#iniquiticity

[markscherz]

Are you going to BECOME a frog??????

I am not at liberty to disclose what is or is not going to happen, so I can neither confirm nor deny my Ascension to Frog.

[tanoraqui]

2 on the writing ask!

[ask meme]

2. Anything that you'd like to write but feel like you're unable to?

SEVERAL. Many of the "I read this thing, had a plot bunny, but didn't get to it before the interest in the books passed" variety, overlapping with "I had this idea but I'd have to reread/rewatch/do a bunch of research in order to get it right", and some "I have a great idea but it's just NOT fleshing itself out." Highlights include:

MDZS: I had a rough mental outline for a 5+1 companion to What Does Kill You of Jiang sect OCs over hte years figuring out/observing/protecting the secret of Jiang Yanli without telling Jiang Cheng. But all my writing-energy for MDZS vanished once I finished the main fic.

Magnus Archives/The Mechanisms: I do loosely one day want to go back and write the third and final And the Toy Soldier as Jessica Law fic, about the Toy Soldier going around the Eyepocalypse and Getting the Band Back Together by finding them in their respective nightmares and inviting them to escape into their Mechsonas. Arguably the only canon-review I need is to listen to The Deaths of the Mechanisms, which many fears would riff on...but I fear the essential vibes would now elude me.

LotR/Silmarillion: If I could sort of the various parallels of Celebrimbor & the House of the Stewards of Gondor (fathers & sons, cities in endless war with the Enemy, the question of rightful kings)...and What Happened In Eregion...and learn a ton about smithcraft for war and also jewelry...and do a BUNCH of worldbuilding and OC-making for Minas Tirith...AND commit to writing probably TWO novels' worth of fic...I'd rewrite Maker's Marks from the start. I really would love to do that one day. It's a fic that SHOULD (Celebrimbor joins the Fellowship! Moreover, Celebrimbor swears a terrible Oath like and unlike his kin's!), and I have an OVERALL outline that's good...

Girl Genius: like a decade ago, a fandom friend & I (no longer on tumblr) cooked up & outlined what I still think is a BANGER novel-length Girl Genius au set in Prohibition Era (1920s) Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA. Ot3 romance/action/mystery, starring police detective Gil, Agatha who is rebuilding her family's local Romanian Mob, and Tarvek who has been send from NYC to basically form a branch of Tammany Hall [contemporary hotbed of political organization & corruption]. Unfortunately, to do it well would require, like, actual historical research. And also it'd be a LONG fic.

[saturdaysky]

🌹

I have a scourger AU I'm working on here and there where Essek defects to the Assembly after his cover is blown. Bren is tasked as his minder...and also to get as much useful dunamantic knowledge as he can. Have a snip of a very calculated make-out:

There has been something smoldering for a while between Bren and himself, despite everything. Perhaps out of a shared instinct for self-preservation, they have avoided doing anything to spark it. So why light it now? Essek weighs options while Bren trails distracting kisses down his jaw — and then he understands. "Ikithon told you to do this," he murmurs. Bren stills for a moment, then chuckles into the side of his neck, nipping just below his ear. His hands roam down Essek's sides and start to work their way under his shirt. "I could tell you he did not," Bren says lightly, "but you know better." The shirt comes free from his trousers, and Essek is treated to the shocking, heady sensation of Bren's callused palms sliding over his bare skin. He has not been touched this way in decades. He has not allowed it. But of course, Bren did not ask.

[luckthebard]

hi luck, hope you had a good day. i think it's interesting that even when fjord directly asked caleb "would you kill helpless trent?" it was much easier (!) for caleb to articulate that trent ruined his life (&he helped), than he wanted to kill him. he couldn't even say "i'd kill him" or something. do you think this is because 1) trent implied that caleb killing him is part of the plan, or 2) caleb realizing that while trent hurt him, he's a cog in the machine, both, neither?

This is worth pointing out, and I think it’s also interesting that Caleb kept emphasizing that he didn’t feel the need to be the one to kill Trent personally or take over his position (contrasting what some of the M9 assumed would be something he’d want).

There’s a couple reasons he could be reluctant to give voice to any thought he had in that direction. One is that it’s genuinely too emotional. He stuck to just “Ja.” when initially asked, and once pushed to give a longer answer exploded out a built up and harsh anger at both Trent and himself. Caleb likes to at least outwardly control his emotional responses, so letting himself actually talk about killing Trent might be too much.

There’s also definitely the fact that, as you pointed out, Caleb might not want to kill Trent and certainly not want to do it himself, because of all the twisted things Trent was saying to him at the dinner. Bringing any judgement to Trent or making decisions on what should be done with him himself might always be poisoned for Caleb. Being manipulated into killing by Trent is legitimately Caleb’s biggest fear, and one of the easiest ways to be safe from it would be to just refuse to play Trent’s game. So like he said, sure, Caleb would like Trent dead, he ruined his life, but Caleb doesn’t need to or perhaps even want to be directly involved.

Finally, I think the very act of deciding someone is guilty and then enacting summary justice in the form of execution is an idea that is also traumatic for Caleb. Even if he would be justified in this case, the memory of people Trent had him murder as a teenager and his own actions against his parents has got to be simmering just under the surface if he even contemplates killing Trent as some form of “justice” or “revenge.” 

I actually think it’s healthy that he’s in a place of “yeah, something needs to be done here but I am not solely responsible for fixing it and I do not need to be the one to do it for it to matter.” And Caleb has never really been interested in revenge. His “fairy tale” goal was never one of bloody revenge, but of fixing his own mistakes. And even now that taking Trent down seems possible, he’s never framed it as motivated by vengeance. Trent already ruined Caleb’s life, and Caleb knows killing him wouldn’t fix that. Getting rid of Trent, for Caleb, has always been approached as something to do because it would protect other people.

[multishipperlove]

iniquiticity replied to your post “It would be so funny if those were the bandits again from the...”

I THOUGHT THIS AS WELL

I CAN’T BELIEVE IT HOW ARE THEY THE ONLY TRAVELING TROUP THAT EXISTS IN THE EMPIRE I FUCKING LOVE YOU MATT MERCER

[wellreadfan]

broken wings

George has always lived a quiet, solitary life.His estate was quite large, which meant the closest neighbors were many milesaway. George preferred it that way. His dogs did not irritate anyone aside fromhim with barking, and he did not have to deal with people too close. So when a creature plunged from the sky into his back garden, George was theonly one to see it. For a moment, staring out his kitchen window, he wonderedif he was hallucinating. Then, it stood up. Or rather, he did.  Heappeared much like a man, except for the large feathered appendages at hisback.  Even as strange as this was, asdifficult for his brain to process as something real, George could feel adeeper sense of wrongness looking at the creature. His wings extended out atstrange angles, all akimbo and twisted. George’s mind could not have invented this, that he knew.The creature tried to take a step out of the crater it formed with his fall,only to collapse with a high-pitched cry. George could no longer stand here andcontemplate what he was seeing. This thing was hurt; he had to help.He rushed outside, snagging a quilt from the back of the couch. From what hecould tell, the creature had no clothes (and likely no need for any), but itwas injured and possibly cold. The creature did not cower when he caught sight of him, as George halfexpected. Instead he glared, deep brown eyes almost glowing. George raised hishands, trying to indicate he was no threat. “Hello,” George began, awkward. He held out the blanket. Even as fierce as thecreature was, he was also shivering. “I don’t know if you can understand me,but I’m not going to hurt you. “What felt like an eternity passed with George holding out the quilt and olive branch.Finally, the creature reached forward with a quick movement and snatched it from George.“Well,” George said, half to himself as the creature wrapped the blanket aroundits frame. “Now we just need to get you inside and something to eat.”

[a-schuyler]

38 whamilton

cop/person getting a speeding ticket au

“Do you know how fast you were going?”

Alex drums his fingers across the top of the steering wheel, refuses to look at the man standing outside his car window. “I don’t know. Fast.”

The man – Officer Washington, Alex notes after sparing a glance at his name tag – scoffs. “You were going 65 in a 45. The limit dropped a mile and a half ago. This is a construction zone.”

“So do I get a warning?”

“No,” Officer Washington laughs. That only makes him angrier. “Your fine gets doubled. You ever been pulled over, son?”

“I just got my American driver’s license,” Alex finally snaps. “I’ve had it two weeks. If you’d actually go back and run it, you’d see.”

Alex hands over his license, registration and proof of insurance, still refusing to look at him. Washington hesitates for a moment, sighs, retreats back to his cruiser.

He’s only gone for a minute or two.

“Mr. Hamilton.” He passes back Alex’s documents. “You’re free to go.”

He drops his papers in the passenger seat, lifts both eyebrows. “Sorry?”

“Consider this a warning.” George smiles. “Welcome to the States, son.”

[luckthebard]

I think Caleb has the most separation between "really strong feelings" and "shares them with the M9," and because of that his little soliloquies (like seeing his torture floor and the watch he took right before Molly died) so important to our understanding of him. Liam's thoughts about him on Talks contribute so much, too. Maybe this is just because he's my favorite? What do you think?

Well, Caleb is also my favorite so I may not be the most ideal candidate to filter out bias.

But I do think this is a huge part of what makes him a fascinating, unique, and, frankly, relatable character. 

It’s difficult to do an intense version of “show don’t tell” with a livestream ttrpg character, but the way Liam plays Caleb is 100% a way to do it. Especially because Caleb is a character whose actions are often as veiled as his speech, so giving internal insight to his actions is just as important as describing them.

And sometimes this means we find out 30+ episodes later why, exactly, Caleb was staring at the wand Calianna gave him (which he started doing in specific scenes Liam laid out and set aside time for him to do way back around episode 70), but boy is the payoff good. 

And, the way in which Liam indicates Caleb’s care for other people and his subtle moves and looks and concern and care toward them? It’s apparently more obvious to certain viewers than others and that is also fascinating, because maybe (and stay with me here, people reading this), there is not just one way in which people communicate, and watching Caleb as a character can be an exercise in learning how empathy and care shows itself in people differently than the expected or accepted ways.