the-ceesaw

Everyone always forgets J3 was there...

alternatively

Do you remember that scene in s2 ep34(?) when Aphmau wakes up and sees Laurance next to her and immediately assumes they banged

like you thought you got him and then immediately forgot??? Or what?? what are the implications Jess??

I'VE TALKED BRIEFLY ABOUT THAT BEFORE ON HERE ACTUALLY I THINK, IT'S SO 😭😭😭 THE SLIP IS CRAZY???

i have a gif from this scene that i have as an emoji on discord and i probably send it every single day

However the drunk guys are also drinking, and eventually she can't afford to buy another pitcher for the table so she can't keep up the ever-full beer glass trick. At this point she has to resort to setting up the pool trick shot that she's never seen anyone but her boyfriend pull off, and says she'll leave with whoever manages the shot first.

Also, when we move too much during an argument, or lean forward, it’s scary, and I never knew. I was even a little insulted at first, because surely she didn’t think I would hurt her. But see, that doesn’t matter. It wasn’t a sign that she mistrusted me specifically; it’s a conditioned response. (Although if you keep doing it once you realize it scares her, she SHOULDN’T trust you.)

Not every woman has been physically harmed by a man she trusted, but every woman KNOWS a woman who has.

I used to be horrible about this, because I didn’t realize how intimidating it was. I didn’t understand why the woman I was with clammed up or tried to tell me what she thought I wanted to hear, and I only got angrier, and acted even more like an asshole. It was wrong. It was abusive. It didn’t matter if I INTENDED it that way; it was still emotionally abusive. And it was inexcusable.

I get that when passions are high, and when you’re frustrated, it’s a natural tendency to let your voice get louder, to shout and gesture and lean forward. But you can train yourself to do better. You can train yourself to keep more of an even tone, to refrain from large and fast gestures, to not lean into her personal space. I did. I’m not perfect at it yet, but goddamn it, I WILL be.

History is littered with the bodies of women who believed a man “would never.” This includes women killed by men who honestly, deeply, truly believed they “would never”… right up until she said that one thing or moved in just that way and he just got so mad, just that once, and pushed her or punched her or slashed her or shot her… just once, y’know, to shut her up, or because she was flinching and didn’t she know that HE’S NOT LIKE THAT and I’LL TEACH HER TO BE AFRAID OF ME…

We are trained, from infancy, that Men With Loud Voices are a source of pain from which we cannot escape, and attempts to escape may result in more pain. And as soon as we’re old enough to comprehend a world broader than our immediate circle, a world that extends into the past and will run into the future, we realize that there is no way, no way at all, to tell which men “would never” and which men “would never… except if.”

We live or die on that “if.” And any man who doesn’t like facing that hyper-vigilance can work on fixing OTHER MEN, not women’s fear.

The reaction shouldn’t be “not all men are like that;” it should be “no woman should have to live in fear.”

Like at first it made him very gentle and kind when he was human, he kept the village together when Joh died, he helped castor, went insane looking for cadenza - like he wears the great big veil of bravado and charm over it but hes so so soft hearted. and for love he stays behind in the nether to sacrifice himself.

and then hes a shadowknight, and you think "oh so hes losing that softness now" and no he does not. He's still valiant and kind and loving - despite the trauma and the nature of this new thing he's become, it's that intrinsic to him.

He stays with aphmau initially for the love of his home, and hayden, cadenza and kenmur - he knows going back risks him harming one (or all) of them too much, hes forced to leave all he knows and loves because that love is now dangerous.

and so now hes one of aphmau's knights or guards or whatever and hes coming to love phoenix drop, and aphmau, garroth, dante, everyone there. Thats so like him, thats literally just a part of him, his love (now away from home) spills over into phoenix drop and everyone there, and thats good.

because it means hes devout in protecting aphmau and the village, and he can form strong bonds with garroth and dante, but it also means garroth is that more hurt when he thinks laurance underhanded him with aphmau. It means laurance feels safe with garroth right up until he knocks him out for the amulet.

The irene dimension - his love means garroth comes back to himself and then he has to leave garroth and go back to this. echo of the world he knows. and all that is stressful and no wonder the shadowknight part of him became so steadfast, especially with everyone he knows sort of condemning that part of him. like that would drive so much resentment.

and then hes coming to love aphmau more as that shadowknight part of him gets stronger and garroth is away longer and things keep changing, and suddenly the tether that kept him together is becoming the thing slooowly wedging him apart - despite all the wood walks with vylad, things have changed so much that laurance struggles to change with it - or keep the violent part of himself at bay while his intrinsic love (or maybe a very tainted version of it) grows stronger.

so he has to leave again. for the safety of the people he loves the most because his love is now more dangerous than ever. He can't trust a short temper or mood swing not to be someones end. and theres still that softness buried inside under all the rage and anger, and so much will to leave instead of succumb to the rage (or love) within him.

his love is the one thing that always brings him down, its also the one thing he can never shed.

laurance goes to the one place where there is no love, the nether, and ultimately, even there, chases a goal still rooted in love; shadowknight rebellion. whether so he can be free of the burden of second-hand rage, or servitude to Shad, so he can go home, so they can all be free, its all rooted in him.

and then s3 was cancelled but listen i love laurance

So my conclusion was that Irene, the Matron and the biggest user of Healing Magick to the point where she's been known to bring people back from the dead, it must drain her love and that's her consequence for that stuff (Hyria saying she lost her lover for the world and wanted to relearn it again through Aphmau)

I always thought she grew apathetic because she was just alive for so long that everything became mundane, the issue with immortality, but she actually lost it through the fact that she kept using her powers, it was using her love

Laurance: