#(and because he feels guilty about contributing to her problem at the start. not that he'd admit it)

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

What would you say your least favorite episodes are? Which episodes would you say are the worst, from a storytelling and thematic standpoint? Are your two lists mostly the same, or almost completely different?

Miraculous has 130 episodes in the first five seasons and there's no way in hell that I'm going to try to rank them all, so I'll just look at the episode list and give you my personal picks for my least favorite episode and the episode that did the most damage to canon from each season. Please note that this is just what my memory serves up as the worst since I'm not rewatching the whole show to give each episode more thorough consideration. I'll also list any episodes I considered just for the fun of it and link to my posts on them (or more broad posts where I happened to talk about that episode in detail) if I remember that such posts exist.

Season 1

Least Favorite: The Pharaoh

Worst writing: Lady Wifi

Dishonorable Mentions: The Bubbler, Copycat, Kung Food, Gamer, Animan, Volpina

It was hard to pick episodes in season one because there aren't any truly major problems in this season. A lot of the episodes have weird morals or odd choices, but there's nothing narrative breaking and the odd morals are all pretty equally bad. I went with The Pharaoh for my personal least favorite because of how appallingly bad the Egyptology is. Anything that contributes to people having wildly inaccurate ideas about Ancient Egypt goes on my shit list. No, ancient Egyptians did not use magic spells to try to resurrect people! They didn't even believe in the resurrection of their own gods! Their beliefs were all focused on giving people a good afterlife, not on bringing people back to this life!

Lady Wifi got the label as worst written mostly for reasons external to the episode itself, though there are internal problems. The first reason is that this episode really leaned into the idea that Alya was obsessed with outing Ladybug and Chat Noir's identities to the world, leading her to do some questionable snooping. I would expect an episode like this to end with a lesson about respecting people's privacy, but it doesn't. The episode ends with Alya doing the same stuff she was doing at the start, just with a more benign target:

Alya: Wanna see my new smartphone? It puts my old phone to shame! Just look at these pics! Marinette: Huh? What's with all these photos of Adrien? Alya: Well... with a mask and a costume, don't you think he looks a little bit like Cat Noir?

You'd think that she'd be a little more impacted by the fact that her akumatized self almost handled her idol over to the bad guy! Note that I don't want Alya to feel guilty here, I just want her to look at her akuma and reflect a bit, leading to character growth. Something like Marinette asking Alya who her next suspect is and Alya announcing that she's done outing heroes. It's time to out a villain instead!

The small-scale side of this problem is that it leaves the episode without a clear lesson, making the episode feel kind of pointless. The large-scale side of the problem is that Alya's character genuinely needed a lesson around respecting privacy because she goes on to become Rena Rouge without the show ever addressing the issue of her identity-revealing obsession. I think that was a bad call for Alya's character and the show itself.

This was a missed opportunity to give Alya some majorly deserved focus that had nothing to do with her role as best friend to the lead. Season two introduced three new heroes, but Chloe was the only one given a multi-episode storyline. Nino and Alya just randomly got their miraculous in one-off episodes even though they're leads' best friends and the heroes who stick around. I would have liked to see them get storylines, too.

Based on season one, Alya could have been given her miraculous after an arc focused on earning Ladybug's trust. This could have even ended with Alya learning Marinette's identity if you want to keep that plot point. Instead the show just decided to pretend like the identity-revealing obsession was never a thing from season two on and Alya doesn't really do anything to earn a miraculous. She just gets one because she's Marinette's bff. I think Alya deserves better than that.

The other reason also relates to Alya's overall writing. If memory serves, Lady Wifi was the first case of Alya being written more like a tabloid journalist than an actual reporter, an issue that has plagued her character for the rest of the show because the writers cannot make up their minds as to which one she is! Does she investigate things or just believe whatever crap she's told? Pick a lane, give a reason for the nuance, or give her a character arc around being more discerning! It even makes some of her actions jarring like when she posts the kissing photo at the end of Oblivio. Alya, what are you doing? Those are your coworkers and you know that Ladybug hates the Ladynoir stuff!!!

The tabloid journalist to true reporter route could have been another way to play Alya's miraculous journey. Introduce Lila at the end of season one, have an Alya-focused arc around defeating Lila in season two, and let the arc end with Alya learning to be more discerning thereby earning her miraculous. The lesson would be something like it's good to have an active imagination, but we need to be careful to not conflate a good story with facts.

Season 2

Least Favorite: Queen Wasp (Queen's battle – Part 2)

Worst writing: The Collector

Dishonorable Mentions: Despair Bear, Prime Queen, Gigantitan, Glaciator, Anansi, Frozer, Reverser

This season had several strong contenders, but I picked the two I did because they're both narrative breaking on a scale the others can't even come close to.

Everything about the Chloe arc is a mess and Queen Wasp perfectly encapsulates the issue because nothing about it works in the overall narrative. Queen Wasp is the episode where Chloe gets her miraculous for the first time and it is the least interesting way you could possibly go about her big debut. It also introduces the running issue of the writers having no idea what they're doing with her character. This episode was written like Queen Bee was going to be a one off and yet she keeps coming back! This was also the first of many episodes that totally botched addressing Chloe's mommy issues. I could go on, but I doubt that I have to. See my Chloe deserves better tag if you really want more Chloe content.

The Collector gets the award for worst writing because it's the first instance of the show introducing a ton of things that should have been important to the overall narrative only for the writing to forget about these things after the end of the episode. Ladybug never tries to find out more about where Gabriel got the grimoire, Adrien forgets that the grimoire exists, and Lila knowing about the grimoire somehow has nothing to do with her figuring out that Gabriel is the butterfly holder. We're also introduced to the lore that the butterfly holder can akumatize themself which is total BS. This should have been the big villain Nathalie reveal! They could have officially confirmed that she knew everything by having her be the stand in Hawk Moth to protect Gabriel's identity.

Season 3

Least Favorite: Chameleon

Worst writing: Chat Blanc

Dishonorable Mentions: Backwarder, Animaestro, Bakerix, Reflekdoll, Oni-Chan, Desperada, Ikari Gozen, Timetagger, Ladybug, Miracle Queen

Notice how the list of dishonorable mentions keeps getting longer and longer as the show goes on? I have a sneaking suspicion that trend will continue.

I think the fandom has beaten the problems with Chameleon to death, so I'll keep this brief. This episode was the first time Lila's lying powers were super obvious and I hated that writing choice with a fiery passion. I also hated how Adrien never got a proper character arc about why it was wrong to stay quiet about lies. It's a good flaw for a celebrity to have, but flaws are only good if they're actually addressed in a timely manner. A fact that is extra true when you're writing for young children who generally aren't going to be able to follow a minor subplot that takes three seasons to resolve.

For Chat Blanc, see the power of love rant as that covers my main issues with this episode. Since that post has the main issues covered, let's go over two more minor issues! The first is the way Tom and Sabine were played here. One of my favorite fix-it fics was spawned because canon had them do nothing after they saw their teenage daughter threatened by a powerful adult. Good parents don't do that! Let them be good parents!

Adrien keeping his identity from Marinette is the other mark against Chat Blanc, but I do think canon could have made that work. The problem is less that he did it and more that canon acted like it was no big deal. Letting him wrestle with wanting to address the partial reveal, but also wanting to respect Ladybug's no-reveal rule would have heavily mitigated the issue. Having Marinette ask Adrien out would have done even more to solve the problem because then it doesn't feel like he's taking advantage of the situation (which is a common and understandable complaint that I've seen), but heaven forbid that we let the girl ask the boy out!

Season 4

Least Favorite: Ephemeral

Worst writing: Strikeback

Dishonorable Mentions: Truth, Lies, Gang of Secrets, Mr. Pigeon 72, Furious Fu, Sole Crusher, Queen Banana, Optigami, Sentibubbler, Rocketear, Wishmaker, Hack-San, Glaciator 2, Gabriel Agreste, Kuro Neko, Penalteam, Qilin

...yes, I did list pretty much every episode in the season. What's funny is that I don't necessarily like the ones I didn't list, they just didn't feel like major problems for the show or get under my skin to the level of things like Qilin. Meanwhile some of the problem children had parts I genuinely liked, but still made the list because of some major issue I couldn't overlook. For example, I like the ending of Glaciator 2, but think the first half of the episode has a lot of major problems.

Ephemeral almost got both spots because it has so many issues, but the timeline does get reset at the end, so I decided I'd give the win to the episode that's in the canon timeline. My biggest issue with Ephemeral is the power of love crap, but I'm once again linking to the power of love rant for details on that.

That's not the only major issue with this episode, though. Marinette's plan for how to reveal Chat Noir's identity was both horrendous and totally unnecessary. If time is going to reset, then just tell Chat Noir the truth of what you're planning! Then he can give informed consent on the issue! You could even have him go talk to Luka solo without a time reset coming into play!

Speaking of Luka, I wasn't a fan of Luka continuing to lie to Ladybug about the fact that he knew the secret identities. He carries a small part of the blame here for not stopping Marinette's crazy plan when he had the power to do that. Su-Han also gets a spot on the shit list but he basically lives there so that's not worth digging into.

If Strikeback had led into a really cool season five, then I'd probably give it some slack, but Gabriel getting the kwamis was pretty freaking pointless so no mercy!!!! This episode was a writing disaster that makes no freaking sense! There's the obvious problem that the writers had to hand Felix the win by breaking the lore for Ladybug's yo-yo, but the issues go well beyond that. We also get Ladybug giving a rant about flaws that the season never actually gave her and Ladybug losing because of an evil twin and not because of anything she actually did wrong, once again undermining her apology because it feels like her blaming herself for something that wasn't her fault instead of her owning up to actual flaws that cost her something. Add in the fact that the real reason for the loss was the identities which are still a secret as of season six and this episode can go die in the fiery heart of the sun!

Extra points off for making Felix seem interesting and then squandering all of that by turning him into Kagami's discount Adrien consolation prize. Extra extra points off for letting Adrien find Felix's stupid spyglass and then using that for nothing in season five. There were so many good setups here but a setup is only as good as its payoff and the payoffs were all shit!

Season 5

Least Favorite: Derision

Worst writing: The final parts one and two

Dishonorable Mentions: Every other episode in the season.

In season four, I said that I liked a lot of the episodes on the dishonorable mentions list, they just had some fatal flaw that got them on the list. The same is not true here. I didn't enjoy a single episode in season five. Only positive moment I can think of is the hand raise scene in Kwamis Choice. That was cute, but not cute enough to save that disaster of an episode.

I've ranted about Derision a lot and shared many posts from others, so I'll just link to one of those rants and one of those posts, then give a quick tl;dr here. This episode makes Marinette look unhinged and is a massive retcon that makes no freaking sense. It's also the only time Miraculous has genuinely upset me on an emotional level. Other episodes have worse messages, but this showed such a fundamental lack of writing ability and critical thinking skills that it got to me. I doubt that anything could have made me keep watching the show after the disaster that was the season five final, but Derision was where I first decided that season five was it for me. After Derision aired I stopped watching the episodes as they came out and just waited for the whole season to be streaming because I legitimately didn't care anymore. I knew wherever we were heading was going to be a bad time.

The final gets another link to the power of love rant because that's my biggest issue with it, but there's obviously a wealth of problems at work here. No, Marinette didn't win because Gabriel changed his mind. He rewrote the universe to his desired state! That's a hands down win. Also, his reason for changing his mind was laughably bad. A video? Seriously? Terrible writing. Adrien being lied to was terrible. Adrien being kept completely out of the final fight was terrible. The resistance doing nothing useful was terrible. The special-only characters showing up was confusing. Emilie dying was boring. Saving Nathalie was boring. The list goes on and on. Just a total embarrassment of a season final with bonus embarrassment from the fact that this was initially the series finale meaning that anything the later seasons do to imply that this was bad is basically a retcon.

[duckapus]

Got an idea for a scenario in my Smash Academy thing.

The Mario Bros set up an obstacle course to teach the kids the finer points of platforming, and Elanore's certain she's got it in the bag since she's based on the Jumpman himself. In fact, she'll probably have the second-best time out of all the students (the best time is out of the question because Bullet exists). And in all fairness her pride is deserved, as she ends up going through the course with just as much ease as the Bros did when they demonstrated it...

...and then she misses the last jump and falls in a pit. It wasn't even a particularly hard jump, she just happened to misjudge the distance a little.

So. She just embarrassed herself in front of her idol after bragging about how easy it would be. And Rumble and Lester are ribbing her about it because of course they are. And somebody happens to point out that she isn't actually based on Mario the way everyone else is based on their counterparts, she just happened to kinda-sorta look like him either by coincidence or because her designer took some inspiration from The Company Mascot.

And, well, she's stubborn, so she tries the course again.

And again.

And again.

She ends up completely obsessed, running the course every chance she gets, filling notebooks that should have her schoolwork and invention ideas with diagrams and calculations to analyze her failed attempts and figure out the solution. Because there are a lot of failed attempts.

It gets even worse over time since the building frustration and stress and the eroding self-confidence and... just about everything else, means she starts messing up on the rest of the course too, until eventually she can't even manage the first jump, let alone finally reach the flagpole. By the end of what would probably be a montage of All That she's become a bundle of nerves who's convinced she can't do anything right, especially not achieve her dream of actually being in a game.

Obviously her friends have been worried about her this whole time, Barney especially, so they've come up with a plan to rebuild her confidence and skills.

...Said plan involves Rumble "kidnapping" Barney and luring Elanore into reenacting the original Donkey Kong arcade game.

Because 1) if she wants to be like Mario, why not start where he started, and 2) from what they can tell the root of the problem is that she started overthinking things after that first failed jump, and if she's focused on saving Barney and kicking Rumble's ass she can't be paralyzed by her calculations and insecurities.

This actually works, reigniting her confidence, and after actually taking care of herself and a quick training montage involving levels from other Mario games she's ready to give the obstacle course one last try.

She doesn't manage to do it as fast or flawlessly as she did the first time, but she still does pretty good, and she actually makes the jump and finishes the course this time.

[itsalwayssillygooseoclock]

@lorata un-anon here to deliver a few musings on my 12yo 75QQ AU in thanks for your very helpful advice! Exams are coming up and I haven’t much time to write, but hopefully I will soon.

Here is some backstory:

* Her name is Alaina. It means ‘little rock’, ‘child’, and ‘shining torch’. She’s from the quarries, but her father is the manager and he wanted to name her something a little more … upmarket.

* Her childhood is difficult. She has an older sister who is what we would call schizophrenic, although I doubt that anyone in District Two would know what that is. From an early age, Alaina has to help her, has to learn both to calm her down and to fight her down. Her parents are so preoccupied with what Yasmin needs that Alaina has always come second, all her life.

* Alaina isn’t sure how she feels about school. She doesn’t like being away from her sister, but… at school, thinks a part of her that she likes to keep buried down deep, thinks the nasty part, it isn’t really her problem. Alaina is clever, and it’s easy to lose herself in the maths and the geology and the reading and writing and stop worrying about her sister for a little bit, even if she feels guilty at the end of the day when she starts to head home and isn’t sure what state the house will be in.

* Eventually, people at school find out about Yasmin. And, in the way that kids do, they make fun. Alaina tries to ignore it, but the other side of her whispers in her ear - they don’t get to make fun, no no no, they have no idea what it’s like, they have no right to make fun of Yasmin when they’ve never had to sit and listen to her animatedly relating the conversations that she’s had with the foxes outside of her window, when they’ve never had to pin her down to her bed to stop her from throwing her lamp through the window to chase away the blood clouds.

* When Alaina comes to again, they are pulling her away from her classmate, whose face is a mess of red blood and snot. It coats her hands, and she turns them over, staring.

* They call her dad. He is furious. One of his little girls fighting at school? It’s bad enough he has Yasmin to worry about, he tells her. Now she’s being selfish, and going right ahead to make herself a problem as well.

* It keeps happening. They send her to the Centre. And that, Alaina loves. Dad is happy because at least she is contributing, whatever that means. And Alaina is happy because the ugly side of her can come out, and the other kids and the trainers don’t flinch away. If the other kids make fun of Yasmin, she’s allowed to smash their faces in, and they won’t even phone home to her dad. If she does it properly and stops when she’s told, they’ll even give her a few orange slices. The trainers look her in the eyes when they speak to her, and for the first time in her life, she feels like her own person. She feels important.

* A bigger boy with two black strands around his wrist corners her once. He snarls in her face - her dad had fired his earlier in the week, apparently. And, the boy adds, flipping a knife out of his sleeve, he’s going to get even. Alaina hisses. He charges at her, but Alaina’s faster. She dodges and slams the knife out of his hand, grabbing hold of his wrist. She pushes, hard, and a deep satisfaction, ugly and primal, twists in her gut as she feels his bones give beneath her grip. The trainers give her a whole orange this time, and she licks the juice from her fingers.

* That summer, she gets a black strand. That means she’s one of the best. Alaina thinks of herself getting Volunteer. Thinks of herself coming first, out of her entire cohort. She smiles.

* Alaina has four black strands around her wrist when the card for the 3rd Quarter Quell is announced. They watch the card reading in the Centre, and Alaina and the rest of her cohort learn that it will be one of them going into the arena that year. The other kids exchange whispers and glances, but Alain keeps still and silent.She looks down at her wrist, and imagines a golden bead. She could come first. She could be important, and everyone would have to pay attention to her all the time. Alaina sees out.

* She has to fight for it, and she does. Alaina fights for two weeks, constantly running suicides for excessive force and pulling hidden knives out of her sleeves in the middle of sparring matches, until one day the head trainer calls her into his office. It will be her, he tells her. And she is moving into Residential next week.

* Her dad is angry. He shouts. Yasmin cries. But Alaina doesn’t care - at least, not the nasty side of her. And this nasty side is what will get her into the Games. So what does it matter?

* Oh, it matters, she soon learns. The first few days in Residential are alright - the eighteens have all been sent to detox already, and the other kids won’t be seen dead picking on the babies. But then, it turns out that the nasty side of Alaina, which has never had to be in play for more than a few hours each day, can’t last. And the good side, the honourable side, can’t do it. Yasmin needs her. Her family needs her. Besides, she isn’t ready, and she’s clever enough to know that she won’t be anywhere near ready in time. She’s as good as dead. And dead isn’t first. Dead is forgotten.

* They notice how she’s thinking. It’s obvious. It’s just so easy to let herself slip a little bit, to not give that final push on the obstacle course, to not run just that bit faster to reach the mock Cornucopia first, to not fight quite as hard as everyone else. They try to convince her - they let her overhear brief snippets of conversation about how it’s such a shame, such a waste, and part of Alaina bristles and that powers her through the next exercise, but, like always, she can’t keep it up.

* One day the head trainer calls her to his office again, where his door has been left conveniently ajar, just enough for her to overhear a conversation about what the board plans to do with the girl. It’s too late to switch her out for someone else with the Reaping two weeks away, as it turns out. She stands in the hallway and listens, and watches as the senior trainers leave with someone that she recognises in tow - Devon. He must be her mentor, she realises. He stops and levels her with a searching look. Alaina can’t meet his eyes, not when she knows she isn’t really planning to make it out like he did. After a moment, he clicks his tongue against his teeth and turns to leave without saying a word.

* They still haven’t given her the gold bead.

* A week before the Reaping, they call her into one of the smaller sparring gyms. She walks in and is met with the head trainer, two of her sparring trainers, and, most surprisingly, Enobaria.

* Alaina has always admired Enobaria - she embraces her nasty side in a way that Alaina can’t quite, she makes blood and flesh and gore her whole personality and forces everyone to love her for it with an unapologetic grin and flash of her golden fangs. If only Alaina could find out the secret to that, then there wouldn’t be a problem, would there.

* They stand there in the gym, silent, for a few minutes. Eventually, someone speaks. Everyone knows she isn’t trying, says the head trainer, and is she going to tell them why that is? Alaina can’t move, can’t say anything at all. She barely has time to throw herself out of the way as Enobaria lunges at her.

* They fight - it doesn’t take Enobaria long to get Alaina pinned under her on the ground, and she snarls into her face. You gonna fight me properly, she asks. Alaina says nothing in return. Fine, Enobaria hisses, then wraps her hands around Alaina’s neck and pushes down.

* That gets her fighting. She kicks and hits and claws and scratches, desperate to get Enobaria’s hands away from her neck. Nothing even begins to make any difference. You want it, you have to fight a thousand times harder, Enobaria hisses, bearing down. Something primal stirs inside of Alaina as her vision begins to blur. She strikes out, hard, aiming for Enobaria’s face. She doesn’t quite get her, of course she doesn’t, but Enobaria very deliberately lets her break free of her grip, and the rush of blood back to her head might as well be victory trumpets and the hum of a descending hovercraft.

* They grapple on the floor for what feels like an eternity, and Alaina fights mean and dirty and desperate, aiming for every weak spot that she can think of. Eventually, she manages to land a genuine hit on Enobaria, a fist hard and fast into her gut. Enobaria’s face contorts into something ugly, and Alaina knows that she isn’t the type just to take hits from kids who aren’t even through transition yet. One second, two, then a blow so hard to the back of Alaina’s head that she sees stars. It sends her reeling - she hits the mats. She hears the head trainer hiss Enobaria’s name through the ringing in her ears. There’s the low murmur of a conversation that she can’t make out, although she can’t suppose it’s for her benefit.

* A figure stalks towards her, and Alaina tenses, but her muscles won’t obey her commands and she can’t get up. Her eyes still cloud and refuse to focus, but as the person kneels down beside her, she manages to see who it is. Enobaria grabs her by the wrist and squeezes, forcing her fist to open. She presses something small, hard, and cold into Alaina’s palm. Alaina glances over and catches a flash of gold. Enobaria closes her fist around it and moves her hand down to Alaina’s pulse, letting Alaina feel it thrumming steadily and soothingly against her fingers. Alaina’s head swirls, and she finally passes out.

* The day of the Reaping, Alaina doesn’t hesitate. She calls out, strides forward and takes the stage with the confidence of a girl twice her size and six years her senior. Somehow, despite her age, she still drips blood and gore and entertainment - she wants it, she wants it bad, she’d realised the day in the sparring gym. She will maintain this persona - nice Alaina wouldn’t survive the Games, so she isn’t allowed to come. She’s been packed into a small box and put away. She can figure all of that out when she comes back, can work to unite the two parts of her that rage and scream and plea and cry for control. For now, it’s her, a bloodthirsty smile, and the gleam of sunlight on a sharpened blade. It’s her and the crown.

[roxannepolice]

I have a hot thoschei take: I don’t think most of doctor who tumblr is ready to confront the idea that Missy allowing the Doctor to “fix” her was almost more a form of self-harm for her than anything else. Which makes the confrontation between her and the Master even more upsetting to me than if it was a simple ‘Missy good, old Master bad and sabotages her goodness.’

It’s more like looking on your future self and seeing her restrain herself further and further in ways you’d rather die than do, in ways that are slowly erasing what makes you/her yourself/herself. and when you realize that she will happily push you into this fate, too, (and has the audacity to preach about it), how else can you react but cut her loose.

And it also makes Missy and Twelve more interesting to me, because you can’t really argue the Doctor doesn’t know that he’s contributing to this. He locked her in a box. He knows her far too well to really believe she’d want to live so long in confinement, but he does it anyway. I don’t even think it’s that divorced from love or a need for them to come to an understanding; the Doctor just wants it to be completely on his terms and for the first time ever, that control is entirely possible and he doesn’t even have to feel guilty about it because she’s letting him.

Anon, I'm kissing your brain. And wish I could transplant it into Moffat's head.

I suppose my own brain is a bit too of a "they are characters in a text, serving a purpose to the point made by the author, not self-aware people making choices" bitch to really view it this way. But I absolutely agree this whole situation was much more effed up than fandom gives it credit for. I mean, the basic message of the vault arc is "here's the fool-proof way to develop empathy: a human lifetime of solitary confinment! Let's just ditch all those resocialisation programs in prisons and put all violent criminals in solitary boxes with only psychologists visting them! :DDDD".

Yeah, ok, that last point was a bit over the top in social engineering area even as far as fan bashing is concerned. And, tbh, I think a positive side of the vault arc is the not-sure-if-intended idea that it in fact wasn't decades of solitary confinment with Twelve coming to banter through a locked door only actual interaction with Bill that had Missy introspect, but wtv, it all just needed to go tragic in the end. I think the really unawarely messed up part here is this underlying insistence on. well, basically writing the Master as Darth Vader. There's still good in you, I can feel it!, as in just go back to being a child that I will be idealising in the penultimate episode, which frankly sounds to me the extact same as GO2 Aziraphale asking Crowley to just go back to being angels only even nicer :) (sth sth angelhood as a metaphor of pre-selfaware childhood when you can't even tell yourself apart from other people and especially God-the-Parent). Basically, the big idea being the Master's villainy isn't a result of conscious choices of a hundreds year old eldritch horror only not hearing the music whatever that means.

Of course, it was backwards engineered, in a "ah, but what if there really, really, reeeaaaallly wasn't any other way for the Master to survive than as the Doctor's prisoner?" way, which could work considering how survival focussed the character is (like, surely that wouldn't be worse than becoming a cat? or a 90s effects goo snake? or a man eating emo electroskeleton? or a tooth?)... but then we have a "yeah, but there's like an evil past that does value their independence (and evilhood) over survival, ain't that tragic?" ending.

Basically, I think the problem is not so much Missy accepting being the Doctor's prisoner, as not trying to escape even freaking once? Like, if we started off with her being dishonest about the whole teach me to be good :((( and then easing into living like this, this might have been an interesting idea? But yeah, as we are, you're right, it just. Comes off as trying to amputate a limb that got caught in a mousetrap rather than snares...

[sapphire-weapon]

So. I gotta say some shit.

I think we all have a tendency to be more gracious to Ada's character than she rightfully deserves. I'm guilty of this, too. We all want to give her the benefit of the doubt and insist that her character serves a purpose and is worth talking about because she's A. such a huge part of Leon's character and B. the only non-white member of the cast, but like.

There's nothing there.

I noticed this when I rewatched Separate Ways recently (because fuck ever playing that shit again holy fuck Separate Ways sucks to play).

After RE2, Ada isn't a character anymore. She has absolutely no arc; her character never develops or goes anywhere. She's not tied to anyone or anything in the plot in a way that matters -- even her relationship with Wesker doesn't fucking matter, because there's no fallout or consequence as a result of anything she does to/with/for him, whether it's beneficial to him or against him. She has only one facet to her personality: snarky and mysterious. We never see her emote or speak in a context removed from either of those two qualifiers. Ever.

She has some softer moments here and there, but they last for like a single line of dialogue or two and then the scene just completely moves on without them -- so, those softer moments never actually matter anyway.

She doesn't enhance or enrich Leon's character in any way; the only thing her character serves to do is isolate him from the main cast, which gives his character nowhere else to go other than horrible, spiraling depression because every action he takes in his life turns out to be completely meaningless -- because it's not allowed to mean anything, because he's become so far divorced from the central plot of the series.

The only functional purpose that Ada Wong actually has is as a plot contrivance to explain how a bad guy did a thing. Other than that, she exists solely as a pair of legs and tits for Leon to chase after.

We all hold out hope that Remake is going to change this and turn her into a real person with autonomous motivations and goals, and there might be some merit to that, but like

She's not there yet. She's just not. There is no there there, when we talk about Ada's character.

And this tiptoeing around that we all do to try to make it seem like we're supportive of her character just

strikes me as silly a lot of the time, man.

I understand wanting to give credit where it's due, but it's not due for Ada's character. And I understand the desire to not be seen as misogynistically bashing her, but I feel like supporting her character as it currently exists is what's actually misogynistic. Because her portrayal in canon is misogynistic.

And I also understand the desire to not be seen as being a ship war fuckhead, but like. It's not about the ships, man. It's about Ada. Specifically Ada. She just sucks, dude.

And this is coming from the person who has probably written more meta about Ada Wong in an attempt to justify her character than basically anyone else in the fucking fandom.

idk I've just been thinking about this lately while perusing EagleOne fics. It feels like everyone in this ship feels obligated to address The Ada Problem before they can start to justify a relationship between Leon and Ashley, and it's like

No, you don't. Especially in Remake canon, you absolutely do not have to bring up Ada at all. Because Remake seems very self-aware of the fact that the problem with Leon's character has always been Ada, which is why they seem to be actively writing her out of his overall arc.

Like. Let's just call it for what it is. Ada is the worst part of Leon's character. The relationship is poorly written and poorly executed and doesn't make any fucking sense for who both characters are actually meant to be. They actively hold each other back -- not as people, but as characters who are meant to meaningfully contribute to the storyline.

And idk I'm just tired. I'm just tired of always having to do the hand-wringy "oh no no, Ada's really cool and great and I'm not trying to diss on her, and her relationship with Leon actually matters" shit, man.

Because she's not cool or great and her relationship with Leon doesn't actually matter -- and if it does matter at all, it's due to the negative impact that her presence brings -- not just to him, but to the entire fucking plot of the series.

She's the worst recurring element in the entire series, and there's not even a close second.

[rickgrimesdoingrickthings]

🕯️(from Daryl)

What Rick thinks about Daryl.

Surprisingly enough, i think it didn't change much along the seasons. Rick knows Daryl is a good person. Full of problems and isolated, he is aware, but still a good person, and most of the times, he managed to have Daryl contribute to the team and stay on their side. Because Daryl is a lot driven by emotions, Rick did a great job at manipulating him in so many situations. Overall, I would say Rick was an asshole to Daryl so many times, mostly indirectly, by locking his brother on the roof and have Daryl go with him but use the trip to mostly recover the bag with the weapons instead of searching for Merle, let Daryl go search for Sophia on his own so many times despite being so dangerous ( he didn't offer to help all the times but also didn't stand against it). And when he decided to kick Carol from the group, it was pure injustice against Daryl, as well in Woodbury, when Rick tried to have Daryl abandon his brother (again) to escape with them instead. Later on, behind Daryl's back, Rick tried to use Merle to take Michonne to the Governor for a peace deal, but ultimately regrets it. That choice though leads to Merle's death.

Rick knows Daryl has a strong sense of justice, therefore, uses many moral arguments to convince the hunter to help him out. He also knows Daryl is alone and does what he can so he feels part of the group, giving him space when he needs but always being around to include him in tasks and such. Daryl probably is aware of all that, but he doesn't care, because he agrees with Rick's approach on decisions most of the time. It was inevitable though, how Rick became emotionally bound to Daryl, because well, he knows Daryl is aware how Rick himself can be selfish, manipulative and coldly use people; Daryl even so was always there for him, despite Rick's flaws. The huge trust and leadership support Rick gets from Daryl in the worst moments, probably the sheriff would never be able to explain it with words.

Rick and Daryl's bond gets deeper and they become each other's moderator of morals. Sometimes Rick is breaking the boundaries and starting to act too cruel, like on season 4-5, Daryl will try to hold him back. Daryl starts acting too cruel, Rick holds him back, and so on.

And it's in that dynamic that Beth ends up dead, and Daryl in a way blames himself for it- Rick had decided for a direct assault, where they would kill the main officers and rescue Carol and Beth, while Daryl and others from the group voted against it and chose to negotiate, which lead to Beth losing her life. Rick knows he feels guilty, but says nothing, he also feels guilty as the leader.

After that event, Daryl begun having a colder approach to decisions. Next time it happens the other way around. Daryll wants to explode the Sanctuary and Rick doesn't want to, they end up fighting and despite overcoming Rick, the sheriff manages to get rid of the explosives. It's interesting how Rick uses his manipulative sequence to try and convince Daryl. First he appeals to the moral sentimental idea, that workers who are innocent could get hurt. Daryl ignores that part. So Rick appeals to the battle strategy, that the workers could be potential allies. Daryl ignores it. So Rick resorts to fear, saying the workers could turn against them if Daryl did that. But Daryl ignores, so Rick tries with force, and despite being beaten down by Daryl quite quickly, he manages to ruin the explosives.

Then Daryl got taken by Negan, humiliated and tortured, and Rick, as failed leader, felt extreme guilt. Without Daryl (and Carol, Glenn and Abraham) he felt weak, lost, insecure and completely vulnerable. Negan took from Rick precisely the people who would rebel the most and give Rick enough impulse to fight back, and it worked for quite some time. Next time Rick managed to fight Negan and have a chance was exactly when he got Daryl and Carol back to fight with him. And it wasn't just a firepower situation, it was mainly an emotional situation. When Carl died and Rick lost his ground, Daryl was the one who lead the others to safety, including his daughter Judith. Daryl did everything and more for Rick.

The next time their conflict happened was with Negan's defeat. Rick chose to let Negan live, and again put many manipulative layers so people agreed with him. First the moral one, to not take a life (very hypocrite of Rick but that's just an excuse anyway), then for the fact he wanted to give the community an example and make sure Negan got behind bars (another excuse in a way because keeping Negan alive was always a risk so the Saviors could try and break in to rescue him), then the excuse he's trying to bring law and order back to a community where people can live together in peace (that's a good excuse, but Rick again, didn't need to keep Negan alive for it)- and the potential true reasons he spared Negan, because Carl asked him and maybe because he wanted to see Negan suffer in prison for a long time, and indeed kill the old, strong Negan as he rots behind bars and gets depression. Daryl doesn't swallow that though, as well as Maggie. That leads to Daryl betraying Rick, by taking him away from the destination he was supposed to, so Maggie got the chance to kill Negan, however, that leads to Rick's "death" on the bridge incident, what makes Daryl feel guilty and spend more than 7 years looking for his friend, while he also made sure his daughter was safe.

I believe Daryl's betrayal was really a huge surprise for Rick, who knows he also has been lying to himself and making excuses because he still just couldn't deal with Carl's death. But even knowing he was right, Daryl knows it was a bad decision and ironically, Negan ends up saving him and Judith in later seasons- all making Daryl rethink so much and isolate himself again.

I think Rick is aware of how much he pushed Daryl along their journey, and Daryl is aware of how much he let Rick push and use him, but both somehow are okay with that, Daryl is a much better person than Rick showed to be, on the moral and loyal spectrum, and maybe that's why at the bridge, Rick isn't revolted at Daryl- quite the opposite- he just looks proud and thankful towards his brother right before he vanishes in the explosion.

There were many issues that needed solving in the communities, such as living with the Saviors and the conflicts and grudges that still were present. Rick wasn't fully focused on that anymore though, he needed a break. He needed a break but also couldn't give the leadership up. Rick's awful when talking about his personal and emotional issues, and I guess Daryl couldn't see Rick needed a break, that he still hadn't headed from Carl's death. While Rick was trying to heal and build hopes for the future, Maggie and Daryl still were stuck in the hate of the past, and to not blame them, they would deal with the consequences every day, Daryl with the community problems and Maggie with raising her son alone, missing Glenn every day.

Maybe if Rick had a bit more of an emotional intelligence to open up and expose his wounds a bit more and show his emotional limitations, Daryl and Maggie would have understood him earlier, but Rick always kept showing he was alright and justifying his actions with morals or goals, while he was mostly focused on the development of the communities rather than the conflicts. He wanted peace and he wanted a future and indeed, if Rick hadn't vanished, the communities probably wouldn't have had so much problem with the wild winter, Eugene's projects would have received more attention and the Whispirers wouldn't have been such a big problem, since Rick could have negotiated with Alpha, formulated war strategies to deal with them (the Whispirers were very low on firepower) and even guided Alpha's horde away, since the sheriff already had experience with that beforehand.

This was a long one, tell me if you liked it. Feel free to comment / reblog 💗

@wexarethewalkingxdead

[elphabashepard]

Today was a good day.

It didn’t start off that way. Or really continue that way, if I’m honest. Several things continued to or went wrong through the morning. Skye got my keys stuck & couldn’t get in to let Serena out. Jim was being a pain in the butt. Callie suddenly needed information she’d asked Keith for two weeks ago (surprise, surprise 🙄).

But I have awesome neighbours, Jo gave Skye my keys, Helen was home to answer Skye’s knock & it all worked out. Skye is so nice & apologetic & would have driven to Stevenage to get my keys if she needed, whereas Kate always makes me out to be the bad guy. It’s so refreshing.

I had a chat with Sarah, only a brief one but enough to remind me why it’s so good to talk to her. Monika’s lovely & I like her a lot, but Sarah & I are so similar, we know what the other’s going to say three quarters of the time before we even say it. I need that sometimes. She knows me so well, she’d clocked something wasn’t right with me before I was even fully aware of it, & being seen that way always helps. Like I’m not some alien that doesn’t make sense to humanity at large.

Then very slowly, all the problems got sorted out. Sarah sorted Callie. I sorted Jim. Skye sent me stuff about Serena, who was doing amazing & Skye really adores her, which always fills me with warmth & relief.

Monika & I got out for a walk & the weather was so much better than I was expecting. Then together (together! What a novel experience that still is, to have someone else to share all this extra work stuff with!) we put a list together that Keith needs. I bounced a few things off her that had come directly to me.

Then I was able to help out at the IDBS meeting & had another moment of someone just knowing me - Robyn really is lovely, I wish I had more to do with her - which made me glow.

I came home to a very excited Serena that I had been worrying about all afternoon because she was so active, but she wasn’t frustrated or mischievous, she was just happy & excited. We met Mischa & his owner on the way out, always lovely to chat (even if I still can’t get used to the compliments & feel guilty about accepting them in case there’s a behind-the-scenes reason he’s paying them because - no. He’s lovely but no). Serena absolutely adores that big gentle giant, it’s so sweet.

Then we met quite a few others dogs on the way round that Serena got to say hi to or play with & that makes her so happy, which in turn makes me really happy & everyone is usually so lovely & friendly to her & me. Serena had a race with a greyhound & finally got outstripped by a mile!

The sun wasn’t completely out but it was so warm - still is! Even with the sun setting. It’s the first time I’ve gotten this year to sit out in my garden while Serena’s playing her sniffer game for her food. I’ve learned so much from other dog people, so much more than I did at first from looking online, it’s made things so much easier.

I managed to complete all the goals in the PQ app for the first time today, have contributed to the group chat & been honest. I can’t remember right now when the last time I felt this at peace was.

I’m still waiting to hear about my blood tests until next week, but at least I know there’s a potential answer coming now, it’s not just that I’m rubbish at getting sleep of any substantial quality.

I’m not saying that suddenly everything is fixed. It isn’t. Serena’s vet bills have made things very awkward, bank wise. I’m meant to be travelling to Newark tomorrow & that’s more petrol to pay for but I can’t cancel because I really want to see the people up there & I owe them that effort.

But generally speaking? Today was good. I’m happy.

[lightboundpunkz]

guilt nightmare and wound with aidan and keith perhapeth?

guilt: What is your OC guilty about? How do they handle their guilt? Do they try to avoid guilt, or do they accept it?

aidan: he’s guilty about some lore i still have yet to decide whether its canon or not lmao (like. xe accidentally killed one of his teachers when xe was a little kid. he made a “potion” to make her not give any homework. out of um. household chemicals. but idk if anything i made canon from 2020-2023 should stick LMAO)

he’s also guilty about little things. like xe worries about whether he accidentally gave a nasty look to someone passing by, whether xe used the right tone while speaking or if he accidentally sounded rude, etc

he handles it by convincing xemself that passersby don’t matter. they’re insignificant and he’ll never see them again. its the only way xe knows how to cope. generally he tries to avoid guilt, because people get hurt all the time, thats how life is, its not xyr problem if he unintentionally contributed to it

keith: my boy gets so guilty about everything lmao. hes trying so hard that its exhausting. but hes especially guilty about his dad. he grew up idolizing his departed father's memory, because his mom made him out to be a saint. its why he became so invested in american football, cos his dad was gonna be in the NFL if he hadnt chosen family over his dream. keith wanted to carry on that dream. for him

then it turned out that his dad was a guilt tripping, manipulative, angry-drunk son of a bitch. when keith learned this, it turned his life upside down. he wanted to hate his father for hurting his mother like that, but would he be terrible for hating someone who has no way to defend themselves? but would he be just as terrible for forgiving the sins of an abuser just because they died? but that was his father, hes supposed to love him... isnt he? and is he terrible for being angry with his mother for lying to him all this time? she did it for his own good, she did it because she didnt want him to be ashamed of where he came from

he just doesnt think about it . or tries not to. but he appreciates that feeling guilty means hes trying to be good. thats what that means right...?

nightmare: What does your OC have nightmares about? How do they deal with their nightmares? Do they tell people, or keep it to themself?

aidan: he has nightmares about relapsing. xe stopped smoking cigarettes when he left polly and matt, and xe keeps dreaming about starting again, and being overwhelmed by guilt until he wakes up. xe deals with it by reminding himself how long hes been cigarette free, and reminding xemself that the guilt he feels in the dream means xe has something worth fighting for. he doesnt really talk about it with anyone other than xyr online friend charlie (who is actually elsie, but neither of them realize it yet)

keith: his dreams in general are weird, and sometimes theyre bad weird. theyre abstract and hazy, and he cant explain them to anyone if he tried. but he wakes up stressed and scared... and sometimes embarrassed that he was affected that way. he deals with them by watching a funny video before going back to sleep. he doesnt talk about them cos what can he say? "had a nightmare, not sure what actually happened"

wound: How does your OC handle being wounded? Are their wounds mostly physical? Mental? Emotional? What's the worst wound your OC has ever experienced?

aidan: he has harmed xemself a lot over the years, so hes generally kinda numb to smaller physical wounds by now i think. mental and emotional wounds dont cut as deep either after everything xe's been through. his worst wound was when xe was stabbed in the gut during a mugging. at least he was in canada, free healthcare and all that

keith: hes a big ole baby when it comes to pain lmao 21 years old and he still cries over splinters. youd think after years of climbing trees and trekking through the forest and stuff hed have thicker skin but alas. his wounds are def mostly physical tho, funny enough. his worst wound was when he fell out of a tree and broke his leg when he was 14. oof

[spacecadetspe]

Sept. 8, 2024

Pasithea has been settling into her role. I had nightmares for a couple days in a row, the first of which was being attacked by bears in someone's temple (I was told it might be Artemis'). I kept processing those atrocities for another night, and when Fortitude came in and sat down on my bedside, I finally felt myself settle into a manageable sleep.

I try not to ask too much of him. Really, I do. And it's little moments like that, when he holds my hand, that I feel grounded and supported.

But the next night, one of the oneiroi came into my room disguised as one of my former lovers. I don't remember us having sex, but there was a lot of cuddling and making out involved. It ended with me second-guessing my polyamorous status; saying if I had stability like this, I'd give up poly for him.

Was that true? Was the stability I was looking for in X what had drawn me into a trap of being controlled and isolated?

But the oneiros just chuckled and petted my hair, and told me I shouldn't change things about myself for someone else.

Pasithea came by when I awoke, and I spoke to her about it. when she mentioned how much I needed that stabilizing effect after processing those nightmares, I started getting... upset. Not at her, of course. She even gave me a comprehensive list of all her children, so I could know them by name.

But the thing is, when I pulled up the images from my dream, her description of the individual was a far cry from what I saw. "White hair and red eyes." An albino.

There's only one oneiros I know with white hair; Phantasos.

Pasithea distracted me a little longer by asking if I had a flower sacred to me. I hadn't, but one did come to mind: Selenicerius grandiflora, the night-blooming cereus. I told her it was a gangly, awkward plant, and if one could cultivate it through its awkward stages, they would be rewarded with massive, beautiful, fragrant flowers. When asked why, I told her that I felt most myself at night, and that the oneiroi see me for who I really am.

That's why, when I had seeds to scatter, I sat alone at the top of the cliffs for awhile to watch the ocean.

I had needed a kind of stability that no one was really willing to commit to. That was the upsetting bit. Phantasos hides so much of himself from me, and that realization hurt more deeply than it really should. He and I are friends... or something like it. It would make sense that he doesn't want to identify with being intimate like that, wouldn't it? Was it just part of his job? Doing what he needed to do to stabilize my psyche after witnessing all those horrors?

Or maybe I shouldn't be upset with him. If that's what he felt he needed to do, then maybe I should be grateful he stepped in for me. Maybe instead, I should look at my real-world relationship with Fortitude, and how he treats me.

He works constantly, mostly at night, because he feels like if he doesn't contribute, he isn't honoring our relationship.

He pays back any monies lent with interest, even when I've long forgotten about those payments.

We sleep in the same bed, but we aren't intimate anymore; haven't been for a year. He says it's because of trauma and feeling impotent when it comes to helping me deal with my problems. That has made me feel guilty in the past, but now It's just a dull ache.

when I embrace him, he usually asks "What's wrong?" Because to him, whenever I need him there's something wrong that he needs to fix. That's made me feel guilty too, even though my emotional state has mostly evened out, and I've stopped asking for help.

This isn't fair, is it? I can't ask for the kind of stability I need, and nobody is willing to commit to it. Which is why I was upset with Phantasos, Phobetor, Morpheus, Fortitude... Everyone. I can't just not ask for help when I need it, or avoid talking about my feelings so as not to appear problematic. That's something X would prefer.

So how do I go about this?

[kendrixtermina]

I'm personally neurotypical so I can't speak on that part of it, but I've always thought that SUF was really missing Ian-Quartey Jones' contribution - after he left you could really tell what was him & what was sugar, and the show was better when it was both of them together.

It's always been so ironic to me that ppl accused the show of being unserious re: politics when a lot of the story was his experience of his immigrant family, ppl having been involved in political/revolutionary stuff in Ghana etc. - hed know more about that than some random angry internet person.

Like SUF still did some pretty brave things like letting the protag get pretty unlikeable, letting the VA vent his own problems there & showing mentall illness in ugly cringy non-idealized ways, I also liked the whole bispearl thing was done-

(and I'm pretty sure that Steven lashing out at Greg was supposed to be him being unpleasant, kind of like early series Pearl, after all he's shown to be feeling guilty about it awterwards. Like that I do think is a legitimate & powerful arc, the whole compassio fatigue thing? When you had this person who was empathetic & enthusiastic at the start but then he becomes totally worn out. )

The honest emotional beats, the positive PSA aspect, the slice of life, the reationships, the emphasis on validation... that was Sugar. But Quartey-Jones was the sci-fi, the politics, the mystery, the complex villains. A lot of the things that I personally liked, they were just totally gone with him.

They never revealed any of the mysteries like the gem's origins or what was in the chest. It would be one thing if it was a deliberate non reveal or just left open, but it's more like they just lost interest & completely forgot about it.

Almost all the returning bad guys (or morally ambiguous/complex characters) were just noticeably flatter. Eyeball, the Diamonds (interesting complex villains to "your annoying backwards relatives") and yes, Pink Diamond - the OG show kind of always made sure never too make her too simple or let her go too much towards good or bad but then in SUF it's like they simply decided, ok she was bad afterall mystery solved. (I wouldn't at all be opposed to just steven and/or Pearl individually deciding they couldn't forgive her, if anything it would have been stronger if someone doesn't need to be all bad for you to have feelings about it. Nor do I have any problem with some baddies just being bad, like Aquamarine was always just a mean gremlin chihuahua. )

I used to like PD as a complex character but after the episode "volleyball" I was just too grossed out, they were very much unsubtly playing it like a "mee too" type thing, so I just ragequit some very sucessful PD themed FFs I had going on because I'm not a sore loser, like I accept that I guessed wrong and I guess the intention was that she was just a baddy, maybe for RS she kinda represents the person her parents wanted her to be etc. I certainly don't like the character that they ended up deciding that she was, but even so I think it would have been more interesting to keep all the complex baddies complex. I can certainly understand why someone who related to the complex version of her would be miffed.

There's a tragedy there that everyone else started out fucked up & awful and then gradually got to learn & grow, but PD dissappeared/ died as the "season 1" version of herself & didnt get to do that. Which might just intrinsically be what it's like when your life goes to shit & you die with your potential unrealized. That's what death does.

I don't think Steven (as one of her main "victims") was to be obligated to be the one who emphasizes with her, but it would have been a deeper story if there was some counterpoint to that. One token person who forgives her or something (maybe Amethyst?)

Like i wouldnt call SUF all bad i think it did plenty of things right, but i kinda wish we could have seen what it might have been like if quartey-jones had stayed on and kept contributing what was evidently his contribution - mystery, high concept things, complex villains & nuance...

maybe he wasnt interested in doing more cause the story aspect of it was finished in his eyes & didnt need a sequel, idk, like some of what Sugar still saw there was valuable, but the visible "shift" is a flaw. If characters like Eyeball, the Diamonds & Rose were always flat & there was never any mystery worldbuilding no one would've missed it but it was there previously so it was jarring when it was gone, & it feels a bit like some of what was there before was undone.

maybe its natural for a medium like television where you cant rly plan ahead & have to deal with executive meddling & whatnot... i just personally prefer cohesive products

After reading @rosaq’s post about Rose being a metaphor for a disabled adult instead of a child, I felt compelled to write my own essay about why she gets way more shit and way less credit than she deserves. While I’m not as big of a fan of SU as I used to be, it still has a place in my heart and was important to me. I relate to a few “problematic” characters in it such as Lapis and Pink Diamond and I think Rose deserved better than how Future or the fandom treated her.

The idea that Pink wanted a colony to prove her worth as an equal to the other diamonds and not just be seen as a joke hits hard for me. I’ve been there especially now where I feel like I have to move out and prove I can be a successful adult to my parents. The way the other diamonds treated Rose is very relatable to a lot of autistic people. They liked her when she acted goofy and made them laugh but when she struggled with social awareness, they yelled at, degraded and abused her by locking her away.

A lot of people, especially parents, only like autistic children when they’re the quirky kind that gushes about dinosaurs or astronauts, but flip the moment they inconvenience them. I’ve felt like my parent’s acceptance has often been conditional. They praised me when I was being goofy but dad would flip and make me feel like I was bad for having struggles with awareness or was hesitant to try new foods not to mention making me do Keto for almost a year because they felt it would “help” me. I’ve often felt babied whenever they lectured me over small things yet was also never given actual accommodation.

Some may disagree but I don’t blame her for leaving Spinel behind. It was wrong but because of her upbringing that taught her Diamonds were superior, she didn’t understand Spinel was an individual and not a toy. Rebecca was inspired by a toy rabbit she left behind when writing Spinel. To Rose, Spinel represents everything she hated about herself and how the other diamonds viewed her. To her, she was giving up a toy to prove she could be mature. I’ve been there before such as when I gave away toys or ditched certain hobbies such as paleontology, especially at a conservative school full of creationists I was forced to be friends with because my parents liked them, so people would take me more seriously. Let’s not forget that Spinel isn’t innocent and decided to wipe out all life on Earth and hurt Steven out of petty revenge yet never got as much hate as Rose did.

After reading some of @thewoollyviking’s posts, I’ve come to agree that Future felt very mean spirited towards Rose and that it seemed to just confirm the idea that she was a bad person incapable of change. I don’t hate Steven and relate to him at points too but he acted downright cruel by shoving her picture away and telling Greg who he learned had a similar upbringing that it wasn’t that bad despite being in Rose’s position and nearly dying because of how bad it was. That episode was poorly executed to be honest since most people don’t understand how curfew, chaperones and meatloaf can be abusive or stifling as I’ve seen some call Greg spoiled or “incredibly immature” for being angry about his childhood.

The way Steven acted in Future kind of reminds me of the Ultimate Kevin arc from Ben 10. A character who’s normally forgiving and willing to give second chances suddenly becomes very cruel and mean spirited. I’ve defended Ben from people who called him a narc or psychopath for deciding to execute Kevin but the writing in that arc was very mid. I don’t know if it’s due to the time constraints CN put on the show or was intentional but Steven never reconciled with or at least let go of his anger towards Rose and refused to emphasize with her despite being so similar. Rose never got a chance to redeem herself in life and thanks to Future will never be able to do so in death either. Everyone hates her and acts like they’re better off without her which is gross since it just confirms her self hatred that she was incapable of doing better.

Rose is a character that I relate to hard especially as someone with autism and is transfem. The way the diamonds treated her rings true to my own experiences with how people will act friendly to your face but then treat you as a joke and never give genuine respect or accommodation to. I’ve written more about how my dad treats me regarding my queerness here but I don’t blame Rose for acting the way she did. She needed help and was just treated as bad for her outbursts and was only appreciated when “cute”. I’ve thrown out things to prove I can be mature and don’t really hold her abandoning Spinel against her. The other characters are never given as much hate as Rose and I actually like Blue, mainly for her VA, but the other diamonds and Spinel did way worse yet got off far easier than Pink. People can dislike Rose if they want but it does say something about how the fandom views a victim of abuse who did a lot of wrong but did her best to change and struggled with loving herself.

[shallowcrypts]

Avoidants are unfairly demonized.

And you know what? I’m sick of seeing anxious-attached folks being treated as if they’re fully the victim and totally blameless.

They just cannot ever admit that they might make mistakes, especially serious ones. Can't apologize. Self righteous as hell, and so, so blaming. It's such bullshit. It’s so often that the avoidant partner is forced to take “accountability” for whatever the issue and the AP gets to be relieved that its “not them” and they don’t have to look at their own outrageous behavior that may have contributed to the original issue.

AP’s get all the sympathy because they are usually the loudest, therefore we all have to center around their feelings. It's not that the avoidants DON’T want help, it's avoidants are more likely to avoid and if someone doesn't like conflict and the AP is constantly having a temper tantrum... so who is going to get heard? Have the most attention to their problems?

I was recently talking to a friend about couples therapy with her avoidant partner & even in listening I could tell that she didn't realize how much she dominated the therapy sessions, while simultaneously complaining he wasn't there enough. When he finally broke down and cried about something she had said, her response? You've never cried about that before but it bothers you NOW?

And that’s the thing, it's never good enough for APs. It is hard to be a person when an AP is suffocating the room, and it's easier for them to blame avoidants because we are the only people who will continually put up with their shit, because we ignore it and somehow they are the victims in that too. The goal post is forever changing with them, and nothing is ever good enough. They complain and put pressure on to be, think, feel a certain way and when you manage to come close, you're still somehow in the wrong. I would rather shove everything down and suffer silently than possibly trigger an AP into an episode because THAT is pure psychological torture.

And don’t even get me started about how they then proceed to be the "humble brags" of self-work:

"I just have too big of a heart and I over-give because I'm too generous.”

If all the APs I've known ACTUALLY took accountability it'd sound like:

"I make comments with the intention of making you feel ashamed and guilty so that in your diminished self-worth you might be insecure enough to come to me. Maybe if you're upset we can have a conversation or emote at each other, which is a form of connection, so I force that since I can't force you do do whatever I want at any given moment. I push and push and push and push you so that when you break A) again, I can feel the connection that comes with conflict, at least, and B) I can feel victimized by how 'mean' you are by finally breaking at my prodding. I do not ever stop to consider how this might be tanking your life and our relationship... because I always find a way to blame you for that. I have the audacity to purport to know what your problems are and your inner work should be, and though I'm begging you to open up to me, I don't listen when you do. I just cry because whatever you say scares me, and my fear is still ultimately more important than any of your experiences." APs don't "care" anymore than Avoidants as a default, though they may try too hard, sure.

The issue is that the “I care too much" gets recognized as "and that causes problems for ME” and they're like "oh look I'm taking accountability!" But they never get to the part about how them "caring too much" caused problems for OTHERS and they never want to earnestly apologize. Their behavior can be seriously, seriously, damaging to be on the other end of.

"I'm impatient, have unrealistic expectations, and I over-perform for love. I'm going to work on this with my therapist because I'm realizing now how this is backfiring and causing me pain."

^That would be accountability.

[therealvinelle]

Ok I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I'm just now copying your Norwegian Bella AU into a text translator, and if you don't already have 50 people in your inbox demanding a translation then shame on ALL OF US because this is glorious! And while Google Translate does have a certain charm (it translated "piper hun ut" as "she beeps") I'm curious to see how you'd put it in English.

Troquantary is referring to this post. In which Bella doesn't speak English.

Fun fact, you're the only one who's gone into my inbox to request this. I was so sad, had the translation half-written and everything, but I was too proud to beg. So thank you, Troquantary, for popping this ask.

As for the dictionary fuckups, sounds about right. I made a few typos, too, that made Google Translate suffer even more. (Such as managing to mix up "henne" (her) and "hendene" (hands), resulting in Aro patting Bella instead of clapping his hands. Poor Google.)

Also, there are a few cultural references and language things that would be lost in the translation, in an attempt to keep them I included notes clarifying things.

Some things, like Aro and Carlisle's very old man way of speaking, are easier said than done to translate, you'll have to bear with me there.

Additional notes are that I added a few things to this version, many of them because translating is hard, but a few because while translating I thought "oh you know what would be much funnier-" and then wrote that.

Alright, without further ado:

When Renée left Charlie she did not go to Florida, she went to Oslo. And she went all in to make her daughter a true Norwegian, hiring Norwegian nannies and making sure never to speak English around the child. Since transatlantic flights are expensive, little Bella Swan rarely got to visit her father, and as such she never did learn what should have been her native language.

She quickly forgot what English she did have in favor of Norwegian, with the exception of words like “Yes”, “No”, and “I’m Bella”.

The few trips she took to visit her father were all the more awkward than in canon since she couldn’t play with the Black kids. Let not the blame fall upon Charlie: he took Norwegian classes and speaks conversational Norwegian. He can’t speak to Renée, because her Norwenglish is incomprehensible even to Norwegians, but he can communicate with Bella.

Not that he’s had a lot of chances to do so.

Bella makes it to seventeen years old, she’s in second grade at Handels* and is a major outsider among the preps there, and then Renée marries a handsome skier**. Together they shall travel the continent all winter to participate in as many skiing races as they can, and in the summer they’ll take gigs at Hurtigruta to see the coast.

*“Handels” is the nickname for an Oslo high school infamous for its pupils being rich and beautiful blonds who are going to be CEOs when they grow up.

**Skiing as a sport is huge in Norway

***Hurtigruta is a famous ferry that travels across the Norwegian West coast

Bella, who sucks at skiing and is too young to work at Hurtigruten, takes the hint.

With dread in her stomach and dictionary in hand she goes to her father in America.

Where she doesn’t speak the language.

Faen.

Charlie gives her a car, and I wish this meta was set in the present because I could have joked about electric cars and the automat only driver’s license*, but Twilight is set in 2005 so I can’t. The car part proceeds without drama.

*An increasing number of Norwegian youth take the driver’s license for automatic cars only, and we’re the country in the world with the highest percentage of electric car purchases.

School is worse than in canon, because she is now a thousand times more sensational than if she was merely the new student. She is from another country! All of Forks keels over with excitement.

To make matters even worse, our girl doesn’t understand a word of what people are saying.

She is too awkward to let them know she doesn’t know English. It’d become a thing, and they might think she’s dumb. To be fair, it’s not good that she’s been through primary, secondary, and now a year and a half of high school and still sucks at English.

So she nods, smiles, mumbles “Hi, I’m Bella” to the new faces, and blushes heavily when anybody says anything.

People assume she’s shy. That’s a bit boring, but oh well.

She has her biology class with the redhead hottie she noticed during lunch. She watched him and his family, they were fascinatingly pretty, but she doesn’t know anything more about them. Sure would have been great if she could have asked the tiny girl (was it Jess?) about them.

Biology proceeds as in canon - Edward badly wants to eat the delicious girl, but fortunately doesn’t.

She runs into him in the office when he tries to switch to another biology lesson, but she has no idea what he’s saying so she only has the suspicion that this somehow concerns her. Which is still uncomfortable, but Bella is probably the problem here. The hottie surely can’t be.

He’s missing from school for a week, Bella finds that weird.

He returns, and to her great horror he starts talking to her.

“Hello”, he says.

Bella dies inside. He’s too handsome!

"I'm Edward Cullen," he continues, and ok, she got that. The hottie is called Edward, that’s good to know. She’s not sure she caught that last name, though, Köln?

He says something else, it’s gibberish to Bella even though she’s concentrating, and at the end there he says “Bella Swan”.

She gulps.

"I'm Bella Swan," she confirms and nods. That should be correct. God, she hopes it’s correct.

He smiles a crooked, boyish smile. She’s awed. She didn’t think it was possible to be so beautiful.

He says something else.

Bella didn’t catch it.

She blushes even harder, she hasn’t been more embarrassed in her life. Here he is, the most handsome guy in all the world, and she has nothing to say to him. Literally, they don’t speak the same language.

She should tell him.

It’s one thing to chicken out of telling the town she doesn’t speak English, but there’s something different about Edward Cullen. He deserves the truth.

But...

He’s the most beautiful person she has seen in her life. He is American, too, so the odds of him knowing Norwegian are microscopical. If he finds out she doesn’t understand a word he says he’ll stop talking to her, and selfish as she is she doesn’t want that.

So with a slightly guilty conscience (but not enough to fess up) she contributes to the conversation with enough words and smiles to pull through. "Yes", "No", "Thank you", and "That's nice".

He is surprised by several of these answers, but instead of giving her odd looks and losing interest he grows more invested in the conversation.

Class ends.

The next day the near accident happens, and he saves her. She is stunned - dear god, did he just pick up a whole car? After teleporting across the parking lot..?

Soon she’s in the ER, and more than a little bit stressed about that fact since she knows the Americans have a terrible healthcare system.

She hopes Charlie has an insurance.

An insanely beautiful man walks into the ER, and Bella is shocked. He is just as handsome as Edward and Edward’s lunch friends!

He introduces himself as Carlisle Cullen, and Bella can only assume this is someone’s older brother. Possibly related to the blonde girl.

He smiles at her, says something, and she answers, "I'm Bella Swan."

He frowns.

That must have been the wrong answer, then.

His hands return to investigating her scalp, and to her great surprise he switches to perfect Norwegian, "kjenner De* noe ubehag når jeg holder her?" Do you feel any discomfort when I touch here?

*De is the Norwegian polite pronoun for “you”. Du = thou = the French tu, and De = you = the French vous. These polite pronouns went out of use in the 1980’s, save for when addressing royal persons, and would be considered antiquated in 2005.

He hurries to add, "Norsk lærte jeg i... fjor sommer. Det var et nettkurs." I learned Norwegian… last year. Online class.

"Hvilket da?" Which one? Bella asks, because Charlie needs to hear about this. The doctor has beautiful, if slightly outdated, pronunciation.

The doctor’s smile turns uncertain. She gets the feeling there’s something he doesn’t want to say. "Husker ikke," I don’t remember, sier han etter en litt vel lang pause.

That’s a shame. And weird.

"De hadde hellet med Dem i dag, som ikke ble truffet av den bilen." You were lucky today, not getting hit by that car. he then says, noticeably changing the subject.

"Det var ikke hell, det var Edward," It wasn’t luck, it was Edward, she replies sharply.

The doctor definitely looks uncomfortable.

She continues, "Han krysset skolegården på et blunk, og plukket opp hele bilen. Jeg så det," He crossed the schoolyard in a moment, and picked up the whole car. I saw it,

The doctor laughs. "Om han kunne det hadde nok gymkarakteren hans vært meget bedre. Nei, frøken Swan*, jeg beklager å si at det høres ut som at De er litt omtåket. Det er helt normalt ved hjernerystelse." If he could do that, his PE grade would be a lot better. No, Miss Swan, I’m sorry to say you seem confused. That’s normal with concussions.

*Addressing a young woman as “frøken” is even more outdated than using polite pronouns.

Why does Bella get the feeling he’s lying?

She’s discharged.

We’ll jump ahead to her trip to La Push - that trip uneventful, since Jacob knows she doesn’t speak English. They stick their hands in their pockets and stare at the sea.

The next day she’s shanghaied to Port Angeles, because apparently she said “Yes” at the wrong time when talking to Jessica (Turns out Jess’s name was Jessica!) and accidentally said yes to a day trip to Port Angeles.

Like in canon she wanders away from the others, and as in canon she is nearly gang raped. And again as in canon she is saved at the last moment by Edward.

He buys her dinner, and she can’t believe her own luck- and misfortune. A date with the most handsome guy on the planet (hence the luck) and she can’t say a word to him (hence the misfortune)!

He says things to her, lends her his jacket, and really this is it for Bella, she’s peaked, life can’t get better than this.

(That’s a lie, it would be better if she spoke English.)

He’s so amazing.

She’s gotten pretty good at navigating conversations with him, so she nods and aha’s her way through.

In his car on the way home the tone takes a more serious turn.

He asks her about something, and it’s a serious question, that much she’s gathered. She answers in the confirmative.

He is silent.

Did she say anything wrong?

(Edward, on his end, just asked if she knows what he is. She said yes, so calmly, not even a trace of fear in her.)

A few days later he takes her out on a walk in the woods.

He shows her a meadow in the woods, and when he steps into it he lights up in the sunlight.

Bella is in shock.

She knew there was something different about him, but- holy cow. This guy isn’t human.

Is she dating a god?

She stumbles into the clearing after him, and they spend a day together where he says things, and she can barely hear any of it (nevermind understand it) because she’s so distracted by how pretty he is.

The next day he takes her to a house in the middle of nowhere. She doesn’t want to guess that this can be where he lives. Surely gods don’t live in houses?

He shows her inside the house, and introduces her for Dr. Cullen and a lady with a name she doesn’t catch.

Bit weird that these two are acting like a couple of parents, they’re far too young and divine for that.

Edward shows her around in an old-fashioned office, and she doesn’t know what to make of i when she sees a painting of Carlisle. Edward launches into a long story when he sees her watching it, unfortunately she doesn’t catch any dates or artist names. At one point she heard the word “suicide”, though, and that’s not good.

She doesn’t get much out of the story.

The baseball game doesn’t happen because Bella didn’t pick up on what Edward wanted and didn’t realize she was being invited to a thing. They spend the afternoon watching a movie instead.

The relationship continues, impeded slightly by communication problems, but she’s mostly able to cover those up.

Until her birthday comes around.

She gets a papercut.

Jasper lunges at her. Edward throws her into a glass table, and then everyone is leaving.

Carlisle is kind enough to switch to Norwegian when he’s stitching up her arm, perhaps remembering the last time she was his patient. "Jasper har ikke vært på dietten vår så veldig lenge." Jasper hasn’t been on our diet for very long.

"Diett?"she asks. She’s never seen Edward eat anything. She wasn’t clear on what the Cullens ate, honestly she thought they were above such things. She was thinking maybe photosynthesis. The knowledge that they apparently eat food astounds her, but diets?

"Dyreblod istedenfor menneskeblod," Animal blood in stead of human blood, Carlisle clarifies.

Whachasay?

Carlisle gives a slight smile. “Jaspers liv som vampyr fikk en brutal start." Jasper’s life as a vampire got off to a brutal start.

...

Vampire?!

Bella’s missed something here.

Oh dear lord, oh fy faen, she has missed something.

“Åja”, uh huh, is all she can say, and suddenly she’s very aware of the fact that she’s sitting there with a bleeding arm.

And Carlisle.

Who is a vampire.

Over the course of the following conversation Bella makes a host of discoveries.

Edward has been a vampire this whole time, and he’s a telepathic vampire. Whether Bella should be a vampire too or not has been a matter of hot debate, but due to religious reasons Edward doesn’t want that.

Carlisle also brings up how Edward died of the Spanish flu.

"Jeg var under den oppfatning at Edward fortalte deg bakhistorien min?" I was under the impression Edward told you my back story? Carlisle asks at one point, and Bella just has to ask very nicely if he’d be so kind as to repeat it.

Turns out the guy is nearly four hundred years old.

Jaha.

Jahahaha jaa ha.

That’s… a lot.

She wanders out of the house in shock, and hardly notices Edward’s strange behavior over the next couple of days.

One day he picks her up at school, and takes her behind the house.

That works out.

He’s a vampire, but he never hurt her. He is endlessly beautiful, perhaps easier to love now that she knows he’s not a god. He’s her Edward, and that’s suddenly easier now that she knows.

They can still be together.

But now that she knows this about him, it’s about time he knows something about her as well.

It’s time to finally be honest with him.

So when he opens his mouth, she opens her mouth as well, but she doesn’t get any further than to “Edward-” before he launches into a monologue.

She’ll have to wait until he’s done before saying her piece. It’s a bit embarrassing, but it doesn’t seem like he intends to stop talking anyway.

And what he’s saying seems to be serious, so it’s probably best to let him finish.

Edward concludes his monologue by kissing her forehead. Then he disappears.

Where did he go?

A big unsure, Bella goes back to the house. She’ll just have to wait until he gets back.

She doesn’t know what to think when Charlie returns from work and tells her the Cullens have all left.

Oh, god.

Edward must have found out she doesn’t speak English.

She made a mockery of him.

He has every right to leave.

Knowing this doesn’t make it any easier to live with.

Bella sinks into a depression.

The hallucinations begin, as in canon, though Hallusinward speaks Norwegian. Thank god for small mercies.

The friendship with Jacob (dictionary in hand) blooms, as someone has to help her see those hallucinations.

The cliff diving happens, and Alice shows up. Bella’s not sure what this is about, but she has gotten good enough at English to know that something bad happened, and Alice wants them to do something.

She’s a bit surprised to find herself on a plane to Italy, though.

Alice tells her to “Run to Edward” and ok, she got that, actually.

So she saves Edward.

After that she’s taken into the sewer, which turns out to house dozens of vampires.

Bella, Edward, and Alice are received in some kind of hall, where an unusual vampire has quite a bit to say. She understands some of what he’s saying, at least the part about “la tua cantante”. She knows a bit about Italian, see, so she knows that he’s talking about a song now.

She wishes she knew the context.

At one point he takes her hand, and appears fascinated by it. She wonders if he’s a palmreader. Not very vampirey, but what does she know.

He asks her a question.

"Yes," she says.

Saying yes has gotten her this far, after all.

But when he lights up and claps his hands together, and Edward and Alice stare at her in shock and betrayal, she knows she must have said the wrong thing.

The two are dismissed from the room before Bella can do or say anything, she’s just listening to Edward make a racket outside in the hallway.

Not good.

The unusual vampire brings her further down in his sewer palace to a basement, and she is given comfortable clothes to wear.

This is getting terrifying.

The vampire leans towards her - and she chickens out.

"Jeg snakker ikke engelsk!" she squeaks. "Non habla ingles!" I don’t speak English.

Han stanser, og ser forvirret ut. "Que- Hva behager*?" I beg your pardon? spør han etter et øyeblikk.

*A very formal, and slightly outdated (you can use it, but people will think you’re putting on airs. And they will be right) way of saying “excuse me?”

Sobbing, Bella tells him the whole story, from how she didn’t want to be the weird kid in school to how she’s now somehow in Italy without knowing why nor what she just agreed to.

When she’s done the vampire starts laughing.

"Dette forklarer jo en hel del," This explains quite a bit, ler han. "Men, kjære Bella, jeg er redd det ikke endrer noe." But, my dear Bella, I’m afraid it changes nothing.

He tells her that she has agreed to serve him and his army of undead warriors into eternity.

Well fuck.

"Du skal få slippe det, når du ikke visste hva du samtykket til - men skjebnen din forblir den samme. Loven er loven." You’re released from that promise, as you didn’t know what you agreed to - but your fate remains the same. The law is the law.

After a moment of silence, during which she looks terrified, he hurries to add, "Vi har en lov. Du må bli en av oss." We have a law. You must become one of us.

A law that Bella Swan has to become a vampire?

People are finally speaking Norwegian, and Bella is still lost. And it’s too embarrassing to keep pestering this poor, polite man with questions.

So she nods.

He gives her a glittering smile, and bites her.

When she wakes, Aro offers her an English course. A language course that, naturally, leads to her staying in Volterra. Why not learn a few more languages while we’re at it, dearest Bella?

Some time later Edward breaks into Volterra to save his Rapunzel, only to barely recognize her now that she’s a vampire who says things. Lots of things, she talks all the time now. WHAT DID ARO DO TO HER.

Too mortified to admit that she never spoke English, Bella claims she’s been brainwashed.

Aro is having too much fun to correct her, and the whole sad affair sets off a regrettable flood of rumors.

[somin-yin]

RC love interests in all stories you're reading? 👀

Hello there! Thank you for the ask ❤️ I'll start listing my LIs from the stories I'm currently invested in and spend diamonds on (warning: it will get ranty 🤷‍♀️)

Theodora - Julian in my main account (because I previously romanced John) and Charlotte in my other account where I previously romanced Lawrence. I was planning to go for Blaine at the beginning but the way he treated his ex fiancée who was a S.A. victim really put me off from him. I know you may argue "But try to understand him, he didn't know", but who tried to understand the r4ped girl? Who tried to even listen to her? So tired of r4pe victims being made feel guilty by society for something they are not to blame. He just shouldn't have jumped to assumptions, by doing that he's contributing to the problem. And if you're going to say "The girl should have told him", it's rather HE should have bothered to listen instead of just leaving like that. I'm just not going to victim-blame the r4ped girl. His attitude was awful and it rightfully put me off from him completely.

Gladiator Chronicles - My cinnamon roll Orvon, despite the angst in his route, I'm enjoying it and cruel Rix and him still give me Sangihun vibes 😂

Kali: Call of Darkness - Who could it be? Who knows, it's a mystery and it's not as if I've spoken countless times about him, not at all :0 (a hint: it starts with Ra and ends in tan) 😂

The One - Luka and Deshawn ❤️ but I have to admit I also like Kelsie and surprisingly Thiago is growing on me too, I didn't like his first impression but apparently he has more depth that he let's on :0

Psi - Certainly NOT Kay. Still undecided because I have no idea who the LIs are but the Inquisitor if he's an LI ❤️

Vying for Versailles - Henrietta! I see potential in her route and I can't wait to see how it develops ❤️

Now my LIs from the stories I'm currently reading on DR:

Arcanum - Rob ❤️ emperor Selena and him are so similar! They're twin flames!

Sins of London - Doctor Lee, previously Abigail but I dumped her for my nerdy smart doctor ❤️

Dracula - Noe, the only reason I keep reading this story 🤷‍♀️ he always makes me laugh and I love his rants 😂

Heart of Trespia - D'Mario in my main account. In my other account I used to romance Reinhold but he bored me so I went for Gisella (tho I actually wanted Vanora, Wincy why ;-; <\3)

Hell and high water - I'm not really that invested in this story but RJ so far!

[maldiaaym]

Why do I think Lily Evans (Potter) was not a good friend?

Until recently, the general opinion of the fandom was that Lily Potter was a good girl, deified and the representation of purity and goodness. But, doing a more exhaustive study of the character, we can get to see how Lily evans maybe was not so holy and made mistakes due to her education and, possibly, depending on the stage of her life where she found herself when she made those mistakes.

In relation to Severus Snape, I think she was not a good friend. Regardless of his age, which we all understand that we do not see friendship in childhood, adolescence or adulthood, she also had defects that compared to other characters in the saga, they were not a role model.

Starting from the little we know about her through the worst memory and Snape's memories, we are going to take some situations into account to assess her defects:

She blamed Snape for the letter Petunia sent to Dumbledore.

She got mad at Snape for dropping a branch on Petunia, even though he did so unconsciously and Petunia was rude to him.

The discussion with Snape about what happened with Remus (werewolf accident), his distrust of who was her friend and believing others before, not caring about Snape.

The lake scene, where she never addressed Snape once, as if he didn't know him and was just another boy to help.

The same lake scene, where she taunted Snape after he called her "Mudblood".

Now, let's talk about the problems at different levels (social, emotional, mental, physical and cultural):

Social: Snape comes from a lower social class than Lily and, although at first the girl Lily did not see the difference, I suppose that as time passed she realized that it did not look good for Snape to wear second hand clothes (surely ), he had serious problems in the family sphere, Snape's own unsociable nature that did not allow him to have a larger group of friends. In childhood we do not usually take into account the social variable when making friends with other children (pre-Hogwarts), but as she became related to the peer group at Hogwarts, she surely could not help feeling somewhat ashamed of the friendship with Snape . Let me explain, in Snape's adulthood it seems that no one knew about Lily and Snape's friendship, so it would be a secret friendship (and we all know that shame towards the other is what leads to secret friendships and relationships).

Emotional: Lily quickly connected with Snape because there was something she needed from him, and it was the knowledge and the desire to be accepted in a place like Hogwarts. Hogwarts was a new world that she did not know and Snape could offer her the security of knowing that world ... But, when she knew what she had to know, Snape had nothing more to offer her, but a clandestine and unrewarding friendship for her. It is not a mistake to think this, but it does show that she deliberately used Snape and that their friendship deteriorated over time. I think she might have felt friendship for Snape in a pure way, but when she began to be friends with the marauders, her emotional level turned towards these guys and she began to move away from Snape. I think the dark arts were an excuse to end the friendship, wanting to get away from him in an interested way ... it's easy to think that, when you really feel empathy for someone, you try to make the effort to understand that person, to know why him he likes the dark arts. However, she Lily was not able to understand him, understand his fears, his insecurities and the need to flee from the hell where he was stuck.Referring to the lake scene, I think Lily had a complete dissociation from Snape by now, she didn't defend being his friend, she didn't speak to him directly even once, and when he made a mistake due to the situation, she scoffed of him and "flirted" with James.

Mental: I think Lily never understood the true meaning of friendship, not at least as she later taught us Harry by understanding Ron and Hermione and accepting his flaws, even when this child was only 11 years old. I think that Lily, as soon as she could, got rid of Snape because she no longer wanted to have an uncomfortable friend, a friend who surely helped her for years in her studies at Hogwarts (I mean surely potions). Snape was like a teacher for Lily in her access to the magical world, he helped her in the study and knowledge of the magical world and I think that Lily stopped seeing usefulness when she already found in Gryffindor and the marauders the way to go her way . I mean, I think she coldly weighed whether or not she was interested in staying friends with Snape and she conveniently cut off the friendship when she got the chance. Lily showed herself to be a cold person who did not understand what Snape was in her whole and who did not appreciate all that he had done for her.I know that calling her "Mudbloods" was not right, but instead of trying to understand the shame and harassment that Snape felt at that time, she broke off the friendship and remained friends with the stalker, the one who emotionally blackmailed her and who continued to be a bully. No one can convince me otherwise.

Physical: here we will talk about the implications of a person who is not really physically attractive. There are studies that determine that people who do not fit the standards of beauty tend to have fewer opportunities in social relationships, love relationships or even find a job. With all this I mean that, when we are children, we do not care about anyone's physical appearance, but when we reach adolescence, our group of equals teach us the canons of beauty, which is considered handsome or what not. In this case, I think Lily was superficial. That is to say, Snape was not physically attractive, surely he did not look comfortable being with him because she was a popular, pretty girl, and he was attracted to a boy who was much more attractive than Snape (even though James was, in my opinion, uglier emotionally and disrespectful to others, adding being a bully). Lily preferred to go for the handsome boy rather than choose a loyal friend who was unattractive.

Cultural: At this level many factors enter, but here I will choose to talk about the differences of ideologies and different culture between Slytherin and Gryffindor. As we know, both houses were enemies, they were the contrast between good and evil in the Harry Potter saga. Slytherin represented everything bad and Gryffindor everything good. Here we also talk about the peer group (that is, a group of people that we consider our equals and from whom we learn cultural, social, emotional and behavioral factors), where Lily in the end ended up choosing to choose Gryffindor and be immersed in ideas prefabs that already existed about Slytherin even though, surely, many ideas were not true. Some of these ideas were hatred towards the "dirty bloods", defending the purity of blood, ambition as a negative element and cunning as if it were something bad that always leads to cheating.Where I see these preconceptions most clearly is in the scene where Lily argues with Snape for defending Mulciber, etc ... in this scene it seems that Lily puts the marauders before (she is supposed to talk about them) because they are from her house and believes that what Mulciber does is worse because he is in Slytherin. Being in Gryffindor, she is believed to have the moral superiority and the right to claim Snape to choose a position, when obviously Snape, like Lily, will choose their peer group. The point here is that Lily prefers to believe the marauders and put Snape in the guilty position, without even asking if his friend is okay or asking him what he saw ... Lily is not interested in knowing what happened because surely he was content with James's version and would always doubt any version Snape could give it.

Up to here, I did my study. It is a bit lazy, I wrote it on the fly and remembering some of the knowledge I acquired when I was studying Pedagogy. But, in essence, I hope you have understood. In the end, Lily opted for what she considered to be okay based on ideas and beliefs that she ended up having with her peer group. She put her friendship with the marauders first and decided to coldly and selfishly eliminate her friendship with Snape. In the end, we have all had friends from whom we have moved away because they no longer shared things with us (although I can presume that I never alienated anyone for thinking differently or liking things that I did not like), but also friends that we have from all our lives, with those of us who do not like things about them, but accept them and try to understand them, where the company of that person is valued more and we do not care what they tell us. It is true that the "peer group" exerts a lot of influence on us, despising those who consider strange people or have unusual habits for the majority of the population. But Snape and Lily met in childhood, this factor should not have been decisive for their estrangement and, I am afraid, that in the almost of Lily, he ended up accepting the conditions of his peer group to the detriment of maintaining a friendship that so much contributed. I don't hate Lily, I have no problem with her, for me she really is a flat character, too overrated and that only has a few three lines in the entire Harry Potter saga. It is impossible to empathize with her as we would with other characters and she hardly has any development of her. The most remarkable thing about her is that she gave her life for her son, otherwise she showed us a girl who had a strange friendship with Snape and who married the popular boy of her time.

[bisexualbumblebee-writes]

Squeak- Fred Weasley x OC

Fred Weasley x Mallorie Bishopp

Description: When Mallorie is turned back into a human after drinking a prank potion from the twins, she’s left with a squeak that gives cause for bullying by others. The twins, in retaliation, decide to prank everyone who made her cry, but it isn’t enough for Fred. 

Word Count: 1.5k

“Squeaky.” That’s the name that had been not-so-affectionately gifted to Mallorie Bishopp. Of course she hadn’t always been labeled such an unoriginal nickname, but it had been with her almost from the beginning. Why? Well, it all started with a certain pair of Weasley twins. 

After arriving at Hogwarts, it didn’t take Fred and George long to establish their title as pranksters. Their first year went by in a breeze with small pranks. Naturally, a successful year boosted their confidence, and it made them more ambitious. That’s why they upped their game at the beginning of second year. The end of their second year marked their second successful year in a row, which obviously furthered their need to up the ante. So, when third year rolled around, they decided to start it off with a bang. 

They had attempted to turn someone into a hamster using a special polyjuice potion they’d recently learned about in a book from Bill. The problem? Fred and George hadn’t ever done a test with it. Mallorie had been the first. So, when they tried to turn her back into a human, not everything went back to normal. 

To their credit, they did take away almost all of the hamster qualities. But, by the end of it she was stuck with a hamster-like squeak. Mallorie desperately went to Professor Sprout since she was the head of Hufflepuff, who in turn went to Professor Snape for any kind of reversal potion. Unfortunately he couldn’t administer something because she only had a single symptom that wasn’t that big, and he didn’t know what kind of effects it could have. Though she was saddened by the information, Mallorie understood and accepted that this queak would likely be a part of her. 

Eventually she was able to learn to suppress it, but she still squeaked when she was excited, nervous or scared. Now, at Hogwarts, there were some really good students, the kind to write home about how great they were. But, there were also some rather nasty ones to balance it out. Those were the ones Mallorie worried about, and as it turned out, she had good reason to. 

The very first time those awful kids heard her squeak, they laughed at her until she finally ran out of the Great Hall in tears. And it unfortunately continued on throughout the school year. Every single time they saw her they would mockingly squeak, laugh at her, or call her “squeaky.” Sometimes it was all three, which made her accidentally squeak because she was getting upset. That in turn doubled their laughter until she finally walked out of the room, yet again in tears. She became much more reserved after that, not really talking to anyone. Instead she just chose to listen instead of contributing to the conversation. 

Fred and George had watched every interaction, then shared a guilty look. They felt absolutely horrible that they were the cause of such ruthless bullying. In an attempt to apologize without explicitly saying the words (she wouldn’t let them get close enough) they decided to enact revenge for her. Within the rest of the school year the twins had managed to prank anyone who mocked her in a way that would get their point across: stop messing with Mallorie or it would happen again. And it worked. Those who were pranked immediately stopped their torment of the girl and those who weren’t just stopped out of fear. 

While George was happy with the progress they made, his older brother felt much more different about it. The guilt was still all but eating him alive, and everyone could tell. He spent most of his time (when not doing homework at the last minute) thinking about it. It was beginning to annoy George, so he finally confronted his twin. 

“If you feel so bad about it, why don’t you just apologize to her?” He suggested one day during lunch. Fred, who’d been staring at Mallorie over at the Hufflepuff table, glanced at him with surprise evident on his face. 

“What?” George shrugged. 

“I mean, you still feel guilty. What better way to get rid of it than by just apologizing to Mallorie?” The older twin considered his words for a moment, lips pursing in thought. Finally, he glanced at his brother and nodded with a small smile. 

“Wonderful idea George,” he responded. Just as he began to stand to walk over to the Hufflepuff table, he paused when he realized Mallorie was no longer at the table. She’d managed to slip out of the Great Hall in the five seconds he’d looked away from her. A small huff left his lips and he plopped back into his seat. 

“She’s going back to the Hufflepuff common room if you’re curious,” the boys heard from behind them. Upon turning around they were met with Corinne, another Hufflepuff girl. A smile instantly appeared on George’s face, which made Fred smirk internally. 

“Mallorie always goes back to the common room because she has a study hall after lunch,” the redhead informed them matter-of-factly. “She prefers to be alone, so if a certain someone wanted to talk to her, they’d be completely alone. Metaphorically, of course.” 

“Uh huh,” Fred played along. “And would a certain redhead want to give me the password to the Hufflepuff common room?” 

“Yes she would,” she said with a giggle. “There are three rows of large barrels at the common room entrance. Just tap the barrel two from the bottom, middle of the second row in the rhythm of ‘Helga Hufflepuff.’ The lid will swing open and show you the passageway when you step through it.” The boy shared a look, then grinned. 

“Thanks Corinne,” Fred said, standing up. Once he was out of his seat the girl took his place beside George with a smile in his direction. He sent a quick wave to the duo before heading down to the entrance. 

Upon arriving in the common room he was met with exactly what Corrine said. Mallorie was the only inhabitant of the room. She was sitting on one of the few couches around the spacious room with her nose in their mandatory Herbology textbook, likely studying for the upcoming quiz on Pufapods as music played from a record player against the far right wall. Fred took a deep breath as he watched her. She looked so pretty when she was at peace. He almost felt bad that he was about to interrupt her, but he knew that he would never have his peace of mind if he didn’t apologize to her asap. So, he walked over to her. 

“Hey, Mallorie,” he called softly. The girl squeaked, obviously having not heard anyone enter, and looked up. When she realized who it was she squeaked again and stood up too quickly. That caused her book to close after hitting the carpeted ground. Mallorie sighed, upset at the prospect of knowing she lost her page, then faced Fred. 

“What are you doing here? How did you even get in here?” She questioned anxiously. 

“Corinne, gave me the password,” he answered simply. The girl huffed, shaking her head. 

“Figures,” she grumbled under her breath before crossing her arms. “Well, what do you want then?” 

“To apologize,” Fred responded with an awkward smile. 

“You really don’t have to-”

“Yes I do,” he cut her off. “You deserve a proper apology, so I’m giving you one. Mallorie, I am sorry that George and I turned you into a hamster. We were just trying to have a bit of fun but it got out of control. We didn’t know that it would lead to you getting made fun of. Of course we tried to fix it by getting revenge for you so it would stop, but I still feel bad about it. Which is why I’m here now. So, I’m sorry.” Mallorie looked visibly surprised by his genuine apology, and her features softened. 

“Wow, Fred,” she started with a quiet laugh. “I’ve gotta say, I wasn’t really expecting this from you. George, maybe, but probably not you. You must really feel bad.” 

“I do,” he responded without hesitation. 

“Well then, I accept your apology,” she said, which made him grin. 

“I’d like to take you out to make up for it,” he added. “Hogsmeade, this weekend? If you want to, of course.” A small smile graced the girl’s face. 

“I would like that a lot,” she answered, unable to suppress the excited squeak that left her afterwards. A deep blush coated her cheeks as she covered her mouth. The (very adorable) sound made the boy chuckle. Before they could say anything else the bell rang, signaling that they needed to get to their next class. 

“And hey, for what it’s worth, I think the squeak is adorable,” he spoke. The last thing he saw was Mallorie’s shy smile before he headed back out of the common room. Mallorie couldn’t help but watch him leave, waiting until he was out of the room before hurriedly beginning to pack her things. She couldn’t wait for this weekend.

[headcanonsandmore]

Father To Son Chat

Summary: Ron goes to his dad for some advice.

             Read on FFN.                                           Read on AO3. 

Just a quick drabble I wrote; hope you like it

~~~~~~~~~~

‘Dad?’

Arthur Weasley looked up from the plug he was examining. Ron was stood in the doorway, his head poking into the shed.

‘Oh, hello,’ Arthur said, smiling. ‘Everything okay, son?’

‘Er, yeah…’ Ron replied, sounding a little hesitant. ‘But, well… can I talk to you about something?’

‘Of course; pull up a seat.’

Ron closed the shed door behind him, and pulled up an old deck chair, placing it next to where Arthur was sat.

‘So, what’s on your mind, Ron?’

Ron checked over his shoulder, as if expecting the rest of the family to be poking their heads through the door. Arthur couldn’t help noticing that Ron’s ears had turned pink, the tell-tale sign that he was embarrassed.

‘It’s… well, it’s about Hermione.’

‘Ah,’ Arthur said. ‘I take it that this is something you would rather not be eavesdropped over?’

Ron nodded.

‘So… what about Hermione? The two of you are friends again, correct?’

‘Y-yeah,’ Ron said. ‘Except… well, things have gotten pretty complicated.’

‘Would the situation with Lavender Brown have been a contributing factor?’

Ron groaned.

‘I’ve had it in the neck from Harry, Ginny and the twins ever since,’ he mumbled, his ears going maroon. ‘As if I wasn’t already feeling guilty about it anyway…’

Arthur patted Ron on the shoulder.

‘Son, you didn’t do anything wrong. You were dating someone and broke up with them; that’s perfectly normal behaviour.’

‘Not the way everyone goes on about it,’ Ron said, quietly. ‘Harry and Cho fell apart, but no-one teases Harry about it. Ginny and Dean broke up too but, for some reason, I’m the only one who gets laughed at. I know I avoided breaking up with Lavender for ages, but-’

‘You did so because you were worried about upsetting her feelings?’

‘Well… yeah.’

‘Then it’s perfectly understandable,’ Arthur said. ‘You were in your first relationship, Ron; of course you’d be unsure of how to end it.’

‘It… it wasn’t just that,’ Ron said. ‘I… everyone goes on about the fact that I snogged Lavender and it was gross, but everyone else does the same whenever they’ve been part of a couple. Why am I the only one who can’t snog someone without getting laughed at for it?’

Arthur sighed.

‘I’m sure the others don’t mean it like that.’

‘I kissed Lavender after a Quidditch match, and everyone says it was disgusting. But Harry kissed Ginny after another match. How come they… why is everything so much easier for everyone-else?’

Making a mental note to have a stern talking-to with the twins and Ginny, Arthur placed a hand on Ron’s shoulders.

‘How am I supposed to know what to do if I’ve never done any of it before?’ Ron continued, miserably. ‘What… why…’

‘Ron,’ Arthur said, gently. ‘People shouldn’t be judging you for things like that. The twins weren’t exactly smooth when they first started trying things with girls, and Ginny certainly wasn’t when she started dating Michael Corner, or so your mother tells me, anyway.’

‘So… how do I get better?’

Ron’s blue eyes, so much like Arthur’s own, were shining with a sudden determination. Ron clearly hated being the butt of the joke, and he wanted to make sure it never happened again. Arthur could understand that a lot.

‘Well… first of all, remember that your own feelings on something matter. Don’t dismiss what you think because you think other people won’t agree. And get a clear sense of what you want and don’t want.’

Ron nodded, crossing his arms.

‘And… what about Hermione?’

Arthur couldn’t help noticing that Ron’s fingers began to trace the peck marks on his arms.

‘What do you want from Hermione?’ Arthur asked.

‘I… I’m not sure. I mean, I like being her friend again, but…’

‘Has she apologised for… you know…’

Ron looked down at the peck marks.

‘Yeah; after I got poisoned. But…’

Arthur nodded. It was clearly a difficult subject.

‘Tell you what. You focus on deciding what you want with Hermione, and I think I’ll have a little fatherly chat with the twins and Ginny. Remind them that they were all inexperienced once too.’

Ron’s smile grew wider.

‘You’re the best, dad.’

Arthur grinned.

‘I just do my best, son; that’ll all that anyone can do.’

‘Thanks, dad,’ Ron said.

‘No problem at all, son,’ Arthur said, wrapping him in a hug. ‘You know I’m here for you.’

 ~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for reading, everyone! Hope you enjoyed it!