#it's impossible for this to ever be as thorough and clear as i want it to be. but it's done.
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'Beyond This Power of My Nature': Hera’s self-perception and relationship to humanity
Okay, this is something I’ve wanted to make a proper post about for a long time now: what evidence we have for how Hera sees herself in canon, why I think it’s important to acknowledge she is written with an element of physicality, and how I think, keeping the themes of Wolf 359 in mind, Hera as an AI Character comes across very differently from a lot of other AI Characters. The idea that she is fundamentally human has different implications in the context of a show that is so focused on humanity, and specifically on the way that its characters (at various points) navigate, reject, desperately try to hold onto, and are repeatedly denied recognition of their humanity. There’s so much more I could say on the topic, but. This post is already over six thousand words, so it will have to do.
tl;dr: Hera’s identity is not representative of AI Identity in any broader sense, even just within Wolf 359. Hera has a defined internal self image that is singular, and distinct from the Hephaestus or any systems she runs. There is an aspect of physicality to the way she is written, performed, and treated by the text, and she canonically experiences physical loneliness. Her feelings of isolation and the ways she is othered, even by herself at times, are reflective of very real human experiences - in particular, I have to touch on how I feel Hera can be read as a trans character. Hera struggles with the feeling that she is inherently different from everyone around her, and therefore intrinsically doomed, and it is only by letting go of those fatalistic notions, realizing she and her friends are more alike than different, that she can start to move forward and imagine a life for herself.
A couple of disclaimers:
For the purposes of this post, assume that ‘personhood’ (recognition as a full and equal person to any other person) and ‘humanity’ (the quality of Being Human, however nebulously defined) are separate, albeit related, concepts. Assume that ‘personhood’ is a given for all sentient beings as far as the text is concerned, even if other characters within the text may not extend the same courtesy.
I’d also like to say that I know the subject of Humanity as it relates to AI characters can be a touchy one - I’m also coming at this from the perspective of someone who finds it a little distasteful to ascribe a Human Identity to characters who already have their own, complete, distinctly non-human identities, or to place Humanity on a pedestal in a sci-fi context where humans are the peers of other sentient beings. I don’t think these concerns apply to Hera, or to Wolf 359 as a show, but just to be clear: everything I want to say here is about Hera, specifically. It’s not meant to apply to other AI characters, even within Wolf 359, and it definitely isn’t meant to be viewed through the lens of real-world AI development. I believe Wolf 359 is a character drama above anything else, and I believe it is especially concerned with its exploration of humanity - something I’ll talk more about later. With that said:
i. ‘some do. i don’t.’: other examples of AI identity in wolf 359
How much do we know about general concepts of AI identity in the universe of Wolf 359? The short answer… not much. The slightly longer answer:
When Minkowski introduces herself to Hera, there’s this exchange:
(Ep. 61: MINKOWSKI: Yes, they, uh, briefed me about you. I just... Unit 214, I presume? / HERA: Oh, no, no. Hera. Definitely Hera. / MINKOWSKI: Oh, sorry. I'd heard Sensus Units prefer to go by their serial - / HERA: Some do. I don't. If that's all right, Commander?)
Minkowski says she “heard Sensus Units prefer to go by their serial [numbers]” and Hera responds, “Some do. I don’t.” … It’s entirely possible that both Minkowski and Hera are going off of Goddard propaganda here, or that Hera doesn’t know what other Sensus Units might think at all and she’s just trying to defer to Minkowski before making a request of her. But for all we know, maybe that’s true? Maybe some Sensus Units really do prefer that. And whether it’s true or not doesn’t really matter. In saying it, Hera acknowledges that all AIs may not feel the way she does, but that this is how she feels about her name.
In Change of Mind, we have this exchange between Eris and Lovelace:
(Suddenly, behind her, there's a soft WOOSH! Lovelace spins around and - finds herself face-to-face with a YOUNG WOMAN. / ERIS: Hi. / Lovelace blinks. Confused. / LOVELACE: Hi? What - who - / ERIS: It's me. Eris. / LOVELACE: But... I thought you were an A.I. / ERIS: I am. This is how I see myself. Well, how I see a version of myself. As long as we're both in a mental state, we can interact this way. Remember, you're not really here either. / LOVELACE: But... look at you. You're - / ERIS: Yeah. I know.)
I’m not going to speculate on exactly how Eris appears in this scene, but: “This is how I see myself. Well, how I see a version of myself.” is interesting to consider, both in the context that Eris has an internal sense of self (presumably human in appearance, as far as the stage notes go) and the suggestion that there are other ways she sees herself that might be equally ‘her’ - does this mean Eris as in the Eris we know in Change of Mind, or does it imply that each iteration of Eris, in each of the training modules Goddard uses her consciousness for, perceives herself differently? Both? Neither?
And I think it’s revealing to show these two lines next to each other:
(LAMBERT: Rhea says... “It’s just the way they programmed her, back off.”)
(Ep. 7: EIFFEL: C’mon, Commander, you can’t really hold that against her. It’s just her programming! / HERA: Oh, stop. Do you have any idea how condescending that is? Just chalking everything I do to my programming? What if I just went around blaming every stupid decision you made on... “biology”? / EIFFEL: Hera... / HERA: “Why are they doing that, isn’t that a bit dangerous?” Oh never mind, that’s just their biology. “That’s a terrible idea, don’t they know any better?” Just that pesky ol’ biology, we really should’ve sprang for the more expensive model.)
… Which. I kinda think the difference in philosophy there speaks for itself. Sure, Rhea’s line is in defense of Eris, while Hera doesn’t appreciate ‘it’s just programming’ being used as a defense of herself, but I find it hard to imagine she’d ever see it as anything but condescension.
It also might be worth noting that none of the other AIs we know (despite how little we know about them) seem to be people Hera would really get along with: Enlil is the exact “willing to roll over for any bozo in a lab coat” type of AI who gets the “cushy job flying jet liners over the Atlantic” she shows such disdain for; if Hera met Eris it would likely be under circumstances where Eris was a threat to her friends + despite Eris’s ‘rogue AI’ aesthetic, she is designed to serve that purpose by Goddard and serves her role (and accepts her fate) without much resistance; and we don’t know much about Rhea, but from her defense of Eris, and what we can interpret from her limited interactions as a sense of professionalism, she and Hera also… likely would not see eye to eye.
All of that to say: we don’t know much about AI identity as it broadly exists within the setting of Wolf 359, but I think we do know enough to fairly assume it’s as varied and individual as identity would be for any other group of people. Which… of course it would be. I think it’s entirely possible that some AIs would have a sense of self-identity that is entirely divorced from human categorization. And all of this presents a ton of questions that I don’t really have answers for, that I don’t think we even have enough information about in canon to properly speculate on, but I think it’s important groundwork to lay out to further emphasize: when I talk about Hera’s identity, I am talking about Hera’s identity. How she sees herself, how she wants to be seen, what she values, etc. as an individual person. So.
ii. ‘you’re remembering this wrong’: what the subjective reality of memory can tell us about hera’s self-perception
If there was only one scene I could call attention to here, one piece of evidence re: Hera’s identity and self-perception, it would be the opening scene from Memoria. If you want to, please just go listen to that scene again, right now. Notice how it’s framed, and what the audio cues might suggest in a visual medium - in her memory, Hera perceives herself at the table with the rest of the crew. Physically present.
So much of Memoria is about subjective reality, memory as the product of the world through your own personal filter, your perspective and biases. “Everything before memory is about the world around you. Everything after it is all in your head.”
So looking at how Hera remembers things, more than anything else, I think can tell us a lot about how she perceives herself. Even when she doesn’t realize it. ‘Minkowski’ in Hera’s memory says… well. We get this scene:
(Ep. 41: MINKOWSKI: You're remembering this wrong. You weren't here with us. / HERA: I... I wasn't? / MINKOWSKI: No, Hera. We were over here, and you... / The soundscape shifts. There's a WOOSH, followed by some DIGITAL PROCESSING. It subsides, and when Minkowski says - / MINKOWSKI (CONT’D): ... you were over there. / - she sounds like her voice is coming through a SPEAKER. And it GLITCHES. We hear her the way we normally hear Hera. / HERA: Oh. Right. I'm here. I'm here.)
But here’s the thing. Minkowski - the real Minkowski - would never say Hera wasn’t there with them, because from Minkowski’s perspective, she was. This is Hera’s perspective - Hera feels as if she wasn’t there. And to quote @the-empty-man, from a similar conversation we had a while back: ‘in the actual reality of that Thanksgiving meal, she was there with them in the sense that she could directly see them and hear them and interact with them in various ways and (if we think of her as being located in the Hephaestus) she was kind of sharing the same physical space as them. In the reality of that memory, she was as "there with them" as she ever has been with anyone (excluding weird mind-space things) but that didn't feel like enough for her. If she doesn't think she was fully there with them then (or at least a part of her doesn't), then she's never felt like she's been fully there with anyone (again maybe excluding mind-space weirdness). It's like she's got this longing for something that she barely even has a frame of reference for.’
I think that’s just it. Hera experiences physical loneliness. The wording of “over there.” The shift in sound design, and the implication that Hera hears the others the way they hear her - that she’s not an equal presence in a different form, from her own perspective, but physically somewhere else on the other side of an impassable barrier that the others don’t even recognize exists. She has an image of herself in her mind that most other people never see.
Still, ‘how does Hera see herself?’ is a difficult question, and not one I’m going to be able to answer all at once. For now, it might be useful to first point out how Hera definitely, canonically does NOT see herself - she does not see herself as the Hephaestus.
In her own memory, she imagines herself as singular, physical, (by all indication) human in appearance. Without the awareness that ‘mind-space weirdness’ is even possible, that appearance is for no one but herself. And the Hephaestus, I think, is an entity in its own right, and one that Hera is bound to for most of the show, but she exists within it, not as an inherent part of it. Her connection to the Hephaestus, the functions she performs, are her job. The further into the show you get, and the more Hera asserts her own autonomy, the more the text distinguishes between Hera, the systems that she runs, and even her hardware. And, of course: “Or end up in other places. Doing things not because you're good at them, but just because of what you are. Has it ever occurred to you that there might be jobs for which the only requirement is having no pulse?”
iii. ‘i know what’s waiting for me back there’: when and why hera rejects humanity
It’s important to note that Hera’s identity absolutely is informed by the fact that she’s an AI, and the way she navigates the world and her relationships because of it. At times, this creates something of a double bind for her - it’s frustrating to have others acknowledge her situation, when it others her and creates or emphasizes a reminder of the distance between them, but it’s also frustrating when they don’t recognize she can’t always do the things that they can do, or that she has other physical/safety/etc. concerns that wouldn’t occur to them.
Consider the part in Theta Scenario where Eiffel has them vote on whether or not to return to Earth and sheepishly has to add, “and, uh… all those without hands?” The progression of this scene is a good illustration re: Hera’s alternating refusal of and embrace of humanity: she blames her loneliness on her programming, her attachments, her humanity - she chooses to separate herself from these things without ever making an affirmative statement as to what part of her would be Her in their place. That’s because it’s coming from a place of hurt. And remember that she’s still dealing with Maxwell’s betrayal. This is an emotional reaction, which I suppose is worth noting in itself: when Hera is hurt, her judgment is clouded, and she can be confidently wrong. Consider how convinced she was that Hilbert was making everything about Decima up, while she was at the height of her anger with him.
When Hera is hurt, when she is feeling betrayed, and frightened, she tends to self-isolate - she leans into the idea that she is fundamentally different and therefore intrinsically doomed. It’s only by letting go of these preconceptions and allowing for real connection that she’s able to heal. It’s true that the only people who have hurt her have been humans - but so are the only people who have ever helped her, who she’s had any meaningful relationships with at all. She has to believe she isn’t fundamentally different from the others, because ultimately that’s what allows her to return home with them - to think maybe there could be something for her on Earth after all. And by choosing to believe in Eiffel’s promise to her, that whatever happens when they get back to Earth, they’ll go through it together… That's a start.
iv. ‘i know where this train goes, i've been on it before. "she'll hurt someone. she can't be trusted. it's okay - she isn't even human.’: hera, lovelace, and real-world alienation
I think it’s also worth noting, however, that while Hera’s identity is informed by being an AI, the implication of Being an AI in the world of Wolf 359 specifically manifests in ways that are directly applicable to real-world human experiences. The double bind that I described, the lack of life experience compared to your peers and the embarrassment associated with that, the feeling of alienation and isolation, even the feeling of being ‘not quite human’ through repeated dehumanization and othering - these are things that real people experience. In the same way that Lovelace is an alien clone, yes, but more importantly just a person with PTSD… Hera is an AI, but she’s also a person with anxiety and chronic pain - and with experiences that I think can be directly drawn to neurodivergent, disabled, and trans experiences in various ways. I’ll try not to get too into that aspect of it here, but I do think it’s worth noting - Wolf 359 is a show about humanity, about people whose humanity has been denied to them in various ways, interpersonally and/or systemically, and I think it’s important to consider Hera’s character arc and the ways she chooses to assert her autonomy and self-identity within that framework.
And of course, speaking of Lovelace, it’s impossible to ignore that Hera is the most staunch and immediate defender of Lovelace’s humanity, following the realization that Lovelace is herself an alien clone, because Hera recognizes the way others react to her perceived differences with fear, distrust, etc. and how they will use those feelings to justify dehumanizing her. Lovelace’s humanity and Hera’s humanity are directly linked in the text.
v. ‘it’s like you’re making a movie’: why i think it does hera’s character arc a disservice to approach it with general biases regarding AI characters
You know that thing about how Wolf 359 leans into sci-fi tropes? How Eiffel is the wisecracking everyman, Minkowski is the by-the-books Commander, Hilbert is… well, you know. And so on. But instead of being subversions of these common archetypes, the characters in Wolf 359 are as intricate and contradictory and dynamic as they are because a central tenet of the show’s character writing is to ask ‘why would a real person behave this way?’
If we extend that logic to Hera and interpret her as an example of the ‘AI who is more human than some humans’ archetype, then the answer to the question is simply… because she is fundamentally human. The failure of that trope, in my opinion, is that it often sets up an AI character in the position of ‘becoming’ human, suggesting humanity is something greater and aspirational, and often directly equating ‘being a person’ with ‘being human’, even in settings where other non-human and equally sentient forms of intelligence exist. There’s something self-aggrandizing and patronizing in that.
But this is NOT the case with Hera; she is just as human at the start of the show as she is by the end of it - her struggle is not in ‘attaining humanity’ but in navigating the biases of others, the way repeated dehumanization has affected her own self-perception - to get others to see her the way she sees herself.
vi. ‘such a big, big universe...’: isolation, the ‘big picture’, and what the contradictions in am i alone now? tell us about hera’s priorities
Here’s a line I think about a lot. Specifically, I think about how often this line is used to represent Hera… “Such a big, big universe, and you only gave yourselves the tools to think about a tiny portion of it.” It’s fascinatingly ironic when you put it back into context: consider the way this monologue is framed. She’s telling all of it to Eiffel, but she isn’t, really. That’s the conflict. She wants to be able to tell him these things in the same way she wants to be able to describe what she sees to him, to get him to understand her experience, because she can think about so many more parts of that big, big universe at once, and what does it get her? She can’t do anything with it. She can’t tell anyone. She ‘tells’ Eiffel anyway - she chooses to talk to him, even when she isn’t actually talking to him. She can’t make that connection, but she wants to, so badly.
She thinks she’ll be left alone up there, sooner or later. It’s a feeling she learns to let go of, little by little, until something else finally seems possible.
There’s a theme throughout Wolf 359: the ‘Big Picture’ as an antagonistic force, whether it’s alien and unknowable, or corporate and uncaring, or some combination, and how its counterpart is Personal Connection. That’s something I’d like to get into in more depth in another post, but it’s worth touching on here because I think keeping that in mind reframes so much of Hera’s monologue in Am I Alone Now?
Think about how much of it is those Big Ideas in contrast with the familiar and immediate - that she wants to tell these things to Eiffel. “Some days I wonder if I’ll miss you, after you go away forever… I doubt it. But you never know.” The subtext is in the contradiction. The lonelier Hera is, the more she denies her humanity, but in her denial, in her loneliness, that humanity becomes all the more apparent.
Sometimes I see people take ‘I doubt it’ at face value, as evidence of eventual character/relationship growth, suggesting she gets more attached to him over time… I don’t think that’s true. She watches a star die 13.7 light years to the left and she thinks of him. She watches the swirling, raging solar winds in colors she has no name for, and wishes she could share that with him. She’s not talking to anyone, but she still chooses to talk to him. Of course she would miss him. Of course she would.
vii. ‘even hilbert never sunk that low’: how hera is treated by the show’s antagonists
It might be interesting to note that almost all of the antagonists do acknowledge Hera’s personhood, and that the way they treat her is almost always a reflection of how they treat other, flesh-and-blood people. The only antagonist who seems to honestly see her as less than a person is Hilbert, and even in his “tell me you’re not mourning that appliance” levels of cruelty towards her, there’s a way that it’s not so different from his general disregard for human life and ability to see people less as individuals, and more as expendable assets to be used in pursuit of a Greater Cause.
With that said, he’s not particularly relevant to the discussion of Hera’s self-image. The characters who are: Maxwell and Pryce.
viii. ‘i can totally rewrite a memory’: hera and maxwell
I think this is where the distinction between personhood and humanity becomes most relevant. Because I think Maxwell believes very strongly in AI Personhood, and I believe she generally prefers the company of AIs to human people, and I think… those facts allow her to help Hera in a way no one else could have, but they work against her understanding of Hera as an individual. Let me try to explain.
From the moment Maxwell gets on board the Hephaestus, she starts altering things in Hera’s programming - little things, like Minkowski’s title, that Hera can ignore because the larger things that Maxwell is able to fix for her genuinely improve her quality of life. And Maxwell, despite showing compassion for Hera, uses more mechanical terminology to refer to her than almost anyone else. But the thing is… while the SI-5 certainly have no qualms about blatant and intentional cruelty when they deem it necessary, I don’t know if Maxwell realizes what a violation some of these things are. She helps Hera, sure, unquestionably. But she also betrays her in what might be the worst possible way.
Think about the way Cutter threatens to delete and alter Hera’s memories - in Decommissioned, and in the live show. It isn’t fundamentally all that different from what Maxwell wants to do in Memoria, but Maxwell seems incapable of understanding why the concept is so upsetting to Hera. I don’t think we have enough information to make any claim for certain, but I do think it’s possible that other AIs may not perceive themselves in the same way Hera does, or value the same things. There’s a chance this is not malicious at all, but just a failure to recognize Hera’s priorities as an individual do not align with Maxwell’s previous experiences. With that acknowledged, Hera defends Maxwell against the idea she might turn her against the others, saying, “Doctor Maxwell understands better than anyone how much of a violation that would be. She would hate herself.” … but does she? Would she? Does it matter, when she does it anyway?
Hera is distraught over her realization that she never really knew Maxwell, but I guess I like the idea that maybe Maxwell didn’t understand Hera as well as she thought she did either. That maybe Hera’s unpredictability is something beyond programming, something closer to the same messy, complicated human quality that the rest of the crew survives on - that Hera was able to catch Maxwell off guard and win against her for the same reason they all triumph over Pryce and Cutter in the end. Because human unpredictability is the one thing that Goddard’s Big Picture can never factor for.
ix. ‘you don’t look like me’: hera and pryce
And if there’s any relationship that can tell us about Hera’s self-image, it’s this one. Pryce is fully aware of Hera’s humanity. Pryce’s collar program (and Maxwell’s, for that matter - another link between them) serves a similar function to Pryce’s restraining bolts, but as far as Pryce is concerned, I think it’s actually preferable to her that Hera is aware of it. “They could be whatever she wanted them to be - and as real as she wanted them to be - and they never left her behind... and they never talked back... and they were never afraid of her. Except when she wanted them to be.” …
Likewise, Hera’s attachment to her own identity is necessary for Pryce’s methods of control to be effective. Pryce is able to hurt Hera by dehumanizing her, by degendering her, by taking away her name and her autonomy, by reminding her that even her own voice isn’t her own - because those things matter to Hera.
So then you have that line in the finale, where Pryce sees Hera in Eiffel’s mind and she says, “You don’t look like me.” I think there are a few different ways you could read that.
One, the more common interpretation: that Pryce expects Hera should look like her because she is functionally ‘designed in her image’ and that Hera, over time, intentionally shifted her internal sense of self away from that. And I like this, I think there’s a power in it, especially alongside headcanons where Hera adopts some features of the people she loves to incorporate into her own - but I think it might be the less likely option. While I think it’s entirely believable that Pryce would give Hera her appearance in the same way she gave her her voice, and while I think there is an intentional cruelty (and given that Pryce herself was probably isolated for much of her life, perhaps a kind of awful retribution in her mind) to Hera having human desires without human physicality, I don’t think all of that is just Pryce’s design. I think that’s giving her too much credit.
The other possible interpretation: canonically, Hera is able to be in Eiffel’s mind by interfacing with Pryce’s neural imaging processor, which is presumably configured for Pryce. She is intentionally running a whole bunch of extra code to appear as herself instead. I don’t know. There’s something about that idea, to me. That by default, more easily, she could choose to appear the way Pryce does, but that it matters to her that she doesn’t.
(I also kind of like the idea - given the transhumanist nature of Pryce and Cutter - that the way Hera appears in the finale is distinctly human. I think it works well with the themes of the show - that where Pryce rejects her innate humanity, considers it weakness, considers herself above it, tries to transcend it… Hera recognizes the strength in her own humanity, for all the ways it fails her, embracing it has allowed her connection to others that she would’ve thought impossible, has made her more free, has made her more herself.)
And again, if there’s anything that tells us about Hera’s self-image, it’s this: we know from later events in the finale that there are ways she could’ve interfaced with the machine without appearing in Eiffel’s mind, but she wanted to. She wanted to be there, as herself, as ‘physically’ as possible, and be seen. If you don’t count her punching Pryce in the face (which… I guess it counts as a type of interaction), the only direct physical interaction Hera ever has with another character in the entire show is the stage note that says: Hera and Eiffel stand together, his arm around her shoulder.
x. ‘[gritted digital teeth]’: physicality in the way hera is written and performed, and how that informs her as a character
A bit of a tangent, but speaking of physicality. One thing I always like to point out is how, in the live show, they chose to have Hera on stage with the others, but just… far enough away from them, physically. And the only person who ever crosses the stage to interact with her directly is Eiffel. Of course, you can’t take any of that as a literal expression of… anything, but I do think it’s worth considering in the context of Hera’s physical loneliness expressed in Memoria, the way Eiffel consistently tries to bridge the gap between them via emotional connection, and, finally, Hera’s lone physical interaction in the show being with Eiffel in the finale.
There’s also the (albeit mostly circumstantial) detail that Michaela Swee recorded a lot of the show remotely, with the notable exceptions of Memoria and Brave New World - the two episodes where Hera has ‘physical’ appearances.
And if we’re going to talk about the way choices in the writing/acting impact the way Hera’s character comes across, there’s this screenshot I managed to dig up from Gabriel Urbina’s now-defunct blog. I think it’s worth noting that, as well as expressing physicality within the text of the show, she is also admittedly written with, performed with, and informed by those aspects of physicality, even when it’s not visible to us - in that sense, from a metatextual perspective, you could even argue she has just as much physical presence as any other character in the show.
(Someone says, “Okay so I was a little wary of watching the live show, mostly because of Hera. I didn’t want her personified. But the way Mikaela [sic] Swee portrays her character, puts Hera on that stage, is perfect.” to which Gabriel responds, “A perfectly understandable concern, but hopefully one that’s not too prevalent after you watch the show. There is so much of Michaela’s mannerisms and physicality in how we write Hera and the vocal performance that hopefully seeing her perform it will amplify the character that she’s created rather than narrowing it down.”)
xi. ‘i know plenty’: challenges to hera’s identity, self perception, and connection to humanity
So, why am I so caught up on the humanity part of this? Because I think Wolf 359 is, before anything else, a show that is concerned with humanity. I think it is a show about very human people (in some very flawed and tragic ways) trying very hard to retain their humanity in inhumane circumstances, and often with people actively trying to dehumanize them, whether interpersonally or through corporate alienation, human experimentation, the treatment of prisoners, etc. But that leads into a whole other topic, so instead I’ll share these three things:
This exchange from Out of the Loop, where Hera’s argument with Jacobi hinges on humanity - her accusation that he “works so hard at being inhuman” and her anger and offense at his retort that she wouldn’t know what that means:
(Ep. 49: HERA: You are despicable, Jacobi. I have never met someone who worked so hard at being inhuman. / JACOBI: What do you know about being human? / HERA: I know plenty.)
This line, from Quiet, Please, where Minkowski defends Hera’s autonomy directly and refers to her as a woman, which I promise will be relevant:
(Ep. 58: Minkowski SLOWLY, maintaining her VICE-LIKE GRIP, PULLS HIS EAR DOWN, bringing Jacobi's face down to her eye-level. / MINKOWSKI (low, deadly): Shut. The Hell. Up. That woman? For the last two weeks, she was the only person who even tried to resist what Pryce and Cutter were doing to us. So you are going to show her some goddammed respect, am I clear?)
And because I’m incapable of writing lengthy meta about Hera without bringing up this quote from Sarah Shachat in some capacity:
“What I can tell you is that the fact Hera that clearly has a human gender in her speech and conscious perspective, yet lacks human physicality, is something she definitely does think about. She isn’t removed from it, or taking the view of some sort of Hyper Advanced Future Machine for whom human binary constructions are funny, if a bit quaint. She’s been placed on a spectrum the same way she was placed aboard the Hephaestus. Her journey so far has very much been about dealing with that, about trying to assert her unique sense of self given the limitations placed on her and to communicate with these other idiots who don’t share her experience.”
While this is about Hera’s relationship to her gender in particular, I think the fact that she sees herself as a woman specifically is relevant. The fact that she has a human gender and she cares about that, and that human concepts of identity in general do apply to her. She doesn’t consider herself separate from or above them.
And that leads, perhaps, to one more question. Is it possible that Hera sees herself as human not because of an innate desire for the attributes of humanity, but because all of the people she knows are human - because once you conflate personhood and humanity on a societal level, is it possible she feels that she will only be seen as a complete person if she is also human? And, I mean… Maybe? It’s possible. But I don’t think it changes the outcome.
I’m asking this here because I think this is also analogous to a trans experience. If you have social expectations of what a woman is, and you feel that you are a woman, and so you choose to conform to those social expectations (to whatever degree) because it allows your womanhood to be recognized… as long as the desire for those attributes comes from a genuine place, can you really tell if you would feel differently about it if society viewed womanhood differently? At some point socialization, societal expectation, and personal preference do get muddled up to a certain degree, and while it’s worth examining to make sure you’re doing what makes you most comfortable, whatever that may be… I think at a certain point ‘I feel better presenting this way than not’ is the only real answer you can find.
I think this also applies to Hera, in her connection to humanity and her expressions of/desires for a kind of physicality. We have a sense of how she canonically perceives herself, and how she struggles to be perceived by others, and with that in mind it’s largely irrelevant to me how she might feel about her identity with social pressures removed. Identity is shaped by connection, and while I waver on how much I want to say that Hera is human, full stop, no qualifiers… She is a person with human desires who wants to be close with and share experiences with her human friends. She is an AI, and that informs her identity and the way she navigates the world, but I don’t believe those things are mutually exclusive.
(I’ve written a little more about why I think Hera’s character arc reads as a trans narrative here.)
More than anything, I have a hard time believing that Hera would want to be seen as fundamentally different from the people she loves, when struggling to overcome that difference both within her own self-perception and in her interactions with others, is such a significant part of her character development. There are times where Hera being an AI does mean she has to consider things that the others might not, and it’s important that the people in her life are aware of and respectful of that. But to emphasize her differences in circumstances where it’s not relevant only serves to other her.
Or, let me put it this way. Whether or not Hera would want a body, if she could have one, is a whole other set of questions, but if Wolf 359 is a show about humanity, about connection, about the value of small, personal things over the Big Picture, then I think if Hera was able to hug her friends, if she was able to go somewhere by herself, entirely by herself, and put her hands in the water, and feel it… even the fact alone that she might have the desire for those things… Well, maybe there’s a way that Wolf 359 is about that, too.
xii. ‘if this is it? i’d rather go as me, thank you very much.’: conclusions
I often see people say that we have ‘no way of knowing’ how Hera might want to be seen, or even that she definitely wouldn’t want to be seen as human, or that it wouldn’t occur to her to want [whatever thing] because she’s ‘not human’ and I just… I don't think any of those things are true. I think there’s plenty to go off of in canon, and I think it all points more in this particular direction than not.
I once saw someone say - as a criticism - that Hera was less of an AI character and more of just “a person in the walls” and that stuck with me because… well, because it was such a funny way of phrasing it, but also because. That’s not a weakness of the writing or a failure of imagination. That’s the point of her character! There are so many other sci-fi stories that are interested in more speculative questions re: how AI characters might be different from us and prioritize different things. That’s not Wolf 359! Hera is not meaningfully different from the others, she just thinks she must be because she has different life circumstances and has been treated differently.
And I understand why people are wary about ascribing ‘human’ qualities to AI characters, given the track record of a lot of science fiction, and the reasons a lot of people might relate to AI characters in particular. I really do. I just believe that in this particular case, with this particular character, and the themes in this particular show, it would be doing Hera a disservice to ignore these aspects of her self-identity that she so clearly canonically struggles to come to terms with, when her physicality in the finale in particular is so much a culmination of this fight to be seen - in both a literal and metaphorical sense.
I believe the tragedy of Hera as a character is that she is written to be fundamentally human, with physical desires, physical loneliness, an internal self-image that - except under extreme circumstances - she can never show to anyone else. But one that matters to her, and that she holds onto, nonetheless.
And there’s so much more I could say. I could talk more about Hera’s connection to water, her apparent draw to the natural and tangible. I could talk about how she reads, the way she processes things through emotion and into memory. I could talk about how she phrases things in terms like “now I’m going to have a headache” and only rephrases if someone challenges her on her wording. I could talk about how, while, yes, she is technically always everywhere, it’s also established that she can be more present in one place if she wants to be (and how this connects to her learning mindfulness in canon.) I could talk about how Hera sleeps, how she dreams, how Pryce has intentionally given her nightmares and threatens her with more.
But all of those are just details. If there’s anything I’d want people to take away from this, it would be that, one, over the course of the show, I believe it becomes more and more apparent that Hera is fundamentally just an average, more-or-less human person navigating extremely abnormal and inhumane circumstances, and, two, she experiences physical loneliness. She starts off the show embittered by, and in part in denial of, these facts, and by the ways she’s been mistreated, isolated, and othered. Accepting that she’s not fundamentally different from the people around her, and therefore not intrinsically doomed, is what ultimately allows her to leave the Hephaestus with the others, and allows her to believe that building a life on Earth is possible for her.
#wolf 359#w359#hera wolf 359#hera w359#okay. it's done. it's done.#it's impossible for this to ever be as thorough and clear as i want it to be. but it's done.#thank you so much to beth for helping my organize my thoughts#it's just like. i don't know.#so many people seem to read the way hera sometimes distances herself from humanity#as a desire to be seen (and respected) as something different#but it's always in moments of loneliness and hurt. to me it reads like an expression of pain#like distancing herself before anyone else can other her#but that's just one part of it too. i can't separate my feelings about hera and humanity from my feelings about hera being trans.#anyway. honestly i'm really nervous about posting this because it's a topic that's so close to my heart#but i hope other people understand what i'm saying and find it resonates with them
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Protection Magic: Some Important Concepts
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Long post based on my experience and research. Meant to be informative. I don't claim to know the absolute truth.
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Protection magic is any type of work meant to protect A from B, and there are many ways that this can be done: prayers, charms, talismans, tokens, casting circles, setting up wards, visualization. The list can go on and on because it can be done in many different ways and combining many different methods.
But methods are not the topic of this post today. No, today I would like to talk about some key concepts to keep in mind before getting started on making protections and keeping them effective.
The Importance of Cleansing
Before doing any protection work I like to do a cleansing. Imagine you have an open water bottle, and because it was open, a lot of dirt has found its way into it over time. You decide to seal the bottle so no dirt comes in, but you don't pour out the old water, so you end up sealing it in. Yes, you'll keep more dirt from coming in, but the muck is still there.
It is easier to see this being applied to a physical location, but I personally also apply this to personal protective tokens. I feel they work better when you are taking care of your energies by doing regular cleanses and managing internal negativity.
Important Definitions
Protection ≠ Banishing ≠ Cleansing
I feel a lot of people are under the impression that these are all the same. I think they all work together towards a similar goal, but their jobs are different.
Protection: protecting something from something
Banishing: driving out entities
Cleansing: clearing out energy
You can do cleansing, banishing, and protection at the same time, but that doesn't mean they are the same. You can do a ritual including all of them, but you can also just do a cleansing or just do warding (which is a form of protection).
Note: cleansing is not restricted to “negative energy”. You can cleanse any kind of energy. Exemple: a friend of yours decides tarot is not for them and hands down their deck to you. If you wanna work with that deck it is highly advisable that you do a thorough cleansing of it and then infuse it/consecrate it with the energies you want. It's not that your friend has “bad” energy, it's just that you might not want to work with the same energies they have, or use a tool that has someone else's energy in it.
Not Necessarily a Lazy Job
One important thing with protection magic is that no matter how strong or how successful are at doing it is that it is not failproof. I have yet to see protection work that lasts forever, and there may be a few reasons for it.
Negativity also comes from within
Imagine you have a fish inside an open fish tank. Just like the bottle example earlier, you decide to put a lid on so you prevent leaves from falling into the tank and polluting the water. However, there's a fish, a living being in there, and it produces waste. It is impossible for the fish to live without producing waste. If you don’t regularly clean the water, ammonia and fecal matter will build up.
In this analogy, you are the fish. I am the fish. Humans literally cannot live without ever having a negative thought or feeling, it is part of our existence and we have to live with it. No one lives in constant bliss.
That doesn't mean we have to live in the muck though. That's why cleansing yourself is important.
No one is immune to the environment
Here I have another analogy for you. Imagine you're facing a harsh winter, but you are safe in the security and warmth of your house. Your house is protected from the cold so you don't even mind it. However, you have to go outside. You dress up, go out and you feel very, very cold. You could perhaps wear something warmer, but it will never feel the same as home. Yet it is better than going outside naked, no?
Same thing for energies. You can have protection, but depending on how strong the energy in the environment is you are sure to feel it to at least some degree. However it's best to have some protection than no protection at all.
And there is a difference between Feeling an energy and dwelling in it vs Feeling an energy and not letting it latch onto you.
Energy can wear off, and new energy can build up
Energy is ever changing, ever moving. If you do a strong protection spell once, it can last for a long while, but if you forget about it it will likely lose a lot of its strength over time. Some of what you put out there might wear off and be substituted by something else. The energy can also grow stale, which means it becomes less effective.
But if you do a strong spell every month you will not only make your protections stronger, but also constantly renew the energies and not let them stagnate.
So keep doing cleanses and every now and then give a boost to your protections so they are refreshed and recharged.
Note on "Negative Energy"
One of the main reasons someone might choose to do a protection ritual and a cleansing is to ward off negative energy. But is that really needed? What is "negative energy"?
Negative energy might feel like a sense of heaviness, dread, pain, sadness, feeling ill, angry, sad or anxious. Emotions produce and attract what we can call "negative energy", the same way it can make us feel those things.
And while I personally think nobody wants to feel them, we must understand they are not always bad at their core.
The uncomfortable feelings they can cause may also be a gateway for healing and transformation. Pain tells us there is something that needs to be worked on, that needs change.
If you are feeling negative, ask yourself why. Why does this bother me? What makes me feel this way? What can I learn from this pain?
If you happen to feel negative energy, it is good to cleanse and protect. But I advise you to always look for the source to see what can be done about it or what you can learn from it. Don't just try to use spellcasting to run away from your shit. Own your shit. Deal with it.
Otherwise, it will keep coming back no matter how much protection you have.
Conclusion
It is impossible to always be free from “negative energy” all the time, no matter how strong your protections are. But protections can absorb some of the blows that you would otherwise take and ease the ones you were going to take no matter what.
Protection magic alone will not solve all your problems. It is a great tool to help you keep your center and remain grounded, but it is not usually something you do once and forget. It is a continuous, ever evolving work, meant to be used in conjunction with other types of spellwork.
And most importantly, it can give you some comfort through the many trials of life.
Thank you for reading, and good luck on your path! ♡
#long post#protection magic#magick#spirit work#witchcraft#witchblr#paganism#witch tips#baby witch#baby wiccan#wicca#energy work#paganblr#pagan tips#pagan#protection#magic circle#spiritual cleansing#banishing#negative energy removal
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DIVE TO YOU
PAIRING lee sangyeon x f!reader
WORD COUNT 2.61k
GENRES fluff ﹒suggestive
WARNINGS 18+ MINORS DNI u already know, roommates to ;) type beat, ummm they’re naked, they are in a bathtub, sangyeon is… wow sangyeon just deserves a warning on his own, he is A Lot, there’s a mention of a voyeuristic moment but it’s nothing crazy, he massages reader, they make out, i tease u all bc i’m evil like that
SUMMARY you’ve never really thought of sangyeon in an explicit way, but now that you’re stuck in this position, it’s going to be difficult for your thinking to go back to normal.
MORE SURPRISE ALLY (@winterchimez) MY BELOVED THIS ONE IS FOR U <<<3 i hope i didn’t kill u </3 this is another request from my 100 followers event! prompts used are: 9, 16, 17 🤞
PERM TAGLIST @winterchimez @maessseongs
You hated your job more than anything in the world. It was mind-numbing. All you did was stare at a computer all day and type type type, responding to emails or drafting up documents for your boss. It was exhausting. To be honest, you were sick of it.
But you needed it, unless you wanted to get kicked out of your apartment for not making your share of the rent. Sure, having a job you disliked wasn’t ideal, but you were surviving and wasn’t that all that mattered?
Besides, you’d probably die if you were forced to move out of your apartment. Your roommate was the only reason you moved in to the damn place despite rent being so fucking expensive.
You remember the day you stumbled upon his ad like it was yesterday, though it had already been exactly one year. You’d just finished your first month at your job and you were growing tired of dealing with your parents. Yeah it was nice that you didn’t have to worry about half of your current expenses while living under their roof, but you knew you needed to ship up and move out eventually. You figured this was the perfect time to do so.
You scoured the internet for apartments, but soon realized that living on your own would be way too much, considering all of the other things you also had to worry about now. As you started filtering through listings that requested a second habitant, you stumbled upon your roommate’s. The rent itself was a little bit over your budget, but the way he worded his ad had you hooked.
Just an hour later you were emailing him and setting up a meeting to discuss important details. You met up at a cute little coffee shop a few days later when you both found some free time. Being the punctual person you were, you arrived earlier than planned, ordering your go to and picking a two seater in the corner by one of the floor-to-ceiling windows.
You had always been the type to psych yourself up before doing anything major. You needed at least half an hour of prep time if you were making any important decisions, because you could not handle things going wrong. Everything in your life had to be carefully and methodically done. You liked to say you were thorough, but everyone else called you a perfectionist. It is what it is.
And because you didn’t know this guy, you had no idea what he looked like and you weren’t aware that he had the same mindset. You glance up from your drink to see the most handsome man you’ve ever laid your eyes on walk into the cafe, ordering something you can’t make out. He looks like something straight from a drama, his hair styled neatly and his outfit put together. Even under his thick coat, you could see how well sculpted he was.
You don’t realize that you’re staring until he’s suddenly walking towards your direction, his coffee in his hands. He furrows his brows and clears his throat. “Hi, I don’t mean to bother you, but do you happen to be Y/N?”
Oh my god. No way. There was no way this hunk of a man was your potential roommate. It was impossible.
When your lips part in shock and you don’t respond for a couple seconds, he blinks at you. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that impossible. You nearly facepalm for already making such a fool of yourself before you’ve even held a proper conversation. You stumble over your words as you gesture to the chair across from you. “Y-Yes! Yes, that’s me. Please, take a seat!”
He smiles politely, setting down his drink and shedding his coat. “It’s nice to meet you, I’m Sangyeon.”
You wipe your hands on your jeans before reaching to shake his hand nervously. If you could hardly handle this simple meeting, how could you handle living with the guy? He might send you into spontaneous combustion by just looking at you.
Sangyeon had the patience of a saint, and you would be eternally grateful for it. After getting to know each other better and growing more comfortable around him, the two of you discussed the roommate situation. You truly lucked out in finding him, seeing as you shared a lot of similar ideals. He even offered to lower your part of the rent as much as he could, explaining that you were by far his favorite candidate for the second room.
Later that same day, you went over and got an apartment tour prior to signing a lease agreement. And then the rest was history.
You sigh as the clock finally hits 6, signaling the end of your very long work day. One thing you disliked about getting off at the time you did was the fact that it was always snowing. It made it hard to navigate your way home, since most people packed around the bus stops like sardines. You hug your coat to yourself to block out the harsh winds, your scarf wrapped up to your nose.
You were tired and cold and all you wanted was to be inside the blanket that was your apartment, soaking in a hot bath with a glass of wine beside you. Sangyeon was supposedly working late today, which meant you’d have some much needed alone time.
The entire bus ride, you find yourself drifting off and then startling awake when you drove over a bump. You don’t remember the last time you were this drained after a work week. It could’ve been because you stayed over time a couple days, but you didn’t think it would affect you that badly.
When you finally arrive at the stop near your apartment, you’re almost in a zombie-like state, trudging through some of the snow that has started to stick. The only thing keeping your eyes open was the obnoxious chattering of your teeth.
It feels like a millennia by the time you’ve reached your front door, hands shaking as you attempt to unlock it. You’re partly surprised you didn’t drop your keys. The moment you step into your home, it’s like a huge weight has been lifted from your shoulders.
From the lingering scent of your peppermint and vanilla candle to the warmth of the building’s heating, you felt like you’d just been cuddled by a teddy bear. You shrug off your coat and hang it on the set of hooks beside the front door, leaving your shoes on the rack just beneath. Your sock clad feet drag you towards the kitchen, where an unopened bottle of wine awaits you.
You’re tempted to just drink straight from the bottle, but you didn’t want to get shitfaced, you just wanted to feel relaxed. Nevertheless, you pour yourself a… hefty… glass and waddle to the bathroom. A mental note was made to thank your coworker for the bath salt and bubble set she got you as a gift, seeing as it was finally being put to good use.
It doesn’t take long for you to peel off your layers of clothing after you’ve turned on the faucet and adjusted the temperature to your preference. You watch with heavy eyelids as the bubbles begin to form along the surface of the water, rising up and filling the tub. You dip your toes in while simultaneously taking a sip of your wine, damn near moaning at how much better you felt.
You press play on one of your playlists and light a candle before finally sinking into the water, succumbing to its serenity. Your eyes start to flutter shut and you don’t even try to fight the sleep that calls your name.
You’re not sure if hours or minutes have passed since you fell asleep, but the creaking of the bathroom door opening stirs you from your slumber. Most people probably would’ve had a bigger reaction, considering someone just walked into the bathroom without checking if it was occupied first. And also because you had assumed you were home alone.
This was one of the various times you wished the earth would just swallow you whole.
Lee Sangyeon stands in the doorway, shoulder resting against the threshold with his arms crossed. His dress shirt from work is unbuttoned all the way to the third from the top, his muscular frame stretching the fabric deliciously. You wondered how he was comfortable, since he wore such tight shirts. Occasionally you truly understood why the term ‘Take A Picture, It’ll Last Longer’ existed.
You were extremely thankful that you added bubbles to your bath, the foam covering up your body where the sun usually doesn’t shine. Sangyeon has an amused glint in his eye and even with the fogginess of your partially awake brain coupled with the few sips of wine you’ve had, you know it’s off brand for him.
“S-Sangyeon, what are you doing in here?” You trip over your words, wrapping your arms around yourself tightly.
“Well, I just got home and I was planning on doing the same thing as you,” he rolls his neck as if to display his own tension from a long day. “But it looks like you’ve beat me to it.”
You blink at him. Why was he still standing there? Staring at you like… that?
“Um… Why haven’t you left?” You swallow, but your mouth is dry.
“Is there some space in that bathtub?”
He asks the question so smoothly, the words rolling off of his tongue like he’s asked to join you in the bath on numerous occasions. You gape at him, your head spinning in circles. Perhaps you were still half asleep and your mind was playing tricks on you. That made the most sense. Perfect, sweet roommate Sangyeon would never ask you a question like that.
“I’m sorry?” Part of you feels stupid, gawking at the male and stumbling over your speech. It’s like you’ve completely malfunctioned, every logical point of your body shutting down for unscheduled maintenance. You had to recalibrate your systems fast.
Sangyeon repeats himself, not skipping a beat as he does so. You do a 180, glancing around the room as if someone else was present. You jab a finger into the only exposed part of your chest and then at the water with scrunched eyebrows.
“Yeah, is there some room in there for me to fit? You know, Y/N,” he shrugs, going for the next button on his shirt. “I have seen you naked before.”
You nearly drown yourself on the spot. Lee Sangyeon has seen you naked? This was news to you. Last you checked, neither of you had ever done anything intimate enough for that. He laughs that attractive laugh of his, his eyes forming crescent moons. You’re enticed to drown yourself a second time.
“Y-You have?” This was probably single-handedly the most embarrassing moment of your life.
“To be fair, it was an accident. I walked past your room while you were changing once but you didn’t have the door closed all the way, and well, I am a man so, I couldn’t help but take a peek.” He scratches the back of his neck, letting out a small chuckle. Okay so God definitely had favorites and you weren’t one of them. Nice to know.
He unbuttons another button, stepping closer to you, closing the distance between you. He crouches next to the tub, finally at eye level with you. Oh, what you would give for a moment of this man’s time. Here he was, handing you just that on a silver platter and you were royally fumbling the bag.
“So is that a yes?”
You really don’t trust your own voice, so you merely nod, biting back the urge to groan when he grins at you, standing upright. It’s like you’re stuck in a trance, watching him clear the rest of the buttons of his shirt like light work. The sight of his abdomen on full display has you releasing a tiny squeak. Then comes the unbuckling of his belt and that alone is a mental image you don’t think you could ever forget. You dip your chin into your shoulder, looking away when he strips the rest of his clothes.
You feel him before you hear him, his leg brushing against the back of your arm as he slips behind you into the tub. He exhales deeply, exactly like you did when you got in. You’re as stiff as a board, not sure what you should do with your roommate naked and sitting behind you, sharing bath water like it was a regular Friday night. You keep your focus on the faucet, too afraid to make any sudden movements.
“Relax, N/N,” he pins his chest to your back, hands coming up to massage your shoulders. “You’re so tense.”
The way he works his thumbs into your skin has shivers running down your spine, your entire being feeling like it’s lit up. You suppress a whimper when he kneads a knot just below your neck, squeezing your eyes shut and biting your lip. Before today, you’ve never really thought of Sangyeon in an explicit way. Sure you thought he was extremely handsome, but that had always been just a surface level notion. You’d never fantasized about a crazy, fan-fiction type moment like this. But now that you’re in it, you don’t think your thinking could ever go back to normal. You could never see him as just your handsome roommate.
You have half the mind to scoot into his lap, but it seems like he’s beat you to it, sliding his hands down to your waist and pulling you towards him. Your eyes widen when you feel him, hard and pressed to your lower back. At that, you finally make a noise; something between a strangled moan and a whine.
Sangyeon brings his lips to your ear, grazing them along the shell of it. “Can you feel how much I want you?”
“Y-Yes,” you gasp. “I can feel you.”
This is insanity. Were you still waking up, conjuring up this entire scenario with your half conscious mind? Maybe some sick and deluded higher power wanted you to realize the possibility of having feelings for Sangyeon, and this was their way of doing it.
But then one of his hands trails to your thigh and he pinches you lightly. That’s how you know this is real, this is actually happening. You crane your neck slightly to glance at him. His eyes are darker than usual, a deep brown swimming with lust that almost looks black. It’s similar to how a predator would stare down its prey and it’s a look you could get used to.
Sangyeon’s gaze flickers down to your lips and you just about lose your last bit of clarity, leaning forward to connect your mouths. It’s kind of messy, kind of rough, but the way your stomach twists into knots and goosebumps litter your arms makes you think that the higher being you were cursing minutes ago was actually doing you a huge favor. You’d have to thank them later.
One of Sangyeon’s hands comes up to cup your cheek, his thumb caressing your cheekbone as he does so. Without parting, you turn around in his lap, straddling him as best you can in your limited space. If you thought you felt him before, you definitely feel him now, his cock pulsing against your aching core. Your need was carnal, primal even. He hisses when you grind down on him, gripping your hips to halt you.
“Don’t start something you can’t finish, sweetheart.”
© juyeonszn. do not steal, claim, or repost.
#the boyz#the boyz x reader#the boyz suggestive#tbz#tbz x reader#tbz suggestive#the boyz sangyeon#tbz sangyeon#lee sangyeon x reader#lee sangyeon suggestive#sangyeon x reader#sangyeon suggestive#juyeonszn#juyeonszn.100🪩
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hi, im new here (not to dd just to the tumblr sphere— why does everyone seem to hate zdarsky/checchetto? i really enjoyed the first part of zdarkys run and i adore checchetto’s art + design, so idk what i missed that makes everyone who comicsposts dislike it so much??
hm. this isn't the easiest question to answer. there's a LOT of different reasons as to why people disliked that run.
tbh I'll admit the first 20 or so issues of v6 are kind of okay. not impossible to read. it goes downhill fast after that, tho. very very downhill.
here's this post by @/xycuro-illuminati that does a good job of explaining why so many people disliked the run. here's my post on the ableism in zdarsky's writing. trust me you aren't the first person who's asked this question before
i'll give you a more general answer of my own opinion, tho
zdarsky's writing misses what most consider to be crucial points of Matt and Elektra's characters. with this, he entirely obliterates their characterization and that really pissed a lot of comics fans off.
i would consider volume 6 to be the beginning of the MCU-ification of dd. it is clear that at that point, some higher-ups were pushing for daredevil comics to become more like the show. the show was a MASSIVE hit and they wanted to cash in on that. so, they had the writers start shifting the comics and the characterization around to fit the show better.
this is where the problem lies. it is insulting, honestly, to ignore the past 50 plus years of writing for matt's character to shift it into something that will be more palatable to live actions fans just so marvel can get a good payday.
the most glaringly noticeable part of this is - the catholicism. the live action show makes a big deal out of matt being catholic when this was never really the case in the comics. while matt being religious and catholic are present in matt's background in the comics, it's not even close to being a big part of the character.
one of the main things that makes matt so compelling as a character is his morality, his integrity. he upholds his moral code relentlessly because he believes it is the right thing to do. he believes everyone deserves a second chance no matter what. in zdarsky's run and in the show, matt's reason for upholding his moral code is tied to his religious beliefs.
here's a good post on the origins of catholicism being related to matt's character and how it differs from the show and why it is such an injustice to tie matt's morality to his religion.
it's really really hard to articulate every single thing that's wrong with zdarsky's run while also giving you a thorough explanation.
i could tell you about how zdarsky's original plot was focused around matt's guilt when he accidentally kills someone but... matt's killed people before. he killed someone in his very first issue. ever. he was chasing after the man who was responsible for his father's murder and scared him so badly the man had a heart attack and died.
all of zdarsky's plots and subplots are all things that have been done over and over, he just writes it worse.
i could tell you about how shitty checchetto's art is. he can't draw women. or fat people (foggy fans deserve reparations). toward the end of the run he gets ESPECIALLY sloppy. he whitewashed kirsten and sam.
i could tell you about how zdarsky wrecked elektra's character. he completely ignored her origins and the character development she's had over the course of decades of writing just to slap some random retconned backstory onto her.
theres so. many. things.
i got into the comics through the show. when I started reading the comics I honestly perceived comics matt and show matt as two entirely different characters because they just felt so incredibly separate from one another. it is not that there are zero similarities, but their reasons for WHY they are the way that they are diverge wildly from each other
i dont know how else to put it except to say this. when I read zdarsky's run, I do not feel like I'm reading about Matt Murdock. it doesn't feel like matt, it doesn't feel like daredevil. it feels like an entirely new character that I do not know.
to fully explain to you why i feel that way would take a damn book. i realize that my answer isn't at all comprehensive and some parts are probably confusing but it is impossible to pick a start and end point. that's just not matt. that's it.
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Zedaph was ever so fascinated with the mer that Impulse had found washed up on the beach near their house. How couldn't he be? Science knew more about space then the depths of the ocean, after all. It almost wasn't surprising to find out that merpeople were real.
It might have been a touch of medical malpractice to hop him up on painkillers meant for dolphins, but it wasn't like Zedaph had any painkillers for merpeople lying around, and with the sheer amount of lacerations and the broken wrist and the bruised and possibly broken ribs, he had to give the mer something or it would have most definitely been medical malpractice. And extremely cruel.
Zedaph might be a bit of an unethical scientist, but he wasn't cruel.
The first time he saw the mer, it had been when Skizz had torn him away from his lab down to one of the smaller rehab rooms that was normally reserved for overflow patients because of how out of the way it normally was. Skizz hadn't said much more that there was a 'really hurt animal' and that he'd need a rescue kit and how was Zedaph supposed to say no? It had been too quick for him to realize that there really should have been a team already on this cause technically Zedaph was off duty right now, but sometimes more than one animal came in, especially when the storms had been bad.
Impulse had been waist deep in the pool, bloody water lapping up over the tiles. For a moment, Zedaph hadn't been able to see the other figure in the water with Impulse, and his body had flushed cold with the thought of all that blood belonging to Impulse--
And then he saw the tail fluke break the surface. Impulse had a hold on the thing in a catch pole, keeping it submerged and away from himself as it struggled. That wasn't good. It might hurt itself, or Impulse.
Zed dropped to his knees at the edge of the pool, opening up the medical kit, "Impulse, what happened? Are you hurt anywhere?"
"No, no, it's just the--" Impulse cut off as the mer thrashed again, drawing Zedaph's eyes.
He had to pause for the precious moments it took him to look at what was in front of him. To really look. It was hard to see in the reddish water, almost impossible to tell where the scarlet of blood ended and where the ruby of scales began. But-- he could see the eyes as red as fire coral, full of what could only be fear, and the torn up gills working overtime along it's neck and chest. He could see the blond hair, matted with seaweed and sand, and--
"I found him washed up, all tangled in a fishing net. He's cut up in a lot of places and I think his right wrist is broken. I-- You can fix it, right?"
"I-- yeah. Maybe." Zedaph shook himself, "We need to stop the bleeding first. Skizz, can you help Impulse wrangle?"
Zed sorted through the thankfully well organized box of supplies, pulling out a suture set and waterproof bandages and-- after a moment-- a dose of painkillers. He'd thankfully grabbed a dolphin kit, and the merperson looked to be about the size of one. Zedaph didn't know if he was a conscious breather like one either, so dolphin meds it was. Until Zed knew more about him, at least.
It was a very tense job, sewing up the worst of the cuts in the merperson's skin and sticking bandages over the rest of the cuts and splinting his wrist. Zedaph would do a much more thorough examination of him once the painkillers kicked in and they'd all had a long moment to calm down and once the worst of the danger was passed.
Zedaph also wanted to wait and let the water clear of blood, for everyone's benefit. He knew some marine creatures got more aggressive if there was blood in the water. And all that muck in the water couldn't be helping the creature's ability to breathe. But Impulse had said he'd been able to breathe air too? Even though he had gills.
Again, this would require more observation to figure out.
The third time Zedaph had to do an examination of the mercreature, the three of them were there-- Impulse, Skizz, and himself. He was incredibly grateful for that fact-- and for Skizz's reflexes-- When the mer lunged at them with a snap and almost took a couple of Zedaph's fingers off. The only thing that'd stopped a bloody end for Zedaph's hand was a catch pole shoved between the mer and his tasty tasty flesh.
Zedaph had inspected the bite mark later. He'd seen the other one that the mer had mangled, but it was another thing entirely to see it happen right in front of him. The pole was made of stuff strong enough to survive a crocodile's bite, and yet--
Lets just say that it wasn't reusable after that examination.
Fascinating indeed.
#zedaph#tangotek#team zits#team zits au#viviwrites#emberfish au#dont mind me#this one is pretty early in the timeline#but i simply couldn't help myself#merman au#medical care#injury tw#stitches tw#miscommunication#language barrier
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SxF ·Mission 38 · · · Is he the final boss?
Context:
After Loid Forger in false search for his daughter's lost keychain, he not only made contact with Damiand Desmond, apologizing for the incident of the past. He manages to get in contact with his target for the first time, Donovan Desmond.
The appearance of Donovan Desmond
I think it goes without saying that Donovan is a mysterious and strange guy, not only because of his strange look, but also because everything in his body language is difficult to interpret. Twilight explains that despite his thorough research he has not found anything relevant enough to create a "profile" of Donovan's personality. However, the objective of the Strix mission is to uncover "the war plans
If Twilight and Yor have a "twinge," it's because something bad is happening with these people.
Interestingly, both Desmonds use the same strategy of "ignoring" in a seemingly polite way, minimizing the fact that their son was beaten. Donovan himself explains that he knew about the fight because his employees informed them, which coincides with Melinda's version. However, both do not seem to want to make a big deal out of the matter, making the apology unnecessary.
Parenthood is… difficult
Is it necessary to describe how sad this page is? The fact that Damiand tries to disguise his pain by saying "it's a foul against the Desmond family name," when his real pain is seeing that his father doesn't care if someone beats him. Without needing to be so explicit, Donovan made it clear that Damiand's integrity is not a priority in the face of his busy political agenda. Clearly, for both Desmonds, continuing to talk about Damiand generates so much discomfort that they get these "inexplicable" expressions of displeasure.
Worst of all, Damiand is paralyzed with fear by the look on his father's face, and decides to swallow his feelings and act as if "it doesn't matter".
It's curious to me, Twilight's serious expression in those panels because his thoughts aren't showing. I know he's obviously sensing how distant Donovan is from his son, but also, I have a feeling he may be feeling uncomfortable watching a father hurt and ignore his own son's feelings.
Perhaps it is too far-fetched to speculate whether this will bring about emotional conflicts in him like those he once had with his own father, influencing their own paternal vision of which I have spoken in the past
It is precisely when Twilight takes the opportunity to confess something that in reality "is true". For him, being a father has not been easy, learning to understand another human being has been a constant process of trial and error. I know he is taking advantage of this moment to extend the conversation with Donovan, but curiously, Twilight did not seek to agree with Desmond and congratulate him on his parenting method as Melinda's friends have done, or as any ordinary civilian would surely do.
It's as if Twilight is looking for a way to debate Donovan's arguments and show that he disagrees, but in such a subtle and polite way, that it feels unnoticeable. Contributing his point of view, when in reality he is demonstrating that Damiand's feelings have validity and that as parents they should be accountable to anything to do with their children., gently placing his hand on Damiand's shoulder
This confession, however, catches Donovan's interest and he ends up expressing, this:
It is impossible to understand strangers
It seems that according to Donovan, even if people have blood affinity or any other intimate bond, they will never be able to understand each other.
Will people ever understand each other?
If anything, I find it interesting how SxF manages to link such different concepts and make it one, how the parent-child relationship can be an analogy of peace and war.
However, Twilight makes a point to Desmond: Sometimes perfect communication between human beings sounds like an impossible ideal, a utopian world where people can express themselves and agree. From this point of view, peace sounds implausible. Making war the only viable option, imposing your ideals, ambitions and beliefs on the world, so that only one way of thinking reigns.
At the same time, Twilight's words demonstrate a very important lesson:
Communication between human beings should not be ideal or perfect, it is a matter of keep trying and never give up. There will be moments of frustration, it will be difficult and we feel that we should give up or just impose ourselves in a rough and violent way. But, striving to build a good relationship is what can lead us to grow and be better.
There may be parents like Donovan or Melinda, who prefer to turn their backs on their children and act as if they did not exist or were so insignificant as to spend their time on them; or parents like the one Twilight had, people who try to give good lessons, but instead of listening and explaining themselves, they prefer to resort to more aggressive methods to impose their point of view, attacking their children's emotions.
But, there will also be parents who try to be better with effort: It's amazing what a good father Twilight becomes, even if he doesn't realize it himself.
He always tries to understand Anya, even if he doesn't succeed. Sometimes he gets consumed with frustration and becomes somewhat harsh with her, but he has never tried to assault or hurt, let alone minimize her emotions. He was willing to almost-punch a professor for making her cry even if the entire mission was in jeopardy.
Obviously, Twilight is not going to pass up this opportunity to alter reality, and make it seem that his interest in Damiand and thus in his family are mere coincidence, and it is partly because of Anya's (false) admiration for Damiand.
Apparently, Donovan's response was positive, enough to "memorize" Loid Forger's name. However, their retreating glances indicate suspicion, it seems that Donovan is just as intrigued by this psychiatrist.
In the end, we can see the Forger's words affecting Damiand, him as a father manifesting his efforts to understand his daughter, and Anya having the courage to confront her father despite not meeting his expectations. Filling Damiand with enough courage to speak to her father. Although Donovan's approval is mediocre, poor Damiand settles for these crumbs of affection.
It's interesting, the way Twilight always wants to act as the spy, the cold and calculating man, the heartless one with no feelings. But, in this chapter he shows a subtle but evident empathy towards Damiand despite having no reason to do so, after all, even though he is the target's son, his priority is to gain Donovan's sympathy. He encourages Damiand, giving him comfort and respect for his feelings, as he gives him one last look before leaving. Although he has not really been close to Damiand, these brief moments made him understand a little of his suffering, and although this can be used for the mission, it shows that deep down, Twilight is that emotional man he has wanted to bury.
My conclusions:
I think Donovan's character makes me think quite a bit, since as Twilight said: he seems like someone indecipherable at first glance. His expressionless face, which change to terrifying and laughing expressions in a second.
Many people commented after Melinda's appearance, that maybe Donovan was just a puppet, but at the moment it doesn't seem to me to be the case. So far we can't be completely sure if Melinda and her husband are allies, or if they are distant people with their own paths. However, after observing the pinpricks Yor and Twilight had in their respective encounters, they give me to understand that both can be dangerous, capable of activating the fear fibers of a spy and an assassin. So, linked or not, they both strike me as mysterious people.
Does Demond have a past?
I wonder if Donovan's words have some tragic background that led him to think this way. Knowing that in Spy x family every character has a truth to protect, maybe some experience led him to believe that people are incapable of communicating and understanding each other, union being a dead end, and war is the only way men have to exist. Those who win the war will have power and dominance, while the weak will be placated. I hope that in the future we will get to know Donovan's true background and he will not turn out to be the typical villain who is evil just because "yes" and there really is a deep and dark reason.
If we think of the Desmond family as an opposing force to the Forgers: I mean a family whose composition and values are radically opposite. Whereas Twilight and Yor were victims of war, and were driven to want to build a better world and eliminate all those plagues that turn the lives of innocents into a battlefield and tragedy. But also, it leads them to try to be good parents to Anya even though she is not their biological daughter.
We might think that Melinda and Donovan were also victims of the war, but perhaps with a different kind of life and circumstances: perhaps they came from wealthy families who did not suffer the impacts or ravages directly; or perhaps, they suffered in a way that led them to resent the world and want to make it succumb to the war.
It would make more sense, when we think about how opposite the Forgers are as parents. They are a fake family that started out of convenience with a foster daughter. But they both try to make Anya's life happy, try to devote their time to her and give importance to her feelings. They learn and recognize when they are failing, and support each other when the other feels discouraged.
The opposite of the Desmond couple, who are described as a distant and disinterested family in the suffering of their children, and their relationship as a couple is cold and distant, completely losing interest in each other and the only thing that seems to sustain their relationship is power and status.
So, if the Forger family in an analogy to the search for peace, communication, learning, empathy and support that different people can give each other, building a family. The Desmonds may represent the opposite pole, a family that seeks war, they are distant, cold and without any interest in what happens between them.
Personally, my biggest concern is Damiand. Since among all the characters he is the most innocent and the one who has the most to lose. If the Desmond parents are the irredeemable villains whose end is to end up imprisoned or only remains to eliminate them, Damiand will eventually lose them, being left alone or with his brother. Even if someone were to take responsibility for it, the weight on his heart will remain, because he truly loves his parents and longs for their love and attention.
This leads me to question whether the Desmonds will be that kind of antagonist who can be vindicated at the end, and change. And with that, wanting to learn to be better parents to Damiand so that this child has some hope for the future. Although it seems an unlikely scenario
This analysis was a request from my friend @shiro-s2e2-erukinzu I hope you enjoy it.
You can see the first part here
Let me know if you want me to review any chapter!
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What did you think?
#SxF My theories#spy x family manga spoilers#spy x family manga#spy x family#spyxfamily#spyxfamily twilight#twilight x yor#agent twilight#twiyor#spyxfamily loid#loid forger#loid x yor#loidyor#sxf loid#donovan desmond#damian desmond#anya forger#spyxfamily yor#yor forger#character analysis
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In 9 Months Time
TW: Breeding Kink. Smut. Language. Mentions of Pregnancy.
SUMMARY: After spending the day babysitting, that gives you and Drew baby fever, you mutually decide to act on it.
WORD COUNT: 1100
*Requested*
In 9 Months Time
You had just spent the last nine hours babysitting your little cousin and entertaining him as Drew and you both spoiled him with the carnival and a small shopping spree that gave him all the toys he absolutely did not need. But the way that his face lit up with such excitement was something you and your boyfriend couldn’t deny as it was this innocence that had been the only thing missing for your relationship. Even though it was something you’d talked about for sure, with his busy schedule and constant need to be away, you had decided to wait until things had quieted down.
But after today, after Drew was embraced by your little cousin and it having touched you both, it was something neither of you could take off of your minds. Not only that next step in life shared with the one you loved most, but the excitement of repeating days like today with one of your own. And yet, neither of you were exactly prepared to put the other one on the spot as you feared they hadn’t felt the same. At least, this had been the case until you pulled up your phone to look at the pictures taken earlier, exchanging a comment to him as a hint to begin the conversation.
“You’re so good with kids…” He smiled, looking over at the photo taken with him and your little cousin. “A natural…”
“Didn’t do it alone there, baby…It’s so sweet to see you with him…Makes you kinda think about the future a bit?” You bit your bottom lip. Not only were you excited to share that with Drew as he was everything you’d ever wanted, but to imagine the process as well-how desperate you had been to make THAT a reality at this specific moment, you blushed as you believed you shared the same thought.
“How FAR in the future are you thinking?” You inquired, that mischievous flicker in your eye catching his attention as he cast a weak chuckle, running his hand at the back of his neck, before offering a shrug.
“I mean if I could, it’d be yesterday..”
“Drew?” His eyes focused on you for only a moment before having to return to the road.
“Pull over…” The way his gaze illuminated, the full attentive blue hues now widened with excitement was the answer you needed as you would watch him take the closest exit and pll the car onto a reserved street covered mostly in the darkness of the current hour.
“Are you sure about this, baby…it’s-” You had now climbed over the console of the car, hands wrapped through his hair, as you had taken a moment to confirm to him that this wasn’t a spur of the moment decision.
“I’ve thought about it a lot, Drew…And I know there’s a lot we don’t know, but…After seeing you today and-I want that with you, for us.” He bit his bottom lip and slowly nodded, unable to conceal his own excitement.
“You know…we could at least practice…” He teased as you bobbed your head, reaching for his belt as he would lift his hips enough to remove the jeans, while you pulled up your skirt. His thumb would direct the fabric of your panties to the side before he pushed himself slowly into you.
“Shit, it feels so good without-” You nodded, agreeing without him needing to continue as you were always careful with Drew, not wanting only one of you to want this.
But now, with both on the same page, writing the mutual desire in the sweat and lust in the steam of the windows tonight, it was clear there was nothing more important than this conception. Your body was taken lovingly against his own, risen and descended over his cock as even if there were a mission, he still worshiped your body without a rush to beat a clock.
His kisses were thorough and leaving you breathless while his fingers were gluttonous between your hips and your hair, pulling at your skin as if he needed you even closer-which was impossible. But then those words left his mouth, rather crude ones you had only heard when you teased the roles of dominant and submissive in your more adventurous interactions. But this was different. This was a kink he had kept reserved, but one he was helpless to make known as it came from his lips between his moans and somewhere after his thrusts had slowed to savor the clench you’d made around him.
“I’ve wanted to put a baby in you for so fucking long baby…You’re gonna look so beautiful, and I’m gonna take such good care fo you-I swear to God.” You nodded, knowing his words were true.
“Then do it, Drew…” His eyes rolled closed in disbelief to this shared desire. “Come inside me…please…” His hand came into a wrap at the back of your neck.
“Yeah? Tell me you want it baby…” He demanded behind clenched teeth, even though his lips directed into an arrogant grin.
“Put a baby in me, Drew…”
“Fuck…” He breathed in a strained groan, hammering up into you, hands made into a frenzy, as you gripped harshly into his shoulders.
“Drew! I’m gonna-”
“Come with me baby…Come with me right now…Oh shit…” He gasped, his head falling into your chest as you collected him beneath your fingers, the race of your heart acting as a lullaby to his unsteady breathing before he pressed a soft kiss to your chest.
“I love you baby…” You would repeat his words back to him before realizing all you had to do now was wait. Well…repeat that process as much as possible-to which he was able to truly exercise his breeding kink, before THEN being left to wait.
TWO MONTHS LATER
“Anything?” He asked as you chuckled.
“It hasn’t been enough time yet-”
“God, this is the LONGEST three minutes!” You nodded before continuing your pace through the bathroom, trying to fight the glance over to the test sitting on the edge of the counter.
“Now?”
“Drew…” You teased as this would continue before the timer on your phone finally chimed. He was on his feet before either of you could truly prepare for this either way.
“Drew…” Tears filled your eyes as you lifted the test to view, the prominent word you’d been longing for was now present before you.
Pregnant.
You were suddenly taken in his arms, spun around, before he then quickly sat you back down. “Oh shit! Are you okay?”
You nodded. “Yes-I’m not glass-”
“Maybe not..but…I swear to God, baby, I’m gonna take such good care of you both…I love you. Both of you…so much already…”
“I love you too, Drew…”
Taglist: @hopebaker @iovdrew @penny4yourthoughts @magnificantmermaid @pickingviolets @lovedetlost @trikigirl271 @my-baexht-ls @slut4starkey @slvtherinseeker @obxiskewl @obxxrxfes @bluesongbird @slut-era @ailee-celeste @rafesbae
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lol, the last 24 hours have been wild and this is exactly the place I want to document it. Love processing my thoughts and feelings here hahaha
Yesterday I was working and started feeling, off. Nothing major, just didn’t feel good. I was clammy, my heart was racing, my chest and upper back between my shoulder blades felt tight. At times I felt like I needed to gasp or take a big breath in to feel like I was filling my lungs? Does that make sense?! So I took my blood pressure 3 times, both arms. Numbers: 145/99, 145/105, 140/95 with my HR 95-105 each reading.
Naturally, I gaslit myself into thinking I was having an asthma attack. So I called my mom and she was like “lol maybe call the nurse hotline about that” so I did and THEY were like “BITCH GO TO THE HOSPITAL” so I left work and went to the hospital lol. (Important to note here: I have had unexplained high BP since I was a teenager that is managed with meds).
ER saw me basically immediately due to the chest pain but they didn’t have a bed for me so I was just kinda sitting in a chair for a while lol. They did blood work, blood cultures, an X-ray of my chest and an ecg. Basically all of it came back clear. I saw a Student Dr first and she listened to my chest and then left pretty abruptly afterword, both drs came back and listened, NODDED TO EACH OTHER and confirmed “yes what you heard is correct”. Like okay, pls say more immediately, thanks! They ask me if I’ve ever been diagnosed with a heart murmur (no), then tell me they hear a murmur and want an ekg done (booked for Monday). And then they SENT ME HOME lol. Chest pain, elevated BP, etc. still happening. They were very thorough, i just kind of feel like I wasn’t given a real plan for the next couple of days? The symptoms are still there, so like do I go back if they get worse? How much worse does it need to get? This is partially my fault for not pushing harder to get those answers but I don’t think they really had anything at that point, realistically.
So I slept a couple of hours last night and woke up early today feeling the same way. I called my GP’s office and booked an appointment for Monday and let them know what happened yesterday. They said he’ll likely call me this evening bc he’s on call at the hospital. I went and got a couple of groceries, exhaustinggggg. I had to sit on my bottom stair when I got home and catch my breath lol. So things are basically the same as yesterday EXCEPT I can’t help but feel like “I don’t feel good” - like I feel like I have a cold. And then I’m thinking, what if it’s COVID? Im assuming my bloodwork didn’t show any red flags and that’s why they didn’t test. I asked my friend to grab me a couple of rapid tests just for shits though. More info is good at this point.
A lot of thoughts, top of the list is that I don’t think I have asthma and neither does the er doctor. I told him I almost didn’t go to the hospital bc I felt like I was overreacting about an asthma attack - because this is what an asthma attack feels like, right? And the answer is nooo, so have I just had an undiagnosed heart murmur for this long? It feels like that’s impossible hahahaha I have so much shit wrong with me surely someone would have heard it by now.
Anyway, I’m playing the new h*gwarts game on switch and gonna sleep as much as possible today. Eat, then sleep.
#felt so good to get that all out of my head r#good news is that I am doing pretty good on paper otherwise hahaha#turns out losing 70 pounds does that!!!!!#I’m making light of this whole thing bc otherwise I have to be really really scared
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octavinelle with a chaotic younger sibling? just a goofy kid
sorry for the two month delay!!!
Octavinelle — Chaotic younger sibling
Contents ;; chaotic younger sibling gn!reader, obviosly familial relationships,no content warning except no beta read
Characters ;; older brother! Azul, older brothers! Jade and Floyd
Azul ;;
free labour!!! i mean, helping your brother yes yes
he doesn’t care if you are a literal spawn of hell, he will use you as another hand in the monstro lounge
if you slack off he is able to ground you (older brother privileges)
even if you are a headache to him, he always gets you out of serious trouble, but only if its serious, if he deems that you are capable of doing it yourself he will stand in the sidelines (and will be proud of you if you do it)
but if you cause problems to him? he is a petty one even if he doesn’t seem like it, will give you even more and more work to punish you, and will tell the twins to always go with you to make sure you (suffer) are behaving well
you always keep childhood pictures as a secret because if he knew you have pictures of him as a child he would burn them, but they also have you! so you will fight him if he does destroy a childhood picture of you two
he believes you are the most annoying creature ever and often wonders if you are adopted, he doesn’t think he was as annoying as you when he was younger (that is a lie, he is still as annoying as you, but in a different way)
he even thinks you are sometimes worse than floyd, because jade can somewhat keep floyd in line, but since you are his younger sibling, he has to do that, he thinks its impossible
(if you have similar insecurities as him, he will be extra careful with what he says, he is lenient on you but too strict on himself)
you sat down on the sofa, facing the desk of his office, the twins flanking you at each side. An awkward smile appears on your face, and you begin playing with your sweaty hands, looking at everyone in the room from the corner of your eye.
You let out a nervous chuckle as Azul crosses his hands over the table, looking directly at you. He clears his throat, pushing his glasses up.
“Do you know why you are here?” He lifts an eyebrow as you deny any knowledge, sighing before getting up from his chair and walking around the table, stopping right in front of you with his arms crossed. “I am pretty sure you do know.”
Your breath hitches as you try to avoid his disappointed look, unable to escape his piercing gaze. You quickly try to explain yourself, you just wanted to have some fun, you didn’t expect it to explode in the middle of the dinning hall! He just stares at you at your half hearted excuses.
“You’re on bathroom duty for a week, clean them by hand, no magic.” You try to complain, but he lifts a finger. “I want to see them shine by the end of your work.”
Jade and Floyd ;;
everyone is afraid of you three together
azul is completly terrified of you three together
the headmage is completly horrified at the simple thought of you three together
jade is a sadist and expert manipulator, floyd is unhinged and a menace in the physical deparment, and you, somehow, are even worse
you mix both of your brothers "worse" traits, you are unpredictable, able to bend the situations to your favor, be that thorough emotional manipulation or more... physical threats, you are an unstoppable force and an unmovable object at the same time
you and floyd are a horrible duo to come by, but when you are with jade everyone starts to run away from you two, and the three of you in one place at a time? people are already writting their wills
you and floyd usually go terrorize slightly scare other students all the time, floyd scares them to your direction by threatening them, and you... stop them :)
jade is normally more calm, but that does not mean people should be calm around you two, no one ever knows what you are planning, you two together could easily conquer the world, thank the seven you guys just want to torment people, for now
although jade does enjoy your endeavors (be it with himself, floyd, or just by yourself) he hates to fix the after effects of your... fun
dont get me wrong he loves observing you wreck people, but you usually leave without cleaning whatever mess you cause, and if he doesn't want you to be expelled, he sometimes has to clean your dirt for you, his dear little sibling
you are not only a menace for other people, but when floyd is not in the mood to torment people, he will be the one getting tormented
he generally just... squeezes someone very hard if they are annoying you, however, he often controls himself and his strength with you, even if youre being a piece of shit to him
dont get mistaken, he will 100% grab you by your ankles and put you hanging upside down on a tree and use you like a piñata if you are too annoying
Floyd giggled maniatically, your own chuckles following his, beside you two, Jade hid his smile behind his gloved hand, looking at you from the corner of his eye.
"This is so fun!! We have to do this again sometime!!" Floyd enthusiastically jumped on his place, shaking his hands up and down as a stim.
"Yes Floyd, this is quite interesting." Jade crossed his arms, his smile showed his pointy teeth as a silent threat, the poor unfortunate souls you three were tormenting understanding the meaning, if they dared sour the mood of his siblings, they wouldn't sleep any time soon.
Floyd grabbed your arm, pulling you forward as he looked back at you and Jade, a horrifying smile settling on his face.
#octavinelle x reader#twisted wonderland#twst#twst wonderland#disney twisted wonderland#twst x reader#twisted wonderland x reader#disney twst#twst yuu#octavinelle#octotrio#floyd leech#azul ashengrotto#jade leech#twst jade#tweels#azul ashengrotto x reader#floyd leech x reader#jade leech x reader
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@goodjobsport said: "look at us, back where we started."
a sad, crooked smile crosses emily's lips. "we don't have to go in if you don't want to." the pizzeria looms over them, holding a different meaning to her now than she ever could have imagined. it had once been an oasis, then a place of decrepit memories, of fear and family and wistfulness and guilt. but now this is the place that she died. the place where her father killed her. she's alive, sure, but she hadn't been, for a few moments. that counts, she thinks. horribly, it makes her feel better. makes her one of his victims in a way that feels more real. like dying is a rite of passage, like she owes it to the kids, the other victims. and she does. when emily looks inside herself, she knows she does. "i just don't want to bring abby there if..." a deep breath shudders out of her. "if the kids are gone. and if--" she chokes back a wounded sound. when she speaks again, her voice is impossibly small. "if he's there."
it's a fear she rarely acknowledges. with the kids, it's a little easier. the thought of losing them had been painful, but with the pizzeria so completely out of reach, she'd had no hope of seeing them. emily has elected to believe they've been able to move on, to rest. she hopes so dearly that that's true, that they haven't had to be without her, that they aren't in pain. but if her father is there... her only hope is that he went with the suit. that his unfinished business is died to that damned thing and not the place itself.
the police–– the real police–– had been involved while she was comatose. mike had been the one to explain most of it to her; how with the revelations she'd provided about afton's crimes, a more thorough investigation had been carried out. the place was mostly cleared out, but the building still stood and technically belonged to her now. it's been months since the trial, all of which is a blur. it almost feels like everything must have happened to someone else–– not her, not emily, but vanessa. like someone she was in a past life.
standing here, though, it's all too real. back where we started. he isn't kidding.
#for reference! vanessa starts going by emily Officially once she's awake from the coma#she's been kind of crafting the identity around emily for a long time? like it's just her#but it started when she was like in her teens/tweens as like a way to be like this is who i am without my father#if that makes sense? but she will still be okay with mike and abby calling her vanessa#tho they will be among a privileged few#oh god and also rebgurb vanessa is not a real cop in my canon#i just... do not think it scans lmao!#im also just gonna uh. skate over her criminal involvement regbuire. based on some googling im gonna go ahead and say she like? was? let of#which realistically would i think never ever happen bc of the severity of the crimes? but idk idk#this is also tumblr rp so we're just gonna run with it#also im sorry for all this shit in the tags i just feel like its helpful context!#child abuse /#abuse /#dissociation /#just to cover my bases#child death mention /#child death ment /#god sorry for this NOVEL rip#ptsd /#goodjobsport
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Viridescent // Chapter 1
Fandom: Genshin Impact
Ship: CynoNari
Summary: Tighnari is hesitant to enter a new relationship after a bad breakup. He decides to only focus on his vigilante work and raising Collei. His plan becomes complicated when a detective moves into his home to protect Collei. (Detective vs. Vigilante AU)
(Ch.1) //
The sirens from the police car roared throughout the hospital as Cyno marched down the hall. The staff reported that the infamous thief, Viridescent Vigil, had been spotted in the building. The police organized a lockdown while they searched the hospital for the thief. The Viridescent Vigil was well known for stealing money from banks and this was the first time he targeted a hospital. He was determined to capture the man after he had evaded him for the past three years.
Unfortunately, it was nearly impossible to find one man within such a large hospital. He couldn’t use the security cameras to track where the thief had been because they had been sabotaged nights before. Cyno was beginning to worry that the thief could be part of a larger organization for him to have the resources to hack into the hospital’s system. He couldn’t linger on that suspicion when he needed to find the Viridescent Vigil. As difficult as the task was, he couldn’t let the opportunity slip through his fingers.
Cyno stationed policemen at each entrance of the hospital and it would be impossible for him to leave the hospital. Then, he methodically searched each room and questioned the patients if they saw the thief. His hunt eventually led him to the hospital rooftop. While it was difficult for someone to descend safely from the twentieth floor, he wanted to be thorough.
When Cyno opened the door and stepped onto the roof, the first thing he noticed was the smell of incense. He found the scent strange but a cloaked figure quickly took his attention. The thief stood at the edge of the roof where a tall fence blocked his path. This was the closest Cyno had ever been to the Viridescent Vigil yet he couldn’t make out any of his features. His dark cape blended with the night sky and the hood was low enough to obscure his face.
“Viridescent, you are under arrest. Place your hands over your head.” Cyno ordered. He placed his hand on his gun but he didn’t draw his weapon. Despite being faced with an officer, the thief’s demeanour remained relaxed and unaffected. “There’s nowhere for you to run so it’s best to surrender now.”
He slowly lifted his hands but it quickly became clear that the man had no intention of surrendering. He unfurled his fingers and petals fell to the ground. The wind carried the petals and its soft scent towards Cyno. His knees suddenly felt weak and he almost collapsed to the ground. He caught himself on the wall behind him to keep himself from falling.
As he stumbled, his feet tapped against a clay jar. A thin wisp of smoke rose from the incense and the smell started to overwhelm him. He hadn’t noticed the incense sooner because he was focused on the thief. Cyno muttered a curse and then forced his heavy body to move towards the door. He couldn’t fight well in his state but he would try to keep him on the rooftop until the other officers arrived.
The thief walked forward and stopped a few inches from him. To his frustration, he wasn’t able to see his face despite how close they were at that moment. His movements were slow and sluggish so the thief was easily able to brush aside the hand that he reached out to him. The man picked up the incense and blew out the candle inside.
“The blend of herbs that I used for this incense is designed to help people have a soothing sleep and it isn’t lethal. I recommend that you sit here and enjoy the night sky. We wouldn’t want you tripping over yourself, Mr. Detective.” The thief spoke in a gruff tone and it was apparent that he was disguising his voice. He slipped the keycard from Cyno’s front pocket. “Did the hospital give you this to bypass the locked doors? I’ll return it to the front desk for you on my way out.”
With those parting words, he slipped past Cyno and left the rooftop. He tried to run after him immediately but, in the few seconds it took for him to open the door, he had disappeared. Cyno scanned the staircase for clues of where he went. He doubted that even a talented thief like Viridescent could descend all the steps and remove his disguise so quickly.
The stairs blurred together as he ran down the steps and he needed to clutch onto the rail. The door to the floor below him swung open and Cyno staggered to an ungraceful stop. The young girl who walked into the hall was more startled than he was and she jumped back from him. She was far too short and young to be a thief so he reasoned that she was a patient.
“I am Detective Cyno. Have you seen a man in a black cloak run into that hall?” Cyno asked and held up his badge.
“No.” She shook her head. Her posture was guarded and she held onto the door as though to prepare herself if she needed to run. He thought she would’ve become less frightened once she learned that he was a detective but she nervously glanced around them. She added: “I just came here to look for my father. He’s a doctor.”
“Collei, the hospital is in a lockdown and you should be in your room.” The voice was followed by a fox walking up the steps. He stepped between them and Collei grabbed onto his lab coat. He placed a light hand on her head and she let out a relieved breath. “Detective, do you know when the lockdown will end? The sirens are stressful for the patients.”
While he didn’t say it directly, Cyno knew that the doctor was mainly concerned for his daughter’s mental health. He trusted that the fox was truly a doctor because he wore an employee badge. The badge clipped onto his lab coat had his photo and name, Tighnari. Cyno offered the compromise. “The thief is still in the hospital but I will contact Dehya to allow you and your daughter to leave.”
“Are you okay, Detective? You can barely stand. You shouldn’t be working in this condition.” Tighnari placed his hands on Cyno’s shoulders. “Did you get into a fight with the thief? It doesn’t look like you’re bleeding. But, if you’re injured, we should treat it now. I’m certain the police chief won’t punish you for getting medical attention after a fight.”
“It wasn’t much of a fight. He used a strange incense and then ran away. Since that was the extent of our fight, I’m not injured. I have to report that he stole a keycard.” Cyno tried to continue down the stairs but Tighnari grabbed his arm and tugged him back. Despite how light his tug was, he couldn’t stop.
Tighnari pulled his arm over his shoulder and led him out of the stairwell. “A person’s health is more important to me than a thief. I will page my boss about the keycard. Collei, go back to your hospital room and wait for me until I finish dealing with this detective.”
“Fine, I’ll go with you. Can you let me call my chief at least?” Cyno decided to go along with the doctor. As frustrating as it was to let the thief go, the doctor was right. He wouldn’t be able to fight and restrain the man if he did find him again. He followed Tighnari but his mind was focused on the elusive thief.
“Kaveh, are you certain your friend will be a good roommate? I trust you but your kindness can cloud your judgement. Your friend is a prosecutor but he needs a place to stay? A person like him should have the money to be able to buy a home of his own. Is there a reason? I should know something like that before he moves into my basement.”
Tighnari sat in his living room and watched his driveway for Kaveh’s friend to arrive. He was still uncertain whether to allow a stranger to move into his basement. Even if Kaveh knew the person for years, there were still risks Tighnari needed to consider. He recently adopted Collei who was wary of strangers. He promised he would give her a safe home and allowing someone to live in their basement could make her uncomfortable.
Moreover, there was a risk his new roommate might discover that he was Viridescent Vigil.
“The lease on his apartment will end soon. Alhaitham was the one to suggest that Cyno should move in with you instead of renewing his lease. I agreed because it’ll be great for both you and Cyno.” Kaveh told him. “Your house is closer to his workplace and the rent will be cheaper. Honestly, I thought he would be able to help you. He can watch over Collei whenever you work a night shift at the hospital. You wanted Anthony to move in with you for that reason.”
“Please, don’t bring up my ex-boyfriend.” He didn’t yell but there was a sharp bitterness in his voice. He hadn’t spoken with Anthony since their messy breakup. When he told him that he wanted to adopt Collei, Anthony called her a burden and forced him to choose between them. Tighnari repeated the words he told Anthony that day: “Collei’s just a kid and she deserves a happy home. I’ll do everything I can for her, even if it’s raising her alone.”
An unfamiliar car entered his driveway and Tighnari reasoned that it belonged to Kaveh’s friend. He ended his call with Kaveh and walked to the door to greet his friend. Tighnari inwardly went over the list of questions that he prepared for the interview. Those thoughts quickly became mute when he opened the door and found a uniformed detective he met at the hospital.
Tighnari felt as if the floor disappeared beneath him and he was plunged into cold water. Had the police discovered that he was the Viridescent Vigil? He was always careful not to leave behind evidence during his missions. His fears rang in his ears and they almost drowned out the detective’s voice.
“Hello, my name is Cyno and I’m friends with Kaveh. Kaveh said that your basement is available for rent. I never thought we would’ve met before at the hospital. The world is a small place, isn’t it?” Cyno was surprised when he recognized Tighnari. His tall ears and distinct eyes were hard to forget. Tighnari must’ve been more shocked by the situation because he didn’t respond to him. “I tried playing hide and seek in the hospital but they kept finding me in the ICU.”
Cyno told the joke to ease the tension. However, it was a small voice behind Tighnari that pulled him out of his thoughts. “Tighnari, I’m finished with my homework. Amber gave me a Genius Invokation card! I want to test if it fits my deck. Can you play with— Why is the detective here? Did something happen?”
“Everything’s fine, Collei. Do you remember when I said Kaveh’s friend would visit us today? This is Cyno.” He turned to her and reassured her with a smile. He opened the door a little wider and gestured for him to follow him. “Cyno, please come in. Sit on the couch and I’ll make tea for our interview.”
Tighnari used the excuse to slip into the kitchen where he could gather his thoughts. Now that he knew that Cyno was Kaveh’s friend and he wasn’t there to arrest him, he felt calmer. He hoped that his earlier behaviour didn’t make Cyno suspicious that he was a thief. No matter, he would leave his home in an hour. He decided to interview him and then make a lie that he wasn’t able to rent the room to him.
He picked up the tray and tea set that he had already prepared and walked back to the living. Tighnari didn’t see Cyno sitting on the couch and his shoulders became tense. He could hear Cyno’s voice nearby so he knew that he hadn’t wandered further into his home. He followed his voice and found him sitting at the table. Across from him, Collei showed him the new card she received.
“Strategize is a powerful card but I heard rumours that it might get banned from competitive tournaments soon. That could change the meta so you shouldn’t rely on it for your win condition. There are other cards with similar effects though.” Cyno listed several cards and laid them on the table. From the card backs, Tighnari knew that the cards didn’t belong to Collei. Did Cyno carry his own Genius Invokation deck with him?
Cyno heard Tighnari approach them first and looked up from his cards. His expression didn’t change but there was a subtle glimmer of excitement in his red eyes as he asked: “Do you play Genius Invokation, Tighnari? The game is popular but it’s hard for me to find someone to play with. My co-workers don’t play so I usually duel online.”
“I’ve only played Genius Invokation a few times.” Tighnari set the tray onto the coffee table. “Collei, can I speak with Cyno alone? It won’t be long and I’ll play with you later.”
He waited until Collei gathered her cards and climbed the stairs before he started his interview with Cyno. Silence and awkwardness returned without Collei. He was grateful that Cyno seemed to understand that he didn’t want Collei to overhear their conversation. Tighnari forced himself to speak casually despite the looming threat that he would discover his true identity.
“I’m sorry about my lackluster greeting at the door, Cyno. I didn’t expect to see one of my patients at my door. Though, I only gave you one check up so I can’t call you my patient.” Tighnari laughed lightly. “I want to ask you a few questions before I rent my basement to you. I know that you’re a detective and you like to play Genius Invokation. When will the lease of your apartment expire?”
“Next month. Here’s a reference from my landlord. Alhaitham said that I should prepare this for you.” Cyno handed him the folder. He could sense that Tighnari was cautious of him but he understood his reason. He would also be careful of who he allowed to live in his home if he had a child. “I can pay rent and I’ll help with chores.”
“Alhaitham?” Kaveh had mentioned something similar. Why would Alhaitham recommend for Cyno to rent his basement? The Scribe helped him with his vigilante work and he would also be arrested if Cyno discovered the truth while working with him. He would only take such a risk if it was part of a plan. Even though this could be a part of Alhaitham’s plan, he couldn’t go along with someone blindly. He would speak with him after his interview with Cyno.
Tighnari opened the folder on his lap and pretended to read the letter. He watched Cyno from under his lashes. “I didn’t intend to rent out my basement until Kaveh told me that his friend needed a new place to live. He insisted that you’re a good person. It’s impossible for me to say if that’s true after just one meeting. Let’s have a short trial period first. You will stay for a week and then I’ll decide.”
“That sounds reasonable but shouldn’t you talk to your wife about this arrangement first?” Cyno assumed that Tighnari had a wife because of his daughter.
“I’m single and Collei is adopted.” Tighnari held out his hand to show him that he didn’t have a wedding ring. He stood and handed the folder back to him. “While you pack your things to move in, I will explain to Collei that you’ll be staying for a week.”
Cyno noticed how tense Tighnari’s fingers were as they gripped his folder. From his years investigating criminals, he could easily see that there was something else Tighnari wanted to tell him. He didn’t know whether he should push Tighnari with questions because they were barely strangers. When Cyno saw his ears flatten, he asked: “Is there anything else you want to ask me, Tighnari? If you don’t want to have a stranger live here, I understand.”
“It’s not that.” Tighnari spoke in a whisper. He moved to the bookcase and rose onto his toes to reach a book on the top shelf. He slipped out a grey slip of paper from between the pages. As he walked back to Cyno’s side, he would glance to the stairs. Cyno immediately realized that his secretive behaviour was because of Collei. “While you’re living here, don’t let this man into the house or anywhere near Collei.”
Tighnari handed him the paper, an old article about a doctor. Cyno skimmed the page that praised the doctor’s achievements and miraculous discoveries. He read the name out loud, “Dottore—”
He barely spoke the name before Tighnari covered his mouth. “Don’t let Collei hear you say that name or else she’ll think that he came to take her back. She only started to feel safe and let down her guard.”
“What did he do to you and Collei?” He asked. A flash of anger passed through Tighnari’s eyes and he bit his lips to keep himself from cursing Dottore. He knew that once he told Cyno about the doctor, he wouldn’t be able to hold back his anger and Collei would overhear them. He was grateful that Cyno seemed to understand his feelings because he didn’t push him for an answer. Gently, he placed his hand on Tighnari’s arm. “I’ll arrest him the moment he trespasses into your home.”
“That’s one good thing about living with a detective. Though, Kaveh told me that you’re a prosecutor.” Tighnari let out a bitter laugh. He couldn’t fully put his trust into detectives or the justice system after they failed to arrest Dottore the first time. That was the reason he became the Viridescent Vigil. He would stop Dottore by himself so Collei can grow up without fear.
“I am a prosecutor but Chief Cyrus asked me to help investigate the Viridescent Vigil. My father is a proud man and he wouldn’t ask me for help unless it’s urgent.” Cyno explained. “Family is important to me so I will help him as much as I can.”
“We have that in common.” Tighnari mused to himself, surprised he would find anything in common with the detective who had been chasing him. “Well, welcome to my home.”
#genshin impact#cynonari#cyno and tighnari#genshin impact cyno#genshin impact tighnari#genshin impact collei#fanfiction
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I know you already wrote Endgame by taylor for tonynat buuut how about something inspired by "you've been calling my bluff on all my usual tricks so here's the truth from my red lips"? love your writing <3
hi love! so you're right, i did, and so i'm going to answer your prompt in a roundabout way (by spoiling that fic a little) hope you don't mind! here's part one of my end game fic <3
one.
O U R P R E S E N T F U T U R I S T
By Karen Page
“Mr. Stark, thank you for joining me this morning.”
The man himself, Anthony Edward Stark, sits across from me, legs crossed. His suit is neatly pressed, his hair perfect. There is a faint bruise along his jaw, but considering his latest fight is available on YouTube, I have no need to ask. He is riding on an immense victory of another kind, the revised Sokovia Accords having just been successfully pushed through the UN.
“The pleasure is all yours,” he snarks, but a quick grin that quirks at the edge of his mouth tells me it is in jest. The words are flirty, but his eyes stay either on mine or on his phone, which fills up with more messages every minute - I feel almost guilty keeping him, a feeling that I assure you is unfamiliar. It is almost surreal to be with the man who, for better or worse, ushered in the era of public superheroes in which we now live. I tell him so.
He doesn’t look surprised, instead giving me a wry, self-deprecating grin. “That sounds cool, doesn’t it? Really, I just can’t keep my damn mouth shut.”
“You have said a lot of controversial things over the years.”
Tony laughs, and it is contagious. I can’t help but smile back. “Yeah, well put me down as on the straight and narrow, will you?”
The Accords, I know, have to be a sore point, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t mention them. “You were the first signer of the Sokovia Accords. Do you ever regret the ‘straight and narrow,’ as you put it?”
Tony straightens a little, but his cool confidence remains. “The Accords have been subjected to a very thorough revising process, managed by two people I’d trust with my life.” He pauses, and I let him. “There are a lot of things I won’t say,” he tells me finally, “but no, I don’t regret it. We have a responsibility, and however we can fulfill it… well…”
“What do you mean?”
Tony thinks, then a soft smile crosses his face. “If we have one hand on the wheel,” he says, a level to his tone that makes me think he is quoting someone, “we can still steer.”
I decide to act on my hunch. “Your words?”
“Good catch,” he laughs. “No, the words of a woman far wiser than me.” He fumbles a little with his hands, twisting a plain, black ring on his fifth finger.
“And how is Miss Romanoff?” My hunches have not failed me yet. “Is she in the city?”
I am asking, of course, about his famous partner, the Black Widow. After a very public kiss on the tails of the Accords announcement, the media has been going crazy to discover the hows, whens, and whys of the whole affair. Details of their relationship are extremely rare, so I resolve to tread carefully.
“That’s classified,” he jokes, and though it is said as a joke, I also think it was the most serious thing he has said in the interview thus far. I would bet money that this man would not reveal his girlfriend’s location, even under the most extreme torture.
It’s clear that this line of investigation is not going to go anywhere, so I switch tracks. “How are these Accords different from the original documents, Mr. Stark?”
He just raises an eyebrow. “Read them, if you want to know,” he brushes off. Then he leans forward. “I care about my team - we’re gonna stick together because you never know when we’ll be needed. And that would be impossible with the way the Accords were written before the revisions.”
I nod. This isn’t new information. Many suspect that Tony Stark takes every opportunity to tell the public that the Avengers are needed, whole and ready to protect the Earth, so that his lost team members will know they are welcome back whenever they are ready.
“And are the Avengers ready? If they are needed?”
I don’t know why I expected Stark to take a while to answer this question, but it surprises me when he abandons his glances at his still-blowing-up phone, looking me straight in the eyes. I don’t even have written notes from this portion of the interview. I was completely captured by the man in front of me. He seems larger than life.
“The Avengers will always come together to defend the Earth. No matter how difficult it is. That’s the end game.” He leans back, and I do the same, released from that intensity, letting out an obvious exhale. Tony Stark just smirks, and in that moment, I realize that the Black Widow must be the only one who could ever handle him.
Still, he grins at me, and I smile back, immediately at ease when he wants me to be. “But my job is to make it as easy as possible. Thank you, Ms. Page.”
I know a dismissal when I hear one. And, without protest (which is very unlike me), I stand up and go.
(read more on page 4)
#ironwidow#tonynat#ironwidow writing#marvel#marvel writing#my writing#so it goes is next btw!#almost done with that one#y'all should definitely bug me about it lol#tony x natasha#answered#prompt#anonymous#hope you didn't mind this anon!#it's prompt adjacent lol#also i've never seen daredevil so ignore if i#have misrepresented karen
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Synopsis: October of 1993, friendship blooms between Juliette Bishop and a certain Hufflepuff prefect
“The teachers and I need to conduct a thorough search of the castle. I'm afraid that, for your own safety, you will have to spend the night here. I want the prefects to stand guard over the entrances to the hall and I’m leaving the Head Boy and Girl in charge.”
Juliette approached Percy, flashing her prefect badge and letting him direct her to the entrance the teachers usually used at mealtimes.
“Any disturbance should be reported to me immediately," Professor Dumbledore paused, about to leave the hall, and said, "Oh, yes, you'll be needing..."
One casual wave of his wand and the long tables flew to the edges of the hall and stood themselves against the walls; another wave, and the floor was covered with hundreds of squashy purple sleeping bags.
"Sleep well,"
The witch flattened herself against the wall, tipping her head back with a sigh. Her first year as prefect and they’d had their first intruder. No wonder her mother had dropped out. Despite the entire student body huddled together on the ground, there was an unsettling silence echoing throughout the Great Hall. The entrance doors were so thick it would be almost impossible to hear anything beyond, and yet Juliette tensed at every cough or hushed whisper.
“Do you think he just has those stacked up in his office somewhere?” A voice came from the other side of the doorway.
His voice.
Juliette turned to look at the prefect she’d been stationed with. Of course. Out of everyone, it had to be perfect Cedric Diggory. Up close, Juliette didn’t think he was all that. His face was too symmetrical, his hair looked like shit and the twins said he didn’t have much going on in his head. Bit of a tosser really. He was good at quidditch though, nobody could deny that. 
“Was that supposed to be a serious question?”
He shrugged his shoulders, looking unused to people not finding him funny. “Well, maybe the teachers like to have a sleepover when we’re not around.”
Juliette couldn’t bring herself to laugh or make a snide remark. Her gaze lingered on the main entrance doors, her nails scratching at the skin of her wrist. There would be teachers stationed outside. Hagrid was there, nobody would be stupid enough to try and get past him. There wasn’t much to see in the darkness, Juliette didn’t even know where her brother lay.
“I’m scared too.”
Diggory cleared his throat, he was staring ahead in observance but Juliette had the feeling he was acutely aware of her body language and was distracting her on purpose.
“We could take him, though. You almost knocked me out with the Quaffle once, we’ll just load you up with a bunch of them and you’ll be fine.”
Juliette blinked and turned her head. “You think I could take on a convicted murderer with a quaffle?” Merlin, he really was dense. She turned back to the room with a small smile, leaning her head back against the wall. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. You’re really quite the strategist.”
She glanced down at the ground, scuffing the toe of her shoe against the concrete. “Are you really scared?”
The Hufflepuff took a long moment before he replied with a whisper, “terrified.”
He looked around the hall and slid down against the door until he reached the floor, glancing up and extending a hand to Juliette. “If Weasley says anything, it was my idea. Throw me under the bus whenever you like.”
Juliette studied his hand like it was some alien thing before she took it, sitting down too. “I’m not gonna throw you under the bus. Don’t wanna risk getting someone even more annoying as a patrol partner.”
Cedric chuckled softly beside her, wrapping his hands around his knees. “Flattered. So, are you thinking of going for Captain next year?”
“Oh…I don’t know. Maybe. Ultimately it’s Roger’s decision, and Cho’s really good too.”
Cedric glanced at her, leaning his head against the wall. The moonlight seemed to light his face perfectly. What a freak. “But you have the passion. I’ve seen you in the box at every Harpies game.”
“You support the Holyhead Harpies?”
“You kidding? They’re amazing. Your mum was a beast last season, it’s gonna be rough now she’s no longer able to play after the accident. How’s she doing by the way?”
Juliette paled a little, glad the darkness masked it. How exactly did you tell someone you weren’t even sure your mother would recognise your name if you tried to owl? She wiped her palms against her skirt, mouth opening and closing like a fish as she tried to come up with an answer.
“McLaggen, back to your own sleeping bag,” Diggory’s voice rang out suddenly as he glared down one of the rows.
There were a few snickers from the students and his gaze relaxed before he turned back to Juliette. “Did I just catch your boyfriend trying to-”
“No! No, he is nooot my boyfriend anymore. That black eye is actually my doing. He can do whatever he wants.”
Instead of drowning her in pity like so many others often did when they learned Cormac had cheated, Diggory only looked impressed. “Good. You’re too smart to let him hold you back” The Hufflepuff relaxed and eased back into a smile. “I never would’ve taken him to be your type.”
“I’m not sure he’s even the same species.” Juliette cringed a little. She couldn’t even explain why she had ever let herself be so naive. “Maybe I’m not really that smart.”
Diggory was silent for so long that Juliette wondered if he had drifted off, but when she turned to look at him he was gazing down at his hands in his lap with the burning gaze of a thousand suns.
“It’s not wrong to want to feel seen. It’s like people don’t realise it’s not their place to try and change you. Of course you’re going to want to stick with someone who might finally understand you. That’s not naivety, Juliette.”
Juliette turned her gaze to her own lap, relaxing her hands that had been in tense fists ever since they’d been evacuated into the Hall. Who knew Cedric Diggory would become someone she could find comfort in?
By the end of the next half hour the prefects were allowed to find a sleeping bag and turn in for the night. Or at least attempt to. Cedric found two empty spots for them both and they settled down. It was hard to doze off with the sounds of fearful whimpers from the younger years and Percy Weasley not so quietly telling people to be quiet. Juliette lay on her back, gazing up at the enchanted stars above.
“So, what’s your favourite colour?”
Juliette wrinkled her nose, turning her head to find Cedric looking at her eagerly. “Really? That’s your burning question?”
The boy eased into a grin and shrugged his shoulder. He looked the picture of comfort, even though they;d all been subjected to lying on the floor. “It’s an important one. What if one day we elected to change the house colours and I chose orange for Ravenclaw, and you hated orange.”
Julie tilted her head back toward the ceiling to hide her own smile, rolling her eyes. “It’s blue. And if you ever tried to change our house colour to orange, you might just take a bludger to the face.”
She heard Cedric’s chuckle beside her. It was nice, more relaxing than laying around waiting for something to happen. “I didn’t expect you to be so predictable.”
“I’m not predictable. It’s just a very well-loved colour.”
She heard shuffling, getting the feeling Cedric had also rolled onto his back. “Maybe. I could come round to it.” Juliette felt her cheeks warm, but she stayed quiet. “What’s your ‘burning question’ then?”
She didn’t even need to think about that one. She turned her head in Cedric’s direction, and smirked. “What’s your hair routine?”
Cedric laughed then, loud enough that Percy shushed them from somewhere further down the hall. “Okay, not predictable then. Well played.” He turned onto his side and smiled kindly. “You really want to know?”
Juliette nodded eagerly. “Oh it would be an honour. It’s quite the topic of debate in our year.”
Cedric’s brows furrowed but he continued to smile at her as he answered. “Honestly? Just water and a tiny bit of gel. I wet it, comb it and then my friend Seb usually messes it up and I give in.”
“Really?” That was…anticlimatic.
“Sorry to disappoint.” Cedric’s smile had lessened, but it was still there in his eyes.
“You should be. You almost had yourself redeemed for a moment there. I thought to myself, ‘maybe Cedric Diggory isn’t a boring old poster boy’. But nope, you really are just shockingly dull. I’m disappointed.”
Cedric snickered and rolled his eyes. “I’m glad I didn’t raise your expectations too high then. What’s your hair routine then?”
“Oh I am so glad you asked.” Juliette beamed.
That was how it went for the rest of the night, swapping anecdotes and laughing together. It was only when Percy had to come over to scold them a third time that they quieted down and fell asleep, Juliette’s cheeks aching from smiling for hours on end.
***
“Am I dead or is Dreamboat Diggory heading right for us?”
Despite all her nerve endings telling her to be cool, Juliette turned her head to follow Kingston’s gaze. Indeed, Cedric Diggory was walking towards the Ravenclaw table. Towards them.
“Hey,” he beamed, looking way too perky for someone who had been sleeping on the ground all night. His eyes locked on Juliette as his hand came to the back of his neck. “I just wanted to check in on how you were. I realised I sort of talked your ear off last night. Though they do say moments of extreme fear can bond people for life, we’re pretty much best friends now.”
Juliette furrowed her brows, doing her best to ignore Kingston’s burning gaze. “I don’t think anyone says that.” She said, eyes darting around to see a few other Ravenclaws watching them curiously
“What? Everyone says that, aren’t you supposed to be in the smart house,” Cedric dropped his hand with a grin, “well I just wanted to let you know that we’re playing Gryffindor this weekend. I asked my friends to leave some room in the stands, just in case you wanted to come check out my strategy.”
“Oh.” He wanted her to watch his game? She probably would have anyway, since it was coming up to the finals of the house cup. Being personally invited felt different though. “Uh yeah, yeah I think we’re free.” She glanced at Kingston to see if he agreed, but he was too busy staring open mouthed at Cedric.
The hufflepuff’s lips twitched in amusement but he nodded, apparently satisfied with that answer. “Great. I’ll see you there.” He nodded to Kingston and turned, walking back to his friends. Juliette watched his retreating form, feeling the urge to call out but she had no idea what to say.
“I thought you didn’t like Diggory?” Kingston had come to his senses again and was looking at his friend incredulously.
She stuttered a little, taking a sip of pumpkin juice to give herself time to think before she replied. “I don’t! But if Hufflepuff win then that’s our next opponent, it would be smart to see what we’re up against.”
Kingston scoffed, reaching over to steal a strawberry from her waffles. “I give it a year before we’re sitting at that table.”
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thank you for the further bookmark issue. as someone who doesn't really use ao3 (fic isn't so much my thing, etc) but is y'know terminally online it's interesting to see the difference in which bookmarks function there as opposed to most every other site. I had no idea there were people leaving comments and notes on things that could just be seen??? like i hear bookmarks and immediately think 'ah yes the websites i would like to save for later in completely bizarrely named folders that i will most definitely forget about in about 20 seconds max' and not what appears to be a secondary (tertiary?) personal tagging system.
and so out of genuine curiosity are there other things on the site that don't really work the same as one might assume? like i'd just default assume that a bookmark would be private and lost to the ages in three sub folders of whatever. again; haven't really used ao3 since um...probably shortly after launch and so haven't ever really like gone into explore more of how it functions beyond the basic tagging system.
alternately tho, have bookmarks everywhere always been public in which case i am so sorry to anyone who has opened their how two guide on [random special interest at the time] only to find that somehow it's been associated to a sorting solution that makes sense to no one (especially me.) sorry, hi, not trying to be rude or continue drama just a little lost on the sidelines here.
You're fine!
The thing about AO3 bookmarks that you're (totally understandably, since you don't use the site!) not quite grasping is that, again, it's blatantly clear simply from using the site that they're public. There's a button on every single fic that leads to the bookmarks, and a hyperlink under every single fic summary that does the same thing. The bookmark is a site feature that links back to the original fic, and you can clearly see bookmarks on other users' profiles.
I totally don't blame someone for briefly, initially, assuming bookmarks might be private! My condescending bitchiness is specifically aimed at people who make heavy use of the feature for YEARS and STILL have no concept of how it works, and get angry when corrected--at a certain point, it becomes willful ignorance. You gotta LOOK at the site you're using, and if you refuse to do so, the people around you have every right to get sick of your shit, you know?
So, bookmarks are just really not an example of unintuitive design. Honestly, most of AO3 is extremely clear in how it functions. On any site, it's worth taking five minutes after joining to open different menu options and see what all is available, and AO3's menus are really thorough and very easy to use.
Furthermore, a lot of the things people complain about as if they're...well, for example, the definition of Mature vs Explicit fic, or how archive warnings work. I've seen a lot of people act like it's mysterious or impossible to learn or like it's purely Terminally Online Acquired Fandom Knowledge, and get frustrated by being expected to "just know" how ratings or relationship tags work. And I'm FULLY sympathetic to that! There's nothing more frustrating or upsetting than everyone around you acting like you're supposed to "just know" how something works, "just know" an entire subculture!
Here's the thing though.
AO3 has tooltips built in to explain those things.
They're not esoteric nebulous Fandom Knowledge TM that you have to learn by meditating on a mountainside! And they're not totally meaningless terms that people being sticklers about are just gatekeeping over. On AO3, they have specific meanings and usages, and the explanations DON'T require you to go poking around the FAQ or Q&A sections of the site! They're easily accessible right from the relevant pages.
(I realize that I am, in general, kind of a sarcastic bitch, so I want to be very clear that my tone in this specific post is NOT sarcastic and I am NOT trying to come across as pissy or condescending--you asked a legit question in good faith and I'm happy to talk about it.)
I don't know that this is really the answer you were looking for, but I think it's the most productive answer I could give! The site is very self-explanatory for anyone who cares to use it.
It's a little like hiking. It doesn't matter how well-marked the trailheads are if someone refuses to pay attention to their surroundings.
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CHOOSE VIOLENCE!!! 7, 8, 10
choosing violence!!
7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?
ok this is going to be a weird one but. fjord.
TO BE CLEAR i fucking love fjord and i think his arc is one of my favorites but there came a point sometime after he'd sort of settled into being a cleric of the wildmother when a certain meta writer--who i respect very much, they seem very smart--started to make meta posts after each episodes where i was nodding along enthusiastically, ready for them to draw me into the conclusion....where they inevitably went "which is why this was all about fjord and his journey."
i got...so...sick of this, especially as the story focused more on caleb and then on beau and yasha. and this person's meta is super popular, so i saw it EVERYWHERE even after i unfollowed. i just wanted to scream "not everything is about your blorbo oh my god". and i started to roll my eyes any time fjord said anything before i was like wait. what. i like fjord. and i realized it was just dread at the anticipation of looooong metas that were Just About Fjord.
in retrospect this is totally on me, i should've just blocked them, but their only crime was being slightly annoying so i chickened out.
8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about
that jester is innocent and clueless, especially wrt sex. it is absolutely incredible to me how many people completely forget that she was given a pretty thorough private education and oh yeah that her mom is a sex worker?? who's VERY frank with her?
no--jester is inexperienced. jester is that one friend you know who has kinks you've never heard of and reads piles of smut and has never had sex. she knows Exactly what goes on, she just has very unrealistic ideas about the possibility of being railed by the pizza delivery man.
bringing me to my final point: why don't more people do an aspec or arospec of jester?? it's RIGHT there
10. worst part of fanon
i'm so incredibly bored by "and then they were happily into peaceful cottagecore domesticity for the rest of their days" type shipping (with ONE exception), espeeeecially with queer ships. y'all think yasha "i'll throw you under a bridge" nydoorin is gonna be a quiet, settled housewife with her adhd, violence prone, poison immune wife? caleb "i want to bend reality to my will" and essek literally started a war thelyss are going to find a nice place in rexxentrum and settle down? with KIDS? (i find it impossible to believe shadowgast would want kids. i Get the impulse and i will never yuck anyone's yum but i personally find it incredibly out of character). (conversely, i do find ridiculously sweet/cutesy/fluffy shipping of these characters to be generally kind of funny but really endearing. it's just the "settling down" bit--like. i just can't believe these guys would ever sit still.)
my one exception is of course percahlia, in part because their cottage is less a cottage and more local government, and more relevantly because i think the two of them getting a quiet comfortable existence is actually sort of a radical idea. "i was going to be a clockmaker once" just fucking kills me. for a character to be, as taliesin put it, karmically fated to have a bad ending, to get the typical fairy tale happily ever after treatment...for vex to gain both wealth and importance...it just feels right.
thanks tangereen :)
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@withoutawar asked: reflect (muninn) || MUNINN || Ask my muses about their memories || ACCEPTING FOR FOREVER, ACTUALLY! ||
There was a reason, that Muninn had been in America, in the forties and the fifties- and then back and forth, from Europe and back in skips, for the decades afterwards. She is from no culture on this world, but she could link more easily to those long-lost to time, that America barely had the shadows of- she had not come to America for a whim.
Even gods, sometimes have to go to ground. Even gods have to hide.
It’s a mistake, a myth, to believe that gods cannot die, cannot be killed. They can. Sure, most of the time, in the centuries after, they come back to life- a cycle of life and death, an immortality that cannot easily be rewritten. They retain their personality and memories, most times, though not always. And sometimes, if the killing is done well enough, there will be no return at all. Death of the divine. Not impossible, but fleeting, and risky.
She’d come close. So, impossibly close. Muninn is no stranger to pain, to violence. To threats against her, some effective, some not. But to this point, the only true fear she had ever experienced had been at the hands of other divine- or at the minimal, other creatures, non-human entities, of variable origin.
The 1890s were the first time Muninn ever had to fear for her immortal soul at the hands of mortal men.
She wasn’t usually careless, but she must have been, back then- Somewhere near Austria, someone had asked too many questions- and then gotten clever enough to somehow outmaneuver the visions. Changed their mind just often enough, never cemented decisions in a way that the possibilities were clear enough for her to see.
The end result of those questions, saw her bound in metal that even her maddening strength could not warp. Saw her in rooms with harsh light that burned her too-sensitive eyes, surrounded by men of science. Men of madness, and cruelty- who sought ways to conquer the world, to warp magic to their will.
A Seeing goddess was an answer they couldn’t have imagined.
Torture for information is one thing. She can withstand it- her mind is already broken, and it cannot break more. But torture to learn about the subject is another, and not so easily defended against. They wanted nothing from her but the pain- the blood.
Godsblood is hard to come by- and good for so, so many things.
“- Sometimes, I still feel the ghosts of the knives,” She says into the empty air, as one ungloved hand cups her own throat. They’re barely visible- but the scars remain, and by far, the most telling one is that which spans from her throat to her hips- a perfectly straight line, faded and silvery- almost invisible, but for those who are close, or to touch.
Pain had been one of their goals- and there had certainly been nothing they’d had which could have put her under. Muninn can remember every moment, sharp burns in time, scorching through her memory like film on fire.
Thin silvery lines along the back of her hands, tracing up her arms- they had been thorough in their studies, and she had given so very much knowledge, against her will.
Twenty years, they’d kept her in some hole below a mountain. She’d torn her way out after twenty years, in a hail of blood, broken mirrors, and the ozone-scent of lightning and wind, air torn from lungs. But it hadn’t been thorough- she hadn’t destroyed their research, though she should have. She didn’t kill them all- only most. And she should have.
She’d fled, racing the winds themselves in desperation to get away, and then buried herself into a city. She hadn’t fled for the wilds, though the snow-and-ice-and-storms called to her- she had thrown herself into the flux of industrialism and people. A mask like nothing else- and not something she did often. Not something predictable.
All things bear cruelty. Muninn knows herself to be no saint, that she is a being of grey in morals and methods. But these events are what caused her distaste for... Mortality, in some ways, distaste for humans, in others. It was not an all-encompassing thing- but it is why she will react with arrogance and even violence if pushed too hard, disrespected or slighted by humans. They of such fleeting lives, these candle-flames.
Muninn has so rarely felt fear, in her life. But she did, then. An animal, primordial one that still dogs her steps, now and again. Why she won’t approach mortal doctors unless forced, and why she lets her body heal on its’ own, the divinity in her blood the only ‘medicine’ she’ll concede to willingly.
She heaves a long, slow sigh, and then tucks her knees to her chest, and closes her eyes.
Oh the madness of it- a god to fear mortals. But it’s no longer so cut and dry. The purity of the fear had tarnished and dulled long ago.
#withoutawar#[ muninn host ] i'm a sinner i'm a liar oh i want forgiveness but i'm tired#[ muninn headcanon ] something about you is soft like an angel and something inside you is violence and danger#[ muninn lore ] and from the earth unbound at birth you came a noble savage#[ torture cw ]#[ medical experimentation cw ]#i kept things pretty vague but yeah#muninn didn't have a good time in the early 1900s.#[ answered asks ] now we see what we're gonna regret
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