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justasimplesinner · 3 years

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Please for the love of fuck give me a happy ending to the riddler/scarecrow breaking hcs that may or may not start off with the reader running into them again and being understandably pissed. I just want to throw a vase at Eddie. I can have a mature conversation with Johnathan with some raised voices and some crying from both parties but I want to throttle that green goblin lookin motherfucker. I want to see fear in that man's eyes as I curbstomp his stank ass for living in my head and never paying rent. Cause that shit broke me no pun intended.

I'm a soft bitch I need someone to put a bandaid on the hurtie and kiss is to make it feel better.

ugh, you fuckin' softies. continuation of this post

Arkham Knight!Riddler getting his happy ending hcs:

like i stated in the previous post, you two may have not been together anymore, but that didn't mean he'd leave you alone. you were the last bit of his sanity, at this point, he didn't know how to live without you. he was constantly lying to himself and you about the motives behind his calls and visits, but truth was, he was just trying to cling on. he couldn't let you go, you were his raft in the middle of the fucking ocean, if he let you go, he'd... he wouldn't survive that. he didn't know how

but it doesn't mean that this whole thing sat well with you. fucking bastard, neglects you for years, treats you like the very dirt he walks on and now has the gall to fucking invade your private space? ruin you completely? it's like it didn't matter if you were with him or not, he'd still find a way to fucking destroy you. and you, on one hand, genuinely wanted out. you wanted him out of your life, because you had only one and you didn't want to live it in misery, you didn't want to just suffer and take it like a good puppy. you weren't even sure he realised the extent to which he fucking hurt you, because he was constantly focusing on himself and no one else, because selfishness was his coping mechanism and he wouldn't change

it was only logical that at some point, you'd have enough. you didn't want to fucking live like this. he didn't have a right to just sit there and do nothing and yet simultaneously do damage. he was a grown fucking man and it was time he made a grown fucking choice

– Well, well, well, look who decided to finally show up-... – you didn't give him the chance to finish, your fist connecting hard with his nose, or maybe it was his cheek, though you hoped it was his eye so it'd hurt the most. You didn't really know, you didn't really care, you've had fucking enough. You knew he was there, in your house, before he even opened his yapping mouth, and you didn't fancy being greeted in your only safe (or, apparently, not-so-safe) space by a fucking insult from the man responsible for all your current misery.

You didn't feel a pang of regret, quite the contrary, his stumbling form and widened eyes gave you this weird feeling of satisfaction. You kind of understood why Batman did what he did, beating Ed's ass was just too rewarding.

– I've had fucking enough of you and your stupid charade! – you didn't plan on beating around the bush anymore, it was time he was fucking faced with the consequences of what he did.

He didn't have the time to recover from your last blow before the first thing you could grab collided with his shoulder - a vase, apparently, and it shattered into small pieces upon impact. Great, now he fucking ruined your favourite vase, too, as if your life wasn't enough for him!

– You have no right to fucking invade my house and treat me like shit even after I've dumped you! – with every word, with every step you took forward, he took one back, eyes wide in genuine fear as he tried to back away from you, maintain a safe distance, as if anything could save him from your wrath now.

– If I mean nothing to you, then why the fuck are you even here?! Why the fuck do you insist on getting me all tangled up in your stupid games?! I'm not gonna fucking sit here and take it like an obedient pet just because you can't get over the fact that we're not together anymore! – you raged on, and you had no intention of stopping, you watched him back away, you watched him stupidly bump into the side of your couch and fall on his stupid fucking ass. He deserved to fall on the floor, not on a set of nice, comfy pillows. But he had no way out now. He had nowhere to run, not when you fucking rounded up on his shock-still form.

– I-... – he dared to try and interrupt you and it was truly the last straw, it was all you needed to have angry tears blur your vision and your hands clenched in fists again.

– You never even fucking apologized to me for anything either! Did it ever fucking occur to you that if, instead of tormenting me and calling me an idiot, you just fucking said you're sorry, pushed your idiotic pride aside and genuinely fucking said you're sorry, then I would've taken you back?! That maybe we wouldn't be here, in this fucking situation, if you just weren't selfish for once and apologized for all the shit you did to me, all the pain you've put me through-

– I'm sorry. – it was so quiet you almost didn't hear it. So shaky and breathy, so fucking... guilty. Heartbroken. So utterly pathetic. Just like he was, just like he looked. Just like you wanted him to be, but now that he was, you hated it. You hated his glossed over, wide eyes, the shame in them, the guilt, the pain. You hated his arms, slightly risen in a protective manner because he expected another blow. He deserved another one, but... it's like he was just a child then. Just this small, broken boy that was afraid to admit he was wrong, that was afraid of the punishment that awaited for him. And all over again, he made you want to pull him close to your chest and kiss it all better, make it so he'd never experience this pain again. And you hated yourself for it.

you've destroyed the fucking dam then. you haven't heard this man apologize to you once in your entire life, and suddenly, you were swarmed with sorries, with regrets and sorrows and his tears. suddenly, he remembered every smallest thing he ever did that made you upset, and he apologized over and over, for everything and anything, and you thought he was going to suffocate with how he was crying and rambling on your couch

god, he wasn't fucking worth it, you knew that, but suddenly, he was in your arms again, and you were soothing his shaking form, again. you were back there to ground him, to comfort him, to make him feel loved, even if he didn't deserve it. you were there to listen to his - probably empty - promises to change, even though you knew he most likely didn't have the power to change at this point, and god dammit - you believed it. or wanted to believe it. you wanted to believe that maybe you were important and that maybe he will put the effort in changing for you this time as you kissed him breathless and let him cling onto you for dear life. you wanted to believe that he deserved a(nother) second chance and that there was still hope for him as you clung right back. you missed having him right there, in your embrace. despite everything. and maybe you were just plain out stupid, or maybe he truly made a promise he, for once, intended to keep. and honestly? you weren't sure if you were ready to find out

you also apologized for throwing a vase at him. he wasn't mad. if he was, you'd throw another one. he had no right to be mad

Arkham Knight!Jon getting his happy ending hcs:

Jon genuinely thought about seeking you out, hoping that maybe that would give him some closure, that it would make him able to work and function properly again. but he realised how stupid, how selfish and disgusting that was. he swore to himself he won't even fucking force you to look at his ugly mug again. he had no right to come to you, expecting the person he pushed away in order to work to help him get back to work. he didn't fucking deserve to even breathe the same air as you

he kept tabs on you though. he had to know where you lived now, where you worked, and knowing where you were at all times would be ideal too, but he didn't dare go that far as to have someone stalk you. it's not out of some creepy obsession, it's actually out of... concern. sounds ridiculous, especially since he hadn't expressed any concern for you for the past few months, but he... he really didn't want to ever hurt you again. even accidentally. even if you were to be collateral damage. he needed to know the places he could target and the places he couldn't, he needed to know when, where and on who he could test his freshest batches and when, where and on who he couldn't. he hurt you enough. he destroyed your mind enough. he wasn't about to subject you to your worst fears too

but a reunion was inevitable, it seemed. one way or another, fate was bent on bringing you two back together. and so, he missed the fact that you changed your jobs and started working at Ace Chemicals, front desk actually, passing around exactly the information he needed about the company, it's building and resources

You genuinely couldn't believe your fucking eyes. You couldn't believe his cheek. The gall he had to be standing right here, in front of you, in his tattered, dirty "glory", milky eyes seeming wild behind the mask, as if he didn't expect you to be here. As if he hadn't planned it all.

– What are you doing here? – you didn't even have the strength to get angry at him anymore. You just resigned yourself to the fact that he was going to haunt you every single day for the rest of your life, be it in person or as a fleeting thought in your mind. You weren't allowed to get rid of him. You weren't allowed to forget.

– I could be asking you the same question. – his tone was hard to decipher. As if it was emotionless, but at the same time wasn't. Like there was something behind it, something he didn't want you to see. Something he himself wasn't ready to face.

You were already too exhausted mentally to give a shit.

– I work here. – you sighed, using that mocking tone he always used on you whenever you asked "stupid" questions. Funny, how one day he tells you there are no stupid questions and that you can always ask away, that he will always listen, and then treats you like an idiot when you do.

And yet you still loved his sarcasm, loved his quips and biting remarks. This was who he was, and you did, after all, love him as a whole.

– I didn't know that. – you were actually ready to believe that, what with how he was still standing there, practically in the doorway. He didn't round up on you yet, he didn't corner you like you were his prey. Actually, it seemed he thought you were the predator, like he was... scared to come closer.

Maybe that was better for the two of you. Who know what you'd do if he started to come at you like he owned you and this whole place.

– Oh, didn't you now? – you couldn't allow him to know though. It was his turn to get the cold shoulder for once. Not that he cared enough to be hurt by it. Not that he ever cared. About you, about anything. Anything but his work.

Jesus, fuck, you couldn't break down in front of him. You already did in the past. Way too many times. You weren't going to give him the satisfaction of having the upper hand.

– You shouldn't've gotten a job here. – he seemed to feel as if he had it anyway – I work with chemicals on a daily basis and you know I'm planning to gas the entire city, it is only logical for me to take advantage of having a huge chemical factory right in the middle of it. It was obvious I'd come here sooner or later. – every word he said, he took a step closer to the desk. Every word he said, he beat you down into the ground harder. Obviously, you were in the wrong. Yet again. Always your fault. Why would you distract him from his goal yet again? Why would you meddle? It seemed that even if you didn't want to, you proved to be an inconvenience, a chink in the chain that was his research. It didn't matter what you did, it was never going to be good enough.

You two weren't compatible, after all.

– Yep, I'm stupid, I get it. Go on, psychoanalize me too, tell me how I did it knowingly just because I wanted to see you again. – you couldn't stop yourself from snarling at him. As always, he only came to you to break down what you've so carefully built back together. It was always that way, if you really thought about it. Every time you were starting to get used to his absence, starting to truly live on your own, he suddenly appeared, acted like everything was fine, acted like he loved you, and you believed it like the fool you were. You believed it and then he left you alone again. You believed it and then you woke up to an empty bed again. Every single time.

Maybe you really were a fucking idiot.

– And did you? – or maybe he was one, because this comment only resulted in riling you up more and yet he dared to fucking ask.

– I fucking hate you Jon. – you weren't ready to believe that what he just did at your words was flinching. That it hurt enough for him to physically move away. – If I wanted to look at your face again, I'd just turn on the news.

– I don't want to hurt you. – that was bullshit. He never did anything else. Hurting you was what he was best at, and he prided himself in it. – But I need access to the vast supply of chemicals your workplace has to offer. – even when you two fucking argued, it always came down to his work. Even when you told him you hated him, all he offered back was that he didn't care and came here just to get shit done. He didn't even fucking care enough to at least say he hates you back.

– You don't want to hurt me? That's a new one. – you were really tempted to just roll your eyes and go back to work. To ignore him, like he always did to you. But suddenly, you realised just how close he was. Practically leaning over the desk. His scarred face hooded and covered in a mask, hidden away from you. That face you wanted to stare into every time you woke up, that face you wanted to be the last thing you saw every day you went to sleep. That face that you wanted to kiss better, to make him know. Make him know you didn't mind. Make him know he was still handsome as ever. He never believed you, and you saw that. You saw that very clearly in his milky eyes. It's like they were fogged, like his mind was surrounded with fog and blurred reality with imagination, like there was this barrier between the two of you.

It wasn't there at first. But then he changed, and you didn't really know who he was anymore.

– I'm sorry. – it felt like pity. Like he pitied you. Like he was saying it just so you'd shut the fuck up and move out of his way at last.

And maybe it was better if you did.

– Save it. I won't get in the way of your plans, don't worry. I'm not getting paid enough to sacrifice myself for this place either way. – you were gathering your things, leaving the computer on, the information unguarded. You could use a day off, anyway. To cry in peace or whatever.

No such luck apparently, since Jonathan immediately had you in a grip, his fingers flexing against your arms.

– No, (Y/n). I'm sorry.

you really weren't ready for that conversation. not at all. you would never be ready for that. seeing Jon apologizing, hell, seeing him crying, genuinely crying in front of you, over you, wasn't something you ever expected to see. Jonathan, despite being a skilled psychologist, never really talked about his emotions. he was always hellbent on talking through yours - well, at the beginning he was, until the whole "spiralling into his obsession" thing started. then, he stopped, because he didn't have time for you. or, as he now explained, didn't have the courage to face how much he's hurt you. you really wanted to fucking punch him then, when he told you that he knew. that he knew all the time what he was doing, and yet never stopped, as if he purposefully sabotaged your relationship so you'd leave him. you knew he had his problems and you couldn't blame him for that, but you could blame him for running away from them. you could blame him for treating you like shit since he woke up from his short coma after the incident with Killer Croc. hell, he took the blame full on

you've never heard him so... bare. so raw. so vulnerable. when he apologized to you, thanked you for everything you ever fucking did, for always helping him, for sticking by him for that long, for enduring him and showing him how it feels to be loved, he was but a broken man. for the first time in... assumably ever, Jonathan didn't hide behind any walls and just... let the words flow. both of you knew that wasn't enough to compensate for what he did. nothing will ever be enough. he will never give you back everything that he took from you, and your heart will never fully heal. even if you two got back together, he wouldn't resign from his research either, and more likely than not, it was all going to end exactly the same, with him hiding away from you because apparently, acting like he didn't love you saved you from the heartbreak, and you having to mend your broken heart on your own, alone, knowing you will never get all your lost time back. you will never get back the time you spent crying in your home because you knew he wasn't coming. and yet, you - like the idiot you probably were - dived right back in. because you fucking loved him. and maybe it was stupid, and maybe his arms clinging onto you as you kissed him for the first time in months were stupid too, but if being stupid meant being happy, even for just one moment, you were going to take it

Jonathan still had a lot to make up for. you didn't think he will ever manage, honestly. but you were excited to see him try

#riddler #edward nigma #edward nygma #the riddler #jonathan crane #scarecrow #the scarecrow #arkhamverse #batman arkham knight #my writing #headcannons #drabble #angst #a sprinkle of fluff #kinda bittersweet #panshrekual iii

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rayofspades · 3 years

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How to Write a Horror Story: The Magnus Archives

This post is kinda weird since most tumblr fandom content is based on the assumption that Everyone Has Seen The Thing, but since this is a transcript of a video essay, it’s more broad.

I might link the video in a reblog since, you know, tumblr doesn’t like links.

Anyways, here’s the post:

Hello Jon, apologies for the decep-

I’ve seen a lot of mystery shows in my day, and some supernatural shows, and the common thread between them is that they kind of...fall apart as they go on.

Obviously, this is a generalization and I haven’t seen every mystery show or every paranormal show, but it’s a pretty common problem.

At this point in pop culture criticism, it’s basically common knowledge that these shows fall apart due to a lack of planning. If a mystery series is making shit up as it goes along while trying to surprise the audience, it’s going to stop making sense at some point. And if an episodic paranormal show is constantly trying to up the stakes, eventually it’s going to become absolutely ridiculous and stretch the audience’s suspension of disbelief past a breaking point.

Other people have already talked about this stuff to death, but today I want to talk about a paranormal mystery show that actually succeeds at what it set out to do.

The Magnus Archives is a podcast written by Jonny Sims and directed by Alexander J. Newall. It ran from 2016 to 2021 and it’s...really really good. It’s an episodic horror story, taking place at the fictional Magnus Institute where the head archivist reads various statements about people’s encounters with supernatural entities. It’s got it all; scary stories, mystery, an overarching plot, office comedy, office romance, office tragedy, a villain that’s making straight men everywhere question their sexuality, and an overall really solid structure.

If you listen to the Q+As put out by the writer and director, you’ll hear them talk about how they planned the series from the beginning, setting up the layout for each season. Some things were definitely changed throughout the actual writing process; that’s just inevitable and necessary when you’re working on a long running show, but in a general sense, they knew where they were going. But, writing a good story doesn’t just involve knowing where you’re going; it’s about executing whatever plan you have effectively. And I think the execution of The Magnus Archives is pretty brilliant, so I want to talk about it.

And for the record, I said “brilliant,” not “perfect.” I do have a lot of criticisms of this show, and I’m definitely going to talk about those too, because honestly? Even the problems with this show are interesting in their own right.

Ok, let’s go.

Oh, spoilers by the way. For the whole plot. Whole thing.

Part 1: Horror and Mystery

Ok, so The Magnus Archives has two separate plots going on: the episodic stories that can be listened to individually, and the underlying meta plot. The former is where most of the mystery storytelling takes place, and it’s a really engaging mystery. It’s starts off slow, and almost undetectable at first. The main character, Jon, also known as The Archivist, is just reading out old scary stories that people have delivered to the Magnus Institute. Stuff like; a college student sees a ghostly inhuman figure asking for a cigarette, a woman’s fiancé dies and she finds herself trapped in an empty graveyard, there’s this goth kid who apparently murdered his mother and then skinned her? But she’s kind of still alive? What the f*ck? Hope we never see that kid again. Also, this “Jurgen Lietner” guy wrote a bunch of cursed books and Jon knows about this? Are more books gonna come up? And then you’re like, wait is the goth kid who killed that burn victim the same goth kid who killed his mom like 8 episodes ago? Holy shit the family of that girl’s dead fiancé FUNDS THE MAGNUS INSTITUTE? Did this famous youtuber meet one of the missing people from episode one? The goth kid is back and he’s looking for Leitner books? The name “Michael” has come up like 6 times? Are they all the same guy? I just—who the f*ck is Jurgen Leitner?

So yeah, as you can see, a lot of these stories connect in cool ways, and I’ve only mentioned like, 0.2 percent of all of those connections. Furthermore, these stories are told out of chronological order, and sometimes the same scenario appears in more than one statement, told from different perspectives. This asymmetrical storytelling and odd doling out of information creates a mystery that’s really interesting. It also makes for a great re-listen, since you can retroactively see what elements were set up before you even realized that they were going to come back.

The audio format contributes to this too; you can’t just see that the table from episode three matches the pattern on the box in episode eight. You have to pick up on clues that were mentioned and pay attention to what people are describing, and it’s highly rewarding when the pieces all start to fit together.

There is a bit of a downside to this though. Technically The Magnus Archives is a horror story first and a mystery second, and these two elements can mesh in weird ways.

The horror is element is really strong. Each story is completely different, sometimes focusing on psychological horror, body horror, or supernatural versions of more primal fears like heights, darkness, enclosed spaces, etc. Basically, if you’re afraid of anything, there will be at least one episode of The Magnus Archives that gets under your skin.

Jonny Sims can really sell his stories through both his writing and acting. He plays Jon, by the way, and plagiarized his own birth certificate for the character name. (For future reference, Jonny is the actor, Jon is the character). Overall, he’s really good at writing prose, and each narrator has a very distinct voice even though the large majority of the stories are being read by one character/actor.

Obviously not every episode is a bull’s eye. Sometimes it’s due to the subjectivity when it comes to what you as an audience member are scared of, and occasionally it’s just weird writing decisions. I’m thinking specifically of episode 21 where the line “the sky ate him” is said, and it is the worst line in the entire show. The whole goddamn show. That’s it. That’s the number one worst line.

But still, overall, the horror storytelling is incredibly solid, and some episodes even gave me brand new fears, like the unholy isolation of being in space, or the concept that someone you love could be replaced by someone completely different without you noticing.

But here’s the thing;

A lot of good horror is based on the absence of explanation. Most of the episodes that gave me the most visceral reactions of genuine terror come from the first two seasons, because that’s when the audience has the least amount of information.

For example, in episode two, a really terrifying coffin is introduced. It’s creepy, it reacts very strangely to water for some reason, and appears to compel people to try opening it. By the end of the episode, the audience never finds out what’s in that coffin and that is a good thing. That is a huge part of what made that episode so unnerving.

And then a few seasons later, we do find out what’s in the coffin, and to be fair the answer is both very creative and very scary, but it also takes a lot of the punch out of episode two.

No matter how f*cked up your thing is, it’s not going to compare to whatever the audience can conjure up in their own mind after such a creepy set up. This problem isn’t just stuck in this one scenario either; there are a lot of early episodes that, while still good, seem a lot less creepy in hindsight after you learn more about the scenario.

I don’t think it’s bad writing, but I do think it’s a double-edged sword. Jonny Sims even mentions this sort of issue in the first Q+A.

But yeah, to sum up; the narration is good, the ideas are creative, and seeing the mystery unfurl itself is deeply compelling. And for the record, the mystery elements aren’t of the Sherlock Holmes variety. It’s less about finding out who did the thing, and more about discovering how all of these individual points are intricately connected, pulling on each other as they move. Woven together like a... oh shit what’s the word? Gah, it’s on the tip of my tongue. Ah, whatever, I’m sure it’s not like a running motif or anything.

Part 2: Stakes

One of the main reasons I stopped watching Supernatural is that it devolves into complete f*cking nonsense. At the end of season five, the boys literally defeat the devil, and then the show...keeps going? Which would be fine. It’s also, largely, an episodic show, so if they have more creative ideas, they could definitely keep going with it. In fact, there are some post season five episodes that I thought were pretty good. But as they kept trying to outdo themselves with Bigger Bads, it got kind of difficult to suspend my disbelief. And the final nail in the coffin for me was the end of season nine, when Crowly basically points out to the audience that the main characters keep dying and coming back to life, so there are no stakes. The most-badest bad guy can always be defeated because some new Thing can just come out of left-field, and dying isn’t even on the table as a threat since people have tons of ways of coming back to life.

The Magnus Archives, while being a show based in the supernatural, notably doesn’t bring anyone back to life, even though some very beloved characters die. I say “notably,” because in the season three Q+A, Jonny even says, “We make a point not to bring people back from the dead in Magnus, I know it sometimes feels like that, but we are very careful to never actually resurrect anyone.”

Upon listening to this I said “oh my god, these guys are the only writers left who at least kind of know what they’re doing.”

Also, as far as plot progression goes, The Magnus Archives is lowkey structurally perfect in the way the threats escalate in the underlying plot; both in terms of destruction and power and in terms of emotional consequences. Season one starts off with one major threat that’s dealt with by the end of the season, season two reveals the main villain, season three lays out the grander forces at play, season four ends the world, and season five is about un-ending the world. The difference between season one and season five is vast, but how we got there makes perfect sense.

As for the emotional stakes, let’s talk about themes and characters.

Part 3: Themes and Characters

At the very end of season two, it’s revealed that the supernatural happenings in the Magnus universe are the result of entities far beyond our understanding. Since their existence is so fundamentally different from what we can comprehend, they interact with the world through cursed items, creatures, and humans who have dedicated themselves to an entity.

A lot of people read this as a metaphor for late-stage capitalism, and I am one of those people. A bunch of faceless entities exploiting humans through means of dehumanization and causing people to suffer because it feeds them seems like an appropriate metaphor.

While we’re on this topic, I do want to talk about Elias, since he’s the main villain of the entire series and also one of my favorite villains of all time. The Magnus Archives is a series that deals with a lot of moral questions and has a lot of characters who do morally questionable things, so one might assume that the villain of said series is, you know, morally ambiguous and sympathetic to some extent despite being “the bad guy.”

Nope! No stops, full bastard. It’s great.

He falls under what I’ve deemed the “unbeatable boss” archetype. He just doesn’t tolerate insubordination or resistance, and that combined with his lack of empathy means that anyone who crosses him is either killed or brought to heel. His power set is cool too. On the surface the ability to see out of any eye and read minds sounds useful, but not deal breaking, but the way he uses that power to manipulate people and anticipate threats...yeah, it makes him kind of impossible to beat.

He’s just...so evil and he loves being evil and every single f*cking thing he does pisses me off and makes me want to kill him. It’s. Great.

Anyways, I think Elias’s role as the central antagonist is what makes the capitalist reading so common. He’s the head of the institute, he’s wealthy, he’s powerful, and he dehumanizes people in ways that are both brutal and chillingly indifferent. He seems like an appropriate stand in through that lens.

I also love how voice actor Ben Meredith plays him like’s he’s trying to seduce the audience.

With all of that said, I wouldn’t call this the critique of capitalism a direct allegory or anything; in much looser terms, this could be a metaphor for any power structure that exploits humans. Organized religion or cults might be even more on the nose, considering there’s a lot of mentions of rituals and worship within the show.

But if we boil it down to its barest aspects and focus on the avatar characters, The Magnus Archives is a series about people becoming monsters. Or, at the very least, becoming worse versions of themselves. That can mean a lot of things to different people in a metaphorical sense; the tense relationship between desperation and morality, the eagerness to please at the cost of one’s own mental health, the psychological traumas that lead people down dark paths, and how personal choices can still be dictated and manipulated by outside influences. It’s kind of heavy stuff, but put into a digestible package through the show’s abstractions.

Well, for the most part.

There’s some debate as to whether or not Daisy’s arc was handled tastefully. While her demise and Basira’s character arc were clearly meant to condemn police brutality and the deeply corrupt system that allows it to foster, it’s still a weird subject to discuss in such a fantastical context, and there is a strange sympathy for the devil angle that can get kind of uncomfortable for some listeners.

Okay, stepping back from that for a bit, let’s talk about Jon and how he fits into this whole “people becoming corrupted” thing.

Jon has one of my favourite brands of character arc, which is one based in deterioration alongside growth. The most obvious way this takes form is his departure from humanity as his relationship with the Eye drives him to psychologically harm others, and he finds himself sympathizing more and more with the people he was afraid of, stating in episode 152 that anyone listening to his recordings might compare him to the other avatars that have had their minds and morals twisted.

Over the course of the series, he is repeatedly traumatized and the show makes a point that he is being both physically and emotionally scarred. These happenings are what drive his motivation for revenge in season five, and he even states that revenge is making him a worse person. As a character he’s constantly berating himself and his own monstrousness, much to Martin’s dismay.

That’s why the finale destroys me in the best way. Upon seeing that Jon has betrayed him and basically given himself over to the Eye, Martin asks “how much of you is even left?” And when Jon tries to reassure him that he’s still himself, Martin’s response is “how would you even know?” This cuts through me every time. Up until this point, Martin had consistently stood up for Jon and Jon’s humanity, even in the face of Tim’s doubt, Basira’s mistrust, Elias being cryptic, and Jon’s own self-hatred. This is the ultimate breaking point, the point where even Martin, the love of Jon’s life, doesn’t really recognize him. It’s brutal. Because at the end of the day, Jon is still himself; he’s a deeply broken person trying to make the right decisions.

We’ll come back to the finale later, but for now I want to talk about the romance.

Jon’s emotional growth throughout the series is largely tied into Martin. Martin’s the first person that Jon really opens up to, and this later grows into trust which then turns into a genuine emotional connection. On the flip side, Martin’s growth in season four is largely tied into Jon. Martin starts season four basically waiting to die, but Jon’s return gives him a reason to keep living, and he’s later able to recognize his own value outside of the pure utility of ‘you need to set yourself on fire to keep everyone else warm.’ Both of them give each other reason to push onward despite everything becoming more and more hopeless.

It’s a good romance. I wish the two had had a few more scenes together before the culmination, but it is built up over the course of four seasons and comes together in an utterly fantastic confession.

And yeah, the scene with Martin and Jon in the Lonely is cheesy as hell, but it is the highest quality of cheese. These are some gourmet nachos.

Umm, also kind of stating the obvious here, but it’s also pretty cool that the main character in this horror story falls in love with another man. You don’t see that a lot, and it’s cool that no one even makes a big deal out of it. It’s just a normal romance, but with two guys. It’s nice.

So, they go to Scottland, they hang out, they’re in love, Jonalias starts the apocalypse through Jon, the world ends, and season five starts!

...Let’s talk about season five!

Part 4: Season 5

At the very start of this post, I said that supernatural mysteries tend to get worse as they go along, and I am deeply sad to report that I don’t think that The Magnus Archives is an exception. It just goes downhill in a very different way than its ilk.

And, so we’re clear, I don’t think season five totally tanks or becomes unlistenable, it’s just, in my opinion, notably worse than the rest of the show.

As discussed earlier, it doesn’t fall apart due to a lack of planning; everything still makes sense, but the presentation has changed drastically. The episodic statements are no longer scary stories, but more like slam poems about the various hellscapes that Jon and Martin are trekking through. Honestly if these were published in a book of slam poetry, I would probably think they slapped pretty hard. I genuinely believe that Jonny Sims is a good writer, but as a podcast a lot of these statements just made me zone out. There’s at least four that I don’t even slightly remember. Myself and many others have noted that they just...aren’t scary, unless there’s a specific episode that really gets under your skin due to a certain fear or phobia.

To quote my friend, “it’s harder to feel a solid impact when the setting is literally divorced from reality. People would either go numb or insane to the point where their fears become unrelatable.”

And, to be honest, I think that this same surreal odyssey set up could have worked with a slight shift in narration. Two stand out episodes for me were “Strung Out” and “Wonderland.” Both of them show the tormented target actively trying to resist and interact with their tormenter, instead of just trying to escape or live through their situation. “Strung Out” is also more of character study; you learn about Francis’s life before the apocalypse through their interaction with the Web hellscape. Meanwhile “Wonderland” is just...f*cked, and you get to see Jon take the perspective of first-person Bad Guy throughout the whole thing, which is its own level of disturbing.

But the majority of episodes feel so abstract that I kind of forget the people trapped in them are supposed to be characters and not just concepts, so it’s harder to feel their dread and pain.

But I’m still here for the metaplot, the drama, and the romance. And when that’s good, it’s great! I think the final handful of episodes are really solid in that regard.

Buuuuuuut...

A decent chunk of season five is dedicated to the “kill bill” plot. Jon discovers he has the power to smite people, and while at first, he’s embarrassed about this, since he actively enjoyed killing Not!Sasha, Martin is super into it! He’s encouraging Jon to murder people.

This is actually the set up for a really good arc. As Jon gets more and more into his own avenging angel persona, Martin could get more and more disturbed by it so by the time they get to London, Martin could be really upset that Jon is so willing to wreak his own divine justice by killing or torturing all of the avatars.

And this does kind of happen. We do reach this end state, and it makes for a good final conflict, but the way we got here was borderline nonsense. Thematic gibberish, if you will.

Throughout the journey, Martin is clearly motived by a sense of justice; these people are bad, and so they should die. Whereas Jon is clearly more motivated by revenge; he only goes after the avatars that hurt him personally. At one point, Jon admits that maybe all of this killing isn’t making anything better, but just making him worse. Martin apologizes for egging him on, Jon absolves him by saying he started it, and then Martin’s like “I’ll keep my apology then.” This is the second worst line in the entire series, right after “the sky ate him.” And it’s close.

But it kind of feels like we’re back at square one. Jon is back to being ashamed of killing and Martin is still keen on his justice stance, but now just less pushy about it. The arc is basically half resolved at this point.

But then it doesn’t matter, because Jon kills Helen anyway. So, Jon’s back on his revenge/justice thing. Then what was the point of his earlier revelation? Why have that if it’s not going to matter and the conflict that was escalating still culminates with Jon leaning into the avenging angel stuff, and Martin being disturbed by it? It just makes both of them look like huge hypocrites! I f*cking hate it when they’re in the tunnels and Martin says “you weren’t meant to enjoy it this much,” regarding Jon’s smiting. Where did this come from?! Why didn’t you say this earlier? Third worst line in the series.

And yeah, I’ll say it; the boys fight too much in this season. I loved their romance up to season five, and their cute moments and more lowkey serious discussions are still good in this season, but God, they fight so much. And I’m not saying couples can’t have fights or tension, that’s just realistic and also stories need conflict to be interesting. Jonny Sims is on the record saying that balancing a healthy romance with the stress of a literal apocalypse was a priority, and I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s well balanced. I’m just saying that sometimes it feels like they don’t even like each other and it really started to grate on me.

Maybe it would have been better if the beginning of this season was dedicated to charming romance at first, so we as an audience could better appreciate how strong their love is and how it’s truly being tested. But obviously that was never on the table—

ALEX NO.

So, yeah, I have a lot of problems with season. I think it’s the worst one by far, even though there is a lot of it I still enjoy, including the ending.

As I mentioned before, the moment where Martin confronts Jon in the panopticon absolutely kills me, and Jon’s reaction kills me even harder. Throughout the season, Jon had largely been motivated by revenge, martyrdom, and the subconscious call of the Eye, and all three of those factors led him to his position as the pupil. He’s getting revenge against the powers, sacrificing his humanity to get rid of the Fears, and taking his place as wearer of the watcher’s crown. But all of this gets thrown out the window when he realizes that Martin is going to die. And not only is Martin going to die, Martin is going to die specifically because he loves Jon and refuses to leave Jon alone to die horribly. Martin had always been an underlying motivation for Jon, his “reason” as stated in episode 167, but now love as a motivator has come to the forefront, and Jon can no longer go through with his plan because of it. But at this point in the series, they’re both utterly doomed, and Jon concludes that the only possible chance they have of surviving, however unlikely, would be to sever the pupil of the eye, technically killing Jon, but maybe, just maybe, allowing them to escape with the Fears. Whether that’s meant to be literal or more ethereal is left unclear. Hell, maybe Jon’s just making it up completely and creating his own potential happy ending. It’s a pretty potent ending in emotional terms; Jon has to release the Fears and Martin has to kill Jon, and those are the two things they were dead set on not doing.

The Web, arguably the real main antagonist, basically won, and their manipulation of Jon worked. The destruction spread, and there is kind of a bleak underlying tone to that.

But at least this ending has some semblance of hope to it. I’m not saying that releasing the Fears was objectively the correct moral decision; the entire point of the dilemma is that there was no objectively correct moral decision. But, while Jon’s solution does have merit, it was also the most hopeless. I think dramatically, any one of the choices on the table could have worked if the writing was well executed, but thematically this one seemed like the perfect combination of grim and optimistic. Like, all of the evils that plague humanity can’t just be defeated forever and things could get worse, but maybe not. Maybe everything works out...

So yeah, The Magnus Archives...is a podcast. And it’s a really good podcast. Great, even. I can complain about season five all I want, but regardless of how that worked out, you can tell throughout the entire show that the people working on it were trying to tell a genuinely excellent story.

It’s good. Go listen to it. Even though I spoiled the entire thing and if you’re still here, you’ve probably already listened to it. Listen to it again.

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin blackwood

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plaggs-stanky-cheese · 4 years

Text

Princess of the order; Chapter 2

Previously On the Princess Of the Order

Damian asks me a question. However, I don't hear it. All I hear is my head yelling " YOU LIED!! YOU ARE JUST LIKE SOPHIE!". I wring my hands. My head is right I am a liar just like Lady Sophie. I couldn't take this anymore. I look up to Damian (who is an inch taller than her) and say " I need to tell you something. I-I can't do this". He looks at me concerned. I drag him to the edge of the order. I spill all my secrets. Every. Single. One. I had to!! Those beautiful green eyes of his melted my heart and my life was too much for a 5-year-old!!! After I finish my rant he looks at me. I then realize what I have done. My eyes widen. What if Damian snitches?!?!?! Oh no, you messed up Marinette. " Hey, Hey! Don't worry!! Your secrets safe with me." I look up to Damian. " really?" He nods. I quickly hug him and tell I'm to meet here again same time tomorrow and just as I was about to head back to my palace Damian had grabbed my hand and gave it a chaste kiss. " Have a Good night Sahib Alsumui "

<><><><><>

From that day on they had met up at the same spot. Sometimes Marinette had to go in her royal wear, but it was a small price to pay. This went on for years until one fateful day...

----------

Damian and I had just finished exchanging gifts. Both of our 10th birthdays had just passed. I had received a necklace with angel wing charms and devil horns saying "Sahib Alsumui". That had become a nickname only Damian had used. Marinette had made a special announcement about how no one was allowed to call her that claiming she wanted to have a less formal relationship with her subjects. Damian had received a similar gift, a gold ring with dove wings, and inside the ring, a secret message was engraved. Marinette put the ring on him not letting him see the message and made him swear not to look at the message unless she said. Why? Cause the message was short and simple, yet meant a lot. It had said I love you, Dove. The two children had just released each other from their hug when Marinette had to go to Castle of Creation to meet the past ladybug. Just as she was about to go the League of Assassins drops in. Some Monks nearby grab Marinette.

" DAMIAN!!!" Marinette yells as she sees an assassin behind Damian. " NOO" she screams right before her eyesight blurs and she slumps.

I jolt up, breathing heavily. It's okay Marinette that was 6 years ago. Breathe.

Again

Tikki flies up to my face and squeaks " Are you okay Marinette?" her voice laced heavily with concern. I had been waking up very often in the middle of the night for the past month always waking up with labored breathing. Tikki had kept me notified of all my strange behaviors in the night. " Yeah, I'm okay Tikki." "Well, there is no use in sleeping now bug, there only 2 minutes till your alarm goes off so I suggest getting ready early." I give a small smile to Tikki and joke " At least my nightmares are helping me with my school schedule now". Tikki just looks at me with a lost look in her eyes before flying back into my purse. I shrug it off and get ready for school. The rest of the horrible day plays inevitably in my mind.

I wake up in a quaint room. My memories were quite fuzzy but I had a feeling that I could trust the place. I head downstairs to only find my Auntie Sabine and Uncle Tom. They rush over to me mouths moving only I wasn't listening. My memories were coming back. I.....I was to head over to my Aunt's place only in an emergency. My eyes widen. In a quavery voice, I ask

" Where is Damian?" not wanting my conclusion to be true, praying to the gods that he's alright. I look over to my Aunt and judging by the look on her face.......Damian didn't survive. I fall to my knees crying body shaking sobs as my Auntie and Uncle hug me.

My Aunt's yelling snaps me out of my trance. I finish doing my pigtails, straighten my purse and head downstairs. Wanting to be early and speak with Adrien before everyone else arrives I grab a croissant and I quickly head over to the school.

I wave over to Adrien who is sitting on the stairs smiling goofily at his phone. He's probably texting his boyfriend. "ooooh Adrien's got a crush!!" I tease while looking down at the boy lounging in the steps. He sticks out his tongue back before saying " Hah hah ha". I squish myself between him and the railing, Adrien quickly moving over for more space. Adrien quickly turns off his phone and rests his head on my shoulder.

" So, how's the Night Terrors?"

" *snort* Horrible as always"

"..."

" Look Adrien, I'm fine okay!! They're just old memories replaying in my mind, and the night before the last, I dreamt the first time I met him so that's a point!!!"

Adrien lifts his head off my shoulder and gives me a skeptical look. I shove him gently and say " okay okay enough about me, how's your mom?". Today marks the 2nd week of Hawkmoths defeat. I recall how I made up a whole team, calling upon almost all of the miraculous for the fight, but as always it ended with me and my kitty against the world...as always. I had healed Mrs. Agreste since Adrien needed a guardian. He wanted to bury his mother in peace but the law required for him to have at least one of his parents unless he wants his father's company ripped from him until he is adopted or is old enough to take charge of it. " She's okay, but still catching up on what happened during the last 5 years" Adrien stated resting his head back on my shoulder. I hum in response happy she's catching on. We sit there gazing at the beautiful city in front of us. It had been a rough 5 years for all of the Parisians but all that was in the past.

" Ya know... I'm still pissed at the JL for ignoring us, but I'm kinda grateful too??" I state. Adrien glares at me from my shoulder and says in a cold voice " Why? ". I wasn't taken back by his voice as it was understandable. If they had helped earlier then no Parisian would have to see their loved ones get murdered and resurrected in front of them. I sigh and jokingly say " well I don't think that I would be able to fight off an akumatized Batman, how bout you?". We burst out laughing.

----------

Our laughing dies down 2 minutes before Alya, Nino, and Chloe arrive. Despite all the things that happened these past 5 years Marinette and Chloe becoming friends were the craziest. Not finding out the identity of ladybug and hawkmoth but their ever-evolving friendship. Like always they ask about Marinette's night terrors and she shrugs them off saying that they were getting better. Yeah, no these were lies. Tikki had often reported to me about the terrors and I became increasingly worried. We all know about Marinette's past but I'm pretty sure what we knew was just a fraction of a bigger and more horrifying story. This Damien character was very important to her and he was her bestie in the Order. Very intriguing.....

More students enter the schoolyard and we started walking toward homeroom. We enter the room. Alya and Chloe pull me aside, with matching looks on their face. " Ninos distracting M, now spill, we know the night terrors aren't getting better." Sweat rolls down the back of my neck as they give me the look. I swallow and stammer out " I-I can't my lady trusts me so uh I like can't really t-tell you guys". Just as they are about to retaliate Mme. Bustier walks in with the biggest smile adorning her face. I signed in relief and made my way towards my seat along with the others.

" Good Morning Students!!!! Today we have a video call with Lila and then I will be handing out the summer job packages for Gotham and New york!"

Shit, I forgot today's the last Wednesday of highschool. Damn, we came far. Mme. sets up the projector with help from Markov and suddenly Lila's face pops into view. Yaaay. I cant practically feel the hate coming from the 3 girls behind me. I shiver. These girls behind me are the most terrifying in the world when they need to or want to be. I discreetly pull out my phone, zone out Lila, and text away to Jon.

~~ a Lil time skip if that's okay~~

Lila had finally ended the call claiming that she had to go the sleep bright and early to help Prince Ali. I was very excited. Jon said he is living in Gotham for the summer so I decided to surprise him. The minute I had gotten the forms for the summer jobs I had filled in the Gotham form and placed it in my knapsack. I turned around and asked the girls where they're going. Nino is honestly fine with anything so he's going with Alya.

" hmm I might go to Gotham but New York does have..." Alya mumbled to herself

" Ugh, I can't decide!! I might decide over a drink later though" Chloe had said picking her nails.

I faced my lady and she just sighed and said: " I might join ya". Alya and Nin agreed with them so I knew I was going to end up coming with them to drive their drunk asses home or at least to my place. The bell ringed for lunch since our school days had shortened ever since Hawkmoths defeat. We went to lunch chatting.

-Another time and POV skip cause this chappie has been a bit bland no?-

I ran out of school, before stopping at the edge of the sidewalk. I sat down at the ledge, my breathing more labored than it was when I snapped out of my trance. My hands meet my hair as I run my hand halfway through. I had another night terror although I wasn't asleep this time. I was fully awake and I saw a bloody Damian pop in front of me and stabbed me in the lung. Normally I wouldn't have flinched but.....this...this was different.

Breathe

inhale

exhale

I hear the doors slamming open and running. Alya and Chloe drop down beside me. " M are you okay? Nino and Adrien are grabbing our stuff." Alya says concern dripping in her tone. I sigh shakily and say " I--Im good I just really needed a breath of air". Chloe and Alya share a look.

" *sigh* okay no I'm not. I have been having night terrors of my best and only friend in the league and it breaks my heart every damn time guys. I..." my voice cracks " I can't handle this" tears stream down my face and I bury my head in my hands. My friends hung me and rub circles on my back while I sob. I can barely hear the sound of Adrien and nino dropping down next to me. they hug my back.

After a good solid 2 minutes of crying which is the most, I have done in 5 years. I get out of their grasp and wipe my eyes. I get up grab my bag and look down at them. " Wanna have a drink?"

They grin at me and I grin back. We quickly make our way towards the mayor's hotel.

~After they have 5 shots of tequila and Adrien has one shot of vodka ;) kudos if ya get it~

I take a lazy glance at the room. Adrien is on the floor balancing bottles on his stomach, Alya and Nino are making out and Chloe is well, Chloe. I blink at Chloe and point a finger at her she looks at me. " hEY wHY arEnt yOu dRunK?" she looks at me with a bored expression and says " Darling I only survive life in general because I take shots every morning. Try Me. "

I gasp. Nino and Alya stop eating each other's faces and surround me and Chloe. I glare at her as hard as I could while being wasted that is. Adrien gets up and pours each of us 5 shots of the strongest we have.

" Aight start on 3, 1...2...3!"

We start. before I can even get into the 4th shot I look over to see Chloe already done and taking selfies. Being the drunkard I am I fall out of my chair and start to chant Chloe's name while bowing down at her. I don't notice Adrien recording it though. Since we just consumed the strongest alcohol ever we decided to fill out the job forms, while we were drunk.

After a while, we all fall asleep on the floor the bottles on our stomachs shaking the slightest.

I wake up in a room full of darkness and 2 people in white jackets. I look around confused and spot a little boy who I notice is ...Damien! The last thing I remember is taking shots in front of Chloe, where......where exactly am I? Damian yells and struggles in his binds I yell out a "NO!" as he screams in pain -

I jolt up screaming. All the bottles on my stomach rolling back onto the ground. " Wass wrong? Akuma?" I hear adrien slur out of habit. I look over to him unable to stop the tears flowing from my eyes. His body structure relaxes as he realizes it wasn't an Akuma. He scooches over to me. Without saying a word he hugs me and I cry softly into his shirt as he kisses my forehead and whispers soothing words.

<><><><><><><><><><>

It's bland I know, has a bit of comedy tho. And a bit of what I guess would call angst? Meh, the next one is Damien's POV so it will be better. The reason it's so long is that I wanted to make it less bland but I Obviously failed. oh well

ADIOS FRENS

#maribat #damienette #gadrien #no salt

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demiwonder-a · 3 years

Text

take me back to the night we met // koncassie

WHO: Cassie Sandsmark & Conner Kent. @kxnel. With plenty of mentions of Erik Lehnsherr.

WORD COUNT: --- words. (i’ll count later no one look at me.)

LOCATION: Undisclosed location.

GENERAL NOTES: Kon’s lil roadtrip has been interrupted by Cassie. She shows up after finally packing up her things and deciding enough has been enough. Tears and break ups ensue. (my own tears actually)

WARNINGS: Toxic relationship behavior, mentions of past death/murder.

KON: The trip had begun to drag at this point. What once seemed like a valiant crusade to take down a coward who draped himself in nationalism, xenophobia, and hatred had turned into a series of personal squabbles. Deaths that were only vaguely and flimsily justified under the pretense of gathering information.

At this point Kon was tired, he wanted to go home but with each new memory of a heart slowing to a crawl and then weakly sputtering out he felt less and less like he really had a home at all.

It was a mistake to come here. That, Kon knew.

He had stolen a moment away from the group to try and clear his head, a cigarette that did nothing for him hanging limply from his lips as he let it burn down to tender skin of his lips before he spit it out and let another take its place.

The sound of rumbling disturbed his bout of self-loathing and his eyes drew up toward the noise only to widen in shock.

“Cassie. What are- where-how?” He tightened his jaw, glancing back toward where the group was making camp for the night before turning back to his girlfriend. “You shouldn’t be here, Cassie. It’s not safe for you.”

CASSIE: There was only so much bending one could do before the inevitable cracks started to splinter out. The foundation could only withstand so much with cracks in it before its falling apart. Red flags only looked like flags when you wore rose colored glasses. She could only look away so many times before she was forced to stare at the ruins of her favorite mess. Kon couldn’t see the smile she was faking, all because he wasn’t looking either. The shaky ground they stood upon finally had given way. The free fall that followed Cassie was almost welcome, at least she was feeling something again other than the steady ache.

It scared her how welcomed the devastation felt.

A decision had been made. Bags had been packed and she avoided Jon all together. If he had any inkling of what was happening she knew he’d tell his brother in a heartbeat. The wind blew through her hair as all the windows in her car were down, sunglasses resting on the bridge of her nose and the unknown on the horizon.

It didn’t take long to find him, sunglasses pushed to the top of her head as night had started to fall. She parked the car and stepped out, taking in the shocked expression of Conner’s face with a sigh. “You still share your location with me. What are you doing, Conner? What are you doing with your life?” She asked, because she truly didn’t know at this point. “I can handle myself. I may not be able to punch a hole through a wall anymore but I still am trained.”

It sounded so tired. She was so tired. There was a resignation to everything about her that she couldn’t hide anymore. “When did it come to this? It never used to feel like me against you. I’m not your enemy.”

KON: His brows drew together as he studied her, the bob of his throat the only indication that her words had gotten through to him at all. He had no idea what he was doing. Trying to do something when it didn’t seem like anyone was doing much of anything, maybe. Trying to find a way to help her become her again? Trying to run, far from New York and its problems and its stresses and its stifling smog and even more stifling aura of hatred that seemed to grow each and every day. It felt impossible to explain and, maybe it was. Maybe there were just no words left to be said.

But he had to try.

“That’s not what I meant.” He tried, and it wasn’t. She had always been larger than life to him. Her dedication, her passion, her unyielding sense of who she was… they had been things he loved about her, they still were, even if they seemed to be drained from her now. It pained him to think that she thought she wasn’t anything without her powers, but it also made him *angry. Were they all defined by their usefulness to her? Was he?

The two men waiting for him were forgotten as he tried to step closer, his hands reaching out for her before dropping uselessly at his sides. “And I’m not yours, Cassie.”

It seemed fruitless to try and speak now, not when the canyon between them had shifted and grown to the point where everything seemed just a little distorted by the distance, an echo of an echo in a chasm. “Why are you so intent on making me the bad guy? Why don’t you trust me?”

CASSIE: The silence stretched and stretched like a rubber band, snapping back almost violently with Kon's words. Her heart had been broken so many times at this point, it felt like she felt nothing any longer because it was no longer breaking. How many times could you put back together something in pieces only for it to be an unrecognizable mess of what it once was? Her heart had broken with each growing divide between them. It broke with the way she longed to take to the sky once more. There was only so many times she could be punched into the ground before she stayed down.

"Why are you giving me so many reasons to not trust you? Why do you keep lying to me? Why do you keep making me feel like I'm insane for being angry at where we're at? What are you even doing here?! What is it that drove you here? Clearly you're doing something you shouldn't be if you're acting like this. It's not safe? Then what is it that's so unsafe about what you're doing?" She demanded to know.

Cassie's anger always burned bright and fast, a brilliant light like star only to die out. Her shoulders slumped down and she rubbed at her face tiredly. "What have we become, Conner?" Cassie asked quietly.

KON: Sometimes she could be so infuriating, so condescending. Did she think that he was genuinely too stupid to make decisions for himself or did she think that he was just a walking time-bomb like everyone else did. It certainly seemed like she wavered between the two rationalizations rather than just listening to him. He had tried to get her to come to his meetings in the alien district, begged her to come to a picket with him. He had tried so many times to reach out, to be there for her and now it all seemed for naught.

It seemed like just about everything was for naught, in the end.

“It’s not- look, Cassie I’m scared that you’ll see Erik and fly off the goddamn handle and he’ll kill you because he is not a man you want to fuck around with.”

And what was so wrong with that? Sure, Erik was a bit testy, and yes, Kon disagreed with his Machiavellian approach to most everything but Batman wasn’t someone to fuck around with either and traumatic brain injury was no more merciful than a painless death. Hell, how many people had Diana killed? How many sentient lives had been snuffed out by Clark’s heat vision? None of their hands were clean, not really, not in any way that mattered.

(Tim had explained the trolley problem to him once years ago. Kon had said that it was a stupid question because he could just lift the trolley off the tracks.)

“I am trying to help people, Cassie. I’m trying to help you! He could figure out how to get your powers back, Bruce brought Erik back to life I swear I’m not just running around the country for no reason.”

He sighed, his voice broken as his head shook. She wasn’t even listening to him, but what was surprising about that?

“I don’t know, Cassie. Why are you even here? To yell at me? To get in one last I told you so? To tell me that I-I’m what? Dangerous? Uncontrolled? To take me home like a good little boy?”

CASSIE: Everything seemed to halt. The world went all too quiet for a moment as Kon's lips kept moving, but Cassie didn't hear what he was saying. Erik. What did he mean Erik? Erik was...he was dead. He was dead because Scott killed him. He was dead because it was what was the right decision, a decision that seemed to have torn Scott to bits and pieces from the inside. A decision that wasn't taken lightly and Cassie had assured him she would never think he was a bad person for. He was dead, but now he wasn't it seemed, and that scared Cassie.

It scared Cassie far too much.

Cassie was brought back to the present and she shook her head quickly. "I don't want him coming near me. I don't want him trying to figure out what's wrong with me. I don't trust him, you shouldn't trust him either, Conner." Cassie said tightly, though she knew he wouldn't listen. He hadn't listened long ago when Cassie said she didn't trust him and she doubted he'd listen now.

And in that moment it's almost as if Cassie could hear the final nail being hammered into the coffin.

"No. I didn't come for that." Cassie said softly. "I can't do this anymore. I don't think we're—" And all the feelings of the multiple heartbreaks rose up like an impending wave and she could feel the water welling up in her eyes, "I don't think we're good for each other anymore. I can't do this. I can't do the lying and I can't watch you go down this path. I've tried...I've tried to tell you how I feel, but you're going somewhere I can't follow. I'll be out of the apartment before you get back."

KON: He barked out a laugh, his eyes a bit more manic than he would really feel comfortable under any other circumstance. He felt like, for a moment, he understood how Lex went insane. There was something about obsession that made you a little crazy and he had always, always been a little obsessed with Cassie.

But now, looking at her, it was a little hard to imagine why.

“You don’t even know him!” He said, his voice harsh. “You don’t know what he’s done for me, Cassie he isn’t all bad. He could help you! He’s trying, he was trying before-“ He huffed a breath. How much did she know? How much had she kept from him while pointing fingers and searching the nooks and crannies of his words to find incongruities and pick apart secrets.

At least his lies were for her, to protect her, to help her.

“Good for each other?” He repeated blankly, his mind reeling as it replayed the words over and over, “Cassie, you’re, what? You’re leaving me?” His voice was small, his shoulders drooping as his hands shook against his thighs.

“Cassie, wait, we can talk about this," He tried, the edge to his voice bordering on desperate as he walked toward her, "don’t leave, don’t- Cass, please don’t- don’t leave me.”

CASSIE: The 'I know enough' was on the tip of Cassie's tongue and threatened to fall between them. She knew she was at fault for the way things crumbled apart too. She was holding this secret firmly against her chest, stuck between a rock and a hard place. It had been weighing on her heavily. Though, she didn't know what else to do. The harsh truth of the situation was there was nothing left to do. They had gotten to a point of no return and it tore Cassie to pieces.

The way Kon curled in on himself and became so very small gripped at her heart tightly. It was her fault, she was going to break his heart and she had to live with that. She already had and knew it. She had long ago and was doing it all over again alongside her own heart. Her fingers were curling around something so delicate and crushing it. Though, her heart had been broken by him as well. He hurt her and she hurt him right back and this was for the best. Right?

The tears finally escaped, slipping down her cheeks as she took a step back in an effort to keep the distance between them. "Conner—" she breathed out with a weak noise, looking up at the dark sky as the rumbling of thunder sounded out. It wasn't her. So clearly Zeus had a sick sense of humor in vocalizing the hurt washing over her. "There's nothing more to talk about. I think we've said enough. I think this will be better in the long run. You can't tell me you haven't been miserable. You keep leaving and I just...I know. I get it. It's for the best." She swallowed hard around the lump in her throat and tried to open up the door to the driver's seat.

KON: He felt like weeping. A not insignificant part of him wanted to climb into the car with her and leave this stupid journey behind, to grab onto her hand and not let go no matter what, but as she stepped backwards unsteadily away from him all he could do was lean onto a nearby tree and try not to wince as it creaked and groaned as its bark gave way underneath his fingertips.

His heart thundered in his chest and he wondered if she cared even a little bit that he would, once again, be left alone. He glanced up, his lips twisting into a sardonic grimace as the rain pelted his face. How fitting a soundtrack the rain would make for his heartbreak. His life was a cosmic joke, he became more sure of it every day.

“I’m not. I love you- I” he buried his face into the crease of his arm, his shoulder hunching as he fought back the tears threatening to overtake him. If she wanted to go he couldn’t stop her. He wouldn’t continue to make a fool of himself for someone who clearly wanted to be anywhere but here, with him.

“Fine! Go then! I don’t need,” He took a shuddering breath, “I don’t need anyone.” He said softly, the tree falling with a thundering crash as he pulled his hand away.

CASSIE: There was a part of Cassie that didn't want to go. A big part of her. If she listened to that part then she'd stay. She'd stay a thousand times over. She'd let Kon kiss her fingers and she would try to forget about the permanent ache in her heart that resided there. She loved Kon, there wasn't a person in the galaxy, in any universe she'd love as much as she did the man standing before her. And sometimes that love meant walking away even though you wanted anything but that.

That's what she was telling herself at least as her heart screamed at her and the tears dripped down her cheeks with the rain.

She watched him and her feet tried to take her forward, to press her hands to his face and beg him to understand, but instead she stayed rooted to the spot as Kon seemed to fall just as loudly as the tree he had leaned again. It felt like there was some sort of sick metaphor in there that Cassie didn't want to look at too hard.

'I wish things were different," almost came.

'I'll always love you," threatened to fall from her lips.

'I don't want to go,' was trapped in the back of her throat.

"Okay," was merely whispered instead. Cassie knew she couldn't remedy this. It sat broken in pieces at her feet and the breath left her in a quiet exhale as her blonde stuck to her face with the downpour of rain. "I'm sorry, Conner. I love—" a moment of hesitation as she stepped back toward the door. "I do love you. I'm sorry. This is for the best. Please...just, be safe. Please." Slipping into the car, shutting the door behind her, her fingers curled tightly around the steering wheel for a moment before reaching down to start the car.

Cassie couldn't help herself. Her eyes briefly flickered up to the rearview mirror and watched Conner's hunched form get smaller and smaller. She wanted to ask the silence of the car if she'd be alright. She had a feeling the answer would be a mere 'I don't know' as she drove into the night.

#int: discord #discord: conner kent #int: conner kent #conner kent: 026 #death mention tw #murder mention tw

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madamebaggio · 4 years

Photo

Notes: So...

Let’s talk for a second.

Remember I said I was procrastinating so hard that I was considering resurrecting old works?

Yeah… This is one of them… lol

It was going to be a Sansa/Willas/Oberyn, then it became a Sansa/Willas and now I’m not so sure.

I’ve stopped quite a while back on it with just two and a half chapters done, so I’ll just post it here and you guys tell me what you think.

Sounds fair?

***

Willas Tyrell quietly chuckled as his friend Oberyn Martell kept pretending he was an innocent human being. Oberyn’s “trust-me-I’m-a-saint” face never failed to amuse Willas.

The Tyrell was about to tell his friend to cut the shit -not with these words, because Willas would never be this crass -when they heard the library door opening.

“I should give up on having a sex life.”

“I should wash your mouth with soap for even suggesting it.”

Oberyn and Willas exchanged curious looks. The first voice was clearly Sansa Stark; her charming accent was unmistakable. The second was Margaery, obviously.

The two older men were hiding in the library, escaping the party. Olenna Tyrell gave the classiest parties in King’s Landing, but they were also crowded with hopeful socialites trying to grab a husband, and Oberyn and Willas were prime game. Therefore, this was a tactical retreat, before they inevitably had to go back to the party.

The young women hadn’t seen them because the men were behind a bookcase, sitting side by side on armchairs. As a matter of fact, they also couldn’t see the two ladies, but they could hear their conversation quite clearly.

“Well, it’s been… Disastrous, for a lack of a worse word.” Sansa continued.

“I’m pretty sure ‘catastrophic’ is worse than ‘disastrous’.” Margaery informed her, quite matter-of-factly.

Willas saw Oberyn opening a grin at that.

“Marge, I’m serious.”

“I refuse to believe that. It can’t have been that bad.”

“It was.”

Willas was wondering what he should do. This was obviously a very private conversation, and they had no right to be listening to it. Sansa was a reserved person and she’d probably feel embarrassed if she knew they could hear something so personal.

“I mean, sure, there was Joffrey…” Margaery was still talking.

“Do I need to say more?”

No, she didn’t. Willas hated the little piece of shit with a passion, and so did Oberyn. It was quite clear his friend was fighting to hold in his comment.

“Selfish little prick, treated me like crap all the time, including the two times we had sex. But at least the second time made me realize I needed to get rid of him fast.” Sansa’s tone was derisive in a way Willas had never heard before. Normally she was a really sweet girl who wouldn’t use a single bad word.

Though… If anyone deserved every single bad word ever invented it was Joffrey.

“Then there was Harry, who thought that his big…”

“Cock?” Margaery offered innocently.

Oberyn pressed his lips together, now really fighting to stay quiet.

Sansa sighed. “Yes. He thought that meant he’d already done his part and everything else was up to me.” They heard Margaery making a noise of disgust. “Besides that, he never took care of me before it…” Now she was sounding really embarrassed. “So it was always painful for me.”

“What a waste.” Margaery grumbled. “Harry doesn’t deserve to have a big cock.”

Sansa’s chuckle was completely humorless. “No, he doesn’t.”

“Did you have sex with Baelish?”

Willas and Oberyn shared identical looks of complete shock. Were they really talking about Petyr Baelish?

Sansa sighed again. “Thank the Seven no. I’m grateful I was never that stupid.”

“And you escaped Bolton.” It wasn’t a question.

Willas arched an eyebrow at Oberyn, asking if he knew of that one, but his friend just shrugged, also looking confused.

“Yes. He tried to grab me, but Robb punched him on the face.”

“Your brother is so hot.” Margaery fawned.

They giggled together and Willas couldn’t hold in a smile. He liked the fact that Sansa Stark was a true friend to his baby sister. It was just one of the many things he liked about her.

“So they all sucked.” Margaery concluded.

“Well…” Sansa dragged the word and Willas could almost see her biting her lower lip as she decided if she should say something or not. “There was Jon…”

“YOU FUCKED YOUR COUSIN?” Margaery said it so loud, that it wouldn’t be shocking if Olenna came in to hear the rest of the gossip.

“Almost.” Sansa let out a long-suffering groan. “We were drunk at a family party, he was feeling shitty, I was feeling shitty… We were talking, next thing we know we were snogging…”

“Then what?” Margaery demanded and Oberyn was almost falling forward on his seat, wanting to know as well.

“He…”

“What?”

“He… Gave me… He…”

Willas furrowed his brow, wondering at what she could possibly be trying to say.

“He ate you out?” Margaery offered.

“MARGE!” Sansa screeched.

“You can just say it.” Margaery teased.

“Yes, he did and it was amazing, but… When I was about to… Reciprocate… He called me ‘Ygritte’.”

“Ouch! Talk about killing the mood fast.”

“He was feeling bad, it was the red hair. At least he said it before we actually had sex, so, there’s that.” It was easy to realize that even Sansa knew this was a weak compensation.

“And you got great oral out of it.” Margaery tried to sound cheery about it.

“Yes, but it was also the first and only time ever.”

“Wait! Are you honestly telling me…”

No, this couldn’t possibly be true. Sansa might be younger than him, but Willas wasn’t blind; she was a goddess. How could it even be possible…?

“Do any of the previous mentioned boyfriends sounded giving to you?” Sansa asked dejectedly.

Margaery’s sound of disgust was answer enough.

“Anyway. This disastrous ending is why I’ve never told you about Jon.”

“Makes sense.” Margaery conceded.

“And that’s it.” And fuck, if this was the extent of Sansa’s sex life he was angry on her behalf.

What was wrong with the boys out there that a woman like Sansa would feel so damned unloved? Willas was quite aware she’d been a bit of a brat when she was younger, but then again, so had Margaery. Sansa was smart, charming and absolutely gorgeous; she deserved much better than that.

He didn’t even have to look at Oberyn to know he was thinking exactly the same thing.

“Don’t say that.” Margaery’s voice was gentler now. “You’ve just had rotten luck so far.”

Sansa snorted. “That’s one way of calling it.”

He heard his sister humming something. “What you need is an experienced guy to give you a few orgasms and restore your confidence.”

Oberyn was nodding along with that particular suggestion, but Willas was more interested on Sansa’s answer.

“Sure, do you keep one of those in your pocket?” She snorted, opting for sarcasm.

“There’s always Oberyn.” His sister offered.

The man in question arched an eyebrow, now clearly delighted by the turn of events even as Sansa screeched in protest.

“I’m serious.” Margaery insisted, with her musical laughter. “He has the fame of being a sex god. It can’t possibly be a lie.”

Willas wasn’t one bit amused by this whole conversation, but Oberyn was clearly having the time of his life.

“How would you know?” Sansa challenged.

It would be a terrible moment to find out his sister had slept with his best friend. There were some things he’d rather never know.

“I met Ellaria. She’s not the type of woman to pretend to have an orgasm just to spare a man’s ego.” Margaery indicated reasonably. “And she was not complaining about him at all. In fact, the things she told me…” Her voice trailed off suggestively.

“He’s older than me.” Sansa indicated, but it didn’t seem like a protest at all.

“But he’s not old.”

“I’m not considering this.” Sansa said, but it sounded like she was talking more to herself.

“You’d have to be dead not to think about it.” Margaery insisted. “Come on! If sex was a person, it’d be him.”

That got a giggle out of Sansa. “So what? Should I just walk up to him and say…” She trailed off so Margaery could complete.

And his sister didn’t disappoint. “Cure me from my orgasm deprivation.” She proclaimed dramatically.

Oberyn shrugged, seemed sold on the idea. Willas gave him a warning look.

“You’re the worst.” Sansa said, but she was laughing.

“You love me.” Margaery sang aloud.

“But… maybe you’re right.” Sansa mused. “Not about Oberyn, I think he’d see me too much as an inexperienced little girl.” Willas was the one to almost snort this time. Sansa might be younger than them, but Oberyn would not see her like a little girl in a thousand years. “But maybe I do need to find a man just to…”

“Fuck?”

“I give up on you.” She declared. “Let’s get more champagne.”

They heard the click of heels, then the door opened.

“How about Willas?” Margaery suggested, as their voices started to get farther.

Now Oberyn was giving him one hell of an annoying look.

“Marge!” Sansa barked a laughter. “Are you seriously pimping your brother out to me?”

“Are you saying my brother isn’t…” But the rest of Marge’s question was cut by the heavy door closing after them.

“Don’t.” Willas spoke immediately, because he knew Oberyn well enough to know where this was going.

“I wasn’t about to say anything.” Oberyn told him, the huge devilish smile on his lips immediately denying his words.

“Oh please.” Willas gave him a flat look. “You’re dying to make some inappropriate comment on this whole situation.”

“I resent that.” Oberyn somehow replied with a straight face. “How do you know it’d be inappropriate?” He challenged.

“Because I know you.” He replied dryly. “Besides that, what we heard was an extremely private conversation. If there was any way we could’ve revealed ourselves without embarrassing Sansa, I’d have done it.”

Oberyn sighed. “You’re right, of course. She’s quite sweet and I don’t think she’d be happy if she knew we heard that.”

“No, she wouldn’t.”

“Don’t you feel like beating them all up, though?” Oberyn immediately added. “How is it possible that they all had her and managed to be so bad about the whole thing, she’s considering quitting on sex all together?”

“She’s young.” Willas said, though it sounded weak even to his own ears. “She just needs to find a better lover next time.”

“Don’t make it sound like she’s a child, Willas.” Oberyn rolled his eyes. “She’s… What? 23?”

“24.” Willas corrected.

“And these bad experiences will just make it harder for her to choose next time. She needs to know how good sex can be, so she can feel more confident about it.” Oberyn insisted.

“Oh really? So what are you saying exactly? And choose your words carefully.” Willas warned.

He realized soon enough his mistake; he’d been too vehement on his defense of Sansa’s honor, and now Oberyn was looking at him like he was a particularly interesting bug.

“Oh Willas, that’s so adorable of you.” He cooed.

“Shut up, Oberyn.” The other man grumbled.

“You’re sweet on the lady.”

“Don’t be absurd.” Willas protested. “She’s way too young.”

“Hardly that young. You wouldn’t be taking advantage, if that’s your concern.”

“After what I just heard? I think I would.”

Oberyn let out a long-suffering sigh. “Why are you always so eager to play the martyr?” He wanted to know. “If you like the woman, ask her out.”

“No.” Willas said firmly. “Now let’s talk about something else.”

Oberyn’s look made it quite clear he knew what was going on in Willas’s head, but he humored his friend by changing the subject.

Thank the Seven.

#madame baggio #crackship #alternate universe #modern AU #game of thrones #gifs not mine #possible fanfic #Sansa Stark #margaery tyrell #willas tyrell #oberyn martell #maybe Sansa x Willas x Oberyn #maybe just Sansa x Willas #i haven't figured it out yet #my delirium

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wildandsexyjacks · 5 years

Text

Where We Left Off

Pairing: Cho Seungyoun + Reader

Genre: Fluff? Maybe a little comedy? idk

Word count: 1.8k

Warnings: Mild swearing

In retrospect, it would have been better to just say no.

When your friend came to work giggling and saying she had met the perfect guy for you to get over your idiotic ex-boyfriend with, you should have thanked her and politely declined her offer to set up a date with him.

It came from a good place, a place of love and concern, you knew that much. The poor girl had to put up with your incessant crying for over a week after your breakup with Seungyoun, so of course, she was worried - but you were fine now. Really.

The problem is: from the day you first met her, you’ve always had a hard time denying her anything. She’s always so bright and cute she can get away with pretty much anything, so just to humor her you had decided to accept the offer and go on the damn date.

Now you wish you hadn’t done it.

Not that the guy’s terrible. Far from it, he seems actually pretty decent. Fresh out of med school, he wants to save lives and help people and believes health care should be free for everyone. He’s smart and handsome, speaks with a lovely accent, and would generally fit your friend’s description of him as The Perfect Guy™…. If he wasn’t so dull you can’t even remember his name. Colin? Connor? You really have no idea.

While he tells you yet another story of his life as a medical resident, you poke at your chicken with a fork and consider faking a stroke or something simply to make him shut up. Then you remember he’s a doctor. It would probably just be an opportunity for him to showcase his abilities.

Damn.

“... And I was like ‘Mrs. Kim, you can’t smoke in here!’ but she blew smoke right on my face and went all ‘I’ll do as I please’ and…” someone clears their throat behind you, and he stops telling his story “Um... Can I help you?”

To your surprise, Cho Seungyoun goes around the table and stops by your side. He looks better than he should while being your ex, and a small corner of your mind tells you it’s not good that you noticed it. For some reason, he seems mad.

“Y/N! Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?” he waves a folded paper sheet on your face “You weren’t picking up your phone so the doctor called me to confirm your appointment. Why didn’t you tell me?”

You frown. What the hell is he talking about?

“What was your plan?” Seungyoun insists, not even giving you a chance to answer, speaking slightly louder now “Dropping out of school and praying I would never find out? Well, that ship has sailed now.”

Turning his back to the guy at your table - Jesus, what is his name? - Seungyoun waggles his eyebrows in a way you know too well and then it hits you: he’s effectively making this up to try and ruin your date, even though you don’t understand why.

It takes more effort than you initially thought, but since you were looking for a way out, you manage to keep a straight face and decide to play along.

“We are over, Seungyoun. It’s none of your business.”

“Excuse me, sir.” Your date chimes in, confused “Who are you?”

“He’s leaving.” You explain.

Seungyoun flashes you one final amused smile before turning to face him - Maybe his name is Colin? He looks like a Colin.

“Who am I? Who am...? Who are you?!” He facepalms, and lets out a muffled sigh through his hand “Who’s this, Y/N? Your new boy? I will die before I let this tool raise my son!”

“Wait-” Possibly-Colin looks at him a little shocked. “What?”

“Daughter.” You correct with a deadpan. “And I’m sure he’ll be a better dad than you!”

“What?” as Possibly-Colin asks again, you try really hard not to laugh.

Seungyoun’s lower lip trembles, and for a second you think he might actually cry “It’s… It’s a girl?”

Completely panicked by now, your date stands up so fast he bumps into the table, then fishes for his wallet inside his back pocket and proceeds to drop some money on the table.

“OKAY, you two clearly have a lot to talk about so I’ll leave you to it.” he takes his jacket and phone “I’ll call you, Y/N.”

“Colin, wait!” You call, getting up from your chair.

“It’s Charles.”

Charles, of course. He leaves you at the table with your ex and made-up baby and aims for the door. When he’s finally out of sight, Seungyoun makes a sad face, pouting at you.

“I don’t think he’s going to call.”

The both of you break out laughing until you remember you’re mad at him.

“Why are you here? And more importantly what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

He stands awkwardly by the table, tapping his foot on the marble floor. You can almost see the gears turning in his head to come up with a reasonable motive for him to show up out of the blue and ruin your date.

“Well, I was the one who brought you here for the first time, all those years ago, remember? You don’t own the place and it’s MY favorite restaurant too, I can come whenever I want.” he rolls his eyes, defensive “I was just having a few drinks with Hangyul-” he points to the bar and you recognize his roommate waving at you from the stool “then I saw you here with Mr. Fancy Pants and noticed you were being viciously tortured with utter boredom so I decided to help.”

He's absolutely right but you’ll never admit to it, so in an attempt to avoid lying you yank the folded paper from his hand to take a peep inside. It’s a music theory exam from a class you both go to and you remember staying up late to study together on more than one occasion. It’s his favorite subject.

“You’re a fucking troll, Seungyoun.”

He laughs and winks at you.

“You used to like that about me, darling.”

The statement makes you frown.

“Don’t call me that.”

His smile falters. “You used to like that, too.” He tries, in a small voice.

“Used to.”

You stare at each other as your dinner gets cold and some clients whisper about what’s happening. You hear the words baby and boyfriend very clearly and sigh.

“What do you want, Seungyoun?”

As if you had invited him to stay, he moves to sit on the now vacant chair, and you slide back into your seat as well. Being exposed to Seungyoun’s sweet smile is probably a set back to your arduous work on getting him out of your system, but maybe if you talk it out like grown adults and then walk your separate ways, it will hurt less to see him in class.

He shifts in his seat, then starts fiddling with a napkin while avoiding eye contact. He seems nervous, almost scared, and chooses his words very carefully before speaking:

“Listen, I know I don’t deserve the best boyfriend award...”

“... You don’t say!” You look at him blankly and he puts his hands up in defeat.

“Okay, point taken. But come on Y/N, we were pretty good together for almost a year. It wasn’t all bad, was it?”

It wasn’t, really. In fact, Seungyoun was fun and romantic and gentle and in general a great boyfriend when he was around. The problem was that he was never around all that much, to begin with, especially after he started participating in rap battles with some guys from college. Between classes and friendships and his underground rapper stuff, he was too busy to be with you most of the time, it was like he always had more serious plans or some sort of inevitable appointment. You’d tried to be supportive, after all, he had worked so hard to get to where he was now in his career as a rising hip-hop star... But after so many months you couldn’t help feeling neglected, so you broke things off because you deserved better than what Seungyoun was willing to offer at that time. It was a difficult decision and you missed him a lot at first, but you were better now.

Sort of.

For the most part, at least.

“What do you want?” You ask again, annoyed at him for showing up when you were trying to forget him and at yourself for letting him do so.

“Nothing is fun without you.” He states matter of factly “My hip-hop gigs don’t mean anything when you’re not there to cheer me on. Cold pizza at 3 a.m tastes horrible if you’re not by my side pouring ketchup in literally everything.” He rolls his eyes “It’s a disgusting habit of yours but I miss even that. You know... I didn’t even finish watching Game Of Thrones because you weren’t there to cuss at Jon Snow with me.” He then sighs and looks at you in a way that breaks your heart “I can’t ever sleep on Friday nights anymore because you were supposed to sneak in and share the bed with me and when you don’t it just... It doesn’t feel right.”

“Seungyoun...”

“Tell me how to fix this.” He begs, clasping his hands together until his knuckles go white “Please, I need to fix this. I’ve been reflecting on what’s truly important in my life and what I hope for the future, and I can be the boyfriend you deserve if you give me another chance. I will do that, I mean it. Please, let’s start over.”

He looks the same yet slightly different - all wide eyes and trembling hands now, a picture of both hope and sorrow. Your heart aches for the millionth time in these three months you’ve been apart.

Nothing is as fun without him too, you realize.

Not your classes, not binge-watching tv shows for two days straight on weekends, not drinking cheap wine while discussing classical music until you fall asleep on the floor of your dorm.

Certainly not having dinner dates at your favorite restaurant either, and that’s just one of the many reasons why Colin-Charles never stood a chance.

The place is packed and you can feel the heavy stares of every customer and employee near your table on the scene unfolding, but you don’t really care. Heart racing like crazy, you reach across the table - knocking the flower vase over in the process - and grab Seungyoun by the lapels. His eyes grow big as he waits for whatever is coming, and not even you are sure if you’d rather kiss him or slap him when your lips come together. Then you pull back again and leave him leaning over the table blinking at you in surprise.

“I don't think we can start over, but maybe we could pick up from where we left off.”

#cho seungyoun #seungyoun scenario #seungyoun imagine #x1 scenarios #x1 fanfic #it's missing x1 hours #fun fact i wasnt even planning on writing for them but now this is almost an x1 fanfic blog lmao

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angel-deux-writes · 5 years

Text

I’ve talked a lot about this long fic I’m working on this month, and I finally got started yesterday and have already churned out a pretty decent amount! I’m like 6 chapters deep, and I wanted to share the first one, both because I kind of like it and because I want to post something this weekend.

I have no idea what this is going to end up being called. Currently in my draft it’s The Return of the Wolf, but that’s going to change. It’ll be Jaime/Brienne, Robb/Dany, and Jon/Sansa when it’s done! With probably a bit of Arya/Gendry as well!

Hopefully putting it under the cut here...

Jaime I

She is still in here somewhere.

Jaime refuses to run, knowing that it would draw the more obsequious of his men to him like large metal moths, looking for a chance to win the favor of their one-handed commander. He keeps his expression level, and he walks as quickly as he dares past his men and through the underbelly of Riverrun. There are shouts from deeper in the tunnel, and he follows them. The clash of swords. His stomach tightens. So much for a peaceful surrender. He runs anyway.

She is still in here somewhere, and he must make sure that she gets safely away. She cannot linger here once the Lannister forces have taken the castle, and he knows that she will linger if Tully gives some fool, impassioned speech about honor and duty, because the stubborn woman is too honorable by half, and she will be moved by the old man’s courage, and she will be killed by the old man’s courage.

He cannot allow it.

He scarcely knows why. He warned her. He all but begged her, but of course she didn’t listen. She never has. Even when they grew something of a respect for each other, she was always so sure she knew better than him. Well, this is what happens. She gets herself caught in a siege she should be far away from, and here he is, trying to clean up the mess.

The mess. The Lannisters are the mess. The Lannisters and the Freys, stealing the ancestral home of the Tullys from Brynden Blackfish, who has long been a hero of Jaime’s. How did it come to this? How did he let it come to this? He thought he could be better, once. Why did he stop trying?

He increases his pace as he ducks his head past a wooden beam and finds himself in a rocky tunnel. There is a dead man at his feet. Lannister armor. Another up ahead. Jaime trips past them, his golden hand loud and cumbersome along the rock wall as he places it there for balance, stumbling as the shadows mess with his perception. Ah. Another dead man, just ahead. He wonders which of them killed him. Not that it matters. He’s seen Brienne take down three men before. She hardly broke a sweat.

He rounds a corner, and at last he sees her. She looks bigger than ever. Her frame takes up most of the tunnel the same way it took up most of his pavilion and left it feeling empty when she was gone. She’s speaking urgently to the Blackfish. Tugging on his arm. The fool woman is trying to get him to abandon the castle. Jaime sighs, and Brienne and the Blackfish both look in his direction. Mostly impassive, both of them, but he can see that one is surprised. Heartbroken to see his left hand near his sword.

He hadn’t actually intended to draw it, but Brienne steps before the Blackfish and pulls her own. Oathkeeper, he thinks. Yes, and she means to keep my oaths for me, if I’m too much a Lannister to keep them myself. Even if it means running a sword through my gut.

“What are you doing?” he asks her.

“Ser Jaime, please,” she says, and she sets her stance wider.

“I will not surrender,” the Blackfish says, behind her.

“I was speaking to the lady,” Jaime replies, trying for sarcastic, trying to pretend that the daggers the Blackfish glares in his direction aren’t piercing. There is sweat on his brow; it trickles down his temple. He dares not wipe it away. “Lady Brienne, I cannot allow you to take him.”

“And I cannot allow you to stop me,” Brienne replies. “I told you it might come to this.”

Jaime continues to move closer. He still doesn’t draw his sword. Could he draw against Brienne? He hardly knows. Perhaps, if it came to it. He’d like to at least die with sword in hand, if only to spare the poor girl the trauma of striking down an unarmed man she once may have thought of fondly, despite all his many faults.

“And I told you that I hoped it wouldn’t,” he says softly. Brienne’s sword does not waver, but her expression does. He meets her eyes.

“It doesn’t have to,” she says.

“My lady,” the Blackfish warns her gently, still close behind her. “We must go.”

“Uncle.”

Jaime’s eyes leave Brienne’s for long enough to see the figure that appears in the tunnel behind her. It’s impossible, yet Jaime would know the boy anywhere. He spent a year chained in his camp, visited periodically by the King in the North, with his great grey beast beside him. Jaime did his best to comfort Brienne when they received word on the road that the idiot boy had died with his mother and wife at that cursed wedding, but he hadn’t exactly mourned the loss himself. He heard tales from the Freys. Bragging, endless tales about cutting the boy’s head from his body and sewing his wolf’s on in its stead. Something that made Tywin laugh and made Cersei smile and made Tyrion wince and made Jaime try to think of nicer things so he didn’t have to imagine it.

“No,” he says, forgetting to be calm or wry or amused or whatever it was he was trying to go for here. “Brienne…”

He can hear the songs now. The Return of the Wolf. The Young Wolf Rises. Triumphant stories of the boy who never lost a battle but who lost the war for love, born again to take revenge. Sentiment has already turned against the Lannisters. Cersei may not want to hear it, but their son holds to his throne only through what remains of the realm’s fear of their father. When the smallfolk hear that Robb Stark has risen again…

“Get in the boat,” Brienne says over her shoulder. “I’ll keep him.”

“We cannot wait forever,” Robb warns her. Jaime can’t stop looking at him, hoping to see an illusion. A trick. This is some Tully cousin they hope to use as a decoy. Some trick to win favor in the war the Starks are fighting against the Boltons.

No. Stark turns his poisonous glare in Jaime’s direction, and it’s him. He is so much his mother and father at once. Jaime has felt the force of that glare many times in his life, but it is perhaps more potent now, with Brienne standing between them.

“It won’t take long,” Brienne says, and both men vanish into the darkness behind her. Jaime had begun to advance again, but he stops when she speaks the words. He wants to feel betrayed. He wants to say Brienne in a hurt, small voice, like a much younger man. A child asking for answers the Septon can’t give. Why?

“I must warn you I’ve been practicing,” he says instead. Brienne’s eyes close for an instant, but then they open again, made glimmering and orange by the torchlight. It used to strike him as funny that she could be so much a maiden in the body she had been given. A soft heart beneath muscles and a massive height. Some cruelty of the gods made her fall in love with poor, dead Renly, and they made her too much man for most but not man enough to secure the heart of the one she wanted. He doesn’t think it’s funny anymore.

“As have I,” she says. Her maiden’s heart is breaking. Jaime steps closer. His left hand still holds the sword, but he doesn’t draw it. She meets his eyes, and her chin raises as she looks at him.

“You’d do it, wouldn’t you?” he asks. He can hear the Blackfish barking orders at someone down at the water’s edge, and he suddenly wants her on it. Away from him. Away from his family. Take the bloody Stark boy and go, he wants to shout, but he doesn’t. His voice is very quiet. He doesn’t know he can shout, now. He is oddly breathless, oddly removed. “For the Starks, you would strike me down. Kill me as you killed Renly.”

“I didn’t kill Renly,” Brienne says. She tilts her head slightly. “Stannis did that. And I killed Stannis.”

A boast from anyone else. From her, it’s a warning. A reminder that he struggled to fight her even when he had two hands—the irons and the year of captivity were bad, but they weren’t a maimed sword hand. If he tried to fight her now, she’d cut through him like wet sand. The best he could hope for would be delaying the inevitable until his men could come to his aid, but then he would have to take her in, and Cersei would…

No. He shoves Widows Wail back into place, and he takes a demonstrative step back.

“You would have done it,” he says. Brienne slides Oathkeeper back into place with a look that’s warning. Almost afraid.

“Yes,” she says.

“Good,” he replies. “Now go. Before my men realize you’ve taken the most valuable political prisoner we had and one we didn’t even know existed.”

There is still a glimmer in Brienne’s eyes as she nods and turns to go, but he also catches the slight edge of a smile. The slight upturn of her lips. She thinks he has done a good and honorable thing, of course. She always thinks the best of him. He wishes she wouldn’t. It would be so much safer for her if she realized how wretched he has become.

He follows her at a distance. Brienne settles into the boat. Her squire is there, he sees. At least she listened to him about that. The Blackfish and Robb Stark are there too. If Cersei knew what Jaime let slip away…

He raises his golden hand when Brienne turns back to look, when they have already begun to melt away into the fog. Brienne hesitates, but then she raises her hand as well. He stands and watches until they’re gone.

Next time, he won’t be so lucky. Cersei is always calling him a fool, and perhaps she’s right. He was a fool to think he could simply meet Brienne of Tarth as friends. The honorable woman and her absurd fondness for the oathbreaker. As long as he continues to stand against the family she swore herself to, she will continue to stand against him.

It would have destroyed her to kill him. But she would have done it, and he would have deserved it. Perhaps she wouldn’t have felt honorable to do it, but she would have been. The Kingslayer slayed at last by a woman as virtuous as she is ugly. The songs would last for a thousand years, and the singers would never know how either of them truly felt for each other.

He returns to his men. He says nothing of Brienne, nor of the Blackfish. He accepts the news of Tully’s escape with an incline of his head and some wry comment about Tully being a sly old man.

In the morning, they will begin the return trip towards Kings Landing. Towards Cersei. And he will pretend that he is as eager to get back to her as he was only hours ago.

#my fics #let's call this #angel does nanowrimo #jaime x brienne

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vaguelygeiszlerian · 4 years

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1 to 40 please OwO

rhhgjtghenrhg avery is that you (im chucking these under a readmore, i just did some so im not doing them again, there WILL be context so prepare to read)

your favorite song everyone who knows me even a little bit knows my favorite song is take on me by aha! https://open.spotify.com/track/2WfaOiMkCvy7F5fcp2zZ8L?si=Y-PQBNsYSFe30n4l-XILsw

the first song you remember loving the very first? well if i can’t do take on me again, you get... hm. well there’s two, so i’ll give you the not embarrassing one. bohemian like you, dandy warhols, a song 2 year old [redacted] went wailing round the house singing. https://open.spotify.com/track/0yEhNqCwEfy8LHUmnZoHpP?si=UDGKtdX-Qwiy2mUP88Xlbg

a song that reminds you of summer done!

a song you haven’t heard in years behind blue eyes, limp bizkit, before you say anything, and i know you will, this song is a depression song and i stand by my love for it https://open.spotify.com/track/1MTQHCpraD4S8g5PAFKzoj?si=vD8m_yjlRoq3bRd1hvQU1A

a song you can relate to right now? well, i’m mostly plucking songs from my ‘real ass bops’ playlist, if you want the one that reflects today’s jordan, you’re in for a grim treat! despicable by grandson https://open.spotify.com/track/5IPT4Noqvo7bsfbWUOHcG4?si=Cp4O-5WdS0-ZqfxxWVR01A

a song that reminds you of your favorite book ooh, i think i have a good one for this, my favorite book of all time is the taking by dean koontz, ask me why sometime, it’s a good read! it’s the end of the world as we know it (and i feel fine), r.e.m https://open.spotify.com/track/2oSpQ7QtIKTNFfA08Cy0ku?si=nfVjPGY7QaGH26uAz-88_A

a song that makes you want to dance right now? two trucks, lemon demon, don’t ask https://open.spotify.com/track/1s5A0u1dnAeVNur5nPkCpD?si=HLZERdMDQnqBxGnj31Lx3g

the best song from your favorite album heart’s a mess, from gotye’s ‘like drawing blood’, his second studio album, which is my absolute fave of all three proper ones he did, even if his first had some really amazing tracks, and making mirrors had some good ones, there’s nothing like learnalilgivinanlovin, or a distinctive sound, or, as i said, heart’s a mess! https://open.spotify.com/track/4tFkgfdi8b3aNcKNthPqIF?si=nDJafKn8QYmEgdqmlN4y4A

a song that makes you want to cry all songs make me wanna cry, but first that comes to mind is black friday (from the black friday musical soundtrack), because as an older sibling with a younger sister that the world doesn’t understand (that i don’t understand sometimes) the little aside about hannah makes me cry every single time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAZgYL0p2zk

a song that makes you feel young the distance, cake, it’s a song i listened to pretty much from my formative years til about... well, yesterday actually! never ceases to make me feel like im a good 15 years younger haha https://open.spotify.com/track/0fsz7tJ7UKXT9hliLfO7aE?si=caOsrX_fT4u9qARZKWSqfQ

a song that means a lot to you la vie en rose, edith piaf. i was (still am) a romantic sucker, and used to make all sorts of idealistic romantic playlists growing up, and i never knew the french (and i still dont (youre welcome em <3)) but the way she sang always made my heart tremble. and then bioshock infinite burial at sea came out, and i listened to that version of la vie en rose a million times, cried at a good half of them. anyway i love this song. https://open.spotify.com/track/3lAun9V0YdTlCSIEXPvfsY?si=zSRwBZ0AQnuyGGkjh2XmZw

the last song you listened to i’m in love with an e-girl, wilbur soot, the chorus of this song FUCKS my friends, honestly the whole song (and internet has ruined me, the sort of sequel) fucks https://open.spotify.com/track/44wBlg3Y1KSAEmaze5BXe7?si=u9mapV8STz6sqR3jg4XMiw

the last song you heard on the radio we don’t really do the radio in the car, and i dont recognise the songs on there these days anyway

the last cd/album you bought the black friday album actually! support starkid

a song to listen to on rainy days done!

a chill song no surprises, radiohead https://open.spotify.com/track/1bSpwPhAxZwlR2enJJsv7U?si=oVXsE5JiTxulLkevqL4hjA

an upbeat song push up, freestylers, ok so maybe we do listen to the radio sometimes, and i heard a snippet of this like two months ago and immediately added it to my playlist https://open.spotify.com/track/2PJq8Fr5i2S0OkcmFsTC1P?si=3K7q37zNRuCQIduRdApjWQ

a song that gets stuck in your head nobody by mitski, everyone knows that one though https://open.spotify.com/track/6bTn1ovliI0OkjUNkiMBJq?si=Vc-DUCl-RpyhRc6lcbpKgg

your favorite song from a movie somewhere only we know, keane, from my favorite scene in ‘he’s just not that into you’ which is one of my fave romcoms, ok you probably didnt need all that context, dont laugh https://open.spotify.com/track/0ll8uFnc0nANY35E0Lfxvg?si=Lov6MdiOTNGrxCiX6UdDZg

your favorite song from a musical inevitable, the guy who didn’t like musicals. i know the choreo, i know every part almost down to the pitch now, i spent hours practicing the kickline with my sister. jon matteson if you have a spare moment please teach me how to kick your legs that high https://open.spotify.com/track/2lQkaEvJa69QCzk3x6HgaA?si=QMRBYXPwRruOSU4_xBPdMA

a song that reminds you of the moon night, the altogether, no real reason here, its just got a lonesome ethereality to it https://open.spotify.com/track/3MKF7HCn6uD03jWcUB8k1R?si=gm8JKR1jQbS6Dh59WUuEwA

a song by your favorite artist/band i really can��t pick between radiohead and newton faulkner, so you get the best of both, 15 step and teardrop https://open.spotify.com/track/6dsq7Nt5mIFzvm5kIYNORy?si=9dEYby1PRKm8zozrCTGcjA https://open.spotify.com/track/7JpgJ7b5sjvo3fUfPcRlq1?si=pVfzoWtuTdO5OsbDgUnabQ

a song from the year you were born closing time, semisonic, one of the fucking best songs ever https://open.spotify.com/track/4EnkwZd0UJAuHpNMMemQaA?si=ASYNfnThR_m9kqFrloI9nw

the number one song on your birthday my heart will go on, celine dion, i guess titanic had just come out that year, but in my country, on my birthday, this was the number one, god help us https://open.spotify.com/track/33LC84JgLvK2KuW43MfaNq?si=HswubDCkQJ-x7-LM06PQUQ

your favorite love song i do adore, mindy gledhill, cliche at this point, i know, but my sister introduced it to me, played it on her ukelele, and i love her, more than i love most things, and it makes me smile even on a day where ive not done very much smiling at all https://open.spotify.com/track/6JNEDSev5Tp5VQR04SEBfV?si=BxnrZafFT3m4QkXNUN5GcA

your favorite christmas song baby it’s cold outside, lydia liza and josiah lemanski, it’s the funniest fucking song https://open.spotify.com/track/3xvFTqHmlMqKjHgczCGn2C?si=lgDMvUQZR-2lPXHINo2POQ

one song that starts with each letter of your name j: JT by jon bellion (https://open.spotify.com/track/1eftOUoeMO1JkSQQmS6jXF?si=h4yYMpXnTAiZPxJJUPv0DA) o: one more shot, spies are forever ost (https://open.spotify.com/track/0EgLq4ORQ6TMPN6rjWp3d6?si=mC3eDbJJRyCGN4fNAcbdlA) r: red signal, the mechanisms (https://open.spotify.com/track/2TWDxsjHx2rqtH197URbE8?si=XB8D-1N-SkKgmlTZOFbcfQ) d: dont judge me, janelle monae (https://open.spotify.com/track/6UQDIIEPzeduwXlZE86SOF?si=1bONXfj-SQiq79ibrXjC-A) a: as your father i expressly forbid it, lemon demon (https://open.spotify.com/track/29L9B2aDs2NhrQGbs8pf9M?si=CvVTbLtNTgGeL3iemrLVHg) n: night drive, gotye (https://open.spotify.com/track/3fuRfxHpC56uNFMOaOlMCm?si=PDAbEsi_SjK-EYDmTvjT6A)

two songs with the same/similar titles that you like i don’t care (fall out boy) / idfc (blackbear) https://open.spotify.com/track/13mM4hWNMH5KwMcwl81tXS?si=YOqg8tVXRQKXB3ANmDFjHQ https://open.spotify.com/track/6y6jbcPG4Yn3Du4moXaenr?si=CzyYs4b5QQ23azTqgv0iXw

a cover that you like better than the original song done!

a song with really good lyrics kick it up a notch, starship https://open.spotify.com/track/1r223IXiRxObMBNh3mcyWR?si=-RX3obwISfS_jk3JjzvaJg

a song with an amazing beat couple’s retreat, jon bellion https://open.spotify.com/track/7pMS0byKI7V1Mpl0SlWEDq?si=Xytu_HBrStq_zjKdia2oig

a song that you associate with the color yellow boys, lizzo https://open.spotify.com/track/1ITsmuChPVC05ogvorAyVu?si=hkoCz7ouQsyLKn8Q7KO92g

your favorite song with an action in the title (jump, dance, etc.) bite back, all american rejects https://open.spotify.com/track/4zJv4aXOIAepvhApOFoQeQ?si=qRtthyDlQvKGRErmkI8lDg

your favorite acoustic song heart is full, jon bellion https://open.spotify.com/track/6DvsjPkNcB4QoezDPtxsAB?si=vD18h70qSFG5xtrjpuy4XA

a song that motivates you take me home, country roads, john denver https://open.spotify.com/track/39q7xibBdRboeMKUbZEB6g?si=STNgdvZSQNSfqX9pENggSg

your favorite song you’ve heard live camisado, panic at the disco https://open.spotify.com/track/1LF5HQ32hztQWzADGH8ys4?si=VDjKcAo9TX-JA0kF6csqQA

a song that reminds you of your best friend ok so this one needs context (and an attached apology), when i think of best friends as a concept i think of tianna, and when i think of tianna, i think of sitting at the junior campus, huddled around my phone, tittering like twits over this stupid fucking song. (but honestly avery this applies to you too, you’re my best friend that isn’t emmy, i love you) enormous penis, da vinci’s notebook https://open.spotify.com/track/7dUCFnaGSWLH6SdDP08NLP?si=dH00DTxqTR2y3mAIEia9Lw

your favorite song from childhood radio/video, system of a down, the song my sister used to babble incomprehensibly loudly to whenever we played it in the car, the one i grew so used to i can literally hear it in my head as i type https://open.spotify.com/track/41pOIT2t1rvr2Trg1HQChZ?si=-Kyg8JSET2uDq0XGMICsMg

a song you always sing along to can’t sleep love, pentatonix, my sister and i’s favorite song to duet together, even if we haven’t quite worked out the proper parts for a two person acapella cover haha https://open.spotify.com/track/1klGbW5a9qTBFUjFfddbmU?si=Lm0FMpz5TVKddr82vUyf2w

your favorite song in a language different from your native one since i’m determined not to reuse songs, you get papaoutai, stromae (sorry about all the french, they bop babe) https://open.spotify.com/track/09TcIuH1ZO7i4vicWKoaN2?si=YTuHkj1DTgicqo7ZnqYJ0Q

#long post #but thanks much for the ask #why i keep on doing these huge lists is beyond me #Anonymous

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

Text

This expose` is an fascinating look at Joe Biden’s life growing up as a stutterer and the effects this disability had on his life, including in politics. It's long but well worth the read in light of his debate performances being questioned and whether he's up to the challenge of facing off against Trump.

Biden says his father taught him about “shouldering burdens with grace.” Specifically, he told his son, “Never complain. Never explain.”

What Joe Biden Can’t Bring Himself to Say

His verbal stumbles have voters worried about his mental fitness. Maybe they’d be more understanding if they knew he’s still fighting a stutter.

Photography Mark Peckmezian, Story by John Hendrickson

SPECIAL PREVIEW: JAN/FEB 2020 ISSUE

LISTEN TO ARTICLE ON WEBSITE

His eyes fall to the floor when I ask him to describe it. We’ve been tiptoeing toward it for 45 minutes, and so far, every time he seems close, he backs away, or leads us in a new direction. There are competing theories in the press, but Joe Biden has kept mum on the subject. I want to hear him explain it. I ask him to walk me through the night he appeared to lose control of his words onstage.

“I—um—I don’t remember,” Biden says. His voice has that familiar shake, the creak and the croak. “I’d have to see it. I-I-I don’t remember.”

We’re in Biden’s mostly vacant Washington, D.C., campaign office on an overcast Tuesday at the end of the summer. Since entering the Democratic presidential-primary race in April, Biden has largely avoided in-depth interviews. When I first reached out, in late June, his press person was polite but noncommittal: Was an interview really necessary for the story?

Then came the second debate, at the end of July, in Detroit. The first one, a month earlier, had been a disaster for Biden. He was unprepared when Senator Kamala Harris criticized both his past resistance to federally mandated busing and a recent speech in which he’d waxed fondly about collaborating with segregationist senators. Some of his answers that night had been meandering and difficult to parse, feeding into the narrative that he wasn’t just prone to verbal slipups—he’s called himself a “gaffe machine”—but that his age was a problem, that he was confused and out of touch.

Detroit was Biden’s chance to regain control of the narrative. And then something else happened. The candidates were talking about health care. At first, Biden sounded strong, confident, presidential: “My plan makes a limit of co-pay to be One. Thousand. Dollars. Because we—”

He stopped. He pinched his eyes closed. He lifted his hands and thrust them forward, as if trying to pull the missing sound from his mouth. “We f-f-f-f-further support—” He opened his eyes. “The uh-uh-uh-uh—” His chin dipped toward his chest. “The-uh, the ability to buy into the Obamacare plan.” Biden also stumbled when trying to say immune system.

Fox News edited these moments into a mini montage. Stifling laughter, the host Steve Hilton narrated: “As the right words struggled to make that perilous journey from Joe Biden’s brain to Joe Biden’s mouth, half the time he just seemed to give up with this somewhat tragic and limp admission of defeat.”

Several days later, Biden’s team got back in touch with me. One of his aides gingerly asked whether I’d noticed the former vice president stutter during the debate. Of course I had—I stutter, far worse than Biden. The aide said he was ready to talk about it. Last night, after Biden stumbled multiple times during the Atlanta debate, the topic became even more relevant.

“So how are you, man?”

Biden is in his usual white button-down and navy suit, a flag pin on the left lapel. Up close, he looks like he’s lost weight since leaving office in 2017. His height is commanding, but, as he approaches his 77th birthday, he doesn’t fill out his suit jacket like he used to.

I stutter as I begin to ask my first question. “I’ve only … told a few people I’m … d-doing this piece. Every time I … describe it, I get … caught on the w-word-uh stuh-tuh-tuh-tutter.”

“So did I,” Biden replies. “It doesn’t”—he interrupts himself—“can’t define who you are.”

Maybe you’ve heard Biden talk about his boyhood stutter. A non-stutterer might not notice when he appears to get caught on words as an adult, because he usually maneuvers out of those moments quickly and expertly. But on other occasions, like that night in Detroit, Biden’s lingering stutter is hard to miss. He stutters—if slightly—on several sounds as we sit across from each other in his office. Before addressing the debate specifically, I mention what I’ve just heard. “I want to ask you, as, you know, a … stutterer to, uh, to a … stutterer. When you were … talking a couple minutes ago, it, it seemed to … my ear, my eye … did you have … trouble on s? Or on … m?”

Biden looks down. He pivots to the distant past, telling me that the letter s was hard when he was a kid. “But, you know, I haven’t stuttered in so long that it’s hhhhard for me to remember the specific—” He pauses. “What I do remember is the feeling.”

Istarted stuttering at age 4.

I still struggle to say my own name. When I called the gas company recently, the automated voice apologized for not being able to understand me. This happens a lot, so I try to say “representative,” but r’s are tough too. When I reach a human, I’m inevitably asked whether we have a poor connection. Busy bartenders will walk away and serve someone else when I take too long to say the name of a beer. Almost every deli guy chuckles as I fail to enunciate my order, despite the fact that I’ve cut it down to just six words: “Turkey club, white toast, easy mayo.” I used to just point at items on the menu.

My head will shake on a really bad stutter. People have casually asked whether I have Parkinson’s. I curl my toes inside my shoes or tap my foot as a distraction to help me get out of it, a behavior that I’ve repeated so often, it’s become a tic. Sometimes I shuffle a pen between my hands. When I was little, I used to press my palm against my forehead in an effort to force the missing word out of my brain. Back then, my older brother would imitate this motion and the accompanying sound, a dull whine—something between a cow and a sheep. A kid at baseball camp, Michael, referred to me as “Stutter Boy.” He’d snap his fingers and repeat it as if calling a dog. “Stutter Boy! Stutter Boy!” In college, I applied for a job at a coffee shop. I stuttered horribly through the interview, and the owner told me he couldn’t hire me, because he wanted his café to be “a place where customers feel comfortable.”

Stuttering is a neurological disorder that affects roughly 70 million people, about 3 million of whom live in the United States. It has a strong genetic component: Two-thirds of stutterers have a family member who actively stutters or used to. Biden’s uncle on his mother’s side—“Uncle Boo-Boo,” as he was called—stuttered his whole life.

In the most basic sense, a stutter is a repetition, prolongation, or block in producing a sound. It typically presents between the ages of 2 and 4, in up to twice as many boys as girls, who also have a higher recovery rate. During the developmental years, some children’s stutter will disappear completely without intervention or with speech therapy. The longer someone stutters, however, the lower the chances of a full recovery—perhaps due to the decreasing plasticity of the brain. Research suggests that no more than a quarter of people who still stutter at 10 will completely rid themselves of the affliction as adults.

“Mr. Buh-Buh-Buh-Biden, what’s that word?,” a nun asked Joe Biden in front of his seventh-grade classmates.

The cultural perception of stutterers is that they’re fearful, anxious people, or simply dumb, and that stuttering is the result. But it doesn’t work like that. Let’s say you’re in fourth grade and you have to stand up and recite state capitals. You know that Juneau is the capital of Alaska, but you also know that you almost always block on the j sound. You become intensely anxious not because you don’t know the answer, but because you do know the answer, and you know you’re going to stutter on it.

Stuttering can feel like a series of betrayals. Your body betrays you when it refuses to work in concert with your brain to produce smooth speech. Your brain betrays you when it fails to recall the solutions you practiced after school with a speech therapist, allegedly in private, later learning that your mom was on the other side of a mirror, watching in the dark like a detective. If you’re a lucky stutterer, you have friends and family who build you back up, but sometimes your protectors betray you too.

A Catholic nun betrayed Biden when he was in seventh grade. “I think I was No. 5 in alphabetical order,” Biden says. He points over my right shoulder and stares into the middle distance as the movie rolls in his mind. “We’d sit along the radiators by the window.”

The office we’re in is awash in framed memories: Biden and his family, Biden and Barack Obama, Biden in a denim shirt posing for InStyle. The shelf behind the desk features, among other books, Jon Meacham’s The Soul of America. It’s a phrase Biden has adopted for his campaign this time around, his third attempt at the presidency. In almost every speech, Biden warns potential voters that 2020 is not merely an election, but a battle “for the soul of America.” Sometimes he swaps in nation.

But now we’re back in middle school. The students are taking turns reading a book, one by one, up and down the rows. “I could count down how many paragraphs, and I’d memorize it, because I found it easier to memorize than look at the page and read the word. I’d pretend to be reading,” Biden says. “You learned early on who the hell the bullies were,” he tells me later. “You could tell by the look, couldn’t you?”

For most stutterers, reading out loud summons peak dread. A chunk of text that may take a fluent person roughly a minute to read could take a stutterer five or 10 times as long. Four kids away, three kids away. Your shoulders tighten. Two away. The back of your neck catches fire. One away. Then it happens, and the room fills with secondhand embarrassment. Someone breathes a heavy sigh. Someone else laughs. At least one kid mimics your stutter while you’re actively stuttering. You never talk about it. At night, you stare at the ceiling above your bed, reliving it.

“The paragraph I had to read was: ‘Sir Walter Raleigh was a gentleman. He laid his cloak upon the muddy road suh-suh-so the lady wouldn’t soil her shoes when she entered the carriage,’ ” Biden tells me, slightly and unintentionally tripping up on the word so. “And I said, ‘Sir Walter Raleigh was a gentle man who—’ and then the nun said, ‘Mr. Biden, what is that word?’ And it was gentleman that she wanted me to say, not gentle man. And she said, ‘Mr. Buh-Buh-Buh-Biden, what’s that word?’ ”

Biden says he rose from his desk and left the classroom in protest, then walked home. The family story is that his mother, Jean, drove him back to school and confronted the nun with the made-for-TV phrase “You do that again, I’ll knock your bonnet off your head!” I ask Biden what went through his mind as the nun mocked him.

“Anger, rage, humiliation,” he says. His speech becomes staccato. “A feeling of, uh—like I’m sure you’ve experienced—it just drops out of your chest, just, like, you feel … a void.” He lifts his hands up to his face like he did on the debate stage in July, to guide the v sound out of his mouth: void.

By all accounts, Biden was both popular and a strong athlete in high school. He was class president at Archmere Academy, in Claymont, Delaware. His nickname was “Dash”—not a reference to his speed on the football field, but rather another way to mock his stutter. “It was like Morse code—dot dot dot, dash dash dash dash,” Biden says. “Even though by that time I started to overcome it.”

I ask him to expand on the relationship between anger and humiliation, or shame.

“Shame is a big piece of it,” he says, then segues into a story about meeting a stutterer while campaigning.

I bring it back up a little later, this time more directly: “When have you felt shame?”

“Not for a long, long, long time. But especially when I was in grade school and high school. Because that’s the time when everything is, you know, it’s rough. They talk about ‘mean girls’? There’s mean boys, too.”

Bill Bowden had the locker next to Biden’s at Archmere. I called Bowden recently. “It was just kind of a funny thing, you know?” he told me. “Hopefully he wasn’t hurt by it.” Bob Markel, another high-school buddy of Biden’s, went a little further when we spoke: “ ‘H-H-H-H-Hey, J-J-J-J-J-Joe B-B-B-B-Biden’—that’s how he’d be addressed.” Markel said the Archmere guys called him “Stutterhead,” or “Hey, Stut !” for short. He fears that he himself may have made fun of Biden once or twice. “I never remember him being offended. He probably was,” Markel said. “I think one of his coping mechanisms was to not show it.” Bowden and Markel have remained friends with Biden to this day.

Before collecting from customers on his paper route, Biden would preplay conversations in his mind, banking lines—a tactic he still sometimes uses on the campaign trail, he says. “I knew the one guy loved the Phillies. And he’d asked me about them all the time. And I knew another person would ask me about my sister, so I would practice an answer.”

After trying and failing at speech therapy in kindergarten, Biden waged a personal war on his stutter in his bedroom as a young teen. He’d hold a flashlight to his face in front of his bedroom mirror and recite Yeats and Emerson with attention to rhythm, searching for that elusive control. He still knows the lines by heart: “Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views, which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books.”

Biden performs the passage for me with total fluency, knowing where and when to pause, knowing how many words he can say before needing a breath. This is what stutterers learn to do: reclaim control of their airflow; think in full phrases, not individual words. I ask Biden what his moment of dread used to be in that essay.

“Well, looking back on it, ‘Meek young men grow up in li-li-libraries,’ ” he begins again. “ ‘Li’—the l.”

“That kind of sound, the l sound, is like the … r sound,” I say.

“Yes.”

“Sometimes I’ve noticed, watching old clips, it looks like you do have a little trouble on the r. It’s your middle initial.”

“Yeah.”

“Like ‘ruh-ruh-ruh-remember,’ ” I say, intentionally stuttering on the r.

“Well, I may. I-I-I-I-I haven’t thought I have. But I-I-I-I don’t doubt there’s probably ways people could pick up that there’s something. But I don’t consciously think of it anymore.”

Biden says he hasn’t felt himself caught in a traditional stutter in several decades. “I mean, I can’t remember a time where I’ve ever worried before a crowd of 80,000 people or 800 people or 80 people—I haven’t had that feeling of dread since, I guess, speech class in college,” he says, referring to an undergraduate public-speaking course at the University of Delaware.

This is when I ask him what happened that night in Detroit.

After saying he doesn’t remember, Biden opines: “I’m everybody’s target; they have to take me down. And so, what I found is—not anymore—I’ve found that it’s difficult to deal with some of the criticism, based on the nature of the person directing the criticism. It’s awful hard to be, to respond the same way in a national debate—especially when you’re, you know, the guy who is characterized as the white-guy-of-privilege kind of thing—to turn and say to someone who says, ‘I’m not saying you’re a racist, but …’ and know you’re being set up. So I have to admit to you, I found my mind going, What the hell? How do I respond to that? Because I know she’s being completely unfair.”

I eventually realize that he’s describing the moment from the first debate, when Harris criticized his record on race.

“These aren’t debates,” he continues. “These are one-minute assertions. And I don’t think there’s anybody who hasn’t been taking shots at me, which is okay. I’m a big boy, don’t get me wrong.”

Listening back to that part of the conversation after our interview made me feel dizzy. I can only speculate as to why Biden’s campaign agreed to this interview, but I assume the reasoning went something like this: If Biden disclosed to me, a person who stutters, that he himself still actively stutters, perhaps voters would cut him some slack when it comes to verbal misfires, as well as errors that seem more related to memory and cognition. But whenever I asked Biden about what appeared to be his present-day stuttering, the notably verbose candidate became clipped, or said he didn’t remember, or spun off to somewhere new.

I wondered if I reminded Biden of his old self, a ghost from his youth, the stutterer he used to be. He and I are about the same height. We happened to be wearing the exact same outfit that day: navy suit, white shirt, no tie. We both went to all-male prep schools, the sort of place where displaying any weakness is a liability.

As I listened to the recording of our interview, I remembered how I used to respond when people asked me about my stutter. I’d shut down. I’d try to change the subject. I’d almost always look away.

In early september, I got in touch with my high-school speech pathologist, Joseph Donaher, who practices at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. I hadn’t heard Donaher’s voice for almost 15 years. Immediately, I was transported back to the little windowless room in the hospital where we used to meet. Donaher was the first therapist—really the first person—who ever leveled with me. I can still see his face, the neutrality in his eyes on the day he looked at me square and said the sentence my friends and parents had avoided saying my entire life: You have a severe stutter.

Donaher and his colleagues try to help their patients open up about the shame and low self-worth that accompany stuttering. Instead of focusing solely on mechanics, or on the ability to communicate, they first build up the desire to communicate at all. They then share techniques such as elongating vowels and lightly approaching hard-consonant clusters, meaning just touching on the first sound in a word like stutter—the st—to keep the mouth and throat from tensing up and interfering with speech. The goal isn’t to be totally fluent but, simply put, to stutter better.

This evolution in treatment has been accompanied by a new movement to destigmatize the disorder, similar to the drive to view autism through a lens of “neurodiversity” rather than as a pathology. The idea is to accept, even embrace, one’s stutter. There are practical reasons for this: Research shows, according to Donaher, that the simple disclosure “I stutter” benefits both the stutterer and the listener—the former gets to explain what’s happening and ease the awkward tension so the latter isn’t stuck wondering what’s “wrong” with this person. Saying those two words is harder than it seems. “I’m working with people who spend their whole lives and are never able to disclose it,” Donaher told me.

Biden says his father taught him about “shouldering burdens with grace.” Specifically, he told his son, “Never complain. Never explain.”

Eric S. Jackson, an assistant professor of communicative sciences and disorders at NYU, told me he believes that Biden’s eye movements—the blinks, the downward glances—are part of his ongoing efforts to manage his stutter. “As kids we figure out: Oh, if I move parts of my body not associated with the speech system, sometimes it helps me get through these blocks faster,” Jackson, a stutterer himself, explained. Jackson credits an intensive program at the American Institute for Stuttering, in Manhattan, with bringing him back from a “rock bottom” period in his mid-20s, when he says his stutter kept him from meeting women or speaking up enough to reach his professional goals. Afterward, Jackson went all in on disclosure: Every day for six months, he stood up during the subway ride to and from work and announced that he was a person who stutters. “I had this new relationship with my stuttering—I was like Hercules,” he told me. At 41, Jackson still stutters, but in conversation he confidently maintains eye contact and appears relaxed. He wishes Biden would be more transparent about his intermittent disfluency. “Running for president is essentially the biggest stage in the world. For him to come out and say ‘I still stutter and it’s fine’ would be an amazing, empowering message.”

Occasionally, Biden has used present-tense verbs when discussing his stutter. “I find myself, when I’m tired, cuh-cuh-catching myself, like that,” he said during a 2016 American Institute for Stuttering speech. Biden has used the phrase we stutterers at times, but in most public appearances and interviews, Biden talks about how he overcame his speech problem, and how he believes others can too. You can watch videos posted by his campaign in which Biden meets young stutterers and encourages them to follow his lead. They’re sweet clips, even if the underlying message—beat it or bust—is out of sync with the normalization movement.

Emma Alpern is a 32-year-old copy editor who co-leads the Brooklyn chapter of the National Stuttering Association and co-founded NYC Stutters, which puts on a day-long conference for stuttering destigmatization. Alpern told me that she’s on a group text with other stutterers who regularly discuss Biden, and that it’s been “frustrating” to watch the media portray Biden’s speech impediment as a sign of mental decline or dishonesty. “Biden allows that to happen by not naming it for what it is,” she said, though she’s not sure that his presidential candidacy would benefit if he were more forthcoming. “I think he’s dug himself into a hole of not saying that he still stutters for so long that it would strike people as a little weird.”

Biden has presented the same life story for decades. He’s that familiar face—Uncle Joe. He was born 11 months after Pearl Harbor and grew up in the last era of definitive “good guys” and “bad guys.” He’s the dependable guy, the tenacious guy, the aviators-and-crossed-arms guy. That guy doesn’t stutter; that guy used to stutter.

“My dad taught me the value of constancy, effort, and work, and he taught me about shouldering burdens with grace,” Biden writes in the first chapter of his 2007 memoir, Promises to Keep. “He used to quote Benjamin Disraeli: ‘Never complain. Never explain.’ ”

Stephen colbert launches across the Ed Sullivan Theater stage, as if from a pinball spring. It’s early September, and his Late Show taping is about to begin. To warm up, he takes a few questions from the studio audience. Someone asks what he’d want in a potential new president. “Empathy?” Colbert deadpans. “A soul?”

Colbert tapes in Midtown Manhattan on the same stage where the Beatles made their American television debut 55 years ago, when Joe Biden was a mere 22. Biden struts out to a standing ovation and throws up his hands in amazement: For me? A brief “Joe! Joe! Joe!” chant erupts.

At first, Colbert lobs softballs, and Biden touches on the key parts of his 2020 stump speech: Why voters must stand up to the existential threat of Trumpism and how the Charlottesville, Virginia, white-supremacist rally crystallized his decision to run. Then Colbert goes for it.

“In the last few weeks, you’ve confused New Hampshire for Vermont; said

Bobby Kennedy and MLK were assassinated in the late ’70s; assured us, ‘I am not going nuts.’ Follow-up question: Are you going nuts?”

“Look, the reason I came on the Jimmy Kimmel show was because—”

The audience howls. Biden flashes a flirty smile. Colbert adjusts his glasses, sticks his pen in his mouth, and nods in approval. The joke was probably canned, but Biden landed it.

Colbert continues to press him about accuracy issues in his storytelling. The studio audience is silent; I��m watching from the balcony and can hear the theater’s air-conditioning humming overhead.

“I-I-I-I-I don’t get wrong things like, uh, ya know, there is a, we, we should lock kids up in cages at the border. I mean, I don’t—” People applaud before Biden can finish.

When the interview is over, Biden receives a second standing ovation. He peers up toward the rafters, using his hand as a visor against the bright lights. A white spotlight follows him offstage. Several minutes later, he glides through the stage door and out onto West 53rd Street. People call to him from the sidewalk. “Joe! Joe Biden!” He climbs into the back of an idling black SUV, and the doors

clunk close.

I follow Biden for a couple of days while he campaigns in New Hampshire. His town halls have a distinctly Norman Rockwell vibe. One takes place in the middle of the day on the third floor of a former textile mill, another on a stretch of grass as the wind whips off the Piscataqua River. His crowds are predominantly older, filled with people who stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and wait patiently to ask questions. After he speaks, Biden typically walks offstage to Bruce Springsteen’s “We Take Care of Our Own,” then saunters down the rope line for handshakes and hugs and selfies. One voter after another tells me they’re unaware of Biden’s stutter. “Knowing that he has had something like that to deal with and overcame it, as well as other really sad things that have happened—it just makes me like him more,” says 70-year-old Grace Payne.

Back in New York, I start to wonder if I’m forcing Biden into a box where he doesn’t belong. My box. Could I be jealous that his present stutter is less obvious than mine? That he can go sentences at a time without a single block or repetition? Even the way I’m writing this piece—keeping Biden’s stammers, his ums and pauses, on the page—seems hypocritical. Here I am highlighting the glitches in his speech, when the journalistic courtesy, convention even, is to edit them out.

I spend weeks watching Biden more than listening to him, trying to “catch him in the act” of stuttering on camera. There’s one. There’s one. That was a bad one. Also, I start stuttering more.

In September, before the third Democratic debate, in Houston, I called Michael Sheehan, a Washington, D.C.–area communications coach whose company website boasts clients ranging from Nike to the Treasury Department. Sheehan worked with President Bill Clinton while he was in office and began consulting on and off for Biden in 2002, when he was in the Senate. On the day we spoke, he was in Wilmington, Delaware, doing debate prep with Biden.

Sheehan and I traded stories of daily indignities—he stutters too. “I remember exactly where the deli was; it was on 71st and First Avenue,” he said with an ache in his voice. He lamented the interventionists, the people who volunteer, “ ‘You know, why don’t you speak more slowly?’ I always want to say ‘Holy shit! Why didn’t I think of that? Thank you!’ ”

Sheehan’s own stutter improved, but didn’t fully go away, when he took up speech and debate in high school. This eventually led him to the theater, which is a common, if surprising, place where some stutterers find that they’re able to speak with relative ease. Taking on a character, another voice, the theory goes, relies on a different neural pathway from the one used in conversation. Many successful actors have battled stutters—Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, James Earl Jones. In 2014, Jones, whose muscular baritone is the bedrock of one of the most quoted lines in film history, told NPR that he doesn’t use the word cured to describe his apparent fluency. “I just work with it,” he said.

At an August town hall, Biden briefly blocked on Obama, before subbing in my boss. The headlines afterward? “Biden Forgets Obama’s Name.”

Sheehan was extremely careful with the language he used to describe Biden’s speech patterns—“I can’t say it’s a stutter”—though he noted his friend’s habit of abruptly changing directions mid-sentence. “I do hear those little pauses, but I really don’t hear the stuff that you would hear from me or I would hear from you,” he said. A few minutes into our conversation, he choked up while discussing Biden’s tenderness toward young stutterers. “Sometimes I feel when he goes a little long on a speech, he’s just making up for lost time, you know?”

Sheehan told me about a night when he came home with his wife and saw the answering-machine light blinking: “Hey, Michael, it’s Joe Biden. I just was watching The King’s Speech with my granddaughter, and I just thought I’d give you a call, because it made me think of you. Goodbye!” He says the message felt like a secret fraternity handshake: “You and I have both been there, and only people in that society know what that is about.”

In Biden’s office, the first time I bring up his current stuttering, he asks me whether I’ve seen The King’s Speech. He speaks almost mystically about the award-winning 2010 film. “When King George VI, when he stood up in 1939, everyone knew he stuttered, and they knew what courage it took for him to stand up at that stadium and try to speak—and it gave them courage … I could feel that. It was that sinking feeling, like—oh my God, I remember how you felt. You feel like, I don’t know … almost like you’re being sucked into a black hole.”

Presidential candidates usually don’t speak about their bleakest moments, certainly not this viscerally. It resembles the way Biden writes in his memoir about the aftermath of the 1972 car accident that killed his first wife and young daughter and critically injured his two sons, Beau and Hunter: “I could not speak, only felt this hollow core grow in my chest, like I was going to be sucked inside a black hole.”

A few weeks later, I ask Jill Biden what she remembers about sitting next to her husband during the movie. “It was one of those moments in a marriage where you just sort of understand without words being spoken,” she says.

As he watched The King’s Speech, Biden accurately guessed that the screenwriter, David Seidler, was a stutterer. “He showed me a copy of a speech they found in an attic that the king had actually used, where he marks his—it’s exactly what I do!” Biden tells me, his voice lifting. “My staff, when I have them put something on a prompter—I wish I had something to show you.”

He pulls out a legal pad and begins drawing diagonal lines a few inches apart, as if diagramming invisible sentences: x words, breath, y words, breath. “Because it’s just the way I have—the, the best way for me to read a, um, a speech. I mean, when I saw The King’s Speech, and the speech—I didn’t know anybody who did that!”

Biden is running for president on a simple message: America is not Trump. I’m not Trump. I’ll lead us out of this. With every new debate, with every new “gaffe,” the media continue to ask whether Biden has the stamina for the job. And with every passing month, his competitors—namely Senator Elizabeth Warren and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg—have gained on him in the polls.

A stutter does not get worse as a person ages, but trying to keep it at bay can take immense physical and mental energy. Biden talks all day to audiences both small and large. In addition to periodically stuttering or blocking on certain sounds, he appears to intentionally not stutter by switching to an alternative word—a technique called “circumlocution”—which can yield mangled syntax. I’ve been following practically everything he’s said for months now, and sometimes what is quickly characterized as a memory lapse is indeed a stutter. As Eric Jackson, the speech pathologist, pointed out to me, during a town hall in August Biden briefly blocked on Obama, before quickly subbing in my boss. The headlines after the event? “Biden Forgets Obama’s Name.” Other times when Biden fudges a detail or loses his train of thought, it seems unrelated to stuttering, like he’s just making a mistake. The kind of mistake other candidates make too, though less frequently than he does.

During his 2016 address at the American Institute for Stuttering, Biden told the room that he’d turned down an invitation to speak at a dinner organized by the group years earlier. “I was afraid if people knew I stuttered,” he said, “they would have thought something was wrong with me.”

Yet even when sharing these old, hard stories, Biden regularly characterizes stuttering as “the best thing that ever happened” to him. “Stuttering gave me an insight I don’t think I ever would have had into other people’s pain,” he says. I admire his empathy, even if I disagree with his strict adherence to a tidy redemption narrative.

In Biden’s office, as my time is about to run out, I bring up the fact that Trump crudely mocked a disabled New York Times reporter during the 2016 campaign. “So far, he’s called you ‘Sleepy Joe.’ Is ‘St-St-St-Stuttering Joe’ next?”

“I don’t think so,” Biden says, “because if you ask the polls ‘Does Biden stutter? Has he ever stuttered?,’ you’d have 80 to 95 percent of people say no.” If Trump goes there, Biden adds, “it’ll just expose him for what he is.”

I ask Biden something else we’ve been circling: whether he worries that people would pity him if they thought he still stuttered.

He scratches his chin, his fingers trembling slightly. “Well, I guess, um, it’s kind of hard to pity a vice president. It’s kind of hard to pity a senator who’s gotten six zillion awards. It’s kind of hard to pity someone who has had, you know, a decent family. I-I-I-I don’t think if, now, if someone sits and says, ‘Well, you know, the kid, when he was a stutterer, he must have been really basically stupid,’ I-I-I don’t think it’s hard to—I’ve never thought of that. I mean, there’s nobody in the last, I don’t know, 55 years, has ever said anything like that to me.”

He slips back into politician mode, safe mode, Uncle Joe mode: “I hope what they see is: Be mindful of people who are in situations where their difficulties do not define their character, their intellect. Because that’s what I tell stutterers. You can’t let it define you.” He leans across the desk. “And you haven’t.” He’s in my face now. “You can’t let it define you. You’re a really bright guy.”

He’s telling me, in essence, that my stutter doesn’t matter, which is what I want to tell him right back. But here’s the thing: Most of the time, Biden speaks smoothly, and perhaps he sincerely does not believe that he still stutters at all. Or maybe Biden is simply telling me the story he’s told himself for several decades, the one he’s memorized, the one he can comfortably express. I don’t want to hear Biden say “I still stutter” to prove some grand point; I want to hear him say it because doing so as a presidential candidate would mean that stuttering truly doesn’t matter—for him, for me, or for our 10-year-old selves.

Now his aide is knocking, trying to get him out of the room. I push out one more question, asking what he saw reflected in that bedroom mirror as a kid.

He goes off into a different boyhood story about standing against a stone wall and talking with pebbles in his mouth, some oddball way to MacGyver fluency. I do the thing stutterers hate most: I cut him off. “What did that person look like?”

Biden stops. “He looked happy,” he says. “You know, I just think it looked like he’s

in control.”

This article will appear in the January/February 2020 print edition with the headline “Why Won’t He Just Say It?”

🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕

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friendlycybird · 5 years

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Season 3 - Part 2

Oh boy. Oh Boy. This was...a lot.

101. “Okay.”

102. Jon refusing to take Elias’ shit felt *amazing*

103. ...coming into TMA from Gravity Falls, this episode left me with nothing so much as the overwhelming feeling of “Mabel can never know that this exists. Never.”

104. Tim...my god I love Tim.

105. I really admire the research that goes into every single episode of this show, you know?

106. In trying to pin down my thoughts on this episode, I realized something. There were three big names responsible for that mission, and also three people sent up...

107. So far, every time I’ve looked at an episode title and thought “It’s either about X, or about Y” it has inevitably been about both, and not in the way I imagined either. And that is something I love about this show.

108. Hey can someone please explain to me what I’m enjoying so much about the dynamic being established between Martin and Peter, please?

109. I actually really enjoy the dynamic between Trevor and Julia?

110. Something else I love about this show is the casual representation. Statement about some crazy Spider bullshit in Hollywood? Let’s have it be from a trans woman. I love it.

111. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Holy Info Dump, I love Gerry Keay with more of my heart than he would know what to do with, oh and also this episode changes literally the entire series, or at least my perspective on it? Like going back through and trying to place what powers were behind what statements I’m like.

112. I...shouldn’t be happy that Basira’s reading statements now, should I? I really like her.

113. How is Martin still alive when his first reflex is to just *touch* everything? Also uhhh...Justin Goff... that’s...a name we’re gonna hear again I’m like. Almost positive.

114. Hey uh...how the fuck is the tree back? I’m not okay with it. Right now, it looks like Hilltop Road was the site of a...conflict...between The Web and The Lightless Flame? And now it’s being reclaimed by The Web since that’s the power it belongs to at its literal foundation? The uh - time anomaly is fucking with my head some though.

115. This is the second time someone in the know about the paranormal has referenced their poor sleep or bad dreams as a reason why they’re okay with giving a statement and I Think we see a little closer the reason why in the season finale but it still stands out to me. Also uh. I went back to listen to the start of this episode to confirm that comment was actually made and uhhhhhh. guys? If a Splinter from an object implied to be from The Slaughter can cause...er...something that needs to have legal phrases like “I don’t think I’m liable” applied to it - what uh - what can a bullet do?

116. In trying to pin down my thoughts on this episode, my mind stumbled across the phrase “the enemy of my enemy is *not* my fucking friend holy shit.”

117. Help, I love them all and this is gonna hurt.

118. Tim...he wanted to try to *save*...the chorus. I. My god I love him and this is gonna fucking *hurt* isn’t it?

119. I’m proud of them. Of Tim, in a way. Of Basira. And godDAMN am I proud of Martin.

120. Yep. Fucking hurts. Also uhhhh...feeling a little...alarmed...by the new management. Like. I was enjoying the dynamic between Peter and Martin but I didn’t want... I mean. This is bad. This is really bad.

#Cybird Says Things #about TMA #The Magnus Archives

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hooksandhappyendings-blog · 7 years

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The Case for Jonsa

So this is a massive compilation of every single scrap of evidence I can find for Jonsa. You’ve probably heard some of these before. I just wanted to put them all in one place and explain my theory for how I think it will happen. I’m spoiler free (somehow) so all of these are completely theories. I, like the ill-informed King in the North, know nothing.

So, let’s start out by addressing the dragon in the room.

STOP TRYING TO MAKE JONERYS HAPPEN.

It’s not going to happen. I, like many of us, was an early believer in Jonerys. I just figured it was inevitable and pretty much accepted it early on. But over time I realized that the ship didn’t seem to have much basis. Season 4 Dany didn’t seem like someone Jon Snow would like. How was this going to happen? Well now I’m positive that it isn’t, and here’s why:

It’s just too obvious.

GRRM has not only mastered the plot twist, he’s reinvented it. He’s the least predictable story teller in recent memory. GoT has changed the way television shows are written and marketed. And yet, almost everyone seems to have decided that they know exactly what’s going to happen. All the signs seem to point to Jonerys. Hell it’s in the fucking title! But that in itself is a huge red flag. A dragon queen and a Northmen named Snow? Little on the nose don’t you think? It’s almost insulting that anyone would think GRRM capable of something so obvious. The Red Wedding, Jaime’s hand, Ned’s death, the destruction of the Sept, Ramsay’s game, Littlefinger’s... entire fucking plotline. All genuine masterpieces. Yet, we’re supposed to believe the finale has been figured out since book 3? I don’t buy it. And you shouldn’t either. Even if there is a union between them, a simple love story? Un-fucking-likely.

“The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself.”

GRRM said that in an interview a while ago. And so far, he’s lived up to his words. Every single character has an inner conflict that makes every decision they make agonizing in some way. You’re telling me the ultimate GoT couple is the one exception? No. If Jon marries Daenerys he WILL be conflicted about it. Which is a head scratcher. Because marrying her would kind of solve all his problems. It would solve just about everyone’s problems. The only negative that union could bring would have to be an emotional conflict. Either he doesn’t love her or he loves someone else. Of that I have no doubt.

Missed opportunities for ship building.

With only ten more episodes left in the series the HBO shipyard really needs to get to work because they are way behind schedule. Anytime Jon and Sansa are in a scene together they’re arguing like a married couple and when they’re apart they’re bringing each other up or, you know, almost murdering potential suitors. The point is they never miss an opportunity to further intensify their relationship. Jon and Daenerys however... There wasn’t a shred of sexual tension in either of their scenes. No banter, like with Sansa and Ygrit. No nervous bashfulness like with Melisandre. There was nothing that hinted that Jon liked her at all. If Jonerys is endgame and we’ve still got three more wars to cover then shouldn’t they be utilizing every single second of joint screen time? If I knew it was real then I would say this looks like the beginning of a slow burn. They do not have time for that. Meanwhile his totally platonic sister is sitting beneath a sacred tree all “I wish Jon was here.” Which says so much! Because Jon being there would mean she wouldn’t have as much power and-- AH! Not enough time for that! Moving on.

Daenerys is not his type.

Even I assumed Jon would be enamored with Dany’s beauty, even if it was just physical attraction at first. In the books it is repeatedly emphasized (beaten to death really) that she is one of if not the most woman in the world. She even has an international reputation. In 7x03 Varys makes a comment about only knowing she was beautiful and everyone who meets her seems to fall in love immediately. Which is why it is at the very least notable that from a production standpoint no efforts were made to show any kind of reaction to her appearance. Normally we would see a closeup of his face to show... something. Eyes widening, mouth opening. And regardless of her beauty why wouldn’t we get this anyway? He’s never seen a Targaryen before. Silver hair must be quite a striking sight. The throne room is imposing. Her dress is stunning. Yet, no reaction? He isn’t in awe of her like Tyrion. He isn’t starring at her like the Dothraki Khals. He doesn’t even seem to take stock in her features at all. He just looks resigned to the fact that she’s probably going to kill him in some crazy sadistic way. I find that telling.

Jon doesn’t respect Daenerys and he never will.

Most people think that when Jon learns Daenerys’ backstory he’ll respect her more. Those people are insane. Regardless of what she’s been through, at the end of the day Jon is his father’s son. He believes in fairness and humility. As Lord Commander he delivered justice to both his enemies and his friends. He values honor above all things. Do you honestly think he could love a woman who burned a man alive without knowing his innocence or guilt? (One of the former Masters beneath the pyramid) Think about that. She murdered a man in a horrifically painful way just to inspire fear in her own subjects. As eye-rolling as it was listening to Cersei vividly describe Dany crucifying the noblemen in Mereen... You realize that’s exactly what she did, right? They weren’t criminals. They were law-abiding citizens. She just happened to disagree with the laws of their city. And when the bad examples committed a heinous crime she retaliated by punishing indiscriminately. She nailed innocent men to those crosses and let them die slowly. And thanks to the testimony of the teacher we know that not all masters were cruel. I admit I thought it was awesome when she did it, but it wasn’t justice. It wasn’t even vengeance. It boiled down to nothing more than a power-play that killed innocent people. Jon would not approve.

WHY I BELIEVE IN JONSA AND YOU SHOULD TOO

Every author worth his snow goes full circle. ALWAYS.

There isn’t so much a lot of evidence that Jonsa is happening as there are reasons why Jonsa just makes sense. The main one being the Petyr/Jon dynamic. It’s clear the final seasons of GoT will be filled with loops and parallels. Bran’s new powers along with the constant reminder that everyone repeat’s the mistakes of their parents makes a full circle twist absolutely inevitable. Petyr wants Sansa/Cat and Jon/Brandon is not cool with it. Baelish’s altercation with a Stark over his love set him on a path of vengeance and greed. How did this start? What was one of the very first scenes? Jon Arryn’s death. Which Littlefinger caused. His rivalry with a Stark is what got the ball rolling. Brandon should have killed him but spared his life. How is this not going to end with Jon remedying that mistake for the new Lady of Winterfell? It’s so GRRM. Oh no wait, I’m sorry. He’s probably going to write the story where the beautiful powerful girl and the beautiful powerful boy meet and fall in love and get married and have beautiful powerful babies and the kingdoms are united and the world is saved which isn’t parallel to anything other than the title but whatever. Much more his style.

Jon’s oversensitivity is very specifically placed.

Littlefinger says that he loves Sansa, but that isn’t what sets Jon off. There’s a very significant pause in which his facial expression doesn’t change. It’s when he says that he loves her like her mother. That’s when Jon flips out. Littlefinger saying he loved her is worrisome enough. Jon has to know that. But it isn’t enough to send him into a rage. When he reacts it’s pure, uncontrollable emotion. I don’t care what anyone says it makes no sense that he would get so violent over a romantic relationship. And that is what we’re talking about. I mean, he’s not worried about Baelish somehow forcing her to marry him. She’s the sister of the king now, no one can marry her without his consent and if he dies she’ll be Lady of Winterfell and can marry whom she likes. He’s also not worried about him raping her. That’s pretty much impossible. Even if he managed to do it somehow he’d never get away with it. He knows Sansa would have him hunted down. So what is Jon so afraid of? Well the only evidence of that we have is Jon’s single line. “Touch” is what he says. He’s not afraid of him marrying her. He’s not afraid of him taking her by force. He’s afraid of him touching her. Which is rather inappropriate for a big brother, wouldn’t you say?

As my mother would say, “Honey, that cloak is not weather appropriate.”

Seriously, why is he wearing it?? Clearly it’s not cold outside. Tyrion isn’t wearing any sort of jacket. Jon is wearing A WOLF HIDE AND A THICK ASS BLANKET OVER ARMOR AND LEATHER BOOTS!! It’s straight up weird. He didn’t have it on in the throne room. He specifically put it on to brood on a cliff about not being able to go home to his advisors (which is the Valyrion word for Sansa). I can’t think of any reason other than the obvious. Sansa made that for him. How could it not remind him of her? I also can’t help but note how important cloaks are in the marriage ceremony. They’re the universal symbol of an eternal bond between two people and it just so happens that she made him one and he treasures it like a security blanket?

HOW I THINK IT WILL HAPPEN

My theory is based mostly on a prophecy given to Daenerys early on. Now I could go into crazy detail examining these verses but for this post I’ll focus on the just two lines. I’ve added in what I believe it means but keep in mind the true meaning has been highly debated.

Three fires will you light. One for life (fire that made the dragons) and one for death (Khals) and one for love (TBD).

Three mounts you must ride. One to bed (D’harrio) and one to dread (Drogon) and one to love (Drogo).

Three treasons you will know. Once for blood (Mirri Maz Duur) and once for gold (wine seller/assassin) and once for love (TBD).

I believe that both lines refer to Jon Snow. I’m not positive how the first will go down but we know this line has yet to come true which means Dany is going to fall in love again. There isn’t really another candidate. I have never doubted that she will be madly in love with him and that’s likely why she’ll ask him to marry her. He’ll agree because it’s obviously the best thing to do for everyone, but by that time he’ll have fallen in love with his sister. It will be forbidden, lots of inner turmoil. In the first draft Jon fell in love with Arya and their relationship is described this way. Sansa has taken on a good part of Arya’s original storyline. I believe this will culminate in Dany catching them together a la Cersei and Jaime. And then to protect Sansa from Dany’s wrath he’ll kill his wife with Longclaw, which will create Lightbringer as the original sword was created in this way. So the thing that started this, Jaime pushing Bran, will end it along with a Stark and a Targaryen love affair. BOOM! Full circle.

Thoughts?

#jonsa #jon x sansa #jonsa meta #jon x sansa meta #actuallyjonsa

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lesmotsincompris · 7 years

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Thoughts on GoT S07E06

Since everybody was discussing the leaks, I decided to watch the leaked episode and almost forgot to post my thoughts here as usual.

Anyway: that was terrible, y’all. That was a whole new level of terrible.

The show was awful long before this, of course, but I think this episode perfectly encapsulates how poorly written it can be. Every scene has a lot to tear apart, but let’s try to keep it short:

Winterfell

Oh boy, did that hurt. What D&D have done to Arya isn’t simply character assassination; they murdered her character, shat on the corpse, set the poop on fire, and put the fire out with vomit.

Arya’s lines during this episode seem to come from an anti-Sansa thread on Reddit. It’s so viciously misogynystic and victim-blaming that I’m losing all respect for fans that buy this kind of bullshit reasoning (and I’ve seen them with my own eyes).

Again knitting is brought in a negative context. Again Sansa is called stupid. Again Sansa is portrayed as an ambitious bitch because she didn’t act as the ideal victim is supposed to act. Again Sansa’s forced marriages are used against her. Again we have another reminder that Sansa was raped, because gods forbid we forget it. This isn’t dealing with trauma, this is rubbing in the audience’s faces one of the most hated scenes of this show.

It’s ridiculously out of continuity too. Everything Arya herself did to survive is ignored (hanging out with Tywin on season 2, anyone?). Also she couldn’t possibly think her sister helped the Lannisters get rid of Ned, she was fucking there. If she saw Sansa’s pretty hair and dress, she must have seen her crying and screaming in despair. Watch your own damn show, D&D!

Once more I must ask: what is Littlefinger still doing in this story? He’s trying to put Arya against Sansa, but why? What does he gain with that? Why is Sansa still listening to him? You can’t give me Sansa being snarky at him in one episode and fully trusting him in another, it just doesn’t make sense.

Sansa was rude to Brienne for no reason, and sent her away purely because D&D needed Sansa alone and unprotected in Winterfell again. It’s so forced it hurts.

Apparently Jon didn’t give any news in weeks. Great job, Jon. But hey, couldn’t they use their fucking omniscient robot brother to see what stupidity Jon was up to this time?

I was giggling during the entire briefcase scene, not even The Room can aspire to be this bad.

Dragonstone

“Heroes do stupid things and they die” is the supreme maxim of Grimdark™. It’s also clearly not what GRRM is going for in the books.

We had a scene with the sole purpose of delivering exposition that Jon is in love with Dany. Is he? Why would he be? What evidence have we seen of this? Oh no, but it’s a lot easier to have a character established as "clever" saying "he loves you" than actually showing the process of two people falling in love.

For all their speech abut sparing the innocent, Tyrion says they’ll burn King’s Landing if anyone touches Dany. See, the smallfolk are only important if they bend the knee, otherwise they can die. So much for wheel-breaking.

(we still don’t know what that means, btw)

Again Tyrion tells Dany what to do and how to act; I’m gonna stab with a knitting needle anyone that calls this show feminist. I don’t think Tyrion is wrong in everything he says, but having him mansplaining Dany constantly is annoying. If he “believes” her, why doesn’t he let her to think on her own? If he doesn’t trust her to do it, then why does he follow her?

I can’t blame Dany for being hostile to the whole succession talk. Yes, it’s an important matter, and one book!Dany still has to address, but it came very suddenly and when they had other more important matters to deal with.

Tyrion doesn’t want Dany to go and she goes, and again the narrative will prove Dany wrong for not listening to a man. Fuck this show.

Beyond the Wall

Aaah, le crap de le crap. Don’t get me wrong, Winterfell stuff made me roll my eyes so hard I could watch my own brain cells dying. But Winterfell was filler, while this is supposed to be the big moment, the “go go go, shock shock shock” we’ve been told about, the core of the wham episode of this season.

And it sucks.

Tormund says that smart people don’t go looking for the dead, and I have to agree with him. The whole plan of capturing a wight and touring it around Westeros was incredibly stupid to begin with, so it’s hard to feel bad for the characters when things go inevitably wrong.

Less than five minutes into this episode they were already joking about Gendry being assaulted by Melisandre. Fuck this show.

Gendry being sold to Melisandre, much like Tyrion killing Davos’ son with wildfire, becomes a “look, those characters know each other” gag. This is a very poor choice and ignores the fact that those characters met under traumatic circumstances that deserve a stronger reaction than that.

Of course you don’t hear Beric “bitching” about being killed six times, that would mean death and trauma carry any weight and in this show they don’t. Not anymore.

I’ve been complaining for a while that the show seems to have forgotten why Jorah was exiled, so they answered me with him admitting Ned was right. That’s great, it would have been a significant character development… if we had actually seen it. Character development is a character going from point A to point B, not suddenly being on point B with no indication of how they got there.

Then Jon says he’s glad Ned didn’t catch Jorah. Why? Does Jon knows that Jorah was exiled for selling people? Is Jon okay with that? Since when? He barely knows Jorah and no relationship was portrayed on screen before this moment, why this sudden concern with him?

Sandor says he hates gingers, which is another nail in the SanSan coffin for the show. We already that’s D&D’s NOTP, but the petty ways they find to demonstrate it always amuse me.

I joked about this being the Ultimate Bro Trip - All the Extras Edition, but boy I was right. There’s everything one could expect from this sort of event: sexual assault played for laughs, dick jokes, the most disgusting reference to Tormund x Brienne, heavy-handed hints of R+L=J, lots of walking for nothing, lots of shitting all over GRRM’s careful worldbuilding, lots of dudes bonding over stuff that makes me hate them as characters, poorly executed action with no real stakes. A true winner!

There are small things that worked for me. I kinda like Beric’s speech to Jon, or Sandor turning around when they burn Thoros’ wound. It’s a simple but effective way to remind the viewer of Sandor’s trauma. It doesn’t cost much in terms of dialogue or screentime, and keeps the character consistent and fleshed-out. But those were isolated moments, and isolated moments are not enough to save us from this torture of a scene.

I like the surprise element of the bear attack, but it was too shaky and confusing for my taste. Gendry says the bear has blue eyes, but I could hardly see the bear itself? And how can I care about characters dying if I can’t even see who’s dying? After some point it was The Revenant - Westeros edition, and still not the silliest scene in the episode.

The white walkers now die like vampires from Buffy and one stab is enough to finish them. Worse, they’re following the route of 'kill the boss, every minion dies’. I hate this trope, I’m sure there’s a name for it. It’s particularly bad in this case because now the white walkers’ impressive numbers don’t mean anything; just kill the extra blue dude with a vaguely Japanese armor and presto! Also, you know, it contradicts what we’ve seen so far including in this very episode.

Despite them walking for ages, Gendry goes back to Eastwatch pretty fast. The white walkers are kind enough to wait for no fucking reason while Gendry sends a raven, the raven reaches Dragonstone, Dany gets ready, and Dany flies to the Wall and beyond. This should have taken weeks, but apparently it happens over a day or so.

Look, when people talk about ‘teleportation’ in this show, we don’t mean that the writers must depict every beat of the trip. We mean that the trip needs to make sense considering everything we know about the setting and the resources available in that world. It doesn’t have to be super accurate either, just not physically impossible like this was.

The white walkers not attacking the group makes the previous Plot Armor evolve to a Plot AT Field from Evangelion. If there was going to be battle anyway, why the waiting? You’re already bending space and time for Daenerys to arrive, so I’m sure there would be better ways to have the ice dragon scene without all this contrivance.

The dragon saving scene would have been awesome if not for all the implausibility that led to it. It’s hard to be invested when you’re already angry and disappointed. The contrivances don’t stop there, and Jon takes two levels in stupidity and keeps fighting all macho when everybody else is safe on dragon back. Also Daenerys loves him for some reason.

That spear throwing was the funniest thing. Congrats to whoever did the dragon animations and noises, though, that was a great job. Emilia Clarke’s nearly-crying face would have been a great start for one of Daenerys’ more emotional moments in the show, watching the death of one of her children. Too bad this is basically all the reaction she’s allowed to have.

Jon got Viserion killed out of sheer stupidity and stubbornness, but somehow Dany loves him even more for that! She wants to wait for him, even if that endangers her other dragons. Back at the Wall, she waits for his return, not perhaps a sign of Viserion. When he apologizes for being the worst, she’s not remotely angry at him. It was “good” that her dragon died, because now she understands. Now she knows that in this show men are always right and women pay a dear price for not listening to them.

Can’t see the narrative goal of leaving Jon behind or him falling in the water. Nobody actually expected him to die, even if he should have. Then you have Uncle Benjen Ex Machina holding thousands of White Walkers on his own, as if that somehow prevents a few of them from going after Jon. This whole scene accomplished nothing but stretching our suspension of disbelief further, as if there was any left at this point.

The walkers somehow put chains on the dragon to pull it. Why not just make the dragon fall on land? Viserion returning could have been cool if: a) it wasn’t a product of a conga line of plot contrivances; b) they didn’t take four years to show us his eyes opening, as if this wasn’t ridiculously obvious.

Daenerys can’t mourn her fucking dragon, she’s too busy finding the Ultimate Man to Listen To. What prompts Jon to decide that Dany is now his queen? Why does he call her Dany? How does Dany know the Night’s King name?

More importantly, why do I still care to ask about all this questions when the answer is “D&D are fucking dumb and they’re hoping we are too”?

Extra notes

Should we start printing Euron’s picture in milk boxes? And what happened to Theon?

Fuck this show, fuckindammit, that was a lot of time and energy wasted just to get angry.

#got negativity #got criticism #antigot #anti got #personal: watching things

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