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pagannatural · 2 months

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2.03 Bloodlust

-Sam flirts with Dean by telling him (and the Impala) to get a room. Meanwhile he’s looking at Dean like this and the two of them are, literally, getting a room.

-Sam tells the bartender “we’re looking for some people” and the bartender says “sure, hard to be lonely.”

Sam blinks wide, grimaces. Dean looks at him, assessing. Sam looks down and then at Dean while he says “yeah, but, um…” slowly, then he regroups and pulls out a fifty, “that’s not what I meant.” There’s a sexual implication to being lonely and looking for someone at a bar, and the brothers share a very loaded look about it. It’s like this bartender accidentally hit on a truth.

Sam has been lonely for Dean. He’s been trying to get Dean to talk to him and spend time with him since their dad died, and Dean has been shutting Sam out emotionally. Sam knows Dean is lonely for him too, even though he won’t say it.

-Sam notices something is off when Dean says he’s been itching for a hunt. He and Dean also make prolonged eye contact after Dean kills a vampire and his face is spattered with blood, and Sam notices Dean is unsettled. They give each other strength just by staring into each others eyes. Sam’s always paying attention to Dean.

-Dean also notices right away that Sam’s off and asks him if he’s okay. Noticing Sam, for him, is less watchful and more like noticing the orbit of his own moon. Gravity’s off, something’s up with Sam.

-Sam went from correcting Dean every time he used Sam’s nickname to “he’s the only one who gets to call me that.” It’s so possessive, like he’s saying I’m his not yours. Dean notices and smiles to himself. Then he says “Sammy remind me to beat that buzzkill outta you later” you’re gonna do what to him later?

-Sam’s development from telling Dean he has to let him go to identifying him as the only one who can use his nickname is also the change from Sam seeking distance to Sam acquiescing to being Dean’s.

-Dean tells Gordon a story about killing a monster at 16 while Sammy waited in the car. He didn’t need to mention where Sammy was, he wasn’t a part of the story, but he has a condition* that makes him talk about Sammy to strangers whenever he’s not there (*wretched, soul-crushing love).

-Dean tells Gordon he always thought of his dad as indestructible. Now he’s questioning everything about his dad’s teachings and realizing the version of John in his head is not the only one.

-Sam says he sees through Dean’s fake smile and knows how Dean feels, because he feels the same way. When Sam says that Dean’s behavior is “an insult to [John’s] memory,” Dean kind of nods and raises his eyebrows like “you have no fucking idea” before punching Sam in the face.

-For once, Sam is way off about Dean. He has no idea how Dean feels or what he’s dealing with. The idea of insulting vs honoring John’s memory is complicated for Dean right now. He’s seeing Sam being protective of John for maybe the first time ever and I can just imagine Dean thinking, I raised you, and the man you finally want to respect as your father asked me to kill you.

-Dean looks regretful after he punches Sam, like he’s realizing he took it too far, and Sam looks hurt and taken aback, his eyes searching to and away from Dean and his mouth open. And then Sam tells Dean, “you can hit me all you want. It won’t change anything.”

There are some potential layers to that.

1. They’re arguing about something else here, at the same time—whether or not vampires can choose to act ethically or if they’re inherently evil. Sam implores Dean not to kill them, believing the former. Dean wants killing to be black and white due to Dead Dad’s Last Words reasons. Hitting Sam won’t make the issue any clearer.

2. Sam’s words could be interpreted as “you can hurt me all you want and it won’t change how I feel.” About Dean. Or “whatever you do it won’t change the way things are.” Between them.

3. Sam has been begging Dean to give him something real and emotional, he’s been pushing and pushing him to get a reaction, escalating and becoming more desperate. Now Dean has responded. He’s hurt Sam, but that means he’s touched him out of uncontrollable emotion—or better yet has chosen to inflict his feelings and needs upon Sam’s body. The pain is better than nothing.

It’s hard to be lonely.

-When I first saw this scene I was shook. Dean hit his baby brother! My best guess is that Dean has never punched him like this before, outside of the context of sparring. I might be wrong about that, but the way Sam accepts the punch and turns slowly back to Dean with that disbelieving look felt too significant. I thought Sam was going to feel betrayed or scared, but Sam’s resolve strengthens, he gazes after Dean, and then he follows him.

And then things go right back to normal between them.

-Another thing Sam is missing is that Dean trusts Gordon partially because Dean can identify with Gordon. Gordon said he hunts vampires because vampires killed his sister, and Dean trusts another protective brother.

-Sam tracks the nest and Dean says “you’re good. You’re a monster pain in the ass, but you’re good.” Just like that they’re reconciled. Sam’s face is probably still throbbing, it’s been like 3 minutes.

-When Gordon pulls a knife on Sam and admits he killed his sister himself, it’s over for him. Dean is not having any of that.

-Dean punches Gordon in the face in front of Sam, then moves really close to Sam to tell him they can leave now. It’s like he wants Sam to see what he’ll do to anyone who threatens him. Dean is the only one who’s allowed to hurt Sam. He also asks Sam to punch him to get him back, so he clearly feels guilty.

-Dean’s true nature is a huge theme in this episode. He’s trying to understand who he is. Gordon tells him that he was “born to hunt” and “a killer like me.” John wrote the same things about child-Dean in his diary.

At the end of the episode, Dean tells Sam that he has the instinct to kill and would’ve killed the vampires. That’s how he was raised, it’s what John told him to do. I love how Dean is a caregiver and a killer in equal measure, he takes naturally to both violence and nurturing.

Sam reminds him he made the right choice. Dean says “yeah cause you’re a pain in my ass.” He made the decision because of Sam. He’ll kill for Sam but he’ll also decide not to kill for Sam.

Sam says “I guess I might have to stick around to be a pain in the ass then.” Dean thanks him and gazes at him intently. Even here, notice the mention of their connection being painful.

Sam is now agreeing to stick with Dean not because of what John would’ve wanted but because he’s accepting his role as Dean’s guiding light, the one thing that gives him a sense of purpose and good.

Dean’s purpose is not killer or caregiver, but protector. He’s guardian of Sam’s soul.

#samdean #supernatural #spn meta #wincest #spn 2x03 #every episode I think this analysis will be shorter and every episode I’m humbled

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hauntedpearl · 6 months

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like i think a lot of early seasons dean getting mad and then getting over it is like. bad emotional regulation, still, but he's hyperaware that people can and will leave him and there's a line to cross. thinking about that fight they have in scarecrow where dean literally repeats john's words to sam because he just doesn't know what else to say and then literally the next morning he's calling sam and apologizing and telling him that he's proud of him etc. like dean's always mad because his life is shit and he doesn't know how to not take things personally and it's like an understandable mode of existence. but he used to also have these moments where he'd come to his senses because he knows he can't push people too far (sad why he gets here but good in terms of like. just how he ends up treating people i suppose.)

but by the time we get to s15 he's like..he just does not have that fear anymore. and even if he does it's just so fucking warped like thinking about divorce arc!!! he literally was soooo cruel to cas but when cas was walking away he was legit surprised! he was like where the fuck are you going! like.hello??? i don't think he consciously makes them his punching bags but somewhere along the line I think he kind of internalizes that they're all gonna only have each other WITHOUT understanding it properly. so he's like existing in this new reality with the same old trigger happy brain that's on the edge of blowing up at people at all times. but he's got this unearned confidence (which he himself doesn't know where it's coming from and he feels both absolutely entitled to and entirely fucked in the head about (because he still thinks he's not good for anyone and they should all leave him but that's like his worst fear yk)) and it makes him. worse. well worsebetter if you enjoy this kind of spiral into the inevitable cycle of violence but yeah.

#anyway. idk if that made sense #dean meta #mild deancrit I guess? i mean i am not being crit tho i love him I just feel bad about him ajgddjjdd #but could be perceived as such i guess! I GUESS!#i need yo finish my rewatch of this show fr i think it can help me figure out why he's so crazy better #bc rn im operating on faulty memories that are like 8 years old #and that's not helpful #doe is talking again

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mlm-writer · 8 months

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Stories by the Void (John Constantine x M!Reader)

Pairing: John Constantine (LoT ver.) x Male!Monster Reader Rating: Explicit Words: 1868 POV: Second Summary: Your dumbass warlock boyfriend did not come home in time, so you decided to drag his ass home and then fuck that ass too. Note: When I say monster reader, I mean reader is a person-ish sized lovecraftian-esque eldritch abomination. Thank you. Tags: hint of bondage, explicit murder, magic, tendrils and tentacles, anal sex, monstercock (literally lmao), reading smut, ok scratch the hint of bondage i forgot the tentacle bondage, so more than a hint of bondage, intimate rough sex, choking, knotting, bit of cuminflation and dirty talk

With each step the ground blackened under your feet. Darkness encased your being, even the light afraid of touching you in your current state. Within that infinite void that made it seem like there was a hole in the universe, a dozen eyes pierced the darkness with their crimson glow. If your malicious aura did not alert the guards, your piercing stare certainly did. They froze in fear, their tiny human minds incapable of comprehending the monstrosity before them. It was better this way. There was no need for you to stain yourself with their blood right before paying your stupid boyfriend a visit.

And so you waltzed right into the ruins of an old church. As you pushed open the doors, you were greeted with a familiar scent mixed with the tang of iron-rich blood. Constantine was on his knees on the floor with his hands tied by a thick rope in front of him, which you would have found very sexy were it not for the blood dripping down his nose and temple. Two nonhumans turned towards you when they heard you enter. You did not bother discerning who or what they were. The fuck did you care anyway?

"Oi, good to see you, love," your boyfriend called from where he was on the scarlet-stained stone floor. He was beaten badly and yet still had that dumbass smirk on his face. One of the others in the room leaped at you. You caught them midair in a large claw.

"You haven't been home," you complained as you squeezed the literal life out of the individual you caught. Black blood dripped onto the floor as bones cracked under your force. When the person was nothing but a drained sack of meat, you tossed them to the ground. The other individual just ran off. For the better, you had no desire to kill them anyway. Their lives meant as little to you as their deaths.

You strode over to your boyfriend, grabbing him by the rope that bound his hands. “What? Thought I would be out here cheating on you?” John was teasing, but he should not be testing you. You looked like the embodiment of the devil himself, but John was on a first name basis with Lucifer himself. That and he loved you too much to be even slightly intimidated by your malicious aura.

You lifted him to his feet and pulled him close to you. “You smell awful,” you grumbled, before dragging him by his bound hands out of the building. When you departed the building, you saw the guards had decided that you were above their paygrade. They were nowhere to be seen. Once outside, you engulfed John in the darkness of your body and teleported him home.

You materialised directly in the bathroom, where you deposited him into a bath you had prepared before you went out to get him. It was no longer boiling, your tracking taking up enough time for it to turn lukewarm. “That’s focking cold, mate!” John complained, not even wondering where his clothes went. He was used to your random powers by now. You sighed and stuck an appendage in the water. As you chanted a spell, the water slowly heated up. “Ok that’s better,” John said to make you stop. You removed yourself from the water and grabbed the shampoo. “Are you just gonna keep my hands like this?” John questioned while holding up his bound hands.

You chuckled and gave a nod, before sinking your digits into his hair, massaging his scalp carefully with your soapy claws. “I like seeing you tied up,” you growled close to his ear. The shiver running down John’s spine did not go unnoticed. After you were done with his hair, you washed the rest of his body, pampering and teasing your boyfriend until his cock was twitching under the water.

John gave you the bedroom eyes all throughout you drying him off with the cleanest towel you had. “You’ve been away for too long,” you whispered as you brought John to the sofa. John was a pliant, needy mess and let you put him across your lap with ease. Your tendrils played with his hole, your slick helping with getting him ready for you. John knew what was going to happen. You had agreed long ago that you couldn’t handle it when he didn’t carry your scent on him. You needed others of your kind to know that you had made your claim. John just needed your fat length inside of him.

Your partner mewled as your small tendrils made their way inside him. They pushed at his walls, stretching him gently more and more. One of them had a different mission though, prodding and rubbing at that one spot where he was the most sensitive. You could feel John leaking all over you, but as much as you wanted him to smell like you, you wanted to smell like him too.

John - the sly fox he is - didn’t tell you how close he was, clearly trying to get out of the sexual torture you had planned for him. Unfortunately for him, you did not need him to tell you with words, his moans telling you all you needed to know. You replaced your thin tendrils with the tentacles that spawned from your back, stretching him out even more, while balancing John on the fine edge of orgasm. He moaned through gritted teeth, trying so hard to not make a sound. You decided to not tease him for once; let him have his pride.

With your tentacles, you manhandled John into your lap. Your thick cock slipped inside his stretched ass with ease. John gasped, a soft moan escaping him as you filled him. “Relax, my sycophant,” you whispered as he buried his face into your neck. Your tentacles wrapped around John’s thighs, keeping him in place with your giant member buried halfway inside him. He was warm. His hole fluttered around you, adjusting to the intrusion gradually.

One of your many appendages reached out to grab a book. A deep rumble coated your voice as you read the short stories to John.

“When his clothes were shed down to his underwear, I kissed down his body, my huge tongue lapping at his skin. His skin had a tangy aftertaste, making me moan at the flavour with each lick. Each wet trail I left on his skin was met with a low hum. I pulled off his underwear and took his dick in my mouth. He whimpered, hands grabbing the sheets. He was so small compared to me. I could take his cock and balls in my mouth without breaking a sweat, the back of my mouth none the wiser of my activities. He almost cried from the pleasure I brought him.”

John wanted to ride you to the sunset, but your tentacles wrapped around him did not even allow for a little grinding. You were only two pages in when you needed to restrain John’s hands as well. Little John was leaking all over your abdomen.

“He hissed as I breached him again. I stared at him as he took me deeper than I thought he would. He managed to impale himself halfway my length, before he raised up just a little. I was enthralled by the way his body moved while he deep-fucked himself on my cock, taking half of it inside and moaning like a song that I never wanted to end. I placed my hands on his hips, helping him at first, but soon enough I lifted and lowered him like a toy on my cock.”

You were a few short stories in when John was panting against your shoulder, his body vibrating with desire. He wouldn’t beg, too proud for it, but the suppressed whines were enough for you. You put the book away and lifted his head up with a sharp claw, the nails pressing against the skin without piercing it. “Promise me you take me with you next time,” you whispered into his face, your hot breath warming his already red skin.

“With pleasure, love, but you don’t exactly blend in anywhere.” You slapped his bottom, letting him know you were not pleased with the answer. He keened against you, trembling in your lap. “What? You’re going to keep me here until I say yes?” You shrugged, an evil smirk on your face. You could force nations to their knees and yet this one warlock was your greatest challenge.

“I can disguise myself, you know. I just choose not to, most of the time.” You loosened your tentacles for a second and thrust up into John. He moaned softly, eyes wide and mouth open. Then you restrained him again. “If you want more, say yes, my darling.” You caressed his face dotingly.

“Bollocks, fine! As long as you blend in and fuck me right now.” Your tentacles moved, changing their positions around John’s body. They no longer held him down, but had the perfect leverage to lift him up and down to your will.

“Your wish is my command, warlock,” you growled in his ear, before moving him as you pleased. John’s arms were held behind his back as you moved him over your shaft like he was just a fleshlight. The human’s dick bounced up and down, slapping against his tentacle-covered stomach. John’s mouth was so beautifully open as he wailed on your massive length, you could not resist filling that mouth too.

John sucked eagerly on the tentacle you offered him. The lewdness of being spitroasted by just you got to his head. His seed spilled over you without warning. You pulled him down and against your frame. With small thrusts, you milked him empty. Without the tentacles, the outline of your dick was clearly visible through the skin of John’s abdomen. His eyes met some of yours, the hazy look on him showing nothing but pleasure. “My turn,” you grinned as you wrapped a claw around his neck and started thrusting up inside him. He would’ve screamed if he had the air for it. His whole body was shaking as you overstimulated his gaping, raw-fucked ass. A knot swelled at the base of your cock.

With your low, gravelly voice, you told John all the dirty things you wanted to do to him now he was back. John cried out as the mental image forced a second orgasm out of him. Feeling him cum again, you grabbed his shoulder and pulled him all the way down, forcing him to take your knot into his ass. John was a mess, tears and drool staining his beautiful face. Complete nonsense poured out of his mouth as you filled him up so much, the outline of your member seemed to disappear as his belly inflated with your load.

John’s limp dick twitched, but there was no way John had any energy left in him. Before you knew it, he was passed out against your torso, softly snoring against your shoulder. You’d give him another bath later, but for now, you let him rest. There were many more things to do to him later.

#male reader #john constantine #dc #dc legends of tomorrow #john constantine x reader #john constantine x male reader #dc x male reader #dc x reader #lot x reader #legends of tomorrow x male reader #dc legends of tomorrow x reader #legends of tomorrow x reader #legends of tomorrow

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goponylover · 3 months

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Jon Sims and Arthur Lester: On Sight

Scene: Jonathan Sims and Arthur Lester are sitting across from one another at a plain wooden table, having tea and pleasant conversation. Jon puts his cup down and leans forward a bit in his chair as he prepares to breach a new topic.

Jon: Arthur...if it's alright, may I ask you a...somewhat personal question?

Arthur: I suppose that depends on what it is.

John: He's looking down at his teacup pensively, as if hesitating.

Jon: ...What is it like? Not being able to see?

Silence. Arthur is taken aback.

Jon: ...Actually, forget I said anything. That was too personal. I don't know why I asked that. I-

Arthur: No, no! It's fine! Jonathan it's fine! I understand that My John and I have a very...unique relationship. It's only natural you'd be curious!

John: Nosy, you mean.

Arthur: (hisses) Be nice.

Jon: Sorry?

Arthur: Nothing. A-as for your question...it was scary at first. It's still scary sometimes, given how frequently we have to run or hide or fight for our very lives while one of us is, quite literally, stumbling around in the dark. John guides me, tells me where obstacles are, alerts me of threats and helps me to combat them. He'll describe my surroundings to me so that I can get a sort of...mental map of the place I'm in. Sometimes I'll ask him to describe the scenery we drive past or the clothes hanging in the shop windows, little things like that. And usually he's happy to oblige...when he's in a good mood at least.

John: Hey!

Arthur: Of course it's not exactly the same and it's often frustrating for both of us when we fail to communicate properly. Especially when we end up in tight spots because of it. But honestly...I don’t know how people like me would manage without a John of their own in their heads.

John: Don't sell yourself short. You've been without me before, and you managed just fine.

Jon: What's he saying?

Arthur: Hmm?

Jon: You tend to...pause at odd moments when he's saying something to you.

Arthur: Heh. You're quite observant, aren't you?

Jon: (uncomfortably) It comes with the territory.

Arthur: (bashfully) H-he was just...complimenting me. Saying I've been without him before and I managed which I suppose is true.

John: You suppose?! You dragged yourself through the freezing cold to a cabin, while blind and bleeding from the neck. Fuck off, you suppose.

Arthur: (Ducks his head and whispers) Shut up!

John: (teasingly): Now who can't take a compliment?

Arthur: (shakes his head) All of this is to say...I'm very lucky to have him.

Jon: I see. Well I'm glad you two have each other. I don't know what would become of me if it weren't for Martin.

Arthur: (Hums in agreement) ...If I may ask...what sparked your curiosity?

John: His eyes are widening and he looks...embarrassed? As if you've somehow seen something you weren't supposed to see...

Jon: (sputters a bit) I- w-well it's interesting isn't it? Like you said! Your...symbiosis.

Arthur: I don't disagree. But we've discussed the subject of My John several times and you've never really focused on the topic of my blindness before.

John: I think I like that. You calling me YOUR John~

Arthur: (Chuckles softly) You're incorrigible.

Jon: (latching on) W-whats he saying now?

Arthur: Wha? Nothing, its- nothing. Jonathan, your deflecting.

Jon: I am not.

Arthur: I'm simply wondering what made you want to know more about my blindness. (Suspicious) What are you so desperate to hide all of a sudden?

John: He's hesitating...he's sighing. His shoulders are sagging as if in reluctant defeat. He's scooting the chair a bit closer to the table and leaning in.

Jon: ...I've told you of my time working at the Magnus Institute.

Arthur: Yes. I remember. Where you and your colleagues sadly fell under the influence of the dark gods that seized you.

Jon: I...I discovered a way to separate myself and the others from the Eye.

Arthur: You did?!

Jon: Yes. But at great cost. To separate yourself from the Ceaseless Watcher...you must completely destroy your own eyes.

Arthur: Jesus...

John: Fuck.

Jon: ...I didn't...I didn't want to do it alone so I ran to tell Martin. Him first before any of the others. I...I said we could get out of there. Together. Long story short, he refused. ...I don’t know if it would've worked on me. I was at the point where I couldn't even cut off a finger without it healing the second I removed the knife but...I could've tried. I should have tried. If it had worked, if I hadn't been so selfish-

John: Selfish? The fuck?!

Jon: -so much pain and death could've been avoided! But a million things held me back. Part of me told myself that it was because I didn't want to just run off and leave Martin and the others alone in that place but...but what if I was just lying to myself? What if I was just being a coward?

John: ...He's slumped in his chair. His eyes are focused on the far wall, clouded with shame. He's tense...as if bracing himself for something?

Arthur takes a moment to gather himself, struggling to piece his racing thoughts together into something coherent.

Arthur: Jonathan...you're not a coward for not wanting to lose your sight!

Jon: But-!

Arthur: Listen to me. I love my John and I love what we have and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world but...but I still miss my sight. I miss it everyday. I miss being able to walk down the street unassisted, I miss the simple joy of being able to look at painting o-or watch a sunset instead of having it described to me and picturing it in my head! I miss... I miss being able to see my own face in a mirror. Heh...you know, sometimes I wonder how distorted my memory of my own face will grow with time. I wonder...will it fade altogether, one day?

John: (determined) I won't let it.

John raises his hand to cup Arthur's face gently. Arthur leans into the touch briefly.

Arthur: (fondly) I know you won't, dear.

Arthur: What I'm trying to say is...our eyes are a gift, Jonathan. A gift that we so often take for granted. Not wanting to lose them does not make you selfish nor cowardly. It makes you...

Arthur & John simultaneously: Human.

John: He looks...surprised. And maybe a little grateful.

Jon: ...I...T-thank you, Arthur I...I don’t know what to say.

Arthur: You don’t have to say anything. I've been in your shoes, Mr. Sims. We are both men that have committed a great number of sins. But those sins are not who we are. Try to remember that.

John: He's smiling.

Jon: I will.

#Here! Take this and don't ask questions!#tma #the magnus archives #malevolent #malevolent podcast #jon sims #jonathan sims #the archivist #arthur lester #malevolent john doe #john malevolent #privateeyes #jonmartin #crossover #my stuff

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year2000electronics · 3 months

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Welcome to the Brotherhood

just a little blurb about how i think shimmer entered the brotherhood au village :]

(brotherhood au belongs to @0ketlyn-s and @tea0w0stache , shimmer belongs to me)

Shimmer wouldn’t exactly call herself a “globe-trotter”. Sure, she had been near a lot of the different troll kingdoms, but each of them had their own complex cultures that she never really felt herself committing to all that hard. She wasn’t stingy about any of their music, no, it was just that… Even if she had lost the ability to sing her music properly, she was still a Pop Troll, deep down. The music she loved got stuck in your head, tunes with a catchy chorus and a consistent beat that wasn’t too focused on beeps and boops or country twang.

Her time spent just barely mingling with all the other Troll tribes had at least gotten her enough engineering know-how that she was able to make her autotuning choker work. That made her feel a little less like she was totally broken and alone, but… Even then, she could tell she longed desperately for a place she could call “home”. She had fled Pop Village in shame many years ago, so she was always reluctant to come back, but…

…There were people she missed there.

Maybe, just maybe, if she came back and shamefully admitted that she knew nobody could ever love her like this, especially not after running off, John and the others might throw her some pity and let her hang out with them as friends again.

Of course, the only problem with that is when she asked around, every troll who’d ventured to the Troll Tree said that the place had been abandoned for years. So where were they, then?

“I think maybe a cave somewhere?” One of her bounty hunter friends had guessed. “But there are a lot of caves out there. Don’t quote me on that.”

Nobody ever needed to bother the Pop Trolls. Very few even wanted to, considering they were the ones who were notorious for overpowering other peoples’ music. With the hint of just “a cave”, Shimmer would be spending a lot of time searching. But… What other choice did she have? The heart wants what it wants- and right now, what it wanted was home.

Of course, on the day she finally found that cave, well… Things didn’t exactly go how she expected.

Shimmer hadn’t even gotten that far into the cave when she felt something brush against her leg- a tripwire of some sort. Caught off guard, she yelped, falling flat on her face and right into a net. The sound of it all sent ripples through the rocky area, as a gaggle of trolls immediately rushed over to her area. They all looked… incredibly unhappy to see her. Some of them were fraught with fear, others alight with anger. Each tried to question her at once.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?!”

“She’s come to hurt the village!”

“She’s gonna sell us out to the Bergens!!”

“Did one of the outcasts call her??”

“Wha- no!” Shimmer grunted, trying to claw her way out of the net. “I’m not doing ANY of that! I’m literally FROM here!”

“You say that, but you didn’t know where all our tripwires were? Yeah. right,” One of the trolls scoffed.

“These weren’t HERE before!” Shimmer groaned in frustration. “Will you people just- LISTEN?!”

“Why should we listen to you?” Another fired back. “You’re a stranger!”

Shimmer’s eye twitched as this chicanery continued. She didn’t remember the village being THIS cagey… What had HAPPENED when she was gone? No matter what she said to them, they’d push back twice as hard, and it soon felt like she was going to be stuck in this net for good. However, something started to happen- she saw the crowd beginning to shift slowly, parting reverently as if to let someone in. She squinted, trying to get a good look at the newcomer.

Walking with a poised sense of patience, the man took careful yet confident steps, leading with his chest. He wore a set of eye-catchingly red garments, the scarf that wrapped around him and trailed down his arms resembling the wings of an angel more than anything. And his face… Oh, that face…

…

Was that… her ex??

“Everyone, settle down, settle down-” John Dory urged, trying to calm down the small group of trolls that had gathered with a frown. “What’s going on here?”

“It’s an outsider, John Dory!” One of the trolls cried in a panic. “She was trying to enter the village! What do we do with her?!”

John’s gaze steeled as he stepped closer to the net, trying to get a good look. “Show me.”

He was met with no resistance, and Shimmer’s heart nearly stopped as he set eyes on her. This man was… far different than the boy she once knew. He spoke like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, and the way he stared- his eyes were precise, like needles of sheer determination that pierced anyone they bored into. It made Shimmer go radio-silent as his eyes finally registered her. But then… his icy gaze began to change. His brows softened as his eyes met hers, and his pupils dilated. He stepped closer, almost as if he couldn’t believe she was real. His face got dangerously close to the net, as she leaned onto the edge of it, staring back at him with bated breath.

“Shimmer…?” He asked softly, reaching out a hand to try and grasp the net, only to seemingly back off out of nervousness.

Shimmer had to say something, she knew it. Something, ANYTHING, just to break the growing tension between them, the watching eyes as they both continued to stare at each other like frightened deer.

“...You’ve changed,” She whispered.

“I know,” He replied, brows furrowing slightly. He kept his cool, though, leaning forward slightly as he gave a glance at her own apparel. Her hair was in a sloppy ponytail, and she had given up on making herself look presentable, wearing a signature baggy sweater. “...So have you.”

John turned to the crowd, tilting his head in Shimmer’s direction. “What are you all waiting for? Cut her down! She’s one of us- we sang together back when I was in BroZone!”

The villagers leapt into action, clamoring about how they didn’t realize she knew the village savior and how that tie was very important to the village hierarchy or something. One of them went at it with a butterfly knife, cutting her free as she fell to the ground with a THUD. Dusting herself off, she looked up, only to see John extending a hand to her. She took it, letting the shorter troll lift her up. Once she stood up, though, the two of them continued to lock eyes, unable to tear away from each others’ gazes.

“Why’d you come back, Shimmer?” He asked. He tried to keep the question hovering in neutral territory, but there was a strong negative mix of emotions bleeding into his voice. Pain, shame, loss…

“...No other place felt right,” She admitted, pressing her forehead against the net. “Please, John- I don’t know why this place has changed so much, or why you look so… different… but- I’m lost. In every damn sense of the word. I don’t know who I am anymore.” The words stung to admit.

“I… I just thought maybe… Some old friends might… be able to help an old hag out,” She finished, trailing off. Her cheeks grew hot, her mouth stung. The onlooking villagers just made the entire ordeal so much harder. She broke eye contact with John, staring at the ground as if she was a child about to be punished.

John swallowed hard, wringing a hand around his scarf. He seemed deep in thought on what to do, glancing around at the others.

“Well-” He began to speak, combing his hair back. “We don’t usually… do this. But- so long as you promise you can be trusted, follow all the rules here, all that… Then I’m sure we can find a spot here for you.”

Shimmer let out a breath she didn’t even know she was holding.

“...Thanks, JD. I… I owe you one,” She said, cracking a wobbly smile.

“Of course,” He replied, stuffing down any feelings that may have risen up because of her, and defaulting right back to a serene smile, clasping his hands together. “Welcome to the village of the Brotherhood, Shimmer.”

Their eyes met one more time. Shimmer immediately got what he was trying to say by revealing the name of the village to her- Brotherhood. The BroZone boys she once knew had grown into men, with, apparently, a grandiose amount of social status. In essence, he had just told her some vital info: First, to expect a lot of changes from the village she once knew, and second… that he made the rules around the village, so she should really watch out for him.

Yeah.

No problem.

She could do that.

#trolls #brotherhood au #look at my writingggg #shimmer

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lime-bloods · 9 months

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Homestuck's Gnosticism: The World / The Wheel

Everyone knows Homestuck is "a Gnostic story".

Wait, why does it feel like we've had this exact conversation before...?

AH. SO NICE OF YOU TO JOIN ME.

If you followed along with the first post in this series, you'll be familiar already with the Gnostic nature of Homestuck's central conflict between the spirit world and the flesh. And even if I say so myself, I think that post is pretty definitive; if you're ever unsure what a particular character's motivations or end goal are, the Conflict will tell you. But what's conspicuously absent from the post is any explanation of what actually happens in Homestuck. We've covered the why, but very little of the how.

I left us off on the "synonymous goals" that spring naturally from this conflict between flesh and spirit; attaining ultimate knowledge, and escaping the confines of Homestuck itself. Eagle-eyed readers probably spotted what was lying between the lines, there: the comic is called Homestuck because it's about being stuck in a house, so the ending is about escaping the house. But what does that really look like? And how did they get in that house in the first place?

Let's return very briefly to a quote I used in the previous post. "[Y]our ultimate self [...] unlike god tiers or bubble ghosts or whatever, it really IS immortal". Two assumptions naturally grow out of this fact. First, and probably most obvious: when John dies, he's not really gone. The idea of him still exists out there, somewhere, and in our minds, so he still exists. Second, though: if the idea of him is eternal, John obviously didn't start existing when he was born. So again we ask, where did he come from?

How did John get here? Where does he go? The answers to these questions are like the four sides of one hypercoin, in that Homestuck is a time loop... of a sort.

To begin to understand this, we need to reiterate what was basically "the point" of the first post: Homestuck operates on two distinct levels, a spiritual plane consisting purely of ideas, and a "literal" physical dimension. What happens on these two planes often mirrors each other, and because Homestuck itself is a work of fiction which operates in the realm of ideas, they can even intersect. But ultimately, what "literally" happens to the characters in Homestuck is not the same as the ideas the comic is expressing in its spiritual metanarrative.

The fact that a physical time loop is impossible is something Homestuck inherits from real-life physics: to put it simply, John being born can't be the physical John from the end of his timeline, because that John would be way too old to be a baby! But ideological time loops are not only something sanctioned by Paradox Space, but essential to its very being; they are where it gets its name, after all! To repeat another lynchpin quote from the comic: there is essentially nothing new in paradox space. Any idea that seems new necessarily must have just come from somewhere else.

"SbaHJ has the distinction of being the symbolic language of [Dave's] subconscious." (Homestuck: Book 3: Act 4, p. 282)

Frequently we see this expressed in the rooms representing characters' dreams, which, as discussed, sort of transcend the character's physical form and represent the broad ideas that characters are made of. Dave's dreams (pictured above) are covered with drawings of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, characters he seemingly invented as a child after being inspired by a drawing Terezi sent to him. But Terezi's drawing was based on Dave's own illustrations she saw later on in his timeline; so which of them truly "invented" Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff? Neither of them did; SBaHJ exists as pure subconscious ideological matter floating through Paradox Space, only sometimes being picked up by a character's conscious mind. Similarly, Gamzee tries to manipulate this subconscious realm when he uses his psychic powers to place a terrifying effigy of Jack Noir in John's dreams, as punishment for the destruction of the trolls' session. But as we know, Jack Noir only took that form because of the nightmares this doll caused! So again; neither John or Gamzee thought up the demonic clown "first". It existed in the realm of ideas before either of them ever had the chance to invent it.

These kinds of ideological loops are the bread-and-butter of jujus. We're told their origins are untraceable and that they can't be destroyed, but neither of these things is really true; these superstitions exist only to obfuscate the true rule that jujus "emerge spontaneoUsly from the void." Rather than be erased from existence, a juju can only be banished to that same void of nonexistence where disembodied ideas live, and then pulled back into the world of dreams by a prospective psychic.

With these rules established, now we can really delve into with appreciation the ideological time loop that underpins all of Homestuck. And like all good time loops, the best place to start is at the end.

ACT 7 (Are you tired of seeing it yet?)

Let's not insult anyone's intelligences here: you know and I know that Caliborn's little house juju looks like the Homestuck logo because it is Homestuck; when he wins it from Yaldabaoth, he takes control of it, and when he sucks the heroes inside, he's trapping them in the confines of his material world.

What's essential to keep in mind here, though, is that the power of a juju is the power of the idea itself. It's easiest for us to think of the word juju in Homestuck as a concrete noun, referring simply to a magical object. But the word's real-life origins, referring more abstractly to magic or enchantment, are still relevant in this fictional framework. Lil Cal isn't just "a juju", but is "FILLED WITH BAD JUJU." Magic in Homestuck has always really been about the idea that believing in something can make it real, and the purpose of all Homestuck's dealings with chucklevoodoos and jujus is to evoke the anthropological concept of the "fetish"; an item whose power comes from human beings ascribing supernatural qualities to it. Jujus are all part of the "game" the cherubs play, with all its rules and quirks; breaking an enchantment is like breaking a rule, in that it changes nothing about the real world: you've just infringed upon an idea. The juju isn't the object; the juju is the power, good or bad, ascribed to the object.

All of this is really just to say one thing: Caliborn's home juju can't trap the flesh versions of John and his friends; as we established, you can't send old John back in time to become young John. But what a juju can trap is something far more important; the ideas of John and his friends. This is why it doesn't matter if the heroes who travel back to the beginning of everything to beat Lord English while he's still a kid are the "main" timeline versions of those heroes from some point in the future, or if the Epilogues' version of events is truth and they're some "irrelevant" offshoots: because all of those characters are represented by the same idea, and that's what Caliborn puts in the box. No matter what timeline John is from, he's from Homestuck, to Homestuck he must return, and as such Homestuck is what he must be forced to escape. Refer again back to the previous post: Caliborn can't create or destroy, only take pure ideas and alchemise them down into a form he can control.

And that's why Act 7 so enigmatically features two different white home-doors (above), seemingly so interconnected yet effectually unrelated. Because Act 7 takes up the hefty role of concluding two storylines simultaneously: allowing the "real", flesh-world versions of John and his friends to escape Lord English's reality through one door, while also concluding Homestuck's metanarrative by setting the ideas of John and his friends free of their prison through another door.

So far, most of this is probably stuff you'd have either figured out on your own or at least heard from someone else already. And if we set aside such distractions as run-ins with radioactive imps and omnipotent dog-gods, the "whats" and "hows" of the heroes' story are probably the easier parts of Homestuck to figure out. What's more difficult to fully comprehend on a first pass is how Lord English himself fits into all of this.

If you've been following me for any stretch of time, you'll notice in my analysis of Homestuck I've returned to the topic of black holes frequently. I've lost track of how many versions I've published of what I call "Black Hole Theory". And I won't link to any of them here, because ultimately Black Hole Theory was a corkboard to which I could pin the evidence that would eventually, piece by piece, lead us to where we are right now:

If the home juju is a white "hole" leading out of the confines of Homestuck as a story, then black holes are the doors that lead back in. An early clue to this comes in the form of Calliope's stage in the heart of a spiral: these spirals are Calliope's visions of black holes, which she uses as "dark pocket[s]" from which "no information can escape" - a literal description of a black hole - and that stage is the very same one Caliborn stages his story on when he takes full control of Homestuck's narrative. The meaning here should be clear: Calliope creates black holes, and it's the center of these black holes where stories can take place.

But for all the evidence we need to suggest that Lord English's fall into a black hole leads to something more complex than just his destruction, we need not look further than conventional science:

In the quantum world [...] information cannot be created nor destroyed.

Lisa Zyga, on the conservation of quantum information.

This rule that "ideas" are truly immortal, and that any time an idea seems to be destroyed it must have merely been transported somewhere else, holds true even in the scientific world of black hole physics. This has been played with in MS Paint Adventures before; theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking's take on black holes was that some stuff could in fact escape a black hole, contrary to Calliope's assertions, in the form of Hawking radiation. But Hussie's own version of the story was always a lot more to the point: something gets sucked into the center of a black hole, it gets shot out somewhere else. In hypothetical physics this is called a white hole - no doubt you can see where this is going.

So Lord English's final moments in Homestuck see him not destroyed, or killed, or defeated in combat in any traditional way, but sucked right back into Homestuck. What exactly does that mean?

Homestuck, p. 8105

As long as we're talking the power of ideas and symbols, possibly the most blatant a symbol can get is in the form of a gesture; and the thumbs-down is possibly one of the most ancient gestures there is. Dave gets one, Tavros gets one, and, so they say, even the Roman gladiators got them. This precedent makes the meaning of the gesture clear: "you're going down." And it makes sense, too, that Hussie, the "good author", would signal the "evil author's" demise in such a way. But some might question the effectiveness of the power of gesture at such a pivotal point in the comic. Are we really to believe that English's defeat was, even in part, the result of another author merely willing him away like a tyrant doing away with an entertainer who has fallen out of favour? Or did the Hussie-character actually have some kind of plan to deal with his Hulk-like alter ego?

Of course he did.

...now Caliborn has hijacked the property of his experiential continuum which he has reason to believe is called "the narrative". Little does he know you recently made the shrewd decision to purchase(?) the ACT 6 ACT 6 SUPERCARTRIDGE EXPANSION PACK! Just plug it into any in-universe console port to unlock a variety of exciting new gameplay features and proceed through remaining canon unfettered, while Caliborn muddles through six new sub-sub-acts of infantile "subversive parody" targeting the very tale he inhabits, none the wiser!

To allow our heroes the chance escape their narrative prison, English isn't just to be trapped in their old cell; it's to be trapped within an infinitely-recursing cell, not just reliving one story over and over again but forced to live out infinitely many different stories. Not just a narrative loop; a narrative spiral. That's what being sucked into the black hole means for Lord English.

When Roxy - the Hero of Void whose very symbol is that of the black hole - banishes Caliborn-as-Cal into the void, he becomes one of the very wandering ideas with which English plays like dolls. "Instances of [Doc Scratch] have spawned in countless universes", and they have "never once failed to complete [their] objective": whether he wants to or not, Lord English will always be born again. In a new universe, perhaps, maybe even in a different shape, but his role always the same. Caliborn thinks that by filling the supercartridge with special stardust and corrupting the story, he's won, but looking at the bigger picture the truth is clear: he's only playing by somebody else's rules.

Just as Skaia uses lotus "seeds" to store items away for later use, and employs meteors as "Seeds" to send important elements back in time to set up the beginnings of new stories, so too are English's cue ball "seeds" only a means of transporting his essence from one place to the other; the black hole and the Rapture are, after all, only Skaia and the Reckoning sized up to a truly macrocosmic scale. The cue ball is able to be a font of endless knowledge because it is the "white hole" at the other end of the black hole! No information can escape a black hole, and therefore there is no information that escapes Scratch's attention -- he is limited only by his "pockets of void", which exist only to, in time, be filled, as more and more falls into these black holes like a multiversal game of billiards. Not only is this a transparent allusion to one of the most fundamental representations of the paradoxical time loop as a concept, but it is also the ultimate insult to injury: despite having lived an infinite number of lives, and being cursed to live out an infinite number more, Lord English cannot know what his fate will be until he literally falls into it. This is what forces him to lose, over and over again for eternity, while our heroes triumphantly escape Homestuck onto greener pastures.

#homestuck #analysis #lord english #black holes #metanarrative

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ire-as-iris · 9 months

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What does your future self wants to say to you? [Divination Reading no. 2]

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🚩 Remember to take what only resonates to you.

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Pile 01

Hey! I hope you're okay. You know, I miss you very much. If only I could back to that day or that version of myself, I would do better but it's too late but not that much. It's like, umm... to boost myself better kind of thought I really miss our moments together, messing with each other and crying like we're in some sort of a movie. This time it's different, it's like I've been consumed to responsibilities and nothing excites me that much. I wanna go back but I can't still, I'm glad I am at a better place financially speaking, spiritually, I don't know I'm not sure but moving this heavy message aside. I hope you're having fun right now make sure that the path you chose is different. I gotta go now, I have a lot of work to do see you again, sometime ❤

🔴 In summary, this one page of my notebook is not enough to say everything she wants to say, If I let her continue I'm afraid it will a whole chapter of a novel lol

🔴 A farm or barn may be significant

🔴 The part where she said different, screams something to me... don't be someone you're not because others their best for you, know when to take it and leave it (e.g in college course)

🔴 I imagined a girl with a long hair, oversized shirt in the rain, laughing her pain to let it go

🔴 She's talkative, my hand hurts writing this hahaha

🔴 You're an extrovert who may be mistaken as an introvert (Oops, I mean you're an introvert and people see you as an extrovert when you're alone, look how I write it wrong here too🤣)

🔴 Majority here seems to be teenagers like me xD

Pile 02

(Trigger warning: mention of sui!c1d3)

Live your life, I'm grateful that I did not t@ke my life (do you have su1cid@l thoughts pile 2?). Bro it's so peaceful to be here, I thought taking my you know will end it but I was wrong, something came to me that stopped me, it was an angel. She was warm and nice (tall too around 5'8, white pale skin color). I think I can't imagine myself to be here if not for her. Now I'm working a normal job with a normal life, enough for me to decide what I want. Ya get what I'm saying? I wasn't planning to have kids, but look! I have one (three or two for some of you). Life's so short and times so fast so keep doing you lad 😉

Peace out! Oh before that, I just want to tell you to don't force anything okay? It'll come, THAT thing so yeah, let's talk again some time 😉

🔴 I feel like majority that picked this pile are dudes (straight but, again take it how it resonates if you're a member of LGBTQ)

🔴 Chill people

🔴 THAT thing may mean a number of things, depending on you it can be your dream, or really THAT sezzz, etc.

🔴 The angel maybe a literal angel, someone you know (e.g friends, family, etc.) or you're future spouse

🔴 I imagined someone with a curly hair light brown and has beared, he's thin but tall, white skin as well

🔴 He's wearing a jacket, white tee, and long pants (pale dark blue)

🔴 You're maybe in you're twenties or turning 30

🔴 Moon in Gemini at 4th House

🔴 For some of you, I'm feeling that your future spouse (especially if they're a girl) have the vibes of the tracks below.

Pile 03

I can't believe I'm already here, I'm so successful! I've got the benz and my Renz (man, dream guy/the one, whatever you call it). You've got the boss energy, trust me the people who helped you. I feel like the richest on the earth hhahah

Keep on going mama, the universe got us! Loyalty! Love yourself and other people and it will get back to you. It may not be exactly as the way you want it but, I promise you and I'm sure it going to be better, the best. You'll get it poppin! Ya know what I'm sayin?😘

🔴 Don't be consumed by fame, be yourself positively.

🔴 Some people here have the "Who you?" tendency in a negative way, please don't be like that. (Who you means treating the people you know as strangers because you have the bag and everything you dreamed of)

🔴 Remember being a bish to others will give you shi* to yourself, and your loved ones, your child may be the one who'll suffer if you don't change it

🔴 Funny people are reading this pile

🔴 Harry styles, love and disco songs maybe you're favorite/topic of your songs

🔴 Influencer, artists, rappers, people of color, rags to riches, attitude

🔴 Neptune in Capricorn at the First House

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METHOD USED: AUTOMATIC WRITING and spotify playlists

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❤️‍🔥FOLLOW ME HERE❤️‍🔥

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❤ Thank you! See you on my next post! ❤

💋 Be you, Do you, You are You! 💋

#Spotify #divination readings #divination #pick a card #pick a pile #pac #tarot #tarot community #tarot reading #ire-as-iris

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scoobydoodean · 2 months

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Everybody leaves you, Dean. You noticed? Mommy. Daddy. Even Sam. You ever ask yourself why? Maybe it’s not them. Maybe, it’s you.

(5.16 "Dark Side of the Moon")

Just. A quick post on this, because I think that some fans, right along with Dean during this interaction, have been tricked into believing that this is true. They have been tricked by this dialogue into believing that Dean is a clingy, overly needy person who pushes every single person he loves away by needing too much or just by being too much in general.

This is not true.

Mary didn't leave because her four year old was a burden, and if she had, that wouldn't have been Dean's fault at four years old. Mary died because she made a demon deal before she even had kids.

John didn't leave because Dean was a burden. John's absences from Dean (AND SAM's) life happened because of John's issues—because he coped with trauma through vengeance and lost sight of his family until the end, when his last act was to sacrifice himself to save Dean's life.

Recognizing that Mary and John leaving Dean had nothing to do with Dean being a burden in real life, the idea that Dean is always being left behind and that him always being the common denominator implicates him breaks down.

Dean and Sam's relationship is a particularly complicated one—made so by multiple deaths, parentification in childhood, childhood neglect, and terrifying apocalyptic destinies. To make Sam running away at 12 or going to school about Dean being the problem is to vastly undersell the conflict Sam had with John. In fact, even with Sam clashes with Dean directly in the early seasons, he is usually using Dean as a stand in for a fight he can't have with their father—and we see the actual blow up occur between father and son in 1.20. Strife between Sam and Dean about living in each other's pockets also isn't one-sided when that kind of strife rears its head. In fact, Dean was the one relieved to be away from Sam a little earlier in the season, from 5.02 to the end of 5.04. Dean called his family chains in 5.03 and was very directly referring to Sam.

There's good and bad among Sam and Dean's feelings about each other, but we know from 5.22 "Swan Song" that the idea sold in 5.16 "Dark Side of the Moon"—that Sam doesn't have happy memories with Dean—is a flat out lie. Happy memories with Dean are literally what breaks Lucifer's control over Sam's body, flipping a switch in Sam's head as memory after memory of being on the road with Dean rushes fondly through Sam's mind.

Zachariah leads Sam and Dean through heaven like rats in a maze. He knew where they were the entire time they were in heaven. Sam and Dean were lead to believe they could hide, but Zachariah always knew where they were. He popped up in certain areas to drive them from one place to another, in a loop through memories selling the story Zachariah wanted to sell.

He pushed them away from the happy memories Sam has with Dean (as seen in "Swan Song") and toward memories where Sam was away from their family (two of which specifically represented escape from John) to sell the narrative that Sam doesn't care about Dean. Zachariah tries to sell this narrative because 5.04 "The End" culminated in Dean feeling he and Sam were both stronger together than apart. Zachariah is deliberately trying to break Dean's belief in that family bond to drive him away from his family and toward despair. He wants Dean to stop believing that he could ever be enough to keep Sam from saying "Yes". Zachariah wants Dean to see himself as disposable because Zachariah wants Dean to make himself a disposable vessel. Zachariah wants Dean to feel completely unloved and alone.

#5.16 #season 5 #pk rewatches spn number ?#5.22 #angels lie #angels and demons lie #zachariah #spn revisionisms

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maddipoof · 11 months

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Squish: Part 2

You can find part 1 here,

Thank you to everyone who asked for part 2, I’m sorry it took so long and also I’m very sorry to everyone that I told there would be no part 2, BUT HERE IT IS

JJ loved her.

“Don’t text her again, man.”

He loved her just the two of them.

“Last time, last time, I promise.”

He loved her with her friends.

“Jay, dude, listen to John B.”

He loved her with his friends, too.

“Ok, would you rather I call then?”

“No, but you should stop–”

“Stop what?” JJ threw his phone down on the couch on the Chateau’s porch, nearly hitting Pope in the shoulder. “Huh? 2 weeks, I haven’t seen her for more than an hour in 2 weeks.” He went to rip his pen for the fifth time in a minute, but John B stood up and threw it to the ground. “What the fuck, man?! John B, I will fucking–”

John B took him by the shoulders and gave him a good shake. “Jay, stop, Stop– Hey! No one wants her back here more than us, right? Yeah. So, listen. You need to give her a minute. You’re texting her, calling her every day, it’s too much for her. She’s too overwhelmed right now, just let her come to you, on her own time. You have to give her the chance to think it through for herself, and yes, she already knows you care so don’t even worry about that, ok?”

“Where are my keys?”

“Quite literally the opposite of what I just told you to do!” But he was already ¾ through the chateau.

“I’m not going to see her!”

“Then who is he….” John B and Pope both asked each other until they came to the realization themselves. “Oooooohhh no.” They tried to chase after him but he had already driven away.

“Should we call Kie?”

“We should call Kie.”

★★★

*Ring Ring* *Ring Ring* Kie hit the silence button and texted Pope back I’m at work, I’ll call you later

. . .

“Kie,” JJ walked into the Wreck, “You got a minute to talk?”

“Not really, I’m kind of at work right now.”

He made a show of looking around the near-empty restaurant. “There’s no one in your section.”

“I switched with Martha for today.”

“Really?” He pointed behind her to Martha working her own section.

“Fine, but I can’t just leave if I actually want to keep my job.”

“Your boss is literally your dad, you can do whatever you want.”

“That’s not…”

“Yes, it is. Now, can you please sit down so I can talk to you?”

“Fine, whatever.”

She sat with him close to the entrance and he was across from her with his leg shaking and leaning forward over the table. He wasn’t this worried on the ride over.

“If this is about your latest fling, I’m not interested.”

“Do you know how long we’ve been together?”

“Can’t imagine it’s been longer than a month.”

“Since March, Kie, we’ve been together since March. And this, this whole fucking thing that you’re doing, is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you guys. She wanted to, she wanted to tell you guys, she wanted to know you guys, and be friends with you. You were a major dick to her since the moment you saw us together. So all I’m here for is to ask you why?”

“You really don’t know?”

“Obviously not! And I don’t think you do either.”

“That’s–” she looked off to the side instead of at him. “That’s ridiculous, ok? You’re our friend first. You’re our friend first and now she comes here out of nowhere and now you spend all your time with her. It’s like you don’t even care about us anymore. Like she has a fucking monopoly on your time now.”

“No.”

“What do you mean no?”

“I mean that’s not it. You can’t say ‘us’ and ‘our friend’ when you know that Pope and John B like her. They want her around. Just tell me the truth, Kie. Please.”

She looked to the side again then down at the table before finally looking at JJ. “I’m scared. I’m scared of losing you guys, I’m scared of not being the Pongues anymore. Like what happened with me and Sarah Cameron, I’m scared you guys are gonna find other people, and we’re all gonna go our own ways and then all of a sudden we’ll be boring old people and only see each other for stupid…labor day picnics and shit like that. I don’t–I don’t want that.” She was almost crying at this point but swallowed it down by the end of her sentence.

“You think that’s going to happen just by me having a girlfriend?” It nearly sounded like he was laughing, but she knew he was being sincere.

“That’s how it starts. But then we’re all gonna go to college.” He tilted his head and gave her a look. “Some of us are going to college. And we’re all going off on our own, and– ugh.”

He reached across the table and took her hand, “That is a fuckin horrible way of thinking of things, man.” She scrunched her face like that was the least comforting thing to say (because it was). “Just listen, alright? How can you expect good things to happen if all you think is coming is just bad things? If you think that we’re all gonna stop being friends and just become boring adults, then you’re not gonna do anything to stop it. P4L, Kie. You have to trust that we’re going to stay friends.”

“P4L.” He squeezed her hand before she wiped her tears to look around the restaurant to check for new diners.

“You gonna be ok?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. But I–” “You need to talk to her.” “–need to talk to her.”

“I can’t tell you to apologize, but I can tell you that I want you to. You’re my friend, Kie, you’re always gonna be my friend. But I love her, I want to be with her for as long as I fucking can, so I’d really like it if you could pull your shit together so she’d actually like being around you guys.”

“Yeah, I know. And I’m, um, I’m sorry to you, too. I was scared and I was jealous when I should have just been happy for you.”

“And not a total bitch to her.”

“Yeah, that too. Uh,” She stood up and brushed off her apron to go seat the next customers. “Look, I gotta get back to work, but I still have her number, if she didn’t block me, and I’ll text her when I get home, but right now you’re in the way, and also you should talk to her before I do because I can’t imagine a bigger boyfriend fuck up than that.”

“I’ll call you.” He clapped her on the shoulder as he rushed out of the restaurant.

“No you won’t.”

“Probably not.”

“P4L!”

★★★

“Sir, Ma’am.”

“JJ, you just burst into my kitchen, you didn’t even use the front door, I think we can lose the formalities.”

He gave your mother a curt nod then continued. “I’d like to see your daughter…Please.”

Y/n’s dad straightened his newspaper, “I do my best not to meddle in her personal affairs.”

“The fuck does that even mean,” JJ whispered to himself, though not very quietly. “That’s a horrible way of doing things.”

“I can either let you two have free reign and figure this out for yourselves, or I can go get the shovel now. Your choice.”

“Free reign, I like free reign, sir.”

“She’s out back.”

“Thank you, sir, uh– ma’am.” Ma’am was always safer, even if he was very much not employed by either of her two very pouge-ish parents.

“Dear,”

“Yes?”

“Your paper’s upside down.” She shook her head affectionately, “When are you gonna let up on the intimidation tactics?”

“You know I’m just giving him a hard time. He’s a good kid, I’m proud of them.”

★★★

He rushed out the sliding glass door to the backyard where y/n kept her little gardin, born of a hyper fixation on medicinal and edible flowers but she’s managed to keep it up this long.

She was laying on a half broken pool lounge chair, the kind with the plasticy rubber bands going across to hold you up, the one he “stole” from a kook’s pile that was marked for the dump for her, after he at least attempted to fix the broken band. She was watching the neighbors bees buzz around her garden, with the weighted dinosaur on her chest. She must have heard him come outside, since she tilted her head and looked like she were trying to pretend to sleep.

“I’m gonna go out on a limb and say I think you can hear me.” He sat at the edge of her chair and put a gentle hand on her ankle, just to be careful even if she was fully aware of him. Clearly it worked, if it got her to smile a little bit, like a little kid pretending to sleep so that their parents would carry them up to bed instead of having to get up and walk. He took it as a good sign and slid his hand up her leg in a cheeky attempt at a tickle. He got to her waist then stuck his arm between the slacks so he could bring his hand up on the other side and pull her into himself. He tried to move the dinosaur so he could bring her closer, but she pulled it back, at least she looked at him this time, with a smile too.

“I missed you.”

“I missed you too.”

“Then why didn’t you answer my calls.”

“I was scared.”

“Of what?”

“That you’d call me and tell me you can’t be with me because you don’t want to pick between your friends and your girlfriend.”

“You think I’d do that?”

She only shrugged.

“I would never.”

“So you’re not here to break up with me?”

“Never.”

She smiled big at that, but it fell with her next coming thought. “But, um, if you ever had to, I’d want you to pick your friends.”

“What are you talking about?”

“If something happened and you felt like you had to make a choice, I’d want you to pick them.”

“That’s ridiculous.” He sat up but didn’t take her with him, so her head was closer to his hip than his chest where it was before. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m not.” She didn’t match his tone, she didn’t want to. She kept herself small, she didn’t feel like being big, staying where she was, fidgeting with the frays on his cargo shorts instead, “I just think that they’ve been there for you in ways I never could, I’d want you to pick them.”

“Do you hear yourself right now?”

She shrugged again, though her positioning made it awkward.

“Hun, listen to me.” He pulled her up next to him again. “The only reason that would ever happen is if they made me choose. I know you’d never do that. And if they did, I’d pick you.”

“You would?”

“Every time. I’m picking you every time.”

She pulled his bottom lip down to hear the silly sound it made, then she looked him in the eyes again, “I love you.”

“Still?” Not what you were supposed to say, JJ. Not what you were supposed to say at all.

“All the time.”

“I love you too.”

The two laid there together for a few more minutes in the way too cramped chair, just enjoying each other’s company. “I almost blocked you though,” she said, just to break the silence. Also to give him a bit of a hard time.

“What?”

“You were calling me five times a minute, I had no choice but to...”

“No choice but to what?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said you had no choice, what did you have no choice in?”

She tried to slowly inch off the chair with a guilty smile on her face, not that she could be very sneaky about being smushed up against someone. He tried to hold her close but she still slipped away so he sat up and straddled the chair, “No choice but to what, hun?”

“It’s hardly important, best not to dwell on it. Don’t worry about it.”

“What did you do?”

“Fiiiiiine, I maybe possibly texted John B to maybe perhaps suggest that you give me 5 minutes to collect my thoughts before calling me,,,again.”

“‘Maybe possibly,’ yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He tried to jump up and chase her but as soon as he stood, his foot got caught in the broken spot which gave her another second’s head start. She considered running inside and leaving him to figure himself out, but she couldn’t just leave him stranded. She dramatically dropped her head back in a sigh and walked back over to him. He kept trying to force his foot straight up through, not turning it and pulling it out that way, and it certainly wasn’t helping that he was just getting angry at it. “You’re gonna bruise your foot. Jesus Christ, hold on, just–ok, stop, put your foot down.”

“What? It’s stuck. I can’t get it out.”

“No, look.” She stuck her own foot in the same gap and he finally seized his moment.

“A HA!” He grabbed her and took her down with him to lie on the chair again, knees bent of course.

“Nooooo! A heinous trick!”

He had no defense, other than looking at her with a big smile again, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“I like that I can say that again.”

“You could’ve said it before too.”

“Now felt like the right time.”

“It was.”

★★★

Ring Ring Ring

“Hello?” y/n answered her phone without checking the caller id.

“Hi, um, it’s Kiara.”

“Oh, hi.”

“Hi, yeah, can we talk? Sometime?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“I don’t want to do this over the phone, that always felt weird to me.”

“Ok, where do you want to meet then?”

“The beach? The one by the boneyard?”

“Tomorrow morning?”

“Ok, I’ll see you then.”

“See you then.”

★★★

Kiara saw her coming down from the street with a basket and a towel. She waved to her, trying to seem friendly but still worried about overdoing it. “You didn’t need to bring all this. I don’t want to take up too much of your day.”

“You’re not. I just remember you saying you like blackberries and blueberries, and it was early so I brought some.” Y/n pulled a little rubbermaid out of her basket and set them on the towel. “From my garden. And the towel is just because I don’t like getting sand in my pockets. Sensory issues and whatnot.”

“Oh, ok.” Kiara turned to her, sitting crisscrossed, but she stayed facing the water.

“You don’t have to look at me if you don’t want. Eye contact is weird for me.”

“Ok,” she turned to face the ocean too, then spoke. “I want to say sorry, for everything. The way I acted towards you was wrong, and bitchy, and mean, and you didn’t deserve any of it. I’m sorry.”

“You shouldn’t call yourself bitchy, but it’s ok.”

“It’s not ok, I was scared of losing JJ and I was scared of losing my friends cus you’re all bubbly and fun to talk to and interesting as hell. So instead of trying to get to know you, I tried to push you away from all of them too. And that was bit–” y/n gave her a look, “that was stupid of me. And I’m really sorry.”

“I forgive you, and I understand.” They both cheersed with a berry then spent the rest of the morning on the beach.

★★★

They walked back to the Chateau together, practically skipping, y/n with the basket, Kiara with the blanket.

“Oh no,” John B looked up from where the 3 boys were helping Big John with the Twinkie.

“What?” Pope asked. “Oh shit.”

“What is it?” JJ hit his head on the hood, then nearly passed out once he saw the two girls.

“Boys? A little help here?” All three of them helped Big John up and he started laughing once he saw y/n and Kiara coming down the street. “Ooohhhh, you three have no idea what you’re in for now, do you?

“JJ,” he put a hand on his shoulder. “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but that’s not your girlfriend anymore, she’s Kie’s now.”

JJ groaned and put his head down on the front of the van, he sat up just in time to see y/n running towards him. He huffed when she crashed into him and stole his red baseball hat, then stepped back to stand with Kiara.

“You two are gonna be trouble now, aren’t you?” Big John asked.

“In what world?” “How could you say such a thing?”

John B and Pope made some bet behind JJ and shook on it.

★★★

“Hey,” JJ finally caught y/n alone in the kitchen.

“Hi,” she smiled at him as she shut the refrigerator door.

“So, do you want to come over tomorrow? Maybe we could go to the beach? Take a ride? My dad is supposed to be out for the weekend so…”

“Oh, sorry, I had plans with Kie to go see that new Tom Holland movie. Maybe another day.”

He looked a little sad but tried to be happy that they were getting along. “Yeah—Yeah, that’s cool. Don’t worry about it. Another day.”

She pulled him closer by the waist and pushed him into the inner corner of the counter so she could trap him in. “Hey, hey, I’m kidding. I’m kidding. Of course I’ll come over, all weekend if you can handle me for that long.”

“Not long enough.” He nudged her nose with his then leaned in further to take her in a kiss that seemed to transcend time.

Meaning that it seemed long enough for Big John to very loudly say “John B, could ask your friends to stop making out in my kitchen so I could grab a lemonade?”

🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊

thank you so so much for reading, reblogs are always appreciated and also comments are always so so special to me. Thank you for reading again, and also I really hope you liked it 💖💖💖

#dell’s fics #jj maybank #jj maybank fic #obx pogues #jj maybank fluff #jj maybank x y/n #jj maybank x reader #jj obx #obx imagine #jj maybank x you

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dcmeme · 6 months

Text

Batfam Covid series part 1

I figured out how to turn off autocorrect so it types ‘Selina’ and not ‘Selena’ woohoo! Progress! Multiple parts, all longer than usual.

Damian: Why is it everyone has to be within the same household?

Dick: Because it’s quarantine. Meaning you isolate with people you’ve been in contact with already that could have the disease.

Jason: I mean, I’ve gotta agree, this seems a bit blown out of proportion. The symptoms aren’t reading.

Tim: I think it’s more of the spread that’s of concern and those with preexisting health conditions being affected more than anything else-

Bruce: *throws tiny robots on the ground that latches to everyone’s ankles* There.

Jason: HEY! You said I wouldn’t be under house arrest again if I didn’t blow shit up (on purpose) or cause a full body cast for at least 3 weeks!

Bruce: This isn’t house arrest, this is insurance that none of you try to leave and put others at risk of infection.

Damian: That is absurd!

Dick: I gotta say, this feels a little extreme, Bruce.

Tim: Yeah, no. *takes it off*

Jason: How the f*ck?!

Tim: I’m gonna go stay at my boyfriend’s.

Bruce: The last thing you are doing is leaving this house, Tim. Like you said- it’s a major concern for those of preexisting health conditions.

Selina: I helped Alfred switch your and Damian’s old bedrooms so you are a bit more isolated-

Damian: Excuse me?! I don’t want to sleep near Helena’s room. She continues to make sounds.

Bruce: You don’t have a choice. In fact, none of you do. Not until everyone is tested- including anyone you’ve been around the last 12 days.

Dick: So no Kori?

Bruce: Has she been tested?

Dick: I mean she’s been on another planet with Mari for, like, 6 months soooo

Bruce: they’re fine to stay.

Damian: Can John come over?

Bruce: I don’t even let him over when there isn’t a pandemic.

Jason: Can’t I just be under house arrest at a safe house? I don’t care to self isolate- just let me grab a few books and I’m good for dayyys.

Bruce: Absolutely not.

Tim: Ok than let Bernard come over?

Bruce: No.

Tim: But what if he tests.

Bruce: I don’t like that boy being in my house.

Tim: Oh come on. He only broke,like, two or three things in the cave.

Jason: Didn’t that somehow include the giant penny?

Damian: and the window to the Batmobile.

Dick: *sighs* The chair to the batcomputer has squeaked ever since he left that night.

Bruce: My cape.

Alfred: He was rather harsh on the grappling hooks as well, Master Drake-

Tim: I said I loved a man, not a smart one-

Bruce: No Bernard.

Tim: oh come on! Dick gets to bring Kori!

Dick: and my kid.

Tim: Oh come on you barely see her but three times a year.

Dick: I’ve known her seven months and she’s been gone six for some Tamaranian ritual or something humans can’t be at!

Selina: Will all of you stop shouting. If my baby wakes up, I will find a way to make all of you pay.

Bruce: The only person with a second option on where they’re staying is Damian-

Jason: Bull shit!-

Bruce: Talia has asked he go back to the league’s temple since COVID hasn’t likely breeched them yet.

Damian: Can I bring my children?

Bruce: Only the dog.

Damian: than no.

Bruce: you’ll have to take that up with your mother.

Damian: I’ll make this much clear- I would sacrifice each of you individually for the sake of my children-

Tim: you mean your pets?

Damian: they are family in this house, Drake. I can’t say the same for you.

Tim: You really don’t expect me to live next to this brat for literal months, right? He’ll kill me by the end of the week! I’m much safer at my place.

Bruce: As of right now this is all of our place. Stop bickering and get used to the idea of being under the same roof for a while.

Cassandra: It could be fun! We can even have a family dinner after we’re all tested.

Damian: oh joy. Sharing food with the nuisance Drake and the pig that is Todd. Fantastic.

Jason: Don’t you have a mommy to call?

Damian: Don’t you have a casket to sleep in!

Jason: Oh f*ck you!

Bruce: now boys-

Tim: Is this seriously how you expect me to live?!

Cassandra: we can make breakfast for dinner and by then maybe the weather will be nice enough to open windows and set up candles-

Jason: you think you have it bad?! I’m surrounded by the same people who-

Damian: I better not have to sit at that dinner by Drake, Cain, or so help me god-

Bruce: enough!

Tim: For my own safety please god do not do that cass-

Jason: I don’t see why you’re complaining when I’m the one who has to-

Bruce: *louder* enough

Tim: I have a right to feel however I want!

Damian: If that is the case, I feel you should all be disowned-

Dick: why are we all arguing again?!

Damian/Tim/Jason/Bruce: SHUT UP, DICK/GRAYSON

Dick:… what did I do? 🥺

Helena: *screaming from upstairs*

Selina:…

Bruce:…

Everyone:…

Bruce:…we’ll take this outside.

Selina: That would be great, thank you.

#batfamily #batman #batfam #dc comics #dc universe #bruce wayne #dc robin #damian wayne #richard grayson #tim drake #selina kyle #bruce x selina #helena wayne

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dickheadcanons · 2 months

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Your brain is literally gynormous. Do you think Damian's and Dick's relationship is paternal? Because, as someone who has actually had to raise their sibling (do not recommend) it looks more like a guy that had too much in his plate trying to be the best caregiver he could, but not really being a parent, if that makes sense. I feel like the idea of him wanting to adopt him feels like kind of a retcon, couldn't really see it in the og run. But of course, it could be because it's not exactly the same as my experience (abusive father, incapable mother, yknow the drill). What do you think? All your posts are so good.

Also while you're at it, what do you think of Dick as a parent? Some elseworlds have played with the concept, and main continuity did something too with Olivia but T*m Tayl*r fucked that up too. I also wonder how Damian would be as a dad, but I don't think I've ever seen any stories with it.

omg anon thank you and thank you for asking!! this is literally one of my favorite topics!! i was thinking about making a post on this and now you gave me the excuse for it!!

Long story short, I don't think that “parental” is a binary thing. I mean, I know several bio-parents who are just guys with too much on their plates, trying to be the best they can, you know? And people can see parent figures in all kinds of relationships that aren’t blood or traditional moms/dads, especially with people who didn't know each other from birth. There are a million ways to be parented, and a million ways to act as a parent.

The way I think about it is, is Dick Damain's John Grayson? No, I don't think so.

But is Dick Damian's Bruce Wayne? Yes. Totally. Absolutely.

More under the cut bc I have a lot of thoughts.

I think to talk about Dick and Damian, we have to start with Dick and Bruce. So much about Dick and Damian is a reflection of the original Dynamic Duo, and I think that's very much the case with this element as well. From the start of their very long comic history, Dick and Bruce have been dancing around their relationship. We get early comics that say they're "like" father and son, we have Bruce saying he couldn't care about Dick more than if he was Bruce's son, but we also have places where they call each other their best friends, where they act more like brothers, etc etc.

When it comes to who our parents are, I think there is the responsibility, and the result. Certain people have the responsibility, the duty, to be our parents, and sometimes (because death or illness or being shitty people), they aren't able to meet those responsibilities. That never removes the responsibility; they don't stop being the parent. But they aren't able to create the result of us becoming good stable adults. That's where other people can step in, where the parental figure appears, and those are the people that we actually point to when we say "they made me the person I am today."

In fandom, we see a lot of Dick not wanting Bruce to replace his father, of him asking not to be adopted. I think this is a fine characterization that works with who Dick is, but Bruce is actually the one to say that he is not going to replace Dick's father. He says it completely unprompted, too. This is withholding the responsibility of being Dick's parent from Bruce, keeping him at a distance and reserving it as an honor for someone who can't hold it anymore, even as Bruce demands responsibility for literally everything else about Dick.

And I think that it's very telling of what Bruce's idea of a father is. The thing about having a dead parent at a young age is that the person of your parents is still tangled in the role of parent in your life; Mom is mom, not Martha, and because she's dead, the image of both Martha and "mom" is frozen. For Bruce, the relationship of father and son is frozen in the relationship of specifically his father and him. Of course Bruce is not Dick's father; Bruce himself is so different from what his conception of a father is. And as a fellow son, for Bruce, someone who just got back from 7 years abroad studying to be Batman, for whom the nearly 20 year old wound is still fresh, the idea of even wanting another father doesn't make sense, particularly for a boy that Bruce identifies with so hard that he becomes the third person ever to know who Batman is.

This looming memory is even worse when it's Dick's turn to be Batman. While Bruce looks at Dick and sees the memory of his own loss, the shadow of his own grief, Dick is looking at Damian and seeing Bruce. Dick knows very well who Damian lost; Dick is grieving what Damian lost more than Damian is. Bruce couldn't conceive of replacing a father, but Dick is struggling to imagining himself replacing Bruce at his job, much less who he was in his personal relationships.

But even if Damian isn't Dick's responsibility, Dick doesn't hesitate to care about Damian's future. "Who's going to save him if we don't?" At the start of the DickBats era, Dick isn't looking at Damian as a family member, really. He's looking at Damian as a victim, abet a very involved, very dangerous one. It's how Bruce looked at Dick too, before he had any reason to know that this kid would become something more to him. But, like Bruce, what Dick does to save Damian is bring him into the thing that is most precious to him; Batman. The mission. Saving people. A way to live in the world.

I know saying someone is the Batman to their Robin is like, a joke at this point. Something unbelievably cheesy. But you google "iconic duos" and Batman and Robin are one of the first responses. There's a reason for the joke. So imagine you are Robin, and your Batman is dead. And you have to go and find a new partner. Dick making Damian his Robin is heavy, just as heavy to me as adoption papers. Bruce made Dick his partner without any idea of what that meant. Dick, and the audience, had 70 years of expectation on what Dick and Damian could be. Dick making Damian Robin was a very specific claim, far stronger imo than just claiming him as a son would have been.

Because, to be honest (and speak to your other question), I don't think Dick thinks a lot about being a parent. I don't really think it's that important to him. Dick is a leader, a mentor, he deals with a ton of teenagers and kids through his vigilante work, he goes to Tim's sidekick parent's meetings and takes Jason skiing and more than that, he's also young. He's in his 20s. He should be at the club. I think he probably thinks he'll have kids in an abstract way, but it's not something he's looking for, consciously or unconsciously. He's not searching for connection, or to fix his mistakes or his past, the things that lead Bruce to adopting sidekicks. He'd be a great dad, and I think we see him being pretty good with his Elseworlds kids, but Dick is a very practical person, and him taking a kid in (vs finding somewhere else they can go) is not really the practical choice.

Except for one kid. There's just been one kid with legitimately no where else to go, where Dick is truly the only option, because going home meant only bad things for him. Dick made Damian part of his family in the ways that mattered to them both in that moment. With their lives, adoption doesn't really make a huge material difference on custody (if Damian wanted to leave, Dick couldn't have stopped him; Damian has access to basically unlimited money and can feed and clothe and wash himself. and possibly already has a phd.), and Dick wanted Damian to choose, anyway. If I recall correctly, Dick says he didn't think about taking Damian with him until Bruce comes back. He thought about taking Damian with him, thought that Damian might be better with Dick (his partner!!!!) than even with Bruce, his dad, the person Dick loves so much, only in the face of them being separated.

Meanwhile Damian, for all his blustering about how Dick needs to "earn" his respect, warms up to Dick startlingly quickly. For Damian, who had never known a father, who in his initial run hadn't even known his mother for more than two years, whose other male family is Ra’s al Ghul, his father is Batman. Even in Tomasi's kinder depiction of Damian's childhood, Damian only knows the Bat. And when he meets Bruce, the first thing he expresses is disappointment. Bruce the man is underwhelming and then goes and dies. So much for the mythic hero!

And then he meets Dick. Who manages to teach Damian something, who doesn't discount his skills even when he's wrong. Who proves that he is better at being Batman than Damian, and shows that he wants Damian around. And, even more importantly, who doesn't die. Dick is stable in a world constantly in flux. Damian screws up a lot in that run, and he leaves for long stretches of it, but Dick is always there when he gets back. There's no blame here, but the truth is that Dick is the one who stays.

Bruce was Damian's father, but what does that mean to someone whose never met a father at all? Bruce might have tried to connect with Damian before he died, but he doesn’t do it in a way that works. He doesn’t give Damian trust, he doesn’t encourage him in the ways Damian finds important…the first person to do that is Dick. Dick gives Damian responsibility, makes him part of the team. It could be argued that Damian didn’t deserve it, but we’re not talking about deserving. We’re talking about what worked. It sounds like as good an idea as making a tiny 8 year old acrobat a sidekick, but it undeniably worked for both Damian and Dick. Does that mean that either of these relationships were parental in the way that we think of it in the real world, in the way that a child psychologist would say is good and healthy? I have no idea. But they are the most parental in the absence of any other parents, and I think that means a lot.

Unfortunately, we don't get to actually see the dissolution of Dick and Damian's partnership. DC conveniently skips over showing us Bruce coming back and Dick becoming Nightwing again; preNew 52, Dick is still Batman with Damian even when Bruce returns, and in the New 52, he's been Batman "Before" and we don't really see the end, just a vague aftermath. But if it did take that kind of change to make them realize their relationship had a flavor of "parent and child", had the makings of something like a father and son, well, they'd just be following in the original Batman's footprints.

#asks #dick grayson #damian wayne #bruce wayne #this is a fucking essay #batman meta #And I didn't even manage to talk about John #Sorry John #I think there is the more traditional caregiver side of parenthood #the part that makes sure the kids are fed and dressed and ready for school #but the magic of comics is that none of the bat characters really need that and damian in particular is not receptive to it #They kind of regress Damian to it a bit after the supersons era #but he is extremely assured while Dick is batman #he doesn't need a parent in the caregiver way he need a parent in the believes in you and gives you somewhere to call home way #it just turns out that its really hard to have someone love you and watch out for you and get super invested in your development #and not think of them in some kind of fond paternal way #also i may need to make a real post about dick and children because i dont know if i was really coherent here lol #also if there are any issues that show something i missed lmk #i have definitely not read everything

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mysteriouslybluepirate · 6 months

Note

hi bestie saw ur post and im kinda curious about this since it's something not a lot of ppl are talking about next to ed's arc and izzy's death and all— what do you think about how they handled stede in the finale? I felt like a lot of the "incompetent wannabe pirate" jokes undermined his progress this season and also him deciding to stay at the inn with ed felt odd as he expressed he wanted to be a pirate and sail the sea. just wondering what other people think about that

[Oct 31, 2023]

Before we get into it, you are allowed to enjoy this show! My past (and next few) responses WILL be negative, but you aren't wrong for agreeing or disagreeing with most posts. Thanks to all the people who have already sent in messages! I can't wait to respond!!

I am an Izzy fan first and foremost, but how a show handles it's protagonist says a LOT about how it handles it' characters overall!

TLDR for this post: In any character-centric media, explore your characters as characters first. Develop your plot around them and their arcs. Don't treat an ensemble cast as faceless props for the story you're trying to tell. Stede's arc is weird because Stede is shoved in places where it feels like he doesn't fit anymore.

Creating a narrative focused on central character conflicts can work. This is how S1 was written. Stede and his actions directly lead to revealing truths of the world that push the plot forward. This worked because I'd argue the strongest part of OFMD overall is its characters. S2 misses out on this strongest aspect by only referencing its characters when it needs something from them.

S1 We went from Stede killing a guy-> The Act of Grace. S2 Stede tells a guy he shouldn't be an idiot and leave behind a calling card -> burning down the Republic of Pirates and killing Izzy. S2 doesn't feel as tied to Stede's arc of growing into a pirate. But Stede isn't the only person this has fucked over.

Each crew member has their role established from S1, we fans know how they work as a family. But in S2 most of the cast can be swapped out interchangeably unless its something that features this side character NICHE (Wee John in drag being good with fabrics, Roach being a cook).

Sadly, by focusing on the larger Zheng vs. Military arc, a story our characters BARELY caused, the audience misses out on potential character development. Instead of our characters facing the consequences of their actions, our favorite side characters are used as faceless narrative tools. This is largely why the crew was abandoned this season unless they had a romantic side plot. Seeing The Revenge sail off in episode 8, it feels like we barely care about them at all anymore.

As seen from @the-buttspie 's comment, even Stede's arc isn't left out of the firing range. His characterization in episode 8 is constantly thrown back and forth between 'Captain doing his best' and 'Village idiot' if the scene needs it.

Analyzing WHY I started to dislike Stede post episode 4 is FASCINATING, and I feel that digging all the way back to the beginning is a smart way to look at his character growth this season.

FRAMING: Stede's early story get's fucked over pacing-wise because his storyline happens side by side to that of Ed/Izzy.

Any dramatic moment is cut short to show just how much the other crew is NOT about to die. Every time I watch S2 with a new person, for episodes 1-3, they'll comment on how much they don't care about Stede's plot. Which is not a thing you'd want for your protagonist in a season of TV that's only 8 episodes long.

Stede goes through a really strong arc from S1 to the start of S2. For the first three episodes of S2, he puts the needs of his crew before the needs of himself. Literally making sure his crew is safe before going down to see Ed's corpse. I genuinely enjoyed how Stede stepped up for his family. How he doesn't blame the Revenge crew for killing Ed, realizing that yes. Ed is the love of his life and also a man who has seriously hurt so many people.

Eps 4-5: From that we see him trying to talk it through with Ed. While both of them aren't telling the whole truth, it's a good start! We're midway through the season, so we should expect things to get fleshed out more soon.

Until Stede decides 'I'm going to bring a man that tortured my family for 80+ days onboard less than 24 hours after my crew voted him off' Yes. Stede loves Ed to a stupid extent, but this starts the trend for Stede to be dangerously selfish this season using his power as captain to overwrite the want of his crew, a habit of his that partially gets Izzy killed.

I really enjoyed Stede in episode 5, and for me, this felt most like the Stede we recognize growing into a real Captain with hints of who he was. I think it says a lot that Stede still misses his layers and silks. That he craves the softness he used to have in the form of that cursed jacket. But as soon as Izzy is like 'you idiot, please listen to them, they will mutiny' Stede gives it up!!!! He's grown. He's listening to Izzy, he's talking with his crew! This episode did the one thing I wish the season did more of, show the reunited crew just living their lives.

This is where Stede stands out, it lets him be a bit more of a leader to the crew. Let him find his groove again. I loved it!!

Now: Killing Ned Low.

Stede choosing to kill Ned Low is the first time Stede killing someone counts. Yes, he burned down the ship French ship. But this is the first time the audience is supposed to care. I think this moment WAS in character and a really important moment for Stede. He chose this. This wasn't up to crew vote, Ned insulted Ed so fuck him, he deserves to die. Ned walks the plank, also referencing historical Bonnet's tendency to do the same thing.

This is where both Ed and Stede make an in-character mistake, having their first time after the rush of 'oh shit, I'm still alive, and I'm hurting and you're here too'. They don't regret their first time, clearly, they both enjoyed it, but both of them can't ignore what fueled it. Stede has had 3 episodes to re-establish himself with his crew, and now has very little time for the rest of the season with them to show off his growth. That's why, after the party, we don't feel like this show is showing off a family anymore. Even when reunited, they barely feel like a united front.

But from this point on, I personally feel that Stede should have toned down the humor a bit and act like he did in episode 3. Well, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself so-

Episode 7: Stede enjoys being popular, following in Ed's footsteps. He holds his ground against Ed, and overall this feels like a natural progression of his arc from episode 5. He knows what he wants in life and Ed not communicating is genuinely frustrating for him. Him being heartbroken and trying to fight Zheng like she's Izzy is one of the few callbacks I feel that works. As it compares a Stede who was supported by his crew, to this Stede who feels totally alone. I loved Stede this episode, only to be disappointed by-

Episode 8:

Where Ed is allowed to have his silly moments in private, I feel that Stede fluctuates between silly and serious WAY too much for us to take him seriously. Stede's response to Ed telling him he loved him being 'I know' also felt off to me.

"You're not a dick, life's a dick" This line is frustrating to me as it's Stede's response to Ed apologizing. Genuinely apologizing for his actions in the previous episode. This could have been a moment for us to feel like Stede and Ed were a united front but Stede's constant joking and not taking shit semi-seriously. Yes. He feels more comfortable around his family which is amazing.

But I can't help but point out how Stede chooses to go along with a plan the rest of the crew doesn't like. What NARRATIVE purpose was there for Stede trying to sell the captain? He has money, clearly. With the loot they still have, and a future alliance with Zheng.

Stede fucks up. His choice a plan that gets Izzy killed. The writers sacrificed Stede being a competent Captain who cares about his crew into what is described as a 'suicide mission' to push Izzy into his rushed death. A disservice to both characters.

ONTO:

Stede abandons piracy

I'm not shocked they did this, not after the other flubs of the episode, but I hate that it wasn't a conversation held between Ed and Stede.

They could cut the stupid joke about Ed being bad at fishing at the beginning and have these two idiots talking about their issues. Maybe establish that, yeah, piracy is a lot, and they deserve to settle down and get to know each other. Even if they return to the sea, this frames it as Ed finally finding peace and Stede getting pulled along, going against his character growth this season.

I'm surprised that they're setting this up now and not at the end of Season 3. Hell, I used to think S3 would be focused on Ed and Stede avoiding/faking their historical deaths. Given all the bullshit they'll have to clean up to wrap up all the loose ends established this season- S3 will be VERY Ed/Stede focused, I think the crew will still be inserted in without care or arc. Characters like Jim and Oluwande will be prioritized as they are in a relationship before our nonromantic characters like Wee John and Frenchie.

Stede and Ed's relationship, the driving force of the plot, still falls flat because after everything it still feels like puppy love. They've spent at most two months in person together, and two weeks in a serious relationship. I don't really feel convinced that they actually love each other. Ed still doesn't know that Stede was kidnapped at the end of S1, or why he struggles to talk about his feelings. Ed still hasn't talked about why he feels he needs to leave piracy, or his issues feeling like he doesn't belong anywhere in life. Their habit of running away the MOMENT things get hard just makes me not care about them.

I blame the size of the Izzy fandom on the fact that if you don't buy into the leads, there's almost nothing left here to sink your teeth into. The moment the show seems like they'll talk about it they hard pivot.

I hope S3ep1 happens after a LONG time jump. I want these fuckers to be snippy like two people snowed into a cabin for months. Sick of each other and bitching back and forth like no tomorrow. S3 is about genuinely breaking down their walls. Until then, I'll stick with Izzy, the Canyon, and his depressing version of this reality.

#stede bonnet #I'm a bit worried this post will reach all the Stede fans directly and they'll feel attacked. Please don't feel that way!#I genuinely enjoyed where he was going until episode 8 where Stede seemed emotionally distant the entire episode #I just wish Stede had more impact to his own central story #ofmd critical #ofmd meta #ofmd season 2 #ofmd s2 spoilers #stede bonnet critical #IDK if thats a tag #stede critical #?#ofmd s2 finale #ofmd s2

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vacationship · 6 days

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Sorry to do this guys… seriously big time TL;DR on the insanity of Rebecca’s predictions going nowhere. I stopped thinking about all this a long time ago but it’s coming back to me in a fever dream…

Remember when Rebecca went to the psychic and then all the signs starting with the green matchbook happened to her? And the signs came during encounters with two previous and one new love interest but these male characters subliminally or subtextually pointed to Ted?

Sam hands her the green matchbook for Ola’s and Rebecca is stroking it intently back and forth just under the letters as she’s trying to “read” the sign and then you realize you can REARRANGE the letters Ola’s -> Las’o?

Which you could maybe shrug off as coincidental except then…

She runs into John Wingsnight and he comes through with the Shite in Nining Armor prediction which calls back to Ted white knighting for Rebecca, but even more subliminally is the fact that John’s Manchester United scarf shows MAN then gets REARRANGED mid scene to show TED and then back again to MAN? (THEY TOOK THE TIME TO REARRANGE THE SCARF, TWICE.) And John who’s literally wearing the sign that Ted is the Man is talking about meeting the right person, his fiancée, a call back to Rebecca breaking up with John because she realizes how she really wants to feel with her right person, safe and trusting?

And the psychic was wearing army green and Rebecca finds in her purse the green soldier that Ted gave her to help her feel protected and safe stuck INSIDE the Ola’s (Lasso) green matchbook?

Is this not unhinged levels of endgame hints?

And then Ted takes out his matchbook from his pocket along with red and blue magnets? So they both still have the matchbook in their purse/pocket, such a personal private space, and each also have another item that also feels really personal and significant? The army man and freakin’ magnets? And there’s all these scenes with Ted and Rebecca with red and blue, like the magnets? And they’re MAGNETS but somehow not sticking together (two magnets in a pocket would definitely find each other) but this shows how they aren’t aware of how they fit yet? How they are soulmates? How they don’t know about their important matching date where they each experienced trauma? And Ted says how he has to bring these magnets back to work, his office, which is where he magnetically connected with Rebecca? She confesses, he forgives, she livens up the place? They hug in an embrace tight as magnets? And they were magnetically drawn to each other in the hallway at work when they each psychically picked up on what was going on for the other one?

And then Rebecca falls into the canal as predicted but is “safe” with the boat guy and he sings Kenny Roger’s just like Ted does? And there a few other parallels with Boat Guy/Ted? And meanwhile Ted is trying to reach her, and clearly misses her, but her phone is in the canal so Ted ends up on a little inner journey with himself and realizes he misses Kansas and his son but also figures out a soccer philosophy which he hopes will help him “win the whole thing” as he promised Rebecca? And when they reunite on the bus at the end they are both grinning ear to ear, maybe for different reasons, but the subtext is that each found their mojo again, their magnetism? And Beard sitting with them with a lightening suit on, matching the prediction from the psychic about thunder and lightening but also Roy telling Rebecca she should expect feeling struck by lightening with a romantic partner? Beard in the lightening suit is clocking what’s happening with Rebecca, that’s she’s been with a man and seems struck by lightening? But boat guy made her feel how Ted makes her feel?! But she was able to loosen up more with stranger guy but she looks at Ted and sings Everything Is Going To Be Alright? But what about the thunder? Is the thunder Ted, because Beard is def silently communicating with his best friend about Rebecca, showing us that Beard thinks Ted needs to pay attention to Rebecca?

To a human on earth lightening seems to come first, then the thunder, because sound travels slower than light. So thunder is still coming…Ted? And you can’t have thunder without lightning? Thunder tells you how close the lightening is. If you don’t hear thunder the lightening is very far away. Why is the thunder missing? Because Ted is still so far away from Rebecca? All of this was so meticulous, don’t tell me the thunder part of the prediction didn’t mean anything? The psychic said Thunder and Lightening and every other thing happened explicitly.

BONUS: And then remember how Ted ends up at Rebecca’s house due to a gas leak the night of the day he told her he was leaving, which leads back to Rebecca’s OWN prediction when she enters the psychic’s office and smells a funny smell? (This happens with psychics, your own latent abilities can turn on.) Plus Ted’s gas leak/fart joke about Beard, and his previous adorable fart song? Heart bent in my apartment because all you left was your fart scent? Gas leak, fart scent, apartment, get it? These are SNL guys remember? Did they seriously make a heartbreak song also about farts? Anyway, Rebecca always thinks Ted is funny? And she is heart bent that he’s leaving? They both are?

And this is just the prediction stuff? NUMEROUS other romcom parallels, signs, clues, tropes, whatever you want to call them, that Ted and Rebecca were going to turn around and see each other ACTUALLY HAPPENED?

And when his mother comes she makes a comment that Ted was FATED to live in England and she fluffs up his apartment with pillows and whatever else to make it more like home. Kansas and BBQ sauce may have been his home but the biscuits he makes for Rebecca reminds her of home, and it’s implied that for Ted, making biscuits for Rebecca and bringing them to her everyday was making Rebecca his home in Richmond. Where do you want to go each day when you are sad and lost and figuring yourself out? Home. So he devises a way to give Rebecca her home feeling while creating a home for himself with her. And his mom seemed to think he belonged there? And she never told him to go back to Kansas, she just said his son misses him? And his son loved visiting, loved soccer, and “has it covered” with training the men while Ted is up in Rebecca’s office and there’s that CRAZY shot of their hands meeting, framed perfectly by the circle of her purse handles as he gives her the biscuits, but anyway back to his son, it’s implied that he has a significant sense of belonging in Richmond, too? And in the last episode Ted ends up in Rebecca’s HOME? Right after the tv announcer says “he should have stayed with Rebecca. Now that was a power couple”? (I know it’s about Rupert but I’m sorry that was about Ted.)

I just like don’t know why they had to do this. This was so unhinged of them. And to say they didn’t enthusiastically consider the ship? You did all this!

@dollsome-does-tumblr @roamwithahungryheart @pinkboxess

@kdbleu

No need to respond just tagging a few of y’all that I’ve seen on here recently

#tedbecca #fine you wanted to do right person wrong time but don’t say you weren’t enthusiastic like puhlease

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wisteria-lodge · 9 months

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SORTING DISNEY LADIES (1995-1998)

Part 1 - Disney Ladies 1937-1985

Part 2 - Disney Ladies 1988-1993

I’m going in chronological order, and doing both A Squad and B Squad, because I’m interested in tracking how the ideal “disney girl” has changed in the past 85 years (right now I’m only looking at the human-shaped heroines of Disney animated theatrical releases) A more detailed break-down of the system I’m using is right here, but the basics are these:

PRIMARY (ie MOTIVE)

BADGER ~ Loyal to the group.

SNAKE ~ Loyal to yourself and your Important People.

LION ~ Subconscious Idealist. Ideals are linked to feelings and instincts.

BIRD ~ Conscious Idealist. Ideals are linked to built systems and external facts.

SECONDARY (ie METHOD)

BADGER ~ Connect with the group. Make allies, work steadily and well. Be whatever the situation calls for. If you find a locked door, knock.

SNAKE ~ Connect with the environment. Notice things. Tell people what they want to hear. If you find a locked door, get in through the window.

BIRD ~ Collect skills, tools, knowledge, personas, useful friends. If you find a locked door, track down the key or learn to pick the lock.

LION ~ Be honest, be direct, speak your truth. Either the obstacle is going down or you are. If you find a locked door, kick it in.

POCAHONTAS (1995)

(& John Smith)

Pocahontas is an incredibly loud Lion Primary. Marrying Kocoum is the good choice, the responsible choice, the right choice - she knows this - but she just can’t do it. It feels wrong. She “goes wherever the wind takes her,” accompanied by the swirling leaves that are a kind of physical manifestation of her primary, since they match up so perfectly with the compass. (Classic Lion primary metaphor - see also Jack Sparrow.) When Pocahontas doesn’t know what to do she dreams of the confusing “spinning arrow,” but when she does... that arrow points straight in one direction and she just goes. She “listens with her heart” to the degree that it gives her superpowers.

It’s tempting to say she’s a Lion secondary too. She enjoys whitewater rafting and BASE jumping, which I guess are activities stereotypically associated with Lion secondaries. Also, the climax of the movie does involve her physically flinging herself across John Smith’s body. BUT her big song (“Colors of the Wind”) is just so, so, SO Bird secondary. John Smith isn’t getting it, and so Pocahontas’ response is - let me explain my worldview, show you, you clearly don’t have all the information. She’s a problem-solving Bird. Pocahontas’ first instinct when the English arrive is to investigate from the shadows, with two animal sidekicks that represent Curiosity and Caution. (Which is perfect, because is that not what a Bird secondary is? Observe, assess, plan.) Pocahontas is also convinced that there must be some perfect way of explaining her situation to the rest of her tribe that will make them get it. In her eyes, the problem is again that they don’t have all the information. This is almost a Bird secondary compulsion.

As for John Smith, well. His arc is about shifting his definition of “Person” to include everyone he categorized as “savages” early in the film. That’s very Badger primary character development, and John Smith is very Badger primary. He loves being part of a group, he loves his men, and the fact that he doesn’t really belong anywhere bothers him. The implication is that he keeps going to all these “New Worlds” trying to find one where he fits. It’s a cool bit of costume design that he’s the only one in Spanish armor - like maybe he did a similar trip with the Spanish conquistadors a few years ago. And it’s gutsy that his ‘I want’ song (“Mine”) is literally a duet with the villain. Like, sure John Smith and Governor Ratcliffe don’t like each other, but they start off with pretty similar politics.

I like that at the end John isn’t accepted into the Powhatan tribe or something. He finds personal peace by redefining his own community, and gaining a broader perspective on the world. HE is absolutely a Lion secondary though: really straightforward, cannot lie, and always solves problems by throwing himself physically at them. Pocahontas only does that the once, after her Bird secondary strategy - trying to reason people around to her point of view - didn’t work.

ESMERALDA (1996)

(& Quasimodo, Claude Frollo, Phoebus)

At first Esmeralda seems like she might also be a Lion primary. She’s the revolutionary, she stands up on platforms and yells things like “Justice!” Even through all the adaptational changes, the Victor Hugo soul of the story is still very much there, and he loves a Lion primary. But… that’s not really where Esmeralda is coming from. She cut Quasimodo’s bonds very specifically to try and change the vibe of the room - “Letting the crowd torture that poor boy? I thought if one person could stand up to him…” And that’s a Badger primary motive. Esmeralda has deep roots in her outsider community, and being separate from them (trapped in the cathedral) is very, very bad for her.

But then she brings Notre Dame itself into her community. Esmeralda goes up to the statue of Mary, the cathedral's patron, and says, “Still I see your face and wonder / if you were once an outcast too.” Once she does that, the ‘outcast’ bellringer of Notre Dame and even the building itself start fighting for her. It’s important that Esmeralda’s ‘I want’ song has nothing up to do with her at all. “God Help the Outcasts” is about helping her community - the outcasts. We get lines like “I ask for nothing, I can get by / for I know so many less lucky than I” which are all about Badger primary need-basing. Esmeralda consistently goes to whoever needs her help the most, doesn’t matter if she knows them or not. And her way of helping Quasi is to give him a map of the city that brings him straight to her Community.

It’s nice to pair this very understanding, inclusive Badger primary with basically a Jack Sparrow secondary. Esmeralda likes disguises. She likes improvising weapons. She improvises her escapes, and comes up with stuff as she goes along. She also has a lot of faces that are all equally her. She is the sexy pole dancer. She is also the grounded, spiritual earth mother, and when her primary requires it, she’s the revolutionary too.

If you put the weird tonal mismatch that is the gargoyles to one side, this film has a really elegant little structure. There are three men who are in love with Esmeralda: Quasimodo, Claude Frollo and Phoebus. And it’s subtly done, but Quasi and Frollo both dehumanize her - Frollo by only seeing her sexy side and deciding she’s a demon temptress, and Quasi by only seeing her more motherly side and deciding she’s an angel. I always thought it was interesting that “Heaven’s Light” and “Hellfire” - Quasi and Frollo’s songs about Esmeralda - are back to back, with similar titles, even the same track on the soundtrack. They’re almost a duet, and I think it’s a way of showing that there are two ways to make someone inhuman. (In a movie that is SO interested in the idea of what makes someone inhuman.) And then Phoebus just sees Esmeralda as… this cool chick, with a great sense of humor and some sweet moves, who he’d like to get to know better. Of course she goes with him.

Frollo, Phoebus and Quasi are ALL Lion secondaries (no wonder they butt heads.) It’s harder to tell with Quasi, because his secondary is so ridiculously Burnt, and only wakes up once his Snake primary finds something to latch onto that isn’t Frollo… which takes him most of the movie. Phoebus has a very straightforward Paragon Lion primary that seems to match up with Esmeralda’s Badger, and Frollo, oh man. Frollo has the most twisted Bird primary imaginable. He has a belief system that is impossible to live up to, so - instead of maybe questioning that - he blames Esmeralda? Or he blames God? for making Esmeralda too tempting for him to resist? and so therefore it’s not his fault? He’s a Bird Primary who consistently fails at following his system, and deep down he knows it. That’s why he’s so scared of the actual Notre Dame cathedral, why it keeps hurting him, and why it ultimately kills him. He cannot look those statues in the face, he cannot look at the system he tells himself he follows better than anyone else.

(Inspector Javert of Les Mis is also a Bird Lion villain. Big Victor Hugo trope.)

MEGARA “MEG” (1997)

(& Hades)

Meg is the example I would use to illustrate a Burnt Snake primary. She sold her soul (gave up everything) for her boyfriend, he left her, and now she doesn’t think it’s safe to love like that again. “Look I learned my lesson, okay? I’ve sworn off man handling.” Meg won’t let herself trust anyone: “He comes in with this big handsome farm boy act, but I can see though that in a Peloponnesian minute.” It’s because she doesn’t trust herself: “If there’s a prize for rotten judgement / I guess I’ve already won that.”

Her only connection in the world is Hades, this weird and kind of compelling combination of bitchy best friend and shady producer who’s trapped her in a bad five-record deal. They are both similar flavors of Snake secondary, which is how they they can be antagonistic… but still kinda get each other, and work well together. They both enjoy sitting in a kind of blunt Neutral, but get things done by being charmers - creatively telling the truth, and switching approaches quickly in order to to figure out what resonates best with the person they're talking to.

We see Meg use Hercules’ fan girls as a smokescreen to sneak into his villa, and then talk him into playing hooky and having a night on the town. After which, she falls into his arms with her line about “weak ankles” as a way to get him to get him talking about potential weaknesses. But of course, she catches feelings and her big song “I Won’t Say I’m In Love,” is a nice little portrait of a Snake primary unBurning. Meg goes from not trusting herself at all, to deciding that… maybe it could be different this time.

And this is where Hades misreads Meg, which is ultimately his downfall. He assumes that Meg is a Lion primary like he is. Because Hades is (a bit of a narcissist) and a huge Glory Hound Lion. He hates that he got the shitty assignment, hates that things are “a little dark, a little gloomy, and as always, hey - full of dead people." He wants to be the top dog, he wants to be Zeus. So he offers Meg freedom. That's what a Lion primary like him would want more than anything, were he in her position. But Meg’s not a Lion. She’s a Snake. So we get exchanges like this:

HADES. Hear that? It’s the sound of your freedom, fluttering away. MEG. I don’t care. I won’t do anything to hurt him.

And Hades just does not see that coming.

FA MULAN (1998)

(& Fa Zhou, Mushu, Li Shang, Shan Yu)

So my question is... why does Mulan run away and join the army? Get the obvious answer out of the way - it's not “to uphold the family honor."

FA ZHOU. It is an honor to protect my country and my family. MULAN. So you’ll die for honor?

Fa Zhou is definitely a Badger primary, and Mulan… isn’t. She doesn’t get it. He’s not speaking her language. But she clearly loves her dad, and the next explanation we get is that she did it all to protect him. However, at her lowest and most vulnerable she says - “Maybe I didn’t go for my father. Maybe I went to prove that I could do things right.” That’s an interesting shift. Now the issue isn’t with why she acts, it’s with how she acts. Which means Mulan’s internal conflict isn't coming from her primary, it's coming from her secondary.

This is where we start getting into gender and gender performance. There is a lot of Badger secondary in this movie, and it’s all framed as female (Mulan's mom and grandmother are both Badger secondaries, for example.) There’s also a lot of Lion secondary, which is framed as male. (Fa Zhou, Li Shang, and Shan Yu are all Lions.) And Mulan… tries both options, and fails both times. She gets into a huge amount of trouble trying to be the quiet, caretaking bride at the matchmaker’s, and just as much trouble trying to be the brash, fight-starting Ping at the camp.

Then we have Mushu, who is Mulan's Lion secondary coach… despite not being a Lion secondary himself. He wants to be - disgraced failure Mushu is introduced trying to breathe fire and shake awake the bigger, tougher Great Stone Dragon. He’s trying to seem like an intense Lion when he is happiest and most effective doing a more Badger secondary thing. He comforts Mulan, makes her breakfast, carefully forges letters, wins her allies and generally gets… maternal (“my little baby is all grown up and saving China.”) This is a smart movie, and in a very light, comedic way… it’s saying that Mulan is not the only one self-sabotaging because of gender presentation roles.

So Mulan tries to be a Badger, which doesn’t work. She tries to be a Lion, which doesn’t work. And eventually, of course, realizes that she was a clever, inventive Bird secondary all along. We are introduced to her while she's making little gadgets to do her chores, and when she taps into that she becomes powerful. She is able to figure out a way to use the handicap weights to climb the post and reach the arrow, and defeat Shan Yu’s army by starting an avalanche. She even finds time to plan during the heavily improvised final battle in the palace. Mulan coordinates a two-pronged attack, luring Shan Yu up onto the roof, where she knows Mushu is already in place with a rocket.

As for why she does things… Mulan has an intrinsic inner truth, and just wants to project that truth out into the world. She’s a Lion primary who wants to “be myself” be “true to [her] heart,” and not hide. “When will my reflection show who I am inside?” Lion primaries will get hit especially hard with that kind of identity angst.

And to round out the sorting for this film (which really holds up) - Mushu is probably a Lion primary like Mulan, which is why he gets where she’s coming from. He starts off as a bit of an immature “stage mom” Glory Hound Lion, but gets better. Shang is definitely a Loyalist, probably a young Badger primary. (I think Mulan just likes Badger Lions, her dad is one too.) Shang is very group-orientated, wants to be “the leader of China’s finest troops - no, the greatest troops of all time!” He's also, to be honest, kind of Establishment. Shang has a much harder time getting his head around Girl!Ping then Mulan’s more Snakey buddies, and ultimately needs an authority figure to tell him to cut it out. And Shan Yu, the film’s comment on toxic masculinity, seems like an Exploded Lion primary. He gives his motivation in the first scene- “[the Emperor] invited me. By building his wall he challenged my strength.” Which means that - with the single exception of Hades... all the guys in this wave have been masculine-coded Lion secondaries, and the heroines aren't girly Badgers, but the cool "third option" - Birds or Snakes.

Tl;dr

Pocahontas ~ Lion / Bird (occasional Lion model)

John Smith ~ Badger / Lion

Esmeralda ~ Badger / Snake

Quasimodo ~ Snake / Burnt Lion

Phoebus ~ Paragon Lion / Lion

Claude Frollo ~ Burnt Bird / Lion

Megara ~ Burnt Snake / Snake

Hades ~ Immature Lion / Snake

Fa Mulan ~ Lion / Bird (unhealthy “girl coded” Badger performance) (unhealthy “boy coded” Lion performance)

Fa Zhou ~ Badger / Lion

Mushu ~ Immature Lion that matures / Badger (unhealthy Lion performance)

Li Shang ~ Badger / Lion

Shan Yu ~ Exploded Lion / Lion

(art credit to Cursed Concepts for the beautiful pins I have used to illustrate this post.)

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