#I feel like our whole relationship has been one big tale of ‘ can’t live with ‘em can’t live without ‘em. ‘

[animazed]

🙃

so guess who’s gonna probably be not engaged anymore soon

[normal-internet-user]

As promised, pumpkin pie! (/p) Here's my two cents for our favorite kiddo reader. The heir of Apocalypse!Peepaw Leo. The edgelord (and rightfully so!) turned dork nugget and their kooky adventures because I say so >:3

– ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚ Adopted Reader Fluff!!! My serve!! (probs a smidgen of angst bc this one specific scenario has been rotating in my head & i definitely meant to include it in the headcanons last night but, as previously mentioned, my eyes felt like they were gonna fall out 🥴) ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚

p.s , I am also listening to the Goofy Movie soundtrack, specifically Stand Out + I 2 I which are my faves!!! Tevin Campbell did not have to go that hard. Highly recommend.

💌🧚‍♀️💗🌨🥡🍥

Even More Reader Post-Movie Headcanons!

-ˋˏ✄���┈┈┈

Okay so

I really wanna start out with the scenario that I am positively aching to show you bc I really wanna know what you think, ANDDD I think it weaves in so well with the repairing (or rather, building) of Reader and Leo’s relationship in this timeline!

But, we’ll get there. 😉

After the events of the movie, everything is still raw. Not only are we recovering from a literal war, but all the issues that come with coping with a timeline that we aren’t used to – a timeline we’ve only heard nostalgic regalings of from Papa, lullabies and tall tales and stories meant to keep up some sort of hope and light in the midst of the darkness they lived in day by day, as well as in the mystic projections of Uncle Michelangelo 

. . . but now?

Seeing it in all its prime and modern-day glory?

It’s so, so beautiful.

Reader can’t and would never deny that. 

It’s vibrant. It’s colorful. It’s free. It’s such a far cry from the blood-red skies and dilapidated wastelands they grew up with. The ruins were their "sunny skies and rolling fields" so to speak.

Now that they are here. In the flesh? 

It’s. A lot to handle. 

Reader is wrecked, for sure. 

Casey is too! He’s just better at handling– hiding? Coping.

He’s more open and excited and gentle and polite and cheerful and.

We learn a lot from him as time goes on.

#caseythenationaltreasure

I like to imagine that Casey is a really big help in Reader’s journey to peace; not only within and with themself, but with the people around them too.

Eventually, 

Sure, it’s still a bit awkward with everyone; you guys are kids from the future stuck in a different timeline - with the people who raised you and they're the same age as y'all! What more could you DO to them? (/lh)

Ah. But they’ve got their family. and it’s no joke that they’re a big help!!

Mikey is in his Prime as Doctor Feelings and scheduled regular sessions with Reader bc his EQ is very sharp, as we all know, and he notices just how bad Reader wants to come to terms with everything, and he wants to help. He does help. A lot.

Donnie is ever the 'tism with the emotional constipation (/aff) but he helps and provides in his own little special Donnie ways!

Even if he may not outright say it all the time, he cares and loves his family so so much and he'd do anything for them.

He sets Reader up with some fun and unique techno-cool gifts that help them with things they don't speak up about;

– – like upgrading their mask to have a panoramic-projection so they can put a whole visual to the audio recordings and playbacks stashed in the device memory (only if they want tho! he won't touch it otherwise :'3)

He pretends like he's not hanging on to Reader's every little word when they do engage in casual conversation [which becomes more and more frequent as time goes by!] under the guise of typing on his phone or smth,

and takes those tidbits to create something so heartwarmingly thoughtful and faceted that we may as well just take a big ole stamp that says "You're Not Fooling Anyone With That Bad Boy Persona" and bash it on that forehead of his. JSJSJ (lovingly ofc :*)

Speaking of panorama-projectors, I can see him making it to interchangeable sceneries!

I'm talking about galaxies and solar systems (feeds into Reader's crow tendencies *sniff sniff* soooo many shiny thingssss)

Deep-sea oceans like Ariel's cove-esque or Pandora's sea settings from Avatar

Or even peaceful golden hills and orchards, just them and the big blue sky, the sound of the breeze dancing and larks singing in their ears.

... whatever they want, Don makes it happen.

He definitely takes Mikey's artsy avenues and teams up with him so they can surprise the Future Kids together!

– – 🩵🩶 Casey and Reader fall asleep curled up together in a pillow fort with the projector playing, and it's the best sleep they've gotten since the sleepovers with their Papa.

made myself cry thinkin' that up *sobs*

And isn't Uncle / Big Bro Raphie such a sweetheart during it all? He's the rock of the family, but he's learning to let the family in a lot more. He's learning to not be so "overbearing", especially with his Protective Instincts flying off the handle since the battle. Sure he can be heavy-handed, but he just wants to keep his family safe. And he always has! He always will. He heals to a comfortable place with time, and while he'll always be everyone's rock, you all are there for him too.

Family is stronger together, and-

You all reassure him of that.

In quiet moments, rare moments when it's just him and Reader – they tell him just that. Their hand is comically small on his forearm, but their eyes are earnest; they stare up at him with a sparkle of admiration. They'd only heard stories regaled fondly by their surviving family members, often accompanied them when they visited his shell on the wall lit by candles.

�� meeting their uncle, so young but endlessly strong, is a fickle kind of honor. But still an honor.

(and Raphie may or may not have cried whenever Reader gets him right in the feels hurk-)

Reader and Casey get spoiled rotten (i.e: given the basic necessities to which they did not have access to in their timeline sjjsshahahd) by their family nonetheless!!

UGhhghghh imagine it with me, Normie!

Bubble baths! Warm, cozy clothes! Books that weren't rotting, charred, or furled at the edges! Taking them to comic book stores! Convenience stores! The park! The WATERPARK! The mall!! Introducing them to music and headphones/earbuds to match! Conventions and cons! Amusement parks! Ice cream parlors! Casual strolls throughout New York and doing all these things!

Oh and don't get me started on the adventures they get into in The Hidden City!! :DDD

....

seriously, don't–

foreshadowing -thickens-

*ahem*

In all honesty, the whole clan becomes clingy with each other post-Invasion. That goes w/o saying.

Even Case and Reader, despite the initial tension, have little to no qualms with being pulled into Turtle Piles, nor all the casual affection that comes with healing and growing together!!

It's odd but sweet :')

—Casey and Reader eventually grow out of always seeing the guys as uncles/aunties/parental figures (save for Splints + Draxy + etc.), it becomes more sibling-like in a way!

But they'll always be just as close.

They were just that in their timeline.

But that timeline is lost.

And scary as it may be, they're building themselves a new life. A better life. It's what Papa would have wanted.

So. Why not do just that? :')

>> fam that gets traumatized together STAYS together (/gen)😤

Tragedy brings them closer in ways they didn't think it would.

the awkwardness between reader & leo melts into something more mellow, and we owe a big part of that to Casey!

He's their bridge. Seeing as he's closer to Leo at the given time, he hangs out with his sibbie and Leo at the same time so that they can hang together too. >:3c

Such a genius boy ueueu.

— and before they know it, Reader and Lee-Lee are actually bonding really well. It takes time, and there are withdrawals and setbacks along the way, but it is those obstacles that pave the way for something strong. Something true, honorable, pure, and real.

The reader knows — you know, glory do you know ... that this may not be your Papa.

But maybe...

Maybe that's okay.

You had him. You had Casey. You had your family, the ones once lost to fates beyond your control, and now here you were.

You had all won.

And if that in of itself wasn't something to celebrate with every breath you took,

—you would have given up on that war all that time ago.

Reader and Leo come to a mutual ground with one another.

Let's come to a place where they're more than civil with each other; Leo adores casual affection, and Reader does too— they just weren't willing to give way for such in the beginning.

But it's not unusual to see Leo and them curled up next to each other. Most of the time, Casey's with them too! But in the rare times he isn't, Reader and Leo are comfortable and just doing their own thing.

Like they'll be reading a book, or playing on a handheld device (game, Switch, phone, etc. they're amazed by present-day technology) and Lee's got a comic book,

or he's resting his head close to theirs while he guides them through what they may be doing on their fun little screen.

Leo finds a comfort in you, and you find a comfort in him— once you both let each other in.

All the time it took was worth it :')

I can see them being the most annoyingly caustic yet affectionate besties SNSNJJSJSJ biiig "only I get to make fun of them >:(" energy

or a complete opposite:

once we get past all the vitriol, they're so soft for each other hhhh-

Like Reader becomes fairly protective over him; handles him gently with small smiles and murmured words, helps him out and gives the best muscle massages or is quick to redress and assist when he's smarting from his wounds, knows him well enough to comfort him through panic attacks, indulges in his stupid jokes and puns bc he raised them, hello.

They bounce off each other for hours—

the rest of the guys have resorted to begging, multiple times jsjsj.

and Leo, by this time he knows how much Reader meant- means to him, but he doesn't try to take their Papa's place; he's not scared of them, he does learn to love them /p, and tries to translate that in the most respectful yet straightforward way possible,

and that helped their growing relationship a lot!

He rough-houses (gently) and spars with them, teases them just enough to see their flustered expression, annoys them affectionately — but is the first to come to their defense when someone else gets too cozy.

A lot like a best friend or a sibling.

... He also cuddles and slings his arm around their shoulders and gives the best bear hugs (when they want/need). He reads to them- either one of his comics or one of their acquired books- when they can't sleep or just needs something to hear other than the overbearing voices in their head. He always eats with them, introducing them to new foods he thinks they'd like and giving them the bigger portion (when they get used to stomaching it ofc). Holds their hand. Protects them from the small things and encourages them with the big things, because he knows they can handle it and they just need that little nudge. And to know that someone is right behind them the whole time.

All that good stuff.

(and Casey is so jazzed two of his favorite people are getting along so well aaaa!!)

—hey or maybe it's a healthy mix of both!! ♡₊˚ yeahhhhh.

big BIG ride-or-die energy. I like to imagine that (ㅠ﹏ㅠ)

At the end of the day, they'd die for each other all over again. It gets to THAT point.

Both figuratively and literally.

One milestone in their bond took place and in a way nobody really saw coming—

They were in the Hidden City, stopping by Señor Hueso's for some good grub,

but Leo's leg was pinching a bit more today, and Reader felt a migraine coming on; they wanted to get back home for Mikey's Miracle Migraine Tea, maybe a scalp massage if they pulled the puppy eyes the aforementioned taught them in the future (they don't need to. he'd do it at the drop of a hat. they just like to be eggstra 💅🏼),

so they're both kinda rushing this little outing. Reader's a touch grouchy and their notorious RBF makes a whole comeback, but Leo knows them well enough to know it's not directed at him. He feels for ya, and he sticks close as you both wait for your pickup order to come through.

Then, out of nowhere, some gigantuan yokai comes skulking over.

Reader notices immediately, having folded to lay their head on the cool countertop at the pickup counter; Leo was rubbing up and down their back in comforting circles, smiling down at them with warm, sympathetic eyes as he tries to distract them from their discomfort. He was too focused on them to notice.

and when they spot the glint in the yokai's eyes, they can practically smell the sinister intention as they stride over to them. They're looking for something they had no business to.

Reader tenses, hackles raised and fingers twitching where they gripped the forearms of their hoodie, and their eyes gleam as they peek out from under their hood.

Leo, who thinks they're about to be sick, frets and gently maneuvers them to sit on a nearby stool; he doesn't see the yokai until he's being clapped on the shoulder - the one that's sore, conveniently so - and nearly jumps out of his skin when he whirls on them.

This yokai - stocky, menacing, and a sadistic air about them, simply chuckles and cocks their head at the duo. They're wearing a server's uniform. Reader and Leo both realize it at once-- Reader with dread and Leo with (miscalculated) relief: they're an employee.

Anyways, Leo is put-off by this sudden intrusion of personal space and onslaught of bad vibes, but he's the Face Man and naturally a people person, so he greets them casually and asks if he can help them.

Alongside the incessant ringing in their ears that's their warning before disaster, alarm bells started going off in their head.

They can't really discern what Leo and this bum are saying at this point - everything was fuzzy and garbled like they were underwater; even from their vulnerability sprawled out over the countertop, Reader can tell from their body language that the convo is going in a very wrong direction,

especially when Leo is suddenly shoved back- too hard- and lands in a graceless heap on the floor behind them.

Your mind goes blank. A mindset that was wired into your being from birth – one you haven't had to enter for a while – burns your mind and chest and the alarm bells are deafening, even more so than the sudden uproar of commotion happening vaguely around you.

You're not focused on them. You become laser-focused on the yokai behind you, and between one breath and the next, you're out of your seat and tackling the yokai with a snarl, and you're beating the ever-loving spirits out of them.

You don't stop. You grab at fur and a muzzle, probably a tusk, but you don't care. You don't care, you don't care, you don't care–

– – you're relentless.

All that was in your head was blaring red letters: Protect. Family. Leo. Hurt. Still recovering. Threat. Protect.

Strike.

White-hot rage is pumping through your veins and powering your every strike.

You have them by the nape and slam the yokai's face into the ground muzzle/snout-first; you throw punch after elbow after backhand after punch, even as you feel bone and tendon cracking rather explicitly beneath your knuckles,

and when you're kicked off, rather weakly all things considered–

it doesn't deter you at all.

You use the airborne energy to bounce right back off the countertop (it would ache and bruise like heck later),

rip the stool that you were occupying just moments earlier, clean off its hinges,

and start wailing in on the no-good lowlife bully that thought it beneficial to try your brother.

–– it doesn't stop until the very seat of the stool cracks to shrapnel, the center rolling away like a hubcap, and you're gripping the bar in your hands, heaving like you just ran a marathon.

When the yokai unfolds their arms from shielding their head to peek at you, scrambling to stand, shaking and wide-eyed, your gaze is ferocious.

The skeleton of the once-seat in your hand gets thrown right at their face with a ridiculous strength, and if their muzzle/snout wasn't broken before, it was shattered now.

The yokai shrieks in pain and goes right back down as red iron seeps from their nose, mouth, through their fingers, writhing on the floor-

and you stomp forwards, plant your foot steady in the center of their chest, and press in close until you can see their pupils trembling; that's when you finally speak your first words of the evening:

"Don't you ever come near my brother again. If I see your sorry shank even breathe in his general direction? That stool? The end will find itself shoved right up your pathetic excuse of a voice box. You'd like that, yeah?"

Terrified head shakes and an even more terrified wheeze in response,

"You listen and you listen real good, geezer. I will find you, and a simple warning like this will be the least of your troubles. A warning in which I'm letting you off with, seeing as you're clearly mistaken in your endeavors. Even think of touching Leo, and you deal with this except a thousand times over. It won't be just me. Okay?"

your poorly concealed sadism makes a minor appearance in the sudden change of pitch in your voice and the smarmy grin that stretches your dry lips as you quirk your head and eyebrows in question; when the yokai does nothing but give an immediate jerky nod, you gently pat the side of their face, satisfied.

–which was a lull into a false sense of security, because you shifted your entire body weight and last bit of strength to shove their face back down as you stood up, ignoring their yowl of agony as you did so.

meanwhile everyone in the restaurant be like:🧍

when you came to, everything crashed into you at once: nausea rolled in violent waves in your stomach, the migraine came thrumming full-force, and your ribs creaked as you stumbled over to a shellshocked Leo.

You pulled him up on shaky legs, but much like every patron in the joint, his eyes were trained on the yokai you just obliterated, still writhing on the ground.

Eventually, Senor comes rushing out and, taking in the damage of the scene, demands an explanation. Reader is all-too glad to give it to him, eyes glazed over and voice a lot more calmer than the actual predator they previously were

But once they do, his eyes look over both of them and soften, especially when he takes in how Leo is visibly shaking and Readie looks like they're milliseconds away from passing out.

They get out of there, food in tow, Leo still extremely shell-shocked and Reader worse for wear at what just transpired.

Blue barely manages a portal home- but they do, and when they're safe in the familiarity of the Lair, they both metaphorically collapse.

The night ends with the perturbed fretting of the Clan, but it all boils down to one thing for sure.

Leo has Reader's hand in his, Reader is gripping with the same intensity, and they refuse to be separated for the next few days thereafter.

Anata wa hitori janai.

That is the Hamato way.

oh and that employee never showed up to the restaurant again :D sorry not sorry for using them as collateral for my bebes

more tidbits that came to mind when typing that storm up:

reader's a bad mofo . didn't ya know they were the scourge of the apocalypse? they were clandestinely feared by the kraang. leo kept them under wraps bc he knew how powerful they were. (/j) reader: they protecc, they attacc, but most of all, they gone need ice for they bacc SNRRRTTT

☁️🖇️🥛

HOOOWEEEEE, THAT'LL DO IT– ˚ ༘`✦ ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹ I hope you do read all this, sugarcube!! I got kind of carried away, ahaha ^^;; I'm sowwwyyyy!~ But i AM excited to hear your thoughts, whenever that may be! <333

I'm mostly glad I finally got the well-awaited scenario in there!! Basically, Leo has a no-no moment with some lowkey bully and Reader completely overcompensates, even thought they're BOTH still tender from war, yet they go batty-bonkers over his oppression! >:( Don't touch their family!!! The scenario was inspired by a ficlet I read a while ago with Leo in the same situation, but Reader was in Donnie's place :''))) I'll have to find it for ya if you haven't read it yet-

aaa after this, i think i can chill without so much heaviness!! i need to indulge in some crack! some fluff! somethin' now that we've explored the reader and leo's dynamic!! they're the sillies ever and we need more!!

muwah! Hasta la vista, baeby! I'll be back!~ /p

Aaaa goodnight now XD! (ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ)♡ Love ya loads, toots!! Enjoy the nomz, haha!🍓❣🍰💌🧸

Ok. First of all, and most importantly, I FREAKIN LOVE THE GOOFY MOVIE IT'S LITERALLY ONE OF MY FAVS EVER- AFTER TODAY IS MY FUCKING JAM-

ALSO ON THE OPEN ROAD??? HEHEH

Ahem.

Now that that's out of my system, let the headcanons begin...

READER'S HEALING PROCESS POST-MOVIE

....................................

Post-movie, after everything calms down, and everyone's just trying to heal,

You definitly open up a bit more.

You'll apologize to everyone for how you acted before,

For being so hostile towards them.

Casey will 100% nudge Leo and you into hanging out together.

It was hard to do since you avoided Leo like the plauge, and he kinda thought you hated him or something.

Casey manages to kill the awkwardness, and now you and Leo go EVERYWHERE together.

Besties for realzies.

Donnie will try to be subtle with his gifting,

Spoiler: he isn't.

Most of the time he'll just leave whatever it is on Reader's bed for them to find with a small note.

He's dissmissive when you thank him too,

"Don't worry about." "It's no big deal."

The projector is now your most prized possesion aside from your mask.

I feel like you always had trouble sleeping in the dark,

In the future it would have been hard to have any kind of nightlight.

Limited resources and all.

So Uncle Michelangelo would fill your and Casey's room with little glowing lights.

Think Gaurdians of The Galaxy when Groot saves everyone, the little balls of light?

So thats what you usually project into the room.

And obviously you and Casey will have the occasional stargazing night.

Meeting Raph for you was pretty much the equivilent of Casey fan-girling over Leonardo.

The stories Papa told you about him made Raph sound like some kind of super hero.

So when you met him, you had to physically try to keep your rbf on, and not freak out.

You think he's so freakin' cool-

Omg if you show even the slightest signs of discomfort or sadness Mikey is on that crap.

Here comes Dr. Feelings, tell him what's wrong.

No family of his is going to be sad for long.

He'll 100% do his best to make you and Casey feel more at home in your new timeline.

Sometimes you'll turn the tables and now you're Dr. Feelings.

He doesn't like it, but he knows mental health is important, so he deals and ya'll have therapy sessions with eachother.

You not so subtly try to spend lots of time with Splinter as well.

You didn't have very much time with your Grandpa before the end of the world took him as well,

But now he's here, and you can tell that he did not change one bit with time.

His younger counter-part is exactly the same as the one you knew in the future.

You do the same thing with Draxxum as well and omfg he is so weirded out.

Like, why does this teenager want to willingly spend time with me? Did Mikey put you up to this? WHAT IS GOING ON-

But nope.

You just missed your weird alchemist Gramps.

April takes you for walks around the city, kinda showing you and Casey what it looks like when it isn't in complete ruins.

She shows you all the cool things it has to offer, and you even come back to the Lair with some shiny things you find on the ground!

You lost your old collection when you left your old timeline, so now you have to start your hoard all over :(

It's ok though, people drop tons of shiny things down water ways and sewer drains.

You and Leo will wander around the tunnels and look for your shinies.

It's a bonding experience, and he teases you about it.

Great gallileo the back and forths between you are so horrible.

They last almost all day, and when ever one of you starts one evryone groans out loud.

The only two people who can get you two to drop it and leave eachother alone are Casey and Raph, but Casey rarely does anything to stop it-

Once you and Leo get close he is such a little terd-

Teasing, and picking and poking.

Big brother energy for realzies.

He'll wake you up by playing California Girls really loud in your ear, and then giggle about it all day, while you try not to strangle him.

If he ever overexerts himself, god help him escape the scolding-

EVERYONE is on his shell about it.

But ESPECIALLY you.

It's even worse when you get upset at him, because after everyome else is done scolding him, they'll move on.

But you? You are so petty about it.

You scold him for hours,

Then you'll just kinda... sit there, silently glaring off into space.

It makes him feel so bad for worrying Reader, that he doesn't overwork himself more than like- five times before guilt makes him just chill tf out and heal.

That scenario you wrote, where Reader absolutely rocks that yokai's shit for messing with Leo?

(Wonderfully written by the way, truely a masterpiece)

First of all total fuck around 'n find out energy.

Second of all, I'm in LOVE with the idea of Reader going absolutely feral on the battle field.

In the future, EVERY fight was life or death, and I think Reader may need to learn that here, in this timeline, not every fight requires you to freakin' wreck the opponent.

Raph kinda has that talk with them after Senor told him how they messed that employee up.

Not every fight requires your 100%.

Then he'll totally congradulate you for destroying that jerk that hurt Leo.

Reader gets a reward cookie.

....................................

Apologies this took so long to answer my dear (/p).

But here it is!! That scenario at Runof The Mill- *chefs kiss*

Beautiful. Amazingly written. I LIVE for feral reader.

[audrak79]

Broken, but not beyond repair...

I never imagined that at 45, having been married 24 years, and having spent 29 years in that same relationship, that I would be working through a divorce.  I have worked in the legal field helping others through their divorces for 27 years. The story of how I got here is not for all to know and certainly not something to share like this. It’s a story that affects many and, while their story is part of mine, that does not mean I have a right to air it all out.

A big part of my story began when I was 16. I had no clue who I was, where I was going, what I wanted to be, I was just a baby and knew one thing... I wanted out of where I was and I knew there had to be something better. What happened from here many would call a fairy tale. Much of it seemed that way. But as with any relationship, it had its problems, ups and downs. I’ve learned a lot in my life, most of it the hard way.  As with any relationship, we both could have and should have done better, worked harder for it. Life gets exhausting and people change. And while we can't change people or stop them from changing, we CAN control what we tolerate and how we respond to what’s in front of us.    

The last 3 years have been the toughest 3 years of my life.  It’s been trying on our family.  That’s a story and testimony for another blog... when the time is right.  Trauma affects our whole story and the stories of those closest to us and sometimes it even branches out further than that.  As Pastor Mike Todd has said, “what you don’t transform, you transfer.” Before you start a relationship, you should know your own identity or you will take on that of others and try to make them your own. Process your own trauma. You can't expect a good relationship if you don’t feel you can share your trauma because you've never faced it head on and you try to pretend it never happened. Get comfortable with yourself so that you can be vulnerable without fear of shame or embarrassment. It's hard to help someone through their trauma if you've never addressed your own. Faking it only causes bitterness, anger, anxiety, depression, stonewalling etc. and just as you can't control someone or change others, you can’t control their healing either, and you certainly won't help them when you ignore your own hurt. One thing I wish for every human, and I am still working on, is that we could all master the art of good communication. Listening more, talking less. Communicating expectations so assumptions don't leave one hurt unnecessarily. Sometimes a person just needs to know they are heard.

I've made poor choices, I'll continue to make poor choices. But I'm going to strive each day to make better choices. I'm going to try starting fresh and this time around, NOT do things out of order. I'm going to stay firm and grounded in Christ, so much that it spews out in everything I do and I will not be ashamed or embarrassed of what that looks like. I will love so hard that it makes others wonder where it comes from and plants a seed to be watered that has them seeking the Lord because they need that kind of joy in their life. I will forgive more as I also need forgiven and holding onto that seed of offense only allows a root of bitterness to grow. Life is painful. Words hurt. Life and death are in the power of the tongue (Proverbs 18:21) and it takes a lifetime of practice. Out of the heart the mouth speaks (Luke 6:45), which is why we need to check our hearts before we speak. 

Regret.... without the poor decisions I've made, I may never have come to know who I am, I wouldn't have some of the greatest things and experiences that I have had. While I have regret for any harm I may have done to others, and I am sad and even disappointed in myself for the way I have handled some things, I am not sure I would wish for things to have been different. In a perfect world, sure, but we live in a broken world and I'm going to pray that God will continue to make beauty from my ashes, even from the dumpster fires that I caused or fanned into flame. What I CAN do is, instead of focusing on what I did wrong or could have done better... repent, turn, start new, fresh, and try harder to simply be a better reflection of Christ today than I was yesterday. I know I will never regret following Him.

So, excuse me while I heal. It looks different for everyone and while this seems like a new life event as social media and public appearances paint a pretty picture, it may not be as fresh as the picture was painted. I'll likely not be on social media for a while other than to share an occasional Word from God with a picture of my coffee. I trust that those closest to me will reach out personally and directly. My profiles have my contact info in them. God is good, even when we aren't. Trust the process. Be willing to be refined in the fire. I promise, eternity with Christ is worth it. I was reading a few months ago in Isaiah and shared the following on social media:

“Studying this morning and as I hit Isaiah 38 and 39, I praised God for His reminder of the importance of humility, the dangers of pride, and that our actions have consequences. But most importantly, that EVEN when I suffer consequences, EVEN when things seem to go badly, EVEN in the midst of suffering... I will praise my God and thank Him for His love, correction, and grace. For His ways are higher than mine. Who am I to criticize His divine direction.”

I know who I am now. I am the daughter of the King Most High, a co-heir with Christ. I am chosen, forgiven, treasured, sought, beautiful, strong, flawless, never forsaken. I am His.

8/20/24

[nerdwriting]

The Creative Directors Behind Fate: The Winx Saga Must Not Be K-Pop Fans

Also, they have a pretty wrong idea of the role fashion should play in a show.

There are a few words that will stand out across most reviews of Netflix's Fate: The Winx Saga - drab, boring, flop, flat, unimaginative. Critics and audiences consensus is that the show is not only a mediocre-at-best story, but also an atrocious (and ultimately confusing) choice of adaptation of the color pop and fairy magic cartoon it’s based on, 2004 italian cartoon Winx Club.

Fate has plenty of it's own issues - white washing and erasing characters, cringey dialogue, outdated melodrama, etc. But where it truly, unequivocally fails is as an adaptation. Fate misses everything that was magical and lovable about the original series, in all levels, from bizarre writing choices, - such as never actually developing any sense of friendship between the characters, who are based on a cartoon about…..a group…….of friends -, but it's especially and immediately felt in the art direction and costume design.

Winx Club is set on a fantastical world, Magix, where each of our main characters hail from a different planet, à la Sailor Moon. Alfea, the fairy school they attend, is the most common background: a pastel colored, futuristic high tech-meets-fantasy, art nouveau inspired castle. Alfea sets the tone for the whole visual of the cartoon: bright, colorful, futuristic meets vintage, leaning into the technological positivism of the Y2K style, uniting it with magic, DnD worthy monsters and, of course, fairy wings. Often featured are also the Red Fountain school, where the Specialists train, and especially Cloud Tower, the goth and gothic inspired witch school Alfea has an OxBridge rivalry with (How cool would that be in a live action? I guess we’ll never know…).

On Fate, Alfea is the only school we ever see, and it’s another beige boarding school in not-Britain, somehow set in a magical world where everyone has the exact same technology and even social media that we have on Earth in 2021, no transformations and, most egregiously, no fairy wings.

This lack of visual creativity is pervasive throughout the whole show, and its most heartbreaking iteration is in the characters' wardrobe. The styling has the barest bones of a color scheme, - such as 'Bloom has to only dress in red since fire, duh',- the clothes are ill fitting, bland, dark and very dated. These are supposed to be teenagers who enjoy fashion, and yet they look like varying types of soccer moms from 2010.

The series seems to operate on an old and tired vision that women and girls can’t have depth and have adventures and fight monsters while also caring about fashion, a vision that the original show played a big, big role in challenging in the early 2000's. Fashion and costume design sets as much of the tone of a visual medium as the script does; through clothes we can gauge characters’ backgrounds, passions, and personality.

Winx Club has some of the best examples of this in the cartoon sphere - Bloom’s comfortable and bright style, Stella’s glitzy and bold, Musa’s edgy and cool, Aisha’s sporty and fun, Techna’s neon and tech gear inspired, Flora’s earthy and romantic, they all work as extensions of each character and serve a narrative purpose. And that’s not even mentioning how insulting it feels that in their quest to make Winx “edgier, darker” and fit for an older audience, the creators of Fate somehow decided that was in opposition to caring about style and fashion. Most “girly” shows, including the Winx Club are just as much adventure action shows as the ones geared towards boys, and it’s emphasis in fashion, friendship and color does not detract from that. The original run of the cartoon deals with war, violence, grief, abusive relationships and even genocide; leaning into those plotlines would not require Fate to erase any integral parts of what made Winx so beloved, and the fact that they did shows that the Netflix team completely missed the point of fashion in the original show, and really, the point of fashion and costume design in the world building of any show.

That, however, is not a mistake K-Pop makes very often; (This might seem like a bit of wild swerve in topic, but stay with me here). Unlike it's western counterpart, the Korean pop scene never lost the emphasis on music videos and how the visual medium can complete and potentialize music and performance; the K-Pop culture is very album and concept oriented in a way that has been all but lost in many other pop circuits, and the music video, styling and set design of a ‘comeback era’ is a key point of excitement among fans.

As such, music videos that follow storylines, connected universes, boundary pushing concepts and visual effects are the norm, rather than the exception, and a list could be made of works that are beautiful examples of what a live action Winx adaptation could look like. In fact, and very smoothly, here is a small list of exactly that!

A Small List of K-Pop Music Videos That Are Better Winx Club Live Actions Than Fate: The Winx Saga

3. Red Velvet - Psycho

If it was a darker and more somber look that Fate wanted, there was a way to make it actually appealing. While it still feels a liiitle too grown up and elegant for Winx, (maybe this author is biased, as a full proponent for the Y2K fun) Psycho makes a very compelling argument for a witchy, mysterious, fairy tale-esque show that could look scrumptious and definitely not boring, or even a gorgeous example of what the witches in Cloud Tower could look like. Black and white, dark green, pastel blue and pops of jewel tones make Psycho's color palette. To add interest to the understated colors, the styling is heavy on textures; We see plenty of stonework, intricate embroidery, tassels, lace on lace on lace, feathers, bows, opera gloves and lots of glitter. All of that is offset by bold, dark makeup, leather accents and eerie cinematography. Needle & Thread, Marchesa Notte and Self Portrait lend their hyper feminine and intricately detailed tulle gowns, juxtaposed with the creepiness of the lyrics and the dark backgrounds; their deep berry and green fairy tale looks are built with pieces from Zara to Nina Ricci to Dolce & Gabbana to Alexander McQueen.

Red Velvet’s more edgy styling for 2018's Bad Boy would also not feel out of place on the Trix.

2. IZ*ONE - Fiesta

IZ*ONE kicked off 2020 with sweet and fun Fiesta. The MV features rooms with mismatched décor that go from retro to space opera, rocky faux landscapes that feel other worldly, and visual effects that would look perfect on the back of a transformation sequence. Mirroring the set design, the girls wear various outfits by sustainable up and coming brand Chopova Lowena. Their signature skirts made with discarded and repurposed fabrics give a cool and interesting twist on a schoolgirl look that would look very sweet for a band of school fairies that occasionally go off to save the world. Also, wouldn't those bedazzled headphones look great on Musa's fairy outfit?

1. Aespa - Black Mamba and Next Level

Aespa is what fans call a monster rookie. With only three music videos under their belt, they still have some of the most visually interesting work in the industry right now. Their concept is very tied in with high tech, featuring even AI avatars of each member, packaged in a glitzy, fantastical and futuristic aesthetic, candy pop meets cyberpunk. I think I’ve exhausted ways to say that is exactly what a perfect Winx adaptation should feature.

Their debut smash hit, 2020’s Black Mamba is truly a perfect moodboard for live action Winx. Wearing a sequined and colorful mix and match of Dollskill, Gucci, Didu and Balenciaga to a backdrop that features some alien fairy forest realness, a pyschedelic fever dream, rooms straight out of a Y2K catalog or donning lime green and black techwear inside a metro fighting the "black mamba", Aespa look through and through the part of fashion loving fairies who save the world together, while looking fierce, stylish and, most importantly, interesting.

The styling and the sets jump seamlessly from more casual colorful fits with blouses, shirts and baggy pants to barren, darkly lit backgrounds and fringe-and-glitter heavy pieces necessary to fight giant snakes, in a way so fitting to transformation outfits for magical girls we could cry.

In their third MV, 2021's Next Level, the cyber in their concept is taken up a notch (get it. because Next Level-), set to a futuristic urbanscape intersped with a planet made of crystals and the ocasional alien fauna popping up again. We get treated to Monse, The 2nd Skin Co., Johanna Ortiz and The Attico styled to fairy princess standards, sporty sky racers and a white and sequined group styling that is top ten fairy busy saving the world uniform material, or maybe even a specialist worthy getup.

This particular look from Ningning is so Techna that it almost feels as if it's mocking Netflix.

And doesn’t this Karina trapped inside the "black mamba" in Alexander McQueen feel like a perfect Dark Bloom moment?

These are only a few examples of interesting and creative designs that are in line with what a live action Winx Club should have given us. There are so many more I could list, even among other TV Shows, like Sex Education and even polemic dark Euphoria, that know how to have fun with style and design without losing the depth of their stories. In the end, it's hard to justify why Fate creators even wanted to make an adaptation that didn't even try to capture the heart of its source material, and all we can do is watch one more "Restyling Fate: The Winx Saga" video on Youtube whilst mildly dreading season 2.

[perthshirecottage]

I keep thinking about how differently T’challa and Peter grew up despite both being taken in by the Ravagers and the people they became. A lot of people are using this as an excuse to point out that this shows that Peter is a horrible person because look, all they did is change it to T’challa and suddenly all these people had wonderful lives! Yondu was a better father and Thanos learned the error of his ways and was also a better father! T’challa was space Robin Hood and helped people! The thing is that it’s not just one factor, one moment that literally changed the how everything changed. Yes, one moment was a springboard to change, but there were so many factors, so many little moments after that really and truly changed the course of history. It’s not a matter of who is the better person but it comes down to how each kid was brought into the Ravagers. It also makes a difference how they were raised before they were even abducted. And how they were raised after. All of these factors effect how the story unfolds. But the biggest factor is Yondu himself and how he, as the adult, chose to treat each of these kids. Some of this is speculation but it’s all based on evidence from the source material. I’m going to go through how each kid was raised so we can get to the bottom of how things turned out so differently.

Let’s start with T’challa.

T’challa was a kid who grew up with everything. He was a prince and therefore lacked for nothing. He was safe and had never had anything personally bad happen to him. He grew up in a palace with both of his parents and has not experienced loss. It’s good that he has never had to deal with these things but it means that he has felt more safe and comfortable in the world than Peter and T’challa has the confidence that kids brought up with all those comforts and safeties has.

T’challa is also specifically a prince. This means that T’challa is growing up with the absolute best tutors that money can buy. He has Wakandan tutors who are teaching about technology that is more advanced than other places in the world. He is taught about peaceful negotiating skills. T’challa grew up on diplomacy and learning what it meant to one day have to take responsibility for an entire country. And being a prince, the crown prince, it means that in the hierarchy of things the only people with more power than him are his parents. His parents have taught him to be humble and that he doesn’t have the right to lord that power over others That he is meant to serve his people and to take care of and love them. So he is kind and not a spoiled brat but it doesn’t change the fact that that kind of environment means that people treat T’challa with a certain amount of respect that is due to one in his position. T’challa expects people to listen to him. He expects people to respect him and to not push him to the side because this is how he was raised. Up until this point T’challa has not known loss and this will affect his initial encounter with the Ravagers.

And then comes the abduction. T’challa has just had an argument with his father. T’challa wants to go out and explore, to see the world. And suddenly T’challa is on space craft with real live aliens! This is so cool! He isn’t scared of all these strange looking aliens. In fact he thinks the whole thing is awesome. They haven’t hurt him or shown themselves to be a threat so he hasn’t had a reason to be scared. T’challa is looking around in wonder and awe and not the slightest bit intimidated. Yondu is upset that they got the wrong kid but he also sees a kid who was just abducted who isn’t scared, who is eloquent and talking about adventure. He is impressed by this kid and his fearlessness. So Yondu figures, hey, might as well give this kid a fun little adventure before I take him home, you know, to make up for this little mistake. And T’challa may be eloquent and have learned how talk to unreasonable people (I think it’s a natural skill T’challa has, but he was also taught to talk to people and that skill was nurtured in him) but he is still a kid who wants to go have some fun and not be burdened by his duties and responsibilities for awhile. So of course T’challa isn’t thinking about how his parents will be feeling when they wake up and see him gone. All T’challa wants is a good time and is thinking like the child he is. He will be home soon enough anyway.

And if Yondu gets attached and decides that he doesn’t want to return T’challa well, a little white lie might hurt for a bit but Yondu has always been a little selfish. And to make up for the lie, Yondu will treat T’challa really well, as if the boy were his own son. Yondu is caring and comforting when he tells T’challa that his whole family is dead and while it makes him uncomfortable to openly show his own caring side, it also eases Yondu’s guilt considerably as he hugs a sobbing T’challa. And to top it off he just found out what Ego was doing, and, well there’s no point in uprooting Peter Quill from his life cause Yondu isn’t working for that stupid planet anymore. He has T’challa and he doesn’t want any other kid. So T’challa is given a place of honor among the Ravagers as Yondu’s son. T’challa is listened to and given respect. T’challa is kind and calm and respectful and he keeps worming his way into Yondu’s heart. T’challa is well behaved and Yondu doesn’t even have to resort to threats to keep him in line. And T’challa trusts Yondu and talks to his father figure and works out any problems they have. They form a bond built from love, trust and respect. And Yondu protects T’challa from the rough crew. No one dares to offer up a harsh word towards T’challa because they all remember Yondu’s wrath the last time someone tried. T’challa was taught to fight on earth and Yondu is still impressed by how much T’challa knows and man that kid sure knows how to throw a punch. Yondu has so much respect early on and he has guilt about lying about T’challa’s family and all these factors affect their relationship as T’challa grows.

T’challa is raised by thieves so of course he becomes one himself. He was still young when he was taken (and it never feels like he was abducted. He was brought on an adventure and then offered a home when he lost his. The Ravagers are his family and the ship his home and there is nothing for him on earth but painful memories) so T’challa learns from the people who are raising him but he never loses the morals that were instilled in him from birth. So when T’challa gets a little older he starts to speak of the right thing to do and Yondu is touched by the words in a way he wouldn’t if he didn’t have to make up for so much red in his ledger. Which makes Yondu not want to listen. Yondu tries to ignore those thoughts of what he has done and he wants to continue going around stealing and living his life for himself and his crew as he has always done. He doesn’t want to change that much, not even for T’challa. But T’challa will not let up about the noble things they could be doing. And Yondu knows that it was a mistake to start out letting T’challa know he thought of him as a son so early in their relationship because when Yondu threatens to let the crew eat T’challa if he keeps going on about this nobility, T’challa simply laughs in his face. As if after all these years T’challa would actually believe that threat. As T’challa keeps talking about how they should be helping people, it upsets some of the crew. They don’t want T’challa and his morals in their ship and they don’t care if T’challa is Yondu’s son, the boy is trying to mutiny against their captain and they won’t stand for it! Yondu doesn’t take it well when Taser Face tries to throw T’challa out of an airlock. Yondu feels obligated to truly listen to T’challa after the whole fiasco. In the end Yondu tries to resist, but T’challa doesn’t let up and those words strike a nerve and Yondu dedicates his life to making up for those kids who were killed. He never does tell T’challa why his crew accidentally kidnapped him. Yondu knows he couldn’t bear to see the disappointment on T’challa’s face. Yondu is determined to be the best father he can be and he’s so glad he didn’t wait until it was too late.

And because T’challa and Yondu are on a crusade to help people, they specifically search out Thanos to have a talk about how crazy the man is starting to become. And it’s well over a decade before The Infinity War so Thanos isn’t quite as crazy as he will become and can still be reasoned with because someone got to him so early. (I still think this is a stretch cause the man was insane and you can’t reason with insane people but this is the only explanation I can come up with for why T’challa stopped Thanos with one conversation).

T’challa becomes such a big part of the Ravagers. He in fact becomes their leader in a way. Yondu is still the captain but the crew looks to T’challa as their moral compass. He helps to plan the heists. He figures out who is corrupt and that’s who they steal from. He figures out who needs money and he gives it them. When people ask for a name he remembers his noble birth and how he now lives among the heavens. And while he is not a king, or a prince, he is nobility and he answers Starlord. And so people spread tales of their savior and soon everyone in the galaxy has heard of Starlord.

And so T’challa grows up surrounded by love and support. He knows how to talk so people listen and this changes his dynamic with so many people and the galaxy’s destiny is changed.

Now to Peter. Peter is a kid from Missouri who lives in a small house and goes to public school and has absolutely nothing about him that makes him special. His mom works hard to provide for him but it’s just her because no one knows where Peter’s dad is. They don’t have much money but Meredith loves her son and he loves her. It doesn’t take the sting out when Peter sees other kids with their dads but Peter is grateful to have someone who cares. And then the person that Peter loves most, the person that his whole world revolves around is dying. Slowly and painfully. He has to watch her suffer for months, maybe years. Peter has to see his mom go from happy and healthy to withering away in a hospital bed. To see her mentally deteriorating and be completely helpless to stop it. Peter is suffering but he is still going to stick up for those who can’t fight back, like the poor frog those mean boys squished with a stick. His mom taught him to be kind and a good person, he just doesn’t know how to get people to listen to him. Peter has never been taught diplomacy and no one is going to listen to some skinny little kid who is vulnerable and a prime target for bullies.

And then Peter has to watch his mom die. Peter didn’t want to take his mom’s hand because he is scared and irrationally thought that if he didn’t take her hand, if he didn’t give her that permission to die, then she wouldn’t. He regretted it the moment her heart stopped and he would regret it until years later when he found a new family that helped him learn how to heal. Then Peter is shoved out of the room and everyone forgets about him and the grief and the fear and the guilt, it’s just too much and so Peter runs. He runs until he can’t and he falls to the ground sobbing.

And then comes the abduction. One moment Peter was on the ground and then suddenly he is on a spaceship, hurtling away from his home and his mom. Peter only needed to get away from that hospital room! He didn’t mean to truly leave! Everything feels too big and it’s completely overwhelming! And he is surrounded by large monsters who are scary looking and one of them is talking to him and he has blue skin and sharp teeth and everything is too much, too much and Peter screams! He screams and he sobs and he scrambles away from these terrifying creatures and he just wants his mom! He wants to go home! Where is his grandpa?! What is going on?! And then the creature threatens to let his crew eat him if he doesn’t stop making such a racket and Peter’s gaze catches those sharp teeth, gleaming, ready to tear a little boy’s flesh from his bones and he stops screaming, completely paralyzed by fear.

Yondu looks at this sniveling, snotty creature before him and he feels his ire rise. Stupid kid has only been on his ship a few minutes and he is already on Yondu’s nerves. So Yondu barks at the kid to shut up or the crew will eat him. The kid doesn’t stop crying but the screaming does stop so that’s a win in Yondu’s book. And there is a twinge of satisfaction when the men laugh at the whole scene. As if any of them would actually eat a child but it got the reaction Yondu wanted. The sooner this job is over the better. And then Yondu finds out that Ego has been killing his own children and while Yondu isn’t particularly fond of Quill, he is still a child and Yondu won’t be a part of killing another kid. There’s enough red in his ledger as it is. Anyway, Quill is small, he can fit in places adults can’t, is good for thieving. Yondu will make more money keeping the kid in the long run.

Peter is taught how to steal, how to fly, how to shoot. Peter is a rambunctious child who has a plethora of issues and loss and has to navigate the waters of grief by himself. No one holds him as he cries for the loss of his mother, his grandpa, his planet. There are no hugs or words of comfort. Just glares and sneers for a weak kid who is terrified of all the scary aliens he is now stuck with. Yondu has offered a few pats on the shoulder when Peter is feeling especially low, and sometimes Yondu will sit in companionable silence when no one else is around. Yondu keeps the crew from eating him (and Peter never grows out of this fear, not really) but Yondu doesn’t do a thing about the harsh looks and the harsher words. And whenever a Ravager takes a swing at Peter, Yondu allows it since it will toughen him up. And Peter’s whole world has crashed down around his ears and he has no support and whenever he plucks up the courage, Peter does what he can to cause some chaos for these aliens that have taken him from his home. While there is a part of Peter that doesn’t want to return to a home that no longer has his mom, Peter can’t forget that the Ravagers forced him into this life, and he is their prisoner. When he is old enough to escape Peter has been gone for so long that he doesn’t see any point in going back. All that’s left for him on earth are painful memories. So Peter learns to get good at stealing so that he can earn his keep and not end up as dinner. He learns how to protect his belongings so no one takes it. He learns how to be wily and to use his wits to fight and escape from those who are bigger and stronger than he is. He learns to look out for himself first and foremost, because no one else is going to. Peter sticks with the Ravagers because he has no where else to go. No one recognizes him besides a Nova Corp officer. No one knows his name because Peter has been lost in the shuffle as another Ravager. One day the Ravagers are hired for a huge score and Peter decides that this is the one that’s big enough that he can finally strike out on his own. People will know his name and his mom’s legacy of her Starlord will live on. And if Peter’s betraying the Ravagers, oh well, it’s not like they have ever given him a reason to be loyal to them anyway. And this does turn out to be the big score Peter was looking for, but it didn’t come in the form of money. Peter found the family he had been so desperately longing for since his mom died.

Yondu teaches the kid the basics. How to steal, and shoot, and fly. Yondu also teaches the kid how to fight because it’s rough out there and he needs to be able to defend himself. The kid has no idea how to throw a punch or block one, so Yondu lets the crew take some swings at the kid because man, if that kid doesn’t learn to fight then he’s as good as dead. And Yondu reminds the kid that he is protecting him from a crew that wants to eat him. At first it’s a way to keep Quill in line when the kid does something stupid (Peter does a lot of stupid stuff and why can’t the kid just behave?) but it eventually stops being a threat and becomes an inside joke between the two of them. As Peter gets faster and stronger and more skilled and less weepy and fearful, Yondu starts taking a liking to him. He doesn’t really let on because why should Yondu make himself uncomfortable by talking about feelings, he doesn’t owe Peter anything since Yondu already saved the kid’s life by not giving him to Ego. If anything, Peter is indebted to him whether he knows it or not. Yondu knows, deep down that he isn’t talking care of Quill the way the kid deserves but Yondu can’t just give the kid up (Yondu’s always been a little selfish). And nothing forces Yondu to confront his own feelings and own up to his mistakes until they’re about to blow up a planet and Peter’s about to die and this is Yondu’s last chance to make up for the way he treated Peter and what he did to those other poor kids that Ego killed. So Yondu finally steps up and becomes the father he should have been all along. He just wishes he hadn’t waited until it was too late.

In conclusion, the changes that were made were not simply from it being T’challa instead of Peter. It was so many factors. It was the initial introduction to the Ravagers, where T’challa wanted an adventure and got one. He wanted to go with the Ravagers and so it was fun and it was kind of his friends to let him stay after his family died. For Peter he had just watched his mom died and was emotionally vulnerable and the entire abduction actually felt like an abduction. It was traumatizing and nothing about it was fun. Yondu actively chose T’challa because the boy actually had a home to go back to. Yondu got stuck with Peter so the boy wouldn’t be murdered. Yondu had guilt about lying to T’challa and something to cause him to repent and treat T’challa better. Yondu could keep himself emotionally distant since he could reassure himself that he saved Peter’s life and didn’t owe the kid anything. T’challa was never given a reason to fear the Ravagers and so felt he could speak freely about his beliefs and change Yondu’s and the other’s minds. Peter spent his whole life worrying that he would mess up too big and be eaten so he tried no to bring too much ire on himself. T’challa was calm and had an extensive education and impressed Yondu from their first meeting. T’challa was respected and so therefore respected those who were raising him. Peter was brought in during the worst day of his life and already emotionally charged and a grieving kid was not something the Ravagers wanted to deal with. And Peter wasn’t equipped in anyway for the Ravager lifestyle and had to sink or float and I doubt anyone was that understanding when he floundered. Peter was a terrified and confused kid who sometimes acted up with his abductors.

Peter and T’challa were raised by the same person but they were also raised in completely different environments. It’s not fair to place of the weight of how either child turned out on their shoulders. They were children who had to deal with the world they were literally abducted into. And you can see that Yondu specifically treated T’challa differently than he ever did Peter. And it’s not fair to say it’s because T’challa was simply a better person because Yondu was the adult in the situation. They were children and they had no say in how they were raised. Yondu was the one who decided to keep them both. He was also the one who decided treat T’challa better. In gotg vol 2, Yondu was correct when he said he ‘didn’t do any of it right’. Yondu may have come to love Peter, but at the end of the day, Yondu was abusive towards Peter. Yondu wasn’t given an incentive to change his ways until the very end when he had to choose between Peter’s life and his own. It doesn’t mean that Yondu and Peter didn’t love each other in their own way. Yondu still raised Peter and took care of him, but it is canon that Yondu beat Peter and spent Peter’s whole life hanging the threat of being eaten over his head. Yondu wasn’t obvious in the ways he looked out for Peter. Yondu kept the Ravagers from killing him on several occasions, but Yondu never let Peter know he was protecting him until the last possible minute. In What If…there is not a single implication that Yondu ever threatened T’challa’s life or beat him or any of the other crap that happened to Peter. And gotg happened 26 years after Peter was abducted while the events of What If happened only 20 years later. So in far less time T’challa was able to accomplish more because he was better adjusted not because he was a better person. The whole conversation about Peter getting into a fight with some boys because he was protecting a frog shows his kindness and how he wants to defend those who can’t defend themselves. But Peter was raised in a place where he had to take care of himself because even in his 30s he was being threatened by Yondu (remember after Yondu pulled Peter and Gamora out of space and beat Peter up and pointed his arrow at Peter’s neck? Yeah that’s a pretty big threat and Peter isn’t surprised by it. Like this kind of treatment is normal). No one was looking out for Peter so he had to learn to survive his abuse and look after himself because he couldn’t count on anyone else until he met the rest of the Guardians. And T’challa was treated with worry and care. He was given support and understanding. T’challa has had a family since the moment that Ravager ship picked him up. The differences between these two stories has nothing to do with who was abducted, but with the how and why.

[spaceorphan18]

99 Perspectives on a Single Love Story #75

A/N: The Story of Kurt and Blaine told through the eyes of everyone else but them. Each chapter is a different perspective in the ongoing tale of their love story.

I started something like this a while back - and now I’m taking the idea and really running with it. Each chapter is a ficlet of a different character at a different point in Kurt and Blaine’s life - documenting their love story. This starts in Audition, and each chapter will be paired with a different episode until reaching Dreams Come True.

[Ao3]

***

Elliott Gilbert (Frenemies) 

“Nooo, Blaine, that’s really crazy..  Really.  But you’ll have to tell me about it later, okay?  Why don’t you call me when you get home? I want to know everything.  Yup. Yup. Love you, too.  Bye.”  Kurt hangs up his phone with an exaggerated push of his thumb and a goofy little grin on his face.  

There’s a lot he enjoys about hanging out with Kurt.  The band - awesome.  Having a friend in New York who doesn’t have an agenda - awesome.   The fact that Kurt seems to love to cook - really awesome.  But that is the third time he has talked with his boyfriend, fiance, whatever… that day.  Elliott can’t help but be a little skeptical.  Like, Kurt is this kind of trail blazing guy with a take charge attitude and a hell of a lot more energy than he has.  And that seems, well, not weirdly out of sync with the fact that he might be in what seems like a codependent relationship.  

Not that he’s judging.  

Is he judging?

Damn, he told himself he wouldn’t judge.

“So… call from the fiance again?” Elliott is, admittedly, a little curious.  As much as Kurt’s been talking to his boyfriend (seriously, who uses the word ‘fiance’ that often?) constantly, he hasn’t really talked about him all that much.  

“Yeah,” Kurt says, in an easy voice.  “Blaine’s going to be valedictorian - I guess there was some fluke with the two actual valedictorians, so they’re making him one and -- none of this makes any sense, but Blaine’s very excited about it.”   They’re sitting in Kurt’s loft, a plate of homemade pastries settled between them, and Kurt dives in, scooping one up, plopping it in his mouth as he talks.  

Elliott takes one onto a napkin.  They’re still warm, and very enticing, but god, Kurt’s going to have to show him whatever exercise routine he keeps doing if they’re going to indulge in this much baked goods.  Still - a delicious, fruit pastry isn’t at the forefront of his mind.  “I’m sorry, I totally understand the need to keep private things private but… can I just ask? You’re really engaged?”

“Oh,” Kurt lets out an easy laugh.  “Yeah, I really am.” He gives a shrug as if it's no big deal.  “I mean, we’re not getting married any time soon.  I have this whole plan -- we’re going to live together through college, maybe get our own apartment as we work on our careers, and then after we’re settled, we’ll have a nice wedding and, I guess, just be us.  But hopefully legally married.”  

Kurt seems content, but Elliott is still not convinced.  He raises an eyebrow.  “Are you even twenty yet?  There’s so much time to figure things out and you already know your life plan?  And you know who you want to spend the rest of your life with? Man...” He’s not trying to sound condescending.  Really, he’s not.  It’s just that young love, as he’s experienced it, just doesn’t work that way.  And maybe he’s just a little jealous that Kurt has his life way more put together than he does.  “I mean, I guess I feel like you don’t even really talk about him.”

“Funny,” Kurt says quietly, looking down into his lap.  “Rachel and Santana say I never shut up about him.”

“Sorry, man, totally not trying to criticize or anything…”

“No, I can see why it seems weird,” Kurt says.  He fondly looks down at his ring and plays with it a little.  “I know people think we’re too young.  I know we are.  Blaine is…” He stops for a moment, collecting his thoughts.  “I have always found it hard to fit into this world.  Blaine makes me feel special for not doing so.”

“That’s sweet,” Elliott says. There’s something about the way Kurt talks about him that warms Elliott’s cold, judgmental heart.    

“I used to have this fantasy,” Kurt continues, “this kind of fairy tale in my head about romance but because I’m gay - I thought, well, that’s never gonna happen.  And then Blaine happened.  And I realized I could have all the romantic fantasies I wanted.  Someone would love me.  Someone could love me.  Fairy tales, as you may know, don’t come true, though.  After I moved out here, we broke up, like most relationships do after high school.  I wanted to move on.  I tried.  But my heart… I didn’t know how not to have him in my life.   So, I stopped trying to fight it.  

“I guess that doesn’t sound like a reason to get married.  It’s not, I know.  And I know exactly what the proposal was.  It was an overcompensation.  It’s Blaine’s way of telling me he’s one-hundred percent committed.  I don’t doubt that.  Every time I look at this ring, every time I think about the proposal… It's the most romantic thing that I think will ever happen to me.  And when I have doubts, and admittedly, I do, I think about that.  

“I’m not ready to be married.  There are a lot of things I want to do in my life, a lot of things I still have to accomplish before I become settled.  And I’m always doing things for me, first and foremost.  I really am.  But maybe this is crazy, I just think they’re more meaningful knowing he’ll be at my side through it.  Because when it comes down to it, I want to wake up every day with him beside me.  And I want him to be the last person I see at night.  He’s the first person I want to tell everything to.  So, I guess this is my over indulgent and trite way of saying, yes - I am twenty, and I know who I want to spend the rest of my day with.”

Elliott sits there, stunned in his seat.  There are friends he’s seen be infatuated with their partners.  There are all the epic romances and big crashes that come from it.  But he doesn’t think he’s ever heard anyone, at least their age, talk so realistically about their relationship, and be so utterly moving and deep at the same time.  He definitely did not expect this.  But Kurt is kind of amazing in the unexpected.  

“I’m sorry - I gave you too much, didn’t I?” Kurt says, looking away.  “Rachel and Santana keep telling me I’m nauseating.”

“No, it’s not that,” Elliott says, with a laugh.  God, now he has even more reasons to be jealous of Kurt Hummel.  “You got to fall in love with your best friend.  And I think that’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah…” Kurt looks down to his lap again.  “It really is.”  

“Okay, so, some ideas I had for the band…”

[shelbywanders]

“Dear pregnant, glowing, happy friend,

Let’s cut to the chase: Yes I did ignore the scan photo, the maternity pictures where I’m sure you’re gently holding your swelling bump & gazing wistfully into the distance (I haven’t looked to be honest) and your invitation to the baby shower. There are no hearts or comments from me on those. I’ve put you on mute.

You have plenty of friends, half of whom are pregnant like you so I hoped you wouldn’t notice, but you clearly have. I hear you’re a bit upset with me over this. I’m honestly not a horrible person, so here’s why you’re suddenly dead to me, and I hope that you can try to understand:

I can’t stand looking at pregnant women at the moment, and unfortunately I can’t make an exception for you. Yes, you’re more than a walking womb – you’re my friend & we’ve got history, so how dare I ignore you just because you got pregnant, right? What kind of evil witch does that?

This cuts both ways though – as my friend you know exactly what I’ve been through trying to get pregnant. You see, I’m currently an infertile woman and you’re a pregnant woman, and absolutely everyone is happy to throw my mental health under a bus to make a fuss of you. Including you. I’m expected to suck it up for you, but it’s the end of the world if I expect the same consideration. That’s just the way it is apparently – I don’t make the rules.

We have all said “Be kind!” but do we mean it?

It doesn’t matter how much we say “be kind!” and “mental health is important!” when you’re a woman that’s not able to make babies. My mental health matters less than a like on a picture of a scan to some people – and definitely less than a party. You can withdraw our friendship because you think that I owe you the appropriate amount of fawning over your baby shower, even though you know I’m in the middle of IVF. Yes, that sounds appalling, I’m not proud of saying that, but as I will continue to mention – this is a mental health issue – it’s not about manners.

It is not your fault that you don’t understand what’s going on with women like me, and I’m not actually mad with you for that. I’m mad with a society that treats infertile women like they’re selfishly making a fuss, if they dare to try and excuse themselves from the carnival of joy that follows a pregnant woman into the office and beyond. That seems to forget about us & then gets annoyed when it’s reminded that we do exist. That can laugh kindly and be understanding about the emotional behaviour of a pregnant woman, but is quick to label us selfish or drama queens or jealous, if we are sensitive about trauma triggers such as pregnancy. It feels like we’re pitted against each other somehow, and it’s so unfair. We have phrases like “hormones” and “baby brain” to ensure that we make space for a pregnant woman’s reactions and emotions, but we don’t have a way to tactfully say to pregnant women “Hey, maybe you should give your friend with fertility struggles some space and not shove that big old pretty bump in her face right now!”

Of course pregnant women are in a vulnerable and unique position, and pregnancy is hard and of course we should all look out for them. I’m just saying – anonymously, because I know how deep this goes in society, that maybe we don’t have to routinely disregard the mental health of infertility sufferers, for the sake of special parties and social niceties? Those things could take place without us. You could graciously excuse us from all of that, if you knew how deep our suffering runs.

Instead we’re expected to fawn over people who (innocently) trigger our deepest feelings of sadness and anger, with a fake smile on our face and a congratulations card – and I’m sick of it. We’re all sick of it, but I’m just especially sick of it at the moment. I don’t deserve it – and you don’t deserve this bitter version of me that exists at the moment. What if I could just say hey – congratulations but I’m just having a hard time with this because I can’t get pregnant myself. You could say “OK, good luck with that. Not going to be offended if you don’t get involved right now, but you’re always welcome in the future!”

What if we could handle infertility vs pregnancy better?

So we don’t currently handle it that well, and I’m going to miss your whole pregnancy, and that’s obviously a big deal, right? I don’t actually want to miss a huge chunk of your life, but here’s the kicker – I have to. For my mental health. Because it’s just as important as your mental health. You, as a woman who hasn’t had fertility issues, and apparently got pregnant just by glancing at your husband’s penis in the shower- have no idea what’s happening to me. You will think – as society tells you to, that I am being bitter and uncaring and mean because it’s just in my nature to be like that. That I’m making it “all about me”, when I actually just want to slink away unnoticed. But why would you know any better if no-one ever tells you this stuff or talks about it? Can we just bloody stop this merry-go-round and get real about it please? I’m not mean or uncaring – I’m just struggling with pregnancy. Including yours.

Give me a pass for heaven’s sake. I couldn’t even cope if my cat got pregnant right now, never mind someone I went shopping at Tammy Girl with. Pregnancy is deeply, horribly triggering when you desperately wanted a baby and tried your hardest, but instead you had a miscarriage, a chemical pregnancy, a failed embryo implant, an ectopic pregnancy, a termination for medical reasons or a stillbirth. Show me a woman with fertility struggles who hasn’t had at least one of those. A scan is the very last thing you want to look at. A baby shower is the last place in the universe you want to be. But I’m not allowed to simply say “Thanks so much for the invite, truly happy for you but can’t deal with pregnancy RN because I’m doing IVF again” in case it impinges for five seconds upon your fairy-tale. I wonder if I’ll be the same if I ever get pregnant. Probably not, knowing what I know now.

Fertility struggles have given me a new perspective

So what is it that I know now? That infertility is traumatic. That IVF is mentally and physically hard, and it doesn’t always work. That it can cause relationship strain and feelings of inadequacy and mental health challenges galore. Financial struggles. Hormonal drugs. Constant stupid comments from people who don’t understand. There’s something else too.

Women with fertility issues have to track everything – periods, ovulations and appointments. They are often acutely aware of how old their own lost and maybe-babies would have been at any given time, as well as the ongoing sense of loss they experience from not being able to have a baby. Nature has a really cruddy way of timing baby showers in the same month as our due-dates that never were. Your baby shower is two weeks after my due date 2 years ago. I should be bringing my nearly 2 year old with me. See, I told you we track everything.

Do you really want me to explain that I’d be bringing the baggage of my lost child with me to this party? Do I owe you that? Or could you, you know, just be understanding that baby showers might just be a little bit hard for someone that’s been trying to get pregnant for longer than you’ve known your husband?

So that’s my confession, and I’m going to passive-aggressively post it on my wall and hope that you read it. I can’t come to you with my truth, because I’d risk “stressing you out” and “making it all about me” if I did. I can’t just suck it up, because my mental health is too fragile for that right now. So here I am as a woman with fertility struggles, asking for a little understanding from my friends. Can we call a truce? Can we be more honest with each other? Can we accept that pregnancy is wonderful for you but hard for others? As a woman trying so hard for a baby, I live in hope.”

https://bestfertility-now.com/letter-to-my-pregnant-friend-your-happiness-and-my-mental-health-are-not-compatible/?fbclid=IwAR2YARsPG6r_GLntyasTkwhf_fVJ_XTfG6YbMX6BEdpa6BGOlh9jR1EaB5g

[persepholline]

I've read that article about the romanticization of the Darkling and while I absolutely understand people who are pissed off/sad and I agree that it's shitty, I find LB's attitude towards Darkles stans very funny in a "girl what are you doing" sort of way because it's so petty like I've never heard of a bestselling author writing a portion of their fans into their books as a crazy cult before, it clearly hit a nerve

I'm new to the fandom but the feeling I get is she wrote something problematic ten years ago and became very embarrassed about it afterwards so she turned on the fans that liked it as a way to absolve herself. Especially since fandoms in general have become a lot more focused on discussion of what constitutes healthy/acceptable relationships to write about. And in a way I get it I had a huge Twilight phase in high school and afterwards I was super embarassed about it because of how problematic and cringe it was. But now with distance and more maturity I'm able to both still see why it was problematic and also why I was drawn to it (mostly the very unhinged representation of female desire) and like...it's really not the end of the world and no it never made me believe that breaking into somebody's room at night to watch them sleep was actually ok in real life lmao. This feels so obvious to me but apparently it needs to be said.

(More under the break this is turning into an essay, I've been thinking of this a lot recently)

And of course it's good to have these discussions about how historically romance tropes have echoed social dynamics of men's shitty behavior being romanticized and excused. But these days they often are so simplistic and focused on chasing clout that they become this weird new puritanism and moral panic about oh now women are reading novels it's going to make them hysterical or something

So you have these weird assumptions that you can't like a character and also be critical of their actions, or enjoy certain parts of a character and not others, or wish they were written differently and like them more for their potential (which I'm sure stings a bit for an author lol) - it assumes that if you like a character it means you would approve of their actions in real life, or that people just stupidly reproduce whatever they see on TV. That tendency to treat fictional characters like real people is the thing that actually worries me, to be honest, because it indicates a lack of distance and critical capacities regarding how stories are used and received. But people - fans and authors - are so scared of being called out as problematic and harassed for it that they're going to shy away from any nuance.

And yeah I think that it's good that standards of what constitutes an ideal relationship are evolving and becoming more feminist and communicative and all that and we definitely need more of that. But not all fiction has to be aspirational! Sometimes you just want to read about fucked up shit, because it's cathartic or fascinating, even healing at times because with fiction you are absolutely in control and can choose when to close the book. Toxic relationships in fiction can have an appeal specifically because they go to extremes of feeling that we don't want to go to in reality, in exactly the same way as horror movies or very violent action movies - which I don't see a lot of people besides fundamentalist Christians argue that they turn you into violent psychopaths (and that feels very obviously sexist). And for women, who are often taught growing up that love is the purpose of life, the "saving someone with your ability to love" can be a power fantasy in the same way that being a buff superhero who saves the day with their capacity for incredible violence can be a power fantasy for men. Still doesn't mean those women are going to fall in love with actual murderers or that those men are going to start beating up people at night. And love is scary, and weird, and weirdly close to horror at times, with all the potential for loss of self and being vulnerable and overwhelming feelings and potential for being horribly hurt and it should be possible for stories to explore that without anybody screaming about how this is going to Corrupt the Youth or something

And I mean I get it LB wanted to write a cautionary tale for teenagers, but it just did not work for reasons a lot of people have already written about - the fact that the Darkling is the leader of an oppressed minority and is the only one with a real political agenda to end that oppression in the first trilogy, the fact that he helps Alina come into her own power while her endgame LI is someone she keeps herself small for, that she's shamed for wanting power after growing up without any, a generally very wonky conception of privilege, and a lot of other stuff with yucky regressive implications to the point where stanning the villain actually feels liberating and empowering which is a surefire sign that the narrative is broken (unless it's a villain focused story lmao). But of course that Fanside article makes almost no mention of the political dynamics, it's all about interpersonal stuff which is an annoying trend in YA, there are those massive events happening in the background but it's made all about the feelings of the hero(ine) ; war as a self-development quest (which is kind of gross). Helnik is kind of an example of this too - I like them, I think they're fun ! But Matthias spends a big part of the story wanting to brutally murder Nina and her kind, and he mostly changes his mind because he finds her hot. Like you don't feel there is some sort of big revelation that his entire moral system and political framework is completely rotten ; it's all better because of feelings now.

As a teenager that kind of sanctimonious bullshit would have annoyed the hell out of me ; I read those books in my early twenties and I found the ending so stupid I wouldn't have trusted any message or life lessons coming from them. And I liked reading/watching dark stuff as a teenager, as a way to deal with the very intense inner turmoil I was dealing with - and I turned out fine ! Meanwhile I've seen several times women in very shitty relationships being obsessed with positive energies and stories ; they were so terrified of their life not being perfectly wholesome they ended up being delusional about their own situations.

Like personally I think the Darkling is a compelling, interesting, alluring character and also a manipulative, murderous piece of shit and that Alina should get to punish him (like in a sexy way) - but he's also the end result of centuries of war, oppression and trauma and reducing that to "toxic wounded boy" feels kind of offensive ngl ESPECIALLY since the books don't offer any kind of systemic analysis or response to oppression beyond "the bad guy should die" and "now the king/queen is a good guy our problems are solved!!!!"

In Lives of the Saints, we see how Yuri is abused extremely badly and almost killed by his father, and so when his father dies when the Fold swallows Novokribirsk, he thinks the Starless Saint has saved him. Later in KoS/RoW he's turned into this fanatic who explains away all the Darkling's crimes. The other followers talk about how the Starless Saint will bring equality for all men. Then the Darkling comes back and actually thinks his followers are pathetic, which feels again like a very pointed message to his IRL stans. Which is absolutely hilarious to me. Like oh no, if he was real he would not like you and think you're pathetic ! Yeah ...but he's not. Real. Damn right he would not like the fics where Alina puts him on a leash. I'm still going to read them. What is he going to do about it, jump out of the page ? Jfjfjjdhfgfjfj

Anyway I think the intended message is "assholes will use noble political causes for their own gain and to manipulate people" and "being abused/oppressed is not an excuse to behave badly." Which. Sure. But that's kind of like...a tired take, honestly ? A big number of villains nowadays are like this ; either they've been bullied as kids, or they're part of an oppressed group, or they have "good ideals but too extreme". This is not surprising because a lot of mainstream heroic narratives present clinging to the status quo as Good and change as chaotic and dangerous. And like sure in real life people often do bad shit because they're wounded and in danger. But if you want to do a story like that, you have to do it with nuance, talk about cycles of violence, about how society creates vulnerable people to be exploited, about how privilege gives you more choices and the luxury of morals, etc. The Grishaverse does not have this level of nuance (maybe in SoC a little bit but definitely not in TGT). So it kind of comes off as "trauma makes you evil" and "egalitarianism is dangerous" and "if you're abused/oppressed you're not allowed to fight back". And ignores the fact that historically, evil generally comes from unchecked privilege.

I guess my point is that there are many things I like about LB's writing, she knows how to create these really exciting character dynamics, and the world she has created is fascinating. But these stories are not a great starting point for imparting moral lessons. And her best characters tend to be, at least in canon, the morally grey ones. I hope one day she'll be at peace with the fact that she wrote the Darkling the way she did and leave his fans alone but in the meantime I'm just not going to take this whole thing seriously I'm sorry

[vivithefolle]

I just wanna ask, and don’t get mad at me cause I’m genuinely curious, how do you stan Ron? Like, I like him, but he is definitely misogynistic (slut shaming Ginny, treating hermione like she owes him something and being mad that she kissed someone years before, always objectifying Fleur, and acting like girls who aren’t pretty aren’t worth much). Like, by DH I feel like he definitely has mostly grown out of it, but still 6/7 books he’s kinda unbearable IMO

how do you stan Ron? 

Like this:

OH MY GOD HAVE YOU SEEN. HAVE YOU SEEN HIM DID YOU SEE MY BABY OH MY GOD. WHEN HARRY’S ARM HAD GONE KABLOOIE BECAUSE OF LOCKHART AND HE. RON. HE WAS. HELPING HIM GET DRESSED???? OH MY GOD BABY???? HHHHNNNNGGGG. AND. AND. AND ALSO WHEN HE. OMG. WHEN HE WAS PUTTING FOOD ON HIS FRIENDS’ PLATES LIKE. MOM FRIEND ALERT MOM FRIEND ALERT MOM FRIEND ALERT. AND THE WAY HE’S ALWAYS BLUSHING AND BEING EMBARRASSED AT THE SLIGHTEST PRAISE BUT ALSO HE’S SO DESPERATELY SEEKING IT BUT HE KNOWS HE CAN’T TAKE IT AND EEK EEK EEK THAT’S SO CUTE SOMEONE HOLD ME IT’S ADORABLE RONALD WEASLEY YOU ARE SO GOING TO BE THE DEATH OF ME IT’S ILLEGAL TO BE THIS CUTE!!!!

Ok and then.

he is definitely misogynistic 

No. And here’s why.

slut shaming Ginny 

Yes, that was wrong. And guess what, that’s also something he probably - scratch that, definitely - picked up from his mother. And also his brothers, recall how Fred and George too don’t like to see Ginny go around with boys. There’s also something to recall: Ron was there when Ginny was taken into the Chamber of Secrets and learned later that it was because she had trusted an older guy. You seriously wouldn’t be paranoid about who your sister dates after that? It was wrong. Yeah. And he more than learned his lesson when Ginny clapped back by virgin-shaming him and basically told him that he was childish because he hadn’t have a relationship yet. So would that make Ginny sexist too? Or is it just for Ron?

treating hermione like she owes him something 

..................... uuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh... when? When the fuck did anything like that happen?

He made a prat of himself at the Yule Ball, that much is obvious. But he didn’t tell her anything like “you should be with me” or didn’t insinuate anything of the sort. He was a jealous bitch but kept attacking Krum, not Hermione.

If you mean in sixth year when he treated her with “icy, sneering indifference” for the course of two weeks, yeah that was bad but that’s not “treating her like she owes him something”, the fuck?

being mad that she kissed someone years before 

Yeah. I know. And that was bad, ooooh you got me to admit Ron did bad stuff, that’s what you want to see, right? And I reckon he was also mad that she hid it from him, and that he had to learn it from his sister of all people. We see Ron handles what he considers betrayals terribly. I have some meta discussing the possibility that he has a form of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria.

always objectifying Fleur 

Um... no, he doesn’t. He makes a stupid comment about her once in GOF then stops. Let’s also fucking remember that Fleur is a Veela, she literally makes guys stare at her as part of her powers!! I’m not blaming her because she’s literally born that way, but you can’t blame someone who is under magical compulsion either.

acting like girls who aren’t pretty aren’t worth much 

So tell me why he was friends with Hermione then?

Because Hermione wasn’t Emma Watson the super hawt sexy model goddess. Hermione was Mrs Generic. Until this once at the Yule Ball when she got the pretty princess perfect Mary Sue makeover but then stopped because she had to remain ~relatable uwu~.

Again. Ron made stupid sexist comments. But it’s actively shown that he doesn’t follow up on them. If he did indeed live by the motto “girls who aren’t pretty aren’t worth much”, explain to me why he wasn’t simping and drooling all over Padma Patil who is explicitly stated to be one of the prettiest girls at school when she was his date? Why exactly did he ignore her and was a miserable twat the whole evening instead of basking in the joy of having snagging a girl that was “worth it”? Well surprise, it’s because HE ACTUALLY ISN’T LIKE THAT AND WHAT HE SAYS IS MAYBE SHIT HIS “COOL OLDER BROTHERS” SAY AND HE THINKS THAT BY EXTENSION IT WOULD MAKE HIM COOL TO REPEAT IT. MIMETISM, THAT'S BASIC FUCKING HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY FOR FUCKING TODDLERS MY FUCKING GOD.

Like, by DH I feel like he definitely has mostly grown out of it, 

............

...................................

...............................................................

so. so why. so why wouldn’t you. use that. as a reason. to stan him.

like.

fuck all the “hurr durr ron weasley the boy who made it out of the friendzone!!!!” bullshit, let’s start going with “Ron Weasley, the Boy who became a Man, and not one of those 'uugghh im such an alpha male’ ones but one that’s got the balls to say ‘hey love, I’ve got an idea, what if you kept doing that job you love and feel passionate about while I support you and do the majority of the childcare while also working a smaller job on the side so we’re never short on money’“

Why you people gotta be “yeah I like Ron BUTT” when you know full-well this fucking awful fandom will rake him over hot coals over the slightest mistake he does - worse, will actively go out of their way to interpret his positive moments in the most negative way possible??? Fuck off with that bullshit. Ron dared to say bad stuff omygah big deal, he was forgiven for it all and you’re just all cowards looking to feel “pure” by telling yourself “oh yeah but he was problematic once uwu”. FUCK. THAT. NOISE.

but still 6/7 books he’s kinda unbearable IMO 

And IMO he’s not, funny how that works

So.

I guess it’s impossible to stan Ron because he was problematic uwu.

Ok.

Then I hereby decree that it’s impossible to stan Hermione Granger because:

“I’ll bet you wish you hadn’t given up Divination now, don’t you, Hermione?” asked Parvati, smirking. [...] “Not  really,”  said  Hermione  indifferently,  who  was  reading  the  Daily Prophet. “I’ve never really liked horses.” She turned a page of the newspaper, scanning its columns. “He’s not a horse, he’s a centaur!” said Lavender, sounding shocked. “A gorgeous centaur . . .” sighed Parvati. “Either  way,  he’s  still  got  four  legs,”  said  Hermione  coolly.  “Any-way, I thought you two were all upset that Trelawney had gone?” - Order of the Phoenix, ch 27

wow casual use of a racial slur yay!!! A+

And it’s also forbidden to stan Harry Potter either since:

It was raining hard now, and she was nowhere to be seen. He simply did not understand what had happened; half an hour ago they had been getting along fine. “Women!”  he  muttered  angrily,  sloshing  down  the  rain-washed  street with his hands in his pockets. “What did she want to talk about Cedric  for  anyway?  Why  does  she  always want to drag up a subject that makes her act like a human hosepipe?” - Order of the Phoenix, ch 25

and

“Harry! There you are, thank goodness! Hi, Luna!”  “What’s  happened  to  you?”  asked  Harry,  for  Hermione  looked  distinctly  disheveled,  rather  as  though she had just fought her way out of a thicket of Devil’s Snare.  “Oh,  I’ve  just  escaped  —  I  mean,  I’ve  just  left  Cormac,”  she  said.  “Under  the  mistletoe,”  she  added in explanation, as Harry continued to look questioningly at her.  “Serves you right for coming with him,” he told her severely.  “I thought he’d annoy Ron most,” said Hermione dispassionately. “I debated for a while about Zacharias Smith, but I thought, on the whole —”  “You considered Smith?” said Harry, revoked. - Half-Blood Prince

Victim-blaming! Nice Harry, nice. Always classy.

Ok, Ginny stanning is already cancelled because she virgin-shamed Ron, right, so who’s left, who’s left... ah yeah:

“There you go,” said Fred proudly. “Best range of love potions you’ll find anywhere.” - Half-Blood Prince

Selling date rape drugs proudly ouh là là. Bye Fred.

"Do they work?” she asked.  “Certainly they work, for up to twenty-four hours at a time depending on the weight of the boy in question...”  “...and the attractiveness of the girl,” said George, reappearing suddenly at their side. “But we’re not  selling  them  to  our  sister,”  he  added,  becoming  suddenly  stern,  “not  when  she’s  already  got  about five boys on the go from what we’ve...”  “Whatever you’ve heard from Ron is a big fat lie,” said Ginny calmly, leaning forward to take a small pink pot off the shelf.

Assuming that only girls use love potions, and only on boys. Men never rape in JKR’s world, only women do, you heard it from George Weasley here folks, I’m just passing on the message. Ah and I hope you’re also starting the Fred And George Hate Club given how he’s also slut-shaming Ginny.

“What’s this?”  “Guaranteed  ten-second  pimple  vanisher,”  said  Fred.  “Excellent  on  everything  from  boils  to  blackheads,  but  don’t  change  the  subject.  Are  you  or  are  you  not  currently  going  out  with  a  boy  called Dean Thomas?” “Yes, I am,” said Ginny. “And last time I looked, he was definitely one boy, not five. What are those?”  She  was  pointing  at  a  number  of  round  balls  of  fluff  in  shades  of  pink  and  purple,  all  rolling  around the bottom of a cage and emitting high-pitched squeaks.  “Pygmy  Puffs,”  said  George.  “Miniature  puffskeins,  we  can’t  breed  them  fast  enough.  So  what  about Michael Corner?”  “I  dumped  him,  he  was  a  bad  loser,”  said  Ginny,  putting  a  finger  through  the  bars  of  the  cage  and watching the Pygmy Puffs crowd around it. “They’re really cute!”  “They’re  fairly  cuddly,  yes,”  conceded  Fred.  “But  you’re  moving  through  boyfriends  a  bit  fast,  aren’t you?”  Ginny turned to look at him, her hands on her hips. There was such a Mrs. Weasley-ish glare on her face that Harry was surprised Fred didn’t recoil.  “It’s none of your business. And I’ll thank you” she added angrily to Ron, who had just appeared at George’s elbow, laden with merchandise, “not to tell tales about me to these two!”

Ah, good on you for defending yourself, Ginny, but remember, Ginny stanning is prohibited because she’s been problematic in the past and is gonna be problematic in the future and that’s baaaaaaad. Careful kids, don’t get ideas. It’s problematic to like people who’ve done problematic things.

So I guess nobody can like anything or anyone now. Sorry guys. Liking things is evil, what if the thing you liked had, OR USED TO HAVE, *gasp* flaws, can’t take that risk, ohmygah.

[ialwayscomewhenyoucall]

Every Drop of Grace

Endverse destiel

Rating: on the border between M and E (I’m over cautious, probably most people would say M)

About 3k

“Do you ever wish we could have something...normal?” Dean’s voice falls into the quiet night, a stone falling into a once-still pond.

Cas can’t hold back his snort. “Dean. You grew up hunting monsters. I’m a fallen angel. There was never going to be anything ‘normal’ about either of us.” Dean huffs in response, burying his face deeper into the hollow of Cas’s neck. “It also doesn’t help that our relationship–if that’s what you want to call it–began after the end of the world.”

“The world didn’t end,” Dean protests weakly. “It’s still here. It’s just…”

“Right,” Cas says, giving in to the urge to roll his eyes–it helps that Dean is behind him and can’t actually see his eyes. “The world is still here. We even have this tiny bit that’s almost safe.”

Dean doesn’t argue, though Cas can feel how much he wants to. Cas idly wonders if Dean ever argued a monster to death, but he doesn’t voice the thought. He doesn’t want Dean to leave. He smirks into the darkness, though. He can absolutely imagine a cocky, 13 year old version of Dean facing down a werewolf. “You’re doing it wrong!” shouts the smaller, higher-voiced Dean. “You need to lull me into complacency, then strike. No wonder you’ve been caught by a kid.

Cas chuckles softly at the made up–but completely plausible–memory. At Dean’s questioning hum, Cas skips his imaginings and brings the conversation back to where they started. “Considering the chaos all around us, I’d say what we have is amazing, Dean.” Having you at all is amazing, he does not say.

Dean smiles against Cas’s skin.

There is much Cas misses about being an angel–healing, flying, super-strength, not being so damned fragile–but on the opposite side, there are so many things that make the Fall worthwhile. He’d touched Dean when he was still an angel, and it had been nice enough. Better than nice even; there’d been something special about touching Dean from the first time he’d held the hunter’s broken soul in hell. But in this his human senses are far superior. The touch of Dean’s lips on the soft skin between Cas’s shoulder blades makes his heart race, his breathing quicken. Dean laughs, not more than a soft breath, and Cas’s stomach flips at the heat across his skin. He’s getting hard, just from a few small sensations.

Yes, the Fall was worthwhile. Even if they’re doomed, he wouldn’t trade this for all the Grace ever created.

Dean goes on, most likely unaware of Cas’s growing arousal. Cas focuses on Dean’s voice and on keeping his own breathing as even as possible, and soon he’s nearly as lost in Dean’s memories as Dean himself.

“I always tried to find fun stuff for Sammy, growing up.” Dean’s voice catches a little on his brother’s name, but he pushes through. “Most of the things I did pissed Dad off, but I didn’t let him stop me. The kid had to have something good in his horror of a childhood. Little things: a bag of marshmallows to roast over a campfire, a Monopoly game we could play in motel rooms, a baseball cap I knew he wanted. I found a pair of roller skates in his size once; I think he was about eleven. Man, that was a mess. Dumb kid took off like he knew just what he was doing and two yards later fell flat on his face. Dad put four stitches over his left eye and lectured him the whole time about what if that rock hit your eye instead of your forehead, blah blah blah. Sammy took it like a champ, didn’t flinch once, and as soon as Dad was gone Sammy put the skates right back on and took off again. And that time he didn’t fall. Well, he did, but not right away, and not so he needed stitches.”

Cas can tell Dean is working up to something, even if it all just seems like rambling. Dean is a roadmap, and sometimes Cas can follow. “A few months before I turned 16 I stole Dad’s car for a couple hours and took Sammy to a drive-in. You ever…?” Dean answers his own question before Cas has the chance to even shake his head. “Nah, you weren’t much of a movie-goer back in your halo days. At a drive-in you sit in your car to watch a movie–outside, at night. You park by a little speaker that pipes the sound right to you, and the screen is gigantic, big as...well, I don’t even know, it’s been too long, but trust me, it’s big. You look out the front of the car and all you see is the movie. You’ve got the sound filling up the car and the movie filling up your eyes and it’s like you and whoever you’re sitting with are in your own little world, whatever make-believe world the actors and all the rest made for you to live in. For a few hours, anyway.”

Dean’s voice is rough, almost raw. “That’s what we have, Cas. A few hours in a bubble full of make-believe, until the bubble pops and it’s the end of the world again.”

Cas wants to scream, to deny every word, to tell Dean it isn’t make-believe, it isn’t, and he wants to spend every minute from now until they fall to dust proving it, but instead he hears his traitorous mouth whisper, “I know.”

“It’s okay,” Dean says, and Cas isn’t sure which of them Dean is trying to comfort. “It’s okay. The pretending, the bubble–it’s enough.”

It isn’t. Cas wants it all, wants every bit of Dean. His smiles and his glares, his laughs and his curses, his happy chatter and his incoherent tears. He wants to be fucked into the mattress and then hold Dean in his arms until the sun comes up, to have Dean stay all night instead of slinking away in the darkness.

It isn’t enough. The coffee’s been gone for awhile, but he wants to make Dean tea in the mornings, good strong tea to bring a little of the sparkle back to his green eyes. He wants to go with him on foraging runs, venturing out of their little corner of the world to find supplies to last them just a little bit longer. He wants to have Dean’s back, to protect him, to keep him safe. He doesn’t have his mojo anymore, but he still has his blade, and he’s had millenia of practice to hone his skills.

Cas doesn’t want only darkness, grasping and clutching at each other when the rest of the world sleeps. He wants to give Dean every kind of pleasure, and maybe a little bit of peace. As a fallen angel, Cas doesn’t think he gets to go to heaven, but he doesn’t mind. He has here, he has now.

So this little bubble of half-truths and fairy tales…

It’s not enough.

Cas’s eyes begin to sting. “Fuck.” The word is mostly air, barely a sound at all, but of course Dean hears. Because Dean can see through Cas’s pretences too. That’s how these things work.

“Cas?”

“It’s nothing,” Cas says, but Dean sees through that too, maneuvering them both so they’re face to face on the narrow bed. Cas closes his eyes, willing the tears to stop before they can properly begin. He hates to cry, hates to have his feelings fly so far out of his control that they stream down his face in the form of wet, salty tears.

“It’s nothing,” he says again, when he trusts that his voice won’t give him away. Then, grasping at the first thought that passes through his head, he says, “I just don’t like when the bubble pops.”

The lines around Dean’s eyes soften. He presses a kiss to Cas’s forehead and says, “We’ve still got a few hours. I’m not going anywhere.” His yet is unspoken but Cas hears it anyway.

Dean’s got one hand holding the side of Cas’s face, fingers threaded into his hair, the other resting lightly on his hip. Their legs are tangled together, and when Dean moves in to kiss Cas again their hips move together and Cas can’t take it anymore. There is so much skin, it feels like skin for miles, but also like he can feel every individual cell, every molecule of Dean’s breath, every miniscule drop of sweat…

“Dean,” Cas groans, because it’s too much, his brain is going to overload. It doesn’t matter that they had sex not long ago–Cas needs more, needs to be closer. “Dean.” It’s almost a prayer. “Please.”

And Dean is there, even before he calls, pushing him onto his back. Dean kisses Cas, hungry, and Cas is happy–eager–to be devoured. He’s got his arms wrapped around Dean, clawing at his back, trying to pull them closer together. There’s a part of his brain screaming that Dean thinks this is all pretend, so maybe if Cas can get them close enough together, if he can somehow press the truth into Dean’s skin, then maybe Dean will understand.

But then Dean thrusts his cock (hard, so hard, and all for him) against Cas’s, and he stops thinking and just feels.

Cas throws his head back and Dean nips at his throat; Cas hisses and claws at Dean’s back again. There’s a growl coming from deep in Dean’s chest, but Cas can feel the smile against his skin. They both like the small shocks of pain–reminders of life.

Holding himself up on one forearm, Dean reaches between them, wrapping his strong, calloused fingers around both their cocks. A moan escapes Cas’s lips, and Dean chuckles softly. “Do you remember the first time we did this?” He’s looking deep into Cas’s eyes, and not for the first time Cas suspects he sees a bit of faerie in the emerald depths; enchanting, beautiful, tricksome, and dangerous. He knows there’s nothing to the thought; he knit Dean back together molecule by molecule, saw every strand of his DNA.

Dean twists his hand in a particularly skillful way and Cas is pulled back to the present. Their first time. Yes, Cas remembers. How could he forget?

“Summer sun,” Cas manages, in between gasping breaths. “Your freckles…”

“My freckles?” Dean laughs. “That’s what you remember?”

“I might be only human now, Dean Winchester, but I remember–” He gasps as Dean’s palm brushes against a particularly sensitive spot– “I remember every second of that afternoon with perfect–” Another shuddering gasp– “Perfect clarity.”

Dean’s hand stutters to a stop, and when Cas sees the look in Dean’s eyes something in his stomach twists. Don’t be too real don’t be too real shouts a voice inside his head, clearly battling with the part of him that wants Dean to know everything.

I’m a mess, he thinks.

To Dean he says in a low, broken voice, “I was leaning against the trunk of a tree, looking up at the sun shining through the leaves. It occurred to me that I’d never spent any time looking at trees, or leaves, or much of anything at all while I was an angel. I did what I was told. Didn’t even take time to look around and enjoy the view.”

Dean’s hand starts to move again. For a moment Cas’s eyelids flutter closed, his eyes rolling upwards in pure pleasure, but then he continues, concentrating on speaking slowly and carefully and without breaking. He almost succeeds.

“I hadn’t been human long. A month? Five weeks? Not long enough to get used to human senses. So when you walked up and the sun shone down on your face, your freckles standing out against your pale skin… And then you put your hand–” The memory of Dean’s hand reaching out is too much and he has to stop to breathe, to gain control, because he doesn’t want to come yet. The story isn’t over. “You put your hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Hey Cas.’”

That had been it. Just a touch, some freckles, and his name on Dean’s lips.

“There was something in your eyes,” Dean says, taking over the narrative. “I hadn’t meant to kiss you. But you looked...kissable. Blue eyes wide and��” He gives his head a quick shake. “I don’t know what it was. But as soon as our lips touched I knew it was the right thing to do. Knew I shouldn’t have waited so long to do it.” At this Cas raises his head up just enough to slot their lips together. It’s an electric current, sharp and warm, just like it always is.

It’s home.

“And then you pushed me up against my cabin wall.”

They’re both breathing heavy now, each of them close to their release but trying to hold on.

“It was the closest wall I could find,” Dean says, a little defensive, a little embarrassed. “And it was a little more hidden than the tree we started out against.”

If Cas had the breath to spare he’d laugh. He lets out a puff of air instead, and Dean’s eyes light up in response. “Yeah,” Cas says, teasing. “Sun shining down on us, completely visible from three sides, only blocked by the cabin. Couldn’t be bothered to–”

Dean stops him with a kiss. Cas doesn’t mind. Cas’s mind is full of lips and skin and hands and sparks and pleasure that is building and building and threatening to heave him overboard–

Cas is on the edge, barely hanging on, when Dean stops.

The stillness is both total and false. Neither of them moves, almost as if they are frozen in time, and there is no breath of wind coming through the open window, no branches scratching at the roof. But there are two hearts pounding, two men gasping for breath, and the whispers of a thousand words not being said.

Cas refuses to be the first one to speak. He knows if he opens his mouth, he’ll never stop.

It feels like an eternity has passed–though it’s probably only been ten or fifteen seconds, Cas’s sense of time has been skewed since his Fall–when Dean breaks the silence.

“What do you want, Cas?”

“Everything.”

Cas tells the truth, the real truth, before he can think, and for a moment he wishes he could somehow call the word back, erase it from history, go back to their bubble of make-believe. Dean would probably let him brush it off. He could call it sex induced lunacy. It’s probably even true.

But no. No. He’s fucking tired of pretend, of half-truths, of bedtime stories. This isn’t enough. He means it, he wants everything.

Dean is looking into his eyes, searching for something. Cas can’t read his expression, he’s guarding his thoughts too closely.

It hurts, having Dean hide from him. They’re naked and in each other’s arms, and Dean’s…

Well, really they’re both hiding. They’ve been hiding from the beginning.

Shit.

There’s a burning behind Cas’s eyes again, but this time he can’t blink the tears away. When the first tear rolls down Cas’s face Dean pulls back, a fraction of an inch, in surprise. His thumb wipes away the tear.

“Cas?”

“It’s not enough,” Cas says. “I can’t do this anymore, Dean. I meant what I said, I want everything. All of it. I want to spend the night with you and wake up with you in the morning. I want to kiss you in the daytime, with the sun on your freckles. Are you ashamed of me? The camp screwup, the broken angel? Because people talk, Dean. Everyone knows you come here, and they know what we do, and they don’t care. The world is falling apart. There are bigger things to worry about. There are bigger things for us, too, but right now all that matters is I can’t hide anymore. I love you, Dean. I think...no. I know I always have. And I don’t want to waste another second hiding in the dark.”

And Dean just looks at him. Once upon a time Cas put Dean together, molecule by molecule. Saw every bit of him. That’s how Cas feels now. Examined. Seen.

Known.

It should be horrifying, but it’s Dean, so Cas just looks back, waiting. He doesn’t even wipe away the tears that keep falling despite his best efforts to blink the damned things back.

The silence goes on so long Cas is sure Dean is going to get up and walk away. It’s okay, he tells himself. I want more, I want everything, but to love...that will never end. It will hurt, but I’ll still love him. No matter–

And then Dean is kissing him. It’s not heated, or frantic; it’s a soft, gentle kiss and makes Cas feel wrapped in love. They both smile, their foreheads pressed together. “Wish you’d said something sooner, Cas.”

“Didn’t want to push you away.”

Dean pulls back a little. “That’s...well, yeah, that’s…”

Smile widening, Cas says, “We’ll work it out.”

In what Cas supposes is an answer, Dean kisses him. A bit more playful this time, he even bites at Cas’s lower lip. Cas can’t hold back his moan. The feel of teeth rasping against his skin…it’s almost too much.

And then Dean’s hand starts moving again, tugging and twisting at their dicks. Cas is almost startled, he’d been so caught up in his confession of– but now isn’t the time, he’s groaning into Dean’s mouth and he thinks there might be words but his brain isn’t quite connected to the rest of his body at the moment. All he knows is good and Dean and so much love and skin and when Dean murmurs Cas’s name it’s too much for him and he spills his seed between them. Dean chases after, a punched out sound falling from his lips.

They lie together, still, their come sticky and drying between them. Somewhere far off in the camp a door clatters shut.

“I wish–” Dean starts.

“I know,” Cas interrupts. But it’s not the time to dwell on what might have been.

Dean shifts them into a more comfortable position. “Okay.”

“We should–”

“No.” This time it’s Dean interrupting. “Not yet. We can clean up in a few minutes. Right now I just want to hold you.”

Tucking his face against Dean’s chest, Cas murmurs, “I can’t say no to that.”

Dean somehow pulls Cas closer, and Cas’s skin sings. Worth every feather, he thinks. Every drop of Grace.

**

For @bend-me-shape-me ‘s Dean/Cas summer prompts!

Week 2 (drive-in cinema) and week 3 (I can still recall our last summer)

I hit week 3 kinda sideways…but it works!

[dangermousie]

2020 End of Year Post - cdrama edition

This is only going to cover cdramas that aired in 2020; if I had to make a post about all the cdramas I watched this year, I would still be doing it in three months...

Overall it’s been a fairly decent cdrama year (certainly better than the very lacklustre kdrama year.) It’s no miracle that 2019 was (so many excellent dramas!) but overall pretty solid.

DRAMAS WATCHED

(In order of liking from least to most as opposed to pure quality; I am including if I’ve seen enough to make up my mind; yes I realize that’s inaccurate, but that’s my list)

44 The Legend of Jing Yan - the worst cdrama I have seen this year, and possibly the worst drama of 2020, period. The hero and heroine were both uncharismatic, incapable of acting and saddled with such shrilly moronic characters, the only suspense was how they haven’t both perished long since from forgetting to breathe. Nor was anyone in the rest of the cast much better; the screenplay was written by a lower mammal and the cinematography was the best a third-rate wedding cinematographer could offer. Stay the HELL away from this one.

43 Unicorn Girl - the only unicorn about this bland yet irritating piece of pap was the fact that I was supposed to believe the leads are hockey players.

42 Autumn Cicada - I like spy stories, Allen Ren, and Republican Era settings. I can tune out Communist propaganda with the best of them. Yet, the propaganda ate the story to such a degree that there was nothing left; pre magic change Pinocchio was less wooden then this narrative.

41 You Complete Me - no you do not.

40 Skate into Love - the only positive thing I can say about this is that at least it’s better than Unicorn Girl, if for no other reason that only one of them is supposed to be a hockey player.

39 Irreplaceable Love - how do you make a story about fake siblings with a mad mother falling for each other boring? I don’t know, ask the makers of this.

38 Eternal Love Rain - I hate to rain on their parade, but these two actors cannot act, have about as much chemistry as a piece of bread, and are trapped in a story perfect for entertaining the mental abilities of the leads of Jin Yan.

37 For Married Doctoress - ummmm, you could do worse I guess. It only made me break out in mild hives. The sadistic ending did make me laugh though.

36 Dance of the Sky Empire - why you get Xu Kai and waste him in this insipid mess of a story is beyond me.

35 Love Designer - it’s inoffensive except to my sense of entertainment. There is nothing wrong with it but oh God is it bland.

34 Love a Lifetime - It felt like a lifetime watching this, but I didn’t love it. The story is incoherent, the actors have no chemistry and it’s all an epic waste of time.

33 Love is Sweet - so sweet it gave me diabetes. I like Luo Yunxi and Bai Lu, but there is literally no plot. I don’t need to sink into a plotless morass to watch pretty people engage in PG-rated make-outs. I am an adult with access to stronger stuff if I am thus inclined, though to be fair they could get x-rated and I still wouldn’t be able to sit through so many episodes of plotlessness for that.

32 Fake Princess - I love Zhao Yi Qin, but the guy needs to pick better projects. The female lead in this one has the voice and personality that can strip paint but the story is also doing nobody any favors.

31 The Changan Youth - I lost my brain checking this out. I had to go and read a dense treatise on medieval coinage or Mayan farming to try to recover it.

30 My Dear Destiny - kinda cheesy fun. It honestly shouldn’t be as low except it really feels like community theater.

29 Handsome Siblings - why is the Nic Tse version so good and this one so bad? True mystery for the ages. Chen Zhe Yuan is the sole reason this isn’t lower, because that kid tries SO HARD to make this drama bearable and almost succeeds. I can’t wait to see him in Sha Po Lang which actually will give him something to do.

28 In a Class of Her Own - see my comment on The Changan Youth. But at least Song Weilong is gorgeous to look at.

27 General’s Lady - inoffensive, pretty and so utterly pointless.

26 The Blooms at Ruyi Pavilion - those two leading actors are a no go to me but at least they considerately acted with each other instead of ruining two dramas for me. It’s very pretty though.

25 Jiu Liu Overlord - it’s a mess and I bailed, but I placed it this high merely due to the fact that Lai Yi finally gets a leading role and he’s sexy as fuck and I am shallow. Whoever styled Bai Lu should never work again except at a circus, however.

24 Cross Fire - not my genre and Luhan will always look too much like my cousin for comfort, but it’s a surprisingly gripping and dark drama. I liked it!

23 God of Lost Fantasy - if you want to watch a mediocre wuxia/xianxia, this is not a bad choice. Probably better than Legend of Fei actually, because at least it doesn’t have an A-list cast to waste and gives us Sheng Yilun himbo and shirtless.

22 Renascence - the insane cuts (it went from 70 eps to 36!!!) made a fairly cheesy story into a total mess. But I had a good time until I finally bailed mainly because of the male lead (Chen Zhe Yuan yet again carrying a not-good 2020 drama on his shoulders; the guy should be nicknamed Atlas) and the insane but in a fun way story. The female lead (both the character and the actress) were not up to par but oh well.

21 Legend of Fei - only this high because objectively there is nothing I disliked it. But there is nothing I liked either. The most uninspired drama on the list. If you could eat cardboard, this is what it would taste like.

20 Ever Night 2 - compared to EN1, it’s a waste of film. On its own merits, it’s not very good (the cast replacements are uniformly inferior and Dylan Wang is so wrong for Ning Que I cannot even put it into words; the script is useless.) But it had some parts I loved so very VERY much (all the shippy stuff was perfection) so I don’t feel too bitter.

19 Castle in the Sky 2 - a lovely if not too complex fairy tale. It is inferior to its prequel because it doesn’t have Zhang Ruo Yun who elevated it, but it’s still a solid bit of fun.

18 The Great Ruler - it’s very high fantasy, very pretty, and surprisingly involving.

17 (tie) Legend of Two Sisters in the Chaos - the secondary couple steals the show but the rest is not too bad if not too involving.

17 Legend of Awakening - a solid bit of fun with a seriously BDSM streak (theme this year apparently - but come on, the lead’s powers only activate when he’s in extreme pain!) It’s a bit generic and the costuming is done by a blind person, not to mention the OTP is a NOTP, but the rest of relationships (romantic and platonic) are wonderful (I live for the found siblings story in this one) and I like most of the characters.

16 Consummation - a rare modern cdrama I liked; a sweet coming of age story (and love story) even if wrapped in a pretty weird virtual reality concept.

15 Oops the King is in Love - this is how you do a low budget, sweet, silly piece of fluff. Our heroine pretends to be a eunuch and crosses paths with a powerless young king and they are adorable, even more so than the drama.

14 Song of Glory - pretty solid, though draggy and I didn’t love the toothpaste filter. But A+ cast, excellent leading couple chemistry, Li Qin being a BAMF and a leading man (Qin Hao) who is actually an adult.

13 And the Winner is love - objectively kind of a mess (and the heroine has the brainpower of a gnat), but the OTP chemistry is excellent and Luo Yunxi fighting and flirting with a fan as finally a leading man is worth the price of admission.

12 Miss S - snazzy and snappy and stylish and whatever else starts with S.

11 Eternal Love of Dream - I don’t know if it would work for you as well if you weren’t a hardcore shipper for this OTP in Three Lives but I was and this was such a darling, wonderful, shippy delight; plus I love this type of high fantasy.

10 (tie) Maiden Holmes - solid and sweet and a wonderful OTP. Proves that functional doesn’t have to mean boring. If you watch one cross-dressing drama this year make it this one.

10 Qin Dynasty Epic - srs bsns history epic. I am not far into it but it’s so good and smart and visually stunning (if you love battles, this one is for you.)

9 Love Lasts Two Minds - I adored this so much more than I should objectively have, but it’s so beautiful (and no I am not just referring to Alan Yu’s face) and the OTP has wonderful chemistry and the story is solid, and the whole trope of her memory being wiped but falling for him all over again while he’s constantly and utterly devoted is a fave; plus he’s in pain and semi-dyng for most of it so sluuuurp (happy ending, don’t worry)

8 To Love - yes, a modern drama is this high! But it involves intensity, tragedy, genuine adults and sexiness that is Lin Gengxin. And there is an actual plot and darkness OMG!

7 Legend of Xiao Chuo - so beautiful, so fun, so full of gorgeousness of Shawn Dou. Plus, Liao is a rare setting for a cdrama and there are a lot of characters and stories I liked a LOT. Less ship content than I wanted but more than I expected.

6 The Romance of Tiger and Rose - so so delightful. I was literally laughing out loud. I have no idea if it will work as well if one isn’t a seasoned watcher of period cdrama/reader of web novels, with bonus for watching/reading Goodbye My Princess, but it was a complete delight for me (and yes, I shipped for real, as well. Best of both worlds.)

5 Twisted Fate of Love - Jin Han gets a leading period drama role! And he’s enjoying it to the hilt, excellent as a smart, twisty bastard who is also charming and so madly in love with heroine. Sun Yi is beautiful and tough and her chemistry with JH is on fire, the story never drags, and it’s so twisty and fun and just awesome.

4 Love In Between - the most underrated drama on this list. It has no big names or big budget, but it’s wuxia that’s clever, driven, tragic, hopeful and so beautifully shot. Three separate (amazing) OTPs, a leading man who is so not typical (a doctor who cannot fight and who never acquires this ability) and who is intense and smart and damaged, a heroine who puts her quest ahead of her emotions, an unhealthy degree of involvement by yours truly. This is a drama Fei should have been.

3 Love and Redemption - such a lovely, addictive, utterly romantic fairy tale. I was obsessed with it for a reason. All the tropes you love and some you didn’t know you did, a star-crossed OTP to the nth power (and a secondary OTP I hardcore love), a twisty yet coherent plot, some insane chemistry and so much whump and hurt/comfort they must have bought blood packets in bulk.

2 Go Ahead - yes, I can’t believe it either. A contemporary slice of life cdrama made it this high on my list. But the way it feels so real, the found family perfection, the characters I love and loathe, the perfect cherry of a wonderful OTP that hits my narrative kinks on top, and just a perfect storm of loveliness all around with this one.

1 The Wolf - is that any surprise to anyone who’s checked out this tumblr for the last couple of months? Tragic, intense and gorgeous; so romantic and angsty and passionate it made me lose my mind (though some of it was gone the moment the camera panned to Darren Wang) - all my favorite tropes and then some; this is a drama that may not be perfect but it is 100% and then beyond perfect for ME.

FAVORITE DRAMA

The Wolf - I have seen objectively better cdramas; even this year. But it has been literal years since I have been this hardcore obsessed, this utterly pleased, this emotionally catered to and devastated at once. A beautiful dark fairy tale that manages to own me despite the storytelling gaps due to censorship, it took me for one of the biggest emotional roller coaster rides of my drama watching career. Visually gorgeous, poetic, intense, and so romantic it took my breath away, this is not just my favorite cdrama of 2020, it’s my favorite drama this year period, and the one cdrama this year to make it into my permanent Top 10 cdramas list.

WORST DRAMA

Legend of Jin Yan - see my write up for it for why as I refuse to waste more time on this stupid mess.

FAVORITE MALE CHARACTER

Wolfie, The Wolf - he is such a haunted, tormented, complex, dark mess; loving and violent, severely damaged and with a hidden yearning softness, longing and aloof. And the amount of charisma and sheer masculine sex appeal Darren Wang brings to the role is insane and not something I see much of in a cdrama. Plus, that character arc with its rapid fall and slow painful redemption is A++++

Runner Up:  Sifeng, Love and Redemption - has a male lead ever loved more utterly and selflessly, suffered more thoroughly and beautifully, and managed to have such chemistry with both his leading lady and his leading man (that his leading lady temporarily turned into) at once? The answer is no.

Almost made the cut - Feng Xi, Twisted Fate of Love, Han Shuo, The Romance of Tiger and Rose, Qing Ci, Love in Between.

FAVORITE FEMALE CHARACTER

Xiao Qian, The Romance of Tiger and Rose - so funny, so much the reason this drama was such a delight. I adore her beyond words.

NEEDS TO BE MURDERED

Murder Daddy, The Wolf - I am sad the censors robbed us of seeing him die on screen. He was fully human but nonetheless managed to be the worst monster in a drama full of literal ones.

Ling Xiao’s Mom, Go Ahead - I hate her so much I don’t want to look up her name. She abused the kid, the disappeared and came back to abuse him some more. I mean she literally gave her child mental health issues. She is the WORST.

FAVORITE SHIP

Xing’er x Wolfie, The Wolf - are you kidding me? Who else could it ever be for me? They destroyed each other and saved each other, sworn enemies and childhood lovers, soulmates and epic messes, they couldn’t live with or without each other. The longing, the passion, the intensity, the angst, the epicness. LIKE THERE ARE NO WORDS!!!!

FAVORITE SECONDARY OTP

Si Yuan, Shen Manqing, Love in Between - I loved them as much and often more than the main OTP. So much angst and passion and a happy ending! She is a seeming sect darling (except the sect is horrible and also sexist so her only worth is as a marriage candidate) and he’s an information broker who is actually one of the members of a destroyed sect that’s blamed for the massacre of her family. That chemistry and yearning is insane. The scene where she touches his face when he’s unconscious was in serious running for my favorite scene of 2020.

NOTP

Legend of Awakening - I have never seen a couple that didn’t just have no chemistry but exhibited actual revulsion towards each other before watching Chen Feiyu and Cheng Xiao try to act as lovers in this one. It was almost entertaining to be honest.

FAVORITE SCENE

It’s a tie and both are from The Wolf. One is a sequence where Wolfie marches to the walls alone, seeking death at Xing’er’s hands and the whole sequence with the battle and rescue follows. The other is the intercut between Xing’er going to her wedding and Wolfie going to his execution, and the auto-da-fe being intercut with her wedding.

BIGGEST CRUSH

Wolfie, The Wolf - Ummm have you seen this tumblr lately, it’s basically a drool shrine to the man.

BEST SCENE STEALER CHARACTER

Yelü Yansage, The Legend of Xiao Chuo - I have loved this actor since The Myth and he continued to competently steal every scene he was in.

NEEDS A SEQUEL

To Love - come out of the coma, dammit!!!!!!!

NEEDS A DIRECTOR’S CUT

The Wolf - duh. It started out as 59 eps and got cut to 49. I reaiize some stuff is never gonna get put in due to censorship, but some of the stuff that got cut got for time reasons because they were deluded and hoping to get a TV broadcast so ep count had to be under 50. I mean I doubt the censors would care if they kept scenes of Wolfie building her a swing or whatever. I really really want a director’s cut the way Goodbye My Princess did even if like with GMP it’s only three extra eps. Hell, I will take extra three minutes, as long as those three minutes are Darren Wang shirtless or with a sword. Ahem.

NEEDS SCISSORS TAKEN TO IT

The Song of Glory - it’s a fairly solid drama but honestly it didn’t need to be as long as it was and kind of got draggy and I got lost interest. (I could have gotten snarky and said all the dramas I didn’t like needed scissors taken to them in their entirety but decided to play nice.)

TOO MANY SCISSORS TAKEN TO IT

There are a number of dramas I could complain about with regard to this (hi there, darling The Wolf!) but this award goes to Renascence - poor Renascence was never going to be a masterpiece, but it had the potential to be a bit of good cheesy fun until it had its run time cut by more than half and became an incoherent piece of insanity.

TROPE THAT NEEDS TO DIE

Dumb shrill innocent heroine who can’t tie her shoes - see basically all the cdramas I didn’t like this year.

FAVORITE TROPE WE’VE SEEN A LOT OF

Male lead torture - I mean it’s always open season on that in cdramas, but between Love and Redemption, The Wolf, Love Lasts Two Minds, Love in Between and so on, it was a banner year!

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT

Legend of Fei - what a waste of that cast; what a waste of our finite time on this Earth. What a waste of my intelligence to hope for something better and stick with it for a dozen eps. I have had stale wonderbread that had more personality than this drama.There is absolutely nothing that stands out about this drama in any way,  from half-dimensional characters, to actors who are sleepwalking, to a plot that moves at the speed of an arthritic snail, to uninspired cinematography and direction, to lack of any chemistry between anyone in the cast. If paint-by-numbers was done by a group of particularly linear robots, it might come across the same way as this drama.

BIGGEST GOOD SURPRISE

The Wolf - honestly, I did not expect it to come out AT ALL EVER let alone to become my favorite drama of 2020. I was not familiar with the leading man (hahah), I liked Li Qin but wasn’t yet obsessed with her, and Xiao Zhan was excellent in The Untamed but I was hardly going to follow him from drama to drama (and I don’t do SLS any way.) And the trailer was enjoyable but unlike seemingly everyone, I didn’t think it was going to be some epic masterpiece. And then it came out and while it wasn’t objectively an epic masterpiece, it pulled out all the favorite tropes, shippy and narrative kinks from the deepest darkest recesses of my id. And I fell harder than I have in years. 

2020 DRAMAS I HAVEN’T SEEN THAT I MOST WANT TO WATCH

None. Covid Year gave me PLENTY of time

BEST NON-2020 DRAMA I’VE WATCHED IN 2020

Novoland Eagle Flag and Joy of Life - they are in my Top 10 dramas from anywhere now. They are quite different except being smart and giving me protagonists to obsess over.

ETA: Also The Untamed because @idlewilds3 pointed out I actually watched it in 2020 even though I didn’t think so because this hellyear has lasted about three decades.

MOST ANTICIPATED IN 2021

I am gonna limit it to dozen and leaving out ones that aren’t necesarily supposed to air next year (Joy of Life 2, Love in Flames of War, Novoland Princess from Plateau.)

Monarch Industry, Novoland Pearl Eclipse, Silk Washing Stream, Dream of Changan, Sword Snow Stride, Wu Xing Shi Jia, Ancient Love Poetry, Immortality, The Long Ballad, Mirror Twin Cities, The Imperial Age, Fall In Love

[ja-khajay]

Stuff I read (and liked) this year

As promised, here’s a list of the novels, comics, manga, etc... I read this year, focusing on the ones I enjoyed and would recommend to people. Under a cut, this is going to be a little long.

-------- Books --------

Favorite book of the year: Stranger in the Woods, by Michael Finkel

Non-fiction. Based on the interviews of the man himself by the author, it is about a man who felt so unfit for society he decided one day to leave it, and spent the next 28 years as a hidden hermit in forest in Maine. The book details how he survived there, how he was eventually found, and some of his reasons for doing so. It’s a great reflection on the nature of loneliness.

Indian creek, by Pete Fromm

...Yet another detailed tale of living alone in the woods. This time, the diary of a student who spent a winter in the mountains to help tend for salmon hatchlings, and how he spent the rest of his days hiking, hunting, meeting the locals. It’s a fun little book who, being set almost the whole world away from where I live, was a nice way to travel.

Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones

I don’t feel the need to explain this one since everyone and their mom has seen the movie adapted from it. The book, that I first read a decade ago before I actually watched the film, is a less romantized, more spirited telling of the same story. The writing is absolutely delightful and so is the world it paints, and it’s the first time in ages a book had me laughing out loud during my entire read.

-------- Comics (BD) --------

Favorite comic of the year: Monsieur Désire?, by Hubert and Virginie Augustin

A discreet young woman becomes a maid for a decadent, unbearable, byronesque young lord. Caked in the rigid and oppressive social hierarchy of the victorian era, you follow a mental and verbal joust between the two, as the lord tries his best to offend and corrupt his new unrelenting servant, to little success. The writing and especially the dialogues were stellar, drawing me into the tense atmosphere, watching this trainwreck of a character flamboyantly destroy himself. While there’s no precise content warnings that I can give, this is a mature and heavy story.

World of Edena, by Moebius

Anyone who’s followed this blog for over a month knows how much of a Moebius fan I am. Edena combines the vague, dreamlike, wordless storytelling from stuff like Arzach or The cat’s eyes with an actual plot. While I haven’t completly finished the story, the evolution of the main characters and how the story is told have been great to read through, and as always the art is beyond gorgeous. Unfortunately suffers from some good old sexism in the writing that even if minimal, tasted sour

Le roman de Renart, by Joan Sfar (book 1)

Sfar’s work always has a signature vibe of being dreamy and light without being light hearted, of being down to earth but drifting in the fantastical, and this one is no exception. It’s an adaption of a series of medieval folk tales I grew up with, who uses the same characters to tell an original story. If you’re familiar with icons like Renart as well as other mythological big boys like Merlin you’ll fit right in. There is something special in how the dialogues are written, who feel natural in a way that you’d overhear in a street corner and is very special to me.

The mercenary, by VIncente Segrelles

Another one I post about a lot on this blog. The mercenary is a king on the throne of fantasy cheese. The worldbuilding is interesting at times but the writing is a pretty pathetic display of glorious old time sword and sorcery sci-fantasy 10 years too late for it’s prime (warning for ye old sexism and orientalism that plagues the genre, cranked very high...) but you come and stay for the art. The entire thing is drawn in a series of hyper detailed oil paintings with an insane eye for technical detail, from the engineering of the weaponry, to the architecture and weather, to the anatomy of the fantasy creatures... Each panel stands out as it’s own painting which makes even flipping through it without reading the scenario a treat. Click here to see more of the art, in my Segrelles tag.

The ice maurauder, by Jacques Tardi

A short story about mad scientists entirely drawn like a 19th century engraving. In great Tardi tradition everyone is ugly and mean, it ends terribly, it’s both a hommage to the genre of late 19th cent. to early 1900s dramatic adventure novels and a critical eye on it, and it’s morbidly funny. Most people I saw online hated the way this was written but I’m not them and I really recommend this book. Die mad

-------- Manga --------

Favorite manga of the year: it’s a tie between the following two.

Cats of the Louvre, by Taiyo Matsumoto

Most wonderful comic I have read in ages. The story follows a bunch of semi-feral cats secretly living in the Louvre museum’s attic, and the small group of humans who share their life, walking through the museum as the night watch. When the cats are together, they are represented in a humanoid way, but still act like animals, and “become” cats again when a human is nearby. The plot is a sort of supernatural mystery centered around a kitten who walks around paintings. It’s a love letter to art, sincere and beautiful, with a unique art style and great characters.

Memoirs of amorous Gentlemen, by Moyoco Anno

A sex worker in early 20th century paris starts writing down a diary of the clients she meets, in a quest to cope with the troubles of her life. You follow her, her colleagues, and her bittersweet relationship with an abusive lover. I don’t have much words about this comic, but the art and writing both are amazing, it’s the perfect length and drew me in like little series had before. Obvious content warnings as this is an adult story that talks about sexuality, but also depicts both mental and physical abuse.

Hana, also by Taiyo Matsumoto 

A very short story, this was not made to be read as a comic originally, but served as storyboarding and visual development for a play, and the way it is written follows that. Hana is a slice of life story set in a fantasy world, of a young boy, his family, his village. Despite the setting being an original one, the character interactions are refreshingly... normal, and there is no huge plot to speak of, just a bit of the life of these characters. The art is beautiful, entirely black and white, with a scratchy style and an emphasis on contrast. Matsumoto is on a speedy road to becoming my favorite manga artist haha

Delicious in Dungeon, by Ryoko Kui

While not marked as my year’s favorite, I still consider this series among my favorite manga ever. The art and writing are amazing, and it’s both heartfelt, well concieved and plain hilarious. The story follows several parties of dungeon diving adventurers each on their little quests with a premise of our protagonists, on a panic rescue mission, surviving in the dungeon by cooking and eating the monsters they come across. From a DnD party turned cooking manual dinner of the week beginning, the plot creeps up on you and slowly thickens. I don’t want to spoil anything about the overarching story of this because it was a delight to discover for myself. While everything about DinD rules, I am especially fond of the design philosophy of the author, who puts great detail in the practicality and biology of what she draws, as well as the character writing. Everyone even side characters has so much charm and depth to them, the cast is so diverse and entertaining...! Each character is just a bit lame enough but endearing, and has their own little backstory that shows in the way they exist. It’s a delight

Chainsaw man, by Tatsuki Fujimoto

I went into CSM expecting a borderline campy hyperviolent dumb fun thing to read and was very surprised to find an uncomfortably well written story about a teenager being groomed. The hyperviolent dumb fun fights are here nonetheless and the series still qualifies as shonen for some reason, but the more mature character writing as well as some truly outlandish visuals make it something very special. If you can’t stand shonen, not sure you will like it, but if you don’t mind it, worth trying.

Witch hat atelier, by Kamome Shirahama

The oh so elegant fantasy seinen every cool kid started posting about this year, who I also succumbed to and fast. Witch hat is hard to explain, as most of it’s plot revolves around the rules of the world it’s set in, specifically the regulations around it’s magic and the social and historical reasons for them. It’s about growing up, learning, disability, making art. You follow a little girl taken in by a witch as an apprentice, her magical education, and learn little by little why her lovely teacher is so willing to break a lot of rules... While a bit too gentle and pretty for my taste at times, Witch hat has great worldbuilding and explores sensitive themes I rarely see in manga, much less in fantasy. And Berserk wishes it had art this good

[paunchsalazar]

hey!! i loved your hoo playlist! can you explain more or less where which book begins and ends? or just your thought process behind picking the songs?

omg hi!! this is going to be really long I’m so sorry... I vaguely broke them up by book and sorta character/event/theme, it’s not super strict or anything but that was the logic!

I kinda imagine it playing out like a movie or tv series.. and so some of these kinda play over a scene or transition to the credits in my head? some more than others! otherwise it’s like punny titles or just songs that remind of plot points!

Lost Hero

- Goodbye Stranger - for Jason, since he has no idea what’s going on lol

- Teenage Dream - for the three of them, but mostly Piper!

You think I'm pretty without any makeup on You think I'm funny when I tell the punch line wrong

- Parachute - kinda Jason and Piper, I think as she realizes their relationship isn’t quite what it seems? (and just playing with his flying lol!)

- Metal Guru - Leo! 

- Pretty Girl - Piper, I was imagining this when she clashes with Drew/learns about the Aphrodite cabin

And I could be a pretty girl Shut up when you want me to And I could be a pretty girl Won't ever make you blue And I could be a pretty girl I'll lose myself in you

- The Sky’s The Limit - when the three of them take off on Festus

- Snowqueen Of Texas - this was for Khione lol

I'm on my knees, your majesty; Snowqueen, save a cold kiss for me I'm on my knees your majesty

- Sweet Talkin’ Woman - this is book-wide but it’s for Piper’s charmspeak!

- Are You Gonna Be My Girl - is sorta general but I was imagining it when Jason and Piper kinda decide to be together/give it another go

- It’s Not Unusual - I think this was sorta the entire book/wider series but I just think it’s cute and fun and a Guardians of the Galaxy type end credits song? And just them accepting their very bizarre situation 

Son of Neptune + Mark of Athena

I put these together because there wasn’t really a set bookend in my head!

- Hello Stranger - finally reuniting with Percy! (and I wanted the Percy and Jason songs to mirror each other)

Hello stranger (Ooh) It seems so good to see you back again How long has it been? (Ooh it seems like a mighty long time)

- Diamonds - Hazel 

- Don’t Go Breaking My Heart - Frank trusting Hazel with the wood, also Percy + Annabeth, everyone really

Don't go breaking my heart You take the weight off of me Oh, honey when you knock on my door Ooh, I gave you my key

- Beautiful Soul - I literally don’t know why I added this I just wanted an excuse to add a Jesse McCartney song (which feels so tonally correct to me?) but also I think it’s Frank liking Hazel in spite of her big secret and Percy loving Annabeth

- Pocketful of Rainbows - encountering Iris!

I don't worry Whenever skies are gray above Got a pocketful of rainbows Got a heart full of love

- Am I The Same Girl - Annabeth’s POV upon reunion!

Why don´t you stop And look me over Am I the same girl you used to know?

Why don´t you stop And think it over Am I the same girl who knew your soul?

- Bizarre Love Triangle - Frank, Hazel, and Leo

- Treasure - Hazel again + the literal treasure?

Pretty girl, pretty girl, pretty girl you should be smiling (you should be smiling) A girl like you should never look so blue (blue) You're everything I see in my dreams I wouldn't say that to you if it wasn't true

- The Sweet Escape - off on the Argo II

- Okay Okay - to Italy! and I just think Italian disco is so fun

- On An Evening in Roma - walking around Rome, seeing all its history

Though there's grinning and mandolining in sunny Italy The beginning has just begun when the sun goes down So please meet me in the plaza near your casa I am only one and that is one too few On an evening in Roma Don't know what the country's coming to But in Rome do as the Romans do Will you on an evening in Roma

- Stuck on the puzzle - Annabeth + the Mark of Athena

- Coca Cola - I was imagining the pirates+sacrifice to Dionysus/ his appearance

- Edge of Seventeen - I think Annabeth remarks to herself something like am I really going to die at 17? so this is for her and all the kids just on the cusp of being 17

And the days go by, like a strand in the wind In the web that is my own, I begin again Said to my friend, baby (everything stopped) Nothin' else mattered

- Landslide - when everything goes wrong and they start falling to Tartarus

Oh, mirror in the sky What is love? Can the child within my heart rise above? Can I sail through the changin' ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Well, I've been afraid of changin' 'Cause I've built my life around you But time makes you bolder Even children get older And I'm getting older too

House of Hades + Blood of Olympus

these are more thematic I think? but a few moments in particular

- Head Over Heels - falling down... 

I made a fire, and watching it burn Thought of your future With one foot in the past, now just how long will it last?

Something happens and I'm head over heels I never find out until I'm head over heels Something happens and I'm head over heels Ah, don't take my heart, don't break my heart Don't, don't, don't throw it away

- You and Me - Percy and Annabeth in Tartarus

If the stars don't shine If the moon won't rise If I never see the setting sun again You won't hear me cry as I testify Please believe me boy you know I would I lie As long as there is you and me

- Don’t Worry Baby - Percy and Annabeth in Tartarus, on the shore of the river

Well it's been building up inside of me For oh I don't know how long I don't know why But I keep thinking Something's bound to go wrong

But she looks in my eyes And makes me realize And she says "don't worry, baby"

- It’s Only A Paper Moon - the mist and Hazel starting to understand it

You smile, the bubble has a rainbow in it Say, it's only a paper moon Sailing over a cardboard sea But it wouldn't be make-believe If you believed in me

- Money, Money, Money - Hazel + Pluto

Money, money, money Must be funny In the rich man's world

- Magic - the whole story, but particularly with the presence of Hecate 

- Summer Wind - Jason harnessing the winds!

The summer wind came blowin' in from across the sea It lingered there, to touch your hair and walk with me All summer long we sang a song and then we strolled that golden sand Two sweethearts and the summer wind

- Mala Femmina - the return of Khione

- Would You? - Leo and Calypso

Well, you know she took my hand And we walked away And I can't understand why she would stay Would you like to fall in love with me?

-  Love is Like a Fire - Leo and also Frank 

- Don’t Wanna Fight - Percy and Annabeth

Take from my hand Put in your hands The fruit of all my grief Lying down ain't easy When everyone is pleasing I can't get no relief Living ain't no fun The constant dedication Keeping the water and power on There ain't nobody left Why can't I catch my breath? I'm gonna work myself to death

- Love Really Hurts With You - Leo after leaving Calypso’s island

- What Makes the Sunset - Percy and Annabeth (and by extension Bob and Damasen)

What makes the sunset? What makes the moonrise? What makes the tide remember to hide and why does it soon rise? What makes a star fall? Where does it fall to? Why does its flight make us stop in the night and wish as we all do?

- Dedicated to the One I Love - everybody, but an ode to Bob and Damasen (their goodbye made me cry!)

While I'm far away from you my baby I know it's hard for you my baby Because it's hard for me my baby And the darkest hour is just before dawn

Each night before you go to bed my baby Whisper a little prayer for me my baby And tell all the stars above This is dedicated to the one I love

- Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want - Percy and Annabeth in Tartarus, I was thinking about this post-curses and them being so done with everything

Good times for a change See, the luck I've had Can make a good man Turn bad

So please, please, please Let me, let me, let me Let me get what I want This time

- Lonely Boy - Nico 

- Fantasy - indulging all their visions... the mist, etc. 

- Stupid Cupid - Nico and Cupid (of course)

Stupid Cupid you're a real mean guy (stupid Cupid) I'd like to clip your wings so you can't fly (stupid Cupid) I'm in love and it's a crying shame (stupid Cupid) And I know that you're the one to blame (stupid Cupid)

Hey hey, set me free Stupid Cupid stop picking on me

- Suzanne - still Nico, looking over at the couple (sorry... all the mopey songs)

- Dream A Little Dream of Me - dreams... also Percy’s wishes of the future

Stars shining bright above you Night breezes seem to whisper "I love you" Birds singing in the sycamore tree Dream a little dream of me

- Our Day Will Come - I think Annabeth says a line almost like this? somewhere at the end of HOH, I think when they’ve just gotten out of Tartarus and are all sitting together, like haven’t they had enough? won’t their day finally come?

Our day will come If we just wait a while No tears for us Think love and wear a smile Our dreams have magic because We'll always stay In love this way

- Call Me - all of them! also Nico and Reyna, just being there for each other

Tell me and I'll be around Now don't forget me 'cause if you let me I will always stay by you You've got to trust me, that's how it must be

- Nobody - Nico... oh buddy 

Venus, planet of love Was destroyed by global warming Did its people want too much too? Did its people want too much?

And I don't want your pity I just want somebody near me Guess I'm a coward I just want to feel alright

- I’m a Believer - Jason and Piper

I thought love was only true in fairy tales Meant for someone else but not for me Love was out to get me That's the way it seemed Disappointment haunted all my dreams Then I saw her face, now I'm a believer Not a trace of doubt in my mind

- Summertime - Piper singing and it being the end of summer

- Happy Trails - more singing ( I want to include the songs actually mentioned!)

- The End of the World - the big battle!!

Why does the sun go on shining? Why does the sea rush to shore? Don't they know it's the end of the world? 'Cause you don't love me any more

- Too Late To Turn Back Now - departing with Festus (I think Leo almost says this too!)

- Here Comes The Sun - day comes, the Athena Parthenos is back

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here

- Walking On Sunshine - Will Solace

- Evil Woman - Gaea fight

Evil woman, how you done me wrong But now you're tryin' to wail a different song Ha, ha, funny, how you broke me up You made the wine, now you drink a cup I came runnin' every time you cried Thought I saw love smilin' in your eyes Ha, ha, very nice to know That you ain't got no place left to go

- Seven Wonders - the seven! also traveling the world... making it this far

If I live to see the seven wonders I'll make a path to the rainbow's end I'll never live to match the beauty again The rainbow's edge

- This Will Be (An Everlasting Love) - to me this is just after Annabeth and Percy’s kiss, shots of everyone back to camp, wides of people running around, new cabins under construction, the sun is shining, the camera pulls out 

Loving you is some kind of wonderful Because you showed me just how much you care You've given me the thrill of a lifetime And made me believe you've got more thrills to spare, oh!

- Love Makes the World Go Round - like the end credits! last pov with Piper, love makes it all happen

Without love flowers wouldn't grow in the spring And without spring, yeah the birdies just couldnt sing Everybody needs love to watch the twinkling stars above It makes a boy and girl, Say they feel so fine, now

[p-artsypants]

P-Artsypants Fic Masterpost!

This information is always available on my blog. 

Find most, if not more, of these fics on:

Fanfiction.net | Archive of Our Own | Wattpad

(~AU’s, *Finished, ❤️Author’s Favorites)

Kingdom Hearts

~❤️Rage Awakened AO3 | FF.net- Ten years ago, Terra, Aqua, and Ventus lost their fellow apprentice, Sora, in Deep Jungle. Now, they are to return with two new students, Riku and Kairi, to lock the heart of the world. All the while, something watches from the trees. Feral!Sora AU

My Kingdom for a Heart AO3 | FF.Net - The curse of being one of the Princesses of heart, is that there’s always someone out to get you. As Xemnas looked failure in the face, he reached out in a last ditch effort and destroyed Kairi’s heart. Now her friends must travel the worlds again. Sora, to find a way to recover Kairi’s heart, and Riku, to make amends to those he has wronged. All the while, the darkness grows. [Unfinished, on permanent hiatus]

Miraculous Ladybug

One Shots

*❤️Amalgam- When an young man is rejected for being ‘incompatible’ he turns into the akuma ‘Amalgam’ able to fuse two people together. And later Adrien and Marinette would debate if it was lucky or unlucky that they got hit. (Also Available in Russian)

*Sing We All Noel- After receiving the worst Christmas present ever from his father, Chat Noir finds himself out on the streets with nowhere to go on Christmas Eve. Thankfully, Ladybug finds him and brings him home.

*Speechless- In a world where everyone has a soulmark, the first words their soulmate will say to them, Marinette is born without one. But Adrien Agreste has two. Curious, considering he’s mute.

*❤️Tunnels of Love- The night started out with an accidental kiss from Adrien Agreste, and ended with her bleeding in the Catacombs of Paris. Ladybug, the wielder of the miraculous of good luck. Yeah right. (Some blood)

*The Reveal That Wasn’t- First Parts My ending to kittybug’s Tumblr Prompt

*What A Mess We’re In- Ladybug has a lot on her mind, and when Chat Noir bugs her enough, she tells him she’s going to confess to her Crush, Adrien Agreste. Chat’s reaction is not what she’s expecting.

*Oblivi-oh no! - A retelling of Oblivio, except Ladybug is the only one to lose her memory. How will Chat deal?

*Bad Day (3 chapters) - Marinette was Ladybug! This was Adrien’s luckiest day ever! Except it wasn’t, because all his good luck was used up in one go. Turns out this might be the worst day of his life.

*One Win, So Many Losses- Marinette was forced to break up with Adrien. It had been a low blow from Gabriel, to be sure. But she was Ladybug. She’d find a solution…right? An alternate ending to Chat Blanc, where Adrien doesn’t Cataclysm the akuma.

*❤️Five Minutes- Gabriel has had enough of all these girls fighting over Adrien. He decides it’s high time Adrien picks one, and arranges the perfect opportunity for him to do so. Each candidate has five minutes to present why they’d be a good girlfriend. Marinette decides to take this opportunity to shoot her shot.

~*Panache- Every eligible maiden was invited to the Prince’s ball. That included Marinette, scullery maid in her own household. But her stepsisters destroyed her dress, and she can’t go to the ball in rags. Or can she? (Cinderella!AU)

*Perfect, No Matter What-In which Gabriel sets the bar even lower for himself, a reveal happens because of pain medication, and the new guardian actually goes to Chloé for advice.

*Crushed- Stuck under a collapsed building together, Chat Noir and Marinette have a heart to heart.

*Lovelace- Convinced that he's unlovable, Adrien is quickly thrown for a loop when Marinette confesses her love for him out of the blue. An akumatization and reveal later, he changes his mind about being unlovable.

Long Fics

*❤️Longest Night- (FF.net | Ao3) - The day started out sucky to begin with. Her crush ousted to the class and Adrien. Lila taking pride in exacting her revenge. But by the time patrol was over, a young man was dead, and Ladybug’s identity was at risk. Lila was the least of her concerns. Good thing Adrien was taking it all like a champ. (Rated M for scenes of torture)

*❤️Nine Lives- (FF.net) When Adrien Agreste is scheduled to go to a Military School in Germany, Chat Noir must make a critical decision. Does he give up his Miraculous? Or does he give up his life as Adrien? I’ll save you the trouble of guessing, he gives up being Adrien.

*Tender Words- When Marinette finally gets the guts to confess her feelings for Adrien, some things go so wrong, and other things go so right.

*Integrity- Overwhelmed with her responsibilities, guilt, and drama, Marinette has an emotional breakdown in front of everyone, and even hands over her earrings in a moment of weakness. Only for a few seconds, but the damage was done. Adrien’s pretty quick on the uptake like that.

~Much Obliged- Everyone deals with grief differently. Some take to drinking, others devote themselves to charity. Adrien Agreste? Well, he became a cowboy. Marinette Dupain-Cheng is a witch, one of very few in the world. She knows what it’s like to be doubted, and assumed delusional. Maybe that’s why they got along so well. Or maybe it’s just because they both like big hats. AU where everything is the same, except instead of superheroes, Adrien is a Cowboy and Marinette is a witch. (Unfinished) (Based on a AU by @bugaboo-n-bananoir)

*I’ll Handle This- “I’ll solve all your problems,” Plagg had said. “You just have to agree to it.” A fixed relationship with his father, Lila to stop bothering him, and Ladybug to fall in love with him? Who wouldn’t agree to that? Except Plagg was the God of Destruction and Chaos and had a more…hands-on approach. Adrien just wants his body back. (Body swap fic)

The Ghost of Smokey Joe- Adrien Agreste was acting bizarre. Stilted body language, plastic smile, and he seemed to have forgotten how close they were. Before she can get the truth out of him, Marinette finds herself as the sole heir to the Gabriel brand and the mansion, following the murder-suicide of both Adrien and Gabriel Agreste. The mystery continues as Tikki explains that Adrien was Chat Noir...but if Adrien is six feet under, why is Chat Noir still running around?

How To Train Your Dragon

One Shots

The Vikings Have Their Tea (FF.Net | AO3)

Arranged Marriage- Takes place at the beginning of HTTYD

❤️Breathe- Survival of the fittest

~Childhood Friends- At the Sandbox

❤️Easy Fix- In which Hiccup has a bad day

~Fashion Designer- Astrid needs a fill in

❤️Frozen- In Which Astrid takes a Dip and things get frisky (Rated M)

❤️Headache- In Which Hiccup hits his head….really hard

❤️Heir- In Which Hiccup is Picked (Longer version by FateCharms)

Illness- In Which Stoick is a dad

~Illusionist- Trick gone wrong

~In the Walls- In which there’s a poop ghost

~Knocking On The Wrong Door (2) - A chance encounter

❤️Messages- Astrid is Frustrated with Hiccup’s obliviousness

~To Mirkwood- Hiccup is not a dwarf

~Monster Falls- Hiccup and Astrid take a dip

❤️Mute- In which there’s a quiet stranger

~Music Video (ImgHS)- He didn’t expect it

❤️Operation: Lovebirds- In Which the gang makes a plan, and Hiccup gets Drunk

~Over- Too many nightmares

~Partners in Crime- A normal day at work

~Pirate- Astrid is the greatest treasure

~Prince- He doesn’t want to be a broken King

❤️Sorting Things Out- In Which Astrid gets her ducks in a row

~The Dragon and The Dame- Beauty and the Beast Au

The Pit- In Which Hiccup is rescued

Hide and Seek- Part 1

Lost and Found- Part 2

Long fics:

*❤️Infernal Responsibility- Being the son of the chief takes brains, courage, and a lot of patience. But at his father’s the request for marriage, Hiccup decides he has had enough. When he seeks out a life of ease, he runs into more than what he bargained for.

*❤️Roses and Lilies- “Astrid, you and I both know you’re much tougher than I am. You’re more brave, and a better fighter…but just for a little while…could we pretend that I’m the one protecting you?” “Oh gods yes!” (Also Available in Spanish!)

*~What the Water Gave Me- The sea is a wild and dangerous thing, something that cannot be foretold or predicted. Hiccup discovered this many years ago, in human naiveté. Yet, what was meant as a sacrifice became a new life, one like no one could comprehend. He now finds himself once more in the unknowing hands of those that sentenced him to death. He only prays things will be different this time. Merman!AU

*Parasite- Soulsnatcher Dragons are rare but deadly. But, As Hiccup finds out, it’s the eggs you have to watch out for.

*~320 State Street- Gobber’s Goods. A Hardware Store that was rumored to have everything you needed. She thought she only needed a job. Turns out, she needed a lot more than that. (A Modern AU no one asked for)

*~❤️The North Tower- When Finn Hofferson died, Astrid inherited his castle in Wales…and a whole lot more. Something sinister lurks in the North Tower.

*~❤️Boy Toy- AO3 - At the age of 21, Princess Astrid lawfully has to pick a husband. But when the perfect groom is nowhere to be found, she requests the toymaker to create one for her. It’s safe to say that everyone in the kingdom is a little concerned. (Pinocchio!AU I guess?)

No, You Go First- AO3 - The Chief of Berk was a headstrong viking, stubborn and full of pride, and willing to do whatever it takes to keep his village safe. But for a moment, he puts that aside, and listens to his son. In which Hiccup convinces his dad not to make him go through Dragon Training, and the subsequent changes that follow.

*In Due Time- AO3 - As another illness sweeps through Berk, Gothi needs another ingredient for her medicine…one that doesn’t exist anymore. Fortunately, she kept that old spell book around for such an occasion. Big Hiccup is sent to five years into the past, and his younger self sent to take his place in the future. But it’s only a few days, what could go wrong?

Trollhunters: Tales from Arcadia

❤️Arcadia or Bust- In Which Arcadia welcomes back it’s underground citizens.

Teen Titans

Oneshots:

~Big Brother- Don’t turn out the light (Horror)

Dear Jason- Bruce Writes a letter

Just Drawing- Bruce thinks about Robin

The Prisoner- Starfire is Guilty

Of Mustard and Three Foot Purple Tongues- A collection of Oneshots and Drabbles

Long Fics (*Finished):

*~❤️Carol of the Bells- High in the dark Bell Tower of Notre Dame, there lives a mysterious bell ringer. Legend tells of the angel who fell from the sky, and the curse she bares. There are few who know her true identity though; her master, the priest, and the acrobat that performs on the streets below. Based loosely on ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ RobxStar and slight BBxRae

*No Escape- Three years ago, Starfire escaped an Alien race called the Gordanians, to arrive on Earth. They’re back, and ready to put Starfire back where she belongs, behind reinforced Titanium bars. Robin’s not about to let her go…if only he hadn’t got captured first. How does it feel to be the alien, Robin?

*Now you Know My Pain- When the new Villain, Gender Bender, comes to down, the Titans find themselves in an odd situation. They’ve been turned into the opposite gender against their will! Now in order to change back, they must learn to understand the gender they’ve turned into. Rated T for obvious reasons. A great read if you’ve ever wondered why girls or guys do [blank].

*Paint it Black- Robin disappeared three months ago. Now, Jump City’s crime rate is mysteriously being taken care of by a normal, albeit strange, teenage boy who goes by the name Black. As the Titans befriend this lunatic, they begin to see a relation between him and their missing leader. Will they be able to find Robin, or will Black turn them all insane as himself? Actually, contains NO OC.

*Saving Grace- “When I’m done with you, you won’t be able to walk upright or speak coherent sentences and all you’ll see is my mask and my voice repeating in your head…Weak. Richard Grayson, I am not tough, I am everything that you fear.” Happy Ending! Smudge of RobStar. NO Slash!

Other Fandoms

Final Fantasy XV

❤️Requiem for Pitioss-“O King. The god’s have heard your cries. Know that we weep with you. The Oracle’s calling has not yet been fulfilled. But…Lunafreya as you know her cannot return the way she was.” Noctis looked up, hopeful. “But she can return!” Canon divergence from Chapter 9. Happy ending. Some spoilers.

Final Fantasy X

I Do…I Guess? - “I would…like to ask you something.” “Shoot.” “Well…if it’s not too much…I’d like to ask you…to marry me.” Knowing what’s to come during her pilgrimage, Yuna asks Tidus to marry her, strictly for convenience and having an official next of kin, of course. Starts after Luca and how this decision would affect the rest of the story.

Beauty and the Beast

*❤️Behold the Beast- A Oneshot alternate ending to the Animated Film

Cinderella

*❤️Midnight- “When the clock strikes twelve, the spell will be broken,” the fairy godmother had warned. A retelling of the story, when Cinderella doesn’t escape the ball in time. Oneshot

*So This is Love- What if Jaq and Gus hadn’t made it in time to help Cinderella? A new twist on the ending of the classic Fairytale, and what lies beyond the story. She still gets her happy ending and her Prince, and her step family gets their just deserts.

Sleeping Beauty

*❤️A Love Song Back To Me- Maleficent saw the loophole that stared her in the face. Prince Phillip would break the curse in time, for sure. After all, he was betrothed to Aurora. So in an effort for her evil plan to stay in action, Maleficent takes care of the young prince herself. Phillip never imagined having to live off the land like the birds above. Alternate twist on the classic Disney tale.

Escaflowne

Down Feathers- Hitomi’s depressed. She’s been away from Van too long, he comes back to visit her…but what if something went wrong with the transfer? (Not finished. Never will be finished. Mwahaha) Circa 2012

*Angel’s Wounds- Fanelia’s been victorious in their most recent battle with Basrum. Unfortunately, someone is wounded and just seeks solace in his love that lives so far away. Post Anime.

Momma Look Sharp- With the war between Fanelia and Basrum finally coming to a close, the kingdom is celebrating. The young king, however, is suffering from an experience unlike any he had before. Van finally seeks solace in his wife.

[violetren]

My first theory for volume 9 while the second half of volume 8 is fresh in my mind!

Volume 9 is gonna be the therapy season, but in the most traumatic you'll need different therapy afterwards kind of way. Instead of paying a therapist they're all just be bargaining with the universe like "yo I've had this trauma for a while, and I'm feeling pretty done with it. Here you take it back and uhhh I'll take a new guilt complex. Maybe a fear of falling? IDK, fuck me up bro."

The foreshadow-y Alice in Wonderland-esque fairy tale Oscar told to himself/Oz while in captivity is my guide post here.

Aaaand this is gonna get long so! 10 ideas of shit that's gonna go down next volume beneath the readmore, each one about 1-2 paragraphs each.

In the fairy tale the girl runs away from her problems into a new land, but because she never learned from her problems they just followed after her. Yeah? So first--second? First discounting the volume therapy theme theory.

FIRST BIG THEORY: The girl from the fairy tale was real, and she used the Spear of Creation. And like Weiss and the crew, she was fucking smart about her wording. She offered up materials that'd last even after someone else inevitably used the staff. IDK what materials she woulda used. Maybe there's a story about a missing continent we just haven't heard of yet? Maybe the Brother of Light's pool, since Salem seens to have claimed the Brother of Darkness's one but no sign of BoL's these days. Maybe there is a reason the land beyond Menagerie is so uninhabitable beyond desert + grimm? idk. Point is, it's a thing that happened, and since Ambrosius can't destroy/directly kill she's still in her wonderland. For themes sake I'm gonna call her Alice from here on out.

So Alice made a pocket dimension to flee from her problems from.

SECOND BIG THEORY: Her problems were relic related. She needed to hide em, and hide herself from Salem. Tbh I'm not sure how into this one I am. Maybe she had other shit going and some version of Oz was like "hey you don't want to be here, I have some property that I don't want to be here, lets make this happen!" THE POINT IS, the little pocket realities the relics are in, are aalllllll places in her pocket reality. When the team said "hey Ambrosius just make the middle ground into one of these type places" that's what he did, cause that's how he do. What better way to make sure it works like those places than to be kinda connected to em?

THIRD BIG THEORY: Ambrosius was buds with Alice once upon a time, but knew staying in her pocket world ultimately drove her crazy. He knew his middle ground worked like the pocket dimensions because it touched em or something, so he gave a vague ass warning not to fall, because he knew where they'd fall to.

Back to the fairy tale. It's implied Alice was never able to leave/give up her wonderland because she never learned from her mistakes.

FOURTH BIG THEORY VERSION 1: RWBY + Jaune can't figure their way back to reality until they adress a major personal issue and break out of whatever cycle it's got them in. This one I feel is shaky because they all have such different issues and are in very different places with each of them, trying to do one big arc on em would be too much of a mess. Plus it doesn't account for saving any of the many civilians that may have survived the fall.

FOURTH BIG THEORY VERSION 2: nobody can leave until Alice either leaves, dies, OR is convinced to let them go. As we're following good kind people this means we watch the kids try to give someone else therapy that THEY need. RWBY+J work through their shit through variations & combinations of witnessing mirrors of their struggles in Alice/other wonderland inhabitants, and just having time and space to slow down and breathe whether they want it or not.

FIFTH BIG THEORY: Alice is the "antagonist" of the underworld because she is the obstacle to overcome.

What about Neo you may be asking. Well I want her to let go of the revenge schtick, or at least redirect it back onto Cinder thus calling a truce with Ruby. However it's more than likely she's gonna be on team keep Alice as an obstacle at least as long as it takes to kill Ruby, and so Neo will be the "real" Antagonist™ within wonderland.

SIXTH BIG THEORY: Neo because of her unwavering determination to enact revenge is gonna die this volume. She'll be the comparison against which RWBY+J will be measured. As they grow and get closer to leaving she'll become more wrapped up with whatever strange classic wonderland logic this pocket universe has. Potentially depending on how things go with helping Alice, Neo may just end up trading spots with her, and end up trapped while everyone else goes back. But dead or trapped, I have a sad feeling this could be our last volume with Neo. My only hope of her surviving at this point is that she like Emerald switches sides, and in doing so joins Winter as a Cinder foil. While Neo grows and lets go of revenge and thus survives, Cinder stays dedicated to her own desires for revenge and other self serving instincts ringing her own death toll for either the end of the volume, or maybe somewhere in vol.10.

SEVENTH BIG THEORY: Ruby is gonna be grieving and maybe even getting full on angry about being expected to fix everything just because she's the optimistic one. She shouldn't have to deal with this brand and advanced level of childhood stealing just because she wanted to do what was right and won(lost) a genetic lottery for magic powers type anger. Jaune is going to have SO MUCH GUILT to work through, mostly the survivors kind. The bees will be experiencing couples therapy, they've both been pretty solid about individual growth leading up to this, Underworld will be them learning what it means to them to be partners now that they are so different to who they were. Weiss is different. Weiss is at first gonna feel like she's there just because it was a way to really shove all the other Schnee's into their therapy arcs and gave RBY+J neutral presence to rely on. Weiss is gonna go in the most stable of the bunch. But then, slow boil style, she'll start to realise how fucked up basically her whole life has been, especially upon realising that her "good years" with her new family have been spent getting sucked into being the last line of defense against the apocalypse, but will be too busy helping the others, so at the end of the volume when everyone else is actually doing pretty good and refreshed for the fight against Salem she'll only just be beginning her breakdown.

EIGHTH BIG THEORY: All this therapy shit is gonna be mirrored back on Remnant by the others grieving the percieved loss of the hearts of the team. Both sides of these story are gonna deal with some heavy shit, but the Remnant side is gonna be the depressed side, at least as long as it takes for Oz to tell them maybe the other's aren't dead leading to desperate attempts to get the staff OR the make desperate attempts to get the relics back anyways and inadvertently find out from Ambrosius what is up. But anyways. Winter is gonna be dealing with survivors guilt and the loss of both her little sisters (friends are great but Penny was little sister zoned and it's a hill I am prepared to die on. good sisterly relationships are friendships too). Nora is gonna be doing her self discovery thing. Ren is gonna be building on his end of vol.8 developments. Oscar will continue his grappling with the merge stuff. Qrow and Willow might get forced into AA. Whitely is gonna learn his own definition of being a Schnee instead of what his dad taught him.

NINTH BIG THEORY (OR FOURTH VERSION 3): The other way they get out is QORN obtain and use the staff to bring them home, potentially by trading enemy lives for them.

BONUS CONSPIRACY THEORY: QORN if presented with needing to trade for their loved ones & lost civilians have a lightbulb moment and decide hey why not trap Salem in a pocket universe since that is a thing Ambrosius can make? Like, if this bitch hasn't budged on her not learning to appreaciate life and humanity or whatever (which I'n pretty sure is the other way to break her curse instead of stopping remnant from turning) then she's a prime candidate for shoving into a personal reality that you can only escape if you can face your problems long enough to break the cycle they have you in. It'd be really fucked up but I think it might actually be possible to run the place using her as her own material component. Like kill her over and over and redistribute the energy to make the pocket world, but because god given power + Ambrosius can't actually destroy she just reforms anyways. MIght take a few hundred thousand deaths but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Or use the BoD oasis/grimm pools to make a world that mirrored the one she chose to live in on Remnant really make it hard for her to break that cycle....

Anyways.

TENTH BIG THEORY: Working on the idea that the relics are actually hidden in secret protected pockets of the underworld RWBY+J are gonna have a secondary quest of trying to get the relics from this side, and either finding a new place to hide them ages away from their vault doors. If you wanna make it a FOURTH VERSION 4, they're specifically gonna seek out the sword of destruction (HOLY VORPAL BLADE ALLUSIONS BATMAN) either with the intent of cutting their way out underworld--ahem wonderland--or with the assumption that someone is inevitably gonna have to open the vault door, because that's just how things be these days and they'll be able to cross to Vacuo from there.

[paradise-creator]

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Amorette's song:

An royal Au! Ushijima x reader. You, are his queen but he knew you were only a dream, a wish. But dreams and wishes are meant to come true.

Genre: Fluff

Word count: 2.1k

Ushijima knew what was to come of his dream. His dream that one day you would be his queen as you both rule Shiritorizawa. The dream that he wished will come true. They say that reams are impossible, like how wishes are so far out your reach. But he was determined to make you his queen, his lover, and his one and only. That was a bold statement coming from the 13 year old prince. He knew that it will never come true. You, the sophisticated, the amazing, and wonderful princess of your kingdom. He knew that you will never be his queen, you were 3 years older, after all. That age gap, isn’t big nor is the relationship entirely impossible. But, as the crowned princess, Ushijima knew that you would be married off. That you would be in another’s arms. That you weren’t his.

“Ushi,” Your voice echoed in his ears. “Yes?” He responded as he looked up from his book. His eyes laid on your relaxed figure. To him you were so perfect, a goddess reincarnated. You inspire him to be the best king he could be to his people. You were his inspiration, his drive to be better for his people. You had such a huge impact in his life that everyone can see how he adored you. As he peered your gaze, he realized how sad they look. The shin in your eye, dead. The smile on your lips didn’t reach your eyes. He immediately knew something was wrong. “Is there something wrong?” He then added as he placed his book down and sat beside you. He would stop anything just to make you happy. You were the queen of his heart after all.

“I’m being married off to a prince. A prince, I know nothing off,” You responded as you looked at him. As those words left your lips, his dreams and heart shattered. But he wasn’t surprised, it is to be expected. His eyes widen, his heart shattered but he remained stoic. “As heirs, we fulfill our duties as rulers of our kingdoms,” He then said as he looked away, not wanting to see how sad your eyes look. You were his weakness and he can’t bare the sad look on your face. “At least I know that I taught you something,” You then said as you patted his head. You stood up and glance at him before leaving. That was all you wanted to do, you wanted to give him space, knowing that he needs time to digest it. You knew that this would impact the both of you greatly. But as the crown princess, it’s duties before your heart. That is what no fairy tale tell its readers. And ever since that moment, you two tried to spend as much time together. From frolicking in the garden to reading together. You both made more memories that will hopefully help the growing emoty space.

But that was 5 years ago. 5 years of him yearning to see you again, to hear your voice. 5 years of having an empty space in his heart. A void only you can fill. The two of you did was exchanged letters, but he wanted to see you, wanted to see if you are okay. He had heard that your supposed groom, had an affair and the whole thing was cancelled. But, he still wasn’t able to see you. You haven’t contacted him in 3 years. He has grown wary and depressed. Why is life so unfair sometimes? But that is the world we live in. He thought he would never get to see you again. But here you were, in front of him, talking to your old friends. Where have you been these 5 years? And now, of all places, he was able to see you. Kuroo wasn’t wrong when he said he will invite everyone.

“Pardon me,” He then said to Daichi, who was talking to him a while ago. Daichi saw where Ushijima was looking and chuckled. The smaller king knew who she was. The supposed future queen of Shiritorizawa, as he was acquainted with. “I wish you luck, my friend,” He then said before he left the taller to go to you. Daichi knew that this king wouldn’t let you go, no matter how hard he tried. All the blackette could do is wish his friend luck. Ushijima took a deep breath and started to walk towards you. Which the other girls had notice, and nudged you a bit. “Pardon my intrusion, my ladies,” He then said with a bow once he had reach where you were. “It’s no bother, your majesty. We were about to leave anyway,” your friends said as they left you alone. You were still the beauty goddess you once were. But you’ve grown more mature and look so gorgeous that Ushijima can’t help but blush.

“Ushi, honey, you’ve grown so much,” You said as you placed your hand on his cheek. His blush darkened as he looked away. Your touch, it’s something that he longed for. Your voice, your honey like voice. He missed how you sounded and how you talked. Whether gentle and soft or rough and oud, he loved it. As he turned back to you, his eyes had the same look on them ever since he was younger. A look of adoration and love, something that had always been with him. When it’s about you, all he can think about is how he loves you. Your so called imperfections is all perfect to him. You were a goddess to him. You were perfect to him. “It’s been 5 years, Nee-chan. Of course, I have grown,” He said as he leaned into your touch. “5 years? It really has been that long,” You then said as you retracted your hand. But, Ushijima grabbed you hand gently and intertwined with his. “What happened to you?” He then asked as he looked at you. “You stopped sending me letters 3 years ago,” He said softly. His eyes pleading you to explain your disappearance.

You chuckled and shook your head. “I needed a break from the spot light,” You then said as you adjusted your crown. “After that affair incident, I ruled over my kingdom in peace. And I didn’t want to bother you anymore so I stopped. Not knowing whether or not you wanted to talk to me,” You added. “I’m happy that your kingdom is in great condition but I would never grow tired of you. Never,” He then said as he looked at you. There was an awkward silence that fell between the two of you. It’s been 3 years since the last you two talked and 5 years since the two of you have seen each other face-to-face. Ushijima cleared his throat and let go of your hand. He then stood in front of you and bowed. “Would you do me the honor of accompanying me to a more secluded place?” He then said as he offered his hand. You smiled and accepted his offer. He interlaced your hands and started to lead the both of you to a secluded area. The twist and turns of the crowd seem never ending. But soon enough, you both reached an open balcony.

“This is better, isn’t it?” Ushijima said as he led on the railing, with you by his side. He looked at you and he was mesmerized. You, you looked so good in your dress. The color complimented your skin and your body type. You look ravishing. Your accessories and make-up brought out the most defining features. Everything he had learned to love. His heart beat quickened and his cheeks flushed. Even after 5 years, his heart still belongs to you. He waited and waited for you, and now that you are in front of him. He just can’t believe his eyes, you grew so much.

Not only with looks but as a person as well. He can see how you matured as a person. You seem more at peace. You seem more mature than what you were then. “The moon is beautiful, isn’t it?” You said as you looked at him. His cheeks turned red and he cleared his throat. A phrase he never thought he would here. The moon is beautiful, isn’t it? Another way to confess love. Especially popular under the moon light in his kingdom. “Pardon, what was that?” He asked as he started at your eyes. “The moon is beautiful, isn’t it?” You then repeated as you held his hand. “I can die happy,” He responded as he smiled softly. A reply that completes the phrase. “H-how long had you liked me?” He asked shyly. “Ever since we were younger,” You then said as you looked up to the moon. “I knew you liked me and it was mutual but as crowned princess I knew I had to fulfill my duties. So I kept it a secret,” You added.

“You’ve been hiding it all this time?” He asked as he cupped your cheek. “If you would’ve told me sooner, I would’ve fight for your hand,” He said as he kissed your forehead. He wanted you to know that he won’t stop waiting and loving you. He wants to fight for you, showing you that he is the one for you. “That’s what I didn’t want to happen,” You said. “If you did fight for my hand, it might lead to war, which is counter-productive,” You added.

“Nevermind that, Can I finally call you my queen?” He asked as he hugged you. “I want the world to know that my heart belongs to you,” He added. The moonlight shone on you two as if you both were the main characters. The fairy tales you’ve read can’t fully describe what the princess felt when she met her one true prince. The way that both of your hearts beat in synch and the fluttering feeling. The tales can’t grasp the way he held you. He held you tight as if he were to let go, you would run away. Yet, he also held you as if you were made of porcelain, one wrong move and you’ll break. The fairy tales were right, once you find your true love, doubts and troubles seem to fade away.

“Of course, I’m yours and yours alone,” You said as you looked at him. He slowly leaned in and kissed you softly. With his soft lips on yours eyes flutter shut. You both held each other and savor the feeling. It felt as if time had slowed down. The way his hands wrapped around you protectively. The way your lips danced with his. It all felt surreal, something out of the tales you grew to love. As the music played in the background, you and he felt the dreamlike feeling of being in a fairy tale. It felt like forever when the kiss ended, cliché as it sounds, it feels so true. As you both stared to each other’s eyes, a familiar music came right along.

The intro for “This is Love” from the movie Cinderella. Ushijima smiled and offered his hand. “Shall we dance?” He asked. You accepted this offer and grabbed his hand. He placed your free hand on his shoulder and his on your waist. He then started guiding you to the rhythm. Contrary to the music, you both danced in a slightly faster pace, like in the movie. Your dress swayed, back and forth. He pulled you close, still managing to lead the dance, like a prince should. You felt like Cinderella and he was your prince charming. As you both dance within the area of the balcony, the moon’s light and the stars blessed the earth with their beauty. The song continues on but that wasn’t the only thing you heard. The whispers of the wind, the soft songs of the creature, and the chatter from the hall. But, all that didn’t matter to you. All you can focus on was the words that left Ushijima’s lips.

“You are my world,”

“You are my dream, my queen,”

“I love you, so much,”

“I dearly hope this moment would last just a bit longer,”

Ushijima spoke phrases and words that makes your heart pound. His words and this scene etched into your heart as the song continues. Once the song ended, you both were in the dead center of the balcony. Staring at his olive orbs, you know that this is where you belonged. He was your home, your sanctuary. “And I’ll love you always and eternally,” He then said as he pecked your lips. Even a simple action like that, it sent shivers down your spine. This is what Ushijima had dreamt about. You, in his arms, secured and safe. You, his future queen. It’s everything he could ever hope and asked for.

Dreams are a wish your heart makes. No matter how your heart is grieving. If you keep on believing, dreams that are wish, will come true.