#I’d imagine they’re in their early-mid 20s here

[duskstars]

kanamafu week 2024 day 7: free day 💜🩷

[the-sugar-crash]

Could we get hcs for the damn polycule(including Gavin) of when the freelancer has a little sister? I’d imagine the FL is in their early-mid 20s, and their sister is like 11-13.

Okay. So. This was a lot of fun to write. I had a lot of different ideas and the hardest part was just trying to make them fit together in a way that makes sense. So if this seems all over the place that’s why. I will say, I accidentally went with a very dark tone at the end, and I go into the Freelancer’s strained relationship with their bio family. So please note that if you struggle reading that sort of thing. And once I had it all written out I was kinda like ‘oh no, what if that wasn’t what they wanted, cause I kinda just wrote a really sloppy fic instead of actual head canons.” So I went back and wrote some shorter head canons on top of the almost fic. So long story short; the first part is some general HCs, and the second part is a scene where their sister comes up to visit the Freelance at damn without telling anyone. For convenience I gave the sister a name. I went with Ava just cause I don’t know any Avas and it was one of the first that popped up when I googled ‘basic girl names’. Sorry for the long note and thank you for the request!

CW for part 1: none

CW for part 2: Strained family, crying, parental negligence, feelings of self doubt

So, Ava

She and the Freelancer were super close despite the age difference

The Freelancer had to babysit her a lot as a kid, but because of that they have a really special relationship

Ava would try to copy her older sibling a lot

Stealing their clothes or trying to copy their hobbies, that type of thing

She looked up to them, and wanted to be just like them

It usually didn’t bother the Freelancer that much

Unless there was a limited number of something available, and Ava only decided that she wanted it after the Freelancer expressed interest

Especially when their parents would try to make the freelancer share with Ava

That, or if Ava ever accidentally ruined some of the Freelancer’s things while trying to copy them

It was never out of mal intent, so the two of them would make up quick

Ava was really young when their powers manifested, so no one ever told Ava about it because everyone was afraid that she would tell other people

It sucked not being able to tell someone you’re so close to about a part of your life of course, but it made sense

Not to mention that the Freelancer’s parents liked to pretend that their powers didn’t exist and encouraged them to suppress them

But to make up for keeping it a secret, the Freelancer would make up fantasy stories to tell Ava, like bedtime stories and such

They were besties until the Freelancer had to move out

They lost contact for a little bit

But as Ava got older, she started writing letters to them

They reconnect years later, and they click just like before, only this time they’re closer than ever

Okay, part two-ish:

There’s one night not long after the start of the new semester when it was just the Freelancer, Gavin, and Damien at home in the apartment

Lasko and Huxley are both out late

Lasko is running a late night study session for his class and Huxley had a night practice

The trio decided to order a pizza for dinner, making sure there was enough to go around

About half an hour later there’s a pounding on the door, which Gavin is the one to answer

But instead of the usual pizza guy that Gavin enjoys teasing, he finds a young girl

He just says “I think you have the wrong apartment,” and then shuts the door in her face

There’s a moment that passes before someone knocks on the door again

Gavin opens it a second time to find the same girl standing in the hallway

“Can I help you with something? Are you selling girl scout cookies or something?”

That’s when the Freelancer calls from inside the apartment

“Gavin! Are you torturing the pizza guy again?”

The young girl’s face lit up and she pushed past Gavin and ran into the apartment

“Wha- Hey! Get back here!”

He isn’t sure what he’s going to find when he turns around, but he definitely wasn’t expecting to see the girl clinging to the Freelancer for dear life.

“Ava?”

The poor Freelancer looks like they’re seen a ghost

Once they seem to get their bearings back, they lean down and hug the girl

Now Gavin is really confused

The Freelancer is the one to break the hug, pushing the girl away and holding onto her by her shoulders an arm’s length away

“Ava? What the hell are you doing here?”

“I came to see you!”

Gavin clears his throat.

“So do I get an explanation or…?”

“Right! Gavin, this is Ava, my little sister. Ava, this is Gavin, my boyfriend”

“Boyfriend?” she asked, looking him up and down before nodding in approval. “Not bad.”

“Well, I’m so glad I got the stamp of approval from the 12 year old.”

“I’m 13 actually.”

“Ava, seriously. What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you! I missed you!”

“I missed you too, but how did you even find me?”

“I found the address you gave mom and dad in case of emergencies and I took a bus all by myself to get here!”

“You what?” Do mom and dad know you’re here?”

“Well, no. But it’s alright! I packed a bag and everything!” she said, gesturing to her backpack

Which, when the Freelancer checked, only had one extra set of clothes, a stuffed animal, and a whole lot of junk food.

That’s when Damien came out of the kitchen to see what was going on.

“Why is there a 12 year old latched onto the Freelancer?”

“I’m 13.”

“This is Ava, the Freelancer’s younger sister.” Gavin introduced

“We’ll, that’s definitely not what I was expecting.”

That’s when there’s a new knock on the door.

“That’s probably the pizza, I’ll get it. Do you two mind watching her for a moment?”

The two boys sit Ava down on the couch while they get the pizza

“So… what do kids even do? I think we have some coloring books? Maybe a juice box in the fridge?”

Neither of them really know what to do

The Freelancer comes back a second later with three boxes of pizza and nods the boys into the kitchen. Leaving Ava by herself in the living room.

“Alright team, what the hell does one do after their 13 year old sister that they haven’t seen in years shows up unannounced?”

While the three of them are coming up with a game plan in the kitchen, Huxley comes home.

Huxley is amazing with kids, you can’t change my mind

So he just sits down with her on the couch until Gavin pops back in to check on Ava while the Freelancer and Damien put the pizza onto plates

Gavin greets Huxley with a kiss, which apparently is a bad move, because as soon as the Freelancer comes back, Ava tries to snitch

“He’s cheating on you!”

Hux is very confused

To his credit, he just found a random kid in his home and immediately tries to make the kid feel more comfortable, and now she’s accusing him of cheating on his partners and trying to start a fight

Poor boy is slightly confused

So the Freelancer has to explain that no, Gavin isn’t cheating on them with Huxley, because Huxley is also their boyfriend. So is Damien.

And contrary to what some parents believe, explaining gay relationships to a child doesn’t confuse them or scar them for life

Shocker.

“So you have… 3 boyfriends?”

“Well, technically I have 4, but Lasko works late sometimes, so he isn’t home yet

Speak of the devil

“Hey guys, sorry I’m late. Some of the students wanted to stay a little longer to ask me some questions and that is a child. Why exactly is there a child?”

“This is Ava, my younger sister.”

“Oh? Oh!”

Ava sticks her hand out for him to shake.

“It’s nice to meet you boyfriend number 4.”

“Uhh, you too?”

With the second round of introductions out of the way, everyone settles around the living room with their pizza and sit in a somewhat awkward silence

That’s when Damien suggests putting on either a disney or Ghibli movie

It definitely makes things easier

And after traveling all day and eating more than her fill of pizza, Ava falls asleep curled up next to the Freelancer

The Freelancer is having a moment

They missed their sister so much since they had to leave home, and it hurt to know that Ava would have to go home soon

But they could enjoy the moment, at least until the movie ended

After all the credits rolled, Huxley helps carry Ava to the guest room where the Freelancer got her all tucked into bed

But when they got back to the living room, that’s when the hard part begins.

The Freelancer has to call their parents, who they haven't heard anything from in years.

Lasko understands the most, so when the Freelancer is ready, all the boys cuddle around them on the couch as they dial the familiar number

There’s a very heavy silence as the phone rings

“Hello? Who is this?”

“...Mom?”

The person on the other end of the line doesn’t say anything, so they continue.

“Um, Ava is fine. She showed up at my apartment a little while ago. She’s asleep now, and she ate dinner, but I just wanted you to know where she is and that she’s safe.”

Their mom hesitates for a moment and just says, “I’ll pick her up in the morning,” and then the line goes dead.

And when the Freelancer puts the phone down, they’re crying

It wasn’t fair

They never did anything to deserve this. They had never asked for their powers. They never did anything wrong.

They knew all those things, but it didn’t mean it didn’t hurt to be turned away by the people who were supposed to love you unconditionally

As they cried they boys held them close, each of them telling the Freelancer how much they loved them

There was something almost ironic about crying about losing one family when being held by another

They weren’t sure who carried them to bed that night, but they spent the night being held until they fell asleep in their lovers arms

The next morning was much better

Someone (probably Damien) had made pancakes and Ava was sitting at the kitchen table swinging her legs, working on a coloring book that the Freelancer kept for when Caelum stopped by

They took a seat next to her and they enjoyed their breakfast together

Ava caught them up on everything that had happened

She told them about her friends at school, her classes, and the new shows she was watching

They two enjoyed their first morning together in a long time

Until the dreaded knock on the door arrived

Huxley was the one to open the door

Anyone who knew Huxley knows that he’s a sweetheart

But when this mountain of a man opens the door with his arms crossed over his chest and an unhappy look on his face

He looks a little scary

Not to mention the tank top he’s wearing shows off of how big his arms are

Sorry, small Hux appreciation moment. Moving on.

Their mom is definitely intimidated

The Freelancer comes up to the door and invites her in while Ava packs up her stuff

The silence is thicker than Huxley’s thighs

(alright I’m actually done this time)

All the boys are kind of milling around the room

They’re trying to act casual, but they all kind of look like guard dogs

Their mom doesn’t say anything to any of them

That’s when Ava comes back into the room, giving each of them a hug before latching onto the Freelancer last, squeezing them as hard as she could

Ava at least knows her older sibling’s address now, so she can write them letters now

Once she lets go of them, she turns to her mom

“Can I visit more often Mom? I missed them!”

She looks hesitant and just says they’ll talk about it in the car

Ava looks saddened by this but doesn’t protest. She hugs the Freelancer one last time and then heads out the door.

Their mom looks like she’s about to follow her without saying anything when she stops

“Have, have you been doing okay here?”

This catches them off guard. They look back at their boys and then back to their mom.

“Yeah. I’m doing okay. I- I’ve missed you,”

Their mom gives them a small smile

“I’m glad you’ve found your place here. We’ve all missed you too. If… if you wanted to you’re welcome to stop by sometime”

And then she’s gone again, and it’s just the 5 of them in the apartment again

There’s a lot of cuddling that night

The end :)

[inimikal-archive]

Its  time  for  Erol  headcanon  stuff  at  long  last.  This  is  a  big  rewrite  of  stuff  from  Erol’s  old  blog ! 

The  first  thing  to  address,  I  think,  is  the  character  ages  so  I’m  gonna  start  here.  They’re  completely  insane  &  Erol  is  one  of  the  few  characters  never  given  an  age  in  the  canon.  A  lot  of  people  tend  to  put  Erol  in  his  mid 30s  &  I  actually  have  no  idea  why  because  he  always  registered  as  a  lot  younger  to  me,  keeping  in  mind  almost  all  the  characters  are  a  hell  of  a  lot  younger  than  you  would  think  because  Naughty  Dog  made  some  very  interesting  choices  with  JnD.  So  while  I  don’t  give  a  shit  about  the  “canon”  ages,  &  Erol  never  got  a  canon  age,  I  still  tend  to  see  him  a  lot  younger  than  fanon  seems  to.  Plus,  does  the  man  look  like  hes  in  his  30s ?  Not  to  me.  He  doesn’t  act  like  it  either. 

My  age  for  Erol  is  around  20-23ish,  just  slightly  younger  than  Ashelin.   Now  I  think  the  reason  people  tend  to  aim  a  lot  older  is  because  of  Erol’s  advanced  rank  in   the  KG.  But  things  to  consider  here  is  that  a  lot  of  the  KG  were  implied  to  be  very  young,  more  so  than  you  might  think,  many  (forcefully)  recruited  as  children  &  (forcefully)  kept  in  the  service  until  their  deaths  &  all  evidence  leads  to  the  fact  that  many  KG  soldiers  died  very  young  given  ever  present  battles  against  the  metal-heads  &  the  extreme  corruption  of  Haven  itself. 

Again,  other  very  high  ranking  members  of  the  KG  such  as  Ashelin  Praxis  were  only  in their  early  20s.  I  believe  Ashelin  was  around  22-23-24  years  old  throughout  the  games  from  Jak 2  to  Jak  X.  Torn,  an  ex  KG  captain  was  by  far  the  oldest  at  28-29-30,  but  still  not  quite  as  old  as  you  might  imagine.  I  mean,  I  even  think  Torn’s  on  the  young  side  but  he  seems  older  to  me.  If  I  hadn’t  looked  his  age  up  I’d  imagine  him  to  be  a  little  older  but  the  thing  is  he’s  just  been  through  some  shit  &  honestly  given  how  life  was  in  Haven  city,  anyone  making  it  into  their  30s  was  probably  looked  at  as  hitting  middle  age.  OF  COURSE,  there  are  some  characters  in  the  game  that  ARE  actually  “old”  but  they  tend  to  predate  all  of  the  craziness  we  see  in  jak  2,  as  we  know  Haven  was  not  always  like  this,  but  that  we’re  introduced  to  it  at  a  time  where  its  teetering  on  the  edge  of  losing  a  long  &  grueling  war  with  literal  monsters  that  are  literally  planning  to  kill  &  eat  everyone.  Furthermore,  they’re  not  shown  as  high  ranking  figures  in  the  KG  because  active  Krimzon  Guard  personnel  would  obviously  have�� a  much  lower  life  expectancy  all  of  this  considered.  

&  the  final  thing  to  consider  is  that  kids  are  a  lot  easier  to  manipulate,  radicalize  &  indoctrinate  &  the  Baron’s  dictatorship  at  this  point  was  relying  heavily  on  propaganda  &  martial  law.  Moreover,  Erol  himself  was  essentially  treated  as  living  propaganda.  This  was  very,  very  intentional  &  above  all  why  Erol  always  registered  to  me  as  a  lot  younger  than  he  seems  to  hit  in  the  fandom.  Erol  was,  essentially,  in  my  headcanon,  an  up  &  coming  young  race  star  who  was  purposefully  indoctrinated  &  recruited  into  the  KG  to  help  boost  the  appeal  of  the  KG   &  the  Baron’s  rule.  Evidence  of  this,  I  think,  is  everywhere  but  what  really  guides  my  thought  process  is  the  way  Erol  has  been  canonly  dubbed  “The  son  of  Haven  City”,  this  is  an  affectionate  moniker  given  to  him  by  Baron  Praxis  &  Erol’s  races  are  highly  promoted  &  glamorized  throughout  the  city  along  with  Erol  himself.  They’re  also  heavily  linked  to  Praxis   as  the  “prizes”  for  winning  are  not  only  an  extremely  large  supply  of  dark  eco  (one  that  we  could  argue  the  Baron  couldn’t  actually  afford  to  give)  but  also  a  tour  of  Haven  Palace.  These  are  both  things  the  Baron  was  not  the  kind  of  guy  to  offer  to  just  anyone. So  this  meant  the  reality  of  the  NYFE  championship  was  really  just  Praxis  putting  on  a show  where  he  promotes  these  races  that  get  the  city  hyped  because  not  only  do  many  of  them  look  at  Erol  as  a  hero  &  a  celebrity,  but  this  also  promoted  massive  engagement  with &  glamorized  the  KG,  because  even  if  you  didn't  like  Erol,  you  didn’t  like  the  military  &  you  just  liked  racing,  you’d  be  tempted  to  try  your  hand  at  beating  him  &  snatching  his  crown,  as  well  as  a  massive  supply  of  eco  which  could  probably  make  your  wildest  dreams  come  true.  But  the  thing  was  Erol  never  lost.  He  was  undefeated  &  undeniably  the  most  talented  racer  in  the  game  outside  of  Jak’s  protagonist  powers.

This  also  suggests  a  kind  of  surrogate  father-son  dynamic  between  Erol  &  Praxis  which  seems  to  very  much  fit  given  Erol  was  closer  to  Praxis  than  it  seemed  anyone  else  was,  including  his  own  daughter.  In  fact,  it  even  seems  as  if  Erol  was  the  only  person  in  the  entire  city  Praxis  really  trusted  beside  himself.  I  think  when   Praxis  refers  to  Erol  as  “the  son  of  haven  city”  he’s  practically  calling  Erol  his  son  given  he  is  haven  city.  Again,  Praxis  was  very  much  a  cunning,  foul  tempered,  stern  &  paranoid  man  so  this  is  extremely  unusual  &  definitely  makes  Erol  very  note-worthy  &  “special”  way  beyond  his  title  as  NYFE  champion.  Also  brings  me  to  the  fact  that  Erol  was  very,  very  much  like  Praxis  himself,  as  if  the  man  was  fundamental  in  shaping  who  Erol  is.  It  seemed  to  me  that  Erol  had  picked  up  a  lot  from  him  &  there  is  cut  dialog  suggesting  Erol  would  become  the  next  Baron  in  Praxis’  defeat/death.  Which  is  a  lot  given  Praxis  literally  had  a  biological  daughter  right  there  but  she  was  not  favored  by  him  near  as  much  as  Erol  apparently  was.  Which  is  stuff  I  think  all  fits  &  works  for  canon  &  honestly  ND  screwed  up  the  game  in  the  end  there  horrendously  so  I  have  to  fix  everything  &  I  kind  of  see  Erol  as  the  perfect  foil  to  Jak  &  this  gives  them  some  similarities  in  the  sense  that  Jak  has  Samos  as  a  surrogate  father  figure  as  he  isn’t  able  to  connect  with  his  real  father  until  Damas  death. 

Which  brings  me  to  Erol’s  real  father  &  his  background,  which  is  purely  my  own  headcanons  here  that  I  tie  into  all  of  this.  This  is  a  nutshell  version  of  what  I  wrote  up  for  Erol’s  blog  because  I’m  lazy.  I  haven't  named  Erol’s  father  yet  &  I’m  following  the  JnD  trend  of  character’s  having  fathers  with  no  mothers,  but  he  was  a  track  mechanic  which  is  where  Erol’s  love  of  racing  began.  He  always  wanted  to  race,  something  that  he  maybe  once  hoped  would  come  with  the  benefit  of  impressing  his  father.  The  problem  being  that  Erol’s  father  was  an  abusive  alcoholic  &  a  small  time  criminal  who  was  involved  in  a  lot  of  shady  practices,  notably  drug  trafficking.  Which  is  where  Erol  got  all  of  his  race  training  from  -  he  was  the  delivery  /  errand  boy  for  a  lot  of  his  father’s  “business”,  both  legal  &  not  so  legal.  He  took  this  service  as  an  opportunity  to  practice  his  racing  skills  by  getting  himself  from  point  A  to  B  around  the  city  in  record  time.   When  Erol  expressed  wanting  to  race  he  was  delighted  to  find  his  father  was  more  than  supportive.  In  fact,  despite  the  serious  danger  of  racing,  he  had   a  plan  for  Erol  to  win  the  Eco.  &  it  was  here  when  Erol’s  speed  &  talents  on  the  track  got  him  noticed  by  Praxis,  who  quickly  “befriended”  him  &  invited  him  into  the  KG.  Erol  loved  the  attention,  especially  from  someone  so  important.  When  Erol  won  his  first  championship  he  found  out  his  father  planned  to  take  the  Eco  &  split  town,  &  Erol  seemed  to  have  been  left  out  of  the  loop  on  this.  A  fight  erupted  &  Erol  returned  to  Praxis  with  the  Eco,  leaving  his  father  for  dead.  From  here,  Erol  officially  joined  the  KG  &  the  two  began  to  conspire  about  the  following  races.  As  in  it  was  Erol’s  duty  to  remain  champion  &  win  the  races  in  order  to  keep  the  eco  &  the  palace  tour  out  of  the  hands  of  the  public.  Further,  Erol’s  relationship  with  Praxis  meant  he  moved  through  the  KG  fast  making  him  as  much  of  a  ‘solider’  as  he  was  a  champion  racer.  Which  leads  me  to  another  headcanon  I  have  regarding  Erol’s  position  as  Commander,  as  in,  I  don’t  think  it  was  a  rank  that  really  existed  before  Erol  &  before  Torn’s  defection.  Essentially,  in  my  headcanon  Torn  was  the  highest  ranking  KG  captain  &  once  he  defected  it  caused  a  bit  of  chaos,  &  was  especially  troublesome  in  the  sense  that  as  far  as  the  canon  goes,  the  KG  isn’t  something  you  just  walk  away  from,  hence  the  tattoos,  its  to  the  death,  not  only  that  but  a  high-ranking  leader  such  as  torn  saying  “screw  it,  Praxis  is  corrupt”  &  ditching  really  does  NOT  bode  well  for  both  public  &  private  image.  So  in  order  to  remedy  this  Torn  was  smeared  as  a  coward  &  a  traitor  &  a  higher  rank  was  applied,  &  Erol  was  naturally  chosen  to  fill  it.  Erol,  who  was  already  pretty  well  liked  due  to  his  race-star  status  &  potentially  “trusted”  by  the  public  as  a  result  meant  that  Erol  taking  over  in  such  a  way  &  thus  helping  spread  the  word  that  Torn  was  just  a  cowardly  traitor  made  the  story  that  much  easier  to  swallow  &  helped  to  pacify  both  the  public  &  the  Guard. 

This  gave  Erol  more  control  over  the  KG  &  the  city,  &  Praxis  more  control  overall  since  Erol  was  basically  just  a  younger  extension  of  himself.  Which  means,  roughly  by  the  timeline  Erol  has  been  Commander  for  around  4ish  years  in  my  headcanon  &  why  Erol  is  considered  as  much  a  threat  to  &  enemy  of  the  underground  as  Praxis  himself.  You  can’t  really  separate  the  two  of  them.    Another  thing  that  made  my  thoughts  go  this  way  was  the  KG  tattoos.  Now  these  seem  to  indicate  rank,  however,  you  cant  just  change  your  massive  face  tattoo  as  you  level  up.  Normally,  you’d  think  if  these  tattoo's  had  to  do  with  rank,  you’d  have  to  get  a  pattern  similar  to  Torn  &  Ashelin’s  before  you  moved  up  to  whatever  “addition”  was  made  to  indicate  Commander,  that  is  IF  the  commander  rank  always  existed.  From  what  we  saw,   Ashelin  &  Torn  seemed  to  have  a  similar  tattoo  pattern  which  makes  sense  as  they  were  both  top  KG  officers  with  the  Rank  of  “Captain”.  Erol  on  the  other  hand  has  a  completely  different  tattoo  pattern  that  doesn’t  even  resemble  what  Ashelin  &  Torn  have  going  on.  You  would  think  if  this  is  the  tattoo  you  get  when  you  level  up  to  Captain,  Erol  would  have  had  to  have  a  similar  tattoo  before  he  made  Commander.  But  he  doesn’t.  Its  as  if  the  Commander  title  was  added  just  for  him  &  thus  his  tattoo  pattern  is  exclusive  to  him.  So  how  it  goes  in  my  mind  is  Ashelin  was  promoted  to  take  Torn’s  place  as  the  lead  Captain,  &  the  tattoo  was  slightly  changed  for  her  &  Erol  was  placed  directly  into  a  higher  role,  which  came  with  a  completely  different  tattoo  pattern  all  together  &  was  no  doubt  a  shit  on  Ashelin  in  the  process  &  feels  very  Praxis  to  do  tbh,  given  he  clearly  didn’t  trust  or  favor  his  daughter. 

While  Erol  may  recognize  Praxis  as  a  little  unstable,  he  doesn’t  actually  fault  him  because  he  believes  in  him  &  believes  hes  right  in  his  approach  to  everything.  &  if  hes  wrong ?  No  hes  not  &  Erol  will  make  him  right,  because  Erol  as  much  looks  at  him  as  a  father  figure  as  it  seems  Praxis  thinks  of  him  as  a  son.  Erol’s  less  about  the  ultimate  good  of  the  city  &  more  about  pleasing  himself  &  impressing  Praxis.  Another  thing  to  note  in  Erols  motives  for  helping  Praxis  is  that  he  really  doesn’t  seem  to  like  Haven  city  that  much.  Sure,  Erol’s  fighting  for  his  city  &  his  people,  to  protect  them  from  the  metal-heads  but  he  doesn’t  seem  to  have  a  lot  of  love  over-all  for  the  city.  In  fact,  he  seems  quite  bitter  toward  it  &  doesn't  seem  to  like  many  of  the  people  in  it  which  is  why  I  headcanon  that  Erol  came  from  a  dodgy  background  as  opposed  to  always  being  among  the  city  elite.  Which  means  unlike  Ashelin,  he  cant  look  at  the  city  or  his  hopes  for  it  through  rose-colored  glasses. 

For  me  this  just  explains  why  Erol,  despite  being  looked  at  quite  fondly  by  the  general  public,  doesn’t  really  return  the  love  &  seems  to  be  lone  wolf  outside  of  the  KG  troops  he  commands.  He  appears  more  for  individuals  (like  Praxis  &  Keira )  than  for  the  majority.  Hes  “protecting”  the  city  &  following  Praxis  orders  not  out  of  a  love  for  it  &  its  people,  &  a  hope  to  create  a  better  future,  like  Ashelin , but  more  because  doing  so  is  a  necessity  given  the  very  real  threat  of  the  metal-heads  busting  in  &  killing  everyone,  himself  included,  otherwise.  Because  even  if  Erol  doesn’t  have  a  lot  of  love  for  everyone,  he  does  have  those  few  people  he  does  care  about  &  the  metal-heads  taking  over  was  a  guaranteed  death  sentence  for  everyone.  As  Kor,  the  metal-head  leader  described  once  the  metal-heads  take  a  city  they  kill  &  eat  until  no  one  is  left.  Being  killed  by  metal-heads  is  thought  of  as  the  worst  way  to  go. 

Anyway,  now  that  all  that  rambling  is  out  of  the  way  I  was  talking  to  @pertrahe​  earlier  about  AUs  &  since  I’d  rewrite  a  lot  of  JnD  going  into  Jak  3  I  was  thinking  of  like  alternative  scenarios  for  Erol’s  death  bc  tbh  ND  fucked  this  up  &  got  a  bit  of  pocket  with  it  lmao.  Like  they  knew  killing  him  off  was  a  dumb  move  &  tried  to  bring  him  back  right  away  &  made  a  mess  of  the  whole  thing  so   alternative  events  for  Erol:  1)  Potentially  attempts  to  fight  the  metal-heads  with  his  own  squad  as  he  thought  he  could  do  during  the  start  of  the  game,  after  Praxis  death.  Gets  mauled  half  to  death  as  a  result.  Though  to  keep  the  Dark  Eco  exposure  which  I  kind  of  think  is  important  going  forward  he  could  be  involved  in  an  explosion  perhaps  by  trying  to  bait  the  metal-heads  with  the  eco  or  something  along  those  lines.  The  over-exposure  to  the  Dark  Eco  attracts  the  Dark  Makers  &  they  decide  to  save  &  “rebuild”  him.    2)  Erol’s  “death”  happens  as  canon  but  we  actually  get  more  details  on  the  aftermath  including  Keira  being  acknowledged  as  having  sage  abilities  &  being  able  to  harness  Green  Eco  to  save  him  from  death  since  Erol’s  “accident”  was  a  very  public  thing,  lmao.  Though  maybe  she  should  have  let  him  die  given  he’s  in  a  pretty  sorry  state  of  being  &  it  gets  worse.  I  like  to  think  maybe  Count  Vegar  had  something  to  do  with  Erol  suddenly  being  labeled  “dead”  &   attempts  to  eject  him  from  Haven  Hospital  &  leave  him  somewhere  to  die,  looking  at  him  as  possible  threat  to  his  own  plans  in  spite  of  his  condition,  which  similarly  to  1,  leads  to  the  Dark  Maker’s  finding  him  &  perhaps  were  the  ones  linking  with  the  KG  robots  to  “rebuild”  him  into  a  cyborg-nightmare  that  the  alien  from  Virus  1999  would  be  proud  of.  (thats  the  peek  aesthetic  here,  btw)   We  know  that  the  Dark  Makers  were  very  technologically  advanced  &  they  had  some  weird  control  over  cybernetics.  Though  they  dont  really  explain  it  in  the  game  we  can  at  LEAST  assume  this  is  how  Erol’s  canon  counterpart  was  able  to  “link”  with  the  Dark  Marker’s  &  maybe  the  massive  over-exposure  to  Dark  Eco  made  Erol  appealing  to  them.  Though  we  just  don’t  know  how  he  got  “resurrected”  as  a  cyborg  in  the  first  place.  Like  there  is  just  no  info  on  any  of  that,  this  is  just  me  speculating  &  how  I’d  probably  work  toward  explaining  it  in  AUs  /  rewrites  because  I’m  def  not  sticking  to  canon  after  Jak  2  regardless.  Theres  also  a  3rd  option  in  Erol  never  getting  exploded  at  all  &  maybe  just  putting  aside  his  ISSUES  to  work  with  the  underground  to  stop  Praxis  from  trying  to  blow  up  the  whole  city  cos  thats  a  bit  extra.  Like  Erol  would  have  fought  with  Praxis  to  the  death  but  he  probably  wouldn’t  want  to  go  as  far  as  blowing  up  the  entire  city  &  himself.  He  might  be  torn  over  it  because  Erol  does  follow  Praxis  logic  but  at  the  same  time  he  held  this  personal  glimmer  of  hope  that  it  didn’t  need  to  come  to  that  &  they  could  defeat  the  metal-heads.  Again,  Erol  was  quite  convinced  he  could  put  up  a  good  enough  fight  himself.  But  anyway,  something  happening  in  regards  to  Erol  living  long  enough  to  find  out  Praxis  actually  planned  to  blow  up  all  of  them  in  an  effort  to  take  the  metal-heads  with  them.  I  don’t  know.  I  love  the  fact  I  have  the  real,  canon  based  potential  for  a  gory  horror  cyborg  Erol  but  the  way  canon  did  it  sucked  so  bad !  So  I’m  def  down  for  exploring  all  the  possible  alternative  options.  

[lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks]

Johnny or Kitty, talking about Kitty’s parents: I’d go kill them if they weren’t already dead // Kitty’s friend: Actually I think they’re still up in a retirement home. //Kitty or Johnny (I’m still not sure which): Hmm. I would go after them but I’m pretty sure Phantom’s not gonna let me do that. //In-the-background Danny: Yeah I’m not gonna let you do that. // Johnny or Kitty: Yeah.

I'm actually gonna use this opportunity to figure out exactly what their ages are and when they might have died

Kitty's teased hair and the jacket, short skirt, fishnets combo is very 80s punk

but Johnny almost looks more 90s grunge, so maybe they were closer to the late 80s when they died, since grunge music was picking up around then and Johnny might have been early on the scene (or they died at different times but I'm not personally a fan of that idea)

I am far from a fashion expert tho so I could be totally off but this is what I could pick up from some basic googling

I'm also gonna say that even though Johnny looks like he could be in his early 20s, he's probably in his late teens and is just weather beaten by a hard life, I'm mostly gonna stick to this point because when he was dating Jazz, the Fentons only disapproved of this older boy dating their daughter, but didn't actually call the cops on him, so he must at least look like he could be underage

I also headcanon that they both died in a motorcycle accident, from a mix of Johnny's reckless driving, Kitty doing something distracting, and some pure rotten luck, they both blame each other to deflect the fact that they both secretly feel responsible

so if they're in their late teens (roughly 17 years old) in the late 80s (1988 let's say), that would make them roughly okay math fuck you can do math Lula come on they'd be in their mid 30s if we use the show's original timeline (it taking place in the mid 2000s), but since fans often bump up the show's timeline to modern day, that would make them roughly 50 years old, meaning they've been dead for just over 30 years

I think

(this was my second math attempt I somehow managed to add an extra ten years on my first go so if I fucked up anywhere here feel free to correct me)

so if they're both 50 years old, their parents could absolutely still be alive

I imagine Johnny's parents were shitty deadbeats, whereas Kitty's were really posh, but also still shitty, I actually think she would get along really well with Sam if they talked about their folks since they're both rebels who refused to conform to the snooty lifestyle (though Sam gets her energy out with extreme activism whereas Kitty was more about defacing public property and flouting the law)

Johnny's parents would likely be dead in modern day, but he wouldn't know for sure because he has no interest in trying to track them down

Kitty's parents could still be alive, they'd be in their 70s or 80s and probably receiving assisted living at home

bonus points if Sam's family know them, bonus bonus points if they're distantly related, I dunno I just think that would be kinda fun if Kitty would start seeing Sam as like a little sister and suddenly she's roping her into schemes and being ultra protective and also really annoying

it could also give Sam a window to relate to Kitty about her parents and help her decide what she wants to do when she finds out they're still alive, does she want closure or revenge for the way they treated her? do they regret being so hard on her and driving her away, ultimately leading to her death? do they feel responsible or do they just blame Johnny for stealing her away from them and getting her killed?

there's a lot to this idea, and I'm here for it

[jazzistolkienfanfics]

Younger - Aragorn x reader

Hi! I was wondering if I may request an Aragorn x Fem!reader with the prompts 7 and 11?

@dark-angel-is-back jesUS CHRIST WHY IS EVERYTHING Y’ALL REQUEST FOR ARAGORN SO FUCKING SAD?!

7. “I’m not leaving you!” 11. “Why didn’t I tell you I loved you before you left?”

Type: Imagine Pairing: Aragorn x reader Summary: alone, in a tavern in Bree, waiting for the four Hobbits he’s been tracking to show up, Aragorn Elessar reminisces on when he was younger Warnings: angst, sadness, y’all know the deal with every Aragorn piece i write for you guys Word Count: 1322 words

A/N - Estel was Aragorn’s name when he was younger.

Aragorn stared into his mug distastefully, and once again wondered why he had ordered a toxic forgetfulness potion that many of Men, Dwarves, and even Elves loved to drown their sorrows in.

Then, he heard the familiar scream echo around his mind, as it had for more than half a century, and he gripped the mug almost painfully, downing it in one gulp.

Determined, e/c eyes, staring him down in a way only she could.

A loud, enthusiastic laugh that always brought a smile to Aragorn’s lips as he watched her.

The crushing guilt as he held a scrap of once f/c fabric, now soaking with red, close to his chest, bowing his head and letting the tears fall.

No. No! He would not linger in the past tonight. Aragorn had a job to do: a-a mission. So why couldn’t he ... stop thinking about her?

It had been the same way for so long. He could never stop thinking about her. Everything about her, perfectly frozen in his memory. 

Y/N Y/L/N. She wasn’t perfect, but maybe that was what was so ‘perfect’ about her.

Before he could pull himself away from thinking about her, memories overwhelmed him, like a long-overstressed dam breaking and releasing floods of water.

“Who’s that?” A young Aragorn, around five years old, asked Elrond, tugging on the Elf’s golden robes.

Elrond followed the child’s eyeline, to a four-foot-tall elleth who was laughing as she ran around a pillar, being chased by an exasperated child-nurse.

“That’s Y/N,” Elrond explained. “She’s ... hmm, I’d say 20 summers?”

He laughed at Aragorn’s shocked face. 

“But she doesn’t look that old!”

“And I do not look six-thousand,” Elrond explained. “But she is basically the same age as you ... at least, she looks and acts like it.”

Aragorn was too young to know that the Lord of Rivendell was teasing him, and he continued to watch Y/N.

“Go on, Estel,” Elrond pushed him forward gently. “Go make a friend.”

Aragorn sometimes wished that he had never met her, because then everything that happened after would never have had those disastrous consequences.

But, then again, he wouldn’t trade the beautiful, unforgettable memories he made with her for anything. 

On what would have been her birthday, he drank another ale to her, and found himself pulled into memories again.

“Psst. Estel. Estel!”

Aragorn rolled out of his bed so fast that he fell off, and he could hear loud laughing noises.

“Shut up, Y/N,” he replied, for he knew that there was only one person who would wake him so early ... or late. He had no idea what day or time it was. “What do you want?”

“I want to go outside,” Y/N said simply. Aragorn could see her now as she stood, sitting on the edge of his bed. She’d changed much since she was younger - her h/c hair was now h/l, her e/c eyes wiser and deeper, and she was now (your height) instead of the mere four feet of a child.

She was beautiful, as all Elves were, but there was something in particular about Y/N Y/L/N ... Aragorn shook his head. He wouldn’t dwell on things that could never happen.

“What, like, outside this room, or-”

“No, outside Imladris,” she corrected. 

Aragorn shook his head. “We can’t, Y/N! Elrond has forbidden us from doing so until we’ve seen at least another ten summers.”

“And since when did you ever listen to Elrond? You certainly didn’t fifteen years ago, when you met me.”

He hated it when Y/N was right.

“Where do you even want to go?” he asked finally, resigned.

“Just follow me,” she whispered as she threw a cloak at his face, sweeping out of the room.

Aragorn stared at the rain pelting against the Prancing Pony’s windows, still feeling as strange and disconnected he had felt years ago.

Y/N wasn’t by his side anymore ... but why did it still feel like she was whispering in his ear, or pulling his arm? 

He just couldn’t really fathom how she couldn’t be still be laughing at him, a wide goofy smile plastered across her face as he grinned back.

It didn’t seem right or possible.

Aragorn couldn’t see much of Y/N’s face below the hood of her f/c cloak, but he was pretty sure she was smiling.

“Come on!”

“I can’t even see five feet in front of my face, much less the damn path,” Aragorn grumbled. “Slow down, Y/N.”

“Walk faster, Estel,” she repeated, in a mocking imitation of his voice that most would’ve found offensive, but he didn’t mind, just laughing instead.

Y/N joined him, sound of their voices quiet in the sheer roar of the storm.

“Pleasant time you picked for an adventure,” Aragorn offered. 

Y/N seemed to be about to reply, but she gasped instead, pointing. “Look!”

Her finger was raised towards the sky, and he followed her eyes, looking up into a sky full of ...

“Stars,” he murmured. “They’re beautiful.”

Something about the rain made the constellations clearer than ever - they glimmered with an ethereal beauty just as much as Y/N did.

Aragorn’s eyes widened when that last thought snuck into his head, and he looked to his side. Y/N was oblivious to his eyes on her, her head raised as she smiled and laughed, twirling slowly beneath the pale light of the stars.

She stumbled mid-spin, and Aragorn caught her easily, wrapping his arms around her waist.

“Sorry,” he flushed, letting go immediately. She, too, seemed to be blushing, but she waved off his apology, concern flashing across her face.

“That wasn’t me.”

“Sure it wasn’t,” Aragorn teased, but Y/N shook her head.

“No, I mean, I didn’t stumble. The rock moved.”

Aragorn looked around them, and suddenly, the rock moved again, a wide split forming in between them.

“Valar,” Aragorn cursed when he realised where they’d wandered. “Rock giants!”

He reached for Y/N’s hand, but the gap between them was growing wider, the rock shaking aggressively. 

“Estel!” Y/N screamed, and, for the first time since he had know her, she looked truly terrified.

“Y/N!” 

A massive grey hand seized her, small chunks of rock raining down on her as the stupidly tall giant got to its feet. It raised Y/N to his face, Aragorn yelling hopelessly as she flew even further out of reach.

The rock giant and Y/N stayed frozen in that position for a few seconds, giving Y/N the opportunity to scream something down to Aragorn.

“Run! GET OUT OF HERE! Please, save yourself!”

“I’m not leaving you!” Aragorn yelled back, desperate to save her, to do something, anything.

The rock giant didn’t seem to approve of their conversation, and it suddenly threw Y/N like a toddler having a tantrum, so that she landed at the bottom of the mountain, her body bent unnaturally ... lifeless.

“No!” Aragorn cried, disbelieving staring down at her. Another roar of the giant spurred him into action, jumping and running down to Y/N’s side.

A trickle of blood was leaking from her mouth and running down her cheek. Her eyes were vacant and unblinking. The f/c cloak had come loose from her shoulders and was now bloodsoaked.

“No, no, no, no, no, no!” Aragorn could find no other words as he shook her gently, listening for a breath, a sigh, anything at all.

Even in death, she was still beautiful.

Beautiful ... yes, that was exactly the word that he should use to describe Y/N Y/L/N.

And, far too late, he realised what he should’ve all along.

“I love you, Y/N,” he whispered to her still body. “I’m sorry.”

“Why didn’t I tell you I loved you before you left?” Aragorn asked himself quietly in the bar, clenching his mug tightly when the image of her now eternally staring eyes wouldn’t leaving his mind. 

His fault. His fault.

My fault.

The things that we did, when we were younger.

A/N - I GOT SO CARRIED AWAY BUT I REALLY LOVE THIS ONE THANKS FOR THE REQUEST @dark-angel-is-back​! 

thank you for reading!

[hecallsmehischild]

Recent Media Consumed

Books

The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell. First, I actually appreciated the foreward to the “Left Book Club” copy, even though it says that anyone who is not a member should disregard it. It gave an interesting rebuttal to parts of the book. That aside, I’m not totally sure what to make of the book. On the level of descriptive writing, I rarely find something this richly penned. But it’s loaded with concepts and lingo and even a monetary system I’m unfamiliar with, and that hampers my understanding of the points. I get the general gist, but all the finer points are very lost on me, simply because I’m an American millennial.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck by Mark Manson. I’ve seen the “F*ck” series titles floating around here and there, and I’m intrigued by a couple of them. The idea of this one is that people give way too many f*cks about everything, and that you really need to pick where you give your f*cks in life and never give a f*ck about anything that doesn’t line up with your values (in a nutshell). It’s an easy and interesting read. It’s interesting to me that, in the wake of what I hear was many years of positive-mood and high self-esteem type self help books (most of which I’ve only heard of and never read, were they before my time?), we’re getting a backlash of “Yes, life sucks. Yes, life has pain. Dealing with pain and failure appropriately is a part of life. Accept that, or lose yourself to complete entitlement” type self-help books. I’m curious what this trend produces in people over time. I’d also like to highlight that this book has the best discussion of dividing “fault” and “responsibility” that I’ve ever read.

Shows

Loki. WHAT EVEN. WHAT EVEN. WHAT. WHAT THE. WHAT THE. FRESH… THE FRICK FRACK PADDYWHACK???!!!

Mushi-shi. So, turns out the first time I watched this I somehow started on Season 2, and my source cut out before the season end… no wonder I was pretty confused. So I started re-watching this and… I remember how incredibly unsettling this anime is. It’s equal parts gentle wonder and soft horror, a blend that is very difficult to describe unless you’ve seen it. Much like Mushi themselves, eh? I think I’ll balance this out by ending each watch session with an episode of Log Horizon rewatch. That’ll keep the emotional balance intact.

Claymore. I ended up dropping this one halfway through. It has an interesting concept, but the “things that bug me” points mounted pretty fast. In the early episodes, everything is so dark that it’s hard to see what’s going on. There’s a huge amount of monologuing and info-dumping IN monologue, and this goes on even mid-fight, and even CALMLY mid-fight. Yes, this isn’t the only anime that does this, but it decreases my enjoyment. It’s difficult to take the story seriously when the big bad yells, “Why can’t I defeat you?” to the weakest-but-somehow-also-the-strongest member of a team, and then have a colleague of the team member calmly explain to the big bad exactly why he’s unable to land a blow, then they take off his head together. This show has a lot of that sort of thing. I’ll read up on how the series ended, not interested in slogging through the other half.

Elfen Lied. This is a re-re-rewatch for me. I stumbled on this anime when I was newly inducted into anime-watching and, well... given that Princess Tutu was my very first anime, this one was a real shock to my system at first. By all accounts I should have dropped it and run screaming at the time, but I couldn’t. There was something about the sheer tragedy of the story that called to me. Plus it was VERY short. So I returned to it from time to time. Now that I’ve developed more of a feel for what I do and don’t like in a story, how does this hold up? The relationships are terrible, imo, and the whole thing about diclonius is never explained enough (and I still don't understand the ending) but it's STILL hard not to be pulled in by the sheer tragedy of the series.

Movies

300. I haven’t seen this movie since college. Is it weird how much I enjoyed it as a romp? Yes, there’s death and tragedy, but the dry humor and utter gung-ho-edness of it is infectious. It’s a good flick, I’m really glad I went back to see it. And I also finally understand Leonidas telling the traitor, “May you live forever.” Damn, man. No wonder he flinched.

Weathering With You. GORGEOUS. I need to see more by this animator… LIGHT. WATER. FOOD. I hear they’re calling this person the new Miyazaki? I CONCUR. And the story is sweet and beautiful and just yes. Yes. Oh, look, he made something else before this movie…

Your Name. Okay so I have mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, fantastic story and, once again, gorgeous animation that all makes me want to track with this creator in the future. And the twist definitely socked me in the gut, I didn’t see it coming. On the other hand, I feel like this movie hits an extreme of “show, don’t tell” in a way that comes awfully close to a negative. I didn’t think that was possible, but this movie switches timelines, POV, points in time, etc, so rapidly that it becomes difficult to keep track of what’s going on, properly. I could not imagine watching this movie in theaters, it has to be watched with a remote in hand to pause, rewind, rewatch, discuss what the heck just happened. It’s like watching Mystery Skulls videos, with that level of rapid fire little details that are incredibly important to the plot, but for a feature length film. Also, after some discussion, I came to see (and agree) that there’s a foundational issue in the main relationship that doesn’t bode well for the future, as much as I rooted for them to be together. Still, it’s an incredible movie and I can see why it was the highest grossing movie for Japan a few years back.

Games

Diablo II. I’m really happy. I live in a house with my husband and his best friend, and in the past year or so we’ve begun playing games together. This is the sort of game I would never have gone to on my own because I actually need someone in the room who I can ask, “Hey, how do you assign attacks again?” or “Hey, is this piece of gear better than the piece I’m wearing?” I don’t like playing the number game on gear so much, but I let the two of them dress my character up and then I back them up in a fight and enjoy myself. Looting and exploring for treasure is probably my favorite aspect (says the person who plays Breath of the Wild just to forage for mushroom and herbs), although as a level 20 Amazon I’m now shooting out waves of 8 arrows at a time, and that’s pretty epic too. It’s a special kind of joy to find out you actually like a type of gaming as long as there’s people there who can explain things along the way and who don’t get annoyed at re-asked questions. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m having a blast playing Diablo II in a group. And as for the other game we play together as a group…

WoW Classic. I covered this before, but back then I was a lowly level 17 Dwarf Hunter. Now I’m a lowly level 36 Dwarf Hunter. With a mount! I have epic skills like explosion traps, poisonous shots, and multi-shot. My wolf has gained a ton more skills, too, and is (or so I’m told) a pretty effective off-tank. I have been told I am an effective DPS person, which makes me very happy. I really enjoy this kind of gaming, but specifically when I’m in the same room as the people I’m gaming with. Communication is a lot easier and we work really well as a team that way.

[nileqt87]

More thoughts on how to resurrect the Indiana Jones franchise post-Harrison Ford

Perhaps a proper, modern television show would be a good way to bring back a younger, but adult Indy (with perhaps flashbacks littered throughout). You can also get away with a lot more content (definitely aim for TV-14) and characters who are allowed to be flawed. Relationship dramas are serialized storytelling's forte in a way that is disappearing more and more from blockbuster films. Complicated characters are better left to television, as the audience expects and allows for it because of the nuance and depth the serialization affords. The complicated, messy story of Abner and Marion is a story best left to being explored only after the characters have some real complexity and development. It also wouldn't be forced to play to the mass audience of under-13s that makes modern PG-13 often meaningless. In comparison, TV-14 actually pushes up harder against its limits regularly--not just violence, but also with innuendo and sexuality minus nudity. The amount of historical-style, pulpy violence, not to mention potentially comically gruesome deaths, in Indy would also necessitate the rating. Indiana Jones might be niche enough at this point with an audience veering towards adults who grew up with it (Gen-X and the older end of Gen-Y), while Gen-Z has little awareness of it, that Disney wouldn't be forced to make it a total kiddie property. It's not the same situation as back in the early '90s with Young Indy being aimed at older kids who had recently seen Last Crusade in the theater. They could reboot it for television with a young adult Indy who potentially could grow into a fully adult version. And I wouldn't try too hard to not step on the trilogy's toes with the timeline. Just let it live in its own developing continuity.

Use of long-running supporting cast (parents, Remy and returning guest stars aside) would also be a big difference from Young Indy. Characters like Belloq (could potentially go from friend to antagonist, akin to how Smallville handled Lex), Sallah, Henry, Brody, Abner, Marion, etc... could actually be around a lot more than just for an adventure here or there. These are all characters Indy had clearly known for years. Actually put the show into a seasonal, serialized format that isn't a new cast every episode. You could also stick around in locations a lot longer this way, which would help with budget.

Another thought I've had since watching an absolute ton of fantasy/sci-fi dramas in the last few years is that the influence of Indiana Jones is actually pretty apparent in a number of pretty famous characters, sometimes overtly and sometimes a bit more subtly. Harrison, Indy or Raiders in general are outright name-checked in quite a few places, often by scrappy action hero types who tend to take hard beatings (the kinds of characters who should've died a hundred times over) while in situations they're way over their heads in or literally impossible odds they can't win. Like Indy, the intended prize isn't won at the end and, outside of a few gruesome baddie deaths, the shady, corrupt or evil barely get a dent. Fox Mulder and Dean Winchester are two characters who name-check the comparison overtly and you can see the writers and actors both having the influence in mind. It's obviously a male fantasy, too. The influence on The X-Files and Supernatural is definitely there. Supernatural is chock full of biblical MacGuffins (not to mention having angels and demons as most of its recurring supporting cast), so it would be a hard comparison to avoid. Raiders came up in the WWII Nazi submarine episode with a piece of the Ark onboard (it's subsequently a show to raid for Indy ideas, because they pretty much mined everything biblical), for example. The X-Files likewise was dealing with shady government officials and pretty blatantly copied the huge warehouse of government secrets loaded with alien relics (and then repeated the Cigarette Smoking Man's warehouse reveal with the tunnel of filing cabinets stretching on forever). Mulder was also very much a one-man army a lot of the time when it came to the alien conspiracy (no offense to Scully). Moments like him climbing/riding the tops of sky rides, trains and escaping the spaceship were total Indy-esque moments. Sam and Dean had literal God-tier levels of plot armor keeping them alive (repeated resurrections included). Angel is another one that, unlike Mulder and the Winchesters being very human, is a supernatural character (subsequently his level of pain tolerance and durability is at the level of regular impalement, defenestration out of skyscrapers and being set on fire), but the comparison still holds because of how often he's getting decimated and fighting forces way beyond his pay grade. Wolfram & Hart, the Shanshu and seeking redemption with the Powers that Be, like the mytharc conspiracy/alien takeover and literal God a.k.a. Chuck, is another endless, unwinnable fight that is so far beyond all the protagonists that there's no win/happily ever after and they'd be lucky just walking away from it with nothing. Angel also name-checks Indy with a blatantly Indy-inspired fantasy dream episode (Awakening in season 4) with Angelus making a crack about the Raiders fantasy. George Lucas actually visited the Angel set back in 2000 and was interested in how they were making mini movies every week and doing some pretty huge stunts on television. David Boreanaz had lunch with Lucas and has talked about it a few times over the many years. I mean, these are all shows starring action-oriented leading men and writing staffs of relatively similar age. Mostly Gen-X males with a few Baby Boomers (more so on the writing staff) with an audience that's primarily Gen-Y but appealing to a pretty broad age range (and probably a lot more female than originally intended!). Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Harrison Ford films in general were very formative to that generation. Harrison Ford is the ultimate leading man action star to a certain generation. Gen-Y got their familiarity with all of that by being the original home video/VHS generation and subsequently a lot more familiar with retro media (including things that were made before they were born or around that time) than Gen-Z. '80s movies have a lot of currency and familiarity still with Gen-Y, even if Baby Boomers were the stars of them and Gen-X were the ones who saw them in theaters. Gen-Y fangirls absolutely dominate the fandoms of many iconic television supernatural/sci-fi franchises (many are admittedly aging franchises). The WB/CW have catered to this group of fans for the last two and a half decades. If you're going to be reviving the character as a mid-20s-to-30s version (if the show lasts long enough, it probably will be stepping on the trilogy's toes timeline-wise by the end), I'd absolutely be aiming for this same audience and their tastes. They're also the audience who would be most receptive to and familiar with the character, IMO. If I were going to reinvent Indiana Jones for the television landscape, I would definitely be looking at those sorts of shows that have influence from the character already in their DNA. I think for the target audience, they'd definitely need to be aiming it at the same fanbases. Young Indy mostly tried to avoid stepping on Raiders' toes (despite Temple of Doom and Mask of Evil already making it ludicrous) by limiting the amount of supernatural elements, but I think a show would have to go all in on it. Indy would have to be transformed a bit in regards to trying to line him up with a character who would still be skeptical after all he's seen. Young Indy ended up forced into being a straight period drama with educational elements, which is very counter to what the audience wanted. There are things to keep from that approach (meeting historical persons, being a WWI veteran and witnessing history could absolutely be mined as backdrops to the stories), but the supernatural elements would have to exist in a revival now to get the audience who I think would be most receptive to it. While I would aim for a serialized drama format that would mean the globetrotting wouldn't have to completely change locations every episode (have it instead in arcs with some bigger MacGuffins and baddies perhaps crossing entire seasons), it's true that there would probably have to be more location filming than good, ol' Vancouver, but Disney is one of the few who could afford it (though Covid certainly would throw a wrench in it and political situations could potentially kill off certain locations). There's only so much green screen that Indy could get away with, though I imagine that a fair amount of it would have to be used for period piece reasons alone. There are a lot of modern intrusions even in historically-intact cities (Eastern Europe comes to mind as having a lot of its architecture intact and is affordable to film in) and around iconic landscapes to paint out. But at its core, it probably would need to bulk up its focus on the relationship dramas. Indy tends to have a girl at every port and to a degree you would introduce some of these love interests, but there's still a lot of relationships of every kind that could be developed and serialized. Certainly throw in a few femme fatales and tragic losses, given the Smallville-esque situation of there being an inevitable Indy/Marion endgame that should be kept--it thus becomes about the journey when it's a set conclusion. Absolutely have a strong recurring cast of Henry and friends new and old. The films actually have a lot of characters that Indy didn't just meet yesterday and could be developed to a huge extent. For a show to work now, there'd have to be a lot more connectivity to how often the recurring cast appear. Young Indy had a lot more of an anthology format with little chance of us getting attached to most of the revolving cast outside of a very tiny few. That's the biggest thing I'd change. You need characters to become regulars beyond just Indy if it were revived for modern cinematic television (the true successor to the film serials of the '30s!) in a way that isn't necessary for film installments.

[petersasteria]

Red - Tom Holland

Pairing: Basketball Player!Tom x Reader

Requested? Nah

6k reads celebration on Wattpad x

Tom Holland Masterlist || Ultimate Masterlist

* * * *

Everyone is destined for someone and they're called 'soulmates'. You've always believed in soulmates and you've always dreamed what it would be like to meet them. You never really understood how the soulmate system works before, but as you grew older it wasn't that hard to understand.

You thought you were the only one with this problem, but it was completely normal. Your parents explained it to you when you were younger.

Apparently, everyone is born seeing all of the colors except one. It varies from person to person and it's like that, because it has meaning behind it. The meaning depends on how the said soulmates felt when they met. For your parents, they weren't able to see the color pink until they met. Pink means hope. It gives a sense that everything will be okay.

Your parents met each other at a mutual friend's wedding and coincidentally, they're the only ones in their group of friends that aren't married yet. But they're still hopeful. So they unknowingly went to the open bar together at the reception and when they made eye contact, they were able to see the pink flowers and pink decorations. They smiled at each other and they just knew.

Then of course, they got married and had your older brother, older sister, then you.

Your brother found his at the early age of 9 and your sister found hers at 16. Both of your siblings are now married and engaged and you're now 18 with no boyfriends, no flings, and no soulmate.

After a person meets their soulmate, they go to the soulmate agency to get matching tattoos to signify that they're each other's soulmates. The agency also sets up their date based on the information that the agency has on them. The agency then sends an e-mail to the newly found soulmates' families to inform them on the joyous occasion.

You found it a little bit weird that there's a soulmate agency to do all that, but that's life.

"Chad asked me to homecoming!" Y/B/F squeals. You roll your eyes and turn to her, "Well duh! He's your soulmate! It was bound to happen. Why are you so excited? It's not like he'll ask someone else to homecoming."

Y/B/F frowns, "What's wrong? You never have an attitude unless something's wrong. So, what's wrong?"

You sigh heavily and clutch your books to your chest, "My sister's stressing about her wedding and she's been such a bridezilla and as her maid of honor, I had to deal with her in planning! Her negative energy is rubbing on me."

"Well that's upsetting." Y/B/F giggles. "Anyway, I have to go. See you tomorrow!"

"See you tomorrow!" you call out to her. You then realize that you're the only person in the hallway and you make your way out of school to go home. Just then, someone bumps into you and you fall face first into the ground. Your books are scattered and the very important notes for your sister's wedding are flying away before you even get the chance to get them.

At this point, you didn't care about your books. You didn't want your sister to yell at you again so you immediately scramble to your feet and quickly grab the very few notes that are still on the ground.

"Watch where you're going!" a voice yells. "You're so fucking careless!"

This made you mad.

You turn around to see a boy and for some reason, both of you are experiencing headaches. You look at the boy and the basketball uniform that was grey, is now a very strong and vibrant color of red.

He looks at your grey scarf which is slowly turning red and his eyes widen in realization, "Y-You're my soulmate?"

You were about to say something but he cuts you off, "Ugh, I can't believe this! I can't believe I'm soulmates with someone who can't see where they're going."

"You're the one who bumped into me! If anything, you're not watching where you're going! You made me lose HALF of the notes for my sister's wedding!"

"Well if you stood up faster, you would've gotten all of it!"

"Well if you just paid attention more, you wouldn't bump into me and none of this wouldn't happen!"

"Mr. Holland, are you ready to go home?" both of you look at the man in front of you wearing a tux and he has a serious look on his face. He looks about 45 years old or older.

"I'm kind of in the middle of something here, Bernard." the boy next to you says. "I'm arguing with- with- I don't even know who the fuck you are!"

"Y/N Y/L/N." you snap. "There. Are you happy Mr. Tom Holland, member of the basketball team?!"

He rolls his eyes and scoffs, "I'd be happy if you weren't my soulmate. I've waited for my soulmate for YEARS and this is what I fucking get?! Fuck you, Y/N."

What he said hurt your feelings. It was an asshole thing to say.

"Well, it's not my fault, is it?" you say softly. "I'm just as disappointed as you are, but you don't see or hear me blaming you."

"Pardon me, sir. But if you are soulmates, you must go to the soulmate agency right away." Bernard interrupts.

"I'm not going anywhere with her!" Tom says in disgust which makes you hurt even more. Your own soulmate didn't want you. How depressing.

"But it's the rule. There's a consequence." Bernard says.

"What's the consequence?" you ask. Bernard shrugs, "I'm afraid no one knows, because no one dares to break the rule."

"How does the agency know that we've met, anyway? They're not here. How do they know someone is breaking the rule?" Tom challenges.

"Oh, they're here." Bernard taunts. "They're watching everywhere."

You and Tom couldn't help but feel scared and find that information creepy. Bernard continues, "So, shall we go to the agency?"

"Fine." both of you grumble in response. Both of you are now sitting in the backseat far from each other. You were sitting in silence when Bernard breaks it, "It's really nice to have a soulmate. It's great to know that you'll have a partner for the rest of your life without second guessing. You'll realize that soon."

The car stops and you look out the window to see that you're in front of the soulmate agency's building.

"I'll wait at the outdoor parking lot." Bernard informs as you both thank him and get out of the car. Bernard drives off and you and Tom look at the building.

"I can't believe we're actually doing this." Tom sighs, walking inside as you follow him.

"I can't believe I'm actually here." you mutter.

You both walk to the receptionist who immediately smiles at you, "Mr. Tom Holland and Ms. Y/N Y/L/N, correct? You met at 2:45 pm outside of your school and now you can see the color red."

You and Tom look at each other in shock. Bernard was right; they're watching everywhere.

"Um, y-yeah. Who-Who do we go to? What happens next?" you stammer.

"Go to the second floor. They're waiting for you." the receptionist smiles and nods at the direction where the elevators are. Both of you quickly walk inside the elevator and press the 2nd floor.

You arrive at the second floor and see only one person there. The second floor was weird. It's only a long hallway from left and right, the elevator doors open at the center of it, so you're greeted by the wall. You and Tom exit the elevator and begin to walk to where the person is. You reach the person and see a woman in her mid 20s.

"Tom and Y/N, I've been expecting you." she smiles and motions for both of you to sit on the chairs across from each other in front of her desk. "I'm giving you your matching tattoos which will be placed on your wrists just like everyone else. So, would you like to tell me why your colors are red?"

"What do you mean?" Tom asks.

"When you saw each other, you both saw the color red. Why is that?" she asks.

"I'm sorry, I'm a bit lost. I don't know what you're talking about. Does that have a meaning or something?" Tom is confused. He was interested in the thought of soulmates, but he wasn't aware on how it works.

"Red means anger." she shrugs. "So why were you both angry when you met?"

"I wasn't actually mad at him. I was just having a bad day. My sister's getting married and she's all bridezilla and she made me write down important notes for her special day." you confess. "Now half of those papers are gone and I can't even imagine how angry she'll be when I get home without those."

"I wasn't mad at her too." Tom sighs. "I got a D on my paper on history and I really worked hard on it. I got so mad and yeah... here we are I guess."

She grins, "Your matching tattoos will be paper, because that's what made you mad." She starts preparing her tools and does both of your tattoos. After some time, she finishes and smiles at the both of you, "You may now go to the 3rd floor where you can see each other's files."

You and Tom thank her and leave. Both of you look at your matching tattoos as you walk to the elevator.

"You know," you start. "I guess it's not that bad."

He shrugs, "I guess. Sorry about what I said. I was just so mad and stuff."

"That's okay. I'm sorry too." you both enter the elevator and press the 3rd floor. You arrive there and the third floor is the same as the second floor. This time, there are three people there. The one in charge and the soulmates.

As you walk closer, you can hear them giggling. Soon, the soulmates stand up and happily leave. The one in charge is a lady who looks 30. She motions for both of you to sit down on the chair that are next to each other in front of her desk.

"I've now sent an e-mail to your families and I've now set a date for both of your families to meet. Now, it says here that both of you strongly dislike Halloween. Why?"

"I've had a bad experience." both of you say at the same time and look at each other in shock after that.

"Well, let's give it a good experience, eh?" she winks. "Your first date will be on the 31st of October."

"Why so far?" you ask.

"Well, your files say that both of you are extremely busy and you're unlikely to arrange something."

"Okay, but why Halloween?" Tom asks.

"Like I said, it's to give you a good experience." she chuckles. "Besides, you might end up loving that day, when you go on a date together."

You and Tom stay silent, still not believing that this is all happening.

"Okay, you may leave now." she says.

"What happens after the first date?" Tom asks.

"You're free to do whatever you want, but you must stay loyal to your soulmate. You're technically dating at this point, but you have the freedom to officially ask her to be your girlfriend at any time after the first date." she answers.

"Why ask her to be my girlfriend after the first date? Why not before?"

"Normally, people ask someone to be their girlfriend after the third date and that's the formal way. But you have the freedom to ask whenever after the first date. Besides, you wouldn't have time for each other at the moment. That's why I set the first date on the 31st of October, remember?" she chuckles.

"Right." Tom nods. "Well, thank you." Both of you stand up from your seat and she calls out, "I'll see you again when you propose!"

-

"Bernard can drive you home." Tom says as you and him walk to the outdoor parking lot. You shake your head, "Nah, I'm good. I'll just walk home or catch a bus."

"Y/N, don't be silly. You're my soulmate now and I'll blame myself if anything happens to you." Tom blushes. You giggle, "Fine. Only because I don't want you blaming yourself for anything." You smile at each other and you both get inside the car.

Both of you sat close to each other and both of you knew that things will be different from now on and things will be alright now that you have each other.

* * * *

Thought I'd write a soulmate au but like it's super different from what you usually read sksks

Tagging my mutuals: @fanficparker @myblueleatherbag @sweetdespairbarnes @justasmisunderstoodasloki @tommysparker @marvelousell @lcvelyparkers @lovingsiriusoswald (thanks for helping me sis uwu)

[angrylizardjacket]

runs in the family // charlotte&lola (penny&jupiter)

Summary: Jupiter and Penny somehow find themselves in 1981. What else is there to do but meet their moms at Motley Crue's first gig?

A/N: as always, for @misscharlottelee and eva ill edit this and tag u when I find ur new url. @compositionnotebook 💖 why did I write this? Because I love to suffer. Also as always, unedited.

----

Of course, waking up in a hotel room they don’t remember, with their cousin asleep in the other bed, only to realise that they’re back in LA when they’re meant to be on the other side of the country in the middle of their tour, Jupiter was understandably panicked. They hadn’t been drinking last night, and they’re pretty sure there was no way of them getting across the country without realising, and the idea that something is up is solidified when Penny wakes up and starts panicking too. 

The front desk says they’re paid up for the month; the woman’s hair is sand blonde, feathered and sprayed up to the high heavens, while the uniform she wears is the ugliest shade of green Jupiter’s ever laid eyes on, but the woman has the gall to give Jupiter’s outfit an unimpressed look. They’re all for the current resurgence in 80s fashion trends, but it feels like this woman may have committed too hard to the bit. Jupiter, nonetheless, asks the woman if she remembers how they and Penny had arrived, and the woman actually rolls her eyes and says that she’s not paid to ask nosy questions. 

It takes the cousins a full hour to find out that somehow they’ve landed themselves in 1981, a full day to believe it, and a full week to fully understand what that means. 

“I hate this, I want to do something, go somewhere,” Friday night and Jupiter’s sick to death of no TV and only the radio for entertainment. Whoever had been staying here, whoever’s place they and Penny had taken, had left a wallet with no ID, but an exorbitant amount of cash, and a closet full of clothes in their sizes. It’s eerie as fuck, but the only person who’s come knocking was the housekeeping staff, and Jupiter tells them to go away every time. 

“We are near The Strip in the eighties,” Penny suggests, flicking through a newspaper idly, lounging on the bed, “what if we saw young Guns ‘n’ Roses live, or, oh God, what about Motley, could you imagine?” Penny snorted, and Jupiter’s whole expression wrinkles to something horrified.

“They weren’t around yet, were they? What’s the date?”

“April twenty-fourth,” Penny’s expression sobers considerably from it’s delight, adding, “nineteen eighty-one,” much quieter, “fuck.”

They agree to go out, if only to get out of the room they’d been hiding from the world in, rather terrified to face their reality. There’s hesitation; do they get dressed up? Do they use the makeup sitting neatly on the bathroom counter? It felt safer to try and blend in, but blending in with the 80s nightlife wasn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world. 

Both have the distinct, horrifying thought of ‘I look like my mother’ when they’re finished, looking in the mirror, all dark makeup and patterned jeans and leather jackets; there’s a leather miniskirt that neither of them touch, not wanting to go too hard on their first night in the apparent real world. There’s a half empty bottle of hairspray on the counter that they both eye dubiously.

“It would be weirder if we didn’t spray up our hair, right?” Penny says, and Jupiter feels distinctly like a teenager, uncertain, awkward, not quite sure of their style, rather than the early-30s successful musician they were. 

It doesn’t end up looking good, at least not to their 2020 sensibilities, but as they make their way down to the street, a woman in leopard print gushes over how good they both look. 

It’s sunset, with people looking just as out there are the out-of-time cousins, band posters and flyers plastered to every wall, every telephone pole, every surface available as they walked the six blocks to The Strip. It takes only the ten minute walk from their shitty little hotel, to the Whiskey-A-Go-Go, for the reality it of it all to settle in Jupiter’s stomach like they’d swallowed ice. More specifically, it takes right up until they’re standing on the corner by the Whiskey, Penelope’s eye caught by one of the flyers on the nearby telephone pole, for Jupiter to think to look across the street at the rundown apartment complex that they realise they already know of. 

They gaze upon the window of one of the apartments on the second floor, with, even at this distance, a visibly fist-sized hole, gaff-taped up through the window. Jupiter knows that window, even as Penelope’s calling their name insistently. 

“It’s April Twenty-Fourth, right?” Penny calls, dubiously, and Jupiter says something about how that’s what she’d said back at the hotel, not paying attention.

“First ever rehearsal we had for the band, I didn’t even see your mom, she was out somewhere, the gym I think, but before she’d gone, she and Nikki had a fight and she put her whole fist through the window; I thought they were the coolest people I’d ever met.”

Tommy’s voice floats through Jupiter’s mind as they finally turn to Penny, to her insistent tone, only to step back, as if burned by the very sight of the Motley Crue poster. Penny was holding one corner in a fist, eyes wide. Tonight. The Starwood. 

“No.” Jupiter didn’t even let her get an word in edgewise, but Penny shook the poster more intently. 

“We have to,” she implored, though Jupiter was now adamantly shaking their head.

“We have to do no such thing,” Jupiter crossed their arms, cocking a hip. Turning their nose in the air at the poster, they accidently catch a glimpse of what they’re pretty sure is their mom’s apartment, and their expression reflexively wrinkles.

“What if my mom’s there?” Penny says quietly, and oh God damn it, there’s no way Jupiter could say no to that. The walk from the Whiskey to the Starwood is a good half an hour, and they’re both just glad to have opted for the flat shoes they’d brought from the future, rather than risked any of the platforms or heels that were lined up neatly at the bottom of the closet they’d raided. There’s a Motley poster ever few feet, and while dread had settled in Jupiter’s stomach, Penny was buzzing beside them nervously.

The Starwood had closed only months after Motley’s first performance, but both Jupiter and Penny had heard their family lovingly reminisce about it, with photos from the night, from nights before and after, so it strangely felt like they’d been there before, looking at the club’s name up in shining lights, Motley Crue headlining the night just below. 

“Isn’t that the guy from Rock Candy?” There’s two dudes a few feet away, squinting at another poster for the band, then looking up to the sign, both of them in leather jackets and flared jeans. 

“Dude, fuck, that’s the guy from London, last gig he played, he broke the singer’s jaw!” The second dude, delights, already tugging his friend towards the club where people were already filtering in.

“No man, their roadie broke the singer’s nose after he knocked out two of the bass player’s teeth on stage -”

It was so strange to hear misinformation spread so casually about people both Jupiter and Penny knew so well; they’d both heard the story of the night Tommy and Charlotte had met Nikki and Lola, how London had a small fight on stage that ended up giving Nikki a bloody nose, and how Lola had knocked out two of the singer’s teeth the in alley behind the bar after the gig. But here, now, it was like it’s own kind of folklore. 

They follow the men inside. 

No-one check their IDs, thank God, their own wallets hadn’t travelled back in time with them. The bouncer lets them pass without issue, and Jupiter is strangely reminded of their age as they see the people around them, a majority in their early to mid-20s, all looking right at home in leather and black denim. It’s still fairly quiet, the stage looking only half set up with a few clusters of people milling around the bar. There’s two people on the stage, setting it up, but with their backs turned, but they’re not exactly recognisable, long blonde hair and dark hair respectively, though the dark-haired one is in a distinctively spiked jacket. Closer to them, however is, a pretty red-head sat at the end, all tight clothes and effortless elegance, one leg crossed over the other where she was lounging against the bar on her barstool, a beer in one hand. Something about her is so familiar.

Jupiter and Penny carefully sit themselves by the bar too, a few seats away from the red-head, looking around but not quite processing it all. They’re at Motley Crue’s first show. 

Jupiter’s squinting at the row of drinks behind the bar, trying to decide what to order, when Penny grabs their hand so hard it hurts. Before they can turn back, however, they hear a voice they’ve only ever heard recordings of.

“Aw, Eileen, so nice of you to get me a drink,” Charlotte Lee’s tone was all teasing and light as she took the bottle out of the redhead - Eileen’s - hand, taking a sip as Eileen herself rolled her eyes.

“Lola is a terrible influence on you,” Eileen said flatly. Penny’s nails were digging into Jupiter’s forearm. Charlotte hands the drink back with a fond twinkle in her eyes.

“Lola hasn’t paid for a drink in her life, so I happen to think she’s a great influence-”

“She only drinks for free because she’s blackmailing half the bartenders in town,” the bartender himself piped up, cracking open a beer and handing it over to Charlotte without her even having to ask, flashing a grin that’s all teeth, “you ladies drink for free because I like making pretty girls smile.”

“Ricky, you’re the one who keeps hitting on her,” Charlotte points out, and his expression falls almost comically fast; “you keep taking her back to your place.”

“Only ‘cos she lives with Nikki and I don’t feel like being fucking stabbed in my sleep,” Ricky counters, pouting and flustered, his arms crossed over his chest. 

“That’s definitely fair, but it’s not Lola’s fault you’re embarrassed about having a nun fetish,” Eileen’s tone is unbothered in the fact of Ricky’s embarrassment, though her lips twitch in the barest amuse smile as she adds, “Father Richard,” and Ricky turns scarlet as Charlotte spits half her mouthful of beer as a laugh escapes her. 

Jupiter can feel their heart beat in their throw. This is so real, what the fuck. 

“Can we help you?” And then Eileen’s looking directly at Penny and Jupiter, who realise that they’re staring at the women by the bar, eyes wide like they’d seen a ghost. Ha. She’s got a single, perfect eyebrow raised, shifting in a way that’s barely noticible, but so clearly confrontational, like a cat’s fur raising even when a cat doesn’t move. 

“Charlotte Lee,” there’s a wobble in Penny’s voice when she finally speaks, and Jupiter can feel the way her hand’s trembling, “that makes... that makes you Eileen -” and she swallows hard, editing the last name she knows so well for the one that Eileen would have had in 1981, “Austen.” 

Charlotte and Eileen share a look, and then look back to Penelope. 

“Wait right here,” Charlotte sounds delighted, actually addressing Penny with a hand out.

“How do you guys know who we are?” Eileen asks, as Charlotte takes off towards the stage. Penny moves instinctively to follow her, but Jupiter holds her in place. There’s something in the evaluative look she gives them, lip curling just a little, on edge at being stared at by two strangers who must be roughly a decade older than them, who seem to already know them. “Are you friends of Lola’s?” She asks dubiously, and Jupiter is fighting the urge to run.

“Our little brother went to high school with you both,” Penny blurts out, “he was in the year above you,” but something seems to ease about Eileen’s posture as Penny tells her the exact school, and the year she and Charlotte would have graduated. It’s too specific for Eileen to think they’re lying, and for that both Jupiter and Penny are glad.

For all that Penny is Charlotte and Razzle's daughter, she was still raised, at least in part, by Lola, arguably the best liar of her generation. All the various Lee-Dingley-Sixx children had some innate ability to convincingly lie through their teeth, and though it didn't come in handy for Penny nearly as much as it seemingly did Jupiter, she was never more grateful for that skill than she was now.

“False alarm, Charlie, their brother went to school with us,” Eileen calls out, just as Charlotte is returning, dragging a dark haired woman both Jupiter and Penny knew far too well.

Seeing Charlotte at first had been so overwhelming that they hadn’t really processed what she’d looked like, but now, standing next to who could only be Lola, in 1981, it hit Jupiter just how young they both were. 

Lola’s still shorter than her own child, but taller than Jupiter remembers her ever being, curtesy of her intimidating platform boots, leather and buckles and spikes, a good match for her spiked leather jacket and studded bralette. She’s all sprayed up hair, larger than life, dark eyeshadow, and fishnets, somehow wearing so much and not at all at the same time. 

Beside her, Charlotte is only a few inches shorter, hair just as high, still with dark makeup, looking like a beautiful middle ground between Lola’s intimidating intensity and Eileen’s high glamour. In flashy denim pants and an artfully ripped, hand painted Motley Crue shirt, Charlotte’s the picture of the eighties, as beautiful and bright as any photo or recording Penny and Jupiter had ever seen. 

Charlotte’s expression falls with disappointment, but before she can speak -

“You’re twenty-two!” Jupiter hears themselves say, and Lola looks directly at them, lip curling. Jupiter’s blood runs ice cold. 

“What?” The single word is so derisive in a voice that Jupiter has never known to be cold, and before anyone else can speak, Lola looks to Charlotte, eyebrow raised. When she crosses her arms over her chest, even the leather jacket can’t completely hide how well muscled her arms are, “Charlie, I love you but I don’t give a shit about two old broads whose brother you knew, we gotta finish setting up.” It hurt like a physical ache, somewhere behind Jupiter’s sternum, each word somehow hurting more than the last.

“Don’t be rude,” Charlotte told her, elbowing her in the ribs, smiling even so.

“I don’t even know my fucking age - who are you?” Lola’s undeterred, on hand holding a roll of gaff tape in a white-knuckled grip, while the other had curled into a fist, weight shifting from one foot to the other in agitation. Okay, that’s very fair, Jupiter regrets ever opening their mouth. Fuck. 

“You don’t know how old you are?” Charlotte asks, disbelieving, breaking the tension, and Lola looks back at her, face scrunching up as the tension drops from her shoulders.

“Why would I know my age?”

“Because that’s a very weird thing not to know!” Charlotte exclaimed in disbelief, eyes wide. Jupiter, on the other hand, wracked their brains for any scrap of knowledge they’d heard about their mother’s past and actually retained.

“Sorry, we know we’re being weird,” eyes closed, they took a deep breath, trying to sort out their thoughts, “our brother Leo went to school with Charlotte and Eileen, but we... talked to a band you roadied for, and they told us roughly how old you were, but you look,” Jupiter pauses, cracking open their eyes, only to see the way Lola's expression had softened upon hearing the name Leo - oh fuck, she doesn't even know the truth about her own dad yet! -“younger than I expected.”

“I’m used to Lola being recognised around here, just got my hopes up that it was my turn,” Charlotte admits with the faintest embarrassment, picking her drink up from the bar and taking a sip. 

“One day soon, Charlie, if the boys take off, we’ll be right beside ‘em; everyone in LA will know your name,” the way Lola says it is strangely wry, like she’s self aware of the fact that her own name is out there for some less than reputable reasons, or like she isn’t fully convinced that Motley Crue would be the runaway success they all hoped.

Jupiter and Penny share a look, pained by the dramatic irony the three women across from them couldn’t even begin to comprehend.

It takes a moment, and Lola is definitely still a bit wary, but then it passes, and Lola looks to the stage again, still clearly addressing Charlotte.

"If you wanna help me with the last bit, I just need to do a sound check.” And with that, she was off, and Jupiter lets out a breath that hadn’t realised they’d been holding. Penny is still staring at Charlotte, who's rocking back on her heel as she has another drink, contemplating going after Lola, but also intrigued but the two interlopers enough to stay.

Eileen asks their names.

Penny and Jupiter share a panicked look, because they can't just tell the truth, it would make things weird in the future! What if they end up in the present named something entirely new!? They hadn't even begun to consider the butterfly effect of their being here.

"Lisa?" Jupiter says finally, picking a name they'd used in the past, but not for long, a nickname derived from their birth name in honour of their grandmother. Eileen looks wildly unconvinced, but Charlotte, bright and kind and perfect and alive, tells them its pretty. Penny is struggling to come up with an alternative, before conceding that her nickname is probably common enough that it wouldn't really matter.

"Penny's such a pretty name," Charlotte beams, and tells them its lovely to meet them, and Jupiter rests a gentle hand on their cousin's back, a silent reminder to keep breathing, as Charlotte trots off to help Lola with the last of the sound check.

Jupiter orders them both several drinks.

They end up sitting at the other end of the bar, away from the spot Eileen has clearly claimed for herself and Motley Crue's glorified roadies. Penny is quietly trying not to hyperventilate every time she thinks too hard about what's happening, and made a muffled scream upon hearing Charlotte laugh at one of Lola's jokes.

"I've died, Jup, we've died and this is the afterlife because that is my fucking mother, and she's alive, and she's twenty-one goddamn years old. She is a child. Our mothers are children. What the fuck?!" Penny hissed, and took another sip of her drink. Jup was watching Lola, so young and confident and mean as all hell, a defensive mechanism that's only made apparent to be such because Jupiter's known her longer than this version of Lola's been alive. But she smiles around Charlotte and Eileen in a way Jupiter's never seen her smile before, something grateful and adoring at the corners of her lips, an unfamiliar kind of softness in her eyes for just the barest moment.

Lola smiles like she feels lucky to be here, to be around these women, to call them friends. Here and now it hits Jupiter hard, that even decades later, their mother never fully recovered from losing Charlotte.

"We're not dead," Jupiter tells their cousin softly, and they both watch Lola and Charlotte head back to the green room before the band begins.

"But I- how, explain then, how can I go over there and touch her? She's real, Jup, really real, my mother, Charlotte Lee."

"I can't explain it, it just is," Jupiter muses, and finishes of their next drink as Lola and Charlotte reappear, followed by the band, all looking far too young and overeager, and Jupiter's heart is beating in their throat as Tommy Lee beams and waves to the crowd. They're going to be sick. Or maybe cry. Or maybe have a full panic attack right here by the bar. Fucking hell he's even more of a child than Charlotte, only twenty, and just as bright and excitable as they've known him to be, possibly moreso.

The audience seems underwhelmed, not sure what to make of these boys with their leather and hairspray and nervous excitement; Vince introduces them to the quiet bar with a yell, and Jupiter kind of hates that their future step-dad is giving them gender envy.

And then Tommy knocks over his cymbal after showing off with his drumsticks, and Jupiter bursts into tears.

They're furious at themselves for crying, hand pressed to their mouth for fear of anyone hearing if they would sob, brow furrowed into a scowl, other hand messily wiping at their eyes as they mouth defiant swears against their palm. People are jeering and booing, and out of the corner of their eye, Jupiter sees Charlotte actively holding Lola back, and something deep inside their heart knows that if there wasn't stupid fucking tears in their eyes, they'd be just as ready to defend the band's honour as their mom is.

"Oh, he's always been like this-" Penny's voice is softly adoring as she watches the man who will one day be her uncle and adopted father, before she looks to Jupiter, sees them overwhelmed with it all, and mad at themselves for feeling that, and she laughs, gentle and kind and understanding, and wraps Jupiter up in a hug. Its grounding. Even as Jupiter sulkily tells her to fuck off, they wrap an arm around Penny's shoulders and press their face into her hair.

"He looks like you," Penny murmurs as the first song starts, despite the negativity still pouring from the crowd. Jupiter wrinkles their nose, but can't help but smile. Tommy looks incredibly cool tonight, and it's true that Jupiter had inherited a lot of physical characteristics from their father.

Everyone in the bar hears the jeering way a dude in the audience asks about the 'chick singer', and for a moment, the children unwittingly mirror their mothers as Penny's grip on Jupiter tightens, anticipating when they go to lunge for the stage in outrage, but the moment the guy spits on Vince, across the bar Charlotte let's go of Lola, setting her loose on the vitriolic patrons.

Penny and Jupiter knew Motley's first gig started with a fight, but it was another thing to witness it.

Tommy leaps into the crowd, delighted by the carnage that Nikki and Vince are already taking part in, and Lola’s already knocked a guy flat on his ass. Surprisingly, Charlotte lobs her half-empty bottle at the guy who had spat at Vince, not taking direct part, but not abstaining either, cackling when it shatters against him and he's looking around, angry and confused, and Eileen says her name with a tone thats both scandalised and impressed.

In the end, by the time the bouncers step in, all that's left is Tommy absolutely wailing on a dude, and much to everyone's surprise, most of all her child's, little Lola Gone wraps her arms around Tommy's chest, cops a full elbow to the face, and still hauls him up and off his victim like he weighs nothing, even as he's thrashing and swearing and telling her to go fuck herself before realising who it is. When she puts him down, she snarls something at him, and shoves him towards the stage.

By the bar, Jupiter's mouth is agape, while Penny is trying to hold in her laughter, both of them realising just how terrifyingly similar to their father Jupiter actually is. And that at Twenty-Two, Lola is built like a tank.

The things you never truly understand about your parents because you always think of them as your parents is wild.

But above all, in the wake of the small riot, Jupiter and Penny can only feel a strange and overwhelming pride, seeing how eagerly they'd all defended each other.

"Fuck yeah, Motley Crue!" Leaves Penny's lips, delighted, at the top of her lungs, and suddenly the eyes of everyone in the bar, and more importantly, the people these two time travelling cousins will call family, forty years from now, fall on them. Grateful. Beaming. Then, laughter; Charlotte’s.

"Fuck yeah!" She echoes her daughter, and a cheer rises around the bar as the band begins playing again, energy revitalised. Charlotte beams at them, sharing in the moment, waving them both over eagerly as the bartender begrudgingly hands over a stack of napkins, while Lola's got her head tipped back, arguing with Eileen as to whether or not her nose is broken as it bleeds profusely.

Even at their first gig, Take Me To The Top sounds good, sounds like it should, all rough and energetic, and Jupiter knows how strange it would be to sing along at the band's first fucking gig, but the song, even now, feels like home.

"Lola, you're a danger to yourself and others," Eileen smirked, "and you're a terrible influence on Charlie."

"Thank you," Lola grins, right as Charlotte tries to deny it, which devolves into Eileen pointing out that Charlotte had lobbed her bottle at one of the offenders, which delighted Lola to no end.

"Don't know if you would know this, not sure how much your brother would have said," Charlotte says, grinning at Jupiter and Penny, "but my cousin, Tommy, he's the one on drums," she says, oozing pride. Jupiter and Penny both bite back on their instinctual responses, but still the surprise reads on their face.

"The one who did this to me," Lola's beaming despite looking a little like a horror movie, sounding only proud.

"He's certainly energetic," Penny says, finally, before letting herself breathe, watching the band for the moment, "they're really good," like she can't quite believe this is all real, still, "they have no idea how huge they're gonna be," the words slip out quite by accident, and both Jup and Penny share a panicked look, but the words don't get the reaction they expected.

"I knew I liked you," Charlotte's grin is sharp and pleased, and before Penny can protest, Charlotte's thrown an arm around her shoulders, "you've got taste." And that's enough incentive for Charlotte to shout both Jup and Penny a drink, oblivious to the way Penny freezes, like a deer in the headlights. Her mother's arm is around her without her mom even knowing how much this means. She looks like she's about to cry.

"Its really good to meet you, Charlie," Penny's voice is strangely hoarse, strangely honest in ways Charlotte can't even begin to understand, and Charlotte gives Penny's shoulder a squeeze.

"You too, Penny, and you, Lisa," she adds, grinning up at Jupiter for a moment, "anyone who thinks good things about my reckless dumbass of a cousin and his band is good in my books." She's so effortlessly earnest and endearing, exactly as everyone had described her, able to make friends wherever she went. Penny tentatively thanks Charlotte when she hands her a drink, and wraps an arm around Charlotte's waist when the younger blonde seemed content with an arm around Penny's shoulders.

"I can't believe you two are the only other assholes with taste," Lola smirks, holding a napkin to her nose.

"Get bent," Jupiter fires off automatically at the vaguely derisive tone, and Lola flips them off while Charlotte shoves her in the ribs. This moment, in its own weird little way, makes sense.

[path-of-my-childhood]

"Miss Americana" Director Lana Wilson on Capturing Taylor Swift, Mid-Transformation

By: Chris Willman for Variety Date: January 31st 2020

Lana Wilson was taking a risk - albeit a pretty good bet - when she set out to make what turned out to be “Miss Americana,” her new Netflix documentary. As Taylor Swift told Variety: 

“When I began thinking about maybe possibly having a documentary-type thing happen, it was really just because I felt like I would want to have footage of what was happening in my life, just to have later on in my life, even if we never put it out, or even if we put it out decades down the line. When we brought Lana on board, I was pretty open with her about the fact that this may be something that I wasn’t actually ready to put out. So I think we began the process without a lot of pressure, because I didn’t necessarily think that it was an actual eventuality to put out the documentary.”

Wilson was too fascinated by what she was getting early on to worry much about whether her subject would sign off on releasing it. At the outset, she was catching Swift at the end of the “Reputation” album/tour cycle, when Swift was finding a more contented place in her personal life and finally exorcising Kanye-gate from her system. The star quickly moved on to the making of “Lover,” her most upbeat album, with Wilson getting fly-on-wall footage that captures the joy of creation and eureka moments in the writing process in a way few films ever have. And then things got more interesting altogether when Swift decided that the days she could afford to be standoffish about what was happening in the country had come to an end. The movie - and by now, it was a movie - had its third act.

Variety spoke with Wilson for the magazine’s cover story last week on Swift, prior to “Miss Americana’s” Sundance premiere. Here’s a breakout of more of that conversation.

There is some footage in the movie that goes back a few years that clearly predates your involvement. When did you start filming - was it during the “Lover” writing and recording sessions or the “Reputation” tour before that? I came on during the tour. She had been collecting bits and pieces of footage; she often filmed stuff with her own cell phone - songwriting stuff. Netflix introduced us, and we really hit it off the first time we met. She had watched my previous work, and I had admired her for years, not just for her music, but also the fact that she had written all of her own songs since she was 15, and that she’s the sole creative force behind the whole shape of her career. When we met, I remember being excited that she didn’t want to make a traditional pop star documentary. She knew that she was in the middle of a really important time in her life, coming out of a very dark period, and wanted me to collaborate on something that captured what she was going through that was raw and honest and emotionally intimate.

When we first talked about it, she immediately wanted me to bring my perspective as a director to what was going on with her now and to make a film that really had something to say. I think the first time we met, we talked for 20 minutes about narrative structure in documentaries, and we even talked about film score in documentaries. At one point she said that she didn’t like documentaries that are like propaganda, and I was thrilled to hear that. In my work, I take stories that are often told through sound bites and headlines and bring depth and complexity to them. My goal is always to reveal the humanity that’s beneath the oversimplification. And to me, there are few things more frequently diminished and reduced by others than female creative forces.

It could be seen as a feminist statement, or at least some kind of intention on her part, that she picked someone who’d made an abortion documentary (“After Tiller”). It could also mean that she was just more comfortable with a woman. I think that’s totally true. When I started filming, it was before she’d come out politically. But that said, even before meeting her, I could only imagine how much pressure and scrutiny she’d faced as a powerful and successful female artist. And I definitely sensed that those pressures would be ones that other people and especially other women and girls could relate to. Obviously, yeah, I’m a female artist working in a male-dominated industry. So although Taylor and I inhabit very different worlds, I figured that we’d have some shared experiences. And I also worked with an all-female crew, which I do think helped her feel comfortable right off the bat, and a small crew. When I met her, she hadn’t done an interview in almost three years. The first one she did was an audio (-only) interview with me for this film. So it was a big deal, and trust was a big part of that.

You had an all-female crew, but Morgan Neville’s name is on there as a producer, and he’s not a gal. [Laughter.] What’s his role in it? He was a part of the creative process, and it was wonderful to get to work with him, as a creative sounding board, from start to finish. On the crew, I will say that we did always have male production assistants, because I like trying to show people that men can fetch coffee for women, and not just the other way around! So that was the only exception to the all-female rule.

It had to have been a small crew, when you were filming the fly-on-the-wall creative stuff in the recording studios, sometimes in very small control rooms. It was often just me and one or two other people in the room with her, trying to keep the footprint as small as possible. You know, no one had filmed her writing songs before. That was some of my favorite stuff to film, but it was also the stuff where we tried to really be the most low-key presence possible. You’re just in a tiny room, and it feels so amazing to watch her get in the zone creatively. One of the most fun parts for me as a director is when it feels like you’ve been in the studio for enough hours that everyone is so relaxed that you really feel invisible in a wonderful, exciting way.

When she’s having the talk with her team about wanting to make endorsements for the midterm elections, which is maybe the most important scene in the film, it’s not clear if that is something you shot or if that was something that was on the spur of the moment, where she had someone get a camera in your absence. That was spur of the moment. So that was something someone on her team shot who was pretty good with the camera. That was very last minute. I’d been starting to work with her and talk with her before that, and I’d say, “If something’s happening last-minute that could be at all important or meaningful, film it with your cell phone, of if there’s someone around you that has a little DSLR camera or something, they could film it.” It allowed us to get really powerful, crucial scenes like that one that might’ve been hard logistically to get otherwise. And I love the personal quality of that material from especially the few little bits of stuff from her cell phone.

She told us she wasn’t sure she wanted to actually make or release a movie when filming started. Did she make that clear to you when it started? Like, this might be on spec, and might not come out? Well, it was less talking about the end result and more, honestly, just talking about what she was going through emotionally at that time and the kind of things that were on her mind. Then we’d brainstorm stuff that could be cool to film. I love the idea of filming really quiet, almost more mundane moments, because I think that ordinary/extraordinary contradiction that’s so central to the life of someone in the public eye is really interesting. I loved that moment early in the film where she’s alone in the car in the dark after the show riding to her hotel room - the idea of going from being on a massive stage in front of tens of thousands of people to being an ordinary person alone just going to bed at the end of the night.

She’s already been pretty candid with her fans. There are moments in the film where she’s shown as being annoyed with the fans and photographers gathered outside her door and that sort of thing. Do you think she felt okay with being portrayed as not being happy at all times? Oh yeah, totally. She’s a complex human being, and I think whether you like her music or not, if you watch this movie, you really get to know her as a human. And as you say, she writes so candidly in her lyrics about the hardest times, the times when she made mistakes. And that is what her fans love her for. But a lot of people don’t share their hard times. The most popular photos on Instagram are of weddings and babies, when what’s really relatable and what’s meaningful is connecting with someone over that time things weren’t perfect, or the friendship or relationship that didn’t work out, or the argument you had with your mom or something. You know, everyone wants to feel less alone in the more difficult experiences in life. And that’s one reason why they turn to art. And I think it’s why people watch movies. And the happy moments are meaningful when you’ve also been through the sad ones. Young girls need to see that their heroes are just as human as they are. And I think girls and boys of all ages could benefit from that reminder.

I want people to be surprised by it because I think that Taylor Swift is someone who everyone thinks they know. But I think if people start watching this film, they’ll realize they’re watching a film about this iconic artist deciding to live life on her own terms, and it’s a feminist coming of age story. I think they’ll be surprised by her sense of humor and her self-awareness, and they can appreciate the craft of songwriting, for instance. So I hope that even if people are not fans, that they’ll watch the movie and be really surprised and also feel like they’ve just met a complicated, layered human being.

Very few people at the superstar level have the gift of healthy self-awareness that she seems to have. Self-consciousness, yes, but self-awareness, that’s more rare. Yeah, it’s so true. I’m sure you’ve seen bits of the home movies in some of her videos in the past. When I looked at the home movies, what struck me the most about them is that she really always has been the same person. She’s been kind and generous and smart and imaginative and very hardworking since she was a girl. At age 11 she knew exactly what she wanted to do with her life. One of my favorite moments in the archives in the film is this clip of her, where she’s like in a diner and it’s just after the release of her first album, and she’s 16. Her childhood dream has just come true. And she tells the interviewer that she wakes up everyday being like, “Yes, this is happening.” But then she tells herself, “Now you have to figure out how to make it last.” That is so her. She had so much maturity and pretentiousness then, and she knew she wanted this to be her career and her life, and she wanted to write songs forever. It’s incredible to see a person at that age that self-possessed and cognizant.

At one point she says she wants to use her platform to speak out because she’s aware she won’t be in this position forever, where her opinions have some kind of import. Not that she’s predicting a major downfall, but she knows she won’t always have this attention. That’s undoubtedly true, but at the same time, she’s one of the only ones besides Beyonce that we would imagine being almost as big a star in 20 years, and not necessarily subject to the normal standards of diminishment of interest. She’s conscious of the historically short lifespan of female pop stars, and it’s so poignant when she says that. But it’s hard to know what will happen, though, because she issuch a trailblazer. I mean, there’s just been no one like her, and her fan base and the relationship she has with her fans is so unique, and, I mean, she’s already done so many things that no one else has done before — who knows what will happen in the future? She is cognizant of what’s happened in the past and what’s going to happen in the future … but it could be anything, because she’s different than anyone that’s come before.

We can hope we all live long enough to find out what a 50- or 60-year-old Taylor Swift is like. I love that idea too. I want to go to the arena tour of a 60-year-old Taylor Swift. I want to know what the songs she’s writing then are.

The last third of the film focuses on her decision to make a political statement and what comes after. It was a profound decision for her to make, and a multilayered one. In that, I saw this feminist coming-of-age story that I personally connected with, and that I really think women and girls around the world will see themselves in.

You didn’t actually have the “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince” song in the movie, but that’s the song on the album that most speaks to her political turn. So it seemed like a good thing to title the movie after? It was cool because it’s obviously, yeah, a reference to this song she wrote that has political themes. It was interesting that when the documentary was announced, her fans instantly understood some of the themes the film would have, because of the song title. And then for me, even if you don’t know the song, I see the movie as in some ways looking at the flip side of being America’s sweetheart. So I like how the title evokes that, too.

You have the twin moments of disappointment in the movie. Early on, you have the Grammy disappointment, and then later there’s the midterm result disappointment. Those are the parallel scenes, almost, where she’s having to deal with the results not turning out as she planned and one of these ultimately being more important than the other. I’m glad you noticed that. That means a lot. One thing that I think is amazing about her is that she goes to the studio and to songwriting as a place to process what she’s going through. I loved how, when she got the Grammys news, this isn’t someone who’s going to feel sorry for herself or say “That wasn’t right.” She’s like, “Okay, I’m going to work even harder.” And I think it’s amazing how you see her strength of character in that moment when she gets that news. Then with the election results, I loved how she channeled so many of her thoughts and feelings into this song (“Only the Young”). It was a great way to kind of show how stuff that happens in her life goes directly into the songs. You get to actually witness that in both cases.

Were you surprised that she addressed having had what could be described as an eating disorder? She seems hesitant to use that term but finally does. She’s been open about so many things, but that’s not something that she’s revealed. No, that’s one of my favorite sequences of the film. I was surprised, of course. But when you hear her talk about it, I love how she’s kind of thinking out loud. And yeah, she’s an icon of beauty, but even for an icon of beauty, as she articulates so beautifully, women are in this double bind situation. It’s impossible for anyone to meet every standard of beauty. It’s an impossible situation. And every woman will see herself in that sequence. I just have no doubt. And I do think people will be really surprised by it.

I tend to be clueless about these minor shifts in weight or body size, until people point them out en masse. It never would have occurred to me that she was any less thin on the “Reputation” tour until I started seeing comments about weight gain. But there are those who have their antennae out for the slightest change, and often it’s women, maybe it’s because you’re under that scrutiny yourselves. But you can also just not notice people being really skinny, because we’re all so accustomed to seeing women on magazine covers who are unhealthy skinny, and that’s become normalized. I think it’s interesting what you say about what you read during “Reputation” about her weight, because you really can’t win. There is a moment in the film where you see that part of the media backlash she experienced during 2016 was people saying, “Oh, she’s too skinny.” People complain if you’re too skinny, and if you’re not too skinny, you’re too fat. It’s incessant, and I can say this as a woman: It’s amazing to me how people are constantly like “You look skinny” or “You’ve gained weight.” People you barely know say this to you. And it feels awful, and you can’t win. So I think it’s really powerful to see someone who is a role model for so many girls and women be really honest about that. It’s a brave thing of her to do, and I think it will have a huge impact.

Her interactions with Kanye West are such an essential part of the story, but that’s not a name that has really ever escaped her lips publicly since 2010; she’ll say “a person” or something euphemistic if she has to address it. So I was in suspense to see whether or how much it would come up in your film,  given how little capital she wants to give this guy in her life. It’s a crux, twice, of her journey of self-acceptance, but it’s easy to imagine her not wanting it in the film. I think it’s an important part of the story, but I wanted to position… Like, with the 2009 VMAs, what was surprising to me when I asked her about it was that she talked about how the whole crowd was booing, and she thought that they were booing her, and how devastating that was. That was something I hadn’t thought about or heard before. And it meant a lot more to me because it made more sense in the context of her being this extraordinary young artist who is doing so well, and who, like so many performing artists, loves applause. And then she is on stage [still as a teenager] and it felt like all these people were booing her. When you put it that way, it’s so much more relatable to me, and it’s understandable to anyone, because we all want people to like us. And being on stage with a giant crowd booing would be horrible for anyone. So we tried to use it in a way that showed it in a slightly different light than people have seen before... We all care about what people think about us. It’s not a celebrity problem. It’s a universal one. It’s something everyone goes through, and I think the difference is that with Taylor, it plays out on a massive international stage.

At the outset, you’ve got her in voiceover talking about how she wanted to be the good girl and be accepted. And in the end, she is a good girl, so maybe that’s not a bad thing to want to be, but there are gradations of that. She’s played around with bad girl archetypes in the “Reputation” imagery and songs, but it was role-playing to a degree. Where do you think she ended up on the scale of all that? She starts out as a good girl and she ends up as a good girl who’s decided to speak out. You know, we live in a society in which girls are taught that other people’s approval is of paramount importance to our self-worth. “Do they like me? Was I nice enough? Are they mad at me?” Every woman I know is constantly asking herself these questions. So it’s so relatable in that way. But it’s not about not being a good person. I think that the arc in the film and what Taylor went through was letting go a little bit of what other people think of her, deciding to live on her own terms, and to put her own values first. The transformation that you see is going through this period where she lets go a little bit of that. She’s a good girl speaking out now, in a way. You can’t win everyone over. No one can. I think she’s really accepted that in a deep way.

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

Hello! I'm pretty sure I saw you mention a while ago that you were disappointed by confessions of the fox, would you mind explaining why? I've seen mostly good things about it myself. If I misremembered then I'm sorry and I hope you have a good day :))

I think this is one of my less popular opinions. And I understand - we so rarely get historical fiction with trans folk as the titular character (indeed, we rarely get any fiction what that). So I get people’s desire to laud it. 

For me though? It fundamentally didn’t work as a book. As a story.  

Let me count the ways. (Apologies in advance for the length of this.)

First: If you’re trans-ing someone who was historically cis instead of seeking to find a real, historical trans or gender-nonconforming person, I have questions. 

Most of the questions can be summed up as: Why? 

I struggle with historical fiction that takes a cis person and re-imagines them as trans as if there aren’t already literal historical, real trans people out there whose stories can be told. It smacks as (unintended, well meaning) erasure of lived experiences. 

Jack Sheppard, to the best of our knowledge, was a cis dude. There were trans folk in London in the 1710s and ‘20s. You might have to dig a bit for them, but they’re there. Because trans folk have always been there. 

Second: Characterisation 

This is more personal taste, but I found Jack and his girlfriend Bess to be inexcusably boring. How a trans, thief and gaolbreaker in 1720s gin-soaked London can be written as boring is anyone’s guess. But he was. 

Jack had no real personality and I found his story to be uninteresting. Oh, he’s the world’s best thief and gaolbreaker, that’s nice. But on its own it isn’t enough.

He had few to no faults. Childhood trauma isn’t a personality. Nor is being trans. And the author relies heavily on gender + occupation (thief-ness) to equal personality. So it falls very flat.  

Bess, his girlfriend, is a mixed-race sex worker from the Fens (even though actual real-Bess was from Edgeware). She seems to only exist to demonstrate that Jack is good at sex. She also veers a little into the Mystical Woman of Colour Healer Who Aids The White Person on their Journey of Self Discovery trope. 

Neither Bess nor Jack undergo any real change in the book. They exist in a weird stasis and experience no development, despite living through some harrowing things. They’re wooden dolls who move through the story without really engaging with, or being influenced by, the things around them. 

The other “main” character is a modern Academic who “found” this supposed “manuscript” of Jack’s life and is annotating it. His story unfolds in the foot notes and it’s just so messy if not a bit contrived. It didn’t make sense. I think the author was trying to convey that the Academic was in a sort of dystopian future, but if that’s the case it didn’t work. And if that’s not the case, the entire inclusion of the Academic’s story served only to annoy and take me out of the reading experience. 

E.g. There’s a scene where the Academic is being taken to task by the Dean for playing stupid games on his phone during office hours and like honey, lapsed-historian/academic here, trust me the Dean doesn’t give a fuck what you do during your office hours so long as you’re in your office and students can come bother you about their poor marks. 

The manuscript is supposedly being sought after by this pharmaceutical company for nefarious reasons that never struck me as being entirely realistic/believable. Also, the university was spying on this non-tenured, slightly useless Academic as if he somehow mattered? Which made zero sense. Anyway, it was stupid and should have been ripped out of the final version. OR changed substantially. 

Jonathan Wild, the thief taker (main antagonist to Jack), is probably the only interesting person. 

Third: Lack of Follow Through, or, the Fabulism Was Not Used Well 

The book tries to blend in some fabulism to the world by giving Jack the ability to “hear” the thoughts of inanimate objects. This could have been fun and gone to some interesting places, but it failed to deliver. 

I personally found the shoe-horning in of “capitalism commodifies everything” to be sloppy and heavy handed. It was done with little grace and didn’t sit right given that we are dealing with the early modern period. Yes, you can use the past to critique our modern woes, but do it intelligently. Don’t slap modern points of view and understandings of things onto the past and expect them to make sense. 

Anyway, Jack spends the book hearing inanimate objects talk to him, asking him to “free” them, or something. And uh .. .it doesn’t go anywhere interesting after that. 

Also the correlation one can draw from these objects to, you know, slaves, is uncomfortable. Especially as it’s the cargo of the EIC ships that Jack hears. I don’t think it’s intended in any sort of malicious way, but the allusion is there and I always found it to be distinctly uncomfortable. 

Fourth: Misuse of Marxist Theory, or, More Heavy Handed Moralizing that Annoyed the Dear Reader because it wasn’t subtle and, more importantly, it wasn’t done intelligently. 

So, the author is an academic - studies 18th century lit. Which is readily apparent as his Academic (self-insert) character is, I believe, supposed to be a historian and uh ... you can tell that the author doesn’t know enough to wing that. E.g. How he interprets some of the laws and customs of the time. Instead of understanding the social, economic and, most importantly, environmental issues that gave birth to laws like “the corporation of the city of London owns the streets so you can’t muckrake” he chooses to understand them through a very 21st century lens (and a Marxist one at that. I know I’m perhaps a bit uncool for this, but I find the application of Marxist theory to the early modern period to be ... not useful). 

Do you know why, mid/late 17th century London passed these municipal laws? Because of the god damn fucking plague you numb nut. You absolute buffoon. It had nothing to do with “oh the City/government is evil and wants to own you” it had to do with the fact that no one cleaned the goddamn street. So the city took over doing it. 

Prior to this, in London, you were supposed to keep the street in front of your building clear of waste, debris, refuse etc. No one did this, of course. I live where it’s cold and snows a lot and people can barely shovel the 2 sq ft of sidewalk in front of their driveway in the winter. I dread the idea of an average homeowner being expected to keep the street clear and clean. 

Anyway, guess what dirty streets attract? Vermin. Guess what comes with vermin? Plague. Guess what happened in 1665/66? The great plague of London! 

17th century England might not have understood germ theory, but they did understand correlation. (Also, the population of London was doubling at the back half of the 17th century and streets needed to be reliably cleared for through-traffic reasons etc. etc.) 

ugh, sorry, that one in particular drove me up the wall. Not everything is a capitalist conspiracy. Especially when we’re talking about municipal by-laws from the 17th century. 

And I understand the temptation to read a lot of modern interpretation of words like “corporation” and “company” onto bodies that used these same words in 17th and 18th centuries. But the weight, meaning and connotation of “the worshipful company of merchant adventurers” is different from, I don’t know, “the tech company google” or whatever. The early 18th century is when we start seeing the birth of the stock market, of “venture companies” (i.e. merchant adventure companies), of a lot of the language and proto-iterations of what will grow to be economic institutions of our time. But it doesn’t mean they’re the same and that difference is important. Because Jack Sheppard is a man living in 1720 he’s not going to be having our modern 21st century critiques of capitalism because his engagement with the economic systems of his time would have been radically different to our own experiences. 

Fifth:  Unbelievable Top Surgery & Recovery 

So, Jack gets top surgery. In 1720s fever-ridden London. While quarantining in a brothel. 

And he lived! No infection! No tearing! He was up and about in a matter of days. I don’t remember if his nipples survived the operation or not but somehow Jack did. Without anesthetics! Or you know, any concept of hygiene. 

His Mystical Girlfriend Who Exists to Show How Good Jack is at Sex is also somehow Magically Very Literate and also Magically a Surgeon? and performs this surgery on Jack in the middle of a plague. 

The entire ordeal was so poorly handled in terms of believability that I literally set the book down and said “what the fucking fuck” to the empty room then drank wine before finishing the chapter. 

An aside, it is funny thinking about the quarantine chapters at this point. I read COTF when it first came out a few years ago. Sweet summer children, we none of us had any idea how to write quarantine scenes. 

That reminds me: the entire quarantine thing was presented as the government trying to control movement and take away people’s rights etc. instead of a very normal, typical response that cities had been enacting since 1350. Samuel Pepys, who lived through the 1665/66 epidemic, barely even notes the restrictions. He’s like just “hmmm I’d love to go to the pub but I also don’t want to die. so. *shrug*” 

At the time of the author’s writing, most of us in the western world had no idea how normal and day-to-day disease was for our ancestors and yes, sometimes there would be crackdowns to try and curb it if an epidemic hit. That was part and parcel of life. So again, Jack and Bess wouldn’t be like “ooooh we’re 21st century slightly libertarian lefitsts who think the government is doing this to control us and for nefarious purposes”. Much more likely, they would have been like Pepys and viewed it as nuisance, albeit a necessary one. 

Sixth: Overall Lack of Realism 

I think I’ve noted the big moments where I was like “no one in the early 18th century would think that I’m pretty certain”. This isn’t to say people didn’t grouse, complain about London government (and the king etc.), critique or question the world they lived in. They absolutely did! Regularly. With great verve and gusto, if the broadsheets are anything to go by. But their critiques, their complaints, suggestions for bettering life, are not the same as ours. Because how could they be? They lived in a different world, were responding to specific things, grew up hearing and believing certain things etc. 

Jack, aside from having minimal to no character, really did read like a modern slightly-libertarian leftist who was plunked into a novel that takes place three hundred years ago. 

In addition to unrealistic political views, his understanding of body, gender, sexuality and identity also read as incredibly modern. Now this is harder, because we have so few extant sources from that time on those who lived non-gender conforming lives, and from their point of view, so yes creative imagining and interpretation is the rule of the day for writing that. 

But, we do know how in general the average person engaged and understood gender and sexuality and that would, naturally, inform anyone whose experience was different. And that base line of “probably what a typical cis Englishman or woman felt about their body and identity” wasn’t present. At all. 

Indeed, gender engagement at that time was interesting. The concept of the body, the role of the physical body, how it was interpreted is absolutely fascinating and the author could have done some really cool things with that. But he didn’t. He went for slapping a modern interpretation onto the past. 

At this point, write a dystopian novel and make Jack a fictional character. That probably would have gone over better, for me at least. The conceit can remain the same: It’s the year 4056 and an Academic found a manuscript from the year 3045 when the Dystopia Was a Thing - and go from there. 

--- 

I think part of what made this very popular and why people seem so taken with it is that it reads smart. It reads like someone who has immersed themselves in that world etc. because of the slang and language used. 

Yet, for me, as someone who has studied this period extensively, especially queerness in London in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, it read flat and unrealistic. 

I was initially very enthused when I started it. There are some posts to that effect on my blog. But it very quickly went south. It tries very hard to be Radical and Smart and Subversive and Critiquing Everything and so I think it fails at the fundamental thing it should be doing: telling a good story. 

(Note: The book does try and address racism in London at this time. It also felt a bit forced. And Jack seemed to have no prejudices or preconceived notions about Indian and Black folk which isn’t realistic. Like, it might make him #Problematic but my dude, you’re writing a man born in 1702. He’s going to have some iffy views. That can be challenged! Absolutely. But they still would have existed.) 

---

Thank you for the ask! I again apologize for the length of the reply. 

[iamnathannah]

Longing with a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Twenty-Eight| Part One | Innocent & Unknowing

Title: Longing with a Cherry Tomato on Top | Chapter Twenty-Eight, Part One | Innocent & Unknowing Author: Nate Pairing: Paris/Rory, varying POVs Spoilers: Nothing to be spoiled show-wise, as we're well into my alternate universe here. Rating: R (sexual situations, allusions and recalls about past mental and physical abuse of a minor) Disclaimer: Despite all of us wishing she didn't at this point, Amy Sherman-Palladino still owns the Gilmore Girls, along with Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, Hofflund-Polone, and whatever entity in the AT&T Deathstar now owns Warner Bros. Television (currently WarnerMedia). All other products mentioned within are the property and trademarks of their respective owners, and no disrespect is meant or implied. And yes, the mention of the setting in the end of this part was exhaustively researched and is completely true to where it is in Hartford. Archiving: AO3, RalSt, FF.net and aff.net. Since I have had so many issues with other sites shutting down after posting my work, from now on you must explicitly contact me to archive this story and promise to maintain your posting venue for more than a year. If you intend me to help start a Prory/Gellmore site, you need to commit to it for the sake of our fandom. Summary: It's the first Christmas Day for Paris and Rory together, and the Gilmore girl begins to understand why December 25th has never been easy for her upper-class girlfriend beyond not observing it due to her religion. Author's Notes: I'm posting this 2½ years after I promised a new chapter, and I do apologize for that, whole-heartedly. But I don't think any of us expected that 2020 would be spent since March inside most of the time, wearing a mask outside in public (including going to college), and that we wouldn't have struggles with unemployment and trying to find things to do. I hate to admit...my muse died for this story for about a year because I didn't feel well mentally. Coronavirus (and everything going on with it politically and our 'president') has not helped either. I'm getting help so hopefully in the future I can focus on this story (along with improving my life overall in general) and get it out to you faster. But as it is...I'm just one person, and I hope you do understand what goes into the process of writing it. During this time I also got a new MacBook Pro...so I'm learning how to work with MacOS. As someone who has been all-Windows since 3.11, this is a change I'm getting used to for sure (but it's so much easier to work with text!).

Also...the reviews of certain people who think I am a 'man-hater' (LOL!) also got me down and made me feel maybe I was too hard on Dean in the last chapter. But being in my friend circle, I think I got him right, and I reject those types of reviews out of hand in the future. You are reading a fic about Paris and Rory as a couple. Do you really think I'm going to be neutral on how awful and possessive Dean was? I've warned you multiple times before where I'm coming from. I'm going to say this now; if you're a fan of Dean or Christopher, please don't bother me any further. I'm not going to change my views that they're horrid men, and I won't waver on that going forward. Thus, I take back my early statement in a past AM that 'I mean no harm to Dean'...a statement I made in the mid-2000s before I wised up and found my current friend circle. And I stand 100% behind how he was in the last chapter.

And as for chapters...going by my word count, we're going to end up with this 'chapter' being around 130,000 (!) words, so I've decided over the next month, up to Thanksgiving, I'll be releasing it over about four-six parts rather than in one chunk, so you can pace yourself. That way...you have something to look forward to, and I can hopefully look forward to your feedback and criticism, which I will take, in any form.

For this chapter, I'd like to thank everyone who has stuck by me for the decade and a half plus reading this story loyally, and even those who are still discovering the show just now and have only strengthened the flame for Gellmore. One of them is anxiouspunk on AO3 (or on Tumblr, @paris-geller-was-straightwashed), who has posted a lot of amazing fic with our favorite duo in all the eras of the show (outside S6/7), including with their children. They are an amazing writer, and I'm glad to know them. Through our shared fandom, I've also gotten to know Lena (@lanafannabanana on Tumblr) over the last couple years, and I would recommend their Good Girls stories and if you just love obsessing over Rachel Weisz and Christina Hendricks. As always, Danielle and Taylor are always my rock, and I thank them for being here for me as all this has gone on. Also @dollsome-does-tumblr on Tumblr for being the one cranking out so many Gellmore gifsets (and some great fic herself)...thank you for your service!

The biggest reason I agonize over this chapter...is it establishes my overall headcanon for Paris and her most special of days, along with more of her family background beyond ASP's 'she has a mean mom'. I read too many stories where Mitchum is Worst Father Ever to Logan, and Paris always spoke with love about her dad (despite the S6 tax mess which just felt like ASP wanting to write another character and dragging Liza with her). Over the last two decades, this is how I imagine how she came into the world, and how despite it all, she does have a support system with her family. I wanted to post something for not only the 20th anniversary of Gilmore Girls, such a special show to be, but for the day Liza Weil first came onto our screens as Paris Gellar. Though I did not actually watch on October 12, 2000 (my first episode was Rory's Dance two months later, thus I had to back-track and be thankful the WB aired reruns...in January...on VHS...remember those?! Video on demand and stacking rights are a lifesaver!), I still hold Paris close to my heart, and telling this story as a love letter to her character and what might have been with Rory is what I hope to leave behind in this world proudly one day.

To end this novel of an author's note (last paragraph, I promise!), yes, I'm going to please say vote safely and carefully on November 3 if you're in the United States, or before then if you can. Mail your vote (or put it in a government-endorsed safe dropbox), and please don't waste it on a rapper or former pageant owner who is disrespectful to those sacrificing their lives to keep everyone safe, despite his own suffering he learned nothing from. I (and everyone I know) would like to wake up looking forward to January 20 at noon, knowing our country's future is bright, rather than four more years of...this. And so much bigotry. I usually tease about this...but if you're a bigot, please click out of this story and move on to anything else. You are not welcome here.

That said, on with the story. Title inspiration from "Fear" by Sarah McLachlan.

AO3 | FF.net

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

so i’d really like to finish my guardian takedown lore analysis, but honestly the game isn’t really fun to play at the moment anymore (even with the health debuffs they added) so I think im going to be taking a break for now because I’m just not having fun anymore.

this game has a lotta mechanical problems i think need to be addressed so im gonna summarize it as bullet points below. I’ll play the new dlc when it drops, but idk if i’ll be on more than that (grinding, end-game stuff) until they make some serious changes. I’ve been playing (near) daily since launch, followed the patch/hotfix notes every single week, and my patience has finally, FINALLY run dry, especially with that really disappointing Phase 1 Patch and then the hotfix this week not adding anything else. What is the balancing team doing??? 😩

tl;dr: FIX THE VAULT HUNTERS!!!!

anyway. That’s all I needed to get outta my system. I might log on to this blog every now and again to post some random shit that pops into my head (probably with regards to my AU), but I’m not going to be actively playing and posting for the time being. Goodbye (for now), and here’s hoping the new DLC is good!! 

guardian takedown only problems:

there’s a lot of waiting around, and sometimes it’s not explicitly stated that you’re waiting for something, so you’ll be lost on what to do next (not sure if that’s a dialogue glitch or not)

the crystal charge insta-death is bull. just. what the hell. at least make it so you just have to start over. killing ur players for failing a “puzzle” that they then have to fight all the way back to is so infuriating.

dying because you fell off a platforming puzzle is also bull. 

i remember playing the first DMC on my playstation in middle school and having a conniption over the part in the observatory(? it’s been a hot minute since I played DMC 1) with the disappearing/invisible platforms. I h a t e jumping puzzles. why are they in a section of the game where death is semi-permanent and a detriment to your teammates. i tried the takedown 2x with friends and both times one friend didn’t make the first big jump to the temple and had to wait for our inevitable deaths. that’s so unfair to them.

there’s absolutely no reason for a boss to have 12 fuckin immunity phases. 4 per health bar with 3 health bars? Who the fuck designed this? *pumps shotgun* i just wanna talk. 

i appreciate a tasteful immunity phase every now and again (the ones in the Valkyrie fight are actually p reasonable), but christ. that is overkill. I don’t mind the main boss fight, since u can end those early through certain actions, but jesus. the mid-boss fight is annoying as hell. you spend more time running from the immunity phases and finding the damn boss than u do actually shooting it.

drop rates are crap, which I guess should be expected given what happened with the Maliwan Takedown and the handful of months it took for them to fix that, but also you think they’d have learned.

in the maliwan takedown there’s a sense of progression thru the facility after you kill each area’s batch of enemies, but in this one it’s... dampened by the crystal charging sequences. you kill all the enemies in an area, press a button, and now you have to kill 3x that number of enemies in the same area, expect you’re just standing there motionless. It’s not fun.

the crystal charging stuff is just not fun in general. standing in a square is not entertaining. it’s worse that it was clearly designed for 3+ players when a majority of people play/grind solo

i gotta admit the boss fights just aren’t as fun as the Maliwan Takedown fights overall. I felt like a real badass fighting Wotan for the first time, but the main boss for this Takedown is kind of a bitch. Wotan’s fight is chaos, there’s so much shit happening at once and you don’t really have time to process everything and I love it. This one is p meh...

This would be fine and I’d 100% not care that much if there weren’t all these OTHER problems

General Issues with the Game

There’s no endgame stuff to play outside of the takedowns. 

I assume they’re working on the first raid given some stuff I found in the Guardian Takedown files, but I really wish they’d keep the seasonal events/areas. They give us the option to disable/enable them while they’re ‘active’, just give us the ability to do it whenever we want.

when i hop on i either run through Athenas (my favorite map), or farm a boss or two. I have all the loot i really need from the maliwan takedown/elsewhere, and the guardian takedown just... isn’t fun atm, so i have nothing to do.

I’ve reset my playthru multiple times to play the main story at m10, but u can only play it (and the dlc) so many times

Mayhem levels and modifiers are a hot m e s s

a majority of the modifiers just aren’t fun to play with

they incorporated like 2-3 fun modifiers (from the community), then added a bunch that straight-up aren’t. I’m fine with the game being more difficult, but at least give us modifiers that make it more entertaining to play at a higher level instead of more annoying. I like the ones that have trade-offs or add new ‘enemies’, but I hate the ones that just straight up reduce your damage output.

a majority of the weapons with the mayhem 10 anointment (scaling) do not work on mayhem 10 (we’ll go more in-depth with this later)

Player Characters (Vault Hunters!!!) are also a hot mess and a lot of problems plaguing them haven’t been fixed SINCE LAUNCH

theyre literally the basis of the game and its balance. why havent you guys fixed them yet. stop adding new content until they’re fixed. no new skill trees until the base 3 trees work ON EVERY CHARACTER.

seriously. Why is amara p much limited to using Phasegrasp. Why does Iron Bear not matter to Moze except to proc anointments. MAKE ALL ACTION SKILLS EQUAL AND HAVE HEFT.

i wrote an essay here about it bc i feel that strongly about this

SERIOUSLY FIXING UR VAULT HUNTERS WILL MAKE BALANCING SO MUCH EASIER PLEASE IM BEGGING YOU THEY ARE THE BASE OF UR BALANCING WOES

ZANE IS STILL UNUSABLE WITHOUT THE SEEIN’ DEAD CLASS MOD!!!!!!!!!!!

MOZE IS SCREWED BC HER DAMAGE IS TOO RELIANT ON ASE ANOINTMENTS!!

AMARA DOESN’T HAVE A FUCKING MELEE BUILD AS THE ADVERTISED MELEE CHARACTER???

FL4K’S HEADCOUNT SKILL IS S T I L L BROKEN EVER SINCE THE RELEASE OF THE MALIWAN TAKEDOWN

ARE YOU GUYS LISTENING TO THE COMMUNITY *PLEASEEEEEEE*

BUFF AND FIX THE GODDAMN VAULT HUNTERS

Anointments were a mistake. Damage end-game is wayyyy too reliant on them

anoints should have a maximum of, like, a 20% damage bonus. the damage necessary to kill enemies *should be coming from the VHs themselves*. i don’t care if you have to revamp every single Vault Hunter’s skill trees and buff them all by 9000%. THEY DESERVE IT AT THIS POINT

at the moment in m10 there really isn’t much build diversity *even between Vault Hunters*. We’re all using the same 5 guns (OPQ System. Kaoson. idk. fuckin brainstormer? is that still a thing? jesus fuck) with the same 3 anointments (100% on ASE, cryo while SNTL, and 300% while 90%).

you want to diversify builds like you said during the gameplay reveal???? you want our choice in Vault Hunter to actually fuckin matter???? FIX THEM!!!! THEY SHOULD BE ABLE TO DEAL DAMAGE WITHOUT STUPID POWERFUL LEGENDARIES AND ANOINTMENTS!!!

Anoints also shouldn’t be common. At all. They should be, like, Pearl rarity. To let that happen, their damage needs to be tuned way the fuck down (again, 20ish % bonus MAX) and ALL ANOINTS NEED TO BE USEFUL IN SOME WAY

NOBODY IS GOING TO USE THE AIRBORNE OR SLIDING ANOINTMENTS JUST REMOVE THEM ALREADY AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

obviously these changes can’t happen because they fucked up and buckled down with everything being anointed in m10, but still

imagine a world where the VHs actually did damage on their own without anointments and the damage buff from them was just an incentive to grind for the 100% perfect weapon and NOT A REQUIREMENT TO DEAL DAMAGE

>:(

A majority of gear is borderline worthless at M10

I’m fine with the difficulty of M10, i should let it be known. The enemy health isn’t really the problem IF ALL GUNS ACTED THE SAME AS THE OPQ SYSTEM

ffs.

you know, if you fixed ur vault hunters so they all did damage with just purple weapons (abt the same damage as legendaries w/o special effects) and removed the anointment requirement from late-game play, balancing your guns would be sooo much easier. you know. just saying.

right now only 10% (im being generous) of guns in the game are viable. 90% are worthless. We need AT LEAST 60-70% viable at M10. WHERE IS MY BUILD DIVERSITY. WHY ARE ALL LEGENDARIES NOW JUST “HEY THIS GUN IS STRONGER THAN THE LAST 4 WE RELEASED. HAVE FUN”

how to fix this problem? do as above: BUFF YOUR PLAYER CHARACTERS. MAKE ANOINTMENTS LESS STRONG.

then, at least the 10% already strong weapons would be stupid strong and OP as fuck, BUT AT LEAST WE COULD HAVE BUILD VARIETY!!! I don’t care if other people are dummy strong one-shotting everything in sight. I don’t! so long as they don’t play with me, I couldn’t care less!!! I want to be able to play with the unique, interesting legendaries. instead of the OPQ System. which, by the way, I dislike compared to the normal Q-System. let me use the frozen heart shield and the infiltrator mod. I don’t wanna be chained to the Seein’ Dead anymore :(

honestly at this point im starting to think removing slag was a mistake bc then at least we could use guns that aren’t solely damage-based guns. you know how fucked up you’ve got me that im thinking maybe slag wouldn’t be so bad this time around??? YOU GOT ME FUCKED UP B A D.

FIX THE GAME

IM TAKING A BREAK

MAYBE I’LL BE LESS UPSET WHEN I COME BACK FOR THE DLC BUT HOT. DIGGITY. SHIT.

[gothwarlocks]

I wonder which one of your OCs is your favourite/has the most developed story? You can share some random facts about them too, I love reading about your babes ☻

dkfjash you are so sweet wth thank you!!!! 🥺😭😭💞💞💞 please tell me about your OCs too, I love their designs sm!!!

I’m sure everyone can tell that it’s a tie between Valen’tin, Lev’rani, and Andras. I talk a lot about my Twi’lek Men the most because I do love them lots and they give me the absolute most serotonin, so I’d like to actually take a turn to talk about Andras. If anything sounds a little jumbled my bad, I’m actually just squishing a bunch of notes I have on them together lol.

I doubt I talk about anything too at length to do any harm but to be safe:

TW (all mentions of these things, no images): suicide, eugenics, dismemberment, psychological abuse, some specifically transgender-related abuse/discussion

Here’s some notes I have on a significant event from their past.

(At the time, “Lord Andras”) Darth Atrox’s vile and abusive mother who valued Sith (species) blood purity and Imperial eugenics programs spearheaded a number of research initiatives in that field as a Darth in the Sphere of Biotic Science. She would eventually cut off Atrox’s left hand as they engaged in their final duel (Andras is in their early 20s at this point).

It’s doubly symbolic because:

1. Andras initiates the fight with the intent to murder their mother (with their lightsaber which they hold with their left hand, the hand of glory is among my favorite gothic symbols/imagery), who is absolutely volatile and deteriorating at that point, and because

2. Purebloods are naturally predisposed to left-handedness and that orientation is inherently weaved into their culture, so it’s their mother essentially saying they are no longer “one of us” for not upholding and directly undermining their genetic superiority (and I mean, she explicitly says it to them, but the action carries that meaning at well). This is heavy considering she altered Andras while having been pregnant with them, genetically modifying them for traits she found favorable and removing undesirable ones (y’know, eugenics), which Andras still struggles to reconcile with.

Their mother ultimately ends her own life in the duel to rob them of the satisfaction of committing the act by their own hand. Andras realizes this and unleashes their force lightning upon her corpse, which I imagine in their unfiltered rage and grief they release from both their intact hand and their severed hand’s arm stump for minutes, wounding it beyond repair and rendering reattachment impossible.

They had a cybernetic left hand/forearm constructed to replace the lost limb and used tattoo ink to black out their arm from the severed point to their elbow to cover the lightning burn scars they sustained from that deed. This is mainly for aesthetic purposes. The blackout tattoo turns into an intricate sleeve that ends at their shoulder.

Other bits about the aforementioned event and their life that reflect why they’re the way they are:

I headcanon that their Darth title is an old Sith word for something monstrous and wretched. Really it’s just the Latin root for “atrocious/atrocity”. But basically after their mother dies, they are anointed as a Darth and there’s a lot of gossip saying that the envious and inferior Andras did everything willingly to their mother, a respected and valued scientist. Their friend, Lord Azmodai at the time (it’s Verentis) encouraged them to roll with it and just adopt the word some of the Pureblood Sith have been calling them. So that’s where they get their Darth title.

Going back in time again: Their mother allowed them to change their presentation and pronouns when they came forward about their gender identity (in their mid-teens) out of respect for its ties to Sith culture, but that was the extent of it. Their mother strictly forbade them from pursuing anything permanent/medical, specifying that if they had their reproductive organs tampered with she would kill them herself (because of course, she valued those genes that she worked so hard on). Andras of course makes all their desired transition choices after her death, so it's not all gloom and doom. Sometimes your abuser just has to die!

I headcanon a little bit here, but: I imagine the ancient culture of the Sith allowed for a myriad of gender identities and expressions so long social castes and order was respected. Andras discovers this in their research of their people and everything suddenly clicked. Their gender identity is suddenly so much more tangible in their mind, knowing it’s an experience commonly lived by their ancestors. I don’t believe LGBTQ+ identities don’t exist in current Imp space (bro, space is gay), but it’s clear that non-Human cultures and practices aren’t always taken into consideration. There are normally no words in Basic to properly describe their gender, but there are in High Sith! This is a formative and healing experience for them.

I'm obsessed with Force ghosts and how they appear to people as they wish to be remembered (as per Darth Marr’s words). That means there’s gotta be infinite ways that dead Jedi and Sith present themselves when they manifest, right? Vengeful or sexy Jedi ghosts! Benevolent, beautiful Sith ghosts! Anyway, Andras’ mother appears to them (haunts them, really) every once in a while as a charred, bloodied corpse like a receipt of their transgressions made manifest and because she was truly wicked and her dying wish and only motive in the Force afterlife is to retraumatize Andras whenever she can because she knows that in death she no longer holds any power over them <3

Although appearances can be very misleading, Andras is ultimately a Light-sided Sith and with the whole inquisition (haha) that the Sith lead to weed out Light-siders they are pretty hush-hush about it. That being said they often lend their aid to fellow like-minded Sith, like a benefactor. They believe their ideology is superior and inherently less cancerous to the Empire than true Dark Side adherents. They (along with Verentis) tend to help Light Sith connect with acolytes that would otherwise be executed for “weakness” or “flawed ideology”, or altogether help those acolytes escape into neutral territories (like they did with Zaleos, my sentinel). That’s why Andras, their closest contacts and confidants, and their apprentices are all neutral or Light-siders.

[boundlesshart]

how royal succession works in Almyra + Other Things about almyra that’s been rattling in my head since that nintendo dream interview laid waste on my crops

hi, so after reading M’s @ladamedepique​ drabble about a concubine war kid getting kmarted, i realized that what i actually want to write is the Everything i’ve been thinking about since this nintendo dream interview came out back in march. so i did. it’s 2am and im hungry.

i realize that it’s been a while, so the summary of that interview’s impact on my claude headcanons is “my handcrafted claude backstory that i had to write myself bc intsys decided fuck claude is now irreversibly fucked by the introduction of a bunch of half-siblings he had to be rivals with.” if you ever catch yourself wondering why this is such a mess, well because that’s exactly what this is! this is all subject to change, it’s same kind of “haphazard and bizarrely long half-baked headcanon report” that my dlc thought train was. i’ve changed my mind at least 20 times during this process i will change it again

i’d like to thank zotero for holding all of my journal articles and pdfs on the ottomans and their succession system, and also magnificent century og and kosem, while not being totally historically accurate, for being a fun soap opera to give me some visuals to work with in my head. i now have a positive understanding of what claude’s shitty little beard could realistically look like, which is a gift that i never thought i would have.

Almyran Succession

All of the king’s children, regardless of if they were born in or out of wedlock, is considered a legitimate prince or princess. This is pretty much the only title that they can expect to have, as they and their mothers cannot inherit any lands, titles or wealth that would have been passed to them from their own families. Almyran property law aims to avoid partitioning property between multiple heirs for the sake of maintaining the family’s financial stability. The throne of Almyra works under the same principle, which had led to the introduction, legalization, and practice of open succession.

Open succession, despite its potential to be cruel, is viewed as a necessary step to ensure that the throne would only be held by strong leaders chosen by the people (”people” ending up being the higher-ranking officials that would benefit from a specific child’s ascension). If they proved to be lacking, they would simply be deposed of and replaced. 

What determines who becomes the next ruler of Almyra is not whether a child is the oldest of all the children, but if they and their allies have the political acumen to not only claim kingship but keep it, fighting off their rival brothers and sisters.

All sons and unmarried daughters are eligible to rule Almyra. By law is not only the next ruler’s right but duty to remove other potential heirs to secure their right to rule and the stability of their reign. Generally upon a ruler’s ascension to the throne, their brothers will be killed and their sisters married off or killed if they threaten their siblings’ rule. Exceptions have been made in the past, but they are few and far in between and have led to succession crises down the road. 

The previous ruler’s choice for an heir is usually accepted after their death, and ideal for minimizing the interregnum period. Even so, it doesn’t guarantee that the heir will be able to keep the throne.

Ok, but where do the kids come from?

Rulers of Almyra are allowed to have multiple spouses, but they usually only marry for political purposes.

The vast majority of children are mothered or fathered by concubines with no background of political power, which is preferred. Princes and princesses are allowed to have children once they leave the palace (to prove that they can have them), but if they have too many they may be considered a threat to the king and dealt with appropriately.

I think the one mother-one child rule would have been in place here, not necessarily as a law but as a rule enforced by other spouses and concubines, as well as the ruler’s mother or father.

Princes and princesses aren’t dropping like flies, and murdering them without having the law on your side is considered treason of the highest order. They’re still aware of their competition and fear being murdered when one of their siblings takes the thrones, so few end up becoming friends.

Children are ultimately their mother’s or father’s responsibility. They are expected to guide them through their education and follow them to their provincial post when they are old enough, setting them up for success and paving their path to the throne. King and Queen Dowagers have been incredibly influential in Almyran history and support their children by representing them politically and managing their spouses and concubines. 

Ok, whatever, just tell me what’s relevant to Claude:

Ibrahim, Claude’s father, became the king of Almyra only after 5 year civil war between himself and his two remaining brothers. He got to the throne first and is still feared for the ruthless execution of even his youngest brothers and sisters.

In all, Ibrahim has had 2 wives and 12 concubines, and he has fathered 10 sons and 6 daughters. A few died to childhood illnesses but most made it to at least 13 years old. He’s a doting father and cares for their well-being, though only when he happens to see them. Though he was a constant presence in Claude’s life, his half-siblings usually only saw him during holidays.

No one in Almyra knows that Tiana is the daughter of Duke Riegan, for all they know she’s a Fódlaner that King Ibrahim brought back with him after a short border strife with the Leicester Alliance. Obviously she goes by another name in Almyra, and here is where I think I’m going to bring back the first name I had for her, Desdemona. Suck it, intsys. She wasn’t liked when she first came due to being from Fódlan, and was accused of witchcraft when Ibrahim married her and devoted himself to her at the expense of his other wives as concubines. As the herd of children and concubines thinned, Tiana’s strong personality and battle prowess garnered her respect among the top officials of the Almyran court and even her enemies.

In Fódlan Year 1175, rebels infiltrate the palace walls and kill over a dozen people, from palace servants to princes and princesses. In the moment it was believed to be part of a revolt that was ongoing in the capital at the time and carried out by rebels storming the palace walls and stealing and killing whatever came in their way. After an investigation, it was discovered that that was just a cover up for.... a noble Almyran house trying to make a power grab through either an older son or with their own heir? I’ve been working out the details on this for months and I still don’t have them ironed out don’t look at me. It ends with a couple of older half-sibs dying but more importantly Claude’s older and younger brother dying and Claude nearly dying himself, only to survive with the Crest of Riegan. I imagine that there have been instances before hinted at him having the Crest of Riegan, but it was this incident that confirmed it for Tiana. 

These are the notable royal family members, or the ones I’ve spent at least one second thinking of:

King Ibrahim II of Almyra: Claude’s dad, born Fódlan year 1131 so 19 when he ascends the throne. He is feared but respected, brutal to his enemies, firm with his allies... but you’d be surprised by how easygoing he actually is with friends and family. He’s young at heart and energetic, even laughing at jokes made at his expense, but only in very close company. He loves writing poetry, especially to Tiana, and he frequently sends her love letters so that one can be read out to her every morning and evening when her mail is given to her. Relishes the thrill of battle. Nader introduced him to kumis back when they were boys and to this day Ibrahim regularly drinks a glass each night, claiming it makes him stronger.

There’s a tradition in the royal family that all princes and princesses must learn a trade in case that they fall into misfortune. Ibrahim enjoys goldsmithing when he is alone, a good distraction from his thoughts. Claude’s earring is part of a set given to his mother, crafted by his father as a gift.

Tiana von Riegan/Desdemona: Claude’s mom, born Fódlan year 1135. Claude calls her a warrior goddess and a demon queen that would laugh at his expense, I imagine that she’s in that “dead serious but good humored about it” boat like Claudedad, but less sappy about it. A tough but loving mother, she was very involved in her children’s upbringing and did her best to secure their place in the royal family. She doesn’t teach any of her kids the Fódlanguage because she was distancing herself from That, but Claude is able to convince her to help him learn (though she was reluctant about it and limited their lessons greatly, forcing him to teach himself mostly). She has firmly decided to never return to Fódlan, but a cup of Leicester Cortania is her guilty pleasure. These days Tiana spends her time at her husband’s side in Maragheh, keeping up with her training.

Two older half-brothers: So Claude’s endings have him as heir to the throne without a mention of rivals, but part of me feels like that’s too simple for Claude considering he just up and walked out of there 7 years ago so here we are, two rivals. They’re probably early to mid 30s at this point and have one or two small children of their own. I don’t know their names yet, but my initial ideas are a “nice” brother cool calculated pushing up glasses kind of dude that is actually a huge dick and a chad dudebro who’s just trying to distance himself from these bad vibes.

If I had to give them trades, nice brother likes to fish and sails for pleasure (he governs a coastal province) and chad brother carves wooden thumbrings. 

Orhan: Claude’s older brother, born Fódlan Year 1160. He was conceived months before Tiana went to Almyra (born 5 months after she arrived), so his parentage has been in doubt from day 1. I imagine him as having low self-esteem since he was believed to be a full-blooded Fódlaner, discriminated against in a similar way or worse than what the rest of his siblings went through. Historians would later debate whether or not he was actually Ibrahim’s son.... but we’re not historians, and Orhan was definitely his son. Died in the FY1175 uprising at the age of 15.

No idea what he looked like, he just happened to not look like his parents. His favorite food was salted cod, but he was rarely able to get it. Orhan enjoyed playing the violin.

Claude/Khalid: You know him, you love him, born Fódlan Year 1162 under another name. He’s the only kid that ended up getting the Crest of Riegan, and after one too many accidents where that crest ended up proccing, he’s been accused of practicing witchcraft like his mother. I think this would be a better like, concrete thing for the Almyrans to fixate on rather than a general “you’re half-Fódlan rahhh” and I think it would definitely go with Claude talking about how he was constantly fighting and explaining himself to get out of trouble.

If I’m going with the “kids can only inherit from the ruler of Almyra”, then I’m gonna have to figure out how Claude fits into this. His first move is to probably bullshit a loophole about how actually the Dukedom of Riegan doesn’t exist anymore and I may have destroyed Failnaught after the final battle so technically I didn’t really inherit anything that would give me an edge in Almyran politics. :). Ibrahim is pissed at Claude for going to Fódlan in the first place and getting caught up in a war and he definitely did not sign off on Nader bringing Almyran troops into a war that they have no business being involved in. The first thing Ibrahim does when Claude returns to Maragheh is shout at him and ground him to his apartment in the palace. And then proceed to assign Claude to a governmental post so that he’s out of his sight.

As an aside, I imagine that when Ibrahim dies and Claude rises to the throne, he deliberately delays his coronation so that it coincides with the Almyran New Year. It;s that kind of inconvenient dick move that he would delight in making bc symbolism.

You know what he looks like, in terms of food he strays away from sugary sweet stuff and towards meat and cheese. I’d like to think that he gains a genuine interest in gardening (like, beyond just cultivating poisonous plants as a cover for “gardening”) during his time in Fódlan and brings back different seedlings and scions for grafting back to Almyra. 

Mehmet and Rahimah: Twins, born Fódlan Year 1164. Ok so basically I kind of wanted a dead sibling that was around Cyril and Lysithea’s age for the Drama of it (bc I thought of Claude looking at Cyril and thinking of his brother and immediately went “That hurts. Let’s do it”). But I ALSO thought what if Claude had a little sister, and then I ALSO thought what if Claude has a new full-blooded sibling that got conceived during the five year war, like the shittiest surprise. I’ve combined all those ideas into the twins.

First of all, they have more function than personality. Mehmet only exists to die during the uprising, but I’m starting to like Rahimah bc like... she literally loses most of her brothers including her twin, and then Claude up and leaves her for Fódlan (a place she has little connection to, regardless of her mother). Her only remaining sibling is gone for years, misses seven birthdays, her wedding with an Almyran general, the birth of her first child and the announcement of her second... like, by the time Claude comes back to Almyra she hates his guts and you know what? She’s right! I imagine Rahimah angry, but also grasping for literally any kind of deep and long-lasting relationship at this point. She loves her kids fiercely, she loves her husband, and even though they have their struggles she's still very close to her mom. Fuck her no-show brother Khalid, and fuck Fódlan for taking him away from her.

No idea what Mehmet looks like, like I said he only exists to die. Rahimah is shorter than Claude at maybe 5′4, round-faced and carrying herself gracefully. She’s lactose intolerant but she bears the pain for the sake of eating ice cream, and her husband goes to great lengths to get the ice for her. Likes to sing and dance with her son Ömer.

[terramythos]

TerraMythos' 2020 Reading Challenge - Book 22 of 26

Title: House of Leaves (2000) 

Author: Mark Z. Danielewski

Genre/Tags: Horror, Fiction, Metafiction, Weird, First-Person, Third-Person, Unreliable Narrator 

Rating: 6/10

Date Began: 7/28/2020

Date Finished: 8/09/2020

House of Leaves follows two narrative threads. One is the story of Johnny Truant, a burnout in his mid-twenties who finds a giant manuscript written by a deceased, blind hermit named Zampanò. The second is said manuscript -- The Navidson Record -- a pseudo-academic analysis of a found-footage horror film that doesn’t seem to exist. In it, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson moves into a suburban home in Virginia with his partner Karen and their two children. Navidson soon makes the uncomfortable discovery that his new house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Over time he discovers more oddities -- a closet that wasn’t there before, and eventually a door that leads into an impossibly vast, dark series of rooms and hallways. 

While Johnny grows more obsessed with the work, his life begins to take a turn for the worse, as told in the footnotes of The Navidson Record. At the same time, the mysteries of the impossible, sinister house on Ash Tree Lane continue to deepen. 

To get a better idea try this: focus on these words, and whatever you do don’t let your eyes wander past the perimeter of this page. Now imagine just beyond your peripheral vision, maybe behind you, maybe to the side of you, maybe even in front of you, but right where you can’t see it, something is quietly closing in on you, so quiet in fact you can only hear it as silence. Find those pockets without sound. That’s where it is. Right at this moment. But don’t look. Keep your eyes here. Now take a deep breath. Go ahead and take an even deeper one. Only this time as you start to exhale try to imagine how fast it will happen, how hard it’s gonna hit you, how many times it will stab your jugular with its teeth or are they nails? don’t worry, that particular detail doesn’t matter, because before you have time to even process that you should be moving, you should be running, you should at the very least be flinging up your arms--you sure as hell should be getting rid of this book-- you won’t have time to even scream. 

Don’t look. 

I didn’t. 

Of course I looked. 

Some story spoilers under the cut. 

Whoo boy do I feel torn on this one. House of Leaves contains some really intriguing ideas, and when it’s done right, it’s some of the best stuff out there. Unfortunately, there are also several questionable choices and narrative decisions that, for me, tarnish the overall experience. It’s certainly an interesting read, even if the whole is ultimately less than the sum of its parts. 

First of all, I can see why people don’t like this book, or give up on it early (for me this was attempt number three). Despite an interesting concept and framing device, the first third or so of the book is pretty boring. Johnny is just not an interesting character. He does a lot of drugs and has a lot of (pretty unpleasant) sex and... that’s pretty much it, at least at the beginning. There’s occasional horror sections that are more interesting, where Johnny’s convinced he’s being hunted by something, but they’re few and far between. Meanwhile, the story in The Navidson Record seems content to focus on the relationship issues between two affluent suburbanites rather than the much more interesting, physically impossible house they live in. The early “exploration” sections are a little bit better, but overall I feel the opening act neglects the interesting premise. 

However, unlike many, I love the gimmick. The academic presentation of the Navidson story is replete with extensive (fake) footnotes,and there’s tons of self-indulgent rambling in both stories. I personally find it hilarious; it’s an intentionally dense parody of modern academic writing. Readers will note early that the typographical format is nonstandard, with the multiple concurrent stories denoted by different typefaces, certain words in color, footnotes within footnotes, etc. House of Leaves eventually goes off the chain with this concept, gracing us with pages that look like (minor spoilers) this or this. This leads into the best part of this book, namely... 

Its visual presentation! House of Leaves excels in conveying story and feeling through formatting decisions. The first picture I linked is one of many like it in a chapter about labyrinths. And reading it feels like navigating a labyrinth! It features a key “story”, but also daunting, multi-page lists of irrelevant names, buildings, architectural terms, etc. There are footnotes that don’t exist, then footnote citations that don’t seem to exist until one finds them later in the chapter. All this while physically turning the book or even grabbing a mirror to read certain passages. In short, it feels like navigating the twists, turns, and dead ends of a labyrinth. And that’s just one example -- other chapters utilize placement of the text to show where a character is in relation to others, what kind of things are happening around them, and so on. One chapter near the end features a square of text that gets progressively smaller as one turns the pages, which mirrors the claustrophobic feel of the narrative events. This is the coolest shit to me; I adore when a work utilizes its format to convey certain story elements. I usually see this in poetry and video games, but this is the first time I’ve seen it done so well in long-form fiction. City of Saints and Madmen and Shriek: An Afterword by Jeff VanderMeer, both of which I reviewed earlier this year, do something similar, and are clearly inspired by House of Leaves in more ways than one. 

And yes, the story does get a little better, though it never wows me. The central horror story is not overtly scary, but eeriness suffices, and I have a soft spot for architectural horror. Even Johnny and the Navidsons become more interesting characters over time. For example, I find Karen pretty annoying and generic for most of the book, but her development in later chapters makes her much more interesting. While I question the practical need for Johnny’s frame story, it does become more engaging as he descends into paranoia and madness.

So why the relatively low rating? Well... as I alluded to earlier, there’s some questionable stuff in House of Leaves that leaves (...hah?) a bad taste in my mouth. The first is a heavy focus on sexual violence against women. I did some extensive thinking on this throughout my read, but I just cannot find a valid reason for it. The subject feels thrown in for pure shock value, and especially from a male author, it seems tacky and voyeuristic. If it came up once or twice I’d probably be able to stomach this more easily, but it’s persistent throughout the story, and doesn’t contribute anything to the plot or horror (not that that would really make it better). I’m not saying books can’t have that content, but it’s just not explored in any meaningful way, and it feels cheap and shitty to throw it in something that traumatizing just to shock the audience. It’s like a bad jump scare but worse on every level. There’s even a part near the end written in code, which I took the time to decode, only to discover it’s yet another example of this. Like, really, dude? 

Second, this book’s portrayal of mental illness is not great. (major spoilers for Johnny’s arc.) One of the main things about Johnny’s story is he’s an unreliable narrator. From the outset, Johnny has occasional passages that can either be interpreted as genuine horror, or delusional breaks from reality. Reality vs unreality is a core theme throughout both stories. Is The Navidson Record real despite all evidence to the contrary? Is it real as in “is the film an actual thing” or “the events of the film are an actual thing”? and so on and so forth. Johnny’s sections mirror this; he’ll describe certain events, then later state they didn’t happen, contradict himself, or even describe a traumatic event through a made-up story. Eventually, the reader figures out parts of Johnny’s actual backstory, namely that when he was a small child, his mother was institutionalized for violent schizophrenia. Perhaps you can see where this is going... 

Schizophrenia-as-horror is ridiculously overdone. But it also demonizes mental illness, and schizophrenia in particular, in a way that is actively harmful. Don’t misunderstand me, horror can be a great way to explore mental illness, but when it’s done wrong? Woof. Unfortunately House of Leaves doesn’t do it justice. While it avoids some cliches, it equates the horror elements of Johnny’s story to the emergence of his latent schizophrenia. This isn’t outwardly stated, and there are multiple interpretations of most of the story, but in lieu of solid and provable horror, it’s the most reasonable and consistent explanation. There’s also an emphasis on violent outbursts related to schizophrenia, which just isn’t an accurate portrayal of the condition. 

To Danielewski’s credit, it’s not entirely black and white. We do see how Johnny’s descent into paranoia negatively affects his life and interpersonal relationships. There’s a bonus section where we see all the letters Johnny’s mother wrote him while in the mental hospital, and we can see her love and compassion for him in parallel to the mental illness. But the experimental typographical style returns here to depict just how “scary” schizophrenia is, and that comes off as tacky to me. I think this is probably an example of a piece of media not aging well (after all, this book just turned 20), and there’s been a definite move away from this kind of thing in horror, but that doesn’t change the impression it leaves. For a book as supposedly original/groundbreaking as this, defaulting to standard bad horror tropes is disappointing. And using “it was schizophrenia all along” to explain the horror elements in Johnny’s story feels like a cop-out. I wish there was more mystery here, or alternate interpretations that actually make sense. 

Overall The Navidson Record part of the story feels more satisfying. I actually like that there isn’t a direct explanation for everything that happens. It feels like a more genuine horror story, regardless of whether you interpret it as a work of fiction within the story or not. There’s evidence for both. Part of me wishes the book had ended when this story ends (it doesn’t), or that the framing device with Johnny was absent, or something along those lines. Oh well-- this is the story we got, for better or worse. 

I don’t regret reading House of Leaves, and it’s certainly impressive for a debut novel. If you’re looking for a horror-flavored work of metafiction, it’s a valid place to start. I think the experimental style is a genuine treat to read, and perhaps the negative aspects won’t hit you as hard as they did to me. But I can definitely see why this book is controversial.