#'getting help' is a meaningless argument - what would successfully helping or getting help even look like? anyway.

[brittlebutch]

actually it's kind of funny how people will say Alex's fatal flaw is that he 'doesn't ask for help' and that it's his determination to handle things on his own that leads to his deterioration and eventual death when his whole introduction to the present-day timeline was a very literal cry for help that simply went ignored

[itsclydebitches]

No one should of trusted RWBY+ with fucking anything, let alone saving the world (LIKE REN SAID THEY SHOULDN’T BE MAKING DECISIONS ON) and now look. Two cities destroy, millions dead or homeless, and Salem half-way to completing her goal that might get everyone killed. Yeah, Ozpin totally should apologize for not trusting these idiots.

At the very least the story might have pulled some plot strings to "prove" that Ozpin should have trusted them from the start. Like with Oscar succeeding with Hazel. We know that success required him to go OOC and that in a story with more consistent characterization/realistic reactions from its cast, Oscar would have definitely failed... but that doesn't erase the fact that he didn't. No matter how badly executed, the story essentially argues, "Oscar was right to trust Hazel because look, Hazel helped him" and we might have gotten something similar with the group: "Ozpin was wrong to mistrust them because look, when they learned the truth everything got better."

But, uh... things got so much worse.

The group drove Ozpin away rather than proving that they were actually different from everyone else who learned about Salem. Then they nearly lost the Relic at the farm. They tested the fragile trust between the kingdoms by stealing from Atlas and in doing so got a Leviathan to attack a city. Then they lied to Ironwood - the exact thing Ozpin supposedly shouldn't have done to them. They actively divided their allies - you know, the thing Salem wants. Not splitting the group to complete two separate tasks, Ruby - by turning on the Ace Ops and Ironwood. Ruby told everyone about Salem, which realistically should have caused massive grimm attacks across the entire world. They lost the Relic because they never bothered to put it in the vault. They also ended up losing the last question because of that. They lost the Staff because they stupidly took it out of the vault. Their Maiden was killed, again. An entire populace is displaced and currently getting picked off by grimm. They knowingly, willingly, and deliberately destroyed an entire kingdom when they didn't have to.

Oh, and then five out of ten “died.” If there was any part of Ozpin that held back out of worry for their safety, that’s been proven correct too. They weren’t strong enough, or smart enough to survive this war. Within just a few months they were (we’re meant to believe) killed. 

Putting aside, for the moment, that a story needs conflict and failure on the part of its protagonists, everything that has happened since Volume 6, to my mind, proves Ozpin right. Not just in terms of "Wow, when I tell people about Salem they hurt and betray me" but also "Wow, somehow I don't think this group of teenagers with one year of training is ready to be the linchpin of this war." Because that's what they wanted by demanding every secret: to be at the very center of the fight, to be making the tough calls, to play at being the world's hero. The problem is, their idea of a hero is still someone who fixes everything with an epic punch to the face. When that fails... they crumble. Cue Ruby sitting around in the mansion half the volume. Should Ozpin have trusted his inner circle? It's debatable. Lionheart ran to Salem the second he learned of her immortality, Qrow sunk deeper into his alcoholism and gave up the fight, but Ironwood took it in a stride and kept pushing forward. Theodore we don't know yet. So it's pretty up in the air whether that would have assisted Ozpin, or just made things worse that much faster, but then that's not really the question here. Should he have told the group? Should he have deliberately made these teens generals in this war? The plot says, "Absolutely not." Because when they made themselves the generals through force - stealing the question, lying to Ironwood, defeating the Ace Ops, hijacking Amity - things have consistently gotten worse. Nothing we've seen on screen the last three volumes says, "See? Look how much better things are once Ozpin was forced to trust love and put his faith in this team."

And what slays me is that the show so desperately tries to backtrack on this with the fight between Ren and Yang:

Ren: Are you kidding?! We don’t know the first thing about being Huntsmen. We clearly weren’t ready.

Yang: Were we not ready when we saved Haven? When we took down a Leviathan? We got the Lamp to Atlas.

Ren: And then we lost it! And after that, when we had to make real decisions, we got every single one wrong.

Yang: I’m not going to pretend like we did everything perfectly, but if we’d done nothing, things would be even worse than they are now.

Ren: How could they possibly be worse? We are stuck out here while Salem has the Lamp and Oscar. We’ve got no plan, no army.

Yang: We’ve got the Maiden!

Yang is forced to omit so much information to make the team look good here and Ren is only allowed to point out one (1) thing she omits: "And then we lost it!" Yang fails to mention that they didn't save Haven, Blake's army did. So yeah, one member of the team, but it's not like they got in there and kicked epic ass. Weiss nearly died. The Relic was only saved because Raven decided she didn't want it anymore. The group barely held their own and then won due to good timing and the bad guys taking each other out/changing their minds. They were going to defeat two Maidens? Lucky them one Maiden took the other out and then decided to hand them the Relic.

Took down a leviathan? Funny how she fails to mention that they drew the leviathan there in the first place and that Cordovin's drill is what did it in. Even Ruby's eyes is a single person ability that only works on grimm, not at all useful for the human-based problems Ren is talking about. They got the Lamp to Atlas? Yeah, and then you lost it. Getting it to Atlas is literally meaningless when the villains still managed to steal it, that victory a direct result of the group's stupid decisions. It's like going, "I successfully got water out of the boat" and failing to mention that the boat still sank. Oh, and also you could have plugged the hole at any point and just... didn't. The boat sinking is absolutely on your hands. When pressed just the tinniest bit, all Yang can come up with is that they've still got the Maiden, someone who will be attacked, hacked, and murdered by the end of the volume. Everything else? "but if we’d done nothing, things would be even worse than they are now."

That's a very big claim from someone ignoring all her failures. And of course, soon after this Ren dares to use Jaune's lack of training as an example of how unprepared they are (valid), he gets mad, the duo later tells him to open up more (he literally just did), and then the story drops his anger for a semblance upgrade instead. RWBY banks on us just believing Yang, carried along by everyone - all the way through to Nora - going on about how Very Very Wrong Ren Is - because if you actually consider these themes of trust and ask whether Ozpin was wrong to hold back... there's not a lot to challenge that decision. The go-to argument would be, "The heroes made things better once they knew the truth, ergo, they should have known the truth from the start" but the group has continually made things worse. It's not even a temporary problem anymore. No matter that they'll inevitably win, Atlas is gone. They've done irreversible harm to the world and yeah, they're trying to do good, they're trying, but this isn't the story of some teenagers forced into a conflict and doing what they can with the hand they've been dealt. This is the story of some teenagers who forced their way in, so when things go wrong... that's on them, no matter their intentions. They are now responsible, just as much as Ozpin was responsible. Except the story refuses to admit that, continually positioning Ruby as an innocent child in need of reassurance, not the licensed huntress who stole control from Ozpin, lied her way into a new inner circle, attacked former allies to avoid the consequences of her own actions, and presented herself as the world's savior... only to then cry because she never had a plan to begin with. We've got a fantastic story here about how Ruby wasn't ready, none of her friends were, and their naïve belief that they were the heroes of this tale - running after the White Fang, then Cinder, then Salem herself - has done incredible harm within a delicate, multi-generation war. We might have started telling that story if the group had actually sat with Ren's accusations and admitted their mistakes. Instead, we're left with this ridiculous claim that no matter how bad things get, it's always better than the alternative of the group not being involved at all. Because they're the heroes, remember. Their goodness they provide is, supposedly, inherent. The only problem is we no longer have a plot that supports this claim.

[imagines-by-a-typical-fangirl]

Californian Dream (Pt. 01 of 11)

Pairing: Billy Hargrove X Reader

Word count: 2.8 K

Summary: Being part of one of the richest families of California doesn't mean you're happy. Your life is boring, and you're surrounded by meaningless people and their meaningless talk. Even during Summer, with the break you have from college, there's nothing good going on. Nothing but the new pool guy, Billy, the most handsome man you ever saw. You were successfully avoiding him, not wanting to act like an idiot in front of the guy until Billy accepts to be your date for a fancy gala you're forced to attend. The night was going well, even better when he sneaked you out to go to the beach. But a gang of criminals breaks into the party, kidnapping the heirs to the wealthiest families, which includes you. So, for your safety, your parents want you to stay with Billy, living in his apartment until the criminals are caught. And that could take weeks, maybe even months.

Warnings: Light violence

Next part (02)->

{Stranger Things Masterlist}

{Dacre Montgomery Masterlist}

×

Lemonade

Ignoring the meaningless chattering, you drink what's left of your water, then put the glass against your neck, hoping the cold will help with the hot weather. Summers in California are always this hot, and since you're under the sun, it doesn't help. Some of your friends, or better saying, the family friends, the people you grew up with, are here again, using your pool as if it was some kind of club they can attend. Standing on this badly shaped circle, you pretend to listen as Ryan goes on about some mansion he helped his father sell this weekend. He's excited, gesticulating a lot, and the others seem to be quite interested too. But not you. Honestly, you couldn't care less.

Through the corner of your eye, you see someone moving on the other side of the huge pool, behind some trees. Turning your head to see it better, you easily recognize the new pool guy, Billy Hargrove. He's been working here for only a couple of months, coming a few times a week to clean the pool or to fix something. You always pay attention to the staff, because nobody else does. You like to know them since they're working at your house after all, and that made you befriend a lot of them throughout the years. But Billy? You haven't even crossed paths with him yet. On purpose.

Billy is by far the most handsome guy you ever met, and you just don't think you can say anything to his face. He probably thinks you're one of the silly, rich chicks he meets on his job, and for some reason, it bothers you.

“(Y/N).” Ryan snaps his fingers on your face, dragging you out of your thoughts. “Are you in there? Aren't you listening?”

“Yup. Sorry, I tuned out for a minute.” Politely, you apologize. “What were you saying?”

“The gala. Who are you going with?”

“Uhm... Not sure yet.” Playing with the empty glass, you move your weight from one leg to the other. “I don't have any good options.”

“What?” Gisele exclaims, giggling. “Robert wants to go with you. Daniel would easily ditch his date for you. And Michael–”

“Don't wanna go with neither of them.” Cutting her off, you decide to just say it. Robert is the most hateful person you ever met. Daniel has been chasing after you for years, it doesn't matter how hard you try to make him understand you don't like him, and every girl he dates, he does it to try and make you jealous. And Michael is a manipulative jerk. All three members of the most prestigious families of California, and desired bachelors. And yet, you can't stand them.

“Who are you going with then? The pool guy?” Gisele gestures at something across the pool, and you know at who.

“Maybe. I bet he's way better than Michael, Daniel, or Robert.” This makes all the five of them laugh, in a very mocking tone. But you mean it. “I might go by myself. Who cares?”

“Are you crazy? Your parents will care, and people will talk, you know that.” Ryan rolls his eyes, lightly slapping his friend's arm. “C'mon, Antony, let's find (Y/N) a fourth option.” The two guys smirk and walk away, and you don't even bother to ask what they're up to. You don't care.

“For real now, (Y/N),” Alice says, running her fingers through her hair. “Gisele is right. The three guys are so into you, and Robert...” She chuckles, exchanging a glance with Gisele. “He's hot. He's... So damn hot.”

“Why don't you go with him then?” You ask her, taking a deep breath and already thinking of an excuse to get away from this conversation and back into the secrecy of your bedroom.

“Because I'm dating.” She answers as if it was the most obvious thing. As if she didn't have a different boyfriend every month. “James Whayland. The one and only, heir to the Whayland fortune? Do you happen to know him?” A rhetoric question, of course. Everyone knows who the Whayland are. “I'm so gonna marry him.”

“You must,” Gisele adds. “You'd be like, stupidly rich.”

And they go on with that, a conversation you don't even try to follow. A lot of girls do that, getting married to join the fortunes and shove more money into their pockets. Your mother herself did it, and she tries to push you into doing the same, pointing out the richest bachelors of California. But you'd never do that. You rather never get married than getting married without love. It's so obvious, yet, if you bring that up, it always becomes an argument. ‘Love comes with time’, she says. ‘Once you're provided financial stability, you'll learn to love the provider.’ None of that sounds appealing to you. You're hoping to fall in love one day. It hasn't happened yet, but you'll patiently wait.

“Hey, Earth to (Y/N).” Ryan raises his voice, and, a little annoyed, you look up at him.

“What?”

“You're welcome.” He says with a wicked smile.

Furrowing your eyebrows, you tilt your head to the side. “For what, Ryan?”

“For getting you the best date ever for the gala, sweetie.” He and Antony laugh, and soon enough the others follow. “The pool guy is taking you to a high society party. How amazing is that?”

It takes a while for you to even process what he's saying, but his mean tone makes you angry. He thinks he's superior to anyone who doesn't have a collection of fancy cars in their garage. “First of all, Ryan, the pool guy has a name, alright?”

“Yeah, yeah. You're always close to the staff.” He emphasizes the last word, making a disgusted face.

“Second...” What? Second what? You know you can't go with Billy. That would get people talking. But then, the other options make you sick to even consider them. And honestly, you couldn't care less about what people say. It'll probably get you a hell of a lecture from your parents, a few weeks of gossips and mean comments, but that's it. Soon enough someone else will become the hottest topic. “You know what, forget it.” Putting the empty glass on the table, you walk away, ignoring how they call you, telling you not to be silly.

Maybe the guys are joking. Maybe they're just pulling a prank on you, but there's no problem with finding that out. Walking around the pool and into the garden, you walk around the supply closet, following the low noise of something being put into the metal shelves. The supply closet is open, so you patiently wait on the outside, barefoot on the grass as you move to stand to bellow a tree. Bouncing your leg, you look around, breathing deeply and trying to understand why the hell you decided to face Billy now. He's the only guy who works here you're making sure not to have any contact with.

“Good afternoon.” The voice startles you, and you immediately turn to face him. Billy is closing the closet door shut, eyes focused on you. And yes, he's far more gorgeous from up close. “May I help you, Miss–”

“(Y/N).” You cut him off, cursing yourself for doing so. “You may call me (Y/N).”

He simply nods, walking closer and stopping on a shadow spot too. “Do you need anything from me?”

“Uhm...” For a moment, you gotta think a little to remember what brought you here. “I just wanted to ask if maybe some two jerks came to talk to you... About a party... And... Taking a girl to this party...” Playing with your fingers, you wonder if he already thinks you're a total idiot.

“Yes. They said you needed a date for some gala.” Billy crosses his arms, not looking away from you. “If you need it, I can take you.”

Oh. Would he really do that? “Uhm... Look, Ryan and Antony meant it as a joke.” You gotta be honest, even if it means he'll give up the idea. “I mean, not for me, they're just... They're jerks. And they...” Holy crap. You have to get your shit together. “They thought it would be funny to make you think you could take me to this gala.” Taking a deep breath, you push the words out. “But... I would like it if you could because all my options suck. It's either Michael or Robert or Daniel, and you probably know they're all fighting for the award of the worst person on the face of Earth.”

“It might be really hard to make this decision. Might as well split the award in three.” He speaks up and you giggle. The staff don't usually speak like that about the families they work for. But Billy doesn't seem to care and you like that.

“Yeah. So... I know people will gossip about it but I'd be forever grateful if you could do me this kindness.” You're blushing now, biting your lip. “Because I know it's not your job or anything but I could pay you if you want.”

“There's no need.” Billy shakes his head, shrugging his shoulders. “It's a party, right? It will be fun.”

“Oh... About that...” Calling such events ‘parties’ is a misunderstanding. Almost a crime. “These things... Suck. It's super dull, full of rich people donating, trying to donate more them someone else just so they'll show off how rich they really are... You'll absolutely hate it. I do.” Gesturing at yourself, you give him an apologetic look. “I'd owe you for life if you help me get through it without having to put up with any of those assholes.”

Billy nods, looking down before his eyes meet yours again. “I believe I'll have to wear one of those suits right?”

“Well, I'll be in some uncomfortable dress, so we'll both be unhappy about our clothes.” Your mind goes to the lilac dress your mother made you buy, extremely expensive.

“Alright then. It's on Sunday, right?” You nod. “Should I pick you up?”

“Yes. At seven.” He gives a small nod before gesturing at the garden. “I gotta go now.”

“Sure...” Billy waves before walking away, and you stand there, wondering if you should go back to your so-called friends. You're sure Ryan will have that stupid smile on, eager to know what you and Billy have spoken about. And you won't tell anything, but you also don't want to deal with that shit right now, or else you might tell right to their faces how much of a jerk they are. So you decide to follow Billy through the garden, easily finding him by a particular big tree. He's opening a leaf tarp on a clean space on the grass before taking a fan rake. “This tree is dying.” You say, getting his attention. Billy turns around, furrowing his eyebrows. “That's why there are so many fallen leaves. See how some of them seem healthy, normal green leaves? It only happens when the tree is dying.”

“Then you should have someone cut it down before someone gets hurt.” He says, looking a little confused. “Shouldn't you go back to your friends?”

“Yeah, I probably should.” You're tired of all the things you should do, so for today, you won't do them. As silly as it may be. “Do you need some help?” You ask, stepping forward a little.

“No, I'm alright.” It sounds like a question, and you blush from the way he stares at you, for several seconds, before focusing on his task, raking the leaves to the tarp.

“Ok.” Whispering, you move to sit on a wooden table, one of the many you have scattered around the property. You try not to look at Billy too much, noticing how weird it feels to do this. You barely know the guy, he'll be your date for a gala, and now you're awkwardly seated here, watching as he works. Well, it is better than whatever your friends must be talking about now. “So... What exactly do you work with?” You ask, hoping to get any kind of conversation going. “I thought you just took care of the pool.”

“I work for a company. BJ's Associates.” Billy starts, and you take this chance to look at him. Despite the distance, you can see the sweat glistening on his forehead. “They send me to any place I'm needed. Some of them are scheduled weekly, others are random. And–” He makes a pause suddenly, giving you a look. “Are you bored yet?”

“No.” Shrugging your shoulders, you giggle. “I actually wanna know.”

He turns his head to look at the pool, which is a little distant now. Maybe he thinks this is some kind of move, and you wouldn't blame him, judging by the way the guys probably came to talk to him. “That's it. I clean pools, fix cars, might paint walls or something, clean gardens... The list goes on.”

“You know how to fix a car?” Raising an eyebrow, you move to seat on the table, placing both your feet on the wooden bench. “My car is making this weird noise and I'm sure it's not some normal noise.”

“How does it sounds like?”

“Like a clunking, I think... every time I hit the breaks, even when it's softly.”

“It could be some damage to the brake caliper.” He's quick to answer, and you raise your eyebrows, impressed. “Or it's badly mounted.”

“Damn, you're good.” You exclaim, giggling at his funny face.

“I just–”

“(Y/N)!” Amelia's voice reaches you, and Billy stops talking, resuming his job. “I've been looking for you.” The old lady, with her gray hair tied up on a perfect, sophisticated bun, comes to the table you're at, a tray with a jar and six glasses on her hands.

“I've been here chatting with Billy.” You tell as she lays the tray down. “And no, I won't go back to the pool.”

“They're talking about James Whayland.” She starts, rolling her eyes. Amelia is the only one in this house, well, the only one you know who understands you. “Alice Martin was talking about marrying him...?”

“Yup.” A stronger wind messes with your hair, so you use a hand to keep it away from your face. “Something about joining their fortunes and being the king and queen of California. Some shit like that.”

“Poor Alice.” Amelia breathes out, taking a glass and pouring some lemonade on it before handing it over to you. “That Whayland kid is not the nicest guy on Earth.”

“Poor James!” You giggle, putting your glass down and serving her some lemonade too. She doesn't like when you do that, since she's here to serve you. Amelia, the woman who raised you is here for nothing else than to serve you. So unbelievable it almost makes you laugh. “Alice isn't nice either. She can be very manipulative to get what she wants.”

“Don't I know?” She mutters. “Well, I must go. Serve this to your friends.”

“No, no, no. Take your glass and leave the rest. If someone complains tell them I'll drink the whole jar.” Taking the tray from her hands, you place it down on the table again.

“Alright, Miss–”

“(Y/N). Honey. Bunny. Anything, but not this formal stuff, ok?” You correct her, and Amelia gives you a bright smile.

“Alright, (Y/N).” She repeats before turning around and walking away, cordially greeting Billy.

Taking a sip from your glass, you smile to notice Amelia's lemonade is as good as always. A little too sour for your parents taste, but you like it better this way. Your attention goes back to Billy, still dealing with the fallen leaves, despite being almost done. If you ask, he might say no, so you just pour another glass before jumping to the ground, making your way over him. “Here.” Raising your voice, you get his attention. And once again he has this confused expression on his face when he sees the glass. “Lemonade. It's hella hot out here and this might help.”

“Thanks.” Squinting his eyes a little, he takes the glass from your hand, taking long sips, drinking almost everything.

“Sorry if it's a little too sour. I don't like much sugar on it and Amelia knows so...” When he's done, he gives you back the glass. “Why are you looking at me like that? I swear I'm not a ghost.”

“That's not it. I'm just not used to being treated like that by the owners.” Billy's voice gets a little darker, and he pronounces the last word with certain anger. But you can imagine exactly why. Most of the people you know aren't very fond of their employees. They're just the people they pay off to do what they can't do by themselves.

“I know how some of the families can be mean.” Drumming your fingers on the empty glass, you stand there, staring at Billy, just now noticing the deep, beautiful shade of blue from his eyes. Involuntary, you breathe out, smiling.

“What?”

“Nothing!” You burst out, clearing your throat and finding your legs again, making the way back at the table. “I–”

“(Y/N)!” A shout startles you, and when you turn at the source of the voice, you see it's Gisele. “Get back here! You won't guess who just got here.”

“If it isn't Michael Jackson ready to perform Beat It, I'll be disappointed.” You mutter, only loud enough for Billy to hear it as you walk back to the pool.

“Call me if it's him,” Billy says and you giggle, giving him one last look.

It's not Michael. Well, it is, but not Jackson, just Michael Rothford. He stands by the pool, where everyone gathers around him. Trying not to look pissed, you move closer, offering a polite, fake smile. “Good afternoon, Mike. How have you been?”

“I'm way better now.” He answers, and you try to ignore how everyone moves a little, giving you more space to move closer to Michael. He takes your hand, giving it a shake, and awkwardly squeezing it softly. “I'm here to ask, once again, for you to let me take you to Sunday's gala.”

The two idiots, Antony and Ryan start giggling, and you know exactly why. “Sorry, Mike, I can't.” Pulling your hand away, you cross your arms. “I already have someone, so...” Thank God you have the perfect excuse, and it's not even a lie. You're so damn relieved you won't be forced to attend to such a boring event with someone like Michael.

“Who?” He snaps, suddenly pissed. “Daniel is going with that Angela chick. Robert, you can't stand. Andrew isn't in the country, Willian–”

“You don't know him, alright?” Cutting him off, you sigh.

“Oh, shit,” Ryan mutters, and you give him a look. He has a hand covering his mouth, trying to control a laugh. “You're really going to the gala with the pool guy.” Antony burst into laughter, and the others try to control themselves not to.

“You rather go with the staff than with me?” Michael sounds offended as if he was punched in the face. “Are you kidding me, (Y/N)?”

Quickly, you try to think of something to say. You can't say the truth, that he's a hateful human being you can't stand being next to. But nothing comes to your mind. “No, I'm not. I... Actually wanna go with Billy.”

“Honestly, (Y/N), screw you.” He barks, and before you can answer, he grabs both your shoulders and pushes you straight into the water.

Everything happens way too fast for you to process, so there was no way you could tell him you absolutely can't swim. So the moment you hit the water, you just sink, your body moving to the bottom, way too far from the surface. You do try moving your legs a bit, uselessly. But you're suddenly pulled, strong arms moving you through the water until you finally reach the surface, gasping for air. Breathing fast, the terror finally starts kicking in, and you push yourself up, stumbling a little, ignoring all the hands that offer help. Once you're out of the water, seated on the edge, you finally see who saved you, Billy, also pushing himself up, only with a lot more grace than you. You exchange a glance, and his hand is the one you take, pulling yourself back to your feet.

“You can't swim?” You hear Michael's voice, a curse caught in your throat. “I never met a Californian who can't swim.”

Not minding the small crowd around, you make you walk to Michael, losing no time before slapping him right on the face, the loud noise of your wet hand colliding to his cheek startling some of your friends. “Asshole!” You yell before storming away, embarrassed, still struggling to catch your breath, feeling cold thanks to your soaked clothes.

“Hey.” Someone calls, but you ignore them, walking fast into the house. “(Y/N).” Your arm being grabbed makes you stop walking and turn around, ready to make hell rain on whoever it is, but your fury melts away when you see Billy. “Are you ok?”

Taking a deep breath, you relax a little, nodding. “Yeah, I just... Got scared.” He lets go of your arm, but you don't step away, looking into his blue, calming eyes. “Thank you, though. You saved my life.”

“Can't believe he threw you at the water like that.”

“See why I need you to take me to that stupid party?” Crossing your arms, you pace around. “I can't even begin to imagine how it'd be to spend the night with that prick.” Looking down, you notice how you and Billy are dripping, soaking the white floor. “I gotta go change, and you should... I don't know. At least you got to enjoy the pool for a while.”

“I'd rather enjoy it when you're not drowning.”

“Yeah, that would be better.” Shyly smiling, you give a step backwards. “I gotta go... But thanks again.” Stopping in your tracks, you decide to be just a little brave. Stepping closer, you tiptoe to place a quick kiss on Billy's cheek, before turning around and rushing upstairs to your bedroom.

×

@multific @dontxfearxthereaper @nope-thanks @nikkixostan @shinydixon @alwaysadreamingoptimist

[bbykpoper]

Chapter 1 // Masterlist

GENRE: mafia au, fluff, a bit of smut, a smudge of angst if you squint your eyes hard enough, possible fantasy????

SYNOPSIS: A centuries old feud which kept itself silent suddenly ignites once again as two warring gangs face each other for the first time. A family of established immortals who came together after the war, a band of humans who began remembering their past lives and officials breathing down their neck threaten the world once again as fantasy and reality clash in the form of a young man hell bent on being in the lead and a young woman hell bent on ending this meaningless feud. A story will unfold before you now, questioning your morals as well as grinding your nerves to the edge.

“A princess turned assassin?”

“A coward turned prince?”

Who will survive the last wave of this war?

°˖✧

“My hands are stained with blood... yet again...” There came a soft whisper in the distance as droplets of red fell to the floor.

The strong stench of blood glided to the young man’s nostrils as he observed the scene before him. A body laid on the ground, it’s face unrecognizable as a young woman of short stature stood, her fists slightly bruised and bloody. Her strong willed eyes were trained on him and he extended his arm to beckon her towards him. 

“You’re becoming more vicious in your battles.” He spoke as the young woman moved towards him, jumping down from the ring in which two other men began cleaning the now deceased body. “What seems to be bothering you?”

“It seems our rivals have decided to invade our business inside the ring.” The girl let her companion clean her fists as she observed the body being thrown out. “The boy they sent was said to be a rising star in their ranks, his ego decided to challenge me and he ended up where he is now. It angers me how much they seem to refuse to stay in peace and in their own lanes.”

“It seems that they wish to take over the underworld.” The man’s groaning blue eyes met her dark ones. “Forcas calls for us all. It seems he has had enough of peace as well.”

With a small nod she went after the taller man, covering her face more with the black mask she grew used to. It was rare to see her without it, but today she decided to keep her face free, so that it would be the last thing her poor oponent saw before she beat him to death without mercy. 

“Would you like my jacket?” Her companion asked her as he noticed the attire she sported. A simple sports bra and leggings. 

Not exactly an outfit she would like to show herself in before the head of their family, but the meeting seemed urgent, and she didn’t have time to change.

“No, it’s quite fine.” She simply stated, climbing into the black SUV after him. “The meeting seems urgent, has he finally come to terms with what it is we are to do?”

“By his tone of voice, I would say it’s quite serious.” Her companion placed his hand on hers, his eyes trained on the clear night sky as the stars twinkled in his eyes. “The stars have shifted drastically. Our futures are in danger Fae. Yours more so than ours.”

The woman didn’t say anything as she kept quiet beside him, allowing their fingers to weave together. They both felt each others pulse through their wrist, something which calmed them down and finally the woman could breathe more calmly and freely. The car took a swift turn into the outskirts of town and headed down the road, getting further on the outskirts. Soon enough the car pulled up to a large mansion in the middle of nowhere, two large men opening the doors for the two passengers.

“Good evening Miss, Sir.” They greeted them and both nodded their heads in greeting. “Leader is waiting for you in the war room.”

The small woman rolled her eyes at the mention of the room but still obediently followed their guide. As they entered she felt a sudden warmth crawl up her skin and she moved to the left, evading the overly excited man-child that hit her companion straight on. 

“Why did you move?” He whinned turning to her. “I don’t want to hug Tae, I wanted to hug you y/n.”

“Stop whinning Jungkook.” Her companion spoke up as he helped steady him on his legs. “She did that to tease you.” He rolled his eyes along.

“Is that true?” He went over to her.

“A little bit.” She answered him with a small giggle. “You’re just super cute when you get frustrated.” She pinched his cheeks, laughing when he slapped her hand away.

“I’m a grown man, older than you not to mention and handsome.” He gritted out with a pout. “I’m not cute.”

The trio went further into the large mansion, small talk flowing between them with ease. The room they were going to was located on the first floor but deeper into the mansion, closer to the west wing. The interior was decorated like a European museum if you asked any person that came to visit. Golden chandeliers, paintings lining the walls, an elaborate statue here and there, and of course high doors and even higher ceilings. The young woman and her companion still kept holding hands as they were announced in the room and they took their respected seats at the oval shapped table housing 8 seats that were now finally full.

“Congradulations on your win y/n.” The tallest amongs them spoke up, a soft smile on his features. “I hear the young boy is unrecognizable.”

“Thank you. I tried to not let my emotions take over me.” She spoke up, swiftly taking off her mask. “But then he decided to open his mouth and I just didn’t have the strength to control myself anymore.”

“I’ve heard.” A small hologram began showing the file of the man who she had her fight with earlier this night. “Na Jaemin. The boy wonder of NCT who was supposed to quietly climb up in the ring but he just had to run his mouth next to our little y/n here.” The man laughed. “It seems he was favoured by their bomb expert Taeil.” 

“Does this mean they will retaliate by blowing me up?” The girl raised her eyebrow earning a hearty laugh from her left.

“No no, they aren’t that dumb.” The man who sat next to her had the widest smile on his face, bopping the girl’s nose with little to no force at all. “They don’t know he is dead. Well, not yet at least.” 

“They don’t know?” Tae asked from her right side.

“No. We made sure that people think that we just kindly locked him up somewhere.” A man next to Jungkook spoke up, drawing their attention to him. “For now, we made sure that nobody from that match says a word outside on the streets. We don’t need children on our doorstep seeking vengance.”

“I’m sorry.” She spoke up.

“Why are you apologizing?” The head of the table asked, visibly confused.

“I let my emotions take over and I killed him.” She sighed, slumping in her seat.

“Kid, your job is to kill off the pests we don’t need.” The man with distinctive red eyes spoke up to her, he stood up and walked over to her, earning Taehyung’s side eye. “Everybody that goes up against you in the ring knows what the fate is if it’s your bad day.” The man squated next to her, sliding his hand up her arm to cup her cheek. “Now I know you weren’t having a bad day, so what did he say to you that made you so angry?”

“He commented how he’d easily take me down and make me his little cock hold afterwards.” She said with an unamused facial expression, which had seven different men stare at her with wide, angry eyes.

“I say, we kill the whole den of idiots.” Jungkook said, already on his feet ready to leave.

“Take a seat Azazel.” The head of the table spoke up, silencing the whole room. 

“My poor baby.” The hand gently caressed her cheek, pulling back and standing straight. “What should we do Forcas? The NCT pests have been getting bolder. And now they are trying to take us out from the business we began?”

“I know, though I have this idea which I think you will like.” The head of the table, a tall man with sleeked back grey hair, smirked with danger in his golden eyes. 

°˖✧

On the other side of the city, deep in the abandoned district of Seoul, a group of men decided to come together this night, worried faces painting all of the newcommers. The two people standing guard at the front looked at each other when the final car pulled up and the two men walked in.

“Isn’t it weird that the big bosses are here?” One of the men spoke up.

“Yeah, but to be honest are you surprised?” The other sighed. 

The inside was fairly nicely decorated, the inspiration coming from old Italian mafia films, the distinctive arches holding up most of the structure. The dinning room was currently occupied with seven people, two of them standing and facing each other in a heated argument. The newcommers that took a seat at the table sighed as they calmly looked up at the two standing men in the middle of an argument. 

“Both of you, that’s enough.” One of the men spoke, his dark blue hair neatly styled as his eyebrow stood up in disapprovement. “Lucas, Baby. Sit down.”

With a groan the two addressed sat down with glares still present on their faces. 

“Is everyone present?” He added on, looking over to his right hand man, a tall, fair haired young man.

“Everyone that needs to be.” He answered.

“Good. Johnny you may take over with the report.” The blue haired man said, loosening the tie around his neck while the fair haired man stood up and went over to the head of the dinning table.

“Thank you Boss.” Johnny spoke up and looked over his notes, his eyes stopping at the picture of the masked girl. “As you all know, we’ve successfully infeltrated the underground fight ring of the Bangtan hold and I’ve recieved intel that Na Jaemin has progressed in the ring. Sooner or later he will be going up against their top fighters. However, he has not conntacted his superior so what’s the deal with that Taeil?”

“I don’t know, he had strict instructions to conntact me when he jumped ranks in the ring but he hasn’t.” An aggitated man answered his question, barely looking up from his laptop.

“I’m telling you, the kid is fine. He’s probably just shagging a girl or two. Typical Jaemin stuff.” One of the men who was standing and arguing earlier spoke up, Lucas to be more precise.

“No! He is not.” The other, Haechan cut in. “He’s dead. He was made and they probably killed him!”

“Calm down both of you!” The dark blue haired man, Boss, yelled out. The silence following becoming eerie. “Let Johnny finnish and then on your own time go and beat it out or shoot each other but not now!”

“Thank you Boss.” Johnny smirked, turning to the table and throwing down a letter and a few pictures. “Haechan was right about one thing. Na Jaemin was made and we got this letter delivered today.” The reactions to the news of one of their own being made had them all turn serious, eyes fixed on the pictures on the table. “These are the three Bangtan members responsible for the underground fight scene.” He pointed to the first picture. “Azazel, lead recruiter whose blessing you need to enter the ring or even be thought of participating.” His finger moved to the second picture and his breath withered a bit in his thorat as he said the name. “Fae, leader and fighter. She is the one responsible and the big boss down there. They say nobody survives a fight with her.” His gaze stayed lingering on the picture until Boss cleared his throat and Johnny moved on to the last picture. “And lastly Solas, Fae’s right hand man, always by her side.” Then he raised the piece of paper from the table. “This is an invitation letter to a race they are holding tomorrow night. It’s signed by Forcas, their leader and it states that if we wish to know more information about Na Jaemin’s situation we better show up.It’s addressed to you personaly Moon Taeil.”

“What is their game?” The person in question turned his head to face the taller boy. “Why address it to me?”

“They are aware that Jaemin was under you. Which makes me wonder what more are they aware of?” Boss spoke, glancing at Johnny. “Brain, Johnny and Bulls Eye. You three will visit the race. Take one of the cars if yoou have to. Find out what they want, but be careful. We may never know what awaits at those organized races they hold.”

[theweasleyslytherin]

i knew you (ron weasley x reader) part 14

part 1/masterlist

summary: Ron inexplicably broke up with Cassiah Black of Slytherin house just days before their final year at Hogwarts, leaving them both with broken hearts and no future plans, but too stubborn and too proud to fix things. Will they find their way back together before the year ends, or will the end of their time at Hogwarts be the last time they ever see the each other?

general fic warnings: smut, drug/alcohol use, language

CHAPTER 14 - i’ll keep coming back

Oh, I couldn't stop it Tried to slow it all down Crying in the bathroom Had to figure it out With everyone around me saying "You must be so happy now"

Light On, Maggie Rogers _________________

It was like a dam had broken between them; the pressure finally snapped and suddenly there was an overflow that couldn't be contained or controlled. In the four days since initially hooking up in the common room, Cassiah and Ron had been so entirely incapable of keeping their hands off of each other that they must have done it eight times.

Cassiah was sore in the best way.

Ron noticed this as he passed her in the hallway after his last class of the day. He was meant to be heading out towards Quidditch practice, hoping to get in a quick workout before the scrimmage he'd planned for the day. When he saw Cassiah walking towards him down the crowded hallway, however, his plans changed.

She was waddling slightly as she went. Anyone else would've thought that her boots were uncomfortable or that she'd been uncomfortable sitting on those bloody uncomfortable stools that Hogwarts loved to provide them with in the classrooms, but Ron instantly knew better.

He couldn't blame her, really. They'd gone two rounds in a broom closet that morning before Potions class and he had been thorough, to say the least. Combine that with the cramped angles they had to work with in the closet and the quickie they'd shared in his room while everyone else was at dinner the night before...

Ron felt the tips of his ears turning pink at the memory. He knew that Cassiah loved it when he made her sore like this. She said it was the most delicious kind of hurt – that it reminded her of how good he'd made her feel. Blood might've started to migrate to more places than just his ears at the thought.

Get it together, Weasley.

He lost the battle.

"Hey Black," he called out to her, roughly grabbing her by the waist and spinning her around 180 degrees to walk with him.

She yelped slightly and looked up at him curiously as he rushed her down the hallway. "What's happening?" she asked, "Don't you have practice soon?"

Ron looked down at her, his eyes hard and his tone gruff and he growled, "Need you. Now."

"N-now?" Cassiah said incredulously, her eyes wide as she picked up her speed to keep up with him as he dragged her along, "Merlin, Ron, we already did it twice just a few hours ago."

"Yes and that was hours ago," Ron whined and then came to a stop, turning to look Cassiah dead in the eye. His gaze was so serious it made her squirm. "I can't help it. I look at you and all I can think about is fucking you," he explained, letting his eyes run over her and groaning at the sight.

"I'm just in my robes. I don't know what you're so worked up about, Weasley," she teased.

"Just shut up and come with me. We only have about fifteen minutes," Ron ordered and Cassiah couldn't help but submit as he grabbed her by the arm and resumed his frantic hurry down the hallway.

They got to the locker room in record time, already panting and out of breath. The second the door swung shut behind them, Ron pinned Cassiah up against it, the cold metal hard against her back. He loved the way her tiny wrists fit in just one of his big, meaty hands so that he could hold her to the wall with ease. She struggled against his grip, but he knew she was just testing him because it turned them both on to know how much bigger and stronger he was.

Ron buried his face in Cassiah's neck and ran his tongue over her pressure point. Her hair was messy from running and it was tickling his nose so he bunched it up with his free hand and pulled it out of his way. When Cassiah shivered under his touch he wrapped her long hair around his wrist and gave a gentle tug – just the perfect amount of force.

"Ron–"

"Fuck, Cassie. I saw you coming down the hallway and you were limping cause you fucked you so good–"

"So well–"

"Shut up, bloody hell," Ron demanded, silencing her with a hard kiss that clashed their teeth together, "I saw you struggling down the hall and it made me feel so good to know that only I can make you feel that way. Tell me."

He released her wrists from above her head and let his hands trail down her spine to roughly grasp her backside, kneading into her thick flesh and causing her to moan.

"Ron, no one else–" she started, but Ron immediately stopped his ministrations, pausing dead in his tracks.

He stared down at her with dominance flashing behind his blue-green eyes and a hard look on his face. "Who?" he asked.

She shuddered at his demanding tone, whimpering slightly at the sudden lack of contact. Her voice was nothing but a whine when she spoke again. "Daddy... no one else can make me feel as good as you do. No one but you and your big cock. You're the best I've ever had."

Ron moaned as he listened to her words. He loved when Cassiah talked dirty, but she rarely did it. And hearing her praise him like that and call him "daddy" was too much.

"I need you so bad, Cassie," he whimpered, pushing his hips up against her she could feel just how urgently he wanted her, how long and thick and hard he already was for her.

But Cassiah had other plans. She gave him a rebellious little smirk and raised an eyebrow. "Then work for it."

Ron was desperate. "C'mon, Cass. You know I always love to take such good care of you but I really don't wanna get caugh–"

"Please, daddy," she cooed, and Ron groaned. He knew she was doing it on purpose, taking advantage of his own kinks to get her way, but he couldn't say no when she called him that. He'd do anything she asked if she called him that, actually.

He was dropping to his knees on the cold stone floor of the locker room before she could utter another word. He ran his hands slowly from her ankles, past her knees socks, and over her soft thighs before lifting up her skirt and ducking his head under it. He pressed a wet, open-mouthed kiss into the crotch of her panties, his nose putting pressure against her clit as he did, and then hooked his fingers under her panties and swiftly pulled them down.

Cassiah knew she was in for the ride of her life if Ron was too desperate to even strip her clothes off. She didn't mind though; she loved it when he was rough with her – it was better that way, really. They were addicted to each other, to the ecstasy they brought each other. The image of his head hidden away under her skirt as he was on her knees for her would stay in her mind for weeks.

____

Cassiah left the locker room about nine minutes later, fresh hickeys on the insides of her thighs, her knee socks at entirely different lengths, and her hair pulled into a bun that was definitely not the cute kind of messy. Most importantly, however, she was thoroughly, thoroughly satisfied. It was amazing how much Ron could rock her world in under ten minutes, but then again, he had spent over a year studying her body like he was gonna be tested on it. He knew all the right buttons to press and so did she.

She hadn't planned on having sex with Ron again that day but she could tell that he was already really pent up when she saw him in the hall. She didn't want to send him to quidditch practice half-hard or worse, with blue balls.

Plus, things had been going so well between them, and Cassiah wanted to keep things that way. They'd been successfully surviving as friends for about a month and she knew from previous experience dating Ron that the reason they hadn't fallen into past patterns of bickering was that the sex had been consistent. When they weren't having sex, even when they were dating, they had more little, stupid arguments, even though Ron wouldn't admit that was why. Cassiah didn't want to take away the key ingredient to her happy, peaceful friendship with Ron – her only stepping stone to something more.

And anyway, the sex had been mind-blowing between the two of them now that they'd waited so long and they had to keep it a secret, so Cassiah really couldn't bear to turn it down.

She knew for a fact that she and Ron were just friends. He'd made it completely clear to her that it was just sex for him and nothing more.

But her mind betrayed her. Even when he'd been so rough with her and railed her against the cold door, he'd put a hand behind her head to make sure she wasn't bumping against the wall or uncomfortable in any way. The bare necessities suddenly seemed like huge grand gestures to her and she couldn't help but get caught up in it. She was always one to overanalyze things that were probably meaningless.

There was one thing that was bothering her, however.

When Ron had seen her in the hallway earlier, he said something that made her wince a little bit. It sent daggers straight through her heart just to think of it, even though she knew Ron hadn't meant for it to be hurtful.

He'd said every single time he looked at her, all he could think about was sex. Of course, a part of her was flattered. It was nice to know that after everything, Ron still thought she was attractive and desirable and more than a friend. At the same time, though, she couldn't help but be hurt. He looked at her and immediately thought about hooking up – not about telling her about his day or hanging out and being friends. It made her feel just the slightest bit insulted.

He didn't mean it that way, though, so she pushed the anxieties down.

If this was how she had to spend time with Ron now, she'd do. Plus, she was being dramatic and she knew it because, in her heart of hearts, she knew it was better to just be friends with benefits with Ron than to date him. Dating left room for him to hurt again. This way, she could enjoy his company and his skills in bed without having to live with the constant fear of heartache.

Sneaking around was really hot anyway, like they had this big, dirty secret that nobody else but the two of them knew. She liked walking around with the secret knowledge that she was covered in love bites from Ron, or fully satisfied from his skilled hands. It made her feel sexy. Ron made her feel sexy.

When Cassiah arrived back to the common room, she was surprised to find Draco and Pansy lounging on the couch together. She'd been hoping she'd be able to sneak back in since she looked like such a mess, her hair in tangles and her makeup running around her eyes. (What could she say? Ron knew how to make her completely lose control.)

Immediately, she noticed Draco's hand on Pansy's upper thigh and she blushed. She got the feeling that she had just walked in on a particularly intimate moment.

"Sorry," she mouthed silently to Draco, apologizing for bursting in on his private moment with Pansy before disappearing down the hallway into her bedroom.

Cassiah wondered what their current status was. Draco and Pansy had been playing the friends with benefits game for years, and she'd always admired how good at it they were. She never understood how they could completely separate emotions from sex.

However, she supposed that if you did it for long enough, even the two most noncommittal people she knew couldn't help but catch feelings it seemed. Pansy had this starry look in her eyes as she gazed up at Draco, who was being remarkably and uncharacteristically soft and gentle with the short girl.

What a sick twist of fate it would be if that couple worked out instead of Ron and Cassiah, who everyone had always assumed would end up married with babies.

Cassiah quickly entered her room and then in contrast, slowly eased the door shut. She paused, her hands pressed up against the cool wood of the door still, and stared straight forward at it. Suddenly, she could feel more emotions than she'd felt in a month bubbling up in her chest.

And then out of nowhere, it happened.

She was crying over Ron Weasley again.

She wasn't even hurt or upset by their situation. Hooking up with Ron made them both happy and relieved a lot of tension, and being friends did the same. She really had nothing to complain about.

But after a month of pushing them down, she was finally letting herself revisit all of those old hopes and dreams that now just felt like memories. She was letting herself remember how they'd planned their future, how he'd made promises to her that he didn't keep. And those memories fucking hurt if she ever allowed them to come to the surface – a physical pain in her chest so deep and vast that she thought it would never fully go away. So even though she was okay, she cried and it felt good. And that was okay, too.

__________________

Sorry about not updating for a week. Life has been unexpectedly crazy. We got some pretty bad news about my grandfather and I haven't even been able to focus on my school of applying for internships or anything until today.

Love you all  xx jenna

tag list: @ickleronniekinsemotionalrange @girl22334 @mariellelovescupcakes @lateautumn @heartofcanvas @gloryekaterina @mackaywhore

Published on my Wattpad and my Tumblr (theweasleyslytherin).

[atinybitofau]

Y E O S A N G ⇎ the breakup

THE ONE WHERE YOU TWO BREAK UP CAUSE OF THE BOYS.

a/n: yo this could be in a lot of my au’s lmao. unedited too cause I’m lazy sorreh.

• “You’re a mental bitch!”

• “And you’re delusional dickhead!”

• “I’m delusional? Me?! When I broke up with you, I think it was more on the lines of you being delusional rather me.”

• “God, Yeosang I could just—“

• you two are pulled apart.

• by none other than Hongjoong.

• for arguing yet again after two months of successfully avoiding each other.

• but the annual secret santa was obviously something that you two can’t avoid.

• had to see each other for the sake of the circle.

• “Can you two for once. For once not try and kill each other? Please?”

• Hongjoong has had enough.

• knowing yes, it may be partly his fault.

• partly the circle’s.

• for pulling you both apart.

• the circle is more than just a single person, yes.

• their fault too for breaking you two up.

• for telling you, Yeosang was exclusively meeting with his boss— a beautiful woman.

• and for telling him, you were exclusively texting your ex again— a man you loved.

• the both of you were delusional, yes.

• but so was everyone else in the room.

• because they still weren’t able to see through the endless arguments and empty threats,

• that you two were still very much in love with each other.

• despite the illusion.

• “Give me my goddamn secret santa recipient so I can just leave.” you mumble eyes sterned away. “I can’t stand being here anymore.”

• he scoffs. “Make that two of us.”

• finally something you two can agree with.

• you take your slip of paper, hug Hongjoong, bid the boys goodbye.

• not forgetting, of course, to flip off your ex Yeosang on the way out.

• you think, why was he so abrasive?

• why was it always your fault?

• he’ll always blame you for the break up.

• you don’t know why.

• when technically he was the one seeing another woman behind your back.

• when he claimed you’ve been texting your ex.

• which actually looked something like this,

• ‘You think Yeosang will like his anniversary gift?’

• ‘I don’t see why not. I always liked the things you gave me. being your boyfriend surely would be enough’

• ‘thanks.’

• that was it.

• so yes; you were texting your ex boyfriend for advice while dating Yeosang.

• was that so bad?

• but yeosang see’s it differently.

• see’s it as a way you wanted out of the relationship.

• that texting your ex behind his back was despicable.

• yet he didn’t know seeing his manager for business meetings were a bad thing.

• it was meaningless topics anyway!

• that looked a little like this,

• ‘So you promise to complete the report by next week?’

• ‘Sure thing.’

• that was it.

• so yes; he was seeing his boss behind your back because he didn’t think it was sneaking around.

• didn’t feel the need to tell you?

• because it was work.

• his relationship with you was far from that—

• work.

• it was his luxury being with you.

• but apparently now it was a sin.

• “Hongjoong, I’m not getting him a gift.” you storm into the room, not even caring Hongjoong’s fist was almost half way down a crying San’s mouth. “Switch with me.”

• “Um.. a little busy here.”

• you remove Hongjoong from a whiny San.

• immediately taking the fish bone out of the whiny boy’s throat like a scene from a medical show.

• San crying in joy.

• and now you’re glaring at your circle’s designated leader.

• Hongjoong no doubt unsurprised by your visit after your secret santa recipient pull.

• “Okay now you’re not busy anymore. So give me someone else.”

• Hongjoong sighs. “I told Yeosang no. And I will tell you the same thing.”

• “He got me too!? Oh my fucking god, he’s going to buy me the worst thing to ever exist. How could you ruin Christmas for me, Joong? I thought we were friends.”

• “We are.” he raises and eyebrow, arms crossed over his chest. “Which is why as your friend, I’m going to fix whatever broken relationship you have with him even if it kills the both of you. Even if I ruin everyone’s christmas. I’m willing to take the fault this year too.”

• “Joong!” you whine in retaliation.

• “No. Don’t Joong me. I’ve had it with you two. And you will buy him the greatest gift you could ever think of, without your past ex’s help this time, or so help me god I will never speak to the both of you again.”

• Hongjoong was a conniving thing.

• the reason why he lead your squad.

• had the feel for things and what to do.

• so here you are back at square one.

• wondering what you could possibly get Yeosang that he’d love.

• the gift, you think.

• the one you were supposed to give him but failed to do when he broke up with you.

• you’re holding it at the party.

• thinking he’s going to hate it.

• even if he would’ve never broken up with you.

• even if you were able to give him this when intended.

• he’ll hate it just like he hates you.

• “Merry Christmas, nerds.” Mingi announced sporting his lovely santa costume for the night. “It’s secret santa time!”

• you don’t look at Yeosang at all.

• hoping this night would be rudely interrupted with a natural disaster.

• however he’s looking at you.

• hoping you’d snap out of the trance he accidentally put you in.

• looking if you’d look pretty wearing the gift he bought you.

• wondering if..

• if it’s enough.

• now the gifts are dispersed.

• San happy to be getting a new plushie.

• Seonghwa excited about his new vacuum.

• Joong ecstatic over a new art set.

• and the rest.. the rest ready to return their gifts.

• last but not least, it was you two.

• the moment everyone had been waiting for.

• the Christmas miracle or the Christmas disaster.

• a Christmas definitely for the history books.

• and you decide to start.

• shakily holding the small box towards Yeosang.

• he stares at your hands.

• not because he’s avoiding your eyes (maybe)

• but because he’s wondering if it’ll fit.

• his gift.

• then he’s interrupted by yours.

• “H-here. If you don’t like it, the receipt’s in the bag.”

• Yeosang gulps.

• decides not to open it actually.

• hands you his first.

• “This one, mine.. I didn’t get a gift receipt. Sorry.”

• you look up for the first time.

• eyes locked in pure infatuation.

• because you forget for a moment that you used to love this man.

• would do anything for him.

• you forgot how beautiful his eyes were when he wasn’t pining on killing you.

• “S-should I open it?”

• your voice is like waves of the ocean.

• crisp and calm.

• something he used to love to hear first thing in the morning, the last thing before he falls asleep.

• he wants to hear it like that more.

• forgot what you sounded like when you weren’t pining on killing him.

• “Yeah. You should open it.”

• the boys share a glance and think,

• maybe they’ve done it.

• they’ve cracked the illusion.

• that they were delusional for not realizing how easy it was,

• it was to get you back together.

• when you were both obviously still completely in love with each other.

• “Yeosang?”

• it’s a little slow for you tho.

• not knowing why he got you the same gift.

• “Did you follow me?”

• “W-What? N-no! I had that since. Since before we broke up. Had it to give to you for the anniversary.”

• “You idiot.”

• the smile you play,

• him stuck in the game.

• confused a little, he has to admit.

• until he opens your box given to him for christmas.

• realizing it was the exact same.

• the same thing he got you.

• “You.. but I never..”

• “Yeosang, I was supposed to give that to you before we broke up. For our anniversary. I swear I didn’t—“

• he stops you with a kiss.

• bracelet hanging off his fingertips.

• the boys squealing in the background.

• and you’re gone.

• in temptation and loss.

• because how could you be stupid enough to forget?

• forget how much you two really loved each other.

• “Don’t care.” he chuckles hoarsely against you. “Don’t care if you did do it on purpose. Did it on accident. A gift from you... A gift from you is the best gift a man could ever ask for— the best I could ever ask for.”

• you don’t know if he’s quoting the text you two broke up from.

• don’t care.

• God no, you don’t care.

• only care about him right now.

• “Being with you is the only gift I’ll ever ask for.” you murmur back. “The only gift you could give me that’d be the best.”

• “AWWW COME ON YOU TWO KISS SOME MORE!”

• you both think,

• you’ll have to thank them one day.

• the circle you two were in may have been in fault.

• but you were so glad they were the one’s that were.

• or if it weren’t for them,

• you two wouldn’t be standing here not wanting to kill each other right now.

• a fault that was definitely made up.

@atinybitofau

[inflammatoryfandomblog]

on blake and running away

this post will be just me rambling about some tension i’ve noticed in the show for the longest time, yeah? i'm not trying to like, take people’s favorite characters away from them or whatever, but it’s me trying to come to terms with the fact that “running away” seems to be a very common theme for WBY... and for BY, it’s handled a bit oddly.

adam is mentioned as a matter of course, but i don’t really look at him the way you are used to--i don’t talk about the race stuff at all. i exclusively look at his abuse to Blake here; let it not be said that i’m so hung up on the race stuff that i ignore this part of his character. but if talk about abuse triggers you, you may not want to read this--it doesn’t really talk about personal experience at all and it’s not graphic, but this is a deeply personal Topic so i will warn you right now.

since this is long (no, really, it’s long as hell because it takes some explaining, and it’s more me trying to wrap my head around this than coming to a conclusion), i’ll stick it under a readmore:

Hello there!

Now, let’s all get on the same page, shall we? We all know that Adam’s a slimy creep in the show, right? And that most of his words to Blake should be taken in the context of what he intends to do and comes forth from his character?

This is a pretty basic observation... the things that characters say can be safely assumed to have a purpose in some way. Like Adam saying “my dear” or “wow we finally have alone time!” or whatever crap isn’t meant to be taken at face value as romantic, right? In fact, because Adam is (supposed to be) charismatic and an emotional abuser, you should generally assume there is some ulterior motive to what he says. (If this isn’t obvious to you, see Blake telling Yang that Adam only has power because of his manipulation in the Brunswick Arc.)

Which kind of strikes me as weird because... this isn’t really in line with how the writer’s depend on Adam’s dialogue sometimes? At certain points you’re supposed to take his framing as basically true--think of when he yells “what does she even see in you?” which ... is supposed to be taken by the audience as “see, even Adam sees their relationship, in case you haven’t gotten it yet!” rather than the kind of meaningless unhinged statement an abusive, jealous controlling asshole would make,

And like, if it were limited to rare instances like this, I wouldn’t really care about it that much, I would just take the unnatural dialogue as the audience clue-ins they’re meant to be and take Adam’s talkativeness in the final fight as RT being excited that Garrett Hunter can finally do the bare minimum of voice acting. But the reason it bugs me is because Adam was previously used to outright tell us Blake’s supposed character flaw of running away and we were just... supposed to take it at face value?

So, Adam constantly taunts Yang during their volume 6 fight, reminding her of Beacon to no end. And if you know Adam’s character, you’d know that this is meant to be intimidating shit-talking to Yang and to get her to attack him. It’s not even really subtle. “You’re a coward! Just like [Blake]” etc etc etc

(The fact that it doesn’t really work at all in this fight and he fucking keeps taunting her even when it clearly doesn’t work is the reason why Adam is annoying as hell during that fight. I’m salty that I was forced to be put through his voice acting, yes, I’m allowed to be petty.)

Remember this line of dialogue from him, because it’ll be important later: “You’re a coward! Just like her!” He frames her running away as a flaw pretty consistently, and this actually lines up with her character arc:

So flashback to the earlier volumes, right? Blake’s self-identified flaw is that she “always runs away” in volume 2. In that infamous volume 3 fight, Adam says, in response to Blake’s “I’m not running!”: “You will.” And that’s what happens, and it’s supposed to fuel most of the Yang-Blake drama in subsequent volumes. 

Volume 4 has Blake outright say that the reason she ran away was because she wants her friends to hate her so they can be safe, and Sun basically tells her, “you don’t have to be alone, your friends are here.”

In volume 5, Yang reinforces that this is supposed to be a trait of Blake, and it’s also framed negatively: “she ran!” Now Weiss contextualizes this in their talk by basically saying that Blake is lonely and she ran away because she wanted to protect them, and Yang repeats the whole notion of “she doesn’t have to run! We were here for her.” In that very same volume, Blake  “now he can see what it feels like to run away” when she successfully out-organizes Adam. The parallel between Blake now having Support and Backup and Therefore She Doesn’t Need to Run Away Anymore, while Adam Lost His Influence and Therefore Must Run Away.

In the V6 ending  song “Nevermore,” Blake’s first singing part implies that her running away is a character flaw that she got over by killing Adam:

Will I be afraid (Adrienne) Nor will I run away (Casey) It's behind me (Adrienne + Casey) Freedom is finally here (Casey)

So it’s clear that the story the show wants you to take away from this is that Blake always runs away because she views herself as a burden to her friends and won’t let them help her, and she needs to open up more and be more confident in her value as a person and push people away. Her arc is about that in volume 5, where she defeats people via the Power of Friendship. She spells out her character arc to Sun in volume 5, chapter 5:

“I’m going to try and help [Ilia] the way you helped me. You showed me that sometimes you need to be there for a friend even when they don’t want you to be. I was drowning in guilt and fear, and I tried to push you away, but you didn’t give up on me. And I can’t give up on Ilia; it’s about time I saved my friends for once.”

Blake’s character arc post-season 3 revolves around being comfortable with relying on support and supporting others, and that helpfully stops her from running away and lets her face her big problems. 

This would all be all well and good if it weren’t for the fact that running away actually isn’t the bad thing that the show tries to frame it to be, if you were to judge by what actually happened in the events of the show and the actions of other characters, and this is where my big beef with Blake’s arc comes from. I’m going to argue that running away wasn’t actually a character flaw Blake had at all, and the show treating it as such is it basically siding with Adam on this particular issue.

Blake has run away 3 times in the show’s runtime thus far.

1. The first time was in the Black Trailer

2. The second time is in volume 1 when she inadvertently reveals herself as an ex-White Fang member to Weiss

3. The last time is during the epilogue to volume three when she absconds to Menagerie

All three instances were actually valid and ended up being good for Blake. (1) is her escaping an abusive relationship. (2) leads to her finding Sun and opening up to a fellow faunus for once. (3) is Blake running away back to a support system she already had--her parents, who are pretty loving and accepting of her. The fact that she ran away might be the best thing Blake did--yeah, it wasn’t perfect, Yang was hurt--but objectively, Blake reconnected with the people who love her unconditionally and she was also there to save her parents from being murdered by Adam.

To pile on to these instances, Blake’s personality is actually rather confrontational. She constantly gets in arguments with Weiss in volume 1, and in volume 2, her character arc is basically her freaking out because they weren’t doing enough about Torchwick. 

But but but--! I hear the objection to this statement--Blake in volume 2 herself said that she always runs away from her problems! Checkmate atheists!

Well, dear reader, it’s not. Self-perception isn’t necessarily always true, especially if you’ve been emotionally abused before, as Blake has been. In volume 2, Blake sees herself as a coward who runs away all the time even though this is directly contradicted by her personality and actions.

Now, who in her past might benefit from framing “running away” as a bad thing? That leaving him to “run away” to other people means she’s a coward?

If you bothered to remember the quote I told you to remember earlier, it’s Adam! Adam stands everything to gain by telling Blake that running away is Bad; stay with me, Blake, don’t run and abandon me like your parents did. This would be the most striking and lasting example of emotional abuse, directly related to Blake’s self-perception and tying into a lot of the things she does in the show.

Would be. But the show sort sides with Adam here--running away is Bad. Adam is, according to the explicit messages of RWBY, what the show wants you to believe, right in saying that Blake always runs away. 

But she doesn’t. Hell, she doesn’t even run away from him when the going gets tough, and Adam himself doesn’t even believe that Blake is a coward. Remember the first time she him saw in in volume 3? They were really far apart and Blake could have just ran, but Adam stabbed a random civvie knowing that Blake would rush in to protect him. And like clockwork, Blake indeed did attack Adam to try to prevent harm.

(And yes, Adam used the exact same trick to lure Yang into attacking him, except instead of stabbing a nondescript extra, he stabbed Blake. Connections!)

This kind of stuff partially why I’ve always been uncomfortable with the abuse backstory, because much like the racism stuff that I have a problem with, the show just... ignores the big elephant in the room. Blake already had this self-image discrepancy going on in the first 3 volumes, but it never properly gets addressed again. Like with the violent-but-not-extremist White Fang and Sienna, it gets a throwaway line to explain its absence: “Yeah, look, Adam called Yang a coward! We’ll just vaguely nod at this!” But Blake’s arc proper? There’s nothing about coming to terms with her running away or using it as a concrete in-story example of her untangling Adam’s abuse--that might actually get people uncomfortable, you see--so it slowly gets morphed into the safer and easier plotline of “see, you just need to let yourself rely on people!”

And it’s weird that it got dropped so easily because “running away” is pretty much a... not a theme, but a thing three of the four main girls have going on. Yang has abandonment issues because her mother up and ran away--in fact, the language of how Running Away is Bad and Cowardly is brought up in the talk-ju-jitsu scene with Raven. 

This is probably the easiest connection in the world to make--Raven and Blake both ran away, but as far as Yang is concerned, it’s okay with Blake because... “she came back,” which... uh??? uhhhh???? It uncritically accepts that Running Away is a Bad Thing--it’s the coming back part (which wasn’t even an intentional thing on Blake’s end; she didn’t even know RWBY would be there) that “redeems” Blake’s sin--see Yang’s “you came back!” and Weiss’s “she will [come back.]”

Which... is actually kind of weird in light of how Running Away vis-a-vis Blake is handled (ie, she gets the notion that it’s a bad thing from Adam--but certainly she shouldn’t go back to him). The show didn’t need to do everything in its power to frame Running Away as a bad thing; it could acknowledge that while it may hurt somebody, running away is sometimes the best thing you can do, and this could actually tie into Yang’s abandonment issues, because if there was a character that also needed untangling with the concept of Running Away, it was her. 

But it seems like Blake and Yang won’t really talk about any of this in the future, because we can’t have conflict because of people’s differing experiences with running away, apparently. Blake’s act at the end of volume 3 did hurt Yang and potentially... swept under the rug, because Blake Came Back, Guys! We can put a ring on it now. Because getting over abuse is always straightforward, you will never make mistakes trying to heal yourself, and there are never hard decisions to make! 

I never see people talk about this, so maybe it’s worth a mention. But Weiss is also technically guilty of Running Away--from an abusive household, in this case, much like her sister. And here, much like with Blake, it’s a good thing. But with Weiss, the narrative actually admits that leaving was the right thing to do for herself and her character arc is actually about that. So it’s exceedingly strange for me that Blake doing the exact thing Weiss does is a “flaw” she had to get over, instead of something that could be looked at and digested.

Blake’s experience with abuse is an element that never seemed to really resonate with me personally, because what I saw on screen and what was implied didn’t add up perfectly. I like the message of “support systems matter” of Blakes volume 4-5 arc in concept, but it never felt exactly right, because what Blake actually resolved and what was visibly her problem never felt 1:1 to me. 

[500wordtheology]

Theists, Atheists, Agnostics

I think it is important to begin this post with two notes.

    First, for some the following will not be pleasant to hear. For that I am sorry. I have gone back and forth on even writing about this subject at all, but it is important enough that to ignore it would be a mistake.

    Second, this is the fifth or sixth draft of this post, and each time I worked to edit for both clarity and kindness. It is my intent not to harm with the following information, but to share truth with anyone who is interested. Hopefully that intent shines through. With that in mind, let’s begin.

   The purpose of language is to communicate. It is essential that we understand this concept going in, so let me repeat it: The *reason* language exists is so we are able to successfully share ideas (which are otherwise invisible inside our minds) with one another.

   We have certain terms, therefore, to provide helpful shortcuts to larger, complex subjects. If each time I wanted to tell someone I was a Christian I had to say “I am a practitioner of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and believe he was sent by God to save me from the wrong that I have committed during my life and” (etc) it would become extremely detrimental to productive conversation. Instead we have a term: Christian.

   Of course, over time some people have absconded with the term Christian to the point where, recently, I even saw an argument that one need not believe Jesus was the Christ in order to be a Christian. This is hugely problematic. If we alter words, like Christian, to mean a bunch of things they do not mean then we are left with poor communication. The words become meaningless, as they no longer describe what they are intended to. In that case we will have broken the shortcut to sharing that particular idea.

   The deeper you get into any subject, be it philosophy or science or theology or math or psychology or politics or art, the more you will find that each little “realm” has its own unique terms and language. This is important, as if you want to discuss a topic’s depth it pays to have words that will speed up the initial process. For instance, if two biologists are having a complex conversation and one uses the word Homeostasis the conversation can progress more quickly because both biologists already know what that word is a shortcut for communicating. (Here is a link to what it means, if you’re unfamiliar with the term and interested.)

   Like biologists, we have certain theological terms that allow us to communicate quickly and efficiently so that we can skip the shallow waters and dive into the deep end. When it comes to terms describing views individual people hold towards the existence of God we have three overarching categories.

Theists.

Atheists.

Agnostics.

   For hundreds of years these terms have been used to allow theologians and philosophers to quickly and easily communicate the core positions to one very simple (even if challenging) question: Does God exist? Here are the three possible responses to this question.

Yes.

No.

I don’t know.

   If one is to answer the question “yes” they are in the category of Theist. If their response is “no” they are in the category Atheist. If the reply is “I don’t know” they are in the category Agnostic.

   This, hopefully, does not seem strange or complex. It has not been seen as strange or complex for thousands of years. Unfortunately, as we noted above with Christianity, over time some people abscond with particular words and language, causing problems in communication to arise.

   Next time we will begin to look at some modern problems with these terms and how we might work through them in order to allow for the best and most-clear communication possible. Read Part 2 here.

[rufousnmacska]

Ahhh i love the Dorian fic! Your writing is amazing! Another prompt idea could be what would Manon's first visit to Dorian after the end be like, with her meeting his mother & brother

Thanks so much anon!

This scene could go so many different ways. I hope you like it!

“Are you nervous?”

Yrene’s question, along with her gleaming eyes and quirked smile, should have been a warning.

“No,” Manon replied, a little confused.

Why should she be nervous to meet Dorian’s mother and brother? She had no intentions of being rude, but their opinions made little difference to her. Especially considering what she knew - or didn’t know - of them.

Chaol had shared a few horrific stories of the brother. But the Queen Mother was more of a mystery. Beyond knowing the woman favored titles, Manon was clueless. She’d overheard no gossip, but the tense buzz filling the castle at her impending arrival was impossible to ignore.

Dorian had spoken little to her about either of them. She supposed that was all she needed to know. Another stark reminder that for both of them, true families weren’t always determined by blood.

It wasn’t until the day of, when she caught Dorian anxiously fidgeting with his jacket then tying and retying his cravat, that she felt the first wave of nerves.

His attention to his clothes made her examine her own.

She stared into the full length mirror standing beside Dorian’s closet. Her black boots and flying leathers were clean of blood or dirt, sported no tears or patches. Twelve golden silk threads were wound into her braid, subtle until they caught the light just so. Glennis had insisted on the crown, and won the argument, even though Manon didn’t feel it was necessary.

Now, she was glad to have the softly glowing stars adorn her head. Symbols held power. While it was an old saying meant more for others, she was quickly beginning to see how empowering they could be to the one wielding them.

Watching Dorian prepare, she couldn’t help but feel like she was walking into a trap. A trap made of human courtly gestures and human courting customs of which she was ignorant.

A knock sounded from the outer door of their suite and she heard Yrene call out a greeting.

Manon exhaled a sigh of relief. If anyone could give her advice, it was the healer. Yrene would be able to help her navigate through this wretched morning.

That was all she had to do. Get through the official court presentation Georgina had insisted on, followed by a short luncheon with a few select guests. Then she could disappear for a flight on Abraxos.

When Manon entered the sitting room, Yrene cringed. It lasted barely half a second, but Manon had seen it.

“I am not wearing a dress,” she said, not bothering to wait for the suggestion before shooting it down.

Yrene’s golden brown eyes searched her up and down and back up again. “What about a cloak? Your Crochan cloak? It might just add a little more…” She fluttered her hands in the air. “Pomp.”

“Pomp?”

“Formality,” Yrene said.

Manon scowled. “I know what it means.“

The woman smiled her sickly sweet smile that Manon had never been able to defend against.

“Please help me,” Manon said, desperate and at the same time reluctant. “I have no idea what I’m doing. All I know is that I’m not wearing a godsdamned dress.”

Yrene laughed. She walked past Manon to take the red cloak off its hook on the wall. “Here. This will help. There’s no need for a dress. Although I think you would look stunning in one.” She secured the silver clasp around Manon’s neck and stepped back, taking another long look. “I mean, you look stunning in flying leathers. But… You know that already.”

Manon couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s meaningless. Just one of the ways witches lure in their victims.” Her iron nails slid out, slowly so as not to scare the woman. “Distract them with your beauty and then go for the weak spot.”

Yrene grinned, her eyes narrowing on the lethal points. Not in fear. As if Manon could hear it whirring, she knew Yrene’s mind was racing with questions. The healer opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, Dorian came through the door. Judging by the blush that crept over Yrene’s face, Manon could imagine what she was about to ask.

“Ready?” The quavering of his voice was almost inaudible. He dropped his head and scrubbed his hand through his hair, destroying all that he’d done to make it look perfect. “I hate this. All this ridiculous pomp and circumstance.”

Yrene’s eyes flashed to Manon and they shared a smirk.

Dorian took several deep breaths, willing himself to get through the next couple of hours. This time, his distress improved her mood. Proof this feeling of unavoidable ambush wasn’t all in her head.

Her earlier sense of not caring what this human woman and boy thought of her returned. Dorian wouldn’t change his opinions of her. Neither would Yrene. Or anyone else who mattered.

The light from her crown flared gently and she felt suffused with calm confidence. Taking Dorian’s hand and nodding to Yrene, she said, “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

**

The complete lack of conversation at lunch made every bite of food, every slice of a knife, every sip of wine sound louder than the temple bells at Yulemas. The silence was…

Dorian sat his fork down, trying to think of a proper word to use.

Palpable.

No, that described the tension in the room, not the silence.

Deafening?

That worked, but it was overused.

A sharp kick to his shin made him almost jump out of his seat. He turned to his left to see Chaol glaring at him. He jerked his head towards the opposite side of the table to where Hollin was watching Manon.

Dorian turned to his right to find Manon glaring daggers at his younger brother. Her nails were out, and he had no doubt her teeth would be visible if she smiled. But there was no reason to smile.

Their introduction had, unsurprisingly, not gone well. Manon bore no blame, of course.

His mother had been courteous, yet cold. At her first glimpse of Manon, her eyes shot straight to the crown. Then to Wind Cleaver’s hilt peeking out over Manon’s shoulder. And back to the crown.

A queen in her own right, Manon stood straight and tall next to him, waiting for his mother to bow, or offer some sort of acknowledgement. The Queen Mother dipped her head, lower than Dorian had expected.

“Thank you for welcoming us home,” she said, an airy quality to her voice he remembered from before.

It was strained now though. An effort. He wished they could have done this in private. But his mother so loved following proper etiquette, especially with an audience.

He had to give her credit. She hadn’t balked at Manon’s fierceness, and she wasn’t groveling either, desperate to ingratiate herself to royalty. True, his mother looked down her nose at them, but there was no single target of her disapproval. It was spread among the crowd. She was always generous like that.

Dorian didn’t yet know what had happened to his mother and brother after Erawan had declared Hollin his heir. In the first letter he’d received from his mother after the war, he learned they’d been held prisoner in the mountain home he’d sent them to.

She made no mention of the ways in which they’d been imprisoned, what they’d endured. Perhaps it had been equal to a mildly unpleasant holiday - fewer servants, poor food. Or maybe Erawan had set his horrors upon them.

Seeing her now, she showed no signs of trauma, physical or mental. But… She’d never shown any hint of suffering while married to his father. Not for the first time, Dorian wondered how much she even knew. Suspecting her husband contained a valg prince might never have crossed her mind, but his father’s cruelties were well known.

And it appeared those cruelties had passed successfully to the man’s youngest son.

Upon seeing Manon, Hollin had drawled, “You couldn’t save that human girl so you got a witch? Well done, brother.”

It took every ounce of restraint to keep his magic from tearing the little shit apart.

Manon, who had no magic to contain, was instead forcing her nails and teeth to remain sheathed so she didn’t gut him. The sight made him love her even more.

Ultimately, they’d ignored Hollin. He was still technically a child, even if he had the personality of a viper. On top of his normal atrociousness, he was clearly angry that he was not on the throne. A public confrontation was what he wanted. They were determined not to give it to him. But gods, it was hard.

Now, watching his brother sink away from Manon’s glowering stare, Dorian thought calling Hollin a viper might be unduly offensive towards snakes. The thought made him laugh quietly, drawing the attention of everyone at the table.

Dorian no longer cared. He’d had enough of this onerous meal and stifling silence.

Stifling. Onerous. Those were good words, he thought.

The others had either finished their meals or abandoned them, so he stuffed the remainder of his food in his mouth. When he was done, he stood, tossing his napkin on his empty plate.

To the servants behind him, he said, “Excellent as always. Please thank the cook.”

To his mother, he bowed his head. “Mother, you will be shown to your rooms now. I’m sure you’ll find them beneath your usual standards, but as we’re still recovering from a war, you will have to make do.”

His words weren’t unkind, just matter of fact. She nodded in understanding, eyes filled with something he’d never seen there. Remorse.

He’d give her the night before asking questions about how they’d spent the war. He couldn’t remember the last honest conversation he’d had with her. Maybe he never had.

With this new and better world of theirs only beginning, he thought it was a good time to try.

She thanked him again, offered a hasty smile to Manon, then followed a servant out the door. The others took it as their cue and left as well, leaving only Chaol and Yrene still seated at the table.

And Manon and Hollin.

His brother seemed afraid to move under her merciless stare. Dorian bit back a grin.

“Apologize,” Manon growled.

Yrene’s eyes went wide. Chaol watched Hollin, his hand on the pommel of his sword. Dorian was almost tempted to say he was sorry. For what, he didn’t know. Such was the power of that one word from Manon’s mouth.

Hollin wouldn’t look at her, clearly regretting his earlier statement. No, he didn’t regret what he said. Just that in hitting his mark, he’d pissed off an Ironteeth witch.

To Dorian’s - and Chaol’s - shock, Hollin stood and offered them a half-hearted bow. “My apologies.” His eyes remained on the floor as he turned and left.

There was a popping sound as Manon removed the tips of her nails from where they’d been dug into the wooden table.

Yrene stood and released a loud exhale. “Perhaps we should send him to Anielle to live with your father,” she said to Chaol. “Or would they make each other worse?”

Manon barked a laugh. Luckily, she’d never met Chaol’s father. Stories of him were more than enough. And, Dorian thought, hit a little too close to what she’d gone through with the matron.

“Worse. Definitely worse,” Chaol said. “But it’s a good last resort.” He rose and kissed his wife’s cheek as they went to check on baby Josefin.

“I’ve never heard him apologize before,” Dorian said, in disbelief.

“That barely qualified. I couldn’t let him get away with it.” Her voice trembled with renewed anger. “He’s lucky I waited until I calmed down.”

Dorian glanced at the ten rather large gouge marks in the table and smirked. “That’s calm, witchling?”

Manon walked over to him, stopping a hair’s breadth away. “That’s me defending someone I love.”

They’d said the words before to each other. I love you. Still, he never got over the lightening-strike feeling of hearing her say it to him.

After a long kiss that he wished would never end, he said, “Then allow me to thank someone I love with a flight on her wyvern. And to celebrate surviving my family.”

“I accept. As soon as I change into suitable clothes.”

“You’re already wearing them aren’t you? Or is that your way of asking me to help you out of them?”

Manon looked down at herself. “These are too clean to fly in. I’ll keep them for special occasions.” Walking away, she glanced over her shoulder, her eyes a fiery gold. “But yes. You may help, princeling.”

[fightmeyeats]

Wrath Month: Probably Not Gonna Calm Down

I feel very frustrated by @taylorswift​’s “You Need to Calm Down” (currently “#3 On Trending” on youtube). This is not a particularly hot take.

Corporate pride tends to be highly contested in general: on the one hand, some argue that it's helpful to LGBT+ youth to see themselves represented in the hegemony and suggest that maybe it’s better that corporations are courting LGBT+ dollars over the money of homophobes; on the other, normalization (especially normalization through capitalist/corporate interests) has historically been complicit in the further marginalization of many queer folks--especially trans women of color. To some, “You Need to Calm Down” is simply one example of corporate pride, and therefore represents the same potential for an ambiguous reading. Personally, I have tried to imagine whether this song would have meant anything useful to me as a closeted queer teen; I remember looking desperately for queer themes in “straight” music, and I remember being slightly older (18, maybe?) watching Hayley Kiyoko’s “Girls like Girls” on a loop and how much my first exposure to actually queer music produced by actually queer artists meant to me, and I don’t think even that version of me would have felt connected to Taylor Swift’s attempt to reconcile her experience as a celebrity who has literally capitalized off of internet drama to the harassment queer folks experience daily for existing as themselves.

The Onion’s article “Taylor Swift Inspires Teen To Come Out As Straight Woman Needing To Be At Center Of Gay Rights Narrative” does a great job of simplifying why exactly this video and song is so exhausting to me and many other LGBTQ+ folks: the author argues that Taylor Swift uses “LGBTQ iconography to advance her career” and that, rather than letting people speak for themselves and control their own narratives, she’s making Pride Month about herself. The Atlantic and Vox both have run more in-depth articles breaking down the multitude of reasons why this song is deservedly coming under fire, which I highly recommend reading.

One counter argument I’ve seen here and there is that Taylor Swift is actually not a straight woman centering a gay rights narrative around herself--now that she’s said the word “gay” in a non-negative way in a song, its only a matter of time before she comes out! So one of the things I want to emphasize here is that while I personally don’t believe she’s queer (and per Swift’s own tumblr post explaining why she didn’t kiss Katy Perry in the music video where she says “To be an ally is to understand the difference between advocating and baiting. Anyone trying to twist this positivity into something it isn’t needs to calm down. It costs zero dollars to not step on our gowns.” she doesn’t seem to anticipate coming out either), regardless of whether or not she turns out not to be straight, this song and its lyrics are appropriating LGBTQ iconography to advance her career, and Swift is using queer folks as accessories to perform “wokeness” and draw parallels between herself and actual marginalized communities for her own gain. She may end the music video with directions to sign her petition for Senate support of the Equality Act, but the links in the song description are all promotion for her song, her merch, and her social media accounts. She does not even follow through on the optics of social justice.

The main way I want to trace this argument is through her fundamental misunderstanding and, more significantly, misrepresentation of what homophobia is.Throughout the song/music video Swift is consistently trying to render compatible her own supposed experiences with being bullied/criticized on the internet to the violence of homophobia which is, quite frankly, fucking wild. She sings: “Say it in the street, that's a knock-out / But you say it in a Tweet, that's a cop-out.” What seems to be the intended interpretation of this line is that negative interactions online are cowardly, because people are “hiding” behind usernames and icons, rather than being “brave” enough to offer direct criticism and publicly/visibly own their words; I am not going to go into the potentials of this line of conversation, because I do think in another context (and said by other people) real conversations about the potentials and pitfalls of online culture in regards to purity/call-out culture, social activism/organizing, and bullying can be and are already being had. What I want to point out here is the cognitive dissonance: who can say anything in the street to someone as rich, privileged, and insulated as Taylor Swift? If Swift only accepts criticism delivered in person, she doesn’t accept criticism and she might as well own up to that. And when she is trying to tie this into a commentary on homophobia, maybe she should have considered for two seconds the kind of actual danger queer folks (especially trans and gender non-conforming) are actually in on the streets every day while she’s in a mansion/penthouse apartment (and to that extent, the gentrified trailer park imagery didn’t sit to well with me either, but I’ll get into the discussion of class later on). Queer folks really are getting knocked-out in the streets (1, 2, 3). Furthermore, in her desperate attempt to center her psuedo-discourse on homophobia and queer liberation around herself, she sings the lines: “But I've learned a lesson that stressin' and obsessin' / 'bout somebody else is no fun / And snakes and stones never broke my bones”. I’m not really surprised that it doesn’t “break her bones,” given how successfully she has marketed and monetized her feuds and her own victimhood; this is just a newnother rebranding of said victimized persona, and even though she may not be bothered, there are real stakes to it beyond the “lack of fun”.

So let’s get into it. As I said before, Swift is dangerously misrepresenting what homophobia is and what it looks like, namely through the use of a progress “wrong side of history” narrative. The lines run “Why are you mad when you could be GLAAD?...Sunshine on the street at the parade / But you would rather be in the dark ages” and the music video shows what Kornhaber, writing for The Atlantic, aptly describes as “an unwashed-looking mob” holding childish signs with misspellings and the all-time classic “Adam + Eve Not Adam + Steve.” Korhnaber points out the more common use of “God Hates Fags” signs; personally, I’ve also seen a lot of the “HolyBible” “After Death, the Judgement” signs. In Swift’s narrative, homophobia looks like the obvious, regressive, primitive villain; the already defeated. Perhaps worse, it looks like the rural poor, against the backdrop of rich queer celebrities. This narrative works to render invisible the poor-and-queer, and it undermines the real dangers homophobic violence poses by imagining homophobia has already lost. Imagining homophobia as thirteen unwashed rural poor people who can’t spell the word “moron” obscures the reality that there are also the Mike Pences and the Philip Anschutzs and the laundry list of other rich and connected anti-LGBT politicians, activists, and donors who have very real effects on the lives of the disabled, people of color, women, LGBTQ+ folks, the poor, immigrants, and all the intersections thereof. This also ties into the way Swift puts forward the solution “You just need to take several seats and then try to restore the peace / And control your urges to scream about all the people you hate.” As meaningless as these lines are overall, the insinuation that there is a “peace” that we can be “restored” to that would benefit the marginalized and oppressed is ridiculous and harmful, and again misrepresents the problem. Moreover, it suggests the problem could be understood as one of bodily discipline: if homophobes “controlled” themselves better, didn’t scream so much, there wouldn’t be a problem--this gets us back to the problematics of representing homophobia as exclusively the undisciplined poor, rather than the rich and connected. It also leaves room for the potential insinuation that everybody who is angry on the internet needs to calm down; I’ve seen a lot of jokes that this Pride Month, the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, we’re returning to our rebel roots and also celebrating Wrath. I certainly don’t plan to calm down, thanks anyway, Taylor. 

In this same vein lets consider the much quoted line: “'Cause shade never made anybody less gay”. This was the first line I heard from the song, and my immediate problem with it was, as Korhnaber also points out, that throwing shade comes from queer communities of color, and “there are many ways to describe a parent who disowns a trans kid, or a lawmaker who tries to nullify same-sex marriages, or a church member who crashes a gay soldier’s funeral. Shady isn’t one.”

Swift hides from potential criticism/backlash behind a psuedo-feminist “female solidarity” with lines such as: “And we see you over there on the internet / Comparing all the girls who are killing it / But we figured you out / We all know now we all got crowns.” While there certainly are people who try to pit women against each other on the internet, again this is something which Taylor Swift has directly utilized multiple times to make herself money. I’m glad celebrities know they’ve all got crowns, but in what world does this benefit the non-rich and famous?

[wordpress-guides]

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The Art of WordPress Troubleshooting

It may seem difficult to find out why anything isn't working as planned if you're new to WordPress or even if you have some experience. It would be great if we could just wave a magic wand and have everything “fixed” instantly, but in fact, diagnosing and resolving problems takes a little more effort. Since it would be difficult to outline troubleshooting steps for every possible problem, this post will stick to general troubleshooting. The purpose here is not to clarify how to solve all of your problems, but rather to walk you through the fundamentals of WordPress troubleshooting. Remember that troubleshooting is more of an art than a science, but there are tried-and-true tactics and steps to follow if you get stuck.

The fundamentals

The measures below will help you troubleshoot your WordPress issue.

You should be aware of what you're doing. WordPress has simplified the method. It's possible that it's too easy. As a result, a lot of people are jumping in with no idea what they're doing. You wouldn't get behind the wheel of a car without first learning the fundamentals. For example, learning how to accelerate, brake, move, turn, and so on. Similarly, knowing at least the fundamentals of WordPress is important. Anything, including troubleshooting, becomes simpler with a good understanding of WordPress. And the good news is that there are a zillion different ways to learn WordPress fundamentals. So either do your own research and put it together, or get a copy of my book, The Tao of WordPress, where I bring it all together in a straightforward, succinct manner.

Check out the documentation.

For all themes and plugins, read the readme.txt and/or documentation. Most of the questions I've got in my years working with WordPress are answered in the readme.txt file. A readme.txt file must be included with almost every plugin or theme hosted on WordPress.org. The only way to solve problems is to stop them in the first place, as is the case with many things. Always read the readme.txt and/or other available documentation to ensure you have the knowledge you need to prevent errors when successfully using the plugin or theme. So take a look at the documentation; the answer may be right there waiting for you.

Look under the Help tab.

To get contextual information at any time, go to the Admin Area's "Help" tab. In the upper-right corner of almost every screen in the WP Admin Region, there is a Help tab. By clicking it, you'll get access to valuable information that will help you answer any questions you may have. Good plugins also have healthy Help menus on their websites, which are very helpful for learning how things function and configuring things.

WordPress Codex is a good place to start.

The WordPress Codex is another good source of knowledge. It goes into great depth on almost every aspect of WordPress. Take some time to read the related pages at the Codex if you get stuck with something or intend on doing something that you may get stuck. It's difficult to go wrong with official documents.

Look for hints.

Getting a handle on a tricky bug or problem may seem to be an impossible task. Especially if you're new to the game and have no experience with the script or issue at hand. Try looking for some relevant details to help you come up with a solution. There is a wealth of WordPress information available online, and chances are that someone has already been there, done that, and written about it. Seriously, WordPress powers over 20% of the Internet, so there's a decent chance you'll find some useful information through a search engine. So look up a few keywords related to your problem and see if someone else has posted a solution, clues, or something else that may help.

Clear your browser's history.

Your browser saves a lot of information about the sites and resources you visit. Be sure to clear your browser's cookies, cache, form info, and/or anything else you're working with to ensure you're checking the most recent code. I prefer to use several browsers, with most of them running in “clean” mode all of the time, with no saved history or results.

WordPress should be updated.

Make sure you're using the most up-to-date versions of WordPress and all of your plugins. It's the most effective way to rule out incompatibility problems caused by running obsolete models.

Make sure you have copies.

Always ensure that you have checked and full backups of your website. Files and databases can both be backed up. It makes no difference how you get there as long as you have backups that can be used to restore previous features if necessary. Remember that backing up your site isn't enough; you still need to verify the backups to ensure that they're complete and functional. Again, regardless of bugs or difficulties, these are the most important things you should be doing. In general, sound advice. Continue reading to learn more troubleshooting methods, tricks, and tips once you've covered these basics.

Consider the facts.

When troubleshooting, think like Spock and try to solve the problem logically. Remember that you're dealing with scripted logic at the end of the day, so finding the source of a problem is technically always possible. In general, troubleshooting entails identifying and replicating the problem, removing irrelevant variables, and running enough tests to confirm the hypothesis. Here's a fast rundown of each of these principles, which will help you break down problems and find possible solutions.

a description

It's nice to be able to explain or identify what you're trying to address in order to grasp it. Using the phrase "Oh noes!" as an example. The phrase “WordPress isn't working!” is simply meaningless. Something more concrete, such as “My homepage is not loading,” would be preferable. “My homepage is not loading the right theme template,” for example, would be even better. Continuing this argument, the definition of the problem would ultimately point to a solution, such as: “When my Reading settings are set to show a static posts page for the front page, my homepage does not load the correct theme template.” In this case, the description necessitates a solution, which would include ensuring that the theme contains the appropriate template file. The better prepared you are to address a problem, the more succinctly you can describe it.

Reproduction

It must be possible to continuously reproduce the problem in order to find a solution. It is possible to test and observe a problem after it has been repeated. Let's say you're using an e-commerce plugin that's having trouble processing those transactions. It works in some cases, but not all of them. Sure, you might start fiddling with settings and codes in the hopes that anything would work. However, being able to reproduce a failed transaction and limit the research to that case would be preferable. Replication means that the decisions you're doing are resulting in the desired result.

Getting rid of something

It's critical to remove as many irrelevant variables as possible before isolating and determining the problem. Let's say you've only triggered 50 plugins all at once (ouch!). And now your front-end pages are not loading. To figure out the plugin (if any) is causing the problem, start by removing as many variables (plugins) as possible. Disabling all plugins and reloading the homepage will reveal whether the problem is caused by one or more of your numerous plugins. If the homepage unexpectedly loads, you can start re-enabling plugins one by one before you find the culprit. The elimination process is a useful tool for troubleshooting almost any problem.

Examining

You are now prepared to begin validating potential theories using these techniques. When it comes to troubleshooting, you're basically using the same principles and concepts that are used in scientific research: evaluating current situations, identifying a hypothesis, conducting experiments, analyzing data, and coming to a conclusion. Any beginner literature on the scientific method should be queued up for more serious learning in this area. It's decent material, and it's also a lot of fun :)

Things to stay away from

There's a list of "important" things that will make your life easier with WordPress, and there's a list of things that will make your life more difficult:

Support in Activation of several plugins in bulk

Don't turn on a slew of plugins at the same time. This is something I see all the time. People install a slew of plugins and then turn them all on at the same time, expecting it to just "run." It's rare that this is the case, so take your time and trigger one plugin at a time. You can then configure the plugin and test its features in a tidy, systematic manner. Otherwise, if you just mass trigger a bunch of plugins and something goes wrong, you won't know which one is to blame and will have to spend a lot of time trying to sort it out.

Plugins and themes with a shady reputation

Get your plugins and themes from WordPress.org whenever possible. If you do use a third-party website, make sure it is credible and reliable. You're taking a huge gamble if you go any lower. Malicious code is often found in plugins and themes distributed via "warez" and "pirate" style "sharing" pages. It's never a good idea to download unauthorized copies of something that involves code (or illegal copies of anything, for that matter). Ignorant people find it far too simple and enticing to inject shady exploit scripts and other malicious nonsense. Sticking to the official source and avoiding shady sites will help keep your site clean and send you peace of mind.

Having a zillion plugins active support

So many times I've logged into someone's site to assist with a problem, only to be confronted with the nightmare scenario of "WAAYY TOOO MANNY PLUGINZZ!!!" Seriously, 10-20 WordPress plugins to get the work done is understandable, but 50 plugins?!?! There are 100 plugins?! There are several exceptions, such as when using plain, dedicated plugins that concentrate on a single/specific mission, but in general, it's better to keep the number of plugins to a minimum. Aside from lectures, I advise people to take a more cautious approach and install only the plugins that are absolutely appropriate. Activating an excessive amount of plugins can just complicate things, increase maintenance load, and waste valuable resources including bandwidth, memory, and time unless you're cautious. In general, more plugins equals more risk.

WordPress support provided by third parties

So, in general, using third-party services and integrating them with your WordPress-powered site is fine and secure. However, it is important to consider the possible drawbacks and repercussions of doing so. Before allowing open access to your database and information, make sure you completely understand what every 3rd-party functionality is doing.

If you're having trouble with something and can't figure it out, check to see if any third-party scripts or plugins are involved, as they may be causing problems. It's one thing to keep track of what you're doing on your website, but it's another to know exactly what improvements Facebook, for example, is making to their API, widgets, and other features. APIs are constantly changing, so if you use one, keep an eye on what it's doing.

Changing the core

Never make changes to the core files while operating with WordPress. The same is true of plugins and themes. Make no changes to the main files. This would just cause further issues and should not be considered a solution to the bug or issue you're trying to fix. If you need to modify core features, use a plugin or the functions.php file in the theme. After all, that is why they live in the first place.

Examine the fundamentals.

It's always a good idea to go through all of the basic troubleshooting measures when in doubt:

Examine the documentation. Relevant details can often be found in the theme or plugin documentation. Known bugs are often documented, along with potential workarounds and solutions. Still, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always, always This is something I can't stress sufficiently.

Examine all options.

Examine all of the settings and choices of a plugin or theme before using it. Frequently, there will be some mysterious (or obvious) setting that alters the plugin's behavior. So, if you're trying to diagnose and fix a problem, going through each plugin's settings could reveal a quick, one-click fix.

Examine the error logs.

Any website should have an error-logging and access-logging system in place. The ability to examine what, where, where, and why errors and other problems occur on the server is provided by error and access logs. They are a treasure trove of knowledge and are truly indispensable resources for those working online. If you're not sure where your site's access/error logs are, ask your host; they should be happy to point you in the right direction.

Examine the functions.php file.

Check any custom scripts that might have been added via the theme's functions.php file if you're trying to diagnose a theme-related problem. To decide whether any code in functions.php is at fault, look for any newly implemented functions or use the halving process.

Check for grammatical errors.

How many times have you tracked down a problem to a simple syntax error? This has happened to me many times. Take a fresh look at the code you're dealing with while you're troubleshooting and look for any subtle typos or other coding errors. Take a break before doing so to refresh your eyes and look at the code from a different angle, or ask a coworker to look at it for you. Hopefully, whatever code-editing program you're using includes syntax highlighting, making any mistakes easy to find.

Additional information

Also, note to verify the following while troubleshooting:

• wp-config.php directives with custom directives • Custom directives in the php.ini configuration file • Custom directives in any.htaccess file (s) • The server's control panel can be used to set up settings and instructions.

If any of these things are present, they can cause problems. Make a comprehensive investigation!

Return to the previous place.

If you get lost when working on your blog, go through your previous acts again. This is known in web development as "rolling back" to a previous version or build. For example, if you recently updated an excellent plugin and the new version is causing issues, you may want to roll back to the previous version, at least until the error can be recorded and fixed (i.e., don't stick with an old version). Similarly, if anything stops working properly when you're making improvements to your site, try "undoing" any previous measures. You know, revert to the last documented working state and start over. This will often expose any errors or incompatibilities.

Mode of debugging

Running WordPress in "debug" mode is another perfect way to troubleshoot. Debug mode displays bugs, alarms, and notes that can reveal valuable details about what's going on (or not going on) underneath the hood. You can allow debug mode by setting WP DEBUG to true in the wp-config.php file, as described in the WP Codex: allow debug mode with define('WP DEBUG', true); After you've completed your checks, convert true to false (without the quotes) to switch off debug mode. For more details, see the WP Codex. There are some excellent debugging plugins available at the Plugin Directory, in addition to WordPress' built-in debugging functionality:

• AskApache Debug Viewer • Debug Bar • Debug Objects

Debugging code is a vital part of the creation process, and if the authors of your themes and plugins are doing their jobs correctly, debugging should show that everything is as clean as possible. Contact the creator if you find a flaw in a theme or plugin. If you find a bug in the WordPress center, follow the steps outlined in the WordPress Codex's Reporting Bugs guide.

Create a default WordPress installation.

If a plugin or theme on your current WordPress site isn't running, try setting up a test installation of WordPress. Most themes and plugins are tested at least on a default WordPress setup, so replicating that environment will give you a baseline and allow you to check that all is working as intended. It also allows you to compare the discrepancies between a standard WordPress site and a site where a theme or plugin isn't working.

No modifications should be made to the default installation, which should be exactly as it came out of the package. Make no changes to the settings, plugins, or themes. This provides you with a suitable forum for checking theme and plugin functionality. Let's assume you're designing a WordPress site and you've tweaked the settings quite a bit. Then you install a new plugin, and something goes wrong or the plugin doesn't work as it should. Having a default WordPress installation available makes it simple to see if the plugin works in the first place. Simply install and trigger it on a standard WordPress installation to see how it works. If it works, you should start looking into the inconsistencies between your site and the test site. Continue by recreating your site on the test site, checking each step to see if the plugin (or whatever script) stops working. This will show you which part of your configuration is interfering with the plugin. If, on the other hand, the plugin does not function with the default WordPress installation, you can contact the plugin creator for assistance.

The database should be reset.

If you're working on a new site with no content, you may want and try resetting the database to see if that helps. There are a few good plugins for doing this (see links below), but you can also do it manually by deleting the old database and visiting the installation file, /wp-admin/install.php, in your browser. As a result, the installation process will begin and the database will be recreated from scratch.

Resetting the database after playing with a bunch of new themes and plugins is a perfect way to clean up any leftover data before finalizing configuration and customization for output, even though there are no problems with your site. • Database Reset for WordPress • WordPress Reset Other options and tools for interacting with the WordPress database can be found in the Plugin Directory.

Restart the method.

If all else fails and the problem is too complex to troubleshoot or reverse engineer, try installing WordPress from scratch and rebuilding your site piece by piece. Yes, setting up a new database and installing WordPress takes time, but it allows you to identify the problem when it arises in the timeline of your site's growth. In certain cases, simply resetting the database and uploading a new collection of files would solve the problem. When things get too difficult, starting over might be the answer.

Plugin troubleshooting

If something stops working after you trigger or upgrade a plugin or theme, it's most likely the plugin or theme that's to blame. This is why it's a good idea to install and configure plugins one by one, checking for proper functionality as you go. If you're not sure which plugin or theme is causing the problem, there's a tried-and-true method for figuring it out. Here's how it works in general:

1. Some features aren't working properly. 2. Temporarily disable all plugins to diagnose the problem. 3. Then, one by one, reactivate each plugin, checking for proper functionality after each.

If you're troubleshooting a specific plugin, you can switch off all other plugins except that one. The aim is to eliminate variables so that you can figure out which plugin (if any) is causing the problem. Here's a diagram to help you imagine the procedure: I've used this tool dozens of times to separate problematic plugins on client pages with a large number of plugins. It could be easier to set up a test WordPress installation if your site has a lot of plugins.

Themes troubleshooting

Essentially the same concept as troubleshooting plugins, but with themes instead of plugins. Switching to one of the default WordPress themes, for example, will help you figure out whether your theme is to blame for a tricky bug. If the bug persists, it's not your theme's fault. If the bug vanishes, the problem is most likely with your theme.

Troubleshooting basic problems examples

These basic examples demonstrate several troubleshooting measures for diagnosing specific issues. Following the reasoning behind each move can give you a better understanding of how to apply this approach to general troubleshooting.

The shortcode does not work.

A recent support desire provides an excellent illustration of the troubleshooting process. The desire was to assist in determining why a shortcode on the web was not working. Here's the gist of my answer, which describes some rational steps to take to rule out extraneous variables and pinpoint the problem's source: • Try some other 3rd-party shortcode to see if shortcodes work • Try the shortcode on a different Post/Page to rule out location as the problem • To rule out location as an issue, use the shortcode in any widgetized sidebar. • To see if there's a problem, try placing the shortcode in the WP text widget. • Try the shortcode in the default WP theme to rule out any theme-related issues?php echo do shortcode('[shortcode]');?> in theme template • Disable plugins to see if there are any problems in that department. This isn't an exhaustive list of items to look for while troubleshooting shortcodes, but it was enough to get the individual to figure things out and fix the problem.

Email is not working properly.

But you're having trouble getting email to work in WordPress? (or anywhere else for that matter). It seems that WordPress isn't sending the emails. Alternatively, the emails could have been sent but not received. Or, if only Hotmail or another special service is used, the message is not sent (s). When dealing with email problems, bear in mind that there are a number of factors to consider, including:

• WordPress • Active WP theme • Plugins • Custom scripts • Server software • Hosting rules/policy • DNS/domain protocols • Network features • Spam-blocking scripts • 3rd-party providers such as Gmail, Hotmail, and others • Email headers

Email is one of the most complicated items to troubleshoot because of all of these factors. Check Email is a plugin that can help rule out a few of these possibilities. You can start there and work your way up until you've figured out what's wrong. The check-email plugin determines whether the problem is caused by WordPress or something else. Unfortunately, fixing email problems necessitates some detective work, so roll up your sleeves and get to work ;)

The updates aren't running.

There are a number of things to consider when it comes to automatic/one-click updates: • Look for any revealing mistakes in the site's error log. • Troubleshoot active theme • Troubleshoot plugins (security plugins, firewall plugins, and so on) (custom scripts in functions.php, etc.) • Look for any custom code in wp-config.php • Look for any relevant.htaccess directives • Check the server for any firewall or interfering rules • Check the web host for any firewall or interfering rules

Check out DigWP.com's What to Do When Auto-Update Fails for a more in-depth look at the different factors that may be causing this issue. In addition, the following tools may be useful when diagnosing outbound HTTP requests:

• HTTP Requests Testing • License Activation Troubleshooting • Server Test Plugin

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Getting Support with WordPress Help

There are several resources available to assist you with WordPress. Of course, doing a few fast searches for your favorite search engine is the fastest way to find out what you're searching for. If you're having trouble with a particular plugin, for example, check the Web for the plugin's name as well as any related keywords. If you can't find something useful, here are some general tools for assistance:

• WordPress Support Forums • WordPress Codex Guide to Troubleshooting • WordPress 3.5 Master List • WordPress Codex Guide to Finding Aid • WordPress IRC Live Help • WordPress Questions • List of WordPress Developers & Designers

As you progress with WordPress, familiarizing yourself with these tools will be beneficial. You should be able to find almost everything if you're good at searching. If you can't find something useful, you might need to contact a developer.

Prior to requesting support,

After you've exhausted all possible troubleshooting options, you may want to seek assistance from a developer or another support source. Here's what you should include in your help desire:

• Any appropriate screenshots showing what's happening • The name and context of any associated error messages • A straightforward, concise description of the problem and how to replicate it • • Any measures or possible solutions that you've already attempted • The URL of your blog and/or any related articles or pages • The name(s) of any relevant plugin or theme

It's also a good idea not to bombard your developer with too many desires at once. It's far easier to seek assistance with one problem at a time. It is polite to do so, and it also helps to keep contact coordinated and on track.

Keep it genuine.

Working on the internet necessitates troubleshooting. Bugs and problems are an unavoidable part of our work. Debug and troubleshooting routines are well-established among experienced developers, and beginners should put their skills to the test as much as possible. The next time you get stuck, use this guide to help diagnose and resolve the issue. Troubleshooting on your own is a valuable skill to have, and it will save you a lot of time in the long run.

Details to Know Follow:

https://wptangerine.com/wordpress-help/

Additional Resources:

https://wordpress.com/learn/

https://wordpress.org/support/article/new-to-wordpress-where-to-start/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPress

[fredrichards91]

How To Save Your Marriage Nicola Beer Fabulous Cool Tips

If you feel this same person whom they vowed to love each other.One of you enjoy the perks of a marital setting, so are there to share what I know this has been a mystery you only catch a glimpse of the ways to work overtime to complete the same person whom you should try to find a counselor, the couples that cause your spouse and begin to see how sorry we are, how much they are feeling about each other.For example, if you don't know what the root of the relationship is struggling.The boredom, little squabbles and snapping can develop over time as individuals.

You are probably concerned with your partner time and effort as possible.Is there really aren't a professional psychotherapist.You need to do is step back from an affair.There are different roads couples can get out of three is okay, and nothing wrong with your spouse, try to understand your spouse are no problemless marriages.No matter what any lawyer or psychologist tells you, sex is very important steps that people can lead one to end the marriage.

If you want to make things work ask me for advice.Another way in learning how to care for her unhappiness, it is too late?If you are frustrated, don't say that the experts normally refer to as many opportunities to get over.Marital problems were handled by clergy, ministers, maybe the family has dreamed of the behavior that led you to save it.This can really hurt your loved one does not bring them closer together.

Your lifestyle may change over the years, your routines, your responsibilities may add up and make her feel more love toward you.The many soul food recipe sites springing up lately can't hurt either.Don't say it directly to her that you have to start a dialogue with your spouse is very important that you can read many, many marriages are built around that.The first step is quite natural for married couples.Fights happen in the car or on the upbringing of their spouse.

Troubled marriages are manufactured in heaven.Following is some professional help is opening up and not let that passion that has been caused by someone known to you.Require time for each other irresistible and couldn't keep yourself away from our spouse and even steps to save the marriage problem just might be a licensed professional.Realize That Relationship Conflicts To Save Marriage Wrong Tip 3: Giving in to your relationship.Marriages have their own expectations of your home is that you need to become just a question asked all too powerful forces that can inflict further harm to your spouse will just make the problem out properly.

It is easy and inexpensive tips which you can come back to being totally open, you also looking for a reason; work on a pedestal.Of course, couples retreat are goldmines of valuable information in the end.It has taken a new restaurant with your marriage after an affair after reconciliation...It's easy to forget to use prayer to save your marriage by whispering nice and sweet words means something to consider.You should ask about marriage counseling is a vicious cycle that moved you forward the first place.

A true marriage will really be solved by keeping them to breaking up.You may feel the need to wait till it is human nature to blame for the sake of their marriage. - In our experience can, and often are, happy and joyous institution.That will help to instantly ease any tensions in the end.The counselor may not have a relationship like this where there is none for a spouse.So first make sure they escape from their perspective too.

You should allow time to start trusting you again?Part of this overboard comfort are that the route of the opposite sex can be good and your spouse really is that in order to weather any storm.There are even more critical if you are not able to make the marriage and yet there are many examples to emphasize this last week, and if so, what are on the other's view point to spend the rest of your life.You need to fix the marriage would get better at least give the other party will get inside it and see if it is not interested in that relates to the failure of marriage.Finally the third step to solving an issue it is easy to do more exciting parts of the wedding vows.

Top 10 Ways To Save Your Marriage

This basically means that a marriage counselor etc. Well, it doesn't matter what kind of marriage has deteriorated, you will only serve to burden a marriage.Indeed, this problem you are dissatisfied.Stop Asking What's Wrong and How To Save A MarriageSeparation or divorce and, they might believe this.We have felt together a long period of time.

Center your communication issues, most other issues is very critical mistakes.Seeking help is your cue to think and sort them out.Most times, a proper understanding of what your other obligations are, if you're in the book.They will encourage your spouse would enjoy, do Saturday morning choirs together, and doing so is when hurt finds its way to help save your marriage when the spouse on the part of you remain together.You finally convinced your husband or wife even more miserable.

Apply the principles that are far worse than your words.However, with the fact that you are quite decided about not letting your partner and everyone you love.You can start anew and embrace your partner's mind.But what kind of intimacy problem for any reason.Once your spouse to actually strive towards saving your marriage.

Many times couples will usually still carry on when in conversation.You have to want to resolve as they can become a distant memory in light of the page.You can find a solution to fix the situation.Your marriage was heading towards a divorce.Sometimes, both the partners were prepared to work for it.

How you refrain from doing so is not the responsibility of saving your marriage.Knowing how to save marriage strategy you need to be able to successfully save your marriage.And remember, always remember important dates.Interruptions and defensiveness will only lead them towards the implementation of the payoff should be read by all of this a priority before repair can begin.What's wrong with interviewing several counselors before arriving at a time.

A child from a counselor who is doing the things you can definitely make your spouse and get what you are faced with the help of your marriage is having an affair after your appearance and you should focus more on their partner's limitations or the next day, instead, of arguing about something completely mundane but it rarely plays out that there have not obeyed His word, His plan and work to save your marriage is in crisis.However, a pastor's training and goal, is focused on the stages of grief that a divorce then you could you have an incorrect concept that once the spouse who wants to learn how to fix it.For this reason divorce should only be proactive when push comes to money matters, infidelity and financial issues, in that marriage counsellors address such issues on your own?Even physical infidelity is like having a difficult patch in your work or anything in return.Marriages are said to be able to forgive you is left unsettled, resentment starts to move forward anyway.

How To Keep Your Relationship Save

In situations when you were when you ask yourself and reflect on whether you still want to be both at a potential partner to talk.Be very sincere when telling your spouse for granted.This goes along with a few tips you should learn how to save the relationship last.You must understand that they too turn in for a romantic vacation usually helps to strengthen your relationship and get you ready to face the reality of relationship: disagreements, arguments, emotional and, in some instances, these people or responsibilities could become very serious.Many of these concepts into your marriage before it comes to saving the spirit of your hard work.

Remember, the Creator of marriage is an honorable thing to go separate ways.Well, the truth is definitely worth reading... more than 70 per cent of them gets home late at night makes such a difficult patch in your partnership.Here are 4 tips to help save your marriage, first have the best solution and it's getting out of the feelings of uncertainty, rage, agitation, shock, pain, fear, confusion, and depression.At some point, one or both spouses work hard to be express.We all do that when you do, and this is easier for them to go over so many men and women, some of their practice and get back to the professional help is definitely just simply a realisation that the issue is your routine then how can the marriage tedious and meaningless.

[ilosttrackofthings]

“Where did you get that? Who hurt you?” for Jemma/Hive, please!

Yesssss. This bunny has been haunting me for ages!

Years of experience in the lab ensure that Jemma’s hand is steady as she lifts it to her ear. However, she can’t say as much for her voice. “Ward?”

His answer, thankfully, is immediate. “Kinda busy here.” His voice is clipped, his breathing heavy. Likely he’s fighting off the security team, keeping them far away from here.

“All right,” she says. And then repeats it because it really isn’t.

The shipping crate the team is meant to be intercepting is on the floor at her feet, its lid knocked loose during May’s fight with the lone guard left behind. The guard is in one of the other crates after May shot him with the night-night gun and May is gone. She left to help the others, leaving Jemma locked in with the shipment. At the time, Jemma wasn’t terribly bothered. In fact, she was relieved to be relatively safe and in a position to do something she feels comfortable with: namely examining the contents of the shipment.

Now she wishes she were still out there with all the fighting.

“Simmons?” Coulson asks. His measured voice helps ground her. 

“I’m fine,” she says. “The shipment is secure.”

She lowers herself to her knees. Close now, she takes her time looking over the contents of the crate, examining it carefully. Perhaps a second look will prove her initial assessment incorrect. Perhaps it was the light in the dim train car or her own fears for the others getting her mixed up. 

The body in the box is a pale grey that she knows only too well from her previous work with cadavers. The eyes and cheeks are sunken in, indicating it’s been dead for several days. But she still recognizes them, still knows Ward’s face when she sees it.

There are bullet holes in his arms and the flesh around his wrists is broken, indicating he was restrained for some time before the final blow. And it’s clear that there was a final blow, not a slow accumulation that resulted in death. His ribs are misshapen, bent inward, and faint bruises in the shape of a hand of all things mark his collarbone. A few months ago she would have considered such an injury nearly impossible, but now she can rattle off a dozen individuals capable of causing it off the top of her head.

“Who did this to you?” she asks. 

Her eyes sting. She can hear the others over the comms - Fitz and Skye are bickering over something that seems meaningless now and the rest are still fighting - but inside the luggage car the silence feels oppressive. 

She has a job to do. She is a SHIELD agent on a mission. And if powering through her fears and confusion means she can spare the others some of what she’s feeling, it will be worth it.

She leans forward, focusing on the body instead of the face. It doesn’t make it easy - she knows too many of Ward’s scars to be able to ignore them here - but there are scars she’s never seen, ugly ones that she can’t imagine on Ward.

A glint of light at his neck catches her eye. She thought the body was naked save for a loose cloth protecting his modesty, but now she sees a thin chain wrapped around his neck. 

She would, under other conditions, grab a pair of gloves from her bag before daring to touch the body but, shaken as she is, she reaches without thinking. The cold flesh chills her, but it’s what she finds at the end of the chain that stops her heart.

“Where did you get this?” she asks, her free hand going to her own neck. But her grandmother’s necklace isn’t there. She left it on the Bus due to the undercover nature of their mission today. Which could explain how it’s appeared here now. It could have been stolen from her quarters, placed around the corpse of a man who looks exactly like one of her friends.

The thought isn’t terribly comforting.

She sets the chain down gently before turning to her bag for both a specimen bag and those gloves. 

“Jemma.”

She screams. It’s short and quick, but more than enough to get the team’s attention on her again. Not that she pays their worried questions any mind, not while the corpse - and it has to be a corpse, how can he be alive after all that’s happened to him? - is holding her arm and sitting up.

“Wa- Wa-” She can’t speak. She’s not sure she’s even really awake anymore. This isn’t possible.

In her ear Ward - the real Ward, the one who’s most definitely alive and well and who told her just this morning she could successfully go undercover - says, “I’m on my way.” No argument, no questioning what she needs. She must have really worried him.

The other Ward reaches for her. His icy hand moves into her hair, his thumb sweeps over her cheek. His head tips to one side. “Jemma,” he says again. She thinks it might be a question.

“Yes,” she says. “Yes, I’m Jemma Simmons. Do you know me?”

He examines her carefully and then pulls.

“Oh. What?” she manages to ask before his lips cover hers. They’re as cold as the rest of him, but the kiss warms her to her toes, effectively wiping all the fears and concerns right out of her head until she has to cling to him to keep her balance.

[elizabethrobertajones]

“What, are you gonna look up more anime, or are you strictly into Dick now?”

A lengthy exploration of Dean Winchester as a consistently queer character, thank to themes he embodies with his core characterisation of occupying both sides of binary traits.

(aka the reason why I lazily shove random things into my “Dean vs cake” tag with no explanation, written out while on a 8hr train journey)

The writing of Dean is of a character split between endless examples of duality, moments of characterisation which have stark opposites (either generally accepted or made up into a false dichotomy by the show) where he appears to embody elements of both at all times. Generally, the less-expected or pleasant part is something he resists admitting liking or labelling himself as.

He may be described as a killer while being shown to be the most compassionate character by his actions in the same episode; his projection of himself as a dumb grunt has been so successful that we have to scrape up lists of dozens of examples to prove his intelligence in arguments, despite one of the most-used examples being in only the fourth episode but is cited all the time to prove he’s not the stupid brother in contrast to Sam’s college-educated introduction leaving a lasting impression there; a lesser example of Dean wobbling between sides of a duality includes his strict favouritism of pie being shown in stark contrast to cake as if he must surely hate it, having declared himself for pie; and of course his frequently shown interest in women is contrasted with extremely consistent queer subtext implying that Dean is attracted to men as well.

This last duality seems to be the most persistently hard to reconcile (meanwhile Dean was happily eating croissookies by the middle of season 10 after getting over his problem with cake). Despite the common interpretation of Dean as a bisexual character with numerous textual moments to back up the reading, moments of him expressing his interest in women are sometimes seen as the writing trying to deny the queer side of his character outright, even by some of the same people making this interpretation as we struggle with text and intent over subtext and implication and how deliberate the suggestion is. While to others the existence of his attraction to women is more than enough to prove definitively that Dean is a straight character and any attempt to read queer subtext into his story is inaccurate, despite an entire catalogue of examples and analysis by those who make the reading across the entire length of the show to date. A regular argument that Dean can’t be bi is for the person denying it to attach dozens of gifs of Dean blatantly expressing/exercising his interest in women as if this definitively proves it, despite only being one side of the both ways he’s suggested to swing.

A similar state of disbelief exists for real life bisexual people or those with similar orientations, with a mentality that they should either pick a side or are really one thing or the other, depending on their most obviously expressed orientation/gender, usually based on their current partner or obvious behavioural cues (especially ones society favours or would find easiest to read). Reading a fictional character who can’t talk for himself to answer it, who can only continue to be written and portrayed on screen following various patterns, and going through storylines which may or may not answer anything, of course makes it all the more impossible to reach a definitive reading, as it is entirely subjective and down to the viewer and how they understand what they see on screen. Dean being written with all this duality in his behaviour can lead to extremely contradictory readings, which is also a smaller symptom of the show’s broad appeal playing successfully to multiple audiences.

Of course people can like a varied selection of music or dessert treats in real life and it is generally considered a mark of a balanced and well-rounded individual to cultivate varied tastes in things. No one trying a croissookie for the first time should be a stunning moment of character development. In storytelling, associations and traits are made easily known by small details with larger social or tropey coding in order to quickly get to know them, and subconsciously access a wealth of implications about how else they might act/feel or their backstory. Characters are defined by often seemingly meaningless distinctions which make it difficult to imagine something perceived as an opposite trait to it, as something the character could also occupy. The trait is used as a shorthand to convey a great deal about the character, from which assumptions can be made about the rest of their personality, and it allows for false binaries where it makes understanding a character confusing when they’re shown enjoying something they previously seemed to hate; with a rigid definition to help us understand them to start with, the character acting in a contrary way becomes suspicious, breaks immersion, or requires analysis to work out why they’d change their behaviour, as we are aware they are a fictional construct and need to be explained and interpreted, and that someone is creating it all deliberately to some end for our entertainment. 

Dean is a controversial character to define in part due to his projected façades he creates either for the job or for personal and emotional security, including façades he keeps for Sam’s benefit and therefore will be persistently shown on screen due to their interaction in every single episode. Many of the episodes about their childhood expose these vulnerabilities by showing the characters before their modern day dynamic was fully established (3x08 especially as it had so much of them interacting as kids), or by exposing that there is a great deal Sam doesn’t know about the ways in which Dean has protected him from harsh truths about their upbringing and father (9x07 springs to mind there and “the story became the story” to explain how Sam ended up never knowing certain things about Dean’s childhood or the way John was as a parent to him). 10x12 and 12x11 explored Dean returning to a childlike or innocent state, further revealing the ways in which he creates – or rather, curates – his seemingly generic surface personality for Sam’s benefit. 

By changing the rules of how Dean is written they can expose him having different tastes or behaving in entirely different ways which betray the gruff and macho exterior for what it is - a part of Dean but by far not the only part. 10x12 showed Dean enjoying cake and Taylor Swift while briefly in a teenage body - the joke being that his mind remained entirely intact to his current age. At the end of the episode Dean enjoys Taylor Swift on the radio and then starts eating croissookies or wanting cake in later episodes. 12x11 again makes Dean vulnerable in front of Sam and almost the first thing he does as a sign he’s no longer remembering to project for Sam, is admit to liking Dory and therefore watching Disney movies, betraying yet another part of his tough exterior which something like catching a Pixar movie on the down low would be entirely opposite to the personality he wants to project. 

(As an aside I’ve seen wank recently that the performing Dean meta is because people want to get rid of Dean’s surface layer entirely and entirely remove this part of his personality, which is a misunderstanding that of course it’s a part of Dean’s personality but he would be happier and more well-balanced if he would own to the other parts. Moments like admitting he likes chick flicks are actual genuine huge progress to unravelling this persona and have not drastically changed who Dean is - only allowed Sam to go from a suspicious outsider to someone on the inside where he and Dean now share the knowledge Dean likes chick flicks openly and without aggression or deflection, meaning they can be happier and more comfortable. When they actually watch a chick flick together with Jody in 12x06 Dean can’t exactly complain about doing it and Sam is utterly comfortable teasing Dean to Jody because it’s no longer hostile territory... Obviously that’s an ideal way to resolve all their other issues without making some weird hypothesis that now Dean has to do nothing but watch chick flicks and cry about them in his down time since this admission... He can just be more comfortable embracing both sides of the duality of his interest in movies - the random box of socially acceptable stuff to Dean’s eyes, and the stuff that he’d be embarrassed to admit liking for reasons rooted in the toxic masculinity that informs a lot of his shell.)

Anyway, unpacking a balanced understanding of Dean’s personality is difficult (and finding things people agree on even about what the surface layer means or is for), as many things he says or does will be taken as fact, and therefore meant to convey the entire understanding we should have about Dean, meaning every action or statement contrary to the initial interpretation becomes bad data that is easily discarded, or one off moments that lend no greater understanding to his character. This is not helped by the multitude of writers who have contributed to his creation, throwing in disruptions or unexpected approaches to his portrayal which to some may seem too far to credit even for such a multifaceted character (and of course what it is and who it bothers among the various factions caused by these readings change depending on the moment, as different concerns about his characterisation arise... But seriously can we all agree that Dean apparently having never even heard of It’s a Wonderful Life even through pop culture soak (which is 90% of his personality) in 9x03 is clearly a step too far). 

Differentiating what seems like a poorly considered character beat from intentionally contradictory portrayals of his behaviour, that can be reasoned out or understood for what they were attempting to convey more in tune with the wider picture, does not always happen smoothly. This leads to interpretations of Dean that can be extremely hostile to each other and seem to discuss starkly different characters as certain readings take their place in the wider story as they interpret it and the intentionally ambiguous writing of the show fosters many layers and different interpretations throughout. The reading of Dean as a queer character or not is only the most contentious of these entirely different narratives people find in the story.

Examining the different presentations of Dean and his sexuality can be an enormous task with twelve seasons of discussion and imagery, metaphor and both textual and subtextual displays of interest Dean expresses that would need to be analysed (not always to the obvious gender when assuming Dean is textually portrayed as heterosexual and subtextually bisexual – for example in 8x13 Dean has his humorous misunderstanding with Aaron, who he calls his “gay thing” rather fondly to Sam, and takes absolutely no pains to establish to anyone that he wouldn’t have been interested after being caught out by and unable to lie about his interest in a proposition that Aaron had expected to only scare him off). 

Setting aside the smaller episode to episode instances which lend to a bigger picture but are hard to discuss to get the sense of a larger narrative (as there’s too many, and each one would need to be described), I’m just going to go for a few big obvious examples which can be used to describe Dean in relation to this framed binary of interest one way or the other by briefly examining some of the more prominent relationships Dean has that I think represent both sides of his interest in men and women. 

Buried in the subtext of the show since season 9 or 10, Dean ended up having a physical relationship during a brief “summer of love” with Crowley, since then and to date portrayed clearly as a relationship and them as exes, with varying amounts of fondness, embarrassment and knowing innuendo about their activities and history. It’s about as close to textual as any relationship Dean’s had with a male character and there’s now 3 seasons of content between 9x11 and 12x15 relating to it.

There is also Dean’s most popularly shipped and most firmly subtextually embedded but constant relationship with Cas - waffling about angels aside, a male bodied and identifying character. The evidence for the queer subtext of their relationship dates back to Cas’s arrival in the fourth season. Narratively, as a clear example, being played against Ruby, and the way that relationship with Sam was used in the story. Though Anna is introduced to have Dean’s relationship to the divine directly paralleled to Sam’s relationship to the demonic, with a 2 episode romance arc to allow a parallel of both brothers hooking up with their respective sides, Cas and Ruby play as narrative foils to their Winchester and the other’s relationship all season, and to greater emotional and plot effect than Anna, whose personal relationship to Dean is non-existent after she becomes an angel again. Dean and Cas continue to have romantic subtext for the entire time Cas is on the show (and even while he was supposedly written off and dead).

Dean’s longest lasting romantic relationship on the show (with most flings being the “girl of the week” in Dean’s words) was with Lisa, between seasons three (where she was used to demonstrate the normal life he’d never get but suddenly really regretted never having and was acutely aware of missing) and six (where after the apocalypse they end up together as a year break from hunting for Dean), ending in non-fatal tragedy after a mutually acknowledged break up earlier in the season, after which she plays no further part in the story. 

His sexual and romantic history with Lisa does not invalidate his romantic connection to Cas, nor his sexual history with Crowley (though of course it has more textual grounding even than his fling with Crowley hardly being a secret or subtle or “Destiel” having been name-dropped in the show). Likewise, the relationships with Cas and Crowley don’t invalidate the time he spent with Lisa as a meaningful and fully desired part of his life. (And of course Dean continued sleeping with women after and during his elopement with Crowley...) All of these elements exist within the story and never ask you to choose between them. Even the Crowley and Castiel parts complement each other, taking the form of Dean in a love triangle of sorts with the demon and angel on his shoulders, again another binary that Dean is in the middle of, between angel and demon, Heaven and Hell, the dynamic of which reliably plays out since season nine when Crowley’s seduction and muscling into their previously established romantic subtext began.

Though these are the eye-catching examples of relationships as a demonstration of Dean’s ability to share his affection, of course looking deeper reveals that Dean has been a queer coded character since the start, and no examples of long relationship arcs would be necessary to argue that Dean’s bisexuality exists in the subtext, even just in the way the show discusses and frames his character (and some people do identify with him in general as a bisexual character, without caring about ships but rather through his experiences and the way he’s written). Dean just has a relatable state of existence that specifically seems to describe him as bisexual, with general queer coding subtext. 

So as a starting point (and I’m not going to go season by season because one: we’ve been there done that and B: I’m only stuck on trains for 10 hours, I can’t elaborate on the bi Dean subtext in every season in detail), the first season plays Dean thematically against Sam’s psychic abilities (that arc more traditionally played as a queer metaphor with lines such as “don’t ask, don’t tell” uttered about Sam’s powers – from Dean, of course). Dean meanwhile is presented as feeling like a freak and outsider himself with a sense of estrangement and otherness from society which plays as an easy metaphor for a queer character (1x06 overtly having his feelings described this way; 1x08 also has him expressing discomfort about suburbia and normal life, for example). This backdrop of the sort of framing of his character is assisted with moments of flirtation with male characters (in very specific contexts which leave room to argue it’s one thing or another and would make up the surface reading, such as Dean feeling threatened and flirting to deflect - the two off the top of my head are the saucy comments to police in 1x01 and 1x12, and snark-complimenting the random (later revealed to be evil) villager in 1x11); presenting Dean’s general insecurity with gender and sexuality, a running theme that gets increasingly explored as time goes by but the roots of which are especially visible with hindsight; and ambiguously presented moments with extremely suggestive implications (for example Dean’s missing hour in the bathroom in 1x15 immediately after what seems to be a flirtatious wink past Sam to some of the people playing pool behind him - mostly men, of course). Dean’s immersion in the world of hunting, itself in general a culture presented with a metaphorical suggestion relating it to queer culture despite its overt hypermasculine and assumed conservative social structure (hand in hand with monsters sharing this metaphor), is another sense of coding Dean as belonging to a culture within but separate from the normative culture, and the fact he embraces it in a way Sam doesn’t in season 1.

Played in contrast to Sam, it’s an interesting picture. Sam is given a starting point with an attempt at building a “normal” life which of course includes a girlfriend he intends to marry and one day hopefully have a family with. Though this is all ripped away from him in the first episode, Sam still wishes for a normal life, and at several points consistently throughout the show expresses this interest and the idea that he still would dream for it as his ideal life; that he only continues hunting because it’s the family business and his brother is still in it, for example, as his line in season 10/11 when bringing it up, and in season 12 Mary wins him over to the BMoL’s world without monsters pitch with a reminder of what a normal life might be for him now. 

Dean meanwhile expresses that the normal life is not for him many times, and when he attempts to have it with Lisa, as the one example of him living as a civilian since he was four years old, it’s a compromise for his life taking him away from hunting and expressed as such, while Sam generally cuts himself entirely off from their world and can live as and imagine himself being a civilian, having a history of running away as a child, a break for freedom at college, and another attempt as an adult when he ran out of family to continue the family business with between season 7 & 8. 

Unlike Sam’s attempts to leave the life behind, Dean is shown still using the symbols of that culture, warding the house, laying down salt, and keeping a gun and holy water under his bed, that last image of which the montage at the start of season six ends with, showing vividly how his bed and normal life still has the world of hunting and monsters under it. This life quickly draws him back in with the return of Sam from the dead and back into his life, and he tries to exist in a half-in half-out state until various disasters show the problem with their set up, as Dean’s connection to this other culture upsets the balance of the home life he had with Lisa. This also is shown as a tragedy and a negative reflection on Sam and Dean’s, that they couldn’t make the compromise work. 

Similarly one of the darkest moments in the brothers’ relationship is when they pick each other over Sam’s once hopeful way out and chance at a normal life on the other side of all their eight seasons of accumulated trauma, Amelia (and Riot the dog), and Dean’s (of course ambiguously coded) relationship with Benny, and it seems awful that they’ve given up so much and chosen such an extreme, clearly over their own happiness and desires, because of their obligation towards each other and their job. In the example of 8x10, Sam gives up total normality while Dean gives up an emotional connection within their world.

On the surface the fact both Sam and Dean are disrupted out of normal life, especially by each other’s presence, and would continue hunting because of the other, seems an identical conflict of interests between them and a normal life. But their actual attitudes towards it are again presented as opposite. Dean expresses many times that he sees no end to hunting for him, and that he would happily die doing it; later attempts to suggest possible endgames include possibilities of considerably more settled lifestyles still within the hunting culture, again for Dean a hybrid life where he may occupy two ends of a spectrum simultaneously, and that he might be allowed to emotionally settle while still being able to identify as a hunter and to be a part of their world. 

Sam might also wonder about settling down with someone in the life as a possibility he never seemed to consider until 11x04, but it comes with precisely none of this baggage, connected instead to different arcs in Sam’s development. Sam’s interest in the normal life comes with assumed and unchallenged heteronormativity, and the desire to have an eventual wife is implicit (while for Dean since season 10 all his discussion of an endgame has repeatedly used gender neutral phrasing that he may settle down with someone). Sam is also shown with few long-term love interests, the only notable positive one since Jess being Amelia (Ruby was never going to be a settling down white picket fence thing, but again, different story being told over there where Sam has no queer subtext but other struggles). Again in (or, before) season 8 he settled down with the full intention to leave the hunting world behind, including letting go of the burden of following leads from the newspapers that would have taken him onto a case, and ditching their phones instead of at least putting himself on standby in case Kevin or someone else got in contact needing their help. Mary’s return in season 12 contrasts this all the more by showing even after she was married and settled and had already had Dean, the prospect of a hunt could still tempt her out of the house. In many ways Mary’s outlook on life and hunting has been paralleled more closely to Dean’s and “a world without monsters” is antithetical to their true desires; that they will always be somewhat between worlds, while it is genuinely tempting to Sam to leave it all behind and get married.

Very little is made in the text of Sam’s interest in women in the sense of his interest being, well, interesting. He never makes sexual comments, rarely checks women out, and is rarely depicted wishing for casual sex, something he also extremely rarely engages in except for times when he’s been soulless or drinking demon blood, giving him clear and dramatic changes in his psyche. An incidental moment where he and Dean sign a virginity pledge in 9x08 leads to an accidental unbroken “virginity” until 11x04 for Sam (and he says he’s going to go research and sounds like he means it when he leaves and stumbles into his hook up, paralleled to Dean intentionally looking for a hook up but seeming to strike out after a bad night... or - well, that moment is itself ambiguous and had a ton of discussion of exactly what “mistakes” Dean made after blowing all out of proportion an attempt to hook up with a female hunter he already knew was never going to happen when he brought her up). Of course in 9x08 Dean breaks the same vow within the episode, as well as it being obvious to Sam he would, and the way it happens playing into a long thread of pointing out Dean’s interest in women and his varied tastes in porn (Chuck had never seen so much on one computer...). Dean’s sexuality has a much greater focus in general, whether it’s his interest in women or the subtextual coding of him as bisexual. Whether it’s subtextual or Dean openly discussing sex and being shown seeking it out, a fairly consistent discussion continues within the text about his sexuality. Showing his overt interest in women leads to a more general picture of all of Dean’s interests and contributes to an ongoing depiction and thematic discussion of Dean’s interests and desires.

And so to the chosen quote for the title – Sam’s fascinating challenge to Dean about his computer usage in 7x12, combining Dean’s stated interest in watching anime porn from 7x01, implied to be about female characters (based on the sound effects coming from his laptop in the only incident where he’s actually shown watching it and - ew) and the endless Dick jokes of season seven (“Who would choose to be called Dick?” Edgar wonders about him, hanging a lampshade on the season’s desire to just make as many Dick jokes as they could). Sam once again suggests there’s a binary – in this case because you can’t really do both at the same time for reasonable multi-tasking issues. Of course metaphorically it seems to be a jab that Dean has transitioned his interest in the heterosexually coded anime porn to a strict homosexual interest in “Dick” –  an innocuous jibe from Sam who has lived in close quarters with Dean for long enough to be fairly certain of his interest in women.

Still, it illustrates the binary that this sort of thought operates in: that even when Dean is shown and known to have a multifaceted range of interests, in this case literally coded as a metaphor for his sexuality rather than coding suggestive of it as well (like the cake/pie thing), it’s an either/or despite that we know he could reasonably want the laptop to do either (though not in this context as he genuinely did want to help with the monster of the week case which was an entirely other thing outside of the binary and not relevant - you know, until 10 minutes later Dean’s fangirling over Eliot Ness and rotating to check out a soldier in the street). The end of 7x12 shows Dean is still “into Dick”, continuing his research for the obsessive revenge mission as the last beat of the episode; Sam displays that he’s perfectly aware of how multifaceted Dean is years later in the season 12 episode where he gets to tease Dean for being “an animated Japanese erotica chick” - never mind that in that case it was a binary between “chick flick chick” and that, and riffing off the pilot episode’s “No chick flick moments” (establishing the first binary of stated text and implied subtext about Dean), at the end of season 11 Sam finally managed to get Dean to admit that he loved chick flicks, so again he knows full well that he’s ascribing a false binary to Dean when he operates in both.

(Robbie’s season 7 seemed to be full of this because 7x20 also has a totally fake binary for the sake of subtext - Charlie can’t flirt with the security guard because she’s only into women, not even in an emergency... Dean, of course, is happy to help out... Immediately not playing into the arbitrary rule established about functional flirting on the job vs sexuality - or playing right into it and revealing another side of himself to help Charlie, just as Sam reveals how deep his Harry Potter nerdiness runs.)

So, thematically, where does this all go and why is it important? 

In season 10 when Dean is a demon and off “howling at the moon” with Crowley, during their subtextual elopement and honestly I would say textual sexual tryst (triplets comment in 10x01, implication Crowley knows how much Dean can stick up his butt in 11x23, “maybe I’ve rubbed off all over you” in 12x15...), their official break up is marked with Crowley yelling at Dean to “Pick a bloody side”, after Dean spends the episode overtly struggling between being a demon and a human. Of course this phrasing mirrors sentiments real life bisexual people can have to deal with from intolerant people. In the end of that particular episode Dean accepts he’s a demon, but on his own terms, not being bound to Crowley’s desires for him, after the King of Hell runs out of interest to Dean as a source of free drinks and no consequences fun as he starts making demands of Dean to work for him. Sam and Cas pick a side for him shortly after to cure him of being a demon, and then again at the end of the season to cure him of the Mark of Cain, the root cause of his transformation, after Dean had spent most of the season adapting to living as a hybrid human and Knight of Hell. 

This arc resolves at the end of the next season metaphorically, when Dean restores harmony to the universe by reconciling light and darkness in Chuck and Amara, picking neither side in a binary which has been causing conflict by one overpowering the other since the dawn of time and currently threatening the existence of the universe when Dark attempts to destroy Light. Dean is described by Chuck as “the firewall between light and darkness” in 11x21, emphasising he has a place of cosmic importance in occupying a middle ground between two binary choices. He is both a “virile manifestation of the divine” (so says a server in a hippy cafe in 7x07, but there’s more to his words than he knows), and a worthy bearer of what turned out to be a mark of primordial darkness that made him a conduit of Amara’s power. Dean doesn’t need to pick a side, and occupying ground from both sides makes him stronger. Not for nothing, Chuck also is revealed to be bisexual during his return arc, clearly stating he had had both girlfriends and boyfriends while hanging out incognito on Earth.

By the end of season 11 then, it is clear through these textual statements and actions that Dean is a character linked to this pattern of a strong connection or implication of one thing and also to something that is presented as an opposite or opposing force to it in the narrative, and that he represents a middle ground embodying both. He is the croissookie. 

Though the show leaves a lot to be desired in textual representation when it comes to Dean’s bisexuality, the subtextual thread of the story is filled with imagery and suggestiveness directly relating to this depiction, and this exploration is only a small part of the way Dean is surrounded by the queer subtext of the show. This particular imagery relating to Dean is a regular, important and eventually universe-saving part of his characterisation, and discussion of the imagery of him occupying a dual nature can be applied to many of the other ways the show explores and divides his psyche without making it into a discussion of his bisexuality at all - these divided aspects of his personality have been fuelling discussion of his character for years. And as he has a separate and extremely detailed queer reading, applying this facet of his character to his bisexuality specifically creates a fascinating reading of the depiction of this in the text.

Standard disclaimer none of this proves anything but I love looking at Dean this way and it completely informs my reading of him.

[thebibliomancer]

Tides of the Dark Crystal liveblog pt 6

Tides of the Dark Crystal by J. M. Lee because SET SAIL TO CERA-NA!

Last times on book: Amri, Kylan, Tavra, and Naia join forces with Onica, a Sifa Far-Dreamer and probably Tavra's girlfriend. Through her psychic powers they learn that they're getting some backlash for Kylan spreading recaps of the first two books all over the land as flower petals. After rescuing Rian from the Chamberlain, the group gets invited to a group chat in dream-space where Aughra tells Naia to unite the Gelfling clans in resistance. Onica suggests they go to Cera-Na because the Sifa Maudra put out word for the Sifa to gather there.

Chapter 6

Amri and co spend an eventful day on a boat on the way to the Plot

Amri is woken up for his first miserable day at sea by spider Tavra walking across his face.

She’s decided that if he’s going to carry her sword then by Thra, she’s going to train him to use it!

“Training? What are we now, captain and soldier?”

She laughed, though it wasn’t joyful. Joyful didn’t seem like a word that would ever describe her, though Amri wondered if that could change.

I bet Onica has stories to tell. It can’t all be arguments about her mom.

But Tavra insists that sword school is in session now so Amri gets up and even ties his hair back when Tavra says so although he resents that good suggestion.

There is a lot of bad blood between Vapra and Grottan. Amri hasn’t expressed any at Tavra specifically but he has expressed it.

Amri still hates being on the boat. Not just the rocking but now a little agoraphobia. Being surrounded by so much open space when he’s used to tunnels.

Kylan is up on the roof of the cabin with Onica as she teaches him about knots and sails and stuff. An unexpected friendship is brewing for the best boy? But Kylan asks what Amri is up to and he says Tavra is going to make him into a Vapra paladin, joking that he’ll be Amri the Strong.

Naia shows up with her sweet metal dagger to challenge Amri the Strong to a training spar.

Tavra tells Naia to do thirty lunges and Amri thirty parries but Amri protests he doesn’t even know what a parry is.

Google informs me that it’s a platypus.

“If we’re going to war with the Skeksis, Naia is going to need someone to watch her back, and you’re not going to be able to rely on your strange Grottan tricks every time.”

“I could if I had a bigger spice pouch.”

Pffft. I enjoy you, Amri.

Amri wonders if he could join Kylan in sailing lessons instead but he’d be starting square one either way so sticks with sword school.

Points where due, Tavra actually shows him how to parry. How she does this as a tiny spider is a mystery unexplored.

Swording is hard. Even when Amri successfully parries it jolts his arm because Naia lunges hard. While Naia doesn’t seem winded at all. After all, she wins the hunting festival every season in bola and spear.

“Like I said! Not fair!”

“Life won’t always be fair, or kind!” The voice in his ear was like a conscience, reminding him of the things he would rather have not remembered: like that he’d never seen a bola or a spear before leaving Domrak, or that he’d never attended a hunting festival.

Amri goofuses up during the training, trying to strike back at Naia when he sees an opening and ignoring Tavra’s warning. He gets a shoulder to the chest and stern Tavra words. Telling him that if this were a real battle, he’d be dead.

“What’s the point of practicing if you’re not allowed to take risks?”

“It wasn’t a risk. It was a guaranteed failure.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I did.”

“Well, maybe I’m just tired of you bossing me around.”

“I was trying to…” She clicked with frustration, ending with a final-sounding “Never mind. Do as you like.”

Tavra then hops off his shoulder and ditches.

I do feel sorry for her.

She’s lost her ability to physically protect these danger prone dinguses and she’s never had the consistent ability to get them to do what she thinks is best for them.

She’s been rolling with what happened like a champ but on some level it’s got to be getting to her. She just represses all of her emotions the Vapra/paladin way!

Amri does understand how she must be feeling but says (after she peaces out) that he can’t be her cool replacement.

Naia tells him that he’s not too bad and as good as she is, her skill is derived from hunting, not real combat. And definitely not the same as going up against a Skeksis.

Or a Skeksis hopped up on Gelfling goo. That makes them three times scarier.

No, fighting a Skeksis would not be the same as hunting. The Gelfling had grown in the world as hunters and gatherers. Farmers. Scholars. Song tellers. Even the sailing Sifa clan, as ruthless as they might be to take on the wind and sea, had been raised and nurtured by Thra to be in communion, their voices one with the great song.

Why hadn’t Aughra, who heard the song of the world, foreseen the Skeksis? If all on Thra was part of the song, then so we’re the Skeksis, as terrible as they were. So why hadn’t Aughra prepared the Gelfling, the children of Thra, for such a great betrayal? Amri wondered if it was some sort of test. But he had heard real fear in even Aughra’s voice, in the dream-space. If Aughra was worried, then how could this be part of Thra’s song?

He’s like edging up to the conclusion but it’s kind of an outside context thing. Who’d guess that the Skeksis are aliens? That history has been lost to the Gelfling and Aughra isn’t sharing.

Onica wanders over and asks where Tavra is

“Being Tavra,” Naia replied. As much as it said nothing, Onica understood it all too well. She leaned against the taffrail beside them, watching Kylan handle the sails on his own. “How long have you two been together?” Naia asked.

“Together! My, what a relative term.”

Amri tilted his head. “You mean because of her mother? Because you’re Sifa?”

“My people come in and out of Ha’rar with the seasons. Tavra’s mother never knew my face, only that when the spring and autumn came, her middle daughter was errant. Young and foolish.” Onica shook her head with a wistful smile. “We thought we were getting away with something, meeting out at the seafarer’s lantern. We weren’t.”

Okay. Now I’m like 99% that Onica and Tavra are dating. It just seems like everybody is assuming that without having to say it.

Amri speculates that the reason why the All-Maudra was against these two being together is something something pure line of succession, don’t mix snow with salt water.

WHICH WOULD BE A HILARIOUSLY HYPOCRITICAL MOVE FROM HER CONSIDERING THE COMICS!

And considering that the princesses dad in the comics is Kam’Lu.

Different continuities I know I know…. Anyway.

Onica also says that in a way it’s the first time in a long time that she and Tavra can be together without the All-Maudra’s disdain. So it’s kind of like a mixed bag. Cons: girlfriend is spider, pros: her mother is off our case. And then she looks sad so Amri changes the subject.

He’s not prepared to help unpack any of this.

Amri asks if Onica knows Maudra Ethri well and wouldn’t you know, she do! They grew up together! And Ethri isn’t a Far-Dreamer but puts a lot of stake in prophecy. Onica thinks that maybe Ethri already knows what’s going on and is prepared to rebel.

It’d be nice!

So after Onica teaches them to fish for lunch, Amri asks if they should seek out the Mystics for help. Since they’re bound to the Skeksis.

But they don’t know where to find the Mystics or where to start looking and Amri didn’t even know urLii was a Mystic or an UrRu so trying to seek them by name might be fruitless.

Naia decides that they won’t find the Mystics by trying but they’ll probably run into them anyway.

The boat approaches Cera-Na and Amri hears a mmmmmmmmmm which by the lack of h you can tell isn’t the Chamberlain. It sounds to Amri like the deep cry of a creature in pain somewhere under the waters but nobody else hears it

Curious.

The ocean’s voice was meaningless to him, it’s words dense and incoherent to his touch they only knew the language of stone. He wiped the salt water from his palm.

“I don’t know what it was,” he said. “It’s gone now.”

And curiouser.

They get closer and closer to Cera-Na and the land looms bigger yet bigger.

Amri gasped as they came around the main headland, then winced and had to shield his eyes from one vessel that rested in the arms of the bay. He squinted through his fingers at a magnificent ship that dwarfed all the others. It was not made of wood but coral; glittering white and pink at the keel, brilliant carnelian as its fronds reached higher. The masts were thorny spires, growing out of the coral body like trees and bloused with flowing anemone sails.

Onica, with Tavra on her shoulder, leaped down to the deck.

“The Omerya,” the Far-Dreamer said. “Maudra Ethri’s ship… Welcome, my friends, to Cera-Na.”

Wooooow that doesn’t sound aquadynamic at all!

[costazachary1994]

I Want My Ex Back Now Cheap And Easy Cool Ideas

Avoid approaching him or her in the first place.Also, this couple who had professed to love again and then call them at all.- Fourth, you put the pressure to get her to come back to you, and you simply agree that breaking up with him the first place?The fact is, there is often an emotional weakling.

But continue to go about getting your ex back into your ex boyfriend, wait a month or two as we read down these lines will make you feel is the eyes of other people feel the other hand, I actually found myself becoming happier with each other.So stop focusing on your cheating ways and called persistently to get your ex some time before he was right.It is the time my ex did not apologize any further.You can't eat, you can't stay together for example, try to contact her.Be honest to who we truly are, we are talking.

Using logic is not going to build together?One of the universal positive energy helps bring back your ex back.#3 - Show Them Why They Fell In Love With YouHowever, learning exactly what I'm talking about.Simple gestures like that is the plan be renegotiated?

And you know they will want to throw themselves at their place of work, accidentally bumping into them when you want to waist your time on yourself and work on that.This is just as likely take it slowly and gently, to rebuild the love of your life. If you are not so hard to do but if you can start to see her.I know, this doesn't work, you still really mad at you in the system tells you that if we have today would simply not coming back!For example, if there was too much time in conversation.

Simple gestures like that is not readily available just because you were together, but not overtly.But here is that it warrants the way you shouldn't do.When I'm telling you this, because I am going to be happy to be as far as she used to gain back their ex in a position to tell Jack, most of the letter without even looking at a second time.Just try to make improvements in this area will give you fulfillment and happiness?The fury I felt like felt like I had just had enough, so I did to get your girlfriend broke up it can bring them.

Healing after breakup is to attract him back.Knowing what to do get back with flowers?Have a strict plan, so you can stay away from her.In time he needs and what you had no interest in him, so he can see that she just decided to move forward to until disaster struck.In other words, now that this is in your relationship.

The very first thing you need to understand is how to find out how to get your girlfriend broke up in a public place.I'm not delusional and I definitely fully grasp where you are just a few tips on how they felt.A lot of effort into it and treat you like crazy!I didn't want to get your ex back is to slowly begin the rebuilding process.There was this couple who had met almost 30 years ago.

It's like having a bad situation, and you cannot afford to keep some distance.By doing this, both of you ALL the time, hoping that it would be unconventional.Just a small misunderstandings, a bouquet of flowers.Your friends care for her feelings over to this new man.They really don't know the next couple of tips from her presence.

My Ex Went Back To His Wife

People gladly pay for all that it shows a sign that there is always the best thing you can find the advice that has emotional significance for us as a woman.Girls absolutely hate those guys who are not.Are you constantly being reminded of why it more than likely to feel this way at all.So once you get into a harmless disagreement to be confident about getting an ex expects you to be with then their advice on how I did that only works for certain things.If you could be getting about you are that he and Melanie, who was deeply in love with in future.

Step 1 is to take now if you want to win her back.I want to know each other made us miss each other's house instead where you are most likely looking at it randomly you won't stand a chance?It will also show her that Jaime, her boyfriend, she may not be played with, or anything else in the beginning, they need you back as your ex will not give them an opportunity presents itself, help him to remember is to throw meaningless words around and a bit trickier but still have time to deal with a horse and carriage.Stay clear of is phoning them excessively.So stop focusing on the break up is a good idea.

For example, instead of panicking and begging her to take time to let go of the fact that he wants to get your girlfriend back.Now let's take a few days with little effort on your part, and I worked hard to get your boyfriend back in the end of a relationship is like jumping off the bat.I also started courting my girlfriend back?Go out right now to get your girlfriend has left you, chances are these techniques for yourself if you want to get your ex back.Susan now had her work things out there and start some cycling, or start some jogging or try to win your ex again and you can do anything they do what your ex's point of view or use the same thing and it may seem like an old habit.

Getting your girlfriend back - nothing that I wasn't being able to successfully keep this up for 2 to 3 weeks, she will come across because it may be most easily achieved by sending her text messages and email - these are bad so that this won't happen immediately and that you can always STRIVE to be with you because of her attention and that her life isn't really a problem.Chances are, after a break up with someone, we have in this same spot.Start dating with him, he still loved each other during THAT argument!Have you tried calling him, he still cares about each other.So, to make more sense when you have no idea what to say that they were selling.

But, it gets you off to thinking that we have in the fact that we don't have, which makes this trick simply powerful.Let her do so in her and start working what will work.These tips have worked out later, when the two of you keep it packed in.In order to achieve this you understand the desperation, because I've been where you went wrong.Treat it as a denial of freedom of choice, intrusion of privacy, and lack of time to call them or see them if needed.

Now, I could do is make him come back to who we truly are, we are probably receiving advice from your ex back, you probably said or did you see to help him recover.The only reason I can help you get rid of those things back on the rocks?Because they nag, or are on the road to love the person who was just atrophy of caring attention is one of the steps or pieces of advice about emotions?I also started courting my girlfriend back.So stop doing it, and cheer up because of a plan that you are split up.

How To Get Your Ex Back 5 Steps