#I need to write a whole essay about the life series it’s just too good

[meiwst]

Sometimes I think about how Joel died in Limited life and I suddenly need to wax poetry about it. Like we moved on a bit too quickly :

The sheer panic in his voice, he is desperately trying to survive and after his failed attempt at a tnt minecart he just goes “Grian it’s not going well—” THE WAY HIS VOICE IS CUT OFF GOD

AND GRIAN. The way Joel’s desperate voice was loud and when he got struck by lightning THE SILENCE. THE ABSOLUTE SILENCE because Grian just saw his last ally die right in front of him. Joel disappears at the highest level on the stairs right in front of the clock tower. Grian just stares at it too stunned. THE WAY THE LIGHTNING IS SO VISIBLE BECAUSE IT WAS NIGHT TOO.

Finally after like seconds that feel like minutes he yells “Joel?” LIKE WOW OKAY.

This little Minecraft block game makes me insane, I’ve been watching this series since Double Life came out and I feel like this moment in Limited Life is so raw I love it sm probably my fav moment in the series.

[heehoonieluvs]

hello!! i really loved ‘the locker rooms’ with hee, and i was wondering if i could request a short drabble in that series/universe lol (if that is okay!) of hee and the readers first time together? especially since hee is so down bad for them 😩

also i love love!! how u write heeseung 😩 idk it just hits diff i love it lolol

First time

Basketball captain Heeseung x reader

Fluff, smut

The way that the members are depicted in this story has nothing to do with how they really are or how I feel they are. It is all solely for the storyline so please bear that in mind 🫶

Tysm for sending in this request 🩵 I do apologise that it’s a lot longer than expected but I got too carried away 😅

Warnings: MDNI, cursing, pet names, loss of virginity, oral (f & m receiving), fingering (please let me know if I need to add any more 🤍)

Series masterlist

Masterlist

It had been about 3 months since Heeseung had finally asked you to be his girlfriend. It was safe to say that it had been the best 3 months your life, full of the best cuddles, kisses, the cutest dates and so much more. And for Heeseung it was the same… except he was fighting his inner demons so hard to not devour you every moment you two were together.

He kept his sinful thoughts to himself as he didn’t want to scare you off with the filthy things he wanted to do with you. There were times where he was close to getting a taste of you but you always stopped him before things went too far as you were a virgin. The first time you told him, he lifted your head by your chin and left delicate pecks on your bright red cheeks, reassuring you that there was nothing to be embarrassed about. So every time you got nervous from his touches, he’d never push you to do anything and end the night with the biggest cuddles.

The truth was that you were just as needy for him as he was for you. But knowing his reputation before you got together, it made you worry that you wouldn’t be able to satisfy him the way that he wanted. It felt embarrassing that you were in your second year and still hadn’t slept with anyone. So instead, you resorted to touching yourself to the thought of your gorgeous boyfriend whenever he wasn’t around. You knew that he would never judge you for being a virgin but you didn’t want to make a fool out of yourself and make him want to go back to the way he was before.

It was a Sunday night at Heeseung’s flat and you had just submitted your essay. You could’ve gotten it done quicker if it weren’t for your needy boyfriend kissing your neck and begging you to pay him some attention. Once you shut your laptop, you turned to your boyfriend who was sat on his bed with a cheeky grin on his face. Seeing how snuggly he looked, you bounced over to straddle his lap and engulfed him in the biggest bear hug

“Ah finally! My baby is paying attention to meeee” he whined into your neck

His fluffy hair tickled your face so you brought your hand up to run your fingers through the strands. He hummed in satisfaction as you played with his hair and rocked you side to side

“How about we put on a movie and I’ll get us a takeaway? Does that sound good my princess? He asked as he rubbed his nose on yours before giving you a kiss

“Are you sure darling? You’ve got a game coming up tomorrow and I don’t want your coach to have a go at you”

You could barely keep eye contact with him as he gazed up at you with so much love in his eyes, making your stomach feel like it was doing flips

“Don’t worry baby, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. And anyways, it’s to celebrate my pretty girl for being so smart and beautiful” he teased

You rolled your eyes jokingly “Babe, I submitted one assignment. I don’t think that makes me that smart” you giggled at his goofiness

“Yes it does babyyyyy! And we should always celebrate the fact that I have the most gorgeous princess in the whole world to myself” he started to brag with a smug smile

He ordered you both all of your favourite foods from the takeaway around the corner and you snuggled under the covers whilst watching a movie you had been looking forward to. His arm was draped around you and he pulled your legs over his lap so it almost looked like he was cradling you like his baby. As he looked down to stare at your face, he couldn’t help but wonder how he got so lucky despite how much of a dick he was in the past.

It was like you were some kind of angel sent for him when you entered his life. Before you, his grades had started to decline as he only focused on basketball and getting his dick wet. But once you blessed him with your presence, it was like he became a new person. He wanted to be a better person to prove to you that he was capable of being the man that you deserved to worship you for the rest of your life. And now that he’s yours, he could never even think about any other woman apart from you.

You looked so adorable, snuggled under the covers in his favourite hoodie. You were so invested in the film so he took his time to concentrate on every part of your beautiful face. From the way your eyes sparkled in awe, the way you slightly pouted in concentration whenever something interesting was being said, and the way your adorable nose would scrunch up whenever the actors said something outrageous.

He was in such a daze that he barely picked up on the moans coming from the TV as an intimate scene came up. The scene was extremely realistic and intense, even to him. And when he looked back at you, your eyes slightly dropped from embarrassment but he picked up on your legs slightly squeezing together

Even though he always tried to avoid it, he couldn’t help but tease you because he found it so cute. He leaned down to whisper softly into your ear

“Are you enjoying it princess?”

Your doe eyes widened as you looked at him with your bottom lip jutted out

“U- uh no what do you mean?” You turned away from his teasing gaze

He pulled you in closer to rub his nose on your warm cheek

“It’s ok princess I’m only teasing. You know it’s not something to be embarrassed about?”

By the way your legs carried on moving over his lap, he felt that he could test the waters a bit more, but not enough to make you feel uncomfortable. So he brought his left hand up to your upper thigh soothe your shaking legs. As he stroked you turned your face towards him again but kept your line of vision down, at his hand on you. Your fingers played with your bottom lip (a habit that you did whenever you were nervous and drove your boyfriend crazy). The hand that was on your lap delicately pulled your fingers away from your lips before he kissed them

“Pretty girl, you know I can’t resist you whenever you play with your soft lips like that. It almost makes me jealous that I’m not the one doing it to you” he interlocked your fingers and brought his face closer to yours

Sensing the closer proximity, your looked back up to him and the two of you looked into each others eyes and lips. It was like the was an invisible force that pulled you both together as you leaned in for a kiss.

You guys had kissed many times before, but this one felt different. He cradled your face gently to angle it perfectly and you rested your hands by his shoulders. The two of you moved your heads in sync to deepen the kiss and each movement made it feel more and more intense. Heeseung wanted more so he ran his tongue on your bottom lip to ask you permission to open your mouth. When you granted him access, he wasted no time to stick his tongue in your mouth to play with yours. As the two of you engaged in a wet french kiss, you felt his hand run down your body to land on your ass. All of a sudden a rush of panic washed over you and you pulled away

“I’m so sorry princess did I go too far?” Heeseung questioned with so much worry written on his face

“No. No I promise you didn’t. It’s just me” you said timidly “I do want to do it with you, I promise baby. I’m just scared”

“What is it that you’re afraid of pretty baby? Is it me?” He asked

You panicked “No! You could never scare me bambi. I just… I guess I’m just scared that I won’t satisfy you and I can’t compare to all the girls you’ve been with”

He let out a sigh of relief but also sadness. He didn’t realise that you had been feeling this way and was frustrated at himself for not picking up on your insecurities earlier

“Oh baby, is that what’s been holding you back all this time?”

You nodded your head slightly, not wanting to speak in case your voice trembled

“Look at me my baby. That’s it, show me that pretty face. No one, and I mean no one, will ever be able to satisfy me the way you do. You could just look at me and that would make me so much more fulfilled than any other person could make me. You have no idea how much I crave you every second of the day. I’m having to hold back from touching you in such dirty ways and make you feel so fucking good and it’s absolute torture baby. Ever since I saw you for the first time, I’ve been wanting to devour you but I will only do it if you are absolutely sure that you want me to do it. If whatever’s holding you back is because of the nobodies that were a part of the past, then please don’t worry your pretty head about it princess. Just think of how good I can make you feel”

He nibble your ear and proceeded to press kissed from your cheek, to your nose and finally your lips

“Wait Hee. I- um, well I- I haven’t shaved… down there though” you whispering shyly

God Heeseung thought he was going to bust a nut from how fucking adorable you were right now

“Oh baby, you’re so fucking cute! You don’t have to worry about small things like that. Are you going to be bothered about me not being shaved down there?”

You shook your head no

“Well there you go baby. You’re not bothered by my body hair and I am most definitely not bothered by yours. And anyways, just thinking about your cute little bush hiding your wet pussy is enough to make me cum right now” he growled at the end

Your eyes widened at his vulgar words. It was obvious now just how much he had been holding in this entire time and you felt a bit daft for doubting how much he wanted you this entire time

He brought his hand back up to cradle your face again to stroke your cheek

“Do you want to carry on baby? Because trust me, I want nothing more than to be buried in you but you have to tell me that you want this too”

“Yes I want it Hee. Please?”

“Oh fuck yes baby thank you”

Not wanting to waste another second, he pulled you in for the sloppiest kiss you guys ever shared. He ran his tongue all over your mouth, sucking your tongue and licking your saliva up. You wanted to feel his skin on yours so you tugged at the bottom of his tank top to hint at him. He pulled away from you and lifted his arms

“Strip me baby”

You climbed off his lap and peeled every barrier of clothing away to reveal his gorgeous body. Before you got to his boxers, you sat back on your knees to admire his sculpted figure. He would be lying if he said he didn’t go to the gym more than usual to distract him from wanting to use you has his cardio workout

The way his muscles were flexing made you drip and wonder what they’d feel like rubbing on your pussy. His hair trailed down from under his belly button and moved down under the last item of clothing that hid his prized possession

“Please take it off princess, I can’t wait any longer” he begged with his round eyes

You slowly pulled his boxers down and his red throbbing cock bounced out and tapped you on your chin. You gasped as the tip leaked with his pre cum onto your face. He giggled at your surprise face and the way you looked so tiny by his dick. It was safe to say that you were both impressed and nervous when you saw just how much you boyfriend had been packing this entire time. You quickly sat back up to strip off your clothes before he grabbed your hands to stop you

“No baby, that’s my job”

He flipped you around so you were laying on the bed and carefully stripped off your (his) clothes piece by piece, admiring your body the entire time. He was practically drooling when he got to your underwear, not knowing which one he wanted to take off first. His hands delicately reached under your back and he unclasped your bra.

When he pulled the cups away, he stared at your perky boobs. Your hardened nipples looked so inviting that he felt the urge to suck on them. You gasped as his warm mouth surrounded them and you let out a small moan which caused him to involuntarily grind into his bed. The tip of his tongue flicked over your sensitive nipple on your left breast and his thumb rub over your right one. After a few more licks, he swapped side to give the same treatment to your other breast

“Please give me more” you whined

“Ok ok princess. Bubba will give you more” he cooed

He started to litter kisses all the way down to your crotch where he was met with the sweet smell of your arousal. His fingers hooked over the side of the crotch to reveal your wetness. The way your juices spread all over your lips made him want to go feral. He pealed your damp panties from you and made himself comfortable between your spread legs

“Can I have a taste pretty baby? I promise it will feel good”

You turned away in embarrassment

“That’s dirty though” you whined

He chuckled “No baby it’s sexy. I want nothing more than to bury my face between your legs till you’re creaming in my mouth. Will you please let me do it?” He begged

You shyly nodded at him and he looked like a kid who just got his favourite lollipop

He went straight in to lick at your entrance to get as much of your juices as possible. It was so sweet and he knew from that moment that he would need to taste you every day no matter what. He pulled back from you to spread your lips apart and reveal your swollen clit. His lips went to suck and lick the tiny button, which made you scrunch your legs up to move away from the overwhelming feeling of pleasure. But there was no way Heeseung was going to let you deprive him from your taste again

He grabbed onto your thighs to pull you even closer so your couldn’t move away

“Don’t run away from me baby. Feel the way I suck on your cute pussy”

His head shook side to side with his tongue stuck out full. The wetness from your pussy mixed with his saliva had spread all over his face and your thighs. Each lick made you let out such pornographic sounds that you didn’t realise you were capable of making. It turned him on so much, seeing you in so much pleasure. His hips at this point were humping his bed rapidly to simulate how he wanted to fuck you

“Oh fuck dadd- oh” you clasped your hand over your mouth from the slip up

Your boyfriend stopped his actions and you were worried that you had just screwed everything else

“Say that again princess”

“Huh?”

“I said. Say. That. Again” he growled

“Daddy?”

“Oh fuck yes princess say it again”

As he stared into your eyes, his face lowered back down to stick his tongue back into your soaking hole

“Ah shit daddy!”

“Again!”

“Daddy!”

“Fucking yes princess. Carry on calling for daddy. Give me your hands. Whenever you feel something really good, push daddy’s head into your cunt” and with that, he went back to torturing your pussy with his mouth

Whenever he sucked on your clit, you tugged at his roots and raised your hips to grind yourself onto his perfect face. You planted your feet flat onto his bed to hump up onto him even more. Your boyfriend’s eyes rolled to the back of his head with each roll of your hips. It turned him on so much that he was giving you so much pleasure that you have never received from anyone.

A sudden feeling of possessiveness overcame him as he had a small thought of you ever being with someone else. So your poor self was lifted so your shoulders remained on the bed and your legs were hooked over Heeseung’s broad shoulders and he got on his knees. Your hips were completely lifted off the bed so he towered over you with your pussy still in his face.

“I promise you baby, I am going to make love to you everyday for the rest of your life.”

He carried on eating you out and slurping your pussy and in all honesty, he was getting more pleasure from it than you

You felt your orgasm coming and you panicked from the overwhelming feeling

“Wait baby! I think I’m going to cum”

“Ok princess, cum all over my face” he moaned into your centre

“No it’s ok you can stop! That’s dirty!” You screamed

He lowered you back onto the bed and you though he was going to stop, but he layed back down and carried on sucking your clit

“Fucking cum baby. You’ve been holding me back from tasting your sweet cum for too long and there’s no way you’ll take it away from me again. Now give me your cum NOW!”

You had no choice but to grab onto the back of his head and hump his face vigorously till you finally creamed all over his mouth

He whispered about how amazing you tasted as he pecked all over your pussy. Your legs were shaking from the overstimulation so you gently pushed his head away from your core

Seeing how dazed you were, he crawled up to kiss you softly and nuzzled your noses together

“Thank you baby, you tasted so good. How do you feel?” He whispered in your ear

“So good bubba. Thank you”

You started to catch you breath so you brought you hand to his throbbing cock which had been leaking onto your stomach. He hissed from your soft, tiny fingers wrapping around him. When you started to rub up and down, he choked on his moans

“Can I have a taste Hee?”

“You don’t have to baby”

“But I want to. Please daddy?” You pouted at him

How could he say no to that?

He sat with his back against the headboard and made himself comfortable as you situated yourself between his legs

“Take your time princess. Don’t push yourself too much ok?”

“I promise daddy. Could you help me?”

“Of course I can darling. Just give it a little lick. There you go”

You leaned down and gave his hard cock some kitten licks. When his moans get louder, you add in some kisses and small sucks as well to test how he’d react. And from the way he threw his head back, you could tell that you were doing something right.

You brought your hands up to help your mouth. As they ran up and down his shaft, you carried on sucking on him

“That feels so fucking good baby. Can you suck on the tip? And use you hand to rub on my balls. Oh fuck YES”

You did exactly as he asked and you swear you’ve never seen something so hot in your entire life. You now understood why your boyfriend got off from giving you pleasure as the sight of your boyfriend right now was enough to make you cream again

You dipped your tongue into his slit and he let out a moan you’d expect to only hear in porn. He launched forward from the headboard from the feeling, and swung back to throw his head back against the bed. Seeing this reaction, you got greedy and wanted to see more of it. So you puckered your lips to left a glob of spit dribble onto his fat cock and carried on sticking your tongue onto his tip. One hand jerked him off vigorously whilst the other fondled his heavy balls

“Baby! Baby! Fuck yes! Please suck my tip. Suck it!”

You wrapped your lips around his leaking red tip and sucked as hard as you could. He warned you that he was about to cum so your sucked harder and stroked him faster and faster till his load bursted into your mouth. You kept him in your mouth and took him in a bit more to suck up every drop of his cum

Never in a million years would your past self think about putting a guy’s dick in your mouth. But with your boyfriend, you were more than willing to swallow all of his hot cum as his legs twitched around you

Heeseung thought he had blacked out from the most mind boggling orgasm he had every experienced. It felt like he was seeing stars once the pleasure washed over him, and seeing that it was you who gave it to him made it feel like he was living in a dream. Despite the dirty act you just did, you looked so innocent and cute between his legs and he thought he could nut again just from that sight.

The two of you layed side by side and made out for about 20 minutes as he praised you for how well you did

“Did it feel good princess? I didn’t push you too much did I? I promise I wanted our first to be more romantic and slow but I just couldn’t resist you” his lips remained on yours as he spoke to you

“It was perfect bambi. But you still haven’t been inside me yet so we can still have our romantic first time together” you teased

You didn’t think that he still had any energy left in him but as soon as you said that, he jumped up to fish into his bedside table to get a condom from a new box

“Well aren’t you prepared handsome” you giggled as his fast hands struggled to take the plastic film off the box

“I’ve been waiting for this to happen for so long baby. I had to be prepared for whenever you were ready”

He looked so cute trying to enthusiastically get a condom out but his palms were too sweaty to get a hold of them. Seeing you giggle at him, he started whining

“Please help me baby! I can’t do it” he looked like a sad puppy from being frustrated

You took the box from him and opened the box with ease before taking a condom out and ripping the package open. He took the condom from you and swiftly slid it onto his hardened cock

“Are you ready for me princess? We’ll take it very slow” he pumped himself a few times whilst looking at you lovingly

You smiled back and gave him a firm nod. Now that he had your consent, he stuck his middle and ring fingers in his mouth and sucked on them before bringing them to rub around your entrance. A gasp left your lips as he pressed a digit in and slowly eased it into you. Given that you were already soaking wet, his fingers slipped into you with a slight stretch

“Do you ever finger yourself babygirl?”

“Yea”

“Really? What do you think about darling?”

“You”

He groaned at your response and curled his fingers up to find your g spot, making you gasp in shock

“Oh did I find your sweet spot baby? I bet your cute fingers are too tiny to find this spot aren’t they? Only daddy could ever make you feel like this. Tell me love, what do you imagine daddy doing to you?”

“Daddy fucks me till I cum all over him” you were too lost in pleasure to feel embarrassed about what you were confessing to your boyfriend. But your boyfriend thought it was the hottest thing he’s ever heard

“Yea? Do you want daddy to fuck you now? Have him stretch your tiny pussy with his thick, hard, throbbing cock”

“Yes please daddy. Fuck me”

He lined his tip up with your entrance and slowly rocked into you

“Tell me if it’s too much princess. I don’t ever want to hurt you” he stroked the apple of your cheek

You turned your head to kiss his palm and pulled him down by the neck to kiss him on the lips

“It’s ok I trust you. Just keep going”

He fucked you nice and slow, making sure to angle his hips perfectly to hit your spot. Your mouths hung open as you let out breathy moans.

“Please go harder Hee” you begged

“Anything for you princess”

His hips snapped harder and his tip hit deeper than thought was already possible. He felt like he was on cloud 9 right now. Seeing his angel moan for him and receiving pleasure from him. With his past hookups, he was never vocal. It was one thing that the past girls complained about. But with you, he couldn’t contain that pornographic sounds from coming out. Your tightness made him feel so overwhelmed with pleasure he’s never experienced before. He was sure his neighbours would be able to hear him moan out for you with the volume he was moaning at. But he didn’t care at all

Feeling the need to suck your tits, he flipped you so you could ride him at your own pace

“Come on baby, ride me. Use me any way you want”

You moved your hips at a pace that had you both almost in tears from how good it felt. He lips were like magnets onto your breasts as he slobbered all over them. His wondering hands went down to your ass and spread your cheeks apart. You gasped when you felt a light pressure on your puckered rim

“Oho does baby like that? Does baby want daddy to play with her little hole? Trust me baby, daddy wants nothing more than to kiss and lick all over your cute asshole but we can try that next time ok? I still need to stretch out your perfect pussy before we get to your other hole”

The filthy words coming out of his mouth pushed you closer to the edge. So you started to speed up your hips and the closeness of your bodies caused you to grind your clit onto his pelvis. Your eyes rolled back and Heeseung swore that he was going to cum just from that

You carried on riding him till you both reached your climax. He grabbed your faced and smashed his lips onto yours to swallow your moans as you milked each other’s orgasms. You hugged each other close and rocked on him, wishing the feeling could last longer

The kisses carried on for a few more minutes as your orgasms die down. His delicate fingers stroked your spine to calm you down and he pressed kisses wherever he could reach. The ticklish feeling made you giggle and it warmed his heart. God you were absolutely perfect for him

He helped you off him and threw his condom away before getting a bath ready for the two of you. You were pampered by him for the rest of the night and it ended with the two of you cuddled up in his bed, admiring each other’s faces

“Such a good baby. I love you so much” his eyes never left your face as he rambled on about how much he loved you

“I love you more my bambi”

He laughed shyly at your response

“Not possible princess”

Author’s note: Once again tysm for sending in this request! I hope you all enjoyed it! Please feel free to leave requests in my inbox and I’ll try my best to get through them!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read through my work and I hope you look forward to more 🩵

[thecoolerliauditore]

I need your thoughts on Martyn.

Jesus Christ in heaven where to start.

I was planning to write massive essay posts about each of the winners sooner or later, I guess Martyn can skip the queue. As a treat.

BAD traffic series martyn analysis post don't read. LONG POST

note: rules I'm operating by are to keep the analysis primarily traffic-based (although this one's kind of an exception because. mr watcher lore) and I'm not rewatching entire POVs so stuff might be wrong so on so forth

Why is he... Like that?

So before I even start talking about 3L I feel the need to address Martyn's background first because, not unlike alot of the other members of the cast, Martyn's previously established relationships from series like Evo have a significant impact on how he behaves.

This is kind of difficult for me to talk about because it breaks my "no material outside of the traffic series" rule for these essays specifically, but I think it's honestly just more fun incorporating Martyn's off-series lore drops and such into his character instead of leaving them out.

So here's the basis I work from -- Martyn is the most unreliable narrator in a full cast of them. His lore is his character's version of events, not an unbiased retelling.

Whether the Watchers exist and whether they're the same entities present in Evo doesn't matter all that much, since all we know is that they are very real to Martyn, at least. Taking the lore as Martyn's POV also helps iron out some of the more awkward creases it creates when viewing the series as a whole (e.g. Grian's involvement with the Watchers surely means he would reference them himself, yet he doesn't) and lays the groundwork for some really interesting things about Martyn himself when you try to put the dots together on how he arrived at these conclusions. I'll be referencing these as they come up chronologically.

So, without over complicating things, here are the rules I'm playing by when it comes to pre-3L Martyn:

Evo did really happen with the same people, however the exact details are muddy.

Martyn knew Jimmy prior to the games and the two already had some sort of personal connection going in.

We're not trusting a word out of his mouth. Especially if he says them on stream. But we are going to acknowledge what those words are.

With those parameters set, let's move on:

Third Life, and the guy who gets a little too into it

Like Grian, Martyn immediately acclimates to the game's survival-based mechanics. Martyn spends a good chunk of the first session of 3L seemingly aimless, but he makes observations and choices throughout that show he has survival at the back of his mind (e.g. him quickly establishing an alliance with Grian and Bigb while sneakily putting them in his debt through the diamonds he finds early -- even if this doesn't end up paying off to anything).

Unlike Grian however, Martyn less desperately clings onto a need for an edge to survive and seems almost comfortable in playing the game. A running theme for him throughout all the seasons will be that he seems to feel most comfortable when he has some amount of unspoken power over others, whether that be something as silly as testing the waters with his creeper soundboard or later when he starts playing 4D chess with himself in regard to his loyalties.

"Power" might be not exactly the right word for what Martyn yearns for, but it's the best word I can find to really describe it. He's always the one with a card up his sleeve or a plan B or, arguably most importantly, the one with control over the situation and responsibility over his own and others' wellbeing.

In my mind, at least, I think it might be a consequence of Martyn actually being quite sensitive in terms of relationships and having this very deep-seeded need to protect his loved ones from harm but lacking the emotional intelligence necessary to allow himself to be vulnerable about those feelings and communicate properly. So instead he finds some way to protect himself emotionally (usually overdramatic and makes him way worse) and treats everyone including himself with a level of un-seriousness that alleviates the tension for him.

If I were to dig deeper into this specific point I must say Martyn seems to have chosen to perform a very specific breed of masculinity, with his constant agonizing need to protect and lead while not having to confront his own perceived weaknesses, and alot of his insecurities and frustrations come from being denied that husband-y role to play.

His interactions with Jimmy early on in 3L portray this side of him quite plainly. After seeing Scott hit him around at Renchanting, Martyn gets Jimmy alone and asks him if he's okay but after Jimmy dodges the question, Martyn quickly becomes frustrated and starts acting very overdramatic (e.g. threatening to cut Jimmy off, "I can't look at you", so on) even as Jimmy keeps insisting they keep talking.

In my humble opinion, it's clear to me from how he speaks to Jimmy in this scene and further on, and from his referencing of their Evo relationship, that this is these two's established dynamic - the way Martyn dramatizes everything feels almost as if he were making a joke of it, teasing Jimmy, almost akin to how an older sibling or very old friend would act. It's possible that Martyn didn't expect Jimmy to take any of his threats seriously (although he definitely was laying on the pressure to try and get him to agree in the moment) and that's why he's so taken aback when Jimmy does act almost afraid of him from this point forward.

Not once does Martyn ever verbalize his own feelings regarding the matter. He never says that he's scared or worried for Jimmy, or even makes any sort of subjective judgment on Scott's character for hitting Jimmy in the first place. He makes it all about Jimmy, never communicating *why* he is doing what he's doing which ends up giving off the impression he thinks he knows what's best for him, which of course never communicates to Jimmy that Martyn cares for or loves him and ends up pushing him away as a result.

Speaking of Scott, despite Martyn clearly not approving of the way he treats Jimmy (judging from the aforementioned conversation and his later lore streams where he essentially calls Scott and Jimmy's marriage a sham), he does not ever act antagonistically towards Scott. Which I think is indicative of another key trait of Martyn's - an almost uncanny ability to push aside his own feelings at least momentarily for the sake of the game.

Martyn does not speak badly to or about Scott. He even explores the nether with him very early on and the two literally joke about trapping the Flower Valley and killing Jimmy together.

I think there's an understanding and perhaps a level of respect, on Martyn's end, towards Scott. One of the first observations he makes about Scott's base, after all, is its defensive location and Scott, like Martyn, values his own competency and likes to pretend he's more emotionally unattached to his partner than he really is (the parallels between Martyn/Ren and Scott/Jimmy are even somewhat lampshaded by Martyn himself when he refers to them as "my red" (Ren) and "your red" (Jimmy) later).

It seems that Martyn doesn't dislike anything innate to Scott's nature, and even has love for his manipulative traits. If it were anyone other than Jimmy Scott was hitting, I'd argue, Martyn wouldn't have raised a fuss about it. Not to mention, there's also a sense of "keeping your enemies closer" when it comes to these two, as both seem acutely aware the other is useful on their side and a threat anywhere else.

I'd argue despite the fact he's able to push his dislike towards Scott aside, he definitely still feels spiteful towards him, as he ends up hunting him down pretty mercilessly come the end of the series (after Jimmy dies too - so perhaps there was also a level there of feeling the need to put up with Scott beforehand as he was Jimmy's only ally, but now that Jimmy's gone there isn't any need to be friendly with Scott anymore.)

Now onto the heavy-hitter Martyn 3L relationship - his dynamic with Ren.

I'll be honest I think most treebark shippers have summed up their relationship way better than I could. You could probably go into the tag and see thirty eight analysis posts more indepth and accurate than mine. However I will say that one thing I see rarely mentioned is this very obviously being Martyn's first time meeting Ren (I'm talking about characters here but here is your acknowledgement this is definitely a result of this literally being the case for the CCs).

He's not used to Ren's mannerisms -- during their first meeting, Ren says his usual "ex-squeeze me" (instead of "excuse me") and Martyn responds "no thankyou, I'm married". Not to get too into it as this is The Martyn Post but Ren's POV would imply the same since he sees Martyn's name in chat and he immediately starts theorizing about what kind of player he is.

I think Ren essentially being a stranger to Martyn at the start of the series makes it easier for him to act manipulatively and keep him at arm's length, as well as be in denial about the whole emotional attachment thing. For so much of their alliance during 3L Martyn is acting, performing to match Ren's vibes, except he's not.

^this quote and the concept of freudian slips informs like 88% of my worldview, if anyone's wondering why I'm. like that.

"The Hand" is very much not how Martyn naturally acts or behaves, down to the change in speaking patterns. It's a persona that I think both Ren and Martyn never take too seriously or mistake for Martyn's authentic self, but it's also something Martyn uses to express his innermost feelings he disallows himself from usually. Yes it's all silly even in-universe but I think there's something special about how he constantly expresses his devotion as The Hand, even if he's doing it with a layer of irony. Plus, I think it says something that, jumping later in the timeline, his flashbacks in LimLife are much more true to the character of The Hand than Martyn himself.

This section is already long enough but I do have to mention Bigb, Grian and Scar or I'll explode.

Earlier on, I touched on Martyn giving Grian and Bigb diamond swords early and it being an attempt to leverage an alliance between them. This I admit might be a slight reach however the reason I say that is Martyn continues to pursue Bigb and Grian as allies throughout the season.

Bigb is cut and dry enough, he ends up floating around the outside of Dogwarts as a not-quite-member after the siege in which pretty much half the sever were antagonized by Grian and Scar. I'm probably not the person to thoroughly dissect Martyn/Bigb but there's something interesting there about how alot of people tend to have this general fondness towards Bigb and Martyn is no exception.

As for Grian, Martyn acknowledges that Grian is responsible for the siege, possible moreso than Scar, but keeps questioning how "gone" he is, worded as if he believes Scar is manipulating him. I've seen people compare this to how he acts towards Jimmy and Scott which I can definitely see the throughline. However, I think while both are an example of Martyn's protector/saviour complex, they are innately different due to Martyn's relationships with both the perceived victim and captor in each case.

Despite Grian also being an ex-Evo member, Martyn does not act towards him with the same familiarity he does with Jimmy. He also brings up Grian's welfare with Bigb and not Grian himself, with Bigb being the other person involved in their earlier established sword alliance. To me, it feels as if Martyn is more testing the waters for if he can still get Grian on his side than out of any genuine concern for Grian, although it is possible he's projecting some of those leftover feelings regarding Jimmy's situations onto Grian and Scar.

The other reason is, I think, Martyn might genuinely be afraid of Scar himself and villainizing him as a result. Everytime Scar shows up in Martyn's POV he's paired with tense music and sporadic editing that makes him appear more unhinged. Martyn has also said on tumblr he found Scar intimidating at the time, which is of course a dubiously canon source but I find it applicable enough.

It makes sense, too. When you compare Martyn's treatment of Scar vs his treatment of Scott. These are both people he has recognized as real threats and he assumes both are manipulating their respective partners, but while he remains friendly (at least outwardly) towards Scott he's constantly wary of Scar, drawing weapons on him pretty much on sight even before the siege.

I think Martyn fears Scar because he doesn't understand Scar. Scott is someone like him who he knows the inner workings of, or at least that's what he believes, so while he doesn't care for him he doesn't feel a need to keep him away. Martyn always assumes a level of coordinated malice from Scar that is more than often either completely unfounded or a result of something originating from Grian (my favourite example of this is, right before the siege, Scar wanders over with his bee on a lead and Martyn starts yelling "he's got a bee! what does that mean?!" as if expecting the bee has some pvp reason behind it. when scar just wanted to have a bee).

That isn't to say that Scar isn't malicious - Martyn is right like 90% of the time that Scar's not-so-subtle friendly hellos have some sinister plan behind them, but he doesn't ever truly get that Scar isn't the evil mastermind he thinks he is.

I'd argue this fear is what also makes Martyn not pick up on the fact that Grian is the more manipulative one out of the two - something that even Scott seems aware of - because he never spends enough time with them on friendly terms to be aware of that dynamic.

Last Life AKA big brother syndrome in full blast

Okay that was a long ass section sorry lmao have to establish everything there. Everything from here on is gonna be a lot cleaner I swear.

The Southlanders could honestly have their own ultra-long post about how they're the perfect disaster team-up lord of the flies esque situation the series has to offer.

Impulse, Grian and Martyn are all similar in that they understand they have to play the game a certain way through keeping their loyalties dubious while Mumbo, as a newcomer, is extremely naive and goes along with whatever the more assertive members of the group say. And Jimmy is Jimmy.

Martyn takes on a leadership role within the group, being the one to constantly spearhead their humour and come up with new often disruptive plans (usually targetting Scott because he totally isn't spiteful still, albeit in a very playful way). After Joel traps their base with tnt minecarts, Martyn is the one to keep everyone else back and disarm them, a huge contrast to 3L's siege.

Their group embraces the rules of the game - if you turn red, as Grian does early on, you are kicked out from the group as a threat. There's this sinking feeling throughout all their spyglass shenanigans and life-trade trust exercises that this is still an alliance in a death game and if you prove yourself to be a detriment, you will be kicked out.

It's no wonder than why Jimmy, who gets his usual bottom of the barrel treatment, tries to run away with Martyn's life during one of their trust exercises. He's been shown at this point he can't fully trust the Southlanders to protect him forever -- how could he, when Martyn, again, never slips in any sign of affection between the teasing?

To Martyn, however, this is a betrayal of his trust. His plea to Jimmy to return sounds a lot like their conversation back in 3L on the snowy mountain regarding Jimmy and Scott, except this time Jimmy accepts Martyn's offer and Martyn tells him he was lying, calling him an idiot for believing him in the first place. This is probably the harshest Martyn acts towards Jimmy in the series, but it's worth mentioning that to Martyn the timeline of events goes he offers Jimmy his protection and alliance--> Jimmy refuses--> Jimmy dies (which Martyn probably sees at least partially due to said refusal) --> he gets Jimmy back and does everything in his power to keep him safe --> Jimmy does the equivalent of *killing him* and tries to get away with it.

Martyn still obviously cares about Jimmy despite being upset at him, as after his usual dramatics and declaring a trial for Jimmy in which each of the Southlanders vote on his fate, Martyn still votes to keep Jimmy in the group (again, something Jimmy is never made aware of).

Possibly partially because of the Jimmy incident and the overall dog-eat-dog culture of the Southlanders, Martyn does to them what he never managed with Dogwarts - betrayal. At least, on some level.

Ironically, it's Ren he betrays them for, forming the Shadow Alliance and even giving the life Jimmy had attempted to steal from him to Ren instead. My read of this has always been that it supported Martyn truly being happy enough for Jimmy or someone else to have his extra life, but Jimmy's act of betraying him itself being what hurt him.

I think now's a good time to start mentioning the Watcher Lore, as here is where it starts kicking into gear. Martyn's claims of emotional bonds not carrying over from previous seasons is not only a very natural progression from his emotional distancing in a coping mechanism sense, but also enables him to betray Ren too later on and not have to confront the guilt that comes with that when he tries to lead him into a tnt trap in the final 1v1v1v1. However, he still cheers for Ren as a ghost and even says that he would be happy to see Ren win, indicating he really does not hold any malice towards him.

I've seen people make jokes about the watcher lore being Martyn schizoposting and I'm sure I've made similar jokes in the past but. Speaking very genuinely here Martyn's questionable sanity is a big part of his character to me.

His Episode 8 of LL literally begins with him acting out the usual running joke of him stealing Mumbo's intro, except Mumbo and Jimmy are dead at this point and he is doing their voices and talking to himself. When the illusion is broken, he panics and the video immediately cuts to him running around obviously distressed with a disembodied voice demanding things from him.

I'm obviously not authorized to diagnose every single one of Martyn's many mental illnesses, but I think mentally breaking down in a timeloop death game is a fairly average thing to happen to someone, and Martyn might be especially susceptible due to his aforementioned need for power and responsibility in every relationship (i.e. I'd like to think he feels some helplessness/guilt over Jimmy and Mumbo's deaths, leading to this sequence).

Not to mention, someone who is emotionally vulnerable coming up with a nebulous Group of Evil People who are the source of all the bad things in a helpless situation of violence is. Something that happens historically quite alot. To try and find reason in the madness is just a human instinct, I think.

One thing I feel like I should mention is his "marriage" with Mumbo which. I honestly don't see as anything more than a gag. Not that Martyn isn't a massive hypocrite but "marrying" Mumbo would be very much contradict what he has to say about Scott/Jimmy's situation. I do think he cares for Mumbo and potentially Mumbo's naivete served as incentive for Martyn to put on the usual assertive/provider role but I don't think there's much more than that (no hate to the shippers, tho, if they knew eachother for like a week longer they would've kissed)

Double Life. Oh no

Double Life Martyn is one of my favourite POVs in the series because it is. Hilarious. Unfortunately.

To start off, he is one of the players who almost immediately accepts the soulbound system as romantic and his views on Cleo/Scott's relationship are heavily based on that (I love that one clip where he mocks them in front of Jimmy).

Him acting flabbergasted at Cleo rejecting him despite pretty much having no relationship with her prior to this season is a really funny contrast to Scott and Pearl, especially when he continues pursuing her like they're recently divorced and Cleo's just like. rolling her eyes. It's all very performative on Martyn's end and why I mentioned his sense of masculinity at the start, because in theme with DL being The Feminism Season TM this is when it comes full throttle in display with the way he treats Cleo.

Martyn keeps referring to himself as a "provider" and refers to Cleo's relationship with Scott as "childish" -- Martyn trying to win over Scott's partner to his side, assuming he knows best for the partner and calling their relationship a sham? Does any of this sound familiar?

Cleo is not like Jimmy, however, and is very clear to Martyn in terms of what she wants from him - which is an apology, no diamond swords or heart-shaped houses, but Martyn in all his emotional denseness can't understand this and keeps assuming there must be some hidden strings attached.

I couldn't find the original meme I had in mind but these are within the same genre. The one I remember had captioned something like "dads don't say "i love you" but they will buy ten boxes worth of the fruit they overheard you say you liked once", which pretty much sums up Martyn's emotional intelligence to me. He would much rather give you way too much of something he thinks you need (e.g. with Jimmy the playful teasing, with Cleo the acts of service) than just say "I love you".

Cleo's blunt honesty serves as a stark contrast to Jimmy and brings something out of Martyn that we rarely ever see -- a genuine, vulnerable interaction in which he has to admit he's hurt. Cleo immediately denies him the role of rescuer he wants to play by telling him directly that she, not Scott, was the one who came up with the idea of teaming up and even gets Martyn to verbalize he's hurt by their actions and cares for her.

Once that illusion is shattered for Martyn and Cleo even admits she's acting manipulatively towards Scott, Martyn realises he and Cleo are more alike than he initially assumed and that he doesn't need to take care of her like he always tries to with his relationships. Ironically, the one relationship he has that is born almost entirely out of government mandated performative romance, is the one that gets him to examine how he views people especially his romantic interests the most.

This is, of course, all said with the fact that following this very heartfelt moment, the next time he speaks to Cleo he pushes her off a fucking cliff and kills her in mind. And the fact that he was very much beating the shit out of her and even called their relationship "toxic" himself early on in the season.

It's kind of hard to gauge Cleo and Martyn's relationship from this point forward but Martyn definitely chills on the namecalling and cooperates with Scott and Cleo for the main part going forward.

I think it's also worth mentioning that, despite Scott once again being the object of his spite, Martyn is once again friendly with Scott all season. When he catches Cleo and Scott mid-axe crit, it's Cleo he starts hitting and not Scott, despite them both being responsible. Behind his back, Martyn will claim Scott is "ruining" Cleo but to his face Martyn is always respectful. He actually even calls Scott "pretty"/"hot" in the last episode, which has some implications I'll talk about more in the Limlife section.

Martyn, like everyone else, is weird about Pearl. Uniquely in his case, Pearl isn't a witch nor demoness, but rather a non-factor he seems to have had written off and her triumph in the end comes as a shock to his system.

He dismisses her concerns over and over in the first episode as they are exploring together and, instead of seeing her as a natural source of allyship, doesn't value her enough to keep her around as an alliance even after Scott and Cleo dump them. In his heart to heart with Cleo, he even very randomly speaks badly of her, although he immediately seems to feel a bit of guilt over it.

He never seems to view Pearl through a sympathetic lens despite the two being in the same circumstance and, again in the same conversation with Cleo, they both agree that she could act as essentially a pawn (an "extra healthbar") for them like Cleo uses Scott.

I feel the need to clarify that while, yes I do believe Martyn is Weird About Women, I also do think he's honestly above average and sees them more as people than some other men in the series (note: my standards are not very high)

He sees most people as nothings that can be manipulated or competition that also can be manipulated, it just so happens that all the women in the series so far land squarely in the former and it took Cleo saying to his face "I'm taking advantage of Scott" for him to realise she wasn't a victim. However, even afterwards, he never treats her with the same competitiveness he has for people like Scott and Scar (albeit it makes enough sense in this season since she's attached to his healthbar, but this remains the same for future seasons). And as a reminder, he holds respect for those he deems as threats, which might have something to do with why he feels comfortable hitting Cleo but not Scott.

As for Ren and the Broken Hearts Club, they didn't get a lot of time together this season since both were preoccupied with their own soulmate dramas and being awful to Pearl but what we do see of them ranges from heartwarmingly nostalgic to a little bit hollow. Martyn saying to Pearl that they're the same at this point doesn't really read to me as him being truly sympathetic since this is post the "you should go use pearl as your second hp bar" conversation and Ren is way too busy to deal with the emotional turmoil of what's going on between himself and Bigb to really pay attention to Martyn.

Ren is still very kind to Martyn, especially considering the last time he saw him in LL Martyn was trying to kill him, but there's an emotional gap between the two that's very noticeable at least to me when compared to 3L and LL.

I think Martyn, at this point, convinced of his own "emotional bonds don't carry over seasons" logic, might be a bit too comfortable on relying on Ren. In both DL and LL he runs to Ren when his current alliance gets shaky and Ren is a source of definite comfort for him (as he said so himself on stream). Ren, as a source of comfort, is not a threat to Martyn aka not someone he needs to keep tabs so when said source of comfort falls through the gaps, you get:

Limited Life. The one where he compares himself to Joffrey from GOT

I don't think I have much to say about LimLife Martyn that hasn't already been said.

I will say I don't necessarily think Majorwood is purely his rebound relationship from Ren, the Mean Gills forming is very much not OOC for either Scott or Martyn (this is pretty much how they acted with eachother at the start of 3L) and their resulting give and take coworker-esque dynamic is a very natural place for them to end up from their previous interactions. Scott, like Martyn, tries to shed his emotional attachments with each new season so they are, in a very literal sense, making eachother worse by reinforcing that habit by normalizing it to eachother.

However, the parallels to their respective 3L partnerships I can't blame people for pointing out, right down to Martyn killing both Ren and Scott in the seaons he was teamed with them and the latter being happy about it.

I think it's time to say what I've been implying with Scott and Martyn throughout this whole thing and that is that they are eachother's ideal ally. They are both aware of the game, play the game, emotionally distant, manipulative and make themselves suffer more for that mindset. I don't think there was ever a moment in their allyship where either assumed the other wasn't going to stab them in the back later, despite the mutual respect they have being very real.

Martyn spends a lot of time this season just wandering around talking to various people, alot like how he acted in 3L before he and Ren became an official thing. It's almost as if, without Ren there, he loses his default go-to guy and is once again sizing up the competition around him.

The one exception I would say would be his interactions with Cleo, who he seems genuinely friendly with, even offering himself up as a "godfather" for the Clockers before the whole server became some form of extended family. You'd think this alliance would also have some basis in the ever present Scott/Cleo alliance but Scott's constant sacrifices for the Clockers are never discussed between him and Martyn, in fact the two of them rarely talk about anything ever past base-building and dolphin-wrangling, and the Clockers seem to treat them as two seperate entities rather than an alliance (e.g. Bdubs seems almost entitled to Scott's life after a certain point, but none of them ever even consider asking Martyn for time).

That, and of course the fact that Martyn kills Scott very unsympathetically towards the end, really point me in the "Martyn is still spiteful towards Scott" direction -- after all, alliance or no alliance, I don't think Martyn would want to be in the conversation with Scott where he tells him about his "love you back" exchange with Jimmy. Martyn certainly respects Scott, loves Scott I'd even say, but I don't know if he actually likes Scott.

I think it's also interesting that it's this season where Martyn's Watcher Lore interludes make a return, just in time for his source of comfort (Ren) to be missing.

Re: the watcher lore the comment Martyn makes about swapping out souls of players who are too "damaged" is very in line with his DL seeing women (and "weaker" men like Jimmy, Mumbo and, of course, Ren) as default victims as, knowingly or not, he implies through this that all the women in the series have souls too weak to withstand the horrors. This also in turn implies that he himself is not broken, which I think he'd like to believe.

Secret Life. It's happy again :D oh wait no

Secret Life starts with Martyn kissing Jimmy. I feel like we moved on from this way too fast in general I mean on the cheek or not he did kiss him he did literally kiss him.

I'll be honest I think the Big Dogs POV is the one I'm least familiar with out of all of these but from what I do remember it's very nice to see Martyn and Jimmy settling back into what seems like their Evo dynamic or even their pre-horrors LL dynamic.

Unfortunately Jimmy is not Cleo and thus cannot get Martyn to be the slightest bit vulnerable, so their dynamic remains stagnant and neither acknowledge the awkwardness that still resides between them.

Jimmy is at least very clearly holding onto some discomforts, judging by his behaviour late in the series when he acts aggressively towards Pearl and celebrates Lizzie dying. He even chases Scott down with a sword on horseback earlier on and, very early in one of Pearl's episodes, he quickly switches between sounding sad and angry.

It's clear to me at least SL Jimmy has reached some sort of breaking point, and this never gets acknowledged by Martyn (I like to think he just lacks the EQ to deal with it). This all cascades into Jimmy attempting to kill Martyn and running away before dying.

SL Martyn feels almost like, to me, the 3L Martyn who successfully convinced Jimmy to team with him and the disaster that comes with that. Martyn certainly has continued to be his survivalist self, not trusting outsiders to the point where when the Wither/Warden combo is unleashed, he immediately assumes they're picking off reds and goes to hide.

Weirdly enough, his protective tendencies towards Jimmy are pretty much gone. It's almost as if when he doesn't see an active threat (e.g. Scott) he assumes things must be good enough and leaves it at that, which also implies he can't comprehend that He might be detrimental to Jimmy himself.

Obligatory. Yes he still misses Ren. Him literally basing his alliance concept off of dogs is. hilarious. I'm so sorry babygirl.

Real Life is, again, non-canon to me but turns up the "dad who buys you 45 mandarins" energy to 11 with him being Ren and Skizz's pseudo-dad. I love Ren having a crisis about his own RP btw it's the funniest thing and he does it like. Everytime.

Uh yeah I hope that's long enough

[mari-the-bimbo]

PLS — DON’T LEAVE US HANGING

I just love your dorm mate Geto series, there will be other parts? Plsplspls

Dorm mate Geto: Just friends pt. 3

A/N: OKAY OKAY FORGIVE ME YA’LL!! At first I just wanted part 2 to marinate a lil you know? Then I forgot to post whoopsie! Also in my defence I was depressed over jjk new chapter leaks 😭 Enjoy! <3

It’s 8pm in the morning when you woke up and made some breakfast in the quiet dorm kitchen. The sunlight seeps through the window as you munch on some cereal.

“Bit early for a Saturday don’t you think doll?” A honey-laced voice teases from behind.

You turn around to see Geto. The usual mischievous dark coloured eyes which stared at you adoringly. His tall, broad figure towers over you, and his hands in his pockets but you can’t focus, all you could think about yesterdays confessions and kisses.

“Well good morning to you too” you tease back before placing your bowl in the sink about to walk away. He chuckles at your quick wit, he can’t help but swoon over you.

Until his large hand stops you by simply grabbing your mid section.

“Where you do think you’re going doll? I said we’re going to talk later remember?” He says like a demand but his tone is still so soft, causing butterflies in your stomach. “B-but Gojo is still here-“ you say, suddenly losing the last drop of the confident facade you had left.

“He’s still asleep after his late night. It’s just you and me doll” he reasons, unwilling to let you slip away out of his arms again. He sits at the dining table, one hand tugs on your hand, and the other pats his thigh, urging you to sit on his lap.

“Geto..”

“don’t be shy with me. You know I’m all yours y/n” he rasps as he stares into your eyes, making you grow hot and bothered, nevertheless you comply. You sit on his lap and he lets out a relaxing hum as your butt rests on his thighs.

“How you feeling after yesterday?” He asks like a whisper in your ear, rubbing your upper arm to help ease it out of you.

“I feel okay” you say, keeping it brief, even though you knew you could probably write a whole essay about it. But so did Geto.

“I need you to feel more than okay hun” he says so sweetly, making your stomach stir again.

You sigh, knowing Geto knew you too well. “Well I guess I still feel a bit bitter about you with other girls but I understand it’s not your fault because you thought your feelings were one sided.”

He nods empathetically, he’s always been so mature. You watch a strand of his black hair fall out of his hair bun, “those girls will never mean what you mean to me. And I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you if that’s what it takes.”

“It’s not been easy having feelings for you since the day I met you, you know?” He adds, and your mouth slightly opens at his confession. Sure, you’ve liked him for a long time too, but you can’t imagine how painful it must’ve been pining for the same person since the day you met them.

He laughs softly at your reaction, his hand playfully grabbing your chin to close your mouth. “Don’t worry, it was all worth it in the end right? Don’t feel bad” he said as if he read your mind.

Your eyes soften, asking him the same question you asked last night before he kissed you. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” you ask, your frail cold fingers touching his face, you feel him relax against it. “I guess I was scared that you wouldn’t like me back” he admits with a sad smile which felt unusual on the usually confident secure man.

“Well that’s not true. I like you…a lot” you say, causing him to give you the cheesiest handsome smile. “Yeah? I like you a lot too” he says, kissing your fingers, both of you dancing around the word ‘love’.

“Then are you gonna kiss me or what?” You say impatiently with a cute pout, he chuckles at your princess behaviour before pulling you closer by grabbing your cheeks with his one large hand, taking advantage of the size difference, pressing his lips against yours. His lips feverishly move against yours. He pulls away for a second to let you gasp for air before attacking your lips once again.

You’re dizzy when you pull away from the handsome man who cuddled you in his lap, your arms wrapped around his broad shoulders. All you can smell is his musky woody scent and all you can feel is his wet lips on your jaw.

“Y/n?” He murmurs against your skin, “yeah?” You ask breathlessly.

“I love you”

Your eyes widened as you felt your heart beat hundred times faster. You pull away only enough to see his face again, his eyes are genuine as he stares up at you as if you’re an angel.

“I love you too pretty boy” you say, playing with his black ear studs shyly.

He feels happy yet so smug at the same time. “Yeah? What do you love about me the most?” He asks with a smirk.

“Free barista”

He laughs so joyfully at your answer, and he looks so pretty as he does it. Geto genuinely doesn’t mind if that really is the reason you love him, he’s happily make coffee for you for the rest of his life.

“Good, that means you’re all mine”

You suddenly feel shy at his words, choosing to mess with his ear stud again. “You really love me huh?” You ask, with a hopeful smile, anything to hear him say it again.

“Oh doll, you have no idea” he says as he tucks your hair strand behind you ear, kissing your cheeks.

“C’mon now” he says patting your butt, “lemme make my princess some coffee”

[leikeliscomet]

Heartstopper's Aspec Representation Isn't For Me - And That's Okay (Mini Essay)

Spoilers for Series 3!

So I just finished series 3 and I feel conflicted. I don't hate Heartstopper at all. I think it's a very cute show. I'm happy queer baby gen z and gen alpha have something to see themselves in, I love how Tara, a darkskin Black lesbian girl is happy in her relationship. I'm happy Isaac makes my fellow aspecs happy. I'm happy Charlie tore Ben's singlet in series 2 and for once the victim/survivor is allowed to not forgive their assaulter. I like Heartstopper's little moments but I've felt like something was missing overall and now we're on the third season, I think I know what it is now. There's comments on BL and yaoi by Alice Oseman I don't fully agree with, some of the acting in the show could be a bit better I guess, most of the characters are comfortably in the British middle class and I am a grown adult now so my interest in school/teen dramas has dipped a little bit (but not you Waterloo Road ily <3). So to an extent, there were always gonna be limits on how much I enjoy this show, but nevertheless, I still think they're worth pointing out, especially if we're claiming Heartstopper for the next gen of queer rep. Because honestly having watched shows like Heartbreak High and Koisenu Futari plus being a massive Selah and the Spades fan, I feel a bit robbed in terms of quality.

Isaac still feels underdeveloped and for a show that's been going on for 3 series now this feels disappointing. Like obviously Nick and Charlie get all the screentime as they're the main characters. Tao and Elle got a lot more juicer storylines from s2, Tara and Darcy got more to work with this series even if it was rushed (oh I miss you long series 2010s shows), but Isaac still feels leaps behind everyone else. He didn't really get anything in series 1. In series 2 we saw him coming to terms with his identity which felt like a good starting point but I was still waiting for the 'big asexual plans' Alice Oseman promised and... nothing. I liked his comment about googling aromanticism to Charlie because the representation by PowerPoint style of aspec writing can get tired. I also liked his moment of feeling left out by his friends plus still wanting to know Nick and Charlie's tea, giving him sexual agency whilst aroace instead of feeding into infantilisation. But apart from that... nothing. I wanted to feel more moved by the aquarium scene, but it felt tacked on because whilst Isaac's upset was justified, Imogen just wanted to chat about gay fish, so Isaac came across as a little passive-aggressive instead of what was supposed to be his moment. Plus it feels a little backhanded how much effort series 1 went to in how big coming to terms with your identity is, plus the gorgeous way Isaac's aroace revelation was filmed in series 2 was filmed just to have him blurt it out in an aquarium and have barely any of his friends actually support him like he supported them. But life imitates art I guess. This whole season we've seen characters talking about university plans, gap years and going through the post-16 struggle. But what about Isaac? We never find out what uni he wants to go to or even if he wants to go. What subjects does he like? What job does he want post-school? What's his relationship like with his family? The people need to know! I always found it weird how Isaac was left out to the point where straight characters, whilst still bearing in mind that Tao x Elle is an interracial pairing between two POC and one of which is a trans girl and this is very rare and deserved representation too, had gotten more screentime than him. Imogen, Sahar, Mr Ajayi and Mr Farouk had all been introduced for bigger storylines but Isaac, despite being in the main group, still had to wait for his share. This series was such a huge moment for everyone but Isaac... again. And whilst I'm happy if everyone else is, I genuinely feel like we all deserve better.

Tori was given bigger moments this series and that was great because I was waiting for my introverted slurping sister to come through. Her concern and care for Charlie and jealousy of Nick were great plus with the introduction of Michael, it was all leading to the big reveal of Tori being ace, right? Right? Wrong, because this scene was cut from the ferris wheel moment and I have no idea why. Oseman confirmed it was because Tori's storyline will continue in s4 and she didn't want to rush it but like, what? Series 3, at least in my eyes, did an alright job at building up her coming out. And again, if Nick could get his bi awakening in a one series arc, why can't this asexual character then too? They also covered Darcy's non-binary transition and coming out in this series too so I don't know why there wasn't room for Tori apparently. There was plenty of room for an 'I'm asexual' within those 5 minutes. Waiting to develop her in series 4, which is yet to be confirmed and likely to be the show's last series so it will already have a lot to do with wrapping up the Nick x Charlie saga seems like a poor decision. This is the second time we've had to wait till next season for the aspec character's arc by the way.

I'd like to see some aroallo POVs on this but this season put a lot of emphasis on linking love and sex together and it felt a bit strange icl. Yes, they're linked socially/societally and it's great to have sex with someone you love and love someone you have sex with etc etc etc but the first 2 series made a point of separating the two by showing love without sex and how it was just as meaningful. Almost every time a character was sexually attracted to another e.g. calling them hot or started making out because they wanted to have sex in that given moment there would be a dialogue from one of them going 'it's okay we're in love 'it's normal you're in love' 'well that's what people in love do!' and these are all correct statements but like... we get it! You don't have to be head over heels in love to find someone sexually attractive or just want to have sex with them. It's okay if you're not in love too y'know? I'm not sure what that constant reassurance was for because depicting sex without love isn't as pearl clutchy as it seems when all parties are safe, consenting and comfortable, or, if you've ever had any knowledge about aro(allo) spaces tbf. Nick and Charlie are not aspec and are very much sexually attracted to each other so the conclusion of them having sex isn't surprising at all, especially when I already knew from tweets back in series 1 that Heartstopper the comic already had a storyline later on of the two having sex for the first time. Plus the other characters aren't aspec either so their sexual debuts are also unsurprising and deserved. Plus, I'm actually glad they included Tara and Darcy having sex because many 'sex positive' shows seem to leave out the lesbians. But for a show with an aroace creator and aspec characters, the depictions of romance and sex don't feel like they were written from an aspec lense or for an aspec audience. It's normal for people to be romantically and sexually attracted to each other and then date and have sex. But if you're aspec, you know this. We all know this. This is the mainstream and default depiction of human (hetero)sexuality. We're watching the queer shows to see something different from that. When romance without sex can only hinge on the characters being below the age of consent plus a supposed 'innocence' due to their young age and sex without love is non existent, plus when you factor in how there are no aroallo or alloace characters in the show with 'groundbreaking' aspec representation, it makes for a bit of a headscratcher. Heartstopper may be made by an aspec, has aspec characters and aspec fans, I don't consider it an aspec show. Bit sad, but it is what it is.

It's honestly strange how despite this fact, asexuality and aromanticism is barely mentioned in the main discourse about this show. Antis claim Oseman is a cishet woman despite being non-binary and aroace. They blame the sexlessness of the show on puritanism despite Oseman being aroace. There's constant arguments about how 'unrealistic' it is for teenagers to not have sex despite Isaac being a whole teenage aroace and how some people just didn't have sex in their teens... like aspecs. People are annoyed the show keeps giving Isaac aromantic and asexual storylines because it's 'not as important' and they 'don't care' as if he's not a main cast member and again, the creator is aroace! If you look at the promo pictures of the show, it has the main three pairings, Nick and Charlie, Tao and Elle and Tara and Darcy and no Isaac. Despite the fact it's supposed to be 'for' us and made by one of us, it's not. And a lot of non aspec queer fans watching the show don't see it for us despite being made by one of us either. And that's a real shame.

I'm fully aware Oseman knows about writing aroace characters from the book Loveless, which has an aroace MC. But I think Netflix choosing to adapt Heartstopper over Loveless was intentional. I think Netflix creating Isaac instead of Aled, a demi gay non-binary character from the og comic, was intentional. I think all the decisions Netlix made with Isaac and Tori are intentional, the same way bringing Yasmin Benoit to the Sex Education writers room to cut half of O's storylines was intentional. Netflix has fumbled the bag with asexual and aromantic representation several times now (Cash Piggot and Todd notwithstanding) so at this point, I'm not surprised anymore. Again, I'm happy for anyone who really likes Heartstopper, but I've finally accepted that it's not for me. And that's okay. When someone makes the predominantly aspec, slightly more grown, queer show with fully fleshed out arcs for its's asexual and/or aromantic characters or hits up Lovie Simone for the scrapped Selah and the Spades TV show, I know where I'll be.

We deserved our moments too. We deserve our Heartstopper.

[creedslove]

STUDYING

Pedro Pascal x f!reader

A/N: I got the inspiration for this piece during my own spanish class this week, I was supposed to be paying attention but I was thinking of him and my upcoming test and got distracted. Also, it's worth to mention that reader studies Spanish in a language school that teaches adults foreign languages just like I do in real life (and I'm 26) which means there's NOTHING to do with highschool or underage reader at all. If this kind of school isn't a thing in your country then it's too bad, lol!

Summary: Pedro helps you study and get your Spanish essay done on time but you get distracted by your personal tutor at home

Warnings: fluff, sweet boyfriend Pedro and a tiny bit of smut towards the end

1.2k words

It was about your third or fourth sigh that caught Pedro's attention. He knew you were having your moment of studying and he always made sure to give you your space, so you could focus, do your tasks, spread all your pens and papers with endless notes across the table and finish everything on time.

However, this time he could tell by the times you ripped pages off your notebook and crumpled it things weren't going so smoothly. He'd borrowed one of your highlighters to highlight his lines in the new script he was engaging into, being comfortable in the living room when he heard you mumbling something about 'fucking that shit'

He frowned curiously as he knew you absolutely adored studying Spanish, you enjoyed it so much you often spent hours making cute and colorful vocabulary summaries you'd learned in class, and you were nerdy to the point of writing essays without the teacher requesting them, just for fun, writing about random topics you enjoyed.

And Pedro was also aware you didn't study Spanish because of him. You'd been studying it for at least a year before you two met, knowing it had to do with the possibility of getting a better position, or a new job, or a nice trip abroad or even understanding movies and series. As he knew, you loved studying languages and that was one of the things he loved about you. And also the fact he could practice it at home with you, enjoying the fact you very often got his internal jokes or pet names you called each other.

In reality, he knew he wasn't the reason why you started learning Spanish, but he knew he was the reason why you kept studying it and made sure to get good results. And he loved it.

One thing you really enjoyed about Pedro was that he never intruded in your business. He knew you were smart enough to learn it by yourself and only if you needed help he would offer some. You avoided asking him for help as much as you could, you just wanted to do things on your own and you also loved his proud face when you were able to carry full conversations on different topics or understand a whole movie without having to rely on subtitles. But that essay was driving you insane.

Your test was coming up and it made you nervous. For the first time, you began feeling the difficulties in the language as the grammar was becoming harder and harder and you didn't know what else you could do to memorize that. Your essay, or composición as your boyfriend would say, was stressing you out, as nothing seemed good enough, you've written better, hell, even Pedro had told you many times how good your writing was and he wouldn't lie to you, that's for sure. But yet, you weren't convinced and when you finished that piece of shit you called a text you were already exhausted.

You began collecting your pens and pencils and organizing them back into the case and cleaning up the table when Pedro walked towards you. He had a sweet smile on his face and gently stroked your cheek, his curious brown eyes scanned the place until they fell onto your work.

"¿Qué pasa mi amor?" He asked in his beautiful, sexy accent and pulled a chair, sitting next to you. "I know you can do everything, but if you want, I can help you" he offered gently, not really thinking you'd agree with it, but when you handed him your text he grabbed his reading glasses, those black ones you loved and that always distracted you. At that point, you didn't give one single shit about tests, grades or evaluations, you would love to climb his lap and ride your handsome boyfriend while he dirty talked in spanish into your ear until exhaustion.

You barely noticed him talking to you, you were too busy looking at him, his tight sweater looking great on him, his messy soft hair, the way he softly bit his lips unconsciously when he focused on reading and those damn glasses.

"Y/N? Princesa? Are you listening to me?" He raised his brow and stared at you, waiting for you to reply. You swallowed hard and looked at him, feeling your cheeks flushing as you were caught fantasizing about your boyfriend.

"Y-yeah, I am, sorry cariño, I was just thinking of the test" you lied and looked at what he was pointing out in the paper. Pedro had taken a red pen and circled some words, you had either misspelled those or just put them in the wrong place, but overall your text was pretty decent. He gently explained you what you got wrong and how you could fix it better, though he could also tell you weren't really caring about that at the moment and knowing his sweet little puta very well, he knew whatever was on your mind had nothing to do with tests or school.

"Are you having wet dreams about your Spanish teacher, Y/N?" He folded his arms and looked at you "because I can just tell your mind is miles away from your studies and by the way you are clenching your thighs together you are probably very wet now" he smirked and loved how red you got. You knew there was no way you could fight that and lying would be just stupid. You bit your lips and chuckled, placing your hand on his thigh "I would have these if they fired that annoying cunt and hired you instead, though I can't complain about my private tutor" you whispered and leaned into his body, kissing his exposed neck gently and before he had any other action, you got up and immediately sat on his lap, facing him and pecking his soft lips gently, feeling his facial hair tickling you. His hands immediately wrapped around your waist, pulling you closer, at the same time you raised your ass lifting your skirt up and feeling the contact of his rough jeans against your thin panties, moving your hips slowly against his, the friction on your core sending shivers down your spine just as Pedro felt his pants tightening at how hard he got.

"I know you want to help me, but we both agree this isn't my best work, so I can even rewrite it later if you want, but now…" you kissed him deeper this time and you felt how Pedro bucked his hips against yours, looking for more touch, more exposure of your skin on his.

"Y/N… you're teasing me" he groaned and only got a smirk as a reply

"Lo que quiero decir és que podríamos hacer otras cosas ahora, papi… ¿Qué te parece?" You whispered against his ear knowing it drove him insane when you spoke with him like that.

Pedro pulled your panties to the side and ran his thumb up and down your hard clit, feeling how wet you were and nodded.

"Sí, pero si no te vayas bien and la prueba, voy a darte un castigo" he whispered back against your lips and slapped your ass hard, making you whimper and feel your cheek burn, as you definitely knew what kind of punishment he'd give you.

______

A/N: this is my first one shot after years of not writing. I hope it wasn't so bad and there might be a second part to it because I still have many Spanish tasks to carry out which means there might be more ideas, hopefully a little bit more smut this time. Also I posted it through the app and it somehow got worse when it comes to editing posts 🤌

Anyway, feedback = life

[romanarose]

Life update if anyone cares.

I only post this bc i was posting my depressing shit for months and a lot of people were reaching out in concern <3

cw sever depression, self harm, suicide, csa, SA, all the bad. but also lots of good <3

TLDR: Despite a god-awful semester, i got all a's and b's

Everyone thats been following me the last few months has seem my personal posts about how fucking awful things have been for me.

I've dealt with fact I can no longer deny that what happened to me was CSA, despite being on a milder side of things. That sparked an absolutely spiral. I didnt sleep for months which made things worse. School, I got an F on a midterm and i NEVER get F's on writing assignments.

Work had its complications and i quit and then rescinded that quit two days later. I was so constantly depressed in my dorm my roommate literally told me i needed to go to the basketball game with them bc i was sitting in a depression hovel none stop. I only went to services twice this whole time, one shabbat and once for Rosh Hoshannah.

I burned the ever living fuck out of my fingers, yall remember that one? lol.

In novemeber i had relapsed so severely on self harm i thought i had accidentally killed myself. I should've called 911. I thought I was bleeding out and/or going into shock. I then worked myself up more by going down pages of the internet about medical shook and people dying from it. that did not help my heart rate. I couldn't stand, I couldnt see straight for a while.

I could not afford an ambulance or a hospital stay as i am uninsured and only ork 25 hours a week. not a lot of money.

All this happened and I didn't miss work. This is not a brag, this is me not being able to makegood choices for myself.

Finally, thanksgiving break hit. Thank fucking god. I WANTED to use those 4 days of absolutely nothing to get to my TWO BIG RESEARCH PAPERS I HADNT STRTED YET but alas, I was SICK. I was so sick, in fact, and so hoped up on cough medicine for 3 days i was incomprehensible.

I was so physically ill, i couldnt even think about how mentally ill i was. I slept and slept and slept. And by the time sunday hit, I felt so recharged.

My failed midterm was so bad and so not me my professsor reached out to me. Im close with him (in a v appropriate way lol, hes a bruce springsteen fan too) and i felt comfortable telling him essentially that for a few months there things were severe, and I really should've gone in for a 72 hour hold multiple times and i was not safe. through a few lines of resources, I ended up back in therapy bc my school added a new therapist that is a woman (i stopped going last year bc i didnt like seeing a man)

I like my new therapist.

Anway, in about 2 weeks I wrote 2 12 page research papers, 2 book report papers, 1 science paper did 2 presentations, took 2 finals, wrote 2 more finals with essay questions, and at the end of it all, not only did I not fail any classes...

I GOT ALL A'S AND B'S! Which means my gpa is still high enough to renew my scholarship for my last year

I am so fucking proud of myself for accomplishing all this despite suffering so fucking badly. I havnt felt pain like that in years, just agony.

I had a down turn again over christmas bc my siblings were literally ass, upto and including making fun of me for not ating (i am multiple accounts of sexual trauma from several people, so im scared of dating), making fun of my eating, and my sister slapping me and my older brother hitting me. Was a bad time. But for right now, im in the place im staying for break (all january) im back at my old day care and they love me, and olive garden at this store has been going great

Im hoping next semester to be better, im hopful at least

Anyway, thank you so much to everyone who has supported my writing has supported me through these times. It makes me happy that i came her to share my silly little moon knight x reader series, not really intending on writing a whole lot, but next thing i know, i have friends and a lil community. so thank you <3

[verdemoun]

Hiii been a minute since I asked something. I know Mary Beth didnt timewarp (it makes me both happy and sad 😞) but if she did what would it be like (I'm very interested in how she and Jack would interact. Pls pls pls)

Okay iiiiif Mary-Beth timewarped:

Mary-Beth was murdered by a stalker following the success of her novel mere weeks after John saw her in Saint Denis. In this AU, this stalker would later be the bounty that successfully got the one-up and murdered Sadie Adler, too, who was in a recklessly blind rage trying to avenge one of the woman who had supported her following the death of her husband.

Mary-Beth was obviously traumatized by this experience, clinging onto Arthur in tears when he was there ready to pick her up. Being a well renowned author already in 1907, she was easy to locate. She originally stayed with Arthur due to him having the spare room, but despite loving the space and generally what a nice house it was she realized she couldn't handle being alone after the experience. She moved in with Hosea, Bessie, and of course, Kieran (later, Javier too).

Mary-Beth was truly had symptoms of agoraphobia, including severe monophobia. She had to be with at least one other person or she would get panicky, even if she knew others were in the house but not in the same room. Even with others, she struggled to leave the house.

But she was lucky in that being around a group was exactly what she needed. She had, privately, gone through a very similar thing when she left the gang: learning to be alone again and coping with that anxiety. Being with the VDLs was one of the only times if her life she felt safe, and being with the gang again was a balm for her soul.

Shout-out to her and Kieran just besties. Autism be damned my boy felt a debt needed to be repaid. Mary-Beth was his best friend and closest thing he had to an ally in canon era, and if she was hurting he was going to be there for her. They were joined at the hip and some of the glares Kieran would give people when Mary-Beth needed space really reminded them he was as much an outlaw as them once upon a time. Femme-nb solidarity they share clothes.

Predictably she becomes an ao3 queen, secretly writing sequels to her own novels. She also earns a tidy living writing dime-store erotica, which she reads aloud to Kieran to proofread. Hosea and Bessie both sit at the kitchen table drinking their coffee very slowly when she's proof-reading because - well she's a damn good writer.

At first Jack is a little bit intimidated because 'holy shit since when was Mary-Beth Leslie Dupont what do you mean an aunt I don't remember is the Leslie Dupont'. You meet one of your favorite authors only for them to laugh, affectionately say they haven't seen you since you were thiiiiis tall, that they remember changing your diapers, only to then enthusiastically ask to see your writing the second your pain-in-the-ass well meaning cousin drops that you write too.

After getting over a lot of his own awkwardness and other assorted issues, Jack will go to Hosea's because really all his favorite people are there. Hosea might be his papa and go-to for new book series he's obsessed with, or really anything he's reading, but he loves sneaking looks at whatever Mary-Beth's writing and sometimes very rarely sheepishly asking her to read his stuff which makes her whole face light up in the most overdramatic gasp yes of course imaginable.

He also does not know he sits there like an excited puppy waiting for her reactions and comments because she is so positive and supportive of his writing and poor boy craves validation. It could be red hot garbage and she would still give him an essay of what she loved about it before gently making corrections.

They are losers your honor Jack and Mary-Beth sitting in Hosea and Bessie's chairs respectively in the reading room parallel play style both frantically writing and teasing each other with spoilers.

[batmanfruitloops]

Hi! Im having trouble with starting my first Batman AU and I love the one you two have so I was wondering if you have and tips or pointers of starting one? Like maybe how to introduce characters and such or how to start the story?

Im sorry if this was long or if its too much, have a great day/night!

I think it really depends on what you want out of it. I use this AU to practice skills for my career, such as writing, character-building, animating, etc. I listen to a lot of videos about every part of film production to help me better understand what to do. Especially things related to character. Even if your AU is just for fun, I think it's still a good idea to do a little research about writing. Observing your favorite movies and films helps a lot! I think animated films are a great teacher of storytelling! Especially Pixar films, since their philosophy is "story is king". Watching movies is just how I personally learn, you may have some other way of learning best so take all this with a grain of salt, I'm no expert I'm just very passionate about storytelling especially through animation (though in this case, it's storyboards/comics since that's what is possible right now).

Your characters are everything. I would suggest developing them as much as possible before you introduce them. They should feel like a real and complex person. They shouldn't feel like a robot that are only made to achieve their motivation. Sometimes simple things like "What are their favorite foods?" can start building them up as a person. They should have flaws, blemishes, strengths, hobbies, everything a living person should have. That way when you introduce them, you will have an easier time showing your audience who they are. First impressions are very important to characters, your audience should be able to understand what kind of person they are right off the bat. I think a good example is Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. The whole point of his introductory scene is to tell the audience "he is unpredictable and you will never know what to expect from him." Show don't tell is a very important rule to follow, don't tell your audience what to think.

For starting your story, you need to consider when it is. Is it at the beginning, middle, or end? You can put your audience anywhere in the story, so think about the optimal place they should be for the story to make sense. There are many different versions of Batman but they all begin in a different place of Batman's life. Some stories start at the beginning of him becoming Batman like The Dark Knight, and some start at the end of him being Batman like the Arkham series. It's up to you to consider at what point of your character's life the audience should be placed at.

To be honest, it's all up to you. What do you want? How do you want things to be done? This is all just a big case of "learn the rules to break the rules." Maybe you don't even want to learn the rules at all, and that's ok. It's important to remember to make what you want to see. Your art is for you. There is no right way, just some ways are more efficient than others. Let your soul make its messy finger paintings and enjoy the ride. Because more important than anything is the enjoyment of your work and the process. I have a hard time not being a perfectionist over this AU because it's what I want to do with my life. I want to tell stories. I have to keep reminding myself this is for fun, and it's ok if it's not perfect. It just has to be what I want to make. Honestly, I could ramble on and on about storytelling, so I'll save an 8-page essay (which I actually wrote on a similar topic for class). My DMs are open anyway if you want to ask anything else. I hope this was helpful!

I also agree heavily that your characters should feel like people. And along with that, pacing is really important. You don't want your story to feel rushed or lagging at any point. Like Fluffy said, it's always a good idea to reference your favorite materials. It's good to have moments that are just very real, for lack of a better word.

It's also important to understand your setting. The main focus may be the characters, but you want to make sure they feel present, and not just in a void. Establishing shots are really good for that, since it shows off a large area, then allows you to "voom in" and focus on where ever there's action happening. Reference photos are your best friend here. Use as many as you need, it'll only get easier with time. Which leads to another part of settings; if you're in a characters home/base what makes it theirs? Like how the Riddler usually has question marks and scribbles all over the walls, as well as generally being a mess. It gives you an immediate impression of how scatterbrained and paranoid he can be. In comparison, someone like the Penguin presents a clean, luxurious lounge that shows he means business. Whether or not a character is meant to go through a defining change, it's important that they stay true to themselves as a person. If they had trust issues before, they shouldn't trust someone without a reason. Or perhaps someone makes a mistake, that mistake should have consequences. I just think of this because there's a lot of cartoons where something will happen one episode only for it to be treated like it didn't happen in the next episode. Dialogue is also another important factor. Does that feel like something you could actually hear someone saying? Does the grammar make sense? If their natural pauses? This can be broken up from panel to panel, if it's in comic form. Depending, you can give characters different fonts to emphasize that they sound different, although I'm not an expert in that, it's just something I've seen before.

Again, pacing of characters talking (or thinking, etc.) is a must to be aware of. If spoke that aloud, does it feel rushed? Too slow? Are they giving enough context? As the writer, you know everything that's going to happen. Because of that, writing incomplete sentences can happen. That doesn't mean you have to explain everything in simple terms for everyone, just enough for it to make sense and feel real. If you're going for a comic, layout is another factor to consider. Read as many comics are you want. Stare at how it's set out, how everything flows from one panel to another, one page to another. I'm not much good at this one myself yet, so I just suggest looking at your favorite layouts and figuring out what about them you like. A bit of what I've learned is to consider what's happening. What I mean is, if everything is very straight forward, you can do a bunch of box panels, whereas if you're meant to feeling something along with a character, you can go more organic, there doesn't necessarily need to be boundaries in scenes like that, and a mix is generally good for most scenes. A whole establishing shot can be one page and do plenty.

I tend to ramble, and I have a lot of other stuff that I'm passionate about with writing and visual in comics/storytelling, like colors, symbolism, and lighting, and character design so my dms are also open for anyone who'd like is discuss more, :)

Fluffy and Sarsee

[hanzajesthanza]

Dude, I just wanna say I am SOOOOO excited for your video essay on the Witcher. I have been waiting for a good essay covering more than the games and Netflix series for months now, as I like to listen to longer videos as I work during the mornings and I just know this is going to be so good. I've always loved reading your posts and analysis on the characters and arcs that books encompass, so I just wanted to share that I'm incredibly hyped for this, and I know you did an absolutely wonderful job piecing everything together and creating it :) I hope it gets the millions of views it DESERVES!!

i don't know where to begin, all i can say is thank you!! this ask totally made my night!

thank you not only for the encouragement, acknowledgement, validation... but for being. for being there, being excited, interested in the same topics. i'm just so happy i get to share this with people, that we get to share this—the fandom, the whole story, not just the video—together.

i'm really just so excited to share it and i hope everyone likes it or gets something useful out of it (and if it's not your vibe that's ok too!! everyone is invited!) like, i'm excited that you're excited... lol!

i really wanted to make something "quality" for people and for the channel, both in writing and in design. so there's a degree of storytelling that went into it, and i tried to make it visually engaging and structure it so that it's not just a spew of information, but like a little journey for everyone to come along with me on. most of the research was new for me too, so it's like we get to figure it out together.

below the cut is this kind of "diary entry": a long, contemplative, stream-of-consciousness response, haha...

(you don't have to read this, especially because i got a little emotional in it, i just thought i'd take the time to respond to authenticity with authenticity and get some things off of my mind... in reflection of the video, but also just about my personal life lol.)

i initially felt worried that people wouldn't get what i'm doing and would misinterpret my arguments, but despite these urges to explain myself a thousand times, i ultimately let my writing speak for me, and shut down the need to apologize and cover up what is decent work with a littering of disclaimers. i realized i actually can't stand it myself when youtubers go through the whole rigmarole of "sorry i haven't posted," "sorry it's not perfect," "sorry my pronunciation is bad," "sorry i'm not an expert" before they get to the actual video or what they want to say... i'm all: "lol, no worries. i wasn't expecting perfection, i'm just here to watch what you made." and i feel like most people have a similar reaction.

i know the concept of "fandom" has often a poor reputation online as a toxic space filled with drama, witch hunts, offensive behavior, self-absorbed conduct... and of course, there is some truth to that... but, there's also the good side of "fandom," which often goes ignored in narratives about it. i think "fandom" is just a niche kind of "community," and communities are simply groups of people (human beings, which have primal troupe-like natures, both build each other up and tear each other down, faction-like, warring, but also protective, loving fiercefully)...

it was different fandoms back then, of course, a little over ten years ago, but when i first got into "fandom" stuff online as a pre-teen, it was just night and day as opposed to my socializing in real life.

in discovering niche interests, passions, and yes, of course fictional universes that draw you in... i've always had only so few people to share that with in real life—when it comes to popular medias, of course, these medias were things that everybody in my school class was into, my friends had gotten me into it—but as i grew a little older and went on my own explorative journeys, i became most passionate about things that no one around me knew of or cared about, and suddenly, it was really lonely.

it had been a bit lonely before that, i always liked the media a little "too much," to the point of my friends asking me if we can stop playing pretend on the schoolyard and go watch the boys play four-square instead :'D or if we could please talk about anything else other than [media]. these are just childhood stumbles, which i imagine everyone has... but i mean, in this younger childhood, at least we could talk about media stuff sometimes, and i wasn't shunned too badly for it. but interests shifted and i got into things that only interested me, then i became truly alone on the recess yard.

when i first got into "fandom" online: groups of fans of [shared interest], who want to learn more about/talk and listen to others about/share and see more of [shared interest], and that entire world fit on my little iphone as i sat by the fence during lunch period, okay, i'm being so melodramatic here, but it was like a "welcome home." it was like discovering an entire little fairy world in the hollow of a tree. you mean to tell me, this place has existed, all this time? people who have the same interest, who want to talk about it, who are even—ha ha, just imagine—interested in what i have to say about it? those people exist, and they also have their own things to say, which i can listen and respond to? an actual faerieland. magic.

alright, i'll chill out. it's just social media, it's just social exchanges. but social exchanges are powerful, as human beings, we're evolutionarily driven to crave them. social media so often gets seen as fleeting exchanges, shallow engagement, but i—and probably a lot of tumblr's demographic—don't most often speak in staccato sentences online, but rather paragraphs, essays, hell, documents. we try to talk to each other kind of like we would in real life, we collaborate in building canons, worlds, have real discussions about media and society and... life. i don't know if anyone's studied this kind of experience as much as the generic "social media rots your brain" narrative, but it's been mine.

when i talk about [media interest], of course here and now it's specifically the witcher, i'm doing it because i'm part of this community, this whole forum, agora... i want to talk, but i moreover want to be listened to, to share, to be in conversation, not just be alone with my thoughts and interests.

it kind of boggles my mind, because i spent so long (ever since those aforementioned playground days) feeling like talking about anything fandom-related was excruciating for the people around me: that absolutely no one is interested in this but yourself, so get used to it.

so now, the fact that, sometimes when i post something, write something, draw something, make a video, or just say anything about this interest, that other people see that and it resonates with them, they enjoy it, it moves them, they're not annoyed, but also inquisitive, eager to talk about this thing, to share, too... like yourself, so kind to send me a message like "i'm interested in, excited for what you have to say," that's fucking crazy to me, it makes me so grateful, and also puts me in almost a state of disbelief! not just that i'm flattered, but that we share the same interest, have similar questions and desire for discussion about it, and live in a time where we can talk about this together over an instant, online communication... that no one has to suffer alone with their interests, no one has to feel isolated and weird and not know what to make of themselves.

despite fandom being seen as mean and shallow, (... similar to fantasy, come to think of it—interesting parallel with the actual subject of the video!) it's also a group of dynamic communities, that are sharing and criticizing and... just, communicating. the ability to communicate, the culture of communication is so important.

working on this project, somewhat fittingly, made me realize that the world is very gray, and nothing is even wholly good or wholly evil. this, of course, mostly applies to the politics and history and the story of the witcher which i'll be talking about in the video;

but what i realized is that this lesson also applies to mundane things, common anxieties i have. for example, that social media is not just bad or good, it's a tool with certain outcomes depending on how you use it. that people probably won't totally ignore you and shun everything you have to say, but they also won't listen to your every word. that success in life isn't impossible, but it's also probably not going to turn out as it is in your wildest dreams.

we're (~gen Z including zillennials and young millennials) surrounded with so much doomerist culture related to our prospects in life, especially as relates to contemporary media culture and life success, but it's not hopeless. you can always be an outlier of the broader trend. sometimes, you have to choose to be an outlier of the trend.

this is something i begin to talk about towards the end of the video. bagiński and hissrich basically see the trend and go: "looks like their attention spans are fucked, better speed up the process" instead of allowing themselves to be different, instead of embracing what makes them ("fantasy") special, trying so hard to conform... and hurting themselves from it. and looking at that, i just realized, i really don't want to follow that example and do something similar to myself.

i have to be bold enough to put my authentic self out there, even if it's "too complex to be understood", if it doesn't appeal to everyone, even if it turns some people away. it doesn't matter, because i only have one "me" to share, i can't force myself to be something i'm not. what i can do is seek out the people who i think will understand, who will be interested in that complexity. of course, this is something anyone whose advice is worth a grain of salt will tell you, has told me—but maybe i only understood it best when a witcher metaphor was applied :p

i'm in my 20s, and it's been so strange for me after i graduated college (undergrad), since what's now been two years ago. i spent my entire life in school, and suddenly no more school :( so i'm trying to regrow, or maybe grow in a different direction, that part of me that i lost when i had to graduate and get out... i'm struggling with feelings of failure every day, that i haven't met anyone's expectations for me since graduation, there has been so many feelings of worthlessness and confusion, i've so lost without school: a neat structured framework where everything gets measured and you get nice summaries of how you're doing in life.

it's horrified me upon discovering that, in life, no one measures how you're doing! you just live, and no one says "you're doing alright here, but here you could use some improvement." no one gives you direction, you have to plot your own map of unexplored territory. and suddenly, i don't know who i am anymore, where i'm going, why i do anything, what my purpose or use is. and, because i'm not in a class where there's a grade average, i also have no idea how everyone else is doing, only a vague feeling that i'm far behind. so it's really been confusing, demotivating...

as this video essay project dragged on, for about double the time i thought it was going to take, this sense of guilt and shame started to overtake me. throughout the project, i had this nagging paternalistic chiding in my head that i should be chasing success, career, relationships, life... but instead i'm wasting my time on the witcher, writing something no one cares about and people won't acknowledge me for. throwing away my time on something that doesn't matter. it was very contradictory, because i liked working on this project a lot, and of course and obviously i love the subject(s) it's about.

but i felt so fucking guilty for not pounding the linkedin pavement everyday and instead spending my time and effort on this video, lol. related back to what i spoke of earlier in this, that fandom is seen as petty and stupid—it's not something to be proud of. in my saddest moments, i thought of how my favorite professors might react if they knew that after graduation, this was the biggest project i had pursued. and my cheeks reddened in shame, i sweat from anxiety... literally as i write this, my hands are kind of shaking and i'm a bit nauseous imagining having to admit something like that to them. i mean, just think of every little kid that's like "i wanna be a youtuber!" it's adorable when you're 13, not so much when you're 23. and again, contradictory! because this is something i'm so stupidly passionate about, i'm unable to abandon it for something more "honorable"! i felt, i often feel, pathetic for how much i love things that no one cares about.

but upon completing this essay, i realized that this was something i started and finished, by myself, for... well, not "for myself," it's for you guys, but for self-motivated reasons, i.e., i wasn't seeking anyone's pride or approval—of course, your pride and approval would be nice to have and i wouldn't deny it! but i really did this for the values i have about community, for educational and discussional purposes, and of course, love for the witcher.

i realized that i made this because i wanted to make something to share with others, for other's benefit, which, upon reflection, has little to do with what others think of me. and that's really interesting, because i've, in school, in the majority of my life, i think i've been chasing the approval of others, i really wither away without it... so it's cathartic to realize that i put effort into, i spent my time on, making something not for approval, just out of passion. there's some kind of valuable life lesson learned here, i bet... some kind of personal growth...

but yeah, it's kind of weird. i guess my path doesn't look like everyone else's, i probably look like a loser to a lot of people right now if they could see me. but this video is evidence that i've grown and matured (in ways which maybe other people had already achieved for themselves, and maybe they haven't...) it's proof that i'm not stagnant, that life does exist in me still, and it's taking a form i didn't expect. a person is emerging from me. i can only watch with anticipation for who they'll become.

[peetapiepita]

Adult Katniss responds to Peeta anti takes: Part One

(It's a Part One because I'm sure there will be more to come.)

Notes: This post and the potential other posts in this series were inspired by this post. Thanks to @mellarked-katnisseverdeen and @periwinckles for the idea!

So I've heard some people saying Peeta Mellark is weak and needed rescue all the time. I'm breaking my silence about it simply because I can't stand Peeta slander.

To whoever has been spreading these lies:

1. Do you realise how many times Peeta has saved me?

We protect each other. That's what we do. There's an old saying, no one loves for no reason. We don't risk our own lives trying to save each other for no reason. He risked his safety for me first when we were kids. He's the one who took the first step and I just followed suit.

Are you mad because I never risked my life saving yours? Well, good luck with that because there's no time machine for you to go back and save me when I was starving as a kid. Peeta was the only one who cared and he did save me.

He's still saving me every day since he planted the primrose for me. I didn't have the drive to live anymore before he came back home. He's the reason I'm alive today and I'm so pissed off that some people are slandering him in MY NAME. This needs to stop.

2. I didn't describe how strong Peeta in the books multiple times for you to say he's weak.

I'm astonished by how many people lack the ability to comprehend the surface meaning of my writing. I thought I was a decent enough writer? People like you are making me doubt my own writing ability. Thank God I didn't know you existed when I was younger. I didn't need to be insecure about my writing on top of everything I went through as a teen.

Peeta has been strong since we were younger. I explicitly described how he could carry heavy flour sacks and how he was in second place in a school wrestling match, only after his OLDER brother.

It's also false that he's not able to kill people. He killed Brutus, who was arguably the strongest contestant in the Quarter Quell, WITH HIS BARE HANDS. He lost his knife and was trying desperately to find me. He could kill almost anyone if he needs to. He just hates the idea of killing and prefers not to kill if possible. If you call that weak, I suggest you turn yourself in at a psych ward because it's only a matter of time before you try to kill for fun or to prove you're "strong."

3. Mental strength is more important than physical strength, which is what most people lack. Fortunately, Peeta has both.

Peeta's intelligence is his strongest weapon and also what I needed in the beginning. He was the first to realise what was the most important thing when he told me he didn't want them to change him. I was still struggling with the idea of survival and didn't have the mental strength to think that far. He did and he gave me the strength to fight for my true self.

He lost everything during the few years after our first games. He lost his leg, his WHOLE family, almost ALL of his friends, part of his memories and sanity, but he still came back stronger. I never thought some people would be too dumb to see how hard that is, but here we are.

I'm considered a strong person by most and I almost lost the will to live twice during those years, once when Peeta was taken and once when Prim was killed. Peeta lost his whole family and so many friends at the same time, yet he was the one to stop me from taking that Nightlock pill. I can't tell you how hard it is. I can only say I couldn't be that strong.

Don't even get me started on the hijacking. I thought for sure I lost him when that happened, but he came back to me with his unbelievably incredible mental strenghth. I honestly don't think anyone else I know would've been able to do that.

This is turning into a full-length essay so I'm leaving it here. See you losers the next time you say anything bad about Peeta!

[whatsitcalledfromthingy]

reading tag game!! thanks for the tag red <3 @jonsaremembers

tagging (as always no pressure): @finn-is-in-the-binn @philsmeatylegss @daisyjay887 @homohabu @fromemotoangel @sinistergooseberries

last book i read: ashes in my mouth, sand in my shoes- per petterson, beautiful book about a kid who wets the bed going through shit. my favourite types of book are slice of life books (0 plot whatsoever, just a section of someone’s life) and my favourite characters are clearly autistic young boys who are struggling with life. so yeah i loved this.

book i recommend: carmilla- sheridan le fanu, lesbian vampire story written in the victorian era, need i say more.

book i couldn’t put down: vile bodies- evelyn waugh, this was a difficult one because the way i read books is either it takes me a month or a day so i often do not put a book down but i read this in the space of a few hours. i loved it. i read it because of the film bright young things (one of my favourites ever) and honestly it did not disappoint. it’s a slice of life again and also a classic again. these are going to be common themes i feel. also honorable mention bright young things- scarlet thomas, i read this immediately after vile bodies and it’s another slice of life but this time with a slight plot. it’s written so well i couldn’t put it down either. one of my favourites of all time.

book i’ve read twice: good omens- terry prattchet and neil gaiman, yeah i don’t think anyone’s surprised. my favourite book of all time. not only is it good omens and obviously i love the story but the writing style is perfect to me (i have read quite a lot of terry prattchet i love him so much)

book on my TBR: it’s mainly series on my tbr because i have a lot of time on my hands at the moment. i really want to read sherlock holmes so ill say that.

book i have put down: history is all you left me- adam silvera, i loved they both die at the end so many years later i thought id try another one and no. it was not good. maybe it was the same and i’ve just grown up a bit but i really couldn’t get very far though it at all.

book on my wish list: again i’ve been mainly looking at series so i really want to read discworld (my dad owns the whole series but it’s like really old and i may not be allowed to touch them so it might be searching the library for me)

a favourite book from childhood: hetty feather- jacqueline wilson, this book started my strange childhood obsession with orphans. most books i read for quite a while after this were about orphans, i wanted to be an orphan (don’t read too far into that) and jaqueline wilson was a fav in general plus she taught me how to spell my middle name.

book i would give a friend: stoner- john williams, surprise surprise it’s a slice of life book again. this one a friend gave to me after i was telling her about how i love books with no plot. and i would pass it on to any other friend honestly (obviously this is difficult because i don’t own a copy of the book but shhhh use your imagination) stoner is boring but in a purposeful way and it is such a calming read and i think a lot of my friends need that.

book of poetry or lyrics i own: i’m not sure i really do own one but i was in one when i was 5 . i filled in the blanks to some poem about what i wanted to be when i grew up and it got printed in an anthology.

nonfiction book i own: on liberty (and other essays)- john stuart mill, i’m a philosophy girly what can i say.

currently reading: i’m not. that’s not how i work. when i pick up a book, i finish said book and then go back to being in a liminal space of not reading anything

planning on reading next: the cockroach- ian mcewan, one of the three books i got from the library months ago that is sitting on my shelf (i’ve renewed them dw) this one is about a man who turns into a cockroach

this was fun :)

[nocompromise-noregrets]

five good things

Because I'm in a pretty good mood at the moment, despite the impending doom and the fact I still haven't started writing the essay I have to hand in by next Wednesday...

I had an absolutely fantastic time in Finland, even if one of the gigs I was planning to go to got cancelled in favour of a show three weeks later at a bar round the corner from the hotel I'd been staying in, aargh. Although given the general state of insanity I've descended into since, and given that the cancelled gig was that of Japa's new band and I've always been extremely fond of him, it's probably a good thing. XD Anyway, I spent ten days running around Helsinki, Espoo, Turku and Tampere, sightseeing and cramming in as many museums and galleries as I could thanks to my museokortti (paid €70, got about €400-worth of museums and galleries out of it!), drank a lot of nice beer, also drank a lot of lonkero (gin and grapefruit soda, utterly glorious), ate a lot of nice food, saw two AWESOME gigs, and generally recharged my batteries quite enormously. Photos sometime, once I sort myself out a bit.

And then I had another absolutely fantastic time in London with the ever-lovely @lemurious, running around more museums and galleries and drinking more beer and eating more food and seeing two AWESOME shows and talking about all sorts of fandom things!

And then I started posting Two of a Kind again, at lemurious' encouragement (thank you! <333333 ), and it has readers!!!! Renewed and flailing thanks to @pyromaniacbibliophile and @seagull-energy for giving my disastrous boys Hal and Jack a go! <3333333 I've been figuring out where some bits of it need to go, how to join some bits of it together, and I'm having a marvellous time with it!

And then @pyromaniacbibliophile suggested The Driver by Måneskin as a very Jack-ish sort of song, which it is, and I tripped and fell face-first into full-on chewing-the-scenery obsession. Um. 18.6k of fic written in a week? A series of five fics and probably more to come? What the actual fuck even is my LIFE right now. augh they're so PRETTY and NAUGHTY I am far FAR too old and tired and ACE for this I've had their whole discography on repeat since last Wednesday and am struggling to surface, or indeed to get anything else done. I tried putting a different playlist on yesterday and I honestly felt like I was trying and failing to wake up. I could rather do with shaking this off because I HAVE AN ESSAY TO WRITE DAMMIT down, boys, shut up for a little while I need to do something else than write ridiculous slightly kinky fluff about you! >.< (but seriously I am having a whale of a time with it, I haven't felt this inspired or this obsessed in a long while, and I'm going to just surf the wave for as long as I possibly can because I'm also super motivated and super cheerful at the moment :D )

And as a direct consequence of this I am back in touch with one of my oldest fandom friends who, it turns out, has been writing Måneskin RPF for a while; I stumbled across one of her fics without realising it was hers as she has a different username, commented flailingly, and then had a message on FB going 'oh hey you just commented on one of my fics!' and we've been catching up and chatting ever since and at least 10k of that fic is thanks to her sending me extremely pretty pictures and videos and telling me stuff about them and sparking the muses. It's been an absolute dog's age, but we used to RP a long long time ago in our old fandom and it is so nice to talk to her again, partly in our own voices and partly as the characters we're writing (we did it in person once, all the way from Camden to Belgravia, much to the bemusement of the friend who was with us at the time XDDD ). And good lord the prettiness of the pictures and videos. I am...oh yeah, far FAR too old and tired and ace for this. XDDDD

And work is fun at the moment, I am sorting out all the minutes of all the committees of the county council so they are catalogued and structured in a sensible way that we can add new volumes onto when we receive them; the minutes themselves are desperately dull and I am sure nobody else would enjoy this, but I am an enormous administrative systems nerd and I am finding it extremely satisfying.

And my MA course is also very interesting and rewarding, although I've been struggling a bit with the first assignment as part of it involved having to post on a given subject to the tutor group forum and then responding to other students' posts, and I don't particularly enjoy that sort of thing so I haven't been very motivated for it, although one of my favourite fellow students from the systemic functional grammar course a couple of years ago is doing this one and is already making some excellent points in a very dad-jokey way that helps me understand what's going on :D But the essay I have been being distracted from by the overexcitable Italian muses (DOWN, boys) is only 1500 words so I should be able to bash that out this weekend with any luck if the Italians shut the fuck up for FIVE MINUTES OH MY GOD.

And I'm off to the old country (Suffolk) to see the parents next week, and give a talk to my dad's history group about gardener-lady from job number two, which will be fun, although I managed to slightly double-book myself and I need to come straight back on Thursday morning because...

we're off to Wolverhampton to see my absolute heroes Michael Monroe and Sami Yaffa play their band Hanoi Rocks' classic album Two Steps from the Move for its 40th anniversary with our mate Lynda who is as huge a Hanoi fan as I am, and then to see The Almighty the following night, who the missus and I both really liked in the 90s. So that's fun!

I think that's more than enough for now. Now to see if I can stay muse-free long enough to write that effing essay...on the other hand my friend and I are planning to watch a documentary on Måneskin's time on X-Factor Italia tomorrow afternoon and squeal at each other, so I have the space of a morning to get on with it before I lose the plot again, I suspect XDDDDD a;djfl;aksdfl;adsjkfa;sdfkla;sd *facepalm*

[sharpfamily]

The Essay Escapade

There are no lengths at which a good brother won’t go in order to help his sister in need.

*** Just popping in to let you all know that I have a brief description of each of the Sharp children at the very end of this, just in case you want to know a little bit about them. Also at this point in time, Aesop is retired from teaching and runs a successful potions shop with his wife in the hamlet where they both live. ***

Massive, massive MASSIVE shout out to @aesopsharpmybeloved for letting me play in your sandbox and making me believe I could write something that people would actually enjoy reading. This is a companion piece to her series A New Chance at Life and if you haven’t read it what are you even doing here!

- Tea-withjamandbread

It was late, far too late to still be awake, however Theodore Sharp was unable to fall asleep. It made sense, really. As the middle of the semester approached, so did exams and essay deadlines. The fifth year Slytherin had a lot on his mind.

Call it intuition, call it a special “twin bond” like their mother often described it, but something told Theodore he didn’t really need sleep at the moment, not while Natty needed him. So he grabbed his wand and got dressed as quietly as he could before leaving his dorm room headed towards the common room. He wasn’t at all surprised to find his twin sister sitting at the table closest to the fireplace, it was her favorite spot after all. He was surprised, however, to find her surrounded by books, furiously writing on what seemed to be quite the long piece of parchment, tears forming in her eyes.

“Hey there Nat”

The girl barely slowed down her writing. “Theo. It’s late. You should be asleep.”

"Could say the same about you" Theodore placed a hand on his sister's, forcing her to stop what she was doing for a moment. “What’s that you’re working on?” The boy was genuinely confused. Judging by the furious pace at which his sister was writing, he could only deduce she was in the middle of writing an entire essay. While it wasn’t unusual for him to wait until the very last minute to finish his work, Natty was always far more organized than this and seemed to always have her work finished days before it was due for being turned in.

“My DADA essay.” Theo was no Auror (yet) but he distinctly remembered his sister mentioning she had finished writing it last week. “Why are you re-writing your DADA essay? I’m sure the one you already wrote was good enough to”

“I lost it!”

“What?”

“I’m such an idiot Theo!”

“Stop that. I’m supposed to be the dramatic one between the two of us, not you. How did you lose it?”

“I was looking through everything for tomorrow’s classes and I couldn’t find it anywhere. What I DID find though is this.” She pulls out a letter addressed to her parents, back home. “I must have accidentally sent Mum and Dad my essay instead of…” She burst into tears. “So I have to re-write the whole thing now because there’s no way for me to get it back in time to turn it in first thing tomorrow!”

"Maybe if you write to them, they could send it here in time for first class?"

"Even if I DID write to them right now they wouldn't have time to send it… It's due first thing tomorrow morning and you know Mum and Dad, they're not exactly… morning people"

An idea formed in Theodore's brain. It was madness to be certain, he'd be breaking about half a dozen school rules, not to mention it could prove dangerous. "I'll go fetch it then"

Natty looked at her twin like he had grown a second head.

"You're mad"

"I'm assure you I’m not"

"You're going to fly miles away from school and then what? Break into the parents' house?"

"Not exactly. I’m going to use the floo and run the rest of the way! It’ll be good exercise! Plus does it really count as breaking in if you have the key?"

"You're going to get caught"

"Dad's a heavy sleeper"

"Dad used to be an Auror!"

"Yeah I think I've heard him mention that once or twice"

"So you KNOW he'll wake up to the sound of someone in the house when he's not expecting company. Besides, Mum's a light sleeper!"

"And she'll be SO happy to see me IF I get caught, which I don't intend on having happen!”

Natalie looked at the essay she was currently attempting to re-write. It was a mess. Barely legible and when she tried to make sense of the paragraph she had just finished, she knew she couldn't turn this in tomorrow and hope for a good grade. Professor Sallow did have a soft spot for her and her siblings, but that would only help her so much.

"Do it."

"Brilliant! I'll be back in less than an hour!"

Theodore quickly hugged his sister then started walking towards the common room door.

"Wait!" Natalie rushed towards him. "Bring this to them please" She handed her brother the letter she had meant to send her parents earlier that same day.

"Sure thing!"

"Thank you."

"Anything for you, sis!"

With one last hug to his slightly less nervous sister, Theodore was on his way.

—-—————

Theodore slowed down his sprint as he approached his childhood home. The sight before him was everything he was hoping for. The chimney had the faintest trace of smoke, indicating that the fires warming the home were mere embers at the moment, and all the windows appeared dark, indicating the occupants of the house were fast asleep. He took a quick peek to the back of the house, where the window leading to his father’s cellar was located. He knew sometimes his father brewed late into the night, however tonight did not appear to be one of those nights.

It occurred to him at that moment that it really wouldn’t be the end of the world if his parents knew he’d visited. He could probably knock on the door and politely ask if he could have Natty’s essay, deliver his letter, get mildly scolded for being away from school after curfew, perhaps he’d be lucky enough to get his hand on some of his mother’s baked goods before going on his merry way. However, if he was being honest with himself, he wanted to know if he could be successful at avoiding detection. Plus, he had promised his sister he wouldn’t get caught and Theodore Ashley Sharp was a man of his word, or at least, he tried his very best to be.

Theodore knows he needs to be as quiet as can be. He didn't want to get caught after all. He cast a disillusionment charm over himself for good measure, although he really didn't think it was needed. This was his childhood home and he knew it like the back of his hand. He knew exactly which floorboards creaked when stepped on and created a mental map of his shortest path from the front door to the drawer where he knew his parents kept their correspondence.

He quietly unlocked the door and stepped inside. The faintest ruffling of feathers to his left caught his attention. Diana. The owl had been a part of their family since before they were even a family from the stories he had been told as a child, and had been retired from messenger duty some number of years ago. Theodore had anticipated the necessity of keeping her quiet and quietly but decisively, reached into his left pocket and grabbed a handful of treats. He extended his arm towards her, hoping his bribe would buy him precious minutes as he continued on with his mission.

He must admit he felt a little ridiculous, hopping from plank to plank, avoiding the ones he knew to be noisy. He wouldn't at all be surprised to learn that these particular planks were left in their squeaky state in order to make it impossible for his siblings and himself to move about the house at night without alerting their parents.

Theodore made his way from the foyer, past the staircase, through the family room, and into the kitchen, moving to stand in front of the exact drawer he knew his parents kept their mail, successfully avoiding each and every problem plank. "The student surpasses the potions master" he thought to himself. He opened the drawer and pulled out a stack of papers, looking for his sister's essay. However, no matter how hard he looked, all he was met with was correspondence regarding his parents' potions shop. Orders, ingredient lists, accounting papers, more orders, more accounting… no essay. He put the papers back in the drawer and gently closed it. He took a few seconds to breathe, feeling his face redden and his pulse quicken. Natty was counting on him. He had promised her he'd get that essay back for her. He wasn't always the perfect brother, but he prided himself on never going back on his word, on never making a promise he didn't intend to keep. He racked his brain as to where his parents would have put the essay when his thoughts were suddenly interrupted.

"Lumos"

A bright light came from behind Theodore and the boy froze, hoping his disillusionment charm was strong enough to withstand the scrutiny of the ex-Auror who had just cast the wand-lighting charm. He had no idea his father had woken, didn’t hear him coming down the stairs at all. He supposed he still had much to learn in terms of how to move about completely undetected. He hadn’t been caught yet, though, and he had some elements working in his favor. Perhaps his father was too sleepy to notice him, although he doubted that. He knew the man probably wasn't wearing his glasses and so maybe, just maybe he still stood a chance in completing his mission undetected.

However the bright light coming from his father's wand had caused the faintest shadow of his form to appear on the wall in front of him. Despite his very best efforts, the boy had been caught.

"Your disillusionment charm has improved, Theodore, but it's still not good enough to fool me."

Theodore promptly dropped the charm and turned to face his father, who lowered his wand and used it to reignite the fire in the hearth to provide a warm light and additional warmth to the room. He wore his dressing gown and Theodore could only imagine he was wearing his nightshirt underneath. His face showed a mixture of tiredness, confusion, slight annoyance and he thought he also detected a hint of amusement.

“How did you know it was me?”

“Maggie’s in America, Eleazar’s never been one for sneaking around and Natty’s disillusionment charm is frankly better than yours. The house is warded to alert us of any other intruders, so that leaves only one suspect, you."

“What gave me away?"

His father deflected

"I'm sure there must be an excellent explanation to your late night, actually, by now, early morning visit. One that also explains why you're currently rifling through your mother's and my private correspondence."

"Actually there IS an explanation"

"I'd love to hear it, sooner rather than later, please."

"I'm here because Nat"

"THEODORE!"

Theo promptly finds himself wrapped in his mother's tight embrace. "What are you doing here? Sneaking out of school in the dead of night, what's gotten into you?"

"From what I gather from the stories you told us Mum, I get this from you"

She loosened her embrace but still kept her hands on her son's shoulders. "Oh hush now, at least I had the good sense to never get caught by your father!"

"That's not entirely accurate darling…" Aesop reached for his wife and pulled her against him, breaking the link between her and their intruder and wrapping his arms around her waist, kissing the back of her head. "I distinctly remember catching you a handful of times sneaking about the castle" She melted into her husband's embrace. "Only because I wanted you to catch me, Ace"

"If you both don't mind I'm here for Natty's DADA essay. She accidentally sent it to you instead of this and it's due first thing tomorrow" Theodore handed his parents his sister’s letter to them. “I told her I'd come and correct her mistake, deliver her letter and retrieve it. If you could just tell me where it is, I will go fetch it, be on my merry way and let you both carry on with whatever it is I don’t want to think about you doing when we’re not home.”

Aesop chuckled as (F/N) spoke.

“I’m guessing she didn’t get our note then?”

“She didn’t say anything about a note, she was too busy trying to re-write her essay from memory!”

“Oh Nat, poor thing…”

(F/N) looked at her son

“We got her essay, and we read it. It was really, really good and obviously finished so we sent it directly to Professor Sallow after dinner, along with a note to Natty letting her know not to worry about it. I’m guessing the poor owl must have forgotten about the second delivery.”

“Or delivered it to Eleazar, wouldn’t be the first time our mail got all messed up”

“Blasted, unreliable school owls.”

“We really need to get another owl Ace, with Maggie in America now and the shop doing as well as it is, Babbity could use some help.”

“Agreed.” Aesop addressed his son

“In any case, her essay is where it needs to be and if Professor Sallow hasn’t received it, have him owl me, and I’ll make sure Nat gets the O she deserves.”

Theodore looked at his parents. Tonight had turned out to be a failed mission for him. He got caught AND he didn’t retrieve his sister’s essay. He was happy though. Happy to be home, happy to be with his parents for just a little while.

"Are you hungry, dear?"

"Nah, I'm good. Ate one too many servings of mutton stew for dinner"

His eyes fell on a plate of his mother's scones.

“On second thought I'm starving Mum, they BARELY feed us at the school, you know"

(F/N) chuckled as she summoned a plate and some scones. Theodore scarfed down the first in two bites, and reached for a second one, as his mother busied herself, packing the rest of the pastries in a cloth bag for her son to bring back to Hogwarts.

“Don’t forget to share." she reminds him, as she hands him the bag.

“I should probably get going… I told Natty I’d be back within the hour and I’m cutting it close”

"Just a moment, I have something for you to bring to your sister."

His father turned and unlocked a cabinet that held a variety of potions

"Ooh, contraband!"

Aesop let out a chuckle as he handed a vial to his son.

"Wideye. She'll need it tomorrow. If I know Natty, she still won't sleep a wink tonight"

"Don't I get one too?"

"Do you want to be an Auror someday?"

"You know I do"

"Then in addition to perfecting your disillusionment charm you also need to master the art of the power nap. Learn how to function for long hours with little to no sleep."

"You're joking"

"I'm not. But there will be plenty of time for that. In the meantime here's one for you too, as well this."

His father hands him a third vial. Theodore doesn't need to read the label to know what it contains. Invisibility potion.

"This one's pretty strong, should buy you about a minute. Use it wisely."

“Anything for Eleazar while we’re at it?”

“I’m sure Eleazar already brews his own contraband.”

Theodore chuckled. Eleazar did have a natural knack for potions and always had a true passion for the subject, the art came as naturally to him as walking it seemed at times. Even Aesop couldn’t say as much about himself, having gone from quite the average student to graduating with the best potions marks in his class thanks to hard work and a drive to reach the top of his field.

“Anything else before the Sharp Delivery Service heads back to his common room?”

“No, that’ll be all” his mother says, as she pulls him into another bone crushing hug. “You’re a great son, and an amazing brother. We’re so proud of you. I love you, Theodore.”

“I love you too, Mum”

He looked up at his father, while still tightly hugging his mother.

"You never told me what gave me away. I know my disillusionment isn't quite up to snuff yet but that's not what woke you up though"

"The front door. It has a very distinct squeak when it opens. Imperceptible from the outside but can be heard from our bedroom. I could fix it, but I choose not to. That's what gave you away tonight. I must say though, I was impressed at how you managed to avoid all the bad floorboards. Well done."

"Thanks Dad. I love you."

"I love you too, son."

Aesop joined in the hug for a moment, then gently took his wife’s hands into his own, releasing their son from her tight embrace.

“Be safe on your way back”

Both parents stayed in the doorway, arms around each other, watching as their youngest son sprinted towards the closest floo flame.

————————

Theodore didn’t waste his invisibility potion sneaking back into the castle. He was smarter than that. He knew the prefects and professors were fast asleep at that time, and his disillusionment charm, while still needing some work, was still good enough to shield him from the portraits and the ghosts roaming the castle. He didn’t hear Peeves in the vicinity, so the walk back to the Slytherin common room was easy and uneventful.

He was greeted by the sight of his sister, who had abandoned her attempted re-write, and appeared immersed in the book she was reading. A quick glance at the cover revealed that she was reading one of her favorite novels. To think that his sister would trust him so completely as to abandon her contingency plan in favor of re-visiting one of her favorite stories made his heart swell. This evening hadn’t gone according to plan, but he hoped that he’d at least be able to calm down her anxieties and maybe, just maybe, she would get a couple hours of sleep tonight.

Natty looked up from her book and took in the sight of her brother, scones and potions in hand.

"Theo? Are you OK?"

"Brilliant, actually" he says as he took a bite out of a scone

"Did someone cast the confundus charm on you?"

"I don't... think so. Why do you ask?" he took another bite

"I see scones, I see potions, do you know what I DON'T see?"

"Oh, yeah... that"

Natty put her head in her hands

"Theodore!"

He put his hand on her shoulder

"Relax Nat. They already turned it in for you."

Natty looked up at her brother, who had the biggest smile on his face.

"They... what?"

"They noticed you had sent them your essay by accident, proof-read it and owl'd it directly to Professor Sallow. Probably sounded something like this

Theodore stepped back and put on his best impression of their mother.

"Oh Ace! Our darling daughter must have sent us her essay by accident! Poor thing must be so nervous right now but I really don't understand why, this essay is incredible! I couldn't have written it better myself!"

Then Dad probably went "I can tell no shortcuts were taken when writing this paper, well done Natty, this deserves an O and nothing less!"

"I shall send it to my good friend Sebastian at Hogwarts right away! However I absolutely won't also ask about how the children are doing because that would be inappropriate"

"Wonderful idea darling. Once you're done I know something inappropriate you and I could"

"STOP IT THEO! Please. Before I need to cast scourgify on my brain!"

Theodore put an end to his re-enactment, looked at his sister, and handed her a pastry. "Scone?"

Natty took the pastry from her brother wordlessly. He could be quite ridiculous at times, but always knew just how to cheer her up. She couldn't have conjured a better twin if she tried. As Theodore sat on the sofa next to her, she was able to sense that, beneath his playful charade, something was bothering him.

"How long did it take for Dad to catch you?"

Theodore sighed.

"He was onto me the moment I opened the front door. Let me get all the way to the kitchen though, before revealing himself, I think he took pity on me."

"Wow, that's actually pretty impressive"

"Yeah… it is. I don’t know how he does it to be honest."

“He’s been doing it for years Theo, for longer than we’ve been alive. It used to be his job, and it’ll be your job one day, too. I know you’ll be a great Auror one day. So you got caught by Dad. At least you got to say hi to him and Mum, that must have been nice.”

Theodore placed his arm around his sister, pulling her towards him.

“It was. Wish you could have been there, I know you miss them, too.”

“Winter holidays will be here before we know it.” Natty’s voice started to betray the fact that she was fighting sleep. “Hey, you were able to sneak in and out of school undetected, that counts for something doesn't it?"

"I guess it does. I'll outsmart Dad next time." Theodore says, wistfully.

Natty yawned as she curled onto the sofa, resting her head on her brother’s lap. "Good luck with that."

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Theodore didn’t get an answer to his question, Natty had fallen fast asleep. He summoned a blanket from the chair across them and draped it around his sleeping sister. He was glad to have been able to be there for her, to be a good brother to her in her moment of need, to calm her anxieties to the point that her mind was able to so quickly surrender to sleep. Happy with himself, he propped his feet up on the coffee table in front of him, leaned his head back against the plush upholstery, and fell asleep as well.

—————————

A/N a brief description of the Sharp children at the time of this fanfiction

Magdala Dinah "Maggie" Sharp

Slytherin

Recently graduated, named after her grandmother and her father's closest friend. Fiercely intelligent, confident, but also quite humble. Te ringleader of the 4 Sharp children. Has had a lifelong passion for beasts, moved to America to study beasts native to the continent

Eleazar Sebastian Sharp

Ravenclaw

7th year, head boy, named after his mother's mentor as well as one of her closest friends. Quiet and a little shy, very kind and compassionate Demonstrated a knack for potion making practically before he showed signs of magic, and the only Sharp child to have yet to receive detention.

Theodore Ashley Sharp

Slytherin

5th year, named after his grandfather as well as his father's late partner. Has wanted to be an Auror for as long as he can remember, will do anything for his family and particularly his twin sister. He knows he's got charm and charisma and he's not afraid to use them to get out of trouble. Still didn't save him from landing himself in detention on his first week of school!

(F/N) Natalie "Natty" Sharp

Slytherin

5th year, named after her mother as well as one of her mother's closest friend. Prefers to go by her middle name because being named after the "Hero of Hogwarts" combined with her own exceptionally strong magic made it difficult for her to carve her own identity. A master negotiator with a quick wit, she can spot a lie from a mile away., Can usually keep her brother in check, and is organized enough for the two of them.

[celestialsonata7]

I can buy Pat being the crooked man and the energy corrupting him, but I don’t like how they treated the actually development that led up to it, does that makes sense? He is entitled, has boundary and anger/ jealousy issues. I can buy that, but his arc I’m not sure if it needed more time or if it was because of how sudden his change was or because you grew to like his character through the series.

I didn’t like how they handled the whole “he is always been evil and is impossible for him to change and any attempts to change are useless or another form of manipulation” I think the series does a very good job at showing his perspective and making you feel sorry for him at tikes and even empathize with what he is going through to just be like “oh, he is just evil and has always been like that and when everyone thought he was dead nobody cared and resented him for still being alive”

(I acknowledge that what he did was 100% wrong, he did terrible things Nicole was in her right to hate him and be distrustful of him. He is a very scary person because guys like him actually exist in real life)

Is weird because I’ve seen other shows do similar arcs to this one where the villain that turned evil due to their own personal flaws, shortcomings and issues and somehow still being unredeemable and dying at the end, but still the narrative being able to show them some kind of sympathy or acknowledgement/understanding towards their issues and still having them be unredeemable and die in the end. Sadly I don’t think Pat’s character arc had rbis.

How do you feel about the way his character was handled? Am I the only one who feels this way?

Hello Anon! Thank you for asking this! I could launch into a whole essay about what I think about this. XD So I think I will. Strap in, folks!

For those confused, this is pertaining to the Netflix series, 'Raising Dion', and contains MAJOR spoilers, so be forwarned if you plan on watching it.

(I'd like to premise this by saying it's been a hot minute since I watched the show, so I'm sorry if my recollection of its events is a little fuzzy.

I would also like to state that I freaking looooove Jason Ritter, and his perfomance in this show is amazing as always, and the reason that the character arc of Pat vexes me so is that I felt they did Jason dirty.)

So, I absolutely agree that it felt like his whole reveal was definitely rushed through, which is really poor writing on their part considering they knew where they were gonna take the character from the beginning. They had all that time to work out how they wanted to present the character and he still didn’t feel fleshed out enough. They just wanted to make the twist so surprising for the audience for shock value that they made sure we would never suspect him until the reveal. I can buy that people lie about themselves, they hide certain traits and motivations, sure, but for him to do a complete 180 of his character was just too ridiculous, especially when you consider how irrevocably determined and devoted he was to his goals once the reveal happened. Either he’s a hurting and desperate man who’s only doing what he needs to survive, OR he’s an evil being bent on making others suffer, you can’t have it both ways.

I think the main reason Pat is so unbelieveable as a character is that they kept flip-flopping him. He would CONSTANTLY contradict himself; "Dion, always listen to your Mom, BUT also let's have pizza even though she said 'no'", "Dion, only use your powers for good, BUT also let’s cheat at this basketball game", "Dion, good guys are always true, BUT definitely lie about using your powers in public", "Dion, I'm happy you got superpowers and can fight evil, BUT it definitely should have been me instead because I was there and everyone else got powers so I should have too", "Nicole, I like you, however if you don't feel the same way, I'm okay with that, BUT how dare you kiss other guys when you should be with me", like, it's not even bipolar, it's just bad writing. His motivations and desires are constantly changing that it just feels random and disorganized and done on a whim. It felt rushed and random simply because you never know what he wants. He wants to be a good godfather and friend to Dion and Nicole but no actually he just wants to kill them, but no actually he'd never hurt them, but no actually he'd do anything for power. It just doesn't make any sense.

People can have major flaws and still be good people, and people can have good traits and still be bad people, but these traits usually line up with a person's motivations, i.e. "I need to survive but I'll try not to kill if I don't have to, and if I do have to it will upset me because I still value human life. If there was another way, I'd take it but there isn't and that sucks", or "I value YOUR life because I'm attached to you but everything and everyone else is meaningless to me and I have no qualms with ending them for my own gain". You can't have, "I wish I was a better person except just kidding no I don't", it doesn't work that way.

You can say that Pat's motivation from the beginning, to the very end, was power; all he wanted was power, that was his end goal, that was what he always strived for, but then his actions should back that up. If all he wanted was power, why did he waste his time raising Dion, teaching him how to use his powers, helping Nicole, being a good friend to her, working at his job, hoping for promotions? Why not just go out and collect all the powered people at once, keep absorbing people, keep gaining power? You'll say, "well he wanted to wait for Dion to get stronger so he could absorb more power, he needed to be close to Nicole to be close to Dion, he needed the resources of his company to find more powered people", okay, yes, that all makes sense. If that was what he was planning the whole time, then that shows that he's smart and conniving. So everything he did was in service to that main goal; he helps Dion become more powerful so he can take all that power for himself. But he inadvertently creates his downfall, he "dies", all his power is gone, over and done with. Then WHY come back to "warn" everyone of another rising threat? You could say, "he wanted to get his power back", okay, but how? He no longer had the power to absorb people and he didn't even know he COULD get it back, he just knew it was still out there killing, and if he DID know he could get it back, why not go to where the power is in the first place? Why bother with going back to the city and the job and the people that would never help him in a million years? He KNEW he would be shunned and arrested and locked up forever if he showed his face there, and without any power he had no way of escaping, so why go back? He also knew they didn't understand that power either anyways; a superpowered eight-year-old beat him, not the highly educated and technologically advanced company, so what did he think he could gain from going back there? We already know he's smarter than that, if the above is true. By all accounts it doesn't make sense.

You could say the desire for power solely came from the crooked energy, and season one was all just Crooked Man-Pat, and once that was gone the true Pat came back, and he really DID just want to help and redeem himself, fine. But then he should not have been capable of reverting back to Crooked!Pat at the end, before the energy was even back in him. If all he wanted to do was help, then the concept of being powerful would mean nothing to him. The desire for power, the deceitful nature, the entitlement and selfishness should not have been there while he was "trying to help". You can't be selfless and selfish at the same time. You can't be forthcoming and deceitful, you can't be humble and entitled. All those things contradict each other. Again, it doesn't make sense.

Another thing that really really irked me while watching the series was that, from the very beginning, it seemed like Nicole never really liked Pat anyway. She was ALWAYS cold and distant with him, as if she already knew he was bad news even when he was "trying" to be kind and thoughtful. I don't know if that was a directorial problem or an acting choice but it felt so unfounded and random, and it made all the "nice" scenes feel forced. Not to mention Nicole was far too quick to just accept that Pat was evil all along, it just pulled away from their relationship so much so that it felt like they didn't even have one, like the only thing connecting them was Dion. Again, I don't know it that was intentional, or even if anyone else felt that way, but that's how it came across to me and it made it really hard to connect to either of them. Honestly, it felt like Pat had more chemistry with Dion than with her.

The only reason I fell in love with Pat at the beginning, and continued to route for his redemption until the end, was because, as stated at the top, I love Jason Ritter. I've seen many of his roles and applauded all his performances and so yes, I'm biased, but as I'm sure everyone else can agree, he has a kind face, and plays enduring really really well. He gets cast as kind people quite a lot, so anyone that has seen him before will already feel a sense of comfort when he's on screen. I think that is really only reason that Pat is so likeable at the start, and possibly feels redeemable at the beginning of season two; because people see this kind face and can see him being capable of kindness. But it's all for naught because of the way that the show and character is written; there's only so much you can do with what you're given. The script of 'Raising Dion' was basically a mess of tangled Christmas lights that are impossible to untangle, and the more they tried, the more tangled it got.

tl;dr Pat's character was really poorly handled from a writing standpoint; nothing he did made sense and his motivations were all over the place and his character was never consistent. All that is an absolute, crying shame because Jason Ritter was amazing in it anyways and I wish I could have enjoyed it more.

I hope that answered your question, and if not I'm sorry. I've never really written my thoughts on anything like this before and again, it's been so long since I saw the show so I may have gotten some things wrong or misremembered some things. But I had fun writing this, it's been a while since I've written ANYTHING and I really really appreciate you wanting to know my opinions, no one ever wants that. XD Hope you have a lovely day, Anon!

[danjaley]

Jo's school, the war, those Germans and how to write a good character purely by accident.

A literary essay that came to my mind yesterday, through the conversation with @nocturnalazure

Originally I wanted to include this in the favourite characters tag, but it required so much background information: It's easy to find good characters in well-written books. One of my favourite characters in a badly written book is Frieda Mensch from the Chalet school series (the blonde girl, in the back on both images)

I discovered the Chalet School series at a jumble sale a few years ago, and I enjoy reading it because I like to imagine what could have been done with some good plotting skills. Also it's full of motifs that only made sense in the mid 20th century (the chain-smoking lung specialist) and the German spoken by the characters is simply hilarious. (Onkel Reise - a very tall man.)

Interestingly, the series is heavily inspired by Little Women and its sequels, especially Jo's school. It's about the English sisters Josephine (Joey) and Madge (not Meg!) Bettany who set up an international school in Austria around 1930. There's also an unrelated little Amy around.

Frieda Mensch is an Austrian girl who goes to that school and becomes a friend of Joey's. So far that's nothing special, the series is literally about Joey being everyone's supportive friend. In volume two the sisters spend Christmas with Frieda's family in Innsbruck, which makes her stand out a little. Then, because her first name means "peace" and her surname means "human", the author assigned her the role of the peacemaker in her class. She's portrayed as a serious, law-abiding girl, but of course schoolgirls must also be good sports and know when to break the rules. Even if it's possibly an accidental contradiction, this gives her an implicit conflict. Gradually she becomes the main loyal friend who supports Joey if needs be (like on nightly ice-skating-rescue-missions ^).

When the girls in the books are around 19 and just left school, in real life the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany hit. By the time the school could be fictionally evacuated, war had begun too. Suddenly this Austrian girl whose name means "peace" and "human" becomes hugely symbolic. Frieda has to flee to England, one of her friends' father is tortured to death, her fiancée is also shortly imprisoned and suddenly she's a girl with a fate. She also helps Joey, who is married by then and has recently given birth, to cross the Channel. At the end of that volume Frieda gives a speech to what's left of the school, about peace and acting humanely despite political conflicts. Wars change many lives and reveal unknown strength in some people - sometimes this is even true for fictional characters.

(If I were set the task to write a novel in which an international school defies the Nazis, my first thought would be that they might have some Jewish students they must protect. Interestingly, this thought never crossed the author's mind. The Nazis turn their full force on this English school because the girls privately vowed to always keep up their girl guide ideals, even the Germans and Austrians from whom they're about to be separated. While violence against Jews is mentioned in the story, it shows how little the threat to them was taken seriously abroad. It also shows the hope that the decent-minded Germans might get the upper hand again after a while. It's strongly biased in its own way, but it's a perspective one doesn't find in books that were written with the whole history in mind. That's why I enjoy historic fiction so much.)

If I ever get so far with the McCarrics, I'm going to steal a lot from Highland Twins go to Chalet School. In fact I've already named Shiena after a character from that book.