Kinder Than Man, Athea Davis

Every friend group should include:

a bimbo

a mean bisexual

an even meaner lesbian

she/theys

and he/theys

a token straight who’s on thin ice

an astrology bitch who has everyone’s birth chart memorized

and a short king

Piltover Edition

I don’t think we talk enough about how well Bill controlled Ford through isolation. Yes he scared Fiddleford away, and threatened to further break his relationship with Stanley, but he also successfully isolated Ford from basically the entirety of HUMANITY. Bill’s praises weren’t just an appeal to ego or to convince Ford he was smarter than everyone around him, they convinced him he could accomplish more than any human ever could. Any relationships Ford could have were worthless, don’t you agree? They could never understand — how could they? They were human, and Ford was being blessed by something more. What could they have to offer him, that Bill couldn’t?

(Nothing but unconditional love. And Bill can’t have Ford knowing that someone might love him despite his mistakes, that someone might love him not because of what he’s accomplished, but because of who he is.)

chat the horrors are getting to me

Is this anything

yes there's a lot of things to criticize about Star Wars but one thing i will always love it for is being so unabashedly tragic

i'm sure it's been said before, but one of the main things i think powers the SW fandom (fics in particular) is the (in)evitability of it all

time travel fix-its are one of the most popular sub-categories of fics that i've seen (for the prequels at least) but i see it much more rarely in other fandoms. i know each fandom has their own niches that they dig into but star wars fic writers took one look at this decades long story of people who were doomed from the start and said 'not in my house bitch'

and i'm never tired of it, because there's so many places where just one different action could have changed the story entirely, but didn't

was it over the moment Palpatine succeeded in feeding Anakin's fears and his distrust toward the Jedi? the moment the Sith gained control of the senate? what about when the war started, when the Jedi were made generals of men designed to be their executioners? what about when Dooku left the order? when Qui-Gon Jinn died, leaving barely-knighted Obi Wan Kenobi to raise a child he had no idea how to care for? when the Jedi massacred the Mandalorians at Galidraan, leaving Jango Fett primed (hah) for revenge? when Palpatine, and thus the Sith, first gained influence? when the Jedi were tied to the Republic, all the way back at the Ruusan Reformation?

there are so many little moments that turn into this huge web of cause and effect when you take a step back. and in canon, these characters are dooming themselves while we watch, but what reason do they have to do anything different? they don't know they're in a tragedy - its dramatic irony at its goddamn finest

but there's this thing about decisions: for it to be a choice, there has to be another option. and our heroes make their mistakes because that's what they do, while we aren't privy to that other option, leaving that little what-if. it's a favorite human pastime, to think about what might have been.

we start at episode 4, though, fourty or so years after what you could arguably call the start, and find ourselves watching the dominoes fall in place throughout 1, 2, and 3.

and we can hate the choices, hate the tragedy, hate what happened to our beloved characters, but we knew. we had the luxury of knowing.

it's a love story, it's political intrique, it's sci-fi at its finest, and they were dead from the start.

Give me chronically fatigued Viktor.

Give me Viktor, falling asleep at his desk in the middle of the day because he’s been staring at those calculations for so long and his head is just too heavy to keep upright anymore, no matter how much sleep he gets.

Give me Viktor, leaving the lab early in the summers until Jayce builds him a personal AC unit, because the heat makes him drowsy.

Give me Viktor, falling asleep at a Council meeting, because it’s dark and he’s sitting and the voices around him have been droning on for hours. He startles when Jayce nudges him to leave. A succinct summary dictated by Mel appears in the lab the next day. (Viktor appreciates this, as it’s hard to focus on Jayce’s words when he’s so exhausted and he’s terrible at summarizing anyway)

Give me Viktor, nearly causing an explosion when his vision blurs/crosses while engineering, resulting in a stray spark. Jayce bans Viktor from operating machinery after 5pm, one of the only lab rules Viktor hates but won’t break.

Give me Viktor, frustrated at a problem for hours, only for Jayce to correct something he had made a mistake on due to brain fog.

Give me Viktor blaring music, drinking religious amounts of caffeine, and blasting his AC to near-freezing to keep himself somewhat alert.

Give me a Viktor who keeps oversleeping, showing up to the lab at noon because Jayce never has the heart to go and wake him when he clearly needs the rest. Viktor eventually moves in with Jayce because he can’t trust himself to wake up anymore, no matter how many alarms he sets. Plus, Jayce lives closer to the lab, and it’s an easier walk in terms of both pain and fatigue.

Give me Viktor leaning on Jayce at an event because there’s no place to sit and putting weight on his crutch relieves the pain in his leg, not the constant exhaustion pulling at his soul. Give me Jayce offering gentle support for that smallest bit of relief.

Give me a Viktor who’s not tired from long nights in the lab, but because of his illness.

Things almost every author needs to research

How bodies decompose

Wilderness survival skills

Mob mentality

Other cultures

What it takes for a human to die in a given situation

Common tropes in your genre

Average weather for your setting

no one's mentioned how viktor has his cane here even though he's not even standing and it's jayce's hallucination/fantasy

jayce meant it when he said he loves viktor wholly, not excluding his disabilities, and that he thinks viktor's imperfections are beautiful and admirable

viktor's cane, and therefore his disability, is a part of him and not something even jayce's subconscious could cast aside as he was losing his mind. his high opinion and adoring perception of viktor has always included the parts of him that viktor himself views as flawed and shameful

BREAKTHROUGH!!!! (they haven't slept in weeks)

i would love to talk about moral ocd its just that like any time i mention it i worry im coming across like an asshole whos trying to excuse his bad actions and shitty behavior