GH0ST-In-The-Wall @not-here-gh0st - Tumblr Blog

I need to be up in 4 hours but I'm still here scrolling on this gods-damned website because of these little gay men on my screen *slams head on table*

not-here-gh0st

Way to call me out and remind me of the time in the same breath. Thanks T-T

shitpostingkats

Congrats to Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios for having the sheer audacity. Had a single life or death encounter with the enemy, proceeded to decide that was His Man, gave him exactly one (1) talking to about the dangers of fascism, and then promptly fucked off. Kallus is going to work everyday and having a full blown moral crisis meanwhile Zeb is hanging out and listening to his boombox. Most "if he knows what's good for him he'll fix himself." type nonsense. The swagger. The confidence. I could never.

And the best part of all of this is that it's going to work. He's going to snag the coveted award for Most Hands Off Man Rehabilitation since Leia Organa domesticated her husband.

corkinavoid

GK Medusa

Jabber's hair as dark, venomous snakes, but they really, really like Zanka for reasons none of the participants will mention.

I'm sure Medusa!Jabber has already been done by someone out there, but just imagine him bitching about Zanka's potential and whatnot, and the snakes on his head just keep reaching towards Zanka. Jabber turns away and keeps yapping but the snakes stay focused on Zanka at all times.

On a related note, Zanka can never sneak up on Jabber because the snakes sense him way before he can get close enough. Jabber can be distracted all he wants, but the moment Zanka appears in a mile radius, the snakes start moving in that direction and don't take their eyes off him.

Neither of them actually like that fact; Zanka would very much prefer to have the advantage of stealth mode, and Jabber would very much like to keep his definitely-not-in-love-with-Zanka attitude, but alas.

Even funnier if Mankira is added to the mix, and she also likes Zanka, and Jabber never stops acting dramatically betrayed about the whole deal.

burntheedges

me to my husband: ao3 is down again [explains outage]

my husband: someone should write a spicy fic about the two database engineers locked in the server room trying to fix it

my husband, smug: there was only one spreadsheet 😎

sweetsangel

“Zankas trans!” “Jabbers trans” “rudos trans!”

hear me out.

trans goka.

HEY WAIT NO I SEE YOU LEAVING COME ON MAN HEAR ME OUT

not-here-gh0st

Hey now I’m sat, so pls, with a PowerPoint and diagrams, start yapping

theblackat333

I’m gonna report every single one of those “Shapes inc” ads as malicious, cause those stupid ai chatbot sites ARE malicious and also cause they’re directly using copyrighted characters and shit, you know

sapppphho

“not everything is gay 🙄” um it is TO ME 🖕🖕🖕

One day away

I’m one day away from leaving.

My bags are packed, two by the door and one next to me, waiting for the final few things to be packed away.

My room is a mess, I clean as much as I can but it will never satisfy my mother so what’s the point.

I’m one day away from leaving.

I’m one day away from freedom,

I’ll hang out with my friends one last time, burning hours with them to avoid going back to the house.

I’ll come back to a room that is for me but had never been mine, in a house that holds ghosts who never saw me.

I’m one day away from freedom.

I’m one day away from being me.

I’ll board my flight and fly away, to a place that I may finally be able to call home, call mine.

I’m leaving behind my friends and siblings and the few people scattered through my life that held me together,

But I am one day away from being free,

And I am not going to miss this chance.

I can’t believe this is real so I needed to write this down. I have one more day here, then I will wake up in this bed for the last time, leave this house and board a flight away from all of this. I have been dreaming of this for years but it is actually happening and I feel like if I blink it will disappear and I’ll never leave.

I am getting out of here, I’m going to be in a place where I can be out and be myself and not feel like I need to stand on eggshells for my entire life. I am going to finally be me without fear of my family.

To anyone who bothers reading this, if you feel the need to run, to escape, to move across the country to get away from whatever you are running from because otherwise you feel like you are going to drown, do it. Leave and close the door behind you.

I have a day left here, then I am free.

#poets on tumblr #leaving home and never coming back #if you want to run away go and don’t ever look back #I have one day left then I’m free #is this real or have I gone insane and imagined this?#i’m so tired #but I’m finally leaving so I feel more alive than I have in years #word vomit #look it’s 11:49 at night #this is probably really bad but ehh #lesbian escaping her toxic town and family hope core #poetic #the ramblings of a lunatic #who is finally free

blasphemous-lies-and-deceit

“I need a place to stay.”

Those were the first words Michael had uttered in hours. He had been sitting near-comatose in the corner of Jon's office ever since they'd both stumbled free from the Distortion's Halls, unmoving and unresponsive until now. Jon started in surprise, completely unprepared to hear those words come from Michael's mouth, sounding so hollow and tired. He completely understood the feeling.

"Right," he sighed in agreement, before he paused awkwardly. "I, ah...may also be short on...accommodations. I was, I was in hiding before the Circus kidnapped me, and now...I don't know."

Michael laughed, short and sharp and nothing like how he had sounded before. "Great," he groaned, shoving his tangled hair back and rubbing at his forehead with both hands. "That's great." He had a headache, Jon knew- Knew, a headache he'd been suffering from ever since he'd stepped through the Distortion's door so many years ago. Jon could almost feel it in his own head, aching and heavy, and cracked his neck to try to alleviate it. He was...quite stiff, he realized, and quickly pushed that thought from his mind.

"There's a cot in Document Storage," he offered weakly, and Michael stopped massaging his head to squint up at him irritably.

"I won't fit on that," he snapped sullenly. "I...fuck." He winced suddenly, flinching quite violently. "I shouldn't know that," Michael muttered to himself. "I shouldn't know- I think the Distortion has been spying on you."

"That...makes sense," Jon conceded. Who knew what else had eyes in the Archives watching him. The flash of horribly familiar paranoia made his stomach turn and skin crawl, sparking a desperate urge to be out of the Institute before he did something drastic. "I'm booking us a hotel room," he decided firmly. "And I'm expensing it to the Institute."

"That'll show them," Michael encouraged half-heartedly. Jon busied himself with making the arrangements, while also thinking about what other arrangements he needed to make. Michael had nothing but the clothes on his back and the trauma that his twisted counterpart had inflicted on him. Was he still tied to the Institute, after what had happened? God, was he now another Assistant Jon now had to look out for? He'd already gone through hell and been betrayed by one Archivist, how could he stand to work with Jon, if that was even what he wanted? Had he just gone from one torturous hell prison to another?

Jon couldn't fathom what he could do about that.

A round of calls and an awkward ride share later, Jon realized he'd been a bit too hasty in booking a room. "What do you mean, there's only one bed?" he demanded. The tired and harried-looking desk manager just gave him a blank look.

"That's all that's available tonight, I'm sorry," she said, completely insincerely. "You can try somewhere else, but at this time of night they'll probably all be booked."

"It's fine, Jon," Michael spoke up, hunched over the counter and head hanging low, hair spilling messily around his face. "Just take the room." Jon was so put off that he almost didn't notice that Michael had called him by name for the first time, because he sounded so profoundly and plainly miserable. He swallowed down his reservations and confirmed their reservation for the room instead.

The room was, as expected, small, and did contain only one bed. Michael sat on it listlessly, eyes unfocused and drifting away. "I, uh, I'd like to use the shower first," Jon said lamely, and received only a nod of acknowledgement. Michael's behavior, or lack thereof, was concerning, but so were so many other things, like the Unknowing, and finding answers to his millions of questions, and the heavy layer of lotion all over him.

Jon fought to remain calm as he showered, he really did. He should be enjoying the feeling of warm water running over him, cleaning his skin, but the layered-on oils were difficult to wash off, even with the tiny bar of soap the hotel provided. Choking back the noises trying to claw out of his throat, Jon scrubbed harder, making his skin burn and chafe, his muscles protesting the harsh movements. But it was working, his skin was free of that awful heavy sensation, and it almost felt good, after so much cooling softness. God, he never wanted to feel the touch of lotion against his skin ever again.

"Michael?" he called as he left the bathroom, shivering in the cold air, shoulders exposed by the towel he had wrapped around his chest. "Shower's free, if you'd like-"

He stopped when he found that the room seemed alarmingly empty. Jon's knees nearly gave out in surprise, stumbling into the doorframe as his eyes flew around the room. He breath caught in relief when he caught sight of Michael, crammed in the small space between the wall and the single bed, limbs sticking out jarringly, face hidden in a pillow clutched in his arms.

"Michael?" Jon asked as gently as he could. "Are you...what's wrong?"

"Walls," Michael gasped, muffled by the pillows. "They're too- it was...I don't know where- I can't, I can't, it's too big, there's nowhere I can, I can't-"

He sounded so panicked, so desperate and terrified. Jon hesitated, then stepped forward and crouched next to him, careful of the drape of the towel around his body. Bracing himself and pushing down his own awkwardness, he reached out and took one of Michael's dangling hands in his own uninjured one. It didn't feel the way it had before, or the way that...that Sasha had described it in her statement. It was a perfectly ordinary hand, slightly cold and a bit thin, but utterly normal and human. Just like the rest of Michael.

Michael had tensed sharply when he took his hand, but quickly deflated, turning his head free of the pillow to look towards Jon with red-rimmed eyes. "Your hands-" he stopped to swallow thickly. "They're not...they didn't lotion those?"

"No," Jon confirmed, nearly choking on a very inappropriate chuckle. "No, they didn't, I don't think they were going to...use them." God, that was awful, it was absurd, but he couldn't stop the strained laughter that kept breaking loose from his chest, unstoppable and inappropriate. A single tear slipped down his cheek before he roughly swiped it away with his free hand. He shouldn't be laughing, he shouldn't be caught up in his own horror when Michael had gone through far worse than him, and for much longer. But he couldn't stop.

Michael was watching him with eyes that were unfathomably deep, like they could swallow him whole. Jon wondered, near hysterically, if one could get lost in the eyes of the former Distortion, or whatever Michael was now. But he was not a threat, he reminded himself as Michael unfurled from his tight crouch and crept closer to him. All of that rage and betrayal was nowhere to be seen, for now. He wondered where it had gone.

Keeping hold of his hand, Michael stretched his other arm out and slung it over Jon's shoulders, pulling him in until they were both crumpled together, like two fallen walls of a demolished building. He sighed, and it stirred in the drying strands of Jon's hair. "What are we going to do now, Archivist?" he asked, hollow and empty again. His abrupt turn of terrified energy seemed to have dissipated for now, gone along with Jon's own panic. Which was the intention of his pathetic attempt at comfort, just not quite like this.

"You can call me Jon," Jon answered, unable to stop himself from leaning into Michael's side. Michael was leaning just as heavily on him, his long tangled curls draping over his bare shoulder, and he didn't hate it. "Please don't call me Archivist anymore."

Michael sighed again, harsh and painful. "I'll try," he whispered. "Its still in my head, it still wants to-" he cut himself off, which Jon was grateful for. "No. No. You're Jon. You've done me no wrong. You heard my story. You...you know now."

"I do." Like Martin, like...like Sasha, he knew Michael now, Knew him, had his statement on tape and seared into his mind and heart. He didn't understand what that meant, not yet, not fully, but it meant...something. "I...I'm sorry. About everything."

"Yeah." Michael's hand flexed in his, then settled. "So am I, Archi- Jon. Jon. I'm sorry."

They were such small words, but meant so much. They could be lies, but after hearing his statement, after seeing him fall apart, Jon didn't believe they were. Michael was no longer the Distortion, he had no reason to lie. Jon had to learn to trust, somehow, and who better to start with than someone who had been so betrayed? Michael pressed his head down, resting his cheek on top of Jon's head, and Jon closed his eyes, leaning into Michael's warmth. What else was there to do?

not-here-gh0st

This, I want this but more, more confusions and pain and dependency because who the fuck else can they trust because everything has proven to be pain except them. they are fucked and dependent on each other and obsessive to a point of toxicity because it is only way to feel stable and safe and loved and I love it and them

deathnguts

AU where when Distorted Michael got killed by The Spiral it actually just spat Michael out, leaving him disoriented and disgustingly terrified of the sensation of being human again but overall angry and still vengeful and hating The Archivist.

But Jon is incapable of leaving people behind, especially when they hate him it seems. He takes Michael with him, not thinking even for a second to leave him to The Stranger (even when it tries to whisper to Michael how he’s become a stranger in his own skin)

They try to find an exit and Michael is so angry and wishy washy and frazzled he simply storms to the nearest door, and the only thing that saves him from those jaws again is Jon using the adrenaline of panic to pull Michael back by the tail of his shirt. Helen stands behind the door and basically says. ‘Archivist, that is mine. If you would be so kind as to give it back, I could bring you back to your own territory.’

And Jon’s like ‘absolutely not, this is mine now.’ Blindly jumps head first into probably making a mistake to help someone. Michael is absolutely affronted. In a good way. He thinks. The Archivist. An Archivist. Saving him. Saying no to the fears and saving Michael over saving himself. Huh.

So they slam the door and escape another way and get back to the Institue and since Michael was never fired and couldn’t quit, technically he still works there and is now an Archival Assistant again. Great. Well… better.

Jon is paranoid and heckles and asks too many questions and doesn’t know when to quit. But, for Michael in the state he’s in, that’s actually helpful. Michael doesn’t trust the world around him either, for fucks sake he almost walked through the doors again! Jon kinda makes it worse, but hes trying alright?

(When they get back to the institute the teams like ‘damn does Michael need a hospital? Let him go to a-‘ and Jons like ‘I can’t leave him alone for strangers to prod, what if he’s taken!’ And Michael’s ‘damn he’s right what if I’m taken?’)

(The dynamic kinda turns into Michael like ‘peel this apple for me please? Jon says I can’t have the skin because it has toxins’ And the archival team like ‘well good thing he’s not here’ and Michael freaks the hell out because how is that a good thing what about the toxins?!)

They become symbiotic almost. Michael never leaves Jon side, never wanting to be alone and not trusting himself to even know which door to leave a room through. Jon really just wants to be able help something and Michael’s the only person that will let him, and Michael also possesses intimate knowledge of The Fears and specific players in them that Jon needs at this juncture. While fickle, Michael is a good compass for showing Jon where to look.

Michael unwillingly stays back for stopping the Unknowing, and his heart nearly stops when Jon doesn’t return with Basira. Dead? Jon can’t be dead, Michael will die if Jon is dead he’s sure he doesn’t belong to anything anymore what will take him if Jon doesn’t Michael will go mad without Jon what are they going to- a coma? Just a coma? Oh. Oh..

Michael doesn’t leave Jon’s side for a second. Literally he never steps foot outside the hospital room, he refuses to. Who knows what avatars could be nurses? Who knows what has become of Jon? Who knows what will come for him if he’s away too long?

Anyway, by season 4, these freaks are inseparably similar and need to be put down

not-here-gh0st

Ok but like please if anyone has any recs that have this vibe, I want unhealthy, codependent, possessive and dramatic needed of each other to the point where they aren’t Jon or Michael but Jon&Michael

Like I love the relationships where there is such clear devotion and obsession even if it isn’t from a place of only love, like shove them together and make then need each other and let’s see how those emotions come out and develop

Honestly any fics with this vibe I would love, doesn’t need to be a Tma jonmichael fic at this point, I’ll take just about anything( but like pls send me Tma fics I need them) (I am going though the ao3 relationship tag for these two so quickly, why are there only like 200 fics 😭)

#where are my fics #pls help #send fics my way please #I want messy dramatic codependency #the more unhealthy and lowkey toxic but also absolute devotion the better #I swear I am this close to writing it myself and I do not currently have time for that so pls help my sanity and send fics my way

elleldoe

anything can be a slow burn if it takes you forever to upload new chapters

maelstromic

me excusing my absense from my own fics for long periods of time be like :

@not-here-gh0st heheh

not-here-gh0st

@maelstromic you’re killin’ me here! I don’t know now much more my poor heart can take

#don’t let the ao3 curse get you #pls for my sanity stay safe #and hydrate!!#hasn’t even been a month yet and that chapter is haunting me

soup-maiden

Visit Original Link

This is a lullaby from @jackdaw-kraai‘s absolutely phenomenal StarWars AU, which if you haven’t read and are a star wars fan, I absolutely recommend, it is gorgeously written and contains so much platonic and familial love, I cannot say enough good things about it.

As I was reading a little snipped they had released last night, I fell in love with the words, and made a little singing doodle on my phone as I fell asleep. This morning, I attempted to clean said music doodle up into this! It’s not perfect, but the story brought me a lot of comfort last night, so I just wanted to share. Inspired by this post!

jackdaw-kraai

Ohhhh, my gods. Oh my gods. Oh my FUCKING gods. This is so friggin beautiful that I don’t quite know what to do with myself and I’ll have to clean up the text in order to better match this song version because hot DAMN this tune is now a CANON version in the Guides!

soup-maiden

Visit Original Link

jackdaw-kraai

procrastinatingtitan

A Critical Look at the "Empress Luz" Premise (and what writers might want to keep in mind)

Considering I've spent years thinking, conceptualizing, writing, re-writing, and workshopping Ruler's Reach, I figure I'm rather qualified to address the subject of an "Empress Luz" AU at this point, and how I've seen it play out in fandom writings over the years.

I won't be going over how it's done in Swap AUs here because I think that is a fundamentally flawed premise to begin with. This will be going over the more usual alternative of Luz simply being taken in by Belos rather than Eda when she arrives on the Boiling Isles, of which there are generally two different varieties from what I've seen:

She arrives at the same time she does in canon but in the Emperor's castle instead of the Owl shack for whatever reason.

She arrives when she is much younger and is raised by Belos over the years.

This is gonna be part concept analysis as well as a show and character analysis to sort of express my thoughts on the matter, criteria of what I think can make this concept work (and a lot of stuff that doesn't) and just a general guideline for anyone who might be interested in exploring this sort of premise in their own art or writing. (Lots of yapping and analysis below)

---

So first thing's first, the usual trend across Empress Luz AUs is that Luz is turned into a ruthless dictator, effectively just a Belos clone. There may be some differences, like her wanting to wipe out humanity instead of witches for some contrived reason, but the gist is the same. An oppressive tyrant who carries out terrible deeds in the name of staying in power and carrying out whatever nebulous goal the AU writer decided to give her. Does this sort of scenario make sense?

NO.

Like, sorry, but there ain't really any other way to put it: Trying to turn Luz as we know her into an actual, proper villain is just not really something that works. Let's first start off with the issue of practicality, and that's the fact that a Luz who starts out basically as her canon self is just gonna have too strong of a moral compass to genuinely fall towards some truly villainous path, especially one that is adjacent to what Belos does.

Now a better shot at making this viable is of course the "she came to the Isles when she was younger" route which would have given Belos several years to indoctrinate her at a more formative age. But even then, I doubt that scenario would be likely to put her on the path to being a genuine villain. Hunter is pretty good proof of this, and that's not even discussing the other grimwalkers, of which a good amount probably betrayed Belos after finding out the true depths of his villainy (Some might have betrayed him for more selfish reasons of course)

If Belos can't get the literal lab-grown copies of his brother that he had 400 years to practice manipulation tactics on and basically has full information control over to ever stick by his side, then I highly doubt he'd ever be able to brainwash Luz to such an extreme extent to follow his ideology. Literally the only way this is viable is if Belos raised Luz all the way from infancy, but at that point you basically would have created a completely new character with nothing that actually makes Luz, well Luz. And even then, I have my doubts he'd be able to pull it off.

And also, the idea of Luz enjoying the idea of being some oppressive dictator? Luz, the same person who grows riddled with guilt over her perceived mistakes and actions to the point of going into a catastrophic depressive spiral to the point she wished she never existed? That Luz? Frankly I think the idea of Luz ever enjoying being in a position similar to Belos would sicken her. The idea of being handed the title of ruler would make her uncomfortable at best and miserable at worst.

The second part is of course the themes of the show. As much as you'll see people try to draw narrative similarities between Luz and Belos, the truth of the matter is that whenever the show addresses Luz and Belos in relation to one another, it's to emphasize how Luz is nothing like Belos. Outside of being humans who use glyph magic (acquired through very different goals and means BTW) and wearing the jacket of someone they considered family for a time, an entire ocean of differences separate one from the other. Any similarities the two are claimed to have is entirely a product of Luz's self-loathing of Belos' obsession and projection rather than actual story-telling devices cluing us in. Luz is told multiple times by multiple characters that she isn't like Belos or as bad as him no matter how much she thinks herself as a villain. The entire point of the nightmare sequence in Watching and Dreaming was this perception Luz had of herself, a perception that isn't rooted in reality.

And finally, I hope we're all on the same page from my previous post on this topic that trying to shove the bisexual neurodivergent afro-latina protagonist that has been wronged by a system of bigotry and oppression so that she can fill the same antagonist role and act like the genocidal white colonizer who's entire deal is creating a system of bigotry and oppression is just not a good look y'all. I get people have the temptation to make the hero follow in the dark footsteps of the villain, but when the hero and villain are so explicitly meant to be based off real people and events, the whole idea just completely falls apart.

So in conclusion, this is the first thing we need to take into account when thinking about an Empress Luz AU: That Luz is a genuinely good person.

---

However, there is also another aspect to take into account that just because Luz is a good person doesn't mean her being the ruler of the Boiling Isles should be framed as the solution to everyone's problems. Because the show makes it abundantly clear just how cruel and broken the whole system inherently is. The government Belos created was built around the ultimate goal of committing genocide. It doesn't matter if the next person who takes charge is the most kind-hearted person you could ever hope to find, that whole thing.

Cause in TOH, there is no "true heir" set up by the show to replace Belos when this is all said and done, as you will sometimes seen in a lot of these stories. The idea of the "one true ruler", either deemed so by their birthright or by their character, who will topple the dark lord and rule through peace and prosperity. But while TOH does have characters that could fall into either category (like King or Luz), it does not frame it as such. After Belos is defeated, the seemingly "destined" heroes live out normal lives.

There's a reason after defeating Belos, the show implies a much more representative and more democratic council of a government has been established on the Isles at this point, as indicated seemingly by what appears to be Titan skull pendants on Raine, Darius, and Eberwolf in the Epilogue.

So it's pretty clear me that the show is saying "dictatorship = bad" and it's better to just dismantle or heavily reform the whole system into something brand new, representative, and just than just try to put a nice autocrat in place and just hope things go well from there.

So that's the second point that needs to be considered: The entire point of Belos' empire is flawed and must be extinguished one way or another.

---

The other thing I will sometimes see with Empress Luz AUs is this sort of take to make Luz a "misguided ruler". The idea she means well and wants to do good, but sometimes doesn't know how and causes more harm than good. This is usually the result of something like some leftover indoctrination on Belos' end or perhaps her own guilt, I've seen it done a number of ways. I do think this can work, but in moderation and up to a point. Luz does have a habit in the show (mainly early on) to sometimes grow overconfident with her plans and unintentionally causing issues for others, and sometimes not really thinking her plans through.

However, when other characters point this out, Luz is pretty quick to realize what she did wrong and try to make up for it. So the idea of Luz having this perception that she has a good plan to rule as Empress which leads to some mistakes and issues is something I can see. However, I do not think it's something that would be a running issue, and Luz would realize her faults and how to correct them. Now perhaps an Empress Luz might be less willing to budge than Canon Luz due to either some level of indoctrination or guilt, but nonetheless I don't see this being a longstanding issue. So that leaves us to our third point: That Luz has the awareness to realize the empire is bad, either from the start or something she learns later on

If anything, Hunter fits the bill of a misguided ruler better than Luz could in this scenario. We know he's a good person who genuinely means well, but we see just how in-denial he can be with stuff regarding Belos and the empire's true motives due to the extent of Belos' indoctrination. We see this pretty clearly in Hollow Mind where he is willing to call himself an idiot on a topic he claims he knows a lot about (mindscapes) to keep holding on to the idea that everything Belos does has a good reason behind it, something that only breaks after the reveal of Belos' endgame and how little the Emperor truly thinks of him and "their family". So it'd be a lot harder for him to open his mind to the thought that maybe the way he is governing is flawed until that sort of traumatic revelation is made evident in the story. That being said, I don't think Hunter would be a true villain either though.

---

So in the end, the crux of the whole premise comes down to these three points reiterated.

Luz is an empathetic, kind, and understanding person who genuinely wants to do good and does do good.

The empire is an inherently bad system that needs to be dismantled eventually, no matter if the person in charge is a genuinely good person.

Luz has the awareness to understand that second point, either something she has from the very start or gains later on in the story.

Even with those "limitations", there's still a lot you can do with this premise that remains faithful to the show while still conveying a personal twist to the story that you wish. Already I can think of a number of different ways you can make an Empress Luz story while sticking to those general principles. Perhaps a scenario where Luz and Hunter are on the same page with running the empire but Luz grows out of this mindset and the two grow at odds with one another? Perhaps a scenario where a jaded Luz closer to her S3 personality decides to take the reigns of the empire by force and dismantle it brutally from the inside as she takes out the regime while simultaneously being an arbiter of good. Or perhaps she has no choice in the matter at all, forced to wear the crown through some external force. The possibilities are many and frankly quite varied!

---

So...yeah. Dang that was a lot to cover. But those were my general thoughts on the concept as a whole that I've had on my mind for a long while. Now I've managed to actually articulate them into words for others to see. Hopefully this should be some food for thought for any writers or artists who want to do explore this concept and do justice by the show.

While I really don't like how this premise has been done...basically all the time, I do think there is some merit to this concept from a legitimate perspective rooted in the themes of the show and characters. Because what could be a more explicitly direct way to showcase just how unlike Luz is from Belos than putting her in his position and watch just how radically different she is? Thanks for coming to my midnight-era ted-talk. Hope it was worth the read! If you have anything to comment your thoughts, please feel free to do so!