#fyi this is AT LEAST five years post-canon

[away-ward]

Note: I think this is "The Will Post" people reference sometimes, but I'm not sure. Here and Here are the links to the original Anon messages.

This was the first time I'd received a message like this and I didn't know how to response. Eventually, it became the norm for people leave me ranty messages about this series and it's characters. I usually got a kick out of them because you guys are hilarious, and then I'd tried to answer seriously because I like discussion and discourse. So, I developed the method of answering that is seen on other posts. I just wanted to make clear why this one looks different. I wasn't trying to single them out or make an entire post about Will. Anyway.

On to the response!

Original response below, edited for grammar, spelling, and word choice. Some rephrasing, but essentially the same thoughts.

I think, first and foremost, it’s essential to get out of the way that to enjoy this series, you can’t look at any of the characters too closely. Because once you do, you’ll realize almost everybody here sucks in some way or another.  

That being said, let’s look at the characters way too closely.  

Anon, I organized your thoughts by character/relationships to make it easier to manage my thoughts and form a response. So, I'll take it individually instead of responding to each part directly as you wrote it. I don’t think I or anyone else can say anything that will change your mind, but as regards to how I approach the characters when writing them, these are my thoughts.

But thank you so much for reading my fics! The fact that people spend their time doing so is always such a big compliment, even if some of the things I wrote...didn't quite sit right with you.

Disclaimer: these are my thoughts and opinions and are in no way meant to be asserted as fact or canon. Thank you.

FYI, this is a long one, folks. Grab a drink before you start.

First up:   

Will and Alex  

You’re absolutely right that Will and Alex only knew each other for about five years when we got to Nightfall. I messed up when I wrote Reality and said seven years. I realized it about two to three weeks after posting it and never went back to fix it. Good catch.  

I see that you have a problem with Alex. That’s valid. I’m not entirely sure if it’s how I portray Alex and her relationship with Will or Alex from the source material that you have a bigger issue with. Still, I’ll try to explain my feelings about her beyond what I’ve said in other posts.   

Feel free to correct me if I get anything wrong because, honestly, I have disregarded most of what Alex has said and done. After all, it hardly ever matters to the plot. Like you, I have the viewpoint that Alex’s involvement in the story doesn’t affect anything and, more often than not, makes a scene worse. I can’t think of a single time when Alex did something one of the other characters couldn’t do.   

I think the timeline is that Will was arrested at 19 and released at 21/22. He would have met Alex soon after his release. It would be just a few months before the beginning of Corrupt. We first meet Alex through Michael. She comes off as confident and self-assured, in complete control of herself. She doesn’t hesitate to let Rika know she’s an escort when the opportunity arises. Her boldness gives off the feeling that she’s world-wise, with years of experience.   

The reality is that she’s the same age as Rika. Given this, she would have only been in this line of work for a few months to a year, if we consider her account of events to be accurate. It tracks that Alex would be reeling from losing her friends and scholarship. She didn’t just lose Aydin when her roommate betrayed her. Alex lost her entire support system, and her plans for the future. Maybe she did figure out how to land on her feet through sex work, but I don’t think she was completely content with it – at least not as much as she tries to appear to be. She always said it was temporary, not a forever job, and she planned on doing more once she graduated.   

Towards the beginning of their relationship, Will and Alex had a more casual approach to each other. While they genuinely enjoyed each other’s company, they weren’t close. But a year passes between Corrupt and Hideaway, and that is plenty of time to get to know someone and develop an intimate relationship. Their friendship deepens over time, but because of how the story is told with the reader only viewing this very narrow window of the character's lives during October every year, we don’t see much of that progress. We don’t know what significant moments these two have shared, what they’ve revealed to each other when it was four in the morning and no one else was around. I believe Will and Alex found solace in each other; peace they couldn’t find with anyone else available to them.  

We can see their progression over the years in small moments

In Corrupt, when Damon is being aggressive with Alex, Will laughs and leaves it alone. I think his feelings are that this is her job and she can handle herself. Damon is his friend. Will sides with Damon.

In Hideaway a year later, Will supports Alex in the shopping scene. His comment to Banks is pretty neutral but more positive than before.

Yet, in the third year of their friendship or relationship (whatever you want to call it), we see Will defending Alex against Damon.

Damon's petty words are nothing compared to the way Damon physically treated her just two years prior. Some might argue that Will is acting out of his anger towards Damon, and using Alex as a prop to do it. That's fair. Will isn't the most emotionally intelligent person at this point of the story.

I think it's a mixture of both. Will wants to hurt Damon by replacing him (with a girl nonetheless. The horror), but it's also that his relationship with Alex has changed. He cares for her more now than he did even a year ago. He won't tolerate Damon saying spiteful things to Alex.

In Kill Switch, when Damon is threatening war, Will is the one who brings up Alex. He sees value in her being at his side.

Anon, you asked how their friendship could be that deep if she didn’t know that Will was missing. I don’t have Conclave on me, so I could be wrong, but weren’t Will’s parents lying for him? First, he was actually globetrotting – posting pictures on social media from various locations. Then the lie was he was with some program to help in third-world countries? Either way, it’s entirely believable that it would take a while to figure out something wasn’t quite right with the story. Should they have figured it out earlier? Sure. It shouldn’t have taken his younger cousin to make his three closest friends aware that Will was missing.   

But in the Horsemen’s defense, they’re married with children and running businesses. And it’s not like they weren’t trying to reach him. 

At the end of Kill Switch, Damon talks about how they got him clean from drugs, but alcohol was a bigger issue. He also mentions that he's been leaving messages often, waiting for a response. Damon was mad that Will missed the birth of his son, and it's not like Damon wasn't trying to make Will aware that it was happening.

Damon tried. Will made the decision to leave without telling anyone and go to a location they wouldn't be able to find him, and then he arranged for his family to lie about his whereabouts. I think the boys have an excuse for not knowing something was up right away, and then for acting when they did.

The way Conclave focuses on other issues is not the character's fault; it's what the author wanted to focus on. But there's nothing to say that the characters didn't eventually get down to business and figure out what needed to be done to get to Will. I agree that that portion of events would have been a more interesting story and would have set us up beautifully for Nightfall, but I've digressed enough.

Getting back to Alex. I find that she tends to lean towards putting her pleasure above all else, unless the situation is dire, or she's been given a direct instruction by one of the other characters. She has moments where she takes things seriously, but for the most part she seems to flounce around with a childish air. And Will does most of the time as well, and maybe that’s why they gravitated towards each other. While Kai, Michael and the others are growing, Will is stuck and Alex is on a similar level. They leaned into each other, and this worked for a while. But then Will was ready to grow, and he knew he couldn't let them carry his weight any longer, Alex included. 

The bottom line, I don’t like Alex. I’ve never liked Alex. I was indifferent to her for a while, but Nightfall did her no favors in my eyes. In reviewing the series, I’ve come to dislike her even more. To use what you’ve said, Alex gives me the "ick." The way she naturally falls into coercing and manipulating people doesn't rub me the right away and never has. I'm not saying she's ever forced someone to do something they didn't want to do, but possibly things they'd rather not?

For instance, in Hideaway, we have this thought from Banks about how Alex coerced her into drinking during the sleepover scene. Banks, while wanting to enjoy a "normal" life, also felt it was important to keep her wits about her when around Kai. So Alex "coercing" her to drink feels like she ignores what people want so that she can have a good time.

Again, in Hideaway, Alex as pulled Lev, I believe, away from his post so that she can try to sleep with him. Same as before, Lev wasn't opposed to the idea of sleeping with Alex, but he had a job to do, and that moment was not the time. Alex ignored that because wanted what she wanted. And like a child, she wanted it there and then.

(I mean, I guess the argument could be made that Alex was the only one who could have helped Banks tap into her femininity because Banks hated everyone else, especially Rika but still. I don’t like the way she behaves in general.)

But when I’m writing about these characters – especially when the setting for a fic is in the canon universe – I don't want to ignore PD intended for their relationship. They wanted Will and Alex to have a deep connection different from what he shared with the others. I’m not convinced it was ever meant to be romantic, but it was meant to be deep.  

I think you’re also correct in saying that Will used his friendship with Alex to soothe and distract from the pain of what happened between him and Damon.   

Which brings us to our next part.   

Will and Damon  

I think it’s a bit harsh to say Damon was always a tool to distract Will from reality. I believe Will quite liked his reality in high school. He was privileged, wealthy, attractive, athletic, popular, and had a good home life. The only thing missing was the girl of his dreams, and he was delusional enough to think it was only a matter of time before she came to him. There was nothing to distract from. Will enjoyed every second of it. He loved the drinking, the partying, the sex, and the camaraderie between his friends and teammates. He lived for it. 

He never wanted to leave it.  

And I think Damon loved Will. He wanted to keep Will “safe” inside this little bubble where nothing could hurt him or take away his joy. Damon wanted Will to be happy, as long as Will's happiness didn't take him away.   

The second Will started talking about Emory like she was different from the other girls was the second Damon began to hate her. Because Emory had the ability no one else had: she could either take Will away from him or destroy Will. And Will would let it happen because he’s full of love, and he's soft.   

And that’s precisely what happened when Emory and Will did finally connect, as Damon knew it would.   

Damon did know Will. He knew what he liked, what he wanted, how he thought. He probably understood Will better than Will understood himself. Which is how he knew exactly what to say and what do to hurt Will.    

That's why Damon was sick at the thought of losing him, completely out of his mind with grief at what he’d done. That's why when Damon thought of leaving, all he wanted was to take was Winter, Banks, and Will.

I’d dare to say it’s Michael and Kai that Damon doesn’t care about all that much. Not that he hates them. He’d kill for them. Walk through fire for them. Go to prison rather than rat them out for a lighter sentence. But there’s something in Will that Damon wanted to protect and keep.  

The problem was Damon's a little control freak in the worst way. This means he goes way too far in doing anything. His whole redemption arc is learning how not to do that with literally everything and still be okay. The little weirdo.  

I’m not a Damon apologist, if there is such a thing. Damon’s trauma and redemption arc doesn’t do anything for me. I also don’t think it's any excuse for his actions before then. I won’t deny that he does add to the series for me. Most of the time, if Damon was there, I was paying attention, whether I liked him or not.   

I’ve said it elsewhere, but I would have loved for his redemption arc to be the last part of the series because it makes more sense as a conclusion. To read Nightfall, not knowing if he was going to be a real villain by the end of the series, would have made his scenes with Emory and the other characters all the more chilling,  

But the story is what it is, and again, I don't want to ignore what PD was trying to do with Damon and Will, so when I write about the two of them, where one is, the other follows.   

On a side note, PD did an excellent job of introducing the potential bond that Damon and Emory would eventually share. They can relate to each other on multiple levels: 

The abuse. 

The love for Will. 

Their artistic visions. 

The way they covered for each other when they didn’t need to. 

Their bond would be much stronger than Em’s with Alex, and I wish the fandom focused on it more.   

Besides

Moving on.

Will   

You’re right when you say that Will was doing all those things before he went to prison, before he almost died, and before Damon left him.   

The main difference is that he was doing it for fun before all of that. He didn’t need to do it; his life didn’t revolve around it. It wasn’t an everyday occurrence but more of an occasional thing. Once Emory broke his heart and his friends left for college, we see him start to spiral just a little   

And that was after only losing Emory.

He needed his life at TBP to stabilize, and once his support system was gone, he couldn’t cope. And I like to focus on that aspect of Will. He was weak and soft before because he’d never faced a real challenge. His privilege, and later Damon, prevented him from experiencing any difficulties, doing him a disservice. When change was on the horizon, Will didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know who he was outside of being a rich teenager. And had things gone along without interruption, he probably would have continued down that path, either never growing up completely or eventually OD’ing.   

Going to prison might have saved his life, and if Damon hadn’t betrayed him, he might have been okay.  

Except Damon did betray him. So, he started spiraling again, this time worse than before, because now he didn’t even have his friends to fall back on. He couldn't go a day without getting drunk or high. As Banks said, he was only sober long enough to get to his fridge. Nothing was good. His two remaining friends didn’t like how he was acting, and they were moving on without him. The girl of his dreams didn’t care that he went to prison for her – she didn’t even call! (Note: I'm not made about this; it's just Will's feelings on the subject). Rika wasn’t the revenge he was hoping for, and now he didn’t even have that to look forward to. All he really had going for him was the approval he received from Alex.   

I haven’t considered how much Alex had a hand in things. I want to think that since they were new friends, she took an “it’s not my place to tell him what to do; his friends will step in if it goes too far” position. At the same time, I can see her encouraging him because it’s what she wanted to do to cover her own pain and fear. Again, because we don’t get moments outside these high-intensity situations, we don’t really know how their friendship works.   

But even so, a person’s early twenties are turbulent, to begin with, and Will had to learn how to cope with losing Emory, going to prison, nearly dying, and losing his best friend all within a matter of a few years.   

The fandom talks a lot about Damon’s trauma, but we ignore entirely that between the four boys, Will comes in a close second for the most traumatized. All his trauma is fresh, and in a short period of time.    

He was an active participant in his own downward spiral. He hid his pain behind a mask of smiles and good times, which carried him through until it didn't work anymore. Furthermore, he knew when Damon came back, he had no more excuses. The thing about relationships is that they require good communication and mutual respect, neither of which Will had. Mainly because he didn’t respect himself. With his friends' help, Will kicked his drug habit. It’s possible that with the clarity that came with it, he saw himself dragging his friends down. His friends were starting families and business, but he was still stuck. Kai said it best when he said Will never did anything on his own, and that was true until Will decided to go to Blackchurch.

So, they would have no reason to suspect that Will was doing anything other than what he said – traveling the world and figuring things out. But Michael, Kai, and Damon hadn't abandoned him. They were trying. Will was the one who left them hanging.   

To expect his friends to respect and trust him, and to develop some respect and trust in himself, he had to grow up. But his friends cut him a lot of slack. They let his stupid mistakes go unchecked and unpunished because it’s Will. I think in their eyes, he never meant any harm, or he was young and dumb, or he was hurting. They gave him a million excuses because they loved him. They weren’t strong enough to be the firm hand and give him the tough love he needed. Before anyone else, Will realized what he needed, and knew he couldn’t get it from his friends. Beyond that, he was too embarrassed to ask for it, to be seen as weak to them. Because everyone looked at their group and saw Will as the weak link, Will began to see himself that way too. And he was right. 

The Will before Emory and the Will after prison are two different people. I guess it’s up to the reader to decide who is more authentic. I choose to see Will before Emory as the real him, Will after prison, a mask he wears to keep from being hurt again, and Will during Blackchurch as someone stripped down to their barest form. He’s lost before Emory shows up, not knowing whether he can return to the real world and start again. It takes some prompting from Emory to get him moving and feeling like himself. And after Blackchurch, we see the Will from high school begin to resurface. 

I’m not sure where I’m going with this thought. But I think all the things you’ve complained about regarding Will are why he went to Blackchurch. He wanted to quit the drugs and drinking permanently, so he could grow up and be the person his friends needed. Then they wouldn’t have to pull his weight. I hated Will through most of the series because of his actions, the way he treated Banks and Winter specifically. Once I realized he was hiding all that heartbreak and pain, his motives and actions became more obvious. Again, pain is not an excuse to hurt anyone, but we are reading about imperfect characters who make mistakes and rarely, if ever, take the high road.

I’d say that part of the story is that when others hit low, they go lower. They’ll go to hell if it means getting one over on anyone who's pissed them off.  

They’re petty.  

All of them.  

The Horsemen   

  

I love friendships. Especially strong ones. Ones that don’t make sense on the surface. The kind of friendships where you know if it weren’t for unconditional love and loyalty, these people would probably stab each other multiple times, but instead they'll stab anyone who hurts them.

The problem with the Horsemen is that because they are supposed to focus on the four romances, we don’t get much of their friendship. PD gives us small glimpses here and there, and then says, “Just trust me, they’re brothers.” However, that leaves a lot to be desired when the entire plot hinges on them practically dying for each other every other year. 

But I’ve read other books about solid relationships. I’ve watched shows with the same dynamic. The idea of a unique foursome with an unparalleled bond isn’t unheard of by any means. It's an old trope. So, I can fill in the gaps.  It’s sometimes irritating to have to do that when I shouldn't have to. For instance, I have no idea what would happen if I put Emory and Michael alone in a room together. None. They stand in separate corners and don’t talk to each other, and this is because their relationship receives zero development. If you’re going to tell me that this group is a close, chosen family, willing to die for each other; that they loves and need each other, and that each member of the family (everyone from Michael their leader, to Emory the most recent addition) provides something critical to make the family work, then I need to see it. I need to feel it. But if I can't determine how two people in this family would interact, then something is missing.

But I have the ability to add what isn’t there, and to pull inspiration from other sources to fill-in what PD clearly intended. (If there's one thing about Devil's Night, is the potential for Head Canons galore!)

As you said, Anon, there were many times when their problems could have been solved by communication. However, I don’t think communication was a skill any of these men developed. Especially when admitting they were wrong, or talking about their feelings, or showing any sign of weakness in front of each other. Pride is a cruel master; it will trip you up if you give it a chance. But I don’t think their faults were a lack of love for each other.   

Michael was overly cautious where Will was reckless, which often caused disagreements. Michael acknowledged this in Corrupt. I still think there is plenty of evidence that they cared about each other and knew each other on a deeper level. I get why you’d say they didn’t care about Will, but if we only look at the one time Will jagged left when he usually goes right, it’s understandable that they’d be a little slow to react.

I mean, think about them being on a team in high school. If Will always preferred to shoot from a certain position, then Michael and the others would work to put him in that position. They’d get the ball to him. But what if he suddenly decided to be on the other side of the court? Then they’d be throwing the ball to an empty spot, because that’s where Will always was before. Just because Will did something he’s never done before doesn’t mean they don’t know him.

They didn’t expect Will to pull the Blackchurch maneuver for the same reasons I mentioned above:  

Will never did anything on his own.  

He went traveling first, either because he needed to or with the purpose of disappearing. After that, he quickly switched gears without telling anyone.

He had his family lie about it. It was probably his grandfather dispensing information, and who's going to call Senator A.P. Grayson out? 

As I said before, if you look at these characters too closely, you’ll find that nothing is redeeming about any of them. But they sure are fun.

I think?  

I don’t know anymore. Are we having fun? ARE YOU???  

Emory... versus the world?

Emory learned to think on her feet through trial and error with Martin. Unlike Will, she had to learn to survive, which made her think things through before making a decision. Of course, it made her too wary and overly defensive at times. One wrong step and she could have lost her life to Martin losing control.  

Emory had a plan to survive, to eventually escape. It didn't include falling for a pretty boy with pretty words. She knew, as good as it sounded and as much as she wanted it, any plan that Will came up with to save her and her grandma could have gone sideways real fast. She made the decision that had the best chance of succeeding, because it relied on her alone. She made the decision out of fear, but I don’t think that fear was misplaced. Hating her because she was forced to make that decision is dumb.

I will say she gave Will mixed signals. But...she was young and emotional and he was the one good thing in her life outside her grandma. I can't blame her for being human and needing him, but it's not wrong to hold her accountable for that.

Just like it's not wrong to hold Will accountable to the fact that he didn't listen for the three years she tried to warn him to stay away. Just like it's not wrong to hold him accountable for pushing her when she had previously said no.

I believe I’ve said this elsewhere, but I don’t know where. I don’t understand Alex and Emory’s relationship. I don’t get why Alex was so friendly with Emory when they first met and then judged her for not being around when Will was hurt. Either she understood Emory’s struggle, or she didn’t. Either way, one of these scenarios doesn’t make sense.  

As for Aydin - I don’t care about Aydin. I hated him. I still hate him. I hate that he’s barely three years older than Emory, kidnapped her, messed with her mind, forcibly kissed her to make Will and Alex jealous (which is still considered a form of sexual assault, by the way), and she still wanted to consider him a mentor. I don’t care that he was more valuable as an ally. I thought their bond was too strong after a week to be taken that seriously.

I mean, Anon, you’re criticizing the bond between the Horsemen even though they’ve known each other for over a decade, but Emory's known Aydin for all of five days, and that’s all it takes for her to need him and understand him? Because she realized he’d be better as their ally against the families? Because she's smart? I call BS on this entire thing. This was one of the weakest storylines in my opinion and I mentioned on another post how I think it could have been helped just a little bit if Aydin had been older. It wouldn't have fixed it! But I could have tolerated it more. I stand by that.

I still don’t know what Aydin brought to the table that Micah or Rory didn’t. He's there because of only because of Alex, so to favor him while despising her also doesn't make sense to me. They're literally the same.

Anon, are you talking about how other fans treat Emory like she’s the worst character because she hurt Will? When literally all of these characters have hurt each other—all of them. The only characters we don't see taking actions that hurt another are Emory toward any other character that isn't Will, and that's because there isn't time. The series ended before we could see Emory interact with any of them, and all their major problems were over. There was no opportunity, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't have if the series had been ordered differently. So, if people are hating on Emory for hurting Will alone, then they're probably biased toward one of the other girls (probably Alex). Not saying that readers can't dislike Emory for other reasons. She won't be for everyone and I'm sure there are valid reasons to dislike her. For me, she was the one I could relate to the most out of the main four, and I really felt for her struggles. She had the most realistic character arc, and her finding her way back to Will made the most sense over Rika, Banks, Winter, and even Alex with Aydin.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on everything you said. Somewhere along the way, I lost track of what I was actually attempting to say. Regarding my way of writing specifically, since I'm filling in voids and holes that I felt were too unanswered, I tried to remain as close to canon as I could. Not necessarily what was there, but what was intended. I don't always keep them in character as PD wrote them, but I try to get the same vibe.   

This means, even though I don’t like Alex, I know Will likes her. So when I write about Will, she’s sometimes there too, and it's sometimes positive.

***

Anyone is welcomed to share their thoughts...if you're brain's not numb by now. If it is, I understand. Thanks for making it this far and listening to my rambling.

-KO

#devil's night series stuff #asked and answered #asked and answered 11 #the horsemen of devil's night #the women of devil's night #devil's night series #debated putting DN tag in because this is a lot #let me know if I should remove it #I don't write essays #I just wanna write pretty words and characters smooching

[chaos-has-theories]

🌀❄️🌤️🌧️🌈🌩️☔

THANK YOUUUU

Just as a general fyi: it’s been a while since I’ve worked on any of these (currently editing a tlt fic, but I assume you’re most interested in Sep Heap stuff xD)

🌀 Post the fic summary for a fic you haven't written/published yet. It can be hypothetical or something you really plan on releasing…

I really do want to work on a SH/ML crossover at some point. Right now I have a mess of worldbuilding notes, a couple of character designs, and not much else.

In my concept, the Wizards are essentially the Guardians of the Miraculous - with just one exception. The Ladybug Miraculous belongs to the Queens in what is half tradition and half a genuine attempt to have some kind of separation of power.

After the assassination, Marcia starts hanging on to the Ladybug like she does the Tiara in canon. She passes it on to Jenna when she thinks there’s no other option left - noone else may wield it, but someone has to.

The Cat Miraculous takes up the role of both the dragon ring and the Fly Free charm - Marcia really needs to pick an apprentice to be Jenna’s partner. When she finds Boy 412 in the snow, she gives it to him on a gut feeling. He gets to have very conflicted feelings about yes committing treason on the reg but also having friends for the first time.

DomDaniel has had the Butterfly and the Peacock ever since Alther cataclysmed him he jumped off the Wizard tower. The Supreme Custodian is one of his Akumas. So is the Assassin, etc, etc. (Simon does become his apprentice eventually, meaning: Sleuth is a Sentimonster)

❄️ Share a snippet from a WIP of your choosing.

There is an old saying in the Castle, about the position of ExtraOrdinary Wizard: As you have gained it, so you shall lose it. It is almost forgotten by the time DomDaniel begins his apprenticeship. There are only stories told on long winter nights, and the footnotes in ancient books you might find at the Manuscriptorium. It has been a long time since anyone has had reason to believe it.

DomDaniel has no time for foolish proverbs. He has decided that most things aren’t worth his time. He isn’t getting any younger, after all: though if he has anything to say in the matter, he won’t be getting older, either. Five years into his apprenticeship, Daniel slips into his master’s chambers by night and makes sure that Old Pavel doesn’t wake again. He’s outlived his usefulness, DomDaniel reasons. He’s found other sources to teach him magyk.

It’s a terrible thing for an apprentice to have to supplant his master, or at least that’s what the people say. Yet sometimes there is no other choice: No other Apprentice has finished their seven years and seven days and remained within the Castle. DomDaniel has made sure of that. When he arrives to watch Pavel be placed in his Leaving Boat, the people of the Castle assume he’s wearing mourning. But it’s just his purple, darker than anyone before him has worn.

Pavel’s Ghost never does Appear, but if anyone notices, they’ve already learned to keep their mouths shut.

(This is a 5+1 fic about the very literal generational trauma of being an EOW)

☔ Is there a fic concept you have that you'd like to just explain and share because you're not sure you'll ever write it? If so, what is it?

I honest to god want to write Nightmare Polycule. There is so much potential. I wouldn’t even bother making a plot, just random situation that amuse me and possibly nobody else.

I put the other asks into their own post, since my answers are all connected!

#in the ml au you have to start wearing miraculouses relatively early to be able to wield them at all #hence a) the children doing the fighting and b) the timing #Esmeralda didn't get the ladybug until she was almost too old and that's what gave her the headaches #That 5+1 fic is probably the most solid headcanon I have #and well. #nightmare polycule #septimus heap #asks #chaos writes

[suckishima]

omg what r ur fav hq fics 😁😁😁

Aaah, same problem as last time.. I am SO bad at remembering to bookmark or write things down lol, AND most of the ones I did write down were the tsukkiyama ones in that last ask, so this list is gonna be kinda short lol.

tsukkiyama fic recs here

Bokuaka

(just scrolled through my notes and BIG rip to me for only actually writing down one of the bokuaka fics i read when i binged through their tag a few months ago)

you'll find me on my tallest tiptoes by mysticTwirl (one-shot, post-timeskip with most of it from udai’s perspective)

Iwaoi

(i only started reading them a month or so ago, which is coincidentally when i started actually using the bookmark feature on ao3 looool, so there’s more options here)

Thirty Years and Change (the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad) by sunsmasher (one-shot, future fic set during the 2024 Olympics and written in 2016 so a lot of the details aren’t canon compliant, buuuuut the feeling and overall mood of everything is really good, and tbh it feels like it could be canon compliant if those small details were changed. OH also, my notes on this one say “should probably be rated at least T instead of G” lol, fyi)

five minutes west of irvine by birdcat (2 chapters, post-timeskip, written riiiiight before the manga ended so it’s almost entirely canon compliant)

i wanna ruin our friendship by roseknight (18 chapters, nothing spoilery. i feel like everyone has probably read this one, but there’s good reason for that lol, it’s so well written!)

I’ve read some gen fics too, but of course with me being easily distracted, I have written none of those down lolol. So again, if anyone wants to send in or add on recs, please feel free!!

#cant shamelessly promote my own iwaoi fic yet :/ it's almost done lmao #ALSO please send me any and all akaashi and udai are friends bokuaka post time skip recs thanks #hq #fic rec #bokuaka #iwaoi #ask #anonymous

[backdraft-bimbo]

s15 review (ish)

Just messily throwing my thoughts out here. I got some pros, and I got some cons. It’s not all negative fyi, and before I dive into this I’m gonna rate s15 like a 6.5/10 overall. 

For starters: the usage of Carry On My Wayward Son in 15x20 completely screws the show’s morals in the end. “There’ll be peace when you are done”? Oh let me tell you, the stone-cold irony. 

That song is about hope. Supernatural, of all shows, chose a song revolving around the concept that one day, the suffering will end, and there will be a light at the end of the tunnel–peace. 

Dean thought he might have a chance at peace when Chuck got demoted, he hoped Sam could live on with a clear grief-free mind, and he wanted to have Castiel in the end. He thought, and we all thought so too, but the show writers decided, nah, tragic shock factor overrules seasons of character development and the entire fandom loudly demanding a happy ending for these characters we’ve adored for years. The writers brushed aside the discomfort and disapproval of the stars of Supernatural themselves as well. And I’m curious as to why. Why is the dynamic of the actors and fans so starkly different from those who had a say in writing 15x20? (The actors and fandom are more in tune with each other, while the writers have become detached and unaware of their own storytelling.) But that’s for another time, and I digress. 

My main point here, and one of my biggest bones to pick with the finale is the unnecessary death. Tragic endings only work well if done right. 

If death has a legitimate purpose in the story, by all means, utilize it. If it’s only there to make the audience turn their heads in shock, maybe reconsider. Death can be used in a variety of ways: to stir up empathy, bring an arc full-circle, a catalyst for another character’s arc, consideration of morality, et cetera, et cetera. But it should never be a last minute decision. It should at least have been foreshadowed if Dean was going to die, like in the earlier seasons when he made the deal for Sam’s life. As tragic as his death was then, we understood why it was done, instead of with the finale which left us wondering why the Hell would they do that? with a nasty taste in our mouths. 

Let me throw out an example of a well-written tragedy: Merlin. Even though (spoiler alert) one of the main characters died at the end, it was not to send the message that death is the superior of all storytelling, which is what Supernatural would have us believe in the finale. Merlin does it well because the entire show essentially builds up to the tragic death/destiny of King Arthur via ominous foreshadowing, but it redeems his character along the way to show that death is not the “ultimate redeemer.” Merlin has a theme of inescapable destiny (i.e. Arthur’s death), and yet by the end of the show you still love the characters and plot because they hold meaning. That’s one of the reasons its fandom is still so active–it ended tragically, but there is hope in the end, hope that Arthur will one day return to Merlin when the need for him is greatest. 

Supernatural, Voltron, and GOT all used death immaturely, especially in their last seasons. All because of bad storytelling and misuse of tragedy. There wasn’t peace in Dean’s horrifically anti-climatic death, which means there wasn’t peace for Sam, even though he made a family later on. He grieved his big brother for his entire life (or our two minutes of poorly put together montage feat. pop cover of Kansas) until he made it to Heaven after Dean’s five minute joyride in the Impala. So the message the CW is really sending out here is, “there’ll be peace when you are done, but only after you die.” Honestly, what a joke. It seems more like laziness which led to the finale; laziness regarding plot and characters and everything that made us like the show initially. 

It felt more like a punch in the face to the fans/actors rather than a thank you. And maybe the CW intended it to be that way. Maybe they just got sick of people’s critiques and decided to go out with a sadistic smile and a big ol’ middle finger.

For us, peace is only attainable when the show is over, because the writers aren’t in control anymore. They can’t make anymore colossal mistakes.

On the other hand, Supernatural used tragedy right as well in s15. The reason Castiel’s death in 15x18 had less controversy than Sam and Dean’s deaths in 15x20 is because Castiel had a long, drawn-out build up with his Empty deal. It loomed over the plot of all the following seasons. We all knew it was going to come back, that Cas was going to be taken one way or another. 

When the Empty got Cas, I wasn’t left with resentful questions or dissatisfaction. He went out with a bang–tears, a beautiful monologue, and I love you. I’m gonna trash the finale the rest of my life, but I will never hold back the respect I have for Cas’ s15 character arc (and Misha’s acting!). Brushing aside his impact in the finale of the show was a very bad move, but we’ve got canon queer Castiel, and essentially Destiel as well, and having that, I feel satisfaction probably equal to the distaste I have for the finale. So they kind of cancel each other out for me, personally (now that I’ve had a chance to reflect on the show as a whole and take a breather).

With COVID, it just astounds me how much time the CW had to think this over and settle on something so poorly written and inconsistent with the rest of s15. Kripke himself chose that ending, said it was right for the characters, which should really just make all our jaws drop, because that only solidifies the fact that the amount of care the fandom and actors put into these characters is tremendous in superiority to the actual show creators. It really makes me want to know now: How much of Supernatural’s genius was a mistake? 

How many details were unintentional, and how many scenes were made deeper simply by accident? Was it us, with our essays and theories and blogs dedicated to unravelling the secrets of the show, who made it more beautiful in the end? Because I guarantee, if I hadn’t read posts about Supernatural having deeper meanings early on, I probably wouldn’t have watched it. I wouldn’t have seen all the parallels between characters, and I couldn’t have pieced together the unintended puzzle that is Supernatural. 

Supernatural would have been way less enjoyable without the fans giving it so much meaning, and of course, without the actors’ performances. While they were done dirty in the finale, I’ve gotten to the point where I can still love the stars and their roles in the story in the long run. And whether you loved or hated the finale, it’s fun to just scream about stuff with people who are equally as invested in something as I am. 

So, I guess... thanks, Supernatural. But I will be dividing my thanks out to the folks who deserve it most: the fandom, the actors, and only specific writers who remain in my graces. 

#rant #supernatural #mine #review #s15 #15x20 #castiel #dean winchester #sam winchester

[quinnmorgendorffer]

Hi! I love your blog! Do you have any Blunder fic recs?

 Aw, thank you so much! That’s really nice to hear!

And BOY DO I!!!!

But, okay, tbh, I haven’t been the best at reading things besides what my friends have written for, like, months. I’ve mostly been writing (I’m determined to eventually have more AD fics than g/lee ones okay it’s a lot to DO!). And I started reading AD fic like the day s5a aired and I don’t bookmark things and like…I’ve loved every bit of blunder I’ve read, but I can’t just put like every fic I’ve read on here lol soooo some ground rules

This will be divided up between not-smut (might have sex scenes but it’ smore than sex) and smut

I’m mostly rec’ing one fic per writer per section, so please check out their other fics for more glorious works!

I’m only gonna put complete and, of course, blunder fics on here, sorry!! I love a lot of the WIPs out there and the non-Blunder AD ones, but yeah.

but first and foremost

see you on the b side, babe by pega - 10000% my favorite blunder fic. It was the first time in literal YEARS I followed a fic being uploaded and it’s what got me so invested in this fandom and WANT to write for this fandom. Pega is also like my favorite fanfic author ever and she just gets Blunder like no one else can, really nailing the mix of complete idiots who can’t function but who are also good at their own thing. Seriously, while waiting for s5b, I kept saying that, no matter what happens, at least we have see you on the b side, babe. I was prepared to accept this as my canon. A bunch of us were planning to make a podfic of it. It’s the ultimate blunder fanfic.

And okay I know I said one writer per section but I highly recommend her groundhog day inspired fic (and not just because it has piano gob moments but that’s obviously a bonus with me) and her beautiful bipolar!Gob fic, Magic, Not Drugs. She’s one of the best fic writers in any fandom I’ve been in, okay? Like I nearly didn’t write my high school au because SHE wrote one a;slkdfj

General Blunder-ness (AKA the not purely smut ones)

I Want to Break Free by nerdyscully - ice skater!Blunder AU. Super sweet, we stan. Part of the GurlGroup4Evah extended arrested development fanfic universe (GG4EEADFU) 

The Pianist and the Magician by nerdyscully - again I know I said one writer per section but HOW CAN I NOT PUT THIS ONE!!! beautiful birthday gift for me because, as we know, I am a slut for piano gob

Five Times Gob Bluth Almost Came Out, And The One Time He Really Did by Queen_Andr0meda - written pre-s5, a totally amazing and we love oblivious idiots, okay? (GG4EEADFU) 

Magic and Bees by angelica_church_schuyler AKA Lauryn the Magnificent - I love any and all bipolar!Gob fics so seeing this one pop up one day was so great and okay it’s not fully about blunder but like blunder’s there so it deserves to be on here and YOU SHOULD READ IT (GG4EEADFU) 

You Had Me at Challah by thereynoldstwins - I’m so honored that this lovely person actually consulted with me when writing this, especially since they’re such a superior writer in terms of capturing the tone of AD like. I seriously feel like I was reading an actual episode of the show. Anyways, it’s the blunder wedding we all DESERVE

Smitten Magicians by dollsome - the post s5 fic we all know has to be canon. Mitch WISHES he could write this

Four Times Gob Bluth Didn’t Date a Guy and One Time He Did by queenofcrossroads - this has to be one of the first AD fics I read. I stan anything involving Gob having these past affairs that he’s conveniently ignored like the dumbass he is

No Scandals by GoldStarGrl - I seriously love all of her fics but, again, this has to be one of the first AD fics I read. Written post s4 and I just love the ton and everything about it (I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily smut but it’s rated Explicit fyi). also obsessed with her most recent ad fic but it’s more about michael and gob’s relationship post s5 (not incest) so I didn’t list it

A Necessary Condition by nekosmuse - like see you on the b side, babe, this was one of the first stories in FOREVER that I actually followed from beginning to end and anxiously awaited updates on. A post s5a fic 

Brother, Spare the Details by anon - another post s5a fic AND a fix-it fic

Exclusive, Mutually by youjik33 - I’m a sucker for wedding fics

Some Nights I’m Scared You’ll Forget Me Again - have I mentioned I’m a slut for bipolar!Gob? I love this whole series

One of Their Better Parties by Doyle - I have a very clear memory of reading this for the first time over a year ago and just loving every second of it. I love fics where the family gets to find out about blunder, it’s my crack

Kittenface by cmere - I have proudly carried on what I consider is the tradition of Gob being a cat dad, which was very much inspired by fics like this

and in this moment, I was pretty pleased with the person I was pretending to be by stefonzolesky - I’m a sucker for high school/teen AUs and also people so much younger than me need to stop writing so well what the actual fUCK finding out the author’s age was a TRIP and a hALF

I could really go on and on but like……c’mon. I gotta stop and some point. These are just a handful of my some of the best fics out there

SEX, SEX, SEXY SEX (AKA the smut fics)

An Officer and a Gentleman by cmere - this isn’t just one of the hottest blunder fics but one of the hottest fics I’ve ever read. I literally wanted to have frotting like this in my latest smut fic but scratched the scene because I knew I wouldn’t be able to compare or I’d just end up copying it by mistake a;lskdfj. Literally every cmere smut fic is so good like. god……

Little Less Bark, Little More Bite by GoldStarGrl - phone sex. good sex. just…good sex.

Dance For You by nerdyscully - someday she will accept that this is a great smut fic mmmkay

God okay I know there is more but these were the first to come to mind and I also don’t want to just copy every cmere fic on here lmao. If anyone can remember the one where they fuck in the limo and deny their feelings (as per usual) I am totally blanking on the name but it’s such a good one…..

I’m sorry this isn’t as complete as I would like but these are the first that spring to mind for recs so I’d really check them out!!! But, seriously, the blunder fics that are out there are so good. As are the non-Blunder ones. AD has just attracted so many great writers and I’m so happy to have such great fic to read!

……………………………………..and I’m assuming you know this, but since I have enough of an ego to say it, I’ll rec my own AD fics, particularly Take On Me (high school AU) for the not-smut (my most bookmarked AD fic) and One of Gob’s Better Parties for my smut (my most kudo’ed AD fic)

#fic rec #blunder #otp: same #fanfiction #just a small sampling!!! #I'm bad at writing my own summaries so idk what you expect when i'm summarizing other fics #Anonymous #bite me in the ask

[totally-totty]

#ooc #vent

[janiedean]

Anyone who think Kit is a good actor is an idiot. And there's so many of them. That's why the world is getting worse and will be dominated by robots 🤖

oddmy dearest @the-bitter-gremlin hopefully you’ll get the tag because I really wanna make sure you see this reply :’DDDDDD

now, point the first: thanks for calling me an idiot! :D I mean, okay, not that grades mean anything of course but given that I went as far as graduating HS in the top five of my class, that I have two degrees one of which with the highest possible vote in a field that’s technically not too easy and that it’s even certified that I speak at least one language at native-tongue level and I can get by in two others other than mine I think my brain is fine enough, thank you.

I also watched more movies than the average person (no, I did, really, I considered studying cinema instead of going to proper uni for real), my top ten favorite movies is all stuff made before the nineties except for one and all my favorite actors are Certified Good Actors Like For Real and I got called a snob for my movie/actor taste more times than I can count. the only reason I’m doing this long-ass preamble is to inform you that if someone can’t act, I can recognize it and I have absolutely no problem admitting it even if it’s someone I like as a person or whose work I enjoy. for one, I can 100% admit that my favorite italian actor when he was nine back then was pretty atrocious (he got better admittedly but I haven’t followed him in a while, so who cares), and I still enjoyed his movies anyway even if he was terrible and I even knew it, but hey, he was hot, so who cares, right? and I enjoyed a fair amount of horribly acted italian fiction because it was fun, so really, I don’t have anything to lose here.

this was all a long preamble to tell you that yes, my favorite actor is marlon brando not the first idiot passing off the street, and yes, kit is actually good at what he does and no, people are not idiots for thinking that.

now, never mind that idek if you saw him in anything that’s not GOT, but the only movie of his I’ve seen where he was really meh was the spy movie and that was because the entire plot sucked ass and the character was terrible but everything was terrible. for the rest, he certainly pulled a better american accent than half of the british actors I’ve heard (it was brimstone by the way, excellent movie, watch it), he can do comedy (watch seven days in hell :D) and ah, yeah, he’s just making a movie/finishing a movie with xavier dolan who’s like… not someone known for picking bad actors. also, uuuh, he went to school for that actually, but not just anywhere -

ah, wow, HE WENT TO THE SAME SCHOOL WHERE LAURENCE OLIVIER, VANESSA REDGRAVE AND JUDI DENCH WENT but okay, sure, they’d totally take someone talentless according to them? and actually:

In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise the majority of Central’s submission was judged “world leading” or “internationally excellent”. The school has been ranked highly by The Guardian, placing it sixth in its league table of specialist institutions[9]and ninth for Drama and Dance.

LOOK AT THAT, TOP-NOTCH SCHOOL.

now, what is that british acting schools prepare people for? theater.

which means that he’s a theater actor first and foremost, which shows in his damned acting because if you notice he does half of it with his voice, but I guess you were too busy thinking he’s too good-looking to act, right?

except that not counting theater stuff, GOT was the first job he had *and* his first job on tv, which means that of course he wasn’t as good as the others in the beginning, because a) acting for the theater and for tv aren’t the same, b) it was his first job and not everyone is named leonardo dicaprio and can act their way out of a what’s eating gilbert grape at seventeen.

thing is: while at least one of his co-stars hasn’t improved in the role they have (imo but it’s also the writing) and most of the others GOT actors are either seasoned professionals or had acted for the camera before and had less issues adapting to it, he actually got better, and he actually acted a lot better when he was feeding off other people. case in turn:

that’s jon and jaime in s1. admittedly, not kit’s best effort unless you interpret it as jon being so lovestruck by jaime being around him that he’s like 404 page not found, and he had one scene with NCW from then until S7, and they didn’t even interact. NCW is miles better than he is here, obviously, but like, NCW has been in the job since the early 90s and I assure you his first danish movie isn’t his best acting effort either even if it’s not bad. BUT, let’s go to another S1 scene:

jon and sam discuss sex, yey! here he’s with a guy - john bradely - who’s probably (at this point) better than him at reciting on screen, but with whom he’s had a lot more scenes and that is playing his best friend and with whom he presumably hung out a lot and with whom he’s had a lot of time to work with. and even if it’s still S1, if you look at it it’s miles better - he does a lot more of microexpressions, he never looks at the camera (first sign of bad acting btw, he didn’t do it in the previous scene either but there he looked starstruck all the time, here he doesn’t) and like, you can already see that there’s a vast difference in between the two. and it’s the same season, five episodes apart - supposedly they also filmed it later and he’s already more at ease with it. 

now, small pause to remind you that at this point jon doesn’t have too much extra baggage BUT that kit actually read the damned book and you can see it because he makes very precise choices ie in the book after jon burns his hand he flexes the fingers of the hurt one every time he’s nervous or he’s about to lie or something, and he does the exact same thing (link here btw), and fyi, with the exception of partially alfie and gwen, no one in the cast actually went as far as that so HAHAHAHAHA WOW SUCH BAD ACTING, INNIT? anyway, that was season one. I’ll spare you and myself S2/¾ also because if I link you the jon/ygritte scenes I’ll shoot myself in the head. instead, let’s go to season five and 5x02, as in the season where I literally would have quit the fucking show if it wasn’t for jon’s storyline.

if you look at this, he doesn’t even say a fucking word until the ending, and you can see exactly what he’s thinking just looking at his damned face, because if you pay even the slightest bit of attention you notice that he changes expression minutely with every damned word sam and thorne say, you can see his eye movements, then he goes from complete sour to sad to angry to surprised to delighted to worried to happy again in the span of four minutes without even talking once and it’s miles better than anything he did in S1. 

or you could also rewatch the scene where he punches ramsay in S6 where he does a lot of microexpressions that speak for him without even talking, again, in an episode where he did all the stunts on his own same as the rest of the show, and that’s really not little given all the work it goes into being, uh, the main character, who also happens to have to be a seasoned fighter and use swords and so on. (I can’t link but I think I exhausted my limit for linking videos on tumblr so whatever *SHRUG*)

guess what: HE IMPROVED. GREATLY. IT SHOWS. learn to watch the damned thing, it doesn’t take going beyond GOT to realize it. and now, two last things I have to say to you before I finish this because I honestly wasted too much time on you already.

one: he might not be the best actor around - fair enough -, but kit’s definitely good imo. not passable, not decent, not average - he’s good. and he’s learning and he’s improved tremendously in the last eight years and it shows, and he put enough effort into this role to a) read the canon, b) incorporate the canon into it, c) actually changing scenes so that they fit canon more, d) do all his own stunts, e) carry 60% of this whole damned liver-destroying show on his shoulders since at least S5 in which his sl was the only saving grace of the entire thing and he executed it perfectly, so kindly fuck off and don’t go to people calling them idiots because they think an actor is good.

(ps: I

two: going into people’s askboxes and calling them idiots because they enjoy something and insulting what they enjoy is a) rude, b) uncalled for, c) an asshole move.

next time let me/us/whoever enjoy this guys’ acting in peace and keep your fucking opinion to yourself, because honest, if I could spend twenty years out of almost thirty of my life keeping my mouth shout about how much I hate HP to a) my rl friends, b) my internet friends and I could keep myself from informing them that I think it’s really bad under their posts or in their inbox or to their face because I’d be an asshole if I decided to shit on what they like, then you can pay me the same favor (or about anyone else) and not go around dissing stuff people like to their faces when they said openly they like them.

sayonara and call me when you get an emmy nomination :’)

#kit harington #tagging bc I have a feeling it might be relevant #dskljgklsdg #ch: jon snow #game of thrones cast #is2g y'all were raised not even by wolves #wolves would be more polite #like shut the hell up man #REALLY shut the hell up #@ anyone else: IF YOU DON'T LIKE KIT FINE FOR YOU I DON'T CARE I DON'T NEED TO KNOW #thanks very much #blergh #extra wank for ts #the-bitter-gremlin #ask post

[fyeahfantasticfour]

How did all the F4 meet?

Ben and Reed were college sweethearts roommates. As we see in Fantastic Four Annual v1 #2, Reed was looking for a boyfriend roommate, and, having failed to get into Victor Von Doom’s good graces, stumbled into Ben’s:

They both adored each other instantly. Ben would make sure that Reed got out of the lab and had fun every now and then, as we see in Thing v1 #2:

And in return Reed went to every one of Ben’s football games and cheered him on even though he didn’t have any idea what was happening, as we see in Fantastic Four Unplugged v1 #2:

Cut for length!

They were in love! So much so that they eventually ended up signing up for the army together after they graduated because they didn’t want to be separated (in the Lee/Kirby origin story – I think in current canon Reed at least worked for the U.S. military (especially while building his rocket), but I’m not sure if he was supposedly actually in the army).

Reed and Sue’s first meeting is more complicated. Prepare yourself, because I have Opinions. 

Originally, in Fantastic Four v1 #11, Reed says that they were childhood sweethearts who grew up together and that Sue was the girl he left behind when he went off to war:

So we can assume that they met when they were both children, and that they were likely not too far off in age – certainly not more than four years or so, if they were already dating when Reed was 21, i.e., right before he joined the army. They were childhood sweethearts in canon for 25 years, and I like it a lot! It’s cute! I like the idea of them knowing and being in love with each other their whole lives! Sue and Johnny could have been Californian like Reed! There is so much potential for good in the childhood sweethearts origin story! 

I also think it explains a lot about her early interest in Namor. Reed was the safe, conventional good guy who loved her and treated her (by the era’s standards) well and who she took for granted (and maybe he did the same) because they’d been together so long. Maybe he was the guy everyone had been telling her she would marry since she was very young, and she genuinely didn’t know how she felt about that – did she really love him, or had she just always been told she did? Namor, on the other hand, was new, unknown, dangerous, sexy, taboo, a bad boy, an undersea prince, and exactly the worst guy she could’ve lusted over. However, he treated her infinitely less well than Reed (who never, you know, kidnapped her or assaulted her or tried to force her to marry him or anything AND HOW WAS THAT A HIGH BAR TO PASS, NAMOR?), and ultimately that pattern of bad, misogynist, toxic behavior on Namor’s part led her to choose Reed. (Literally – she ends things with Namor permanently in Fantastic Four v1 #27 after he kidnaps and imprisons her and tries to force her to stay with him for a day to “give him a chance” that was equal to Reed’s, and she just…refuses to go along with it because he kidnapped her and then accused her of “”””making””””” him do it because she wouldn’t choose between him and Reed and he was going to force her to – a stark contrast to Reed, who, as you can see in the panels above, backed off immediately when she told him she couldn’t make up her mind and said he’d never bring it up again and then didn’t – and then she tells Namor it’s over, she chooses Reed.)

But then in the 1980s, John Byrne had to come along and ruin everything. He decided that since Stan Lee had, in the letters page and not in the actual comic (i.e., the canonicity of this is disputable, and, oh, I dispute it and I HAVE REASONS), stated that Reed was in his late 30s and Sue in her 20s at the time they got their powers, this origin story didn’t make sense, so he came up with another one that I completely loathe. 

In Fantastic Four v1 #291, Sue recalls her first meeting with Reed. He moved into her aunt’s boarding house for a summer when he was a senior in college, she fell in love at first sight, and, oh, did I mention she was TWELVE? 

Reed was, to be clear, terribly embarrassed about the whole thing and had zero interest in Sue at all:

He moved out of her aunt’s place, and that was, it seemed, that.

They ran into each other again about ten years later, and that’s when they started dating. Since Reed was 20 when they met and Sue 12, Reed was 30 and Sue was 22 when they actually got romantically involved. This is from Fantastic Four v1 #557, and, yes, that’s how long this was canon:

I’m sorry, but no. This is just…SUCH a sexual fantasy for male nerds. Little 12yo Sue is too young to have had any experience with men, so she’s completely awestruck by a nerdy guy and thinks he’s the greatest thing ever (I mean, this is made slightly better by the fact that Reed IS pretty exceptional in every respect, but it’s still being written for/by nerdy men who aren’t). Then she grows up to be gorgeous and glamorous and an actress and still idolizes the guy and worships him the way she did when she was little and so ends up marrying him. Read this and tell me that’s not how it strikes you:

An eight-year age gap wouldn’t be unacceptable if they were both mature, experienced adults at the time they met – my best friend’s parents are eleven years apart in age, and their marriage is happy and good, and, I mean, a 38yo marrying a 30yo isn’t a big deal – but the fact that Sue was a literal child and Reed was a grown man when they met makes it inappropriate and clearly led to an unequal power dynamic. It didn’t have to be this way, John Byrne. You could have gone with the childhood sweethearts/girl next door origin that was actual canon instead of the letters page that wasn’t. You can’t say they were “kids together” if Reed was an adult and Sue was a child, so you intentionally got rid of the childhood sweethearts origin just so you could introduce that eight-year age gap and have Reed meet Sue when she was a child and he wasn’t. Just. Why not get rid of the kid part too? Bad choices all around.

But, anyways, along come Matt Fraction and Tom Brevoort in Fantastic Four v4 #4 in 2013, and they decide – and oh, god, thank you – that the Byrne origin…is not the most appropriate beginning for a modern-day love story. Gender politics have shifted in the past 30 years and it isn’t really acceptable to have your hero marrying a woman he first met when she was barely hitting puberty and he was a grown man. So they aged Sue up to nineteen and kept Reed in his early twenties, thus eliminating the age gap entirely and going back to something more like the Lee/Kirby childhood sweethearts version, although they kept the boarding house element intact. I really love this origin because it’s SO adorable and what Byrne’s always should have been. In this version, it’s Reed who falls in love with Sue at first sight, which I also appreciate, because, yes, Sue is amazing:

If you love ReedSue, please read this issue. It’s basically a love letter from Reed to Sue. I have many problems with Fraction’s run, but this is one issue I wholeheartedly love.

Ben and Reed met Johnny around this time – and assuming there’s a ~7 year age gap between Johnny and Sue, Johnny would’ve been around 12 at the time. (He would’ve been five in Byrne’s origin, just FYI, when he met Reed and Ben, which is the only good thing about it.) I think a lot about Johnny’s relationship with Ben and Reed is explained by the fact that he met them when he was extremely young, combined with the lack of father figures/positive male role models in his life. Think about it – a lonely, orphaned, nerdy boy meets an extraordinarily kind, patient, smart man and his popular, star linebacker best friend – they must have seemed like the best and coolest guys on the planet. I don’t think Johnny’s ever entirely stopped seeing them that way. I really wonder if Johnny’s pranking of Ben was a pattern of behavior that started when Johnny was a kid because Johnny desperately wanted to get Ben’s attention. He was cool! A jock! Popular! Girls loved him! Reed loved him! People paid attention to him! He was everything Johnny wanted to be and everything Johnny wasn’t. Johnny’s uncritical hero-worship of Reed and constant need for Reed’s vocal approval DEFINITELY started then. I also wonder how much the way Johnny was then colored the way Reed and Ben still see him – they always think of him as a kid, of course, but also his loneliness must’ve been very apparent to them.

This is Sue and Ben’s first meeting, although we, unfortunately, have never seen Reed and Ben’s first meeting with Johnny:

Ben’s wearing his State U sweater, so clearly he was still studying there. But because Marvel can’t keep track of anything, James Robinson complicated things further in Fantastic Four v5 #14, because he depicted Reed and Sue as first meeting while Reed was at Columbia, not State U.

[Yes, that first panel is Johnny and Sue, and that’s how young Johnny was when he met Reed and Ben in contemporary canon. He looks around 11/12, I’d say.]

They kept Reed’s sweater vest the same but changed the school? Why must they make everything so complicated? I would assume that Ben still met Sue and Johnny during this time, although that’s not for sure because he probably had graduated from State U by this point and was likely already in the U.S. Air Force, working as a test pilot and astronaut. But I think in most versions of the post-Byrne origin story, that is when they met.

But, anyways, Marvel, it is about time you actually showed us the first time Johnny met Reed and Ben and also Sue, just so I can enjoy how cute and tiny Johnny was. Marvel 2-in-1 gives you the perfect opportunity!

#asks #mod: lamujerarana #Anonymous

[televinita]

kateschechterxthorwasmyfirstotp replied to post: If you did not watch the last episode, they kind of righted that wrong...

Eh...I read what they tried, but I deemed it Not Good Enough. That was a pretty fundamental betrayal of my deepest shipping principles and too many years apart for me to ever feel okay about them again.

#I have been trying to coherently explain it for like 20 minute and I keep getting bogged down in anger and sadness at the memories so tl;dr: no

EDIT: actually you know what, I am gonna explain it, via copy-pasting the long ass 4-part blog post I made about it the night it aired (I didn’t watch because I was behind on the season, but I hung out in the Tumblr tag and read live reactions), which incidentally was the night after we put my dog to sleep so those two Sadness Memories are wrapped around each other. I always meant to post at least part of it to Tumblr and I regret not doing that.

February 2013

Wednesday: Unedited Ranty Version LOL NOPE BYE. Literally just...not accepting this. Never watching the episode, done with future episodes, the show can just stop here. Unlike with Glee, I am above this. I don't feel it hard enough to be canon, and god, I am so much better for it. Sucks for all the fans who can't just handwave it and decide not to believe. I'm not even going to bother repeating all my Kurt/Blaine rage from last fall, because Sara and Grissom met late enough in life that they aren't in quite the same category of fairytale romance, even if they are soulmates, but -- my anger about relationships losing their magic if you break up in the middle and see other people after finally getting together? So very applicable. (Honestly, show, what happened to them having a marriage that worked for them and no one else needed to understand? Why couldn't you just leave that alone? Why did you have to pick? There was no reason to pick. No picking! /nasally Seinfeld voice.) I'm kind of sorry they already lost their spot in the Top Five All-Time OTPs Kingdom to Kurt and Blaine, because I would have really enjoyed kicking them the fuck out tonight. If I believed this were happening. Which I realized, 5 seconds after writing the above, that I am not. Goodbye, and good luck. Thursday morning (a.k.a. just kidding I’m still mad as hell and back to yell) I like how they keep talking about "implications into next year" and how the story will continue. No, it won't. You've separated them before, a fact I had forgotten about because I refused to watch 9x05 and it was clearly just a pause button on the way to spinny-camera grand reunion kissing as opposed to a real breakup, but there's no way to fix this now. There is no more to the story; you don't get to tell a story after this. Glee already proved to me that there is no way to make a worthwhile arc out of a vile bomb drop. Although I am kind of sorry that this relationship could actually have withstood cheating and it would have been easier to swallow than divorce. Maybe because it still feels like cheating. You're meant to be with someone, you can't have extracurricular people! I have some unfinished business with those first 7 episodes of season 13, and I'm not sure what to do with that -- they were great and I hate to leave them unwritten about, but if I go back there is a slim chance it will get devious like Grey's Anatomy and suck me back in underhandedly, and I'd rather spite myself than give it that opening. So I'm not totally sure if this is the end. But it sure has that really certain Bones Episode #100 level sense of THIS IS UNFORGIVABLE. GAME OVER. Thursday night Reading other people's opinions is always a dumb way to go, because instead of saying my piece and being done, now I'm riled up and feel like I need to FORCE people to understand something they just don't seem to be getting, whether they're being practical and pragmatic or writhing about it in "but they were my first real ship!" angst. (as if they are only a ship, instead of so much more) The thing is, this isn't just a dumb writing choice you can complain about. This isn't even about whether it's in character or not. It is literally. Not. An option. Some couples just aren't allowed to break up. A UST couple that takes more than 5 years to get together is one of them. And once they get married, that's absolutely it. A victory for permanent commitment and contentment. There's no divorce in good storytelling, there are no separations. That lazy nonsense is reserved for books, movies, and silly soap opera types like Grey's Anatomy. Couples like Grissom and Sara, they are foundations. Institutions. When you want to change the look of your house or test out something new, you work with the existing structure. You don't knock it down and build it back up from the floorboards. To be fair, I was always upset by the "long distance marriage" - there was no reason for it; there was never a reason Grissom couldn't be off screen right here in Vegas, teaching at a local university or simply pursuing his own research supplemented with travel when necessary. The longer it went on, the less happy I felt. But since they told us it worked, I put up with it for the joy of having Jorja Fox back on my screen. I see now that was a mistake, and the only way to keep them safe was to push them away. The point is: TPTB broke television law. I can't judge this like other shows as a good or bad direction for the characters, or wonder how it will affect Sara in the upcoming episodes, because they are untouchable. It's honestly laughable that anyone thought it was okay to even try this. Can you imagine if the second X-Files movie followed through on its misdirection and went "lol yeah Mulder and Scully haven't seen each other in 5 years"? I

[2017 edit: FYI I have not stopped being angry about the bitter irony of this comment since the revival spoilers hit.]

If you need more universal examples, that's like tuning in to find out the Brady Bunch has split back up into two separate households, or Disney is going to experiment with a new movie where Minnie elopes with Goofy.

You don't get to pretend you're setting up for a season or two-season arc. This isn't an arc. This is a slash and burn project. Let's pretend, for a minute, that this is planned as an emotionally complex journey that will force them to examine what they mean to each other and get them back together, Costa Rica style, in next year's season finale. Do you think that would be worth it? Do you think the struggle to get there will make the ultimate conclusion heartwarming, fill you with elation as you see them beat all the odds? It will not. It will be long tainted by then, a sour coda to an unfixable mess, because what you had wasn't important enough to preserve. You can't ever get back to what you were, and it's already too late. That is the best case scenario. There are no character motivations to explore. There is nothing to dig into. A death warrant was signed and went up as effectively as a brick wall in stopping the development of this relationship in its tracks. Televinita out. #breakingupwithCSI #I reject your canon and substitute my own Thursday: Post-Essay Messiness Oops. Reading my old reviews because I can't remember GSR's chronology off the top of my head, and...there is no way I'm letting anyone use this as justification for being in character, but this conversation does seem sort of relevant all over again. "Sooner or later a relationship in stasis withers. You get angry. You need more than the safety of knowing that you're not alone." "Then he should've just walked away." "Well, maybe he couldn't. Maybe he needed her to leave him." Apparently I also got kind of angry in the early part of season 9 when Sara left again, and may have threatened to break up with this show at that time? *chagrined look* But 2008 Me seems to have still accepted this as a possible, if highly undesirable, turn for the couple. What changed? And am I crazy, or is it possible to decide neither of the times Sara left were actual breakups as opposed to pause buttons? Oh, that's right. What changed is they got married. I repeat, when it comes to long-running couples on TV, wedding bands are as much a promise to the audience as they are to the people involved. You put a ring on it after proper courtship, that's a universally accepted sign for "you win: permanent freedom from being jerked around for Drama/Conflict/ratings."

#csi related #they were in fact one of my first major ships so I am...Defensive #what is chill #rage triggers are real and they're spectacular

[loverlylight]

Hey, this is a submit post because I listened to all of Blackgaard saga basically while I was at work this past week, and I wrote up all my thoughts about the current book AND it is rambling and only goes until like, just shy of Waylaid. And thoughts I had before I even got to DBD: LITERALLY STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS FYI:

So Richard knew Greg Kelly, who lead him to Blackgaard, but wait, I thought Jellyfish did? Or did he just know Jellyfish and they both ended up in CCDC, and then Jellyfish learned about Blackgaard? Jellyfish seems to know so little about Richard.

DDSS was only the summer

Webster Development Company is owned by Dr. Blackgaard, so he wanted the land in the first place - due to the Webster Company wanting the Filmore Recreation Center from the very beginning - Ep Recollections

But he failed to get it, so he tried to get into town FIVE YEARS LATER!!!! Why five years?!!!

The Filmore Center was built in the Depression, but the land is where the mineral is, and the old church burned down, right?

Connie must have been at camp longer than a week. Obviously kids stayed a week, but I assume her position as camp counselor was longer than a week? Obviously in all that time things had to go down with Richard and Eugene.

Eugene’s Dilemma:

Eugene did a random check after he got used to the computer system. So it wasn’t immediately (though he was probably really quick, he’s EUGENE for goodness sakes). Obviously Richard wanted the job, but couldn’t have it because of Eugene. Maybe Richard knew Nicholas before Eugene was hired, but obviously Richard was manipulating Nicholas from the get-go. By listening to the show, Richard had to know Nicholas before Eugene was hired, so that part is a bit confusing.

Because Nicholas was changing the grades, and Richard didn’t need actual access to the room to change the grades. He’s a good manipulator.

So listening to ED, Richard was manipulating Nicholas three months prior to Eugene being hired, about a month before Eugene and Connie were fired, and then Eugene got the position a bit later. Time is a little skewed… Because the grades being changed were before Eugene came, the dates made Whit realize Eugene was keeping a secret.

So at the end of that ep, Richard says he has a better job lined up. My understanding from the novel so far is that Blackgaard’s job wasn’t paying much (“power”???), and that’s why he started to change the grades. So I think Eugene got hired too fast in the novel, lol.

In Nemesis, Richard said the building had been recently built - so it was empty and Blackgaard needed a business license to open it up. The book says otherwise via Glossman, because the area was dead… maybe it was rebuilt or a shell?

Maybe it all makes sense with Richard & Nicholas at the college while the building is built, but Eugene working at the college at that time doesn’t fit.

Blackgaard wants Connie’s answer soon, because Blackgaard’s Castle opens up in a few weeks (before the vote for the business license)

Noted that Richard is okay with manipulating everyone, but not okay with hurting anyone or burning down the barn.

But Richard goes along with Blackgaard because after they connect, Blackgaard does start dangling threats in front of Richard, which does worry Richard. Which is why he can go from pissed to calm in an instant. Which is definitely how he acts around Blackgaard in DBD.

And then by the time the Battle Starts, the Castle has been opened for a couple of weeks. SERIOUSLY THOUGH. WHY DID HE WAIT FIVE YEARS?!!!!

Also, how dumb is Blackgaard? Did he really think Richard got the password from Lucy?!!! DOES HE THINK WHIT IS THAT DUMB?! And Richard still taunted him?! WHAT THE HELL. THESE TWO CONFUSE ME AS BAD GUYS.

Was the Israelites when Whit was teaching High School for 13 years? Or just Sunday School?

(I apologize if I swear. I have a tendency to do that unconsciously)

____________________

Yay! :D

Yeah, before the books I assumed when Richard said Greg led him to Blackgaard that meant he was the one who first introduced the two of them, but now I’m thinking what he meant by that was that, once they were released from the detention center, Greg found Blackgaard knowing that Richard wanted to keep an eye on him, and then told Richard about him then. (I have this whole fic idea in my head where Greg and Richard became friends in the detention center and Richard warns Greg about getting involved with Blackgaard but he does it anyway in order to help Richard out. And then of course he gets in over his head and gets killed and that does not sit well with Richard, like at all.) And yeah, it’s weird that according to the books Richard and Jellyfish knew each other before getting involved with Blackgaard, especially because, as you said, Jellyfish really doesn’t seem to know much about Richard. (I mean, he was like “oh yeah, I guess you did mention you’re from Odyssey, I guess I forgot”, which... makes no sense if they knew each other from way back when.) Idk, it doesn’t clash TOO much with previously established canon, and if the reason Jellyfish went to jail in the first place was because Richard told the police about him it’d explain why he hates him so much (which was never really explored in the radio show), but... yeah, it still doesn’t feel quite right.

As far as the waiting five years, on the Adventures in Odyssey Oddcast (which I recommend checking out if you can, by the way, it’s really fun) they theorized the reason Blackgaard took the five years to come back to Odyssey was because he spent that time getting his doctorate in child psychology, and that theory makes a lot of sense to me.

Again, citing the Oddcast, it seems like it was renovated in the Depression but was around beforehand? The history of the building of Whit’s End has always been a bit hard for me to grasp.

Huh... yeah, I can’t recall how long Connie’d be at the camp. We know it’s two weeks from Eugene’s Dilemma to The Nemesis and that Eugene’s Dilemma ended while Connie was at camp, but I’m not sure how much time that took place during. (Like... the timeline is Bite of Applesauce, then less than a month until Eugene’s Dilemma, then two weeks until the Nemesis, then anywhere between a few weeks to a month or so until The Battle, right?)

Yeah, I always assumed Richard had known Nicholas for a while (I’d also been estimating a couple of months, and obviously reaching back to the first time the grades were changed) and had been using him to change grades before the computer job was even announced. So the timeline in the books is... nonsensical. If Richard has only known Nicholas for a few days it’s just... it makes no sense.

Considering the info from the show and the books, I think what he was trying to do was clear out all the businesses from the area, demolish them and then build Blackgaard’s Castle on the land. I think so, anyway? But yeah, the timeline would be okay if they didn’t try to cram Richard’s college mishaps into basically the same week as Eugene’s Dilemma.

I know, even as a kid I got the feeling Richard was like “this was not what I signed up for” but since Blackgaard was basically blackmailing he decided it was better to go along with it than risk getting in trouble. (Which, y’know, is kinda analogous to what happened with him and Nicholas...)

And yeah, Blackgaard’s kinda... he gets a lot smarter in future episodes, doesn’t he? ^^” To be honest, I never really got why Blackgaard thought “ah, a child, obviously she will have valuable information about the secret computer program I want to steal!” Like... seriously dude?

Huh, I didn’t even think about the Israelites in conjunction with Whit’s years as a teacher. I know it sounded like the kids involved were either in grade school or middle school, and given Billy’s age in DBD I always placed it happening shortly before the show started. (By the way, Billy/Connie is probably the least sensible Connie ship I have, but it’s also my favorite, so *shrug*)

(& that’s okay.)

#hiddlespinebatch #slight blackgaard books spoilers #submission

[the-cryptographer]

My tiny yugioh shrine - before and after pics. The Jounouchi figure still up top, holding a chain and ready to shank you with a scapegoat~ But I thought I’d zoom in so we could see my BEAUTIFUL NEW ISHTAR SIBS CLEARFILE INSTEAD~

I thought my shrine was getting a little too shippy. And especially a little too shippy in the absence of Mai. WHERE IS ALL THE KUJAKU MAI MERCHANDISE?! i need it pls, thx. But, anyhow~ I bought the Ishtar clearfile off of auction. And I thought it might be an old one, but on the back is actually a logo for the 20th anniversary of ygo, last year in 2016. And they weren’t even really in the movie, so now I’m wondering maybe there is also the chance of some recent Mai merchandise out there, hmm, so she will properly be represented in my collection >3>

But yeah, this is just by the exit to my room so i can stop by before i leave for the day and, offer coins or pieces of fruit or whatever and pray at my card game based alter, and maybe then Jounouchi’s good luck will rub off on me a little~

...

And there’s also a gore version of the shrine, but I usually keep that picture in the back so visitors don’t think i’m a creep. i guess i’ll put this picture in the front if i ever decide to host ritualistic demon summonings in my room or smthn~

(Both prints are from toxicosis by the way.)

Doujinshi are in another location. And I was only going to talk about my stupid ygo bookshelf shrine thing today, but then my doujin shipment came in and I decided FUCK IT i will brag about my crippling lack of impulse control cool swag all at once if i want to... Under the cut-

@battymarionette

If you remember this one~

tdah~ Basically it seems like a Kaiba Corp has put out a game, some kind of ridiculous fantasy RPG where Atem is some kind of Ron the Death Eater villain and Jou may or may not be the princess or smthn. And Mokuba invites Jounouchi over to play it or playtest it or something of that nature. Which seems like as good a premise as any for this kind of thing. And it’s got all the cute platonic Joukuba vibes which is a plus~

But yeah, Jounouchi goes over to Mokuba’s place, has some kind of fight with Seto, and some kind of conversation with Atem, and Mokuba’s kind of confused or upset about something, and then Jou gets all cute and announces that he and Kaiba are dating~ which i’m pretty sure Seto didn’t want Mokuba knowing about or whatever~

But, see, now I’m making this doujin sound sweet when, to be really blunt, i didn’t like it. At some point Seto slaps Jounouchi across the face for something.

I guess I shouldn’t pass judgement when I can’t even read the moon runes that explain why this has happened, but- no. (I’m trying to articulate. It’s not that I think Jou and Seto are incapable of being violent with one another (jfc how hypocritical would it be of me) but there’s something about the whys and the hows~? in my mind, Seto doesn’t gets hands on with that kind of thing unless it’s landing a measured martial arts blow in self defense, or lashing out from a place of extreme vulnerability - the kind that involves him being five seconds away from curling up in a ball of self-protection. So... Seto being collected and composed and instigating violence on Jounouchi’s triggers all my ‘no’ responses. And I also doubt Jounouchi would take that kind of thing without complaint, unless he was actually raving or spiraling and it was, like, a calm-the-fuck-down slap. I think he would definitely retaliate with shouting and intimidation, if not a physical blow. With Jounouchi it’s a little harder for me to define what would prompt physical violence, partly because i think his idea of what violence is is narrower than mine, and doesn’t include things like grabbing somebody’s jacket collar and shaking them around. But, hmm, I think by the time he’s through canon he doesn’t exactly break out the fistcuffs lightly.)

The point was that this doujin made it to the top of my shit list very fast. And I was concerned because, see, I had been avoiding buying KaiJou (in that order) doujins because most of them kind of do this thing to me and completely miss the glass cannon type of volatile fragility I see as being kind of central to Kaiba’s character. But then I caved and ordered a whole bunch. But, actually, I was pleasantly surprised by the other couple of ones I bought, so maybe the curse has finally lifted~ I liked this one in particular-

But, tbh, it also knew the way into my heart~

The way into my heart is Wheeler siblings :x

@rainstormcolors

First of all, I got POLARIS and it was good!

I don’t know what to share about it other than that because it was mostly porn. But I felt like it was kind of sweet and sentimental and Kaiba and Atem going on silly dates at the beginning with gorgeous background details. Also they sit on the throne together at the end and look very in love teehee~

But, yes, thank you for reccing~ I enjoyed a lot~!

BUT- !!! More importantly this finally came in the mail!

To answer your question, it’s a normal rivalshipping anthology. 112 pages, comics and fic~ Exciting things happen like Yuugi and Kaiba playing twister~

And in another story they’re out travelling and having punishment games of some sort and Yuugi gets a beard painted on his face~

AND HIS MOM OMG!! I love when odd characters cameo in my doujins. I think you can tell~

But, no, I lied- I addition to the anthology I got all this other stuff too~

I don’t know. There’s a set of tiny playing cards you have to disentangle. Some have exciting images.

Notably Jounouchi and Atem are the jokers, heh~

I still haven’t checked out the CD. This is a very rushed post where I don’t attempt to read things carefully or any of that~ But it comes with a manual with a bunch of character avatars - lots of expressions for Yuugi and Kaiba, as well as one avatar each for Jou, Anzu, baby Seto, Kisara, and BEWD. So I think it may be a visual novel of sorts. Undetermined~

So now you’ll know what you’re getting if you decide to order, in theory at least. I’m not sure because I bought this off the author’s BOOTH, so idk if the extra merchandise is limited in any manner or if toranoana only sends part of it(?)

ugh, let’s see.

I also got another anthology- a Yuugi-centric one.

It’s mostly rivalshipping, which I’d expect. rivalshipping is really popular in the jp fandom. but, tbh, i enjoyed the more odd ships more-

Like Juudai/Manjoume/Yuugi... Kaiba walks in on the Kohais basically crushing yuugi with love after this it’s so cute~

And Otogi/Yuugi. Ah~ I love the DDM chapters in the manga and how softly Otogi warms up to Yuugi~

A Duel Monsters themed art book I spent too much on~ I’m ashamed to say I don’t recognise a whole lot of the cards

but you’ll recognise Yubel, perhaps~

or the lady that Y!Bakura crossdresses as ;)

and there were quite a few dark magician girls and blue eyeses.

from another illustration book~

and i found a couple of apprenticeshipping doujins on BOOTH, but none of them wow-ed me really~

although I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how Mana inherited the Ring in manga canon. I feel like there are things to consider here. This picture struck me as a result.

Alright~ And now for my favourites~

OMG! A WHOLE DOUJIN ABOUT MALIK AND HIS SIBLINGS!!! I think this one was a predictable fave. I loved it so, sooo much. I was absolutely filled with quality Malik and Rishid moments.

EVERYONE IS SO CUTE!!

Malik and Rishid go biking and run into Mai which is very !!!

There are vacation photographs~

It looks like Malik tries to feed Ra a revival slime and gets eaten himself. I don’t know. But it was good. I’m so happy~ Ishtar family doujins. My life is complete. not really. i can’t die until i finish my fics.

Okay, but my other fave I didn’t see coming at all.

I don’t ship this! I shouted into the void. But nobody really believed her, not even herself. It’s too late for me. I’m just multiship trash. I will ship anything you put in front of me...

Okay, but the real reason I decided to get this was because of this preview panel. Of course I knew it was puzzlleship. But actually I love Mana and vaseshipping for reals. And this was so cute and the art was so pretty I thought- We might as well check the rest of it out~ (the idea of top!Yuugi didn’t hurt either...)

And then jackels happened~ And this kind of ethereal magic stuff~

There was some confusion I think with the cultural imagery in the doujin. Some of it looked vaguely Indic to my untrained eye but- I don’t know what to say, the art was so gorgeous and detailed.

And the smut was all facials and frot so obviously the doujin artist has my gd number, smh.

And Jou appeared near the end, looking amazing, and Jou is automatically about +50 points for any doujin.

I don’t know what to say. Very nice. Would recommend.

Also- just fyi- I do buy doujins for things that aren’t ygo. pls forgive my focus on my ygo obsession tho.

I’m really glad I stumbled across this in the hetalia tag~

And there’s a picture of Tifa being so bad at games at the golden saucer that Nanaki, who doesn’t even have opposable thumbs, can defeat her in PvP. Beautiful~

#doujinshi #Malik Ishtar #Mana #JouKai #prideship #rivalship #kuribohship #offership #nurseship #puzzleship #ygo gx #save me from this card game hell #cw: gore

[hyperbolicpurple]

Jon/Sansa fic recs: the canonverse fics

Here at last, for Fandom Fic Rec Days!

Here are my Jon/Sansa bookmarks; my modern AU recommendations; and my historical & other AU recs.

I’ve indicated book or show canon for reference.

A Winter’s Tale by @justadram​ (96k, M, book canon compliant, future fic) The War of Three Dragons comes to the Vale, bringing Jon Snow and Sansa Stark together once more.

A nice longer fic you can sink your teeth into. (I read so many fics where I’m like ... this is so great ... but what if it was 50k longer?) I especially like Sansa coming to terms with not going home and the roles other characters play in the story (especially Jaime and Asha). Sadly lacking in other Stark sibs (my perennially unfulfilled desire) but at least there’s hope for reunion in the future. Also: there needs to be more Sam and Sansa being friends in the world. So much more.

All the Way to the Moon by @misshoneywheeler (5k, E, book canon compliant, future fic) The Dragon Queen had been gracious. Sansa would keep her name and her home. Her children would grow in Winterfell as Starks, just as she once had. Sansa had forced herself to thank the Queen, her steady tone betraying none of the bitterness that curled beneath her tongue. That she should be a brood mare to ensure succession sat uneasy, no matter that it was a life she most likely would have sought for herself, more or less, given time and a husband of her choosing. That was not the bargain, though. Jon Snow was the bargain.

Hot smut, but also some delightful identity issues re: Alayne. One of my faves is Sansa trying to manipulate Jon and Jon just going along with it instead of being tricked. I don’t know why I like that so much, but this is definitely a good example.

And if You Want Me I’m Your Country by thefairfleming (7k, M, book canon compliant, future fic) "She isn't anything like I thought she would be," the maester says at last. "She is not much like I'd thought she'd be either, Sam," Jon replies.

A really enjoyable example of the “Dany makes them marry” trope. Is this the trope progenitor? IDK, but it seems like an early example.

break me like a promise by honey_wheeler (5k, E, book canon compliant, future fic) “Seems we are siblings after all,” Jon had said, his voice forcibly light, as if to make the words a jape. Perhaps to soften the news, or diminish the realness of it. Perhaps because he had as much difficulty believing it as she, having known himself a Targaryen near as long as he’d thought himself a Stark bastard. And they had been married such a short time; it was too fast to be real, too sudden to seem anything but a cruel trick.

The incest angst fic of my dreams. You know how a lot of fics do the cousin reveal and they’re like “oh phew, thank the gods, I thought I was banging my brother”? This is the opposite of that. Hot and sad at the same time. Contains A+ sexual crying.

Broken Pieces by @justadram​ (7k, M, book canon compliant, future fic) Jon is good and kind, but he wants things from Sansa she doesn't know whether she can give.

Almost more of a Sansa character piece than anything else. I love stories dealing with Sansa’s identity issues and this delivers.

Crossing Flatlands to You by @maybetwice (6k, M, book canon compliant, future fic) It takes them years to get it right, for the right reasons, at the right time. Five reasons Sansa had to seduce Jon, and the one reason he had to seduce her.

If for no other reason than a change of pace, it’s really good to read fics where they fall in love before marrying, and I really dig this one. Very tight and focused writing. Quite a bit less smut than you’d think from the summary. (Not a criticism; just FYI.)

Fetch the Prince’s Sister by @justadram​ (2k, T, book canon compliant, future fic) Cries of “fetch the prince’s sister” bring Sansa to Jon’s tent.

Major tearjerker. Prepare yourself. And heed the warning.

Gods, Let Me Try by @justadram​ (3k, E, book canon compliant, future fic) Jon told Sansa to remain in his tent for her own safety, but she continually frustrates his attempts to protect her.

I am perpetually in need of more angry sex for this ship (there’s so little, y’all. so little). This is still not quite enough, but it does scratch that itch somewhat. Jon and Sansa arguing is everything to me.

Like winter we are cruel by lagardère/@aknightfornawt​ (73k, M, show canon compliant, post-S6) Winter has come to Winterfell, Jon expects a war north of the Wall, and Littlefinger is brewing one inside the very castle.

Expect lovely evocative writing (seriously, ugh, to a truly unfair degree), LF being a creep, Jon and Sansa having an increasingly strained relationship despite their growing attraction (”Tell Baelish to get you your fucking crown,” be still my heart), political machinations, and a nice bevy of side characters, including Arya and some well-drawn supporting original characters. It also gave me a taste for epistolary fic for this ship, a thirst that goes as yet unquenched.

Moon Cycles by caesia (7k, M, book canon compliant, future fic) Sansa receives a visitor to the Eyrie who reminds her of her past, but his past is complicated too.

I honestly think this might be my favorite? And I’m not totally sure why? Like, the premise is literally just that post-resurrection Jon is a werewolf. You’d think that might be dumb, or at least cracky if played tongue-in-cheek, but it’s actually really melancholy and bittersweet, especially the second fic.

Snow Kisses by caesia (3k, M, book canon compliant, future fic) The sky sends icy kisses falling against her cheeks, but Jon’s kiss still burns on her lips.

The little details of everyday life bring this fic to life.

True North by lit_chick08 (6k, M, book canon compliant, future fic) It is official business that brings Jon Snow to Winterfell.  It is personal business that damns him.

Normally infidelity is a huge turn-off for me, and yeah part of me was a little :| at first, but the things to like about this fic just overwhelmed all that. For some reason I also have a huge “Sansa has a kid (or two) out of wedlock” kink, so that probably helps. A killer ending line, also.

Unmade by @misshoneywheeler (2k, M, book canon compliant, future fic) Jon has a vague memory of Sansa picking a nosegay of those blue flowers, smelling them deeply before holding them out for him to do the same.

SEX POLLEN, MY FRIENDS. Strangely innocent, sweet sex pollen that is all the more hot for those aspects alongside the dubious consent. Also, frottage.

What Once Was Sweet by @justadram​ (6k, T, book canon compliant, future fic) Before they wed, things were sweet between Jon and Sansa.

So I’m all about the “stone by stone” “Ned/Cat 2.0″ marriage fics, but a lot of times it’s either focused on the very beginnings of the relationship (the wedding and first night, usually), or on the end where they finally realize their feelings and have super hot sex. No shade intended, I like all flavors of this trope, but sometimes you want more of the actual “stones” themselves in between--the difficulties, the disagreements, the miscommunications, the compromises, etc. This is a story about conflict and I really dig how this is ambiguous and open instead of resolving everything neatly.

#jonsa #jon x sansa #jonxsansaff #ficrecdays #gotfic #fic recs #game of thrones #asoiaf #long post for ts