#parallel sharing is different and ok

[vizthedatum]

You know what I hate?

Me: *shares something vulnerable*

Them: “oh but I’ve also been through that and it's not so bad”/“I’ve been through worse”

—

Like no, I’m not sharing stuff with you to play the struggle Olympics… I’m sharing with you to explain my reactions and feelings. I expect listening and understanding instead of self-serving defensiveness.

#healing #trauma #neurodivergence #struggles #prose #struggle Olympics #being vulnerable #empathy #friendship #parallel sharing is different and ok #lack of empathy

[annalyticall]

Not done with bg3 so maybe my opinion will change but right now I think that while bg3 is a great game and has so much to offer in terms of character and story, I also just... vibe with the world of Dragon Age more. Like bg3 is by far the more fun game to play and it has meaningful themes about cycles of abuse and realizations of self-worth. But dragon age. I don't know. It feels more concise about what it wants to say. Bg3 throws everything and the kitchen sink at you which means some things get lost in translation or are so obvious that it beats you over the head with it. But dragon age is, for the most part, about religious authority and oppressive systems stemming from that authority, and it's entire world and story and cast of characters are built from that one premise to explore dozens of different perspectives on the same theme, and I feel like I can connect with that approach to worldbuilding so much more

#like ok. besides karlach and wyll everyone basically has the same arc for their religious trauma #shar and vlaakith and cazador nd mystra are all varying types of abusive authority figures #shadowheart and lae'zel have the same arc of shunning their god to just follow another one? like i don't think that really fixes anything #in the end they're still defining themselves by the god they worship #gale and astarion also kind share an arc of shunning their authority in favor of seizing the power for themselves #it's a better one for sure but still it feels like only astarion gets to actually stand up to his abuser no matter the outcome #wyll doesn't really get any kind of self- actualizing arc that's not depending on the player which feels like it's defeating the purpose #karlach is. like i love her but her arc is just simple in comparison #meanwhile you have the da:o characters constantly challenging and reassessing the systems they grew up in #they have similar cycle of abuse arcs too but in wildly different perspectives from each other #where no two arcs really feel like each other even though they have parallels like alistair and morrigan #idk just kept me more engaged in the characters' development in relation to my own player character #and i didn't even mention dragon age 2. god. #dragon age #anna plays bg3

[mxcottonsocks]

Reading Like A Victorian

A while ago, I discovered the website 'Reading Like a Victorian', a digital humanities project from The Ohio State University and collaborators.

Since tumblr's been going through a bit of a serial-literature revival, I thought I would share...

Here are some extracts from the website's 'About Us':

RLV is an interactive timeline of the Victorian period. It focuses on serialized novels [...] and adds volume-format publications for context. 

When we read Victorian novels today, we do not read them in the form in which they originally came out. Most Victorian novels appeared either as “triple deckers,” three volumes released at one time, or as serials published monthly or weekly in periodicals or in pamphlet form. Serialized novels’ regularly timed, intermittent appearance made for a reading experience resembling what we do when we are awaiting the next weekly episode of Game of Thrones, watching installments of other TV serials in the meantime. Whenever we pick up a Penguin or Oxford paperback of a Victorian novel today, we are engaged in the equivalent of binge-watching a series that has already reached its broadcast ending [and is] a very different experience from what Victorian audiences were doing with novels. Reading Like a Victorian reproduces the “serial moment” experienced by Victorian readers [...]

More info and screenshots and so on below the cut:

[...] if reading serial installments at their original pace is valuable, it is even more valuable to read them alongside parts of novels and of other kinds of texts that Victorian readers could have been following at the same time [...] [...] a reader who, in 1847, had been following the part issues of both Dickens’s Dombey and Son and Thackeray’s Vanity Fair and then picked up Jane Eyre, published in volume form in October of that year, might notice in Florence Dombey, Becky Sharp, and Jane Eyre a pattern of motherless or orphaned girls trying to negotiate a hostile world on their own. While this figure is well known to be a character type in Victorian fiction perfectly embodied by Jane Eyre and Florence Dombey, Becky Sharp does not often emerge among the heroines who fit that type; reading the novels simultaneously foregrounds parallels between Becky, Florence, and Jane that are not at all obvious if their storylines are experienced separately

I find that, for browsing, the website is easier to use on a computer or tablet than a phone, but it's ok on phone to search for something specific.

The timeline:

Here's what the timeline looks like:

It shows 12 months at a time, and using the left and right arrows will move you back or forward by a month. You can use the 'Jump To Date' function to navigate to a different twelve-month period. Or you can use the 'Author Search' function to navigate to particular works if you know the author's name.

In the above screenshot of the timeline, which shows the period January to December 1852, there are several works shown, including:

ongoing serialised works which had at least one installment published prior to 1852;

works which began serialisation during 1852;

works published in three-volume format during 1852;

other works published during 1852

Details about each work:

You can click on the bar that represents a book's publication to get a drop-down that provides information about that book, its publication, and links to help you read the relevant serial parts.

Here's what happens if you click on Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford:

On the left of the drop-down, there's some general information about the work, its publication history, and how to use the links.

On the right, there's information and links to help you experience the book in its serial parts: it separates out the parts, indicates the month and the year they were published, and what chapters of the work were published in that part. It also provides notes on each part where helpful. There is a scroll-bar at the right of the drop-down, so you can scroll down to the later installments of the work.

[I chose Cranford as an example as it helps demonstrate the value of the Reading Like a Victorian website... From what I understand, Gaskell initially wrote 'Our Society at Cranford' as a standalone piece of short fiction, but was encouraged to write more, so further pieces also set in the fictional town of Cranford were published intermittently in the same magazine over the next year or so. While a particularly dedicated Gaskell fan who wanted to 'read along' with Cranford following the original publication could probably search 1.5-years-worth of a weekly magazine to find the 9 issues which included the material which would later be published as Cranford, the Reading Like a Victorian website has already done that work for them... and also for anyone else who might be interested, but not quite that interested.]

The links

You can then click on an individual chapter to get links to various places to read it online:

When available / where possible, the website tends to include links to:

a facsimile copy of either the relevant serial part in the original publication, or in an 'annual' or similar volume collecting together the content of that publication, or a volume-form edition of that work if the work was not published serially or if facsimile copies of the original serialised publication are not available. [Most of the facsimiles are hosted by either the Internet Archive or the Hathi Trust Digital Library, but some are hosted as part of smaller, more specific collections, such as - in the case of Cranford - Dickens Journals Online which provides online access to the journals/magazines edited by Charles Dickens);

the text, usually on Project Gutenberg (this is usually the volume-form text, so the exact content and chapter breaks and so on may be different than originally published in serial parts; the Reading Like A Victorian website will generally explain when this is the case);

audio recordings, usually volunteer recordings from Librivox (again, the recordings are usually based on the volume-form text, so the exact content and chapter breaks and so on may be slightly different than originally published in the serial parts).

So yeah, I just thought it was a cool website and worth sharing. I believe the website is already used as a resource by some University courses and for academic research, but it can also be used by book clubs and to aid personal reading, etc. I'm using it to inform a personal reading project for 2024-26 where I follow along with six or seven novels serialised in 1864-66.

To save a scroll to the top, here's the link to the RLV website again: Reading Like A Victorian (osu.edu)

[If you want to join an already-planned read-along based on the original serialisation schedule, @dickensdaily will be doing Charles Dickens's historical novel Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty from mid-February 2024 to late-November 2024, to follow along with the original weekly publication of the novel in Master Humphreys Clock from February 1841 to November 1841. I personally found Barnaby Rudge a really engaging, thought-provoking read, and I'm really looking forward to reading it again. (Anyone with particular triggers or other reasons to be wary of the content or language used in older books may find it helpful to look up content warnings for the book before making a decision to read it.)]

#reading like a victorian #victorian literature #victorian era #serial reading #serialisation #digital humanities #tumblr book club

[stagefoureddiediaz]

Ok so Buck is getting a meta before I write my 7x03 meta and it’s all because of this still we just got!

We haven’t seen Buck in blue jeans (he’s worn jeans they’ve just always been super black) since season 2x01 - you know when Eddie rocked up at the station and put his shirt on - yeah you’re all thinking what I’m thinking aren’t you!!! The parallels of that jealous Buck and upcoming jealous Buck keep on paralleling. Putting him back in this style of jeans now is so very deliberate and interesting - if you ask me it’s playing not only into jealous Buck, but also into Buck and his hamster wheel - it’s playing on the whole buck 1.0 upgrade to 2.0 etc - there’s something about the fact that Buck essentially stops wearing jeans when he bonds with Eddie - something in the idea that that was the moment he was being both more true to himself, but also hiding a part of himself as well - it’s almost as if the intention is to parallel and revisit some of earlier Buck and explore him opening up the part he hid. Now with the context of Buck in s2 being in a (intense for him) relationship that’s shifted and ended without him knowing/ accepting it and a new guy coming on the scene sparking jealousy before creating a strong bond, and the parallel/juxtaposition of what we’re about to see - new guy sparking jealousy and presenting a threat to his status quo whilst he shares an intense bond with Eddie is a pretty interesting concept - the idea that they may be playing into the beginning of Buck recognising that his relationship with Eddie is changing and different in the same way he slowly figured out Abby had left him - only this time it’s changing in the opposite direction - stronger more unbreakable and allows him to be his true self - well that would be an amazing piece of storytelling in my opinion.

Now obviously alayna and the wardrobe team wouldn’t have known way back in the beginning of s2 that the story was going to head in this direction, but a great designer can make choices that they made in previous seasons work for them in future ones. So to me it feels like this sudden switch back to jeans is deliberate and about tying into the past to move and change things in the present/future. Alayna knows the full arc Buck is on and the fact she’s chosen now to do this when she could’ve done it at any point or not done it at all tells me all I need to know!

Would you like some other things we’ve got going on with this outfit?? I thought you would and I’m here to serve!

We’ve seen Buck in a spotty shirt like this one exactly twice before - 2x14 when he’s at a diner with Maddie talking about Buck finding his own apartment and Maddie going back to hers and going on her second first date with Chim.

Side bar - This is the episode we ‘hear’ of Tommy in the present tense - funnily enough to save Eddie - which in light of Eddie Tommy bestism were about to get is making me chuckle (it’s clever writing and retcon) in technical terms it’s the only reference we have of him as still working for LAFD - all his other appearances are in begins episodes so ‘historical’ rather than in the present!

And then we see a different spotty shirt when he goes to see Chase Mackey in 3x04

There’s also the other dark short sleeved button ups we see him in - not spotty, but striped - the one in 4x14 when Taylor comes back,

The most awkward I love you in the history of television in 5x09 has Buck in dark navy blue with vertical stripes (I don’t have the ref picture handy as I’m on my phone but I’ll come back and add it later 😎🤓)

Then we have 6x10 and the buckley-Han family get together where everyone finds out buck has donated his sperm to Connor and Kameron

All of these scenes are pretty key moments in Bucks arcs and what I find interesting (with the exception of the first one - 2x14 which kind of fits but also doesn’t) is that they are all moments that lead to developmental regression by Buck - under the guise of growth - moments when he thinks he’s moving forward but is in fact either side stepping or going backwards. Suing Bobby and the fire department is obviously the loudest of these moments, but they all fall into this category.

2x14 is perhaps the most interesting and relevant (what with the pattern being almost the same) in reality it’s a scene about Maddie moving forward and getting on with her life - that happens to also include buck getting his own apartment rather than camping out in her dining room. Thing is Maddie talks about going to therapy and putting in the work to feel and find normal in the aftermath of a major traumatic event. In some ways the chase Mackey spotted shirt kind of also falls into this same category - the aftermath of a major (or two) traumatic event for Buck and him trying to get back to his normal (he’s just going about it all wrong)

And here in season 7 we have Buck back in a dark short sleeved spotty shirt in the aftermath of a major traumatic event (Bobby and Athenas Cruise disaster - he couldve lost his dad) trying to get back to normal (something we’ve seen him trying to do for the back half of s6 obviously) and I can’t help but wonder - with Oliver talking about Buck getting off the hamster wheel he’s been stuck on - whatever happens whilst Buck is in this shirt is going to be a major catalyst for him. its going to set him off on his arc for this season and we'll to put in the work his sister did post killing Doug and actually move forward and learn about himself in the process. What that looks like I don’t know but the scene this is from is going to be key to his escape from repeating his past mistakes and actually growing towards his happiness.

The costume department haven’t let me down yet so I’m feeling pretty excited for that scene!

#I’m telling you this scene is the catalyst!!! #mini meta #buck costume meta #kym costume meta #911 stills #911 spoilers #911 abc #evan 'buck' buckley #7x04

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Kaz and Wylan’s potential to become each other

Wow, you guys were a lot more excited about this than I was expecting! I made a post briefly mentioning this idea and it got way more attention that I was expecting, so as promised here is my explanation and I’ve tagged people who asked for it at the end :)

*WARNING: CONSTANT SPOILERS AHEAD*

Ok so the driving forcing of this comparison is rooted in the similarities of their characters and their backstories. Both of them lost a close family member, were abused by men with power over them, and experienced a form of ‘rebirth’ by nearly drowning in the Ketterdam canals. They also both experience disability; Kaz using a cane for a broken leg that didn’t heal correctly, and Wylan having severe dyslexia that prevented him from learning to read. A key difference that separates them, and arguably is a representation of the difference in the way their experiences have shaped their personalities as well, is that Kaz’s disability is a direct result of his chasing after vengeance, whereas Wylan’s disability was used as an excuse for his father to abuse him for what we as the reader see to be a minimum of eight years. (I’m assuming this because he is 16 in the book and was 8 when his mother ‘died’, which is the point that he describes he father to have “given up on him”)

I’m gonna quickly hop to parallels between Kaz and Pekka Rollins, bare with me I promise it’s relevant, which are quickly established as a key part of the novels. When Inej compares them, Kaz’s reply is “I don’t sell girls, I don’t con helpless kids out of their money” to which she gently responds “look at the floor of the Crow Club, Kaz”. Aside from this being the heartbreaking line that it is, it also does a very good job of highlighting their similarities and a similarity that they share with Jan Van Eck. When they meet the merch at the end of the first book they meet on an island called Vellgeluk, which is described as being popular with smugglers and slavers like those who kidnapped Inej. The other Crows are surprised Van Eck knows about Vellgeluk, but Kaz simply says “maybe he isn’t the upstanding merch he appears to be”. Great subtle foreshadowing for his double cross, and great establishment of the link between these three characters. In fact, Van Eck and Kaz echo each other more than you might think. Just as Kaz states “Greed bows to me, it is my servant and my lever”, Van Eck says “Yes, Chaos will come. And I will be it’s master”. In their first meeting, Van Eck accuses Kaz of murder and gambling with people’s lives, and in return Kaz points out that 1 in 5 of Van Eck’s ships will never return because they will sink or “fall prey to pirates”, so they are both doing the same thing, and that they both have the same motivations for this bloodshed: “profit”.

Now consider how often Wylan echoes Kaz, and therefore whether he echoes his father as well. They both have exceptional memories, Kaz’s being photographic/eidetic and Wylan being able to put words to music in his head to remember pages worth of infomation - this is even emphasised by Kaz being able to count cards when he gambles, saying “he could keep track of the game for up to three decks” and Jesper asking Wylan if he’d be able to apply “that trick to counting cards” to which he replies “probably. But I won’t”. They also both have impressive intellects, which could have placed them far higher up in the world than they’ve found themselves if it weren’t for cruel circumstances - Van Eck even comments on this, saying it angers him that Kaz has so much potential but does nothing with it. Then there’s their tendency to avoid being vulnerable. I think we too often overlook the fact that no-one knows Jan Van Eck hired two men to kill his son, not even Jesper, and that not even Inej knows what happened to Kaz on the Reaper’s Barge. Jesper believes that Wylan left his house as a result of his father’s abuse but that it was still his choice, and Inej has no information beyond “Pekka Rollins killed my brother” and the explanation of the con when Kaz faces off with Rollins in Crooked Kingdom. I genuinely believe that the biggest thing separating them is where they place blame for their situations. Kaz blames Pekka Rollins. Wylan actually blames himself.

Arguably, although he catalysed the events, if Rollins hadn’t conned Kaz and Jordie they still would have suffered in an almost identical way: they would both contract the Queen’s Lady Plague, they wouldn’t have enough money for both medicine and boarding, and Jordie would die. In that scenario Kaz would have still been left penniless and alone with nowhere to go, but he wouldn’t have had anyone to blame. In fact, he may have died as well because it’s really his drive for vengeance that makes him strive for survival. When he’s on the Reaper’s Barge he wonders if it’s worth trying to survive because there’s nothing waiting for him in the city, but then he realises that the chance of revenge is waiting for him, and that thought drives him to stay alive every day that follows. Without Rollins, Kaz probably would have blamed himself for Jordie’s death, and I’m backing that up with the singular moment when he’s first attacked by parem-high tide makers and has a brief “boy’s fear” that they are ghosts. He thinks, for a split second, that a ghost has come to kill him and what does he say? He says “Jordie had come for vengeance at last”. This is chapter three. We have no idea who Jordie is. With the limited information we had at the time and what we’d just seen happen to Big Bolliger, I assumed it was someone in Kaz’s gang that he had backstabbed and who has died because of what he did. But no. This single line leads me to wholeheartedly believe that Kaz blames Rollins, who realistically was only a small part of his suffering, quite so vividly to emotionally avoid blaming himself.

Wylan blames himself until around chapters 14 to 16 of Crooked Kingdom. His experiences with mental, emotional, and physical abuse have actively convinced him that his so-called ‘inadequacies’ caused a change in his father’s behaviour. But Wylan not being able to read didn’t magically turn Van Eck from a lucky family man into someone willing to try “specialists, tonics, beatings, [and] hypnotism” against his child. The fact is that Van Eck, like many abusers, is masterfully manipulative in everything he does. Wylan describes seeing his parents’ marriage as a happy one, but he also says “the argued all the time, sometimes about me. But I remember them laughing a lot too”. He’s quick to defend their relationship as if it isn’t supposed to be marred by argument and he lays blame on himself by suggesting that he was the root of their unhappiness. He also says that around Alys, Jan Van Eck becomes who he once was around Marya; a kinder, gentler man. I don’t think we’re meant to assume that he’s acting any differently with Alys in private right now, but I do think we’re meant to assume that he would have done down the line if he hadn’t been arrested (and presumably she filed for divorce). In chapter 14 of Crooked Kingdom, Wylan learns that his mother is still alive but that his father had her committed and declared insane so he could use it as grounds for divorce and marry Alys instead. And you know what happens? Wylan blames himself. He says, verbatim, to Jesper: “You don’t understand. It’s my fault”. He explains that Van Eck did this so he could have a “real heir”; because Marya produced a “faulty” child he needed a new woman to give him the child he wanted. That’s a messed up thing to think on so many levels, but Wylan doesn’t blame Van Eck because he is still being conditioned by his abuse. He and Kaz experienced different kinds of abuse, and Kaz wasn’t conditioned to blame anyone but his abuser, so that’s what he does. When Wylan does begin to blame Van Eck, he is immediately taken in by this same idea of revenge. Kaz says “you were angry. I needed you righteous” when explaining why he sent Wylan to St Hilde blind in chapter 16. Wylan was angry with his father before, but he wasn’t actively seeking vengeance. Now that he has a cause, someone other than himself to fight for? He tells Kaz “well, now you have me”.

Both of them have this potential to be fuelled by revenge or self-hatred, and although they go about it in different ways and lean towards different sides of the scale they are both balancing between those two extremes for the entire duology. Their past experiences have, and their future experiences could, tip them further either way but right now they are almost playing with the line.

Thank you so much if you’ve bothered to read this far, sorry for the long post but you did ask for an essay, so there you go. Tagging the people who asked - @kazooyay @mikasimaginairyworld @sunseeking-cyptid @moonlit-aura @alexplutoplanet @gandalfsmallnaturals @livsarthaven @goodomenstrack23 @origami-butterfly @flower-biatch @bookworm010307 @thesunniest @wherela @space-ace-thoughts @sixofbabycrows @antisocial-burrito

Sorry if I missed anyone!!!

#grishaverse #leigh bardugo #six of crows #crooked kingdom #kaz brekker #wylan van eck #kanej #wesper #kanej supremacy #wesper my beloved #inej ghafa #jesper fahey #nina zenik #matthias helvar #jan van eck #marya van eck #marya hendriks #wylan hendricks #jesper and wylan #six of crows wylan #kazzle dazzle #kaz rietveld #jordie rietveld #kaz and jordie #pekka rollins

[whinlatter]

sirius and ginny: a meta (part 1)

“Excuse me, but I care what happens to Sirius as much as you do!” said Ginny, her jaw set so that her resemblance to Fred and George was suddenly striking.’

are you a very brave, very reckless, very hot self-destructive rebel with a treacherous sibling and a flair for christmas decoration, harbouring complex feelings about your mother, close ties to crookshanks the cat and spend your days plagued by the memory of your worst mistakes and dark past? do you find yourself constantly being begged to stay in a state of protective confinement to save your life by a young man with a lightning scar, bad hair and crippling abandonment issues? if so, congratulations! you might be one of harry potter's chosen family members, sirius black and ginevra molly weasley! 

basically - i want to talk about sirius and ginny. these are two characters who don’t share a lot of scenes in canon but who, i think, have some clear (if overlooked) parallels: stubborn, fiercely protective of harry, self-sacrificing, admired, principled, haunted (in different ways) by traumatic pasts and betrayals, with complicated relationships with their families and entirely uncomplicated devoted relationships with someone else’s cat. their narrative arcs are successive, with ginny ascending in significance in the series during sirius’ period of decline and ultimate death. and ultimately, they’re also the two people who become, over the course of the canon series, family to a protagonist desperately seeking to build one. sirius and ginny are the two people harry in canon most worries about, wants to protect, and thinks of as someone who embodies the promise of family and home.

sirius and ginny aren’t mirror images of each other. ofc, ginny also has parallels with the only other family members harry claims in the series, lily and james (i mean, especially james - she’s literally a cocky funny flirtatious chaser with a years-long debilitating mega crush who can also catch a snitch like a champ. come on now). it’s also clear in canon that sirius means more to ginny as a hero/role model/ally against her mother than ginny ever means to sirius. nevertheless, the text puts in work to let the reader know we should think about these characters together as somehow aligned. from the beginning of ootp, there are clues and signals in the text that foreshadow ginny’s emergence as someone important to harry, and that subtly let the reader know that the baton of being harry’s ‘person’ is about to be passed from sirius to ginny, two kindred spirits, after sirius’ death. so that's what this meta is about! (consider this my 700th attempt to show that, as the popular fandom complaint/all of reddit still insist, ginny as a character, and especially the harry/ginny romance, did not ‘come out of nowhere’.)

the following meta is part one of two (and yet it's still too long! sorry about it). o in this part, i look at the period from the end of goblet of fire thru the start of half blood prince, exploring how the text sets up the sirius and ginny parallels as a way of foreshadowing ginny’s emergence as harry’s main love interest and place as a family substitute. the second part (tbc) will be what the memory of sirius does for harry’s view of his relationship with ginny, and the kind of positive - and negative - ways this shapes harry’s ideas about love and what family do for each other. i wrote this meta as a way of thinking through some characterisation choices for my current WIP, beasts. if you're following along with that fic, this meta can be seen as a companion piece especially to my thinking behind chapters ten and eleven, so hope proves helpful for some of my thinking behind the sirius and ginny friendship that appears in that project. it's also dedicated to @ashesandhackles, queen of metas, who has reminded me to post this meta precisely 9 million times because she is a long-suffering saint.

ok - sirius and ginny. let’s goooooo!

sirius and ginny before ootp

before OotP, ginny is absent from any plot connected to sirius. ginny doesn’t know the truth about sirius’ innocence, nor does she know that harry, her brother and her friend are in regular contact with sirius and that harry now as a surrogate father/big brother figure to confide in and seek comfort in.  in fact, in one of ginny’s few appearances in GoF, the narration is unusually insistent that the reader knows how little ginny knows about sirius:

“And have you heard from — ?” Ron began, but at a look from Hermione he fell silent. Harry knew Ron had been about to ask about Sirius. Ron and Hermione had been so deeply involved in helping Sirius escape from the Ministry of Magic that they were almost as concerned about Harry’s godfather as he was. However, discussing him in front of Ginny was a bad idea. Nobody but themselves and Professor Dumbledore knew about how Sirius had escaped, or believed in his innocence. “I think they’ve stopped arguing,” said Hermione, to cover the awkward moment, because Ginny was looking curiously from Ron to Harry. “Shall we go down and help your mum with dinner?” 

the only other tiny crumb of sirius and ginny we get is the news that the owl sirius bought in PoA and gifted to ron as a replacement pet for scabbers has been embraced and named by ginny. sirius gifting a tiny little spitfire of an owl that annoys ron? it's giving foreshadowing, your honour.

the reader, though, knows who sirius is to harry by GoF. throughout this book, for the first time in the series, harry has a person he can claim as something like a family: someone to worry about, someone who cares about him,who can advise, guide and mentor him, as well as offer him support and consolation in difficult times (‘someone like a parent…’) although sirius has not been able to offer harry a stable alternative home to the dursleys due to his status as a wanted man, he’s still filling a role that previously had been vacant in the series: he’s harry’s person, the surrogate parent chosen for him by james and lily. he’s close by, either by the floo or eventually living (at great personal cost) as padfoot in hogsmeade, and he’s present emotionally for harry in ways that prove incredibly meaningful to his young godson. in times of great of distress, sirius is there for harry to meet emotional needs that ron and hermione (understandably, no shade to them) can’t always meet. the floo scene early on in GoF, during harry’s row with ron, is a particularly good example of this:

“Never mind me, how are you?” said Sirius seriously. “I’m —”  For a second, Harry tried to say “fine” — but he couldn’t do it. …Before he could stop himself, he was talking more than he’d talked in days — about how no one believed he hadn’t entered the tournament of his own free will, how Rita Skeeter had lied about him in the Daily Prophet, how he couldn’t walk down a corridor without being sneered at — and about Ron, Ron not believing him, Ron’s jealousy . . . Sirius looked at him, eyes full of concern… He had let Harry talk himself into silence without interruption’.

harry derives enormous comfort from sirius’ presence in his life during GoF. he writes to sirius, he repeatedly turns to him for advice, he worries for him more than he does any other person. sirius fulfils harry’s desire to be kept abreast of important information about voldemort and death eaters, doesn’t sugarcoat news for harry, and makes him feel important, cared for and understood. (harry even shows off to sirius telling him about how much of a slay the first task was. ugh). by the time of the third task, sirius is sending harry daily owls, a constant flow of reassurance and concern (‘He reminded Harry in every letter that whatever might be going on outside the walls of Hogwarts was not Harry’s responsibility, nor was it within his power to influence it. If Voldemort is really getting stronger again, he wrote, my priority is to ensure your safety.’) when harry returns from the graveyard at the novel’s end, it’s sirius who races to his side to advocate for him and offer him both words of comfort and physical affection as he processes the traumatic series of events that constitute the climax of the book’s plot. (my personal favourite part is where harry says ‘wormtail cut me with a knife’ and the text says sirius made a ‘vehement exclamation’, which i can only assume is children’s book speak for ‘fucking hell’.) harry goes to bed: sirius stays with him, a literal guard dog as he recuperates. after the most traumatic events of the series to date, the reader is at least consoled that harry potter has a person now, someone he loves for him to worry about and to worry for him, who catches him on the other side of traumatic events and makes them that bit much more bearable.

sirius and ginny during ootp

with sirius' role in harry's life established in GoF, OotP begins with harry, cooped up and restless at privet drive, angry with ron, hermione, sirius, and dumbledore for abandoning him at privet drive and keeping him in the dark. harry arrives at grimmauld place to find an anxious ron and hermione, with whom harry is angry and frustrated for having left him out of their summer hangs and having neglected him, by his assessment, in surrey. it’s the most conflict we’ve seen in the trio in terms of harry vs ron and hermione, and sets up one of the important themes of the book, which is harry no longer being solely emotionally fulfilled by the people he is closest to, including his two surrogate parents best mates but also his godfather. when he encounters sirius for the first time after the order meeting, he finds him surly, bitter, and depressed, furious that he is confined to his childhood home, and (understandably) much less able or willing to offer harry much in the way of comfort, apology or cheering words (‘Harry, who had expected a better welcome, noted how hard and bitter Sirius’s voice sounded.’) in this sense, the book opens with harry disappointed and/or more distant from all the people on whom he most depends and is usually closest to, and that there therefore is already an absence of a certain kind of emotional support in harry’s life that the plot demands be filled.

fresh off the back of harry’s row with ron and hermione is ginny’s reintroduction to the reader. after years of being so shy in harry’s presence she was often nearly mute, the reader finds that ginny is not only now speaking, but that her presence turns out to be remarkably refreshing. from her opening scene where ginny enters harry’s bedroom at grimmauld place, the reader discovers the new ginny is confident, up to no good, in cahoots with her most troublemaking brothers trying to intercept the order meeting, enterprising in her mischief (and very happy to lie to her mother’s face about it). she’s thoroughly unfazed by harry’s great display of rage that has just startled and upset ron and hermione. (side note: in both ootp and hbp, ginny’s opening scene is her entering harry’s bedroom, which is the kind of foreshadowing i personally find delicious). everyone else is behaving pretty much as they have been up to this point, but it’s ginny who is showcasing behaviours new to the reader, a signal that she might be about to play a different role in the series than she has done up to this point.

cut to the dinner scene. sirius and ginny are in the room together for the first time. sirius is moody: though he’s still able to laugh, enjoying displays of mischief and humour (the twins and the knife), he’s more bitter than harry and the reader have seen him since PoA. it’s an important scene for lots of reasons (not least the sirius v molly beef), but it’s also one where sirius and ginny are repeatedly drawn into mental association in the reader’s mind. it’s also a great scene because the behaviour of crookshanks the cat literally serves to foreshadow the behaviour of harry james potter in ways that are frankly extremely fun.

so! the sirius and ginny hints start small. from the start of the scene, ginny is amused by mundungus the crook (a man, we will learn, so disdained by her mother):

“Some’n say m’ name?” Mundungus mumbled sleepily. “I ’gree with Sirius. . . .” He raised a very grubby hand in the air as though voting, his droopy, bloodshot eyes unfocused. Ginny giggled. “The meeting’s over, Dung,” said Sirius, as they all sat down around him at the table. “Harry’s arrived.” 

sirius and harry, sat at the end of the table, are both greeted by crookshanks, sirius’ old accomplice from PoA:

'​​Harry felt something brush against his knees and started, but it was only Crookshanks, Hermione’s bandy-legged ginger cat, who wound himself once around Harry’s legs, purring, then jumped onto Sirius’s lap and curled up. Sirius scratched him absentmindedly behind the ears as he turned, still grim-faced, to Harry…

when fred and george’s levitation goes awry, flinging a knife at sirius (now that’s how you foreshadow a death), crookshanks bolts: 

‘Harry and Sirius were both laughing… Crookshanks had given an angry hiss and shot off under the dresser, from whence his large yellow eyes glowed in the darkness…’

during the meal, ginny’s with hermione, having a laugh with tonks, a character harry has just met but whom he has already decided to both admire and like. after the meal, when harry’s cheered up a bit and had his crumble (the man loves dessert), crookshanks finally emerges from his hiding place, having been coaxed out from his sulk by - you guessed it - one g. m. weasley:

‘…Ginny, who had lured Crookshanks out from under the dresser, was sitting cross-legged on the floor, rolling butterbeer corks for him to chase.’

a grouchy character, initially drawn to sirius, but prone to lashing out and locking himself away, only to be lured back out into comfort and safety by ginny weasley? wow………. radical

after dinner, the argument between sirius and molly kicks off. sirius is arguing hard for harry’s right to know, though he makes no attempt to advocate for any of the other weasleys or for hermione. ginny’s noticeably singled out in her reaction to this scene, the text highlighting that she is particularly struck by this conflict as if it is of particular personal resonance, including someone standing up to her famously overprotective mother for once:

‘Ron, Hermione, Fred, and George’s heads turned from Sirius to Mrs. Weasley as though following a tennis rally. Ginny was kneeling amid a pile of abandoned butterbeer corks, watching the conversation with her mouth slightly open. Lupin’s eyes were fixed on Sirius.’

of course, molly loses the argument: harry gets to stay for juicy order deets (‘Sirius was right, he was not a child.’) after the row, ginny is the only person forbidden from hearing information about the order’s activities. suddenly, the roles are switched: it’s ginny who’s now furious and bitter to be kept out of the action:

‘“Fine!” shouted Mrs. Weasley. “Fine! Ginny — BED!”  Ginny did not go quietly. They could hear her raging and storming at her mother all the way up the stairs, and when she reached the hall Mrs. Black’s earsplitting shrieks were added to the din. Lupin hurried off to the portrait to restore calm. It was only after he had returned, closing the kitchen door behind him and taking his seat at the table again, that Sirius spoke. “Okay, Harry . . . what do you want to know?”’ 

it’s not just the parallels of confinement between harry, sirius and ginny that are so revealing, it’s also the dual maternal conflicts. ginny loud raging at her own mother sets off the howling relic of sirius’, serving to underline two characters who continue to grapple with maternal relationships that are complex and full of conflict, though by no means solely negative (sirius i see you sleeping in your mother’s bedroom babe. don’t think i think your relationship with walburga is just one of straight hate ok). when ginny later gets knocked down the stairs by fred and george, there’s more direct mrs weasley/walburga parallels, with the two of them literally shouting over each other during the ordeal lol. as such, the readers see that the conflicts being set up for sirius’ character in this book - frustration at confinement, conflict with a mother figure, drawn to more reckless and arguably irresponsible characters (mundungus, the twins) and courses of action - are also conflicts subtly playing out with the new ginny we’re meeting, too.

as the rest of the summer at grimmauld wears on, there are more examples of sirius and ginny foreshadowing. the scenes where the two characters interact serve to place ginny and sirius firmly in the same camp of people harry admires and has fun with, the troublemakers and the rebels. over the prefects issue, ginny not only is sat chatting with the troublemaking adults harry likes most, but actively draws sirius into conversation on the issue, likely knowing the answer will comfort harry, but also showing a curiosity and interest in sirius that suggests she admires him:

“I was never a prefect myself,” said Tonks brightly from behind Harry as everybody moved toward the table to help themselves to food. Her hair was tomato-red and waist length today; she looked like Ginny’s older sister. “My Head of House said I lacked certain necessary qualities.”  “Like what?” said Ginny, who was choosing a baked potato. “Like the ability to behave myself,” said Tonks. Ginny laughed; Hermione looked as though she did not know whether to smile or not and compromised by taking an extra large gulp of butterbeer and choking on it.  “What about you, Sirius?” Ginny asked, thumping Hermione on the back. Sirius, who was right beside Harry, let out his usual barklike laugh…’

ginny’s choice to try and draw sirius into the conversation bears fruit: sirius confirms james was never a prefect, and harry’s sour mood is suddenly lifted. (‘All at once the party seemed much more enjoyable; he loaded up his plate, feeling unusually fond of everyone in the room.’) ginny is thus beginning to provide harry with subtle comfort and reassurance, especially as sirius, struggling with his own confinement,  is taking a less active role in trying to cheer harry up. what i also like is that we have evidence of how ginny views sirius - she’s curious about him and his past, she clearly thinks he and the other new rebellious adults are cool as shit, and she’s drawn increasingly away from her mother’s cautious overprotective approach towards these resistance fighters who prioritise the fight over safety. (it is noticeable to me that ginny does not become a prefect in HBP, suggesting sirius' example proved instructive).

we see more small parallels between sirius and ginny during the cleaning scenes. the battle against grimmauld place is an important symbol of one of the important themes of OotP as a book: a battle over past traumas and their persistent and unwieldy symptoms that are seemingly never-ending. while it’s harry’s experiences that, of course, take centre stage, sirius’, too, loom omnipresent throughout the text. it’s significant, then, that ginny’s own past gets brought up for the first time in three books here, albeit briefly: 

'They found an unpleasant-looking silver instrument, something like a many-legged pair of tweezers, which scuttled up Harry’s arm like a spider when he picked it up, and attempted to puncture his skin; Sirius seized it and smashed it with a heavy book entitled Nature’s Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy. There was a musical box that emitted a faintly sinister, tinkling tune when wound, and they all found themselves becoming curiously weak and sleepy until Ginny had the sense to slam the lid shut…'

in this moment, we see sirius and ginny singled in the larger group as quick-thinking, shrewd characters, with a good instincts and common sense (if a bit of a tendency to get scrappy). their respective dark pasts are subtly alluded to. sirius whacks a spider trying to attack harry with a book that might as well be entitled my big book of family trauma. ginny, meanwhile, steps in when everybody present starts to be enchanted by a mysterious object luring them into danger by whacking it shut (gee i wonder why!) given this is the book that will see ginny mention the events of CoS for the first time in errrrr three years, it’s significant that the text is careful to draw ginny into this broader theme that unites sirius and harry, the constant reminders of traumatic pasts at every turn. we also see here the revelation that regulus black was a death eater. coming after news of percy weasley’s betrayal, sirius’ bitter dismissal of his younger brother deliberately mirrors ginny and the other weasleys’ attitude towards percy, this sense of pureblood families split over wizarding politics, often fatally. 

while harry fears his expulsion from hogwarts prior his hearing, he continues to fantasise about coming to live with sirius at grimmauld, and about being with a family member and finding an alternative home to hogwarts. sirius, as hermione astutely observes, tries to manage harry’s expectations and not to get his own hopes up: still, when harry is exonerated, sirius is visibly depressed, showing the beginnings of an emotional dependency on harry that harry feels great guilt over.when leaving grimmauld for the start of the school year, sirius, as padfoot, accompanies harry to king’s cross: unlike in GoF, though, he is spotted, and harry begins to worry much more actively about sirius’ vulnerability to capture, about his recklessness and about his judgement. concerned for sirius, and absent ron and hermione, who are in the prefects carriage, the person who stays with harry and offers him company is ginny. she sacrifices her own train journey (presumably with her own boyfriend) to find a carriage with harry and make sure he’s not lonely, bringing him to neville and luna and sorting him out after his embarassing cho run-in. it’s not a coincidence that once again we see ginny here taking care of harry crookshanks:

'“Where’s Crookshanks?” “Ginny’s got him,” said Harry. “There she is. . . .”  Ginny had just emerged from the crowd, clutching a squirming Crookshanks. “Thanks,” said Hermione, relieving Ginny of the cat. “Come on, let’s get a carriage together before they all fill up. . . '

once harry’s back at school, having left sirius behind to languish miserably in london, we see he's more isolated and alone than ever. he’s tormented by umbridge, endlessly (though often unfairly) frustrated with ron and hermione, ghosted by dumbledore, yet absent the more stable, reassuring sirius he came to know in GoF, unable to write candidly to him and faced with a much less well sirius in the opportunities they do have to speak face-to-face. as sirius’ mental health declines as he is shut up at grimmauld, his ability to support harry and comfort him starts to falter, and he becomes a much more uneven source of advice and support, particularly during his car crash floo appearance, where he’s much ruder than he has previously been (cutting off, ignoring their pleas for him to be more cautious, the infamous ‘the risk would have made it fun for james’ moment). this new sirius, clearly struggling, is much more happy to do up guilt trip to his godson than we have seen him to up this point (‘I’ll write to tell you a time I can make it back into the fire, then, shall I? If you can stand to risk it?’ - you petty little shit, padfoot). all of this serves to increase harry’s anxiety about sirius’ wellbeing and reinforce harry’s sense of emotional isolation. even sirius’ encouragement on the DA is, as hermione points out, partly bound up in more selfish motivations (‘I think he’s really frustrated at how little he can do where he is… so I think he’s keen to kind of… egg us on.’)

ginny’s largely absent in this section of the novel. in the brief moments she does appear, it’s to inject humour (eg. her impressions at the DA meeting) and in little reminders that she now has a boyfriend, no longer harbours romantic feelings for harry, making sure the reader continues to hold her mentally apart from harry. harry, meanwhile, misguidedly tries to seek out a relationship with cho chang, who is showing clear signs of her own emotional distress and inability to meet harry’s emotional needs given her own grief. still, among this, there’s still room for some small subtle sirius/ginny parallels. once the DA plot picks up, we have another little sign that ginny weasley and sirius black think somewhat alike:

“Yeah, the D.A.’s good,” said Ginny. “Only let’s make it stand for Dumbledore’s Army because that’s the Ministry’s worst fear, isn’t it?” 

“Trained in combat?” repeated Harry incredulously. “What does he think we’re doing here, forming some sort of wizard army? “That’s exactly what he thinks you’re doing,” said Sirius, “or rather, that’s exactly what he’s afraid Dumbledore’s doing — forming his own private army, with which he will be able to take on the Ministry of Magic.” 

with harry's isolation and need for more emotional support established in this first term, christmas at grimmauld offers more opportunity to subtly develop the sirius and ginny parallels, as well as to highlight ginny’s ability to fill the gaps left by sirius’ decline. after the attack on arthur weasley, the group arrive back at grimmauld:

‘Sirius was hurrying toward them all, looking anxious. He was unshaven and still in his day clothes; there was also a slightly Mundungus-like whiff of stale drink about him. “What’s going on?” he said, stretching out a hand to help Ginny up. “Phineas Nigellus said Arthur’s been badly injured —” 

could this be sirius literally lifting ginny up into plot significance? why yes it could

ofc the weasleys then argue with sirius about their right to go see their father. despite his own frustrations at being trapped at grimmauld, sirius proves the voice of reason and rational decision making against both ginny and the twins’ hotheadedness (ginny asks to borrow cloaks to go to the hospital: sirius: ‘Hang on, you can’t go tearing off to St. Mungo’s!’) crucially, though, when sirius points out that there are bigger things at stake - the work of the order and the resistance movement - it’s ginny who listens:

“Your father knew what he was getting into, and he won’t thank you for messing things up for the Order!” said Sirius angrily in his turn. “This is how it is — this is why you’re not in the Order — you don’t understand — there are things worth dying for!”  “Easy for you to say, stuck here!” bellowed Fred. “I don’t see you risking your neck!”  The little colour remaining in Sirius’s face drained from it. He looked for a moment as though he would quite like to hit Fred, but when he spoke, it was in a voice of determined calm. “I know it’s hard, but we’ve all got to act as though we don’t know anything yet. We’ve got to stay put, at least until we hear from your mother, all right?”  Fred and George still looked mutinous. Ginny, however, took a few steps over to the nearest chair and sank into it. Harry looked at Ron, who made a funny movement somewhere between a nod and shrug, and they sat down too. The twins glared at Sirius for another minute, then took seats on either side of Ginny.  “That’s right,” said Sirius encouragingly, “come on, let’s all . . . let’s all have a drink while we’re waiting…’

there’s a lot going on here: ginny’s willingness to follow sirius’ orders, but also her willingness to accept an argument based on some idea of the greater good before any of her brothers. she and sirius are aligned here, and it’s her decision to accept sirius’ reasoning that proves the catalyst for her brothers to follow. we see here how ginny has come to see sirius: someone she looks up to and admires, an adult whose judgement she trusts and whose worldview she subscribes to. (as a character prone to hero worship - see her view of her big brother bill - i think this is noteworthy, and is behind a lot of my characterisation choices for ginny towards sirius in beasts). but we also see that ginny agrees with sirius' worldview. there are some things worth dying for, and self-sacrifice is part of that.

when harry goes to sirius for reassurance about witnessing arthur’s attack, he finds sirius unable to properly console him and convince him that he was not to blame for arthur’s attack. the reader gets the impression of sirius withholding information from harry (‘He could only see a sliver of Sirius’s face; the rest was in darkness’), and the scene ends with sirius clapping harry on the shoulder and leaving him ‘standing alone in the dark’. while sirius throws himself into christmas preparations, obviously delighted to have company, harry shrinks from the cheer and isolates himself. in the end, ofc, the only person that manages to pull harry out of his dark, brooding thoughts is ginny. the text is careful to note she’s sitting beside him on the tube back from st mungo’s, when he looks very unwell. then, in the ‘lucky you’ scene, she showcases some of the same skills harry first came to appreciate in sirius in GoF. she tells it to him straight: she’s sympathetic, but not overly gushing, and she reminds him of her own intensely frightening experience which she endured alone, something harry can relate to, even if the experience of possession is not.  it’s an important scene for lots of reasons, but it’s also, crucially, the intervention that causes harry’s mood to lift, and he gets to enjoy a christmas with his godfather, the thing he had most wanted in the run-up to christmas, and which becomes the only holiday period harry and sirius ever spend together: 

‘I’m not the weapon after all, thought Harry. His heart swelled with happiness and relief, and he felt like joining in as they heard Sirius tramping past their door toward Buckbeak’s room, singing “God Rest Ye Merry, Hippogriffs” at the top of his voice.’

of course, once christmas is over, sirius slips back into a depressed, gloomy state. harry wants a better goodbye than he gives him, merely giving him a quick one armed hug (there’s a real theme throughout harry and sirius’ relationship of very sparing physical contact on sirius’ part, which is obviously a hole in harry's life ginny will fill in - er - a big way). back at school, harry returns to umbridge’s increasingly draconian rule, maks a disastrous attempt at forging a relationship with cho, and continues to feel lonely, paranoid, and angry. unable to speak to sirius properly via letter or floo - and unwilling to open the present sirius has given him to communicate directly with him, the two-way mirror - harry is increasingly sullen, a mood that only worsens after seeing snape's worst memory.

the easter egg scene is obviously important for hinny for lots of different reasons. but here i just want to highlight how the scene serves to show ginny as both the conduit to sirius for harry, and someone whose behaviour echoes that of sirius in GoF when harry first began to open up to and seek comfort in him. harry is distressed by his now complicated feelings both towards the father he previously revered and towards sirius, who seemed to encourage james’ bullying behaviour. ginny hands harry a chocolate easter egg covered in snitches: chocolate, a canonical source of comfort against dark thoughts, and an egg that reminds him of the love of parent. the act makes him suddenly emotional, though he at first denies he’s upset. ginny presses carefully and sensitively, asking the right questions to get him to confess the source of his worry, waiting for harry to take his time to speak - all behaviours that echo sirius’ own effective listening techniques. ginny’s acquaintance with sirius, and knowledge of how significant he is to harry, is important here, too, and a subtle sign to the reader that he trusts ginny with knowledge about sirius after a long time of having her in the dark about his godfather.  the reader leaves the scene having seen ginny breakthrough to harry emotionally in a way for the second time in the novel, in a way no other character has done (‘he felt a bit more hopeful…’) 

of course, the course of action ginny has set in motion is itself risky and reckless (‘anything is possible if you’ve got enough nerve’ is very marauders as a philosophy). the decision to go ahead with the plan the twins come up with is one harry sees as a decision on whether to be more like james and sirius - a risk taker - or to abandon the hero worship for the marauders he has lived with for so long. in the end, of course, it’s a win for the reckless troublemakers: he chooses to go ahead with the plan the twins have crafted and that ginny has set in motion, and to speak to sirius.

and yet. sirius is still alive - there is not need for ginny yet. for the remainder of the book, ginny has to beg to be included in the trio's plans and to be allowed to be a part of the plot to rescue sirius. she’s is often in conflict with harry, showing a lot of sirius’ bitterness at attempts at containment and to keep her out of the fighting. she grates against harry’s insistence that she is too young and inexperienced, and having to remind the trio that she, too, has come to care about sirius and wants to see him safe: 

“I’ve got a broom!” said Ginny.  “Yeah, but you’re not coming,” said Ron angrily.  “Excuse me, but I care what happens to Sirius as much as you do!” said Ginny, her jaw set so that her resemblance to Fred and George was suddenly striking. 

of course, it all ends in tragedy: sirius, desperate to go to harry’s aid and absolutely gunning for a fight after months of confinement, is killed, leaving harry alone. there a subtle clues that something has shifted in ginny’s relationship to harry and the trio in the scenes after sirius’ death, including ginny positioned as the mirror image to harry in the hospital: 

‘Harry was sitting on the end of Ron’s bed and they were both listening to Hermione read the front page of the Sunday Prophet. Ginny, whose ankle had     been mended in a trice by Madam Pomfrey, was curled up at the foot of Hermione’s bed…’

despite this, in the immediate aftermath of sirius’ death, harry is extremely alone. he is unable to work out what he needs (‘Whenever he was in company he wanted to get away, and whenever he was alone he wanted company.’) he tries to go to hagrid’s, but regrets it (‘He was starting to wish he was alone again’), leaving after hagrid reminds him of sirius’ core traits, an inability to stay out of the fight when he believes in the cause:

“But still, Harry . . . he was never one ter sit around at home an’ let other people do the fightin’. He couldn’ have lived with himself if he hadn’ gone ter help —” 

unlike at the end of GoF, harry is isolated by his grief and the revelation of the prophecy's contents by the end of this book. he goes alone to a secluded corner of the lakeshore, ‘sheltered from the gaze of passersby behind a tangle of shrubs’, and ‘[stares] out over the gleaming water’, and cries alone. there is no sirius or other person to catch him and console him in his grief. his person has died, and there’s a gap in his life again, just waiting to be filled: 

‘Wanting to impress Cho seemed to belong to a past that was no longer quite connected with him. So much of what he had wanted before Sirius’s death felt that way these days. . . . The week that had elapsed since he had last seen Sirius seemed to have lasted much, much longer: It stretched across two universes, the one with Sirius in it, and the one without.’

ginny and sirius parallels in HBP and DH

after sirius’ death, the parallels between sirius and ginny become more important as ginny moves into the centre frame as a character. at the start of HBP, harry arrives at the burrow and discusses his grief over sirius’ death with dumbledore in the burrow broom shed, acknowledging how profoundly the loss of a family member who cares singularly about him is affecting him. ('He felt stupid for admitting it, but the fact that he had had someone outside Hogwarts who cared what happened to him, almost like a parent, had been one of the best things about discovering his godfather . . . and now the post owls would never bring him that comfort again. . . .' beasts readers: there's a reason harry clings to letters!) of course, having reminded the reader of the gap in harry’s life that now needs to be filled, harry goes to sleep, the active reflection on his grief for sirius put to one side so the novel's plot can get underway. he'll go to bed mourning sirius and wake up in a sunlit bedroom. of course, ginny will walk into this bedroom too, only now things will be different: harry potter is back to the search for a loved one, for a family, and he's about to realise ginny is the one he wants to fill it. thus the start of the plot of ginny stepping into the role vacated by sirius beginneth.

so much of who ginny is in HBP is reminiscent of sirius. she frequently leaps into battle as harry’s protector (‘You’re taking orders from something someone wrote in a book?’, ‘Give it a rest, Hermione’), she’s scrappy (RIP zacharias smith), she’s funny and laughs easily in a way that less recalls sirius in the time harry knew him than sirius as harry sees him as a young man, in photographs or memories. she's the one who commits to the insane christmas decorations, determined to cheer everyone up over the festive period as sirius did the year before. she even enjoys the widespread admiration and lust of her peers, a trait that directly recalls sirius being eyed up by his peers in snape's memory. by the novel’s end, after dumbledore’s death, it will be ginny who goes to harry’s side after the climax of the plot and catch him in his grief just as sirius did in GoF, this time over dumbledore’s death: 

‘He did not want to leave Dumbledore’s side, he did not want to move anywhere. Hagrid’s hand on his shoulder was trembling. Then another voice said, “Harry, come on.’ A much smaller and warmer hand had enclosed his and was pulling him upward. He obeyed its pressure without really thinking about it.’

their breakup has sirius all over it. taking place at the lakeshore, the place where harry wept alone over sirius a year prior, harry draws on the circumstances of sirius’ demise as a reason he must break up with ginny (‘Voldemort uses people his enemies are close to.’) the breakup does little to shift what ginny has become in harry’s mind, though, and he spends all of DH thinking of her as he once thought of sirius: the person whose safety he most craves, the person he misses, someone he claims as his, and whom he associates with (now banished) hopes of a home and a family:

“It’s not a problem,” said Harry, sickened by the pain in his head. “It’s your family, ’course you’re worried. I’d feel the same way.” He thought of Ginny. “I do feel the same way.”

of course, echoes of sirius will also come into play during open war. it’s now ginny, not sirius, who is the one left behind for her own protection: in the run-up to the battle, harry finds himself once again faced with the prospect of confining his loved one for their safety, despite their desperation to fight and do the right thing. but these are thoughts for part 2…….

#meta #sirius black #ginny weasley #it's not NOT an aged up sinevra ship agenda #hp meta #hp analysis #hinny #marauders #black family #beasts

[conchaceptive]

there's no way in god's green earth that akemi and mizu wont have the most intimate passionate seventh circle of hell going lesbian encounter at least at SOME point in the series my bets are on season 2 and/or 3 cos EACH of their sex scenes have the other involved in the same scene / same time of the scene / paralleled somehow.

- when akemi and taigen slept with each other akemi was doing her poetic reciting shit and saying about how taigen would "drive his sword into him" and "gloryyyy" ( mizu has two hands i want mizu and taigen together too they can all share but that's for another time )

- mizu having memory dream of her and mikio sleeping together and she literally wakes up when she finishes and who's the first person she sees when she wakes up? akemi. and who's trying desparately to wake her up? akemi. like okk ambatakum mkayyy. mk

- not a scene where sex happens but its pretty intimate but the one and only. ok the second but the second mizu and taigen sparring scene and taigen gets a hard on ( there is nothing that is stopping mizu from having two hands and utilizing both ). and then he's like "mb! must be missing my fiancé!" who is akemiiii and soooo if you put two and two together they're gonna scissorrrrrrrr

- akemi sleeping with shogun son guy i forgot his name ( i like him he just needs to shave his head but i rly hope he turns out good or at least significant but mostly good ) meanwhile mizu is doing swordmaking ritual ass naked

and notice how in each of these scenes, at least each of the love scenes, one of them is sleeping w someone and the other is vulnerable or depicted as vulnerable somehow. the first one was just different cos they hadn't all met yet but after mizu and akemi met and talked to each their sex scenes had the other "involved" idk a bigger or better word but let me cook because im right

edit: and even in the one non sex scene i mentioned akemi is in danger at the time that that scene happens. vulnerability and sex and something lgbt is always going on

#blue eye samurai #blue eye samurai akemi #blue eye samurai mizu #akemi #mizu #akemizu

[tadbitsketch]

accidentally took a 4 hour nap and now i can't sleep so mcsm theory time!

ok so this is kind of something that i never really see be debated in the community, but i do see it be represented in different ways. i'm talking about ✨the parallels between the new and old orders✨

for the most part, we can all agree that

magnus: axel (griefer)

ellegaard: olivia (redstonist)

gabriel: petra (warrior)

which just leaves two characters in each order: ivor and soren, and jesse and lukas.

i keep seeing people represent jesse in soren's place, because they're both the leaders of their respective groups or something like that. but i disagree.

lukas parallels soren much better because they're both architects. they're also both writers who live(d) away from civilization. they also both have a habit of being a little* bit dramatic in their storytelling of their adventures.

so if everyone else parallels each other in their roles... how does jesse parallel ivor?

the funny thing about these parallels is how it's not just in job that they match... kinda.

and i have some fun lil theories/analyzations on this, of which i will share!

theory 1: similar arcs

something really cool about these two (and some other notable characters i'll discuss another time) is that they both have character arcs where they grow and change as people.

ivor's plans of revenge backfire horrendously, and after that problem is solved, he makes new friends. ones who aren't liars, people who genuinely help. they're brave, and they forgive. they're willing to learn and change.

and so is he does too.

meanwhile jesse is a noob who knows barely anything about minecrafting who eventually saves the world. they learn a lot from the mistakes of their predecessors.

both ivor and jesse grow as people because of mistakes from the past. they both are characters who have decided to change things from how they were, whether it be how they were themselves or how someone before them was.

theory 2: creation/destruction

so i came up with this awhile ago, but you can split the members of the order into two groups (based on their "classes," so to speak): creators and destroyers.

olivia and ellegaard make redstone contraptions, lukas and soren build. they are creators.

axel and magnus blow things up, petra and gabriel slay monsters. they are destroyers.

what is ivor, then? his role as an alchemist means that he can create potions to help AND potions to harm. he is both a creator and a destroyer.

and jesse, our main character with quite the skillset (except for alchemy), also fits both the roles of a creator and a destroyer. jesse does whatever the heck jesse wants.

boom. parallels.

and one other funky thing i've noticed

ivor's stone in the amulet is the lapis blue one. jesse's favorite color is canonically lapis blue.

#you would think i'd stop accidentally staying up late to write mcsm stuff but you'd think wrong #also i love how ivor basically adopts jesse #dadvor is iconic #i have to be up in like 5 hours whoopsie #mcsm #mcsm theory #minecraft story mode #mcsm ivor #mcsm jesse

[artemisiamezzanotte]

Why both Jily and Jegulus make sense in the Marauders Fandom

Okay, so I have been seeing a few posts recently dismissing Jegulus as a ship and, although I am personally more of a Jily than a Jegulus girly, I thought I'd explain why both ships make sense to me in the context of the original source material.

We know that there is a direct link between the Marauders and the Golden Trio in the books, and that each member of one mirrors a member of the other.

James and Harry being the most obvious, as father and son and the perceived 'leader' of their group of friends.

Sirius and Ron, the 'best friend'. Both from pureblood families, although the Blacks and the Weasleys couldn't be more different in their beliefs. Both feel misunderstood and perhaps misplaced in their family. Both give James and Harry unadulterated, solid friendship that is fiercely loyal and unquestioning.

Remus and Hermione, the outcasts. Remus due to his lycanthropy, Hermione due to her muggleborn status. Both try to counterbalance this by excelling in their studies and are, by nature (again, this is in the original books) more rule-followers rather than rebels.

Peter and Neville, the astonished Gryffindors. Both from pureblood families, both equally surprised by being sorted in the house where bravery is valued most. They each deal with impostor syndrome, but whilst Neville's friends build him up and he eventually comes into his own thanks to Dumbledore's Army, Peter fails (or is failed by his friends) in doing so and betrays them for the dark side.

We know that Harry ends up marrying Ginny, who is, like Lily, a magically talented and strong-willed red-haired witch but is also his best friend's younger sibling. So, James falling for Regulus doesn't feel like too far a stretch to me.

Jegulus also gives the opportunities to explore a lot of interesting considerations for writers, such as (i) what is the difference between loving someone as a best friend and loving someone romantically; (ii) you can't choose the family you are born into but you can make your own family as you grow older; (iii) what are the differences in relationship dynamics between partners, lifelong friends and siblings?

I'm sure someone has more cleverly and thoroughly analysed these parallels before but I just wanted to share my unsolicited opinion with the tubmlrverse.

Overall, I would say if you enjoy reading something, read it. If you find yourself not enjoying something, DON'T. Freedom is fickle in this flawed world, so exercise it ruthlessly where you can.

Ok, rant over, Misia out x

#marauders fandom #the marauders #harry potter marauders #harry potter #hp marauders #marauders headcanon #sirius and regulus #james & peter & remus & sirius #sirius orion black #remus lupin #dead gay wizards from the 70s #jegulus #jegulily #jily #jily fic #lily evans #james potter #dead gay wizards #starchaser #wolfstar fanfiction

[fangirleaconmigo]

In your expert opinion, do you think there’s any deeper reading to interpret from Geralt’s rebound with Essi, and traits she shares with Dandelion? (I know it wasn’t authorial intention in the least, but when he kissed her within 10 minutes of meeting, I got a “she’s a lot like Dandelion, surely she’s safe to embarrass myself with” vibe).

Hi Nonny!

Essi and Dandelion, Poets and Parallels, Ballads and Broken Hearts

Thank you for the ask! I'm on my lunch break from work, but I'm so happy to be answering Witcher book questions again that I'm sneaking off to do this.

Essi is such an interesting character, right? On one hand, she seems to be treated as the 'anti-Yen" by the narrative and the thing that Geralt 'should' want, thereby reinforcing his love for Yen when he *doesn't* fall in love with Essi.

But then there are all the curious parallels and similarities with Dandelion, which also makes it fun to analyze in that way. The list of similarities is long: their profession, personality, looks, their level of talent, and my favorite, their readiness to throw hands on behalf of Geralt of Rivia. And then there is The Ballad.

Ok. I'm going to set authorial intent aside for the moment, because writers write things all the time they don't intend to write. And I think any artist worth their salt should be thrilled that their work is layered and interesting enough to inspire differing interpretations.

That being said, let's get to the fun part.

SPOILERS SPOILERS FOR ESSI'S STORY PLS DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED.

Profession, personality

Let's look at Essi's introduction! She enters the scene acting just like Dandelion. Both poets are mercilessly insulting one another in their fake-genteel way. (Lots of shade, as well as out and out insults)

Geralt is taken aback, thinking they are fighting, but then they fall on one another embracing and he's like...oh lordt. There's two of them.

"The Witcher was taken aback, but not too greatly. A professional colleague of Dandelion's could not, indeed, differ much from him in terms of predictability."

--Sword of Destiny pg 195

So we have profession, and personality being very similar. Bards with sharp tongues and ready emotions. Then we have looks!

Looks.

I've done a post on Dandelion's looks here. And Essi is similar! Blonde hair, blue eyes, and beautiful. Same same. Sorry, her eyes are a dark blue whereas Dandelion's are cornflower. Much different so contrast.

Level of talent.

They are both beloved and famous. When Ciri is studying at Nenneke's temple, she has access to both of their books of poetry.

[Ciri] read The Adversities of Loving and Time of the Moon, collections of poems by the famous troubadour Dandelion. She shed tears over the ballads of Essi Daven, subtle, infused with mystery, and collected in a small, beautifully bound volume entitled The Blue Pearl. --Blood of Elves pg 298

And Geralt adores both of their voices. When Essi and Dandelion are singing together, Geralt thinks to himself that they have the most beautiful voices that he has ever heard.

They Stay Ready to Throw Hands for Geralt of Rivia.

The text even classifies Essi and Dandelion together on this. And as I said, it's my favorite part of her character, and not just because I love Geralt. It shows her strength, her strong sense of self, her courage, and her values.

First, she, much in the way that Dandelion does, uses her fame, connections, and higher social standing to protect Geralt. And she throws Dandelion into the mix for good measure to strengthen her threats. So when Duke Agloval threatens to drive Geralt to the border with a whip. Essi reponds.

"...please dont threaten Geralt. It so happens that Dandelion and I have several friends...King Ethain of Cidaris...always says that our ballads aren't just lively music and rhymes, but a way of spreading news...Do you wish, your Grace, to be written into the chronicle of human kind? I can arrange it?" --Sword of Destiny pg 212

And when Geralt turns down Agloval's 'offer' of permanent work killing sea creatures in a permanent war with them, (keeping in mind that the noble has stiffed Geralt twice on payment so far) Agloval invokes Geralt's poverty in a demeaning way.

"Oh how proud," Agloval smiled. "How haughty. You reject offers in a way some kings wouldn't be ashamed of. You give up decent money with the air of a wealthy man after a lavish dinner. Geralt? Did you have lunch today? No? And tomorrow? And the day after? I see little chance, Witcher, very little..."

It is so infuriating. Agloval is saying...who the fuck do you think you are? Someone important? Someone with status?? Someone who is allowed to decide his own ethics for himself?

This is a constant theme. The...know your place. Stop trying to think for yourself. Ethics look stupid on you, because you aren't 'real' enough of a human being to have them. So it is super satisfying when Essi lets loose on him.

"How dare you!" Little Eye cried shrilly. "How dare you speak like that to him Agloval!...How can you be so base?"...

Geralt tries to stop her. He sees little point.

"Stop it Essi," Geralt said. "Stop, Essi, there's no point." "Not true," she said angrily. "These is a point. Someone has to tell it straight to this self-appointed duke....who now thinks he has the right to insult other people."

And she isn't done.

"Yes, Agloval, " Essi continued, clenching her shaking hands into fists. "The opportunity to insult other people amuses and pleases you. You delight in the contempt you can show the Witcher...you should know that the Witcher mocks your attempts and slights., that they do not make the faintest impression on him..."

Then we bring Dandelion back in. Because guess who also feels anger and revulsion when Geralt is treated so contemptuously? Let Essi say it...

"The Witcher doesn't feel what Dandelion and I feel, and we feel revulsion."

Sword of Destiny pg 237

That's like...not even half of her unloading on this guy. She is like...you are worth less than Geralt, so jot that down.

Now..

The Ballad

Here is why the ballad matters to me. I think that perhaps even more interesting than how Geralt responds to Essi (interesting though it is) is how Dandelion responds to Essi. Why does he think someone who is almost exactly like him is perfect for Geralt? I mean, he sees himself in her so much that he thinks of her as his sister.

He loves her more than Geralt does I think that is clear. Geralt cares deeply about her. But to Dandelion, she is like his family.

He is put in a shitty position of seeing her distraught and anguished about her feelings for Geralt and Geralt afraid of leading her on or hurting her. Geralt and Essi go back and forth, making it insufferable for Dandelion as a third wheel.

I talked about it here here and here.

Dandelion's response is the subject of controversy in fandom, and there are many valid and differing reader responses. But it seems clear that Dandelion has come to terms with the fact that Geralt and Essi will not be together in love, despite his advice to Geralt. So he suggests they just fuck to get it out of their systems and then everything will be ok. (that's his solution to most things)

So, if he is at ease with that, why the ballad? At the end of the story, Dandelion composes a ballad while Essi and Geralt sleep.

Dandelion, staring into the dying embers, sat much longer, alone, quietly strumming his lute. It began with a few bars, from which an elegant, soothing melody emerged. The lyric suited the melody, and came into being simultaneously with it, the words blending into the music, becoming set in it like insects in translucent, golden lumps of amber. The ballad told of a certain witcher and a certain poet. About how the witcher and the poet met on the seashore, among the crying of seagulls, and how they fell in love at first sight. About how beautiful and powerful was their love. About how nothing - not even death - was able to destroy that love and part them.

Sword of Destiny pg 246

Why this romantic song?? About a witcher and poet?

Yes, it could be just for the ballad, for a successful song. The text talks about the real story not being a good one for a ballad.

But there is so much emotion and magic in that scene. What is he thinking? What is he feeling?

Of course you know about what happens next, Essi's heartbreaking end, and Dandelion's crushing grief. She dies of smallpox during an epidemic. Dandelion is there. Did he go as soon as he heard? Was he visiting her expecting some lovely evenings singing around a fire and found her dead?

However it happened, Dandelion does not leave her to die alone. He does not turn tail and leave, avoiding smallpox. He literally carries the cold dead corpse of this woman he loves, who he sees as his sister, in his arms...

...Dandelion had carried her out in his arms between corpses being cremated on funeral pyres and had buried her far from the city, in the forest, alone and peaceful...

He buries her alone with his own hands! Oh how his heart must have shattered. It is moments like that, that you see the deeper, kinder, even (dare I say) noble side of the vain, braggadocios, whorish bard.

It goes on to say that Dandelion could have changed the song at any point to be a true version (the one where Essi dies), but he never did.

No, Dandelion stuck with his first version. And he never sang it. Never. To no one. Sword of Destiny p 246

Yeah.

To me there is a story about a young girl who cares enough for ten people, who has a huge heart, and a deep soul. A fearless girl who feels things too big for her to handle for a man others call a monster. A girl whose voice is like an angel.

And then there is a story about a broken hearted poet who loved her (far more than Geralt did) and who wrote a song about a witcher and a poet and he never changed the words and never sang it to anyone.

And I wonder if he wasn't writing that ballad about a witcher and a different poet entirely.

*sob*

#the witcher #geralt of rivia #dandelion #geraskier #jaskier #gerlion #essi daven #the witcher books #thinking about the witcher books yet again #thinking about dandelion yet again

[muertawrites]

Bandanna anon back again, different thought this time. Ok so Eddie lives (obviously, why wouldn’t he?) but he has to go to the hospital where they shave his head in order to give him stitches and just Eddie with a buzz cut 😌 convincing Eddie you still love him without his hair 😊 Eddie growing it out and having these little ringlets that you fight him to not tease out 😍 Eddie’s hair growing back as a reminder of him healing 🥰

bandana anon i love youuuu *mluah* 😛

as a traumatized and healing bitch i love this. i 👏🏻 love 👏🏻 this 👏🏻

eddie x hopper!reader bc parallels 🥺

Your father is up before anyone else in the house, as always. You roll out of bed to find him at the kitchen table, reading the day's newspaper and nursing his second cup of coffee. Instead of saying good morning, he just grunts at you.

"How's he doing?" he asks as you help yourself to what's left in the pot.

It's an odd question, coming from him.

Jim Hopper had always hated the "him" he was referring to - the scruffy miscreant who he'd busted multiple times for vandalism, petty theft, public intoxication, possession...

He hated him even more when he found out his eldest child had fallen hard for him.

Even more when the way he found out was walking into your room one evening after he'd snuck in, finding the boy in a precarious position between your legs.

But since the earthquake, he'd softened. He saw the way Eddie looked at you, the way he risked his life to protect you, and suddenly a criminal history didn't matter as much.

He was troubled, sure. But he was good to you. He made you happy. And that was enough for Jim.

"He's okay," you reply. "Nightmares again last night. Couldn't sleep."

Your dad hums, sympathetic.

"Those'll stick around for a while."

As if on cue, the man in question emerges from your bedroom, looking as ragged and sleep deprived as he feels. He wears a gray beanie over his newly shaven head, hiding the ugly gash that lies beneath. He doesn't meet your eye, popping a cigarette into his mouth and slipping onto the back porch. You sigh.

"Still upset over his hair, huh?" Jim comments.

"Yeah," you confirm. "It, um... It reminds him of his dad, I think. How he used to make him shave it."

Your father is also familiar with the elder Munson, the crime that got him thrown into prison with a life sentence. More so with the abuse he used to inflict upon his son, since he was the one who answered many of those calls.

"Munson was a scumbag," Jim grumbles. "Hard to believe a kid as good as Eddie came from him."

You smile at the compliment, which your dad shares over the edge of his paper, pursing his lips together to try and hide it. Coffee in hand, you open the back door and join Eddie, sinking down beside him on the porch steps.

"Mornin', angel," he greets you.

You lay your head on his shoulder, and he wraps his arm around you, keeping you warm against the spring chill. In the distance, what remains of downtown Hawkins smolders, sending ribbons of black smoke into the clear blue sky.

"How's your head doing today?" you ask.

He doesn't answer, opting instead to take a long drag of his cigarette.

"... You've gotta show me at some point."

Eddie huffs, flicking ash into the tray your father keeps on the back porch.

"You don't wanna see it," he mumbles. " 's pretty bad."

"So are the ones on your neck," you remind him. "But you let me kiss those."

He side eyes you, and you can tell he's trying to argue the sense you somehow manage to talk into him. You were the one who dragged him back through the portal when he tried to be a hero, after all.

"... You're not gonna like it," he finally admits. "I'm not... I'm not me anymore."

"You still eat Froot Loops for dinner," you contest. "That's pretty you."

He tries to fight the laugh that bubbles in his chest, the resulting smile warming your heart with just how genuine it is. You haven't seen him smile like that in far too long.

"I'm just worried you're not... You're like, serially into guys with long hair," he continues. "My hair was what got you to notice me in the first place. What if... What if you're not... What if I'm not attractive to you anymore?"

You sit up, taking his face in your hands; almost a little too aggressively, because he flinches the slightest bit in surprise.

"Eddie," you say. "Do you know what the sexiest thing about you is?"

He stares at you blankly.

"That stupid demon voice you do when you're playing a villain in a campaign," you tell him. "The over the top, snarly, borderline feral voice that comes out of you when you get really into it. It's ridiculous. And I'd be lying to you if I told you I didn't cum so hard the couple times it's come out during sex."

Eddie's eyes pop, mortified.

"I've used it during sex?"

You laugh, nodding as you lean forward to peck his lips.

"Yes. But my point is that you're goofy, and dramatic, and clever, and sweet, and so shamelessly you that this-" you pat the beanie covering his head "- doesn't matter to me. What matters is that you're safe. That you're still with me."

Eddie raises a hand to your cheek, gently running his thumb over the high point of the bone. He gazes lovingly, dreamily down at you, a bemused smile curling his lips.

"I don't deserve you," he murmurs.

"You deserve me more than anyone."

---

"Stop."

You lift the comb out of Eddie's hand, kissing him on the cheek as you do.

"They're cute. Leave them."

He tsks, snatching the comb back up when you set it on the bathroom counter, resuming the process of teasing out the ringlets his hair has started to grow into.

"It looks better longer," he growls, frustrated. "I hate my fuckin' hair."

"Can I have help?"

El appears in the doorway, holding her own set of styling tools. Her hair has also grown out quite a bit, now at the awkward length where it has to be styled every day or else look totally unpresentable. You gesture her inside, perching on the closed lid of the toilet as she sits on the floor in front of you, letting you work your older sibling magic. In a matter of minutes, her locks have been tamed; she bounds up to the mirror beside Eddie to inspect your work.

"It's coming back," she notices, looking up at him. "Your scar is almost gone."

He hums, running a contemplative finger over the raised, darkened bit of flesh peeking from his hairline. The scar runs all the way around his skull, down the back of his neck, but it's disappeared under the nest of dark brown curls that have grown in since his stint in the hospital.

He grins at her in the mirror, pointing to her wrist.

"So's yours," he notes, indicating her tattoo. "Ink's fading."

El smiles back, positively beaming. Her hand lifts to trace the bats etched above his elbow, a habit she's picked up in the months since Eddie moved in. She loves him like a brother. It makes your heart want to explode.

"I like your hair like this," she admits. "You look better than before. You're healing."

Eddie pauses, his face crumpling like he's about to start sobbing. You hide your smile behind your hand as he takes a deep breath, regaining his composure, then takes one of El's own curls between two fingers, pulling and releasing so it bounces like a spring. She giggles at him, playfully smacking his hand away.

"You're lookin' better too, short stack," he says. "Guess we're both gonna be okay."

#eddie munson #eddie asks #muerta's works #eddie munson blurb #eddie munson x gn!reader #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson drabble #eddie munson x you #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson x reader fluff #eddie munson x you fluff #i had to have an eddie and el interaction i just HAD to #he'd love her #they'd adopt each other as siblings #ugh el my sweet baby angel #also eddie and hopper interactions???? #i need more of them #eddie munson x hopper!reader

[alienssstufff]

been thinking about how there was gonna be one more stream where c!slime and c!quackity we’re gonna find solace,,,how do you believe their story ended? (since you are the ceo of dapduo)

With what we currently have in canon here is how that final stream would have panned out: NOTE- the following happens after the HO16 fic, after Wilbur apologises to everyone except Tommy, and the 9/10 LN ending

The beginning of the stream starts with c!Wilbur leaning against the pool balcony area of Las Nevadas in the early morning as c!Quackity joins him, they both look visibly haggard and fucked up (also Quackity is in a wheelchair). It's a very darkly lit scene, clarity only shown by the light of the cigarettes they share. If I were to pin a Hamilton song to this moment it would have the lines from Angelica's 'Congratulations' notably

I look at us and think, "God, what have we done with our lives, And what did it get us?"

Though I don't know if any of them would actually say anything. None of them say anything, as stubborn as the other despite everything they've been through separately, it'd take hell for either of them to truthfully open up to the other about anything let alone themselves. It's stubbornness but it's also mutual, an agreement that neither of them would apologise to the other. Two sides of the same coin, the reflections of eachother in the water being reminders of this. The both of them leave in opposite directions of the shoreline, towards bringing an end to their final arcs.

[ok ACTUAL part with c!Quackity and c!Slime are undercut. I promise]

After the title screen, this new scene actually opens a week prior to the tntduo scene up top. Quackity on his last canon life wakes up exactly where he had fallen from the hotel, a green puddle noticeably on the floor next to him.

In my headcanon, it is implied (offscreen) that out of guilt Slime jumps off the ledge after pushing Quackity - paralleling when Quackity jumped after Slime in the 27/11/2021 finale.  "the consequences will be bitter. I will not fail. Because Quackity from Las Nevadas, we have one thing in common. Through everything we've been through. The same human ruined our lives. Because you are not a good person." -Slime

The camera is a long shot, from POV of one of the deck chairs and it shows c!Foolish hurriedly rushing to Quackity's aid to help him up. [Cut to black]

At this moment in time, there is no war on the server. Las Nevadas instead dealing with a completely new problem that is the slime clones infestation. Security footage showing different places of the country just filled with the clones aimlessly wandering around. Foolish and Quackity, the only remaining members of Las Nevadas left discuss in the now-empty and ruined Amongus research bunker on what to do next. Quackity ponders, thinking about what Slime said to him on the balcony and all the things Quackity did wrong -- and so begins the true reprise of Quackity's lessons.

The general format of this section of the stream being the same as the 27/11/2021 Las Nevadas finale: Quackity says the new (revised) Lesson, and it shows Quackity teaching these lessons to the slime clones. Hypothetically there could also be a scene of Quackity making amends with Kinoko kingdom and him sending the letters to the Syndicate etc.

Meanwhile I would have liked to think Slime, now finally free from... anyone really - spends its time wandering the server interviewing all forms of life and figuring out itself on what it truly means to be human. These wouldn't happen in the one Quackity stream but small bits of Charlie's, every new day starting with Slime watching Quackity from afar. (Featuring this also helps better portray Slime as its own person beyond Quackity's influence). If I were to pin another Hamilton song to this it would be 'It's Quiet Uptown'

ANYWAY the true finale, after having grown in their respective ways - ends with the two of them in the bright dawn at the beach. They go to each other and embrace, crying and happy as the world burns to white :,]

#ask stufff #stufff rambles #quackity #slimecicle #dapduo #tntduo #(its a portion in there) #las nevadas #dsmp #dsmp lore #mcytblr #NGL anon I'm having a TIME wrestling this answer TwT #and I thinks it's because of how complicated my feelings for the 9/10/2022 Las Nevadas finale is to me #I was tempted to give a full ramble on how I would have rewritten it but that's not answering the question SO #might go back to edit this im not sure but whatevers i dont write - just plan

[leonaquitaine]

Sights of Eorzea: A Quick Update!

First of all - sorry for the lull in posts about pretty things!

The team behind the Sights of Eorzea discord server has been working tirelessly behind the scenes to set up the space, and it's consuming a good chunk of my free time. With that said, much has been done - so here's a quick feature rundown, and a teaser of things to come!

Guides

Every single guide I've worked on so far is listed there, and you can filter by subject and type!

Places to go, Studios to visit

One of the most used features in the server, the gpose-location forum allows users to post their screenshots with location and search tags - so if you're hunting for that perfect spot, this is the place for you!

In the same forum, you can find Studios as well! They're categorized by physical data center (NA, EU, JP, and OCE) and residential zones, and if you have a studio you can create your own entry and let other people discover your amazing work!

In the works: External location database

In parallel, we are also preparing to launch an external website specifically designed for scene search! It will be in sync with the server's gpose-location forum, allowing external users to have access to the contributed entries and search by tags!

(I know, the interface is awful. It's a work in progress, Ok? ;))

We're also planning to have a map view of these entries, where you can look for different angles and perspectives!

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#Sights of Eorzea

[ego-meliorem-esse]

Could you talk a bit about Matthew and Alfred relationship? Our boys need love too

The lads! The fellas! The absolute units!

Bear with me here I wanna give a little bit of a context and a personal explanation as to why I'm really fascinated with these two countries in general.

If there is one nationfolk relationship that comes as close to pure and friendly as it possibly can, it would be the Us-Can one. Of course, it has major problems and unavoidable disputes. But let me tell you, as a balkan, ex-yugoslav cretin, I cannot help but be intriqued with the way these two comunicate. They make fun of eachother sure, they have disputes and squables, sometimes outright clashes, but when there is crisis in the US for example, all I hear is Americans straight up saying "ok well time to move to Canada". It's fascinating to me! As a Croat who, after returning from Serbia from a 3 day trip, brought home souveniers (key chains mostly, with the Serbian flag) I was yelled at by my dad who afterwards didn't talk to me for a few days. All because I dared to bring this enemy countrys flag into our home. Now, I was born in 1999. I have no connection to the war 8 years prior. No excusable, personal vandetta. But still it' s very much acceptable to hate so strongly. And even if it wasn't 8 years that passed, but 80, there still would be a widely accepted resentment. But alas, I am not talking about people, cus frankly people are just people. Alliances and relations between countries are another thing. Imagine sharing a huge fucken border with another country and being friends. My euro brain is imploding. Uncomprehensible.

Now I do understand the US is often described as a bit of a phycho, and frankly Canada is an expert at dealing with the phycho. Kudos. Keep the yanks from whipping out their home protection assault rifles and unleashing hell fire is risky shit. Canada manages tho. What I'm really interested in is the USA's view of Canada. They aren't a threat. They aren't suspicious. They are a force to be reckoned with tho, but they are friends. If there is one ally the USA can rely on its the maple sucking french/anglo bastards up north. So much history in such a short time. Fascinating.

To relate this to the bros, I think these two understand eachother better than most. Matt is quiet, obsetvand and passive (mostly), while his unit of a brother is loud, idealistic and prone to thinking the world owes him time on the world stage. And it works. Matt is the one to talk to his brother in a way that gets Alfred to listen. H speaks Alfreds language and can communicate with him freely. I think that that is a skill and in the modern era, a privilage that not many have. Not many dare to tell Alfred to his face that he fucked up majorly, but Matt can. He knows he can. Alfred knows he can. So he does. Matt can pull his brother aside after an outburst, and for the lack of a better word, humble him.

Alfred respects his brothers oppinion more then other nations'. He went from seeing Matt as a weak, self-pitying and ambitionless dominion, to accepting his views, ideas and even asking his oppinion on certain matters. I like to draw a parallel here. Matt had to sacrifice everything and himself to have Arthur call him into the war room and ask Matthew for his oppinion. Alfred is not much different. It takes time for Matthews voice to be heard, but when the time comes, it's desperately needed.

Alfred tho, is and always will be Alfred. And if somthing else catches his attention, he will ignore the house on fire across the street. He is prone to isolation and ignoring his brother for extended periods of time, just sending him a tiktok every month or so. That being the only indication to Matt that his brother is alive. Alfred has so much shit going on and his 13 braincells have to spread evenly across to cover it all. His brother is a constant in his life, stable and therefore forgotten.

That being said, I don't think there is another person on Earth Alfred loves more than his brother. Showing it is not something he ever learned tho. He knows he cannot buy his way into showing his love for Matt, so with his lack skills of other forms of love expressions, he does nothing.

As for Matt, he checks up on Alfred as much as he can. His history and past have tought him to expect nothing form the people he loves. So he doesn't. He knows Alfred is his closest ally and best friend, but doesn't ask for anything Alfred himself isn't giving. He is a person who waits to be asked to hang out on Saturday instead of asking his friends himself.

So while almost all I talked about is sad and somewhat negative, I do think the bond and conversations these two share are one of the most honest and true expressions of brotherly love. And by god I usually don't use the world love when describing nation-folk relationships, but in this case there isn't a replacement.

sorry for the personal shit and Alfred slander, I love him.

#sorry for the long post #im hungover #eating doritos and smoking cigs #hetalia #hws america #hws canada #ask meli #meli speaks #my headcanons

[wistfulwatcher]

ok not only was this just a bad narrative choice for the show in general and natalie's character, this was also such a WEAK narrative choice for misty, too.

christina has talked about how something happens at the end of the season that "changes" misty. but the thing is, this has happened before. to her. same circumstances. this is the opposite of something that should change her, because it's exactly what happened with crystal!

both times misty found a friend when she was desperately alone, she clung to that friend and put everything into the relationship. and then, due to the intensity of her relationship—sharing everything with crystal, wanting to protect natalie—she caused the death of the person she loved.

there is nothing i love more than parallels, but for a parallel to be narratively meaningful, there needs to be a purpose to it. you need to use it to highlight differences, or show a progression. there is no progression for misty here. this is just history repeating itself. if misty didn't change after crystal died, and nothing has changed between then and now for misty, then WHY does this change her? she just needed it to happen twice??

killing natalie was a disgusting choice, and if we're supposed to believe that it was necessary for misty's character growth, with absolutely no narrative justification for it to be, then—beyond it just being awful—it is an entirely lower level of bad storytelling.

i am all for a story where these women continue to (figuratively) cannibalize each other as adults; i signed up for a dark show about women making bad choices. but 1) this wasn't a choice. this was, once again, an accident. i signed up for a show about women with agency, and making everything around them an accident or an unintended consequence is absolutely spitting in the face of that (presumably to make them more ~sympathetic, and i hate it).

and 2) there are other ways for them to hurt each other without death being a factor. this show is supposed to be about struggling with trauma, and you can't struggle with trauma when you're dead. the far more interesting story is one where the past is well and truly saturated with conflict—with characters you know are doomed and you still learn to love, and with characters you know survive and you have to continually struggle to forgive and understand.

i had so, so much love for season one because that's what i thought we were getting. i thought we were getting a bittersweet love story about the complexity of women, the complexity of trauma, the complexity of survival.

instead, this is becoming yet another show where things happen to women. where, to make them sympathetic—as more palatable to mainstream (cough male cough) audiences—they need to write women as victims of circumstance, as victims of their pasts, as victims of their own actions.

this is becoming a show where women who make bad choices are not allowed to stand behind them. who must be out of control (shauna, lottie, tai), or must be punished for the unintended consequences (misty), or must die (nat, van potentially).

and now, with natalie the antler queen in the past, and a character we no longer have in the present, i wonder how long it will be until she becomes the scapegoat for the surviving characters. how long until the worst actions in the wilderness are put upon natalie's shoulders, to lighten the load from the surviving women. how long until the only characters allowed to have agency, allowed to be complex and make disagreeable choices that they intend to make, are ones who die.

how long until our beautiful, complex, surviving characters are washed down to nothing, to shells of themselves in the name of making them more sympathetic. more palatable. how long until this is just another shallow mystery, without the beating heart of the first season.

#yellowjackets #yellowjackets spoilers #natalie scatorccio #misty quigley #yellowjackets meta #anti yellowjackets #yellowjackets critical #mine #wordles #~ #the more i think about this show the angrier and angrier i get #i should not have rewatched s1 as many times as i have #slash that's all i'll be watching for the rest of my life

[onepiece-polls]

One Piece Shipping War - Round 2 Side B

Propaganda under the cut.

Propaganda for Smoker x Law:

Their interactions on punk hazard are just hhhhnnnggghhhh. First they fight against each other and then they have to team up! The sexual tension is through the roof 👀 and they fight so well together too 👀 also law LITERALLY stole smoker's heart?? Sorry for being incoherent that's just what they do to me

I read it in a fic and it was compelling also it would be cool if they both knew rocinante

Law literally stole Smoker’s heart during the Punk Hazard Arc - they saved each other during the Punk Hazard Arc even if they were enemies - classic “Enemies to lovers” energy - perfect matching personalities (INTP x INTJ) - the thrill of a forbidden love between a marine and a pirate.

They have. SUCH a divorcee dynamic listen. - Law literally stole Smoker’s heart in the Punk Hazard arc. - Even though they were enemies, Smoker fought against Vergo and stole Law’s heart to give it back to him, hurting himself A LOT. - at the same time, Law saved Smoker from Vergo and gave Smoker’s heart back even if he didn’t have to. - the way Law smiles when fighting against him and getting on Smoker’s nerves (a lot of tension here hehe). - Smoker’s a marine and Law a pirate, what’s better than a forbidden relationship? - their personalities match perfectly (INTJ and INTP).

SUCH a divorcee dynamic. - we all love a forbidden romance between marine and pirate - the way they interact with each other on Punk Hazard is at the same time easy but full of tension, they clearly have some familiarity w each other - ...and then later they manage to work together seamlessly despite those tensions and differences, and Smoker trusts Law to pick up the slack where he can't. And Law DOES follow through - after the battle Law TELLS Smoker what he's planning next - yeah it's all purposeful for his plans but it's such a clear and obvious manipulation. And yet Smoker does exactly that. - the guy sent to Dressrosa is Issho (which ok Sakazuki says he sent BUT what a funny coincidence still that it's the one guy who's most likely to help Law rather than hinder hmmmm) - when Doffy shows up after Law&co have left and demands to know things Smoker just straight up stonewalls him and lies to his face, with the full knowledge that it may cost him his life. Which yeah, Smoker hates pirates, but he doesn't actually have any reason to do that - if he really didn't care he wouldn't mind siccing the two warlords on each other and watching them destroy themselves so he at the very least must agree with Law if not outright want to help him - delicious narrative parallels! Bc fundamentally they're two sides of the same coin: both are absolutely driven by their personal moral codes and care DEEPLY about people and things. Law may be driven largely by more self-centered goals and focus his good on the smaller circle he chooses to surround himself with, while Smoker is drawn to more lofty pursuits of greater good and helping even those he will never meet or even know of, but at the core they share very similar ideals and values - and ykno. Law LITERALLY punches Smoker's heart out of his chest - also Law is a scrawny-ass twink and you cannot tell me he doesn't have a thing for buff dilfs who could bench press double his weight.

Propaganda for Law x Robin:

Their intelligent goth energy combined would be off the charts

Their backstories parallel each other perfectly! Home destroyed, hunted from a young age saved by a kind marine. Spoilers ahead: They're working together to figure out what the history of the Will of D is, and what happened in the void century! She was the only person Law trusted enough to reveal his middle initial! Also, they could do horrible things together if they decided to use their devil fruits as a team. So many limbs in places they shouldn't be.

Smart, sexy, sleek, intelligent, empathetic, humorous, *might get flustered on occasion*, hobbies: riling up Usopp. Terrific and morbid sense of humour. Just *get* one another. Very close to one another in both age and height!

#one piece #smolaw #lawbin #op shipping war #tournament poll #round 2 #side B