#| as for being vulnerable; he will never be vulnerable with anyone but Viola |

[umbrx]

For a man surrounded by LOVE, Doflamingo is someone INCAPABLE of loving, of feeling it himself. At least not conventionally and healthily. His love is TOXIC, it’s OBSESSIVE.

The world is HIS. He is a GOD, and love to a god is EXPECTED. Just like all deities, it is only normal for humans to bow before his feet, to kiss the ground he walks upon. Their LIVES are HIS and should always come after his. They should feel honoured to give their lives for God’s plans. He is owed SERVITUDE and LOYALTY, and those willing to defy his divine will are better off DEAD. HE is the only one that matters, the only one ABOVE the Heaven and that which is under it.

With a family that constantly supports his mindset and his own ability to SHUT DOWN emotions, he firmly believes he is IMMUNE to loving anyone. Even though he has experienced it. Doflamingo believes his caring for the family of misfits is simply out of his potential USE of them. They are his tools, his MARIONETTES, and while he values their WORTH, they are still DISPOSABLE. He is grateful for their service, but if he requires their DEATH, he expects it.

However, his actions sometimes contradict his own beliefs. When he asks Vergo and Monet to die for him, he experiences loss AGAIN. Just like he experienced the loss of his MOTHER, his father, his BROTHER. People he CARED about. Despite him seeing his family as tools, he goes to Punk Hazard to reassemble Baby 5 and Buffalo after Law cut them up. Despite her being weak and USELESS in the moment, he puts HIMSELF at disadvantage in a fight with Sanji to keep Giolla safe.

He believes himself to be UNTOUCHABLE and DEVOID of all positive emotions, but deep down is self-aware he isn’t. That understanding brings him to conclusion that LOVE is WEAKNESS, and a TRUE god has NO NEED of it.

He felt HURT when his brother BETRAYED him. Someone he cared for, someone he genuinely loved. Someone he would always feel a connection with, would value above others. His own GODLY BLOOD. Yet, even with that genuine love for Rocinante, Doflamingo left him behind. He put HIMSELF above his brother, and went to Mariejois alone. One reason being to keep Rocinante safe, the other Rocinante’s momentary uselessness. He had nothing to contribute to his return to Holy Land besides crying. He had planned to return for him, and did, only to find him GONE. To make up for this mistake on his part, he TRUSTED him when the younger returned. Even though he knew he shouldn’t. However, Rocinante was his brother, his blood, HIS. Just like everyone in the family he acquired, Rocinante BELONGED to Doflamingo.

With Rocinante’s betrayal, Doflamingo’s heart grows COLD and EMPTY, and no one sees that better than Viola. With her ability to read minds, she is EXACTLY aware of Doflamingo’s mindset and his actions, and while they have a sexual relationship and he enjoys talks with her, they both know it isn’t genuine. His own worldview is painted RED, and nothing will colour it back to what it once was. That worldview ultimately brings DEVASTATION of many, and his ultimate DOWNFALL. As the truth unravels itself in Dressrosa, those who once loved him as their king turned against him. The worms helped those that defeated him, and he’s still able to LAUGH at ABSURDITY of it all.

However, Doflamingo himself is the SUN. He is GOLDEN. He is a GOD. He is far beyond the WRATH and RAGE he made himself out to be. He is both the DARKNESS and the LIGHT. The stronger the light, the stronger the darkness.

On rare occasions, that LIGHT shines through in the form of gentleness. Usually in the privacy of his bedroom, when the world isn’t watching, when the role he put on himself doesn’t need to be upheld. Not completely. Even these rare moments depend on the person he is with. Only the person worthy of his respect is privy to CONTROL, to experiencing everything his mind can think of in the bedroom. He has found only one person worthy of it all.

In many lifetimes, there is inevitable DEATH for HER. The madness of the king and god wins, and her attempts are in vain. However, in some lifetimes she helps give the role of GOD a different meaning. While addressing the capability for destruction, she also addresses the capability of CREATION. Love isn’t a weakness ANYMORE, it is something he is ALLOWED to fully experience. Something a god MUST experience. His HATE isn’t buried, it is part of him, just as his LOVE becomes a part of him too.

He becomes a GOD able to love and a GOD able to hate. He is COMPLETE, ABSOLUTE. As someone ABOVE others, he gets to experience EVERYTHING, he is BASKING in everything the world has to offer. The role of a god EXPANDS beyond the BOUNDARIES that he had initially set. He is able to receive love and give love, and all because someone else was able to see him. Strip him naked of all the layers he put onto himself and kept challenging him with equal fierceness. Granted, even when he genuinely loves, his love is still toxic. He is still as obsessive, and the woman receiving his love is seen as HIS partner. Naturally, that means they’re ENDGAME and he keeps that binding ETERNAL.

In such cases, Doflamingo finds a specific PEACE that he wouldn’t know otherwise, a JOY he hadn’t known he craved. When complete, Doflamingo’s soul is GLOWING. Only when he opens his mind, though.

[science-lings]

Something that I think about a lot is how Phoenix's reputation evolves, because he starts out as the kid with no friends who would stand up to him, to the puppylike college student who got acquitted of the murder of another student and immediately changed the course of his life to become a lawyer, to the guy who interns under one of the greatest defense attorneys since Gregory Edgeworth, to the guy who took over her practice and defeated the demon prosecutor in one fell swoop, the guy who took down the powerful CEO guy who literally blackmailed a bunch of people to suicide and killed a woman with his own hands to keep the truth from getting out and Phoenix went after him in his first case that he took by himself.

The guy who confronted the mafia (twice?) and was the one defense attorney to take the case of said demon prosecutor to go against another unbeatable unethical prosecutor and he did it with a parrot and a single piece of evidence. He defended the chief prosecutor and took down the corrupt chief of police and that's just the first game.

Imagine the press following this guy. You know when you attend a trial where Phoenix is the defense there's going to be some Crazy Shit going on. He will leave his current trial to interrupt another trial and he gets popular enough that someone impersonates him and to the point where an assassin blackmails him into taking a case and this motherfucker still tricks them into incriminating themselves. He exorcises a ghost who has a personal vendetta against him in court and by the end of the trilogy is really well known for the most mindblowing crazy shit and then it all comes crumbling down like two months later.

The most sensational defense attorney is dethroned and adopts his disappearing defendant's daughter and I like to think that when he gets involved with underground poker and starts toeing the line between the criminal world and the one he knows he discovers that he has a reputation there already too. You cannot tell me guy who kind of made friends with Viola Cadaverini is not on the mafia's radar at least somewhat. He got Dee Vasquez arrested and was the one guy not afraid to poke at people associated with Cadaverini, who the entire police force won't dare touch.

it just wouldn't be surprising to me if he unknowingly garnered some street cred, especially if he's seen around Kristoph and Edgeworth, a guy who calmly makes sure he never loses his cases and someone who literally has a reputation as a demon. I just think it would be so funny if people were a little afraid of beanix, just because of what he's heard about him. He's never been violent or anything, but he's dangerous in much less tangible ways. He builds a vibe around him that makes him seem kinda threatening even if there's no proof that he's ever retaliated against anyone.

He stays calm even when he's being put on trial for a murder and in the courtroom there's a feeling that everything is being played like a game to him. He should be in the most vulnerable position but he's entirely in control. He's been an undefeated poker player for seven years and no one but his daughter can even guess about what he's thinking.

Just... the outward mysterious act and infamous reputation that grows beyond Phoenix's control that makes it when he gets back into law kind of hilarious when you think about it. The guy everyone was a little nervous around in the basement of a russian bar/restaurant is now a lawyer again and the first thing he does is defend an orca. The publicity around this guy has to be insane in combination with the whispers in the shadows. It is simply funny to me.

[cullen-rutherford-wifey]

Cam I request your Tav with Scratch and the Owlbear cub being cuddly around a campfire, or in the Elfsong suite, with Wyll and Karlach, please? ^^

Sure!

Warnings: mention of sex but none on screen

A night of respite

Viola(Tav oc) x Wyll

A mindflayer tadpole and the urge have both made its home in your skull, an army of cultists and goblins want you dead. Not to mention how you’ve pissed off BOTH sides of the Githyanki and illithid conflict. Now the Sharrans are after you, the cult of Bhaal, your boyfriends mind controlled dad. And it’s barely been a month!

But all of it dissolves beyond the walls of the elf song tavern. Drowned out by the tipsy ramblings and infectious laughter of all its patrons. The tender fireplace centering the activities of everyone there. You and your companions’s especially. Laezel in the corner sipping a huge cask by herself. Gale reading in a rocking chair, Karlach in a drinking competition with anyone who’d challenged her. Halsin in the upper room “entertaining” a local bard. Shadowheart and Atasrion in a heated yet slow debate about which wine is the best. Everyone is having fun, there own version of it no less. While you, there daring leader; sat alone and quietly staring at the fire place.

You could feel the heat gently kiss your face as you quietly sat beyond it. Your half drank cup of vintage red propped beside you unevenly on the fur rug. Your eyes studied the fires work on the logs.

It’s grasp disintegrating everything; eating away all color and foundation as if it were nothing. You could feel the other you shiver in delight inside your head. It’s one of the few ways the urge emerges harmlessly, a minor method of destruction could cause it satisfaction. The perfume of burning flesh after a wound is cauterized, the grace of witnessing a spider devour a helpless fly in its home web. And the scene of Wyll asleep snuggly in his bed roll.

Knowing he’s vulnerable to an immediate and sharp injection of a blade through his skull. You came close to doing so not long ago, wanting his last breath to run across your skin. To be on top of him as his heartbeat died in his rib cage. To watch his heroic brown eyes whiten as his murderer wore his lovers face.

You don’t know why these thoughts and sensations follow you everywhere. No matter how far from that mindflayer pod you get that urge is always several steps ahead. Just sitting in every corner of your mind, catching you when you least expect and when you least want. You hoped injecting other tadpoles in your brain would eat the urge. Whatever sinful channel of your brain would be overrun by the hungry creatures. Eventually landing in its stomach and out of your consciousness. Alas you’ve made no progress. So now you have to isolate yourself, you’ve made habits of never being alone in a room with anyone. Always bringing your companions along on every mission and every exploration. At least there’d be people there to stop you, but even then it didn’t save Alfira.

Wyll catches you alone, promptly executing his plan of swooping in. Sitting right beside you, striking your right check with a peck dampened by beer. He grins and inquires, “Whats wrong my heart?” You chuckle “Nothing now that you’re here Wyll.” That was a lie. You know you can’t trust yourself with him. But somehow he can, despite having to tie you up one night to stop you from killing him.

“I’m glad…” he leans in closer, your flesh killing all space between it. As he aims for a longer kiss, he succeeds. You trade your favorite drinks with one another on your lips as the fire beats witness. The kiss concludes with another smile from him, as he persists.

“Alright, now what’s really wrong?” You sigh, of course you can’t keep anything from the blade of frontiers “…I just want answers.” The smile dies under his nose, his gaze watchfully studying your expressions.

“I have bits and pieces of the truth but not the whole…I don’t know if I can defeat this-“ Wyll pushes you to face him with his two fingers under your chin. Hoisting you and him so close your noses touch.

“We, will defeat this love. Together.” He tenderly pushes your shoulder so your head leans on his shoulder. With the booze loosening your inhibitions you almost start to cry. You don’t remember anyone ever doing something like this for you. Or if you’re capable of doing this for someone else. But Wyll does, in a heartbeat.

How can he? He lost an eye, lost his soul, lost his city, and perhaps now will lose his father. How the hell can he give this devotion and love? Maybe it’s innate, perhaps he learned so. You’ve wondered the same of your urge but under entirely different pretenses.

You love Wyll with all your heart, whatever heart your body will allow at any rate. Then you feel a tender sniff at your heels. Looking back you see scratch, and his dutiful friend behind him the owlbear cub. The twin pair of doe eyes looking up at you and Wyll. Wyll jokes “okay okay I’ll share her.” You both giggle and the pair excitedly go to cuddle beside you two by the fire.

Perhaps the aggressive drinking has frightened them, or they just became needy for there mom and dad. Regardless, scratches white fur balls up beside you, as the owlbear leans onto Wyll’s side with a tender coo.

You could live eternity here.

[biglisbonnews]

Shybaby Is Living Rent Free Shybaby knows how to make the most out of a bad situation, and her latest single "For Rent" is no exception. The raucous alter ego of classically trained viola player and singer-songwriter Grace Eire, Shybaby has always been about learning to let things go and having the freedom to be as ridiculous, dramatic or emotional as she wants. "I tend to turn to jokes, laughter, or radical acceptance when something bad is happening," the artist explains. "I catch myself saying 'it is what it is' a whole lot... up until it reaches a breaking point and I’m able to make something like this out of the whole thing."Related | Shybaby Is Anything But ShyFull of thrashing guitars and punk attitude, "For Rent" sees Shybaby injecting a bit of humor into what was otherwise "pretty dark feelings and experiences." Like any good cathartic headbanger, the song was born out of a toxic situationship with an emotionally unavailable ex that ended up leaving her feeling lonely and unlovable. "He said that he considered himself 'for rent,' since he had been hurt badly before and never wanted to care about anyone ever again (the drama), while in the next breath, he’d tell me how much he cared about me," Shybaby tells PAPER. "I love how the abruptness and ridiculousness of the bridge reflects that. It’s less about him, and more about how I have always gone about letting myself be cared for (or not cared for)."The single arrives alongside a visual filmed in Eire's empty apartment the day after she moved out because the rent had been hiked by 40%. Making the best out of yet another objectively shitty situation, Shybaby shines in the video as a pop of color in the grey vacant apartment, rolling around on the floor in a fit of unhinged mania. Shybaby likens the video to a sort of bottle episode "or a moving portrait of that what Shybaby is," less about wallowing in your own misfortune and more about remaining defiant in the face of hardship."Not everything has to be so heavy-handed, serious, or expensive; Shybaby is a place to take an intrusive thought and run with it, to give myself no notes and to edit very sparingly," Eire explains of the overall ethos of the project. "It’s a diary entry but not the kind where I’m feeling necessarily very flowery with my words — more of the kind that’s so furiously scratched that it dents the paper and the rounds of the letters turn sharp, and you can’t even really read it later. It’s a cathartic release so dramatic that you have to laugh a little bit about it when you look back on it. It’s fun and loud, simple, but definitely not lacking symbolism if you care enough to look hard enough for it... which you definitely don’t need to do!"Shybaby goes on to add: "Being seen and heard has always been hard for me (and I think for a lot of people!). Speaking up is impossible. When I can finally think of what I need to say, the words and the physical air often get caught in my throat. I’ve always been so self-aware of existing in a human body and have struggled with feeding it, taking care of it and admitting that I’m not totally invincible."In the same way that "For Rent" reclaims some agency over her own trauma, Shybaby functions as an outlet for Eire to validate and work through whatever life throws at her and have fun doing it at the same time. "Creating the visuals and allowing myself to be deeply vulnerable and bare, but seen, has become just as important to this persona as the lyrics, the walls of sound, the fun hooks and the opportunity to be heard and hopefully felt. I do all my own styling and makeup and have so much love and appreciation for everyone who is down to collaborate and contribute to creative direction to make these things with me. (This time, one of my best friends, Kelsey Wagner.)"Ultimately, Eire says: "Shybaby is my favorite Grace, she really does not care what people will think." Below, check out the music video for Shybaby's latest single, "For Rent."Photography: Kelsey Wagner https://www.papermag.com/shybaby-for-rent-2659492998.html

[herotome]

I'm so confused by that last ask lmao. Why would anyone want to buy spray and hurt someone who did nothing wrong to them/wasn't making them feel uncomfortable in any way??? Instead, how would the RO's react to a very soft and bubbly MC, that bakes them stuff and compliments them and is just,, a very somft person??? And when in a relationship stage, treats them with so much tenderness and love that it should be illegal. Have a wonderful rest of your day/night, author!

Agh, well, I don't want to make it a purely black/white situation; because if somebody knocked on my door well after sundown, I would certainly be uncomfortable.

While I can confirm that Warden had good intentions, those are the bricks with which hell is paved, yes? He DOES commit a social faux-pas. It is a BAD IDEA to knock on strangers' doors in the night! It would be perfectly understandable if the MC feels any range of discomfort or skepticism; even threatened or alarmed.

I remember this one time a perfectly nice young man approached me in the parking lot; I was about to get into my car, and I was so taken off-guard and terrified that I flattened myself against the car door the entire time, eyes darting. He didn't mean me any harm (good intentions), but the faux-pas of approaching me right outside my car was too great - I could not humanly have felt comfortable in that situation.

... I didn't hit him or spray him though, since he made no move to touch me. 😂 Iirc he wanted my help because his car died. I think sometimes people are too quick to be enact cruelty on men, because they assume all men have bad intentions, or that men are strong, they can take the abuse. But I also understand how people - particularly (but not limited to) women - are so often put into awful, deeply stressful situations of "I need to hurt them first, before they hurt me."

I want to acknowledge pretty privilege as a factor as well - while I wrote Warden as a Nice Fella, I also made conscious design decisions to make him generically attractive: even proportions, nice smile, neat hair, clean clothes. Would we be as understanding of Warden if he was fatter, uglier, more disheveled? Would we be as open to follow-up with him, follow him onto the path he sets for us? I'd wager not. (And then ah, viola, the MC never leaves her apartment and the game falls apart. Hahaha.)

Errr. So, ah. Those are my thoughts. No real conclusions, no hard and fast rules - I just want to encourage this blog/game to be a space where we exercise nuance whenever possible.

Anyway! Thank you for the lovely sentiment anon, here's the answer to your ask:

Warden: Disbelieving, really not used to such tenderness from anybody. Sort of wonders if MC is trying to trick him? It takes him some time to warm up to it and understand MC's angle. Blushes particularly hard when complimented.

Griffin: Fully participates in exchanging sweetness, for the most part tit-for-tat. Griffin might have gloomy or whiny phases and will take some alone time, but will very often seek MC out for comfort and very long, vulnerable hugs.

Mia: Flustered to the core, often tries to outdo MC in sweetness - Mia is a deeply reciprocal person, always returning favors, so it would drive her a little batty to be matched. She's used to being a giver, she'd have trouble quietly receiving.

Dart: Skeptical, distrusting, surely this is an elaborate act?? The pies must be poisoned. You'll catch him staring REALLY hard at MC, searching for flaws and slip-ups that would help him understand. There is a point, though, where Dart will begin to view MC as "family" - and then the distrust switch totally flips into undying trust and protective loyalty.

Jade: Wants to protect MC from the first moment she sets eyes on her, would kill for this MC.

[shimmershae]

Some, okay a lot, of pre-mid season (tri? season) finale thoughts.  As if you actually asked for them, lol.

And no, I haven’t actually watched the last episode yet.  I’ve been putting it off all morning.  For reasons.  Reasons that I felt the inexplicable need to put on paper, er, screen.  

If you care at all to read the purging of my fatigued TWD fangirl mind, please look beneath the cut.  Fair warning.  It’s long so pull up a chair maybe, lol.  

I’ll admit it.  The spoilers indicating a significant lack of Carol/Melissa content has dampened much of my enthusiasm and there wasn’t all that much to start with.  

Let me tell you why--

The season, so far, has been woefully unbalanced in favor of the Reaper storyline and the Maggie/Negan conflict (which ties back to the Reaper storyline by the flimsiest of strings) and I’m just not invested.  

Why?  

Well, it’s multifold.  

#1 reason why?  Having a third of the last season ever of TWD devoted to going inside “the lions’ den” of villains I have no emotional connection to or curiosity about is a big fat fail.  

You might say “but there’s the Daryl double agent” aspect and I say “so fucking what” because it was so poorly conceived and has felt like such a WTF set of fraying puppet strings for this plot Angela was apparently jonesing to tell from the GO, damn the torpedoes she had to know where inevitably coming her way.  

Seriously.  I had talked myself into accepting that which I could not change, citing Daryl’s emotional brokenness after Rick.  Convincing myself he’d lost his anchor to goodness and hope and fulfillment in his years of self-imposed exile from Carol and what was left of his family and to a certain extent?  I can still by that explanation.  But really.  It’s the Leah of it all.  

Let me attempt to explain.  

To do that, maybe I should detail how I’ve always perceived Daryl.  

Daryl, IMHO, began this journey with us and the rest of Team Family with a figurative fortress erected around his true, core self.  

He was prickly.  Defensive to any overtures of kindness because he inherently did not trust them.  Loathe to form any real connection to anyone other than Merle, his blood.  

Daryl balked at the possibility of emotional connection and flinched in learned fear from physical touch.  

He did not recognize or accept affection or respect at face value because it was something rarely shown to him before.  

Anybody else remember that childhood abuse book from Consumed?  You know.  One of those first times the showrunners/writers dumped a character nugget in our laps and left it to us to do all the backstory in our own imaginations so they didn’t have to enrich their own characters beyond the scratch and sniff, wham bam this is who they are work?  

Anyway.  We were left to extrapolate from that what most of us h ad already suspected--that Daryl’s formative years were already a living hell before the ZA ever happened.  

So he was standoffish.  He didn’t form emotional connections lightly and physical intimacy was something light years out of his comfort zone.  

Until Carol.  

Daryl’s defenses started to crumble from the very start with Carol because she piqued his interest.  He looked at her, watched her withstand Ed’s abuse, and recognized something of himself.  

Against his will, Daryl started to care and when Carol lost the one good thing that had come out of her miserable life with Ed--Sophia--Daryl’s core identity started to be revealed to us and probably?  To himself after burying it so deep for so long.  

Long story short?  Daryl connected with Carol pretty quickly on a base level through the trauma of Sophia’s loss.  

The real connection, the emotional work it too to peel all those protective layers away took more like--like planting a flower from seed and tending it to help it survive and flourish.  

Simply said?  The work was put in and Daryl bloomed with Carol’s (and Team Family’s) care.  They all put in varying degrees of work but Carol planted the seed of his “belonging.”  

And the thing about Daryl?  Once he bloomed?  He grew strong.  He stretched toward the sun.  

He and Carol essentially bloomed and fought their way toward the sunlight together.  

And little by little, Daryl learned to accept the kindness, trust, and love he always deserved.  

From that newly confident man emerged a Daryl not so fearful of forming connections and none have ever been more powerful than his connection to Carol.  

I’ll spare ya’ll the paragraphs of how Daryl and Carol gravitated toward each other like magnets no matter the means of separation.  

I’ll just spell it out like this:  their bond supersedes all others, even Daryl’s bond with Rick.  And with Daryl only accepting affection from those he trusts implicitly, Carol and Daryl have been the only potential “romantic” pairing that has ever fully made sense for his established character.  

At least the character before Angela launched the grenade of Leah into the mix.  

Leah was a fail from the start.  

And you know what?  I’m thinking that was largely intended (for various reasons) but I still think they could have shown Daryl as receptive to having a “romantic” relationship to those willfully blind to the possibility that he’s actually been in a “romantic” relationship with Carol since Season 2.  Never mind that Carol and Daryl haven’t (yet) crossed certain physical boundaries yet.  Emotionally? They are already there even if neither is able to admit it out loud with the actual words yet.  But I digress.  The people that never wanted to “see” Carol and Daryl as “romantic” because they couldn’t fathom Daryl as seeing Carol in that light had already deemed that Daryl just didn’t feel that way about her, that maybe he didn’t feel that way about anybody (if they couldn’t have their way and have him feel that way about their preferred choice for him, they preferred him alone), and Angela wanted to show them differently.  To show them the light.  

That said, if Angela was so hellbent on doing Leah?  There were a multitude of better ways.  

Here.  I’ll give you one of them.  

Daryl isolates himself from his family after Rick’s “death” same as he did in Angela’s version.  

Carol’s been being pulled more and more to the Kingdom because Henry’s needing a mother figure is like catnip to her hurting natural-born, hurting Mama’s heart.  So Daryl’s anchor to the man he’d matured into, the one with all these earned emotional attachments, is reeled back in, little by little, leaving him unmoored.  

Dog literally runs into him just as before.  It hardly makes sense given how young and floppy and uncoordinated puppies are and thus vulnerable to danger, but this is the least of things we need to worry about suspending disbelief for right?  ;)

Dog and Daryl continue to have these run ins until Daryl decides to retrace the puppy’s clumsy trail and viola!  He finds Leah’s cabin and Leah inside.  She levels the same shotgun at him, they have a standoff, until---

Leah suddenly lowers the gun and incredulously says Daryl’s name.  

That’s right.  One simple change and Daryl and Leah have an undefined past already.  

Daryl doesn’t completely let his guard down because he’s Daryl, but he relaxes enough that we see he doesn’t immediately regard Leah as dangerious to his own well-being.  

From that point on, instead of tying Daryl up and threatening him, we could have been told the story of how they knew each other from before.  

My version goes a little something like this--

Daryl met Leah through Merle.  Merle, in turn, met Leah through the military before he got discharged.  He and Leah had an ongoing “I scratch your itch if you scratch mine” thing and Leah?  Well, she always had a bit of a soft spot/interest in Daryl that Daryl never really returned.  

The thing is, though?  With losing the chosen brother that filled the hole left behind by his lost blood brother Merle and losing Carol to her chasing after a chance of a new family (because she feels Daryl’s out of her reach too, our too blind and stupidly, silently in love idiots)?  Daryl finds himself embracing the shared memories however minimal of that brief past and his grief and loneliness leave him receptive to Leah’s eventual advances in ways he never was before.  

We’re still given hints of their unfolding relationship and we still don’t like it, but it makes more sense for Daryl to cling to the past when he feels he’s lost his future.  

Leah still gives her ultimatum (there’s a reason she gravitated toward Merle in perhaps his most toxic state, she’s more than a little fucked up too) and it’s not as much of a hard sell that Daryl might be pulled in Leah’s direction when he feels Carol is all but lost to him.  

Hell.  They could have even explicitly discussed Carol.  But wait!  Angela would have never allowed that because she doesn’t want to shatter all the crackship dreams in one fell swoop.  

But the story from that point on could have continued just as it has and probably I still wouldn’t have liked it but I could have at least bought it somewhat and understood it.  

Obviously, it didn’t. 

I don’t buy the Leah of it all.  Angela built that “relationship” with monopoly money and it shows.  

Because I don’t buy Leah period.  I don’t buy Daryl giving even giving a shit about trying to or feeling like there’s a snowball’s chance to redeem her so I’m not engaged whatsoever with this Daryl double agent story and him even givign her crumbs about his real family.  

That part rings false.  

So that’s a big problem right there and we haven’t even gotten to the other part I don’t buy.  

You know what else I don’t buy?  

#2?  

Why the hell are the Reapers so bloodthirsty for Maggie’s departure from this mortal coil?  

Without giving better reasoning than they’re just cray-cray, the entire faceplants and considering it’s taken up about 70% of 11A’s focus?  I’m pissed.  

Because, IMHO, they should go big or go home on this to give it any entertainment value because it’s all stale, recycled air if not.  

Maggie’s been established as a much darker character this season.  Which led me to believer the Reapers probably had a legit beef against her, but it seems Angela is reluctant to go all that way down the rabbit hole and doesn’t want to commit to what could be a more entertaining and potentially fascinating story than just Maggie’s in the right, the Reapers are just evil.  

Maggie is right about Negan, IMHO, but she’s also wrong in not listening to him when what he’s saying reeks of simple common sense.  Ignoring sage advice makes her seem more like an angry toddler stamping her feet in defiance than the leader they are so bound and determined to tell us she is.  

You know what?  The window for me to give more than the half a fuck I’m giving right now as they beat this dead horse to dust closed when Maggie decided letting Negan rot in the ASZ jail cell was enough and spared him when she finally had her best chance to end him once and for all.  

Maybe if they stopped having the same damn conversation and they didn’t take up 20% of the screen time left after the boring Reapers/Leah shit, I would be less resentful but I’m not and again, I’ll tell you why.  

BECAUSE.  We are in the last season of the OG TWD ever and this show has chosen to waste screen time on stories nobody cares about to the exclusion of the ones we’re yearning for more of.  

Like ASZ.  We’ve barely seen more than an hour of the eight hours devoted to Carol, Aaron, Rosita, Lydia, Judith, Kelly, Jerry and Co. in total.  Especially since they’ve been trying to establish the Commonwealth on the side, too.  

I mean, I never really expected to dig the Commonwealth so my expectations for it were lower than low so they’ve been exceeded at a miniscule level.  But I expected and hoped for ASZ and those characters we’ve cared the most about to receive much more emphasis and the fact that they haven’t in this last season so far has been the biggest FAIL.  

And okay.  Selfishly, I want more Carol.  She’s like salt.  She makes almost everything go down better.  

But really. Give me more of all the characters we actually care about, please.  The Reapers and the offshoots from that story wheel aren’t it.  I love Daryl but I hate this retread story for him.  Leah is a weak point that pressed upon?  Makes this weak ass arc collapse.  Maggie and Negan are giving us nothing new.  They are the definition of the word STALEMATE and that’s not what you want or need on the finale season of a show.  

Yes, I have enjoyed the majority of the episodes overall, but that was because the moments I loved I weighted more than the ones I didn’t and know they have the most impact on the show down the road.  

Probably 11A will fare better when all is said and done and the show can be binged but standalone?  It’s been an overall disappointment and that saddens me more than I can say.  

Anyway.  I’m going to stop rambling now and try to psyche myself up for episode 8.  I’ll be back with thoughts on it later, maybe.  

Sorry for the word vomit, but I felt maybe I could in someway give voice to some of the feelings floating around out there and let you know that you are not alone.  

Until later, lovelies.  

[rwby-diaries]

Fair Game Weekend 2020!

Day 1: Confessions

We couldn’t participate in the entire weekend, but we couldn’t help ourselves with this prompt! Our favourite uncles have been in love for a very long time~

Line Art by: @bosiphas

Colour by: @data-plays-viola

Ficlet by: @bosiphas

Ficlet edited by: @data-plays-viola and @lameclub

Ficlet under the cut!

Qrow wasn’t sure how to go about it. There was a tightness in his chest and a pit in his stomach. The thought of being so vulnerable, even in front of Clover, was unbearable. He’d changed since his days in the tribe. Before, he’d never have even let himself feel anything for Clover let alone tell him his feelings. But he was different now, and as much as it made him scared, he was happy. But that thought scared him even more. What happened if that happiness left? What if Qrow let himself be vulnerable and share the most private parts of himself to someone that sparked such joy in him, and that’s what drove him away? And in the back of his mind, he could hear his sister. We’re here to learn how to kill huntsfolk. Despite the connections they’d made with Tai and Summer, Raven would still try to remind Qrow, and by extension herself, that they weren’t staying. Her words had been a dreadful reminder for the past 3 years anytime either of them got too close to someone. He’d had a hard time admitting to her that he would never want to go back. Not after everything, after Summer and Tai, and… Clover.

Qrow swallowed hard, his palms clammy, as he stood in front of Clover on the helipad, ready to depart for Vale. 

“So…” he muttered, trying to hold eye contact with him but failing miserably. As much as he wanted to stare into Clover’s beautiful green eyes all the time, right now they were heavy on his heart. Qrow scratched the back of his head awkwardly as Summer squealed a goodbye to Lucy, Clover’s teammate, a few feet away. Raven and Tai were just beyond the pair, saying their goodbyes to the remaining two of Clover’s team, Rayne and Vivian. It would’ve been easier if Qrow had been alone with Clover.

“I wish the Vytal Festival was longer,” Clover admitted, pulling Qrow’s attention back to him. “Would’ve given us more time together.” He took a step forward to Qrow, reaching out his hand and gently taking his.

Qrow looked down at his hand in Clover’s, then back up to meet Clover’s eyes. He could feel a slight warmth in his cheeks as Clover smiled softly at him. Gods, how could he ever have the guts to say this? What if it was too soon? He would scare Clover off—no, that didn’t sound like him, Clover was more forward than anyone he’d ever met. What if Clover wasn’t there yet and he made him feel uncomfortable? They’d only been together a few months. Spent almost every day together since they’d fought in Round 1 Team Fights of the tournament. Qrow clenched his jaw, trying not to smile too much, thinking of the stupid way they’d gotten tangled in Kingfisher’s line and Clover, gods Clover, smirked and said, “Lucky me, huh?” 

Clover squeezed Qrow’s hand, noticing him tense up. He was anxious about something and getting distracted. “I’ll message you every day,” Clover declared, trying to sound practical by saying “message” instead of “call”. He’d already fallen so in love with the boy, but he could tell Qrow was someone not used to being so open with people. He wouldn’t ask—Clover didn’t want to pry—but he could surmise it was something to do with his family. His twin sister Raven was even more closed off, save for the rare moment with her team. And Clover didn’t think she liked him very much.

Qrow looked down to his feet, gathering his thoughts for a moment. He had to say it, he didn’t want to leave without saying it. Letting out a shaky but calming sigh, Qrow looked back up to Clover once more, determined. “I…” Qrow’s voice cracked slightly and he hesitated. His head was swirling with what if’s. “Y-you… have my number…” Fucking dumbass. Qrow cursed himself, defeated. Chickening out at the last minute, gods he felt pathetic.

Clover could tell Qrow was holding back, but in the interest of not pressuring him, he only chuckled in response. “I have it memorized, so, no chance of losing it.” Clover hesitated himself, wanting to follow his instincts to lean in and kiss Qrow, but he didn’t seem ready for PDA yet.

“Uh…” Qrow went to scratch the back of his head again, something he’d realized was a bit of a nervous tick, but he’d gone to do it with the hand Clover was holding. Qrow froze before he let go of Clover’s hand, but unfortunately, it was too late as Clover let go of his hand in response. “Oh, no… I–”

“Qrow! C’mon! We gotta get going!” Tai yelled from behind him on the airship that was taking them back to Vale.

Qrow tensed up his shoulders, annoyed. As Clover turned around and waved at his team that had called to him as well, Qrow turned to his own team that was waiting on him, Summer giving Tai grief for interrupting him and Clover, and Raven standing there, arms folded across her chest, unimpressed with a sour look on her face. He sighed heavily, knowing he wasn’t going to be able to say it now, but he’d be damned if he didn’t show some sort of affection to Clover. He had to, Clover couldn’t always be the one to close the distance. 

As the two boys turned back around to face each other to say the final goodbye, Qrow leaned in hurriedly and placed a small peck on Clover’s cheek, and just as quickly pulled away. “Call me.” Qrow didn’t mean for it to sound so demanding, but he didn’t have time to correct himself, he was sure he looked ridiculous, his entire face was on fire. Without waiting for a response from Clover, Qrow turned around and hastily boarded the aircraft.

Clover watched Qrow run up the ramp of the aircraft, lifting his hand to touch his cheek where Qrow had kissed him. A wide smile spread on his face and he called out a goodbye to Qrow. He needed to give him more credit. Qrow wasn’t as closed off as he thought, and Clover knew that kiss took a lot of effort on his part.

Qrow turned around as the doors of the aircraft started to close, unable to help himself, getting one last glimpse of Clover’s face. He had the biggest smile on his face since they’d had their first kiss; Qrow could practically see the shining aura of happiness around his face as Clover waved him goodbye.

Qrow turned back around, let himself fall back against the closed door as the aircraft took off, and slid to the floor. He put his hands in his face, trying to ignore Tai’s laughter and feeling his sister’s piercing gaze on him.

“You look a little embarrassed, Qrow!” Tai teased, still thunderously laughing.

Raven moved her hands from her hips and crossed them in front of her chest. “More like he looks like a child.” She threw the insult at him, knowing he’d know why she was not happy.

Qrow dropped his hands from his face and snapped his head up to meet his sister’s gaze, giving her a warning glare. 

Tai interrupted their staring contest, putting an arm around Raven and pulling her to the seats on the other side of the cabin. “C’mon, Raven! Haven’t you ever been in love?” He added an affected dramatic tone to the words “in love.”

“N-no! Of course not!” Raven tried to elbow Tai off her, but she still walked to sit with him.

Qrow watched his sister be a hypocrite with a look of disdain on his face as Summer took a seat next to him on the cabin floor.

“Do you love him?”

Qrow was surprised by the question, looking to Summer who could read his emotions almost as easily as Clover could, maybe even better. She was his best friend. The only thing she didn’t know about him was why he and Raven had enrolled at Beacon in the first place. He’d never admit to Raven how much he’d told Summer over the years–including but not limited to their upbringing in the Tribe. When he met this little girl in the forest 3 years ago, he never thought they’d turn out like this: Qrow wouldn’t know what to do without Summer.

Before he answered he looked back over to Raven and Tai, making sure they, or rather she couldn’t hear him. Qrow sighed looking at his hands. “More than I ever thought I could,” he answered. 

Summer smiled, noticing herself how much Qrow had changed since she’d met him, but she wished Raven had made the same progress he had. “Then I’m sure it’ll all work out.” She adjusted her position that had been slightly turned to Qrow and placed her back flat against the door and rested her head against it. 

Qrow smirked, looking over to Summer, ready to put the heat on her this time. “What about you and Lucy?”

Summer’s shoulders tensed and her cheeks lit up. “What about me and Lucy?” She sputtered, embarrassed.

“You’re not going to date her?”

Summer pressed her lips together, feeling dejected from Qrow’s question. “Lucy’s great, I like her a lot… but…” She peaked past Qrow and down to Tai who was teasing Raven by messing up her hair. She paid him back with a small jab in his side with Omen’s hilt.

Qrow followed her line of sight but already knew who she was looking to. “Sorry.”

Summer shook her head, equal parts an acknowledgment and a way to keep herself from crying. “It’s okay.” She rested her head on Qrow’s shoulder, who rested his head on Summer’s in return. After a long pause, she spoke again. “I’m sure you’ll be luckier than I am with love.” She grinned.

“Hey.” Qrow reached over with his hand and pinched her cheek as she giggled, chuckling with her. “Brat,” he sneered jokingly, but he knew she was deflecting to make herself appear okay. He wouldn’t say anything else though, knowing it would be better to leave it at that and sit with Summer in comfortable silence while he kicked himself for not saying what he wanted to Clover. Next time. Qrow promised himself. ~~~ When they finally got back to Beacon, it was late. Everyone was dragging their feet, walking back to their dorm rooms. Summer had fallen asleep during the flight and instead of waking her, Qrow opted to carry her. Tai had offered, but Qrow thought it best for him to carry her instead, considering certain feelings. As they were walking through the halls, Tai yawned dramatically and stretched his arms above his head.

“Imma go hit the showers before bed.” Tai split off from the other three, taking a hard right down to the co-ed bathrooms. “G’night…” He waved behind him to his teammates as they continued on down to their room.

Raven sighed heavily. “Such a child.” She shook her head and grimaced.

“You? Yeah, I agree,” Qrow spoke in a pointed but hushed tone.

Raven glared at him. “No. Shut up. I’m talking about our teammates.”

“Quiet, Raven,” Qrow warned his sister, not wanting her to wake Summer. “Don’t start. You always do this, when either of us is getting close to someone you -”

“I don’t get close to anyone,” Raven denied, stopping in front of her younger twin and crossing her arms.

Qrow rolled his eyes, stepped around her, and continued down the hall. “Okay, edgelord.” Raven started to retort his jab but Qrow continued. “Stop lying to yourself, Raven. You don’t have to. If you think I’m going to judge you for liking Tai,” Raven tried to interrupt once more at Qrow’s claim, but he continued still, ignoring her denials. “Or for being friends with Summer, I’m not.” Qrow turned slightly to look back at her and decided to take a chance. “We don’t have to go back.” He paused at Raven’s expression after finishing his daring suggestion. He’d expected her to deny such an option and penalize him for even thinking about it, but he could see it on her face: she’d considered it already. Her eyes fell from his face to the ground, and her eyebrows arched up. It was rare for Raven to show such a… vulnerable expression. “Raven, you-” Qrow began, but she quickly cut him off.

“Whatever, I’m going for a walk.” She turned on her heel and walked away from him, any vulnerability she was showing just seconds ago was now gone.

Qrow pressed his lips together and took a deep, tired breath. He wouldn’t bother her anymore; if left on her own, Raven would surely come to the same conclusion he had. Hopefully. He had to admit he was still surprised, though. His sister was many things, but stubborn was probably one of her most obvious qualities. Tai’s shitty flirting must’ve been doing something then. Qrow continued on to take Summer and himself to bed.

As he finally reached their dorm room, he felt Summer stir on his back. “Hey, Petals. We’re home,” he said and opened the door to their room. As Summer mumbled sliding down his back, he guided her to her bed and tucked her in.

“You should tell him, Qrow,” Summer mumbled out while lazily plopping herself onto her bed and laying down. She opened her eyes to meet Qrow’s, barely able to keep them open.

He stared at her for a moment, not sure what to say. “Just go to sleep,” he instructed.

“I forgot to give you the picture,” Summer spoke softly, digging around in her sweater pocket. After a moment of tired grumbles, she pulled out a polaroid and handed it to him.

Qrow felt his chest tighten as he looked at the photo. It was slightly bent around the edges from being in Summer’s pocket, but it was a picture of him and Clover. Last night, when their teams ended up just sleeping in Clover and his teammates’ dorm room instead of going back to their own. Qrow had fallen asleep next to Clover, and—he didn’t remember how—it seemed he’d made Clover’s chest his pillow. Clover was hugging him in and also sound asleep. 

“You took this?”

Summer nodded, her eyes still lidded. “Raven told me to.”

Qrow paused, noticeably shocked. “Raven did?” 

Summer nodded once more, stretching her back, and arching up. “Mhm,” she hummed. “You know, you both get much more relaxed when you think the other isn’t paying attention…” She opened her eyes a little more to properly meet Qrow’s gaze. 

‘Cause we’re both not saying what we’re feeling. Qrow told himself. 

“Night…” Summer sighed and turned over.

Before Qrow could respond to Summer, his scroll buzzed in his pocket. As he took it out and saw that Clover sent him a message, he’d returned the goodnight to Summer. He glanced back at her, sound asleep, then turned around to read the message.

Have you gotten back to Beacon yet?

Qrow replied: Just got back

A few seconds after his reply had been sent, his scroll started to ring with a call from Clover.

Qrow quickly walked out into the hallway to leave Summer in peace, before answering it. He closed the door with a light click and answered the call before he’d even realized this was their first conversation on the phone. His mouth became dry as he lifted the speaker up to greet him. His scroll felt heavier than normal, and his hands weaker. “H-hey,” Qrow stammered, trying to be aware of his voice and how he sounded.

“Hey! Did you make it back safe?” Qrow could practically hear Clover smiling, his voice was… different on the phone but it still sounded like him: almost unbearably chipper.

Qrow chuckled and leaned against the door. “What? Did ya think my bad luck would take down the plane?”

There was a slight pause on Clover’s side. “That’s not what I meant…” He replied, a nervous tone streaking his voice. Ever since they’d met Clover could tell that Qrow’s semblance was a sensitive subject. He would make small jokes about it sometimes, usually in contrast to his own semblance, but he didn’t want to upset him. Another thing, besides his past and childhood, that he didn’t want to pry about. There was an unmistakable desire to help Qrow be okay with his semblance, even if it was gradual.

Qrow tensed up, realizing his tone wasn’t clear that he was joking. “No, I know! I was just… kidding,” he explained, pausing at Clover’s soft “Oh” then continued. “Yeah, I made it back safe. I’m okay…”

“That’s good,” Clover replied. There were a few seconds of silence, and for Qrow, it felt like an eternity. Since when was speaking on the phone so nerve-wracking? Clover was the first to speak up. “I miss you,” he spoke softly. And with those simple words, Qrow’s heart felt like it could burst at the seams.

  “I miss you too,” Qrow mirrored Clover’s soft tone. It wasn’t something he was prepared for, getting so attached to someone so far away. And before he’d met Clover, he had never imagined being so in love with someone. He and Raven were taught that love was a weakness, which even put a wedge between them, despite being twins. It was something so foreign to him when he first got to Beacon. He thanked whatever gods there were that Summer and Tai came into his life. And now he also had Clover, and the thought of losing him—losing that absolute fool that radiated sunshine—terrified him more than any monster he would ever fight.

Clover smiled sadly at Qrow’s response. He was happy he also missed him, but in a perfect world, they wouldn’t have to miss each other. “Maybe I’ll transfer to Beacon,” Clover half-joked.

Qrow gave a defeated laugh, knowing that Clover wanted to but wouldn’t. “You can’t. You have your heart set on joining the Atlas Military.” That also baffled Qrow. An ex-bandit falling for the Golden Boy who wanted to be a cop to do good and bring peace to the world. Personally, he couldn’t see the correlation between Clover’s ideals and his career choices, but he felt it wasn’t his place to question him anyway. Besides, it’s not like he could judge as an ex-bandit. He’d done plenty of bad in his life before he was even 18.

Clover chuckled. “Maybe you could transfer to Atlas and join with me,” he said smugly.

Qrow scoffed. “Fat chance. You aren’t going to get that lucky, Cloves.”

Clover hummed. “Lucky enough to know you.”

Qrow froze and his cheeks felt warm. Clover could be so cavalier about small comments like that: almost always luck puns. Those used to bug him to no end, luck jokes at his expense. His bad luck was just another reason for him to never be truly close to someone. Now, it was a connection to him, and the jokes were just a part of their love language. He still had a… difficult relationship with his semblance, but knowing his opposite—his other half—was around made it better. “You’re such a nerd.” Qrow listened to Clover’s tired laugh, unable to stop from smiling.

“You know you love me!” Clover retorted. However, the two boys instantly froze on either end of the call. “I-I mean… I didn’t mean-” Clover stuttered out frantically, worried the comment would put Qrow off.

Qrow’s entire face was glowing as he listened to Clover stammer and trip over his words trying to take back his teasing joke. In the back of his head, he could hear his own voice. Say it now. “Yeah.” Without giving himself another second to think about it, he jumped into the deep end. “…I do.”

Clover’s stutters had ceased, but Qrow could hear a shaky breath on the other side. “What?” Clover hoped, prayed Qrow would elaborate. He wanted clarification. He wanted to know he wasn’t misunderstanding, and if he wasn’t, he wanted to hear it again.

Qrow bit his lip, mentally pushing himself to talk. “I… love you.” Qrow gripped his scroll in his hand so hard his knuckles turned white. He swallowed hard, feeling a giant pit in his throat. His courage ran out though, he couldn’t wait and hear Clover’s response. “Bye!” Qrow yelled, hung up his scroll, and watched the screen as the call disconnected, hearing Clover call his name as it cut off. 

“Qrow! Wait, Qrow!” Clover tried to call out to him but the line was already disconnected. No, no, no, no! Clover froze for a moment, his mind processing what had happened. I love you. The words echoed in his head, and it took another moment again to process that Qrow had said them…to him! Clover let out a shaky breath, feeling overwhelming happiness. It was being overshadowed by the anxiety of not having said it back yet, though. He couldn’t not say it back! He had to call Qrow back, and he needed to say it to him. Gods, he was over the moon, but he couldn’t even think about that as he frantically tried to dial Qrow’s number in his scroll. It felt like he’d lost all control in his fingers; he fumbled so many times. “I need to say it back,” Clover whispered under his breath, tears of frustration stinging his eyes.

Qrow watched the screen of his scroll for a few seconds before letting his arms fall to his sides. He let his head fall back, hitting the door and sinking to the floor once again. His breath trembled, hands shaking. His heart was racing, and somehow, he was out of breath. He felt like he could throw up. And all of these afflictions heightened instantly when his scroll started to ring again. He lifted it to read Clover’s name on the screen. He was calling him back. Fuck. Why didn’t I turn it off?! Qrow watched his scroll ring, unable to move to answer it, only feeling his heart thump against his chest. Gods he couldn’t answer; he didn’t know what Clover would say. But as he decided to pretend to be asleep and let it ring, a message came through, also from Clover:

Please answer!!

Qrow felt his chest tighten, an unbearable weight made him unable to ignore the feeling. Impulsively he jammed his finger on the screen, answering the call. It took a solid few seconds for him to lift the speaker back up to his ear, but when he finally did, Clover’s voice flowed through the receiver. “Qrow, are you there?” Clover hoped he’d respond, he had to know he was there on the other end listening.

“…Yeah.”

“I love you too!” His voice was high and cracked slightly, but he didn’t care. He just needed to make sure he’d said it.

Qrow sucked in a breath, a million thoughts overflowing his head. Had he heard Clover right? It felt like his ears were ringing so loud just from those words. His entire body felt hot, his chest felt heavy and light at the same time, and his fingertips went numb. Qrow almost dropped his scroll when Clover called out to him again.

“Qrow… Did you hear me?”

Qrow exhaled and closed his mouth that had been agape. He licked his dry lips before biting the bottom one and focused back on Clover’s voice. “Yes… No. I - Did you-” He stumbled through a few words, unable to form a proper sentence.

“I love you too,” Clover repeated, less frantic to get it out. He let out a strangled breath, trying to get his breathing back to normal, and rubbed his eyes to get out the tears that had built up. 

“You do?” Qrow curled his legs halfway up to his chest, setting his free hand down on his thigh.

Clover hummed happily. “Very much,” he answered.

Qrow teared up, a big smile on his face as he let out a few happy sighs and patted his legs excitedly. 

Clover chuckled in response to hearing Qrow’s reaction, only wishing that they were face to face so he could embrace him and give him an overwhelming amount of kisses. But the thought was cut short when Rayne threw a pillow at Clover’s face.

“Clover I’m happy for you and your boyfriend but please be quiet,” he implored, and Vivian and Lucy mumbled tiredly in agreement.

“Okay, Rayne,” Clover responded flatly. “I’m sorry, I have to go. Is it alright if I call you tomorrow?” Clover asked in a hushed voice.

“Yeah!” Qrow answered eagerly but cleared his throat when he realized he was being too eager. “…if you want,” he corrected himself.

Clover chuckled lightly. “I want,” he paused, “Goodnight, love you,” Clover spoke softly—so quiet Qrow could barely hear—but held his breath after saying it again. He waited to hear the words repeated back to him; he wanted to hear Qrow say them again.

“Love you too.” Qrow sighed happily as the line disconnected, and he let his hand fall beside him. He tilted his head back against the door, looking up to the hallway ceiling. He couldn’t think of a time he’d been this happy. Ever. He continued to pat his legs with his hands eagerly. The emotions were overwhelming, but he felt like he could fly just from hearing Clover return his feelings. Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all, getting close to people. He’d always have those reservations in the back of his mind. It was hard to unlearn everything the tribe had taught him, plus, his semblance was always hard to manage. Maybe Raven could also be happy here, and with Tai, if she wanted that. Both of them could have a great life and never have to think of the tribe again.

At the very least, Qrow found himself hoping he’d have these important people in his life for a long time. ~~~ The shrill ringing of Qrow’s scroll pulled him out of his half-asleep daze. It was early—too early—which meant he knew exactly who was calling him. He rolled over from his back to his side, reaching to his scroll that was almost buzzing itself off the side table. Knowing who it was, he answered the call with a quiet, “G’morning, babe.”

“Good morning, my Pretty Bird. Happy Anniversary.” 

The smile on Qrow’s face grew wider, but his eyes stayed shut. “Happy Anniversary.” His voice was croaky in contrast with Clover’s bright and awake voice. He’d likely been up for a couple of hours already.

“Late start?” Clover smiled smugly. “Early bird gets the worm,” He teased.

Qrow scoffed while rubbing his face. “Shut up,” he teased back but then sighed heavily, and Clover picked up on the exhaustion in his tone. “Long night…” Qrow paused. “Wish you were here.”

Clover felt a tug in his chest but opted to be positive. It sounded like Qrow needed it. “I know, I wish I was there too. I wish we could’ve been together for our anniversary so I could call you from the living room.” He listened to Qrow’s quiet chuckle, a loving soft smile creeping onto his face.

“You’re such a dork… If you were here you could just say it to my face.” Qrow rolled his eyes, but the fond smile stayed. Clover had always insisted on calling Qrow even if they were together for the anniversary of their first ‘I love you’s’, he’d call Qrow and they’d say it because that’s how they first said them.

Clover hummed. “I’d do both.” Clover paused and looked to the gold ring on his finger. “I can’t wait to marry you next month.”

Qrow’s mood picked up thinking about how the date had gotten closer and closer. He spun his own silver band with his thumb and prayed nothing happened that would cause any delay or sour the service in any way. His luck, even with Clover to balance it, sometimes had perfect timing. “I can’t wait to marry you either. Going to make you my Lucky Charm for life.”

“I love you,” Clover said confidently.

“I love you more,” Qrow retorted, mirroring Clover’s tone.

“Not possible.”

“That’s what you think, Lucky Charm.”

[onereallygoodlambonastick]

9 and 11 for Oh my Queen, we are here again and the deal's done please

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

Oh my Queen, we are here again: kind of? The original idea belongs to @nightphans; I only came upon writing a small bit of it when she was kind enough to share her thoughts with me. This fic ended up being what I wanted very badly to see out of everything she shared with me; when she broke it down for me, it was spinning out to be a multi-chaptered fic with build-up and everything, detailing Kevin’s deterioration (the choking incident was never truly addressed; no closure), his estrangement with every team member ever (except for Aaron; Aaron’s the closest thing he’s got to a friend there), his actual suicide attempt, his call to Jean (where he tells him everything) and the consequent panic sequence. Jean obvs isn’t on campus so he goes around calling every Fox ever to see if anyone can save Kevin but nobody is.

Except for Aaron. (Seriously, writing fanon has turned Aaron from one of my most disliked characters into my favorite one, what the Actual Hael.)

Fast forward, Aaron makes it in time, Kevin gets carted into ER, the Foxes congregate, Jean storms the campus with a vengeance, etc, etc. The aftermath is where this fic hits; both me and @nightphans didn’t want to do a multi-chaptered fic because uh, commitment? Motivation? Huh????? 

I wasn’t planning on writing this, actually. But predictably enough I Thought about it and jotted some stuff down.......shared it with her.............and she wrote back, added some dialogue in to intensify Jean’s gutting of the Team’s treatment of Kevin......we had some more back and forths (Copy of Copy of Copy of)...............I rewrote some more.........and viola. 

The Deal’s Done: yes! In my first draft everything was the same up till the hallway convo between Allison and Kevin, where Allison actually gave him a hug, and Kevin lowkey loses it and cries. Then it just gets softer and softer from there and ultimately I had to scrap it when my beta reader let me know how OOC it sounded, esp since Allison has no motivation to really be that vulnerable with Kevin, nor Kevin she. Also, it didn’t make sense that Kevin would open up so easily after being literally assaulted by the person he trusted most. Basically: I was outed on my sheer wishful thinking; nobody is really on Kevin’s side here, my beta reader reminded me. The choking is the prompting, the barest of motivations; the rest has to be strung along. 

(Also, I should’ve known how out of character it was when at no point in the draft was Kevin drunk. Not even a little bit.)

So I rewrote it almost entirely except for the beginning bits! I capitalized on the estranged relationships between Kevin and the rest of the team, his natural distrust, his doom and gloom, his alcoholism, his very fragile attempt at appearing Ok, and BreakdownsTM. You already know this part; you’ve read it! 

11: What do you like best about this fic? 

Oh my Queen: Kevin being able to get away from it all. And Jean being his pillar and an absolute Unit. The fuck. Collaborating with @nightphans was a delight too!! She’s so big-brained, I really liked picking at her ideas. 

The Deal’s Done: Kevin breaking down. The people around Kevin subtly, slowly but surely realizing what has been done to him. 

[quixotic--s]

tagged by @oceanstatic <3

1. What’s your sexual orientation?

lesbian!!

2. What are you obsessed with right now?

Mountain biking and nature, I’m getting into tracking again and sensory awareness and all the things working for Nature connect taught me

3. Ever done any drugs?

weed a long time ago. wasn’t for me

4. What piercings do you want/have?

none, not for me

6. Describe your dream home.

my own room/sanctuary, a separate creating/office space, a clean kitchen, coastal/earthy colors, an open living space that opens out into a big yard or backs into the woods. 

7. Who are you jealous of?

no body specific maybe people who are better at the things that i’m trying to be good at but I’m trying to keep this in check

8. What’s your favorite show to binge?

i’m not binging anything right now

10. Do you have a secret sideblog?

no

11. If you could teleport anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?

also to hang out with kait and krista.

12. What’s one of your fantasies?

I miss traveling, adventuring. going on a big hike with my closest friends somewhere out west. like deep in the grand canyon or somewhere around there where you just hike for miles and then you come across a beautiful waterfall and everyone’s just swimming in it and jumping off rocks. ugh. incredible. 

13. Do you have/would you get your nipples pierced?

ouch!

14. How would you spend a million dollars?

get my master’s degree, buy trips to travel and adventure with my friends and partner, give some to charity and then buy a modest house

15. Are you in a relationship?

Yes <3

16. Do you follow porn blogs?

no

17. Are you angry with anyone right now?

no

18. What tattoos do you want?

None

19. If you could change your name, would you? What would you change it to?

no

20. What is something you’re obsessed with?

was this the first question? anyway it was mountain biking lol

21. Describe your best friend.

My closest friends are krista and kait. always laughing together. always having a blast. we understand each other. we can be real with each other. it’s hard to find anyone like them or a relationship with anyone else like i have with them. 

22. Do you watch porn?

i used to more

24. What are three places you want to travel?

somewhere in africa, hawaii, & then back to New Zealand honesty

25. Describe your perfect Friday night.

being outside, skateboarding or biking with friends, then coming back and just chilling and talking 

26. What’s your favorite season?

Summer

27. What’s your pet peeve?

Various sounds

28. Who is the funniest person you know?

there are certain people i just never stop laughing around and i love these people

34. What’s your coffee order?

plain iced coffee with cream & sugar or iced caramel macchiato if i’m really feelin like splurging

36. Do you still have feelings for any of your exes?

only a little, for one. I wouldn’t want anything to happen, but I would be lying if I said there wasn’t something still there deep down. but I think it’s just the idea of him. and the feelings of the past, like nostalgia. I don’t think it’s feelings for HIM. just feelings for that time, if that makes sense. 

37. Have any tattoos?

No

38. Do you drink?

yes but I don’t really get drunk, but I love love love enjoying a glass of wine at the end of a fulfilling day

39. Are you a virgin?

no 

40. Do you have a crush on any of your mutuals?

my partner lol

41. Where do you see yourself living?

somewhere in North Carolina or Delaware

43. What’s your guilty pleasure?

wine, making personality quizzes online, listening to glee LOL

44. Do you read erotica?

I have before.

45. What’s the worst date you’ve ever been on?

ice skating with this guy who i was not into at all and he just kept falling it was so weird. there was also this guy who i could not understand he just did not project his voice at all and i know all he wanted was sex it was so weird and He Capitalized Every Letter In His Text Messages Like This

46. What are your hobbies?

Mountain biking, exploring in nature, viola, painting

47. If you could marry any celebrity, who would you pick?

never thought about this. i don’t want to marry a celebrity!!!! but I have A LOT of celebrity crushes. here goes

-1. naya rivera

-2. kate hudson when she was in Almost Famous

-3. Darren Criss from glee

-4. Callie and Mariana from first The Fosters, now Good Trouble

-5. the girl Claire from The Good Doctor

-6. Honestly any movie I watch with a cute girl in it. sorry. i’m gay. really gay. 

-7. I just watched a soccer movie and my girlfriend said it is a lesbian movie. They’re not lesbians but lesbians love this movie. And I have a crush on both of the main girls. So does she. We’re really fucking gay. 

48. Describe your ideal partner.

my current partner. and at our best, we are goofy. there is no restraint in just being our full, silly, vulnerable selves. i can share anything I feel with her, free of judgement. there is passion, you can feel it from across the room. we have fun. we have separate interests, but we can come together and share them. we can be independent, and we can be together, and we can communicate the need for either. 

49. Who do you text the most?

my girlfriend, and then my mom and dad, and then my friends kait and krista

50. What’s your favorite kind of weather?

sunny, partly cloudy, hot, right before a storm. 

I tag @awkwardleznerd

[americanroyalwatcher]

Why we love Kate, not Meghan

I’ve been seeing the “If you love her (Catherine) you don’t need to hate her (Meghan)” meme going around on IG. I had to clear things up for myself and anybody this resonates once and for all. Let me first start off by saying my feelings for Meghan Markle are not of hate. I find her and Catherine beautiful in their own respective ways. I only abhor Meghan’s behavior, actions, total disrespect for the Royal Family hierarchy, trying to curry favor with the public through her PR attempts, and blatant sense of entitlement.

We are only typing words online making it difficult to decipher a tone of voice. Since there is none to be heard or facial expressions detected, you can take it much more worse, dramatic, and catty than it really is. I try to write as clearly as I can to convey my meanings as fast I can churn it out for everyone to read. I do it so my opinions are not misunderstood to be of jealousy, hating, bullying, or racism. I feel I have to restate this as I’ve gained many new followers and likely new spies or just plain curious folks. It would be truly wonderful to meet everyone I interact with online, follower, spy, or passersby. That human interaction is missing from this very anti-social media platform.

So, let me say I am none of those four things above. In fact, I was quite enthusiastic initially with Meghan Markle’s debut into the royal scene. She of course is a far cry from the typical posh British blondes Harry dated. It was refreshing and new. She was a Californian, ethnic, and American just like me, who came from a disjointed family. She was a breath of fresh air as a new addition, but that quickly turned into mush when that engagement interview revealed her domineering, controlling, and insincere personality with the camera. I took her saying she didn’t know THAT MUCH about Price Harry, not that she didn’t know him or the royal family. This is often restated incorrectly. Her statement during the interview came off as if Prince Harry’s royal-ness wasn’t a big deal to her. That they’re equally on the same plane and their names hold the same weight as far as that statement went. That initial interview showed her ego on display and the Vanity Fair magazine she interviewed for as a tell all after it was revealed she was Harry’s girlfriend. Shortly before that, in November 2016, she had Harry write a foolish statement asking the public to leave her alone after she made a false report of someone breaking into her Toronto home. Then she goes on to do that Vanity Fair magazine. The hypocrisy. Harry could never turn back after that. It was more binding than a wedding if you ask me.

Even her ex-best friend Ninaka Priddy told DailyMail, “I know the Royal Family was something she found fascinating. She had one of Princess Diana’s books [Diana: Her True Story] on her bookshelf, and even when she was with Trevor she told me she wanted to go and stay in London for at least a month. I can’t remember exactly when this was, but she was married to Trevor and starring in Suits. She mentioned about wanting to go to London a couple of times. I wasn’t shocked or even surprised to hear about Prince Harry. I know she used to love The Princess Diaries — films about a commoner who becomes part of a Royal Family. She was very taken with that idea.”

Meghan would relish the thought of living a real life Princess Diaries scenario. Everyone in her family circle knew she was infatuated with the idea of being a modern day princess with power. She admired Princess She-Ra. In her defunct Tig blog she wrote, “I, for one, was all about She-Ra, Princess of Power. And grown women seem to retain this childhood fantasy. Just look at the pomp and circumstance surrounding the royal wedding and endless conversation about Princess Kate.”

That was a huge red flag to me. Her best friend knew her since she was 11 and they were inseparable like sisters, like family. So, I take her words seriously as to who Meghan really was. She stopped talking to her after three seasons of Suits. Fame got to her head. She left her then husband Trevor, who helped her get on the show. She was out for a more ��empowering” position in life. She used who and what she could to get where she is today. She downplayed her knowledge and awareness of the royal family big time and it really came back to bite her.

Meghan had her sights set on expanding her name and fame somehow someway since Suits was wrapping up with her supporting role being axed soon. Unhappily, her marriage to Trevor Engelson ended abruptly by her (mailing her rings back my mail), after almost 10 years of supposed true happiness finding The One. According to her ex-best friend she knew since she was 11 years old. She left him for Corey Vitiello, a highly celebrated chef in Toronto after her career took off some with Suits. Corey was also cooking for Prince Harry when Meghan first met the royal. He runs a chicken restaurant chain called Flock. Roast chicken, anyone? Yes, Meghan has commented time and time again her specialty is roast chicken. She picked up this talent likely from living in common law marriage with Corey in Toronto. That’s also what she was cooking when Prince Harry proposed? Gosh, what a coincidence. The Sun said, “The pair split in May 2016 - with the Telegraph reporting that Meghan was still with Cory when she first met Harry. The prince was in Canada to promote the Invictus games in May 2016. The chef refused to comment on the rumours that the Prince was part of the reason their relationship ended.” Hmmm, also a suspicious coincidence.

I don’t knock her for watching out for herself and trying to put her name out there. It’s a dog-eat-dog world in the acting industry. She was only successful in Toronto with Suits. Hollywood was the ultimate goal and dream. Her father Thomas Markle was a successful Emmy winning lighting director for Married with Children. She basically grew up on set and likely salivated at the fame and attention she would get being one. As a narcissist, this would feed her ego majorly. She was never going to be more famous than an extra in those random comedies or low-budget made for TV movies. She was pushing nearly 40. That’s the career death age of actresses in North America, maybe everywhere. She wasn’t a Meryl Streep or Viola Davis. She had to think fast. She did. Man, did she hit the jackpot with Harry. Apparently, their relationship wasn’t even revealed to Harry’s family until 6 months into it. All that time, Thomas Markle kept his mouth shut about it. He was loyal to his favorite daughter and paid for her expensive upscale schooling her entire life, even some in college. She ghosted him for making a foolish mistake with the media when he didn’t recieve an invite to the wedding. This time period was key to her sinking her claws in to Prince Harry’s vulnerability, weaknesses, broken and damaged self. She does want to be another Diana, but all she is now is a mother-wife to Harry. As her ghosted former best friend said, she is very calculated.

Using others as a stepping stone or tool to get where you want is extremely cold-hearted, but that was her MO. There is a reason a trail of ghosted, dejected lovers, family and friends have come out of the woodwork since Harry said his family was the one she never had. HAH. Cry me a river. Samantha only came out when that was openly said. What a stupid, hurtful, foolish statement Harry. This was during the Christmas Service at Sandringham she attended when they were only engaged. That’s unheard of. Even Catherine Middleton, wife of the heir didn’t even get invited to any outings until they were officially married. I commend Prince William for his caution as he had much more to lose than Harry with his choice of a wife.

Prince William was extremely worried about the tabloids and press doing what they did to his beloved mother to Kate. They chased Kate around and staked out their cameras at her flat. They followed her to work. They shoved cameras in her face getting in and out of cars. She was very chill about it. Alarmed, but civil. It was chaos. She was a BIG DEAL. She was marrying the heir to the British monarchy. Prince William was a dreamboat. Many of us were very fascinated by who his choice was. When they married, there were years and years of ridicule with comments about her “Waity Katey” nickname. He made sure she has as much time living a normal private life before becoming a royal. She needed to withstand the public scrutiny as his on and off again girlfriend first. It wasn’t a matter of him getting coldfeet. He was protecting her. They were college friends first then fell in love over the course of 6 years or so. They had a solid foundation.

She even had a few incidents where her skirt flew up too high revealing too much as well as her chest. It’s all trivial superficial things, I know, but it matters as a royal. We do the same with Meghan. It’s the optics that need to be taken into consideration. I’m fine with critiquing dress style, as there’s a certain decorum needed in a royal family. She, Kate, needed to dress more prudently to avoid mishaps. There were several in her first few years. She has improved beautifully and has her style down to science. Kate had many of the criticisms Meghan shares as far as entering in the royal family goes being a commoner having to do with dress code and keeping her mannerisms appropriate at events. There are many comments on old articles saying how Kate was smiling way too much at this same event years ago. How her hair was too long. She needed to stop twirling it and have some respect for her role and the dignity of the event. It was the Remembrance Day Sunday event at Whitehall in 2013. The two years before that, she garnered the same scathing reactions from the public.

Kate has really come into her own despite the awful criticisms and judgement on her class. She has bore the years and years of cruel digs to her with great decorum and stride. She has NEVER COMPLAINED. She has come in to her own identity as a mother, wife, future queen consort, charity patron, and most importantly a genuine person with the public. I quote The Sun highlighting past labels calling her a "work-shy social climber, the lucky girl whose sole job in life was to sit around looking pretty until William proposed." That's all turned into something solid and magical.

She has an ease with others that makes them comfortable in her presence you don't expect from such a senior royal. She has bloomed. We love her for that and how she lets Prince William shine by supporting his role as heir through their duties and appearances together. She also shines equally if not more than Prince William. Her children are absolutely gorgeous and a delight. We have all come to adore her because she has earned it. Yes, with the public you have to earn our love.

With Meghan, it seemed as if they were marrying then having a baby at warp speed before Harry decided to change his mind without knowing her family and past. They weren’t allowing the public to let us see Meghan in a positive gradual light, but a social climbing one with all her past history written online for all to see; also through the testimony of friends, families, her attention-seeking Instagram posts, colleagues etc. She hadn’t proved herself worthy yet to the public like Kate. It was hitting the ground running to be her own brand and name through Harry’s family.

On a superficial level, Kate and Meghan are not fashionistas or supermodels. But they are always photographed with what brands they’re wearing for all to see. That’s the fun part of watching all royal women, their outfits and accessories. But with Meghan it goes PAST and BEYOND outfits and style. It’s an entire plethora of reasons. She’s a whole different “beast” as she likened her unfair treatment in that Africa interview. All that have nothing to do with her ethnicity. The criticisms we non-Markle fans share with her are as followed:

• ghosting those friends and family members she used to put a notch on her belt

• using Princess Diana’s name to beautify her tainted image

• using Harry and his weaknesses to crawl her way into the royal family

• portraying such an affected manner in which she speaks, interactions with others, and overall pretending to be royal instead of being herself

• wearing inappropriate revealing attire to events, not adhering to dress code

• being rude and demanding to royal staff and even film and restaurant workers before marrying Harry

• constantly stepping in front of Harry as if he was the non-royal at events, inserting herself in conversations and trying to be the center of attention, a know-it-all

• making herself out to be a self made millionaire when she was more like a thousand-aire after Suits owning no real estate, cars or possessions to note beside an expensive heel collection

• taking credit for things that she did not do entirely on her own but passing it off that she did

• upsetting Duchess of Cambridge who she should have allied with for assimilation

• planting her PR stories to try and break up the image and marriage that the Cambridges have naturally built

• constantly trying to one-up the Cambridges while they go about their duties, her seething envy is quite evident by trying to take the light away from their causes

• inconsistent stories of how she and Harry met, supposedly it's Misha Nonoo, but who knows

• implying she was pregnant, all but announcing it with that navy blue coat halfway open at Princess Eugenie's wedding

• overly flicking her coat open constantly and prancing around with her hand on her ever changing bump (whether real or not we will never know)

• embellishing her character by feeding us accolades of herself every chance she gets, especially on Sussex Royal

• rarely ever using the titles of more important senior royals, but overusing her HRH on herself

• having famous Hollywood friends constantly speak for her and how amazing she is, many whom she had NEVER met prior to marrying Harry, but invited to the wedding anyway; leaving out her own family members (especially her loving father who made a foolish mistake) on both sides who did nothing to warrant such cold-heartedness

• preaching about carbon footprints, only having two children, and saving the environment all the while jetting around in private jets around the world sparing no expense

• portraying this image of a humanitarian when she herself is seen constantly in astronomically priced bespoke, couture, and designer clothes and accessories that taxpayers find (well over a million now dollars as the 6th in line’s wide); paid or not by designers to advertise for them

According to The Star, “It’s a figure so staggering it’s worth revisiting. According to estimates — based on totalling up the approximated or stated retail values of everything she’s been seen wearing since November 2017 — the number is hovering around the $1.5 million mark. On her and Harry’s official visit to Ireland this spring, for instance, Markle wore over $52,000 worth of fashion in just two days.”

They also stated “The majority of Markle’s expenditure this year went toward her two wedding dresses: That Givenchy ceremony dress is thought to have cost around $330,000 and her Stella McCartney dress (or the capsule collection’s 46 replicas released after the wedding, at least) sold for $5,800. That’s a bargain compared to the $93,000 she spent on the Ralph & Russo frock she wore for some of her engagement shoot. Add in a $6,500 Oscar de la Renta dress to a wedding here, a $5,000 bespoke Carolina Herrera frock to a Trooping the Colour there, and well, you get to that million mark pretty quickly.”

• then there’s the vacant Forgmore Cottage that wasted taxpayers money if $3 million to renovate; apparently they don’t even live there as she’s in SoHo accommodations and he in his Nottingham Cottage

• playing media games with the facts and dates surrounding the birth of Archie and never allowing him to be photographed until it was on African soil for a docu-drama

• pleading for privacy over and over then showing up unannounced at events uninvited,

• filming a tone-deaf tactless documentary in Africa, revealing how she felt she's didn't have a fair shake in the royal family, the absolute nerve of she and Harry

• suing the press for racism and hate stories when she herself courts the press daily (she did pap walks in London right before it was announced she was Harry's girlfriend), when she has herself and Harry to thank for all the negative press as there's not one story pointing out criticism of her ethnic background

• lastly, there are the extreme fans called the “sugars” who go around defending MM every chance they get in a rageful manner like packs of rabid dogs if we comment on how we don’t like her style of dress or try to reason with a differing opinion to theirs on a certain news story

Have I missed anything? Likely so. I’m still new to this whole Markle debacle so excuse my errors and typos. The soap opera does go on and there are so many details and shady ways Meghan has portrayed herself past and present. From what I’ve seen, heard, and read from her own mouth and those who knew her well, “she’s a witch” as Candace Owens put it bluntly. I truly wanted to give the benefit of the doubt to her when she kept shooting herself in the foot.

She is NOT where Kate was when she married Prince William either. Kate was 29, unmarried and very close to her family with no previous marriages. Today, her family appear to be her rock solid support outside of Prince William. She assimilated well with the other royals who she now calls family. She listened to counsel, respected the centuries of tradition the monarchy had always followed. She won our hearts. Through and through, she can credit her great inner strength she possessed to overcome the constant ridicule to become the well loved future queen consort of Britain. That is no easy feat.

Meghan was 37 and many times divorced (one annulled with Joe Giuliano, an attorney she married after college), so maybe three if you count the common law marriage with Cory in Canada. Trevor was her first official one. So Harry may be her 4th! She had lived many lives before with connections to SoHo, being a yacht girl, then there are her ties to the wretches Jeffery Epstein, Hillary Clinton, Weinstein and their global agenda machine I would have to write a dissertation on to explain.

She appeared to have used her first official husband Trevor, a successful producer in his own right (she got a cameo in his film Remember Me with Robert Pattinson) to get her role on Suits as he’s done excellent for himself in the film industry as a producer. Meghan was somewhat popular in Toronto from the supporting role. She was being phased out soon after her relationship with Corey started as well. She needed a plan, along came Prince Harry one fine clucking night. Then, she set her sights on getting setup with him by Markus Anderson or Misha Nonoo; who knows with all these conflicting stories.

I said good for her at the start. At first it was incredible to see an ordinary girl from LA had married into such a high profile family, to a real titled Prince, no less! It was inspiring and fun to fantasize. Nevertheless, Meghan’s actions listed above, the various first-hand testimonies of people who were family and friends pre-Harry, her hellbent PR attempts to heighten her name, her lack of honesty, her contrived behavior pretending to be a coy ingenue, the scary desire to be Princess Diana by hunting Harry like a sport, and all the stories coming out about how she was searching for a famous British man to elevate her profile, and likely so much more to come, are why we are here with these accounts today.

Hate is such a blanket word overused nowadays in the media. But she has earned that word all on her own. We’re here to disprove and retort the stories churned out daily by her team Sunshine Sachs that continue to deceive the public. Everything is out there to see. Her character is out there to decipher online. You just have to stop reading the fluff and self-promotion and find her true nature pre-Harry to see her scheming social climbing insincere self-serving ways. So, please don’t make us out to be hating, racist, jealous, bullies because we don’t love her like we do Kate. Move past that because we’re tired of hearing it. There’s no other argument anymore for her sugars it seems. Excuse me for not buying Meghan’s pseudo feminism and humanitarian image. She is far from that of a humanitarian. Everything is written on the wall for her. She only has herself to thank for it.

[ncfan-1]

Little Secrets

Celepharn had learned much during her fosterage in Imladris, and yet, somehow, she had learned absolutely nothing of Hobbits. [Written for the Legendarium Ladies April 3rd general prompt, ‘Secrets.’]

[Also on AO3 | Dreamwidth | Pillowfort]

Continuing my yearly tradition of doing a fic for one of the royal line of Arnor that I head canon (based on the gender-neutral names) as a woman. This time it’s Celepharn, one of the rulers of Arthedain.

------------------

Celepharn had learned much during her fosterage in Imladris. That was hardly unusual; Master Elrond was a diligent teacher, and he and his family strove to ensure that their royal wards left their care more enlightened than they had entered it. What would have been very strange would be if Celepharn had not left Imladris more learned than she had entered it. It would have signaled a highly uncharacteristic laxity on the part of the teacher—or, more likely, signaled serious inattention on the part of the student.

Celepharn had learned much during her time in Imladris, and yet, somehow, she had never heard even the softest whisper regarding the Periannath.

“Ah, Mistress Gildis,” called the woman so small that if Celepharn hadn’t known her to have a good forty years to her name, she would have thought her a young child. “Good. I was hoping you’d be back soon. Did you find what I asked for?”

Right to the point, was Rosemary. Ah, well. So was Celepharn. Neither of them had much, if any, use for small talk that didn’t achieve some end greater than itself. Celepharn hopped down from the wagon she had been driving and walked round to the back. “I did indeed. She patted one of the sacks piled in the back of the wagon. “Seeds for planting. Wheat, turnip, carrot, tomato, pumpkin, potato. I also—“ Celepharn took a sturdy woolen pouch from her belt, wherein there were several, smaller pouches “—have seeds for fruit trees and bushes. Apple and blackberry, mostly, but I was able to get some mulberry and chestnut as well.”

Rosemary’s brown eyes lit up. “Fantastic! Thank you, Mistress Gildis.” She laughed ruefully, wringing her apron with her reddened, slightly sweaty hands. “We had seeds of our own, but I’m afraid the animals got into them, and we would’ve been in a tight spot without something to replace it all with.”

“I can imagine.”

She had never heard of the Periannath, not so much as a whisper, before they had come to the attention of Arthedain’s border guards. None of her people knew just where they had come from, and the Periannath themselves had been decidedly vague on that point. They had scattered upon reaching Arthedain and being accepted there by Celepharn’s father, most of them integrating into Dúnedain communities. But there were some communities, such as the one Rosemary here had established near Amon Sûl, that was entirely Periannath in makeup, no Men to be seen anywhere within the confines of the new, slowly growing village.

Next was to get the sacks to what served as the village’s storehouse. For this, Celepharn’s help was needed, for though the Periannath were a hardy people, they were a little people, and the sacks were rather too large for them to maneuver over long distances. Someone came running up with a wheelbarrow, and that expedited the process considerably.

Once the storehouse was reached, Celepharn was obliged to wait outside, watching as the Periannath either wheeled the sacks inside, or struggled to carry them in themselves. For one thing, the buildings had been built to accommodate people of the Periannath’s size; Celepharn would have had to crawl on her hands and her knees to get through the door. What was more, the Periannath had excavated their homes and shops and official buildings directly into the heather-carpeted hillsides, and Celepharn would have been obliged also to remain on her hands and knees once within. And there was the matter of keeping from breaking any of the belongings found therein; that would not be conducive to building or maintaining friendly relations.

So Celepharn took a seat with her back pressed to the side of the hill, the soft heather tickling the back of her neck. After a few minutes, Rosemary came and joined her, sighing gustily and clicking her feet, bare of shoes and covered on the top by an odd carpeting of thick, curly brown hair, together, over and over again.

“You know, Mistress Gildis,” Rosemary said, very casually, “I do wonder about you, sometimes.”

“Oh?” The sky was very blue this day, though there was a tint of gray towards the south.

“Yes. You always seem to have what I ask you to bring me, no matter what it is.”

“You haven’t asked me for anything that would be prohibitive,” Celepharn pointed out easily.

“You have a funny definition of ‘prohibitive’; I don’t know anyone who could have brought us as many seeds as you have, so quickly.” Rosemary raised an eyebrow, looked Celepharn up and down. Almost teasingly, “You’re not some kind of robber queen, are you?”

A spate of startled laughter escaped Celepharn’s mouth, high-pitched and bubbling in her throat. “No, Rosemary, no robber queen am I.” She tried to imagine what her parents would have thought of her being a robber queen, or what Master Elrond and Lady Celebrían would have thought about it, and she laughed again. “I am simply a Dúnadan who knows how to get ahold of needed supplies.”

Being a princess whose father approved of her efforts to care for the vulnerable in their kingdom certainly helped. Rosemary didn’t need to know that. It would make things rather awkward if the Periannath of this village knew just who their benefactor was; Celepharn didn’t want that.

She could imagine, though, coming here again when she was queen. Rosemary, by then old and gray, would come out of her home in the side of the hill and exclaim, “Aha! I knew you for a robber queen the moment I saw you! Where else could you have gotten that finery from?”

Or gray, maybe, but not old. Not old the way the Men of Rhovanion grew old. Not even old the way the Dúnedain grew old. The Periannath were intriguing, in this. Celepharn saw many in this village alone with gray hair and faces carved deep with wrinkles. Their eyes were still bright, though. Not the starry brightness of the Dúnedain, but the energetic brightness of a child who had yet to grow weary of the world. No matter how old the Perian, they did not, to Celepharn’s eyes, ever appear weary. Tired after a long day’s work, but never weary.

“If you have questions,” Celepharn remarked, “I have questions, too.”

“Oh? And what are they?”

“Where did you all come from?” That seemed, to Celepharn, a perfectly innocent question. “I’ve never heard a satisfactory answer to the question, and no one in Arthedain had ever heard of the Periannath before you came over the Hithaeglir.”

Rosemary’s face froze, but only for a moment, before she was back to her genial self. “We don’t really come from much of anywhere.” She waved her hand lazily. “We’re wanderers.” Never mind how quickly this village’s people had taken to sedentary life. “Wanderers who decided at last to settle down. And you may find yourself dealing with more of us before long.”

“Will we?” Her father would want to know about that.

“Oh, yes.” Rosemary’s eyes lit up as they did whenever she had a tale to tell. “My people are the Harfoots—“ she grimaced suddenly “—or Harfeet; Viola keeps harping on about it’s really ‘Harfeet.’ But there are two other kinds of Hobbits out there, and I think they meant to follow us.

“The Fallohides are taller than us, and rather more adventurous, to boot. You’ll know them when you see them, for they’ve all got golden hair. The Stoors…” Rosemary tapped her chin with her forefinger “…now, the Stoors are a little odd. They like water much more than a Hobbit should, and they wear boots when the ground’s all down with mud, if you can believe it.” Rosemary wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I certainly can’t. The men even grow beards sometimes.”

“Dúnedain men don’t grow beards until they’re very old,” Celepharn offered.

“Well, that makes them a little like us, though the similarities die off pretty quick. Anyways—“ Rosemary clapped Celepharn’s knee “—you can expect a lot more Hobbits showing up and requesting your, ahem, ‘expertise.’”

Celepharn smiled. “I look forward to it.”

The Bëorians had come over the Ered Luin first. Then, the Hadorians, tall and golden-haired. Then, the Haladin, who had always been rather different from the other two. A well-trodden story was primed to play out again, and as far as Celepharn was concerned, the least the Dúnedain could do was endeavor to be as good a steward to the Periannath as the Elves had been to the Edain.

------------------

Edain—Men of the three houses (the Houses of Bëor, Hador and Haleth) who were faithful to the Elves throughout the First Age; after the War of Wrath they were gifted with the land of Númenor and became known as the Dúnedain; after the Akallabêth they established Arnor and Gondor (singular: Adan) (Sindarin) Ered Luin—“The Blue Mountains” (Sindarin); the mountain range at the far western border of Eriador, that in the Years of the Trees and the First Age served as the border between Eriador and Beleriand. It was also known as the Ered Lindon, the Mountains of the Land of the Singers, Lindon being a name given to the region of the Ossiriand by the Ñoldor, derived from the Nandorin Lindānā. Fallohide—the least numerous of the three kindreds of the Hobbits. Fallohides tended to be taller and slimmer than other Hobbits; they tended (though weren’t always) to be fair-haired and fair-skinned. Fallohides were regarded as being bolder and more curious than Harfoots or Stoors, and tended to be better hunters than they were farmers. Of the three kindreds, they were the friendliest with the Elves. Harfoot—the most numerous of the three kindreds of the Hobbits. Harfoots were shorter than Fallohides or Stoors, and it was they who first instituted the custom of living in smials, specially fashioned Hobbit-holes tunneled into the earth. Of the three kindreds, they were the friendliest with the Dwarves. Hithaeglir—the Misty Mountains (Sindarin); the mountain range separating Eriador and Rhovanion, the largest mountain range in Middle-Earth; first raised by Morgoth to hinder Oromë in his hunting of Morgoth’s creatures Periannath—‘Halflings’; the class plural form of ‘Perian,’ the Sindarin name for the Hobbits (singular: Perian) (plural: Periain) (Sindarin) Stoor—one of the three kindreds of the Hobbits. The Stoors tended towards being heavier and broader than Harfoots or Fallohides, and were in possession of large hands and feet. Uniquely among Hobbits, Stoors normally grew facial hair. The Stoors traditionally lived in flatlands and near rivers, and were the only kindred of Hobbits who had much to do with the water. Of the three kindreds, they were the friendliest with Men.

[theoneandonlyocelot]

CA: CW - or, Why I Don’t Trust Tony Stark

Okay, so I’ve read a lot of MCU and CACW stuff, and I noticed a couple of things that nobody else has addressed, so here goes:

I’ll say right up front, I LOVED Iron Man 1, okay? Like, I STILL think it’s one of THE BEST superhero movies ever made. The fact that they took what could have been a very fluff  character, and took the time to take him back to square one, hold him responsible, make his transformation MEAN SOMETHING to him, I was, and still AM, VERY VERY IMPRESSED. RDJ’s performance on top of that just made that character MATTER, when by all accounts he’s not much in the comic books. When he tells Pepper he needs her help because “You’re all I have,” and a few minutes later in the conversation she reminds him to be careful because “You’re all I have too, you know,” that kills me. Be still my heart!!

BUT.

And this is a big, painful “but.”

Throughout the first movie, Tony has two or three basic character flaws that he DOES NOT address:

1) He is reckless and impulsive and DOES NOT THINK THINGS THROUGH. He is also breathtakingly egotistical. Driving 90+ mph through twisty canyon roads in a sports car when he could end up over a cliff? Not a thought. I cringed in the theater, knowing how easily that could have ended in disaster. I don’t care how good a driver you are, you are not immune to unforeseen road conditions. When he discovers, on the battle field, that he’s being shot at by his own weapons, is kidnapped, and eventually decides to make the Iron Man Prototype, he LITERALLY does not stop to think that MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, the bad guys are going to want this piece of tech, too? Like, he LITERALLY makes zero plans to make sure that his designs for the suit won’t end up in the wrong hands?? And I completely CANNOT believe that he couldn’t rig up a fail-safe mechanism to destroy everything should they have been discovered or their escape plan had failed.

And the company dealing under the table? It never seems to have occurred to him “Hmm, maybe I should go home, lay low, and do some quiet snooping UNTIL I FIND OUT WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?” No. He goes home, IMMEDIATELY ANNOUNCES TO THE WORLD THAT HE’S HALTING ALL WEAPONS PRODUCTION, and tells Obadiah what he knows. Not only does he not seem to realize that this level of double-dealing probably goes VERY, VERY HIGH up in his organization, he never takes steps to protect himself from the possible backlash. That is a level of naivete and self-absorption that would have been drilled out of most people upon being kidnapped, but one Tony clings to throughout the series.

On top of that, he never gives a thought to the people who work for him (who are now temporarily laid off until his plants can be converted). He never gives a heads-up to Rhodey, his military liason and best friend. And no matter what you might think about the military and their involvement, Stark Ind. was still under contract, and could have been sued up one side and down the other for halting production and failing to deliver, putting even more people out of work for even longer and potentially endangering soldiers. It very likely boiled down to Rhodey’s personal friendship with him that kept the military off his back for as long as it was.

And this complete failure to think things through leaves him so shockingly vulnerable that even after Oby admits “I’m the one who locked you out [of the board],” Tony never bothered to lock Oby out of his house. It leaves him so frighteningly vulnerable that he sends Pepper into the office to get evidence without giving a second thought to what Oby might do to her - and with no plan at all to keep her safe.

And this carries over into IM2, when he sees that other scientist’s name on the blueprints and doesn’t stop to think that maybe this other guy deserves some credit? Like, maybe he has family or something that Tony at least owes royalties to, because hey, THIS GUY HELPED INVENT THE THING TOO??

It carries even further in IM3, when he gives Mandarin his home address and dares him to come get him. And then he seems so baffled when his home is attacked. Like??? What did you think would happen, Tony?? This guy showed you he was a major badass, and you called his bluff cuz... why?? You thought you just had to look tough at the cameras and he would back down? (MCU’s treatment of Mandarin later in the story is another rant for another time.) And you did it when Pepper was home too. Cuz you forgot the lessons of IM1 and you didn’t think far enough ahead to ask yourself what you would do to protect her if he DID attack.

Like, I get why Pepper was pissed at you, man.

2) Tony wallows in guilt and self-pity. Like, bathes in it. Takes long, hot soaks in it like it’s a friggin’ therapeutic spa.

He was in captivity for how long? clutching the car battery to his chest and feeling sorry for himself before Yensin convinced him to fight back. It was three months total before he escaped - I get that he needed time to build the suit, and time to recover from the injuries he sustained in the attack. I give him a full six weeks, the standard recovery time for open heart surgery and a full half of the time he was gone. But the movie makes it pretty damn clear he didn’t even THINK of fighting back until WELL AFTER he was healed physically. Yensin’s pep-talk amounted to “You’re Tony Freakin’ Stark! At this point you’re only in captivity cuz you want to be, so get off your ass and DO SOMETHING!!”

And this carries over into the rest of the movie, leading partly to his instant halt in weapons production (see above), and to his whole broody-in-the-basement montages in both the first and second halves. It’s why he abandons Pepper at the party (thanks, reporter with photos!), why he takes on the Ten Rings by himself, and why, again, he didn’t see Oby coming.

It carries over into IM2, when he spends the entire, what, first third-to-half of the movie wallowing in self-pity because the arc reactor is poisoning him and it doesn’t occur to him that Nick Fury of friggin’ SHIELD might know somebody or something that could help? (That’s some next-level self-absorption right there, my friends, to believe that you are so damn smart that NOBODY could possibly know ANYTHING more than you.) And we know most of his “creative block” was self-pity, because the moment Coulson takes his toys, alcohol, and friends away, grounds him, and forces him to go looking at his stuff, and his father’s old SHIELD stuff, logically, he finds the solution rather quickly.

But he doesn’t learn the lesson in this movie either, apparently, because there he goes again in IM3, wallowing in self-pity again. Pepper’s mad at him at the start of the movie because he tries to sidle out of responsibility for stuff, and rather than own up to it, he pouts and buys her a giant teddy bear (Seriously, Tony? How old is she, four?). And when she calls him on it again, he keeps wallowing. He wallows through his fights with Mandarin and the other dude. And when he goes on the run, hiding out in the kid’s garage, he spends most of that time wallowing in self-pity as well. I really don’t think it would’ve have taken him that long to fix the suit and find Pepper, if he hadn’t been enjoying feeling sorry for himself. I give this movie credit, though: like IM2, it gave him a villain who mirrored his self-pity - both Whiplash and whats-his-name felt that Tony owed them something (in Whiplash’s case, rightly so; in the other guy’s it was pure self-pity and bruised ego, same as Tony’s).

And this is why I can’t get behind him in CA:CW:

Viola Davis’ character has ALWAYS felt sketchy to me. She showed up at Tony’s speech, giving him a story about her son who died in Sokovia (or Africa, I forget which) helping refugees when he was killed by a falling piece of debris during an Avengers fight. But she lets it slip that she works for a US Senator. That, right there, was a huge red flag for me. WHAT SENATOR? That’s the first question Tony should have asked. Why? Because we know there are Senators who’d do anything to bring him, and the Avengers, down.

Tony doesn’t ask that question, though. Why? Because he doesn’t think that through. And he doesn’t think it through because he’s too busy wallowing in self-pity that he might - MIGHT - have caused that kid’s death.

Look, I GET IT. I GET that him and the rest of the Avengers should be more careful. I GET that Tony has been through a lot - he has trauma, PTSD, etc, etc.

But look at it this way: Tony has more resources available to him THAN ANYONE ELSE ON THE TEAM - to get therapy for his PTSD, to get surgery on his chest (which he FINALLY got in the end of IM3). But I think it’s telling that the traumatic situation he recreated during his speech, showing off his holo-tech, wasn’t any of that. He didn’t show being attacked in Afghanistan and held prisoner. He didn’t show the Battle of New York. He didn’t show catching the nuke and going through the portal. He didn’t show his battles with Whiplash, when Mandarin destroyed his house, or when he fought Guy Pierce on the ship.

He showed his last argument with his parents.

Let that sink in. 

The implication at the end of IM3 is that he dealt with his physical trauma by getting the shrapnel, and the arc reactor, removed from his chest. The post-credits scene, where he’s talking to Bruce, implies that he’s willing to get treatment for his PTSD. There’s NO REASON to believe in later movies that he HASN’T DEALT WITH HIS PTSD, or is at least getting therapy for it on an ongoing basis.

Let that sink in, please.

It means he’s not reacting to everything in CA:CW because of battle fatigue.

I GET that he looked up to his dad, he loved his mom, he felt guilty cuz their last conversation was a fight. This is all very normal, guilt-inducing stuff.

But tech he was marketing for recovering soldiers did not show a military fight.

And to equate the two is, once again, some next-level self-absorption.

It also means he carries blithely on in his lack of tactical thinking and self-pity for the whole rest of the movie BECAUSE HE CHOOSES TO.

Sokovia Accords? He is wallowing so deeply in self-pity that he MIGHT have caused V. Davis’ son’s death that he never asks if she’s telling the truth. He never asks if he’s being manipulated. He never asks if the Avengers are being manipulated. He never asks if there’s another way to handle the chain-of-command, the who’s responsible and holding-them-accountable questions.

These are all questions that Steve DOES ASK.

Steve who, DESPITE HAVING GONE THROUGH JUST AS MUCH, IF NOT MORE, personal trauma, JUST AS MUCH, IF NOT MORE BATTLE TRAUMA, who has JUST AS MUCH, IF NOT MORE PTSD, WITH FAR FEWER RESOURCES TO COMBAT IT, DOES STOP TO ASK WHY THIS IS HAPPENING SO FAST.

You’re tellin’ me Wanda genuinely had to be under house arrest “for everybody’s safekeeping” rather than going upstate to the Avenger’s compound and practicing with live ammo and explosives until she could safely contain an explosive AND keep it away from humans? You’re tellin’ me Tony couldn’t rig up a skeet-shooter to fire at her, and a safe-room where she could practice without hurting anybody? I don’t believe it. If he’d stopped wallowing for two minutes, it probably would have occurred to him, too.

But, unfortunately for the entire team, Tony continues to wallow for the rest of the movie - he wallows in grief over his parents, guilt over V. Davis’ son (tho he never seemed to show that level of care over Wanda’s and Pietro’s parents), fails to question whether or not Bucky MIGHT be innocent (what happened to “innocent until proven guilty”? guess that doesn’t count if you’ve been brainwashed by Hydra, so maybe Nat should have seen that coming too?), wallows in his anger at Bucky during the finale (iirc, he doesn’t get any proof of, or make any connection between, Bucky and his parent’s deaths until deep into the finale), and then, during the finale fight with Steve, wallows in self-pity that Steve turned on him, like Tony’s somehow not responsible for anything.

Like, I GET that you LIKE the guy. But give him the consequences of his choices. TONY CHOSE, at every possible moment, to wallow in self-pity, to take on blind faith what he should have questioned, to doubt where he should’ve trusted, and failed to consider the consequences of his actions.

He completely fails at all three, and has throughout most of the MCU.

I find it horribly, horribly telling, to compare Tony with T’Challa, whose father was also freshly murdered in the last three days and before his very eyes. Both men raised in privilege, both men crazy smart, both men react, at first, with gut-level rage. But T’Challa eventually has the presence of mind to step back and ask himself “Is my rage justified? Is my rage directed at the right target?” And when the answer is “No,” he backs off. Tony never reaches that level of awareness. He is hit, he hits back, without thought. Even when Cap’s got him on the ground beating the crap out of him, Tony never stops to ask “Did I maybe contribute to any of this? Is my rage justified? Is Cap’s?” Even when he lashes out at Cap - ”He’s my friend.” “So was I.” - it’s as if, for Tony, it’s all about himself, as if there’s no possible room for two victims, or even three (counting Steve).

Look, I LIKE the guy. The way RDJ plays him he’s charming, and brilliant, and I think most of the time he’s at least trying to keep his heart in the right place. RDJ’s portrayal is, quite frankly, the only thing keeping me from hating Tony right now. But I don’t TRUST Tony farther than I can spit because HE IS so easy to manipulate.

And with the brain, and weapons, at his disposal, that is truly terrifying.

[onaudiopost]

30 Years Later, ‘The Golden Girls’ is Still the Most Progressive Show on Television

“I had to write ‘Golden Girls’…I’ve never gotten excited about a network idea before, but this was compelling. I could write grown-ups.” — Susan Harris, creator of ‘The Golden Girls,’ September 1985

Picture it: Hollywood, 1985. The first episode of The Golden Girls airs, introducing the world to Blanche Devereaux, Rose Nylund, Sophia Petrillo, and Dorothy Zbornak. The show attracted more than 25 million viewers, becoming the highest-rated program of the week and consistently ranked in the top 10 sitcoms during its run. Over the course of seven seasons, the show racked up 68 Emmy nominations, 11 wins, and is one of only 4 shows in TV history whose principal actors all won Emmys for their roles. Despite Hollywood’s obsession with youth, The Golden Girls is still beloved by audiences thirty years after its premiere.

Beyond the fact that the show is extremely well-written and well acted (thanks to Bea Arthur, Estelle Getty, Rue McClanahan, and Betty White), The Golden Girls also stands out for being one of the last sitcoms where progressive values were part of the show’s DNA.

In an interview with Out Magazine, show creator Susan Harris explained, “We liked to tackle — not outrageous issues — but important issues. Things that I knew that people went through that hadn’t been addressed on television.” Harris was no stranger to shows that incorporated political story lines, having previously worked on Norman Lear’s groundbreaking All in the Family, and having written the historic abortion episode for Maude, which won her the Humanitas Prize — an award for film and television writing that promotes human dignity, meaning, and freedom. It is not surprising then that Harris brought this tradition to the writer’s room of The Golden Girls each week. The following are just some of the reasons why, after 30 years, The Golden Girls is still the most progressive show on television.

A Feminist Show

The very premise of The Golden Girls — four women navigating life after marriage and finding companionship in one another — is feminist in nature.While the women exchange quips and get into fights, the overarching message of the show focuses on the importance of chosen family, and women supporting other women. Further, we see the women enjoying life after marriage. Over the course of the series, we see the characters focus on career ambitions, new hobbies, and more often than not, their unapologetic enjoyment of sex. So much so that the blog Refinery29 recently tallied how many men each character slept with (naturally, Blanche had the most at 165). What made their love lives particularly important was the fact that television shows rarely portray older women as sexual beings.

The very premise of The Golden Girls — four women navigating life after marriage and finding companionship in one another — is feminist in nature.

“Television is always several steps behind life. When do you see passionate older people on television?” Susan Harris told The New York Times in a 1985 interview shortly after the show’s premiere. “There is life after 50. People can be attractive, energetic, have romances. When do you see people of this age in bed together? Eventually on this show, you will. It’s kind of pathetic that this show is television’s baby steps.’’

And the impact this had on audiences was clear. During an episode of The Phil Donahue Show, an adoring caller thanked guests Bea Arthur and Betty White for making her “feel 52 and gorgeous.” And the Winter 1989 issue of Media & Values magazine included survey responses from middle aged viewers of the show, such as one woman who responded, “I like this program because it gives me hope that there’s life after 50!” Beyond the message of female empowerment, the fact that the characters were older was significant in and of itself for the unprecedented portrayal of aging on television.

Portrayals of Aging

“Probably the single most effective product to come out of Hollywood in terms of turning around the cultural stereotypes about older women was the hugely popular and successful television show The Golden Girls in the late 1980s and early 1990s,” activist Ai-jen Poo wrote in her book Aging with Dignity. “Those four women, each with her own distinct history and personality…shattered the silence and the invisibility around aging in the most hilarious and endearing ways.”

While the entertainment industry pressures actresses to go to great lengths to maintain or restore their youth, The Golden Girls embraced aging and all the humor, wisdom, and vulnerability that comes with it.

This is evident in the episode “Rose Fights Back,” when Rose is cut off from her deceased husband’s pension plan and must find a new job. She is soon faced with age discrimination and the fear of not being able to make her rent. In a poignant scene, Rose discusses often seeing an older woman digging through the trash. She tells the other ladies, “I wondered, what did she do to get herself into a fix like that? I thought, well, she must be lazy, or she must be pretty stupid to let something like this happen to her. The truth is: she’s me.”

In another episode, Sophia makes a friend, Alvin, at the Boardwalk, but soon discovers that he has Alzheimer’s disease. She tells Dorothy, “people think if you live to be my age you should be grateful just to be alive. Well, that’s not how it works. You need a reason to get up in the morning and sometimes even after you find one, life can turn right around and spit in your face.”

While the entertainment industry pressures actresses to go to great lengths to maintain or restore their youth, The Golden Girls embraced aging and all the humor, wisdom, and vulnerability that comes with it.

Gay Rights

While the show’s message about women and aging is tied to its premise, The Golden Girls was often ahead of its time on other social issues. Twenty-four years prior to the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic ruling on marriage equality, The Golden Girls defended same-sex marriage before it was a mainstream position. In this episode, Blanche’s brother Clayton pays a visit and announces that he is engaged to his partner, Doug. In one scene, Sophia perfectly explains marriage equality to an upset Blanche:

In an interview with Vulture, show writer Marc Cherry recalled, “We were young writers, and we got to say a little something about gay rights and how gay people see themselves. It was about two men getting married, which is something people at the time didn’t talk about. And it was a really funny episode.”

Off the screen, the actresses were dedicated to advancing the cause of gay rights. At the height of the AIDS epidemic, which tragically hit the gay community, Estelle Getty was a staunch AIDS activist. In a 1989 interview, she explained, “I’ve been in show business all my life, and the majority of my friends are gay…A lot of my friends have died from AIDS.”

The show tackled the stigma surrounding AIDS head on in the episode “72 Hours,” and worked to counteract the myth that it was a gay disease or punishment. In the episode, Rose finds out she may have contracted the disease from an operation, and grows increasingly scared and angry. In one scene she exclaims, “This isn’t supposed to happen to people like me…I’m a good person!” Blanche argues back, “AIDS is not a bad person’s disease, Rose. It is not God punishing people for their sins.” The scene manages to be both humorous and raw.

Confronting Race

Much like the show did with gay rights, The Golden Girls confronted issues related to race in honest ways, rather than the imaginary “post-racial” interactions many sitcoms favor today. In one episode, Dorothy’s son Michael announces he’s getting married to Lorraine, a black singer in his band. The news causes Dorothy to cringe and cry out “Oh God,” but she recovers to explain that her race doesn’t matter. The scene portrays the complexity of prejudice, and dispels the idea that racism is something only “bad people” are guilty of — a recognition that is necessary in order to truly overcome prejudice.

Rarely is America’s complicated history with race woven into a sitcom storyline, much less as part of a white character’s backstory.

In another episode, we are introduced to Blanche’s “Mammy” from growing up, Viola Watkins. When Viola reveals that she had an affair with Blanche’s father, she explains, “In another time and place, we would have been married. But at that time in the South, it wasn’t an option.” The episode highlighted how often white children grew attached to their black caretakers, while underscoring the racial animosity that existed around them. Rarely is America’s complicated history with race woven into a sitcom storyline, much less as part of a white character’s backstory.

Disability Visibility

One subject matter that most television shows ignore altogether is disability. The Golden Girls, however, had multiple episodes revolving around characters with disabilities, usually as part of the women’s love lives. In these episodes, the women are forced to confront their own prejudices and misperceptions around what it means to be a person with a disability.

According to Lawrence Carter-Long, an expert on disability and media, “The best writing about disability focuses on character. Not a rehash of the same two-dimensional tragic or heroic movie-of-the-week stillness we’ve all seen a hundred times before.”

This sentiment is perfectly demonstrated in the episode “Stand By Your Man.” Blanche is nervous about dating Ted, a man in a wheelchair, played by Hugh Farrington, an actor who was paraplegic in real life. In the episode, Blanche gets past her prejudices and discovers that Ted is no different than anyone else, for better or worse. After learning that he has a wife, she says, “It never dawned on me that you could be a jerk in a wheelchair.”

In another episode, Rose is dating Jonathan Newman, a doctor at the grief center where she works. Rose is initially embarrassed to reveal their relationship because Jonathan is a little person, but she is determined to make it work. In the end, however, Jonathan breaks things off with Rose because she isn’t Jewish.

Fighting Poverty

Finally, as someone who does research and advocacy around fighting poverty, I am often frustrated by the myths and stereotypes that persist in film and television. The Golden Girls is not one of those shows. On many occasions, the show discusses poverty, but there is no better scene that demonstrates how well they did on the subject than in the episode “Have Yourself A Very Little Christmas,” when the ladies volunteer at a church to serve Christmas dinner to the homeless. They soon discover that Dorothy’s ex-husband, Stan, is among the people in need. The Church’s Reverend goes on to perfectly explain how poverty is an experience (rather than a moral failing, which is often the message), how public policy plays a role, and closes the scene with a direct jab at then-President Ronald Reagan:

REVEREND AVERY

You’d be surprised how many people are only two or three paychecks away from being on the street. The suddenly poor are all around us. Once you’ve been knocked down like that, it’s very hard to recover.

DOROTHY

What’s going to happen to all these people?

REVEREND AVERY

I don’t know. There’s no affordable housing, the rents keep going up and up, and the minimum wage has been held down.

ROSE

Seems so unfair.

REVEREND AVERY

Well, that’s because it is. There are three million homeless, hungry people in this country.

BLANCHE

What bothers me is, those people out there are being fed today because it’s Christmas, but what will they eat tomorrow?

REVEREND AVERY

When the great communicator talked about his vision of a city on a hill, I wonder if it included people sleeping on gratings in the street.

Over the past few years, many politicians have credited television for advancing their views on gay rights. And a growing body of research confirms that “as we grow emotionally attached to characters who are part of a minority group, our prejudices tend to recede.” In other words, television has the power to change the world. This makes what The Golden Girls accomplished even more critical. While the show wasn’t perfect on every issue, particularly on perpetuating hurtful plot lines around trans characters, The Golden Girls was an unapologetically progressive show. The show gave visibility to older women while using this unique platform to champion a number of progressive ideals that often go untouched by television shows. Not only is this level of progressivism unmatched on the small screen, the entire show was made possible by the understanding that older actresses have value and women can be funny.

The strength of the characters, the incorporation of storytelling, and punch lines delivered with a simple facial expression are among the many devices that make The Golden Girls one of the funniest sitcoms of all time. But it’s progressive message makes it one of the most important.

As a loyal fan, I’ll be celebrating the show’s 30th anniversary with my favorite episodes and a slice of cheesecake.

[kentuckertv]

Emmys 2017 predictions: Who will (and should) win

(Photos: HBO, Hulu, NBC, HBO, NBC)

The 69th Primetime Emmy Awards are almost here, so it’s time to make those all-important predictions — both who will win, and who will be robbed in each key category. Let’s get to it:

Outstanding Drama Series nominees:

Better Call Saul (AMC) The Crown (Netflix) The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu) House of Cards (Netflix) Stranger Things (Netflix) This Is Us (NBC) Westworld (HBO)

Will win: This Is Us. The only network drama in this category, the NBC show fought its way into Netflix/HBO-dominated categories. This cannily conceived drama is the kind of product Emmy voters love: it’s emotional, it’s popular, it has a bunch of likable characters, and it comforts the older tier of voters in assuring them that network TV can still yield a quality hit. All that said, there’s one big alternate scenario: The Handmaid’s Tale might win this just as easily.

Should win: Better Call Saul. What a fantastic season this show had, full of rich stories about the brotherly competition that Bob Odenirk and Michael McKean inhabited so well. Every hour brought the show closer to its time-line confluence with Breaking Bad, yet each hour stood on its own as a beautifully filmed work of art.

Outstanding Comedy Series nominees:

Atlanta (FX) black-ish (ABC) Master of None (Netflix) Modern Family (ABC) Silicon Valley (HBO) Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix) Veep (HBO)

Will win: Veep. How can HBO’s best sitcom — which managed to survive the transition into the Age of Trump with sharp funniness — lose? The news that the coming season will be its last was announced too late to be a factor for sentimentality in Emmy voting, and I’ll bet folks had already pulled the lever for it anyway.

Should win: Atlanta. Donald Golver’s FX series was the Emmy year’s most original comedy, certainly one of the funniest, and regularly one of the most creatively filmed and edited. If there’s one upset victory on Emmy night, let it be this over the already well-rewarded Veep.

(Michele K. Short/AMC via AP)

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series nominees

Sterling K. Brown (This Is Us) Anthony Hopkins (Westworld) Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul) Matthew Rhys (The Americans) Liev Schreiber (Ray Donovan) Kevin Spacey (House of Cards) Milo Ventimiglia (This Is Us)

Will win: Sterling K. Brown. He won last year for his work as Christopher Darden in FX’s The People v. O.J. Simpson, and that momentum will help carry him across the Emmy finish-line first here. And he deserves it: As Randall Hill, a neurotic and sensitive husband/father/son, Brown gives his character a necessary strength underpinning the vulnerability.

Should win: Bob Odenkirk. Brown is really good, but as I said, he’s already got an Emmy — so how about one for Odenkirk? He has shown more growth as an actor than anyone could have imagined if you remember him from Mr. Show, and in the latest season of Saul, he managed to be poignant, wily, and funny within nearly every episode.

(George Kraychyk/Hulu via AP)

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series nominees

Viola Davis (How to Get Away with Murder) Claire Foy (The Crown) Elisabeth Moss (The Handmaid’s Tale) Keri Russell (The Americans) Evan Rachel Wood (Westworld) Robin Wright (House of Cards)

Will win: Elisabeth Moss. She gives a great performance in the kind of strenuously dramatic role that Emmy voters love to reward. While I had problems with the pacing of the second half of the first season (i.e., frequently slooooow), Moss’s own performance was always perfectly calibrated.

Should win: Moss. That said, I really admired Claire Foy’s command of queenly passion in The Crown, and would not be disappointed at all if she won. But Moss is pretty great in Handmaid’s Tale.

(Photo: FX)

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series nominees:

Anthony Anderson (black-ish) Aziz Ansari (Master of None) Zach Galifianakis (Baskets) Donald Glover (Atlanta) William H. Macy (Shameless) Jeffrey Tambor (Transparent)

Will win: Donald Glover. I’m going out on a limb here — Tambor and Macy are veteran winners in this category, and maybe voters will think it’s time to reward Anthony Anderson’s work on black-ish, but I think the amazingly impressive performance by Glover as the smart, shrewd, conflicted Earn will win him the prize. Glover’s performance insists that you understand Earn in all his contradictions — he’s a hard worker who’s also depressed; a loyal friend who’s also lousy in certain relationships; a man who is a frequent victim of racism both casual and pointed, yet not a victim at all in his insistence upon being measured for his talents and abilities. Like the show itself, Earn is bursting with potential.

Should win: Glover, no doubt and in full.

(Ron Tom/ABC via AP)

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series nominees:

Pamela Adlon (Better Things) Tracee Ellis-Ross (black-ish) Jane Fonda (Grace and Frankie) Lily Tomlin (Grace and Frankie) Allison Janney (Mom) Ellie Kemper (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Veep)

Will win: Julia Louis-Dreyfus. There’s a reason she keeps winning in this category: She’s giving, season after season, one of the most enjoyable and sharp-witted performances on television. If she wins this one, it’ll be six in a row.

Should win: Tracee Ellis Ross. Woefully underrated, Ross has been doing very fine work on black-ish from the start. Her character Bow is at once a believable professional woman and a believably frantic, frazzled wife and mom. Ross has a gift for physical comedy that’s rare among this year’s nominees in this category (Louis-Dreyfus and Kemper her only competition there), and she’s a team player, frequently playing excellent straight-woman to Anthony Anderson’s joker.

(Photo: Netflix)

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series nominees:

John Lithgow (The Crown) Jonathan Banks (Better Call Saul) Mandy Patinkin (Homeland) Michael Kelly (House of Cards) David Harbour (Stranger Things) Ron Cephas Jones (This Is Us) Jeffrey Wright (Westworld)

Will win: John Lithgow. This used to be an easy Emmy formula: Familiar actor portraying famous historical figure = Emmy. Thus, Lithgow’s thorough embodiment of Winston Churchill — and really, after the first few minutes seeing him, you pretty much forget it’s Lithgow — ought to be a sure thing, right? Perhaps; enough so that I’m picking him. Plus, I think the Academy wants to give some awards — if not the very top awards — to The Crown.

Should win: Ron Cephas Jones. Jones played my favorite This Is Us character, William Hill, the formerly dissolute dad to Sterling K. Brown, the father he never knew growing up. Jones convinced you that he was a musician who’d squandered his talent, a recovering drug addict, a now-excellent grandfather, and a man dying of cancer. If that doesn’t deserve an Emmy, what does?

(Photo: Ron Batzdorff/NBC)

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series nominees:

Ann Dowd (The Handmaid’s Tale) Samira Wiley (The Handmaid’s Tale) Uzo Aduba (Orange Is the New Black) Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things) Chrissy Metz (This Is Us) Thandie Newton (Westworld)

Will win: Chrissy Metz. As I said above, This Is Us is filled with likable characters, and Metz’s Kate is one of them for sure. As Kate Pearson, a lively charmer who suffers from poor self-esteem and is navigating a serious romantic relationship, Metz has won over a lot of viewers, and probably the Emmy Academy.

Should win: Ann Dowd. Dowd is great in almost anything (The Leftovers, Masters of Sex), and never more so than playing the awesomely severe Aunt Lydia in The Handmaid’s Tale. Taking hold of a character that could have been one-note, or a variation on One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’s Nurse Ratched, Dowd managed to make Aunt Lydia both a villain and a poignant figure — you can see that she wasn’t always this cruel a person. She deserves an award for that.

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series nominees:

Alec Baldwin (Saturday Night Live) Louie Anderson (Baskets) Ty Burrell (Modern Family) Tituss Burgess (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) Tony Hale (Veep) Matt Walsh (Veep)

Will win: Alec Baldwin. If there is one lead-pipe cinch in this year’s Emmys, it’s that Baldwin will win for his Donald Trump impersonation on SNL. I am, apparently, alone in feeling Baldwin’s take on Trump is loose and vague — he doesn’t have Trump’s gestures down accurately; his puckered lips don’t approximate Trump’s mouth — but there is such a lust to see Trump humiliated, I guess this will have to do.

Should win: Matt Walsh. I wasn’t counting lines, but it seemed to me that Walsh’s superbly incompetent speechwriter Mike McLintock took on an even greater presence in last season’s Veep. His subplot as the ghostwriter of Selina Meyer’s autobiography enabled Walsh to bring new depth to Mike superficiality.

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series nominees:

Kate McKinnon (Saturday Night Live) Vanessa Bayer (Saturday Night Live) Leslie Jones (Saturday Night Live) Anna Chlumsky (Veep) Judith Light (Transparent) Kathryn Hahn (Transparent)

Will win: Kate McKinnon. McKinnon is SNL’s MVP, a most valuable player of hard-to-play characters, from Angela Merkel to Mika Brzezinski to Jeff Sessions. (Her Justin Bieber is pretty great, too.) But let’s face it, she’s going to win on the strength of one impersonation: her Hillary Clinton, whom McKinnon portrays as a plucky workhorse whose strenuous attempts to be media-likable now seem tragically poignant.

Should win: Anna Chlumsky. Much as I admire McKinnon’s skills, I think the five-times nominated Chlumsky for her performance as Chief of Staff Amy Brookheimer in Veep. As the seasons have proceeded, Chlumsky interprets Amy in an increasingly complex and emotional manner that never forsakes comedy, but increases our identification with the put-upon Amy.

(Craig Blankenhorn/HBO via AP)

Outstanding Limited Series nominees:

Big Little Lies (HBO) Fargo (FX) Feud: Bette and Joan (FX) The Night Of (HBO) Genius (National Geographic)

Will win: Big Little Lies. This is one of the tightest races of the Emmys; I think Feud: Bette and Joan could win this just as much as Big Little Lies. But ultimately, I’m reasonably sure that the big-star fire power (Reese, Nicole, Shailene) of Lies, combined with what is possibly the best writing adapter David E. Kelley has ever done, will secure this HBO miniseries a win, and a well-deserved one.

Should win: The Night Of. But not as well-deserved as The Night Of. This other HBO miniseries never quite had as much buzz as other esteemed shows this season, but writers Richard Price and Steve Zaillian constructed such a sturdy murder mystery/prison saga/courtroom drama, stocked with great performances that include Riz Ahmed, John Turturro, Bill Camp, and Jeannie Berlin, that I wish it could pull out a surprise win.

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series nominees:

Riz Ahmed (The Night Of) Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock: The Lying Detective) Robert De Niro (The Wizard of Lies) Ewan McGregor (Fargo) Geoffrey Rush (Genius) John Turturro (The Night Of)

Will win: Riz Ahmed. He was very good indeed as Nasir Khan, the college student accused of murdering a one-night-stand lover. Ahmed’s large, expressive eyes conveyed Naz’s innocence about the rough world he was plunged into immediately upon his arrest, and Naz’s journey from shocked victim to cagey survivor is completely convincing.

Should win: John Turturro. He took what could have been a caricature role — a sad sack lawyer with a gimmick (itchy feet) — and made it into something richly three-dimensional. He met the challenge of making mediocre lawyer John Stone something close to a tragic figure.

(Photo: HBO)

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series nominees:

Carrie Coon (Fargo) Felicity Huffman (American Crime) Nicole Kidman (Big Little Lies) Jessica Lange (Feud) Susan Sarandon (Feud) Reese Witherspoon (Big Little Lies)

Will win: Nicole Kidman. As a character that could have been defined by her victimization as an abused spouse, Kidman played Celeste Wright as a lot more than a victim; she was strong and, in her own way, an exploiter and manipulator of various aspects of her superficially fabulous California-suburbia life.

Should win: Reese Witherspoon. Taking the perhaps least sympathetic role among the female pals in Lies, executive producer Witherspoon turned in a marvelously flinty, finely-detailed performance that deserves an Emmy.

Outstanding Variety Talk Series nominees:

Full Frontal With Samantha Bee (TBS) Jimmy Kimmel Live! (ABC) Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (HBO) The Late Late Show With James Corden (CBS) Real Time With Bill Maher (HBO) The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (CBS)

Will win: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The shock that registered on Colbert’s face during his live election-night Showtime special carried over into anger, sarcasm, and an eloquent bitterness on The Late Show, super-charging his monologues and making him a source of both comfort and controversy as his show became TV’s most consistently fine source of political commentary. You can say that Colbert won’t be able to sustain his anger, or his ratings surge, but give him the Emmy first.

Should win: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. After Alec Baldwin, Colbert is the performer who has benefitted the most from the election of Donald Trump, and while I’ll bet Baldwin thanks his lucky stars for this turn of events, it probably fills Colbert with private sorrow. Which is why he ought to win: his monologues are filled with as much fear for the country as they are with outrage.

The Emmys will be broadcast Sunday at 8 p.m. on CBS.

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[him-e]

I liked your review on Sophie/Sansa, I think that Sophie is a gorgeous Sansa and a talented actress, I hope she will have a good career. Now the small question, what is your opinion on the performance Sophie and Kit in season 6?

Their interactions specifically? 

I think Sophie and Kit were excited to have so many important scenes together in season 6, had been waiting for this for a long time, they’re clearly good friends irl, and all of this transpired from their onscreen interactions. At the same time, they were instructed to play two estranged half siblings who finally connect with each other, not without difficulty, after years of pain, terrible losses and intense trauma, and they do because they literally have no other choice but each other (Jon is Sansa’s last hope, and Sansa gives Jon a new purpose after he lost all sense of belonging in the NW). All these different factors resulted in a complex and unpredictable dynamic, the icing on the cake being the natural chemistry Kit and Sophie have. 

Let’s start with their reunion scene. A lot has been written about it, about the way both actors played it as a crescendo from anticipation, to recognition, to the final explosive momentum of the physical embrace. I like how both actors’ performances convey an almost dreamlike sense of disbelief in seeing the other, almost if the characters were not sure if this was real or not. For Jon, Sansa’s arrival was an absolute shock that he wasn’t prepared for, and Kit plays it beautifully. Note how he exhales and draws back for a second as soon as he recognizes her face, as if he needs a moment to truly absorb this information and isn’t really sure what to do, and then proceeds to collect himself and climb the stairs, slowly but deliberately, towards her:

I really love the cinematic crescendo of the camera following Kit steps just as Sansa’s gaze does, while Sophie stands still, waiting, holding her breath:

(gifs by cerseilannister)

Sophie plays Sansa as visibly distraught on top of physically and mentally exhausted: her face (and hair) is a mess, she’s holding back a variety of emotions from anticipation to childlike vulnerability to fear (fear that this moment isn’t real, fear that someone will come and destroy everything, maybe fear of Jon’s rejection, because she honestly has no idea if he’s going to take her in or not—note the quick blinking and the nervous hand wringing, that Sophie routinely uses to convey Sansa’s anxiety).

another fantastic acting detail is Kit watching Sophie with his head slightly tilted as he’s studying her face and isn’t really sure if he should trust his own eyes and he’s probably thinking you look like a girl I used to know a lifetime ago, my lady

(gif by cerseilannister)

again, he draws back a bit before Sansa throws herself in his arms. It’s a matter of split seconds, but it’s actually Sansa who makes the first move. He reacts immediately though, instinctively. The whole scene was very, very carefully staged, otherwise you wouldn’t get this level of synchronicity.

Both actors use sharp, deep breathing to underscore the building tension and the swelling emotion. It’s actually a major defining element in their scenes together—like it happens A LOT—and I think it’s very interesting. People picked romantic vibes in their interactions because of stuff like this:

I mean what the fuck:

(gifs by harleygrenade)

why did they play it like this? couldn’t they just have a regular sibling fight?

Now, I don’t think Sophie and Kit were playing romance, no. I think they were instructed to play their scenes as two people who clearly want to see each other as family, and are desperate to connect, but are also complete strangers, fighting a war they’re already losing, fighting for a brother they’ll most likely never see alive again, fighting for their own lives, and not knowing if they can fully trust each other. There’s tension in their scenes because there is tension in their lives at this point—they’re in a dangerous, potentially lethal situation. But this translates, as I said earlier, in a deliciously vibrant, nuanced dynamic, fraught with affection but also building anxiety, lack of familiarity and some simmering, unresolved grudges.

Some viewers complained that their scenes, especially in Book of the Stranger (huh, now I see how fitting that title is), were too affectionate for two half siblings who spent their lives in Winterfell carefully avoiding each other. The reunion scene with the hug was perceived as “too much”, and the following one, with all that playful teasing and remembering Winterfell togetherand sharing beers, made some people actually scream OOC. To be fair, in THAT scene, you can clearly see the real Sophie and Kit slip out of character and into their real selves in a few brief moments:

(gifs by thatonekimgirl)

However, I don’t think this was a mistake. It MIGHT be! (as I said, Sophie and Kit are very comfortable around each other, and this was certainly a funny scene to play, and it’s not impossible that they went slightly off script.) But I think they were given specific directing instructions to play it as “natural” as possible so that the audience could be sucked in this intimate, familiar moment of catching up between two siblings, and believe that they’ve known each other since birth even though we never saw them interacting onscreen before. It was also a much needed moment of genuine levity, of healing, after the horrors of Sansa’s abuse and Jon’s revenant storyline, and before the hardships of the upcoming war for Winterfell.

Interacting with Jon also allowed Sophie to finally play her smug angle:

(gifs by davis-viola and sansastlark)

We’ve never seen this expression on Sophie’s face in the show. This is Sansa, finally able to focus on what she wants and to freely express her opinion, because she knows she’s safe, she’s around Jon who has her back. Brienne, Theon, Tyrion, Sandor, all helped her, but they weren’t family; Jon is.

Interestingly, being able to focus on what she wants for once results in Sansa deciding she’s going to play a game without letting anyone in—not even Jon.

Like I said, it’s a very nuanced dynamic between them. The angle that Sophie is playing is that Sansa hasn’t been able to fully trust anyone for so long that she feels she has to guard herself even from Jon, because that’s how you play the game—you keep your cards to yourself, trust nobody, and care only for yourself. This is Littlefinger’s lesson: people are either pawns or players, and I think Sansa gave a quick look at Jon and decided he’s a pawn for now, as he lacks the acumen and the charisma to be a player (or so she thinks; by the end of season 6, she has to reassess her strategy, because Jon is absolutely a Player—even if he doesn’t know it yet).

(another moment of lowkey Smugface by Sophie, gif courtesy of bericdondarrion)

It’s unusual to see Sansa like this and people were a bit disoriented by how quickly she went from vulnerable little bird in search of her big bro’s protection to boss ass bitch looking almost too… ambitious? Cunning? Treacherous, even? (see also the controversy arisen by the Look she gives to Littlefinger when Jon is proclaimed KitN). I talked in the other post about Sophie’s sympathy for the Dark Side, but I think there are precise directing and writing choices behind her acting.

Whatever it is—and rest assured it’s now an important aspect to the character, something we’re going to see more of in season 7—it coexists*** with the Sansa who desperately tries to convince Jon to hold back until they have more men, the Sansa who spends hours to make a Ned-cloak for him, the Sansa who has tears in her eyes when she declares he’s a Stark to her, and who looks like this:

(by gifsofgot)

when Jon kisses her forehead.

*** incredible how (female) characters can have more than one (1) note, emotion or personality trait, right?

SPEAKING OF THE FOREHEAD KISS, there would be a lot to say about Kit’s acting choices, because they’re a major factor in how ridiculously shippy their interactions came across.

Most of the time, Kit plays Jon as if he’s somewhat lost around Sansa—lost in trying to understand who she is, slightly nervous and upset by her presence, stealing glances at her while she’s not looking or busy doing something else. This is definitely consistent with the idea that Jon isn’t very comfortable with Sansa due to their lack of familiarity, Sansa’s resemblance to Catelyn, and her own history of looking down on him for his bastardy. It’s clear that, despite their promises in 6x04, neither has fully moved past this huge roadblock in their relationship. It’s also in line with Jon not being exactly used to familiarize with women and being a grumpy goofball around them.

The forehead kiss, however, remains inexcusable and inexplicable, lol.

Really, Kit, did you HAVE to plant an INTERMINABLE kiss on Sophie’s forehead, eyes closed as if you’re both savoring the moment and being consumed by some heart wrenching emotion?

It’s not like you had to take a good look at her lips while you reluctantly withdraw from her, either.

(by gifsofgot)

IN CONCLUSION:

Kit and Sophie did their job so well that an alarming number of viewers started to suspect there was something “more” going on between Jon and Sansa. In fact, there is something more: the growing political tension between them, overlapping with their newfound, frail sibling bond (soon to be tested by Jon’s parentage reveal). So when people perceive “tension”, it’s probably THAT kind of tension. 

however, for the audience, it’s incredibly easy to forget that Jon and Sansa are supposed to be siblings, as they’re played by two insanely good looking actors, who’ve never interacted on screen before, and who really don’t look like they share any genes… at all. Kit could have chemistry with a broomstick as far as I’m concerned, and watching him bat his long eyelashes at Sansa while holding his breath did not help. As for Sophie, this is the first important series of interactions she gets to have with a male lead who isn’t a) significantly older than her; b) a creep; c) gay, so do the maths.

I don’t know if the showrunners were familiar with the fandom concept of jonsa, but even if they weren’t, they should have probably imagined how certain scenes would look in a series that became famous for its iconic twincest, no less. People tend to pick up incestuous vibes more easily, if the narrative has already proved to be able to go in that direction. And Game of Thrones definitely has.

whatever the authorial intent is, as far as I’m concerned I’m enjoying the fuck out of this. Sophie and Kit are absolutely magnetic when they’re on screen together, regardless the nature of their canon dynamic.

[inherattic-blog1]

Fence In.

I went to see Fences (the movie) with a guy. He came into my life as the type who would FaceTime you every night and stop by with ice cream on Sundays just because you had mentioned wanting dessert. Who would text to make sure you got home okay if he knew you were out late – even if you hadn’t been with him. I got semi-comfortable fairly fast because why not? It felt good. And if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, isn’t it a duck? If he acts like he likes me and it feels like he likes me, then doesn’t homeboy like me? Now, a week removed from the movie date, I’m not sure how to answer that question; a fog has settled around us and I’m unable to see through it to his feelings about me. Considering how transparent everything seemed in the beginning, the uncertainty makes me wonder if this will perpetually be one of the questions of my life. How does he - whoever the “he” of the moment may be - really feel about me, and when is it safe to let my guard down? I have friends who would say not until he’s your man, or your husband, or never. As my mind picks at the scabbed over thought, I remember Fences and the scene that resonated most with me – Troy confessing his infidelity to his wife Rose. As she stands in her kitchen, listening to him explain that he has impregnated another woman, her knees buckle and she very nearly falls. After some more conversation in the kitchen she heads outside to their yard and he follows her. There, she asks him if he will keep seeing this other woman and he tells her that he will.

After spending so many years with Troy, I wonder if Rose still asked herself how this particular “he” really felt about her and whether it was alright to keep her guard down. And, if she did, how often did she pose the question? How many times, while she cooked his breakfast, and slept beside him, while he made her laugh and spoke brazenly of the satisfaction he still found between her legs, did she take a step back and wonder if underneath all of the feelings, she also had all of the facts? How often did she ask herself, does he make me feel this good only because things between us actually are that good?

It’s the kind of movie that slyly parts the folds of your heart to reveal fear like a pit right at the center. It’s not about any one guy – a crush can hardly mean as much to me as a husband does to a wife – but rather the threat of unknown realities, and the riskiness of being vulnerable with someone who may never show you their own underbelly in return. By the time Troy explains his own fears and regrets to his wife, his baby is already growing inside another woman and he is unwilling to sacrifice this mistress to give their marriage a chance to heal. With this decision he makes himself the center of his life – this is what he needs to feel like more than what he is, because what he is is not enough for him. It doesn’t matter that what he is has been enough for Rose, and could have been enough for his son – and perhaps it shouldn’t matter. Maybe it’s not fair to ask someone to compost their leftover dreams and invest the fuel in growing and maintaining others; even if others are family. Maybe I should’ve felt sympathy for Troy because he had found something to make him feel like less of a failure – even as he was failing Rose.

In the movie there is dialogue about fences and their dual function of keeping people in and keeping people out. I wonder now about the fence that is built just around me, and if I should ever let it come down. Prior theorizing about love and commitment led me to believe that I should – after all, if the walls never come down how will anyone else ever get in? But I keep seeing Rose (or rather Viola Davis) and her buckling knees, her snot-nosed cry, and thinking that maybe there is at least part of me that must always remain shut away, fenced in, and just for me; a piece of soul that will help me brace my knees against the impact of a perceived reality being blown apart, and wait for me amongst the wreckage of a larger fence that has failed to keep someone in.