#I genuinely don't know what to do because he's not being set up for success and I'm honestly fucking tired of dealing with him

[likesplatterpaint]

I am so tired of kids being shoved into my advanced classes that A) have no desire to be there or attempt the work B) do not have the SKILLS to be there and only passed the first level out of the kindness of my heart/modified curriculum C) have genuinely difficult personalities.

And just being told "there's nowhere else for them to go."

I haven't had a break from this prickly Mansplainer kid with Problems since last year. Guidance, you are killing me and what my program could be.

and I can't even complain to my supervisor anymore because that changed and she's married to our guidance counselor. UGHHHHHH

[hopefullhearts]

Sickeningly Sweet [Scott Miller x Reader - Twisters]

summary: You are Tyler Owens' childhood best friend and member of his storm chasing crew. A storm outbreak means you and the gang cross paths with Storm Par on more than one occasion, and your sweet southern charm drives Scott crazy (in more than one way).

content warnings: somewhat heated kissing, no use of y/n, light name-calling/teasing, not proofread/bad writing (I have not written a fanfic in forever), bad taste in candy, & i think that is all!

word count: 3.5k

a/n: I have not written or posted on tumblr in SO long but I saw Twisters for the glenn powell craze and left with a scott/david corenswet obsession and these thoughts must come out of my head.

Shoutout to @hederasgarden and @sailor-aviator for leading the charge for the Scott girlies. All of their writings and drabbles inspired me to write this one, so check them out!

If people like this I might do a smutty part 2! I don't mind writing smut I just feel like it's not very good hahaha but let me know what you think!

--

You heavily resented the idea that guys and girls could not just be friends, because you'd be damned if Tyler Owens wasn't the best friend you ever had.

You met on the playground in Kindergarten. A boy pushed you off a swing, Tyler defended your honor, and the rest was history.

Tyler's overprotective streak made you view him like the brother you never had, and that's how your relationship remained. He was family, and that was that.

Tyler had always been interested in tornadoes, more specifically, how to track and predict them. You, on the other hand, hated science, including weather, but you loved the thrill of the chase.

In college, you studied marketing while Tyler studied meteorology. So, when Tyler had the idea to start streaming his storm chases, you were right there with him to help grow his brand.

Tyler knows he would be stupid not to credit you with all his success. You set up his streaming account, you edited all the clips and drone footage to post to his social media after the fact, and you even gave him the idea for the "Tornado Wrangler" nickname.

Now that everything was off the ground, you mostly put together streaming highlights and designed the merch, but you were right there in the backseat for every single chase, soaking up all the thrills.

This particular storm outbreak was expected to be a big one, so the whole crew strapped in for a week of bad weather, cheap motel rooms, and of course, a few run-ins with other chasers, including the guys from Storm Par.

"Storm Par's here." You said, gesturing to the fleet of white vans parked at the gas station you had just pulled up to.

"Of course they are." Tyler sighed. "There's probably going to be a lot of damage done by these storms for them to swoop in on. Just ignore them."

"No, we should be polite." You chastised him. "I'm gonna go say hi. Will you get me a cherry coke please?"

Tyler fought back an eye-roll, but nodded with a smile as you both got out of the car. "Of course."

Like everyone else in the crew, the Storm Par guys got on your last nerve. They were all a bunch of Ivy League grads who thought a more expensive degree made them better than everyone else.

However, being raised by your Mama, the epitome of Southern grace and charm, you always put a smile on your face and treated them with kindness. You even occasionally brought them food or coffee if you ran into them in the aftermath of a storm.

And even though you were blissfully unaware of the fact, this drove Scott absolutely mad.

"Hi Scott, Javi." You said cheerfully to the two boys in charge.

Scott replied with a grunt, but Javi was quick to greet you with genuine enthusiasm. "Hey! How are you?"

"I'm doing well." You nodded, smoothing your hands over your athleisure skirt. "Excited for a good chase today. How about you guys?"

"Us too." Javi nodded. "We're hoping to finally get some solid data collection today."

"Ah." You nodded, unsure what to say. You hated the idea of what they were collecting data for, but Javi seemed like a nice enough guy, and Tyler ripped on them enough for the both of you.

"Something on your mind there, princess?" Scott finally spoke, glancing away from his tablet to look down on you (literally and figuratively).

You rolled your eyes. While you would normally love to be called a princess, it always sounded like an insult coming from Scott, his voice always laced with a touch of venom.

"No, nothing at all." You smiled. "Just wondering if we'll see you guys in the aftermath if there's any damage done?"

"Why? Are you looking to increase your t-shirt sales?"

You bit your tongue, doing your best to hold your composure and not let him get to you.

"Nope, just trying to figure out if we need to make some extra to-go boxes for you guys." You decided to focus your gaze on Javi instead, finding him less intimidating.

Javi opened his mouth to speak, but Scott beat him to the punch. "I think we can find food on our own, thanks."

You took a deep breath, choosing your next words carefully. "Okay, well, the offer always stands if you change your mind."

Javi smiled and nodded. "As much as I want to see a good storm today, let's hope we don't have a ton of damage clean up."

You smiled. You knew he had a heart.

"That's something we both can agree on." You grinned. "Stay safe out there you guys!"

With that, you turned and walked away. Scott watched you go, your hair and skirt blowing side to side in the wind.

"Stay safe out there you guys." Scott mocked you under his breath.

"Yo, you don't always have to be a jerk to her, you know."

Scott gave him an unamused look. "She comes out here with her little boyfriend, selling his t-shirts and shit, and then skips over here like we're the best of friends with her thick southern accent. It's all fake."

"For one, I don't think Owens is her boyfriend." Javi corrected. "And two, I think she's just a genuinely nice person. She always says hello, even when everyone else in their crew ignores us like the plague."

"Whatever." Scott mumbled.

As you reached the truck, you took the ice-cold Coca-Cola bottle from Tyler's outstretched hand.

"Thank you!" You said excitedly, twisting the cap off to take a sip.

"How are dumb and dumber?" Tyler teased.

"Javi was nice." You informed him. "Scott was... there."

"Ah, yes." Tyler laughed. "Word on the street is he's a man of many words."

"Right." You agreed sarcastically. "But, when he does speak to me, he always calls me princess, and it drives me crazy."

"In what way?" Tyler said, failing to hold back a smirk.

It took you a moment to realize what he was implying, but when you did, you were mortified,

"Tyler Owens!" You gasped, your face flushing red with embarrassment.

""I'm just teasing you! You make it too easy." He laughed loudly. "In my defense, he looks like exactly like every boyfriend you've ever had."

Your face got even warmer, because he was exactly right. You had a weakness for tall, muscular, dark-haired men, and you especially loved a man who was a challenge.

"That is...irrelevant." You said, covering your face in your hands out of pure embarrassment.

Tyler held his hands up in surrender, as you rushed to talk about anything but Scott. "Let's just figure out what storm we're going after, you jerk." You insulted Tyler, but the smile on your face was ear to ear.

Scott watched the interaction from afar, and his chest twisted at your sickeningly sweet smile. Even if you weren't Owens' girlfriend, your closeness was evident. He ignored the burning feeling that was rising within him, not wanting to question why it was there in the first place.

Tornadoes were scary, but trying to understand how he felt about you? Terrifying.

"Alright, boss man, which storm are we chasing?" Javi pulled him out of his thoughts with a hand clapped on his shoulder, and he finally pulled his gaze away from your smile, the sound of your laughter fading into the background.

--

The storm was bad.

It hit a small town of about 3,000 people, and you estimated based on the initial damage scene that it was an EF3 at best, maybe even an EF4.

You were currently handing out anything that might be helpful to families who had been impacted by the tornado - blankets, water, heat lamps. pre-made sandwiches and cookies. You tried to offer them any comfort you could with a smile and hug, but you understood the devastation they felt all too well.

In the early days, you would try to help with the damage cleanup, but Tyler insisted that you stay back at the camper and talk to the families.

At first, you were insulted, and you thought that Tyler was insinuating you weren't strong enough to move heavy tree limbs or pieces of drywall. You finally asked him about it one day, and he laughed.

"Absolutely not!" He insisted. "You just have this energy around you that's calming, and these families need that. Your empathy and kindness are doing much more for them right now than cleaning up a bunch of rubble would."

You had never thought of it like that, but once Tyler pointed it out, it became your mission to be the solace that these families in crisis needed.

"Is there anything else we can do for you, Mrs. Smith?" You asked, rubbing the arms of a middle-aged woman who you had been speaking to for a few minutes now.

"No, thank you." She sniffled. "I really appreciate you guys being here. God bless you."

You smiled, giving her another hug. "Please let us know if there's anything more we can do to help."

She nodded, walking away to join her family, who were staring at the remains of their house.

You pushed back tears, feeling silly that this never got any easier for you, but also focused on being the anchor that these folks needed.

Scott saw you before you saw him. He watched you from afar as you did your work. He watched you force a smile and hold these people as they cried. He also watched you look up to blink back the tears before taking a deep breath and moving on to the next.

And damn if it didn't drive him nuts.

This job is easier when he doesn't get involved with the people impacted. It's easier to pretend not to care. But watching you pour your heart out to strangers, just because it's the right thing to do? It made his heart jump, and that scared him.

Ignoring the people involved and ignoring his feelings for you had become increasingly more difficult with every chase.

"Scott!" You called, approaching him with a styrofoam container in your hand.

He sighed, mentally preparing himself as you literally bounced over to him.

How the hell does someone look this good after taking on a tornado?

"Here." You offered him the container. "It's just a ham and cheese sandwich and a cookie."

"I'm really not hungry." He responded.

"Seriously?" You asked, not buying it. "We've all been chasing since 10 AM and it's nearly 8, you have to be hungry."

Scott shrugged, trying to hold back the things he really wanted to say.

"Fine." You sighed. "We're right over here if you change your mind."

"Yeah, I know princess. It's hard to miss you being the town's savior over there."

Scott watched you visibly retract and he internally screamed as his heart dropped. You probably hated him, but it didn't matter anyway. You were far too sweet for him, so putting a wedge between the two of you seemed to be the smartest way to outrun his feelings.

"Wow." You spoke, your voice much smaller and shakier than usual. "I knew you were sarcastic and maybe even a little mean, but I never thought you were actually cruel. So, thanks, for enlightening me."

And with that, you turned and strutted off. This time, you failed to fight back the tears as you returned to the camper.

And to your horror, Tyler was there, taking a break from clean up for some water.

When Tyler sees you cry, his overprotective streak comes out instantly, and right now you didn't want to be protected, because you were so embarrassed that he finally got to you. You were even more embarrassed that you thought that just maybe, he might be a good person under that scowl and hard facade.

"Hey, hey, hey, are you okay?" Tyler rushed up to meet you.

You nodded, trying to stop sniffling. "I'm fine."

Tyler looked behind you to see Scott watching you closely, with a look that almost mimicked longing, and he quickly put two and two together.

"Let me handle this." He insisted.

You shook your head in protest. "No, Tyler, please, he thinks I'm a waste of time anyways, it's not worth it."

"Trust me, he doesn't," Tyler reassured you. "Let me handle this, and if it goes badly, I'll edit all the stream highlights for the next two weeks, okay?"

"Deal." You nodded.

You truly did trust him more than anyone in your life, so you opted to go inside the camper and dry up your tears while he went to speak to Scott. You would let Tyler handle it, but no way were you going to stand there and watch, looking like a puppy who just got kicked.

"Coming to defend your girlfriend's honor?" Scott said sarcastically, trying to mask any emotion he was feeling.

"Dude, seriously." Tyler glared at him. "If you want her attention being a complete and total asshole is not the way you get it."

"Is that what you think? That I want her 'attention'?" He said, framing the last word in air quotes.

"Yeah, I do." Tyler nodded. "I saw the look you gave her as she walked away."

"Okay, so what?" Scott shrugged. "You might be surprised to know I am human and I didn't mean to make her cry."

"Sure." Tyler nodded. "So, what about all the other times I've caught you staring at her, hm?"

Scott stayed silent, stunned speechless.

"Ah, you thought you were better at hiding it, didn't you?" Tyler said with a smug grin. "Every time we end up at the same gas station, restaurant, bar, or motel, your eyes follow her nearly the whole time. And don't even get me started on the holes you burn into my head when I'm talking to her."

"Alright, fine." Scott snapped angrily. "Here to rub it in my face then?"

Tyler sighed in frustration. "No."

"Then what?"

"I'm going to give you a piece of advice."

"Why?" Scott scoffed. "It's no secret that we aren't friends."

"I know her better than anyone else, do you want my help or not?" Tyler asked, his patience nearing its limit.

Scott didn't protest this time.

"Look, no matter what I think about you, you're pretty much exactly her type," Tyler said, much to Scott's surprise. "So if you want her, apologize and tell her how you feel."

"She's not going to feel the same, and she deserves much better than me." Scott retorted. "C'mon Owens, you know what we do. When she comes floating into these broken towns like a heaven-sent angel, I'm collecting data for the devil."

"That doesn't have to be a permanent problem." Tyler pointed out. "Plus, she likes a challenge, and she's definitely brave enough to think she can fix you."

That cracked a smile from both of them, followed by a moment of silence.

"218." Tyler said.

"What?"

"That's the room she's staying in tonight." Tyler said, starting to walk away. "Apologize."

Scott nodded, beginning to formulate a plan on how the hell he was going to get you to forgive him.

--

You were snug under your blanket in the motel room watching reruns of Modern Family when the knock came.

You sighed and got up, not bothering to check the peephole as you assumed it was just Tyler coming to talk about the day's events.

So when you opened the door to see Scott standing there, you couldn't be more surprised.

"What are you doing here?" You said quietly, nearly breathless at the sight of him.

It wasn't the first time you had seen him outside of that stupid Storm Par white jumpsuit, but it was the first time you had seen him in gray sweatpants and a tight black long-sleeve shirt that clung to his muscles in a way that you could only describe as sinful.

He towered over you, leaning against the frame of the doorway, and you nearly shuddered when you looked up to meet the intense gaze in his eyes.

"I brought you something. As an apology for being an ass earlier today."

"Oh, and what did you bring for all the other times?" You spat back, no longer in the mood to play nice with him.

"I deserve that." He sighed. "Can I come in?"

"Depends." You responded, and he raised an eyebrow. "What did you bring me?"

He handed you a plastic bag, and you opened it to find a Cherry Coke, Sour Patch Kids, and a Honey Bun.

All of your favorites.

"How did you know what I like?" You asked, curious to know if Tyler was behind this.

"You always get some combination of the three at any local gas station." He shrugged.

He remembered because the first time he saw you buy all three he physically rolled his eyes, because, of course, you would buy snacks just as sickeningly sweet as you.

"I didn't know you paid this much attention to me." You said softly.

"Yeah." Scott inhaled a sharp breath. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about. Can I please come in?"

You opened the door, inviting him in with the gesture. The door shut behind you, and there was a brief moment of silence between you two.

"I'm sorry, for being a jerk today and every other time I'm around you." Scott started, visibly nervous as he ran a hand through his hair. "I wish I had a better explanation for why I've been such an ass."

"Yeah, so let's hear it." You said, hands on your hips. "Because I have been nothing but nice to you, even though I don't like who you work for and what they stand for."

"I know." He nodded. "At first, I thought you were being fake or sarcastic because it was unfathomable to me that you would be nice to us when you have absolutely no reason to be."

You nodded, encouraging him to continue.

"But once I learned more about you, and I realized you were being genuinely nice," Scott took a deep breath, building up all his courage. "It knocked me off my feet."

"What do you mean?" You asked, confused at what he was getting at

"I spend most of my time pretending that I don't care about the people that are devastated by all of this, because it's easier that way. But watching you bear your heart and soul to all of these people, just because you can?" Scott scoffed. "It makes it hard to pretend like I don't care about them, or more importantly, about you."

"You care about me?"

"I do." He nodded. "And I was a jerk to you because I thought it would be easier to make you hate me than it would be to admit that I have feelings for you, when you're far too good for me."

His admission stunned you. You can feel your heart thumping out of your chest as you look into his eyes, which look painstakingly vulnerable.

"I completely understand if you don't feel the same way, but I couldn't outrun these feelings anymore, and I wanted to at least let you know that I'm sorry."

The room fell silent as you processed everything he just told you. Scott was panicking inside, waiting for what felt like years for you to say something, anything.

"Do you know why I was always nice to you?" You asked him. "Because I was hoping that somewhere in there you had a good side. I needed to know that you had a heart before I could admit to myself that I felt drawn to you."

"Do you still? Feel drawn to me?"

You nodded. Stepping closer to him so that you were nearly face to face.

"Can I kiss you?"

"Please." You nodded desperately, your words barely above a whisper.

His lips were on yours in a flash, and the pure intensity of the kiss nearly knocked you off your feet. It was heated and rough, but somehow gentle and passionate at the same time. His thumb grazed your cheek as he pulled you closer, and every spot his fingers touched made your skin feel like it was on fire. You couldn't get enough of him.

Once he knew you were comfortable, he took the liberty of exploring you more. His tongue slipped into your mouth gently and his teeth caught your bottom lip, causing a small whimper to come from the back of your throat.

Scott groaned at the sound, letting his mind imagine (not for the first time) all of the sounds he could pull from you.

When the two of you finally pulled away for air, he kept you close, his hands ghosting under your chin around your neck, forcing you to meet his eyes.

"You taste just as sweet as I thought you would," Scott said with a smirk.

"Shut up and kiss me again."

[indierpgnewsletter]

The 1980 Dallas RPG was a Soap Opera Wargame?

In 1980, SPI, a company known for its wargames did a strange thing and published an RPG based on the Dallas tv show. If you don't know anything about the tv show, don't worry, I will protect you. It's too late for me though. You go on ahead. Basically, it was a hit TV show of big money family feuding. Imagine Succession but it was written in the 1980s and instead of TV news, it was an oil company. Unlike the show, the RPG wasn't a hit. The art director of the game famously wrote that they printed 80,000 copies and that was 79,999 more than people wanted. That one person seemed to be this person's grandma who bought it for him to save his soul from D&D/Satan.

What is this game though? Well, James F Dunnigan, founder of SPI and designer of legendary wargame, Panzerblitz, seems to have applied his analytical mind to the internecine squabbles of Dallas and decided that, if you think about it, petty family drama isn't so different from CIA covert ops. And he was right.

As you'd expect from a wargame, the rules are dry and clinical to a fault. You start by picking one of the 9 characters from the show - JR, Jock, Sue Ellen, Pam, etc. They all have stats like Persuasion, Coercion, Seduction. And these stats have attack/defend values. For example, JR has a Coercion of 24 because he's a real jerk. Sue Ellen has a Seduction resist of 18, but it's 20 against JR, because again, he seems to have been a real jerk. This game genuinely went out of its way to make sure you know JR's wife really really doesn't want to go near him.

Each character starts the session ("episode") with a secret story-based objective. Jock wants to run an angry former employee out of town, JR wants to cheat an Arab oil magnate out of 100 million dollars, Sue Ellen wants to do a favour for an old boyfriend. Yeah, what can I say? Some of these objectives feel more important than others. Regardless, you achieve these objectives by controlling 4 or more specific minor characters and organisations by the end of the game. For example, to enact his 100 million dollar plan, JR has to control the Ewing Oil Company, Mustafa Quattara, Professor Bayard, the reporter Mary Cleef, and so on. But characters' objective overlap so Pam also wants Mustafa Quattara and Jock also wants Professor Bayard. These conflicting goals means players need to scheme, negotiate and attack each other so they can win.

The sessions play out in five rounds. Each round, the GM sets the scene. Then, the players can negotiate and make deals. Then, we enter the conflict phase where each player makes three moves - either trying to gain control of uncontrolled NPCs, or attacking another player to steal an NPC from under them, or protecting their own NPCs. And the game throws in little curveballs every round: Oops, some of JR's drinking buddies are in town and he can't say no to them, so his character is out of this round. Hopefully the player has some NPCs that they can use to act instead. Oops, Mustafa Quattara is being chased by assassins. Whoever controls his card has to give it up as he disappears for a bit and comes back uncontrolled. The end result is somewhere in between Vampire the Masquerade (or rather, Undying) and Blood on the Clocktower.

Sure, the math is dense (you roll 2d6 under the difference between the attack value and the defense value, plus or minus any currency spent). Sure, it takes 9 players to really sing. Sure, multiple people can complete their objective so you need to track victory points separately to decide the real winner. Sure, you have to take the homophobia out of the Seduction rules. Sure, roleplaying is completely optional. Sure, sure, sure. The game is a mess. But it's a very playable mess. I'd go so far as to say it's an electric mess. It's shockingly (sorry) fun to play. I think the secret lies in a very clear agenda for the players, a tight boardgame-like action economy, a premise that supports hilarious degrees of pettiness, and an inter-personal experience that demands everyone pay attention to what their friends are doing.

So. Am I planning a full 9 person play-by-post game of this? Yes. Am I thinking of changing the setting and the math? Yes. Is that basically designing a new game? Yes. Should this game be labelled "Powered by Dallas" or, as one of my players suggested, "Hornswoggled by Dallas"? YES.

(This was first published in the Indie RPG Newsletter.)

[cowboyfromh3ll]

Hcs for the boys' toxic traits. Preferably arthur, javier, john, and charles, but other boys are welcome too! I'm curious to see what you'd say Dutch's toxic traist are, though they're pretty self explanatory 😭

I just love how you write sm sorreyyyy

Van Der Linde Gang's Toxic traits

(Arthur Morgan, Javier Escuella, John Marston, Charles Smith, Micah Bell, Dutch Van Der Linde, Sean Macguire, Kieran Duffy, Eagle Flies)

HAHAHA THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN TO WRITE. I tried not to sugarcoat anything.

Arthur Morgan - He definitely has some trouble communicating. Not to say he never will communicate with you but it'll be long in between and after it's been plaguing him for a milenium. As we've seen, this man is capable of having deep, well thought out conversations. He'd also be pretty prideful to some degree. Mostly depends what point in time you start dating, later in game he'd be able to see past his pride. Also, I feel like if you were dating a major point of contention in your relationship would be questioning whether it's time to move on from this life.

Javier Escuella - WAY too jealous. I don't even mean it in a cute way but in a way that would genuinely cause several arguments between you two. "Why were you looking at him that way?" "That sounded like you were flirting with him" "Why do you spend so much time around the other guys?" Would also be around you 24/7. Someone would be incapable of having a conversation with you that doesn't include Javier. You two would also argue about Dutch's leadership skills.

John Marston - Oh my God this man is so indecisive. Doesn't know what he wants ever. In a modern setting you two would be sitting in the car, asking each other back and forth "what do you wanna eat?". And his commitment issues? Good lord. At some points in your relationship it'd probably feel like you guys aren't dating at all. You'd probably have to beg him to put some effort into the relationship to be honest.

Charles Smith - It's so hard to think of ANYTHING this man can do wrong but alas, I must. You probably wouldn't be his top priority at all times. Which isn't to say you should ALWAYS be at the top of his list, but sometimes it can result in your feelings being neglected over a situation that affects you. Only when the day reaches it's end will he consult you over something, which will have you feeling incredibly frustrated.

Micah Bell - This man is a walking red flag so let's not dance around his flaws. Incredibly prideful, will ignore your warnings over something just to get his way. Also probably lies to you A LOT. Can be way too rough with you in many aspects. Also this man embodies the word sleezy. Yuck.

Dutch Van Der Linde - Do I even need to say. So fucking stubborn. He also probably thinks he's intelectually superior to you. If you bring up a concern to him he'll probably use as many flowery and big words as possible to make himself appear smarter during the discussion than he actually is. And if you advise him to do anything he'll probably just ignore you, saying you don't know what you're talking about. All in all, thinks he's better than you. Also you're probably a trophy wife since Dutch views women as accessories to his success, if you can even call it success.

Sean Macguire - He doesn't take anything seriously. If you're trying to have a genuine discussion with him he'll play it down and make it seem less important or severe than it actually is. Don't even bother trying to emphasize how serious you are because he won't take that seriously either. It's only until he feels the consequences of his actions will he listen to you, which results in a frustrating cycle.

Kieran Duffy - Also very indecisive but in the way where he can't speak up for himself because he doesn't think it's important. Has such low self esteem, he also probably thinks his emotions are less important which results in a lot of miscommunication on his behalf. Sorta just let's you take the lead all the way, always let's you have your way, with no valuable input of his own. You have to shake his shoulders and beg for him to actually speak his mind.

Eagle Flies - He's probably so childish. Like, mommy issues CEO over here. Will probably seek for you to fulfill that role in his life. Has almost no control over his emotions and has trouble identifying them, and when he does indentify them, has absolutely no idea what to do with them in terms of expression. He will make various efforts to communicate with you but will struggle immensely. Being with him will probably be like teaching a man how to experience emotions in a healthy way. I could write an entire post dedicated to what I think his toxic traits are

More eagle flies ones

[lurkingshan]

Wedding Impossible

I recently caught wind of a mainstream kdrama with a significant queer character and @he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle pinged me today to say it's legit, so of course I had to check it out.

If you're curious, here's the set up:

Lee Ji Han (male lead) is the youngest grandson of a chaebol family. He wants to inherit the company but knows he can’t because of his position in the family, so he is pinning his hopes on his older brother who has no interest in the business to inherit so he can run things behind the scenes.

Lee Do Han, his brother, is a closeted gay man. He has been living in NYC for the last five years to escape scrutiny but is now being forced back to South Korean because his grandfather is trying to make him marry an heiress and take over the family business.

Nah Ah Jeong (female lead) is Do Han's best friend of 15 years and the only person in his life who knows he’s gay--she bearded for him in high school. She’s an actress but not a successful one, and she is always hustling for work including taking some very non-traditional acting jobs. She and Do Han are close and she knows his biggest secret, but she didn’t know he was a chaebol.

Do Han, under pressure from his both his grandfather and his brother, asks Ah Jeong to enter a lavendar marriage with him for three years to get them off his back and set him up to get out of the inheritance entirely. He frames it as an acting job and offers generous compensation, as well as appealing to her as a friend.

Yoon Chae Won, the heiress everyone is trying to force Do Han to marry, seems like a nice gal who honestly didn’t ask for any of this nonsense but is dealing with her own family pressures.

There is also a cabal of scheming half siblings (they have a different father from Ji Han and Do Han, it's a whole family scandal) who are fighting for control of the company, so will be working at cross purposes with Ji Han.

The primary focus of this drama is the enemies to lovers romance between Ji Han and Ah Jeong, as Ji Han does not know his brother is gay or that this romance is fake, and is trying to prevent the marriage by antagonizing Ah Jeong. He seems to love his brother but also doesn’t see what the big deal is about an arranged marriage if it means they get control of the company, probably because he himself has never cared about anything but earning his place. To be frank, I don't like his character and am not invested in this romance, and if that was all the show was doing, I probably would not stick around.

But Do Han is very important to the narrative, and the whole plot is built around his sexuality and his fear of coming out, so he has a very important role to play and will go on the extremely short list of gay characters with significant roles in mainstream kdrama. I don't expect him to get a romance, but I do expect that his story with his family and his pursuit of the life he wants will stay the B plot, and the tone of this drama lends itself to him getting a happy resolution. And I do genuinely like his friendship with Ah Jeong; she is a delight and their loyalty to each other is a really nice aspect of this drama. So I will be sticking around for them, and I do recommend folks who are interested check this drama out to support the production and make it clear there's an audience for queer stories in kdrama.

[lizzaneia-elizalde]

Male Yandere Adventurer x Female Magical Maiden Reader

Just imagine a man who’s on an adventure or is like a hunter or something, coming across a magical maiden bathing in a body of water, and he just has to make her his

I was inspired by all those beautiful water nymph/maiden oil paintings that I thought this would be a cool concept if reader darling was the magical one for a change. Or what if yandere also secretly had some magic blood in him!?

Thanks!!! 💝

Yandere! Male! Hero! Isekai'ed Adventurer x Fem! Elementalist mage! Reader

💝 ANON! I love this request so much because I love worldbuilding. Making your own lore to magical worlds is just-- ack!

This time, this world will be the same as Yan! Villain's world. Hope you don't mind me putting more elements to the fic.

Also, my ask box is going to be open again! Finally. Lol. :3

Yan! Isekai'ed Adventurer's name: Aeron

A great Adventurer. Someone who defeated the Demon King by his own hands without any help.

From a nobody to the Hero everyone looked up to, Aeron shot up through the ranks of the Empire.

Charismatic, brave, strong, and determined, Aeron was somebody people underestimated before.

After all, he just suddenly appeared one day. In the middle of the throne room, nonetheless.

Begging for his life, Aeron pleaded the Emperor to not put him in jail for trespassing the palace. So, with the Emperor looking to take advantage of this man, he assigned Aeron to kill the Demon King by himself.

"Isn't that suicide?"

Yes, it was.

But Aeron is desperate. So he agreed to the quest and set off with only a few copper coins, a sword, bow, shield, stale bread, and the clothes on his back.

He's legitimately sent to die.

Only a human. Without any powers, nor he didn't go to the gym that much to have the physical prowess to even have a chance of fighting back.

He was so scared. So small, so powerless in a world filled with unknown magic that he didn't encounter back in earth at all.

He's someone who hopped from party to party, as people only saw him as fodder, or they just scammed him of free labor. Then abandoned once they realized he's off to kill the Demon King.

He tried so hard.

So hard for people to take him seriously.

But all he received was ridicule, harsh words, and spits or beatings for the people who went too far.

Humans, all they cared about are themselves and nobody else.

Selfish, hateful, and evil.

Are they sure the Demon King is the evil one and not them?

His body screamed in pain everyday as he hiked alone and taken advantage of. His wounds severe, his leg cut off. He tried so hard to be so understanding, but what is there to understand of hearts so filled with vile intentions?

Revenge, he was fueled with it.

He wants to see blood, he wants to see them suffering for the suffering he got. Tenfold.

Hero? He was no hero as he cut off the head of the Demon King who was innocent, and didn't do anything wrong.

Does he feel bad?

He feels too bad for himself to feel bad for others.

Waving the head of the Demon King, he trudges back to the Palace. Throwing the head at the feet of the fearful Emperor. Aeron sighs, knowing everything is finally going to his direction as the Emperor grants him Marquess status, after kicking the previous Marquess for corruption.

As the hero, he was regarded as a celebrity. Everyone loved him, and everyone revered him. Those who wronged him before though, now boasts of being his ex-party mates, and that they were the best of friends. Singing praises as if they didn't sling hurtful words to his way before.

Let's just say, they ended up dead the next day for even trying to say those words.

There's only one person who genuinely helped Aeron.

A mage, living alone in the woods on the foot of the Demon King's castle. She's somewhat of an enigma, capable of holding off monsters from trying to invade the Empire, especially the Demon King himself. Sure, the King is innocent, but only because he was not successful in invading the Empire yet due to her.

And she was you.

Truthfully, you were only a bored, overpowered mage who decided to protect the Empire one day. You wield all the main elements in a precision that nobody has topped off before, and sub-elementals in a way that other master wizards only dream of wielding.

OP, sure, but you didn't care about other people's feelings.

So, how did Aeron meet you?

On the way to the top of the castle, he had to take a bath due to being rancid. Showered with monsters' blood left and right, he hadn't had a bath for so long too, focused on killing the Demon King and nothing more. He didn't even care about his leg being gone as he hopped towards the stream.

Then, he saw you. Beautiful, ethereal you.

Bathing under the moonlight, the water cascaded down your skin and onto your curves, and down to the stream once more. Your hair, wet, shines as if stars sparkled within them.

Then your eyes. Deep, sharp, bored.

He was captivated.

"Who are you?" You asked, not even looking at him as you continued to wield the stream's water to make a pseudo shower. "Do not look at me like that, lecher."

Aeron froze, embarassed.

"Ah no, I just... Want to take a bath too when I saw you."

Your gaze looked at him.

"I can see that you really need a bath."

Aeron flushed red once more.

You cracked your neck before standing up. Aeron's eyes followed your every movement as you went up to him.

He could feel his heart beat increase in speed.

Then, feeling an itch on his leg stump, his eyes widened as a grotesque yet mesmerizing event happened. His leg is reforming once more.

"How did you..." He flexed his leg, in awe.

"Take a bath, you smell bad." You dismissed him before going away.

"Your name! Miss..." He yells, eyes erratic.

"Y/N. See you around, future hero."

And you left with a bag of gold, a mana infused sword, bow with mana arrows, and a shield made of obsidian.

The complete opposite of the Emperor.

His heart raced once more as tears fell from his eyes.

The first act of kindness he received in this world.

He vowed to repay you, so he took a bath, and headed straight to the Demon King to fight.

Now, he's here to pay back the kindness you gave him.

And he just hopes you recognize the man in front of you.

Or else.

After helping the Duke Eros in the war and earning another victory in his belt, Aeron rested his body in his chateau once more.

He placed his arm over his eyes, sighing deeply.

little dancing black sprites danced all around him as the sun filtered through the arched windows. These sprites started following him after he defeated the Demon King, and now he wields them like how a magic user does. He's still completely magic-less, but thanks to the sprites, he got to wield magic.

It was sunset, and Aeron just got back from reporting to the Emperor who gloated about the fact that this Empire just won another war.

"That freak." He muttered.

The current Emperor, who just succeeded the previous Emperor who mysteriously died with black sprites latched on his body, was a warfreak who wanted to spread his territory for fun, and spills bloodshed for the thrill of it. He's just the same age as Eros and Aeron, but god is he a crazy motherfucker.

Aeron stood up, letting the sprites dance around his palm as he casted magic on his hand. The sprite absorbed into his skin, making his arm pitch black with his veins dying the dark color. Creeping up to his arm.

"Portal."

The spatial frame cracked, forming a what looked like a broken glass opening.

It opens to the forest, the foot of the Demon King's castle.

His heart rate picked up once more.

He stepped forward, entering into the portal and being teleported into the forest.

One thing he got from the war he was forced to join is a ring with a jewel the same color as your eyes. One with an intricate carving and a unique design. As if veins popped out of the jewel, which was the centerpiece. It's embedded with fae magic that Aeron hopes is useful for you.

His steps heavy, the crunch of the leaves under you filled his ears. He's quiet, even his breathing light and seemingly not there. His time in the war, and fighting different beasts after the Demon King trained his body to perfection.

He stopped in front of the stream once more, a sense of dejavu knocked into him as he watched you bath once more there.

The moonlight filtered through the much bigger trees and into you below. You were much more magnificent than he remembers.

He gulped, itching to touch you, kiss you, feel you.

He felt pent up. But he knows that he should stop himself.

"*ehem*, my lady." He said, back straight and chest out. His eyes sparkling with warmth. "Remember me?"

You, startled as you didn't feel a presence, whipped your body towards him. A stark contrast to how you reacted before.

But, he felt his stomach drop when you looked at him all confused.

"Who are you?"

He suddenly clammed up.

Sweat started to riddle his face, eyes wide with betrayal.

This...

"I'm the person you helped before, my lady. The one without a leg?"

You hummed.

"I don't really recognize you..."

He started to breath heavily and shakily. His eyes, trembling, he tried to find signs of your form if you were joking.

But no, you were serious.

He took a step forward, his lips trying to say something. Anything.

You shrugged at his reaction.

"I help a lot of people, really. So I don't recognize you. Have I helped you? I assume I did, as you said."

But all he could utter was a helpless, silent cry.

This was worse than being exploited.

The only person who was nice to him when he got isekai'ed into this godforsaken world forgot him.

And you helped other people?

Not just him?

Something unknown bubbled deep into his stomach painfully. It felt like it was wrenching into a boulder he can't seem to lift away.

"My Lady... I..." His mouth felt dry.

You shrugged, snapping your fingers and making you instantly dry after you went up to the shore.

Wearing your clothes, you waved to him before going away once more.

Aeron felt sick to his stomach as he keeled over.

He never cried.

He refused to cry for the people who wronged him.

But now, tears flowed down from his eyes as he started to go under a panic attack.

"My Lady... Why... Why don't you remember me..." He sobbed out, his throat painfully clawing out cries of desperation. The tears soaked his cheeks but he didn't care. "You were so nice to me... Why?"

The fantasy he built inside your mind was now broken completely. He thought you will remember him. He didn't consider that you won't remember him.

He felt so lost.

What's all this for?

What is he fighting for?

When his lady doesn't even remember him?

He gripped the grass beneath him. A strangled cry finally gargling out of his mouth.

Why did he feel so attached to you?

Just because you were the nicest to him?

So what? You chose to be nice in this place filled with vile people.

He just wished you didn't.

He just wished you left him alone, maybe even be rude to him like others did if you would just forget him.

But no, you used your magic on him. A pathetic alien in this grotesque world filled with magic and discrimination.

He just wished he would die then and there.

As negative thoughts filled him, the darkness around him seeped into his legs and arms. Like the sprites, black veins crept around his limbs painfully and into his neck.

What is a hero?

His sclera turned black, his breathing became shorter and shorter.

Does a hero need to be always good?

Something poured inside him, making him gargle in pain. Drool dripped down his chin as he snapped out of it. He writhed in pain from the sudden influx of mana inside his body.

Why was he sent to this goddamn world in the first place?

He curled his toes, his body becoming rigid. Like a leech sprinkled with salt, he painfully clawed at his face as he moved around the place. His heart pounding fast, his mind pulsing all over the place.

Is the purpose of him being isekai'ed here is to save the world?

He hacked up blood, keeling over. The boulder in his stomach now a fiery acid he wished to dispel from his body. He vomits out blood again, but it was pitch black.

But if he was destined to be a hero, why is he suffering so much?

He wants the pain to be gone, he wants it off. He wants to ask for your help, to scream for your name to alleviate his pain like you did before. But no sound came from his mouth. Only black and purple smoke as his body underwent changes he never thought would happen.

Please, will you help this poor man?

After an hour, he shakily stood up. He felt that his senses got more sensitive, tenfold. He can feel every beast's emotion. He can feel overwhelming power inside him, same as authority.

After all, you were the light to his world.

And, as hundreds of beasts surround him, a sprite descended from above and placed a crown on his head. The monsters bowed to him. He numbly stood there, looking so disheveled but so ominous as he took a deep sigh.

Give this Demon King a chance, yes?

You flipped through your mythology book, lazily drinking tea.

You just finished eating dinner, and is now lounging at the roof of your treehouse. Intaking the mana into your body slowly, you had a relaxed form as you yawned from tiredness.

Then you felt it.

The sudden influx of demonic power converging into one place.

Your body shivered, goosebumps riddling your skin.

Coincidentally, the page you stopped on had the ritual of birthing the new Demon King.

After defeating the previous Demon King, a person experiencing the worst grief there is, someone who only received harshness and no kindness in his life, will be able to become the Demon King if a trigger happened. May it be betrayal of feelings, or if one act of kindness inside his unfortunate life suddenly turned sour. Creating the Ultimate Grief, the catalyst of the demonic power to surge inside that person.

Will you run away, or investigate, or stay?

You froze, not knowing what to do.

The only person inside the forest is the Empire's Hero earlier, who introduced himself to you.

What happened?

Is this related to you?

But you seriously don't remember him.

Or did you, and just don't want to acknowledge it by some reason?

Your trembling hand reached for your bag and hastily packed up your stuff. The previous Demon King was weak, somebody who lived for so long that his negative Demonic Powers were slowly depleting.

And the birth of a new Demon King is never a good sign.

This is one of the few times you cursed yourself for not learning how to do teleportation.

Two bags. Not enough but will do for now.

You need to warn the Empire.

"AH!"

As you grabbed the bags and tried to get out of your house, you stopped in your tracks when black veins crept on the floorboards, trying to reach your legs.

Heart rate picking up, you got up the couch.

You just knew that if these veins reached you, you are a gonner.

You clutched your bag, hearing a sorrowful moan outside the treehouse.

"My Lady... Why don't you recognize me?"

You're powerless against a newly awakened Demon King.

You can't escape him.

"You're my light, why did you forget me..."

Your walls creaked and moaned under the intense pressure Aeron was emitting. As if they were yelling at you for forgetting him.

"Was it because I was scrawny and dirty back then?"

He continued to wail outside of the treehouse. You tried casting light magic and dark magic, but they didn't do jackshit on the veins. They continued to try and wrap around your legs.

"My lady... Should I bathe myself in blood for you to recognize me?!"

Powerful wind blew away your front door as you screamed in terror.

Aeron stood on the archway, eyes bloodshot and crazy as his handsome visage was filled with grief, longing, love, anger, sadness...

"You're the same as them my lady..."

You searched his face, trying to recognize him. Your body was struggling to stay standing from the amount of pressure being pressed on your body.

Wait, something's coming in your mind.

As an attempt to speed up your memory, you hit your head with the heel of your palm. In a state of panic of wanting to remember immediately.

The floorboards groaned under his weight as Aeron stepped forward to you.

"Remember me, my lady. Please." Dark tears fell on his cheeks. "Please..."

"Ah! You... The man with the bloodiest stench, with the leg stump that I fixed!"

You spoke so fast that Aeron almost didn't catch it.

The wind stopped howling.

"You... You remembered me..." Aeron laughed, his eyes wide with manic desperation. "Oh my god, you do..."

Aeron slumped down, hugging your waist as he wept.

"My lady, you're too much! You should have told me that you remember me sooner!" He laughed lightly, holding your hand as he buried his face on your stomach.

The sudden shift in mood sent you into a harsh whiplash.

"I-I'm sorry." You whispered, not getting this man in front of you at all.

"I forgive you." He whispered, hands wrapped around you tight.

He feels so good now. No more grief, no more crying.

He just knows you remember him now. Nobody matters but you, and your recognition of him.

"My Lady, i'm here to propose." He suddenly said, making your blood run cold.

And, as he separated himself from you, he kneeled down on both knees, as if pleading you to say yes.

This man, the greatest hero of the Empire, was now kneeling in front of you. Awakened as a Demon King from the grief you caused. His eyes hooded, dripping with overwhelming affection for you.

What have you done?

You've condemned the Empire, this world to a Demon King once more.

"My life here in this Empire was the worst. Everyone hated me, took advantage of me, stole from me, abused me in every way possible. I lost hope, and was driven with revenge. But you, my lady. You showed me kindness when no one did, and I knew you are my soulmate." He confessed passionately, his voice dripping honey sweet with delusional feelings for you. "So, be my wife, my marchioness, my queen..."

You've got the Demon King and the Greatest Hero wrapped around your finger.

Be proud.

And, as you nodded hesitantly, he slipped in the ring he was fidgeting with earlier.

You flinched, feeling it tighten around your digit. Spikes digging slightly, making sure you cannot take it off of you no matter what.

You want to scream at him for this absurd ring, but the ominous smile he had made you clam up.

You are his salvation, and he would die without you.

So chin up, and hold onto the leash tight,

You won't know when this rabid dog will bite the hand that feeds him.

And you don't intend to fuck around and find out.

[butterflydm]

The Queen of Attolia (plus some WoT comparisons)

Haha, it's been a few months but I got my chance to read the next book in the Queen's Thief series and it was so good! I am going to have two sections in this review -- my overall thoughts and then some specific thoughts that are mostly for @markantonys due to the series being her recommendation and I have a lot of thoughts about the comparisons between the Queen of Attolia x Eugenides and Mat Cauthon x Fortuona, because you can really do a point by point comparison, though I don't think it was intentional -- I think that Megan Whalen Turner and Robert Jordan were both going for the same idea but Turner was, imo, wildly more successful than Jordan at it.

But first, thoughts that don't particularly relate to The Wheel of Time:

We open with a tense cat and mouse chase between The Thief and the Queen's guardmen and that is really the heart of this book when it comes down to it -- a cat and mouse game between two extremely complicated people, and how they have to navigate in the world that they share.

Turner is really good at writing these fun action scenes where you're very much in the PoV of the character.

The (apparent) foundation that is laid here (that later gets overturned because Gen got to me again and he was once again acting on personal information that he kept from me for the majority of the book, lol, love him for it) - is very much beginning as enemies who have respect for each other's skills. At this point in the book, I knew that they would end up married due to spoilers and I know that it's considered a good romance, so I was really looking forward to seeing the journey, especially since I did get spoiled about the huge upcoming traumatic event.

But we start from this strong narrative place where they are aware of each other and have respect for each other but they belong to two separate counties that have some political tensions and they are both important parts of those countries and can't set that aside.

Because of how bold Gen is, Attolia has been backed into a corner by his actions and we actually see this affirmed by Gen's cousin (the Queen of Eddis) and her thoughts on the matter -- she is aware that Gen going into Attolia's country to spy on her is a dangerous thing for him to do.

And then the cutting off of his hand. This is brutal, and it feels brutal, and then we also get these hints of Attolia's reaction afterwards (that we get into more later) but especially her reaction when he begs her not to hurt him anymore and you can really see her feel the impact of what she did. She doesn't allow herself to show her remorse but even this early on, we're getting hints of it as readers.

Then when Gen goes home, we actually see that the Queen of Eddis also maintains a mask in public, just like Attolia does, so we see another hint here that Gen understands that kind of masking. Eddis looks just as cold and impenetrable to Attolia's guards who return Gen to her, as Attolia looks to everyone else.

I really appreciated how long the recovery time was after the loss of Gen's hand and how much time we spent with him to feel him get used to the changes (and how economically Turner is able to pass that time). We get these tiny looks at Attolia as well, and her difficultly sleeping at night, which we expand on later.

Then we get the return of the Magus from Sounis! It was really nice to see him again, dropping in to visit Gen, but he's also here to give us that continuation of the division between personal and political -- as a person who genuinely likes Gen, the Magus was upset about what Attolia did to him, but as the advisor to the king of Sounis, he knew that they would be able to use Eddis's reaction to Attolia's act on the political stage.

But what a way to learn that the two countries are at war!

It takes some time for Gen to really believe that Eddis went to war over him, and we see him processing that over the course of the book as well, and they talk about it more. I do think that Gen does not always realize how deeply other people care about him.

Turner really is so good at giving us these pieces of information that reframe the earlier story -- now we know that during all those snippets of Attolia that we had earlier, she was also dealing with realizing that her actions with Gen led to the war that she's currently embroiled in.

The progression of the war was really well done (again, Turner is very economical with her narrative here), with what details she chooses to focus in on, and we see that Gen, even though he has gained more of an ability to have that cold and impassive mask like Attolia has, still does things like make sure that no one is on the ships that he's destroying, because he doesn't like getting people killed.

Turner also does a really good job showing how destabilizing the war is to all three countries involved, and how the war is hurting everything.

We take a little mythology story break here in the narrative, which was a fun story about love and choice, both of which are very relevant. This story definitely does end up applying pretty heavily to Gen and Attolia in the themes, and I like the style that Turner tells these stories.

I love how perceptive Gen is once he's been apprised of the situation and we get to see the thought process that leads to him blaming the emperor's ambassador more for the loss of his hand than he does Attolia herself, because he sees that ambassador understood that seeing Gen maimed and returned to Eddis would be more like to spark a war than just killing him would, and a war is exactly what he needs in order to try to justify getting his troops onto Attolia's land. All the politics here are pretty complex but I feel like the book does a good job explaining the reasoning.

And this is also the point where it's really confirmed that Attolia knows that the ambassador is underestimating her, and that she also understands a lot of the things that he thinks that he's pulling over on her. But because of the fragile position that she's in, she needs to entertain the ambassador's advice and his attempts to sidle in on her country.

Quote about Gen: "It was like him that if he had to have a thing, to have the fanciest thing of its kind."

I really like all this about the cost of war; the price of war; and why this outside party has been trying to urge war on the three countries.

We also get Eddis admitting to Gen that she thinks that she could have possibly controlled herself and not started a war if he had only been killed, rather than treated in a way that she finds so insulting, and that it made her so angry that she made a choice that had now brought a lot of damage to their own country that she wishes could be avoided. And Gen can see, basically, that the ambassador of Medes is the one who put both Eddis and Attolia in this trap, and he was used as the tool to start this war.

We really move into Attolia's PoV and we get the story of the broken amphora (she thought about it when she saw Gen after she'd had his hand cut off) -- it was, essentially, the moment that marked when her life changed and she couldn't be a young girl anymore.

This really is a heartbreaking story -- how after her brothers died and she was the heir, her father essentially sold her off to be married, and her fiance was actively plotting against her father and how to suck her country dry for his own benefit after they were married. And how she kept herself quiet and small and just listened, but then poisoned him at their wedding feast, also having her captain of the guard kill the next man who tried to force her to marry him. We also see here that she only trusts loyalty that she can buy in gold (because every other kind of loyalty failed her).

Then we finally get the big reunion! This scene is so tense, with both Attolia and Gen wearing these cold masks (we later realize that Gen has pretty much directly modeled his mask on Attolia's) and we get this private negotiation that is only for the two of them. And this moment when it is literally just them, together on a boat, with no one else to interrupt them... just exquisitely done.

It's been implied before, but this is where we get our confirmation that Attolia has been just as haunted by Gen this entire book as he's been haunted by her. They've been separated for most of the book but constantly haunted by each other. I gotta share the quote:

"He was too young to have bones that ached. No matter what he thought of himself, he was hardly more than a boy. A boy without one hand. She reached up to push the wet hair out of her face, wondering when she had sunk so low that she had begun torturing boys. It was a question she had asked herself night after night, lying awake in her bed or sitting in a chair by the window watching the stars slowly move across the sky."

We've been seeing her do those things the entire book, but this is the first moment when we're told what she was thinking about in those moments.

We also get our Big Revelation here that Gen has had feelings for Attolia since before the events of The Thief! How does he hide these things from us so well! Gen! We learn here (and we get even more detail later) that he's been feeling drawn to her for literal years. That part of the reason that he made those trips that she thought were mockery was because he wanted to be close to her and get a look at her and see if she really was the monster that their spies reported that she was, or if she was just a woman who was being forced to make difficult, maybe impossible choices.

And then we get our story reversal where Attolia gets 'rescued' by the ambassador and his people, and we get to see how she behaves in these circumstances where she doesn't believe that she can trust Gen (sure, he said he loves her, but she cut his hand off! And he's a known liar! how can she trust him?) vs this dude that she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that she absolutely cannot trust.

The moment when she tells her handmaidens not to put on her golden bee earrings, I knew exactly what she'd done, especially when we got Gen's reaction. The writing doesn't have to tell us in the moment what's occurring (that she put on the earrings that he left for her one time and that she said she would only wear if she'd decided to marry him) for us to know, and I love that. This coded sign that only he will understand.

It's the most unique and fascinating marriage proposal I've ever read. Well done. Haha, and I did guess that the gray-haired man that he fought so well with was his father. <3

Love the moment when we see him process that marrying the Queen of Attolia is going to mean... that he'll be the King of Attolia. He just wanted to marry her because he liked her! <3 <3

And everything after that was just so delightful. Working together for the double-cross and then the process of Eddis and Attolia working out the treaty and Eddis trying to convince Gen that they can have the treaty without the marriage, and his rejection of that, and then essentially testing Attolia with that offer as well.

I also really like one of the moments when Attolia realizes that she can trust Gen, which is when Eddis tells her that of course Gen also lies to her. Constantly. And I feel like that reframed a lot of her interactions with Gen for Attolia. Realizing that Gen wasn't being maliciously deceitful towards her; he's just Like That With Everyone. Plus, I can't forget the moment when, after the battle is won, Attolia and Eddis return to where Gen is being held and Attolia believes for a moment that he's been poisoned as a parting shot by the Medes ambassador and we can literally watch as her heart completely shatters and she is completely undone and devastated in her head and even shaken where people can see her. It's beautifully written.

And we get the moment with the gods (who are very real in this series but very carefully choose how they interfere) and it's just as well done as it was in the first book. The windows in the palace shattering as the goddess responds to Gen's sacrifice! And basically laying out to him that his suffering was required to reach this ending and would he trade it back if he could -- if it meant that Attolia would have been forced to make that deal with the Medes ambassador. And Gen would rather have Attolia in his life and wanting to marry him than have his hand back.

Just that whole final section that leads up to the ending of the book, with Attolia really being able to believe Gen when he says that he loves her... it's so good. How the narrative (and Eddis and Gen) are able to tease out Attolia's feelings for Gen, and how we end on that final quiet moment between the two of them. Really powerful ending.

It's a really good book and it's a really good romance. Gen and Attolia are both fantastic characters and even with all the twists and turns and revelations, their relationship felt incredibly captivating and believable. I really believe that Gen wants to break through Attolia's walls and, just as important, I feel like there's a person on the other side of those walls who is worth being loyal to and loving. You understand why Gen wants to be Attolia's husband, even after she ordered his hand cut off, which is very impressive storytelling.

Hopefully I'll get the chance to read the The King of Attolia soonish, and not in, like, four months.

*

And now onto the Wheel of Time/Mat & Tuon comparison section of the review for @markantonys 💖

It really does feel like a point-by-point improvement on Mat & Tuon, though I suspected unintentionally (it looks like this book came out 3 years before CoT).

Starting with the characters: wow, Attolia really is so much the person that I would have wanted Tuon to be. And she feels like the person that Jordan wanted readers to believe that Tuon was. Every place where I was going through my WoT reread and going "footage not found!" about something the narrative tried to claim about Tuon is something where the footage is very much found for Attolia. While Tuon's potentially heartbreaking backstory really is just backstory and ends up have zero impact on her active storyline, Attolia's tragic backstory is the entire spine of what her character is going through and what Gen can help her with.

We get to see and really experience Attolia's context, which is not something that we got with Tuon. Jordan makes an attempt, I guess, with Karade's sob story about Tuon and the doll, but he made the bizarre choice to frame this story in Karade's PoV (Tuon's slave), not from Tuon's PoV. For whatever reason, Jordan always insisted on making Tuon the most insufferably smug person in the world in her own PoVs.

With Attolia, we get those breaks in her mask that I kept desperately wanting us to get with Tuon but we never did. Again, this is mostly only for the reader, not even for Gen -- the reader gets to see behind Attolia's mask. And so Attolia is captivating and fascinating and I understand why she felt like she had to do these horrible things.

With Attolia, we actually get her being removed from her power base and feeling helpless, which Jordan never had the guts to do with Tuon (when Mat kidnaps Tuon, he lets her take her slave along with her, and then some of his allies decide to support Tuon over him despite having zero narrative or character-based reason to do so), which means that when Attolia regains her power, it has a much bigger impact on the narrative, while it felt like Tuon never really lost hers. Attolia and Gen both manage to be scrappy underdogs, in their own way, and that's something that Tuon never was.

Both Attolia and Tuon commit horrific acts, but while we see Attolia's remorse and how it torments her, Tuon always seems to shrug off the horrible shit that she does. It doesn't ever affect her emotionally and she never seems to think past it after it's done. She is a character without remorse or reflection (I think she vaguely thinks that it's a shame one time when she's pondering how she will break Mat's spirit but that's about it). And Attolia has those two qualities in spades. Attolia feels like a real woman to me in a way that Tuon never did. We see the brave face that she puts on, we see her regret and remorse, we see her loneliness, we see her jealousy over the Queen of Eddis, who is able to trust the members of her court in a way that Attolia has never felt she could trust her own. Tuon just feels really shallow in comparison to Attolia.

Even in the first cat and mouse scene with Attolia and Gen in this book, you can see the push and pull and the narrative equality of the characters. Gen has been in and out of four different strongholds of hers, and she feels that he's pretty much taunting her with his abilities. There's a mutual respect for the other person which was one of the big things that was missing for me with Mat and Tuon. In her final PoV in KoD, we learn that she has not had an ounce of respect for him during this entire journey -- it's not until she sees how the Band respects him that she considers whether or not there may be more to him than just being a pretty and dumb sextoy. And the big problem with that is that was the period when the 'romance' was being developed. During the time when she didn't have any respect for him as a person. And that makes it very difficult to find their relationship compelling, even apart from the fact that I found Mat himself profoundly unlikable in CoT & KoD.

Now, Mat being a terrible person (in CoT & KoD) and Tuon being a terrible person (always and forever) are not things that would stop me from shipping them in general. I am capable of finding Awful4Awful pairings compelling (like Louis and Lestat from Interview with the Vampire). They don't have to be good people, but there has to be something in the relationship that grabs onto me at any level, and that's where Mat and Tuon failed.

We can see in Attolia's thoughts that she envies the relationship that Gen has with the Queen of Eddis -- she envies that loyalty and wishes she could have something like that of her own. That sort of envy was also missing from CoT & KoD (I am going to mention, briefly, that some of these elements were present in the Mat & Tuon relationship in AMoL but at that point, it was just too late for me to give a shit about their relationship, because CoT & KoD thoroughly killed any interest that I had in them). Whether because of his own personal kinks or because of the plans that Jordan had for the Outriggers, Jordan made Tuon too much of an island; too much of an wall. The way he wrote her made me feel like nothing Mat could do would ever really matter to her in any way; that she was content to use him up and then throw him out and that's just not my thing. It may have been Jordan's kink but it is not mine.

So I definitely understand @markantonys's point about this feeling like a well-written version of Mat and Tuon! It really does feel like this is the sort of relationship that Jordan wanted to write with Mat and Tuon but didn't have the skill at romance writing to pull off. Something like Mat and Tuon is Hard Mode Romance and Jordan wasn't even always good at Easy Mode Romance.

Two of the key elements that really makes Attolia and Gen work for me is just getting to sit and exist in Attolia's emotional reactions to the wrong that she has done to Gen; and Gen acknowledging and processing the harm that she'd done. And both of those things were desperately needed with Mat and Tuon, both as characters and as a romance.

A major major part of why Mat and Tuon failed for me is because I didn't feel like Mat was actually reacting to her realistically for the vast majority of their page time together; she threatens to invade a city and he laughs it off, she assaults his companions that he freed from slavery and he thinks it's hot?!?, she talks about how she likes to torture women and he ignores it.

If Tuon had cut off Mat's hand, the way that Attolia cut off Gen's, it feels like Jordan would have just had Mat shrug it off and then buy her a puppy as a reward or something as his response. Here, we get Gen begging Attolia "please don't hurt me again" after she cuts off his hand and then we have months of separation and recovery and processing before the narrative takes him anywhere near her again. And Attolia is forced to reckon with what she did, first by being haunted by the memories of him crying from the pain and loss, and then she has to face it directly by seeing his stump, seeing the pain that he's still in (because of her). She has to admit (not just to herself but to him) the damage that she did before they can move forward together. This is something that Tuon never shows herself capable of on any level. Tuon is never allowed to grow as a person the way that Attolia is, or to be vulnerable with the audience or with Mat.

I definitely still really felt the Mat-Gen comparison in this book too. Lots of places, but there's a great moment in the meadow with him, Eddis, and the Magus, where Eddis explains that Gen has deliberately made people believe that he can't fight but he also still gets miffed sometimes if people fall for his carefully constructed facade.

And the moment when Gen tells Eddis that he plans to steal the Queen of Attolia. It really feels, again, like this is the sort of vibe that Jordan wanted us to believe existed between Mat and Tuon: "She may be a fiend from hell to make me feel this way but even if I've got to hate myself for the rest of my life, this is what I want. I dream about her at night." This intense draw and this pull that he feels towards her. Jordan appears to want us to believe that Mat feels this kind of draw towards Tuon at the end of KoD but has not created any kind of foundation in Mat's characterization as to why.

We also got the long separation between Attolia and Gen where they are haunting each other with their absence. Attolia and Gen just get the time that is needed to develop this relationship in a way that's believable. Time in the story, not page time. This book is shorter than CoT & KoD, and probably shorter than if you made a "Mat and Tuon" novella out of their scenes in those books. It's the actual 'in world' time that matters, that gives Attolia and Gen time to think about each other and miss each other in a genuine way.

For another comparison -- Gen 'steals' Attolia to marry her like Mat kidnaps Tuon, but the context is so incredibly different on every level. Mat gets, essentially, tricked into kidnapping Tuon by the 'finn (it never would have happened if he hadn't heard that prophecy) while Gen acts with intention the whole way through. Technically, in both cases, Gen and Mat are 'saving' Attolia and Tuon by kidnapping them, but we feel the weight of it with Gen and Attolia in a way that we don't with Mat and Tuon. And a lot of that is because the bulk of Gen and Attolia's build-up happens before the kidnapping, during the times when they're separated and haunted by each other. So once the kidnapping happens, it's quick-paced and moves the plot forward rather than, you know, just fucking around with a circus for a month.

We also know that Attolia has complicated feelings about Gen already. I talked about this with @markantonys but that really is something that needed to happen with Tuon so much sooner than it does in the books (there are two big Mat & Tuon scenes in AMoL that desperately needed to happen back in CoT, imo -- Tuon trusting that Mat isn't trying to kill her; and Tuon going wild trying to protect Mat in the command tent).

Attolia and Gen also genuinely have things that they can each offer the other person, while with Mat and Tuon, none of the things that Tuon offers are things that Mat actually wants (slaves bowing to him; being dressed up like one of the Blood; being formal at all times - these are things that some of Mat's fans want for him, but not things he wants for himself) and she just feels like this ravenous black hole that constantly takes and takes and takes and gives back nothing of value. When Gen is startled at the realization that marrying the Queen of Attolia makes him the King and he'll have to actually be a king, it's this incredibly sweet moment, because it illustrates so clearly that he wants Attolia for herself and not her country. When Mat reacts against the idea that marrying Tuon makes him royalty, it just kinda makes him look dumb, because we've been given nothing of value in Tuon herself as a person, and no reason for Mat to care about her.

With Tuon, Mat talks about how she's better than other nobles, but nothing she actually does on the page is better than any other Seanchan noble. It's all 'footage not found'. By contrast, every single positive thing that Gen says about Attolia is backed up by the text and we even get shown additional positive qualities that no one needs to talk about because it's right there in the text.

With Tuon, it feels like Mat is attempting to gaslight me (and himself?) into believing that an interesting character exists there despite all the evidence against it, while Attolia simply is a compelling character based on what happens on the page.

That fact that there are so many raw similarities between the two pairings, but my reaction to them are so different really does illustrate the importance of execution, imo. Attolia and Gen's romance manages to travel so much further than Mat and Tuon's, while also being considerably more economical with how many pages it took to get us there.

The point-by-point comparison (aka WoT's failure of execution):

Tuon's interior life is poorly illustrated in comparison to Attolia's; because she starts off as an even worse person than Attolia but so much less character work is done on her than on Attolia, who is haunted this entire book by how she has "sunk so low as to torture boys" (on that note, Turner's choice to make Gen the younger and more openly vulnerable one really works here).

Seeing that Attolia's handmaidens are genuinely affectionate and protective of her at the end of this book is so incredibly touching, because she had no expectation of their loyalty (she believes in the loyalty of gold, and gold alone, for the most part). Tuon, otoh, has slaves that she expects to be subservient and loyal unto death, so her slaves' affection for her (that was trained into them) is something that completely fails to move me. This difference in the expectations of the character also makes a huge difference in how their PoVs come off -- Attolia's walls are due to her internal vulnerability and we get to see that vulnerability in her PoVs; while Tuon comes across as full of herself and incredibly arrogant, taking everyone around her for granted.

We're told that Tuon is smart and perceptive but rarely get any evidence; while Turner shows us Attolia's intelligence and how she sees a lot more than people like the Medes ambassador believe that she does. We get to see Attolia's intelligence in how she tricks the Medes ambassador into believing that she's so much less perceptive and intelligent than she truly is. This is another place where Jordan's unwillingness to ever place Tuon into a genuinely vulnerable position really hurt the character. Turner wasn't afraid to make Attolia the underdog and knew that it wouldn't undermine her as a character, it would strengthen her, because we would get to see who she was in adversity. The set-up of Crossroads of Twilight should have led to us seeing Tuon in adversity but Jordan was allergic to allowing her to be truly vulnerable, and gave her people to hide behind (Selucia & Setalle Anan) the entire time.

Mat as an agent of chaos is wildly downplayed in comparison to Gen as an agent of chaos. The Seanchan end up getting spared the chaos that the end of the Age brought to pretty much every other society, even though Mat seems clearly positioned to bring their society crashing down even as late as Winter's Heart. Gen's actions, otoh, are constantly throwing other people's plans off.

Mat does not behave realistically to the horrible things that Tuon says and does -- with Gen, even though we find out towards the last third of the book that he was already in love with Attolia before the book begins, we still get his raw reactions to her doing things that hurt him. He has nightmares after she orders his hand cut off, his pained begging of her not to hurt him again, and how he develops his own mask of impassiveness that is modeled on her own. Gen also never throws away his moral code in order to try to force himself to be at peace with the relationship -- he grows and changes as a character as a result of his trauma, but he stays himself at the core.

Something else that Jordan could have used more in the books that would have helped develop an understanding of why Mat believes that something exists beyond Tuon's 'cold Empress mask' would have been to make the comparison between Rand's mask and Tuon's mask more clear in the narrative. Because there's too much separation in time between Rand and Mat's interactions with Mat and Tuon's interactions. In this book, seeing that Eddis also needs to put up a queenly mask of not caring about Gen at first (in front of the Attolian guards when they return him to her after his hand has been cut off) helps illustrate why Attolia needs the mask that she uses -- Eddis doesn't trust the Attolians, but Attolia feels like she can trust absolutely no one, and so she always needs the mask and feels like she can never take it off. That's compelling! It could have been compelling in Tuon too, if it had been written better.

On that note: Turner personalizes the damage that Attolia's cold mask and her ruthless defense of herself/her country is doing by having her hurt Gen directly, and that being something that she struggles with over the course of the book. With WoT, Jordan basically did everything he could to hide away the damage that Tuon/the Seanchan were doing from Mat in order to try to justify why he could ~fall in love~ with her (was it intentional? to set their relationship up for a fall later in the Outriggers? we'll never know) without ever actually changing Tuon/the Seanchan for the better, which also meant giving Tuon no reason to have any internal struggles over the choices that she's made.

Gen and Attolia get another thing that Mat and Tuon desperately needed but that Jordan refused to give them: privacy. They negotiate getting married (after Gen has kidnapped Attolia in a much more narratively satisfying kidnapping than Mat and Tuon's!) in privacy, just between the two of them; when we get the conversation about their feelings at the end, again it happens in private. That makes a huge difference. Jordan being unwilling to ever actually yank Tuon away from her full power base and her slaves was a huge hindrance to ever allowing her to be vulnerable. And I do chalk this up to unwillingness and not failures due to plot set-up because there is no good reason to have Selucia tag along on the kidnapping and then it's even more bizarre in CoT & KoD, when the character of Setalle Anan goes from being fond of Mat to all of a sudden acting like he's the worst person in the world and she must protect poor helpless baby girl Tuon from him.

Both Attolia and Tuon get tricked by their respective love interests about who they are as a person because of the facade that they put up, but Attolia still has respect for Gen and his skills, even as she doubts his character, and it is Gen's own actions that show her who he really is and make her believe in him; while with Tuon and Mat, she spends over a month with him and still refuses to look past his surface until she literally has her face rubbed into it by seeing the Band's reactions to him. This difference is a key one in making Attolia's failure to see Gen as a failure due to the protective walls that she has up; while Tuon's failure comes across as her just not being very perceptive or intelligent. And the fact that we don't get the moment when Tuon begins to have even the faintest shred of respect for Mat until the end of Knife of Dreams just meant that I felt even more like all the pages time that Jordan spent on the two of them in CoT & KoD was a complete waste of my time.

We got to have genuine reactions from all of Gen's loved ones about the relationship! This is a huge place where, I guess, Sanderson is the one who failed for a change instead of Jordan because wtf was Perrin's "lol you married now bro? haha" reaction to Mat being married to a slaver? Though Jordan also does this to a certain extent with Thom, who we are supposed to believe is in love with Moiraine, and yet who never calls Mat out on courting a woman who would enslave and torture Moiraine if she had the chance. By contrast, Eddis is genuinely hesitant and worried because of everything they've heard about how cold Attolia is, and because she's the reason that Gen's hand was cut off.

We get to see Attolia and Gen develop a shared language and see behind each other's walls. The moment when she wears the earrings that he left for her, and he knows that it means she's chosen to marry him of her own free will is such a huge and impactful moment, and the only people who are aware of what it means are Attolia and Gen! This is really a failure that happens based on earlier failures of execution: because Mat and Tuon are never allowed to be alone together, it's impossible for them to develop this kind of shared coding and shared language.

12. We also have the 'footage not found' issue, where one of the characters (mostly Mat) tries to tell me something about Tuon but the narrative completely fails to back it up: this is the case with Tuon being intelligent and perceptive (in the narrative shown to us, she never picks up on anything until her nose is forcibly rubbed in it); and this is case with Mat thinking near the end of Knife of Dreams that Tuon belongs in the same 'better than other nobles' bucket as Talmanes when she has never shown herself to be willing to make better choices than other Seanchan nobles: he is still, at this point, worrying that she might enslave him and turn him into her cupbearer; she has not only threatened but actually assaulted his companions; whenever she's placed in a position of power over other people, she takes advantage of it and them. We're told that she's not a child but she also throws a tantrum (and pottery) at Mat at the start of Crossroads of Twilight. This could have worked if Jordan had leaned into the fact that Mat is deliberately lying to himself in order to make his marriage bearable, but that's where things like randomly having Setalle Anan go over to Tuon's side messes with that narrative.

13. When Jordan has Mat think about how Tuon dying would be a deep loss to him, it's just baffling because she has not done a single thing the entire 'courtship' that has shown why in the world Mat would feel that way. All of the attempts at reaching out during the courtship are Mat's, while Tuon just smugly accepts it as her due. Because Attolia doesn't just accept Gen's love as her due, because she actually doesn't believe him and challenges him on it, we get to hear his justification of it and why he feels that way, and then we also get to see her reciprocation. The relationship is a two-way street in The Queen of Attolia.

14. Which ties into the fact that Jordan chose to make Tuon not just a slaver but an enthusiastic slaver who enjoys the slave-breaking process and that is an incredibly dark place to start a character but it could have worked if it had been the beginning of Tuon's character arc and we'd actually watched her change and grow from that position. And she had the narrative set up for it! In her very first chapter, the reader learns that Tuon has the ability to learn to channel! She was created with the narrative juice to have a compelling arc about accepting the truth about herself and her people. And then Jordan gave that arc to Bethamin instead, lol.

15. In both of these stories 'fate' does kinda serve up Gen/Mat to Attolia/Tuon on a silver platter, but the execution of the storylines makes the reveal that fate was acting to push the two of them together so much more effective in The Queen of Attolia. Choice is a much larger consideration in Attolia and Gen's relationship than it is in Mat and Tuon's. There are elements of the higher powers of the world at work in both relationships, but Attolia and Gen have to put in the work themselves and have to face hard emotional truths in order to get us to the satisfying ending. I get the impression that Tuon wouldn't know an emotional truth if it spit in her eye. We actively see both Gen and Attolia consider and reject the idea of solving their main problem (about the war) without needing to get married; we see them choose their marriage and each other.

With Mat and Tuon, this is a lot more muddled. Fate/the Pattern/the 'finn want them to marry each other but we never get any kind of payoff as to why, and this is primarily because of Jordan's other storylines imo. He should not have had Rand already willing to make peace with the Seanchan in his separate storyline. Convincing Rand to be willing should have been Mat's job (because that also would mean that Mat would need to make the arguments to convince the readers). Jordan showing at the end of KoD that Rand is willing to make a deal with the Seanchan, even at the cost of giving in on the matter of slavery, basically completely voided any narrative reason for Mat and Tuon to get married, but without the satisfaction of seeing the two of them grow to a place where they would actively make that choice rather than being motivated by what they believe is necessary (due to prophecy).

There really were the bones of a potentially compelling story with Mat and Tuon, and I really do hope that the show (when we get there) is able to take those bones and turn it into a genuinely compelling story.

[renardtrickster]

Also because bringing up "I watched Hazbin Hotel" and only talking about discourse is a Bad Look, here's my thoughts on the pilot and the four episodes thus far released.

I've seen some people say the animation in the show is less fluid in the pilot, but I think I like the show's animation more? It's a lot more consistent, the characters are shaded so they stand out from the background more (and kind of "pop"), but honestly a passing vibe I got in the pilot now and then was that it was "too fluid", like it moved too fast at places or like it had a lot of "flourishes" that felt off. I can't accurately explain it, but point is, I like the show's vibes more.

I also like the redesigns. I didn't notice anything too drastic with say Dust, Alastor, or Charlie, but Vaggie's was an upgrade. The red shirt breaks up the white, and she's looking much more Moth (the more Moth your characters look the better).

I don't really have anything to say about the voices, my attention was divided elsewhere. I will be committing seppuku later for not being able to have a strong, belligerent opinion on this matter.

Speaking of Vaggie, now that I've seen more of her character, I've grown to appreciate her more. There's a sort of 4-section graph where Charlie and Vaggie believe in the Hotel's success, with Charlie being much more personally emotionally invested in it while Vaggie's more cynical and seems to be doing it more for Charlie's sake. Meanwhile Angel Dust and Alastor don't believe the Hotel can succeed, but Alastor still helps while Angel Dust just blows things off.

Also everyone who did the "she's an Angry Latina stereotype" thing can eat shit now. She was angry in the pilot because Angel Dust publicly embarrassed her girlfriend, tarnished any credibility the Hotel had, and then insulted her to her face while being unrepentant the entire time. Now that we've seen more from her, she's just grumpy and more willing to put her foot down (as opposed to Charlie who is bubbly and more accommodating). I knew this specific accusation was bad faith from day 1.

I genuinely don't think the show is edgy. It "appears" edgy, but Charlie's a disney princess who walked onto the wrong set and is shifting the genre through her presence. The fact that her goal is to show that people in Hell can change and become better people isn't just portrayed as earnest (instead of naive) but it is in fact achievable (as shown by Pentious and the others over time) adds onto this. The show is a fundamentally hopeful and positive one and I respect it for that.

In line with that, I appreciate the musical numbers. They bop, I didn't need to tell you this, but they also fall into the category of "endearing through earnesty". Like Charlie singing to Pentious about how change begins with an apology is the corniest shit on earth, but I couldn't help but smile about it.

I do like the speed of the plot, both the "redeeming people" plot and the "expedited extermination" one. I cynically expected Pentious' redemption to be a red herring, but the fact that he stuck around and is turning over is something I approve of. It is a bit fast at times though, I do know that this is because there's only 8 episodes, but I choose to blame the studio/streaming platform over the writers on this one. Also, we should throw bricks through the window of every streaming service headquarters.

I did like Adam's portrayal. The original Adam and Eve myths, whether or not Lilith is there, do lend themselves to misogyny, both in terms of reading and "what influenced some doctrine". Between Lilith being cast out for not wanting to be subservient to a man/wanting to top and then having sex with animals and demons or something, and Eve getting duped by the snake and now humanity's been cursed with original sin because femoids are dumb and bad and men should make the decisions, etc. etc. Adam being depicted as a misogynistic frat bro-type who is obsessed with his dick and brags about his conquests to random people reads to me more as "a clever take/commentary on christian mythology and culture" instead of "gratuitous edginess".

Honest to god, I think they're better at using swear words now. My principle criticism of Helluva Boss (which I like) is that they sometimes use "fuck" like it's punctuation, and it can get grating or become "noise" that doesn't register, which is Bad when it's your funny dialogue. Cursing is still casual, but I feel like characters only turn on the capslock and start screaming FUCKING SHITASS when they're emotionally compromised or intentionally meant to come across as crude and unlikeable. If they took notes and course-corrected on this, I will never wear a hat because it's going to be off to them forever.

Angel Dusts' voice direction in episode 4 was really good. He usually speaks in a somewhat high-pitched, New York ("new yoike") accent, but when he was yelling at Charlie to leave I noticed that it seemed to get a bit deeper and he lost the accent, as though he was so upset he couldn't keep up the affect anymore. I got chills.

TL;DR Hazbin Hotel is good, actually.

Maybe people should take more breaks from using the internet, for their mental health.

[trensu]

I keep seeing posts about mother's day and Steve Harrington, and it's all in good fun, I don't wanna ruin anyone's fun times. But also, Steve is actually a teenage boy whose parents are never around and has sort of adopted this weird little nerd boy as his little brother. This weird little nerd boy has a mom who loves him very much and supports his interests and worries about his well-being constantly. Somehow, Steve has gotten included in this and he's got this woman fussing over him, if he's eating enough, if he's dressed warmly enough for the weather and please let her know how much he needs for gas because he takes Dustin places all the time.

And then mother's day is coming up and Dustin wants to get her the perfect present but has no idea what to get her because his mom is focused on him all the time and never really mentions anything she wants or needs so he's low-key panicking when he finally gets a hold of Steve and asks him for help. So Steve and him start going to all sorts of shops trying to find something good, something worthy of Claudia Henderson.

Steve helps him buy an extravagant bouquet because moms and flowers right? Dustin finds a bowtie collar for Mews2. They find a cat themed mother's day card. They order a whole fancy carry out meal from Enzo's. He helps Dustin bake a homemade chocolate cake.

Steve puts on the finishing touches to the dining table while Dustin coaxes Mews2 into the bowtie collar. Then it's almost time for Claudia to come home from her shift look idk what she does for a living in canon but I always imagined her as a hospital nurse and hospitals don't close for holidays or weekends so Steve checks Dustin's hair one last time because Dustin wants to look nice for his mom's nice mother's day dinner. Then Steve is grabbing his keys and saying goodbye.

"Dude, where are you going?" Dustin asks, genuinely baffled.

"Uh, home? You're all set up, and your mom's home soon," Steve responds like, duh, where else would he be going right.

"Yeah, so you should clean up! I can't be the only one looking good for Mom."

Steve blinks. "Man, your mom's not gonna want me getting in the way of her day with you."

"what are you talking about? Have you MET Mom?"

And before they could continue arguing, Claudia walks through the door. She sees the dining table laid out all nice, and her furry boy in a bowtie, her little boy with his hair done, and her other bigger boy looking kind of caught out and blushing.

"oh, my boys!" She says. "Did you do all of this for me?"

"Dustin actually--" Steve tries to give Dustin, her actual kid, the credit because he's not about to steal his little bud's thunder but Claudia scoops them both into her arms and peppers them with slightly damp kisses.

"you two didn't have to!" She says. "Oh, let me go get changed from these scrubs. You both sit down, I'll be just a minute. I'm so lucky to have the two sweetest boys in the world." Mews2 takes that moment to meow loudly. "sorry, THREE boys, I didn't forget you, baby."

She shuffles hurriedly to her room, leaving behind a smugly grinning Dustin and a frozen, baffled Steve.

"you heard her," Dustin says, pushing Steve towards an open chair. "We can't disappoint her on mother's day!"

And that's how Steve ended up spending mother's day in a warm home with a loving family, instead of spending the evening alone trying to get a call through to Mrs Harrington with little success.

[jojotichakorn]

i started penning a post about how i always find it narratively unsatisfying when an arc ends with a conclusion the following arc breaks, regardless of how realistic the repetition of the same mistake might be, which is still true, but i actually want to talk about something else right now.

i feel like, at least at this stage, jack is in a position that is both generally unrealistic and untrue to the specific events of the series. 'jack and joker' has a clear focus on poverty and money and class issues, but it seems to treat jack in a very special way. he somehow manages to stand on the moral high ground above other characters. specifically, other poor characters. which is, first of all, a little ridiculous, since he was indeed a debt collector and, in fact, almost became the boss's son. and, second of all, is generally Not Great, because it does idolise the idea that if you "just try hard enough", you won't "allow" yourself to be backed into a corner and therefore won't have to do bad things.

now, don't get me wrong, i am not saying that our characters who have made mistakes are completely blameless. tattoo did shitty things (and hoy followed suit), safe did shitty things, hope frankly admitted to enjoying doing shitty things. however, if we zoom out a little, we will see that all these characters are in a situation that is inherently unfair to them. we have all of these poor people in immense amounts of debt and then we have this disgusting rich motherfucker whose entire wealth is literally based on making their lives as miserable and unfair as they are. and i think that, in this particular case, the series would have actually benefited from a dichotomy. don't get me wrong, i'm usually absolutely brimming with nuance and also asking "what lies outside of it?" but this shall be my exception. (though you could say that joke already brings some nuance to it - he is initially from a well-off family and he actively makes choices to the benefit of poor people, despite it resulting in him being ostracised from said family and its riches).

jack walks the line of being poor and managing not to do anything "too bad" like he is a fucking circus performer on a wire. and, don't get me wrong, he is genuinely a selfless character. he makes choices that a lot of other characters in the same circumstances wouldn't make. he remains in debt and continues working for the boss because he keeps trying to help people and pay off their debts first - that is admirable. however, he himself was already set up for more success than others. sure, being forced to become a debt collector isn't a walk in the park, but most other debtors didn't even have that choice. jack has to work for the boss in order to stay afloat - that is an undeniably hard task. the other people the boss collects debts from, however, have to come up with a lot of money out of thin air - that is not simply a hard task, that is an impossible one that is designed to trap them in the cycle of doing this impossible task forever. that being said, ultimately, jack is still poor. his own hamster wheel should be somewhere around the corner, that's always the case. this idea is where i wish they would have taken jack's arc.

from the moment when he refused to marry rose, there was no escape for him. finally, much like our other poor characters, he found himself stuck between a rock and a hard place. (and i think that it's very thematically appropriate for jack's particular "i can't do this anymore, i deserve to live a full life" sentiment to be connected to love, since he is, after all, a lead of a romance drama). he made the decision to say "no" and from that point on, he was completely and utterly fucked. because, realistically, that conversation that he had with the boss after refusing rose was insane. i don't know what he would have done to jack exactly, if that was a genuine conversation and there was no exchange of jack's freedom for the ring, but it would not have been anything good.

so i wish jack had to make the actual tough call there, instead of having joke save him all on his own (and later take the fall for it). and if it was, at least in some capacity, jack's decision to steal that ring, he would finally be placed in a situation where every other poor character already inevitably found themselves in. because the entire system is rigged against all of them and they are eventually always forced to do things that they should have never even had to consider in the first place. but they deserve better than living a life set up for them by evil rich people who literally live off of their suffering and they are allowed - no, at some point they simply have no choice but to - fight for a better life.

this, in my opinion, would have been a much more powerful message and - not to circle back to my personal preferences - would have also not left us with joke making the very same mistake that we decided we should never make again at the end of the previous arc.

[discountsoysauce]

I don't understand the idea that Victor has no backstory. Like- yeah, his backstory isn't as horrifically tragic and detailed as Eli's is, but we do know a good bit about him from what he's said so far.

His parents are pretty successful, so we can assume he grew up rich. Victor states that they write all of these books about family but have never taken time out of their day for him, even saying something along the lines of the last time they put aside time for him was his birth (not exact quotes, I don't have the energy to look back through the books rn), so we can assume that they were incredibly neglectful, most likely leaving him at home for days, weeks, maybe months at a time and probably not paying much attention to him even in times when they were home. Whether they paid someone to take care of him in that time or he had to learn to be self-sufficient is debatable.

I personally don't think they were physically abusive, and there doesn't seem to be any evidence at present that supports that idea. Verbal abuse is more likely, but I still don't think it was the case. It doesn't seem like they were around him long enough to do either. I don't think those things really need to be a part of his backstory to make it interesting or compelling. His parents were neglectful, and it shaped pretty much everything about who he is.

The biggest and most obvious one is Victor's obsession with attention. There are multiple references throughout the books of Victor craving attention from those around him, namely Angie and Eli. More than anything, Victor wants to be seen. He wants to be a part of something. He wants to be remembered and acknowledged and thought about. He craves the attention his parents never gave him. He doesn't want to be left behind or forgotten.

Being left behind is another big fear for him (I'm mostly speaking about Lockland here, as he becomes a bit less dependent after he becomes an EO, though there can still be an argument made about him latching onto Mitch and Sydney and Dol and Dominic in a kind of makeshift family he never had). He hates seeing Eli succeed because it feels like he's being left behind. He wants to be so intertwined with another person that they can't possibly forget him. He wants to form a connection so deep that it's impossible to sever. To Victor, there's a connection between 'success' and being left behind. He doesn't want to just be an expendable sidekick or an accessory. He wants to be an integral part of someone. Victor's life revolving around Eli is a symptom of his upbringing.

His social skills and general demeanor are also something that can be analyzed. From the beginning, he's set up as the antithesis to Eli, from social class to backstory to appearance to demeanor. They're the same at their core, but opposites in nearly everything else. Compared to Eli, Victor is a total recluse. He hates being around people, he avoids parties, and we barely see him interact with or pay attention to anyone except the people he genuinely cares about unless he absolutely needs to. His demeanor is off-putting, and he doesn't really make an effort to hide that, although he does just enough to make sure he isn't a complete social outcast. Victor grew up in one home with no siblings and parents who were hardly around. Compared to Eli, who was carted from home to home, meeting new people and learning how to blend in all the time, Victor likely doesn't have much in the way of social experience. He didn't have to hide who he was nearly as much as Eli did because there was no one there to see it anyway.

This being said, he is described as being a good liar and able to fool those around him, although notably worse at it than Eli. This one is more of a longshot, but I don't think it's improbable. Victor's parents were successful published authors who garnered their success based on the books they wrote about family. It's possible that Victor had to make press appearances at some point when he was younger, and learned how to lie for the cameras, or he just spent so long out of the company of others that he started seeing other people as more objects to use and less real living people, making it easier to learn the motions of manipulating them. Either way, Victor learns how to do or say the right thing to get someone to believe him, but he states that Eli is much better at actually faking emotions than he is. This is because while Eli spent his life following his father's death surrounded by people and thus learned how to change his entire self to appear more presentable to the general public, Victor only learned how to manipulate people through speech or actions. He can tell you exactly what you want to hear, but he can't put on a fake persona the way Eli can because he never needed to.

In conclusion, Victor does have a backstory, and it informs every aspect of his character, including his relationship to Eli.

[eponymous-rose]

Monday!

It's been a while since I've done one of these week-in-the-life posts (and I LOVE reading them from others), and it's a particularly stressful week where I'm trying to stay off social media for Reasons, so hey, let's do this again!

It's a busy day, but it starts relatively late - I don't have to leave for the office until 10AM. So, you may ask, why on earth do I set my alarm for 8:30? Is it because I have an elaborate morning routine? Is it so I can hit the gym and go for a jog? No, no, no, it's because I have a little cat who takes the alarm as her cue to cuddle and I don't want to disappoint her, so I inevitably spend half an hour hugging her like a purring teddy bear first thing in the morning before I get up.

I respond to some e-mails as I get ready and on the bus ride over - mostly prep for our department's holiday party (I'm in the band and we're trying to get as much practice in as possible), but also a little work getting supercomputer access restored for an undergrad research assistant, offering to write a letter of recommendation so my colleague doesn't have to (we both know the student well and said colleague is traveling across the country for a funeral on a redeye flight tonight...), reworking some elements of the rubric for the faculty search committee I'm on, and confirming a meeting with my grad student.

10:45 - I get to the office and go to make my usual mug of tea... and realize in the moment I close my office door that the keys are still inside. I get the hot water from the lounge and meander by the office, but nobody's there. Just as I'm about to work up the nerve to go interrupt a more senior professor's meeting to borrow his keys, one of the office staff walks by and is happy to open the door for me, phew.

11:00 - My most senior grad student is doing an internship in Colorado this quarter (it's the location he most wants to do a postdoc at as well!), and we've set up a call to catch up after a few weeks without chatting. It's a bit of an awkward chat because he wants to go to his second conference in two months, and I had to bring out the "well, um, this is a side project you're doing with someone else's research group and you may want to check with them about where the $2000+ for conference costs is coming from". I possibly have an avenue - I might ask him to just attend for a couple of days instead of the whole time, so I can use some funding from a different grant, but I'm hoping we can get some cost-sharing going here, or possibly the other professor he's working with can present his poster for him if need be. Still, his work's going great and I'm hoping we can get him to this conference! He finishes his PhD this year, and I can attest to how helpful conferences are for landing postdocs.

12:00 - Speaking of grants, I had a successful grant come through late last summer to study wildfire smoke dynamics with novel instrumentation (something new to me!), and the whole team is meeting up for the first time to talk logistics! I also have to teach real soon, so I'm only on for the first chunk of the call, but we get some of the plan set up. Looks like we'll be meeting at a NASA facility early next year to do some siting stuff prior to the first controlled burn. I genuinely have no idea what I'm doing on this project, apart from being willing to write a big chunk of the proposal, but it's a good time!

12:30 - Class time! This is my domain-specific intro-to-python class that I developed 5 years ago and have been iterating on ever since. It's going a lot smoother this week than last, and the students are pretty responsive to my jokes (priority #1, lbr) and seem to be following along quite well, judging by the handful of questions I get after class. Not a ton of technical issues today, either, which is a HUGE win over last week.

1:30 - Forecasting time! I'm once again part of our university team in a giant forecasting contest. While I'm decidedly average at it (usually around 250th out of 1000 participants), my grad student was #1 for a while there. We chat in broad terms about the next week of weather in our targeted forecasting region.

2:30 - Meeting with another graduate student! We talk about some of the researchers he reached out to after his first conference a couple weeks ago, and we're starting to narrow down a possible author list for his first paper. He's working on writing up the methods and data for that paper while he incorporates a few new datasets into his preestablished workflow. He's been doing really well! Being a dual-major in CS means his code is a heckuva lot more organized than most second-year grad students I've had.

3:30 - ...nothing??? I've decided to skip my usual seminar and postpone one undergraduate student research meeting this afternoon (the one currently locked out of the supercomputer he needs for his project) since I have a couple of grant proposals due very shortly. I head out to grab some teriyaki to bring back to my office for lunch/dinner, but the restaurant just has a big sign out front saying "closed for FIRE" so I opt to go across the street for some chicken katsu and boba tea instead. I approve the final budget (coming up on a million dollars, no pressure) and keep plugging away at the statement of work (which is basically "what are you going to do, in detail, with one million dollars over the next three years? please tell us in exactly 15 pages, not counting your 3-page bibliography and 6 appendices"). I even find a perfect paper to reference to discuss one of our theories! We've made it through one round of reviews with our pre-proposal, and man, we'd love to do this project - it would be myself, a colleague, and a postdoc looking at some really novel stuff in severe storm predictability over the next three years. I also get a little work done on the invited talk I'm giving to a student journal club tomorrow, and work on some more e-mails (trying to set up a meeting with a friend's graduate student to help her out with some methods she's using from an older paper of mine).

5:15 - One of my colleagues has retired this year and has a farewell song he wants to sing at our holiday party, which happens to be mostly voice & piano, so we agree to meet up before the main practice and go over it a couple times before the rest of the band shows up and he has to head out to dinner. I'm really sorry to see him leaving (although I know he's delighted to get to spend more time with his kids and grandkids) - he and his wife were extremely welcoming when I started here, and were so kind and supportive when Mom died. Just very touched that he reached out to me to play piano on this one. Tragically, though, whoever was supposed to bring in the keyboard hasn't left it in the practice room, so we'll have to wait and run through it with the rest of the band on Thursday. Instead, it's back to the office to get caught up on e-mail and try to slog through more of the grant application (all today's research and work has netted me... 1 page of writing, blah).

6:00 - The rest of the band shows up! We run three songs of our eight-song setlist, and I'm somehow now playing on 4/8 of them, despite there being five people signed up for keys. It's a good time, though!

8:00 - I make it home and give Clara a bunch of new toys that have arrived with her prescription food (one of which she licks for 15 minutes straight). Luckily, tomorrow's work schedule is much more chill!

[frostyhelltime]

I See You

(ft. HuskerDust)

Warnings: Little bit of angst on Angel's part, but this is mostly just hurt/comfort.

Prompt: "I see you. I see you, I always have and I always will." Prompt from @unfriendlywriter

Set before they're dating, but sometime after 'Loser, Baby'. I had a lot of fun making their graphics for this as well. Hope everyone likes it!

There's a blissful silence in the air as Husk polishes glasses behind the bar. No static that would allude to Alastor being near, no Nifty obsessively cleaning, no Charlie planning new group activities. Just. Peace.

Until a certain tall spider comes lumbering in, shoulders slumped low, and head pointed towards the ground. Husk doesn't even think Angel Dust is even aware of the weary sigh that leaves them as they trudge in, barely having the energy to even shut the front door behind him.

Husk is already grabbing a bottle and a glass for him but as soon as he pops the top off he hears Angel speak.

"I'm good Whiskers. I just...I just wanna go to bed. Maybe tomorrow." Angel waves him off sluggishly with two arms, which only makes Husk furrows his brows as if trying to analyze him.

"That bad huh?" He offers as he puts the lid back on the bottle, hesitating only a moment to see if Angel changes his mind and wants a drink after all. When Angel just sighs and keeps walking, Husk does finally put the bottle away.

"Wanna talk about it? People don't have to buy a drink to sit at my bar." He says before giving Angel a toothed grin.

"Least you don't anyway."

He's speaking genuinely, but also hopes the remark might make Angel chuckle even just a little. He doesn't, but he does let out a huff of air that Husk thinks could be close enough to a laugh that he thinks he's successful.

He does manage to get Angel to crack a smile with that one, though it is weak. But still, a smile is a smile.

"Maybe...I dunno. I don't wanna take up ya time and space if someone else comes in." Angel shrugs, looking for excuses for Husk to not comfort him. It's something foreign, having someone care about how he's doing. He's used to people only pretending to care to get what they want, usually his body or whatever it is they need. So his instinct is to try and dodge those attempts at care because it's hard to handle when they aren't genuine. He certainly wouldn't be able to handle it if Husk's care wasn't genuine. But that's a whole other issue to dig deep into as he's falling asleep.

But Husk doesn't hear any of Angel's thoughts, only what Angel says, so this time he waves Angel off with a lazy wave of his wrist.

"Most everyone is out as far as I know. And if someone does come in I can always take a break." He assured the taller one, who shifts nervously from foot to foot as he considers maybe...it would be okay to show that vulnerability to Husk again? Just this once of course. Husk busies himself with cleaning more glasses to not make Angel feel pressured into a decision one way or another.

"...Maybe but...I dunno. I just...talkin' out here in the open where someone can walk in...Maybe another time but thanks." Angel stumbles over his words until eventually he talks himself out of it and even Angel winces at how lame it sounds. Husk eyes him a moment, as if analyzing him like a math problem. He's trying to figure out how far is too far to push, but he doesn't feel good at all about letting Angel go in this state.

"...Break time it is."

"W...Wha?"

"I've decided it's time for a break. Let's head somewhere quieter to talk. Problem solved."

Husk says it so casually with a shrug of his shoulders that it just confuses Angel even more, as if it was natural to stop what he was doing to help him. By the time he processes what his feline companion has said, Husk has already put things away and is standing next to Angel, waiting only a little impatiently.

For the first time tonight Husk looks a little anxious standing next to him, hands in his pockets and waiting to be directed on where they're going to go.

When Angel comes back down to earth, he blinks a few times, standing up a bit straighter.

"Right. Yeah. Uh. We can talk in my room I guess?" Angel says, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. Husk only nods and gestures for him to start walking.

Neither Angel nor Husk can tell if the silence between them as they walk is peaceful or awkward, but either way they're happy to reach the door once they get there.

Angel goes in first, plopping down to sit on his bed as Fat Nuggets immediately crawls onto his lap, nuzzling into Angel eagerly to try and cheer him up.

Husk lets out a small chuckle at the admittedly adorable display and he shuts the door behind him, taking a seat right next to Angel Dust.

"Alright. So what's bothering you?"

"...The Big V. Who else?" He scoffs venomously, looking away.

"And Charlie enjoys singing. I figured that much. What did he do this time?" Husk relaxes as they begin talking im earnest, leaning back a little bit and getting comfortable.

"I just...I don't even know how to describe it. He makes....he makes me feel so worthless. Like all I'm good at and good for is his stupid fuckin' shoots." Angel grits out, hands pausing on Fat Nuggets a second.

"And when I can't even do that right..." He trails off, letting the end of his sentence go unspoken.

"I just feel...so damn invisible there. Even when all eyes are on me it feels like no one is really looking at me."

Angel hates that his voice takes on a choked sounding quality the further he talks, the tears welling up in the corner of his eyes. He turns away from Husk as if that would actually keep him from finding out.

It takes a moment for Husk to figure out what to say and then he reaches out to place his hand on top of one of Angel's, hesitating halfway there eventually deciding, fuck it, and placing his hand on top of his and giving a small squeeze.

"I see you."

It's the softest Angel Dust had ever heard Husk speak and it's so jarring he snaps his head back to look at Husk, forgetting he was trying to hide his tears moments ago.

"...What?"

Husk clears his throat, giving him his best comforting smile.

"I see you. I always have and I always will." Husk speaks with a little more confidence.

The tears that were only beginning to gather begin to flood now and Angel doubles over as his body is wracked with sobs, unable to stop himself, especially after the day he's had. Somehow it was both exactly what he needed to hear and also what pushes him past the tipping point. He doesn't know why it makes him snap, he just knows it does.

Maybe it's because he really is starting to believe Husk could be genuine, and somehow placing that vulnerability in another person's hands is terrifying and overwhelming.

But Husk doesn't judge him, just sneaks his free hand around to rub soothing circles on Angel's back as he lets him get it all out. Neither of them says anything for the duration of it, Husk out of respect and Angel out of shame.

But eventually Angel's cries do settle down into sniffles and he sits back up again, wiping what's left of the tears off his face before looking at Husk again.

"Yeah. Sorry. I...I don't know what came over me." He mumbles apologetically but Husk just shrugs. Angel only barely sees it in his peripheral because he's looking anywhere but at Husk.

"Nothing to be sorry about." He assured him, his voice soothing and neutral.

Husk's words just keep ringing in Angel's head over and over again though.

'I see you. I always have and I always will.'

Angel can't help but snort out a laugh now.

"Fuckin' liar. You didn't always see me. You hated me when I first showed up here." Angel laughs, although he still appreciates the sentiment.

But Husk just smiles like he knows something Angel doesn't.

"... Technically I didn't lie. Back then I saw you were hiding your real self. I didn't know why but I knew the you that you were presenting wasn't real...and I was right." Husk is appropriately wearing a mischievous Cheshire grin as he leans over to playfully poke Angel in the chest.

"So I still saw you, even if I was annoyed you weren't being honest." Husk's grin only grows wider when he sees the flush of red that finds itself on Angel's cheeks.

Angel opens and closes his mouth a few times as he struggles to think of words to say. But he comes up empty.

"...I...I...Thank you." Angel eventually whispers, smiling at Husk, genuinely smiling. It's a tired and exhausted smile, but it's genuine and it makes Husk relax, smiling back.

"Anytime. I'm going to head back to the bar and let you sleep." Husk pats his back as he stands up and Angel realizes how cold the top of his hand feels without Husk touching it and he's immediately standing too, Fat Nuggets letting out a small squeak of surprise before he lands on his feet on the ground. He only lets out one small huff before he seems happy again, his tail wagging, so Angel isn't too worried.

"Well since I feel better...maybe...a nice drink to relax after work doesn't sound so bad?" Angel isn't even sure what he's saying, he just knows he wants to follow him.

He thinks Husk knows it too because he flashes Angel the smile of a gambler on a winning streak and it makes his heart race.

"I'll make something extra good for you when you come down. See you in a few minutes?" He offers, wanting to allow Angel time alone to collect himself before going if he needed it.

"See you in a few." Angel nods, confirming their plans as he sits back down on his bed a moment, watching Husk wave goodbye as he leaves, shutting the door behind him to give Angel some privacy.

He can't help the goofy smile on his face as he fixes himself back up to look presentable before he heads back down to meet Husk at the bar, who is already standing there, waiting with a knowing grin and some bright pink concoction that suits Angel Dust perfectly already sitting in a glass on a napkin, waiting for it's owner to take a seat.

[totallyboatless]

It is time, friends, for another Pip's Weed Essay game. The rules: I'm about to take an edible and start writing a mini-essay in one sitting. I edit a tiny bit as I go, but for the most part this is on the fly. I've thought about this topic a lot, but haven't outlined it. I'll let you know when the edible hits, but there's a chance you'll realize it before I do. (PIRATE FRIENDS STICK AROUND - this is Pip from the future, I get pretty high in this, but anyway I'm here to tell you that this goes in a very unintended OFMD direction that i'm still reeling from. Anyway back to Past Pip)

Edible ingestion commencing, time: 7:37pm Mountain Time

I polled my followers for the topic, so today we're going to talk about:

Fixing the Puck Problem

I've read and seen A Midsummer Night's Dream more than any other Shakespeare play. At this point I don't know if I've seen it so much because it's my favorite, or enough opportunities for me to see it have lined up that it's become my favorite by default. It's easily the Shakespeare play I know best. I haven't seen a staging that I fully disliked, but there are two elements of this show that I feel like are rarely handled the way I want them to be.

Problem one:

Puck will never be as funny as Bottom

It's common to consider Puck to be the main character of A Midsummer Night's Dream. He's at the very least the most famous character in the play. Puck is a dream role, and obviously with his being a fairy, he's usually directed to be weird and whimsical--and a lot of the time, playing for laughs. It makes sense, he's a trickster, it's built into his nature.

But in modern day, his lines and actions don't translate as well as Bottom's. In all of the times that I've seen A Midsummer Night's Dream, I've *never* seen a production where Bottom fails to steal the entire show away from Puck. I've had multiple experiences where I could feel the director wanting me to laugh at Puck; I could see the reasons for the direction, but it just wouldn't hit. In those same productions, I've laughed so hard at the Bottom scenes that I cried.

I'm thinking particularly of the 2010 production with Judy Dench reprising Titania (honestly still in shock over seeing that lolol) and the 2019 Bridge Theatre production (which you can find streaming, it's *incredible*).

In the 2010 show, the Puck actor kept doing what honestly felt like a Woody the Woodpecker impression lol. He would pause for laughs and they just...wouldn't happen. Meanwhile, Bottom was set up with the kind of success that let him steal at least one scene from fucking Judy Dench.

In the 2019 Bridge Theatre production, I genuinely like the direction they gave Puck--he's a weird little twitchy Irish punk doing fucking aerial silk shit. But even with a unique vibe and a fun performance, it's still not enough to outshine Bottom.

Basically my thing is that I want to get to the end of A Midsummer Night's Dream and feel more connected to Puck. I *want* him to be my favorite. And there's just absolutely no way to make him my favorite if his core purpose is to be funny. Puck is supposed to be a larger-than-life being--the audience is never going to buy that when he's not even the largest character on the stage.

The second problem is smaller, and in fixing it there's also a fun chance to fix the Puck problem:

Problem two:

The audience usually doesn't understand why Titania and Oberon are fighting.

If you've gotten this far you're probably already a nerd who knows this, but gonna pose the question like I've done for other people I've seen the show with: Why are Titania and Oberon fighting? What's the core reason?

Bc you're a fucking nerd you probably yelled CHANGELING! Which yes, good for you, if I had become the Shakespeare professor I wanted to be but didn't have the money to become, you would be in my class and I would throw a snickers at you for a reward.

But the thing is, a *lot* of people who only know the play casually don't know. And most productions don't assist them in knowing.

Elaboration for non-nerds: Titania had a "and they were roommates" totally not at all lesbian relationship with a human women who was pregnant. The women dies in childbirth and Titania takes the child to raise, and she cherishes him more than anything, which is an extremely straight thing to do. In the play, the character is only referred to as the changeling. Oberon gets super jealous of this kid and wants to steal him away and make him join the Wild Hunt so that he can have Titania's full attention back, because he's got that issue creepy men get when they have kids and then are like "I'm jealous of my son because he's making it less likely for me to fuck my wife" and it's like "dude calm down with this projection of an Oedipal complex."

If you're not a coward and read Titania as in love with the changeling's mom, then Oberon's issues are maybe slightly less creepy, but like not really

So that's it really. Titania loves this kid of her sapphic lover that died. Oberon is jealous about it. He decides to play a trick on Titania both as a way to get revenge, and also as a distraction so he can steal the kid.

But the issue is that 1.) all of this is communicated in a long and kind of boring speech, and 2.) the changeling literally never has a line and also no stage directions

The 2010 production had a hot dude chained up and writhing on stage in a kind of hot dance snake movement thing when Titania talks about him, but most productions never even have an actor cast as the changeling. I was really shocked they didn't have anyone for the 2019 production, given how much I love most of the rest of their choices.

OKAY SO. We now have the two problems: Puck isn't the fan favorite even though he should be; and most people in the audience have no fucking idea about the changeling.

(THIS IS HIGH PIP FROM THE FUTURE I FORGOT SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT TO THIS PROBLEM: If you do know about the changeling/follow along with that plot, it's *very* hard to root for Titania and Oberon when they reconcile. Which can be fun and cool and a little hot even maybe if you're going all dark, but thIS IS A PLAY ABOUT HORNY FAERIES HAVING A GOOD TIME so I won't be having that. I want this play to make me like that Titania forgives Oberon so easily. Okay Past Pip, take it away)

lol okay yeah weed friend has landed, I just wandered away for a minute with a desperate need to put taquitos in the air fryer. Time stamp: 8:16.

OKAY FOR REAL NOW LET'S GET INTO:

Pip's Most Ideal Staging of A Midsummer Night's Dream Which Fixes the Problems in Theory

The Staging:

First off I want the production to be in the middle of the literal woods where there's pretty lights in all the trees and people are sitting on blankets and have snacks and drinks and drugs and whatever they want, and the whole staging has the actors weaving through the audience. Not just theatre in the round, full immersion

I also want people to not fully know where the production is, just that it's on the outskirts of the forest, and then the actors emerge from the woods at a designated time and bring the audience to the secret stage section. And ideally this would be like a park on the outskirts of woods so that there would also be people there who wouldn't know what the fuck was going on. And ideally some of the fairy actors convince them to come along and the people go having no idea what they're about to get into. That's how A Midsummer Night's Dream is meant to be experienced in its purest form: with actors dressed as fairies trying to seduce unsuspecting strangers to follow them into the woods to an unknown location where they'll probably be offered drugs.

TAQUITO TIME

Taquitos acquired.

Puck's direction and motivation:

When Puck is first introduced, it's by a fairy called Peasblossom who's otherwise not a big part. Peasblossom lets the audience know who Puck/Robin Goodfellow is by basically going stan-mode and being like "holy shit you're famous." PB literally starts listing his greatest hits.

So picture with me: instead of an extremely fairy-like whimsical Puck, I want a Puck that wanders on-stage like a burnt-out rockstar. Cigarette in one hand, beer in another. Probably on a cocktail for faerie super magic mushrooms. Just fully numbed out. In this moment, Puck feels way more human than faerie--and I want the performance to be in a way where that feels off. To have it be communicated in manner and clothing, and the juxtaposition of PB recounting Puck's glory days, that Puck hasn't always been like this. This isn't a faerie trickster in his prime. This is a man who's lost all sense of fun and is going through the motions.

That's what happens, right, when you become just a little too famous?

Puck is the only one of the main characters who gets to the end of the show and is entirely alone.

(my favorite thing about being high is how *good* it makes food taste, these taquitos are not fancy but with the power of the devil's lettuce it's so good--oh my god I have Dr. Pepper)

(I'm back with the Dr. Pepper. I'm having fun, are you guys having fun? If you've made it this far i kiss u)

So Puck is alone at the end of the play while everyone else of import is either with their lover or with their theatre-kid-found-family. And it's largely because Puck lives between worlds. He's not powerful enough to be fey royalty; he's Oberon's right-hand man, but he's not Oberon's peer. But the lower fey court are also not his peers -- they treat him like a celebrity, he can't actually connect with them. He's not allowed to frolic and play with them anymore, not really.

With this interpretation and direction, we now have a Puck whose action in the plot can lead to a happy ending (keep with me), and whose existence isn't just to be quirky and whimsical for the audience. Instead it's a Puck with a motivation: he's lost all joy in his job, he's disconnected from him community, and Oberon only treats him like a fuckbuddy so he's sexually frustrated. (Oh right yeah I was supposed to write about how Puck is in love with Oberon. He is.) That's all fucking sad, bro! And you know from the Pip that traveled into the past that this play is fun and should be fun!

Now for the final part, where we put in the special ingredient to tie this particular Puck direction into the happy ending:

LET'S 👏 GET 👏 GAY 👏

Do you guys (gn) remember the changeling? It was like possibly an hour ago, the time-warp this particular edible always sets me on has fully set in. It's possible this essay is like 5k words long. It's also possible it's only 500 words long. I wish I was lying when I told you I don't know.

Anyway, the changeling. Let's make him a fuller character and let's give him to Puck wrapped up in a sexy, charming bow.

Picture this: The Changeling, from now on capitalized as a character, shown on stage in Titania's court. Locked up like a princess in a tower because Titania is desperate to protect him. And the Changeling is all *sigh and flutter big beautiful princess man eyes* because he wants to explore what's out there. Because he's a man who's grown up and been forced to live between two worlds. He's not fey royalty, he's not Titania's actual kid and she kind of honestly treats him more like a momento of her lesbian lover than an actual adopted kid. He can't be one of the fey court, because he's not fey, and also he's not allowed to frolic and play with them.

That should sound familiar to you if I did it right.

Puck and the Changeling, both feeling the same sort of empty spot. So let's smush them together.

Give the Changeling all of Peasblossom's lines. It makes more sense for a detail I left out before, too--Peasblossom doesn't recognize Puck they see him for the first few lines. Once they do they're all like "omg you're the dude that makes people horny for each other and also some other trickster things." They know all of Puck's stunts, but they don't know what he looks like? It's clearly an exposition device, but it's a weak one (sorry, Shakesy). He's the rockstar of the fey world. You'd have to be living under a rock or, I dunno, locked away like a beautiful man-princess --

(Okay you know where I'm going and I have to stop there because I'm cry laughing, I swear to you -- I swear to fucking god, guys, I wish I was joking -- I thought I was being cute and clever saying "man-princess". Not because of irony. IT'S BECAUSE I FORGOT THERE IS A WORD FOR A PRINCESS WHO IS A MAN AND THAT IS A PRINCE. Okay i should clearly wrap this up lol)

In this staging, the Changeling clearly doesn't want to be locked up. So...he finally finds a way to sneak out. He goes on a romp through the forest and that's when he runs into Puck (this is the scene where we first meet Puck). The Changeling wouldn't recognize Puck, though he's have heard of him. He probably loves stories because what the fuck else does he have to do, so he's asked the fairies to tell him about Puck's adventures over and over. Meanwhile, Puck wouldn't recognize the Changeling because Titania has been keeping him so under lock and key. It allows an opportunity for them to connect on more of a peer basis as they--

Holy fuck. Wait. Hold on. Is the Changeling Stede. Is Puck Ed. What the fuck. Did I write an AU on accident. I don't even like AUs very much (sorry AU writers it's not personal it's just not my thing).n ANYWAY sorry for the pirate aside. God this is properly off the rails now.

They like each other, you get it. And now Puck has someone he wants to impress. There's not a lot of opportunities to give the Changeling more lines, but that doesn't mean he can't appear on stage. He can stay with Puck (hiding from Oberon whenever he's there, leading to some good chances for physical comedy) and go on the nighttime adventure of his dreams.

This leads to a fun, unique choice: having Puck fuck up the love flower juice plan on purpose. So that he can show this hot dude following him around with wide enthusiastic eyes the kind of things he's capable of OH MY GOD THIS IS ED AND STEDE I SWEAR THIS IS NOT ON PURPOSE I AM JUST NOW SEEING THE PARALLEL

Okay we're nearly at the end I promise. We just have one more problem to solve: How are we supposed to root for Titania and Oberon to get together when Oberon literally publicly humiliates her and then steals her adopted son and forces him to join the Wild Hunt even tho Titania REALLY doesn't want him to? Well, the first one is easy, Titania and Oberon are so fucking kinky, and Oberon likes getting cucked (remember he's only jealous of the Changeling, never the lesbian).

The second one is also easy. Make it the Changeling's choice. Leaving Titania and joining Oberon's court means two things: He gets to be with Puck, and joining the Wild Hunt allows him to go on exciting adventures. If Titania saw that the Changeling wanted this with the staging that both Titania and Oberon look over and see Puck and the Changeling making out right after Titania's spell is broken. Then Oberon can jokingly delivers the line about having stolen the Changeling, realizing that the plan worked but in the most ridiculous way possible. And how could Titania not find joy in all of that?

It makes me so much more glad to see them get back together.

Puck's closing soliloquy is his most famous, but I like his last big monologue right before it better. There's a very important line he says that communicates an important shift within the context of his particular staging:

And we fairies, that do run

We.

Puck isn't a lonely, washed-up rockstar anymore. He's part of a "we." Not just the Changeling, but the other fairies, too. Puck and the Changeling act as bridges for each other, to be part of each other's worlds in a way that feels like a whole -- OH MY GOD IT IS ED AND STEDE

Puck being alone on stage isn't so sad anymore, after all that. Because Puck, who starts off the play with so little sense of belonging, now has so much to go back to.

And that's it, that's my ideal staging of this play. Honestly, I really, really want to direct it. I have no experience directing but I have the audacity to think I could do it lol. No resources, tho

OH ONE LAST THING HELENA NEEDS TO BE INTO PUP PLAY

also the lovers are all in a polycule, that's just a given, any other staging is cowardly

alright bbye

[exit]

final time stamp: 9:25 PM, not rereading, just hitting post. We die like Mercutio.

[eros-thanatos89]

meta/thoughts on BCS

Oh, man. I've never posted meta, or just thoughts on shows before, but I'm trying to give myself permission to be as cringe as I want and to ramble on the internet about the fictional things that I think way too much about. So here goes, my first meta post!

I just rewatched BCS S5E3 "The Guy For This" (let's be real: mostly for thirsty reasons, because I wanted to see Lalo and Nacho looking pretty in the garage scene with Saul) and Goddamn, it just smacked me in the face and reminded me what a pivotal episode it is in so many ways.

One of the many recurring themes that I love to see explored so well in both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul is the many ways that people deal with (or don't) the consequences of their actions, and this episode is just chock full of that, as well as setting up the first steps down the "bad choice road" or the road ahead for so many characters.

In that garage, Saul really steps into Saul as we know him in Breaking Bad. By taking Lalo's money (even if under duress) he's taking the first step into leaving Jimmy behind and becoming the *criminal lawyer* we all love/love to hate. Jimmy's pattern of avoiding the consequences of his actions or uncomfortable emotions like the guilt over Chuck's disgrace and death is running away: by escaping into his scams, and by literally running away from himself, choosing a new identity--he's not Jimmy anymore; he's Saul, so he doesn't have to lug around Jimmy's baggage. And even though he tries to backtrack from this first step onto the bad choice road leading to him becoming "un amigo del cartel", when he tries to suggest that Lalo find another lawyer, it's too late. As Nacho tells him, "When you're in, you're in."

And Nacho would know! Speaking of running away, Nacho has been trying to evade or escape his problems for so long: first by setting up Tuco to avoid having his side hustle with Pryce discovered, and in this episode, trying to convince his Papa to run away with him to Canada. The scene where Manuel confronts Nacho at his house never fails to break my heart. Nacho is so desperate for Manuel to escape with him to a new, safe life, and Manuel is so adamant that Nacho face up to the consequences of his choices. Which ultimately, he has no choice but to do. He has to confront what he's done and give himself up to save his Papa's life, just like Manuel encouraged him to do so long ago. But by giving up his life rather than turning himself in to the police. It's so damn tragic.

And then there's Kim. She's always running away from the poverty and instability of her past by so doggedly pursuing success as a lawyer. I love how this episode highlights her increasing dissatisfaction with Mesa Verde and her yearning to pursue more meaningful pro-bono work so she can use the law to help people like the little, powerless girl she used to be. The confrontation between her and Mr. Acker is stellar. Kim has this rare moment of vulnerability, letting down her walls to share a story of her childhood struggles with Mr. Acker in a genuine attempt to connect with him, only to have him scoff at her and accuse her of making it up to manipulate him. You can tell his tirade about her being ultimately a selfish person who tries to comfort herself with acts of charity really rankles her because it goes so strongly against her sense of self and represents everything it seems she's afraid of becoming, and so much of what she resents about Howard: the entitlement, the sense of ease and privilege, the self-congratulatory charity acts (don't get me wrong, I really like Howard, pompous as he can sometimes be, but I think this is how Kim views him). By the end of the episode, when she escalates Saul toying with a beer bottle on the balcony into throwing them into the parking lot, you can already see her pivoting and taking those first steps down the road that ultimately leads to the plot against Howard, which she justifies to herself in the name of using the Sandpiper money to fund her pro-bono work. And then in the end of the series, she both runs away AND atones for her actions by moving to Florida and living a life literally leeched of all color and joy, and is just doing penance by living a muted, mediocre life.

Domingo's arc in this episode is so crucial, too! Lalo and Nacho recruit Saul to feed him the information to undermine Fring, but when he meets Hank and Steve Gomez in prison, it starts him on the road to transforming from Domingo/Ocho Loco to Krazy 8. Ultimately leaving the cartel (I like to think because of the loss of his friend Nacho) and setting himself up as an independent dealer and even snitching on his own cousin, Emilio; which then leads to his collision with Walt and Jesse.

And the scene with Mike in the bar! The way he's barely holding it together as he tries (not very successfully) to drink away the pain and guilt caused by killing Werner just a few episodes before (S4E9) and is so triggered by the postcard that reminds him of their conversation is so powerful. I just love how he encounters the group of guys who try to intimidate and rob him and he defends himself in this episode, but we later see him intentionally return and seek them out in S5E5 "Dedicado a Max" in an act of self-loathing and roundabout self-harm via taking a beating and not even trying to defend himself.

I'm rambling, but these shows make me litcherally mentally unwell with how fantastically nuanced and textured the writing, acting, visual storytelling, music, everything is! I'm just going to be ruminating on all these many facets of accepting consequences, atoning, and/or running away affects these characters and the arc of both shows and the world they inhabit for the next long while....

[soraisnotsleepy]

Enki Ankarian in... love?!?! (small drabble + headcanons) 🪱🪲

C/Ws: slight desc of sickly appearance AND NOT PROOF READ enjoy wonky yummy grammar because I do too

• I know, it's unbelievable that Enki, of all people, can fall in love!!! Despite his antisocial personality and hermit way of lifestyle, he is still capable of basic human emotions (yet he's bad at naming them or recognizing at all)

• For him to develop any kind of relationship, he must be bound to that person by circumstances (for e.g, being stuck in the dungeons of Fear and Hunger, like you're rn!!!). Since he's forced to spend time with you like this, he will unintentionally get used to your presence because, like, he has to. You were crucial to him, without your assistance dwelling deep into the dungeons would be a one way trip towards death itself

• Like this he bears with you. Thoughts of '"how are they" and "what are they thinking" will slowly creep into his rotten dark brain. You will soon find him more talkative and genuinely invested in whatever relates to you. He will ask more questions about you without you being the conversation's initiator

• Yet he will still try to keep distance between him and you. He's not used to any sort of affection or a relationship based on trust. Expect him to warm up to you and then distance himself again as soon as he realizes that he got too close

• Of course he'll start worrying about your well-being as well. Y'all need to go over to that dark mysterious corner? Enki will go first and keep you behind him. Nonono! You can't eat that rotten cabbage, eat this fresh carrot instead. Enki has eaten worse, this hopefully won't upset his stomach that much unlike yours. You're really tired and sleepy? Let's rest in this room with a bed. Take that bed instead, Enki's fine with leaning against the wall nearby

• Okay help I'm running out of ideas /srs,,,, BUT LEMME JUST THROW IN THIS:::

(y/n) barely could keep up with the dark priest. Their feet gave away, with each step their legs felt heavier and heavier. Yet they kept quiet. They couldn't afford to just rest here out of all places, too far away from the surface. In such a dark place filled with grotesque gore scent and soggy filthy ground. Despite all that, it couldn't keep their mind away from sleepiness and hunger.

*thud*

And (y/n) fell on the ground loud and hard. Enki immediately turned his head to his companion's direction and strictly asked:

"What's that all of a sudden?"

"Don't worry, I accidentally tripped," (y/n) answered as they desperately tried to get up.

It really looked pitiful. Their hands trembled and they barely could lift up their fragile frame. The priest huffed at their words (especially the "don't worry" part) and walked up to them to give them a lift.

"You're horrible at lying," Enki commented as (y/n) leaned against his shoulder.

They were completely pale, it was as if their body was deprived of blood. It didn't look like this before, well not that bad. Enki frowned his eyebrows.

"We're still not close to Ma'habre, don't you dare to die on me." and with those words you both walked around in search of a safe room.

The man's cold heart ached at his companion's sickly appearance. It was too much. He couldn't drag you to the ancient city in such a vulnerable state. You weren't just a meat shield like he thought at first, you were something more to him that he refused to say out loud in his head.

In this hell of a place, both dwellers were successful in finding a relatively safe place to rest. Enki placed (y/n) against the wall and proceeded to set up a bonfire. It was painfully cold, a single torch failed to keep anyone warm.

As the priest was trying to set up a fire, (y/n) finally found some strength to speak "We don't have to rest unless you need it... I can go on, it was nothing really,"

Enki sighed and said nothing. What he wanted to say he couldn't. Someone like him can't soften up. Someone like him can't succumb to 'lowly' human feelings and say words of comfort. Eventually the fire was set and he could rest alongside with you. Enki took his bag and found a piece of dried meat between books and various potions. Without a second thought, he offered it to (y/n):

"Eat,"

(y/n)'s eyes widened at this gesture. After five seconds of silence, they shook their head.

"But this is the last food we have. Let's at least split it-" (y/n) tried to reason with Enki, but he interrupted.

"No, just take it,"

Of course (y/n)'s stomach already felt like it was about to eat itself from inside out, yet they just couldn't bare with the thought of eating all it themselves.

"That's unreasonable," they tried to argue.

But Enki was unusually stubborn in this matter "I insist."

They were already at their brink of blacking out from starvation and exhaustion, so they agreed. And like this, (y/n) started eating while Enki flip through some ancient book of unknown origins to them. It felt so serene to be like this with him. Too serene, too cozy for the dungeons of Fear and Hunger. Too comfortable to the point that (y/n)'s eyes began to close by themselves. Enki noticed it (because he was occasionally throwing glances at you).

"Sleep, sleep. I'm not fatigued, I will keep an eye on our surroundings." The dark priest spoke as he continued to read his book.

(y/n) could swear that they saw his strict facial expression soften up a little bit. Or was it the lighting creating an illusion?

Thoughts of why Enki did what he did plagued (y/n). Was it purely to keep them alive so that it will secure him a somewhat safe travel to the ancient city? Or was it because he wasn't a cold hearted monster after all? With these thoughts, (y/n) finally closed their eyes and fell into a deep slumber. Their head landed on Enki's shoulder. The dark priest sighed and kept reading.

"And why do I even like you." He quietly mumbled to himself, not really meant for you to hear.