#so she might actually be out of character-- | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bonefall · 1 day

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how much of Stormpaw’s demon are Maple’s curse vs just things that happen (cause in canon it’s really vague about whether Maple causes all those tragedies or has the ability to see his future for some reason)

EVERYTHING that happens in Stormpaw's Demon involves her. It's not being so dramatically renamed for nothing, she's a major driver and cause of the plot! Crookedstar's young name is in the title; but really, his demon is driving the misfortune.

That said... It's been a while and I'm heavily considering retooling the narrative.

Since I last REALLY worked on it, BB has changed in the sense that I'm a lot more willing to alter canon than I used to be. While my driving mindset used to be "telling a better version of the original story," and that IS a value I still hold... I've lost patience with the misogyny within the original work.

I've spoken at length about the way Crookedstar's Promise grinds my gears (PLEASE follow this link for a full breakdown of why), but in summary; it desperately tries to keep every male character likeable when they shouldn't be, saying nothing about the fact they are complicit in or even enabling abuse, while giving Crookedstar TWO flatly evil maternal figures. Even Brambleberry, who's heavily praised for being "like a mom instead," has a weird moment where she starts giving Crookedjaw the cold shoulder because she finds out he's chatting with a demon.

So like... I'm not sure if I want to make the "better version" of that story. That was the one that I already had, which had Mapleshade be acting entirely out of just the malice of wanting to hurt a child, while Hailstar and Shellheart are the excellent people canon wanted to see them as.

(not that it's even a BAD super edition, it's actually a really good one, but if it's my kitchen that's not what we cook here. Man I really do always massively overhaul my favorite SEs LMAO)

I think, specifically, I want to make Mapleshade slightly more morally gray and Hailstar more of an enabler. Shellheart is getting significantly retooled to make him more of the heartwarming parental figure I think he should be; someone loving to help balance out a very heavy rework.

And of course Brambleberry, I'm going to tweak her some. Try to make her flaws more consistent, get rid of that odd cold shoulder moment.

Old regulars will remember an old AU which is also still a massive favorite of mine; it was called Better Call Mapleshade, and it was kind of a commentary on how an environment can shape a person. Mapleshade, as a demon in heaven, was essentially their best prosecutor and defense attorney.

You can actually see how a lot of ideas from that AU ended up in Better Bones with the expanded trial system! I'm thinking of taking another page out of it, by making Mapleshade more aware of "the game" of Clan culture's structural unfairness, while also using it like a weapon against people she wants to hurt. A powerful demon of revenge.

Under the cut, what won't be changing, the way it was, and Draft 2 of Stormpaw's Demon.

(MASSIVE CONTENT WARNING FOR MENTAL AND PHYSICAL CHILD ABUSE including ableism. BB!Rainflower is WORSE than canon.)

WHAT WON'T BE CHANGING;

These are major details of Stormpaw's Demon that are different from canon. I'm working with these as givens and won't be changing between drafts.

Mapleshade does have a bone to pick with Appledusk's lineage specifically. One option might make her more discerning when it comes to her targets, but no matter what, she is going to have her eyes on this bloodline. She Haunts Applekin.

Rainflower is Hailstar's deputy. And I will make her downfall spectacular. If you were worried I was going to make her more sympathetic then you have no idea who I am LMAO

Shellheart is not Crookedstar's biofather While I want Hailstar to maybe be worse; I do want to fix Shellheart by making him a good parent. I've decided a good way to do this is to make it that Shellheart adopts Storm AFTER he's been abused by Rainflower. He didn't have authority over him before then. In general, I do want him to have a bigger positive role in this narrative. DEPENDING ON WHICH VERSION: Oakheart might also not be his bio-brother.

Crookedjaw is not a cruel name; it's an Honor Title. I've ALWAYS been frustrated by how canon treats scars and injuries as bad things. It's a BATTLE culture. Surviving brushes with death is their WHOLE THING. There is no "crookedkit" or "crookedpaw," he was Stormpaw until he earned his warrior name, with "Crookedjaw" commending the massive lengths he's gone to in order to survive, adapt, and honor StarClan.

Mentor change: Goodbye Cedarpelt, hello Magpiesky! I decided to repurpose one of the Barn Cats! Magpie from the books is a daughter of Perchshine-- the cat who killed Mapleshade. She joined RiverClan long ago. She's actually the one who points him in the way of the barn, and has to train him "as a punishment for teaching him disobedience" when he comes back. I actually have a couple of minor reasons for making this change but I'll spare them for now. He might start with Cedarpelt, but then run to the barn when Cedarpelt is basically refusing to train him properly.

Some family tree shuffles I need to update this tree to show Crookedstar's new situation with Shellheart (and also reflect some other changes I made like confirming Hallowflight fully being Lizardtail's honor title and Robinpaw being the apprentice who gets eaten by Ripwater), BUT, overall this tree is solid.

The ableism Storm faces is going to have a different flavor I have built BB in a way where him surviving his injury would be very respected, but he'd get badly coddled and pushed into early retirement. Him running to the barn is because he suspects he wouldn't have gotten training otherwise.

He kills a fox there because it's Cool. I might give him the tail to wear as a trophy of the kill because that's also Cool. The fox was very old and feeble at that point, which was why it was attacking chickens, but shhh

The Way It Was (Very Evil Mapleshade)

Darkstar's Commandment creating the Queen's Rights, that no queen would ever have to reveal the other parent of their kittens, wasn't enough to appease Mapleshade.

Nor was the damning of everyone that Mapleshade killed. In a fit of irrational fury at all the death, StarClan sent all her victims into the Dark Forest.

But she can't chase them. In the Dark Forest, you don't see someone unless you WANT to see them, not unless you're hanging out in a "land mar" (a sort of personal hell that all demons get).

on the off-chance she does see them, Frecklewish usually rips her to shreds...

Which is the next problem.

You can't DIE in the Dark Forest if you're a demon. You poof back into existence the next day, no injuries, no scars, nothing.

she's bored.

And vengeful. In spite of the wrong being righted, she still thinks she deserves MORE revenge, because what she wanted was really Appledusk.

She finds it unfair that HER legacy is snuffed out, that it's Darkstar's Commandment and not hers, that her babies were destined for greatness and by extension SHE should have been great.

So she takes up a hobby in tormenting Appledusk's descendants. She wants to eradicate them completely, but is spiteful enough that she'll just settle with hurting them.

The first one she managed to kill was Applefrost, Reedshine's son. Just by accident. She didn't know she had such power over the mortal plane.

After that, she managed to drown Duskwater. The daughter.

But she couldn't wipe out HER daughter in that storm... and she brought two more Applekin children into the world.

Stormkit and Oakkit.

So, naturally, Mapleshade turned her sight on the little fuzzball.

He would be an easy kill, in theory. She smashed Stormkit's jaw on the rock, but Oakkit pulled him out.

From there, it's similar to canon for a bit. His recovery is long and painful.

Rainflower is disgusted, and wants absolutely no part of helping him through this process.

That wasn't an injury gained in battle-- it's because he's careless and didn't listen to her. He's going through all this suffering, and for what?

To never become a warrior?

She's cruel to him, begins to neglect and distance herself from him. Discourages him from suckling.

Mapleshade LOVES this. It's worse than she could have imagined. Rainflower is horrible.

Gleefully, she realizes that Stormkit dying now is what Rainflower wants.

So, she kills two other kits in the nursery.

Fallowtail's only survivor is Willowkit, so she has plenty of milk. She starts suckling Stormkit.

(Graypool is now an older sibling! She's actually an apprentice at this time! Later, she encourages Willowkit to visit their father, who decides to just kidnap them completely)

Eventually, being the deputy, Rainflower had some kind of conversation with Hailstar.

During that conversation, she asked him to do something very cruel to Crookedkit.

And Hailstar LOST IT

He's the successor of Volestar, who was appointed by Darkstar herself to uphold the Queen's Rights and protect children.

How DARE you try to turn RiverClan into a place of disrespect?? To use my power this way?!

So, her power was stripped, and Oakkit and Stormkit were taken from her.

From there, Storm eventually goes to the barn as discussed, and Mapleshade continues to do things to hurt him.

This was my first draft, and now having thought about it a lot, I feel like it's not super cohesive. A demonic Mapleshade who's entirely malicious is neat, but I feel like this makes her flat. Shellheart's not tied in super well either, and Hailstar's stand feels kind of hollow because Rainflower hasn't actually used or leveraged the new authority I've given her.

But most egregiously? Rainflower's abuse being so close to canon tastes kind of bland. I feel like I can make it sooo much more intense, complicated, and painful.

Draft 2 of Stormpaw's Demon (Demon of Revenge Update) Essentially an outline for the first few chapters establishing Mapleshade by dealing with Rainflower and then fragments for the rest.

Mapleshade's still malicious, but this time, there's more to it.

Darkstar's Commandment, and the damning of her victims, DID appease this Mapleshade.

But is she satisfied? No.

She doesn't feel like she was wrong at all, actually. Without her killing those three in revenge for her kittens, StarClan's anger probably would have subsided.

She can't hunt her victims down again though, because, they don't want to see her. She fights Frecklewish every now and then but what's the point?

She WON already. She already GOT the euphoria of dragging them all down with her.

Punishing everyone who had ever wronged her was the highlight of her existence... but now it's done.

She's in Hell and she's bored. Her punishment is never seeing her kits again, but more importantly, her punishment is eternal shuffling through the leaf litter when she's SO GOOD at getting revenge.

Problem with revenge is, when you get it, it's gone.

She probably messed with Duskwater and Applefrost a bit, but if she killed one of them, it was accidental. It made her realize that revenge without a motive is just boring.

The prologue would probably open up with establishing her as a character. Who she is, what she wants.

Because the first chapter would dive RIGHT IN to Stormkit. The only child of Rainflower, the deputy.

Right along with Stormkit, you only learn in hindsight that he was born in a storm that killed his grandmother. It's clear that Rainflower reminds him of this often.

And that she's nasty to him. Giving him unclear instruction and finding things to critique, telling him to jump and then barking at him that he didn't ask how high.

She has great expectations for him, and reminds him of their family lineage often. Of who killed his great-grandfather, of what a fantastic pair of warriors Applefrost and Duskwater were

"I lost everything the night you were born. You'd better be able to make up for it."

Unfortunately, Stormkit is not the sort of child who's good at listening to those sorts of orders. He's stubborn and defiant; angry and oppositional.

When he doesn't understand why you do something, he doesn't want to do it

He "embarrasses" her a lot, and gets hurt for it.

In public, these are swats and whacks. The things you're "allowed" to do to discipline your child. In private these are a lot more severe.

So when Stormkit is given an order or a command, he obeys completely out of fear rather than respect. And sometimes he forgets his fear.

The other cats in RiverClan? Well... Stormkit is a problem child, and Rainflower is a fantastic, organized, respected deputy.

Hailstar especially, unfortunately. He feels bad... for Rainflower.

"It must be so hard for her to have such a little brat as a son. He never seems to learn his lesson. When will he stop wandering off? What's wrong with him? He certainly didn't get that from her."

His best friend, Oakkit, gets in the SAME trouble he does.

He's mischievous, fearless, and outgoing, and... never gets punished for it.

There's times where Oakkit does something and Stormkit physically recoils, just imagining what Rainflower would do if HE did something like that. Especially in how Oakkit talks to his dad, Shellheart.

For example, Shellheart will come to get his son for suckling time and Oakkit will tell him to his face things like, "I don't want to! I'm HAVING FUN!"

and shellheart doesn't flip out. He just. explains why it's important to eat on time.

"I know. But Fallowtail wants to go have fun too! She's waiting for you to come and suckle so she can go play."

"Well why can't she just play now and I suckle later?"

"When a suckler is full of milk, it makes their belly very itchy. She's uncomfortable when you don't come and eat on time."

"nnnh"

"Tough sell? How about I sweeten the pile with a badger ride back?"

"Hm. You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Dad."

Stormkit doesn't know why he hates it. He's all angry inside when he sees them acting friendly. He's polite because Oakkit's his best friend and Mr. Shellheart is really nice, but he just...

He's too young at the time to know he's envious. He wants what Oakkit has so badly it hurts.

Sometime after an exchange like that, Stormkit is visited by Mapleshade for the first time.

And they talk about Stormkit's anger and resentment. Stormkit lets it slip that he HATES his Mi.

Waits for Mapleshade to stop him and tell him, like everyone else does, that "she's still your mother."

...but she doesn't.

Besides Oakkit and Shellheart, she's the first person who doesn't tell him that.

She just lets him talk. Lets him go on. Starts making nasty jabs, which make him laugh.

"She says she lost everything the day I was born!!"

"What?! That's crazy! She got you that day!"

"Right?! It's like she's saying I'm nothing! Maybe she SHOULD lose everything, then she'd know what she's got!"

And then she asks, "Do you want her to die?"

Suddenly, there's a chill in the air. He's really shocked by the suggestion of that. He didn't... he didn't mean it to go THAT far. That's not what he meant... is it?

But she's fading back into the shadows, just her eyes visible in the dark. Tells him that she can see he's unsure. That's ok.

Holds up a budding sprig of sycamore, the maple she's named for. Its buds grow in a "deer hoof," with one large bud in the middle and two "toes" sprouting on its sides.

Teaches him that if he needs someone in his corner, all he has to do is call.

(to summon her, a bud is plucked off the sprig and thrown in the river.)

He wakes up with the sprig in his paw, panics, and shoves it under the nest he shares with his mother.

The experience shakes him. He probably ran to Brambleberry for the first time, who explains very seriously that he was contacted by a demon.

From the description... Mapleshade. The cat who killed his great-grandfather.

He BEGS her not to tell Rainflower. PLEADS with her. He can barely hear her already saying yes under the throbbing sound of his heart in his ears.

When he calms down, he hears her saying yes. On the condition she will need to smoke the nursery with sage and cedar, and that he will be needing a bath as well.

When he's still concerned that Rainflower will question him, she makes a plan to distract her for a day, long enough for him to do his cleanse and the smell to fade.

And, of course, that he will not follow any instructions that Mapleshade left him. He agrees. But does not tell Brambleberry about the sprig.

For a while he's very "well behaved." But it's not about him, never has been.

It really doesn't take long at all for Rainflower to get worse. Kids who are defiant like that are usually exercising a defense mechanism-- if they're not aggressive about their boundaries, their limits are pushed to a breaking point.

And after a big blowout like this, which was probably a public spectacle, Stormkit runs back to his nest and digs out the sprig, runs to the river, and throws a bud in the river.

Having calmed down from his shuddering fury, the dread begins to set in as a dead-smelling wind ruffles his fur. He can't help but feel like he just did something very stupid out of anger.

Looking at his reflection, he sees no cuts or swelling. The blows weren't "bad enough." He doesn't have the kind of injuries that anyone would do anything about. Equal parts guilt and frustration swell in him like a tide at full moon. How could he be sitting here wishing she hurt him worse?

So he tries to soften it, "I don't want her to die, I just, I... I just want her to lose everything like she says. Please..."

The wind whispers in his ear, "it will get worse before it gets better."

"I can handle that," he sobs, "I can do anything. Please. Make it stop."

After that, Oakkit probably runs to come find him. Stormkit doesn't want to be found. He makes up a childish plan, on the spot, to run away and join ThunderClan.

Oak says that's mousebrained, but Storm has DEVOTED himself to this plan he made just now.

And is crossing the stones.

Oak sighs, but if Storm's going to ThunderClan, he should really go with him because then they could totally fight off a small fox (Childish hubris)

Unfortunately, Rainflower found them. asks Exactly What He's Doing.

The kids freeze. Stormkit in particular has that horrible, twisting anxiety that you get when you hear The Tone that means you're in for an absolute wallop when you get home.

He's about to start running, but then the voice tickles his ear-fur again. Mapleshade tells him to go back. It'll be ok. She's on his side. She'll make her pay.

Oakkit is still frozen in place when, as if possessed, Storm's body stiffly returns to his mother.

There's a silence. The river trickling through the stepping stones. Storm looking with fear and anger up at her.

She's waiting for an apology, groveling. He doesn't give her one.

So she raises her paw and gives him an awful, hard blow.

His little body twists, flung off balance, trying to correct himself, and he can swear he felt paws pushing him a second time, whipping him downwards.

The feeling of falling fills his stomach, the water sloshes into his ears before there's a ring of a sound like CLUNK-CRUNCH, and then the river floods his nose and mouth.

It all goes dark.

When he wakes up, it's with a throbbing pain in the side of his jaw so intense that he can feel it all the way down in the tip of his tail. He learns from Brambleberry that Oakkit rescued him-- jumped right into the water to pull him out. And then Rainflower pulled him out. That was when Shellheart came and found them.

There's a LOT of arguing outside, but Storm can't ask what it is because it hurts to move his mouth at all. Brambleberry hushes and soothes him, telling him it's nothing he needs to know about.

(MEDICAL INFODUMPING: i do actually have a medical reason I want his injury to come from someone hitting him which causes him to fall. The injury he'd get in canon would actually be a really simple and common split in the front of the mandible, which wouldn't cause his mouth to have a dramatic twist and would heal very easily. He needs to come down on the rock at an angle to shatter the joint like that.)

From here, the tune about Stormkit starts to change.

Oakkit was distraught when they got back, telling everyone that Rainflower smashed him against a rock.

Rainflower's story is that he was running, and she chased after him. EVERYONE knows that he has a habit of doing this.

Then HE slipped and fell and hit his face on the rocks. His fault.

Oakkit was running away with him, he's lying.

Shellheart is FEROCIOUSLY taking the side of his son, furious that she would imply he raised a liar.

Hailstar is taking the side of Rainflower. It's two troublemaking kits against his deputy.

Yes, Rainflower's disciplined him before, but that's no indication she'd do something like this on purpose.

Brambleberry weighs in that the injury that Stormkit has isn't the sort of injury a kitten gets from hitting his jaw. The bone is shattered.

probably does some kind of visual to go along with it, using a stick and a stone

"The bones of a kitten are like the young shoots of a tree. When they fracture," she takes a young twig and snaps it in her paws. The fibers in the center are bent but unbroken, with the bark splintered around them, "they flay but don't snap."

She places the stick on the ground, "So for the injury that Stormkit has," and violently smashes the rock down onto it. It's shattered and pulped, the fibers flattened, "there would need to be a great force."

Shellheart hisses, saying that THIS is the evidence. Oakkit's story is consistent but Rainflower HAS to have lied.

Several cats are now on his side.

...But more are on Rainflower's.

"She's his mother. She loves him. Oakkit has to be mistaken."

"Why would she chase down her own son just to smash his face on a stone?"

"She wouldn't pull them out of the river if she really wanted to hurt him!"

Hailstar prompts if there's ANYTHING else that could explain this?

It comes up that Brambleberry cleansed the dens the other day.

She says that it's possible there is a demon's influence at work. She can't know for sure which one it is-- but it may have a grudge against Rainflower.

She allows them to reach the conclusion that it's probably Mapleshade on their own. She will be talking to Crookedkit when he's able, but she's not about to tell anyone about his dream yet.

She doesn't want him to have the extra scrutiny when he needs to rest and heal, but if she'd shared that an unnamed cat had a demonic dream, it would set off panic as cats accused each other of dark magic.

Rainflower manages to escape consequences by pointing out that it was likely Mapleshade that injured her son.

Oakkit is still trying to tell everyone SHE did it, he SAW it, Stormkit walked back and she hit him and smashed his jaw on the rock

But he's hushed. It's decided there's not enough evidence. And not enough reason to doubt the noble deputy.

She's never done something like this before, after all. It's more likely it was an accident.

There is a group of cats that are dissatisfied about this, though, and it only grows when Brambleberry explains that Stormkit's prognosis is not good.

There is a very high chance he will die. Even adult warriors can wither slowly from this sort of injury.

Recovery will be slow and it will be painful.

...but after that incident? Rainflower gets bolder. She got away with it in public. She got a taste of the leverage she has, how much they trust her.

Stormkit spends a lot of time floating in between his dreams and his living-world pain. There's at least one interaction where he speaks to Mapleshade, screaming at her that he TRUSTED her, he KNOWS she's the one who hurt him! How could she?!

She can't say much, kept at bay by a hazy smokescreen of sage. "You must live! You must survive!"

Her old words echo in his head; It Will Get Worse Before It Gets Better.

Throughout the recovery, Rainflower grows more cruel and more distant.

In public she likes to talk about how difficult this is for her, but he's strong, he will survive.

In private, she'll do things that hurt him, like repositioning his head in a way that "his jaw will heal better in." When he cries, she's unsympathetic.

"You brought this on yourself. This is for your own good."

Her definition of "private" is also changing. She's getting more comfortable with snapping at him in front of limited groups of people.

Since she's deputy, the other two parents in the nursery, Shellheart and Fallowtail, do their best to care for Stormkit while she's away. He's pulled away from them when she gets back, any ideas or suggestions they have vetoed.

When they try to go to Brambleberry about this, she shakes her head with frustration and tries to make them understand she knows... and she's just as unhappy with it as they are.

She tells them she keeps going to Hailstar, but he's still hesitant. Even though she's trying to tell him that Stormkit's recovery is being undermined.

"Rainflower's son has always needed tough love. She's his Mi and knows him best... she's still taking care of him. Give her a warning before suggesting anything drastic."

In the other draft, I had Mapleshade kill two of Fallowtail's kits to free up milk for Stormkit. I'm not sure I need that anymore honestly, plus, this rework's heavy enough! She can just have Willowkit without any deaths, while Graypaw remains an older sibling.

When Brambleberry informs Rainflower and Stormkit that the jaw isn't healing straight and it will probably be at an angle forever, Rainflower reacts with disdain.

"His first scar and it's nothing he earned?!"

She's reminded he might not even survive. He's lost weight. He's eating less. Stormkit curls up quietly. He hates how they talk about him like he can't hear them.

"Surviving is the bare minimum," she scoffs reflexively. There's a silence so thick you can cut it with a claw. After an uncomfortable heartbeat, she continues, "What kind of a life will he live if he-"

"a life," Brambleberry cuts in, "he'd live a life. And it can be a good one"

Rainflower growls, spitting that the twisted jaw is a disfigurement. He'll never be able to open his mouth all the way. He can't chew and he can't suckle forever. Stormkit will never become a warrior if he can't even dispatch a fish with a killing bite.

"Scars are the sign that StarClan has mended our bodies after fighting a good fight, making any Clanborn cat worthy of being an elder" Brambleberry preaches, "Names are what mark us, calling upon our ancestors to look down at us and witness our actions, Rainflower. Don't say anything you wouldn't want them to see."

Rainflower flicks her ear, seething, a rumble in her throat, "was that some kind of threat? As if I've said something wrong?"

"If you feel threatened, look within."

Stormkit resents all of this talk. He can feel his mother tensing up next to him, hears the low rumble progressing into a growl. When adults play stupid games with his mom, he's always the one who ends up dealing it. Why don't they get that?

It's only Shellheart who seems to have it click, "Hey, this is the nursery. Can you take it outside, please?"

As Brambleberry and Rainflower leave, Stormkit lays curled up in his nest, cold and alone. Oakkit leaves Shellheart's paws to curl up around his best friend.

Shellheart stares at them, shifting, but ultimately stays where he is.

There's a lot of words I could write there, between Storm and Oak. Ones where Storm speaks about how he just wants the pain to be done with. Others where Oak comforts him, tells him how much he means to him. More where they end up running into the wall that they're just two little kids and they've both learned the truth that they have no control over what happens when Rainflower comes back into that den.

But I think it would be good to end there, at the lowest point. Because it gets better.

Pissed off by being gently confronted, after her warning from Brambleberry, this is the moment where Rainflower goes too far.

Hailstar is gradually losing his patience. Every time this issue comes up, he's making some kind of new excuse for her.

She's still a competent deputy who holds the Clan together, but this has taken a toll on her reputation.

Her biggest mistake was becoming more open with her abuse after being emboldened. And I think Hailstar is beginning to feel like he's got "egg on his face."

After standing up for Rainflower several times, getting heat from Brambleberry, and now the Clan also starting to murmur...

It's getting very difficult to justify why he's sticking his neck out.

and maybe, part of him is starting to feel a little self-conscious about the way that his deputy is acting about her injured child.

When she comes storming up on this fateful day, interrupting whatever he was doing to make a proposition, it's the breaking point.

Her suggestion: "I've realized that there's only one way to ensure my son survives his injury. He's being haunted by our demon, which only started threatening him when he disobeyed me for the last time. WE need to teach him a lesson, and make sure StarClan gazes down upon him to acknowledge his mistakes."

"...how do you intend to do that?"

"Stormkit must be given a Dishonor Title."

A Dishonor Title, one of the greatest shames that a leader can put onto one of their warriors. A punishment that ranks just below exile in terms of severity.

"you want to put a dishonor title... on your child? one with a life-threatening injury?"

"One that acknowledges his carelessness. To protect him from the demon."

Protect him from the demon. "I see now what must be done."

Previously, I'd thought of Hailstar as someone who would be loud and merciless when he does this. Now I'm thinking it was something he put a lot of thought into. He stands up, brushes past her, and goes to talk to some of his most trusted cats. Brambleberry, his mate Echomist, an experienced warrior such as Piketooth or Ottersplash, and lastly, Shellheart.

So it's not a surprise to anyone but Rainflower herself. He doesn't want this to be dramatic. He doesn't want it to be another big scene. Stormkit has gone through enough.

When he eventually has this Clan meeting, he calls it quietly. In his address to the gathered cats, a crowd that Shellheart and his family are missing from at his request, he says that his greatest regret is that he didn't do this sooner. He even doubts that Mapleshade is haunting her at all-- now having seen her behavior, he says it's more likely that Rainflower bashed her own child against a rock and simply lied.

First, he announces that Stormkit will be removed from her care. He will no longer be of the Applekin bloodline.

She is banned from the nursery at the request of Fallowtail, and will only see Stormkit when supervised by his new Mi, Shellheart.

Brambleberry has already agreed to this necessity, and is performing a ritual so that StarClan may approve of this choice.

He also strips her of her deputyship, and appoints Ottersplash instead. (I might change this to a different deputy eventually)

Not everyone agrees with Hailstar. There's an uproar from Rainflower's supporters.

She was a VERY popular deputy.

More that are just uneasy, feeling that this was a BRUTAL punishment that she didn't deserve.

Lots are happy and optimistic, though. But the mixed reception is exactly why Hailstar asked Shellheart not to be here.

This isn't something Stormkit has to deal with right now.

When Darkstar herself, who created the Queen's Rights, was on her last life, she appointed Volestar to uphold the law as her legacy knowing that Oakstar might try to break it again.

Volestar appointed Hailstar, in the hopes that he would uphold her legacy in turn, to protect kittens and those who can't protect themselves.

He was late, and can only hope he was not too late. He hopes that Volestar can forgive him for that.

Meanwhile in the nursery, Shellheart, Oakkit, and Stormkit are alone, far in the back, where the padded moss keeps out arguing voices.

Oakkit, bless his little heart, is babbling with excitement because his best friend is his BROTHER now. And it's gonna be THE BEST.

He's talking about how it's fine he can't chew because now they can have soup, and they're going to make the nest bigger, and they can stay up later because they can whisper quieter if they're this close together

But Storm doesn't really hear him. His head's swimming, thinking about the dull ache in his jaw, how MAD his mom's going to be because he can't imagine her not finding a way to hurt him, how this is all his fault because he called Mapleshade.

He can't stop it anymore and starts sniffling, which turns into weeping. Still, he's TRYING not to bawl, knowing, knowing he looks stupid when he does that

Shellheart just pulls him in close, so he can bury his face in his fluffy chest. Tells him it's going to be ok. He's safe now. No one can hurt him there.

Not on his watch.

Unfortunately, it's not the last he sees of Mapleshade. After this...

Mapleshade shows him everything she did for him. Yes, she did smash his jaw-- but it was to get him away from his mother.

And she planted an idea here and there, just little whispers into Rainflower's ear. Nothing she wouldn't do all on her own.

And now... Mapleshade believes she's earned some respect.

Stormkit can't disagree... she did exactly what she told him she'd do.

And now that he's not Applekin anymore, they can be Real Friends. They could even strike up a partnership, of sorts. After all, what did StarClan do to help him?

It wasn't StarClan that answered his prayers.

I'm still figuring out what, exactly, she's going to want from him. I have a scintilla that she wants to give him a life, maybe as some kind of bridge to StarClan to see her kits?

Some strange "attempt" at redemption, perhaps? Which she ultimately doesn't get.

Not that she didn't enjoy doing all that for love of the game, mind you. She's very good at getting revenge and it's fun and exciting to pull it off.

But hey, if you're good at something, never do it for free.

What causes Mapleshade to ultimately turn, and begin haunting the bloodline again + Oakheart, is Crookedstar rejecting her in some way.

She comes to collect on her end of the bargain and he refuses, breaking their partnership. He chooses StarClan.

And then from there, it's ON again. Now she has another EXCUSE to do what she wanted to do, and take out her boredom and malice on his family.

This time, it includes Oakheart as well-- because he was Crookedstar's brother.

It was also her curse that harmed Willowbreeze and eventually Silverstream. She's on the warpath.

Maybe she actually helped make him leader on purpose. Like he explicitly asked so she helped him by making the squirrel omen, instead of just doing it for him unprompted. Still figuring it out.

Shortly after the scene where Stormkit cries, he needs to have a confrontation with Brambleberry about Mapleshade I think. She needs to explain why Dark Forest demons are seen as bad.

She's biased, of course, but it's not like she's TOTALLY wrong either. Cats like Mapleshade ARE vengeful, in ways many other spirits are not.

If you're curious, Crookedstar's dishonor title from Rainflower would have been something comparing him to a parasite and referencing his ""accident"" like Fleaskip or Midgefall.

The point she's trying to make with the Dishonor Title is that her son is an annoying bug who didn't listen, as well as subtly erase she fact she knocked him off that rock.

She wanted his name to say "everything that happened was my fault and my mom did nothing wrong"

Not that Hailstar got as far as even asking lmao

#better bones au #Stormpaw's Demon #BB!Crookedstar #BB!Shellheart #BB!Oakheart #BB!Mapleshade #BB!Rainflower #Cw child abuse #tw child abuse #cw physical abuse #tw physical abuse #cw emotional abuse #tw emotional abuse #Stormpaw's Demon Draft 2

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lurkingshan · 2 days

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10 Things I Love About Triage

I am extraordinarily late to this party but I am here to scream about Triage, a show which I started on a whim after a stray comment from @incandescentflower and subsequently finished in two sittings. This drama has been on my list forever (I didn't watch it live because the distribution was wacky) and then it just kept getting overlooked as I fought to keep up with the deluge of Thai BL coming at us at all times. But I am very glad I finally hunted it down and made the time and I would like to tell you why!

Hello Again, Dr. Sammon

I am on record as a Sammon fan. She is one of the best writers working in Thai BL and she has a knack for mystery and suspense. Her narratives are always really well constructed with tight plotting and smart character work, and Triage is no exception. This story feels confident, steady, and complete in a way few Thai BLs do.

The time travel rules are blessedly consistent

Part of what makes the story sing is it's a time travel plot that actually gets the particulars right. In a time loop, the details are everything, and this show understands that. The series of events are consistent, the rules of the time travel mechanics are clearly explained, and when our protagonists learn something new, it always lines up with something we'd gotten hints about before or gives us new context for old information. There are no loose threads in this show.

My boy Tin is going through it

Tin is a fantastic protagonist. He starts the show disillusioned with his work and hilariously grumpy about this time loop situation--he is a busy ER doctor and he does not have time for this--but as he starts to piece together how the loop works he gets more methodical in his approach, and eventually becomes emotionally invested in his mission to save Tol. Tin felt really well-calibrated in that he was smart and he tried all the things you would be shouting at the screen for him to try, but he's still a human being with flaws and insecurities and so he makes mistakes, learns, and has to try again. The show really successfully put us in the frustration with him.

Tol makes for an interesting damsel

Because he's kind of an asshole! Tol is rude and disrespectful when he first meets Tin, he hangs around with some truly awful bullies, he treats Rit like garbage, and he's all around an arrogant dick. Until he isn't. I like the choice to make the focus of our mission such a difficult character, not only because it makes Tin's challenge that much harder, but also because it invites us to consider the reasons why someone might be behaving the way he is and whether they can be redeemed.

This show has everything: action, romance, and agony

It's truly an emotional rollercoaster all the way through, and you can't relax for a moment. The pacing is relentless through most of the show, and even as a bond develops between Tin and Tol and they begin a tentative romance, danger is lurking around every corner. As soon as these boys started making out in episode 9 I knew something awful was coming for me and IT SURE DID.

Jinta, the ultimate frenemy

On that note let's talk about Jinta, my nemesis!! Jinta is some kind of unspecified deity/whimsical god and the one who appears to be responsible for putting Tin and Tol in this loop. Is he trying to help them? Is he trying to torture them? I definitely think it's both! He seems to delight in showing up to taunt Tin as he struggles to figure out how to get through to Tol, and when it's Tol's turn on the merry-go-round he sends him to the darkest timeline for his high stakes final attempt to save Tin just because he can. I love/hate you, sir!

Sing and Gap and the darkest timeline

Speaking of which, can we talk about how appropriate it is that Sing and Gap are a couple only in the darkest timeline? I don't know if people were shipping this for real during the live watch, but I definitely was not and so I started cackling when we got to the worst possible timeline and Sing was suddenly calling Gap his boyfriend. Sammon, you are hilarious and I salute you.

Fantastic side characters

Let's talk about the sides I did love. First of all, aside from his weird aggressive flirting/not flirting thing with Gap, I actually did like Sing's friendship with Tin a lot. I also loved the hospital gang who were around to alternately tease and help Tin, most especially Toy and Fang. Toy is a sweetheart and a gossip who never misses a trick, and Fang is an actual badass who first cracked the case with that evil doctor and saved Tin's life. They are fabulous. Rit was also an excellent character with a lot of complexity and he added some much needed depth to the school storyline (does anyone else think he was basically the proto-DFF Non?). And while Mai and Heart were not my favorite people, I did appreciate that the show gave them a sympathetic portrayal instead of making them evil villains (we had the organ harvesters for that).

That beautiful clocktower

I must give a shoutout to this gorgeous clocktower featured in several important scenes. I got so excited every time it showed up. Fun fact: in the first clocktower scene I was like oh hey I recognize that from gifs, but it can't be that scene because it's too early for a kis--TIN WHAT ARE YOU DOING! (I was right, it was too early for a kiss and Tol was Big Mad but bless you for going for it anyway, Tin).

The romance is balanced and rootable

And on that note, let me give a shoutout to the romance part of this story for actually feeling balanced. This is not an epic swoony love affair, but more a story of two people putting in the time to understand and empathize with each other. Sometimes in these kind of time loop stories the romance can end up feeling very one-sided because one character is holding all the knowledge and all the cards. But in this show we have the neat trick of Tol taking over the loop to try to save Tin in the final arc, which means he got to go through a similar process of getting to know the darkest version of his lover and figuring out how to get through to him. I was delighted by all the events of the long loop playing out again, but this time with Tin being the obstinate one. Tol got a taste of his own medicine and it left me feeling like they were both equally invested in this relationship.

TL;DR: If you haven't watched this yet, you really should! It's a fast binge and a great time with some Thai BL favorites. It's unfortunately still not available for international streaming, but it's very easy to find grey now and it's worth the effort. Go forth!

#triage #triage the series #thai bl #shan recommends #10 things #shan shouts into the void

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vidavalor · 2 days

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I was wondering if you've talked about why Gabriel was on a jog in season 1 episode 4. It always felt off to me since it's such a human activity

Hi @anxious-al! 💕 Hope you're having a nice week so far. *gets the mugs* as there's always hot chocolate available for Gabriel-themed questions. 😊

What a time to be going for a "human" jog, eh? This takes place on the morning of The Last Day of The World:

Gabriel is supposed to destroy this planet later that day and he's down on it, alone, jogging in the park... why?... and what of the human woman dressed as an angel at the edge of the park?

The scene wherein Aziraphale interrupts Gabriel on a morning run in the park begins with one of the strangest moments in the series-- Aziraphale being distracted by a human woman dressed in head-to-toe gold with harp-like angel wings. She is a performance artist and her art is that she is dressed as an angel. She stands there, silent, sending her artistic message for both the characters in the story who notice her and for us as the audience to interpret. This makes her a bit meta for the story of Good Omens as a whole.

What message is The Angel Woman saying to her fellow humans with this? is a question that leads us to another one as a result:

What is Good Omens saying by using angels and demons in their story written for us humans?

Perhaps that there is divinity in humanity? Perhaps that we spend all this time glorifying holy beings that we can't prove even exist when, really, we humans embody the angelic and the demonic and everything in between? That we're really the magical ones?

The Angel Woman is a character in a story written by humans who are using angels and demons to make points about human living... and who are the other characters in this scene? Gabriel and Aziraphale... a pair of angels on Earth and who are both engaged in aspects of what they might see as "human" living.

This scene is one in the story pointing out that "human living" is really just living, period.

Aziraphale stops and contemplates the angel-dressed performance artist and that is the start of the scene. The "human cosplaying" Gabriel then jogs by them-- paralleling both the angel who lives like a human and the human who is dressed as an angel. Here's The Supreme Archangel of Heaven on the last morning on Earth and what is he doing?

He's jogging in the park. Like a human.

The episode is called "Saturday Morning Funtime" and has more Gabriel in its front half than any episode prior to it, as we begin to see that he's actually who it's named for. Everyone is miserable ahead of Armageddon but the one who has a Saturday Morning Funtime routine is Gabriel. This guy who is the commander of the armed forces of Heaven and entrapped by a supernatural fascist regime hellbent on destroying this place?

Yeah, he secretly kinda loves Earth.

Gabriel is keeping himself from going mad by carving out some escape time on Earth where he does some moderate exercise in the fresh air and clears his head. No one knows who he is down there. He's just another hot dude running in the park. It gets him away from the other angels always circling him like vultures and gives him some precious alone time.

There are other scenes that indicate that, as Earth has gone on, Gabriel has been using the power of his position to escape to it from time to time. Gabriel's only possessions until S2 are his custom-tailored clothes and they were made on Earth. He shows a curiosity about how Aziraphale chooses to live in the sushi scene in 1.01. Yes, he's judgy about it but he's judgy to hide the fact that he's asking out of interest-- rather than using the power he has to order Aziraphale not to make his own choices over it.

Gabriel is shown to be a lot more "live and let live" than he might initially seem to be. He is one of the only angels who doesn't view the demons as beneath them and he covers for Michael's relationships with them. Several scenes suggest pretty heavily that he's known about Crowley and Aziraphale for ages and has been keeping that knowledge from The Metatron. He doesn't care that Aziraphale does human things on Earth like eating or that he wants to live a more human-like existence. He doesn't totally understand all aspects of it but that doesn't stop him from being more fundamentally curious about it than anything else.

Gabriel actually doesn't care that Aziraphale's in love with Crowley. Gabriel can get the appeal, actually. Gabriel knows how it goes anyway... he's got a bit of a thing for the "informant" he references to Aziraphale in 1.01-- Lord Beezlebub, the only being he feels like he really be anything close to his true self around, who also happens to be a demon. The demons are supposed to be the angels' mortal enemies but Gabriel thinks that's kind of bullshit. They're just people and he remembers what a lot of them were like before Hell became a thing. They were smart, creative people, most of whom did little wrong but for asking the same questions that Gabriel privately asks himself daily.

So, he's been coming down to Earth to check it out for awhile, when he can come up with an excuse to escape his prison. Sometime pre-S1, he started to do more than observe and basically got himself a hobby in jogging, like a human might do. Something for him and him alone. This is a big deal because Gabriel has virtually nothing else that is own.

Gabriel doesn't own a single, non-clothing material object in S1 and never has at this point. The first present he'll ever be given is the fly in the matchbox from Beez. His clothes are his only possessions, which is partially why he's so vain about them. They are the only way he's allowed to express a sense of individuality in Heaven-- and he made that happen.

This is related to the jogging and is a much, much bigger deal than it might initially seem...

In S2, when we go back to the Job minisode era, we see that all of the angels used to dress in, more-or-less, the same thing. They all look like what they are-- members of a cult. Even The Supreme Archangel is wearing basically a white sheet roped off in gold. The homogeneity of the look is the point.

There's a psychological reason why cults of all sorts-- and armies of all sorts-- have an uniform. It's to reinforce a sense of negative groupthink over a sense of individuality. When you are allowed to dress as you wish, you have freedom of expression, and this obviously causes you to consider how you wish to express yourself to others. It gives you the free reign we all should have to be who we are-- and to be able to consider who that is and evolve our sense of self over time. This is absolutely against the mindset of dictatorships and cults and anything in that vein.

The last thing they want is for people to see themselves as individual people because that stuff gets dangerous. They might get ideas. They might form their own opinions and start to act on them. It makes people harder to control. This is why Gabriel and his clothes are so important.

The only way the whole 'everyone is basically wearing a table cloth' situation changed for the angels sometime post-Job is if The Supreme Archangel okayed it. He's the only one with just enough power to have made this happen, if not enough power to overthrow The Metatron on his own. Gabriel saw Aziraphale begin to wear different things on Earth with the built-in excuse of Aziraphale having to blend in with the humans and white robes were no longer a style that would work.

Aziraphale, as a result, became the first angel to have an excuse to express himself as an individual because he got to choose what he'd like to wear while he was on Earth. Gabriel noted this and basically said to himself that looks fun. Our dude was very tired of this white robe situation and seeing Aziraphale get to play made Gabriel want to as well so he went to Aziraphale at some point and basically said teach me about what the humans are doing about clothes.

Gabriel had an excuse to change his look, too-- he'd have to go to Earth sometimes to do Supreme Archangel Checking Up On Stuff Things. He'd have to look like a human, too. He loved it. Playing human dress up was super fun and brought all new kinds of thoughts. What fabrics he liked, what looks he liked, what he thought about how the different clothes looked on him, what made him feel different ways about himself. Clothes are self-expression, after all-- they reflect how we feel about ourselves and support the image we are trying to project. Gabriel got into this, big-time, and then turned around and asked the dangerous question to himself:

What if we did this in Heaven, too?

What if he used what power he had to change the rules about what the angels wore? What if he told everyone they could wear whatever they wanted? The army would still have an uniform for when they were running drills or whatever and maybe there'd be a color-scheme because Gabriel knew The Metatron was going to lose it about this so he came up with some parameters but he basically overthrew the tablecloth tyranny and told every other angel that they were free to express themselves the way they wanted and, if you ask me? That's why he and The Metatron are snarking about Gabriel's suit during his trial.

The Metatron never got over the fact that Gabriel pushed the clothes thing and knew how to get just enough of what he could without making it more trouble than it was worth to kill him over it. The Metatron takes some evil delight in telling Gabriel that "appropriate raiment" will be provided for him-- he'll have to wear what The Metatron dictates, in other words-- now that he'll be a bottom-of-the-barrel junior recording analyst. Gabriel, though?

He got the last laugh. He used taking off his suit as a reason to leave, along with clearing out his non-existent desk, and fled Heaven buck ass naked rather than put up with The Metatron's bullshit for another minute.

The moment Crowley fell in love with Gabriel was when he saw just how much Gabriel loathes The Metatron in these just take me out back and shoot me ffs faces he was making during his trial:

Anyway, the point is that all the angels are following Gabriel's lead and that's probably half the reason why almost everyone in Heaven dresses in a variation of Aziraphale or Gabriel's styles. (Ever notice how Michael and Uriel look like they're in some kind of suit battle and both of them are trying to emulate Gabriel a bit?) While many of the angels aren't really reinventing the rules of fashion up there, the idea worked: they all look different from one another. They all can express themselves as they desire when it comes to how they look. They've all had to think about themselves for at least long enough as it takes to come up with outfits and view themselves as an individual person to do so.

It's perhaps worth noting in here then, too, how funny it is that The Metatron is a floating head... that's how he presents himself. He's the one character who doesn't have a body. It's symbolic of how he feels he's above even the idea of having anything like the pesky needs of human corporation. The ideal of Heaven is him, in his eyes, and he is above the vessel through which all living beings actually live...

...and the one challenging him every step of the way as much as he can is The Supreme Archangel...

...who, amusingly, happens to have a rather pleasing physical corporation appreciated by many, many different sorts of beings.

Looked at that way? Gabriel's peacocking about his clothes is not pure vanity but just the best example of what little rebellious fires he's been able to start Up there. A focus on clothes is also a focus on your body-- for better or worse-- and so it's not really surprising that Gabriel's Earthly hobby is looking goooood in some grey sweatpants while he escapes a little from the pressures of his world.

There's something kind of delicious about Gabriel deciding that he has some Saturday Morning Funtime now-- he has an exercise routine. He's like peace out, MetaT-- I'm going to take my fantastic corporation *jogging*. Rot in Hell, you fascist Mr. Potato Head...

Aziraphale is interruping Gabriel's alone time in 1.04 and if you look closely, you'll notice that Gabriel actually looks upset as he's running before Aziraphale sees him. He doesn't actually want to destroy Earth. He feels he has no choice and he's terrified of The Metatron but he likes Earth. He doesn't fully understand of it-- to be fair to him, no one really does lol-- but he likes it enough to have been escaping to it for awhile now.

By S2, in a parallel scene to the jogging one, Aziraphale will be beginning to get the idea of him and Gabriel both having versions of the Heaven-induced perfectionism and anxiety a bit more, though... and about how that's not any different from humans who go through the same thing.

The angel human doing performance art (complete with foreshadowing the discus halo) in S1:

The art of the Gabriel statue in Edinburgh in S2:

In S2, the art is a human-made sculpture deitifying Gabriel. It causes Aziraphale to further consider what life might have been like for a being who is, really, just some dude, but who has been held up as a holy symbol in this way by angels and humans alike.

Adding to this is that the statue of Gabriel is in the middle of a human graveyard. While this has a really eerie layer in S2 considering that we see it after Gabriel has fallen, which is a kind of death, and now lives among the humans, there's a way of looking at it that is also in keeping with what S1's human performance artist angel was talking about-- there's not this big line between these kind of beings.

Emphasizing this? The Angel Woman isn't just dressed as an angel-- she is also wearing a dress and a human sun hat. She reflects how having a halo hanging over your head symbolizing your need to be perfect in a way that causes you to see yourself as someone who should be above humans is not just an angelic thing-- it's a very human thing, too. That's the point of these angels and demons in Good Omens. They're just like us in every way that really matters and their stories are no different at the core from what we experience.

Crowley and Aziraphale actually have it a lot better than most of the angels and demons. They have been able to live on Earth since the beginning. They aren't completely free of the regime that threatens them but they've found a way of escaping it as much as they can. They've been free to learn and explore and experiment and enjoy much more than the others have. They've been free to have a relationship with one another-- to have a friend they can trust and talk to-- which not all of the angels and demons do. (Not all humans do, either.) Of all of the less fortunate characters? Gabriel, despite having some power in Heaven, might have actually been one of the worst off.

Why is Gabriel jogging in the park on the morning of the last day of Earth? Because Gabriel likes to go for solo jogs in the park...

... just like many humans who have stressful jobs and like to wake up on Saturday morning and throw on a sweatsuit and sneakers and get outside to get some fresh air, move, and try to quiet their thoughts.

That Gabriel is already in this place in S1 is a surprising twist thrown into 1.04 that actually makes us kind of want to scream at Aziraphale 'ask him why he's fucking jogging, Az!' Aziraphale is trying to make the point that they don't need to destroy Earth but the one thing he fails to point out is that Earth is the planet that they're currently both standing on and which Gabriel seems to really be enjoying.

Gabriel couldn't agree with Aziraphale in the jogging scene, though, even if he wanted to, for the most ironic reason possible. This one:

Crowley and Aziraphale don't realize it because they're afraid of Gabriel until S2 but he's as trapped as they are. He's as watched as they are. Ducks have ears-- there's always someone listening in the fascist regime of this Heaven/Hell system. Gabriel couldn't say in a public park anything that sounds outside of what he's supposed to say, even if he wanted to, or he'd be in danger for it.

Gabriel is wearing human clothes that are appropriate to the time period he's in while he's jogging. He has a preferred park and route. He's gone through a whole thing to get to this point-- seeing this activity, learning about its benefits, deeming it appealing and something he'd like to try, getting what he needs to do it, finding a time to do so, trying it out and getting good at it... he's done all this already by this scene, showing that he's already subtly rebelling.

There is also that a lot of humans jog, at least in part, to manage mental health issues. It's prescriptive for depression and when we see Gabriel in the post-S1/pre-S2-set flashbacks, he's exhibiting signs that would have gotten him instantly diagnosed with depression had he been a human. It was not new-- more like his default state-- before talking more intimately with Beez started to help him manage it.

This might indicate that Gabriel was already in a place pre-S1 where he viewed humans as having knowledge that could benefit him and other angels-- a point of view that Crowley and Aziraphale also share. To get there, he'd have to have stopped seeing himself as superior to humans-- if he ever did in the first place, which isn't really known. Gabriel does show a surprising aptitude for subversive thinking so it's possible he never really bought the idea that they were superior beings but, even if he did, he doesn't by sometime prior to S1 because the human activity he's gotten for a hobby is one known for helping humans manage the anxiety and stress he knows he also feels.

It's also an activity that Gabriel can get away with doing because it's physical and he's The Commander of The Heavenly Host, Heaven's armed forces. No one can question why he wants to go to Earth to work out because it seems like he's just a devoted soldier when, really, he's doing it to get away from everything for a bit. Jogging gives him time and space to think and to be alone, away from Heaven. It's peaceful when he knows precious little peace. He's also quite literally running from Heaven lol and this was already happening for awhile before S1 happened, let alone S2.

You might say: ok, but Gabriel doesn't *need* to jog... he's magical!

Yes, he's magical... which seems to be like having an extra-long, somewhat-eternal backup battery. It doesn't actually mean that Gabriel doesn't need to exercise. Living beings can go a surprisingly long time repressed from what it is that they need to survive and being magical is suggested to have caused some of these angels and demons to remain alive so long without what it is that they truly need to thrive as people that they've convinced themselves that they don't actually need these things.

Sure, the angels and demons have superhuman powers but they are also very human at the same time...

In S2, Gabriel will describe having what we might call human physical sensations on his way to the bookshop. His arms got sore from holding a box at a weird angle for awhile on his walk-- just like ours would. He was cold from being naked until Aziraphale gave him a blanket. Aziraphale was winded trying to jog with him in this scene in S1. Crowley has basically developed a human sleep schedule over the years to a point that while he can survive missing a night of sleep, he feels the effects of it, as he was mentioning in S2.

To say that these characters being magical means that they're "flawless" would be to get a little "master race" gross, right? And the show does not. The angels and demons have human corporations in all shapes and sizes. Human corporations are just one option for them, even if also the most common, and those options are not built to be without any challenges-- they're built to be human.

Crowley, for instance, is basically a god in terms of power and he's also canonically far-sighted. He built the known universe but he also can't read the paper you just put in front of his eyes without his reading glasses. He can make it rain with his fingertips... and he also has an anxiety disorder. All of this is a story that is using angels and demons as metaphors for human living. We humans have more power than we think, as shown through how the magical angels and demons in the story are more "human" than many of them have been led to believe.

All of the angels and demons might not be at risk from most major human disease, for example... but that's if you're talking about things like Covid and bubonic plague... not if you're talking about the most common ailments plaguing humanity. The major supernatural characters in this story have things like anxiety disorders, depression, and PTSD. Many of them have complicated relationships with food and insecurities about their corporations. They deal with issues of loneliness and the effects of different kinds of trauma and abuse. Every one of them has trust issues for days. Aside from the main four, most of the angels and demons have no idea how hungry, tired, lonely and unfulfilled they are because they think they aren't actually supposed to want things like food, rest, creative outlets, and friendship. If they do feel a desire for these things, they think there's something wrong with them because they've been told they not to want or need in this way.

The few of the angels and demons that can get beyond the b.s. they've been taught and consider that they might not be superior to humans and might have some things in common with them? They break through and start to learn from humans.

Even though they both see each themselves as not fully human and as basically living amongst-- rather than with-- the humans, both Crowley and Aziraphale have experienced enough of the world to know that they're not terribly different from humans. They don't see a lot of their own challenges and experiences as different from that of humans and they actively seek out human knowledge and thoughts on how to manage their way through life. They recognize that their full range of emotions is not any different from that of the humans-- whether the emotions in question are the love they feel for one another or something they have to deal with, like anxiety.

As we see in S2, the choice of corporation for a supernatural being can have consequences that can affect them as a whole. Yes, these beings are more protected than humans, as they can morph into whatever they want and they have miracles that they can use to protect themselves in most situations... but they can actually die if they get into a situation dangerous to them enough, like what The Bullet Catch could have been.

Furfur said that if Crowley had missed and Aziraphale had been shot in the head, that "they might not have been able to put him together again"-- meaning, that Aziraphale could have actually died from a bullet to the head... just like how humans can. While in human form, the angels and demons' minds really are contained within their brains, like is the case with humans. Supernatural beings have a mind-body connection to their corporations of choice-- just as we do with our bodies-- and they're basically all out here choosing human bodies as a default option, right? So, how different are they from us, really? Not that much.

This would mean that their corporations do need the same things that human bodies do. The difference is that, being magical, they can go for eons without addressing these needs, whereas most of us who are only human over here get hangry after four hours without a snack and need to sleep for several hours every day in order to function.

They do need to breathe to be healthy, if not to completely stay alive, because their corporations prefer oxygen and breathing causes the human body to function properly. They can go for millennia without eating... but that doesn't at all mean that they should. When they finally do, they can eat an entire ox without a second thought and why? Because they're starving. They can magically last an absurd amount of time in their repression but they're unnecessarily suffering in doing so.

Crowley and Aziraphale know this. They've learned it themselves. That's why they're giving out warm beverages and sarcastic masturbation tutorials to whatever interested supernatural beings shows up at the door for much of S2.

This is Gabriel's office, shown to us moments after his jog in the park:

That is where he's spent thousands of years. This is his office and what counts as his home. This dude doesn't even have a chair. Look at how huge that space is and how small he seems in it. He can't go out on that balcony. This isn't an office or a house so much as it's a prison cell. This scene shows us why he jogs in the park-- it's his time in the yard during his prison sentence, basically.

Look at how we and Michael come into the scene and see that Gabriel is just staring out the window at the world, tapping his finger against his mouth, lost in thought. This is not a being who is super jazzed to destroy this place later in the day. He's up there like a damn fairy tale princess, trapped in a glass tower in the sky, looking down at the human world and wondering why it is that it's only humans can have it when they really don't seem that different from the angels and demons.

All of us humans with terrible jobs and other stressful situations can usually find a way out of it, except for maybe those of us trapped in an active war zone. What do we humans do? We sleep, we shower, we do some yoga or meditate, we enjoy stories, we make art, we have some good food, we find things that make us laugh and share them with friends and loved ones. Some of us also seek other kinds of connection as well-- a sexual and/or romantic partner. S2 shows us that Gabriel is not aromantic, as he's fallen in love with Beez-- which just emphasizes that, for thousands of years, this sort of thing was never an option for him and another need that was not being met.

Michael is correct in S2 that Gabriel doesn't have a desk to clean out. He has a single, white pedestal without any drawers onto which the occasional file folder can be placed if someone has a meeting with him. (One wonders if Heaven only even has physical file folders as an excuse to have the occasional barely-there table just to break up the expanse of empty space to keep them all from going mad.) Aside from his clothes, he does not possess a single material object, as he's not allowed to.

Imagine not owning a single book. Not having a favorite blanket. Not having a favorite mug. Not having lost these things but having never had them before at all. No presents because you have no friends. The first person to ever give Gabriel something is Beez and that hasn't happened by this point in the story.

We know Aziraphale understands this. Aziraphale wanted a home with a door he could lock and privacy enough to try to live a life of sorts with his partner and a place to store the material objects that he owns. His own, cluttered desk with a million little nooks and shelves. A chair, books, a bed he can be in with Crowley without Head Office finding out and killing them for it. That's the genius bookshop embassy that Gabriel will run to when he finally cracks but Gabriel himself?

He's had almost none of that kind of freedom for himself.

Aziraphale knows what it is to have nothing of your own and that's why he gives Gabriel his angel mug. He's literally writing Jim's name on everything that Jim owns because he knows that while it's not about material objects, Gabriel doesn't have anything of his own. It's about choice-- down here on Earth, Gabriel can choose to call himself something different. He can have a more peaceful and satisfying job and books to read and a favorite drink and a mug of his own and friends to talk to. He can try the hot chocolate and the tiny dinners if he wants without anyone judging him or trying to kill him for it. He can be free to be his own person on Earth.

Consider the contrasting shots of Gabriel in 1.04, shown staring out the window of his prison walls at the Earth he was supposed to destroy... and Jim waking up on Earth, in cozy pajamas, to look out the window of the bookshop while making himself a warm, morning drink in his own mug.

Kind of makes you want to hug him, doesn't it?

Back in 1.04, though? The scene in Gabriel's office showed us what he's up against Up there and just how isolated he is at that time. Michael is the one angel you'd think he'd be able to trust, as they've been through it together for thousands of years, but we see very clearly why Gabriel does not trust them.

Michael is a hypocrite. They talk to the demons unofficially and Gabriel has been protecting them for it from The Metatron. Yet, at the first opportunity, Michael throws Aziraphale under the bus by reporting him for doing the very same thing they are. After S2, we see that this is also a swipe at Gabriel himself-- Michael knows that Gabriel knows about Crowley and Aziraphale and has never done anything about it, even though he "should" by the rules of Heaven. This isn't just Michael selling out Aziraphale-- it's Michael taking a shot at Gabriel himself. It's a reminder that there's always someone who seeks favor with The Metatron watching and Gabriel is completely trapped-- more so, even, than Crowley & Aziraphale.

He doesn't have any choice but to tell Michael that they can pursue it but he's gloriously bitchy about all of it. He doesn't so much as blink in telling Michael that he's sure there's "a perfectly innocent explanation"-- meaning: sure, go ahead, take a shot, but I am in charge and I will continue to be doing fuck all about Aziraphale boffing Bildad the Shuite, Michael.

He also is sly as all hell when he reminds them that "there are no back channels"-- by 'back channels', you mean you're calling your demon boyfriend, have I got that right, Michael? The one I happily pretend you don't have? God, you're awful...

Michael wants Gabriel's job and the brownie points with The Metatron so they're pursuing Aziraphale to show that they're willing to go after subversive angels and they're threatening Gabriel with exposing that he's known for ages about Aziraphale and did nothing-- which makes him an accessory to it. Gabriel has no other choice but to tell Michael to keep pursuing it but it's an example of how the wolves are always circling for Gabriel and how trapped he really is. His only defense is his you're going to regret fucking with me attitude.

As Michael leaves, the scene ends on Gabriel picking up one of the pictures of Crowley and Aziraphale. He's drawn to the one of them sitting together where?

Where Gabriel himself just was.

In the park.

What would it be like to live like they do? he seems to be wondering, for probably the millionth time. How much longer am I going to be able to keep them alive? Am I going to go down with them?

Nah. It's their turn now, Gabriel...

#ineffable husbands #good omens #crowley #aziraphale #aziracrow #good omens meta #good omens 2 #the archangel fucking gabriel #gabriel good omens

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thewertsearch · 22 hours

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EB: […] i'm not sure if i actually want to encourage you to go off fighting him… EB: because as strong as you probably are, it sounds like he is REALLY strong. EB: and even though you killed tons of people, i think i would still be pretty sad if you died. […] EB: so maybe you should just let us handle it? at least we won't fight him directly.

Well, if you actually manage to destroy the Sun, Jack will be significantly weaker, albeit still threatening.

If we can't convince Vriska to back off, maybe we can convince her to at least delay her attack. Once Jack's no longer a First Guardian, she'll be able to swoop in for a duel she could actually win.

Against Semi-Perfect Jack, I'd give her even odds - but what are the odds if she leaves now? Does she stand any chance against a Jack at the height of his power?

Well, maybe. I know I just joked about her getting annihilated, but Aradia did prove that God Tier powers work on him. Vriska's luck stealing is capable of some pretty astounding feats, but is it really enough to compensate for their enormous power differential? Luck can only take you so far, after all.

I'd give Perfect Jack a huge advantage in this fight, but a Vriska victory isn't completely out of the question, and I can see a few ways she could clinch it.

For example - what are the odds of Jack's Ring falling off?

Is it a million-to-one chance?

Is it a sixteen-million-to-one chance?

AG: You know how I said I couldn't rel8 to the attachment you have for your guardians? […] AG: Well, I guess that isn't completely true. AG: There are adult trolls who we can rel8 to, if we choose to, and if we are lucky enough to discover who they are. AG: 8ut it is not really in a familial sense, at least not socially speaking, the way you understand family. They are more like figures of legend, who are said to have more in common with us genetically than any other troll. 8ut we can never meet them of course. Only look up to them, and follow in their footsteps, 8ecause they died centuries ago.

Wait, so Mother Grubs are sitting on the same DNA for centuries?

I suppose that's why they're ancestors, rather than parents. It's a little strange that Mother Grubs hang onto the same genetic templates for so long, but this is alien biology we're talking about. Anything is possible.

Can the same genetic templates be reused multiple times, then? Can one single ancestor have multiple descendants, allowing trolls to have siblings as well as parents?

...hey, they might even have grandparents! If every troll has an ancestor, then your ancestors will have ancestors themselves, and they'd be your second-order ancestor, too.

AG: I am completely certain it is true, and I know who mine is! AG: I have 8een doing my 8est to honor her legacy for most of my life. AG: I even named my roleplaying character after her!

So this is why she’s so gung-ho about Marquise Spinneret Mindfang. Lay it on us, Vriska!

don't think about baby vriska being forced to kill don't think about baby vriska being forced to kill don't think about baby vriska being for

AG: It was 8efore I ever started gaming, or rounding up other kids to feed my lusus. AG: I was nearing the age where I would 8e expected to feed her.

::::(

#homestuck liveblog #full liveblog #act 5.2 #3472 #s128 #BAPY

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ladyloveandjustice · 3 days

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Yuri Manga for New (AND Not-So-New) Readers

I was talking on discord about some good yuri for beginners, and figured I'd repost here.

I get way more detailed some of these recommendations in this post, and there's great recs from another person too! Check it out!

I'm doing this accounting to various tones and tastes, so what works as a beginner yuri for one person might not for another, just read the info to figure out what your jam is.

I'll put a star by the ones about adults (which is the majority of them) since I've found that's always something people want.

Goodbye my Rose Garden (Victorian yuri w/ beautiful art, just beautiful all around)*

How Do We Relationship? (messy adult relationships and lots of actually realistic intimacy)*

She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat- (A woman loves to cook but doesn’t have a huge appetite, only to find the woman next door to her does! She cooks for her and they really start to bond over food and the trials of being working adults. Yes, this is the one where the woman googles lesbian. It's really good)*

Bloom into You- a common go-to yuri for beginners for a reason, about a girl who believes she can't fall in love meeting a girl who wants to date her specifically BECAUSE she can't fall in love. Find out more about it and hear my thoughts here. It has a gorgeous anime that doesn't cover the complete story.

Doughnuts Under the Crescent Moon (sweet office lady romance, ace rep) *

Catch These Hands! (These two women were delinquents and rivals in high school, they meet up again, one reveals she was always into the other, she challenges her to a fight on the condition that if the other woman loses she'll date her. Lots of slapsticky fun and great for any lover of girl delinquents)*

Run away with me, Girl (there's some abuse shown in this one, but it's a story about healing, the premise is these girls dated in high school, but one of the pressured herself "normal" and marry a man, that man turns out to be abusive, so when the former lovers reunite, they decide to run away together. It's got beautiful art and a well done story)*

The Moon on a Rainy Night (absolutely spectacular, explores the relationship between a hard of hearing girl and her closeted classmate, the characters are complex and the writing is so good!)

Kase-san And...- Starting with Kase-san and the Morning Glories, this is a very fluffy and sweet high school romance. It also has a short movie. (as the manga goes on they become college students, too)

The Two of Them Are Pretty Much Like This (slice of life about a voice actress and anime screenwriter who live together as a couple. Unfortunately the ending is a bit abrupt (and likely premature) but I love their relationship)*

My fave Otherside Picnic is great for scifi and (mild) horror lovers. It's Scifi creepypasta adventure yuri. It's a slow burn but does truly spectacularly deliver on the gay. Has an anime, it's not great, you should start with the novels. Wrote an article here. https://www.animefeminist.com/how-otherside-picnic-masterfully-uses-horror-to-explore-abuse-and-show-healing-queer-love/ *(v young adults, college students)

The Guy She was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All: (A web manga about a girl who works at a record shop. Her classmate , Aya, wanders in but doesn't recognize her because she has her hair hidden with a hat and is wearing a face mask, and Aya assumes she's a guy. They bond over music and slowly start to get closer...and Aya's finds her heart is fluttering not only over this mysterious boy, but her female classmate that seems a lot like him...) It's going to get a physical release soon.

I Married my Best Friend to Shut My Parents Up (girl and her friend get married simply so her parents will stop bugging her about being single. You can probably guess where it goes from there) *

I Married my Female Friend (similar premise, except no parents involved, it's a platonic marriage they both agreed to with the promise they'll divorce if one of them falls in love. But one woman has decidedly not platonic feeling for the other that she's hiding from her, so It will likely turn romantic, it hasn't all come out here yet so I haven't finished it)*

Monthly in the Garden with my Landlord* (it didn't really hit with me but I might give it a shot again, it's solid despite the terrible title, a woman moves into a house and finds she'll be cohabitating with an idol) (Some more titles I haven't fully read that could appeal: After Hours*, Still Sick*, Cheerful Amnesia*)

My Cute Little Kitten (two roommates adopt a cat...and maybe fall in love?)*

I think all of those work as solid intro- though it does depend on what flavor you're looking for!

This article also covers some of these recs and some manga I didn't mention due to not having completely read it. so check it out: The Beginners Guide to Yuri Manga.

Here's some titles to try when you're a little more familiar with yuri (or you can try them now! I'm not your boss!)

SHWD (action yuri that's taking forever to come out over here physically, featuring extremely muscular women fighting monsters. I think it was forced to end prematurely too)*

Kiss and White Lily for my Dearest Girl: (I'm only three volumes in, but it's really enjoyable. The main storyline is about two academic rivals, where one is determined to rank first in class, and the other is an effortless genius who becomes intrigued at the possibility of someone beating her. Honestly they have the kind of messy combative sexual tension I wish we'd see more often in yuri because it's so good. The story follows other couples too. However, big warning for some nonconsensual kisses in the first volume at least).

Sweet Blue Flowers/Aoi Hana- (This one is a little bit dated, and boy is the ending weirdly paced, but a lot still holds up imo. A painful and sweet coming of age tale, it also has an anime that's good but ends too soon.

One teenage characters backstory involves incestuous (older cousin) the perpetrator of which pulls the "oh no did I turn you gay? thing" but it's definitely framed as a bad thing. )

Yuri is My Job- a story about messy lesbians in a yuri-themed cafe, and how their real relationships differ from the personas they put on. Read more about it here. Big warning for sexual assault of a minor (by an adult villain) in volume 12. Has an anime covering early material.

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dreamchasernina · 3 days

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Someone sent this to me and it’s obviously aimed at my post and they have me blocked (which is fine it she hadn’t blocked me I would’ve blocked her), but if you’re going to address me, you might as well let me see it so I can debunk your dumbass statements. Now, I’m not looking for confrontation, that’s why I always tag my posts properly but you and your friends tracked my post to lash out at me for addressing the hate you’ve been spewing for years now. And the notes on that post prove how much this fandom is fed up with your nonsense. There’s a reason everyone says ZK shippers are the worst part of the fandom. You know you can ship your pairing without constantly mischaracterizing other characters, right?

The irony is just unbelievable because you don’t even understand that I made that post as a response to your friends who keep saying Katara deserved better than ending up with Aang. Which is the problem you are addressing in your post! Why is what Katara deserves tied to a boy she ends up with? It doesn’t. You’re the one who’s been saying that for years! And I’m not making this stuff up, it’s literally all over your blog. Saying how Katara was done dirty because she ended up with Aang. Mind you, her ending up with Aang does not take away any of her accomplishments throughout the show.

So you don’t like the pairing and you’d like to imagine her with someone else, go at it. But don’t sit here and tell me that Katara was disrespected in her ending because she ended up with someone you didn’t want for her and call it “feminism”. I don’t get how you like Katara as a character and everything she represents for 3 seasons but the last 30 seconds of the show make you so mad you sit here and tell me I’m a misogynist because I believe Katara ended up with someone she actually wanted to be with. The show presents Katara as a strong willed, badass, fights-for-what-she-believes-in character. Throughout the 3 seasons Katara did what she felt was right, what she wanted to do, going against people who tried to steer her away from her goals…and me believing she is in charge of her own destiny is misogynistic? No you’re right, you telling me Katara had zero agency and was forced into a relationship or stayed in a relationship she was miserable in makes a lot of sense for the character that was presented to you in the show.

You’re the feminist here, obviously, because if a woman steers away from YOUR idea of a “good female character”, then she was suddenly “done dirty”. Because a woman who chooses to have 3 children was obviously forced into it. A woman who doesn’t fight at 80 years old is obviously not well written. A woman who, throughout 61 episode did whatever the fuck she felt was right, but chose to be with the guy YOU think was wrong for her, “deserved better”. That’s what you’ve been saying for years and that what I’m addressing in my OG post. Katara’s worth is not tied to a man she ends up with!!!

And I don’t even like Bryke, I have a lot of problems with them. But I hate that you’re disguising your hate for a pairing as “feminism”, because it’s not. It’s the complete opposite of that. Because feminism is supporting a woman’s right to choose whatever she wants to do. But if she’s choosing something YOU don’t agree with you’re crucifying her! You see the irony here?? I beg some of you to look up the definition for feminism because it’s been a while.

#I’m so done with this topic #I didn’t want to engage with any one of them #but they’re so bored they’re preaching feminism to ME #Stay out of our tag for fucks sake #I get if they’d attacked me if I was hating on their fave character but that’s not at all what I was doing #why are y’all even here #avatar: the last airbender #atla #avatar the last airbender #avatar #aang #kataang #katara #anti zutara #pro kataang

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stellas-and-tonitruses · 1 day

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these last 3 chapters more than ever have left me wondering about the timeline of spy x family and in particular,

donovan's age.

i'm not going to go too deep into the full timeline because i simply don't think we have enough info to make a real robust timeline, BUT i do think we can very feasibly approximate donovan's age with our current info.

I also won’t be using any precise years like 1964 or whatever bc at this moment in time I find that to be kind of useless, bc the only years we have happen very early in the story in background details and for a lot of those ones, I noticed endo had a tendency to just carelessly put whatever so long as it looked fine from afar, which includes news that were happening around the time of that chapter's release. SO unless he decides to explicitly highlight actual years, I’m not gonna be like “this happened in 1964 and that happened in 1953” and anything of the sort.

now, i shall partake in my least favorite activity.

✨math.✨

so uh buckle up my fellas and feel free to correct me anywhere where i might be wrong bc i am more than aware that math is NOT my strong suit!

SPOILERS FOR CHAPTERS 97, 98 AND 99!

gonna start with the facts!

according to the spy x family EYES ONLY fanbook, henry henderson is 66 years old at the time of the current events of spy x family! in the past three chapters we have learned that there is a 3 year age gap between him and martha, so that would make her 63 years old currently.

as of the events of chapter 99, he is 22 years old (and martha is 19), assuming there wasn't any years-long time gap that was not mentioned within the chapter! which, it doesn’t seem like there were any MASSIVE time gaps, so I’ll be using those ages for calculating.

so, what all this means is that we are (roughly) 44 years into the past at the moment! previous info about the war of loid and yor's childhoods puts it at around 20 years old, so from where we are in the backstory, we still have roughly 20 more years before Luwen is attacked — clearly, because this first war has already ended with donovan still in school.

while we don't have loid's age, we do have yor's, who is 27 years old — meaning she was born around the time of henry being 39 years old, aka clearly neither loid nor yor have been born yet as of the events of chapter 99. too into the past for now!

now, how am i gonna get donovan's age out of all this?

simple! henry's his teacher and has a talk with him after his jail time.

like I mentioned previously, I shall be sticking to 22 for henry’s age here. it may not be fully correct, it may be a year or two off because we aren’t given concrete details on exactly how long he was in jail, so just take it with a grain of salt! it's only going to remain as a rough estimate until we get a definitive answer on donovan's age.

so! henry has a talk with donovan, but the conversation itself, while very important for the plot and especially for our understanding of donovan’s character, is irrelevant for this conversation. no, what's crucial here is what henry is holding. endo even highlights it by focusing an entire larger panel on it!

it's a history textbook for year 7 students!

it being a history textbook is very poignant for the conversation they're having, but the reason this is important to me is because it's very clearly a year 7 textbook.

now, i don't know how much of eden academy's curriculum is based on the uk! but because pretty much all of the architecture of it is based on eton college and endo has literally just returned from a london trip where he showed us he visited a kindergarten, so i think that's grounds enough for me to assume eden academy's year 7 is generally populated by children between 11 and 12 years old. luckily for me, that seems to be the general age for germany's secondary school year 7 too, so even if it's not the british one, it's still close enough!

with all that being said, if donovan is, say, 12 in that moment and henry is 22, that means there is a 10 year difference between the two of them, which, drum roll please, means donovan desmond is 56 years old when our story's events take place! assuming the war of loid's and yor's childhoods took place exactly 20 years ago (when yor was 7 and henry was 46), this would make him around 36 years old when he became ostania's prime minister! it would also mean he had damian at 50 years old, and if demetrius is 12 right now, that would mean he was born when donovan was 44 years old (and his birth would’ve been in the last years of the war).

so, rough events timeline based on all that, focusing on ages!

66 years ago: Henry Henderson is born.

63 years ago: Martha Marriott is born.

~56 years ago: Donovan Desmond is born.

49 years ago: Martha (14) transfers to Eden and meets Henry (17)

47 years ago: Henry (19) graduates Eden.

44 years ago: Henry (22) joins Eden as a teacher, in the same year becomes Donovan Desmond’s (~12) history teacher. Martha (19) graduates Eden and joins the Women’s Defense Auxiliary.

~44 years ago: Martha (~19) is presumed dead. Henry (~22) faces jail time. The war ends, and he marries.

27 years ago: Yor is born. At that time, Henry is 39, Martha is 36, and Donovan is 29.

~27 years ago. [REDACTED] is also born. Same as above, just approximate this time!

~20 years ago: Second war begins. Yor and [REDACTED] are ~7, Henry is ~46, Martha is ~43, Donovan is ~36. Yuri is born.

~12 years ago: Demetrius is born. Donovan is ~44, Yor and [REDACTED] are ~15, Henry is ~54, Martha is ~51, Yuri is ~8.

~10 years ago: Second war ends. Demetrius is ~2, Donovan is ~46, Yor and [REDACTED] are ~17, Henry is ~56, Martha is ~53, Yuri is ~10.

6 years ago: Damian is born (and most other kids in his and Anya’s grade). Demetrius is ~6, Donovan is ~50, Henry is 60, Martha is 57, Yor is 21, Twilight is ~21, Yuri is 14.

5-4 years ago: Anya is born. Damian (etc.) are 1-2, Demetrius is 7-8, Donovan is ~51-52, Henry is 61-62, Martha is 58-59, Yor is 22-23, Twilight is ~22-23, Yuri is 15-16.

1 year ago: Yuri (19) becomes part of the SSS. Anya is 3-4, Damian (etc.) is 5, Demetrius is 10-11, Donovan is ~55, Henry is 65, Martha is 62, Yor is 26, Twilight is ~26.

I HOPE THAT HELPS PUT THINGS INTO PERSPECTIVE?? melinda is not included bc we have nothing to go off of for her age outside of purely subjective things like her appearance.

super glad endo included the year 7 thing JAKLSDFKLSD

anyway thank you for reading!!! :DD

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willow-miros · 1 day

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Things Malevolent characters would say as John Mulaney quotes:

Arthur:

"I'm really exhausted, and I'm feeling just sort of existencially insane"

"Now we don't have time to unpack all of that"

"[groans] you know, life"

[About John] "My wife is a bitch and I like her so much"

"You know those days where you're like, this might as well happen? Adult life is already so goddamn weird"

"You know how I'm filled with rage?"

John:

"And I said no. You know, like a liar"

"I also don't want me to be doing what I'm doing"

"Do my friends hate me or do I just need to go to sleep?"

[About Oscar] "She's He's not going to do anything else for you. IT'S DONE"

"And my dad Arthur turned around and said, are you going to talk the entire time?"

"Sometimes, people would say, 'what do you think you're doing?' but that just meant 'stop'. They didn't actually want to know my thought process"

Kayne:

"I will pepper in the fact that I am gay"

[At Larson] "Get out of here with your facts. You're like the kid at the sleepover who, after midnight, is like, 'it's tomorrow now'"

[At John] "You have the moral backbone of a chocolate éclair"

"Crazy people are like that. They have unlimited crazy currency. The things they say mean nothing to them, but they mean everything to me"

"Just cause you're accurate does not mean you're interesting"

"Do you want me to kill that guy for you?"

The Butcher:

"My dad loved us. He just didn't care about our general happiness or self esteem"

Oscar:

[On being a priest] "Which is weird because I'm probably gay based on the way I act and behave and have walked and talked for the past 28 years"

Noel:

"I never talked to my dad about that, but I figured I would tell all of you"

#malevolent #malevolent podcast #arthur lester #arthur lester malevolent #arthur malevolent #john doe malevolent #john malevolent #kayne malevolent #the butcher malevolent #oscar malevolent #detective noel #noel malevolent

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maintitle · 3 days

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Gonna put this behind a read more because it may be a massive spoiler, or it may be me clutching at straws, but this will be a very rare speculative piece from me on DA:V:

So I've had the suspicion for a really long time that the betrayer in DA4 is actually Harding. I always felt like Inquisition was very careful with keeping Harding away from Solas, and while I don't think it was intentional I do think it's something they've commited too.

Folks can correct me if there's something in Tevinter Nights that I'm missing, but at the very least in the post-game comics stuff Harding has always been very quiet about him. She's there, she's helping hunt him, but she's always kind of quiet about her own involvement with him.

There's a really telling page from The Missing that I can't get out of my head:

One of Varric's most core character traits is that he knows people, but doesn't ever see the worst in them. He can identify a bomb that's ready to blow, but he's too close to it to see the fuse lit on the other side of it. He saw Anders was a ticking bomb, he recognized Solas was very quiet about himself, but he didn't think much of it because he figured these weren't things that were his business, and that the good traits they had outweighed the bad. He has had a terrible track record of knowing there's a knife coming to stab him in the back but not looking for it to come.

This, to me, is Varric identifying that Harding is sympathetic to Solas. He realizes she doesn't see him as the danger Varric knows she is. Problem is, he knows and likes Harding, so he won't admit to himself that it may be a problem. This is his way of warning Charter without having to admit to himself that she might be a liability, not because she's not talented but because she might buy what Solas is selling.

I'm not necessarily saying Harding is against Varric in The Missing, she is very commited to at the very least finding him there, and she does say at least once that they need to stop him. But she's really distracted throughout the journey, and the journey is one dead end after another.

The info on the characters revealed that Harding now has magic. I find that odd, for both the obvious lore reasons of Dwarves not having magic, but also because of the timing. We basically know what Harding did with her time right before Veilguard, unless they set that time randomly back several years. The only way we know of that a Dwarf could get magic is through the Titans. Maybe that's the excuse she'll use, but I somehow don't think she magically went down there for no reason and ended up with powers that made the only person we know for a fact get them never leave the depths again.

There's also the fact that the side content has heavily implied Charter may well be a mole, but at this point that just seems like way too obvious a hook to take. So if there's a mole in what remains of the Inquisition... I think we may have a winner in an unlikely place.

I don't know, it's just a gut feeling. But it gets stronger and stronger the more we find out.

#DA #Dragon Age #Dragon Age: Inquisition #DA:I #Dragon Age: The Veilguard #Dragon Age: Veilguard #DA:V #DAVE #DA:VE #Varric #Varric Tethras #Charter #Harding #Scout Harding #Scout Lace Harding #Lace Harding

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gwenllian-in-the-abbey · 2 days

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Hi! thoughts on Alicole? I won’t lie not a fan + it’s character assassination to make Alicent a hypocrite in regards to Rhaenyra. I will still be an Alicent fan after but c’mon we know why that scene was added and it was not to benefit the Green faction.

To be honest anon, it doesn't bother me that much? At least I'm willing to see how it plays out. I can see a lot of reasons why Alicent, who was a child bride at 14 and who has never experienced consensual or enjoyable sex, might turn to Cole now that she is a widow. As someone who was primarily a book reader first, show enjoyer second, I was not as attached to Rhaenicent as a ship as some people were, so that probably influences my view. That's a relationship I always viewed as something that would always remain subtextual, and Alicole happening doesn't influence my feelings about that. Alicent has not really explored her sexuality at all, she sort of shut it down at age 14, and it makes sense to me that she might have this period of awakening now that she is free from Viserys. I'm certain that she and Cole are going to have a lot of guilt about it, and that it will probably drive conflict within the green faction going forward, and that Olivia Cooke will act her heart out. It's sure to be messy and for that reason I'll give it a chance.

As for hypocrisy, just keep in mind, being a hypocrite doesn't make a person wrong! Hypocrites are annoying, but arguing that someone is a hypocrite is an attack on the person making the argument, not the argument itself. If I am cheating on my spouse and tell you cheating on your spouse is bad and you shouldn't do it, I'm a hypocrite, but I'm not wrong about cheating on your spouse. And besides, team black fans have been saying since season 1 ended that Rhaenyra should be able to sleep with whoever she wants even while married to Laenor, so what is the problem with Alicent sleeping with someone consensually in her widowhood? If it should be a problem for anyone it should be a problem for Cole, who is breaking his vows. Alicent also isn't putting illegitimate children in the line of succession, which is the actual problem with Rhaenyra's affair with Harwin, not the sex itself. And honestly, hypocrisy is really the least of anyone's problems in the Dance. We're getting to the part of the Dance where small children get murdered, cities get razed, and hundreds of women are carted off by reavers, among other atrocities. Hypocrisy is the least of anyone's problems.

I'll also say this. One of the few early criticisms of S2 is that it seems like team green has most of the juicy storylines and more complex characters, and team black's storyline is kind of bland by comparison. Now, fans of the greens have been saying this for two years now, and mostly agreeing that it's a good thing. I don't know about anyone else, but if I'm watching a show, above all I want to watch quality television. Of course, I want team green to be presented fairly, but I don't think watching with mind to how many discourse points you'll have to cede to team black or vice versa is really going to be a satisfying or enjoyable way of approaching the show. So watch the episodes and decide if the decisions are in-character, serve the narrative, make sense, and improve upon the source material, rather than judging based on whether or not you'll have to fight with clowns online who will call Alicent a hypocrite.

#asks #hotd season 2 #hotd critical #alicent hightower #alicole #ser criston cole #team green #hotd fandom critical

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bonefall · 2 days

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Maybe i just joined the fandom space way later than everyone else, but i swear to god the WaCa fandom is only this up in arms about how "ugly" and "deformed" and "disgusting" Moonpaw is/will be as a result of incest because she is confirmed to be a chimera.

I never saw this same kind of behavior when Graystripes parents were mistakenly made siblings. Nor with Ashfur and Squirrelflight, even after the fandom pointed out that theyre half-uncle and niece. I didnt see it with Fernsong and Ivypool. I didnt see it with Birchfall and Whitewing. I didnt see it with Dewnose and Sorrelstripe.

"Maybe its because theyre first cousins?" But no, because Dustpelt and Ferncloud are uncle and niece, directly related to Robinwing.

I believe the fandom only cares about the fact the parents are related here because in their mind it gives them "an excuse" to be disgusting about her chimerism. With any other characters, it's just another instance of the writers being incompetent. With Moonpaw, "it's why she's so fucked up".

Yes, they hate her because she's a result of an incest, but I'm starting to become convinced they're only this vocal about it because of how she looks. They don't truly care she's inbred, they only care that they have "a good reason" to be ableist.

This being said as a victim of incestual abuse. Cousin and cousin, just like Thriftear and Bayshine.

Is this a bad take? Am I grasping at straws? Is this just an effect of avoiding the fandom for so long? SOS

You're not grasping at straws. I think you're right on the money, honestly.

Something a lot of people don't seem to understand is that a lot of bigotry is not overt. Ableists don't usually run around saying they want all disabled people to be thrown off cliffs (when they get to that point we're in SERIOUS danger), but they DO grab your wheelchair's handles, or speak over you when you're stuttering, or assume you're stupid or dangerous. It's usually implicit biases, and structural inequality.

This is why humor is so good at revealing these internal biases. You may not believe you're classist, you might have friends from Alabama, or Durham, or Wales, but what accent do you give your "stupid" character if you're telling a story? Why are the accents of "poor" regions associated with low intelligence?

So to bring it around-- why did we see the spike in "jokes" about "ugly inbreeds" for our very first character with a confirmed genetic condition?

I've been in and around this fandom since 2008, and I've NEVER seen another character get talked about like this. Mind you, Graystripe was the child of a sister and a brother for a LONG time, too, from 2009 to 2016 (maybe even later, I don't remember exactly when the modern tree was released). And no one did it with Bristlefrost, either, in spite of there being a pretty huge uproar about her parents being distantly related.

No one else. Just the chimera. "No wonder she looks like that" and "here she is with a hapsburg jaw" and "she'd be so slurs she'd be icky."

Characters without disability, no congenital conditions, nothing = "Ugh damn writers and their incompetence strikes again. God they need to get some fresh blood in here"

(moonpaw) = "EWW NO WONDER!! WHEN WILL THE GENE POOL BE BLEACHED"

There's also the incredible irony of the fact that like. moonpaw has a common tortie fur pattern and heterochromia. you don't even need to show an ableist an actual congenital condition, you can suggest a normal face is disabled and they will lose their minds. Bigotry rots your brain.

Also, just, as a closing note, as usual the bigot is incorrect. Chimerism and inbreeding have literally nothing to do with each other. There is no link between chimerism and inbreeding. they are once again confusing chimerism and mosaicism and trying to whine It's Just Biology because you told them their joke wasn't funny.

#mooncourse #And it really just is an excuse to be ableist I got anons calling me delusional from this btw #Also lots of implications that I'm not a victim of incest apparently. Thanks ill go tell my therapist #I'd rather it be me than someone who had it worse though #Some of the stories that were shared with me-- especially one that was a DM and I will not be sharing-- have actually brought me to tears

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justatalkingface · 3 days

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I find Endeavor giving up on Toya once he found out that his son's quirk (Blueflame) was self-destructive to be, not only out-of-character, but incredibly stupid.

Endeavor is loaded, he bought Rei. Why not buy Toya special support gear costume with cooling? Aoyama's belt, Mirio's suit, and f*cking Mecha Might basically suggest that support gear can do anything as long as the plot demands it.

Besides that, has Endeavor literally never heard of endurance training? That's literally the only type of training Class 1A does most of the time. Just have Rei on standby if anything goes wrong. It's not like being a human cooler would be the most degrading thing she's suffered.

It's like the first time Aizawa criticized Deku for injuring himself with One for All. Did they try thinking of solutions before trying to get them to give up ?

Also, it's kind of messed that Toya's inability fulfill Endeavor's goals is because Rei, the bought mother. It could've easily been Endeavor's fault, like his intense training at a young age ruined Toya's developing body.

OK, you see, the thing is you're thinking about this logically. Like, Endeavor has been many things, but 'rational' isn't one of them. Deeply toxic and twisted, on the other hand?

You need to think like someone desperate to prove themselves, filled with about eight superiority and inferiority complexes, and yet so resigned to his own inferiority that he ended up needing to make someone else to do it for him. The fact that Toya hurt himself? It meant he was weak. That's it. He was weak for being unable to use his powers safely.

And the second he was weak, he was no longer useful, because he could no longer beat All Might.

(Nevermind, of course, that there was nothing he could do to make someone able to beat All Might, because All Might and All For One are both setting breaking hacks that single handedly break the balance of power. Even a super Shoto with the blue flames of Dabi and, like, absolute zero ice, perfectly balanced and able to withstand his own power, would get casually bitchslapped by All Might. That's how overwhelmingly broken he is.)

Beyond that, it's worth pointing out that, 1, Mecha Might is, again, setting breaking bullshit, even in the bullshit casually tinkertech setting that is MHA, and that 2, while Quirk training is a thing (presumably that's how Dabi was able to be as high functioning as he was with his... well, entire everything, that he grinded with his Quirk until he was able to work beyond the pain), there are limits without Awakenings... and let's be honest, Awakenings are just how Hori tried to explain people's various power ups to try and keep them relevent in the ever increasing clusterfuck of his story. No amount of training would make it so that Toya would not burn himself; training like that increases limits, but it doesn't change how the Quirk works.

There's basiclly no reason, in setting, for someone not to suit themselves entirely in support tech to be a purely tech driven hero, beyond institutional culture that is built around people's Quirks. I can't even say it's expensive, because hell, Mei just pulls them out on the regular, and there's every reason to think she was making them even before she actually got into UA, instead of somehow learning to make them within a week or two of getting into school.

The fact that support tech is so damn underused is almost criminal, especially for people with more limited abilities; can you imagine if Kirashima, with his hardening, was given some kind of ranged tool? An air blast or something?

You're also ignoring all his complexes in implying that, 1, Rei could do anything, when literally she only exists to be a breeder, and I don't think he's ever shown imagining her able to do... anything helpful.

And, most importantly, 2: Endeavor always blames everyone but himself. Always. Even in the 'canon' (I have opinions on the sheer level of retcon there) version of events, with how soft that is on Endeavor, Endeavor sets up Toya to have a psychotic break. He isolates him, orients his entire life around one thing (surpassing All Might) and then takes away the very foundation he built his life on, before basiclly ignoring him and never trying to fix him afterwords; of course the kid is messed up! Yet, all this time, he looks back, and all he can think is, 'I couldn't stop him! Toya was so driven, Toya wouldn't stop hurting himself, Toya wouldn't listen to me!'

Toya, Toya, Toya. Everything wrong with Dabi's story was blamed on Toya, even though he was an actual child and Endeavor was the one with all the control in the family; his recollection of things was so warped you could see how it contracted with literally everyone's experience of events... Of course he was going to blame Rei over himself! Rei is the person he bought, and he's the top hero, rich and famous! Nothing is ever his fault!

(Also, I have opinions on Aizawa, and they're overwhelmingly negative. The fact that Aizawa wanted to ditch Izuku first thing is a result of his overwhelming biases and prejudices..... exactly like Endeavor. MHA has this thing of making massively biased authority figures that are obviously so and then going through fire to protect them from their own actions.)

#ask #mha critical #bnha critical #endeavor critical #hori's massively biased authority figures #the endeavor reconning

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writingquestionsanswered · 1 day

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I have a small question where I would like to hear your opinion on. My MC died in her original world and was reborn into a new one. So she died at 27 and started back again at 2 years old from the body she took over. She is mentally at the original age. So my hiccup is that the story take place when she is 25 in the new world and I'm having a bit of a hard time figuring out how to have her carry herself. Theoretically, she is mentally in her 50's but 25 physically. How should I go on to write her personality? I don't want to say I want her to "act old", but what are some things that might be different between a 25 year old and a 50 year old and how could I best make her more mature? Should I make her more immature in the beginning (pre-death) So that change could be put in place?

Character is Mentally Older Due to Reincarnation

Here's the problem... there are two things needed in order for someone to mature: physical development and emotional development through experience. If your character died at 27, not only is that about the time that brains stop physically developing anyway, she also does not go through any further emotional development through experience.

Even if she is "mentally 27" when she is transported to the body of the two-year old, and even if we say her mental age somehow overrides the physical capabilities of a two-year-old brain, the kinds of experiences she's having over the 23 years in her second body aren't the kinds of experiences that are going to add significantly to her emotional experience. These are all things she has already experienced and learned in her first life. As a 2 to 25-year-old, she's not gaining a lot of experience in things like career, marriage, parenting, layoffs, career changes, divorce, single parenting, dating after divorce, caring for aging parents, etc. Instead, she's experiencing some of the things (again) that are natural for 2 to 25-year-olds to experience, like going to school, making friends, trying to get good grades, social drama, first kiss, first love, learning to drive, first job, graduation, going to college, first-time independence, getting to vote, serious relationships and serious break-ups, perhaps even getting married and having a kid or two, though not getting very far into that.

So, my point is, your character has to live the life of a 25 to 50-year-old in order to gain the experience and maturity of a 25 to 50-year-old brain.

BUT... having said that, I am speaking to you as a person who has lived the life of a 25 to 50-year-old, and I don't feel mentally different from who I was when I was 25. Maybe a little, but not significantly. I have certainly experienced a lot of things during those 25 years, but I still like a lot of the same things, still do a lot of the same things, still think and feel a lot of the same things. I still wear clothes (sweaters, jackets, and coats, mostly) I wore when I was 25. I still watch a lot of the same TV shows and movies, and like a lot of the same music. But also... I'm sitting over here singing to songs that are popular on the radio, watching TV shows that are popular with the 15 to 30 crowd, and comfortably conversing with family members who are in their teens and 20s.

So, a part of it, too, is that once you get past a certain age (mid-20s, really, when the brain stops developing), there's not always this catastrophic difference between who a person is at 25 and who they are at 50 or 70. I mean, there can be... there are definitely those adults who turn into weird adulty robots who feel like they can only drink wine, eat salmon, play golf, and throw wine and cheese parties, but not everyone is like that. Most people aren't. You'll get into your fifties and laugh that you thought you'd be so significantly different from 25-year-old you. :)

Another issue to consider is this: if your character is a 27-year-old trapped in a 2-year-old's body, does that make her like Stewie Griffin, except that's the way she actually sounds to everyone around her. Do you have a two-year-old sitting in the baby seat in the shopping cart at Target, looking at her "new" mother and literally saying out loud, "Oh, Diane... please tell me you're not thinking about buying that. You know how gluten wrecks your stomach. Put it back and get the gluten free one, would you?" Or, do you have a 27-year-old woman who has to pretend to be a two-year-old, and has to sit there making baby talk and saying things like, "Ma-ma... can get cookie? Pwweeeease?" It's really awkward, to be honest, and I can't imagine how mentally taxing, frustrating, and demeaning it would be for your character.

So... what to do? There are two options that I can see, but keep an eye on the reblogs in case anyone else has a suggestion:

1 - Compartmentalize her adult consciousness from her two-year-old consciousness until she's maybe ten or twelve. So, almost like she's a prisoner inside the body of a child, but she doesn't know what it's thinking and can't control what it says or does. Like they're two independent beings and she's just along for the ride, silently commentating and even trying to get through to the kid to little or no avail. Maybe sometimes, if she mentally screams loud enough, she pops into the child's consciousness as a subconscious thought. Then, for whatever reason, as the child ages, her voice gets through more and more, and she gains control of what the child says and does little by little, until finally she has fully become the child when it's maybe 12 or 15 or whatever age you think makes sense. So, that might look something like this:

Childhood: I'm dressed in my--rather, Bella's--favorite Bluey shirt and a pair of shorts. The birthday party is at an indoor play area called Bounce, and I can almost feel Bella's excitement as she drops her gift off at the table and runs to join the other kids on a giant trampoline. They didn't really have places like this when I was a kid--the first time, I mean. My next door neighbors--the Andersons--they had a trampoline in their backyard, the kind with the net cage around it, but my parents wouldn't let me jump on it except during neighborhood parties when there were lots of parents watching. At least I... Bella... will sleep well tonight.

Teens: "Hey, Bella!" Maxine said as I joined her at the lockers. "Are you going to Brant's party tomorrow night?" Ugh, Brant's party. I had forgotten about that. What an absolute turd. He reminds me too much of this guy Jared I dated briefly in college, in my first life. I'm obviously not going to tell Maxine that. "Nah," I say at last. "I don't like that guy enough to go to his party." "Why don't you like him? I think he's cool!" "Oh, he just reminds me of someone I used to know. Wanna head to lunch?"

2 - Give the adult consciousness a bit of amnesia and have her start to remember things over time. In this sense, there would still be some compartmentalization early on as far as being a separate consciousness from the child's, but in this sense she would be less like an adult imprisoned in a child's body, along for the ride and commenting from the peanut gallery, and more like a faint awareness that is more distant, but becomes more aware and close as time goes on. That might look something like this:

Child: Bella is wears her favorite Bluey shirt to the birthday party. She is such a happy, friendly child. The other kids welcome her with smiles and open arms as she joins them on the trampoline. I wonder if I went to parties like this in my first life?

Teen: Bella's friend--my friend--Maxine greets me as I join her by the lockers. "Are you going to Brant's party tonight?" My stomach sours at the thought of that guy, though I don't know why. Perhaps I knew someone like him in my past life. The name Jared suddenly pops into my head, and I briefly wonder what this guy did to past life me that I carried dislike for him into my second life. Not wanting to get into all that, I make an excuse about having to help my mom wallpaper the guest room. "See you on Sunday, though, so we can study for the test?" "Yeah, see you then," Maxine says, closing her locker. She smiles, but I can tell she's a little salty. She knows social gatherings exhaust me, though. Sometimes I wish I could tell her why--that I've been through all of this before, not even that long ago. But she wouldn't understand.

So, in either case, you're not really worrying too much about the nuances of maturity, but rather a general "adult" perspective as it relates to this child whose body it's inhabiting.

Anyway, I hope that helps! Edited to add: see a related question here.

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