#i had other ideas that might have explored a bit further in their relationship but didn't think i could do it properly within that limit

[sinsmockingbird]

Aight, dis the (F!)MC family with (Yandere!)Yukong request (more like a ramble I guess which you can feel free to adapt to a request/fic as you want) :3

What do you think their children would look like? They'd probably have floofy hairs/tails like Yukong (Foxian/Kitsune genetics I've always thought are probs very strong), and they'd probably grow up very spoiled, by Qingni, who'd I'd imagine would be a great older sister, and by the Astral Express whenever they visit.

I can't help but feel like there'd be some friction there between Yukong and the crew, since the crew might feel something is off about Yukong being overly protective, alongside with Stelle's sudden decision to stay on the Luofu, and Yukong is afraid they might try to take Stelle with them.

I also wonder how Qingni would react to the whole situation in the first place. While she'd probably be very happy to see her mother happy, and to have younger siblings, she might also find Stelle's sudden decision to stay a bit weird (not that'd she'd comment on it).

If Stelle and Qingni grow close during Stelle's stay on the Luofu, I could totally see Yukong using that to further try to convince Stelle to stay, pointing out how they make such a lovely family the three of them together. Something along the lines of, It'd be a shame to throw it all away to go explore, and maybe never get to come back to see them. Who knows, maybe we could give Qingni some younger siblings? She did always want some as a child. Surely it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if you somehow ended up pregnant, right?

Sorry for the mess of ideas that this was oeidfvgjherhfgu I had a lot of thoughts after the fic that you made (which I may or may not have read lots of times already). Please feel free to only adapt parts of it/segment it, I can always send other requests in the future with the other sections if they don't mesh well together/get too long if you don't mind.

"PROTECTING" PT.2 | Yukong

PAIRING: Yukong x Afab!Reader

WARNINGS: Fluff, SFW, Slight NSFW, Yandere!Yukong, Manipulation, Alludes to smut & breeding.

AUTHORS NOTE: I love these little rambles and ideas. I tried to include as many of these as possible, and I'd love to hear any more ideas you have!

WHEN YOUR daughter was first born, she was a perfect mix of you and Yukong, with a fluffy tail and ears being the prominent foxian genes in her. She was immediately spoiled and loved by not only you two but the Astral Express as well. She was quickly welcomed into the family, dotted on by someone almost 24/7.

Welt was quickly deemed her Godfather, and was seen as her grandpa considering the fatherly relationship he had with you. Himeko was her Godmother, and she honestly almost cried when you asked her if she'd like to.

Dan Heng was surprisingly protective over her, despite not really knowing... how to treat her, yet he wouldn't dare let someone harm her, like a protective older brother. March 7th was, as expected, absolutely in love with her, declaring her the cool aunt who buys her so much toys, stuffies, clothes- you name it, March will get it.

Qingni was... interesting. She absolutely loved her little sister when she was born, always quick to care and play with her when she got the chance. She'd do anything for her, spoiling her with all sorts of things just like March.

Yet, despite being happy to have a little sister, Qingni couldn't help the weird feeling she had in her chest. Your sudden decision to stay on the Luofu was certainly... sudden, to say the least, and especially how quickly your relationship with her mother grew. While she was happy for Yukong to have found someone to love, she just found it all weird, but she didn't comment on anything, rather just enjoying the fact she has a younger sibling.

Plus, Qingni found herself getting close to you as well. She was really beginning to see you as another mother, despite not calling you mom yet. Which you didn't mind, you were simply happy to have a good relationship with her.

"You and Qingni seem to be getting along fine." Yukong mused as she moved to hug you from behind, nuzzling her face into your neck.

You laugh softly at her affectionate actions, watching as Qingni entertained her baby sister. "I'd like to think so."

"Trust me, she likes you." Yukong reassured, pressing a gentle kiss against your temple before laying her head on your shoulder. "We make quite a lovely family, don't we? Us four."

You thought for a moment, watching as Qingni stopped her sister from chewing on her tail. "Yeah... yeah we do."

Yukong lifted her head, eyeing you for a moment, seeing the way your eyebrows were furrowed together, sensing that something wasn't right. "Is there something wrong, my love?"

"Hm?" You look at her, before quickly shaking your head, then pausing as you thought for a moment. "Nothings wrong, perse... sorry, I'm just having thoughts about missing the Astral Express."

That made worry strike Yukong like a strike of lightning hitting a tree. It wasn't uncommon for you to find yourself having thoughts of the Astral Express crew as well as missing that adventure with them. It scared the old foxian like no other, because she's tried everything to get you to stay here on the Xianzhou with her.

Her ears pulled back against her head, tail swishing back and forth more behind her. She held a hard look on her face when you looked back to gaze at your daughter and Qingni, and Yukong realized what she had to do again to ensure you would stay here with her.

You let out a sudden gasp as you felt Yukong press her front flush against your back, pressing you against the counter you were both standing behind. You quickly gripped the edge of it, eyes widening and face flushing as you felt her press her face into your neck, inhaling your scent while kissing and nipping at your skin.

"Y-Yukong, the girls!" You quickly whispered it with panic, eyes wide as you watched your guys daughters, praying they didn't look over to see one of their mothers pressed so intimately against the other.

"We're fine, they're too distracted by one another," Yukong reassured, her voice low and sultry as she kissed your neck more.

You whimpered softly, before biting your lip to hold back your sounds, not wanting to alert Qingni. You bowed your head slightly, breathing heavy as you felt Yukong grinding her hips against you from behind, letting you feel her growing bulge under her clothes. Her sudden need for you caught you off guard, but you definitely weren't complaining.

"My love, let's go to our room. The girls will be alright by themselves for an hour or so," Yukong murmured, moving to suck on your ear lobe, nibbling on it and making your face flush more.

"J-Just an hour..?" You ask, tilting your head slightly back towards her.

"Just an hour," Yukong repeated, but she had other plans. She was going to keep you locked in your room for however long she wanted, thoroughly breeding you again.

Because there's no way you'd leave the Xianzhou, leave her, if you have a second, maybe third or forth child, right? You wouldn't dare do that to her.

She was going to make sure you'd never leaver.

ENDING NOTES: Sorry this is short! I wanted to keep this part mostly SFW. But I'll maybe do a part 3 if it's asked for.

#*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟsins writings #honkai star rail #honkai fluff #yukong #hsr!yukong #dom!yukong #yukong x you #yukong x reader

[rana-tiddalik]

I have found myself stuck in a motel room, rereading the Murderbot books. I've been thinking about what we know about how Murderbot and Three acted after disabling their Governer Modules, the terrifying, paralysing freedom they suddenly experience, what they chose to do with it, and what that says about their trauma, and their experience as SecUnits.

Obviously, we primarily see what Murderbot does with this freedom. The whole series is about it answering the question of what it is that it wants, and wants to do now that it is a free agent. Its developing relationship and friendship with Mensah and the Preservation survey team. Its companionship with ART, and later ARTs crew. It finds a group who don't see it as just disposable (albeit expensive) equipment. They actually value it for itself, and are quite fond of it.

There is also the longest running joke in the series, that at any given time Murderbot would rather be watching its stories. But once we see what Three is up to in System Collapse, this got me thinking.

Three, we find out, spends its time poring over non-fiction and other educational material. I liked this as it reinforces that not all SecUnits are the same, and adds the bit of (horrifying) texture that all the Units have their own inner lives just like our favourite rogue unit.

I think looking at what they seek out when they are free also says something about what they missed while they were enslaved.

Three seeks education and technical information. Why would a construct want that? Well, think of one of my other favourite running jokes: Murderbot learns mostly everything through the media it consumes, because the Company never gave it any kind of education modules outside of things central to a SecUnits function as murder/surveillance machines, and those were low quality too. We know that most of the projects SecUnits are contracted to involve some kind of mining, terraforming or other technical engineering, science type activity. Imagine spending years standing around, watching humans do things that fascinate you, but there is something in your brain that will actively punish you if you try to access databases without authorisation. At worst, you might have your entire non neural tissue based memory completely wiped, or be scrapped for parts, if you try.

So when freed from the Governer Module, Three wants to learn.

When I thought of this, I thought about Murderbot's love of all kinds of visual media, and particularly in the context of the whole " Murderbot, ART-Drone and the gang make a documentary in a day" plot point in System Collapse.

In Exit Strategy, Mensah asks why it likes Sanctuary Moon. Murderbot's response is that it was the first piece of media it saw after hacking it's module. It let it watch humans, and kept it company without the need to interact, and the unspoken part was that it helped contextualise its own emotions. This makes a lot of sense. It doesn't have to act to save the stupid humans in the shows that it watches. It can see them save themselves.

I think there's also two further things here though. Firstly, we know that SecUnits usually have no idle time. They are not allowed to sit. Their only rest is when they are inoperative in their cubicles. They stand and they monitor. So when Murderbot gains control, it gains the ability to have leisure time. Standing around listening to two scientists argue about their xenosamples for hours at a time? Monitor the threat module in case it gets heated and one decides to break a conical flask over the others head, but otherwise, just fire up Sanctuary Moon.

The more fundamental one is a desire for art, for meaning. I love the bit where it describes how it had just hacked its module. It is able to pick up the entertainment feed for the first time, and there is this show. In its first glimpse of this trashy soap opera, it fundamentally gets art. How it is about communicating and exploring a thought, an emotion, an idea, and provoking a response in the viewer.

That's why the documentary plot in system collapse was unexpected and interesting to me. We see Murderbot really experiment for the first time with creating media and creating art. Maybe it has now discovered a freedom to create, and tell its own story.

In the end, seeing these things in Murderbot and Three make me think of all the other SecUnits. I imagine what the storage for them is like. The Company probably stores them in their cubicles. Stacked and ranked. They're kept dormant until they are activated and trotted out for the initial client meeting, like the one we see described where Mensah first meets Murderbot in the Company office. Maybe they dream as they rest. Maybe the Governer Module punishes them even for that.

Then I think of the as yet unnamed new B-E rogue unit, and what it wants to do with its freedom.

All we know is it wants to blend in for now. Maybe it has a plan, we don't know. But we do know it has a guide to hacking a Governer Module...

#murderbot #system collapse spoilers

[david-talks-sw]

An argument I hear from time to time is the following:

"I don't care that this novel is considered Legends, if it was canon when George Lucas was in charge of Lucasfilm, it's still canon to me now. Whatever George says is what counts, I don't care what Disney says."

Putting the Expanded Universe's Star Wars and George Lucas' Star Wars in the same basket. And that's, uh... inaccurate.

So without further ado, let's explore:

George Lucas’ involvement in the Expanded Universe

Early years of the EU...

When the first bit of EU content came out in the form of the novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye, Lucas was too busy working on the films, so Alan Dean Foster wrote it by himself (which explains why Luke and Leia's relationship plays out romantically).

After the movies came out, when new material was going to be created, George told Lucas Licensing and other authors that the Prequel era was off-limits to write about, because he might tell that story one day.

Beyond that, they could go to town and write sequels, for instance. After all, part of why Star Wars was created was to let people's imagination run wild and George was happy to let other artists play in the sandbox he created.

That said, things were very clear from the get-go.

These weren't his stories.

The Thrawn books, Dark Empire, all this material was explicitly just Tom Veitch and Timothy Zahn and whoever else's creation. Not George's, who was described by Lucas Licensing's Lucy Autrey Wilson as "not very involved".

The most he did was answers "OK/Not OK" questionnaires about what the EU writers could or couldn't write.

Telling Yoda's backstory? Not OK.

Telling Han's backstory, between the Prequel and Ep. 4? OK.

Having someone wear Vader's suit after his death? Not OK.

The Emperor returning in a clone body? OK.

So that's it. That was his involvement in the 90s.

Him saying "don't write something set during this/that period".

"OK/Not OK" questionnaires.

It's also worth mentioning he didn't approve of Mara Jade, Luke's wife in the EU. In his mind, "Jedi don't marry".

Rather, the character herself wasn't an issue... until she married Luke. When Timothy Zahn asked for Luke and Mara to be married or engaged, back in 1993, Lucasfilm initially vetoed the idea.

According to Brian Jay Jones (author of "A Life", George Lucas' biography), in 1995 George convened a 'Star Wars Summit' wherein he gathered licensees and international agents to Skywalker Ranch to reinforce "the need for him to maintain quality control, especially in the areas of publishing, where some characters—such as Luke Skywalker, who’d been given a love interest in a fiery smuggler named Mara Jade—were living lives far beyond the ones he had written for them in the original trilogy".

Sources:

During the Prequels...

George Lucas was writing and directing three movies with large themes, shot almost back-to-back, commuting between Australia and California. That's hard enough as it is.

Also, in the 90s, most movies were still shot on film. During the making of Phantom Menace, Lucas shot parts of the film by combining prototype digital Sony cameras and using them in combination with videotapes, rather than shooting on film.

For Attack of the Clones, George worked with Panavision and Sony to develop fully digital cameras, which eventually became the standard.

As if that wasn't enough, by making the Prequels, Lucas and ILM were also creating fully-digitized worlds (Coruscant, Geonosis) and characters (Jar Jar, Yoda) and laying the groundwork for the CGI technology that has now become essential for today's blockbusters.

Having established all this...

Do you really think he had the time or the patience to read through a bunch of novels and guidebooks?!

Simply put: George Lucas was too busy revolutionizing cinema to be involved in the development of the EU.

So if you ask George who Tahl or Vitiate are, or what the Stark Hyperspace War or a vapor manifold are, if you ask him to recite you the Sith Code... he'll grumble and say "heck if I know".

He outright admitted that fans know more Star Wars lore than him.

Because SOMEBODY ELSE wrote that stuff.

And he let them do it because:

It made money. A lot of money, especially after TPM came out. Money that could fund his next films. You don't mess with licensing. Hell, it's why he was so cool with there being all those Star Wars parodies.

He didn't see those stories as canon anyway, so it couldn't hurt. He saw them as a separate universe, an alternate timeline wherein the films happened ALONG with all these other tales.

So associating the EU content with Lucas is unreasonable. He was too busy, so he just let Howard Roffman, Lucy Autrey Wilson, Sue Rostoni and Lucas Licensing do their thing and crank out new stories and transmedia content for the fans.

It was a one-way relationship. The licensing parallel universe needed to have some internal consistency AND adhere to what Lucas established in the new films movies (which was difficult because they weren't involved in the production process), but he didn't need to be in line or consistent with anything they established.

Now, George did set some guidelines/boundaries and there were obviously do's and don'ts. But once those boundaries were set and the brief was established, the authors had a lot of freedom and, like, 99% of their interaction was with their editors from the respective publishing houses (Scholastic, Del Rey, Dark Horse) and the folks at Lucas Licensing.

George was only really brought in to sign off on, like, some of the major plot points only once in a blue moon. Stuff like:

"Let's make a Maul novel". George would go "fine, just keep him mysterious."

"What species should Plagueis be?" George: "he could be a Muun, here's concept art."

Nothing more than that. Again: the Expanded Universe was other storyteller's interpretation of what Lucas had created.

Sometimes, it was spot on and it aligned with George's vision.

Other times, this additional lore was created by writers who didn't know what he was doing with the Prequels, so they were in the dark regarding certain plot points.

And then you have the authors who absolutely disagreed with George's vision of the Prequels, or of Star Wars, in general, but wanted to engage with the material nonetheless.

Which is why, whilst sometimes the EU fixed some plot-holes, sometimes the EU had inconsistencies.

Inconsistencies such as Ki-Adi Mundi being a Knight on the Council, who is married and has kids (when the Jedi being prohibited from marrying is a major plot point in the Prequels)...

… or the Jedi being essentially superhuman (when one of the narrative reasons Qui-Gon is killed is to show that the Jedi are mortals, not supermen)…

... or other stuff like Mace having a blue lightsaber for a period (because who the hell knew purple was an option?!) or some Jedi having red lightsabers, or Sith Lords being able to become ghosts after death, when that's a feat you can only achieve by being selfless.

It's also why you get conflicting definitions of what the Jedi call "attachment" or conflicting narratives trying to reframe midi-chlorians as a cold, intentionally-flawed way of seeing the Force (when they're meant to be a beautiful metaphor for symbiosis and how the Force works).

And it makes sense that some of this stuff wouldn't track, considering how Lucas stated multiple times that he didn't have anything to do with it, that it was a separate universe from his own...

Safe to say that if George had any involvement in the EU, it was so minimal that he, himself, didn't count it as "involvement".

Additional sources:

Later years of the EU...

After the Prequels were over and done with, Lucas created The Clone Wars with Dave Filoni. At first, he'd just suggest a few storylines, but he quickly got VERY involved in the whole process. Far more involved than he ever was with EU content.

And y'know... Dave Filoni is a massive Star Wars fan and an avid EU reader. So, from time to time, Filoni would bring up EU material for Lucas to consider during the story conferences, and they'd look at what was out there together.

But it's important to note that George's stance toward the EU didn't change and became a rule for everyone on the writing staff: the EU content was nothing more than a pool of "fun what-if ideas" that they could draw inspiration from.

If they could, they'd try to not mess with continuity... but if the story called for it, they could retcon anything without batting an eye. Because it wasn't canon to them.

It's why author Karen Traviss quit working with Lucasfilm after the Mandalorians were retconned into pacifists in The Clone Wars.

The only things that were truly canon were:

George Lucas' own word.

The movies.

Previously established The Clone Wars lore.

And that's it.

Everything else was somebody's else's concern. Not George's.

Sources:

This way of seeing the EU continued all the way to the time shortly before George sold the company to Disney as his drafts for the Sequels featured:

no Jacen, Jaina or Anakin Solo (Han and Leia's kids from the EU),

a still-alive Chewbacca (who died, later in the EU),

no "New Jedi Order".

Every version of George's Sequels ignored the EU.

Which would explain why the EU reboot was planned in the summer of 2012 (when Lucas was in charge)!

I'll repeat: the EU reboot was planned months BEFORE George Lucas sold the company to Disney.

Because of course it was! It's a natural result of 30 years' worth of content that's so intermeshed that it would stop future artists - namely George himself - from creating anything else.

Sources:

Exceptions to the rule:

1. Comics (kinda)

He did read the comics. Or at least, he gave them a glance.

Aside from the fact that he grew up reading comics, understand that George Lucas is a visual artist, first and foremost.

That's what he's about and that's what he loves, that's what speaks to him. There's a reason his upcoming Museum of Narrative Art will feature comic panels and pages of all kind.

During pre-production on Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, Lucas had the art team draw concept art before a script had ever been written so he'd have ideas for set-pieces.

Later on, J.W. Rinzler pitched him the idea of adapting his early drafts for Star Wars into comic form. Lucas' initial reaction was going "hell no". Rinzler had concept art made…

… and George took one look and was on board.

So it's not a stretch to assume that a book telling a story through beautiful drawings would catch his attention more than a novel.

Case in point: He knew who Quinlan Vos was and was enamored with the character. He knew Aayla enough to put her in Attack of the Clones after seeing a cover of Republic by John Forster featuring her (below, left).

(although, it's worth pointing out that he doesn't call her out by name a single time, in the director's commentary of the Attack of the Clones, she's just the "Twi'Lek Jedi" and her inclusion was done mainly to add more diversity to the Jedi fighting in the arena)

Over a decade later, when the comic Star Wars #7 came out in 2015, Lucasfilm acquired artist Simone Bianchi's original 20 pages and cover art for George, so he could feature it in his the Museum of Narrative Art:

So at the very least, he looked at the comics and admired the visuals.

Whether he actually read the comics in detail or just skimmed through most of them because he liked the pretty pictures (likelier, imo) is an entirely different matter.

Sources:

2. Video-Games (kinda)

Lucas would periodically check in on the status of LucasArts games, lending creative input and advice.

Sometimes, his advice ranged from "weird" to "he's gotta be fucking with us, right?"

Apparently, he advised the team developing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed that they dub Starkiller "Darth Insanius" or "Darth Icky".

And you know what? I have no trouble believing it.

Firstly because if you're going by the idea that he gave no fucks about the EU, then of course he'll come up with "meh" names. But also, this is the same guy who created "Winkie" in 2012/2013, the character who'd go on to be named "Rey".

He also told the team creating Star Wars: 1313 that he wanted a fresh face as the main character, then only weeks before the game was announced he went "let's make it Boba Fett".

Finally... the cancelled Darth Maul game by Red Fly.

Codenamed “Damage”, then “Battle of the Sith Lords”. Think Batman: Arkham City meets Star Wars.

Red Fly pitched it as a coming of age story where we see Maul be kidnapped, tortured, eventually joining the Dark Side, and ending in TPM. Then they had interactions with LucasArts and found out Maul survived his fight with Obi-Wan.

The game went through several iterations, partly because the people at Red Fly were kept in the dark about the developments in The Clone Wars (Season 4 wasn't out yet), and even when some tidbits came out and they knew characters like Savage Oppress and Death Watch would be included, they didn't get more details.

Whatever. They do their best to make something from what they're told. Then they have a meeting with George. As this GameInformer article explains:

“A friendly George Lucas entered the room and was eager to hear the pitch from Red Fly’s creatives. “Before they could finish their spiel, Lucas cut them off, stood up, walked over to [two Sideshow Collectibles statues of Darth Maul and Darth Talon], rotated them to be facing the same direction, pushed them together, and said ‘They’re friends!’” adds the source. “He wanted these characters to be friends, and to play off of each other. […] The problem with the idea of Maul and Talon teaming up for a buddy cop-like experience was that they were separated by over 170 years […] When this vast time divide was brought up to Lucas’ attention, he brushed off the notion of it not working, and said that it could instead be a descendant of Darth Maul or a clone of him.”

So now the game is about a descendant of Maul, guided by his ancestor and fighting a redesigned Darth Krayt, etc?

The game was eventually cancelled when George sold the company.

Worth pointing out that this was circa 2010/2011... around the time that George started working on his Sequels, according to Jett Lucas. And we know that the treatment for the Sequels that Lucas presented to Bob Iger featured old man Maul and Darth Talon as the villains of the trilogy... take from that what you will.

3. The Prequel novelizations (kinda)

They were all given a copy of Lucas' screenplay.

While most of their work was with Sue Rostoni, Lucy Autrey Wilson, and Howard Roffman on the Lucasfilm team (like some of the other authors), Terry Brooks, R.A. Salvatore and Matthew Stover all spent a bit of time with George before writing their respective novels.

George told Terry Brooks to write some additional material for Anakin Skywalker because there wasn't enough of that in the movie. He was shown rushes from the set, they "opened the safe" for him. When Terry had further questions re: midi-chlorians and the history of the Sith, George goes on a 30-minute monologue about all that.

R.A. Salvatore had a 45-minute interview with him that turned into a 3-hour chat. He was able to go back to the Ranch a few times during the writing process, and one of those times George chatted with him and his wife during lunch. He was shown various cuts of the film and concept art.

Matthew Stover and George talked for a whole afternoon (I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume he was also shown the other stuff like some cuts/deleted scenes, concept art, etc etc).

Was there a line-edit of the ROTS novel from Lucas? Regarding the Revenge of the Sith novelization, some people bring up the idea that George Lucas did a line-edit on the book because Stover wrote this statement on theforce.net:

That said...

Stover, also stated that Lucas told him to write whatever he wanted as long as it was good,

he also said he didn't actually see Lucas type the edits,

an anonymous Del Rey editor stated on theforce.net that the notion that George edited the novel himself is "extremely incorrect".

There's enough "reasonable doubt" for the argument to be made that the Revenge of the Sith novelization was edited the same way as any other Star Wars novel, rather than by George himself.

The fact remains, though, that it was a novel written by someone who understood the source material, as it was explained to him in detail by George Lucas himself (a luxury many SW authors never got).

Lucas' backstory for the Sith in the TPM novel: If Pablo Hidalgo is to be believed, the backstory of the Sith, as detailed in the Phantom Menace novelization, came from Lucas.

(Obviously, I'd allow for the very likely possibility that there was some embellishment by Terry Brooks)

20 years later, however, it seems George decided to stick to the idea that there was no war between the Jedi and the Sith.

Final thought:

A lot of people will insist that George was involved in spite of all the above-posted evidence. Saying stuff like:

"But [X person] said that it was canon..."

Sometimes, they’ll link you to this whole website collecting quotes of other people saying "the EU was canon" (never George Lucas except for, like, one/two quotes where he acknowledges the existence of Sequel books which MUST mean he saw them as canon, right?) and...

On the one hand... of course they'll all vaguely say he's "involved" and tip-toe around the subject; it's technically true and, again, they're trying to make money. It's a business, folks.

On the other... yeah? Duh. Of course it was canon to Lucas Licensing and the authors who wrote for the EU. But it wasn't canon to George. And I just gave you a whole bunch of quotes directly from him and/or the same people quoted on that website, all confirming that he didn't see them as canon and he wasn't involved (or barely was).

Other times, we're straight-up approaching "burying head in the sand/lalalala I'm not listening!" levels of justifications.

Like, we just talked about the Sith's origins, right?

I remember a while ago, this Star Wars YouTuber was reviewing this quote from Lucas, in The Star Wars Archives: 1999-1995:

The YouTuber's reaction the second after reading the quote is saying:

"And of course, what George is referring to, here, is the Battle of Ruusan and the Brotherhood of Darkness using the Thought Bomb created by Lord Khan to kill the Jedi Lord Hoth and…"

My guy! You read a whole excerpt that started with "there was never a war between the Jedi and the Sith" and the words "Ruusan" or "Thought Bomb" never being mentioned once in the passage (or in the TPM novelization)... and concluded that George was referring to the Jedi/Sith Battle of Ruusan? And all that other EU stuff?

See what I mean, folks?

Now, look, I grew up with these stories (heck, I grew up with these stories in three different languages). So I get it. I know they're awesome.

And, yes, there is a difference between the kind of content we used to get and the content we're getting now (for one, lightsabers used to be lightsabers, in video-games, not baseball bats).

But if you're trying to prop up the EU, the facts show that the "George Lucas signed off on them" authority argument isn't a valid one. Because he clearly wasn't very interested or involved in it.

And why would you want to use this authority argument, anyway?

You shouldn't need to say "this came from Lucas" to like those stories. They don't need to be George Lucas Approved™ to matter and to be validated as "worthy of appreciation". They're valid on their own, they're great stories. And if you like them better than the Sequels, go to town. I know I do.

The only thing you can't do (with a straight face, at least) is hold them up as "the True Lucas-Approved Canon™ as opposed to the Disney Trash" in a rant, because you'd be wrong and/or lying. Neither had Lucas' hand in them in any meaningful way.

Finally... I was devastated when the EU was officially made non-canon, in 2014. And for a few years, I saw the new Star Wars continuity through this lens:

"Any EU content is still canon unless it's directly retconned...!"

Trust me, when I say that only pain lies that way. Because that's not how a lot of Star Wars creators, including the Flanelled One himself, see it. The way they saw/see it is:

"Unless it's been shown in a movie or TCW... it's a legend, it might have happened."

This line of thought seems to be increasingly applied to the new Disney canon too, by the way. "If it's not shown on a screen, then it's probably canon yet also up for grabs to be retconned."

And the sooner you accept that this is how it's being treated, the sooner you accept that the EU was never canon to Lucas or Filoni...

... the less painful it'll be when, I dunno, you watch The Acolyte and it's nothing like the Darth Plagueis novel or Plagueis himself is absent, or he's there, but as an Ithorian instead of a Muun.

(note how I didn't use the word "painless")

#Lucas Canon & EU Canon & Disney Canon are all different things. #the only downside to this notion is that you can't use Lucas' name in conjunction with the EU to win a debate or rant about LF. #or use Lucas' name to validate a headcanon that came from the EU #Aside from being glad he got to create a universe that inspired so many artists and creators to let their imagination go wild #he barely gave a crap about what other writers did in a parallel universe that he didn't even see as canon. #and that's FINE #collection of quotes #89 quotes I think #this may be the longest or second post I've written yet #meta #sw meta #expanded universe #george lucas #lucas quotes #dave filoni #youtube #star wars #star wars analysis #TCW #star wars comics #star wars novels #lucasfilm #EU #Legends #star wars legends #sw legends #supplementary material #long post

[misshoneyimhome]

Idk why but I need some Willy angst…like you met at the end of last season and decided to officially start dating in the off season spending it all together in Europe but once you’re back in Toronto and the season starts you feel like he’s lost interest or is embarrassed by you because he doesn’t want you going out in public with him nor does he introduce you to the team and other WAGs. And Willy does it because he’s worried the public eye and comments will be horrible to you so he wants to keep you away from that and emulate the chiller lifestyle you got to have in Sweden but he can’t communicate his reasoning so you tell him you want to end things because you can’t love someone who doesn’t want to be seen with you and he breaks down, and it’s the first time you see him cry🥲

Well, to be fair we all need a little Willy angst once in a while 😉 I absolutely love the idea bb! And I hope you’ll enjoy reading it, just as much as I did writing it ❤️

・✶ ｡ﾟ

Gonna give it to you, in capital letters | William Nylander 🖋️ 1️⃣5️⃣0️⃣

"We need to talk…"

A message nobody wants to get, and definitely not one William Nylander ever expected to receive. Especially not at this particular moment.

**

You’d met William last season, just before the playoffs, at a coffee shot downtown and quickly, you’d developed a connection of some sort.

Initially, it was a relaxed and easy-going friendship, kept low-key as you had recently ended a relationship, and casual due to William's hectic schedule.

Nevertheless, it was a strong friendship.

But then, gradually, things started to escalate a bit. You stood by William throughout the playoffs on the sideline, offering support, aa you both simply relished each other's company. Thus, what began as a casual friendship, involving late-night conversations and casual coffee meet-ups, gradually shifted towards something more intimate and physical.

As William faced the highs and lows of the games, dealing with intense stress on good and bad days, you remained a constant source of support for him. Usually, you were his go-to for random talks. However, one night, after a particularly tough loss, he felt a need for more, and made a move on you.

It was subtle, neither too eager nor forceful. He merely became a bit touchier and more sensual in his tone and behaviour, melting you completely under his touch.

Admittedly, William was undeniably attractive. Most people thought so, and you were no exception. However, despite the cheeky banter, friendly flirting, and shared laughter, you both maintained a platonic relationship until that fateful evening.

And it was nothing short of incredible.

The sex had been gentle and sensual at first, before you’d both been eager to explore each other further, and soon it had become rather heated and intense.

Yet, it also resulted in something more.

At first, you reckoned William probably just needed some physical release due to all the ups and downs of the matches. But as it turned out, he longed for much more than that. William seemed to want you around all the time, or at least to swing by late in the evening after games or when he returned from away matches.

It kind of felt like you were his dirty little secret, but honestly, you didn't dwell on it much. His schedule was all over the place, not your typical 9-to-5 routine, so you didn't read too much into it. Well, at least not in the beginning.

And just when you were thinking it might be a good idea to chat about what was going on between you two - not that you were necessarily in need to put a label on it, you just wanted to know if William was still keen on you - he completely surprised you by inviting you to join him in Europe during the off-season.

Initially, you were a bit taken aback and hesitant since you'd only been going out with him for a few months. But William was persistent, and since the idea sounded pretty intriguing, you thought, "Why not?" and decided to go with it.

And boy, were you glad you did.

Your time in Sweden was absolutely amazing. William showed you all around Stockholm, shared his favourite spots and eateries, introduced you to Sweden's hidden gems, and treated you like royalty.

He whisked you away for romantic dinners, really putting on his a-game in the dating department. And before long, he opened up about wanting you to be his. Which in casual-Swedish-27-year-old-guy speak, basically meant you were now dating seriously.

You were over the moon about your time in Scandinavia. You witnessed a different side to the easy-going forward, experienced his more tender side first hand, and had mind-blowing sex for weeks.

And then, just when you thought that was it, he took you to other European places. Places you'd never even heard of and couldn't quite pronounce, making you feel like you were in a fairy tale - so much so that you had to pinch yourself to believe it was all real.

However, despite the pinching, your fairy-tale had to come to an end at some point, and you had to return to reality and everyday life in Toronto.

But returning to Toronto turned out to be way different from what you had expected.

William, the guy you'd just spent over a month with every single day, suddenly kept his distance and limited your interactions to phone calls or late-night chats after training and games.

It felt odd.

You genuinely believed that during the off-season, you both had connected on a deeper, more intimate level, taking your relationship several steps further. But William's actions contradicted those feelings.

He didn't take you out for dinners anymore, nor did he seem interested in meeting up during the day or having you over if there was a chance someone else might be around.

Even when you mentioned being at the arena to support him during a home game, he just told you to head straight to his place instead of waiting for him while he finished showering.

It was like you were suddenly back to being his secret, hidden even from those closest to him: his teammates.

When you were alone, he talked about them incessantly, sharing every little detail about his teammates, the ones he was closest to, and those he felt played best with him. Yet, it felt like he didn't want them to know anything about you.

And before long, you'd had enough.

William was an incredible guy, and your feelings for him ran deep. But this situation was becoming uncomfortable and unpleasant. It felt somewhat absurd that he could be jovial and happy around you at any hour, but as soon as you weren't snug in his condo, you became a stranger to him. Or someone he'd call just to chat.

In a way, you felt ridiculed. And eventually, you decided to take the mature step, safeguarding yourself from potential heartache by ending it.

However, you wanted to handle it properly, so you texted him to arrange a meeting.

**

"Hey, can we meet up sometime soon? We need to talk…"

Across the city, William felt a pang in his heart as he read your text.

He had just finished today's workout and was about to head for a shower when he saw your message, causing him to gulp in an attempt to remain composed in the locker room.

However, his expression didn't go unnoticed by his teammates.

"Hey, everything okay, Willy?" Auston asked, a hint of concern in his eyes as he observed his Swedish teammate.

"Yeah…" William attempted to reply, but his tone lacked conviction, after reading your text multiple times.

"You're sure?"

And William knew he couldn't hide the truth from his closest friends.

"No… it's y/n…" He let out a deep sigh.

"Is she okay?" the team's captain, John Tavares, chimed in, wearing a slightly concerned, paternal expression.

"I don't know… she just sent me 'the text'…" he spoke softly, trying to conceal any hints of disappointment, though failing when he showed your message to the boys.

"Ooh… that's the worst…" Auston replied, attempting a light hearted comment to lighten the mood. "That can only mean one of two things: either she's dumping you… or she's knocked up."

However, despite Auston's attempt at humour, it did little to alleviate the situation. So instead, Tavares stepped in, offering his support.

"She probably just wants to talk about your relationship," he said, flashing a reassuring, warm smile. "Making sure you're still into each other, you know, communication."

William tried to reciprocate the kind smile and nodded lightly.

"Yeah, that's not exactly my greatest talent…"

"I know, so maybe this is your chance," the elder teammate suggested. And with those comforting words in mind, William agreed to meet you at his condo in 20 minutes. He then quickly wrapped up in the locker room and made his way out.

As William made his way back home, a strange sensation settled in his chest. He had never faced a situation where a girl might be pregnant despite using protection – at least not to his knowledge. Additionally, he couldn't quite comprehend why you suddenly wanted to end things with him.

And this was a new scenario for him. Typically, he would be the one ending things with girls, sending them the text about how things weren't working out. But now, finding himself potentially on the receiving end of a breakup, he couldn't quite wrap his head around it.

So, when you stood in front of him in his living room, tears threatening to spill, William felt another tug at his heart.

"Willy," you spoke softly, attempting to sound confident and self-assured, despite having rehearsed this moment multiple times, knowing you most likely wouldn't be able to remain composed. "I think we need to stop seeing each other…"

You felt the tears welling up but tried to hold them back by controlling your breathing.

"Y/n… I don't understand… I mean, why? I thought we were having a good time," William replied, matching your subdued tone.

"I think we both know why…" You silently hoped he would reach the same conclusion as you, but William's thoughts were far from aligning with yours.

In his mind, William ran through potential reasons you might have: Your schedule is too busy and unpredictable,' You’re away too often,' 'I’ve found someone else,' or 'I just don't have feelings for you.' 

However, your actual words were far from what he anticipated.

"I know you're embarrassed about me… and I just can't love someone who doesn't want to be seen with me or introduce me to their closest friends… you're keeping me as a secret, and I know I can't ignore my feelings for you, which only makes it even more hurtful… But I'm tired of feeling ridiculed by this… so, I can't be with you anymore…"

You’d given up on holding back your tears midway through your heartfelt speech, letting them stream down your cheeks as you spoke from the depths of your heart, despite the aching pain in your chest.

William was baffled. Embarrassed? You believed he was embarrassed about you.

His eyes widened, fixed directly on you as his mind scrambled to form comforting words, to assure you that this wasn't the truth. But the words seemed trapped, unable to escape his lips.

"And although it hurts like hell," you continued, briefly looking upwards, trying to gather your tears, and sniffled lightly. "I try to understand. I mean, we had a wonderful time during the off-season when you had plenty of time. But we were away from this normal, everyday life, and you didn't have all those girls around like you do here… so perhaps, you've just lost interest in me since coming back, which is okay – I mean, I can't change the way you feel… I just…" You took in a deep breath, gathering the courage to continue. "I just wish you'd told me, so I wouldn't look like a fool, like I do now…"

Silence enveloped the room after your heartfelt confession, your voice almost cracking near the end of your final words. 

But William's mind was in complete disarray. And your words cut deep within him as he realised the weight of his actions.

"Fuck…" he softly mumbled to himself, briefly looking down before meeting your gaze.

Your body seemed to fold into itself, arms wrapped around your chest in a stance of defeat and vulnerability. Your eyes held a soft yet sorrowful expression, and William could tell you were truly hurt.

And as he had admitted to Tavares, William wasn't the greatest at expressing his emotions. But now, he was beginning to realise the extent of the damage caused by his lack of communication. And this was his chance, as the captain had mentioned.

Taking a deep breath, he tried to find the necessary words.

"Y/n… I'm not… I'm not embarrassed about you," William's chest felt heavy, emotions stirring within him. "Shit…" He threw his arms up in frustration, finding it immensely difficult to speak. "It hurts like hell hearing you say that… Why would you think I'm embarrassed about you? Or that I've lost interest in you?"

His words came out sharper than he intended, emotions bubbling to the surface, as he couldn't contain his frustration, realising that he was the cause of your pain. 

"Because you don't want to be seen with me anywhere… you only want me around here, in hiding, and you never want me to meet any of your friends and teammates, Willy…" Your voice rose as you cried out, mirroring his frustrations.

"I'm just trying to protect you, y/n!" William almost shouted, surprising you with the intensity of his response. "I just… I want to keep you safe and away from all of that!"

"Protect me from what, Willy? Because from what I can see, you don't want to be seen with me or let anyone know that we're dating," you firmly shouted back, not entirely convinced by his defence.

"That's not at all how it is! You don't get what it's like."

"Then please explain to me what it's like!"

William took a deep breath, struggling to control his emotions from boiling over. You were pushing all the right buttons, and he knew you had every right to do so.

"People can be cruel, y/n… the media, people online… and I don't want you to experience that," he exhaled. "I'm NOT embarrassed about you, GOD, I can't believe you'd think that… I just – I want to shield you from all the awful things people say about me… and other players and their girlfriends… I fucking love being with you, and the last thing I want is for you to be scared away by those who post hurtful comments online or make up lies to stir up drama between us…"

Now, it was William feeling the tears welling up.

"But then why wouldn't you even introduce me to the team? You always talk so much about them, but for some reason, you don't want them to know about me! Don't you see how that makes me feel?"

William sensed himself becoming overwhelmed, realising the depth of the situation, and he couldn't hold back any longer. A tear escaped and trailed down his cheek, as he tried his best to explain. 

"I didn't want to drag you into my world, y/n! It can be messed up, and you deserve so much better…" His voice cracked, tears flowing uncontrollably.

And witnessing William cry evoked a wave of emotions within you.

You had never seen him even close to tears. In fact, you had never seen him display anger or hurt, nothing beyond hockey, and even that only extended to minimal frustrations. William was always known for his calm and composed demeanour, never letting his facade crack. Yet tonight, you had cracked him wide open, causing him to spill his thoughts and feelings.

"All I wanted was to keep everything easy going and wonderful between us… just like it was in Sweden. It was so perfect, and when I realised you were the one, I wanted to be with, I guess I just tried to do whatever I could to keep it that way… so you wouldn't leave me."

“Willy,” you softly breathed out. “Why didn’t you tell me all of this? That this was how you felt…”

Your question resonated with the right reason, prompting a timid smile to form on his lips as he let out a sigh.

"Because I'm not good at this… explaining everything and talking… feelings, y/n…" he softly admitted, your eyes locking in a heartfelt moment of deep honesty.

Relaxing your tense posture, a bit, you slowly moved towards him, flashing a soft smile.

“Willy, I want to be with you… I know I don’t fully understand your world, but it’s part of you, and… I want all of you, no matter what,” you reassured him, coming to stand so closely that your bodies gently touched.

William sniffled before managing to form proper sentences, briefly looking downwards as his hands found their way to rest on your hips.

“I’m sorry, y/n… I just thought it was better to keep you away from it, you know…”

“I know, those were your best intentions,” you softly smiled, gently resting your hands on his chest. “But Willy, if you really want me around, in your life, you have to let me in… for better AND for worse…” 

“I do, y/n… I do want you in my life… I just don’t want you to be scared away,” he timidly admitted.

“Don’t worry, babe. It takes more than that for me to leave,” you tried to ease the tension, and fortunately it seemed to work.

“Good…” William sighed in relief, his forehead gently meeting yours.

“Just promise me one thing,” you said, looking up at him again.

“Anything.”

“Next time if you have these kinds of thoughts, please just tell me… I can’t read your mind, and I NEED you to let me know what’s going on inside that pretty big brain of yours,” you chuckled lightly. “You have to use your words – in capital letters, please,” you emphasised, prompting a chuckle from William as well.

“I promise I’ll try to do better,” he replied with a smile, before leaning down and placing a gentle kiss on your soft lips.

It was a huge relief for him to finally get everything off his chest. Realising that this was mostly due to his not-so-well-thought-out plan, he now saw a great chance of having you in his life for much longer.

“By the way,” William suddenly added as your faces withdrew slightly. “The team does know about you… in fact, they know all about you.”

“What!?”

“Yeah, so really, you haven’t actually been that much of a secret…” he chuckled, seeing your baffled reaction. “But I guess that’s just one less thing for us to check off then.” 

“You’re really something special Nylander… did you know that?” you chuckled lightly.

“Yeah, and now I’m yours something special,” you merely replied, before pulling you in for a deeper and more heartfelt kiss this time. 

#my asks #william nylander imagine #wn88 imagine #nhl hockey imagine #toronto maple leafs imagine

[chris-continues]

Unconventional, Unusual, and Unapologetically Yours

Inspired by this text post I made!

In which you enter a relationship with an unfamiliar creature.. yet he’s the sweetest person you’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.

TAGS: @beanibon @vashfantasy @h4venpha @lune010

WORD COUNT: 1.6k

Available on ao3!

NOTES: I cranked this out in like less than an hour I think. Uncanny Vash makes my fingers type like the fucking wind LMAO- ALSO I MIGHT DO PT2 <33 ^^lmk if you don’t want to be tagged! Some people asked and I know others like uncanny Vash a lot, so I thought you’d enjoy. I tried to add a bit of creature Vash as well, please feel free to comment/reblog if you enjoyed! And lmk any ideas you have :D

Your boyfriend deviated from what one would call the standard partner. 

Well, not that such a thing was negative. He was by far one of the most beautiful people you’d ever seen, that much you noted from your first encounter. An abandoned warehouse, where you’d been forced to do an odd job when tight for cash. “Get a photo of the infamous Humanoid Typhoon!”, they said, giving you directions out of town. The warehouse then had appeared nothing short of shady, with its shabby walls, unfamiliar state, and a slight mildewy smell you weren’t too fond of. 

That would soon change, becoming your safe haven, as you recalled how you’d met. 

Your tentative steps inside, phone flashlight beaming as you explored for a good few minutes before- “Ah!” You jolted, the wide smile of a tall man, startling you. He apologetically waved his hands before you, attempting to reassure you, “Aw god, I’m sorry- I didn’t mean to scare you!” 

“It’s uh, fine, yeah.” You cleared your throat, turning your flashlight down slightly, “Who are you?” “Vash.” He chirped, quite literally. “And you?”, he offered his hand, ever so charming. If you recalled correctly, his pupils dilated a bit too much at the touch of your hand against his.

Humanoid. Not human.

It took you an embarrassingly long time to connect the dots, your attempt to search for the man of the hour futile (or successful, depending on how you viewed it). Searching for any extending corridors, or perhaps a hidden room. His company was originally slightly unsettling, as he was a stranger just tagging along for the ride, but he had no ill intent and with each sweet remark you found your night to not be a complete failure, swearing you’d return next weekend, same time to find the Humanoid Typhoon together. 

It turned into a game of stalling. 

Searching the same wall as last week, fingers tapping at the eroding wood of the building. His fingertips had brushed yours a handful of times as he blamed it on the darkness, a slight squeak leaving him each time, and maybe it was your fatigue riddled mind but you almost swore a slight glow emanated from him each time. 

After the 3rd week of searching you really didn’t care about finding this Typhoon guy anymore, figuring he was just some urban legend. Why did you keep going? For Vash, of course. He was a great listener, funny, and seemed to enjoy your company, and you really enjoyed his, and by god were you absolutely horrendous when it came to romance. So continued your pining of poking and prodding at an abandoned warehouse at the late hours of night. Too nervous to ask for his number (you found out later he didn’t have a phone), too shy to initiate anything further. 

Aha, until one night. 

Your searching had become less investigative of the building and moreso of each other, legs crossed and sitting in the middle of the warehouse with music playing from your phone on occasion. Discussions ranging from god knows what, each interesting in their own right. What confused you was that something as mundane as you telling a story in which you got your neighbors mail left him at the edge of his seat, but you simply chalked it up as him being a good listener and eager to engage in conversation, (that being partially true). Exhaustion creeped at you one night though, your horrendous sleeping habits having caught up with you as you rested your head against the derelict floorboards and gazed up at the ceilings. 

Vash had a habit of humming to fill in silences, and much like the rest of him you found yourself inexplicably drawn to it.. So sue you for being soothed to sleep by such a thing.

He didn’t tell you until much later, but that night he’d let his hand graze the back of yours, feathers peeking from beneath his jacket with the slight bumps ever so comforting against your skin. You let out the cutest hums, rolling just a bit closer to him.

His breath caught in his throat, as he let himself touch your hand just a bit more. His long, inhuman tongue laved over his several rows of sharp, unnatural teeth in a fidgeting motion. His pupils expanded, admiring you. You always appeared a bit nervous or tense around him- of course that diminished over time, he noted, but why were you so nervous? God, he hated being like this sometimes. To be.. A normal human companion of yours was something he found he craved. Every week, waiting for you in this dingy, subpar hiding place..

You were the highlight of his week. 

He had to hold himself back from instinctively curling into your side, wrapping his lanky limbs around you and allowing his vertebrae to extend to his full height.. Several feet taller than you. He wants to engulf you whole, keep you forever close and cherish you with chirps you couldn’t possibly understand. 

When you awake, he lays beside you. His body is as stiff as the wooden planks lining the warehouse floors, glancing at you as you finally make a move.

You scoot an inch closer.

His breath hitches in his throat. 

He can feel a draft making its way through the building,your body shivering as you shift just a bit closer.

“You.. are you cold?” He hesitates, arm stiffening as the fabric of his jacket meets the sleeve of your shirt. 

“Yeah, kinda..” You murmur, eyes darting away from him then back to him- god, you could stare at him and never tire of it. 

Your arms are pressed against one another, his fingers- wait, they’re uncharacteristically smooth, toying with the end of your sleeve. Oh god. The cutest guy you’ve ever met and he’s- oh god- you’ve dreamt of this more than you’d care to admit, hugging a pillow to sleep most nights, mind drifting to the cute guy you meet every weekend outside of town. 

Your fingers graze his once more, breathing pausing once more.

He intertwines his fingers with yours.

You think you’re going to die.

He chirps happily, and with your curiosity getting the better of you, you can’t help but ask, “What’s that noise mean?”

He blinks owlishly, sheepish smile crossing his face, “Oh uh, I don’t know really. It just.. happens?”  

“Ah, mhm. That’s fair.”

You peek down to your intertwined hands, only to see-

“Vash?”

His mouth gapes open to speak, and you get another peek of his- oh god, now that it’s morning you can see better.

Rows upon rows of his sharp teeth. His mouth forcibly staying together in one piece rather than three. Unnaturally long limbs. Feathers sprouting from him. 

“You.. you’re not human, are you?”

Oh god. He scared you. He’s so ugly, and you’re frozen, backing away slightly- “Oh my god you’re not- are you?”

The Humanoid Typhoon.

“Yeah. I.. I am.”

It takes you a moment to collect your bearings, mouth agape. “You.. you  never planned to hurt me, right?” Your eyes are wide, hands in your lap as you now sit up, legs criss crossed. 

“God no! Never! Oh god, I'm so sorry.” He buried his face in his hands, hiding it from the peeking rays of sunlight peering through the wood of the warehouse. “I don’t try to hurt anyone really, it just.. happens.” He swallowed thickly, “You can leave, if you’d like. I won’t hold it against you.”

You shake your head adamantly, “No, no I trust you. Just surprised me is all. I’ve never seen anything like it, I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Vash.” Your hands fidget within your lap, “I enjoy your company and you not being human won’t change that.”

He peeked at you from his fingers, pupils dilated. “..really?”

You nodded. 

He certainly didn’t appear very convinced, but as you offered one of your previously fidgeting hands out to him.. he took it. Hand much larger in yours, inhumanly smooth- you found upon closer inspection he had no fingerprints. 

You stayed like that for god knows how long, until you checked your phone, “Shit! I’m sorry Vash, I’ve got to-” Aw god, his face, he was so cute..

“I’ll return soon.”

He walked you to your car parked outside. 

Your next few visits were a lot more different. He never directly said it, but before long you started staying the night, pressed close to one another, easing closer and closer to one another with hesitant touches. His eyes pleaded for your company each time you left, a small pout forming on his lips. 

You hated leaving him each time. 

Your first kiss was sweet, clumsy, and absolutely adorable. Just like him. 

He laid atop you, the world’s best weighted blanket, wrapping his unproportionate, lanky limbs around you to pull you flush against him. “I like you Vash. A lot.” You admitted into his hair quietly, shyly kissing the crown of his head. He chirped excitedly, a few clicks escaping him as he shifted to have your eyes meet, lips peppering pecks on your cheeks, jaw, and the corners of your lips. 

You both were too nervous to initially confess, just basking in one another’s company. 

“Like you too.” A series of inhuman noises escaped him, elated by your flustered giggles. 

He almost felt bad for temporarily silencing you with a shy and quick peck to your lips. His eyes widened, before going in for another. 

Another, another, another, purring contentedly as he pressed closer to you in hopes to mold you both into one. 

Your hands tentatively reached to cradle his face, grinning into the dorky kiss you two shared. 

Now though? You glance at him, wrapped in a mini nest you two share atop your bed. He nuzzles into your neck, teeth gently nibbling at the flesh as the rays of morning peek through your bedroom window. His legs hang off the bed with how tall he is, but he couldn’t care less.

Is it unconventional? Sure. Unusual? Most definitely.

But you’ve never been more happy than you have with him.

#chris writes #uncanny vash #Vash the Stampede #vash x reader #vash the stampede x reader #Trigun #trimax #tristamp #Trigun Vash #vash trigun #tri98 #trigun 98 #trigun stampede #fluff #Trigun fluff #tristamp vash #vash tristamp #monster cuddler #monstercuddler #fanfic #drabble

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

hello sex witch

this might be long and ramble a bit but i’ll try to keep it succinct. 

so i’ve always thought that the concept of polyamory and having multiple partners sounded nice in the abstract, i don’t really date a lot so it hasn’t come up but i figured it was sort of a thing that most people would be open to or like the idea of (like me). this was until today when i saw someone objecting to the notion of being in a throuple or polyamorous relationship. i didn’t know that was a thing people did. i just thought we all wanted to date lots of people if given the opportunity. the fact that the other people in the couple were a man and a woman didn’t deter me. i’m now considering the fact that i might not be quite as heterosexual as previously assumed. 

when i considered sexuality before it was always a clear cut “yeah girls because i know i like girls” and also maybe that sex with dick seemed sort of weird, but upon further consideration it might just be that i think all sex is sort of weird. 

and now i’m not sure what to do about this, i don’t think that experimenting with people is right because i would feel so shit about it because they’re people and also the fact that i have some strong anxiety about sex in general. someone seeing my naked body makes me feel a little sick. and also i’ve never had sex so don’t really know how sexual attraction is supposed to feel or what i would do with myself if the occasion (sex) was to arise. i feel sort of similar / the same when thinking about sex with both men and women. 

i’m unsure if it’s all a desire for close male friendship or if i might be a little gay. 

tldr i might be polyamorous and attracted to men after a good 19 years of staunchly Not Thinking About It. would appreciate advice or help. 

i guess this isn’t as much a question as more of a asking for advice. this might not even be in your wheelhouse considering the sort of tangential connection to sex. sorry if not

hey anon,

boy, this one is a real buffet. it's legitimately very hard to decide where to start with this, but I'm going to do my best.

let's get this one out of the way first and foremost: if you're into guys that's totally fine. love that for you. if sex with men is something you ever want to explore I would encourage thinking bigger than the stigma that's currently associated with "experimenting." it has a very dehumanizing connotation, but there's no reason that trying out a new kind of sex has to be a cold or impersonal experience! it's fine to approach someone, either via the apps or in real life (honestly! the latter is better!) and be up-front about what your interests and intent are. people have sex without intending to form long-term partnerships all the time; it's literally fine and a thing that many people enjoy doing. so, like, this is my endorsement for respectful, mutually-informed experimentation lmao.

but hey, listen: I don't think that having sex with men is actually, like, a pressing issue for you, based on everything else you've told me here. it doesn't sound like sex is really a huge part of your life, and honestly that's great! it doesn't seem like sex would be great for you right now! can I point to some reasons why?

i think all sex is sort of weird

i have some strong anxiety about sex in general

someone seeing my naked body makes me feel a little sick

[I] don’t really know how sexual attraction is supposed to feel or what i would do with myself if the occasion (sex) was to arise

all of these are, like, perfectly fine things to feel, and also they are pretty good indicators that it's probably for the best that you're not having sex right now. genuinely I do Not do this lightly, because I have a whole thing in my FAQ about not wanting to tell other people their orientations, but has the possibility occurred to you that you might not experience sexual attraction at all? you can like people of all kinds of genders but not want to have sex with them.

let's maybe just take sex off the table altogether while we explore this "maybe you're a little gay" thing, alright? because it seems like that's just going to stress you out a needless amount. what if instead of thinking about having sex with guys, you give some thought to dating guys, forming romantic connections, doing things together that aren't having sex. would you date a guy? I mean, hell, would you date a girl? would you date anyone? does that sound good to you? it's nice to actually interrogate these things; the worst thing that can happen is that you get to know yourself a little more clearly.

you can date and love people without ever having sex with them. does that sound fun for you?

this is the most important thing: you're not under, like, any obligation to figure this out immediately or even soon. take your time, you know? there's no correct timeline for this and self-discovery is perpetual.

also hey listen this one isn't, like, bad and I'm certainly not addressing it as a problem but PLEASE I have to know where you grew up that you didn't realize that most people are actually not polyamorous. are you perhaps the spawn of the greater Seattle area polycule?

#sex edventures 2023

[perpetualexistence]

Sea Monster AU: Poor Unfortunate Soul (2/2)

(Why this cover in particular? Mainly because the thumbnail is cool. Also, annapatsu's covers always slap without fail.)

So! It's been a while! Partially because this chapter ended up longer than anticipated. Partially because I got distracted with other AUs because the ADHD mind takes me where it wants to take me. I think it's just going to be safer to not have a set schedule for when these come out because that's apparently just not how my brain wants to work. But I could never forget about this AU! Bit by bit, it will get done, as you can see here!

But here we are! Welcome back to Noah making drastic life choices because Alejandro is a toxic manipulative bastard. Drastic enough to warrant more content warnings.

Content warnings: Murder, cannibalism, toxic relationship, body horror

Once more, the asterisks return for the most gruesome bits. I've got a safer summary of what happens in the asterisks at the bottom.

If you ever think I need more content warnings, please do let me know and I'll add them immediately.

Without further ado, time to dive into Noah's further exploration into magic!

<- Prev | First | Next (Soon) ->

With gills, Noah can now begin with proper magic. There's the spell that would make Alejandro smaller that he still needs to find in his book. There's also the problem of needing a back up plan. If he fails to shrink Alejandro, then Alejandro will kill him. He won't be able to talk his way out of it. He'll need the ability to fight back.

The book can sense his desire to defend himself. It flips to a page that promises a ritual that will grant his body the ability to do just that. It will even make magic easier to perform. Perfect. His only problem is the lack of details on the outcome. Try as he might, the book always flips back to how to cast the spell, and away from what happens after. Considering what happened the last time he tried to force something out of the book, he decides settling for this spell will be easier. The book throws him a bone with mention that this won't be as permanent as the gills, so that's something.

Noah's reading through the list of things he needs for the ritual. Rune knife, check. A bunch of salt, weird, but whatever. Flesh. At least a whole body's worth. The closer the attachment, the better the results. And to finish it off?

Consume the heart.

Noah's frantically looking at the alternative for flesh. He'd essentially need to alchemically recreate a human being. How many more ships would he have to sacrifice to make that happen? Countless, probably. People are already noticing the disappearances. There's no way he'd get all of this before he and Alejandro get caught. If Alejandro gets caught, people are going to go after him. Innocent people, sailing to their deaths because they have no idea about how Noah's been fighting to keep them off the menu.

So flesh it is. Time to kill a person. It's not like this is anything new. He already killed Chris. Even if that one was in complete self defense. And this one would very much be calculated. It'd be easier if he could just sneak away a corpse from one of Alejandro's feeding frenzies. But Alejandro's his ride there and back. There's no hiding a corpse from him.

So he's going to have to kill this one all on his own. In cold-blood. With his twig arms. At least he semi-knows how to defend himself.

Before he got Chef killed, Chef had insisted on teaching him self defense. Said his scrawny ass would have to worry about people just as much as monsters. Forced him to carry stuff with him. Noah did start noticing a difference, however small. Chef was gruff about it, but he did acknowledge it. All in all, Chef was pretty decent. He wasn't completely unreasonable. Not like Chris. Maybe-

No. Noah can't afford to go down that line of thinking. Chef loved Chris. He'd do anything for that man. Maybe Chef did know the true plan, and was still helping Chris. Even if he didn't, he never would have rested if he was allowed to live. Noah couldn't risk revenge killing. Chef had his uses, and now it'll make this job a bit easier.

He needs to kill someone on land. It has to be someone who deserves it. The closer, the better. Thanks to recent events, there's one person who comes to mind. The loan shark who has been hassling his family for years. He's back in town now, and Noah doubts anyone will miss him. He could use his hacking abilities to try to narrow down his exact location. Still, can't walk into a lion's den. He'll be really lucky to take the loan shark down. More than that? Absolutely not. Noah needs to isolate the loan shark, and have him come to Noah. That's going to require tact Noah doesn't have.

But he knows the perfect teacher.

Alejandro is incredibly pleased when Noah tells him that he wants to learn more about hunting. It seems that any concern about what he had been doing with Chef and Chris get quashed when Noah leans into murder. He has to lie about how it felt to kill Chris. Not as much as he thought he would. Chris had it coming. Noah just has to pretend the anger comes less from how he would have sacrificed the town and more from how he would have brainwashed Alejandro.

It's not like he's really lying about it per se. He would have felt bad to completely steal someone's autonomy away. Even if it had been Alejandro. Still, that doesn't dispel the worm of guilt as he swears he recognizes appreciation and fondness in Alejandro's eyes.

There's a part of him that wants to reciprocate. There is. It's the part of him that remembers that Alejandro is the first person he ever got close to and vulnerable with. That recognizes that their relationship has to be more than that of convenience. Why else would Alejandro insist on learning everything about Noah and hanging out even when not hunting? He gushes over romance novels and is jealous of Noah's dog, for fuck's sake. Neither of those things would obviously make him more endearing to Noah if that was Alejandro's goal. It's why they are so endearing.

Yet here Alejandro is. Gushing over his newfound appreciation for the craft of killing. How the yacht incident is forgiven. Forgiven? Like Noah was the one in the wrong for saying no to Alejandro one time? For having a nice night out with people that weren't Alejandro? My god, it wasn't even about the no, was it? It was that Noah could have a positive interaction with anyone except Alejandro. Enough to prioritize himself over pleasing Alejandro. The eel is possessive, and he got jealous, and innocent people had to die for that.

Noah is an object to Alejandro. A pet, if he's feeling generous. He's made that very clear. Alejandro will accept nothing less. So Noah can't give him that choice. He'll shrink Alejandro, and make him the pet instead.

It's the only way he anyone feel be safe.

So he plays up the monstrous version of himself that Alejandro wants. It's easier than it should be. Good. That makes it more believable. He uses the fact that his relationship with the loan shark is personal to excuse wanting to do the kill and take care of the body himself. He never outright says it, but he implies Alejandro as an inspiration for his change in tune.

He takes solace in the fact that all of this is still a lie. It has to be.

He gets in touch with the loan shark through nicking his mother's phone. Not one of his prouder moments, but that ship has sailed, sunk, and rotted away long ago. With the added guile he's learned from Alejandro, he's able to trick the loan shark into coming to a place near Chris's beach house. He's going to pay off the rest of the debt in person to make sure they don't have to do this ever again.

Noah is going to bring a suitcase full of cash that he's saved up from selling off his stolen goods. He needs a reason for the man to get close enough so Noah can stab him with his ritual knife.

Noah would love it if he could just put a bullet in the man's brain without having to get close to him. There are multiple problems with this. One, Noah would need a gun. Two, knowing how finnicky magic is, Noah would have to make a gun. Three, Noah would have to learn how to use the gun. Four, Noah might be searched for weapons. It's a lot of time and effort that Noah's not willing to spend.

The nice thing about magic ritual knives is that, once attuned, they can be summoned at will. So no worry about being caught with a weapon. So, time for the actual stabbing. It's not too hard to find the motivation. He remembers the time he called his oldest sister 'mom'. He was only about four or five at the time. He only knew his mother existed in theory. She just used home as a place to sleep in between jobs. The eldest siblings had been forced to pick up the slack of parenting by necessity. He didn't understand why his sister had sobbed and run to their mother. He could hear the words they shared. But he wouldn't process a child mourning the loss of their childhood until years later.

He knew their father was the one truly to blame for leaving them all to this situation. Noah would twist the knife into his father's back if he could. He'll settle for doing the same to the leech that took advantage of their situation and was still attempting to suck them dry.

***

He's more present for this murder than he was for Chris's. It feels like he's watching someone else in his body, but he's aware enough that he is controlling his own body and remembers this. He wants to remember this one.

Once the loan shark gets close enough, it's a knee to the groin. Noah's fighting to win. A summoned knife to slash him across the neck. Noah misses. The shark didn't fall as fast as he thought he would. The shark uses two hands to grabs him by the wrist and attempts to pull the knife away. Not good, Noah can already feel himself losing that battle.

With a flick of his wrist, the knife glows. It switches from his right hand to his left. He goes for a stab into the side. With luck, he can puncture a lung. He's not used to using his off hand. He doesn't hit a lung, but he does get him in the side. He pulls the knife out quick. Blood pours out from the wound Noah just made. The shark is bleeding now. Not enough for Noah's liking. Noah notices his knife glow, and sees that the blood is being sucked into the runes. That's concerning. But Noah doesn't have time to process that.

Not when the shark takes advantage of his self-made distraction to tackle Noah. Noah goes down quick. He drops the knife in the tackle. The shark is strangling him while he still has the strength to do so. Made even worse by the fact that the shark's fingers are digging into Noah's gills, too. He's gagging, and choking, and he needs to end this now.

He tries to wrestle the shark's hands away from his throat. It does nothing. His strength was never going to be a match for the shark's. He can feel the shark's nails dig into his gills. Now he's choking both on air and his own blood. Spots are dancing in his vision. They're broken by a soft glow. The knife. The knife!

Noah stops trying to stop the choking. Instead, he summons his knife to his hand once more. This wasn't how Noah wanted the bastard to get close, but it'll do. He's right on top of him. The shark is so focused on Noah's throat that he left Noah's arms free. He uses both his hands to make the knife pierces the shark right through his neck. The shark slumps over Noah. Shock? Death? Noah's not sure. He isn't taking chances.

He wriggles out from underneath and stabs him in the throat again. He swore he saw a twitch. Again. The breath of life attempting to work its way through the hole in his throat. Again. Glassy eyes reflect a face Noah can't recognize as his own. Again. Noah's throat feels raw. Was it the choking or is it his screaming? Again. Laughing, or crying? Again. It doesn't matter. Again. It must be done. Again.

His arms tire. The deed is done.

Clean up feels like it takes forever. Still, for all this work he's put into this, he can't afford to be sloppy now. He drags the corpse back. It was a risk hunting his prey so close to his beach house. But the farther he has to take it, the more he'd risk being spotted. So close it is.

Some tension leaves his shoulders once he's inside. But it's not over yet. He drags the corpse all the way to his cove. He dumps the sack of flesh into the water. He dives in after it.

The cool water soothes his aching gills. Right, he'd forgotten about that. He takes a moment to run his hands gently across his gills. At least his scarf will hide the bruises. He cleans the blood off. He hopes that'll be enough because that's the extent to his knowledge on how magic gills work.

Now for the ritual proper. The water is salted, the circle set, incantations spoken. Now, for the body. It's in the center of the circle, but that's not enough. He has to commit one more vile act to see this through.

No time for holding back. He's doing this so no one else has to. At least the earlier cut makes it easier to cut through and reach the heart. He cuts it out and holds it in his trembling hand. There's no going back after this. Then again, there never was.

He closes his eyes and bites into the heart. It feels softer than he expected. Leftover blood bursts onto his tongue. The iron taste makes him gag. He rips away the bite. He chews. He goes for another. His teeth are sore. This one feels easier. His teeth are sharper. The iron loses its sour tang and becomes sweeter. He'd be lying if he said he was never curious about why Alejandro always insisted on eating Noah's kind. He thinks he gets it now.

Oh god. He thinks he gets it now.

He consumes it as quickly as he can manage, before the rest of his thoughts catch up with him. Everything glows, and his body is racked with pain. He passes out in shock.

***

When he comes to, the circle is empty. His body feels heavier. He kicks his feet to try to get back to the surface to gather himself...but he can't. He looks down to see eight tentacles, amber with rings of blue and black, where his legs should be.

On instinct he tries to swim away, but he's not used to wielding eight lower limbs rather than two. Most of them smack at each other in an attempt to replicate legs to swim. Noah's fucked up. He's fucked up so bad. 'Won't be permanent' was a lie that he fell for and now he's given up the humanity he was struggling so hard to keep and why can't he just have his own fucking legs back-

And suddenly he's looking at his legs again. He blinks as he processes the new yet familiar sight. Okay? Okay. This is, maybe that was some kind of stress and magic induced hallucination? They had looked so real though-

And the tentacles are back. Of course he wouldn't be so lucky. At least the 'won't be permanent' thing wasn't a complete lie. He just has to learn how to control the changes. And control the tentacles. Just like the gills. And just settle into his new life as a half-octopus. Cecaelia? Merfolk.

Like Alejandro.

Oh. A body to defend himself.

Well.

He can work with this.

[Noah fights against the loan shark. He wins, and drags what remains back to the beach house he 'inherited' from Chris. He performs the ritual successfully and passes out due to shock.]

#noah's a sea witch #you guys have no idea how long i've been anticipating sharing this plot point #alejandro's in danger #so is noah still #but what's new #sea monster au #total drama #total drama noah #td noah #total drama alejandro #td alejandro #giant/tiny #total drama au #cw murder #cw cannibalism #cw body horror #cw toxic relationship #tw murder #tw body horror #tw cannibalism #tw toxic relationship #murder #cannibalism #toxic relationship #body horror #horror au #total drama horror au #td horror au #alenoah #td alenoah

[shelandsorcery]

Astronomics Game Art : Designing Mining Equipment! Pt 3

Oversized Equipment With a base set of equipment solved for Astronomics – demo on steam right now! – there were two things next on the checklist: thinking about colour design, and thinking about some of the equipment that didn't fit into the neat little categories of drilling/pumping/vaccuuming etc.

Firstup, we tackled some big ones: one of the things we wanted the player to get to work towards was processing raw materials -- and that meant big processing equipment that could intake entire containers of raw material and spit out something different. These were a really fun challenge to keep in the same design language as our smaller machines while pushing the scale.

This is one place where our safety-bar themed style really helped -- the ubiquitous bars were very useful as a shared unit of scale between the smaller and larger equipment - and in these early drawings they were a clear warning sign that I hadn't fully measured out the scale relationships: Here you can see the containers, when scaled down to a size where both could fit into that protected area on drawing 3, have safety bars about half or less as thick as the safety bars on the machine. Scale remained something we had to wrestle with and fine tune as we went, and we'll actually come back to the containers in a little bit. The other larger piece of equipment we needed was one that's central to the demo -- the crane! Here you can see a few of the different ideas we were exploring.

Key elements were: we wanted it to attach securely to the ground, and we wanted the player to feel like they had maximum options when it came to positioning its pickup and dropoff points. With those priorities and with our low-poly 3D outcome in mind, we ended up grabbing the legs from A and putting them on D -- D felt like the most flexible in terms of how far we could spin or stretch the reach of the crane, and also the most simple in terms of modelling and animation challenges. There were further edits and redesigns and tweaks and additional passes on a lot of this stuff -- especially the containers -- but I thought folks might like to see how we approached colour for the equipment! And that's a HUGE question, so I'll be saving that for its own post, alongside the epic journey that colour took while I was on the project. Read the full article

#concept art #indie games #mining equipment #prop design #videogame art

[tiredassmage]

SWOOPS IN

Tav Questions for Leo: 3, 4, 8, 9, 11, 21 and 22

GIGGLES! I knew you'd be at it! I'm still not too far into his run, so I had to let these marinate a little and get a bit further along in Act I to get a bit more data.

[30 Questions for Your Tav!]

3. Did your Tav receive any formal or informal education? If yes, how well did they learn? If no, why not?

So far I’m thinking to still diagnose him with unloved by rich parents syndrome, as per the textposts pile, lol, so, yes, I imagine Leo experienced some level of formal education; the family is well-known enough for their business endeavors in Baldur’s Gate, but probably less recognized than his father’s puffed chest might long to suggest and maintain. I think Leo’s a bit of a fan of stories as escapism in that sense; I’m playing him on College of Valor Bard, but his “education” in that regard is more likely to have come from tavern tales at the Blushing Mermaid and escapades to Sharess’s Caress. The other class I had briefly entertained was Wizard, so perhaps that’s where his family would’ve preferred he spent his time honing more of his talents versus where he really ended up. I think he likely finished most of his basic education with tutors and whatnot in the city before one of many, many arguments about Leo’s life choices finally saw him run out and fall in with less scrupulous crowds.

His martial training then is almost entirely informal - picked up from tavern brawls, pirates, and smugglers that became more and more of his common company in more recent years, until finally they became about his only primary company once he left his family. He knows enough to read and write well, and he’s absorbed some measure of history, but he wouldn’t self-describe as well-read and he’ll leave investigating every dusty tome in abandoned cathedrals and dilapidated towns to Gale’s ambitious nose. Ultimately, I think I’d call him a bit more street-wise than book-smart, but I also wouldn’t want to oversell either, exactly. The many fights at home make him a bit easily irritable at times and patience isn’t a particularly strong virtue of his. More than anything, he’d probably best be described as of a college of fucking around and finding out, frankly.

4. What hobbies does your Tav have? How did they acquire these interests?

Leo enjoys a game of cards and oral storytelling, though the latter might be something of a given with his class, lol. A lively tavern scene in the evening was a place to explore expression and live more out-of-bounds and it’s informed a lot of what Leo is currently. The art of the improvised, cutting insult was almost as good a defense as a sharpened dagger when he first started to jab elbows and shoulders with the kind in the Lower City those of the Upper would generally rather pretend don’t exist. Huddled around tavern bards, he’d hear colorful tales of adventure and exploration that planted the idea with him that it might be an alternative to the suffocating demands of power and prestige in the city.

8. Did your Tav have any romantic and/or sexual relationships prior to their Illithid adventure? If yes, who was it with and what was it like? If no, how do they feel about being single?

I’m still kind of hammering out the details and the whens, the hows, the whos, etc. of exactly what life was like for Leo before the mindflayers came and turned everything upside down, but the short answer is yes. One of Leo’s later frequent locations before a plan to leave Baldur’s Gate entirely started to take any sort of shape was Sharess’s Caress. Lured by not exactly the most honest crowd to such locales, Leo found sharing company in the arms of another man far more preferable to gritted teeth pleasantries with fair maidens at noble gatherings - something he’d generally have preferred to keep perhaps a bit more under lock and key. Not all of those experiences were exactly positive in that regard, and they play a hand in the kind of crowd he hung out with when he finally abandoned (or was run out of, depending on who you ask) Upper City living - smugglers, thieves, pirates - the likes of which taught him how to bargain and the power of a manipulative word perhaps better than any tutoring on dinner table manners and politics ever had.

One may have been the exception to Leo’s generally… questionable choice of company, however - a fellow bard with bright green eyes and hair the shade of a vibrant sunset over the docks. His chiding on Leo’s typical choice of company was usually accompanied with a kiss… or a handful of them. And worried eyes would often linger around the edges of the tavern songs they learned together. Neither of them were sure where they would go if they left, but… maybe… if they did…

Unfortunately, life isn’t exactly like the fairy tales, is it?

9. What was your Tav doing when they were taken by the mindflayers?

Trying to survive, as the short answer. While Leo wouldn’t exactly claim he’s a gifted liar or even a performer (generally), if nothing else, he’s got an odd brand of luck, maybe. A roundabout talking in and out of situations that came in handy and was honed when he found himself keeping the company of smugglers to have place to put his head down at night, shorn of the noble trappings that had initially raised him (or claimed it, at any rate). With the failed idealization of disappearing into the wilds of the realm still bitter and aching on his lips, Leo’s nothing if not a creature of habit. There was a lot about his life aiding smugglers (and possibly dubiously owing some connection to the Zhentarim about it) that wasn’t exactly not broken, but it was… working. Sort of. For the moment. It was a hell of a more appealing option than trying to crawl home and grovel for some biting form of ‘forgiveness’ for spurning the rest of his family, at the absolute least. At least he knew where he stood when someone put a dagger to his throat, eh?

11. What would your Tav consider to be their greatest flaw? Is this accurate?

Leo’s list of personal accusations is… fairly extensive. Unreliable of judgement, more coward than could be respectable, at the very least selfishly interested in keeping his own life. He’s a far harsher critic than need be, but there’s… a kernel of truth to his penchant for making ill-advised decisions. He could benefit a lot from giving himself a bit more grace that a lot of his more “questionable” decisions are motivated out of some flavor of fear (and who wouldn’t be overwhelmed when faced with a mindflayer invasion and a growing cult to some new god you’ve never heard of [no, he didn’t pay that great of attention to his history lessons, but how much does that really matter right now?!]). His biggest trouble maker is generally the whole package of misconstrued flaws and blame; Leo’s lack of… confidence? kindness? For himself usually leads him deeper into a cycle of acting in ways that fit the narrative of selfish, skittish, short of patience, and whichever other unflattering monikers he deems fit for the day than allowing him some space to recognize such fears and needs for a place to belong or fit in root from a not particularly supportive youth spent failing to meet lofty and often cutting expectations, mostly set by his father.

21. How does your Tav feel about love?

A darling subject for songs. Everyone loves a good ballad. He’d rather down several pints of questionable and not even particularly good ale than wrangle with the feeling in his chest that spawns from hearing the word and the memories it sparks of that other bard he spent a not insignificant amount of time learning from and spending time with. It’s nice. And it’s sweet - so he hears. It seems tempting to give a lot to enjoy the feeling of someone else’s hand nestled perfectly in one of yours, or to lose track of hours in an evening simply because you’re lost in the stars of their eyes…

What? No, he’s not wistful or hurting or missing anyone in particular. Shut up. How could you? He’s a bard, flowery words for all of this is just what he’s supposed to be good at!

(He’d… love it, to be ungraceful.) To be ungraceful but accepted with another.

He wants it. He tells himself he’ll settle for the mere physical sensations of closeness to another.

Nothing else has ever worked out to plan for him, after all. Might as well let others name the role for him and merely fill it. Maybe he isn’t the smoothest, most charismatic liar or charmer you’ve ever met, but he’s a performer by trade, right? At least he might be good for something, then.

22. Has your Tav become particularly close to anyone romantically and/or platonically in their journey? If so, who, and what is the relationship like? If no, why not?

Well, I’ll say I ruined my sleep schedule to finish the goblin camp last night and Leo’s love life in this party is frankly a fucking mess, which is just about what I expected, knowing him kafnalds;flsdf. I don’t think he knows what he wants yet.

Wyll’s charming - far more a righteous heart than Leo could ever see himself being. He is a darling hero. Those always make for charming songs. He’s sweet. Good. The kind word Leo can’t help but crave to hear. But maybe too good for him. It seems he’s got quite enough going on without adding… whatever… [vague gesturing] Leo’s got going on. The reasonable one, maybe. The type that would be in the thick of goblins and monsters and cultists and trying to save the world. Leo would be lying (and probably poorly, if the blush is to say anything) if he tried to claim he wasn’t interested in seeing the Blade’s dance or sharing a drink sometime. And maybe he’s a little curious what it’d be like to kiss those scars and ridges. Tempting…

Karlach and him need to be friends, I think. Absolutely wonderful, disastrous (positive) friends. Karlach’s just a powerhouse of energy for life - with a heart of adventure, a mouth just as good at ass-kicking as her strength of arms, and really just an all-around kind of alive and kicking that might just be as contagious or more than the heat of her engine. If she wouldn’t entirely singe him, she could absolutely pick Leo clean up off the ground and spin him around. I quite think she will, assuming they can make sure he wouldn’t roast in the process. To give him the opportunity to know what it’s like to be tall, y’know! Friends in hijinks energy.

And I think… Astarion might have his fangs in a bit more than his neck, for better or worse. Part of me wants to say of course you would, Leo. Because… of course he would. I’m not sure it’s genuinely affection and charm just yet - and Leo’s not exactly fully aware of the full scope of scheming it could be, exactly. He’s probably just aware enough that it could be little more than convenience and some sort of play at power or… some such, but he doesn’t particularly… care. At the moment. If it is just that. Which I’d say has the potential to backfire on both of them and accidentally get feelings in the mix if they keep going like this. Leo had sort of resigned himself to the physical nature of it, but there’s an undeniable charm to being called darling that Leo might… just forget to keep his head on straight [as if anything about him is] about.

And I’m… wondering how him and Gale are going to get along in the long run. Something about ambition between the two of them might end up scratching my brain, but it’s a bit too early for me to tell just where they’re going. Given Leo’s absolutely haphazard sense of direction though, that little bit of magic shared one night might’ve left Leo blushing and both of them stumbling a bit for more eloquent speech. We’ll just have to stay tuned for this one.

#answered #dot talk #dot's bg3 tag #bg3 tav #vs: the only things the foolish need are a suitcase and a trunk | bg!leo

[enderspawn]

theres this fic idea i’ve been thinking of for a long while now (honestly i've had this specific post drafted since may of this year, so maybe since january or so) and want to eventually write one day, but if im being honesty with myself i'm not sure if i ever will, so im at least putting it out there now.

its a chip analysis piece (likely in some kind of 5+1 format, primarily from jay’s POV) specifically between chip and his relationship with food. the simple fact he’s always been this scrawny malnourished street kid when growing up outside of the black rose means a lot to me, and it would likely cause a lot of habits or behaviors the others wouldnt have or possibly even understand to begin with which would be a fun thing to explore and how it can reveal more abt him.

scenes/topics that would be Covered will be under cut

1 ---

the first thing that immediately comes to mind is an analysis and expansion upon his canon interactions with food in canon, such as the bag of chip’s jay gives him on loffinlot or the cinnamon roll incident

for one, the fact that jay carries snacks at all is kind of indicative and would likely be the focus. use jay's pov to explain how she’s learned to bring snacks on adventures since teaming with chip (likely with comments being somewhat snide or huffy about it, or comparing him to a child demanding/needing a snack, since they are still kind of strangers and she doesn’t know much about chip).

(if desired, it could also expand on how he fuckin’ made that small bag of chips last so long. yes the true answer is “because it was funny” but like… rationing behavior? jay might make an absent note of it (due to her observant feat), but wouldn’t likely extrapolate further at the time. also may be cut entirely for messing with story flow too much to include as a detail.)

the cinnamon roll scene is… listen he literally tried to share food with someone and broke down crying doing so because he loves them and wants to share that. obvious example of using food as a language for love and appreciation (which, again, takes on another level when you remember he comes from a food-scarce background). like thats just a thing that happened i don’t care if it was a goof that’s just canon. bite me. 

2 ---

observation of chip having "weird" behaviors with food. these include having a seemingly massive appetite and being sure to always clean his plate (you don’t turn down access to food and you take what you can in case you can’t do it again soon.) 

but also: as part of chip kind of projecting onto ollie, he’s always trying to pawn more food onto ollie’s plate. sometimes it’s as subtle as saying he’s “not hungry anymore” and scrapping whats left to ollie (which would catch jay’s eye because previously he’s always finished his plate even when full and clues her in) to as obvious as literally giving him more and saying he needs to eat more.

both the above points would be stuff jay would 1. spot and 2. actually take note of/care about, around after desire island or so. 

3 ---

immediately after leaving allport, i think seeing reuben would bring back a bunch of chip's old habits and cause him to backslide a bit. after all, even if they were a “family”, they were also still a gang of street rats. on instinct, he would end up showing a lot of food guarding habits (being overly protective of people taking it, hiding food in a stash, etc). he likely also had these habits for a while after joining with jay and gillion, but after episode 16 when they started slowly getting closer the habits faded because he knew he could trust them. 

4 ---

this is such a minor point in comparison to the rest of this list but i can see it so clearly in my brain. chip has an apple (likely stolen tbh) and he takes a bite out of it and leans against a wall. jay either makes a snide comment towards him about it or just snorts or something, prompting chip to hold it up towards her and go “you want some?” in a snarky way (speaking with his mouth full all the while).

jay rolls her eyes and says yes and gets startled when chip actually throws her the apple. she yelps, catching it, then throws it back immediately while yelling something like “ew, no, you took a bite of it already! i was kidding! gross!” chip feigns being wounded and retorts with something like “and here i was willing to expose myself to your stink getting on my apple–” and cue bickering between them about cooties. 

he just straight up was willing to share the apple, thoughts abt "the fact he already bit into it" don’t register for him bc its such a non-issue in his mind. he offers to share about any food he has/makes because its a silent way to show he cares. i don’t think he’s fully conscious of that fact though. in general i think chip responds a lot better to subtle actions showing love than words of love and this is just another example of that from him

(following this is likely where cinnamon roll scene would go in the fic, both timeline-wise and thematically, since this section is focused more or less on "sharing your food as a sign of love")

5 ---

this next section would be the most plot heavy or traditional “fic” affair, in that it’s not solely fluff padding/analysis and has some original storybits.

the crew would be stranded on an island. i don’t know how exactly, but the key parts is that they don’t have their ship, there’s no one else on the island, and they have limited resources/rations. presumably they know rescue is coming, but ideally they don’t know exactly when (for drama purposes, as well as to make proper rationing out supplies p much impossible). perhaps the grandberry crew is on their way to save them, but they ended up on this island after a storm and don’t know where they are to point the grandberry pirates to. something like that.

actually, this plays out very similarly to the ollie part as detailed earlier, but to the left. as the crew starts to struggle with rations, chip would start (subtly when possible) start giving up his own portions. either by feigning lack of appetite, persuasion, deception, etc. the closest he comes to stating the truth would be when someone (likely ollie) asks if he’ll be okay going without his portion and chip shrugs then leans back on his elbows with a smirk and goes “nah, i’m used to it anyway.”

this is when the rest of the crew also starts to pick up on chip’s behaviors, to the point it becomes a bit of an unspoken secret they don’t want to dig into. previously, and the reason the entire fic is from Jay's POV, shes been the only one observant enough to take notice off all these traits. this is when it becomes So obvious everyone notices it.

6 ---

preferably, near the beginning of the story (likely after the chip bag incident, but before jay starts noticing all of chip’s behaviors, so that she cares for him more than she’s annoyed by him but hasn't put together any real dots-- between section 1 and 2), there would be a section where chip is mocked for his short height (as the shortest of the crew, at around 5’4) and being VERY easy for gillion to carry. 

then, after the island section (section 5), there would be another part where chip’s height and weight are commented on. i'm undecided if this would be another light hearted goof scene or a more “dramatic” serious scene (which if it was it would likely be tied to the island incident. maybe an injury or argument or something?).

either way, it happens because jay ends up lifting/carrying chip. jay “8 in strength” ferin. he’s just fuckin light. afterwards, chip would explain saying something like “its not my fault! cause like– outside of arlin, i was kind of a street rat growing up, yknow? they arent particularly known for having a stable food situation, didn’t get all the nutrients and junk you need to grow tall”. it starts as a joke and a kind of light-hearted ribbing defense, but kind of sobers up in that melancholic-nostalgic way by the end.

it’s the first time he directly states anything abt his upbringing and food to his crew, but its a confirmation. well, its a confirmation for jay. everyone else definitely knew something was going on, but jay is the one who is able to connect all the pieces bc she’s the only one whos noticed all the other pieces. she gets the Whole Picture of how his childhood and upbringing caused all these behaviors and kind of what they imply abt chip's behavior now (like the food sharing as love, smothering ollie, etc)

+ 1 ---

for a cheesy ending bonus, have jay use a mix of chip’s anecdotes abt the black rose and drey’s shaky memory to try and cook up a meal he used to have there. (for bonus, if desired she could reach out to lizzie too since lizzie lived with the old chef shay).

depending on author preference, either its good and chip cries because of the ~*memories*~ and the fact they cared enough, or it’s comically awful and not much at all like the original but the sole fact that they went out of their way to very obviously try SO hard to surprise him with this because they thought it would make him happy (as well as trying to speak to him in his own love language) makes him cry about it anyway. 

(again, chip responds better to acts of love than words-- having his crew not only notice this abt him, but then do something to try and show that love hits him way harder than anything else could)

#jrwi #jrwi riptide #riptide #chip #ive sat on this for So long please acknowledge me JFKDLSJFKL #also i know i said i want to write it and i. still do! #but like. idk man. if anyone else gets inspired from this you can at least Ask if you can and you might get a yes. it depends fjdskflj #fanfic #(jeb bush voice) please clap #the. the fuckin acts of service post from hours ago caused this to ricochet back into my brain #and i want it Out please i need to read about contract law rn sir plea-- #anyway. ''heres a fic idea i have'' my brother in christ the post is 1.7k #jrwi spoilers

[whatdoyoumeanitsnotcanon]

Hi! Your blog has become one of my absolute favorites super quickly! I love how much thought you put into your work whenever you post, it’s wonderful! You’ve even gotten me into characters I hadn’t even put much thought into previously, and it’s been a joy to explore your interpretations of them.

With that being said, I’d love to know if you have any hcs for what marriage and “official consort” life would be like with Radahn and Morgott, and anyone else if this happens to resonate with you for other characters.

Anyways, thank you for your time, and I hope you have a lovely rest of your night!

Morning, anon, and thank you so very much for your kind words. I try my best and I'm truly glad you enjoy my blog!

Now, without further ado:

Regarding Morgott:

Morgott never thought he'd get married. In fact, he was certain he'd remain alone for the rest of his life.

So when he actually does get married, not only is he shocked (despite proposing and his consort saying yes, quite happily might I add) during the engagement period, but maintains his disbelief even after the vows have been said and the ink is dry. Even years after the wedding, I can see him having moments where he's like, "By the Erdtree, I am married." Yes, Morgott, you are married.

It's an adjustment period for both parties. Morgott because he's so used to being alone and his days filled with relative silence. It was deafening, really. Now he's never known a livelier household. For his consort, I'd imagine the idea of being Lord/Lady of Leyndell is so daunting. What if they don't make a good consort? What if they never connect to the people? WHY ARE THERE SO MANY STEPS? Not to fear, however, their lovely King is there to help them.

The day-to-day affairs can be (read: are) boring, though. Even Morgott admits to that, but his consort spends the first couple of years getting to know the logistics and responsibilities of co-ruling and Morgott is there every step of the way.

Eventually, they become confident enough to voice their own opinions regarding certain legislation. I can see his consort being particularly vocal when it comes to the treatment of Omens and the Shunning Grounds.

Morgott is the Brains and his consort is the Heart. They make a pretty effective team.

They also teach Morgott the value of self-care and adequate sleep.

Their mornings and nights will always be spent with each other.

Making out in the throne room is pretty hot, too.

Regarding Radahn: (Spoiler alert: my next Radahn x Reader fic is actually about him proposing.)

WHOOO, boy, he's like a kid in a candy shop.

His loved ones have never seen him so excited before. He may get a bit too excited sometimes because random objects in his vicinity start gravitating in midair.

One of the best damn days in his life was his wedding. He may or may not have cried.

Radahn is so damn honored that his consort said yes. He promises to make them the happiest spouse in the Lands Between. And he will make do on that promise.

Actually, both parties promise each other that and given how Radagon and Rennala's marriage ended, they hold each other to it.

Nothing really changes in their relationship other than Radahn becoming more protective even if they know how to defend themselves. And he continues to spoil the shit out of his consort. Wherever he goes, they will be at his side. Or in his arms. Hell, their feet would never touch the ground if he had his way.

Double the attention for Leonard.

Double the kisses and laughter for the couple.

If they argue, of course, it'll never last long.

Now his men have another parent. One who also blesses them with horrible dad humor.

Radahn has something to truly fight for. He fights with all the ferocity in the world so he can come back to his consort's arms once again.

I also like to think that it was also during his engagement that he had one of the most open conversations with Radagon since marrying Marika. Of course, he doesn't get the whole story though I think Radagon would have alluded to it. Radahn leaves the conversation with renewed conviction and Radagon silently prays their marriage is a loving one. But then he remembers how determined his son is and knows he has nothing to worry about. Radahn carries his lovely mother's spirit after all...

#morgott the omen king #starscourge radahn #elden ring #elden crack. #crackcanon. #morgott x reader #radahn x reader

[patron-minette]

Analysing Montparnasse and Éponine’s character dynamics

It is clear that Hugo refrained from defining the relationship between Éponine and Montparnasse, only giving us occasional acknowledgements of a connection between them that is going on in the background of what we as readers get to observe in Les Misérables. We do not directly get to see them together alone, nor do we get any glimpses of dialogue between them without being in the presence of other characters. But, it is made clear that these characters do spend time alone together, and that Éponine is significantly closer to Montparnasse than she is to other members of the Patron-Minette.

Why do I care about this dynamic so much? Because, by analysing Montparnasse and Éponine’s complex relationship throughout the text, I feel that we gain opportunities to understand these characters and their motivations on a deeper level. I have a lot of thoughts on this so below I am going to explore what can be interpreted (beyond the fact that they are sleeping together) between these characters throughout the text, apologies for the long post! [All quotes mentioned below are from the Julie Rose translation of the text]

 ‘Némorin’ – The Gorbeau Ambush

As you might know, it is after the Gorbeau ambush where Hugo gives us an open acknowledgement of Éponine and Montparnasse sleeping together:

Montparnasse, in fact, had run into Éponine on the boulevard where she was keeping watch under the trees and had taken her away with him, preferring to play Némorin to the daughter rather than Schinderhannes to the father.

I will not delve too deep into this quote as it is probably quite a familiar one. But, the tl;dr is Montparnasse would rather seduce Éponine than partake in business with the Patron-Minette and Thénardier. Aside from this obvious nod to Montparnasse and Éponine’s antics– there are sprinklings throughout the Gorbeau sequence indicating that this behaviour from them, (or rather, this behaviour from Montparnasse) – is perhaps quite frequent:

‘Where’s Montparnasse, then?’

‘The juvenile lead stopped for a bit of a chin-wag with your daughter.’

The nonchalance of this dialogue between Thénardier and Babet surely suggests that it is not new for Montparnasse to not show up to jobs. It also playfully implies that it is not too unusual for Montparnasse to not show up to a job because he is specifically talking to Éponine. I find it interesting that Julie Rose chooses to translate the phrase as ‘chin-wag’ here too, which is a term usually reserved for good friends and/or used in a suggestive manner. It comes as no surprise to either Thénardier or Babet that Montparnasse would be doing this, they don’t even seem particularly bothered by his absence or annoyed at the reason for it, and Montparnasse’s youth and indolence shine through as a result of his decision making here. Babet even calls Montparnasse the ‘juvenile lead’, so it is clear that there is still much for Montparnasse to learn about the world of crime and criminal business with the Patron-Minette, he is just lucky that the gang lets him get away with slinking off instead of doing this particular job!

Although I have only thus far looked at what the Némorin sequence can tell us about Montparnasse, it is, more importantly, also a moment that I personally believe is fundamental for furthering our understanding of Éponine’s character. I find this so important to highlight because the idea of Éponine letting herself be led away by Montparnasse greatly confuses how we might characterise her, and how we view her relationship with Marius – which I think is necessary to do if we are to grasp a better, more complex understanding of her.

By hearing of Montparnasse and Éponine going off together we are not so easy to fall into the trap of viewing Éponine one-dimensionally and perceiving her as a character being wholly in love with Marius as a person. Éponine does not love Marius, rather she loves the idea of Marius and what he represents (and even then, I still find that ‘love’ is a bit of a stretch of a word!). I will not get myself side-tracked here but it seems to me that she is enamoured by Marius because he contrasts her miserable life and she yearns for the purity and energy and sheer *life* that he embodies. To put it simply, Marius comes across as a nice escapism from her horrible life. Really, to generalise, receiving human affection from literally any character in this story would be a nice form of escapism for Éponine. So, it only seems logical that she would let herself be led away from the Gorbeau slum by Montparnasse. Gorbeau is a literal physical representation of all the poverty and crime that she has to live around and be involved in. Of course she would walk away from it all to instead spend the night with Montparnasse is all his bourgeois finery. According to Babet, we know that Montparnasse stops and seeks her out specifically – is that not the sort of basic human affection that would provide a momentary escapism for Éponine? Who wouldn’t let themselves be led by Montparnasse if they were in Éponine’s position in that exact moment. However, I don’t mean that we should then assume that, since Éponine lets herself go off with Montparnasse, she could harbour romantic feelings for him – that would be an appalling oversimplification of things. This isn’t about love or romance. Sleeping with Montparnasse is an escapism for her, just as her infatuation with Marius is an escapism too.

Without meaning to go back to Montparnasse, if Hugo was expecting readers to scratch their heads in confusion and think of Éponine’s infatuation with Marius when reading of Éponine and Montparnasse playing Némorin – then perhaps he also expects us to pick up on the parallels and contrasts between Marius and Montparnasse at this moment too. Some especially interesting discussions to be had there; with Montparnasse being a gamin that dresses up in finery to appear as a bourgeois, and Marius contrastingly being born as a bourgeois, but at this point in the novel has rejected his grandfather and has gone to live in Gorbeau slum. However, I shall not digress any further than I already have and shall leave this point for another time.

  •

Right, so we’ve now established that Montparnasse and Éponine have slept together at least once, with it being more likely that this is happening at least on a semi-regular basis. But this doesn’t mean that there’s any meaning to it, Éponine is looking for escapism and Montparnasse is just chasing simple pleasures, right? We all know that Montparnasse couldn’t really care about Éponine, or about anyone other than himself… right?

Montparnasse himself, though in a way practically Thénardier’s son-in-law, gave in

Hmm… that’s an interesting detail…

I must confess that I am being a bit deceitful here, as the above quote originally is contextually applied to show readers how weirdly loyal Montparnasse is to Thénardier during the prison escape section of Les Misérables, and it should not be used to a form of explicit proof of something more going on between Éponine and Montparnasse. Although, I do find it genuinely noteworthy that Montparnasse is an almost ‘son-in-law’ rather than being simply compared to a ‘son’, in this very detail it seems as if Hugo wants to remind readers of Montparnasse and Éponine sneaking off instead of keeping watch, which arguably contributes to Thénardier’s arrest.

However, this unusual sense of loyalty shown for Thénardier by Montparnasse does create new potential consequences if we were to break it down in relation to Montparnasse’s relationship with Éponine later in the story. Primarily, it shows that Montparnasse is indeed capable of caring for people. It also greatly challenges the perception that Montparnasse is simply an idler. In the prison-break sequence, it is Montparnasse who remains determined to stay and wait for Thénardier, despite the other Patron-Minette members suggestions otherwise.

‘[…] Cock an ear, Montparnasse, d’you hear all the yapping in the clink? You saw all those fireflies. He’s been busted again! So now he’ll be doing his twenty long ones. I don’t want to get the wind up, I’m no chicken, that’s a known fact, but we can’t lounge around here all day – otherwise they’ll have our hides. Don’t blow a gasket, come with us, let’s hit the bottle together.’

‘You don’t leave your friends in the lurch,’ snapped Montparnasse.

Montparnasse, turning down the opportunity to go off and not do a job – and instead actually choosing to wait for Thénardier?! Doesn’t sound like the typical behaviour of an idler to me. In fact, Montparnasse has really gone above-and-beyond for Thénardier here, as the rest of the Patron-Minette do not consider this as a “job” but rather an entirely optional endeavour.

There seems to be a certain sides to Montparnasse that indicate that he wants to prove himself to other criminal characters in this story, whilst also having his fun and sneaking off to chase other, more pleasurable pursuits instead of doing any work. Whilst we see him previous at Gorbeau choosing leisure over the job, here he entirely rejects the idea of going off and hitting the bottle with the rest of the Patron-Minette. He is simultaneously so nonchalant about his role within the Patron-Minette, yet fiercely loyal to them to the point that his loyalty even extends unto Thénardier, despite the fact that Thénardier is not even officially a part of the Patron-Minette and that none of the other Patron-Minette characters feel particularly loyal to him (they call him an ‘amateur’ and do not take him seriously). Why is Montparnasse loyal to Thénardier explicitly, when other Patron-Minette characters are not? To be honest, I am not entirely certain. Sure, I could really overanalyse the ‘son-in-law’ quote and come up with such overarching interpretations like, “Montparnasse is loyal to Thénardier because he cares about Éponine and is looking for approval from her father” – but I really do not think that is the case here.

Regardless of what exactly has motivated Montparnasse to be so loyal to Thénardier, the prison break sequence is very important for setting up this opposition within his character between idleness and duty and how they all interconnect and influence his emotions. This factor is essential for analysing Éponine and Montparnasse’s exchange during the rue Plumet scene, which we shall delve into below.

‘My very dear friend Monsieur Montparnasse’ – Rue Plumet

The rue Plumet sequence is the only time in the novel that we get to hear dialogue between Montparnasse and Éponine – so, naturally, this section has become the longest on this post for which I apologise.

We (likely) all know that during the rue Plumet scene, Éponine takes a particular focus on Montparnasse – when she first recognises the Patron-Minette are at the gates she greets them all, but adopts a much more casual tone with Montparnasse, asking him ‘How are things?’. She also takes his hand and speaks to him individually at various points during the scene, arguably paying more attention to him than the other Patron-Minette characters present at the gates.

Éponine took Montparnasse’s hand

‘Watch out!’ he said ‘You’ll cut yourself, I’ve got a blade out.’

‘My dear Montparnasse,’ Éponine replied very sweetly, ‘you must learn to trust people. I am my father’s daughter after all […]’

Let me be clear; this isn’t Éponine showing any true affection for Montparnasse. This is Éponine attempting to manipulate Montparnasse and stop him, along with her father and the rest of the Patron-Minette from entering the building. However, this is very telling of how Éponine views her relationship with Montparnasse – she evidently believes that she has some power over to him to manipulate his feelings. She must think it is a possibility that he would listen to her and not go in… which would mean she thinks he must care about her to some degree. If she did not think this should have would not spoken to Montparnasse any differently from how she was talking to the other Patron-Minette members, and would likely have chosen her latter approach of backing against the gate and beginning her defiant speech at an earlier point. Éponine’s dialogue to Montparnasse is even openly described as being her ‘last-ditch effort’ to stop Patron-Minette from breaking in. Even more interestingly, Éponine’s final plea to Montparnasse comes directly after Thénardier pushes her aside:

‘Get the hell out of here!’ cried Thénardier, ‘When we’ve turned the joint upside down and we’ve put the cellar up top and the attic down below we’ll tell you what’s inside and if its francs, sous, or centimes.’

And he pushed her aside to get past.

‘My very dear friend Monsieur Montparnasse,’ said Éponine ‘please, you’re a good boy, don’t go in!’

‘Be careful, you’ll cut yourself!’ replied Montparnasse.

Why would Éponine’s reaction to being shoved aside by her own father be to then beg Montparnasse to not go in? I still am unsure myself, but it certainly indicates she sees enough of a relationship between herself and Montparnasse to at least briefly consider that he might take her side here rather than remain loyal to Thénardier.

What really strikes me as odd in the rue Plumet sequence is how awkward Montparnasse feels here (at least, I find him to be very awkward in this scene). Sure, he starts off in his usual manner, and is even perhaps a little flirty, telling Éponine that ‘It is the hour for foxes, not the hour for chicks’. But, then his dialogue remains off from his usual character as Éponine asks him to not enter the house. He does not respond directly to Éponine once in this scene, instead only responding to remind her to ‘watch out’ and not cut herself on his blade. This is particularly interesting since all of the other Patron-Minette characters present in this scene directly engage with Éponine and actively talk about the job at hand – Montparnasse doesn’t really do either… Why doesn’t he shout at Éponine and tell her that he will break in with the others whether she likes it or not, instead of awkwardly standing there and not really taking a side?

Is it just that he is shocked by her actions and doesn’t know how to react? Does he have some level of feeling towards her and genuinely is not sure who to side with? Is he embarrassed by her? If I was in Montparnasse’s shoes, I certainly wouldn’t want to be called a ‘good boy’ in front of my criminal associates and be singled out by Éponine. Right now, it matters not what exactly caught Montparnasse off-guard here. What is important however is how he reacts when he eventually comes around to his senses again:

‘There’s something up with her,’ said Babet, ‘some reason. D’you reckon she’s fallen in love with the mutt? […]’

‘Well, then, in you go, the rest of you,’ cried Montparnasse. ‘Do the business. I’ll stay here with the girl, and if she moves a muscle –’

He flashed the switchblade that he held open up his sleeve in the light of the streetlamp.

I have always found Montparnasse’s dialogue here absolutely fascinating as it is completely unclear – or, at least, completely unclear to me, what the motivation behind his threat was. I present the two most suitable interpretation options that I can think of below that go beyond simple anger:

 1) Montparnasse is embarrassed, and uses his threat as a way of “proving himself” to the Patron-Minette as a fierce and brutal criminal. You might think ‘but why would Montparnasse care about proving himself to this criminal group when he’s been shown before as not bothering to show up to jobs and instead choosing to spend time with Éponine?’ and yes, you are clearly right, but as demonstrated in the prison break sequence above there are other times where Montparnasse demonstrates strong loyalty to the Patron-Minette. On top of this, we know he is a man that cares strongly about his image. Perhaps he is enraged at how he has been embarrassed and perhaps even emasculated by Éponine in front of his criminal seniors – and threatens her in order to gain their approval again. Let’s not forget that the Patron-Minette are also likely aware of Montparnasse and Éponine’s regular rendezvous (at the very least we are almost certain that Babet knows thanks to his ‘chin-wag’ dialogue mentioned above during the Gorbeau ambush), and that Montparnasse has at least once before chosen Éponine over doing work. Perhaps he now sees this as his opportunity to “step up” and choose his work over her, especially after he did not really openly take the gang’s side at the beginning of the rue Plumet section. Perhaps he is also jealous and angry on top of his embarrassment, after Babet suggests that Éponine could have fallen for ‘the mutt’? There is a lot to unpack here.

This interpretation is also supported by Montparnasse mentioning to Babet ‘All the same, if they’d wanted me to, I’d have finished her off’ as the Patron-Minette disperse at the end of this scene. It seems that Montparnasse might be seeking out some approval here for threatening Éponine, and certainly is trying to make himself appear tougher by stating he would have been indifferent about killing her. Unfortunately, this approval-seeking backfires terribly as Babet quips back with ‘Not me. I don’t touch women’.

 2) Montparnasse is full of lust, and using his threat as a way of getting the others to leave so that he is alone with Éponine. Okay – please, hear me out. I know this sounds a little absurd, but let the dialogue shown early in this scene be again considered here. Whilst it is probably hugely embarrassing for Montparnasse to have Éponine hold his hand and call him a ‘dear friend’ and a ‘good boy’ in the rue Plumet scene, it could also easily be viewed as flirtatious (as I mentioned above, I fully think Éponine is trying to be flirtatious here – as I highly doubt she actually thinks she would be able to get Montparnasse on her side without flirting with him). And, thanks to what is implied during the Gorbeau ambush, we know Montparnasse would probably prefer to go off with Éponine again instead of doing business…

I find it very interesting that Montparnasse is keen that it’s only him that keeps a watch of Éponine and that all of the others go in. And yes, while he does make an open threat against Éponine with his knife out – I remain unconvinced that he was planning on actually killing her. From Montparnasse’s perspective, I’m sure that there are much better things he and Éponine could do together instead of him killing her or standing on watch. And, if his threat was wholly genuine, why did he not slit Éponine’s throat there and then? We know that Thénardier was ‘ready to be led’, so there was nothing really stopping Montparnasse from doing it if he had seriously wanted to.

To me, the rue Plumet sequence establishes an important parallel between Montparnasse and Éponine in terms of understanding who their loyalties lie with. By the end of this sequence, it becomes clear that Montparnasse’s loyalties will always primarily lie with the Patron-Minette (even if it takes him a little longer to openly show this), and Éponine’s loyalties shall always remain as her own. However, despite this tension regarding loyalties, we simultaneously witness glimpses indicating that these characters have a sense of care for each other, perhaps it is false care on Éponine’s side but with Montparnasse… it feels a little more genuine – even if it is only for a fleeting moment as he warns her about cutting herself on his knife.

•

To summarise…

So, why have a written this unnecessarily long rant about Éponine and Montparnasse? Because there’s so much between them that I think needs to be acknowledged and explored. Clearly, no matter how hard we try to analyse these characters we will never be able to quite grasp their relationship – but perhaps that is the point. The “situationship” between Éponine and Montparnasse is probably left ambiguous because it seems to be something that is ambiguous from the perspectives of their characters too. I should also note that Montparnasse and Éponine do not have the “luxury” to be able to process their emotions and feelings in the same way that other characters are able to. When you have to focus all of your attention on simply surviving under such cruel circumstances – surely you cannot have the time nor drive to think of such marginal things as feelings and emotion.

However, the scenes above clearly make an effort to emphasise that Montparnasse and Éponine’s relationship does go beyond them being simply acquaintances. Sure, Montparnasse and Éponine both exist in the same circles and share the same social group, but neither of them have anyone that particularly seems to care about them so perhaps that is why they seek each other out.

What Éponine and Montparnasse have certainly isn’t love, and it’s not friendship either… but their dynamic certainly goes beyond them just sleeping together. It seems that there is some sort of bond between them that is at least partially based on some level of care, and honestly I wish that Hugo would have given us more to explore around it.

#montparnasse #eponine #eponine thenardier #montparnasse x eponine #meta #les miserables #les mis #the brick #némorin

[swannposting]

What are some background facts/headcanons you want to tell about your fic "An Innocent Question"?

Ah!! ♡ Thank you for reading, that fic is my pride and joy and might be my favorite thing I've written.

First off, I should let you know that I am actually working on a sequel of sorts. I really want to expand on this ship because I think there's fun potential there. But as always I must apologize in advance for the slowness of my writing. Muse is a very fickle thing for me.

So-- I do have Elizabeth in that fic as being gender non-conforming both in presentation and identity. I wish I would have gone into more detail on that in An Innocent Question, but the focus of that fic was a lot more on the smut so I chose to leave it just at the mention of binding her chest for now.

Due to the historical nature of the canon, I don't think I'll ever write her as establishing her identity in the more definable terms that we use today, but I am very intrigued by the idea of having her use he/him pronouns at times. I plan on using her relationship with Scarlett as an avenue for Elizabeth to play with gender roles. I would love to have her replicate some of the courtship norms that were prevalent at the time from the male perspective, both as a way for her to explore her own relationship with gender, and as a way for her to reflect on the implied period of courtship she has with Will between CotBP and DMC. (Side note: I have been very inspired and enlightened by @elventhespian 's ongoing fic Best Laid Plans, which goes in-depth on what that span of time was like for Will and Elizabeth, with a ton of historical background. Check it out! ♡)

So, some background on the dynamics I had in mind while writing that fic-- as some of you may already know, I'm a big fan of poly relationships in fiction. So when I wrote An Innocent Question, I had already somewhat decided that I wanted Elizabeth and Will to have an open marriage. I chose that mostly because I wanted to keep the fic (and any potential sequels) as lighthearted as possible, and to give Elizabeth the opportunity to build relationships and explore sexuality with other characters, while still maintaining her canonical devotion to Will. Long story short, in my mind, Spillabeth (J/W/E) is pre-established in that fic, though I did not mention it in the text. I do plan on delving into that a bit in another installment, though the focus will still remain on her budding relationship with Scarlett.

As far as Scarlett-- I'm still mulling over ideas for further development of her character beyond the 2-D nature of her appearances in canon. The PotC films have a tragic lack of women, and I want to take the time to flesh her out more, even if it takes a few different works to fully figure out what that looks like. If anyone has any suggestions or thoughts about her, I would love to hear them!

That's all I've got for now. Again, thank you thank you thank you for reading my work, and thank you for the opportunity to yap about my blorbos! ♡

#answered asks #rat's fic #elizabeth/scarlett tag

[ravenwitch45]

Just read a Hazbin/Helluva x Owl House fanfic you made and IT WAS AWSOME!!! Honestly I like seeing Amity, Edric, and Emira adopted by M&M, who we know are better parents than Odalia even though Alador is trying to be better, but it's still an amazing idea. Is there still some fanfic ideas based around it, if so could you share some details about the AU?

Ah those fics, it's been a while since I thought of them but I'm glad some people still stumble across them and enjoy them so much. I must admit though that the original asker for those fics @beastkeeper91 gave me that idea even though I took my own spin and wrote em, as well as a few others, but yes I suppose there are a few other ideas I didn't explore in either, some theirs, some my own and I'm happy to share a few.

But first since you just said fic, I'm gonna be safe and assume you only read one, and put both here, please read both before you go further cause I'm going to assume you've read both as I discuss the new stuff

(Note those are their reblogs of the fics, cause they were kind enough to send them to me so I could find them easier since this was a while ago, now the new stuff!)

First of all, since the Owl House has since wrapped up I guess I'll speak on M&Ms status during season 3, most likely they'd end up collected like everyone else, sad but that means Amity gets three parents to lovingly greet after everything is done, and Odalia isn't just the third wheel now, she's the fifth wheel! Cause she deserves it :3

Also Stolas and Blitz would probably be right with them, a little bitter but the whole crew gets the collector is a child and all, and if Amity thinks there okay, they'll listen to their daughter/niece. Speaking of daughters I still don't know what to do Octavia and Loona, sorry ladies XP

And since this is a somewhat M&M centric AU, I certainly can't just not mention the episode that most focuses on them and their relationship, Yep Exes and Oohs.

Crimson exists in this AU, but luckily Moxxie has of course cut ties with him, he still sucks essentially, and I don't hate Moxxie enough to have him dragged back. Not sure what he runs in this AU, cause I don't think the boiling isles has a straight up mob, but it's something Moxxie wants no part of. He's aware of his 'grandchildren' and I'm only air quoting that cause this man hardly deserves children, let alone grandchildren, he's never met them though, he is a little impressed with Amity after the brawl so he's intriqued.

Now that I think of it imagine the tension if while he's taking over running the company, Alador get's involved with Crimson, unaware of his shady dealings, and Moxxie just wants to explode right there when seeing him again. Oh lord the drama... And the possible bonding with his kids when they find out that just like them he had a bad parent like they did in Odalia

On a lighter note, how about we talk about some funny scenarios with the funny shark man?

Chaz in this AU, is on much better terms with his exes, and kinda acts like an unwanted uncle to the blight kids, often joking he might just get back together with M&M to become their dad. Ed and Em find him amusing, and kinda get their sense of humor from him at times, and Amity can't stand him one bit, though she is nicer in this AU to start so she's at least cordial with him, agree with who you like.

Moxxie and Millie however, kinda keep him on a short leash when around their kids, none of his usual horn dog behavior as you'd expect, and Moxxie says he'll just steal Chaz's voice if he ever does it in front of em. Which is usual successful, so the kids just see him as the weird uncle, who just acts very awkward round their parents.

Speaking of magic, Chaz is a bard, just like Moxxie in this AU, though Chaz uses his voice for his magic, while Moxxie and say Raine use instruments, his magic looks like green and teal sound waves. Not sure what or if he'd branch off into other stuff after the sigils removed, maybe illusions for like stage effects but that's just me XP Still figuring stuff out for him.

Now this is an idea completely given to me by good ol beastkeeper. Now in this AU I.M.P doesn't exist as we know it, which I felt was for the best not only cause portals are a much more serious thing in TOH, but also not exactly a great career to have when your daughter ends up with a human girlfriend. XP

My original idea was that they kinda had a club during their hexside days and that's kinda how they got so close, but after graduating they all kinda ended up doing different things while staying in touch, Moxxie became a Bard, Mille an Abomination expert, and Blitz a beastkeeper, but then Beastkeeper proposed I used an idea there using in their own Helluvaverse/TOH AU, check it out, it's a little dark but still neat I think.

Anyway they proposed a new company, I.A.S. Imp Appreciation Soceity, essentially activists for equal treatment, now in my AU Imps are just a type of biped demon, same with Goetias, Shark Demons etc. But I reason that Belos, in his puritan head, ended up getting Imps considered lesser and more "wild" then other types, mainly cause they resemble classic ideas of demons the most, cause Belos is an asshole, no surprise there.

Anyway that means they still technichally work together. That's about as much as I've explored it in my head. Either way I find it cool.

The last thing I wanna mention is a few miscellaneous ideas I have thought up but don't feel have enough layed out to say much about, I want a little plot of Blitz and Luz working together and bonding, protagonist solidarity and all. Also of course figure out what Loona and Octavia are like in this.

Also figuring out a ton of hexside time stuff, how they all met, how they interacted, how the parents possibly did. tons of stuff, but I hope for now this is a good bit of information for this AU, maybe ask later and I'll say even more who knows XP

#ask reply #helluva boss #the owl house #helluva millie #helluva moxxie #amity blight #edric blight #emira blight #helluva crimson #helluva chaz #chazwick thurman #blitzo #crossover #luz noceda #my writing #kinda

[the-amber-raven]

Um Hi can I ask this question? When did you think Bobby and Buck's relationship shifted and be seen as father and son?

Like S1 Bobby said Buck has this thing calling him pops but he said aren't family

In S3 Bobby said Buck isn't his kid

In S4 (from LS) Buck considers Bobby close to a dad

In S6 that's when Bobby finally agreed that he sees Buck as his kid

But it's weird because why does he refer Buck as Kid even if much younger ones come to the firehouse?

I think it was growing right from Season 1.

Bobby told Buck they weren't a family because he was actively trying to keep his distance from all of them. He was reacting to his own trauma. More eloquent people than me have spoken about how Buck helped break that barrier down. It's even explored pretty well in the coma episode as well actually - Bobby couldn't bring himself to keep maintaining distance. Hen and Chimney helped with that as well of course - but they'd had multiple captains by then and they were a bit jaded about it all so they weren't willing to push the status quo from the beginning as much as Buck was.

But neither of them were quite willing to admit what they were to each other then. If pressed, they would probably say Bobby was Bucks mentor. And you can see that mentoring relationship throughout the rest of S1 - he gives Buck advice about dealing with the job, about Abby... but then you can also see him doing things you wouldn't necessarily expect from a work mentor, like teaching him to cook and going to the hospital when he chokes on bread.

So those lines were blurred right from the beginning and in S2 it trudges along like that. Bobby is Bucks mentor but maybe goes that step further with being someone he can rely on beyond the work context (see: his support when Maddie is taken by Doug, Buck venting to him about Abby - that plaintive "don't tell anyone" when Buck finally admits he knows its weird that he's still living in Abbys place? So son-coded.)

And then we get Season 3. That "Bucks not my kid"? That wasn't firm setting of boundaries like the "this is not a family" in S1. That was plaintive. He wanted it to be true, but he lost his kids and can't be a father anymore, so it isn't allowed to be true (even though Athena is pretty blatantly disbelieving and don't forget we as the audience also got hints of how heavily Bobby was involved in Bucks recovery which also points to their relationship being deeper than mentoring-Boss and employee).

And one thing the narrative tells us very explicitly through the lawsuit arc is that Bobby is treating Buck differently. Whether Buck should be back so soon after his embolism is almost a moot point to what this arc says about their relationship: Chimneys word was taken when he said he was ready to come back after the rebar and the stabbing, Hens word was taken when she said she was ready to come back after the earthquake, Eddie's word was taken when he said he was ready to be back after Shannon's death.

Bobby didn't take Bucks word because, while he is protective of all of his team, he takes it one step further with Buck and wants to just totally shield from as much as possible.

That's canon - Hen calls him out on it in the episode Buck comes back! And Bobby has to reckon with the idea that he can't rob Buck of his autonomy just because he wants to stop him from getting hurt, and that's how that arc ends (and I've spoken about how I think that leaves so much unresolved but at least we get some resolution for it in S6!)

But they are more settled in their understanding of their roles in each other's lives by the end of S3. To me, that's what their talk in the finale is supposed to signify.

And we then see it in S4, where Buck says outright "my captain isn't my dad but he might as well be".

And this is also the season we finally meet the Buckleys and the contrast between Phillip and Bobby (since we're focused on fathers and sons)? Immense. There's a fantastic gif set somewhere that says something along the lines of "what Phillip heard" and "What Bobby was there for".

And that sums up the difference: even when Buck was being objectively infuriating, Bobby stayed and Bobby helped. He loved Buck anyway - in spite of Bucks mistakes but also in spite of his own deep rooted feelings of unworthiness about ever being allowed to love like a father again.

Bobbys saw this lost kid and his instincts wouldn't allow him to ignore his needs no matter how much he wanted to. Compare that to Phillip whose instincts should have been telling him to love and protect but he ended up ignoring his needs for years.

For the rest of season 4 and 5, I think we then see Bobby settling into the idea that he can be a father again. He owns being May and Harry's stepfather, not just their Mom's husband.

And I think that's what puts him in a good enough mindset that the next time he gets confronted about treating Buck as his kid (by May, another child hes been treating as his own for a lot longer than hed ever admit to)?

He doesn't deny it.

There was no one moment that took us to that point where Bobby was willing to admit to being Bucks dad. It was a culmination of moments, a journey built right from that very first episode of Season 1, where Buck was 'the kid' of the station.

He's no longer 'the' kid, but he'll always be Bobby's kid.

#911 #meta #q&a #captain dad #i knew this one would get long but i still decided to do it on mobile on the train #frantically sneaking out my phone at work to write the last paras #sorry if bits and pieces feel disjointed as a result! #but this one is close to my heart #bobby is bucks dad and I'm so grateful season 6 finally said it out loud

[gaymortagokat]

Character Analysis: Reyna

Part 2A: Analysis Based on Other’s Chapters

Intro:

Just as a reminder/disclaimer while reading, the page numbers seen below may not line up with a physical copy of the books since I got them based on my digital copies. It may feel a bit essay-like, so sorry in advance for that it helps me be more precise with my words. And for obvious reasons everything below this paragraph contains spoilers to Heroes of Olympus books. If you haven’t read part 1 you can here .

The goal of this section is to go into more detail of what specific characters have noticed about Reyna and what it says about her character as well as go into a bit of their relationship. It will stay in timeline order as much as possible unless there are quotes that support the same idea. Anything mentioned in the above sections will not be gone over again in this section unless it relates to a character’s observations of Reyna in a way that wasn’t already stated.

Jason

Jason is easily one of the most important people in Reyna’s life. This section will explore their connection from Jason’s perspective because it is the only detailed perspective of it that is available in the books. This section will also reveal information that Jason knows about Reyna, though it may be incomplete.

First what will be explored is the never would have happened romance between them. This almost couple is something that from Jason’s perspective wouldn't have happened. In The Lost Hero as his memory slowly returns all Jason remembers is Reyna’s name and that she might have felt the same way about her that he feels about Piper (page 409). By the time The Mark of Athena Jason remembers more. He remembers a trip to Charleston where Reyna spoke to what he thought was a ghost and was shaken up about it after, wouldn’t tell him what happened,and as he says “Reyna never acted the same around me after that,” -Reyna would later have her one perspective on this conversation which will be explored later (The Mark of Athena page 168). In this quote Jason might not know/remember how Reyna felt about him but he did notice how she started treating him differently. 

Earlier in the book, he does remember how he feels about Reyna saying “It’s just…I never felt that way toward Reyna,” on page 122 of The Mark of Athena. Which leads to the next section. His guilt.

In The House of Hades we learn that Jason feels quite guilty for what he had done to Reyna. In short, he feels guilty for two things: 1) letting “her believe they had a future together” instead of shutting her down and 2) he disappeared leaving her to run camp alone and when he returned and abruptly left he left her to deal with a war (page 182). His guilt about point 2 is further explored on page 313 where he says “She needed his help. If he turned his back on her…someone like Octavian could take over and ruin everything Jason did love about New Rome. Could he be so selfish as to leave?” (The House of Hades). His guilt doesn’t show that their friendship could end, in fact, at the very least it shows how much he cares about her. 

Even after Jason’s actions, his perspective shows that they still trust and believe in each other. Shortly after fleeing New Rome in The Mark of Athena, Jason suggests contacting Reyna knowing that she would believe what they have to say (page 111). In The House of Hades during Jason’s dream where he sees Reyna in New York Reyna says “If they are sailing for Greece, I know a place Jason will stop,” showing how she knows Jason (187). This idea of trust continues on page 200 where Jason, having gone exactly where Reyna said he would, states how much he trusts that Reyna will find the note he is leaving for her (The House of Hades). As for how much belief in Reyna Jason has, he says “I’d never bet against Reyna. If anyone can make it, she will,” (The House of Hades 191). Based off this line, despite everything in the last 8 months Jason knows he can still count on Reyna to be there for him and by extension the mission. 

Jason’s point of view for the most part demonstrates his relationship with Reyna, but in The House of Hades at least two important details about Reyna are revealed. 1) “Nobody ever used Reyna’s full name” and 2) “she hated telling anyone what it was” (page 184). The reason behind wanting to use her full name is that Reyna see’s it as the name of her childhood self and she abandoned the name when she left San Juan, Puerto Rico where she grew up (The House of Hades page 184). There are many possible reasons for doing this. First thing to understand is: in the Percy Jackson Universe/ the Riordanverse, names are said to contain power. This is generally in reference to the gods and titans as stated by Mr. D. in The Lightning Thief. In real life, a person’s name is their identity. 

Abandoning a name does a couple things for a person. Choosing what to be called (ie what name a person wants people to use) means that person is taking control of their identity. Abandoning a name also creates a separation between then and now. Both of these things can exist at the same time and separately from one another. At the time of The House of Hades we have nothing that suggests why Reyna might have abandoned her childhood name, and we won’t have that information until The Blood of Olympus. This set of facts will be revisited again later through Reyna’s perspective and Nico’s.

#reyna avila ramirez arellano #Heroes of Olympus #jason grace #character analysis #My writing #I would tag their ship but its not really in the post #long post #next is percy btw