that article gives some good explanations, actually.
Lord Byron, Manfred + The Bride of Abydos
Which brings us onto GRRM interest in the Romantics:
I was always intensely Romantic, even when I was too young to understand what that meant. But Romanticism has its dark side, as any Romantic soon discovers... which is where the melancholy comes in, I suppose. I don't know if this is a matter of artistic influences so much as it is of temperament. But there's always been something in a twilight that moves me, and a sunset speaks to me in a way that no sunrise ever has. [source]
I'm already in the process of writing a long meta about the influence of Lord Byron in ASOIAF, specifically examining this quote by GRRM:
The character I’m probably most like in real life is Samwell Tarly. Good old Sam. And the character I’d want to be? Well who wouldn’t want to be Jon Snow — the brooding, Byronic, romantic hero whom all the girls love. Theon [Greyjoy] is the one I’d fear becoming. Theon wants to be Jon Snow, but he can’t do it. He keeps making the wrong decisions. He keeps giving into his own selfish, worst impulses. [source]
Lord Byron, "what draws you to—", oh, um, right. Nevermind.
I'm not going to repeat myself here, but it's worth noting that there is a clear through line between GRRM and the Romantic writers, besides perhaps melancholic "temperament"... and it's incest.
But look, is choosing to explore the incest motif...well, a choice? Yeah, and an uncomfortable one at that, but it’s obvious that that is what GRRM is doing. I think it’s frankly a bit naive of some people to argue that GRRM would never do Jonsa because it’s pseudo-incest and therefore morally repugnant, no ifs, no buts. I’m sorry, as icky as it may be to our modern eyes, GRRM has set the president for it in his writing with the Targaryens and the Lannister twins.
The difference with them is that they knowingly commit incest, basing it in their own sense of exceptionalism, and there are/will be bad consequences — this arguably parallels the medieval narratives in which incest always ends badly, unless some kind of real penance is involved. For Jon and Sansa, however, the Jonsa argument is that they will choose not to commit incest, despite a confused attraction, and then will be rewarded in the narrative through the parentage reveal, a la Byron’s The Bride of Abydos. The Targaryens and Lannisters, in several ways excluding the incest (geez the amount of times I’ve written incest in this post), are foils for the Starks, and in particular, Jon and Sansa. Exploring the incest motif has been on the cards since the very beginning — just look at that infamous "original" outline — regardless of whether we personally consider that an interesting writing choice, or a morally inexcusable one.
Word of advice, or rather, warning... don't think you can catch me out with these kinds of questions. I have access to a university database, so if I feel like procrastinating my real academic work, I can and will pull out highly researched articles to school you, lmao.
But you know, thanks for the ask anyway, I guess.
#cappy's thoughts#I'm still on my break/hiatus#i just had some of this already written#jonsa#jon x sansa#anti bs#grrm and medieval literature#grrm and william faulkner#grrm and the romantics#grrm and tolkein#grrm and old norse literature#grrm and his literary influences#was this petty lmao?
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Season 3 of Roswell, New Mexico had a lot in store for its characters, with Michael experienced some of the biggest changes yet. With the introduction of Jones (Nathan Parsons), Michael (Michael Vlamis) reluctantly learned the truth about his parentage. With Jones as his father, Michael combated whether or not that meant he would be a monster like his old man; however, not every revelation this season had been bad for Michael.
Throughout Season of Roswell, New Mexico, Michael realized just how much Alex (Tyler Blackburn) meant to him, thus pushing both of them to finally delve fully into their relationship and reveal their more vulnerable sides with one another. Vlamis sat with CBR to discuss the highs and lows of Michael's journey throughout The CW show's latest season.
CBR: This was such a huge season for Michael. What was it like when you first learned about Michael's father?
Michael Vlamis: I thought it was really cool. I especially thought it was cool because I remember reading [about] Season 1 -- because I like to read the reviews and I like to read what fans think and what they're speculating and I'm all over Twitter, seeing all that -- and a lot of people thought Michael Guerin was maybe a Jon Snow type character. I never knew that would be the thing. I'm not saying he is the Jon Snow character or anything like that, but the fact that he's a little bit more important than he maybe came across at the beginning, similar to that character in Game of Thrones, it was just very cool to see that the fans who are watching the show so adamantly, they actually pieced that together. I knew immediately that it was going to level up my character, and I figured his powers and also probably work on the show and the different avenues and the different types of scenes I was going to get to do. I always got to do stuff regarding mom, but now I'm really getting to do stuff regarding dad, which is interesting.
Speaking about how this levels up Michael, what did this revelation mean to the character?
Michael Vlamis: That's a complicated question. Depends on which episode you're on?
At first, it's a horrible thing because he is realizing that he comes from a monstrous stock, and a lot of people have a really hard time breaking the cycle from being their parents -- whether that's in a relationship or just how you treat others or what you want to do with your life. So many times we feel like we are our parents -- it took me a long time to realize that I'm my parents in a certain way, but not completely -- and that's something that Michael Guerin is figuring out, so I thought it was really cool to be able to play that because I had recently in the last several years of doing self-work and figuring out who I truly am and what I can feel from my dad, but I'm not entirely him. At first he's scared to death, and then I think he starts coming to terms with the fact that he doesn't have to be who his father is, and he embraces a little bit more.
Speaking about his father, How is it navigating this relationship with your co-star Nathan, especially since you've been working together for years as Michael and Max, but now Jones is in this mix?
Michael Vlamis: It was super easy because when I line up across from another actor, I'm based off them. Nathan came in immediately and had a whole different game plan when it came to Jones. It made my job, Lily's job, everybody's job so easy because all of a sudden we're not acting with Nathan as Max. We're acting with Nathan as a whole different human being. There was never a big conversation. I'm sure he had all those conversations with Chris Hollier, our showrunner, but with us, it was like he showed up. He started talking, saying howdy partner, and we just got into it.
That's awesome. A lot of these confrontations with Jones eventually lead to plenty of action and special effects. What was the most challenging or exciting part of these action sequences for you and what was it like to see them finalized with those effects on screen?
Michael Vlamis: Well, to be honest, I haven't seen it yet. I got the episode last night, but I was on set all night, and then I slept two hours, and now I'm at a wedding. We were on Episode 6 already of Season 4. We shot late last night, and then I had to catch that early flight out. I will say, having done it and having seen some, I do my stunts up to a certain point, then it's completely handed off. I had way too many surgeries from sports and accidents in life. My body might not be ready for it.
When I read that stuff in the script, I'm very excited about it because there's something really cool that happened. When an actor gets to do stunts, all of a sudden, you're seen as this type of person. I can just be me. I can do nothing. I don't have to act tough or anything like that, but if you see me get thrown against an Airstream and survive or get stabbed and take a staple gun to the stomach, then all of a sudden that makes my job as an actor infinitely easy because the viewers know what this person is capable of without me ever saying it or talking a big game or anything. When I see that stuff on screen, I'm just like they're making [Michael] even cooler than he already was. They've done an amazing job making Michael Guerin just such a fun and three-dimensional character. I feel very fortunate every time I see a stunt because that just adds to his whole aura that is my goal here.
Another major part of this season for Michael is his relationship with Alex. What were you most excited to explore about the relationship this season, and what was it like to explore that with Tyler?
Michael Vlamis: A lot of people ask what's most important or what you're most excited about. A lot of times I say seeing them happy together and actually coexisting together.
If we're being completely honest, it's just working with Tyler Blackburn. That is what I'm most excited about. It's working with him. His eyes are that cliche -- the eyes are the window to the soul. I'm going to quote a quote because that is literally what I'm feeling just by looking into his eyes. It's so easy to work off someone like that. I was so excited as the season progressed, and we didn't work together till Episode 3. I was blown away, and not like I'm tooting my own horn or anything like that, but that drive-in scene in Episode 3 this past season... It was a similar conversation that we've had many times, and on the day with the writers and the director, we all came together and we figured out a new way to play that scene. I thought it just works so well. That was kind of the foundation for what happened the rest of the season. I feel like our work got even more intimate, more connected. Doing scenes with Tyler is just an absolute joy.
There was one more relationship we got a little bit more of a glimpse into that we didn't get to see before so much, which was Michael and Rosa interacting. What about that dynamic were you excited to touch on this season?
Michael Vlamis: That was so cool, isn't it?
We're both people that feel we've made grave mistakes in our lives. We're both people that have a lot of regrets, maybe not much self-worth, because maybe one was a foster kid and one was an addict. We both have snarky senses of humor. As actors, Amber Midthunder is very similar to me. She's always down to play and bounce different ideas, different reads of lines, different behavior on every take. The moment we got to work together when I was like scrubbing off the graffiti off the Crash Down I just knew I'm in for something special with Amber, and I think that scene is one of my favorites of the season.
Speaking of some of your favorites of the season with the season wrapping up soon, what was one of your favorite memories from production?
Michael Vlamis: I cannot wait to see what they use when Maria (Heather Hemmens) staples my stomach because I was having a lot of fun with that. It was just so fun. All the crew's there. It's super late for the very end of the season. Everyone's tired. We had just come from the junkyard where the stunt guy got tossed 30 feet into a hole. The whole oil barrel got thrown at me and it's cut in half. We're doing all this crazy stuff, and then we go downstairs, and all of a sudden, I'm stapling my stomach. I haven't seen it yet. I'm so thrilled about it. I cannot wait.
I gotta say, my Sanders' (Nicholas Ballas) scenes are unbelievable. I love working with Nicolas Ballas. He's directing a play right now at the New Mexico Actors Lab in Santa Fe. I got to see that last weekend. The guy is multitalented. It's running this weekend and next weekend. The fact that [Ballas] gets to come out and be this father figure and I'm kind of a dick to him, but it's because he's always been gruff with me. We're just kind of on that same page. I really appreciated those moments over the season.
#michael vlamis#michael guerin#malex#alex manes#tyler blackburn#vlamburn#walt sanders#nicholas ballas#rnm stunts#rnm spoilers#rnm 3x12#rnm 3x13#roswell new mexico s3#roswell new mexico#mgv interviews
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Unpopular opinion, but I disagree with the notion that Jon should be accepting of his bastardy and not rule if given the chance. Even “I don’t want it ” show!Jon ended up as KITN when some Northerners randomly made him one despite Ned Stark’s trueborn daughter sitting beside him, so why wouldn’t the book version - who does want it - not accept an offer to be King?
Why shouldn’t Jon Snow rule the North and Winterfell? Of the remaining Starks, he’s the oldest, most experienced and qualified. He is Ned Stark’s son. Winterfell is as much as his home as it is to the rest of the Starks. He learned from the same people Robb did. Removing any gender and class bias, Jon’s still the best person belonging to house Stark to rule the North. Robb Stark certainly thought so.
Jon has never let being a bastard define what he is capable of. He has always looked beyond class lines and valued people for what they are capable of rather than the limited and narrow views that society has. Why wouldn’t Jon want to rule the North?
I feel that reasons like ‘Jon is a bastard, he should remain a bastard, Jon being king would undermine his story, perfect King Jon would be boring etc.’ are just excuses for wanting Jon out of rulership. One may as well say that they want *insert favorite character* to be king/Queen rather than Jon.
Rather, I think this line of thinking should be applied to someone like Young Griff - and this is precisely the story that GRRM is trying to tell with the character. It would, for example, be boring for secret, trueborn, Targaryen prince Aegon to go on to be the perfect king that Varys expects him to be.
Young Griff is the perfect king on paper – groomed to know the common man’s struggle, he’s smart, well liked etc. But for us readers, him becoming king would feel unearned. Young Griff is actually a critique of unearned rulership. We see from his cyvasse game with Tyrion, that he is arrogant and spoiled. He feels entitled to Dany’s dragons – the dragons that Dany has hatched and nurtured and bonded with. He thinks that Dany will immediately throw her full support behind him.
Compare Young Griff to Jon, Dany and Arya. Jon is defending the realm without any expectation of reward, planning Stannis’ campaign to win the North, preparing the wall for an attack from an existential threat. Dany halts her Westerosi campaign and is ruling Meereen for the people, dealing with insurgency, famine and sickness, having to make the hard decisions that come at great personal cost. Arya actually lived among small folk in war torn Westeros. She has no Jon Connington or mercenaries protecting her as she fake lives among the small folk – her experiences are real. The pain and trauma she experiences – that she sees the small folk go through – that’s real. It was about survival for her, instead of Young Griff learning how to fish and wash clothes.
Young Griff is supposed to feel unearned. He is a stand in for Jon, Dany and Arya – the secret prince, the Targaryen come to take the Iron Throne and the Stark princess who has actually lived among the small folk and befriended them. Young Griff is Jon, Dany and Arya without their actual experiences. Not to mention that in GRRM’s world, there are no perfect kings or queens. His rulers are flawed leaders who make mistakes because ruling is hard.
That has been GRRM’s position - rulership has to be earned. And I think right now 17 year old Jon and 16 year old Dany have earned their leadership positions by actually doing and learning. If Jon Snow becomes KITN, he would have earned that position.
I also disagree with the notion that Jon should not be trueborn because that would ruin his character and make his story pointless.
This is Jon Snow we are talking about here. The Jon Snow who loved wild child Arya for her bird’s nest hair and her scabby knees and gave Lady Arya Stark a sword because she wanted to learn how to use it like her brothers. The Jon Snow who thought that it was okay if Randyll Tarly’s eldest son did not want to fight and asked Maester Aemon to take Sam on because he’s intelligent and liked to read. The Jon Snow who made Satin his steward because he was quick and clever and fearless in a fight. The Jon Snow who held out his hand and called Tyrion Lannister friend.
The Jon Snow who said this:
The collar is supposed to remind a maester of the realm he serves, isn’t that so? Lords are gold and knights steel, but two links can’t make a chain. You also need silver and iron and lead, tin and copper and bronze and all the rest, and those are farmers and smiths and merchants and the like. A chain needs all sorts of metals, and a land needs all sorts of people. The Night’s Watch needs all sorts too. Why else have rangers and stewards and builders? Lord Randyll couldn’t make Sam a warrior, and Ser Alliser won’t either. You can’t hammer tin into iron, no matter how hard you beat it, but that doesn’t mean tin is useless. Why shouldn’t Sam be a steward?”
If this Jon Snow turns out to be trueborn, does he suddenly regress into a person who buys into Westeros’ patriarchal and primitive notions of blood and birth defining who a person should be? Is he suddenly going to expect Arya to behave like a southron lady? Fire Satin from his job?
Is Jon going to believe that being trueborn is superior and that is why he became Lord Commander? Are we as readers going to think that Jon only got to where he is because he is trueborn? All the decisions he made – all that is retroactively ruined because he’s trueborn?
I doubt Jon is trueborn in any case - Rhaegar was married to Elia and they had children. Rather, I think GRRM will use Jon’s parentage to explore one of the themes that he really loves – the human heart in conflict with itself. It would add an extra layer of angst, self-doubt, and struggle to Jon’s already existing personal issues. A father he loved and blamed for his bastardy, send him to the wall - to a life of hardship and celibacy - without telling him the truth. Everything he knew about himself is a lie.
With GRRM’s writing, he could delve into Jon’s inner psyche as he is hit with these truths. A possible heir to the Iron Throne ends up a low born bastard at the wall – how does one deal with all this? How does one react? Then there are his relationships with the only other Targaryen and his now cousin Arya. And that’s what would make any such reveal exciting and add complexity to character and character arcs. And I think that would be damn interesting to read.
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Some thoughts about Beleg and his parentage (this is like 90% headcanon btw)
Tolkien is pretty much obsessed with lineages. which other author would name all, what, 60 of Aragorn’s grandfathers? But one character who doesn’t have any sort of canon family tree is Beleg. The closest thing we have is a single line from the Lay of the Children of Hurin (HoME 3):
“A son of the wilderness who wist no sire”
“Wist no sire” is archaic English for “knew no father”. In the canon of the Lay, Beleg never met his father, and as far as I’m aware, this is never contradicted anywhere else in the legendarium. Some fans interpret this line as evidence that Beleg was one of the first 144 elves who awoke at Cuivienen, which would mean he actually has no parents. Beleg is said to be really old, after all.
However I’m not sold on the theory. It seems like a pretty big stretch to read “never knew his father” and get “literally didn’t have biological parents”. To me, this line more naturally reads as Beleg being an orphan.
And I can’t explain exactly how, but Beleg doesn’t feel like a firstborn elf to me, he just doesn’t seem like the type. also the elves who first awoke at Cuivienen awoke in male-female married pairs and we all know Beleg is gay as hell
So if Beleg did have parents, who are they, and what happened to them? My personal headcanon is that Beleg’s parents were from Cuivienen, possibly first or second generation elves, and they were slain by Morgoth’s monsters when Beleg was a baby,. Maybe his father was even killed before Beleg was born, hence why Beleg never knew him.
And about the “son of the wilderness” line, I believe Beleg was essentially raised by nature. He spent his childhood alone in the forests. I’ve always had a bit of a fascination with the child-raised-by-nature trope, though Beleg is much more of a woodland prince type than a Tarzan type.
And Túrin was also an orphan (I know his parents are alive but he never sees them again so it counts). Túrin grew up in Doriath as the only human in the entire kingdom. Likewise, Beleg spent his childhood alone. They can relate to each other in this regard. Beleg sees that Thingol’s new foster son is all alone and separated from his kind, and he empathizes with him. Both know what it’s like to be lonely children navigating unfamiliar environments, and they can bond through their shared experiences and rely on each other.
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Do you think GRRM is punishing the Starks (apart from Arya) with how their journeys end? Arya gets to go on an adventure and do as she pleases and heal but Jon is stuck at the Wall and Bran and Sansa are burdened with being monarchs and having to fix the mess everyone else has made of Westeros. I think it's odd considering the Starks are the heroes of the story. They're all alone at the end. There's bittersweet and then there's just plain sour.
Well, this partially depends on just how seriously we take his insistence that the show’s ending is his. It’s impossible to believe that’s exactly what we’re getting, but at the same time, I can’t dismiss such clear communication from a person who is otherwise so consistently vague. If these are the real endgames, it’s easy to read them in a devastating way. In fact, D&D leaned into that:
Bran is devoid of humanity.
Arya is apparently so disconnected from her family, she has no intention of ever seeing them again --won't ever see them again.
Jon kills the love of his life (lol) to save someone he half blames for making that necessary, someone he feels betrayed him.
Sansa wanted her family, Jon in particular, with her in Winterfell, and not only are none of them ever going to be able to stay there, Jon, who she was closest to, is angry with her.
The ending is empty because the writing was empty. What was (likely) intended to show human complexity came across as contradictory characterization. What was (likely) meant to be tragic came across as pointless, making the ending feel nihilistic, although Martin maintains he isn't. We all know there's a mismatch between D&D's and Martin's sensibilities, which might explain the feeling that we were given multiple stories, conflicting stories, all at once. They used elements of his story in their own, and didn't understand the implications of what they wrote.
Now, if the focus had been on the love the Starks have for each other, had been clear about their bond, their motivation, had it acknowledged the innate tragedy of their endings, we would have had some catharsis rather than the insulting, "No, this is actually happy!" (sending Jon to the fucking wall but having Tormund there to make it ok). I can see how when Martin first came up with the story/endgames decades ago, conceptually, these endings worked for him. A lot of people said for years Martin was into the "be careful what you wish for" idea and the ending would be what the characters wanted, just in a twisted way. That's what we got (sans logic), and it's a cool idea in theory, except, when he filled in the blanks of his story, he wrote in so much pain that the tragic ending feels needlessly cruel. There is no height from which these characters take a devastating fall, it's suffering built on suffering with no reward in the end. Look at poor Jon. At this moment, he’s dead, and in the next two books he has to find out about his parentage and face off with his Targ relative, likely becoming a kinslayer, and he has to defend the living from the Others...I mean, there isn't really space on the page for true healing and peace to occur, so we're looking at more trauma, more trauma, and uh, more trauma. And then exile, or worse, serving in the Watch again after they murdered him. So, more trauma!
My initial reaction was (tbh, will always be) "gross." But, if this is Martin's ending, if I imagine this written by him instead of D&D, I can imagine Jon and Sansa falling in love, the news that he isn't Ned's son a form of salvation for Jon (as much as it hurts him), and Jon being assured of his worth when he feels least worthy. Sansa loves him and he isn’t a monster for loving her. This story might include Jon marrying her and having a son when he had never thought he would be able to do either. There's a lot of deeply moving things that could happen for him. Maybe, Sansa for once is truly safe, gets to have a male relative who prioritizes her well-being above all else...there is a lot of emotional fulfillment that can happen here, even if they don't get a HEA. If we experience the characters getting resolution to their wants/fears, that is technically enough. As much as we want Jon to end up happily in Winterfell, as long as his choices are ones he can respect, as long as he did what was necessary to protect the Starks, I think he could be at peace with himself even if those same choices exclude him from the life he deserves. If written with care, his ending could be a testament to his love, and that can be beautiful. The author wouldn't be trying to punish him, just enforce the realism of his world which would explain hand Tyrion. Boo!
To me, the denial of the clear, "this is what should have been" isn't worthless. It fills readers with longing, and that kind of ending can stay with readers much longer than an ending that delivers on everything they want, so I understand why an author might purpose to write such an ending. That isn't my preference, but Martin has talked about how much he likes that kind of thing:
It's interesting to get back to this issue of romance that you raised earlier. When I was in Spain a few years ago, I had dinner with a woman, a Spanish academic, and a big fan of science fiction and romance. She had read a lot of my stuff, and people had said I was a very romantic writer. She sorta lashed at me during dinner. 'What are you talking about?! You are not a romantic writer. Nobody ever lives happily ever after in your books. And I was defending. I'd say 'Well, that's a different tradition of romance. I don't--I'm in the tradition of The Great Gatsby and Romeo & Juliet and you know, Beauty and the Beast. These things don't necessarily have happy endings. Aren't the most powerful romances the unfulfilled romances? The romances where people go their separate ways? And, and but they'll always have Paris, right? Like Casablanca, one of the films I showed here. You know, they go separate at the end, but they'll always have Paris.' And she basically said, 'No, you're wrong.' (he laughs) 'They have to be happily ever after together for it to be romance otherwise it's just sad.' (3 minutes into this vid)
There's a reason a lot of us understand why literature matters, enjoy it/admire it as art, but find more comfort in genre fiction. We want to get what we want and what we want is very often happy. But, there are a lot of things going on here, and I've mentioned before that Martin purposed to elevate fantasy, to get people to take it seriously in a way they didn't at the time he wrote AGOT. His goal wasn't/isn’t to punish the characters (he loves them more than we do), but to create something lasting, something that matters, and if he finds this kind of romance the most powerful, it isn’t hard to believe he would find this ending the right one, especially when joined with his desire to have an impact on literature. We fans may reject it as cruel, but he believes these endings are beautiful.
I understand what you’re saying about it feeling like Arya gets to go off and have fun whereas Sansa and Bran have a shit-ton of work ahead of them and Jon is outright punished. It’s one way to write those endings. But, while I think Jon and Sansa may get their hearts desire (love/family), personally, I found something deeply tragic in Arya‘s ending. @fedonciadale had mentioned the possibility of Arya “frodo-ing” before s8. It’s an odd ending for a little girl, and we can all headcanon it as joyous as we want, and it is freedom from being forced to conform which would have made her miserable, but I think there’s a definite tragic element there, and possibly, the implication that she is more haunted by her experiences than the others, unable to return home. Depending on which is emphasized in the writing, we would have very different feelings about that ending.
So, I guess I would say Martin made a mistake in
not letting readers know after the show finale that this isn't really his ending
OR, if this is his ending
calling it bittersweet a la Lord of the Rings when his is far more tragic
Let's all hope for option a. Either way, I don’t think he means for us to feel like he’s punishing the Starks. Bran and Sansa are clearly meant to usher in a more hopeful, peaceful, future for Westeros. He’s celebrating them, the Stark ideals, by placing them in positions of power, positions that would allow them to create a better life for others, even if they must make great personal sacrifices to do so.
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I Am Not Starfire, And That's Okay
I recently read I Am Not Starfire and I had lots of thoughts, which are under the cut. It is spoiler-heavy and an analysis of the main character, who I find to be a charming, flawed, and incredibly human character.
Mandy is a fascinating character and a great look at a teenage girl who feels ostracized by the people around her and who feels disconnected from her parent. Mandy is by no means flawless, and that's what makes her very interesting. It also makes her relatable.
Mandy starts by talking about how she's noticeably different from her mom, being the "Anti-Starfire". She's a regular kid, can't fly, and doesn't own a swimsuit, while her mom is a superhero, can fly, and always wears bikinis.
On page 11 she mentions "her mom hasn't liked how I looked since I was twelve. She wears less than a yard of fabric every day, yet somehow, I'm the one who's dressing weird". While I understand people who call this slut-shaming, and I'm inclined to agree, but I think it's a little more nuanced than that. The next page reads, "My friend Lincoln convinced me this is the cultural divide that happens between family generations born in different countries or universes. His parents were born in Vietnam." This tells me that the authors intended to point out the difference in dress more as another difference between Starfire and Mandy, and less as a reason to blatantly slut-shame Starfire. I think there's absolutely a conversation to be had about why the authors decided to use this language instead of conveying the point differently. I also think it speaks to how Starfire has more or less been sexualized from inception, and how people look down upon her character because of that. In the context of this book, though, it's one of Mandy's character flaws that I think fits her both as a character and reflects what I've seen from actual teenage girls. Our society coaches us to view women who dress a certain way as less than women who don't and unlearning that takes time and effort. I don't think this comment about her mom should have been put in there by the authors, but I do think it fits in with the values American society in particular teaches about women.
Page 15, 16, and 17 all point to a far more complicated state of existence than Mandy points out within the first few pages. For one thing, Mandy has to deal with people who love her mother and only want to use her to get information about her mom and the other teen titans. This is shown by the "Titan groupies" who ask her to tell Starfire what they say about her. Another thing she has to deal with is the expectation to be a superhero and have powers like her mom, and the questions about who her dad might be. She gains her first real friend, Lincoln, because he tells the people asking about her parentage that they are assholes.
It is revealed that Mandy has a crush on Claire after she gets assigned a group project with her. Mandy is in denial over the crush. She thinks about the fact she's meeting Mandy at the end of the day throughout the rest of the school day, causing her to explode something in Chemistry Class. I find this to be highly relatable and gives her character a softer side to the edginess she desperately tries to portray herself as.
While talking about the project with Claire, it is revealed that Mandy ran out of her SATs and didn't complete them. While Mandy tries to paint this as a cool badass moment, the way the comic artist portrays the scene makes me think Mandy had an anxiety attack. Mandy didn't run out of her SAT because she's some kind of alternative badass who doesn't need to take them. Mandy ran out because she got overwhelmed by the sounds of people chewing and the pressure of the test. While she frames it differently, it's clear to me that Mandy is avoiding taking the SAT again because she doesn't want that to happen again.
When Claire invites her to hang out with her friends, Mandy gets treated like she isn't there, or as some kind of unwanted outsider. The topics they discuss seem to be specifically made to make Mandy uncomfortable, like mentioning how stretchy jeans are only made for fat people, and asking if aliens don't go to college. Jaded by this, Mandy makes up that aliens actually have to go through this huge blood right and battle to the death, but tells Claire's two friends she was joking before leaving. This tells me that Mandy deflects her pain by using humor to cope and has no issue clowning on people who are trying to belittle her for being an alien.
Starfire tries to bring up going to college after this, and Mandy just flees to her room. She hasn't told her mom she didn't take the SAT yet or that she isn't going to college. She feels distant from her mom, which is explained further through a montage of birthdays where she never got her powers. Her mom expects a lot from her, and Mandy thinks Starfire is disappointed about her lack of powers.
Later, Mandy invites Claire over to her house to complete the project they are working on. The Titans are still there when Claire arrives, but she seems to ignore them, as they leave shortly after. Mandy and Claire bond as they continue the project. Mandy reveals to the reader that she's never had a girlfriend, except for one time at sleep-away camp where she kind of dated a girl for four weeks. She didn't tell her who her mom was because she was tired of living in the shadow of a superhero. But the relationship ended because Mandy had lied about who her mom was, and the girl she was dating didn't understand why she would lie. I think this really shows just how much Mandy actually wants to be a normal girl like everyone else, to the extent that she'd lie about who her mom was. Her edgy demeanor at school and around town where her mom is known to be her mom is a defense mechanism to having lived under the shadow of a superhero her entire life.
When it's revealed that Claire took a photo with the Titans at Mandy's house, Mandy is understandable heartbroken, and furious. She thought she had been making a real connection with Claire, but this photo makes her think she's been used, again. Claire seems genuinely baffled by Mandy's reaction to this, thinking little of it. But to Mandy, it is a breach of trust from someone she thought cared about her. I think her angry reaction to Claire makes sense because of this, even if it might have been disproportionate to the offense.
On top of this, Starfire has discovered that Mandy walked out of the SAT and doesn't plan to go to college. After a heated conversation, she runs away, but her mom finds her. And then Blackfire finds her. Turns out the fake story she told Claire's friends earlier in the story was actually true, even though Mandy didn't know it.
Since Claire actually cares about Mandy, she tracks down Lincoln who explains to her why Mandy reacted badly, and that she should probably apologize for taking the photo. Claire also admits that one of the friends from earlier, Deb, actually dared her to take the photo. Claire is a good person at heart, but this action shows that she can still be influenced to do something that would hurt another person. And while she might not have known it would hurt Mandy, Deb probably did.
Starfire and Blackfire fight since Mandy has no powers, but Starfire gets injured causing Mandy to realize just how much she loves and cares about her mom, even though they don't see eye to eye on most things. This finally unlocks her powers, as she's let go of most of the resentment she's held against her mom. She even gets asked for an autograph by someone in the audience after the battle.
The story ends with Mandy training her powers, studying for the SAT, and reconciling with Claire, sharing a kiss, and becoming girlfriends.
I've seen a lot of discourse that frames Mandy as being "not like other girls". I don't believe this framing actually fits Mandy very well. The only girl Mandy ever says she is not like explicitly is her mom. She is the only woman she compares herself too, and the only person who she seems to have a lot of resentment for, aside from people who use her to get to Starfire. Additionally, Mandy falls for someone who is what a stereotypical, normal popular girl is often portrayed as. She's preppy, wears makeup, gets good grades, has friends, and runs a fairly popular Instagram account. If Mandy was extremely into the "Not like other girls" rhetoric, she would've made fun of Claire for all those things. Instead, she admires her for them. Mandy is fat, has acne/freckles, dresses goth, and wears a nose ring. If this is the reason people are identifying her as a "Not like other girls" girl, then they don't understand that trope. Simply dressing differently from your peers, being fat, and hating your mom does not make her the "not like other girls" trope. It actually makes her like other, real-life girls who dress and act similarly, because that's who they are, not because they somehow think they are better than other women.
I'd also make the argument that, fundamentally, Mandy IS different from other girls on the account of having a superhero mother and potentially a superhero father. Her life is completely altered by Starfire's existence as her mom and is likely only relatable to the children of other superheroes and celebrities. She is not like other girls because of her mom, and that still doesn't make her someone who falls in line with the conception of being "not like other girls".
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and hope others do too. I read Mandy as a flawed character who was trying to figure out how to exist outside the Shadow of her mom- and eventually succeeds, by learning to embrace her mom. I would've preferred if Mandy had a slightly darker skin tone, as her features seem black-coded to me and Starfire is also often black-coded. Otherwise, I do think this was one of the best DC Graphic Novels for Young Adults I've read, alongside Teen Titans: Beast Boy and Teen Titans: Raven.
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conspire | 2 | first date
pairing: Todoroki Shouto / Reader
length: 13,307 words / 5 chapters
summary: Shouto Todoroki had definitely only asked you out in order to ward off his horde of interested suitors. So why does he keep actually taking you out on suspiciously realistic dates?
tags: romance, reader-insert, fake dating, misunderstandings
warnings: aged up characters, eventual smut
The next morning, your classmates wouldn’t shut up about it.
The rumor of your rendezvous with Shouto had spread like wildfire through the school, and you were assaulted by a wave of questions the second you turned up to modern lit. “Is it true?”, “Is he your boyfriend?”, “How do you know him?”, “Is he a good kisser?”, all blended into a cacophony of sound that nearly bowled you over as you stepped through the door.
You felt your face grow hot under their scrutiny and quickly stuffed yourself into your desk. “Yes, we’re dating. No, I won’t answer other questions about it.”
“Come on,” Miko--the girl in the desk closest to you--begged. “You’re dating Shouto Todoroki, the cutest boy in school, and you won’t even tell us how you know him?”
You wracked your brain for something close to the truth. “We, um, got along really well on that support item project last month. It’s nothing special.”
Miko’s mouth opened to fire off another question, but Mr. Cementoss cut her off with his arrival, launching immediately into his lesson plan. You sent up a silent thank you to whichever patron saint of fake dating had been listening.
The rest of the school day passed much the same way, and you wondered several times if the price of your senior project was perhaps too high.
You’d known that Shouto was something of a celebrity due to his parentage, supreme good looks, and incredible power--even outside the walls of UA--but you hadn’t really thought through how that would affect the people who stood closest to him. Knowing what celebrity looked like and actually experiencing it for yourself were two very different things, you found. You’d never been subjected to attention like this before and you weren’t sure that you liked it.
By the time Saturday rolled around, you’d started to wonder if you shouldn’t just call this whole thing off.
The sight of him that morning, however, immediately robbed you of your resolve.
He’d asked you to meet in front of your dorm mid-morning, and he showed up looking unfairly handsome in well-fitted jeans, a grey scarf, and a dark jacket with a high collar that framed his sharp jaw. He looked good, way too good for this early in the morning. You felt a shiver go through you, and not just because of the cold.
“Good morning, Y/N,” he greeted you, the corner of his mouth curling. He gestured with something in his hands and you found your eyes drawn to two takeout coffee cups from the cafe just outside the school gates.
Okay, he was a literal angel and forgiven for everything you had been through this week.
“I didn’t know how you liked yours, so I got all the extras,” he said, handing a cup over to you and turning out a pocket to unveil a mound of sugar packets and tiny creamer containers.
You smiled, feeling warm. “Thanks, Shouto. Pretty sure every support engineer has bypassed the need for modifications at this point and just mainlines straight from the coffee pot. Black is perfect.”
He grinned down at you. “Too many late nights?”
You groaned at the tidal wave of memories. “Support items should just build themselves.”
He laughed and gestured you to follow him, leading you out of school grounds and to the nearby train station.
“Where are we going?” you wondered as he ushered you onto the train. He herded you into a corner and stationed himself in front of you, one arm extended to hold the bar over your head. You wondered if it was something like a natural instinct at this point for hero students to assume a protective position, as Shouto’s choice had the effect of shielding you from the rest of the train car.
“I...asked around about you,” he admitted, looking a little embarrassed. “I’ve been told that your interest in quirks and support items doesn’t just end at the classroom door.”
You flushed. You were kind of a nerd, he had your number.
“I’m taking you somewhere I think you might like,” he said. He took a sip of his own coffee, varicolored eyes glinting down at you over the rim of his cup.
You nursed your own coffee as the train rolled into the city, resisting the urge to close your eyes and lean into him. It was something you might do with an actual boyfriend, and as cute as it was that he was taking you out on a real life fake date, you didn’t think he would appreciate you putting the moves on him.
He led you out of the train at the city center and down a few blocks, finally pulling you into a building with a very modern glass facade. You recognized it at once.
“The Support Museum!” you chirped happily, your interest picking up. They had an interactive exhibit going on right now that you and some classmates had talked about coming to see. Your fingers suddenly itched with the need to test out some of the items.
Shouto looked at you from the corner of his eye, a flash of curious blue. “This is okay?”
“Hell yeah,” you intoned, picking up the pace to get in front of him. “If you’re cool with being bored to death for the next six hours while I have a great time, then this is perfect.”
He gave you a dry look. “I care about support items.”
You scoffed. “You have like, one.”
A slow smirk overtook his features. “Maybe you could convince me to add more.”
Something hot flashed through you and you gave yourself a hard pinch through the fabric of your jeans. His tone seemed laced with insinuation, but you knew better than to buy into it. It was just hard when he was looking at you the way he was.
Damn him for having a face like that.
“Careful,” you said, trying to reroute your brain, “you’re signing yourself up for a whole lot of wild rambling and weird tangents.”
That soft smile pulled at the edge of his mouth again. “I’m used to it. Midoriya, my best friend, is a lot like that.”
You’d been in the room with Izuku Midoriya before and didn’t doubt it. The boy could certainly give you a run for your money. If he wasn’t equipped with the wildest quirk you’d ever seen, he would have made one hell of a support engineer -- you were probably lucky you didn’t have to compete for grades with a mind like that.
“Treat me like white noise,” you said as he shouldered past you to pay for tickets.
You let out a noise of protest when you noticed what he was doing, but he pressed you back from the ticket counter with a strong arm you couldn’t get around. It seemed only too easy for him to hold you off and pay for tickets at the same time, and it was slightly offensive. Maybe you needed to put in more time in the support course gym.
“I asked you out,” he said by way of explanation after you complained all the way through coat check, only shutting up when you were distracted by the sight of him in a soft tee shirt and blue button up. “I should pay.”
You made a dismissive noise. “It’s not the nineteen thirties anymore, dude. I can pay for my own stuff.”
He turned to you with a wry look. “Are we fighting about money already? Not something I’d thought we’d get to at this stage, to be honest.”
You laughed. “Our first fight as a couple.”
He pinned you with an interested look, something in his gaze growing hot. “Should we kiss and make up?”
Your face instantly went up in flames, like he’d lit you up with his quirk. Jesus Christ, he was a teaser? You’d thought he was just the quiet and thoughtful type -- who knew that he hid an ironic sense of humor underneath all that? This was going to be bad for your health.
“Cute,” you quipped for something to say, marching in front of him quickly so he couldn’t see your face. “Uh, where to first?”
He let you lead the way around the museum, and in minutes you’d pretty much calmed down from the heat of the moment, distracted by the halls filled with the forefront of quirk theory and the corresponding support equipment.
As someone who’d been born without a quirk of their own, the concept had always been fascinating to you, leading you into the support track at UA in your efforts to study quirks and their applications. It was incredible how genetics determined which people had none, and whose ranged from benign improvements like seeing slightly better through fog to more deadly power that roiled just beneath the surface of one’s skin like Shouto.
The deviations in power manifestation stretched the genetics of each human further from one another than they had ever gone before -- sometimes by a full 0.1-0.2% of their DNA structure -- and it was crazy cool. While your speciality was more applied science, you couldn’t deny the biology of it was equally as interesting.
At the rate it was going, people like you could share more genetic similarity with a banana at some point than someone like Shouto. Well, after a couple more millennia of evolution.
Shouto chuckled and you realized with some alarm that you had been babbling all of that out loud.
“Should I be concerned that our children might come out as bananas?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
You gave him a sour look. “You know that’s not how it works.”
He flashed you a cheeky grin and followed you easily as you led the way through the other exhibits.
He listened attentively as you oohed and ahhed over the different displays, asking very pointed follow up questions like he was actually interested in what you had to say. You fell into a very involved discussion about most of the displays, and you realized with some surprise that plenty of time had passed without you realizing it, and that you were having an incredibly good time.
Shouto paid for lunch at the museum cafe as well, affecting hearing loss over the sounds of your protests, and kept up the easy conversation all the way through the meal.
After lunch, you two queued up for the interactive exhibit that you’d initially wanted to see, eventually being let into the exhibit hall in a small group. You immediately lit up like a kid on Christmas.
The hall was studded with actual support items that had been developed for the top twenty heros, ranging from real costume pieces that had been retired to replicas of items currently in use, supplied by the same companies as had built them. The items were free for testing with the caveat that the user had to be careful.
You spent a fair amount of time over pieces of Edgeshot’s costume that had been made from strands of his own hair, allowing it to fold and reshape with the changes to his body, and more time over Ryukyu’s size-changing suit that mechanically adapted to her dragon form.
Shouto stopped over a flame-resistant gauntlet from his father’s previous costume.
“Think you can melt it?” you asked with interest. You wondered how fast they’d eject you from the museum if he succeeded.
Shouto shook his head. “My flames are hot but I doubt it.”
You perked up. “How hot?”
“I haven’t actually measured,” he admitted and you groaned.
“Your super cool quirk is totally wasted on you,” you said. “You have to let me do tests.”
His mouth twitched again. “What kind of tests?”
“Anything you’ll let me,” you said. “Temperature gauges, cryogenic structure analysis, body scans when you use both energy sources. I have my theories as to how your quirk is actually scientifically possible but I need more data.”
“Body scans, huh?” he asked.
Of course he’d seized on that one. God, he was such a boy.
“Yes. We’ll get you all strapped up in wires and those little sticky nodules. It’ll be super sexy, trust me.”
He chuckled, and set a hand to one of his father’s boots that was also on display. “Fine, but later. Want to test this out now?”
You leaned in, nodding, and he let a flame grow in his hand, pressing it to the fabric of the boot. The cloth activated instantly, channeling the flame across the surface of the boot in the customary style of Endeavor’s flaming costume.
“Fuck, that’s so cool,” you breathed, leaning over to read the description of how it worked. “You need something just as obnoxiously showy on your costume. You’re letting your own dad upstage you.”
He laughed again and let the flame die down.
You wandered companionably through the rest of the exhibit, thrilled when it ended in an arcade-like simulation of Wash’s quirk that let you rig up and shoot water around at various targets. Shouto immediately targeted you instead.
“You're supposed to be a hero,” you whined, whipping around to aim your water cannon at him in revenge. “How could you target a civilian like this?”
His hero training had clearly paid off, as he was too skilled at dodging to get caught up in any of your attacks. Your time was called without you able to catch him once, but you left the exhibit with your own shirt sticking wetly to your body. You tried not to wince, thinking of the wintry weather that would no doubt invade the confines of your jacket once you made it outside.
Shouto immediately pulled you to the side of the coat check, however, his eyes trailing down your shirt where it clung to you. You tried not to feel self conscious.
“Let me,” he said quietly, placing a hand against your shoulder. Searing warmth washed over your skin under his hand and you tried not to arch up into the pleasant heat. You stood incredibly still, hardly daring to breathe as he passed his hand lightly over your shirt, taking care not to touch you anywhere too scandalous, though some traitorous part of your mind almost wished he would. This close, you could catch the scent of some light cologne, minty and fresh, and the smell of it made your head spin.
It took just under a minute for him to fully dry out your shirt, each second passing like a small eternity.
You were able to gather your wits just enough to laugh about his bright future in steam cleaning as you tucked back into your coat, then followed him to the train back to campus.
It was nearly dark by the time he walked you back to your dorm, the sun dipping low to kiss the horizon, sunset orange fading into the deep blue of an evening sky. You realized that you’d spent all day with him and had hardly noted the time passing -- he was a very, very good date. Some girl in the months after graduation was going to find herself very lucky with him.
The dorm was quiet as you approached, which was unusual for a Saturday evening, and you realized with a growing sense of horror that your classmates must be waiting quietly, watching for your arrival from inside to see what he’d do. Shouto must have realized the same thing almost the same time that you did, as he stepped into your space at the doorway, catching the sleeve of your coat to pull you close to him.
“Is this okay?” he asked softly, face dipping close to yours. His features were somehow even more symmetrical up close and it was overwhelming to look at. “I quite liked today, so I thought…”
Your heartbeat kicked up in your chest and the tips of your ears went hot as you panicked, tangling your own fingers in his dark jacket like a lifeline. “Y-yeah,” you answered. “This is g-great.”
He smirked, leaning in even closer to you. You held carefully still as you had in front of the coat check, all the nerves in your body straining with anticipation. Then a hot mouth pressed softly to yours, and every neuron in your brain misfired.
The next thing you registered, your arms were around his neck and he was pressing you gently up against the door, his tongue in your mouth and his large hands on your waist. You arched up into his touch, desperate to get closer, twining your fingers in his soft hair.
He gave a low groan and pressed you harder into the door, a hand coming up to cup your face as he did something absolutely criminal with his tongue. So much for his career as a hero.
A muffled shout came from within your dorm and you jerked apart, panting. Your face flamed in embarrassment.
“Wow,” you said dumbly, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
“Wow indeed,” he teased, stepping back from you.
You shook yourself as he did. Right, fake dating. The kiss had been hot but it was only for show--and the show had been successfully executed. You had to resist the urge to drag him back for another.
“I’ll text you?” you squeaked out and he agreed, looking weirdly satisfied as he bid you good night.
You watched him for a long moment as he trudged back down the path to campus, heart beating a frantic staccato in your chest.
Shouto Todoroki was the most dangerous boy alive and it finally dawned on you just what you had agreed to for the next few months. You were so absolutely fucked.
#bnha#bnha x reader#todoroki shouto x reader#fanfic#todoroki x reader#boku no hero academia#todoroki shouto
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The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer
Read time: 2 Days
Rating: 5/5
The quote: Mother was wrong. Minerva was wrong. Intimacy is the only shield against insanity. Intimacy, not knowledge. Intimacy, not power — Ambrose Cusk
Because this is another review that is insanely long. TL:DR I loved this. It deserves the praise I'm seeing around it. The characters are fantastic. It's a limited cast done so very well. The plot was also done well. I couldn't predict the ending, an ending so full of hope and joy. I really recommend it if the blurb appeals. It does not disappoint.
I found The Darkness Outside Us while scrolling through the space or space opera tag on Goodreads I have never been so pleased with a book that I knew next to nothing about. It blew me away. I fell in love with the characters, their many arcs and just wanted their happiness, wanted their cycle of pain to stop. For a book with such a limited cast, the cast was remarkably complex which is quite an achievement. I think this will end up being quite a long review, are they ever short these days, so some warnings to add here. This is a book that doesn't shy away from death including suicide (I have more to say on that) and the potential psychological impacts of isolation. They are about the only things that I think could be truly triggering. There are some spoilers in this review this book is near impossible to review without them but I'll do my very best to avoid end game spoilers. I'm not going to go into the plot here other reviews will do that, this review will just be my usual mess of character thoughts because my love of books is character-driven.
One of the most influential quotes for me that came out of 90s sci-fi show Babylon 5 is "the corps is mother, the corps is father" (it's also an episode title but we'll skip over that). It's used by the Psi Cops as a refrain to explain their loyalty to the Psi Corps, one of the series sorta villains. Sorta because Babylon 5 like The Darkness Outside Us plays well with human nature and the moral grey and I really recommend it, 20+ years old or not it's aged fairly well. The quote is actually kinda useful in the every day but I'm not going down that rabbit hole here, the point of this little sci-fi history lesson is that this is the first thing that sprung to mind as Ambrose starts spending time with Kodiak. Kodiak Celius is an orphan raised by the Dimokratía spacefarer program to be the best little spacefarer possible. It turns out that has consequences. Who knew when you pit kids and teens against each other for their survival it ends badly? Apparently not Dimokratía leadership.
Ambrose Cusk is one of a large family of children born to surrogates with the eggs of one woman (known only as Mother) but the sperm of only the greatest men in history (I mean if you've got the money, why not?). In the case of Ambrose, his biological father is Alexander the Great, that is a thing. He's the voice and eyes of the book. For the most part calm, intelligent, a born leader and becoming of the legacy left to him by his parentage. The mission that Ambrose is on is to save his sister Minerva, the first settler of Saturn moon Titan. I really like Ambrose I like his strength and slight anxiety, he is relatable.
Kodiak and Ambrose counterbalance each other in their skill sets and their personality traits. Ambrose is certainly unaware of Kodiak's existence on their ship, Cooperative Endeavor or the role of Dimokratía in the mission before he wakes up, it's unclear if the said is true for Kodiak. I suspect not. Dimokratía tends to share more with its spacefarers. Throughout The Darkness Outside Us Ambrose and Kodiak have multiple relationships as is the nature of the story. They all feel a bit different, but their chemistry is always there under the surface.
I want to point out that I still find it spectacularly odd that OS's default voice is Mother (as in Ambrose's mother). I have some theories on this. I wonder if this is Mother trying to make Ambrose feel less isolated rather than just being on a power trip. OS is a fantastic villain because they aren't, not in the classic sense. They are more the perceived antagonist to Ambrose and Kodiaks protagonists. The death outcomes were all but inevitable. Set in some by outside players with OS just doing what it must and Ambrose and Kodiak not having enough information to fully understand the actions. To some degree OS possibly helps ease the pain as much as possible in the deaths of their passengers. If there is a true villain it is Mother. But even then she is pure ambition and she didn't sacrifice her son only his copies. There is no villain in my eyes. This is all about humanity.
On the writing and format. The ending is so full of light and hope. I cannot believe that The Darkness Outside Us managed to get there. It answers a question that had been swirling in my mind since nearly the start, wraps everything up well and leaves us satisfied. while it is possible that some readers would ask for a sequel it doesn't need it this is a stand-alone story and bless Schreffer for writing that. So many ya novels now are written as trilogies sometimes you just need a self-contained story and world to fall into and love. While it is such a small cast with only three characters at only one time. It can feel like so much more. Echoes of the past the previous characters are there with the current ones at all times. For so many deaths they do all feel distinct, hit differently. I mentioned suicide previously suicide, in this case, is less about depression or self-loathing and more about control of destiny and death on their own terms. Except one and that is pure pain. Two me the worst deaths are in Part Five. They shouldn't be but they are and the way we find out about is almost worse. One thing is consistent, Kodiak dies first. Except for the first time but that is a blip. The book is written in multiple parts, with no chapters. Part one is 173 pages, part two 93, part three 40, part four 5, part five 30 and part six 44. The only breaks in the longer parts are through the gaps provided by the number of tasks Kodiak and Ambrose have left written as _-* Tasks Remaining: 342 *-_
Okay to stop this getting even longer I'm going with a comment dump here.
When I first read it I completely missed the first page, the framing device. It's not essential but it does really help. It's honestly a bit of an odd way to organise it.
"It is not in the mummy's eternal cold heart to believe that the world is anything but cursed." — Apparently, a The Mummy Reference. Research is required. (It's not the first one I rewatched it, I want to rewatch the second one) (p.109)
"There's equal harshness and gentleness there, somehow. A soft soul with a hard wall. My patience refills. There's hope for us yet." — I like this as a description of Kodiak. Because we only ever see this story from Ambrose's respective his changing perception of Kodiak is important. They reflect each other at times. (p.39)
A voice pipes through. It's not OS—it's Kodiak. "Relying on a computer buddy for company. That sounds terribly pathetic."
I can't help it—I grin. A stupid sloppy one. "Pathetic is the neighbourhood I'm living in right now Until I can afford somewhere better."
"I'll be there in thirty minutes." — Look this is just soft and cute. (p.52)
"I take a quick glance back at the pool of water that might have saved us, where Kodiak took my pulse while we hid from gunfire of atoms shot from supernovas. We'll be drinking that water for months." — Oh man Ambrose and Kodiak in the pool, huddled together for safety and heat is just making my Asian drama loving heart sing. It's just a gorgeous scene and I love this line. (p.80)
"I will take some of your finest sans serif water, please. And that manicotti. I have been thinking for weeks about that manicotti. I want to marry manicotti." — Manicotti is also known as cannelloni. And I love it too. Manicotti is important to these two. It makes me want to start a listopia list about food in fiction. (p.111)
Wow... Ambrose and Kodiak are bad and flirting. But I really like that culturally Ambrose and Fédération are beyond sexual and gender labels.
"Stop it right there, you bastard little toaster." — This is about Rover and I mean I laughed. At a time I really needed to at this point. (p244)
I really like reading all the messages. 258-9 is the core of the story, the laws within which Ambrose and Kodiak live. It's to the point.
Can't wait to see what any fandom this develops adopts as THAT line. With this story and its multiple plot lines, it's hard to predict. I'm wondering if it will be this one. But this will get a fandom, it may take a while but it will get one. The love story and potential in the endgame is too strong for it to be ignored for long..
#do yourself a favour and read this#it kinda gave me illuminae meets red white and royal blue vibes#eliot schrefer#lgbtq#the darkness outside us#my goodreads review is longer#few spoliers just rambling on etymology and names#book review#ktreviews#read 2021
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