#And it's even worse writing your own stories and I keep constantly aging people up

[genericpuff]

I'm not sure if you've answered this question before but what were some of the things that made you interested in Lore Olympus in the past and at what point did you lose interest?

I adored the art in the beginning, and just like, the really warm-feeling romance that just had me feeling so giddy reading it. There were some red flags in the beginning like the age gap, but I kinda fell for the same mindset of "well they're gods so what does it matter" (obviously I can't in good faith use that argument anymore because if the age gap didn't matter then it either wouldn't exist or wouldn't be brought up in the first place lmao but it took me a while to realize that).

Now, to be fair, LO was also one of my first introductions to webtoons as a format, prior to that I had read mostly manga and left-to-right indie webcomics (i.e. comics that were hosted on their own site) and I was still in the early years of my own development as a writer and artist (I still feel like I'm early in that development tbh) so of course there were undoubtedly a lot of obvious flaws that went over my head (and I was younger and inexperienced so I wasn't as critical of what media I was watching / reading as I am now) but that's been half the fun of catching them now - it's given me a lot more perspective and helped me hone my own skills in my writing by analyzing what's wrong with LO and brainstorming on how those problems can be avoided.

But then there was the Act of Wrath plotline and I was completely sold on it being gold. Anyone who's read my original work knows how much of a SUCKER I am for "dark alter ego" plotlines, I eat that shit up like junk food. But what I like about the dark alter ego tropes is when they're used to explore the subconscious, question one's morals and true identity, etc. That was what I was hoping for and expecting with the AoW plotline in LO - that her "dark self" was gonna be a reflection of how she felt "held back" by her circumstances in the Mortal Realm, and her wrath being something she could use for retribution (in a "do no harm but take no shit" kinda way). Especially with how naive and innocent she was in the beginning, I loved the idea of her slowly coming to terms with her "darker" side and learning not to suppress her emotions until they had nowhere else to go and exploded (which was how I interpreted the AoW).

So when it didn't do that, or even explore an ounce of nuance regarding her relationship with her wrath, I was very disappointed to say the least. When Eris was revealed to be the one who "blessed" her with wrath, that was when the rose colored glasses started to fall off and I realized "wait, does Rachel not have an actual plan for this whole Kore vs. Persephone thing???" And now her wrath is literally just there to... give her the power to bully people?? It just feels so disheartening to see such potential squandered.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not gonna chastise a story if it doesn't go exactly where I want it to go, there would be no fun in that anyways (and that's what fanfiction is for lmao). But when a story is leaving very interesting but connectable breadcrumbs that are VERY clearly leading you somewhere and then just... doesn't, that's when it's disappointing and unsatisfying. LO feels like a "creator vs. the reader" story in the worst way possible, where it's constantly leaving breadcrumbs, getting pissed when the audience "figures it out", so then it overcorrects and tries to "subvert" itself to keep the readers "on their toes"... but the problem is that all it really does is punish the readers for paying attention and investing themselves in the story by giving them a worse story. It's like Rachel's getting mad at people for figuring out a story that she's writing and hinting towards.

And this has been going on for YEARS now, it's like a Shepard tone where it sounds like it keeps getting higher and higher in pitch but then doesn't actually resolve so your brain is just scrambling trying to figure out what in the world it could be "building up to".

There's nothing. It's not building up to anything. It's just constantly putting down new plot threads that are slightly altered versions of previous plot threads and expecting you to keep following along while it makes a mess of itself. It feels like you're going somewhere but you're actually still just running in place. It's just Rachel never learning how to progress past the middle school writing level of "and then this happened and then this happened and then this happened". Not only is it disorganized writing, but it's just... it's so boring. Nothing's exciting or interesting anymore when it keeps distracting itself with shiny new plotlines and characters that never get resolved.

It's like when you were a kid and thought "man , when I grow up, I'm gonna eat nothing but chocolate cake and ice cream every day forever!" and then you get older and you realize you were being silly because eating nothing but chocolate cake and ice cream every day 1.) isn't good for you and doesn't feel good, and 2.) the appeal and novelty of it wears off if you can have it any time you want, it doesn't feel as special anymore as it did when you were a kid and having those things was a treat.

To compare this back to LO, none of its "reveals" feel like treats anymore, they feel like just another half-assed attempt to keep people interested. It's clickbait.

And don't get me wrong, you CAN totally subvert the breadcrumbs you put down for your audience and go in a completely different direction than where the audience was expecting, but it takes a shitload of skill and thought to do it well. Attack on Titan is one of the best recent examples of a story appearing to completely throw out its original script halfway through, only for that script to actually still be relevant in a very complex and thought out way. Especially when there ARE hints towards the big "twist" that make you go back and rewatch it and realize "WAIT, THEY'VE BEEN GIVING US THE ANSWERS ALL THIS TIME?!?!"

(it would be TWO MORE FUCKING SEASONS before this ending would make sense, that's fucking GENIUS foreshadowing and in the CREDITS SEQUENCE LIKE ?? IT'S SO BLINK AND YOU'LL MISS IT HOLY SHIT-)

Evidently Rachel does not have that skill and is not willing to put in that thought; maybe she could some day, but I don't think she's learning it on the job as well as she thinks she is.

And it's disappointing as fuck because it could have been so much better than this. Rachel is literally the only one getting in her own way of LO being something truly great.

[jkknight98]

History Made (Familial forest side story)

OK, I thankfully did not forget my password after being away for so long (I had to write papers on research and educational adaptations) but now it’s time for me to post a story. Rather than having a dragon and a princess, we have a dragon and a witch instead, and what troubles that cause. Poor George is in for an interesting time when he meets a certain green-eyed dragon named Dream.

(Do me a favor and do not bring up the Quackity and Dream drama, thank you)

Warnings: soft vore, fear of digestion, dragon rampage themes, unnamed people death

“Catch them!”

“Find that magic bastard!”

George panted harshly as he ran, almost tripping over rocks and tree roots, and causing him to lose a few of his mushrooms. “Fuck,” he wanted to go back for them sure, it was the completely wrong environment for that species to grow, but he couldn’t save them as the village men trampled them to mush as they chased him. George knew he had to keep running despite how badly his chest hurt because if those men caught him, he would have a worse fate than his mushrooms.

The lead man, a brute of a butcher that always upcharged him on the price of pork, raised his touch high as he yelled in sadistic enjoyment,” Keep running Witch boy, there’s a nice bonfire with your name on it when we catch you!!” The four other men in the group let out their own jeering, they were also people from the town that George lived on the edge of, he had no idea why they were chasing after him. Hell, he gave a stew to Smith's wife that cured her weakness and this is the thanks he gets? How did any of them even know he was a witch, he never practiced unless it was in the middle of the night and he was out of the village completely. How in the world did this happen??

George just kept chanting to himself as he slowly grew weaker,” Got to keep running, can’t stop.” He pushed his body harder and harder, feeling much like a rabbit fleeing from a pack of hunting dogs, and knew he would be ripped apart like one if he got caught. He almost wailed in despair when he reached a clearing in the trees, he couldn’t hide here, what would he-

His train of thought was completely derailed when he fully ran into something large…and warm.

_*_

Dream sighed as he lay in his favorite clearing, watching the different animals go about their short lives, it was hard to live as a giant; much less a dragon hybrid. It felt like he was barely there in a world that's constantly changing around him, even the few turtles he watched hatch, grow, and age faster than he could blink. Could he ever find a true friend out there like his mother used to tell him, or even find someone like his parents did with each other? Dragon hybrids were rare enough as it is and he didn't want to be thousands of years old before finding someone, he was only 1,800 as it is. He blew a small stream of green-tinted smoke before him, watching it slowly fade with mild disinterest, but jumped when a dark shape burst through it and hit him in the face!

Dream almost crossed his eyes as he looked down at whatever had hit him, and was surprised to see a little human. He didn’t enjoy the things for the most part, sure they could talk like him, but they were more likely to poke him with their metal-tipped sticks and scream. He wanted to push the creature off his face but stopped when his green eyes met frightened ones of blue and brown… He didn't know humans could have two colored eyes, he was more surprised when he heard a clearly weak and out-of-breath voice whisper quietly,” Help me.” Dream was tempted to push the little thing aside for entering his personal space (though he was mildly amused by how brave it was) but his eyes snapped to the treeline where a large group of human males came crashing into the clearing, making him bare his fangs in a warning. “Why have you come into my woods humans..?”

Dream watched as the men took a step backward in justifiable fear, but the largest of the men took a step forward as they cleared their throat,” We seek no trouble with you giant..dragon, we're only here to punish that witch that's been terrorizing our town.” This made Dream lift a brow in confusion as he looked back down at the now-identified witch that still lay below his face, how could this tiny thing cause terror to these adult men, they looked to still be in their adolescence. He gently sniffed the witch and could now detect the scent of magic under the smell of mushrooms…it made a low rumble start in his chest as it was one of his favorite scents. “If you would allow us to take him we can be on our way and won’t bother you any longer.”

_*_

George felt like crying, He had to run into a giant humanoid dragon and had the men waiting in the treeline for him, there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t even run anymore so his fate was solely placed in this creature’s hands. He looked into the acid-green eyes pleadingly and wheezed as he still fought to catch his breath,” Please... I didn’t do anything to them… I healed their sick… I just collect mushrooms.” He flinched as the men yelled angrily from the treeline as he brought his hand up to protect his face and unconsciously leaned closer to the heat of the dragon, he didn’t even know what to do at this point. He jerked when he felt a sharp object slide under his chin and start to lift his head, opening his eyes to see it was the dagger-like nail of the dragon, and he was soon forced to meet its gaze.

“Did you really do what those humans said you did, little witch boy?” The words came out in a low rumble that clearly held no place for lying, but why would he even lie to the dragon in the first place? He lifted his head to avoid the point and struggled to calm his ragged breathing before speaking.

_*_

Dream grinned widely as the witch spoke to him, they clearly were not lying despite the fear emanating from them, which meant the humans were lying like they usually did. But what to do in this situation, he could blast his fire at the humans and leave the witch in the clearing, but that would just lead to more humans coming after him. The thought took him off guard for a moment, he was already thinking of ways to help them…Seems like he already took a liking to the little witch~

He brought a handover to the witch and placed a claw over their chest, using the point to pin them to the forest floor,” I could take care of them for you, it's not every day I get a snack run into me..” He grinned widely as the men and witch began to freak out at his statement, but he had to focus on his new friend... He let his tongue slowly slide across the face of the witch and purred loudly at the musky flavor of mushrooms, the meatiness of human-like flesh, and the indescribable taste of magic. The poor thing did its best to flail as he wrapped it in his tongue and slowly pulled it inside, keeping eye contact with the men until the witch was fully sealed behind his teeth. He gently moved them around as he fully took the time to enjoy their flavor before tilting his head slightly, placing a hand over his throat as he swallowed, closing his eyes in delight as the wriggling lump slowly moved downwards.

“Consider your witch problem solved, now get out of my forest.” Dream sealed the finality of his words with a small jet of green flames that sent the men scrambling as they left their tools behind, making him laugh heartily. He slowly turned to lie on his side as he brought a hand up to his torso, pressing gently on the firm lump that rested just under his ribcage,” did you pass out from exhaustion or fear little witch?”

_*_

George didn’t bother moving or answering the dragon’s words as he lay within the humid stomach, the short second wind he got didn’t do him any good once he was pulled into the maw. It was unnaturally lit by a green glow from the dragon’s esophagus, illuminating the dagger-like teeth and dripping saliva around him. He couldn’t clear his mind enough to use any defensive spells he could have known as each swatch of the almost catlike tongue covered him in hot drool, and he was sent screaming into the unforgiving gullet. He could horrifyingly see his arms held above him as the crushing muscle scent him downwards, feeling his every cell and sense being assaulted by the giant body around him, even his sense of magic was going haywire.

He couldn’t help but let out a low whine as he slid through a tight ring of muscle into the stomach, eyes drawn to a faint glowing outline that illuminated the wall of the stomach closest to it... It must be the dragon’s magic core. He would have been mesmerized if it didn’t clearly mean his demise, he turned when he felt pressure against his side and both felt and heard the voice of the dragon questioning him, making him sigh in frustration. “ What’s the point in fighting? I ran for miles to get away from those villagers, my poor excuse of a second wind didn’t make you choke, what else could I do?”

“You don’t know any defensive spells, maybe some sort of poison spell with all of the mushrooms you had?”  The walls around him gave a low rumble as they squeezed him tightly, the hot flesh rubbing more slime into his skin than what the tasting had already done, the dragon moving to a more comfortable position he believed,” though it is strange to see a witch on their own, don’t you form covens?”

This made George sigh as he tried to wrack his mind for any spell that would help him in this situation, but he was still drawing a blank, should he even be honest with this dragon? It's already eaten him, but it could make things more painful if he lied,” I only make potions because they're simple and easy, I didn’t get to learn any useful spells since my parents were killed by humans just because they also tried to help people with their magic…. I thought I would be safe with just my potions..,” George wiped at his face as he thought of the elderly woman he made a regenerative mushroom stew for that helped her gain some strength back when everyone thought she would pass,” but humans can’t even be grateful for any help if it doesn’t fit their standards.”

_*_

Dream let out a low rumble of thought as he gently rubbed the warm lump, lightly sucking on his own tongue as he savored the last of the witch’s taste,” Humans are very unfair in that way, they stole away my brother just because he was more golden in color, and left him to be obsessed with death totems and hiding away in deep oceans with his sharks... I can’t stand the tiny things.” He moved to stand up and stretch, purring loudly as the witch got compressed and he could feel their fluttering movements more strongly,” I actually don’t like a human village being this close to my home for you to have run into me, I’ll get some revenge for you by burning the place to ash, consider it payment for being a nice meal,” Dream let out another loud purr as the witch tried to plead and fight against him, he really didn’t plan on digesting them, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t help but tease them a bit. He let his wings fully unfurl and jumped into the air with a firm downstroke to take flight, quickly hovering over the treeline as he sniffed the air for the distinctive scent of humans.

~

Dream couldn’t help but laugh in distinctive joy as he breathed flames over the village, watching both humans and buildings crumble away in the intense heat, he was close to burning down the final hut before he got the faint whiff of mushrooms from it... Seems like he found his witch's hut. He gently took the top off the rather modest home and looked inside, there were plenty of pillows and tiny glass containers filled with different plant life, making for a very cozy-looking den if he was at that size. His passenger had stilled once more after fighting, but he could feel them panting harshly, they might appreciate some of their things back in his den when he let them out. He gently gathered everything he could and slid it into the satchel he carried, cushioning the plants with the pillows, and stood up with a soft hum.

He froze when a soft warm wave of magic seemed to spread from his stomach and soaked throughout his entire body, causing his wings and tail to shiver slightly from the feeling. He brought a hand to the witch and gently rubbed at them,” I thought you didn’t know any spells?”

_*_

George shivered slightly despite the increased heat around him, while he couldn’t hear anything outside the body, he knew the village was gone with how many times flames rushed past him and out the dragon. Why hadn’t he started to digest yet, all that has happened was him slightly sweating from the heat and trying to not fall asleep in the surprisingly soft flesh. But he couldn’t take any chances. He wracked his brain hard for any spell he could use to protect himself, maybe the one his mother used on his father when they did their renewal ceremony? 

“⌇⌿⟟⍀⟟⏁⌇ ⍜⎎ ⍜⌰⎅ ⊑⟒⏃⍀ ⋔⊬ ⌿⌰⟒⏃, ⌰⟒⏁ ⋏⍜⏁ ⋔⊬ ⌇⍜⎍⌰ ⏚⟒ ⌰⍜⌇⏁ ⏁⍜ ⏁⊑⟒ ⎐⍜⟟⎅ ⏃⌰⍜⋏⟒. ⏚⟟⋏⎅ ⋔⊬ ⌇⍜⎍⌰ ⏁⍜ ⏁⊑⟒ ⍜⋏⟒ ⋏⟒⏃⍀⟒⌇⏁ ⋔⟒ ⏃⋏⎅ ⏁⟟⟒ ⎍⌇ ⏁⍜☌⟒⏁⊑⟒⍀ ⎍⋏⏁⟟⌰ ⍙⟒ ⏚⍜⏁⊑ ⌿⏃⌇⌇ ⍜⋏. ⋏⍜ ⊑⏃⍀⋔ ⌇⊑⏃⌰⌰ ⌿⏃⌇⌇ ⏃⌇ ⌰⍜⋏☌ ⏃⌇ ⍙⟒ ⏃⍀⟒ ⋏⟒⏃⍀ ⍜⋏⟒ ⏃⋏⍜⏁⊑⟒⍀.”

George felt both himself and the dragon shiver as the magic took effect and smiled victoriously when the dragon questioned him,” It's a protection spell so you won’t be able to digest me no matter how hard your body tries!” He gave a sharp kick to the wall as he laughed in his excitement, but his smile fell as the dragon laughed around him.

“Oh I never planned to digest you, I thought you were cute and wanted to keep you, all your spell seemed to do was increase my fondness towards you…was that your plan?”

This made George frown as he tried to think over the words, bind my soul…tie us together…no harm will come…,” Oh shit..” He quickly realized his mistake, the spell he remembered wasn’t a protection spell that needed to be renewed every year... It was a wedding spell used to tie witches’ lifelines with who they consider their soul mates… he just declared a giant dragon as his soul mate and the spell took.

“My name is Dream by the way.., what's yours, my little witch?”

‘Well,’ George thought with a soft huff,’ who else can say they married a dragon?’

[hadescabin]

why do you want to get rid of tigerdove instead of trying to fix it??? no shade or anything.

TW// GROOMING, MANIPULATION because quite honestly, there's nothing there to fix. it's just bad from the bottom down. i've seen really great rewrite aus that age tigerheart down to dovewing's age, so that they pursue each other as apprentices, which is something i considered doing since it doesn't really change much in terms of the story. however, i've come to the realization that the age gap isn't the only thing wrong with the relationship. That aside, Tigerheart is very manipulative and awful towards Dovewing, throughout the entirety of the time they've known each other, and even now that they have kits. Someone in my TigerDove is grooming post brought up a great example of how he even went out of his way to have a whole incel breakdown to Ivypool when she stood up for herself and cut off their relationship when he was trying to pressure her back in.

("Your sister who I've groomed since she was 13 put her friends and family over me" is a crazy thing to say and rage about btw. People like to say that bumbledove is worse for the incel stuff, have completely forgotten that Tigerheart, or many men in the series really, throw a fit when they don't get what they want. It's just worse when you keep in mind that he spends 4 books isolating and manipulating her into a relationship with him since the moment she was a child, and lovebombing her when she fights back. See: their argument about Dawnpelt in The Last Hope). People seem to have this misguided view that Tigerheartstar is this sweet himbo blorbo who loves his wife and kids, when in reality he's the complete opposite. Canon establishes him as someone who is very sneaky and great at manipulating the people around him to get what he wants. This isn't just an "Ivypool is biased" thing (though I do admit that she does hold some), it's just canonically established as the type of person tigerheart is.

(This actually isn't the first time someone points it out in the book, though I decided to stick with Squilf since she is a lot more reliable than someone like Bramblestar LOL). While it's certainly true that he cares a lot about his family, to the point where he selfishly puts them above everything else, it's also true that he just isn't the best father. Let's not forget how he actively victim blamed Shadowsight for being manipulated by Ashfur, and ordered him to constantly remain in close proximity to care for someone who took advantage of him. Between that and him kicking out nomads from their own territory, Tigerheartstar can be interesting in the way that he's consistently written as having these glaring flaws such as poor judgement and selfishness. Which, as much as I hate the guy, I do like that about him, and therefore wish to keep that in. However, I run into 2 problems. To start off, I don't feel comfortable writing a grooming relationship in my rewrite, it's not a subject I wish to touch. Second of all, even if I do age down Tigerheartstar, I really don't want Dovewing to be trapped in an abusive relationship, especially since her arc is about escaping that. It wouldn't make sense for her to escape to the same clan of the guy who manipulated her. It honestly makes more sense if they just remain good friends, not every forbidden meetup plot line needs to be romantic (like Firestar sneaking out to meet Princess). Maybe there will be a point in time where Tigerheart(or Goldenheart/paw in my rewrite) tricks Dovepaw for herbs or something, but it's established as awful on his part, and it very much nearly ends their friendship, which serves as a small wakeup call for him (Goldenheart is very spoiled in my rewrite so he's just used to doing whatever to get what he wants even at the expense of others). I don't know though, I still need to workshop it. TLDR: Outside of the massive age gap, similarly to relationships like BrambleSquirrel, TigerDove is unintentionally written to be too toxic (in this case it's grooming) for me to try and fix. "Fixing" TigerDove, would be "fixing" Tigerheartstar, which you really can't do, since him being awful is just his character. I really don't feel comfortable trying to pretty up a grooming relationship anyways, best to cut it out. edit: i decided the "evidence" i used with jayfeather wasn't exactly accurate in showing what I was trying to say, and that it would be best to cite from a more recent book. so i decided to replace it with an excerpt from Squirrelflight's Hope. dont get me wrong though it's still very much an example of him being antagonistic in the series even way back during OOTS.

[jotadoul]

(spoilers i guess?)

ok... maybe i'm fully off base here, and i would genuinely lahv to know

in talking to my partner more about the nitty gritty mechanisms of escaflowne, it's so funny, because i remember Exactly where i was when i was 12-13 and writing the first draft of my big giant 500pg original story in which i full on lifted the... creating worlds/outcomes from your will/anxiety concept. but as i was writing it, i stopped mid-scene, and then rewrote the story without it, when i realised i had a serious issue with...

1. Manifestation/The Secret in general

2. even the "real" version of manifestation, which is just grinding it out/centering your life around a particular thing— so if you like obsessively want to make a lot of money you are more likely to be unscrupulous in how you achieve that. which isn't great. but also, you can grind forever and achieve nothing, because you do not act separately from the systems in which you exist... and if the system is engineered to benefit you already, you haven't done anything even remotely in the realm of magic.

by 12yrs of age i had witnessed both myself and other people try really really really hard in incredibly difficult situations and nothing happened. they got worse or nothing changed at all. i was constantly told my by terrible parents that i was just a willfully miserable bitch creating my bad circumstances (which they were putting me in, lol. as if the responsibility lay in internal problems, and not influenced by my environment... which never changed.) so i had very little faith in the idea that simply shifting my thoughts would affect any change at all. i became a better artist despite everything trying to keep me from doing so, but i couldn't build a life to support it, and i became a boy, but i was always a boy. idk

3. hitomi's mother and grandmother are shown and made to be significant. if i'm supposed to believe it's genetic in a similar way to folken and van, then genetics are acting like predetermination here in a series that seemingly is meant to defy predetermination. i buy it with the fanel fam because they live in gaea so in the context of the fantastical i automatically just accept it. but hitomi is from earth, and it seems like her grandma is just the reason to provide hitomi with a pendant. that could happen in other ways— why does it matter that her family member, specifically, ended up there? i hesitate to ask this but are we supposed to infer anything about the...... time period.... of her arrival? which leads me to the next thing,

4. we know other people have shown up to gaea, and isaac newton signals that hitomi's earth is rooted in real earth history. so is it just completely random? because if it were a matter of will, i kept wondering why there weren't more examples of who/how people end up in gaea— like did everyone on the Titanic just want to die, i guess, instead of be anywhere except the Titanic?

ok during the war we see that crazy nuke go off. the country that had the nuke immediately turns on everyone else once the zaibach threat is neutralised (further proof of power being endlessly corrupting.) they acknowledge that this is what these armies want: they Want to prolong war, not for any good reason but to secure their own power. but if that is being explained by willpower and faith, am i supposed to think that no one in all the history of gaea and isaac newton's experiments, no one ever unanimously wanted anything before now??

5. BECAUSE it's being tied to romance in particular, it feels too easy to come to the conclusion of "oh silly girlie, just don't have doubts and there'll be no problems!" like i want to see that same anxiety and fear equally substantiated and justified, even rewarded, without the consequence of destruction.

6. i like the moments where hitomi is really upset by finding out/thinking about this, but i do kinda wish she was even more devastated by the realisation. lots of people have died and gruesomely, after all.

7. i know/am meant to understand that every character is experiencing the consequences of their actions and intentions so hitomi alone isn't the beset-upon Harbinger Of Cause/Effect. but if it's still important that their actions/intentions are, all on their own, forcing outcomes into existence, why DON'T folken's wishes ever come true if he's maximum sweetie boy, which he is. if hitomi, thru belief, has the power to change trajectory, why did folken die lol. is his will that much stronger than hers? is isaac newton's will that much stronger than hers? up to that point we've increasingly been shown just how crazy powerful hitomi's will is. she went back to earth and then came back to gaea. if her wants are that potent, does this mean folken's weren't? why is it important that his are weaker?

8. what is the origin point of fate? where does fate begin, except for every second of every life for all time? doesn't that mean fate is always changing? varie is prophesied to meet goau. it would make more sense to me if she was prophesied to meet him Whenever, instead of at a designated time/place. how far into the future could she see? why did she want to stay with him? what about when she was a kid— like she grew up just accepting this was true and did nothing about it? by having the event not be random, and following a simple roadmap, it makes it seem... idk, less exciting? she wasn't surprised— she just went where she was told. so did she see far into the future, the future where hitomi and fan save gaea, justifying the deaths of her husband and son and her own? well that sucks, so immense personal suffering is justifiable toward the greater good?

we see hitomi intervene all the time. it's all she does. she gets a premonition and tries to keep them from danger— it's pretty much always her immediate next move.

when hitomi prays for someone to save van when he's fighting dilandau and his boys in the lake, allen shows up. prior to this, allen directed his crew to stay on the particular course that would lead them safely to freid, and it ends up bringing them to the lake. then a freid ship shows up shortly after. does that mean the freid ship could've been what saved them if allen had taken a different route? it would've been later, and van could've died/been kidnapped in that time. so what did hitomi influence... when allen stays on course, hitomi hasn't yet prayed for van's safety. is this meant to prove that A Thing Would Happen, but allen ended up being closest vs the freid ship? but to achieve that, what exactly did hitomi affect?

i Like hitomi being dark matter. an errant proton. a Single-Event Upset. a disruptive force, something altering the course gaea was on. i like van and hitomi as entangled particles. i also like escaflowne— the mech— being the vehicle, medium, through which she acts (unintentionally.) it's always been easier for me to conceptualise it as a many worlds/schrödinger's cat situation. but then to tie that to emotion just doesn't hit for me. what influence does Having The Correct Feeling— regardless of action— have on fate? Action has influence on fate. the system seems like it needs to be one or the other

1. hitomi switching the characters onto different tracks by influencing their outcome through her actions— including the act of telling them about it

2. hitomi's actions not being backed up by the right feelings causes a dissonance that affects a negative outcome

if it's 2, idk what to make of that. you can do goodness in the world while doubting some aspect of it. if it's 1, then the bad result seems like a consequence of honesty.

forcing a different outcome is what should be rewarded then, shouldn't it? why insist on a meaningful difference between changing/being honest about your emotions VS trying to shift those negative emotions into positive ones? if hitomi changes fate without meaning to, why are the results so terrible when she tries to do it on purpose? the limits and exceptions to prove the rule seem a little vague, and i'm not being given much to compare/contrast and flesh out the way things could be, only the way things are.

i shouldn't be invited to think about the rules and exceptions when SO MUCH of escaflowne i am perfectly convinced by. if emotion is portrayed strongly and earnestly, i'm willing to forgive almost anything. but i find everything about this 1 point emotionally incongruous which then gives me room to think a little too much about it lol. i think this is The Reason i felt a little distant from the series despite it (folken) taking over my stupid life. like he always made immediate sense and was a kind of compass when all the above became explicit toward the end. when hitomi reacts like "why?? why does sad shit keep happening???" i shouldn't also be thinking "yeah... actually why did this happen?" and then retroactively find holes in the whole thing lol

if the series rewards trying/believing in a positive outcome, why doesn't it work for him? is it just that everyone needs to believe in the same goal together? ok— aside from him accepting his own death (sucks) how different at that point are folken and hitomi's actual goals? also i think it was a bad choice not to have van be present for this. that, in addition to there not being a meaningful relationship between folken and isaac newton, makes the whole event fall flat for me.

the film does a better job of this imo where it does feel more random and chaotic, and the dispersal of information vs breathless action is such that i just buy it. there's no room to think more about it, i don't feel spurred to. the film takes the concept of "okay, so what if hitomi, folken, and van all have psychic powers" and constructs a new narrative around it and the logic is more understated. but the series, with more time and repeat explanation, leaves me wondering things that, i think if it were done more successfully, i wouldn't.

idk. in addition to my structural issues with it, also just felt too close to things that were said to and expected of me and, to me, were observably false, and impacted me negatively. it was hard to live inside the fantasy of that. there's enough there that i really like and doesn't feel undermined by this, and the implied concept of alternate timelines/streams crossed always excites me. it's really my only enduring criticism, but it sucks that it's such an integral part of the story. i love van and hitomi's emotional, romantic arc, i believe in them, i'm rooting for them from the bleachers. but still.

[greensaplinggrace]

So you mentioned in another post that you have some strong thoughts on Baghra, especially about how the story frames her as one of the good guys. I would love to hear about it.

@youremotionallystablefriend: I would love to hear you rant about Baghra if you feel like it (and haven’t already)! Personally I don’t think she gets enough constructive critique in the fandom for being the one that brought Aleks up and for the way she treated her pupils and especially Alina :/

Anon: Hello! I love your thoughts on the grisha books. I'm actually interested to hear your take on Baghra

@misku-nimfa: If you are up for it, I would love to read your thoughts on Baghra or your full critique of society in the Grishaverse. Your analysis is really well structured and interesting! ^.^

Anon: Hi! I saw your recent post and was wondering if you'd share more of your thoughts on Baghra?

---

Hello everyone! I was honestly very surprised to see so many people interested in my thoughts on Baghra? I'll share what I can, but please know that this is by no means a full breakdown of her character! It’s just some Thoughts I’ve had, and they’re mostly centered around show Baghra because that’s how I was first introduced to her character. Although IMO book Baghra might actually be even worse.

I’d like to preface this by saying that many of my issues with the treatment of Baghra as a character in fandom come from the wild double standard there seems to be regarding her and the Darkling. Darkling Antis and a vast majority of the people in this fandom who don’t like his character have a disturbing habit of absolutely ripping into the Darkling for all of his faults and then turning around and treating Baghra as some sort of pristine mother figure for the exact same shit.

They’ll talk about how badass she is, how strong she is, how they sympathize with her past (although they’ll continue to dehumanize the Darkling and refuse to sympathize with his own past) and sympathize with the fact that she has to deal with the Darkling (who’s always referred to as a monster she must corral or control, as if he is inhumane and beastly. These particular comments always take on the very distinct tone of victim blaming as well). They’ll laud her for all of these “powerful girlboss” moments as if they aren’t carbon copies of the Darkling’s own behavior - as if they aren’t things Baghra herself taught him. Which is why this is the wildest double standard of all to me, because every horrible action they praise Baghra for is something she taught the Darkling, and something they cannot stand to see in him as well.

It’s as if there’s a disconnect between their consumption of the literature when it comes to the two characters, and I’m of the opinion that it’s largely because Baghra is a woman and a mother and therefore infantilized in the fandom quite a bit. In fact, Bardugo herself often infantilizes many of her female characters in her writing. This is mostly through the process of excusing their terrible deeds, not allowing them to do anything remotely dark, or brushing any morally grey actions under the rug without ever touching upon them. Which puts me in the strange position of knowing I’m supposed to sympathize with Baghra for having to deal with the monster she’s created, and instead feeling resentful of the fact that this bitter woman is held up as this wise old strict teacher instead of the abusive mentor/mother she should have been.

Now, here’s what I said to make so many of you send me asks:

Last note, in reference to your first line, and also probably a pretty unpopular opinion. I do not like Baghra. And it legit has nothing to do with the Darkling or with Alina, I just don't like her "I'm going to hit you and berate you and emotionally abuse you and manipulate you and act like the good guy at the end of it" vibe she's got going on. At least Aleksander is acknowledged as the villain within the narrative. Idk wtf Baghra is on but it's absolutely wild to me that people aren't more critical of her actions. Which is, rather fortunately for you, another rant I will save for another post if anybody ever wants to hear it lol. (but like kudos to Baghra's actress. I loved the character as a character, I just don't like the way she's framed as a good guy. Weird. Uncomfortable. She literally set bees on the kids she was teaching).

This basically summarizes most of my thoughts on Baghra as a character and how she’s portrayed. I touched on it a bit above, but the way she’s able to get away with so much and not suffer under heavier critique is honestly baffling to me. There should be a lot more criticism of her out there in the fandom. This is the woman who abused her students and neglected her son. Although to be honest I don’t even know how to quite describe the emotionally neglectful yet unhealthily codependent bond she fostered in him from a young age. IMO, Baghra’s behavior around Aleksander is creepy, and I know she has a history that makes it more understandable, but it’s still incredibly disconcerting to witness.

But let’s get back on track! First of all, her students. Whom she physically, emotionally, and mentally abuses. She’s derisive, she’s insulting, she’s belittling. She works hard to strip them of any self confidence they may have. She uses pain as a means of triggering powers. And the strict teacher excuse doesn’t fly. The “it’s only a training method!” excuse is even worse. This is literal abuse she’s heaping on her students and it’s wretched.

The first thing she does to Alina when they first meet is insult her. Then she hits her. Then she kicks her out.

Second time they interact is a montage. Baghra hits Alina multiple times. She shames her. And then when Alina actually calls a light she tells her it’s not nearly enough, effectively wiping the smile off of her face and every sign of self confidence that had been building. Then we see the door to Baghra’s hut shut in Alina’s face. So now she has been bruised, battered, berated, stripped of all self confidence, and then banished again. As training methods go, this is not only entirely ineffective, but it’s also just abusive.

Then we get this interaction between Alina and her friends:

Marie: One time, Baghra released a hive of bees on me. Nadia: Worst part is, it worked. Marie: It really did. I could summon at will after that.

Which is fucking horrifying and not talked about nearly enough. That goes beyond hitting your students. Baghra used a fear tactic on a young girl to activate her powers. She literally tortured Marie to make her powers work.

Alina throughout this conversation is looking very disheartened. She’s lacking in any self confidence and the comment about the bees has clearly affected her. For someone who’s first words to Alina were “Everyone believes that you are the one. Come back when you believe it too,”  Baghra doesn’t exactly seem keen on Alina actually believing she’s the one. If she did, she wouldn’t be stripping her of every positive emotion associated with sun summoning.

Let’s not forget that Baghra demeans Alina multiple times for her status as an orphan. How she utilizes what she knows of Alina’s emotional weaknesses to provoke her and discourage her and make her angry.

And then Baghra drugs her without consent. To take advantage of any information Alina gives her in that state. To use the way Alina reacts for her own ends.

Because why else would she say this?:

Alina: We planned to run away together. Baghra: You had plans. Perhaps he never did, because where is he now?

Which is, strangely enough, the same sense of isolation and separation from Mal and her past that Aleksander is attempting to foster. Weird how mother and son are both using the same manipulation tactics.

In fact, why does Baghra never tell Alina about the letters until she’s already engaged with Aleksander? Baghra must have known he was taking them. Alina talks about it enough. Baghra must have known he was isolating her from Mal. How could she not, when it’s revealed later that she has spies in the Little Palace collecting information on him? How could she not, when she knows he’s the villain from the beginning - when she knows he’s manipulating Alina?

Baghra knows, and yet she keeps the same lies Aleksander does and furthermore uses that information to make Alina feel even more isolated and weak. Baghra literally just piggy-backs on Aleksander’s manipulation and then exacerbates it. She wants Alina to feel no attachments to her past because she wants to use Alina as well. But for some reason, because this manipulation and treatment of Alina as some sort of tool is done by the woman who opposes the Darkling, it’s suddenly okay. As if it still isn’t the same terrible shit but with a different perpetrator. I mean damn, at least Aleksander feels something for Alina. Baghra’s just cold.

So, point by point. Baghra mentions how Mal doesn’t care for Alina, she mentions Alina’s failings constantly, she mentions Alina being an orphan, she constantly hits her, she guilts Alina about orphans dying, she works to instill a sense of isolation from her friends and her family.

And when Alina finally comes to Baghra, having decided to abandon her attachments to her past and her attachments to Mal, the words that ring in her head are Baghra's words - “needing anyone else is weak.”  Which is honestly just a horrible sentiment in general, but an even worse one when considering how hard these people are working to detach Alina from anybody who can help her or give her an outside perspective.

Strangely, it’s also similar to this line:

The problem with wanting, is that it makes us weak.

...which is spoken by Baghra’s son. You know, the Darkling? Our big bad villain? The one Baghra raised?

Which gives me the impression that Baghra’s teaching methods with her students are really not that far off from the teaching methods she used on him as he was growing up. It’s a horrifying thought, and leads into my problems with her relationship with Aleksander.

First of all, show wise. What the fuck.

Aleksander: They’re punishing us for being Grisha. Baghra: Punishing you. You made him afraid. Now he wants you to fear him. Aleksander: I won a war for him. Baghra: And in doing so, started a war on us.

I get that she’s trying to convey how the king feels here, but it still feels incredibly victim blamey from a narrative standpoint. It isn’t Aleksander’s fault the king fears him when he used his powers under the King’s banner to help him win a war. Aleksander trusted this man who betrayed him and then betrayed his people, and we get a line from his mother, entirely unsympathetic, talking about how it’s his fault all of these people are dying.

Baghra: Where’s the girl, your healer? Aleksander: Dead. She died because of me. Baghra: She died because they always do. They’re not as strong as you and me.

Baghra’s use of the term ‘girl’ and ‘healer' here instead of Luda is pretty telling. She either doesn’t like Luda or doesn’t care for her. Either way, this is the woman her son loves, and Baghra talks about her so dispassionately. Then he comments on Luda’s death and there’s no reaction except to say that they always do.

Like, her son is literally broken up over here. Grieving. Desperate. Run ragged. Caged and hunted. Feeling guilty as hell. Mind running through a million different ways he could possibly save all of these people. And Baghra offers him nothing except a paltry “people die, get over it, we’re better than that, she didn’t matter anyway.”

Honestly, how is Aleksander even still functioning at this point? He has no support system and he’s working against a king and his army to protect a group of civilians he could easily abandon to save himself. The sheer amount of responsibility and mental strain keeping track of a group alone entails is already monstrous, but adding in every other factor? The recent death of Luda, the fact that they’re cornered and they’ve been hunted down while fleeing across the land, the fact that he was just a couple hours ago forced to his knees and entirely at these men’s mercy, begging for Luda’s life. And here his mother is, if anything a negative support system. Offering no other ideas, telling him to give up hope, not even offering the barest smidgeon of emotional support as he grieves, putting everything on his shoulders.

It pisses me the fuck off.

Aleksander: You’re the one who taught me how to kill, mother. Their blood is on your hands as much as mine.  Baghra: I taught you so you could protect yourself. Not them.

Once more, Baghra highlights how he needs to protect himself. How he should abandon the people he’s protecting. How he shouldn't help others and only ever himself. Once more, she says it’s my way or the high way. There’s zero effort to work with him. Zero effort to sympathize or compromise. She’s constantly pushing him to take the one option she knows he won’t take. The hell did she think was going to happen?

Also, Baghra taught him how to kill. Not necessarily great parenting, but understandable given the circumstances of his upbringing. But the level to which she takes it is honestly concerning. Like, look no further than this woman to see where Aleksander got it from lol.

Baghra also forbids him from using Merzost. Which is great and all, she gets to claim the moral high ground. But she doesn’t offer a single alternative except to flee and let everybody die. There was legitimately no other option to Merzost except for torture and death. If there was, Baghra sure as hell didn’t help Aleksander come up with one. Aleksander, who - by the way - is in no fit emotional state to be making any kind of decision right now.

So anyways, that’s just my tv show grief regarding Baghra, and it’s not even really all of it. I don’t want to make this an hour long read though lmao. But I’ll go over a few other things.

First of all, Baghra’s whole “We’re the only two that matter. We have to do whatever we can to protect ourselves,” mentality is one that she actively touts to Aleksander on a regular basis when he’s incredibly young. It’s honestly a wonder he grows up to care about other people at all. But the mentality itself is something Aleksander still heavily internalized in regards to protecting himself and those he deems worthy at any cost.

There’s a moment in the books when Aleksander is attacked and nearly drowned by some kids who wanted his bones (one of which was a close friend of his). He uses the cut in self defense and then blames the nearby Otkazat’sya village. Baghra knows he’s lying, and yet she allows an entire village to get slaughtered for harming him. This is a disproportionately violent act that Baghra approves of, and Aleksander as a kid is definitely internalizing that mindset.

Also, Baghra’s behavior around Aleksander has always been weirdly possessive and controlling. Especially when it comes to the people he loves. Her actions often come across as her trying to isolate him in order to keep him by her side, even when the relationships he has are clearly intimate. Which... is especially strange for a mother to be doing to her son.

She was also an extremely emotionally neglectful mother. Based on the show and what I gathered from her actions there, I’m actually half convinced she was physically abusive as well, in that “I think I’m being a stern, good parent figure when in reality I’m actually harming my child” kind of way. She fosters codependence with her son and then refuses to provide for any of his emotional needs. She drives it into his head that everybody dies, that he’ll always be alone, that love is useless and power is everything. She denies him the opportunity to be soft and works to harden him at a young age. She tells him he must never allow people to touch him, except she doesn’t work to supplement those physical needs in any way. She essentially abuses him.

Honestly, I could go on. But in reality the simple fact is that I just don’t like her. I think she’s a hypocrite. I think she’s abusive. I think she’s a terrible mentor and an even worse mother. And I think the fandom and the books are willing to brush aside so many of her faults simply because she opposes the Darkling.

I’m sorry if this isn’t what you guys were looking for! It sounds like a lot of you wanted a more of a sophisticated breakdown, but my thoughts on Baghra come with a heap of emotional baggage lol. It feels weird to say this now, but I actually do like the character as a character, I just,,, don’t like her in every other aspect. My feelings on Baghra are just a bit personal, to be honest. But hopefully this was at least comprehensible??

[likeastarstar]

11:03 PM- Seokjin

You found yourself in quite the predicament.

Long story short- your best friend was visiting Seoul, the city you had moved to after college. You hadn't seen her in ages, so naturally, you were ecstatic! You made plans immediately, rushing over to the address she had sent you where she was staying with her elder brother for the weekend. You had been anticipating seeing him after such a long time, dragging your feet just thinking about the amount of awkward small talk you'd have to get through like a final boss level before seeing your best friend.

Until the door swung open and the most gorgeous man on earth stared down at you with a bored expression. He was holding a bag of crackers in one hand and narrowed his eyes slightly before they widened entirely- freezing in place. Your own expression matched his, shell-shocked in your place.

When the hell did her brother get so hot?

He said your name, the sound of it rolling off his tongue and sounding like a sweet melody you wished you could hear a million times over, in a million different scenarios.

"Hot-I mean, Hot. I mean, hot." You glitched, "I mean, Hi."

"Hi," He mumbled before his body went flying to the side, smashing into the door with a muffled yelp.

"Well, hello!" Your best friend screeched, arm pinning Seokjin against the door still. Your eyes flickered from his squished face to her eager one, laughing nervously. "Long time, no see!"

You were in for a long weekend.

The entire situation was torturous, your best friend constantly inviting Seokjin along to your plans. The two of you sat together awkwardly, scared to look at each other at all just incase either one of you said something stupid like- do you want to make out? or get married? or hang out sometime? or all of the above?

It got even worse when the three of you got drunk at your apartment, your best friend passing out too early on in the night. You stared at her sleeping form on the living room rug, one hand curled around a bottle of wine and the other in a bag of chips.

"We should move her," You thought aloud.

"She fights people when she's drunk- I'm not moving her," Seokjin grumbled, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

"You're a coward," You joked in a flat tone, turning your head slowly towards him.

A weighted silence fell over the two of you, the only sound in the room was of your best friend snoring and music turned too low playing softly in the background. You picked the bottle of wine out of her hand and took a swig, passing it off to Seokjin wordlessly.

"When did you get so pretty?" He asked randomly, catching you off guard, taking a sip of the wine and handing it back to you.

You were really drunk but he looked so cute, sitting there with a spaced out look on his face. His full lips were so pink and his cheeks were flushed, eyes darting around the room like he was trying to avoid looking at you. He finally gave up, staring back at you with a nervous look on his eyes. He looked like a scared deer, wide eyes frozen on the way you were looking at him like you were about to pounce.

"Huh?" You said, genuinely thinking you were so drunk you had started hallucinating. You drank more to keep up the visions, liking where this conversation was going. He was too far to pass the bottle off comfortably so you inched closer to him, watching Seokjin scoot towards you as well.

"You- I," He stuttered, "Pretty."

You nodded understandably, agreeing wholeheartedly, "Yes, you're very pretty."

"No!" He cried, an adorable look of pouty anger washing over his features. "You're torturing me- I asked, when did you get so pretty? You should've told me."

"I should've told you I was pretty? What did you want me to do, write you a letter? What would you have done with that information?" You laughed, picturing yourself writing a love letter addressed to your best friend's brother.

"I would've done something," He grumbled, "Dated you or something..."

He scooted even closer, studying your features closely with a bleary, concentrated look in his eye.

"You could always date me now," You offered, looking at him pensively. He was so close you could smell his cologne at this point- man he smelt nice. Your eyes dropped to his neck, watching him gulp hard with apprehension. The two of you flirting was like watching two nervous idiots trying to navigate a new world, fumbling through your words using the courage only alcohol could bring.

"I could, yeah." He nodded, inching towards you. "I could do a lot of things."

His words were loaded but staying true to your own oblivious nature- you said something incredibly stupid instead of something sexy.

"Like reject modernity and become a hermit," You said suggested, nodding slightly.

"Yeah," he agreed, mirroring your head nodding. "Or kiss you."

"Oh yeah- that too. Maybe do that first," You said eagerly, wondering how on earth a guy this hot would put up with your idiocy. "Maybe just not in front of your unconscious drunk little sister."

"Sure, yeah- understandable." Seokjin laughed, leaning away from you as if he had only now remembered his sister laying on the ground in front of him. "She's only here for one more day though- then you're mine."

"Then I'm yours." You agreed, grinning eagerly.

masterlist.

(A/N: Writing this was so fun HAHAHAHAHAH it's a little messy but I really like it and I hope you do too. Feedback is always appreciated. I didn't name the best friend bc she is merely a vessel in which jin is delivered to you in this drabble sorry girl.)

[bigskydreaming]

If you were editor of Nightwing's book ever since at least the start of Rebirth to today and you were given free reign, what would your story mandates?

Oh no, this is dangerous. LOL. Hmm, I have no idea what to shoot for here, so I'll try to keep it to ten. That's reasonable right? Ten is good. Yeah. Is fine.

Okay, so, in no particular order:

1) Let Dick be competent 101. None of this him having to play hype man for every other character to pop up in HIS title bullshit. Nope. That's not what they're there for. He's the lead man, LET HIM BE THE LEADING MAN. Like sure, everyone has their areas of expertise, he doesn't need or have to be the best at everything, blah blah blah.....but its about the nuance. All of that is kinda lip service because the thing is, you don't go into MOST comic books and NEED to be reminded of that because the lead characters of those books are all constantly getting saved or shown up or chastised by every guest star in their books, you know? This is a very weird, very niche phenomenon very specific to Dick's character, and I'm super over it. I'm here to read about the guy who has literally been doing this longer than most superheroes twice his age. The guy who's been doing this since before he hit double digits. The born acrobat. The destined ultimate warrior or whatever of Gotham's Ornithological Society Of Murder and Pretentiousness. Gimme that guy. And that guy doesn't need to be 'humbled' every other page, because the thing is, he's not some egomaniac to begin with so the everpresent need to humble him doesn't actually come off as humbling! It just comes off as pandering and not even to actual fans of the actual character, so its like.....wyd DC.

2) Let other people take responsibility for their own crap with Dick rather than always just expecting a mea culpa from him. I'm so unbelievably tired of the words I'm sorry from Dick. I love personal accountability, so I never thought I'd have to say this about a character, but enoooooough. They have made it completely in character for this dude to apologize to everyone ELSE for being brainwashed, getting amnesia, being KILLED, like.....the amount of things he's groveled for forgiveness for when he didn't actually do a damn thing wrong or worse yet, was the ACTUAL victim of is like....pretty damn staggering. And meanwhile, there's nary a peep of apology from the people who regularly insult or belittle him, get physically violent with him, take advantage of him or take him for granted, etc, etc, etc. Its entirely too one-sided and imbalanced, and the pendulum needs to swing the other direction, like YESTERDAY, and in a fairly big way, IMO.

3) None of this Baby's First Social Justice Awakening 101 crap. I'm sorry, but no. Especially not when you go out of your way to acknowledge that Dick is Romani, only to then turn around and act like he's only JUST had his eyes opened to an awareness of like, classism and poverty and the real struggles people face day to day? Sorry not sorry, but especially for other white writers out there, do not use people of color as self-inserts for dipping a toe into Learning To See Past Privilege. And especially when talking about a character who has a history of being actively abused and hurt by the system and institutions of power, or hell, even leaving out that particular origin story, who has still been out on the streets helping people since he was a literal child. You can not tell me that this is his first face to face experience with social issues, or the first time he's had the inclination to try and address those head on. (And its also particularly egregious that the people second-guessing Dick in his own title and giving him reality checks or acting like they have more of an awareness of all this than he does like, happen to all be white? OPTICS. LEARN ABOUT THEM. COMMON SENSE. GET SOME.)

Know what would actually be a better way to approach this? Flashbacks. Show us Dick running into situations that make him think back to a case when he was still Robin, when he and Batman had started fighting over their approaches to things, actually SHOW us those conflicts and how their viewpoints had started diverging, and how much of that was due to Dick not having the same experiences as Bruce, or the same standing in society, no matter what house he lived in. THEN you can jump BACK to the present, with the reminder/awareness that this is something that isn't NEWS to Dick, but that he in the past felt he was forced to make his peace with as something he wasn't in a position to do that much about....only NOW, he's in a very DIFFERENT position, and suddenly it just hits him how he's still acting like he did when he was limited in resources or in having to be part of a chain in command or having to factor other responsibilities into things....now he ACTUALLY has the power and the resources to make meaningful change in the ways he ALWAYS wanted to, but maybe just needed time to figure out HOW.

Like you know what would have made Shawn Tsang's story arc so much better? If Dick didn't just remember her as the Pigeon's one time teenage sidekick he'd briefly fought as a kid, but like.....if he remembered her as someone he and Bruce had FOUGHT about. Because he didn't agree with sending someone to juvie for defacing public property as a form of political protest, when it was someone's LIFE who was going to be irrevocably damaged by that while the damage to the city could be fixed with a check, and what made Dick any more deserving of Bruce's leniency and faith in his potential or underlying goodness than Shawn?

But he was still a kid himself back then, and when Bruce responded with his usual conviction, talking about the importance about rule of law and etc etc, Dick just didn't have the words to get through to him then, to get him to understand that this wasn't just Dick not getting it because he was too young, it was BRUCE not getting it, that Dick was literally just saying well he wasn't too young to have been in juvie himself, and of the two of them, he's the one who has experience there so why was Bruce's opinion on whether this was the punishment that fit the crime the one that got to hold more weight here? When Dick's the one who knows what that punishment actually LOOKS like beyond the abstract, for whom it was a reality that still haunts him in ways that even defacing a few statues of some rich old fucks doesn't deserve?

Or hell, go back FURTHER than when he was Robin. Idk where any of those posts are, but I've always wanted to see something where Dick maybe runs into someone he remembers from his time in juvie, maybe a guard who is like, the source of the reasons Dick mistrusts figures of authority and is so hung up on independence and not being under anyone's thumb, or maybe someone who was in there with him, another kid who looked out for him when he didn't have to, etc. Gimme Dick tackling head-on his firsthand awareness that there's no rehabilitation to be found in a jail for kids, when most of those kids don't even need rehabilitation in the first place and only did what they did in order to survive or escape from worse situations or like, were there purely because of racist cops, etc. Let him go after THAT system, driven by personal experiences and memories that maybe only hit him in full after recovering his memories from the Ric Grayson arc, like they're things that he put in a box in his mind a long, long time ago because he didn't have the spoons or reserves to deal with them when he was a kid still so traumatized in so many ways, like, something had to give and so he put all those memories away for another day and just....never got back to them because life kept hitting him with new and fresh trauma every week.

But now something has him thinking back to those early days in Gotham, and reminding him that not everyone had a Bruce Wayne willing and able to give them an out from that place or acrobatic skills to escape it on their own, and like. You want to do something about the cycles of violence in Gotham and Bludhaven? Why not start with the places that literally MANUFACTURE cruelty on an institutional level, that teach kids that no matter what they did to get put there, even if that was nothing at all, they're all going to be treated the same way and given no reason NOT to do whatever it took to be top dog in a dog eat dog world by the time they got out.

There's SO many better approaches to social awareness in the Batbooks than what we're seeing, and like. Sheesh. The bar is way too low.

4) On a related note, if I'm editor of the Nightwing book, the FIRST thing I'm doing is making it a priority to find a writer of color for that book, ideally someone of Rom descent. Its waaaaay past time to let a Romani writer take the reins on Dick, Wanda, Pietro or Doom, aka some of the only prominent Romani characters out there? You can't tell me that there aren't talented writers who identify as Roma who would be more than willing to add their perspective to Dick's archive of narratives, and if an editor's gotta go looking for them? Go fucking look. DC and its fans have milked a lot of mileage out of the idea of Dick being Romani with very little in the way of nuanced storytelling to show for it in the past twenty years, and if DC wants to trot out little reminders that Dick is Romani every couple years, like in the form of a freaking line that has no follow up or expansion to any degree and is offset by an internal monologue that otherwise reads as incredibly privileged, the least they can do is TRY to expand on that with the narrative perspective of someone they claim to be representing via that character.

And no, this isn't gatekeeping, this is prioritizing. Its not about preventing other writers from writing this character, like just for the hell of it, its about being proactive about finding a writer who can write specific aspects of this character that have long gone unaddressed or poorly represented. And like. Okay. Its not easy breaking into the comics industry for anyone, but its particularly not easy for marginalized writers. Most every major comic book company just recites 'make your own stuff first and then show us that' but when you're a writer specifically, finding a compatible artist to partner with on creator-owned indie stuff first, when those artists are in the same position as you are and apologetically and understandably tend to have to take paying work over yours if you can't pay except on the back end, like....there are a lot of hurdles to getting your start in comic books, and while there are more and more marginalized writers in comics these days, DC and Marvel kinda fucked up, because you know what?

After being told 'make your own first, then we'll talk,' writers DID do just that....but then found out that well, due to the ease of online distribution and access these days, for any writers who CAN find an artist to partner with, its a hell of a lot easier to get their content out there these days WITHOUT a major publisher behind them.....and for a lot of marginalized writers in particular, its worth it to keep full creative control in exchange for smaller circulation. Especially when they don't have to deal with editors 'softening' their work to make it more palatable for audiences that quite frankly aren't necessarily their primary target. So yeah, marginalized voices are becoming more and more present in comics, but Marvel and DC for the most part are keeping the same voices centered they always have, and what these voices have to say is becoming less and less relevant and outdated. Because much like this arc from Taylor, even when they DO dip their toes into story matter that's of interest to wider audiences, they're doing so to a degree that still puts them years behind the conversations everyone else is having.

5) The same holds true of disability representation. I stopped reading Taylor's run for a lot of reasons but his way of responding to people unhappy with his depiction of Babs was a key one. If I'm editor on a book, and someone tweets at one of my writers that their depiction of a disabled character was hurtful because it feels like they're doubling back on everything Babs has ever said about not being defined by or ashamed of her disability and now its being treated like a dirty little secret, and that writer's response is essentially to just laugh at them and say there's nothing wrong or ableist about their writing of a disabled person, TO a concerned disabled person? That writer's ass is getting fired. Full stop.

Either you give a shit about this stuff or you don't. Don't pay your readers lip service about how important social issues are to you and how much you care about using superhero narratives to inspire people on these matters if you're gonna turn around and show your ass the second you don't feel comfortable and prioritized by the conversation, like it wouldn't exist without your oh so valuable contributions. ESPECIALLY if you don't identify as sharing the same identity of the marginalized character you're writing. You are a guest in someone else's lived experiences at that point, and you think you've got the right to belittle and talk down to the people who LIVE THERE? Fuck off, my dude.

6) Re-center Dick as someone who the superhero community RESPECTS. I love seeing Dick depicted as someone who has an awareness of his own limitations and an appreciation for what others bring to the table, and so I'm not opposed to him calling on others when he needs to.....but I also would like to see more of the opposite. But not in the way we usually see it these days, where he's asked to come help with a crisis and then usually second-guessed the whole way, and then sent back home without so much as a thank you when its done. Yawn. Sorry. I've read that story by now.

You know what story arc I freaking LOVED as a kid, back in the 90s? In Green Lantern, when Kyle Rayner first became the sole GL, one of his very early arcs, before he ever joined the JLA or anything....was him realizing how little he knew about being a superhero. He was like, my predecessors all had a full fledged CORPS to teach them everything they needed to know, but I had a few lines of exposition from a funny little blue guy in a red pillowcase and then I was off to the races. That's not good enough. There's so much I don't know about being a hero, I don't even KNOW what I still need to know.

So he went on kinda a superhero training roadtrip. He went to Metropolis to ask Superman for advice, he went to Batman to learn from Batman and Robin (Tim at the time). He went to Wonder Woman, Sentinel (Alan Scott, the first Green Lantern), etc, etc. And in the end, Kyle very much became his own kind of hero who wasn't just a pastiche of all those other heroes and the advice they gave him, but like....this put him on the road to that.

And I'd love to see something like that happen in Dick's solo title. We've seen him train in a team setting, we've seen him train the other Robins.....I'd love to see like, young superheroes from OTHER books, not ones created by the title, but like names people actually recognize from other franchises, like, guest star in Nightwing's book to learn from HIM, specifically. I wanna see something where Wally looks at the latest speedster and is like, you know what, if you really wanna be the best hero you can possibly be, then Nightwing's who you gotta go to, because there's no one I trust to make a better hero out of someone than him. I want the newest kid on the JLA block to worry that people aren't taking him seriously because of his age or experience, and he's always hearing them talk about Nightwing and how young he was when he started and so if anyone knows something about how to gain the respect of your older superhero peers, that's the guy to talk to.

Gimme Dick's couch being crashed on at various times by a half dozen new or upcoming young superheroes who all heard or figured out that if they really want to up their superhero game, Nightwing's the guy to see.

7) Bring back Bea. There's no long paragraph expansion on this, its really simply. Bring back Bea. She was one of the freshest breaths of air in Dick's supporting cast in ages, most of the current run is based off her character direction in the first place, she's literally the best suited TO help Dick in this venture, and the reasons they gave for writing her out of Dick's life were all bullshit and they just wanted to focus on his previous relationships, which would be fine if they didn't fall into the same two endless cycles of bring back up, go nowhere with, awkwardly avoid each other for years, rinse and repeat. Like. Bring back Bea, please and thank you, the end.

8) Focus on new villains. Heartless is meh, but the idea of new villains is still better IMO than rehashing Blockbuster, Zucco, etc. Like, nostaglia ain't it. If I want to read Blockbuster fucking up Dick's life, I can do that. They're called back issues. The thing is, love it or hate it, the Blockbuster arc WAS iconic. It left its mark. And anything that doesn't leave just as much of a mark, if they're going to bring him up again, is just gonna be a waste of time, you know? It'll just dilute his overall presence when like, what he was - worked fine as is. We don't need Round Two.

The trick to good villains, IMO, is they have to speak to a fight that needs fighting.

What I mean by that is....the best villains are those who resonate on a more instinctive level because they embody something that already exists in a reader's mind as a conflict that needs fighting. Like, if superheroes exist, if the embodiment of larger than life presences and forces devoted to protecting the world from various things are real....then their villains need to embody the kinds of fights or conflicts that NEED larger than life figures to combat them, at least on a one to one level.

Look at Superman and Lex Luthor. Superman at his core embodies the strength of community. He's the ultimate hero of the people, his essence is that he was the last survivor of a doomed race who was raised by two honest, hard working people to see the beauty in just being ONE of them, in using what he had on behalf of all of them and not just himself. In contrast, Lex Luthor is basically the embodiment of capitalist greed, of excess, of the entitlement of being able to have anything with a snap of your fingers and thus assuming that gives you divine mandate to make the kinds of choices that he sees as only his right to make.

He hates Superman, ultimately, because Superman is the WRONG savior of the people. He wants their only savior to be HIM, half the time he honestly believes he's saving the world FROM Superman, but just as often he's perfectly content to be the villain and not shy about it....because Lex Luthor's ultimate motivation is he wants everyone to know when he's dead and gone that LEX LUTHOR WAS HERE. He genuinely doesn't care WHAT his impact or legacy is at the end of the day, just that it exists and it overshadows most everything else...because all that really matters to him is the irrefutable proof that HE mattered. And thus at their cores, Superman and Lex are perfectly opposed. Ideally situated to eternally be in conflict, their own forever war, because their core natures are incompatible. They CAN'T compromise, without compromising themselves and essentially ending up as someone totally other than who and what they are already.

And you can go down the list. The Joker is the chaos to Batman's order, while Mr. Freeze is the stagnancy of that order taken too far, he's what you get when you freeze everything in your grief and refuse to let anything go on, anything new grow, because that would mean having to admit once and for all that what you're mourning is really gone. Two-Face is the ultimate embodiment of Man vs Self, a once good man at war with his own worse nature, and reminding everyone who looks at him how easily they could fall to the same fate.

And so on and so on. What Dick needs, is more of the same. Like, as much as I'm not a huge fan of Talon stories, I maintain that the Court of Owls were a great foil for him - just they tend to be poorly used in canon as well. But I also think how poorly they come off in canon has a lot to do with canon not really touching on WHY they're such a perfect foil for Dick....and that's Dick's history with being outside the system, mistreated and even exploited by the system. Because the Court, their core concept, is they ARE the system. They are entrenched, enfranchised, institutional power, passed down through generations, dynastic control that is a perfect counterpart to the dynastic power of the Wayne family, embodied in its youngest generation in the form of Bruce's FOUND family, the children he adopted regardless of whether or not his peers found them deserving of that honor. The Court, and their entire....thing...about the Gray Son, is the entitled fury of those denied something they deem theirs simply because they WANT it, and who will burn the whole world down rather than admit defeat or let someone else have it instead.

And that resonates. It could resonate a lot MORE if DC would actually lean into those concepts and allow Dick to explore how the Court are nothing he's not used to, they're literally made up of the same people who have looked down on him ever since he came to Gotham, but now they're actually a face and a name put to all those attitudes, something he can literally FIGHT BACK AGAINST. The Court are literally human-sized embodiments of everything and everyone who's tried to confine Dick since his parents' deaths, tried to define him without his permission, tried to make him other or lesser than who and what he is.....and who thus now exist in a form that Dick can literally BATTLE. So that he doesn't HAVE to just take this stuff lying down.

Thanks to the Court, he doesn't HAVE to just passively accept it, that this is just how life is, that some people are going to view him this way and think this about him and there's nothing he can do about it. He CAN do something about it, in superhero stories. He can kick its ASS, in the form of the Court of Owls and everything its members think about him and intend for him. He can refuse to bow down to them, to accept their mark on him. He can say lol, no, and then blow their shit sky high, ideally with a little help from his family. He can BEAT them, in this incarnated form, and in doing so, even though he can't beat everything they stand for and represent, that victory still matters, still means something symbolic to readers it resonates with.

And that's what we need more of. Villains created specifically to embody concepts that are diametrically opposed to Dick and what he represents. The system, yes, but also villains who embody the kind of tyranny and control he fights back against in his constant battles for autonomy and self control. Villains who embody the 'new hopes' of a second generation just like Dick himself is the focal point of the hopes embodied by the second generation of heroes. I'm actually not the hugest fan of multiversal constant Dick Grayson, but I might like it more if he had an opposite number there, someone he was specifically contrasted with. Idk.

But you get it.

9) Dick having a social life. Gimme the Titans and his siblings showing up JUST to show up. We have room enough for at least a couple pages every other issue where we just get to see these characters having some breathing room, taking a beat to stop and be something other than just a superhero, to be human as well. There's more to life than 24/7 fighting, even for them, and that's largely been lost in modern superhero comics, which kinda sucks, because that was what made most of the more iconic and lasting dynamics between various characters like, STAND the test of time. The larger than life battles between good and evil might be what many of us come to superhero comics FOR, but the relatable back-and-forths and ups and downs of their private lives spent with friends and family tends to be what keeps most of us coming BACK. And lately its all just mission, mission, mission, and I'm like blah, blah, blah and its like, meh, meh, meh. Y'know? Give the guy some down time, and let his friends come spend it with him.

10) Boone. This is purely self-indulgent, but if you know anything about me, you know my obsession with Robin: Year One, Dick's brief time at Vengeance Academy, and the hate/hate relationship he has with his brief frenemy from that period, Boone aka Shrike. This character has SOOOOO much potential to be Dick's true archnemesis and rival, and like. *Sobs* I can't get into it all again. Its too much. I can't do it.

Okay, I absolutely can. And will, probably. But like. Later.

BONUS ROUND:

Other thing I would absolutely insist upon if I were Nightwing editor....

GET THAT FUCKING MEME SHIRT ABOUT BRUCE SLAPPING DICK THE FUCK OUTTA HERE.

Like. Seriously. WHAT THE HELL. Why would you double down on THAT? Why is Babs STILL wearing it? (Last I checked, like I think I saw it in a scan from last issue? I'm pretty sure its still there? If not, forget this entire rant, and I am very embarrassed. Okay not that embarrassed. I don't really care if I'm wrong here but like, in case I'm not)...

WHY. Who thought that was funny? No, seriously, on behalf of any other abuse survivors who like me are SERIOUSLY not amused, who the FUCK thinks its FUNNY to have one of Dick's best friends sporting a shirt that no matter what it represents IN universe, to readers OUT of universe, is always going to call to mind the fact that this meme only freaking EXISTS because of all the times DC has obliviously and without acknowledgment written Bruce abusing his children, including the BFF that Babs is literally wearing that right in front of.

Like omg do you hate her, DC? What other possible reason could you have for thinking that would be a cute, funny thing for her to wear around the guy getting SLAPPED, by his DAD, in your shirt's iconography.

Okay I'm done.

LOL.

Sorry, that last one was brewing for awhile. Deep breaths. Woo.

[collisiondiscourse]

Man, why does it feel like the threshold for success has a time limit? I always feel like if I'm not an insanely popular artist or powerful influencer by the time I turn eighteen, then I am an utter failure and a waste of my teenage years. I think one of the biggest pitfalls of how the generation of kids today has been raised is that we've basically been socialized to think that our best achievements have to come in our youth or else they become virtually worthless.

Like... Oh? you're a talented pianist and played in front of an auditorium of hundreds at an opera house? how old were you when that happened?

A forty-seven-year-old would be met with a few impressed nods, maybe, and people congratulating them for all their hard work and experience.

A fourteen-year-old would get news articles. they'd go viral on the internet and thousands of people would be clambering over each other to sing praises of how they were blessed with such innate talent.

I get it. It's impressive, right? Because they're young and haven't had plenty of years of experience. These kids, by all means, deserve all the praise and attention for working hard to get where they were!

But that's not the case, is it? And the culture of people putting more credit for young people's achievements doesn't even fuckin end there.

Because not only does this exact same pattern happen with literally every single thing ever, even totally non-competitive hobbies like painting, it happens with such frequency that it's considered normal. Articles use age markers about successes to serve as clickbait for their articles. Cable companies start shows purely about young prodigies and how they've beaten their adult competitors. Because who wouldn't wanna hear about a ten-year-old chess champion, right?

And what's even worse is that it then becomes a competition even among young people themselves! You scroll down on a video of a pre-teen playing Winter Wind and I promise you there will be at least one asshole saying shit like "This kid is not impressive. I saw a nine year old do the same thing the other day!"

It eats away at you! It really fucking does! because we go down this stupid rabbit-hole wherein younger and younger kids get paraded around and raised to be prodigies and meanwhile here you are, sixteen, and having a panic attack because you can't go back in time and force your eight-year-old self to keep playing the violin. It's stressful. It aches. Instead of bringing up younger people around us, we're stuck in this miserable zone where we constantly get compared and pitted against each other because we couldn't "maximize our childhood".

Isn't it enough to just... exist?

There have already been many conversations on the nature of college. How it's utter BS that people have to choose what career they want for the rest of their lives as early as junior year in HS. But what a lot of people don't talk about is just how early people are forced to decide what hobbies they want to do for the rest of their lives. People who start learning how to play an instrument at 28 can't do so without constantly being questioned why they started so late. A drawing with decent coloring garners more credit and attention for the average tween than the struggling middle-aged woman, despite both having an equal amount of experience with visual arts.

Parents constantly tell their children to study harder, to practice more--to just keep on work, work, working until their children become the perfect model dolls they use flex to one another over brunch. It's constantly having your name be followed up by your latest achievement and not anything about who you are as a person.

"This is Codi. She is a straight-A student and got invited to compete at Harvard."

"This is Codi. She is on her school's math team and knows how to play the piano."

"This is Codi. She is--"

I am a human being, thank you.

It's never "This is Codi, and he loves fashion and losing at video games." or "This is Codi, and he likes listening to annoying pop songs from the early 2010s and laying down in the rain."

Why? because none of that matters! None of that is worth listening to because anything less than what I can do to represent my family, my school, my team, my country will never be anything more than a waste of time. It's toxic, how today's generation of teenagers have to be celebrities or important figures or champions or prodigies before they are people.

It gets worse, though.

People start counting your talents like tally marks for points. You can't "just be an artist" anymore. If you draw, then you also have to be good at writing. And poetry. And graphic design. And a sport. Oh, you only know one language? Oh, you've only learned the basics of the guitar? It's like a fucking marker, ticking off boxes to determine the worth of these teenagers on the marketability of their achievements.

And, okay, it's a misrepresentation to only blame parents, right? Because it's a systematic thing. A new societal expectation for kids to be the next fucking Renaissance--with peer pressure for things like relationship experience and wild stories too. We kids now worry about not being special enough, not phenomenal enough, or beautiful enough, or talented enough, or smart enough, or experienced enough. And it's weird!

It's weird how teens now flex how tired and burnt out they are! It's weird how I've had conversations that turned into competitions of how many bullshit responsibilities we have on our plate. It's weird how I've met kids on the honor roll that are so adamant to prove to people that they've gone to parties, had alcohol, and slept around.

It's a goddamn tragedy, watching so many of my peers turning into burnouts before they've even graduated high school.

We are expected to be the most. If that one singer could do it, if that one global warming activist could do it, if that one Olympic athlete could do it--then why can't you? Why can't you have over 20.7k followers on Twitter? Why can't you have started your own band and release a popular album? Why can't you have published your own book by now? Why can't you be good enough?

I sit here, typing away at this stupid post and being unhappy and feeling like I am not good enough. I am an artist. I am a writer. I speak more than one language and play more than one instrument. I used to be a straight-A student and nationally competed in maths and sciences competitions. I am an international finalist for my sport and have multiple gold medals from foreign countries.

Yet still, I feel like my timer is running short.

[collecting-stories]

Cardigan - Rafe Cameron

Request: heyy for the ts anthology, can u do one for cardigan with rafe? love ur writing🤍 

TS Anthology Series | Outer Banks Masterlist

_ . ◦ ⭐︎:*.☾.*:⭐︎◦∙._

The summer you turned thirteen was the same summer your dad showed up again. Driving the same lemon of a car that he’d pulled out of the driveway in when you were six, he looked like he hadn’t aged. Or maybe you just didn’t remember him all that well because his face felt the same but you were different. When you missed your best friend’s birthday, a trip to the gymnastics gym on the mainland and a towering cake with fondant replicas of all her favorite things, she was rightly pissed.  

Thirteen felt monumental, like the movie the two of you had snuck onto your mom’s Verizon bill, and you had both made a pact that you would be there for each other no matter what. That promise included birthdays and, more seriously, dads who showed up after seven years of radio silence because they didn’t want to “miss anything else”. But you didn’t mention your dad because hers was so great and you felt a little like you were floating on an island and no one could understand you enough to reach it. But then you missed her birthday and she swore not to speak to you and that felt more crushing than the dad thing until her brother stepped in. Always the one playing referee in when you fought, Rafe was a few years older and, in your mind, a lot smarter.  

It felt pretty important that an older boy would make the time to talk to you, especially when he had to know that his sister was avoiding you at all costs. He’d just gotten his permit and, like any good brother, showed up in the car he wasn’t supposed to drive with a minor in the passenger seat, to take you around the island for the afternoon.  

“My mom said she thinks we’re gonna move.” You mentioned, less casually than you would’ve hoped. The windows in the truck were rolled down and you had your legs up, feet placed precariously on the window ledge. There was a particularly nasty bruise on your knee from falling off your skateboard three days ago and a few short hairs you’d missed shaving. You were relatively new to both shaving and skateboarding so there were bound to be mistakes, you just wished they were less visible.  

“Off the island?” Rafe asked, concern etched into his tone. You assumed the concern was for his sister, what would Sarah do if you moved? Who would put up with all her antics?

You shook your head, “to the cut.”

“Why?”

“She can’t afford the house on her own anymore and my dad has been lousy with child support.” You repeated back all the things she had said to you. Why she didn’t take him to court like the other kid in your grade with divorced parents was beyond you. Rose told her that it was the only way to ensure he paid what he was supposed to but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to hold him accountable.  

Can’t believe you’re gonna be a pogue.” He said it like it meant something worse than you moving to the mainland.

“It’s not forever. My grandma’s house is there, we’re gonna stay with her until we can get back up on our feet.” You shrugged, “at least my dad’ll stay away then.”

But you dad wasn’t the only one who kept their distance. It felt like the distinction over your mother’s life choices held a greater impact on your friends than they had let on. A year into pogue life and Rafe seemed to disappear almost completely. It had always been an odd kind of friendship in the first place but you’d thought that it could’ve withstood a change in address.  

Sarah kept in touch, unbothered by labels or mailing addresses. She’d been to your grandma’s a hundred times before you moved and she continued to go there to see you after. The two of you played in the backyard, doing tricks on the trampoline until gossiping about kids at school became more important than cartwheels. You’d lay there whispering as if someone might overhear, telling each other stories from the week that you were separated. Rafe always came to pick her up, staying in the car and honking the horn for her but never coming over to see you.  

It felt a little lonely even though you technically retained most of your friends.  

-

In tenth grade you got the role of Eponine in the teen camp production of Les Miserables that the local theatre was putting on. You were technically sharing the role with another girl your age but you couldn’t help being excited nonetheless. The boy playing Marius was in two of your classes, a senior who had lofty city dreams and a nice smile. He flirted almost constantly with you, brushing your hair back, telling you how pretty you were, inviting you out after practice. You told Sarah you were “pretty sure” you were on your way to having your first real boyfriend.  

But maybe the ominous casting of Eponine over your life should’ve been hint enough that things weren’t destined to work out that way. The boy who played Marius had an actual girlfriend, home from vacationing with her family in time to watch her boyfriend on stage, and you were supposed to accept that he was just “connecting to the character” when he was with you. Either way, your On My Own struck a different chord in you and after the show was over you didn’t join the other cast members in the lobby to greet people.  

“So when you get to New York...do I get to leak all those videos of you and Sarah doing your Genie in a Bottle routine?” Rafe asked, pulling a chair next to you at the makeup table. Yours was halfway off but you’d stopped scrubbing at your face to stare at yourself in the mirror. Self-pity was a powerful procrastinator.

“You’re supposed to be in the lobby.” You pointed out, ignoring his comment, “I look like a ghost raccoon that just climbed out of a dumpster.  

“Now there’s an analogy.” He laughed and picked up the cotton pads you had sitting on the counter, soaking one in micellar water and turning your head to face him.  

You bit your bottom lip as you tried to keep your composure. It’d been a while since you and Rafe had been alone and last time he was just your best friend’s cute older brother. Too old for you and way out of your league but you were fifteen now and seventeen didn’t feel so far away.  

But Sarah was your best friend and she would be mortified if she found out that you had even entertained the idea of her brother, let alone had serious thoughts about it.  

“I’m sorry,” you said as he swiped the cotton pad over your cheek.

“What for?”  

“I know we’re all supposed to go out tonight for dinner but I kinda just wanna go home.” You replied.  

“Sarah might’ve let it slip about-”

You groaned, “don’t even say his name.” You weren’t sure if it was embarrassment at having let yourself totally believe he liked you but hearing Rafe bring it up made you feel even worse.

“Hey, you’re so much better than that loser,” He insisted, “I’ll beat the crap outta him though, just say the word.”

-

It was that same year, just as school was ending, that you turned sixteen. A short stay in the cut at your grandma’s house had helped your mom get back on her feet. A new job, better than the one that let her go, afforded a moderately sized house back on Figure Eight and a birthday with all the friends that had left the two of you behind.  

Sixteen felt a little more important than thirteen had, especially because, for two whole weeks, time suspended and you were technically only a year younger than Rafe. You still hadn’t told Sarah that you liked her brother, though she did seem a little suspicious when the crush on your co-star dissipated almost overnight. The boys of the past had no hold over your growing infatuation with Rafe. Maybe it was foolish but you couldn’t help thinking that maybe it wasn’t.  

Especially not when he showed up at your house the same way he had when you were thirteen, though this time he had his actual license and not just a permit. He told you it was birthday drive around the island, that he was in charge of stalling you while Sarah set up a surprise party at your house.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to tell me that it’s a surprise.” You teased, sipping at the iced coffee that Rafe had brought you when he picked you up. You swished the ice around once before sipping again.  

“It’s a party either way.” Rafe replied, shrugging his shoulder.  

“So, we’re just driving around until she texts you?” You asked. Rafe turned into the Island Club, circling the parking lot once and then turning back around.  

“I’m yours until Sarah says otherwise.” He said, the words erupting butterflies in your stomach. You could practically feel yourself heat up thinking about what those words could mean if he wasn’t just your best friend’s brother.  

“Well...then do you wanna go to the beach?” You suggested, “Jaxon showed me this really cool spot on the south side that’s practically hidden.”

“Jaxon?” Rafe sounded judgmental when he said the other boy’s name, whether he meant to or not.  

“Yea, we’ve been on a couple dates. You know him, he took me to prom,” you supplied, thinking of the way Rafe had sulked on the staircase while you and Sarah had gotten your pictures taken on the front lawn of Tanney Hill. The last picture in the bunch, despite his sulkiness, was of you and Rafe. You’d asked and he had obliged, coming down onto the porch to take a picture with you before everyone left for the dance.  

It was your favorite picture, even more than the countless ones of you and Sarah or the few of you and Jaxon. He was just a place holder anyway, someone to take your mind off the thing you couldn’t have. Not that it was working, especially when you were driving around with Rafe at the moment.  

“I remember him.” Rafe replied, “so this special part of the beach?”

“It’s so pretty.” You confirmed, “Sarah and I went there a couple weeks ago but she only ever wants to sunbathe.”  

“Don’t say it like you’re surprised.” He said, pulling his car off to the side of the road when you told him to.  

You were out of the car first, letting the door fall shut behind you as you headed up the wooden ramp to the beach. The drop off at the top was a little steeper here than anywhere else, the beach mostly desolate. You stopped at the top of the walkway, turning back to wait for Rafe. He was standing at the bottom of the ramp staring up at you.  

“Are you coming up or what?” You called.  

“Yeah,” he nodded, walking up the path to you.  

“I know Sarah’s planning a big birthday for me, but I’d much rather have this...” you admitted, “just like, coming out to the beach with you...”  

“Oh yeah?” He asked, grinning down at you.  

“Don’t tell Sarah,” you joked, “she’ll be mad-”

“Why, cause I’m your favorite Cameron?”

Maybe it was being sixteen or maybe it was that you were feeling particularly bold, out here on the beach with just Rafe, no threat of prying eyes to interrupt you. Either way, you had been thinking about telling him for a while now and it felt like the time...even if getting rejected ran the risk of ruining your birthday.  

“I know I’m just Sarah’s best friend but...I really like you Rafe.” You said, “and I know it’s like a million to one that you like me back but I just felt like I would explode if I didn’t tell you.” You waited a beat for him to say something and when he didn’t you kept talking, “Sorry, I know this is so weird-”

“It’s not weird.” Rafe cut you off, “I’m just shocked that you seriously think I only see you as Sarah’s best friend.” His tone was teasing as he brushed a piece of hair behind your ear and cupped your cheek. “You’re so much more than that.”

-

It was Sarah who told you, days before your eighteenth birthday. She’d seen Rafe with someone else when her family took a weekend trip out to Chapel Hill to see a game. There was a girl there, hanging all over her brother. He swore she was just a friend, told Sarah not to tell you, but Sarah wasn’t dumb and she wouldn’t help her brother cover up an indiscretion. So she told you flat out that her brother was cheating on you.  

When Sarah first found out that you and Rafe were dating, she had been as mad as her thirteenth birthday. How could you go behind her back and date her brother? The anger dissipated slowly, over the course of the summer it became clear that were not going to leave her in the dust for Rafe. She wasn’t wholly supportive of the relationship but she was supportive of you and if Rafe was who you wanted to be with than she’d be happy for you.  

But if she had to choose, it would always be you over Rafe.  

“I didn’t want to tell you, I really thought about not saying anything but...you deserve to know.” It was the justification she used as your face fell, all the giddiness from planning your eighteenth birthday fading in the blink of an eye.  

“He cheated?” And it felt like a punch to the gut. “Are you sure?”

“He said she was just a friend but...I don’t hang on my friends like that.” Sarah remarked.  

You fiddled with the phone in your lap, Sarah’s comments turning over in your head. You could refute them, tell her that you’d just talked to him the night before and he told you how excited he was to see you, how much he loved you. He’d used the word love...that had to mean something right? You could call him, ask him straight away if he was actually cheating, but you suspected that he would only lie to you. And if he wasn’t cheating, if he did tell the truth, would you believe him? Sarah was your best friend and once she had planted the seeds of doubt in you, they seemed to flourish there.  

You didn’t say anything else about it to Sarah that night and when Rafe called to talk, like he always did, you pretended that everything was fine. But that could only last for so long. A week before your party, on the same special part of the beach that Rafe had first kissed you, things ended. Rafe had sworn to Sarah that the girl at school was just a friend but he couldn’t lie to you, and he didn’t try to either.  

“It was a mistake,” he insisted, as if it was the type of thing you could brush off.  

“But you still made it.” You replied.  

“I didn’t mean to.” Rafe didn’t have any good reasons for why he had cheated on, only that he had and that, since you now knew, he was apologetic. “I don’t even talk to that girl anymore. She meant nothing to me.”

“Obviously she meant more than we did.”  

Rafe had been it for you for a long time. He seemed so out of your league and you had thought a million times that you would’ve done anything for him. He was the ideal for everything that you wanted and for a while, when you had it, had him, it had felt like a dream. But now you were waking up to reality and it wasn’t a sunset on the beach.  

“I love you.” He said it like it was something you were neglecting to remember.  

“Not enough.”  

[defdaily]

GQ Korea Magazine June 2021 issue featuring JAY B: in transition

To prove himself, JAY B is constantly changing. Because he has so much to show.

Translated by defdaily

Your greeting from the video earlier was new. You said “This is GOT7’s JAY B and H1GHR MUSIC’s JAY B.” After GOT7 parted ways with JYP Entertainment, you told fans that you were a freelancer and I guess you’ve found your spot.

Yes. It has not been announced officially yet but I’m H1GHR MUSIC’s JAY B. I told fans I was a freelancer as a joke. I like communicating with fans as if we’re friends. But I was looking for a company at that time too.

How did you make your decision?

Of course I thought about it a lot. I talked with various companies, but when considering the freedom and synergy, I felt like H1GHR MUSIC fit me well. That seemed like the best decision.

What kind of synergy and effect are you looking forward to?

I don’t think “I’m definitely hip-hop!” just because I joined a hip-hop label. I think that through the label I can show R&B, dance and pop genres too. I want to attempt different things without any boundaries.

What did you talk about with H1GHR MUSIC’s CEO Jay Park?

From my point of view, it’s a new challenge so I was a little anxious. But Jay Bum hyung’s thoughts were similar to mine and said I could do music comfortably and didn’t wish for any certain colour, because if you keep focusing on one thing, you’ll slowly be locked in it, and said it’s good to try out different things. That’s what he told me.

Will this period of time divide JAY B of the past and future?

Of course it will. If previously it was a situation where I mainly received benefits from the company, now that I have the autonomy, I feel that I should do things myself and I grew a deeper sense of responsibility in that way. I think there’s a need to be more proactive. And I plan on prudently moving forward one step at a time with an appropriate amount of nervousness. Because this is the process of starting from the beginning, I am very careful about every decision.

What factors influenced your decision the most?

Feeling/intuition. I have a feeling of whether I think I should do something or not.

It feels like you have a pretty good sense of the direction you want to move forward in.

I asked Jay Bum hyung why he recruited me and he said that skills were of course a factor but that I seemed like I would work hard consistently. It’s a given to be working hard on your own things but the most important thing is consistency. I've been doing that for a long time, and I'll continue to do what I've been doing.

Do you have any values that you’ve held on for a long time?

I’ve always thought that it’s important to never forget the things that I’ve done and have been doing. I debuted as GOT7. I cannot just suddenly say “I’m not an idol,” and I do not want to disappoint the fans. I’m very thankful. While promoting as part of GOT7, I never forgot the fact that I started as a b-boy at first and that I’m a person who likes hip-hop.

People’s expectations are high because of GOT7’s achievements. On one hand, there must be people viewing you thinking ‘let's see how well it could go.’

I am mindful of that. But it’s just GOT7 JB that was that big, JAY B as an individual isn’t that great. To be honest, sometimes I think that I’m nothing. If you ask people my age which idols they know, even if many people know about GOT7, they might not know me very well. It’s important to be acknowledged for my music but I feel like I have to get my name out there first. There is someone called GOT7’s JAY B, H1GHR MUSIC’s JAY B. I feel like this is just the beginning for me.

It sounds like you are at a point where you feel the need to prove yourself. Do you not worry that fans might not be accepting if you do what you like and want to do?

Rather than being worried, I see it as something that could happen. For example, I could use profanity or harsh expressions if I feel that they’re needed for better musical completion. I can’t help it if some fans who used to like me as an idol hear that and turn their backs. I also don’t want to give up or lose my own standards because of such reactions.

I see you're very determined to make creations of your own. I heard that you're going to release a new song soon. How is it?

The title is Switch It Up. Should I say it’s close to Hip-Hop Dance? It’s a different style from what I have been making consistently under the name Def. You could say it is a little similar to the solo songs I’ve included in GOT7 albums before. I focused on the purpose of informing the public and the music scene that “I think I will do this sort of music in the future." I’m also sending a message to fans saying that I’ll be starting to promote actively again so look forward to it.

I'm curious. Is there any image that came to mind while working on it?

A sexy image. If I use Def. to freely express my personal stories in any genre, I made a distinction that JAY B does cool and sexy music. Regardless, they are both me, but JAY B is more like a fictional character who can show various sides of me.

What do you think are your strengths as an artist?

There is no such thing. I never thought that an artist should be a certain type of way. I think an artist is one who lives the same life as others, but feels differently, and knows how to express that well. As a matter of fact, anyone can do that. Even everyday office workers, when their stress piles and piles and they scribble down their emotions then toss the paper out, I think that can be a way of art too.

I like that. In any form, what do you want to talk about the most now?

That’s what I’m contemplating a lot right now. I think I’ve been pouring out too much. When writing songs, making the melody or arranging the music isn’t that hard but I don’t know what to write about. The same goes for coming up with titles too. No matter how hard I try to come up with an idea, I can’t think of one. I just think, “ I guess it'll just come out gradually.”

Not as JAY B but as Lim Jaebeom, what have you been thinking about or trying to do?

I try to think positively.

Ah not long ago, we saw you posted on your Instagram “Let’s try to think positively.”

I had quite a lot of worries and a negative mindset. A lot of people may live with unnecessary worries but I’m a little worse. I guess it’s my nature. So I try my best to relax my heart/mind and say “it’s good,” “everything will be okay.”

In introspection, what is something that you are most satisfied with?

That’s hard. No matter how hard I think about it, I feel like there's nothing I like about myself at the moment.

Why? Did something change?

No, it’s not that. Even with one thing, one day you could like it and another day you could dislike it. It’s natural to change your mind. So when I speak, I often use the terms “always” and “at the moment.” Anyways, it’s not that I think that my current self is completely bad, but I’m not satisfied to the point where I would go “wow.”

Then, among the various images that you embody, which do you feel is the piece of clothing that fits perfectly?

I think naturally, the clothing of the name Lim Jaebeom is the most natural and comfortable. Because I’ve got a good hold of the side that is most like me, there can exist Def., JAY B of GOT7 and JAY B of H1GHR MUSIC. Oh, I could explain it like this. If Lim Jaebeom is the earth, just as there exists oceans, mountains, and cities within it, there are various sides of myself that are making up my life.

What will happen to GOT7 in the future?

We probably will not be able to promote as actively as before, but the members and I are trying our best to do anything. I often look up and watch videos of when we were promoting and I miss the GOT7 from those days. The overflowing passion and energy as well. Looking back, it was really fun. It's similar to the feeling of reminiscing about school days.

What did you gain personally from the past 7 years promoting as GOT7?

Should I say, I think I’ve gained expertise? People around me say I’ve become much more relaxed now. But I still get nervous. I was nervous even before today’s shoot. But in turn, I’ve gained ways to overcome the nerves. I guess that comes to show that I’ve become experienced

What kind of person does Lim Jaebeom want to be?

I wish I could be endlessly kind and do only good things, but in reality, that’s impossible. As you live you could unintentionally make mistakes and cause disappointment. Nevertheless, I definitely do not want to become a shrewd person, I despise being scheming and fooling people. I don’t want to be that kind of person and neither do I want to be on the receiving end. But it’s still a bit of a mystery if it’s okay to say "I'm going to be this kind of person." Because as I mentioned before, my current feelings and thoughts change frequently just as trends do.

I guess those words right there can change too.

That’s right. That's why I'm cautious about doing interviews. If I talk about something, there will be articles pouring out that say JAY B said this and JAY B said that. Although we’re doing an interview today like this, if I was asked the same question tomorrow, I could have a different response.

How should we wrap up this interview for you to sleep soundly?

This was the story of Lim Jaebeom on May 4th, 2021. I think this will be okay.

Translated by defdaily.

[undyingskies]

Drown

request: no

a/n: I can’t tell if I hate this, love it, or just like it. This fic was just be completely self indulging in this idea and writing it all out. Fair warning it is long but I hope you enjoy!

also this fic includes lyrics from the song drown by clinton kane! i don’t claim them as my own, i just uses them as the writing the reader wrote!

warnings: a few curse words

____________________________________

You fell and you fell hard. Like every cliche story ever, you fell for your best friend. It was a long time coming and most people that surrounded the two of you had called it long ago. Both of you were constantly denying the truth of it though, and all these years later here you are face to face with the truth.

You and Owen had met a long  time ago, that fun age in between not being a kid anymore and puberty. You were little miss perfect, always has been and always be. While Owen was quite frankly the opposite, it’s not that he was “bad” or “misbehaved” but he wasn’t shy or afraid to show who he was.

While on the other hand, you were quiet, shy, and kept to yourself. How the two of you became friends, let alone, best friends was beyond you. To this day you still couldn’t pinpoint the moment your friendship began.

Knowing the two of you now, it makes complete sense to everyone. While you may be quiet and shy, you were practically the female version of Owen. A similar personality and humor. You held this certain confidence about yourself that would just draw people to you and Owen always says that’s what got him. That’s what made him want to be your friend.

Now here you are about 10 years later, still best friends but instead of swallowing nervously due to the activities you were always dragged to because of Owen, you were swallowing down the nerves of your feelings for him.

You’re sitting in your shared living room, surrounded by some of your closest friends, your inhibitions low due to the cup in your hand.

You figured drowning yourself in whatever drink was poured in your cup would stop the never ending thoughts of the boy you love. But instead you still saw his face.

I can’t even drink without seeing his face, you think to yourself.

The boys had decided since everyone had the next few days off it would be fun to throw a little party at the apartment. A game/movie night if you will.

So that’s how you ended up sitting quietly in your group of friends, sitting in a circle playing some game similar to truth or dare. You weren’t paying attention when they were explaining the rules, lost in your thoughts, their words just murmurs to you in the background. Until a voice cuts through,

“Y/N! Hey!” Charlie’s voice loud and booming, pulling your attention. “It’s your turn.” A small smirk displayed on his face.

Here’s the thing, you lived with the two boys. Owen and Charlie. When Owen found out he would be filming in Toronto, Canada, he booked you a ticket before he even asked you about it. You have always loved Canada and dreamed about living there, so he took you and now here you are a few months later.

Charlie welcomed you with open arms the same way he did Owen. The two of you getting dangerously close.

Dangerously because Charlie can’t keep a secret for his life and he now happened to know every single one of yours.

Now here you are, staring back at Charlie who has a smirk plastered on his face.

“What was Owen like in high school?” A shaky breath leaves at his question, grateful that his question wasn’t invasive the way you had assumed it would have been.

“Oh gosh,” you say laughing slightly, “ I would say very similar to the guy you know today. He still did the same dumb shit then that he does now! He did get in trouble though, always for being too loud or disruptive!” You admittedly tell them.

Owen scoffs at your words, feigning hurt and a pout. “I was not that bad Y/N.” He says laughing.

“Ya sure Joyner, you had detention like every week!” You laugh out.

“Okay well hey!” He says, holding his hands up, “not all of us can be like little miss perfect over here! Never got in trouble, straight A’s, always on time, always the teacher’s favorite!”

“Well one of us had to be the good one! God knows how many times I saved you from getting in trouble!” You laugh out.

“Very true.” Owen says throwing a wink in your direction. You can feel the heat spread across your cheeks, bringing your cup up to your face to hopefully hide it.

“Anyways next!” You say thinking of who to choose. “Savannah...”

As always you let someone else come up with your question, picking invasive questions for games like this was not your strong suit. Often opting out for something silly or plain, you could never come up with a question good enough.

The point of the game was to get embarrassing answers, get someone to admit something they didn’t want too, or get someone to do something silly. You loved playing but just couldn’t get your questions to match the game.

The game goes on and on. Everyone getting picked on throughout the night. Savannah having to admit who her worst kiss was, Jeremy having to give Carolynn a lap dance, even Tori having to call the guy she liked and asking him out on a date. It just kept going and everyone question or demand getting worse than the last.

Every few rounds you seemed to escape the prying eyes and questions of your friends. You often got up to fill your cup, not wanting to let the substance get below empty.

You were feeling good, giddy even. Your head light, thoughts happy, and mind empty except for your never-ending laughter due to your friends.

That’s until it was Charlie’s turn again. This time he wasn’t letting you get off easy, it happened to many times.

He had hoped that if he asked you an easy question someone else would probe you for a harder one, but no one did.

That wasn’t going to happen again.

“So Y/N, you’ve been writing some things recently haven’t you?” He asks you. Oh shit.

“Yes Charlie, I have been. You know this.” You tell him trying to play it cool. You didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing you knew what he was doing or letting the others know or suspect any embarrassment.

“I want you to read us the last thing you wrote.” You shot him a deadly look, one that does not go unnoticed by your friends.

You feel your ears and cheeks start to turn pink, you would bet that the heat coming off of them would cause people to see steam.

Charlie was very well aware of his knowledge of what you were writing and the topic of such.

Both of you very well aware.

“No, Y/N, you don’t have to do it if you’re not comfortable.” Owen pipes up placing his hand on your arm for a split second.

Owen knew his best friend, like the back of his hand. He knew that as much as you were an amazing writer that you hated sharing it. Often times not even letting him read what you wrote.

He was also well aware of how your shoulders tensed up at Charlie’s request and the look on your face.

“No, it’s fine O. I can read it.” You tell him lightly pushing him away from the space he had closed in between you while trying to comfort you.

Then you’re on your feet, heading to your room. Searching for the pale yellow notebook you kept rather hidden, not trusting either of the two nosy boys you live with.

You walk back, yellow notebook in hand and take your seat back in between Owen and Savannah.

With a deep breath, you open your notebook flipping back to the last page you had written on. Wincing at the topic of it.

“Okay,” you start, having to take another breath in, “this one’s called drown.”

Savannah places a gentle hand on your leg for comfort. The two of you also rather close so she was well aware of your discomfort in this situation as well. Your shoot her a small smile.

“I’ve been trying to keep my distance,

but in an instance, you break me down.

I know better than to want you, but I succumb to you without a doubt.”

You look up at all of the faces looking at you before you continue yet again.

“Tell me lies, tell me painted truths.

anything at all to keep me close to you.

Pull me under the way you do, tonight I want to drown in the ocean of you.”

With that, you close your book. You had a few more scribbled ideas around this one but none of them made the cut for it quite yet.

Everyone was quiet after you finished reading it, shocked by your truthful words and ever so obvious confession through your words.

Well ever so obvious to everyone but Owen.

“That was really good Y/N!” Savannah tells you with a smile. “Ya, that was really good!” Tori agrees.

“See I told you it was good Y/N!” Charlie says proud of himself for getting you to finally read something out loud.

“Wait, you read what she wrote?” Owen asks, hurt coming over his face slightly. You never shared anything and on the rare occasion you did with him but no one else.

“Well yeah, she asked me for my opinion on the concept for the piece.” Charlie admits, knowing fully what he was doing.

Charlie knew that Owen liked you, he would even go as far as say love you. He knew that Owen would get jealous that you came to him and let him read what you wrote but not Owen.

Over the last few weeks all he heard Owen do is complain about the distance you were placing between the two of you. He also always heard Owen’s frustration of you not sharing your work with him.

Charlie had a plan and knew exactly what he was doing.

“Well what was the concept then?” Owen asks not reading to let it go.

“Nothing Owen.” Charlie says at the exact same time you say, “Just a guy that I like.”

Your words shocking you just the same amount that they shocked everyone. Your confession makes its way out of you before your mind can catch up with your mouth.

Your newfound confidence from whatever drink had been occupying your cup for the night.

“You like someone?” Owen asks, shocked. Not bothering to hide his hurt from everyone.

You were supposed to come to him about these things, you two weren’t supposed to have secrets. But recently it felt like all that there were was secrets between the two of you.

“Ya I do,” you say shrugging your shoulders, “it’s not a big deal.”

You say with a wave of your hand trying to dismiss the conversation. You didn’t want to get into this, let alone get into it with Owen.

“So,” Jeremy says trying to change the subject and move onto the next person. The awkwardness that surrounded the atmosphere was just getting too much to bare.

“It is a big deal Y/N! It’s a big deal to me, I’m your best friend your supposed to tell me.” Owen says louder and completely ignoring the attempt to change the subject.

“Seriously O, it’s nothing.” You say while getting up to go to the kitchen, trying to escape Owen.

“It is not nothing!” Owen says just as sternly all while following you into the kitchen not letting you escape him or the conversation.

You just ignore him and his pestering as you go into the fridge to grab the water, deciding that it was the better beverage choice to make this time around.

You make your way  around Owen, while he is still yelling at you, going to lean up on your tippy toes to grab a cup for the water. The cup just out of your reach, causing you to struggle.

You feel Owen’s hand lay itself on your lower back, you watch as his other hand reaches over you to grab the cup.

Instead of placing it down in front of you, he keeps it in his hand and close to his chest. He uses his one hand on your back to gently move you so that you’re facing him.

“Just tell me Y/N.” He says sounding defeated.

“I said let it go Owen, it doesn’t matter.”  A loud sigh comes from Owen, the growing frustration evident on his face.

“Why can’t you get it through your head that it does matter Y/N.” He says through clenched teeth, not wanting to get overly mad at you.

“Why Owen? Why does it matter?” You say, the frustration finally boiling over in you.

“Why?” He says now yelling, “because you’re my best friend Y/N! We’re not supposed to have secrets, we’re supposed to tell each other everything, and now you’re replacing me with Charlie.”

Owen says that last part quieter, his head hanging low at his words.

“You think I’m replacing you with Charlie?” You ask just as quietly, your heart breaking slightly at the site of the boy in front of you.

“It sure feels like it Y/N. You’ve been spending so much time with him, sharing stuff you don’t share with me, and just ignoring me and putting all this distance between us.”

You didn’t know what to say back to him. You would have never guessed that he would notice what was going on or the fact that you were pulling away.

It’s not that you wanted too, it just felt like the right decision to make while trying to get over your growing feelings for him.

Charlie was just a convenient confidant, in the best way possible. He was always there and you trusted him, so you told him about your feelings for Owen and he was doing his best to help.

Until tonight.

“Can you please just tell me what’s been going on?” Owen asks breaking the silence and you from your thoughts.

“I can’t Owen, I promise it’s nothing serious.”

“It has to be serious if you’re pushing me away like this. You like someone and you haven’t even talked to me about it once, that’s never happened.”

You don’t understand why Owen was so hung up on such a small fact. It’s true that he was the one you usually came to with these things but anytime you told him about someone you liked he always brushed it off. It seemed like he was always so disinterested in that part of your life so him being so frustrated by the fact that you went to Charlie with it just seemed weird to you.

What you didn’t know is what was swirling through Owen’s head. Owen felt his heart clenching and his head spinning, anytime you brought up who you liked his heart stopped and he couldn’t get a breath in.

He wasn’t one to admit that though, he didn’t want to admit it to himself either. So he dismissed that feeling and dismissed any conversation that brought those feelings bubbling to the surface.

Deep down Owen knew the reason behind that feeling. He had fallen for you and fallen hard. He always would say he didn’t even know what love was, he couldn’t be in love with anyone not even you. But he did, he loved you.

And where it leaves you is you both standing a little too close for comfort in this situation.  

Your heart beating faster because you weren’t ready to admit the feelings you had buried so deep.

And Owen’s breath shallow as he didn’t want to really know the outcome of this conversation yet he was so desperate to have it.

“Owen you never really care about who I like, why so much this time around?” You ask him trying to turn the conversation topic onto him rather than you.

“Of course I care about who you like! I care about anything that goes in in your life!” His tone raising with every word.

“Sure never seemed like it!” Your tone doesn’t match his, you feel defeated.

“I...” Owen trails off not knowing where to take this conversation, knowing that it will have to end in a confession if he continues. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like that. I do care and just want to know who this guy is.”

It was now or never. You can finally admit your feelings that have been swallowing you whole for months now or just keep allowing yourself to drown in them.

“You.”

That’s all you say. Plain and simple.

Then it’s quiet. Too quiet, it seemed like the conversation in the living room stopped at the same time your confession finally came to the surface.

Your heart was beating faster than it ever has, faster than it was beating earlier.

Owen’s heart beating just as fast as yours. His was out of happiness and excitement while yours was due to nervousness.

Neither of you said a word.

“Well alright then.” You take his silence as his answer. You didn’t want to face him anymore; you were doing your best to hold back the warm tears that were threatening to spill over.

You turn on your heel ready to leave before he can see your tears. But before you can take another step his hand is on your wrist holding you in place.

“Say it again.” That’s all he says.

“Say what again Owen?” Your confused and just want to get out of this conversation.

“Who you like, say it again.”

“Just...why?” You don’t want to admit it again, you don’t want to face it again.

“Just please, say it again.” Owen is practically begging you at this point. He needed to hear you say it again, he needed the confirmation before he acted on his own feelings.

“You, Owen!” You say loud and frustrated, “I said you, Owen!”

That’s when Owen makes his move. In a blink of an eye his hand drops your wrist and makes its way to your cheek, and his lips are on yours.

You don’t move a muscle. Your shocked, you never expected to be in this position with Owen.

“Kiss me back.” Owen says with his lips still against yours.

That’s when you break through your trance. Your lips start to move in sync with his. Finally.

It was like a breath of fresh air, his lips on yours.

You pull apart slightly, taking a breath in. His lips chase after yours not ready to let the contact between the two of you end.

The taste of yours lips new and he was already addicted, not wanting it to fade away.

After a few more seconds of your lips moving together, Owen is the one to pull away. His lungs burning from the lack of air.

He places his forehead against yours, placing a kiss on your nose. Now that he finally kissed you, he never wanted to stop.

“I have wanted to hear those words for so long.” Owen admits, a smile on his face and one working its way on yours.

“Really?” You ask.

“Yes really!” Owen laughs, “I’ve liked you longer than I want to admit.”

“Ohhh really?” You ask teasingly. You could tell by the faint tint on his cheeks that he was feeling a little embarrassed. You couldn’t help but tease him a little.

“Yes, really Y/N! Now stop it!” Owen laughs out.

“Make me.” You retort back, the look on Owen’s face causing you to giggle.

With his eyebrows raised, Owen leans in just centimeters from your lips. “If you say so.” Then his lips are on yours again.

They move together in sync, much more passionate the time before. The both of you finally letting your feelings pour into the kiss.

“Are you two done yet?” You hear Charlie yell from right outside of the kitchen.

The two of you pulling apart laughing, of course Charlie was close by listening to what was happening.

“Yes Charlie!” You yell back laughing.

“Soooo,” Owen says looking down at you, your hands still entangled with each other and your chests still touching. “Soooo,” you say back.

“Just ask her out already damn!” Charlie yet again yells causing you two and everyone else to laugh.

“Fine Gillespie!” Owen yells back, “Y/N would you like to go on a date and get this thing started?” He asks you with a big smile.

“Yes, I would Joyner.” You say back smiling, leaning in for another kiss.

The two of you pull apart smiles upon both of your faces. The air light, all your feelings finally on the table, both of you happy and relieved to know that you both feel the same way.

“Now how about you read me some more of what you wrote about me!” He says with an eyebrow wiggle.

You shove him away, laughing.

“In your dreams Joyner.” You tell him.

He laughs, chasing after you as you run away from his hands that are trying to tickle you. His shouts of telling you to show him what you wrote and you laughing back no.

You’d rather show him happy writings than your sad ones. But with your newfound relationship blooming you were sure to show him some soon enough.

[pynkhues]

.... any succession fic recs? 👀

Yes!! I haven't read a lot for it yet, but some of the stuff I've read has been staggeringly good. I'm generally more into gen fic in this particular fandom, but have enjoyed some Stewy x Kendall, Gerri x Roman and Naomi x Tabitha too.

A few recs under the cut!

“I wanted to get out. From under all this. Take the money and run.”

Kendall tells Stewy even though he knows he’ll never get it, not like Naomi does. He’ll never understand the crush of it, the heart-stopping head-fucking fear of failing a tyrant. Kendall’s been ignoring the shape of it for a long time, putting pieces of it together in the back of his mind in total darkness like a blindfolded man. It doesn’t matter that one day his dad will die. It doesn’t matter about the money or the hostile takeover or the stolen files or any of it. There’s no running. Kendall’s Logan Roy lives inside his head.

Stewy laughs. Stewy laughs for a long time.

“There is no out, Ken, what the fuck are you talking about? You were born this and you’ll die this. You are what you are, and what you are is a fucking Roy.”

Kendall hates him, for a moment. Lightning-strike furious. What the fuck does he know about any of it, about his dad’s swinging dinner plate-sized hands, about getting 24% name recognition in reliable international polling, about puking every time you think about a car swerving off the road in the rain. About finding out that you can do something unthinkably, unimaginably terrible, and it doesn’t matter to anyone you know but you. There’s a scar on his arm that no one else who hasn’t already been told how it got there can ever know about, and he’s sick of it, and it’s not fair. He hates Stewy for a moment because Stewy’s right.

“I wanted to do the right thing, Stewy, for once in my fucking life.”

Stewy laughs again, more briefly, and the predator flash of his eyes in the neon of the motel sign is a torture all its own.

‘There is no right and wrong, Ken. How the fuck do you not know that yet? Not for people like you. Like us. There’s shit you get caught doing and there’s shit you don’t.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You really, really fucking don’t,” says Ken, and fuck, there it is. The road less travelled, that only he has ever driven on. The path he’s down where Stewy can’t follow. That place beyond Stewy Hosseini where he never thought he could go.

“You’re not telling me something, and when I find out what that is, and I will find out what it is, Kendall, don’t you think I won’t, so I am warning you that when I do find out I am going to be righteously fucking pissed,” says Stewy, and if Kendall thought those were a predator’s eyes before—

“Yeah, you will,” says Kendall, because he knows exactly how perceptive Stewy is. Exactly how weak he is. Exactly, precisely what both of them are.

And treat this night like it’ll happen again by postcardmystery. 8k words. Kendall x Stewy. Post s2. (CW: internalised homophobia, some homophobic language)

I tried to pick a shorter excerpt, but I literally couldn’t, this fic is so. good. The voices are pitch perfect, and it’s got this incredible build to it overall that goes back and forth between time and point of views and just rips your heart out. The premise itself is pretty simple – after the press conference at the end of 2.10, Kendall calls Stewy, and they drive through rural America while Kendall has a breakdown, and it’s just - - unspeakably good. I love it so so so much, I have no words.

r/roysucks Connor’s gf just posted on Instagram (instagram.com) submitted two months ago by webbedscrum_2279 23 comments share save hide report

[–] DM_ME_SAMESMAIL 40 points two months ago I too like to escape to my yacht in the Mediterranean when my family and I are on trial for covering up rape and murder. permalink embed save report reply

AITA for accusing my father of multiple crimes on his own news station? By amleth 3k words. Gen fic. Post s2.

And now for something completely different – epistolary fic which is just reddit news threads of the Roy family drama. I love an epistolary fic and this is just totally charming, and made me laugh a lot out loud.

“You’re quiet,” she observes. “That’s a first.”

“Yeah, well, the Turks beat it out of me. Gave you a run for their money.” He waggles his eyebrows. “So what is this? Whips and chains? Are we doing the whole boat-sex thing? I heard Shiv and Tom are looking for a third —“

Gerri finds what she’s looking for: a black leather binder. She drops it on the bed and begins paging through it, and Roman cranes his neck enough to recognize that it’s just full of documents, not like, dick pics. “I’ve given some thought to what you proposed a few weeks ago, and I agree that we should make things official in some way,” she says, and he blinks.

“Uh,” he says. “Which — what part of it?”

“Take a look.”

Gerri closes the folio and hands it over. It’s deceptively heavy, and the print on these pages is way too fucking fine, he thinks, paging through it. “Is this some kind of, like, Fifty Shades of Roy sex contract? Because it’s not that I’m not into it, but I think there’s a strong argument for going paperless —”

“Strictly speaking, this isn’t legally binding,” Gerri says. “Just something I threw together with regard to our business arrangement going forward. But with no respect to the family — the past few weeks have really illustrated that no one should take anyone at their word right now. Give me a little more than your word.”

Evacuation strategies for a yacht on fire by devourthemoon. 11k words. Gerri x Roman. Post s2. Explicit.

After the events of s2, Roman and Gerri fake being married as a professional alliance, only, y’know, maybe it’s not so fake. This fic is just so, so much fun, and messy in the best possible way. The author nails all the character voices, and the sex scenes are just the right amount of hot and ridiculous, and I just love it all a lot too.

Kendall estimates it will take an hour for the first articles to go up. Some rapid-fire blog without oversight—the New York Post, maybe, or wherever those Vaulter hippies have skulked off to—will slap a catchy headline on it and report his words verbatim. Give or take a gif of his face when he switches to script number two. New York Times, Washington Post, AP, those fuckers take longer. They like to bleed the story like Middle Ages plague doctors for its marrow, fact-check and add context and analysis and as many backlinks as their servers can handle. Still, a couple of hours, and his face will be plastered on every major news outlet. His voice will play over the nightly talk shows. He’ll trend on Twitter. A few more days, and he’ll be the star of analysis segments, podcasts, weekly briefings. Maybe, fuck it, maybe he’ll trend on Twitter again.

It’s been years since Kendall read Shakespeare. But that shit sticks with you, gets under your skin and emerges when you least expect it, like eczema or Keynesian economics. He knows how the media will spin this. Kendall Roy Attacks CEO Logan for Years of Corruption. Prodigal Son Disrupts Family Legacy to Restore Credibility. That’s how Hamlet ends, right? And Macbeth, Lear, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, even Titus fucking Andronicus. The spilled blood sinks into the ground, the seedlings sprout forth from the soil, and a new castle is built on the bones. Order out of chaos, or at least close enough an approximation that the tabloids will buy it.

Legacy for profit by owlinaminor Post-2.10. Kendall Roy. Kendall through Shakespeare analogies – just - - ooooof. It's a beautiful, lyrical character study that weaves through Roy family history and teases at a future none of them are even sure they want. It's gorgeous writing.

For the next few days Shiv would have to keep the pressure on Kira like an open wound because there were other women, victims that Nate’s people were going to find one by one as soon as that phone call disconnected. Mo was her father’s friend, good friend, for a long, long time. Nate and Gil, Sandy and Stewy, too many sharks in the water and the share price probably dipped to a new low but she would never check a stock ticker. Her husband’s nerves fraying at the edges on national television. She had promised a woman she’d never met before that she would kill roughly one third of the top male executives of her family’s company. Her company.

The last look Rhea gave her before she shut the car door was concern close to fear—no longer the same woman who heard their pitch in the safe room, who laughed with her at Argestes. Rhea had only looked into the abyss; she got cold feet and she didn’t even know what it’s like to grow up in it.

Her family’s company is hers, will be hers. Even from a whale fall, new life would spring.

Feed his flesh to wayward daughters by reogulus. 2k words. Shiv Roy. Set during 2.09.

This entire fic is set around Shiv bribing Kira not to testify, and god, it is so good. It’s bleak and rough, and really hones in on the complex ground Shiv walks as a character. It's another brilliant study of what it takes to be a Roy, and the way they make the awful choices in order to fulfill this legacy that they don't even know they want.

Kendall sets down his fork. “So. Tell me. Is it everything you wanted? Is it what you thought it would be?”

Roman stills. He never does that. He’s constantly a menace in motion, slouching and fidgeting, worse even than Kendall at his amphetamine peak. “What? The view from the tippy-tippy-top?”

“His regard.” Kendall wipes his mouth with the edge of the white cloth napkin. It comes away pink from the steak. “Dad. He’s all yours now.”

Roman still hasn’t moved. Finally, he lurches, like corroded machinery come uncertainly to life. “Yeah, man. It’s fucking tight as hell. I love every beautiful daddy and me moment I was a good enough little boy to earn.” He snorts. “Fuck you.” His face goes curiously slack then, like something Kendall’s own face would do. An intermission in the performance, an energy cut. Something genuine finding its way to the surface. “Why don’t you tell me. When you got everything you wanted, how the fuck did that make you feel?”

Nauseous, is the first word that springs to mind. Sick. Scared. I’ve never had everything I wanted, there’s that. I’ve never once had a single fucking thing I wanted. There’s that, too.

Interim leadership by arbitrarily 2k words. Roman + Kendall. Post s2.

I love Roman and Kendall scenes generally, but this one which features Kendall and Roman meeting for the first time a few months after the press conference in 2.10 is just a bit magic. The push pull dynamic that's just inherent to them mixed with the genuine affection and brotherly love is really special, and arbitrarily embraces both in equal measure. It's a great little fic.

There are lots more of course, and I'd also recommend checking out other works by these authors, but I hope this is a good place to start! :-)

[scarabiaa]

"Let us not wait any longer. You may be fashionably late, however, I prefer not to be. I wish for you to get to the best version of you that you can be, would you allow me to be at your side for this?”

NAME: Blanca Rosehearts

NICKNAME(S): Howaitofisshu (ホワイトフィッシュ) by Floyd ; Mademoiselle Papillon Doux by Rook

AFFILIATION: Student

AGE: 20

SPECIES: Human 

INSPIRATION: The White Queen

UNIQUE MAGIC: Against My Vows - Unlike her brother, her magic allows her to stop any magic that causes the person to lose their magic or can be used as a mirror to backfire. While his Off With Your Head gives people a collar to prevent them from using magic, her magic makes it possible to erase that with white butterflies gliding past. It can be used defensively to stop someone from attacking her, but never offensively. She is training to get her power to the point where she can completely erase a spell while it happens.

PERSONALITY: Unlike her younger brother, she is more relaxed and doesn't mind if people break the rules because at the end of the day, it's their fault if they mess up, but she does do her best so that no one gets hurt. She has close friends that she's protective of, yet her end goal practically shows that she's here because she was told her brother would be here. After seeing what he's become, she doesn't know what to do, nevertheless she wants to help him more than anyone else. Her unique magic means that she cannot harm a living being and she never does it, but she is an expert at sword wielding and is a threat in it. She is full of surprises, although she won't show them. She's someone no one can get a grip on. She's complicated and can adapt to her environment, quickly, all while keeping a smile on her face.

APPEARANCE: She has white hair in two ponytails, strands of hair all over her forehead. Her eyes are dark blue and her eyebrows naturally go up so that she does not look threatening. Sometimes she will wear clips or bows in her hair, depending on what day it is. She likes wearing hoop earrings and a simple necklace. Her casual clothes involve a sleeveless shirt that is usually some sort of tan shade. She can be found with a lollipop in her hand a lot of the time because of her fondness for sweets.

~

SCHOOL: Royal Sword Academy (formerly), Night Raven College (currently)

GENDER: Female

DORM: Diasomnia

GRADE/CLASS: Class E (Senior)

BIRTHDAY: September 24 (Libra)

HEIGHT: 164 cm/5'3" feet

DOMINANT HAND: Left

HOMELAND: Queendom of Roses

CLUB: Gargoyle Research Society 

BEST SUBJECT: Defensive Magic 

HOBBIES: Cricket, humming to the birds, taking walks, swordfighting

PET PEEVES: When someone says that her unique magic is useless in battle

FAVORITE FOOD: Ice cream 

LEAST FAVORITE FOOD: Bell peppers 

LIKES: Butterflies, candles, swords, sapphire stones, white sound, mountain views, the color white, porcupines, kinglets, verdin, white roses, lollipops

DISLIKES: The color red (at first), openly showing negative emotions, following strict rules, seeing Riddle's mother (technically her own mother, but she doesn't see her like that)

TALENT: Woodwork

SONG: Beautiful Trauma by P!nk

~

Her MBTI is INTP.

Her name literally means the color white in Spanish.

She's the older sister of Riddle Rosehearts, given away when she was younger before he was even born. The reason why Riddle is the way he is, is because he was always compared to her or at least the Blanca that his mother constantly talked about, but he knew that she was somewhere else with other people (he didn't know which situation was worse). When he got to Night Raven college, he didn't even recognize her once she transferred. Although he knew he had a sister, he just never came into contact with her for a while.

She really likes listening to lullabies and sometimes she makes some up on her own. 

She’s the kind of person that will say something, frown, and then pull out a notepad to write it down; she says that it’s for a new story that she’s working on. 

A master procrastinator, it’s a wonder that none of her teachers haven’t told her off for doing things at the last minute, but she gets the top grades so she’s fine. 

She pulls all nighters constantly. Her longest record without sleep was 96 hours to the point where she was hallucinating so many things, Malleus had to be the one to drag her to bed after she babbled something about a “Snorkelberry,” whatever that is. 

She doesn’t like the color red because it associates her with her biological mother, who she has never forgiven and she never will. 

She likes planning movie nights with Diasomnia, it’s hard to get Sebek to agree to it until she says something about Malleus, that’s when he gets there immediately. 

She's terrifying in the way that she looks innocent but if pushed to her limit, she can absolutely look as though she'd kill.

She's terrified of Leona.

~

DYNAMICS:

The Close Friends (?): Malleus + Blanca

They're both really close with each other and she gets teased constantly by her friends because of him; she doesn't think there's anything going on but her stomach does the weird little things when she sees him, it probably just means they're friends. Malleus certainly sees her as close and they're just the ones that count on each other more than anyone else. 

The Ruined Siblings: Riddle + Blanca

Siblings separated when they were younger, Blanca is three years older than him and yet she does remember him while he doesn't, making it clear that she was never talked about. Even now, seeing him under pressure like this, she feels bad because she wasn't there to help him, although they had never talked before. She does not like Riddle's mother because she'll never forgive her for giving her away and what she’s turned him into. Riddle only knows that this girl keeps following him around and she seems familiar, she even has a similar facial structure as him. 

Loyal To The Leader: Silver + Blanca

Both of them are "loyal" to Malleus. Well, he is and he interprets Blanca's friendship as loyalty, although he wishes he was as close to Malleus as he is. They're both very capable and tend to help each other out with magic and making sure that the other is on top of their game. She admires him for his strengths and knows that he has great potential that he can get up to.

[sariahsue]

I just saw your take one Lilo&Stitch's approach to child protection and I was wondering if you could give some advice on how to write realistic stuff in this matter? I've been meaning to write a foster care/adoption fic and I do know the system in France must be at least a little different - and I will get down the research hole once I have a bit more time - but do you have any advice on how to write the kids reactions, the way parents deal with everything, the bonding part... things like this, so I can avoid clichés.

You don't have to answer though, feel free to ignore all this akdjwja I just figured there's no harm in asking XD

Yeah, sure! (To anyone else reading this who has a fic, feel free to send me a message if you have questions!) I’m definitely not the most knowledgeable person, but I know quite a bit. And I’m sure things are a bit different in France (hopefully their court system is better - yikes!) but I think the human element would be pretty similar, so here we go. 

First off, know that everyone is foster care is having a rough time constantly. Foster kids, workers, parents, foster parents, foster siblings. And no one knows what’s going on long term. There’s always a lot of uncertainty. Will the kids go home soon? Are parental rights going to be terminated at the next court date? Who knows???

The birth parents, at best, are going through a really tough time in their life, made worse because their kids were taken away from them. Some care about their kids, but they’re extremely self-centered and have zero parents skills. Some are manipulative and see foster care as free babysitting, and as long as they get to see their kid for an hour or so a week, this arrangement is fantastic for them! At worst, they’re just horrible human beings who abuse children. In general, most parents are clueless and selfish and pretty manipulative. They say they’re good parents and have no clue why their kids were taken away, even though their kid has cigarette burn marks on their back, or had to eat out of the garbage to survive because the were left alone for hours at a time when they were four, or worse. They have no clue at all what their behavior does to their kids, and they refuse to listen to anyone who tries to explain it to them.

No matter what type of parents they were, their kids ALWAYS love them and want to go home. Every single one of them. No matter the age. No matter what their home life put them through. Some of them aren’t old enough to understand why they can’t go home. Some have been in foster care for years and hardly remember living at home but still want to go home.  

It makes for complicated foster relationships sometimes because the kid will be attached to both birth and foster parents and feel guilty or conflicted or disloyal, or they’ll try really hard not to be attached to the foster parents in the first place. (I can think of only one exception to this. Two sisters who had been put into another home and liked the foster family and decided that they were going to be adopted by this family and were very excited about it... except the foster family had no plans to adopt them. I never learned what happened there.) 

And this is before accounting for the mental health struggles that often accompany the trauma most of them have been through. Some kids come in with anxiety that makes it difficult to trust new people. Some kids’ behavior is so extreme that it’s difficult for foster parents to take care of them, and so the kid moves around constantly. (If their behavior is too bad, they can sometimes be put into either a group home or residential, either temporarily or permanently.)

Parents are also entitled to visits, usually either weekly or every other week, at least while the goal is reunification (which is always starts out as). Before the pandemic, these usually took place in the DCF (Department of Children and Families is what it’s called in my state) office or in a visitation center. Sometimes the court orders that the visits be supervised so they don’t start promising their kids that they’re coming to get them next week. Often the workers think that sitting down the hallway not listening counts as supervision. 🙄 

With the pandemic, kids have been meeting over Zoom. That’s being phased out pretty soon here. Kids are almost always triggered by these visits. I mean, they look forward to them usually. Some kids are mad at their parents and don’t want to talk to them, but almost always, they want to see their parents. And almost always whatever behavior problems they had before is extremely worse for the next 2-5 days. (Which is terrible if you get a visit every week.) Some parents bail on these visits regularly. Some consistently bail on only birthdays and Christmas. We’ve learned not to tell the kid that they have a visit coming up until we know it’s definitely happening, or sometimes only right before we’re planning on leaving to go, because the anticipation of a visit is triggering or because getting stood up by your own mother is traumatizing. Sometimes you can get the kid’s therapist to write a note asking for the visits to be less frequent for the kid’s sake, but often that just means every other week instead of every week.

For foster families welcoming kids into their home, it’s a little different. They’re often more stable, and their whole life isn’t shifting around them. They’re just getting one or two kids into the family. The home dynamic is going to be a little different. Nothing huge, compared to what the foster kids are going through. It often depends on the kid how fast you get attached. Sometimes you know kids are only going to be there for a month because their normal foster family had to deal with an emergency, but the plan is to take them back soon. Sometimes they’re adorable babies and you get super attached really, really fast. Sometimes they’re so unhappy and scared that they make your home life completely miserable. Sometimes you’ve seen so many kids come and go over the years, and they’ve all left eventually, and your heart becomes guarded to protect you from that pain. But you get attached eventually anyway. 

And sometimes your parents are given a newborn whose goal is reunification and it’s love at first sight even though you don’t know if you can keep him, and then he’s put up for adoption when he’s two and you adopt him SO HARD. And then you make future foster kids upset because you can’t adopt them too. :( And even though they get adopted by friends of yours, they still feel conflicted over it four years later. 

You would think that a kid raised completely in their adoptive home from birth would have no problems, and sometimes that’s the case. Sometimes they still get upset about the adoption when they’re older because the foundational belief they have about themselves is that their mother didn’t want them, even though it’s not true. 

(This is the real-life story of my brother. We are the only family he’s ever known, and he’s 13 now, but he still has issues over being adopted. The other boy is 16 and is doing much better with his new family now, though he still has some issues. We had him for a very long time, and we were all happy that we know his adoptive family well because we stayed it contact with him, which almost never happens when a foster kid leaves.)

Oh, I forgot one thing. Usually when kids first get to your house, they are perfect little angels for a while. Depending on the kid, it’s either a couple days or maybe even three months. It’s called the “honeymoon period.” Once their subconscious realizes that this is a safe place to work on their issues and they aren’t in physical danger, they start to process what they’ve been through. It comes out in a variety of ways. Behavioral issues, bedwetting, explosive anger, nightmares, etc.

A note about social workers: All the workers (at least in my state) constantly have too many cases. Like, double what they’re legally supposed to have. Most of them try hard to keep up. Some DO NOT CARE. Some are fantastic and put extra time in to go to the kid’s end-of-the-school-year recitals and build a relationship with them. They’re in charge of organizing visits and making sure the kids have everything set up and are generally important in the kid’s life. They’re required to visit once a month and make sure foster parents have all the right paperwork and arrange dentist visits and bring them to all their therapy appointments. (FYI, You get a piece of paper that says you’re the legal guardian. You have to show it to schools and doctors when you make arrangements for the kids. My mom also keeps a copy in her purse, just in case a kid starts screaming “HELP! SHE’S NOT MY MOM” in the middle of the store or something. It’s never happened, but you know, just in case.)

Also, you would think that they’re the constant in the kid’s life, but if the birth parents move, the case gets transferred to another office in the state, and so the social workers switch. I sincerely hope that’s not how things are done in France because it’s garbage for a lot of reasons.

Okay, I’ve written you an essay, but I hope it was a useful essay! Let me know if you have any more questions!

[artsy-moonwalker]

Would you go into more details about your OC’s backstories?? They all look so cool 😆

I would love to! Thank you so much for this question :)

I'm going to focus distinctly on their childhood for these descriptions.

(mentions of drug addiciton, war, and violence)

Before I get into their backstories, it is important to address their environmental situation for context.

In their childhood, there was a civil war going on within America. This is a fictional war, of course, taking place in the early 2000s. Lenis, Everest, Flint, and Darryon all have their parts to play, and the war affects the four in different ways. While Lenis, Everest, and Flint are trying to escape war from their hometown and cross the country, Darryon and his siblings are attending shelters and risk their lives trying to help in any way they can.

So now that we have some context of their biggest childhood dilemma, let's get into the four individually. I won't go into complete detail to avoid any spoilers I'd like to share later on, but I will dive into their personalities and importance. I don't know how long this post will be, but I'll try to keep it as short as I can.

Lenis, 13 years old - tall, blond, a bit tan, a distinct scar on his left jaw, brown eyes

Lenis lives in a small town in Ohio. It's a bit run down, and his house is in bad shape. Considering his family is lower class, he doesn't have much money to spend, and he gets by with what he has. He lives with his two strict parents, him being an only child. But he takes care of a stray cat that lives in a forest behind his home that he calls "Otter." Whenever he tries to get the cat to stay in the house, his parents don't allow it. They can't exactly afford to take care of an animal, especially when they have to pay for his monthly medication and doctor visits.

He has a bone condition where his bones are incredibly fragile. He can't walk for very long, and running is even worse on him. It doesn't take a lot of force to break a bone either, and he's had to visit the doctor numerous times for fractures and snaps. So he has a medication that helps him not feel the aching as much, and allows him to walk or run for a time. He is in no way a strong person. His physical strength is constantly challenged and he feels like a burden to those he loves whenever they have to make sacrifices to just to help him. Especially when it comes to his best friend, Everest.

He is always being protected by Everest. He's taken multiple punches for him, he has to carry him sometimes, he can't do a lot of outdoor activities with him due to how easy it is to get injured. Lenis hates this. He hates being held back and he hates that his best friend has to be held back too because of it. He often tells Everest that he can do things himself, but that ends with him getting hurt more than not.

Lenis really is a grateful and humble soul. He tries to find the good in every situation no matter how painful it can be. This is especially apparent for his friends. If anything is troubling them, he will do what he can to get them through it. His optimism was a lot more prominent when he was a child, though. After escaping war, he finds it difficult to find the good in bad situations. But that doesn't mean he won't try to. It's safe to say the light in his eyes are faded as he grew older.

Everest, 13 years old - short, red head, blue eyes

This is Lenis' best friend, that's how everyone at his school titles him. Because he is constantly by his side more than he is alone. He knew Lenis since he was a toddler due to their mothers being friends, and ever since then, Lenis would nickname him "Evvy." Everest was always like a brother to him. He was incredibly protective and would often put Lenis before him.

Emotions and Everest don't exactly work well together. He tends to be reserved. Cold and bitter, even. If he's showing any extreme emotion, it tends to be anger or frustration. But he has a soft spot for Lenis. He's really one of the only people around him that can make him smile. Other than his mom, of course, who he lives with down the street from Lenis. His mother was pregnant before he left home; his father having left after a short and abrupt divorce. Little information was given to him about why that occurred. But his mom was happier, and that's what he wanted. He was never close with his father anyway.

Everest knows that his protectiveness over his friends, especially Lenis, can be a fault at times. He's gotten hurt many times due to it, both mentally and physically. And it isn't even because his friends are defenseless. He knows they can protect themselves if they need to, but he cannot help himself. He can't let them get hurt if he can stop it. He speaks bluntly, and his words may go over a few lines, or he may be prone to starting arguments, but he is incredibly selfless. He means well in every action he takes despite all of that.

Flint, 12 years old - short, black buzz cut, large dark eyes

Flint is a troubled child to say the least. He's callous towards others, he seems to only care about himself, and he isn't afraid to use force and threaten violence. He was Lenis' biggest bully after ending his friendship with him in a desperate fit to steal his pain medicine. Yes, Lenis and him were friends before that. And Flint truly wanted to continue the friendship, but he needed those pills. Lenis wasn't going to just give them to him. So he had to resort to violence, thus harming Lenis, and regretting it later.

It's easy to think that maybe Flint had a drug addiction, and stole Lenis' pills because of that. But that isn't the case at all. It wasn't because of an addiction, it was for a much deeper reason.

His younger sister, Penny, was facing a horrible sickness that was going to kill her if she didn't get the right treatments. His mother, being constantly intoxicated with alcohol, spent all of her money on things she didn't need. So she couldn't afford Penny to have any treatment at all. Flint, who has been basically raising his little sister, decided to take matters into his own hands, and find any possible way to make her feel better. Even if it meant harming Lenis for some pills.

Flint loves his sister more than anyone. Or loved, at least. She unfortunately didn't make it long after the pain medicine incident.

He wants to be good, he really does. But Flint is difficult to get along with. Especially with Everest. Much like the red head, Flint has a short temper, and they always fight with each other. But also like Everest, he has a soft spot for Lenis (he is sort of like the peacemaker of the group). Flint is incredibly emotional, and he always says what's on his mind, even if they're not so nice things. He feels regretful for a lot of things, though. He's trying to be a better person, and befriending Lenis again is something he is determined to do.

Darryon, 12 years old - Average height, black curly hair, dark eyes, has an intense burn scar along his face

Darryon lives in California with his siblings, and only his siblings. His parents died in a car crash while they were on their way home from a relative's house. The war was breaking out, and they were caught up in it at the worst possible time. Darryon's oldest brother was a soldier in the war, and his oldest sister was her younger siblings' guardian while he was gone. He has five siblings, not counting himself. Three girls and two boys. And he is very close with each of them, especially his oldest sister, Carlitha. She followed shelters, and he did the same. For a long time, she was concerned for his wellbeing considering just how dangerous a job like this was. They were always venturing in war zones and had to face many hardships. But even at a young age, Darryon wanted to be part of something bigger than himself. His parents' death were a big motivator in his efforts, and he found that helping others get through the war was an effective coping mechanism.

He didn't go through these hardships without consequences, though. On one occasion, a shelter he was attending got bombed, and he was caught in the flames, leaving the brutal burn marks you see on him now. These marks filled the mouths of the other kids at his school when he tried going back. But how can anyone go back to a normal life after that? Luckily he had a good group of friends to back him up during his good and hard nights.

He has a very distinct sense of humor, and finds it easy to entertain himself when no one is around. Some of the kids at his school think he's weird because of his behavior at times. He talks to himself out loud, he has a funny laugh, he has a few imaginary friends (one stays with him even in his adulthood), etc. But he embraces those things more than anything, and his friends don't care, so why should he?

When he isn't helping at a shelter, he finds time for himself or his family. For example, he's very fascinated with nature, and enjoys drawing what he sees around him in a sketchbook. He's pretty good at it too. What started as drawings of birds or gardens soon turned into drawings of burnt landscapes and debris of towns. He liked to draw the people he would meet in shelters as well, and he kept every drawing, not knowing if that person survived after they parted ways or not.

Darryon's story does collide with the others at some point. He and his sister go to great lengths around the country, of course they're going to befriend Lenis, Everest, and Flint at some point, and it will certainly stay that way.

If you read this far, thank you! I really hope this little introduction to them has intrigued you, and if not, that's okay too :) I want to share more about them later on, and I plan to write out chapters to get the full story soon as well. I've been working on this story for more than a year now in private, and I'm really having fun, so I'm excited to share it with you. Thank you again!

[aks3raao1]

Me, to Luja: So tell me about yourself

Luja: No

Me: ...ma'am I need to write the story—

Luja: Good luck <3

[now that I do think of it, ALTERNATIVE's main duo that's established right at the beginning is literally a chiller but edgier Katsuki and way worse sUrViVe Nagito genderbends]

~~~~~~

Luja Sen, she/her

Anyways, Luja and Romila are friends from middle school (the story starts with the beginning of their high school at AoS (Academy of the Specialised) which was essentially founded by Nyx). Luja gains her Specialisation (Ferrokinesis: The Ability to bend metal) at the age of twelve, so she has it for a lesser time period than Romila.

Luja primarily wants to become a scientist. Her family is happy with that, because it's praised and everything, especially in our society.

She has a gifted child superiority complex. Being a gifted child + Specialised means that she hardly had many friends in school. Her family had tried to get her to socialize....which didn't go down too well.

She believes that most people are annoying because they waste too much time on useless things like gossiping and what not, which she never showed much interest in and doesn't like to be dragged into those nonsense.

She is friends with Romila since they do share the same taste in stuff and were the only Specialised ones in their class. And they kinda stuck together for most of middle school and went into high school.

She has a problem when it comes to seeing Romila since she tends to see her bad parts and is like, "It's a phase" considering that it's not necessarily affecting her. Romila doesn't get too cranky with her since she fascinates her, with her passion™ for science. Also because she isn't all self sacrifice UwU.

Luja cares for her own self above others (but tends to put Romila pretty close to that hierarchy, which is why she's one of the only two Romila trusts during the Mansion of Death (the other person is Kratanos)) however she also does want to keep what friends she has and is generally caring towards them.

She has a genuine love for science and loves to discover how things work and why, and her favourite facet is Physics. She does want to invent things and honestly just make stuff easier for the Specialised who face a LOT of issues, especially when it comes to amenities since the government is an ass about accomodations and they gained the Fundamental Rights like ten years or so ago in the ALTERNATIVE timeline. And they gain an additional right ("The body won't be harmed for science") when they graduate from school, after signing a contract that they dedicate themselves to helping the government when called upon. (The whole contract is stupid and basically oppresses them more especially the punishment for not abiding by it).

With her goal of becoming a scientist, she wants to use her talents to make accomodations specifically for them so that she could have done something.

The things she fears the most is failure. Failing as in being unable to accomplish her goals. She is afraid of it because it's an unknown variable that's constantly haunted her and she's working hard for it to never reach her.

I suppose there's a way for her to confront that fear during the Mid terms at AoS where she essentially "loses" in the practicals due to her......teamwork issues.

Everyone thinks of her as stuck up and isn't interested to listen to her much and since she views the others as annoying people with annoying habits, she tends to fail to regulate them, causing Romila to win instead (yes, it's THAT unfortunate of a situation) in their match, which causes her to review a LOT of things and she tries to see what caused her to lose after having a severe breakdown.

She develops an inferiority complex in respect to Romila and then spends a long time wondering where she went wrong.

Rena (who somehow clung to her) tries to cheer her up but gets turned back halfway, but she still stays on and Luja is like, "Wtf" until she sees Romila going entirely off the deep end (she presents an interesting contrast to how Koldin sees Romila as well, she sees Romila's behavior and considers it as a justification for her own self....she uses Romila to justify herself a lot (since if you asked Romila, Luja was more or less fine according to her since she wasn't being a doormat and stood up for herself) while Koldin sees Romila as the reason he should cling onto his own stuff) and realises that she could be on the path to destruction herself and accepts Rena's help and tries to be more open to others which leads to the Mid terms parallels in the Archenemy of Society arc where she "succeeds" instead and manages to get the class together enough to escape the situation.

However it doesn't mean that her fear of failure has entirely vanished into the blue, she just reviews the ways she can fail better now and works around it to avoid it and has more confidence in her own self. But she is still scared of failing and would love to avoid that more than anything. However she's chiller after that.

Her intelligence is more or less on par with both Romila and Kratanos, making them the three main strategists in the final battle against the bigots (which is basically a rerun of the Mansion of Death situation but way way worse and fucked up and has different leads to it).

....

The thing is that, no matter what I do, she winds up feeling like one dimensional/repetitive, which is something I am trying to amend about all the characters (I mean, I had to revamp a lot of characters so it will probably take me a long long time to actually get to writing.........sigh besides she stands up like a cardboard amongst people (I mean, you have Romila and Kratanos with extremely complicated storylines and then you have her. Just there))

So the main question is how to make her more interesting as a character and on par with the rest while still keeping her character flaws and personality?

I think the easiest way to go abt this is to view her as a sassy Bakugo. They have the main points in common. They're salty, don't like to socialise, feel inferior to a certain someone while still having some semblance of confidence and a terrible fear of failure

Now as much as I hate to compare your character to another one, it makes it a lot easier to have them become - as my English teacher would say - more. So I am sorry if this comes off as offensive-

For Bakugo, he became interesting by playing a big part in the mc's main story and we do get a few scenes where his vulnerability is shown. I assume it's the same with your character but...what rlly ties the knot for me when it comes to Katsuki is the fact that his problems...are more than just an inferiority/superiority complex. His whole thing stems from background especially (*cough* abusive mom *cough*) and the fact that he's not the main character (or rather that the story isn't being told in his perspective).

These facts make us over think and want more of him. The mystery draws us in which is why I think Luja's character is so perfect for someone in the background. She doesn't like to reveal things abt herself and is pretty dismissive to most things on top of that (plainly just salty). Her character rlly draws you in and the best way to portray those kinds of characters is through another character. Ofc, you'd have to get to their POV eventually but it's important to note that most of the details should come from someone else's POV (an observer, if you will) instead of info dumping and starting straight with hers. A character that's mysterious with a very simple yet relatable story attracts a LOT more attention and interest when seen from someone else's perspective than when you kickstart it from theirs.

Ofc, if u are planning (or already have) started the story from her POV, that would be a bit problematic in terms of interest. But not a train wreck. This is where my other point comes in. The point of making a character have more than one problem

Different ppl as well as characters have a main problem but also different ones, no matter what way you look at it. It seems that even you are confused with all ur character's ins and outs (dw, we've all been there... I am still there tbh) and a solution to that is backtracking a bit and looking at their life from the very beginning in HEAVY detail (like more than u already did). Think abt what other trauma could have been caused, what doubts and fears could have slowly crept it's way to her heart and head (I am a sucker for long-lasting doubts that develop over time) and anything you can even so much as GRASP on. If you look at it and see it as a possibility, try to fit that into her character and add it subtly in different places (as subtext or a creative pattern, wordplay, doesn't rlly matter as long as it's not openly stated bc, remember, the key thing to these types of characters is mystery).

For example, a fear of failure can stem into anxiety before the character has even lost smth later in their life. They probably get rlly anxious when evaluating smth but don't show it much or at all so no one notices. This adds even MORE to the character bc you can build it up after other events. Like once they have failed, they could probably get even more anxious and then develop a bad relationship with the person who beat them (double the points if it was a friend). You could build all that up and turn it super toxic instead of jumping right to the healing. It makes it more interesting, doesn't it? Plus, reevaluating almost everything including world views after 1 loss is...kind of hard to believe even with anxiety (no offense)

Adding a lot of little problems and thinking abt how Luja's behaviour can impact other characters helps a terrible lot if ur doing most of the story from her POV. Especially since she's probably the most relatable character (from what I've heard anyway). I have a certain saying... it goes like, "It's better to have a relatable and connecting character than one with a problem that is too big for normal people to fathom."

I like characters with heart-wrenching problems that I would never be able to relate to (take maybe Shigaraki as an example ig?) But my favourite are the ones that make me feel as tho I made a real connection

Also, I would like to say...if ur looking to progress her character even further, I would debate on whether it's the complete end to the novel or if there'll be a second part. If it's a second part, keep some of Luja's issues. Make her get better but not completely "YAY, I AM DONE BEING TORMENTED". If it's the end of the novel/series/etc., make it so that she's resolved most of most of her issues. They don't have to be completely gone but they have to be a lot better compared to how they started. And how i would work that out is a mind map but knowing ur a scatterbrain...lets talk it out where everything is all over the place

Luja's main thing is to gain confidence in herself and be finally ok with losing, right? If you ask me, that's a tough one but not impossible. I think to get her from point A to point B is to put up a bunch of events like:

Get her super anxious when doing smth

Lose to *insert person*

Have a breakdown and over think on what she could have done better (on the project or whatever she lost at)

Get even more anxious and totally mess up the next thing

Lose once again (double points if it's the same person as last time)

Overthinking abt how she's not good enough

F i g h t i n g f r i e n d s c o z d r a m a

"YoU'rE nEvEr GoNnA gEt BeTtEr If YoU kEeP tHiNkInG aBoUt YoUrSeLf"

Over think abt no. 8 bc out of options and ideas and ✨a n x i e t y✨

Try listening to others more and become b e t t e r

Win smth (bc creator forbid 3 losses in a row to start depression)

Lose again (there is gonna be a bit of back and forth but is necessary for development)

"I tHoUgHt I wAs FiNaLlY dOiNg SoMeThInG rIgHt AnD nOw LoOk"

"Losing is not th3 3nd of th3 fucking world, you lunatic"

"WELL, IT IS TO ME, BITCH"

*insert psychology somehow idk*

Another loss

"I'm angry...but I'm ok"

Note that idk where bullying would come in and these are only how I would think it to go-

A character like this isn't rlly my strong suit when it comes to them resolving their problems but they are fun to write and think abt-

................................did I just give you advice on how to traumatize? I-