#ayankun

Oh boy, do I. Reapers in general are my jam, just because as a concept they exist outside the needs and agendas of all the other species on the show. they don't provide answers or comfort or judgement, or anything other than the certainty of passing on. they don't work for angels or demons or leviathans, and if death dies the next reaper to die becomes death, which strikes me as so random and so anti-heirarchical, and so fitting of creatures whose mission statement is 'what lives, dies.'

BUT you asked about tessa, not reapers in general, so here goes: tessa comes across as so no-nonsense, but she's also the only reaper we ever see play a role and pretend to be someone else to guide a spirit to move on. part of that is just the conceit of the episode, i think, but tessa puts so much time and effort into getting dean to cross over, and while she never comforts him, she also never gets frustrated or offers him an ultimatum. we see this again in s4 with cole--she's canonically terrifying to him, but she tells him the truth, doesn't sugarcoat things, and cole is unhappy to move on but he does it anyway because he knows it's the right thing to do. but then when dean says something about a better place, tessa directly tells him not to lie to himself. it’s so interesting that her first appearance she uses necessary trickery, but she also never really lies beyond that, and refuses to let dean comfort himself with lies. and her appearance in s6--she's just so good at her job, and so invested in the balance of the universe, and i feel like she and billie could have been good friends, or whatever value of friend reapers have.

The first piece of writing I ever read written by ayankun was Stained Glass: a dark Vi/Jinx fic I came across on my thirsty search for Piltover’s Finest. The first thought that came to mind was, whoa I’m not reading fanfiction, I’m reading poety. Aya has this undeniable gift of stringing together words and phrases in such a beautiful way that I can only describe it as casting a spell. She can make you laugh and cry with mere sentences, and though Stained Glass isn’t the kind of work Aya usually writes, it’s really the first of its kind.

Another thing you should know about Aya is how often and successfully she rises to challenges -- most of the time you won’t even see her coming. A while back I mentioned how hard it was for me to see Katarina/Riven in a domestic setting and just mere hours later this existed. Her words work like magic, and Aya is a magician, making you believe things you weren’t quite convinced about before, and she does so using realistic, canonical elements that many tend to overlook.

If you’re not familiar with Aya’s works, you should do yourself a favour and read All That Glitters (Nami/Miss Fortune). It is my absolute personal favourite (sorry Creature Comforts) and everything I did not know I needed or loved.

Their number is growing

We'll fix that as soon as I get my iron equipment.