Griddlehark and also Lucy/Max Fallout

will start with lucy/max

i don't particularly "ship" it per se. but i think there's potential in the dynamic just based on like... so much of their "connection" is based on Literally Just Being There with a fundamentally compatible relation to normalcy. lucy sees maximus as the illusion that maximus wants to be (the principled knight in shining armour) and i think to maximus lucy

represents both his dream to live up to that illusion and also as a route of freedom, despite the fact that she is also not free.

two people in a cult: woag your cult sounds soooo cool

i've seen predictions that maximus is on a moral uptick of wanting to live up to the idea of the brotherhood he wants there to be but tbh. i'm pretty sure he's just going to get worse. he's been elevated to the head of a militaristic authoritarian cult that has specifically changed from militaristic and authoritarian to outright imperialistic and fascist

mixed with the fact that, as far as he's concerned, lucy ditched him to go run away with the ghoul. some of their ridiculous attempts at being normal are cute but not really what i'm looking for in a ship (The Dynamics)

griddlehark is one of those ships i really enjoy and yet. everyone is wrong about them.

or more specifically i think people are interested in a part of it that i'm not so much. like i can't say that they're not fluffy or that there's no potential for that, because. as we see in harrow's fever dreams, she kind of wishes they could be and gideon also wants to be the type of person that can forgive harrow despite everything between them

but like. personally. i like the fact that they are playing hot potato in terms of who gets to be the john and who gets to be the alecto while they're repeating the cycle of abuse. my favorite griddlehark is nona the ninth griddlehark, where they don't directly interact at all but are still insane at the abscense of the other person either in nona's

subconscious or in. gideon's everything.

it's the meronia enjoyer in me.

talk to me about your preferred Aelwyn ship

I feel like once again maximus is going to end up a prisoner of his own inability to say no or explain himself

for the ship tho it reminds me for chidi/eleanor in that I don't totally buy it but I feel like they can make me buy it

yeah i think like. maximus becoming the guy who killed the NCR (his hometown he set out to avenge) because his closest friend made that choice for him and his own safety spells doom for wherever he's going. like he didn't come out of his brush with having power over people who hurt him looking like someone you'd want to be the poster boy of the cult.

he doesn't know what he's doing but he sure has to do it now!!!!

I feel like he's going to be like uhhhh and the brotherhood is going to be like yes kill them all good idea

and he'll be like no! but way too late

i think it'd be like "uh. no?" and they'd already be doing it.

yeah,

millennialfalcon: i have been flying the penelope everpetal/aelwyn abernant flag up high for many years now so believe me when i say i was extremely vindicated by aelwyn's "i called her a bitch and said that i missed her" exchange with adaine. "she was beautiful, wicked and mean." "there are other beautiful, wicked and mean fish in the sea" "one can hope!"

yessssss Aelwyn needs someone to be with who's as cruel and beautiful as she is

there's just something that really gets me about aelwyn being so isolated from everyone around her and then she finds a connection and it's in someone who is ALSO throwing her entire life away in a desperate bid for some abstract goal that neither of them fully grasp (for aelwyn it's freedom, for penelope it's perfection)

and like, obviously the relationship is horrible and they were both using eachother, penelope probably more actively than aelwyn since i think a lot of Whatever was going on between them was penelope trying to emotionally replace sam with someone who was kind of similar in a lot of ways.

and i think aelwyn was fully aware that she was a replacement and a tool to be discarded for penelope.

god I really wish we had more info on what the turning point was for Penelope and Sam

there's information that brennan gave after season one, prior to the seven. idk if it's still canon but i tend to believe it is, and that's that sam started dating johnny and thus marked herself as a target, and penelope was like "he's bad news, get away from him, i've heard he kidnaps people and also he doesn't fuck." actively putting the conspiracy at risk

oooh

I had a feeling it would have to do with Johnny, but I didn't realize that was the direct instant

but sam could kind of tell that penelope was hiding the real reason why penelope wanted her away from johnny and was lying to her about it, and so they had a massive fight over it where penelope wasn't willing to outright betray the conspiracy or put her own neck on the line, and sam went to go hang out with johnny out of spite and then uh. got kidnapped.

i think it's like. that's the moment that penelope really turned on sam. but penelope had been a shitty friend to sam for much longer than that, and sam had been quietly resenting her for it.

it's kind of a whole jennifer's body reference

but yeah aelwyn and penelope is just. chef's kiss. what if we made eachother worse and started a continental war for no reason

complicated women

LOVE YOUR TAKES... lucy & maximus are VERY fun to watch, i love that they don't really work & how much of the point that is yk

& just yeah. yeah at the griddlehark. it's the way the longer they don't talk the more invested in their dynamic i become