#Monroe ended up getting the traits that were lost

[avalon821]

📺: Is your OC inspired at all by characters from other media? Which one(s) and what traits do they have in common? For Tyr!

So the answer is both yes and no for Tyr. Going into the game I was just gonna make him a general kid of character I like: the snarky, flirty, debonair jackass with a secret soft side. I was really pulling a lot from Joshua from Fire Emblem the Sacred Stones and there are some shared traits (like the whole thing of duty vs desire but I turns out much better for Tyr). But as I played through msq he started going off on his own to be more of an earnest softie.

[nancysandoval]

NANCY SANDOVAL ( 30. CIS WOMAN. SHE/HER ) is here! They’ve lived in Asbury Park for 3 MONTHS and are originally from NEW YORK CITY, NY. They are UNEMPLOYED and in their downtime love GIVING SHITTY LIFE ADVICE and PULLING THE FIVE-FINGER DISCOUNT. They look a lot like MAIKA MONROE and live at MEADOWLARK APARTMENTS. The song that makes people think of them the most is RAGE BY RICO NASTY.

THE BASICS:

FULL NAME: nancy elizabeth sandoval, née wright

NICKNAMES: nan, nance

GENDER & PRONOUNS: cis woman & she/her

AGE & BIRTHDAY: 30 & july 12, 1994

ZODIAC: ☼ cancer ☾ leo ↑ aries

BIRTHPLACE: carson city, nv

MBTI & ALIGNMENT: enfp & true neutral

+ TRAITS: headstrong, spontaneous, creative, flirtatious

- TRAITS: hedonistic, fickle, manipulative, pessimistic

RESIDENCE: meadowlark apartments

OCCUPATION: broke bitch :( - hit up her depop pls !!!!

LINKS: pinterest / playlist / tasks

BACKGROUND & DETAILS:

surface level: nancy is very messy, sometimes rude, and often nude

deep down: ......... that’s still pretty much accurate lmao

born in nevada, her parents met thanks to a chance encounter while her mom was researching for an upcoming book. nancy was an unexpected surprise in their lives, but fast-forward 5 years and they were sealing the deal, getting hitched in nyc where her mom had the gaudy, mega wedding of her dreams.

photographic evidence of nancy being an angelic flower girl DOES in fact exist

and, as her mother would say, "thank god it does, because you haven't been sweet since."

nancy's formative years were a blur of questionable choices and dangerous stunts, running amok in the streets of new york on her parents' dime and never once considering the consequences. attempts were made to rein her in; freezing credit cards, grounding her (lol), and making hollow threats of sending her away to bootcamp or boarding school.

nothing stuck. over and over, nancy ran to her dad for an easy bailout and extra cash, fueling the growing rift between her parents as they argued about her future.

for real the anthem of her teen years

she hurt herself, she fell in with the wrong crowds, she found drugs and lost her mind a little. an addiction to pills spiraled and worsened, graduating to cheaper and quicker highs as time went on. it was a miracle that she ever graduated high school, see-sawing between sobriety and oblivion while treating rehab like a casual hotel stay, but her mom made sure it happened.

this carried on into her twenties. living under her mother's thumb was not fun. even in a high-rise penthouse with zero "real world" concerns, nancy felt like she was choking on her short leash. no booze, no visitors, no privacy from her parents - what was the point in living?? she tried to keep busy by half-assing therapy sessions, taking up yoga, and delving deep into the world of online academia (just to rack up a bill for the 'rents), but eventually she snapped.

nancy packed her shit and ran away to california. she settled in silver lake, living there for a good three years, but an attempted career in food service had her backsliding into addictive habits. eventually, she checked herself into an in-patient facility with a promise from her dad that he'd be there to congratulate her when the 3 month stay ended.

.... and he was......... but so was his hot young girlfriend that nancy had regular fantasies about bludgeoning to death.

she threw the tantrum of the century, only resurfacing from her rage blackout when she'd driven halfway to new york by herself, and car trouble stranded her in colorado. feeling reckless and spiteful (and just a tiny bit terrified of turning 30), nancy did the most insane thing she could think of - and got married to a guy that she met at a gas station.

okay, she got to know him first...... sort of. enough to find out that his name was cooper sandoval and decide that she could live with that last name, too. sadly, it didn't last. their honeymoon phase inevitably wore off, nancy turned 30 and didn't wake up an old hag, so the most sensible thing to do was call it quits.

it was the dual incompetence of cooper and his family's lawyer that had nancy gunning it to jersey, having to sort through the legalities in person to end their less-than-a-year marriage. and once everything was signed and dotted, she just... didn't leave. she's near enough to nyc now that her mom can visit whenever she gets the itch to be overbearing, and hey! nancy was always a big fan of snooki, so jersey can't be all bad, right?

she's still lowkey desperate to prove her independence (to herself, to her parents, to the world), but she's not totally opposed to roommates or longtime houseguests!!

always picking up random hobbies to keep her hands & mind busy, though they rarely last. her latest kick has been tie-dyeing and bleaching old clothes, so best believe that her place reeks atm

loves to claim that she's a child of divorce when her parents legit split up after she was well into her 20s, but whatevaaahhh

she's hugely into high fantasy & horror - the gorier the better

probably has some fucked up (meaning: bad) hellraiser tattoos

has a knack for ruining relationships, even ones that aren't hers <3

smokes 24/7. even if she doesn't have a cigarette in hand, rest assured that she's mentally taking a drag

POTENTIAL CONNECTIONS:

first and foremost, i love vibin’ off dash chem 💖 plz feel free to hmu at anytime for a completely random thread and i’ll jump!

neighbors  -  anyone else living at meadowlark apartments! nancy is really a terrible and noisy neighbor so yah, count me in for dumb vendettas

friends  -  THE most important connection okok. she’s been in town for ~3mo, which isn't all that long, but nancy's social ass would chat up anyone anywhere there's alcohol avail

work weirdness - nancy's currently unemployed and (kinda) looking for the work, so i wouldn't mind her already having a couple failed job interviews under her belt - or! someone who maybe put in a good word for her somewhere

one night stand / fwb / etc.  -  nancy’s a hoor so yakno.... can be something antagonistic too! luv the idea of a hook-up gone wrong ngl

fellow addicts  -  “recovered” or not. she doesn’t go often, but now and then nancy finds comfort in going to the occasional aa / na meeting. can’t get enough of listening to middle-aged men detail how they ruined their lives - really makes a girl feel good about her own shitty choices 💕

a mentor / unlikely friend  -  idk exactly what i mean by this lmfao, but i’m imagining someone older (or honestly, her age & just more settled) who does not run in the same circles in the slightest, but something just Clicks between them. a good influence really

a square  -  flipside of the last idea: someone nancy gets to corrupt <3

[violent-backed-starling]

An Essay For your Consideration

The Manson Family, Heaven’s Gate, The People’s Temple; all are fairly well-known cults. They are known because of what they did. They all made the news in the worst possible way. The Manson Family murdered innocents because their prophet commanded them to. Heaven’s Gate ended in a mass suicide. The People’s Temple ended with a mass murder/suicide. These are all traumatic and shocking events. It is because these are so well known and present in the public eye that these cults in particular have shaped the way people portray cults in the pieces of fiction they write. This is evident from The Order in the Silent Hill Series by Keiichiro Toyama to The Village by M. Night Shyamalan. The cults in the media are always dark, unhinged, or at the least upsetting to most people, which is why the viewer generally ends up rooting for the hero. In a particular fictional cult they express several of the above traits. In the 2019 horror comedy musical Black Friday, written by Matt and Nick Lang with music and lyrics by Jeff Blim, there is a cult that goes about the mall doing similar crimes. This kind of behavior is extreme. In general, cults while still awful and problematic in their own rights, do not go to such horrific lengths. The Wiggly cult in Black Friday has extreme behaviors, even by cult standards.

When the cult first formed in the mall in Black Friday it was not completely horrible, unhinged yes, but not completely irredeemable. Over the course of a few mere hours they turned to savage actions in order to get what they wanted. It started off with just burning down the Cinnabon in the mall as a “sacrifice to a dark god”. Their actions only escalated from there. The cult’s prophet, Linda Monroe, slit the throat of the manager at Toy Zone when he could not get her a Wiggly doll immediately, even though he tried to bargain with her saying that he could contact the manufacturer and get her a Wiggly doll. She later tried to have one of the cultists murder a teenage worker at Toy Zone, presumably for lying about having one of the Wiggly dolls. She lied about the Wiggly doll to protect her sister who carried it, unknowingly, in her backpack. The teen worker managed to escape and find help in the end, but she was supposed to be murdered. The cultists also ended up finding this worker’s sister and taking her back to Linda who threatened her with a knife when she found out the sister no longer had the Wiggly doll. She most likely would have been murdered by Linda if there had not been help coming from her sister. The cult eventually died in a fire when the whole mall burned down due to the Wiggly doll being set on fire, because they refused to leave the Wiggly doll that they had gotten ahold of and were fighting over who would be the new prophet since Linda had been shot and killed. The cultists literally burned alive instead of escaping because of their cult and them wanting to be the new prophet. That is an absolutely horrific and painful way to die. Them burning alive for their god is a prime example of extreme behavior. Even when it comes to the more extreme cults, they generally do not end up with cultists burning alive, voluntarily. This kind of behavior is why the Wiggly cult in Black Friday is not a regular cult.

Cults show up on the news on occasion. Those cults are generally more violent and upsetting because what they do or what they did has to be something awful to get them onto the news. NXIVM is a cult that has made headlines semi recently since they did awful things like brand women and make women give them blackmail materials so they could not leave the cult once they joined. This sounds bad and horrific and is only scratching the surface on what truly was going on, but they did not commit murder or mass suicide. This is also just one case, a case that made headlines no less. When it comes to the easily recognizable hallmarks of cults the ones that come to mind are the manipulation of their members, brainwashing, and the separation of members from their family and friends. Cults usually end up separating the members away from their family and friends in order to make them more vulnerable and likely to stay within the cult. The cults also sometimes take money from their followers who, believing that will be put to a good cause, give it to the leader. That money is usually used to benefit the leader of the cult in some unorthodox way, like buying a sports car or nice worldly possessions. While that sucks and no one should take advantage of people like that, it is still far better than murder. In Wiggly’s cult they were willing to kill for one of the Wiggly dolls. Their prophet wanted four of them, but not a single person in the cult had one until the end and when they finally got one it was Linda’s, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. The people that also were part of the cult had problems because that was how Wiggly ensnared them. They were part of the cult of comfort because of their own issues and wanted relief.  That is the same reason why many people joined NXIVM. Keith Raniere presented his cult as an MLM that sold courses for self improvement. In Black Friday Linda had an affair with her lawyer and desperately wanted to be adored. The other cultists had similar issues, one had recently lost a job, another was homeless and so on. This cult of comfort had people under its thumb believing in their new god, Wiggly.

There is also the issue where people blend the lines between cults and religions. The fact is that they do overlap in areas, and many cults are based upon being a religion. Thomas Robbins explains that the ways religions have become more cult like has affected the studies of the sociology of these religions. Then the other group that cults overlap with is political parties. There are a number of political cults as well. The Cult of Cheka in Russia is a big one. The public sees that “the FSB continues to promote a positive image of the Cheka in the public imagination”. This cult is pushed to be in the public eye and is supposed to be thought of as good. It is literally a government supported cult. That is because this is a secret police kind of deal. That implies that this lies on the more extreme side of cults as well, but that is the way most of the well known ones are. Wiggly’s cult has both of these aspects to it. Linda is Wiggly’s prophet because he is a dark god from another dimension, but the reason people love and believe in him is capitalism. Wiggly is not only an interdimensional being with the powers of a god, he is also the little dolls that were sold in the Toy Zone, and all over the USA. The commercial for those dolls promised relief from the woes of the world to his followers. They were convinced that this product would make everything better. That is why they were willing to burn with the doll rather than just letting it go.

Most cults that end do not do so by such tragic means but rather they just split apart or fizzle out on their own. Sometimes there are legal issues, but they are generally something smaller scale than murder, such as tax fraud, insurance fraud, etc. Those are still crimes and they are seriously wrong but not nearly as bad as killing someone. 

The time in a cult does affect the mental health of the individual. The ex-members of some organizations would say that they suffered from “cognitive deficiencies (e.g., memory, perception, decision-making, or information-processing deficits) and emotional impairments”. The separation from family and friends makes it harder for people to leave. The cults do, generally, let people leave though, and people do choose to leave. This is not the most common, but nor is it completely unexpected. While people who leave their cult do consider it to be rewarding, they also have problems afterwards. They can have physical issues, emotional issues, psychological issues, or some combination of them. These are regular cults, the more extreme variety could have one committing serious crimes like murdering, being an accomplice to murder, or straight up ending with them dead, whether by their own hands or not. Those people in Wiggly’s cult did not leave; they would rather die than leave their cult of comfort, so they did. 

The people that ended up in the cult in Black Friday were there because Wiggly and by extension Linda promised to fix the holes in their lives. They just blindly followed and believed her when it came to what Wiggly could and would do for them. They would not take responsibility for their own problems and try to solve them themself. The cultists wanted the fake promises of comfort Wiggly gave them rather than trying to fix them because it was easier to just rely on Wiggly. They wanted someone else to fix their problems like their failing marriage, losing their job, their messy divorce, losing custody of their kids, their dead wife, etc. This is something that probably drives real life people to join cults as well. Bad circumstances can have one turning to ill advised sources of comfort and relief. In some cases that ill advised source of relief could be cult. These are the kind of people that a real life cult would target to try to get them to join their ranks. These are people who might turn to a cult in times of trial which is exactly why a cult would try to convert them simply because they are easy targets. Even if the actions of Wiggly’s cult are extreme the member’s reasons for joining are ordinary and understandable. That gives this cult some sort of connection to a more realistic cult. The actions from this cult do align with some cults, namely The Manson Family and The People’s Church. 

The Manson Family was also a very extreme cult when it came down to it. The Manson family with the myriad of crimes they committed. Those crimes including murder, torture, hostage taking, the attempted assassination of the president and other lesser crimes like grand theft auto and forging a check from the treasury. The trial was no less disturbing with Charles Manson trying to represent himself and after a few days being found incapable of doing so. He also entered the courtroom with a cross carved into his forehead. Manson demanded to be allowed to testify and they agreed. He testified that he was a product of the criminal justice system since both his father and mother ended up in prison at some point. The court also ended up having members of the family testify and they told the truth of what Manson said and believed. They actually ended up testifying against Manson. The cult was following his orders and it was on his orders that they killed. They also believed what he was saying about Helter Skelter being a huge war of which the Family would come out on top of. Manson said that was the true meaning behind the Beatles song by the same name. The cult also had members afraid of Manson and they were scared to disobey so they did what was asked of them whether they wanted to or not. That kind of behavior from a cult is intense, extreme, and rare which is why it was in the public eye as much as it was. This is exactly the kind of cult behavior that Wiggly’s cult from Black Friday also expressed. They also had similar behavior to another cult, that cult being The People’s Temple.

The People’s Temple started out with good intentions, but ended up with a large amount of its members dead. It started as a genuine religion but changed for the darker as the leader, Jim Jones, started faking healings and doing drugs. The healings would bring in more people and more money and with that money eventually Jones started doing drugs which evidently caused him to change, personality wise. He started wearing his signature sunglasses at that point to hide the fact he would have been doing drugs. He eventually got so paranoid due to the drugs that he decided to start his own little paradise for his followers out in Guyana. He started a small village with cottages and called it Jonestown. Many of the followers flocked out there, but once they got there they were stuck. They did not have enough money to leave, Jones kept their passports in a locked box, and all of the mail coming in and out was monitored. Those combined conditions made it practically impossible for anyone to leave. Life in Jonestown was miserable; they did not have enough space or food for everyone. Eventually concerned family members were able to convince U. S. Congressman Leo Ryan to go check on Jonestown in 1978. He and a bunch of reporters visited on November 17th, 1978 and at first it was okay but Ryan invited the followers to leave with him. Jones got very upset at how many wanted to go and as a result one of his lieutenants attacked Ryan with a knife. He escaped without harm. Jones then ordered for Ryan and his companions to be killed. They were ambushed and murdered as they attempted to board planes to leave. Then Jones ordered everyone in the main pavilion where the older member and nurses injected the young with poisons and drank poisoned Kool Aid. That kind of thing is very extreme. It is uncommon and made the news. 

The extreme cults are rare and have radical ideas and views. Wiggly’s cult is extreme and so is The Manson Family and The People’s Temple. They are all alike in the committing murder area of cult behavior. They also promised to be the ones safe from the world and would be left alive when the apocalypse would come. Wiggly’s cult ended in suicide as did The People’s Church. That is an extreme reaction to the situation that was going on and there were far better options that just were not taken. Manson and Linda were alike in that they would delegate the murdering to someone else. Linda and Jones are alike in that they did actually get their hands dirty. Linda’s cult may have been fictional and had some serious supernatural elements, but it still reflected actual cults behaviors even if those behaviors were extreme and part of the one percent of cults.

[emma-what-son]

(Echee post) Emma Watson gets drunk and scales a fence naked

Posted on March 20, 2014

In her new interview for Elle Emma admitted something that correlates a tweet from a witness from in July 2011 on location filming Perks of being a Wallflower From snitchseeker.com May 2014, "Among her exploits: She dated a costar Johnny Simmons, and she broke into a swimming pool at 3 A.M. "It was at a hotel," she reports happily. "It had a gate around it. My friends turned around and basically, I was gone. And the next thing they saw was me seven feet up in the air, scaling this fence." This, apparently, is not as out of character as we might suppose. Watson says coyly: "I shouldn’t be able to get away with what I’m getting away with." Here is the tweet from July 2011 and here is a POST I originally posted it in at the time "@_MarieChristine $*MarieChristine; Saw @EmWatson get so drunk that she got naked n climbed the fence to go into the swimming pool at my friend's hotel......http://twitter.com/#!/_MarieChristine." So it was true. I'm not posting the quotes here (I'll link the posts with them below) but to generalize this is a girl that claims to be shy and doesn’t like to party and doesn’t drink to have a good time because it makes her really sleepy and she’s just so boring she says and blah, blah blah. She sucks people in with these statements are herself that makes people like her. It's not just about drinking and getting drunk but everything. Nothing about her is genuine in any shape or form. She is a fraud.

In a recent interview for Wonderland Magazine Emma admitted like she always has which has been one big lie that she's boring and doesn't like being the center of attention.

So in her Wonderland magazine Emma says she shy, socially awkward and a introverted person. For some reason I don't believe her. There are certain things about her that leads me to believe she is not shy or the least bit introverted. The first part of this question asked her straight out as she ever wanted to go off the rails and get drunk and she talked about getting a tattoo but never fully answered that question. The follow up question which is split below in two parts was, "But you’re not as puritanical as that, Emma" So let's look at some thing 1.) From wonderlandmagazine.com Feb 2014, "The truth is that I’m genuinely a shy, socially awkward, introverted person." Posing half naked

For years Emma has said she was shy. From topcelebrityheadlines.com June 2011, "I’m shy." From zimbio.com May 2011, "It's really hard to have a love story for me. I'm a famous actress. And I'm shy." From digitalspy.com October 2010, "Actually, I'm quite shy. I've never liked attention." From iheartwatson.net June 2011 “I still feel shy, but I feel more like I can accept it.” Her come hither looks which I limited for space reasons. There are many and I left out new ones from the Noah premiere. This is not a trait of shy and introverted people.

I doubt a truly shy and introverted people are going to say they'll strip to gain approval for anything. From mtv.com November 2010 (NYC Deathly Hallows) When we caught up with Watson just before she ducked into the theater, we informed her that 90 percent of our viewers had given her wardrobe choice — a specially made Calvin Klein gown — an enthusiastic thumbs-up in an MTV News online poll "Awww, really? Wow, that's such a high percentage!" she exclaimed. "Wow, I aced it, obviously. That's great." While 90 percent is definitely a high number, what might she do in order to get the full 100 percent of viewers' approval? "I don't know, take it off?" she quipped. Then there is her modeling which doesn't strike me as someone that is shy or introverted.

So shy and introverted she can tell a radio host some guy thinks she looks good naked From nudography.com 2008 'Harry Potter' film actress Emma Watson has said she would do a nude scene in a future film or stage role if the script called for it. Watson got on the topic of getting naked on BBC's Live Five radio "I think it's wonderful that Daniel is willing to be so brave for his craft. It's a big risk doing something like this while being so internationally known, but he's a true professional". When asked if she would ever bare all for her art, Watson replied, "Yes, absolutely. I would do it if the script called for it. I guess I would be a little nervous, but I've been told I look good naked, so I guess I've got little to worry about". When Shaffer asked Watson who thinks she looks good naked, she playfully said, "Now, now! I won't say. But I trust his expert opinion." Then there is her attention seeking along with her sultry poses and outfits she sometimes wears. Below is a series of photos from the Cannes for TBR. Everyone is walking up the steps arm and arm but Emma stops to grab the spotlight. Once she takes the arm of a cast mate she can't stop turning around smiling, giggling and waving. Once she gets to the top she hooting and hollering and then blows a series of kisses as her cast mates walk inside. This is not someone that is shy and introverted.

Claiming she wished she did more naughty things is yet another example of what a shy and introverted person would not say. From harrypotterfan.net Nov 2010, "I wished I’d done more naughty things. Three months ago I cut my hair and at that moment I felt I became a woman. I’m ready to start taking risks. I feel less girlish than ever." ... cough ... cough... From emma-watson.net September 2013 (GQ awards), “Given the perilousness in the journey from child star to adult, any award with ‘Woman’ in the title is frankly a relief!” <---- thought she, "I’ve never been in a terrible rush to be seen as a woman.” Then there is the choices of some of her outfits. If you're shy and introverted you're not going to show some flesh and you're certainly not going to show some flesh on TV or at a strip club. The last thing you want to do is draw attention to yourself. You'd be more than happy to dress modestly. There are just a few and I limited them for space reason as well. I left out her recent plunging neckline outfit from the Noah premiere in Madrid and many others like her famed 2009 HBP premiere wardrobe malfunction outfit.

From Elle magazine April 2011 iheartwatson.net, "Does having short hair make you dress differently? ’I think it’s made me bolder in my fashion choices. It’s allowed me to dress more sexily.’” cough ... cough... From omg.yahoo.com W magazine May 2013, “I’ve never wanted to grow up too fast: I wanted to wear a sports bra until I was 22! The allure of being sexy never really held any excitement for me. I’ve never been in a terrible rush to be seen as a woman.” Never heard of a shy and introverted person want o dress more sexually because of a haircut. Then there is her constant blowing of kisses which she does a lot of which all the classic pin ups like Marilyn Monroe ands other used to do. I guess it has nothing to do with shyness but introverted people are not going to go around blowing kisses at people or into the camera.

Then there are moments like this. Who does this? Shy and introverted? I think not. This is begging for attention and just plain weird.

Blowing kisses, posing, giving that sultry look and just enjoying all the attention is not the trait of a shy and introverted person.

Now the only thing I believe her on is the socially awkward part.

Now to the second part of that quote 2.) "At a big party, I’m like Bambie in the headlights. It’s too much stimulation for me, which is why I end up going to the bathroom! I need time outs! You’ve seen me at parties, Derek. I get anxious. I’m terrible at small talk and I have a ridiculously short attention span." I doubt this is true. She loves to be the center of attention on red carpets. She loves the attention. So why would parties be any different? At Coachella (bottom left photo) she was moshing at some points on stage.

This video shows her dancing on stage but there is another I lost of a video shooting down from the stage over Emma's head and you can see she's in plain view of the thousands in attendance. When I find it I'll post it. Shy and introverted people that can't take all the stimulation like she says would not put themselves out there amongst strangers and onlookers. If so, what kind of shy and introverted person is that? To see her drunk/leaving clubs and to read her contradicting quotes about drinking click these links below Emma doesn't like to party Emma never goes clubbing Emma can drink like sailor Emma lied about not drinking at Brown So basically like so much I covered on this blog by exposing her BS this is yet another example One more thing and it's a quote I've posted many times but she keeps on changing her tune In this new interview I started this post off with she also said From snitchseeker.com May 2014, "I was being offered roles that I didn’t feel were very complicated," she says. "Women that were a bit one-dimensional. Roles that required me to be one thing. Real women never are." So, rather than embrace mediocre work, she hid out in Providence, Rhode Island, emerging only for projects that would both stretch her muscles and challenge her public persona." But yet she said something different during her time at Brown From aceshowbiz.com November 2010 She tells U.S. magazine Parade, "I get some amazing offers to act, and sometimes it's hard to say, 'No, I'm going to stay here and do my homework.' People are like, 'What do you mean she's not available?' This college experience is really important to me, and I won't give it up." And yet it was not about roles at all two years ago. It was about her studying From nytimes.com September 2012, “Why hasn’t she done more films before now? “I think at first I didn’t because I was always either studying or filming, I didn’t have time to go off and do other films or other things to sort of show people that, Oh, she is not just Hermione, she is an actress and she can go and do these other parts and roles." So which is the truth and which is the lie?  So Sam in Perks and Nicki in TBR were complicated roles that she ended up leaving two Universities for? How about her small role in MWWM that took her a little over a week to film?

[qm-vox]

Warlock Patron - The Mirror

Otherworldly Patron - the Mirror

You have made or created a pact with your reflection, or possibly with some manner of entity or society of which your reflection is merely representative; lore on the Mirror is frustratingly unclear, and the seeming inability of its embodiments (or citizens, or agents, or…) to clarify the matter is a source of ongoing frustration to researcher and warlock alike. Regardless, the power of your pact grants you a constant companion, as well as power over reflections.

Warlocks of the Mirror have a high incidence of being unclear about their pacts. Many don’t remember consciously making one, and often their reflections claim to not remember either. Compared to their driven peers they often come across as lost or adrift in the wider world, willing to use their newfound power to attain their goals but unable to fully set aside the nagging question of what happened, why, and who is benefitting from their status as free agents. More than one suffers from the ongoing belief that they are not the original person and are instead a reflection that traded places with a mortal from the Material Plane who must now serve as the reflection in their stead. Those few that have tried to test this through the use of reflective magics and powerful divinations have left behind accounts that could best be described as…

Interesting.

Mirror Features

Expanded Spell List:

The Mirror lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spells. The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.

Mirror Expanded Spells

1st - Disguise self, identify

2nd - Alter self, enlarge/reduce

3rd - Clairvoyance, slow

4th - Confusion, phantasmal killer

5th - Mislead, wall of force

Pale Imitation: At 1st level you gain the ability to reflect the techniques and results of magic used near you. When a spell with a level no greater than 1/2 your warlock level (rounded up) and a casting time of 1 action or less is cast by something other than you within 60 feet of you, you can spend your reaction to snare its reflection. You can then cast that spell as an action any time within the next minute, except that you do not expend a spell slot, and its duration is a number of rounds equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1) or the spell’s normal duration, whichever is lower. Instantaneous spells remain instantaneous, and you can maintain concentration on a spell that requires concentration for up to a number of rounds equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1).

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

Living Reflection: Starting at 1st level, your reflection is sapient, opinionated, and somewhat free-willed. It has to stay in at least one reflective surface near you (if there are any), and while it does not have to agree with or even like you, it is seemingly bound to help you. You can ask your reflection’s advice to gain advantage on an Intelligence check. Once you gain advantage on an Intelligence check in this way, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest, during which you must be in the presence of a reflective surface at least the size of hand mirror. In addition, you gain advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks in environments where there is a large reflective surface (such as a floor-length mirror) or many smaller ones (such as a city street full of glass windows).

Breaking Mirror: Starting at 6th level you can draw on your pact with the Mirror to avenge harm against yourself. You can spend your reaction when you would suffer any amount of damage. If the source of that damage is a creature, that creature can rescind the damage; it is not dealt to you and no other effects of the damaging ability occur (such as damage to other creatures in its area of effect or poison). Otherwise, the source suffers damage equal to the amount dealt to you. 

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

Restrain In Silver: Starting at 10th level, you have a subtle but powerful connection to the realms inside of mirrors at all times. As an action, you can dump unwanted sorceries from a creature or object within 30 feet onto its reflection instead. When you make this action, you gain understanding of all spells affecting that creature or object, as if you had identified their nature with an appropriate skill check. Choose any number of those spells with a duration shorter than permanent; they end, just as if they had reached the end of their duration.

You can take this action when you are paralyzed or otherwise unable to take actions, but if you do, you must target yourself with it. You cannot take this action again until you complete a short rest.

Erupt From Silver: Starting at 14th level you can release reflections of magic from the realm inside of mirrors that are as deadly and real as the originals. As an action, you crack open the subtle access you maintain to the realm inside mirrors for 1 minute. During this time, you automatically become aware of and identify all spells cast within 100 feet of you, though this ability gives you no special knowledge of their casters (including their location). Also during this time you can, ss a bonus action, cast any spell that has already been cast this round, without using a spell slot or expending material components. This spell is cast at your highest available spell level unless you choose to cast it at a lower valid level. You can only cast up to 1 spell this way during the duration of this ability.

Once you use this ability, you cannot do so again until you complete a long rest.

Cracks In The World - The Mirror In Your Campaign

“It is not unheard of, in this line of scholarship, for a researcher to act so. Certainly I was surprised when the learned Mister Narrows burned his notes and announced his retirement from the world of academia, and certainly I was let down to now be bereft of such pleasurable and well-paying employment. But...no. The detail that haunts me a-nights is when I fix, in my mind’s eye, the image of him hurling his tomes of planar lore onto the pyre.

Mister Narrows is not right-handed.”

- Journal of Ashlynn Monroe, research assistant (deceased)

Archaic texts that refer to it, infrequent as they are, call it the Plane of Mirrors, or perhaps the Demi-Plane of Mirrors. The warlocks that enter into strange and ill-understood bargains with it (or its denizens, or their own reflections, to name just a few potential candidates holding the other side of a leash they can’t see) often simply call it the Mirror. Adventuring scholars, having learned caution in their speech and writing, circle around the question with ‘the realm inside mirrors’, a description with neither name nor insult.

When you can pin down one of its inhabitants and force them to talk, they call it Silver.

Answers about the realm inside mirrors are elusive. Accounts of travel to it are rare enough - it is not every day one meets a spellcaster who can travel the Astral Plane, and rarer still that you can convince one to go wandering into an unknown plane - and contain such wildly varied information that they are either contradictory or indicate that the realm inside mirrors is vast indeed. If it is a demiplane then logically it should be located inside of the Ethereal Plane, but that can’t be quite right: mirror-magic has been observed to work in the Outer Planes, where the Ethereal does not touch or hold sway. Does it connect to mirrors and reflective surfaces? There’s an argument that says yes and points to the sway of mirrors in spells like scrying and the prevalence of magical reflective surfaces. More cynical scholars point out that the average humanoid eyeball is reflective and express doubt that the endless hordes of the living carry planar portals wedged into their skulls.

What is known is that the realm inside mirrors is inhabited. These inhabitants sometimes have traffic with the Prime Material Plane - with increasing frequency, in the form of being bound up in pacts with warlocks. What, precisely, they get out of these relationships is not always clear. Certainly a few steal the lives of Material denizens, replacing them and generally attempting to destroy all evidence that they are not the original. These are the citizens of Silver who get caught. Others simply slip away, becoming the seeming twin of an ‘original’ who now no longer appears in reflective surfaces. 

Magic travels into and out of Silver very easily. Spells cast in places that have access to the realm inside mirrors seemingly ‘echo’ there, where mirror-warlocks - and its natives - can take advantage of them. They conform to the local rules of magic - using the Weave or Shadow Weave on Toril, being subject to antimagic fields or altered by planar traits, and the like - even when re-cast or reflected, but their users do display odd traits. They might speak verbal components in someone else’s voice, perform somatic components ‘backwards’ or in different orders; their spellcasting might display hallmarks of teachers they never had, or cultures to which they do not belong. Raw mirror-magic often manifests as cracks, rents in reality through which a terrible light shines. Little is written about this light; journal entries that mention it tend to be followed by suicide notes, though for all of that its appearances are rarely associated with great acts of devastation or catastrophe. Often it is little more, or less, than that someone pushed a student of Silver too far.

If you are a player looking to create a warlock whose patron is the Mirror, consider the following questions:

What Do You Remember? Many warlocks of the Mirror have no idea how they forged their pact, and quite a few are fuzzy even on the details. What do you know? Why were you seeking magical power? Do you still want to accomplish that goal now that you have it?

Do You Get On With Your Reflection? Like it or not - and quite a few warlocks don’t like it at all - you now have a permanent companion in the form of your own reflection. What is that relationship like? Why? Would you trade places with your reflection if you could? How would you react to them asking for that same favor?

Do You Have Any Theories? Are you invested in the mystery of Silver? Do you wonder at why mirrors are such expensive and sought-after status symbols, and try to draw connections to the battered tools adventurers learn to obsessively use? Do you wonder at why it seems the books you surely learned your pact from are now gone, or have you decided you’d rather not know? How much do you talk about what you think your patron is?

If you are a dungeon master looking to incorporate the Mirror into your campaign’s story, you have some decisions to make. Here’s some things to consider:

What Is The Mirror? Older editions of Dungeons & Dragons have a Plane of Mirrors, which may have even been the retreat of the original exemplars of neutrality whose names have passed into obscurity. Is Silver that plane, changed with the times? Is it perhaps a demiplane on the edge of the Plane of Shadow, where the light of the Positive Energy Plane streaks through like water on the side of a pitcher, picking up some of Shadow’s nature on the way? Could it be something that is not real, yet yearns to be? Or is Silver the wrong way of thinking about it entirely, and the mirrors connect to something stranger; a house with no walls that contains leaking Glory, perhaps, or a prison-world left over from the last cycle of creation that houses souls that no longer remember how to have bodies?

Warped Reflections. No mirror reflects the world as it truly, perfectly is. When using themes of mirrors and reflections in your campaigns, think about how they can be wrong. Items like the mirror of opposition provide one example, reflecting an equal and opposite version of a person, but there are other ways to make something wrong. The town drunk goes clean overnight; he was a demon in his cups, quick with his fists, and now it’s like he’d never touched a bottle. A book written backwards is held up to a mirror, but the text in the reflection is in another language entirely. The warlock’s hand mirror shows her with subtly different features - later, she realizes they’re similar to the woman her father almost married, but never did. Find ways to emphasize, then distort, the reflections in your game.

What Are The Stakes? Silver does not have to be a grand mystery, though it could be. It can be as small as one escaped denizen who won’t go back, and it could be as large as an imminent shift in the nature of this Prime Material Plane. Once you set your stakes, stick to them. One advantage to starting with smaller stakes is that if your players develop an interest in the realm inside mirrors, you can always tell a new story about it; consider starting small if you want to introduce this concept to your campaign.

I hope you enjoyed this small addition to your game! Comments and critique are welcome.

[jacetorress]

JACE ISAIAH TORRES  ⁏  thirty-four  ○  security for lux & elias morgan’s right hand man  ○  downtown.

❝ APOCALYPSE BOY, YOU WON’T DESTROY ALL YOU TOUCH. YOU ARE MORE THAN YOUR DARKNESS AND MORE THAN THE DEATH YOU CARRY IN YOUR HANDS. ❞

⇨  aesthetics ⍮ the scent of fire and gasoline, a tall stature adorned in all-black attire, ghosts of bruises staining calloused skin green, an old punching bag in the corner of an old office, a towering figure shrouded in darkness as they linger in an empty church, bloodied noses and busted knuckles, a scuffed zippo lighter in a pack of marlboros containing only one cigarette, black shirts with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, a sly smirk under stormy dark eyes, a sniper on the roof of a deserted building, the roar of a 1967 chevy impala engine, & a crumpled, worn family photo stuffed inside a wallet.

ALOHA !!! waddup, angels ?? it’s me, back at it again with another character bcos i have zero self control so here i am !! i’ll save you all from having to put up with my pointless babbles and get straight into it. as always, pls feel free to hmu on ims or discord ( chrissie.#9606 ) for plots and connections !!

FUNDAMENTALS.

full name. jace isaiah torres.

current age. thirty-four.

birthday. january 2, 1986.

gender. cisgender male.

pronouns. he / him.

nationality. british.

religion. raised roman catholic but no longer practices.

hometown. knightsbridge, london, england.

past residence. oxford, oxfordshire, england.

current residence. downtown, crystal city, united states.

sexual orientation. heterosexual.

romantic orientation. heteroromantic.

education. attended oxford university for a year before dropping out due to his mother’s passing.

occupation. security at violet, & elias morgan’s right hand man.

CONNECTIONS.

birth mother. katherine torres. †

birth father. alexander torres. †

step-father. nicholas carmichael. †

full blood siblings. none.

step-siblings. none.

maternal grandmother. julia monroe. †

maternal grandfather. andrew monroe. †

paternal grandmother. elizabeth torres. †

paternal grandfather. michael torres. †

maternal aunts. none.

maternal uncles. peter monroe.

paternal aunts. lucilee monroe, & miranda monroe.

paternal uncles. benjamin torres.

PROFICIENCIES.

spoken languages. english, & spanish.

negative traits. cunning, unfeeling, arrogant, cynical, & temperamental.

positive traits. astute, debonair, adroit, resolute, & adept.

strengths. sophistication, etiquette, professionalism, resourcefulness, integrity, delegation, honest, strong-willed, responsible, calm, practical, & a jack-of-all-trades.

weaknesses. impulsive, hot-tempered, stubborn, insensitive, judgmental, & by the book.

skills. skilled with firearms and other weaponry, hand-to-hand combat, lock-picking, carjacking, knowledge of automobiles, knowledge of the law, tracking people down, & excellent critical thinking and problem-solving abilities.

talents. piano, retaining information, memory recall, & marksmanship.

APPEARANCE.

eye colour. dark brown.

hair colour. dark brown.

height. six foot.

weight. 70 kg.

build. both tall and considerably broad, he is toned with an evident definition in his muscles.

scars. too many to count at this point.

tattoos. tba.

piercings. none.

glasses. n/a.

prominent feature. sharp, angular jawline.

MISCELLANEOUS.

zodiac. capricorn.

element. earth.

house. gryffindor.

myers briggs type. istj-a.

alignment. true neutral.

enneagram. type five.

temperament. choleric.

intelligence type. linguistic.

character label. the opaque.

past mental disorders. post-traumatic stress disorder, insomnia, & alcohol abuse.

current mental disorders. mild post-traumatic stress disorder, & insomnia.

addictions. alcohol, & tobacco.

vices. lust, wrath, & pride.

virtues. temperance, charity, & diligence.

allergies. n/a.

diet. carnivore.

accent. british.

dominant hand. right.

blood type. ab positive.

felonies. none.

vehicle. black 1967 chevy impala.

BACKGROUND.

TRIGGERS. car accident, death, domestic violence, drugs, violence, blades, stabbing, blood, & murder.

Born into a world of tenderness and light, Jace's arrival into this universe was a moderately placid one. The instant he opened his eyes to the world, he was a cherished and adored baby boy. This was how the young boy assumed his life would continue to play out: showered with affection and admiration, given endless love and support by both of his parents. With his father, Alexander, a renowned criminal lawyer and his mother, Katherine, an equally as esteemed neurosurgeon, the Torres family were respected, affluent and forefront in their community. Always hosting charity events, attending fancy galas, prominent figures at every fundraiser, the Torres' seemed as normal as just about any aristocratic London-based family. One might just say that Jace was destined for greatness — primed for success. Of course, all eyes of the extended Torres family were on the boy, watching and waiting to see how his story would unfold. Would he follow his father’s footsteps? Or his mother’s? The idea of him paving his own path had failed to cross the minds of them all.

     From a young age, Jace had been incredibly intelligent and adept, his keen perception proving to extremely surpass that of his age. He was able to captivate others with both his appearance and his capabilities. Those in his company hung off his every word, often discovering themselves enthralled by a charming and sincere young boy. Regardless of his family’s secured position in society and their abundance of riches, Jace never looked for much more than their approval and their devotion. It is perhaps this fact alone that makes the next chapter in his life one of those unbearable moments that seem to live on for the rest of eternity, an emotion so overwhelming that it lingers in your bones until the end of time — rattling them every so often to remind you of the pain. The tenth instalment in the story of Jace’s life is what he would nowadays refer to as the beginning of the end. All of the light and love that he had encountered throughout his life up until that point had only been leading him to the tragedy and devastation that would prevail from that day henceforth. The night that Jace had been sat down by his mother and told that his father had met his fatal end in a horrific car accident was the same night that Jace lost a piece of himself. A ten-year-old boy endured his first heartbreak then. And, unfortunately, the torment refused to cease. Jace’s existence prior to the horrendous atrocity that altered the very fabric of his nature endured for what would now seem to him a fleeting period in time. Yet, throughout those ten years of normalcy, every transient second aided in concocting the basis for all that was to come.

     Within the span of a single year, Katherine had found herself in the clutches of what Jace would grow to describe as a vulture; a man of a lower class who latched onto his mother — leeching off her riches while abusing her in the process. Soon, this man, Nicholas Carmichael, became Jace’s stepfather and things only dipped further south afterwards. Nicholas drank copious amounts of liquor, ran around behind Katherine’s back, smacked at Jace for defending his mother and the list went on. He manipulated Katherine, made her pick a side, tore her relationship with Jace asunder. Nicholas was indeed an angry, offhand man who often resorted to acts of violence toward both Katherine and Jace. During this time, and within the blink of an eye, Jace turned hostile and indifferent. It was as if he had transformed into a polar opposite version of what he’d always been — metamorphosing into an alternate version of his old self. Once a sheltered child who knew nothing but warmth and consideration, Jace was soon neglected, discarded and left to fend for himself. It was enough to turn him into a colder, less vibrant boy who soon became void of emotion and attachment. He picked fights with his stepfather for the sheer kick he got out of it, rebelled against his mother and found his once soft heart hardening as a result of years of enduring torment at the hands of Nicholas.

     Unfortunately for Jace, he’d stepped out of line one too many times and aged eleven, he found himself sent off to an all-boys boarding school. In one way, he was thankful to be shot of the horrid creature who claimed to be his stepfather. Yet, on the other hand, he spent sleepless nights worried about the mortality of his mother. All in all, though, his time spent in the educational facility was a positive one. He made friends, excelled in all of his classes and extracurriculars. For the years that Jace boarded at the school, his life seemed to be steering him down the right path. Once he graduated, he’d decided to follow the same path as his father: criminal law. He felt it was the right thing to do in order to honour his father. Jace wound up attending Oxford University where he resided in a dorm, visiting his mother on the weekends. However, as all good things do, they come to an end. In Jace’s case, his few years of bliss and contentedness arrived at a rather abrupt halt, taking a severe nosedive. He was nineteen when he learned of his mother’s passing and, ultimately, lost control of himself and of his path in life. He dropped out of university, moved back home and spent many months alone and aimless; desperate to find answers behind his mother’s suspicious death. Of course, Nicholas was nowhere to be seen. He hadn’t even had the decency to show his face at Katherine’s funeral. One thing was for sure, though: he’d walked off into the sunset with the Torres fortune, presumably never to be seen again. The details outlined in Katherine’s autopsy report had been vague and nobody seemed willing to help Jace in his search for answers. Though that did little to deter him from continuing to hunt for the truth behind his mother’s death. Without a shadow of doubt in his mind, Jace knew deep down that Nicholas had been responsible but with no evidence, the idea of justice being served seemed to drift further and further out of reach.

     Eventually, after years of fighting and persisting with his mission, Jace was able to uncover concealed elements of Nicholas’ background. As it turned out, the man was involved in gang activity and played a prime roll in drug trafficking throughout the streets of London. Though, still failing to get his hands on any kind of proof of Nicholas’ involvement in Katherine’s murder, a twenty-three-year-old Jace began to ponder if he should continue down this road. Tracking down his stepfather had consumed Jace whole, rotting him from the insides out. For so long he’d been holding onto an immense amount of resentment and wrath that he’d become bitter, hostile and obsessed. He knew it would only end in disaster if he continued to cling onto his vendetta and so for the following year, Jace pressed pause on seeking the truth. At least, until he’d happened upon a new lead that indeed confirmed his assumptions about Nicholas’ role in Katherine’s death. This was the break that Jace had been desperate for — the fuel that added flames to the fire within his belly. With new information and a penchant for revenge, he set off on his previously abandoned purpose.

     Admittedly, it had taken Jace months to successfully unearth the exact location of Nicholas and when he did, he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with the information. Still, he set off for New York City with plans of confronting the man. Part of Jace wanted nothing more than to make his stepfather suffer, to subject Nicholas to torture as appalling as what Katherine had undoubtedly endured. Another part of him wanted to reveal all the little details that he’d uncovered, to tell him he knew what he’d done and watch his stepfather wince in objection and pathetically string one faux apology after another. Neither of these scenarios played out in the end. Instead, Jace’s first encounter with Nicholas after all this time had an entirely different outcome than he’d anticipated. Managing to tail the older man to Lux, Jace decided to linger around outside in the hopes that Nicholas would make an appearance. As fate would have it, only a mere hour had passed and there he was, leaving the building alone; having been removed from the vicinity for hassling one of the dancers. As Nicholas made his way to the back of the club, Jace followed in the shadows. Stood at the edge of the establishment to watch his stepfather from afar, Jace considered the endless possibilities that had entered his mind the second he set eyes on the man who’d destroyed his life.

     When Jace eventually approached his stepfather, the look that claimed Nicholas’ face was one of incalculable shock and Jace couldn’t help but feel a twisted sense of pride in how his sheer presence brought about such dismay in the other man. He had to admit though, that it sent a strange twinge of nostalgia mixed together with dejection down the length of his spine. Jace had a collection of cruel words and obscenities he so desperately wanted to hurl the older man’s way. Alternatively, he opted for asking a question that had been haunting his warped mind for almost a decade. “Tell me, Nicholas. Why did you do it? Why did you murder my mother?” The inquiry almost made the other male tumble out of his shell even after he admitted that yes, he had been the one to end Katherine’s life and lacked even a shred of remorse. There was something in Nicholas’ blasé tone of voice that triggered an immediate rage deep within the pit of Jace’s stomach, bubbling and bubbling away, rising up and up until the only colour he could see was red and unfortunately for Nicholas, he was on the receiving end of Ross’ explosion. Moving in a flash, before he knew it, Jace was invading Nicholas’ personal space and the small blade he had been carrying was sunk into Nicholas’ abdomen.

     Finally, once Jace had recoiled and his fists that had been balled into the fabric of Nicholas’ jacket eventually unfurled, his dark eyes took in the sight of the elder man’s towering figure collapse to the ground beneath him. Dropping his gaze to his hands, Jace noticed the way that the colour slowly began flowing back into his knuckles that had been white from the thin skin stretching tightly over the protruding bones. Flipping over his uncurled palms, Jace noted the way his hands trembled only marginally less than he expected they would be. It was the shrieking resonating in his ears that brought him to divert his attention toward Nicholas who was writhing around on the ground as a result of his suffering and loss of blood. Jace knew he had to get out of there — that he had to leave before he’d give anyone the chance to flock toward the screams and clap their eyes on his guilty face. As he backed away, watching the actions of his decision unfold, the feeling inside his gut was different than he imagined it would be. He had made the decision to kill Nicholas, there and then in the heat of the moment and it was a gradual and torturous death. A death inflicted by him deliberately, no matter the fact that it wasn’t premeditated. Lacking the desire to stick around and witness Nicholas’ final screech, Jace ran and before he even had the chance to allow any sort of repentance to seep into his body for what he’d just done, a gathering of men stepped out of a dark alleyway in front of him just footsteps away from the scene of the crime. There was something about the way in which they emerged from the darkness that caused Jace to immediately cease in his footfalls and as he briefly surveyed the area he realised there was nowhere left for him to run — there were too many of them and although he tried to fight them off, he was vastly outnumbered.

     How Jace had managed to defend himself against the others, able to hold his own and give as good as he got, was beyond him. In the end, he pegged it down to sheer luck. Despite such a fluke, he was far from being out of the woods. Having witnessed the murder of Nicholas and how Jace had been able to stand his ground against the group, the eldest of the group of men had stepped forward to explain that he could use a young man of Jace’s stature and expertise. This was precisely how a then twenty-five-year-old Jace wound up entangled with the Berk-Morgan family. Initially, he was hired as a security for the same club that he’d slaughtered Nicholas outside of. After quite some time as an associate, he befriended Elias Morgan; soon becoming a confidant and someone the other trusted. Of course, the trust was mutual. And this has brought him into the position of becoming Elias’ right hand man. Now thirty-four, with nine years of experience under his belt, Jace is worlds away from the man he used to be. A shell of the man he used to be. Simply put, Jace has resigned himself to the reality that happiness is never going to be an emotion he will feel in his heart. He is closed off and secluded. He is mysterious and holds everyone in his life at arm’s length, afraid to let them in; only permitting people to see what he wants them to see and know what he wants them to know. His life is full of a myriad of memories soaked in blood and torment. A plethora of crooked dealings and immoral acts. But this is his life now and he isn’t prepared to give up the good fight – not after everything he has gone through just to be exactly where he is right now. A fighter has always lived inside of Jace Torres.

WANTED PLOTS.

give me all of the connections from friends, frenemies, enemies, hookups, exes, rivals and everything else in between. added bonus if there’s angst or drama. if you have anything in mind feel free to throw it at me, i’m open to the majority of things and have zero triggers so come at me bro !!

[wordlessbabbling]

Gun metal and Daisies- chapter 1

It’s a crime for a bluebell to look THAT good.

Masterlist

May the flowers remind us why the rain was so necessary.

"Ouch!" Dorothy, had stumbled into a bramble bush.

She shook her hand in attempt to lessen the stinging sensation, but paid no actual mind to pulling out any of the thorns, too distracted by the blessing of a sunny day in Birmingham.

It was rare for Birmingham to get a sunny day, let alone one with clear skies and lazy breezes. Lucky for Dorothy, she had her day off today, and found herself stumbling around the woods.

This week she'd had her birthday and without a doubt, it was possibly one of the best days of her life. Her father, Dean Monroe, unknowingly to her; had slowly saved up just enough money to purchase her a Kodak Jr, an early model of the actual one, second hand too, but it worked and that's all that mattered.

She remembered sobbing into her hands when she was presented with the gift. The overwhelming joy completely threw her. Once she got over the initial anger of her father keeping secrets and spending so much on her- she thanked him as many times as she could blubber out through her tears.

So here she was, staggering around the woods on the outskirts of Small Heath; a slightly bloodied and pricked hand from her clumsy fall she had earlier.

Off in the distance she saw a stream with bluebells dancing over the path of the water. The sun was shining over them in a way that made them prance over the stream like a ballet performance - putting on a show for only her and nature to see.

After hearing the distinct 'poof' of her camera, the film slowly ejected. She took the developing photo card and ran the smooth texture over her hands.

Mesmerised by the picture that was appearing in her hands, it was no surprise that she almost dropped it when she heard the sound of a door slamming shut in the distance.

Dorothy was highly baffled by the sound as she was in the centre of the large woodland area; there was no buildings or structures here. That's what kept this place so beautiful.

Snapping out of her shock, she shoved the photo into her notebook to protect it and placed it in her film satchel.

Dorothy wasn't necessarily an innocent girl, knowing all too well the dangers of the world, but she was still a very pure one despite all of her trials and tribulations.

Her refusal to ever see the impure before the contrasting was her best and worst trait. She is a friend to many but a target to many more.

Though meek and somewhat shy, she is passionate about things she loves and will fight skin and teeth for them.

This was apparent when she stumbled across a home, it seemed. One that didn't belong in the woods, but rather looked like it should be pushed on the end of a street in line with others that looked exactly the same.

It's brick was grey, covered in dirt and it's roof looked like it was rubbed in coal. All in all: it wasn't a pleasant sight and it was an offensive gesture to the woodlands she loved so much.

Dorothy was near fuming.

——

The guns were gone.

They had been dug up. He didn't know how, but now he had lost his bargaining power.

The police were on the streets searching for him. He needed to lie low.

Thomas thanked whatever God there was- no -he thanked himself and his pre-disaster planning that he had built the safe house.

He made a mad dash around the back streets and alleys of Small Heath, taking a risky stretch as he crossed the open fields-hoping that he wouldn't be spotted in the open. As soon as he spotted the house, he did not cease his speed until the door was slammed shut behind him.

Looking around now, trying to get his breath back; He noticed the way that the house was laid out. He hasn't actually been to the safe house, only approving of the outer appearance, knowing it would be inconspicuous and won't draw attention to the building in the woods.

The house was decorated in a somewhat homely fashion. It must have been Aunt Pols doing when he left her to sort out supplies.

He chose not to dwell on the appearance and instead peer out of the windows, cautious of coppers.

When he saw none, he stomped over to the cabinet, situated next to the sofa and pulled out a bottle of Whiskey.

While admiring the fine brand that had been seemingly waiting for him to drink it; He was quickly brought back out of his thoughts when he heard violent banging on the front door of the house.

——

Thank you so much for reading the first chapter! I'm so excited to get into the nitty gritty of this plot line.

Special thanks for nature.and.nonsense for editing some of her photos so they could work with my story! They have the coloured ones on their insta if you want to see them!

I hope you enjoyed this chapter and hopefully many more!

Thanks for the love.

Feedback and comments are wanted.

See ya next time!

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Spider-Man 2099 v4 #1 and 2099 Omega Thoughts

This is literally the third time I’ve purchased a comic book called Spider-Man 2099 #1 in 5 years. Technically more if we include reprints. Isn’t that kind of ridiculous?

Fun fact, I wasn’t buying any comics (sans some pre-OMD Spidey and Deadpool Classic trades) between 2009 and 2014. It was the 2014 Spidey 2099 run that got me back into the game, for good or ill.

This issue wasn’t nearly as good at series. And Omega was…lol…it was so bad and essentially an extension of Spidey 2099 I’m covering them together.

I remember fondly my hype when I saw Miguel in ASM v5 #25 and my hype for this one shot, back when I didn’t realize it was just part of a larger event.

Oh boy did this let me down.

Let me start with some superficial praise.

The art for Spidey 2099 and Sandoval on Omega were decent. And there was some interesting ideas pertaining to the world of the future, such as the removal of money and instead having everyone’s value depend upon what they can contribute. A society built upon meritocrisy, albeit with harsh reprisals if you can contribute little. Also the idea of corporations fixing things so only insiders can gain employment speaks to the corporatocracy  of the 2099 universe (one severely undermined when we consider Doom is ultimately in charge anyway…). People intentionally using drugs to keep up their work productivity is another great idea, and a genuinely interesting twist upon the original depiction of the rapture drug from Spidey 2099 v1 #1.  Finally people essentially enabling identity theft in exchange for drugs was an interesting sci-fi concept.

But beyond that…this was bad.

When I began covering this event proper with 2099 Alpha my dominant critique was ‘who is this for’.

A reboot of the 2099 line over 20 years since the original line ended and less than 3 years since the revival of it ended? A reboot intended to modernize the 1990s’ take on the future, a take that frankly proved 99% accurate anyway. And finally a reboot that alternated between doing spotty world building, killing off new characters, tie-ins to modern canon events and most of the time communicated its ideas in confusing and baffling ways.

I put forward that it was doomed to displease the old 2099 fans like me because it was erasing what we knew and loved. But it was also so poorly communicating its rebooted vision that new people were going to be alienated.

I’m only slightly going to backtrack on what I said. Because the Punisher 2099 issue was if you like the greatest argument in favour of the reboot. It wasn’t just the best issue in this mess, it was a bona fide awesome story just in general. It actually dived into an aspect of futuristic sci-fi that the 1990s 2099 series (to my knowledge) would’ve struggled to cover as it pertained so much to 2010s life and technology.

More poignantly though, the problem with this event is that there was no over arching vision between the titles. Not every one shot had the same problems but they all in different ways displayed problems that smacked into the very premise of this event.

F4 2099 was literally pointless as it spent a whole issue introducing a new F4 then killed them.

Conan 2099 could’ve been virtually the same if Conan was like 20 years in the future not this new future we rebooted.

Arguably Punisher 2099 relied upon familiarity with the Jake Galloway Punisher 2099 before it subverted your expectations.

Ghost Rider 2099 was fun but the writer clearly LIKED the original take on the character to the point where he essentially minimized changes to the rebooted version making the act of rebooting the character pointless in the first place and failing the mission statement of the event.

Venom 2099 was a weird tie-in for Cates current Venom mega arc involving Knull that was nonsensical as it proposes that Knull is still en route to Earth and thus in theory there is no tension in Cates’ run. Moreover it wasn’t much of a futuristic take on Venom himself and fundamentally hurt as there was no Spider-Man for Venom to act as a dark reflection of.

Doom 2099 in fairness had a cool twist, but a cool twist that didn’t make sense in and of itself and was also reliant upon familiarity with the original 1990s character.

And then we come to these issues.

These issues I’m sad to say just absolutely fundamentally fail conceptually.

He’s incredibly passive and very bland as a character so newer fans coming in with no knowledge or attachment to the Miguel O’Hara of old are unlikely to warm to him. His defining trait is being someone who cares enough about the suffering of others that he will not actively take part in it, but will also not actively do anything to help like his brother Gabe. This is then set up for his brother to die, cue a less good retread of Peter Parker’s origin story but minus much action of Miggy in costume. On paper the idea of a guy experiencing Peter’s ultimate failure and from this being motivated to OBTAIN super powers is interesting but it’s just not examined all that much in the story. What I’m saying is at a time when there is a sea of Spider-Heroes to read about on the stands this version of Miguel O’Hara is lame, derivative and the execution of his character half-hearted.

Then on the other hand you have the older fans’ perspectives. Obviously old Spidey 2099 fans are unlikely to take to this new version just on principle. But when you realize you lost the old character for THIS guy…oh boy does that sting.

Original recipe Miguel O’Hara was cool because he zigged where Peter zagged. He was kind of an asshole, but one with limits on how little he cared. And he became more heroic over time, but never the same type of hero as Peter. And above all he was a sarcastic, sardonic, cynic who you could tell was thinking ‘I can’t even with this Spider-Shit right now’. Case in point, he was okay with straight up killing opponents. He was more unique and much more compelling than this version, as were his cast. Lyla is basically the Aunt May of this story and not the source of humour that she was even in the first 3 issues of the 1990s run. She also lacks her iconic Monroe look, and isn’t even consistent with how she looked in ASM v5 #35.

Losing a cool character for a lame one would be bad enough but then the story straight up invalidates both itself and the entire goddam event.

It does this by having the rebooted Miggy start to see visions of the pre-rebooted (prebooted?) 2099 timeline, meet an aged version of his prebooted self and then have even more flashes of the prebooted timeline. *

Wow…Just….Wow…

Let’s pretend that the vision of 2099 in this event was a temporary thing, an Age of Apocalypse or a House of M just for 2099 and the plan was always to go back to how it was before when the story wrapped up.

That makes this entire event pointless. See the reason AoA worked (and HoM in theory could have worked) is because it was a temporary change of pace.

That doesn’t apply to the 2099 line, a nostalgic, discontinued line of comics and characters that are unlikely to get a full on revival and who’s last attempt at a revival wrapped up over 2 years ago.

THIS event should’ve been a nostalgia trip for the old fans and a chance to introduce that line to a new generation. Instead it discarded the old in favour of something new which was seemingly intended to go nowhere.

Good job Marvel, any new fans you MIGHT have gotten hooked just got fucked over and people like me who pre-ordered this event thinking we were going to get the characters we knew and loved also got fucked over.

And in fact the entire exercise was an example of intentional redundancy.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Oh and it doesn’t make a lick of sense.

So Miguel was thrown back in time when his timeline was starting to be erased and replaced with the rebooted timeline, then he was erased in ASM v5 #34, which began this new rebooted timeline…but he is alive in it, remembers it, can give his past self visions from the old timeline...

…I’m a Doctor Who fan and that’s not any kind of wibbly wobbley timey whimey nonsense. It’s just regular ass nonsense, just like the Man-Spider monster Miguel encounters who repeats ouroboros to him, the same word ReedDoom said in the Doom 2099 issue. How and why would the Man-Spider creature say that to Miguel. How would prebooted Miguel know it said that? How and why would rebooted Miguel see Spidey 2099 in costume spray painting that?

Shit what the fuck does ouroboros even mean?????????

*one google search later*

A snake eating its tail as a symbol of endless infinity…what the fuck does that mean?

That Miguel makes himself Spider-Man 2099 always?

There was a cool idea in the Omega issue wherein we learn Doom essentially erased everyone’s memories with magic so they’d forget the Age of Heroes altogether, but the rise of the characters in the one shots represented that spell breaking down. Too bad it doesn’t add up given how Venom was always going to exist and existed SINCE the Age of Heroes and people obviously remember Thor as there is an entire tribe dedicated to him!**

However the Omega issue’s biggest sin is showing us how truly pointless most of the issues of this event were. Honest to God you only need to read Doom scenes from Alpha and then Spidey 2099 and Omega. Those are the only plot relevant issues out of this whole event.

Over all, these issues and this event have been a humungous, insulting disappointment. Check out some of the art but literally nothing else sans the Punisher.

*I mean if you want to get technical the 2099 universe has technically been rebooted multiple times. The version of it presented from 2013-2017 actually differed from the original 1990s version in various ways, e.g. Miguel’s love life panned out very differently. When I refer to the pre-rebooted/prebooted timeline I’m referring to the version from 2013-2017, just to be clear.

**There are other contradictions in these 2 issues as well, like how poverty and bad health have been erased but…we see they haven’t as there are multiple examples of both in the one shots.

[46ten]

Eliza Hamilton biography review

Tilar J. Mazzeo's Eliza Hamilton: The Extraordinary Life and Times of the Wife of Alexander Hamilton Let me preface this review by stating that I'm not the target audience for a book like this, but I’ll try to be fair. A major challenge in writing a biography of Elizabeth S. Hamilton is that the period of her life when the general public has the most interest - the years of her marriage to Alexander Hamilton - are those in which we largely only have contemporaneous sentimental accounts of her as a wife (letters from AH and P. Schuyler, brief mentions from McHenry and Stephen Van Rensselaer), daughter (letters from P. Schuyler), and sister (letters to/from Angelica S. Church and Margarita/Peggy S. Van Rensselaer, and letters between her siblings and father). But that's not all that EH - or any woman - was.  Based on the lack of information provided in this biography, Mazzeo's not terribly interested in the role of upperclass women in the late 18th century, the dynamics of marriage in that era, class distinctions between women, labor dynamics, childbearing and -rearing customs (she doesn't know about naming customs either), handicrafts, household management, women’s roles in education, the Republican Court, or any of a range of topics that would flesh out EH's world. Mazzeo doesn’t elaborate on the common conceit of the era that women had a political and social duty to the republic, including in helping to regulate the affairs of men through their “complementary” traits. She largely treats the social gatherings of women as arenas for gossip, titillation, and regular old social duty, not as opportunities for soft diplomacy, influence, and favor currying, which they most definitely also were. The women in this biography just sort of move across the stage of male dominance.* Since Mazzeo largely does not contextualize EH's 18th century life and seems to fall into the trap of, “the work of men is important; the work of women is only of side interest,” she's left repeating lots of gossip and conjecturing about romantic thoughts and feelings, as if these were largely all that women had to offer in the 18th century. Mazzeo clearly read letters that have not been included in the standard Hamilton narrative and found some things - mostly gossipy items - really interesting and was willing to go down the rabbit-hole on those, but was also comfortable relying on Hamilton biographies without going to primary sources on many subjects.  The Good Mazzeo does add some valuable context of the events in Albany especially.  She also adds Schuyler family voices to the narrative. I also liked how solidly she showed the interconnection of the Schuylers and AH with other wealthy and influential families. Although Mazzeo doesn't completely make the link, the tension of life near the frontier, wars, and the assassination attempts on her father's life may have played a role in EH's anxiety, such as it was, about being separated from her husband, esp. as he was also subject to threats of assassination at times. She could have more clearly made a counterargument to biographers' claims of EH's nervous anxiety by pointing out the terrors that EH really did face, but she does not do this. While for dubious reasons (based on how she sees EH as a character), Mazzeo raises issues around the Reynolds Pamphlet. It needs to be taken more seriously that Maria Reynolds denied - to at least two parties on the record - that an extramarital affair ever happened and volunteered a handwriting sample** to prove that the letters in AH's supposed possession were not written by her.  I appreciate that Mazzeo brought up that AH's explanation for his involvement with James Reynolds was not universally accepted at the time - Monroe had serious doubts, as did Callendar.  Unfortunately, some of Callendar's pamphlets detailing why he thought both were possible - AH was a sleaze who could have both had an affair with MR AND been engaged in shady financial dealings with her husband - are also lost to history.  I am also gleeful that I'm not the only person who has noticed that there is a similarity between EH's spelling style and MR's as re-printed. (I have also entertained the thought that EH forged those MR letters herself, or were AH forgeries copying parts of his wife's letters.)  I also appreciate that she points out that AH's claim of an affair with MR became widespread knowledge in the political sphere within a very short period of time. The Bad While Mazzeo adds to the record with facts from the Schuyler family letters, she relies heavily on Hamilton biographies, and not even the thorough, well-sourced ones, for others.  Based on the notes at the end of the book, she didn't bother to go to (or check for) primary sources for a lot of facts about AH. She states that Edward Stevens was "likely" AH's half-brother, which has largely been dismissed as a possibility. There are bizarre dating errors, wrong years, even wrong kids named - by my rough estimate, on average there are factual errors at least on every other page. Did Mazzeo not have a fact-checker - even someone decently acquainted with the facts around the persons she’s writing about? (She also contradicts herself on information she’s provided, so maybe she didn’t have a good proofreader either.) It's head-scratching that Mazzeo would do enough research to conjecture that "Polly" (from Tench Tilghman's May 1780 letter, recorded in his memoir) was Mary Tilghman, but not bother to read AH and GW letters to know more about EH's 1794 pregnancy.  Similarly, she gets it right that William S. Hamilton was born in NYC, but then thinks Eliza traveled to Albany right after. (Although a letter from PS to EH from late August contradicts that claim.)  She even repeats the shoe bow story, but claims it did happen in 1789 (incorrect), and says the person mistakenly thought Peggy was unmarried because of the way she behaved? Stephen Van Rensselaer was a reasonably well-known man. Back to the Reynolds Pamphlet: Mazzeo uses as evidence of AH's drafting of the MR letters the similarity between them and Pamela. It's not really evidence that someone - anyone - would write using common idioms and expressions of the time. AH did it quite frequently himself, as I've written about on this blog - he's doing it when he uses the popular phrase, "best of wives, best of women," not making some reference to the Nut-brown maid poem. This isn't proof that the MR letters were forged. Mazzeo hypothesizes that the real reason for the Pamphlet was further financial scandal cover-up, but never conjectures as to the wheres/hows. (If only she could see my many pages of notes on the interactions between AH, John Church, and Church's financial associates.) I'm also baffled as to Mazzeo's explanation for EH going along with the coverup of a financial scandal of the Reynolds Pamphet - because she was afraid of her husband going to jail? That this was EH's biggest fear? Where is the evidence for that? The Ugly The treatment of Peggy! Harsh and man hungry and scared of being a spinster - though a theme with Mazzeo is all of these women being obsessed with flirtations and afraid of ending up husband-less. The treatment of Angelica! The treatment of JOHN CHURCH, whom she describes as a "scoundrel." AH is a "rogue," seemingly with a drinking problem, visiting prostitutes (yet somehow having MR as a mistress would be too much), staying out late at night. It's a wonder that Mazzeo's AH ever accomplished anything in his life, with all of the 18th century character flaws and errors in judgement she gives him.  Most especially with sexual activities, she repeats gossip from AH detractors several times in the book, while her sources are John Adams (as much as two decades later) and Benjamin Latrobe (good friend to Jefferson).  Mazzeo repeats a story, more than once, about AH sexually assaulting Sarah L. Jay that Adams related decades later and that even Adams' cousin William Cunningham said sounded like nonsense, and guesses as to EH's parlor-room reaction to it.  Yet AH and Church would have had about zero social standing if this were really how they had behaved (or if these anecdotes had been widely known at the time). And then there's all of the fantasy treated as fact - without letters to draw on from the period of her childhood and marriage, Mazzeo spends a lot of time imagining EH's feelings and thoughts and presenting them as facts. As one illustration, Mazzeo invents a wedding scene in which Eliza and Alexander exchange rings. Nevermind that EH's actual wedding ring was interlocking and AH likely never had a ring - Mazzeo has AH give Eliza the "Elizabeth" ring, and her give him the "Alexander &" ring. Why would they exchange rings with their own names? Finally, there's a good deal of documentation of EH's life after AH, including more letters from her, more evidence of her financial management, and actually more about her beliefs, thoughts and feelings than are available during her marriage. This is the period when EH's "voice" is most clearly recorded, along with her actions outside the management of her household and her husband's public career. Yet this gets very short-shrift by Mazzeo. The Ugly left a strong impression - it doesn't seem that Mazzeo is neutral about the personages, but actively dislikes them. At various times, she slams pretty much everyone who made up EH's closest circle during her marriage: her parents, her sisters, her husband, her brother-in-law, and then goes against acceptance of the Reynolds Pamphlet not through analysis of the evidence but because she wants an EH that is more palatable to her.  EH, ultimately, comes across as a cypher. Mazzeo does have a strong narrative style, and I wish that this book could have been a collaboration between a historian (or at least someone with stronger scholarly skills) and herself, to at least tease out a real world.  I think we're a good 50 years past writing women from other eras as if they're completely unknowable except as wives, mothers, and daughters. *In patriarchal cultures, there are always women cooperating with the dominant culture as a means to their own ends. The compromises and nuances of how that plays out in societal rules are fascinating. But, I guess, not to Mazzeo.

**This really needs further comment in my epic John Church-AH shenanigans post, where Jeremiah Wadsworth gets more attention, but I’ll point out here that AH asked Wadsworth to confirm MR’s handwriting, from AH to Wadsworth, 28Jul1797 (in NYC, writing to Wadsworth in Hartford, CT): 

My Dear Wadsworth

I regretted much, that I did not find you here.

I know you have seen the late publications, in which the affair of Reynold’s is revived. I should have taken no notice of them had not the names of Mughlenberg Monroe & Venable given them an artificial importance. But I thought under this circumstance, I could not but attend to them. The affair has so turned that I am obliged to publish every thing.

But from the lapse of time I am somewhat embarrassed to prove Mrs. Reynold’s hand writing. Thinking it probable, as she was a great scribbler you must have received some notes from her when she applied to you for assistance, I send you one of her notes to me and if your recollection serves would be much obliged to you to return it with your affidavit annexed—“That you received letters from Mrs. Reynolds, conceived yourself to be acquainted with her hand writing & that you verily believe this letter to be of her hand writing.”

If your memory does not serve you then return the letter alone to me. If I remember right I never knew of your agency towards procuring Reynold’s relief, till after he was discharged. If your memory stands in the same way, I will thank you to add a declaration to this effect.

Dont neglect me nor lose time.

Yrs. truly

This was Wadsworth’s response (2Aug1796), truncated by me: 

your favor of the 28th July arrived late last evening. I have not the least knowledge of Mrs. Reynolds’s hand writing nor do I remember ever to have recd a line from her if I did they were destroyed but a letter or two for you which by Your request I returned to her or destroyed. ...[S]he immediately fell into a flood of Tears and told me a long storey about her application to You for Money when in distress in her husbands Absence & that it ended in a amour & was discovered by her husband from a letter she had written to you which fell into his hands. I told her I would see Mr. Woolcott & G Mifflin The next Morning I told Mr. Woolcott what had passed he then related the transaction for which Clingn & Reys had been committed. I then went to Mifflin and told him I came at ye request of Mrs. Reynolds. he imediately told me that she had told him the Story of the amour. ...A Mr. Clingman whom I had never seen before and seemed to have been sent for was present part of the time. From this interview I was fully confirmed in my Opinion before formed that the whole business was a combination among them to Swindle you. Mrs Reynolds called on me again and urged me deliver letters to You. You refused to receive them & desired me to return letters for You or destroy them I do not know which. I rec’d several Messages from her and again went to her house told her you would hold no correspondence with her and gave her my Opinion as at first that her husband must undergo a trial. I can not be particular as to time & date and I do not remember that I ever knew how he was liberated untill I lately saw Mr Woolcott. I certainly never considered myselfe as having any agency in procureing Reynolds’s relief nor do I remember ever to have had any conversation with You on the subject untill after your meeting with the Mess Munroe Melenburg & Venables. and had supposed Reynolds to have been ⟨released⟩ by their influence he was ⟨ashamed⟩ to have been so ⟨–⟩ after an Explanation with you. I am sorry you have found it necessary to publish any thing for it will be easy to invent new Calumnies & you may be kept continualy employed in answring. be Assured it never will be in the power of your enemies to give the public an opinion that you have Speculated in ye funds, nor do they expect it: I should have replied by this days Post—but the Mail arrives here at nine at night & goes out at Two in the Morning. I am D sir truly yours

[tothewaterhq]

ACCEPTED // OAKLEY DRESSEL

district 8 → mentor →  elizabeth olsen fc

positive traits: resourceful, gentle, amiable negative traits: physically weak, dependent, timid

describe their arena:

The arena of the 69th Hunger Games launched at the edge of a massive canyon.  The cornucopia was right at the edge with a mile long drop.  In front of them was canyon.  Overhead blues skies and fluffy clouds painted the picture of a beautiful warm day.  The breeze was warm and it would have been beautiful if not for the dark reason the tributes were there.  Paths made in the side of the canyon allowed the tributes to descend into the depths of the true arena.  Those who turned away from the canyon and ran when the countdown ended, soon bounced off a forcefield.  They had two options, stay on top with the cornucopia or descent into the heart of the canyon.  Those who were able to reach the bottom were rewarded with an abundance of fresh water as the river cut through the canyon.  The water was too dangerous to swim, making it near impossible for tributes to reach the other side.

When the bloodbath began, tributes fought over weapons while others ran into the canyon, braving the winding rocky paths while seeking safety and a chance to regroup before facing the other tributes.  Tributes paired off into ally groups and the Gamemakers unleashed the mutts.  Vultures circled overhead as a continual reminder of the death all but one would face before the Games concluded.  Lizards, spiders, scorpions, and snakes were a constant risk for the tribute.  One sting or bite and it could all be over.  Baking heat during the day brought forth cool nights and the howling of coyote mutts, eager to rip tributes to shreds or chase them until they fell to their deaths from the numerous pathways along the canyon walls.

After the mutts had done their work, there were limited tributes remaining.  In the end, Oakley was left to fight it out with the boy from District Nine on a crumbling path near the base of the canyon.  It felt like it lasted hours, but soon the final two were falling.  The hit the ground with a sickening crack as the vultures circled above them, waiting as the minutes ticked by for the final cannon to sound, a slow death ending the boy from Nine in one of the most anticlimactic finales of recent memory.

bio:

Life for Oakley had always been average.  Save story of her mother escaping District Eleven as a teenager, leaving her world behind in the hopes of finding a better future.  Pepper Monroe did find that better future when she stumbled into District Eight after weeks in the wilds.  So when Pepper found love with a factory worker named Bobbin, everything was looking up.  Oakley was born, a name chosen to honor both her mother’s native district, and her paternal grandmother Paisley.  However, that choice was not an easy one for Oakley.  Children were mean, telling her repeatedly to go back to District Seven, teasing her for the name that was so meaningful for her parents.  Even though she tried, briefly, to go by a different name it never stuck.  Oakley eventually embraced it.  After all, they didn’t understand the meaning behind it.

However, it was the story of her mother’s harrowing escape through the wilds, those weeks she spent trying to survive, that had ignited a spark of adventure inside Oakley.  She was curious, always looking to have an adventure or tell another exciting story.  Her parents encouraged it, and that was the world. Oakley grew up in.  She had her parents, and eventually she had her baby sister.  Her father worked hard in the factories and her mother worked as a midwife and nurse, helping the poorer people in the district cure their ails and deliver their babies.  Oakley learned a lot from her mother watching her work, but her parents were busy and much of the responsibility fell to young Oakley’s shoulders.  She didn’t mind it though.  Oakley knew it was preparing her for life.

School was something Oakley enjoyed.  She liked learning and it gave her a chance to have fun with her friends.  Her friends were a chance to have some fun beyond the expectations and responsibilities she had at home.  She could just be a kid, if only for a short period of time.  One of those friends was named Taylor, but she didn’t realize being his partner for a project could drastically alter the course of her life.  When they were fourteen they started dating and at sixteen Taylor was reaped for the Hunger Games.  While the Hunger Games was always something that had been on her radar, Oakley never paid much attention to it.  She always assumed the Capitol’s reach wouldn’t touch her.  Satine, a girl from her school, had won the year before but that seemed only to further prove the odds weren’t good.  Districts hardly ever won two years in a row.  Oakley cried hard as she hugged her boyfriend after the reaping.  Even if Taylor stood a chance, the odds weren’t in his favor.  By the time the train pulled out of the station, Oakley knew she would lose her first love to the Capitol.

She was right.  Taylor died in the bloodbath.

Things couldn’t possibly get worse.

Until they did.

Oakley’s name came out of that bowl the very next year.  She was seventeen and terrified.  She wasn’t strong enough.  Sure, she knew how to use a knife and knew some basic medicine, but the careers would get her.  Oakley thought all she could do was bide her time.  Even thought she wanted to go home it seemed like an unlikely outcome.

When Oakley’s eyes opened and the countdown began, they were standing in a circle around the glistening cornucopia displayed at the edge of a massive canyon, stretching for as far as anyone could see.  The moment the clock hit zero, the bloodbath began and Oakley ran.  She knew the bloodbath was a suicide mission, so she ran in the other direction.  Unfortunately, when she did she hit a force field and bounced back, scrambling to her feet as she soon realized the only option was to enter the canyon.  Staying at the surface was certain death.

Oakley ran, her legs carrying her as she moved quickly down the paths along the canyon wall in the hopes of finding somewhere to hide.  At first the tributes were more interested in running and getting their bearings than killing each other.  Perhaps that was her saving grace.  That night she stayed awake only to find the young boy from District Six.  Oakley had made friends with him during training.  He was twelve and reminded Oakley of her sister.  She wanted to help him as much as she could.  At first he was scared, but Oakley convinced him she wouldn’t hurt him.

They stuck together for two days until the Gamemaker’s coyote mutts chased them into the boy from District One. He was strong, lethal, and Oakley knew in that moment she had to stand her ground.  If she tried to run, he’d kill her.  So, the pair fought while the boy from District Six ran off in the chaos.  Eventually the career’s long sword sliced open her arm during the fight and Oakley lost a lot of blood, but she tripped him and got the sword away before she drove it into his abdomen.  It was the first time Oakley got blood on her hands, but it certainly wouldn’t be the last.  Oakley took the sword as her prize while she stumbled away from the scene.  She sat against a big rock while blood poured from her arm, ripping off a piece of her shirt to try and stop the bleeding before a second gift arrived.  It was enough to bandage the wound and at least stop the bleeding.  Oakley was terrified.  She hurt.  Nothing about this was right.

She continued to wander and climb as best as she could with her arm injured, descending further into the heart of the canyon.  It was exhausting.  Still, she found her ally, the young boy from Six, hiding out some time later.  He was even more tired, so Oakley promised to watch over him while he slept.  Except she didn’t.  While he slept Oakley used the sword to slit the boy’s throat.  He didn’t suffer.  He didn’t see it coming.  He was a threat in the way of her getting home.

The rest of the Games moved quickly until Oakley realized it was only her and the boy from District Nine left in the arena.  She was constantly on edge, gripping her sword for protection in case the boy came out of nowhere.  And he did.  He cornered Oakley on one of the rocky pathways along the side of the canyon near bottom.  The sound of rushing water had been too tempting for Oakley to ignore.  Her sunburnt skin and dehydrated body had been called by sound of the river.  Perhaps luckily, both of the remaining tributes lost their weapons early in the struggle, so Oakley and the injured boy scuffled on the edge of the cliff.  Pushing and shoving, kicking and punching.  It felt like hours but really was only a few minutes.  The boy grabbed her and Oakley thought she would die, but she struggled just enough that he stumbled backwards.  Suddenly they were both falling.

Oakley and the boy from Nine both hit the ground hard.  While her life flashed before her eyes as she fell, she didn’t see the light.  Her breathing was shallow and she couldn’t move.  The boy didn’t either.  Oakley didn’t hear a cannon.  Was she dead?  Wouldn’t it be nicer if she was?  Ever so slowly, the pair laid there broken at the bottom staring up at the high canyon walls and the vultures circling overhead, desperate to claim the final victim.  Minutes ticked by and everyone watched with baited breath.  Who would die first?

What felt like hours for Oakley was less than five minutes before the boy’s cannon sounded.  Almost immediately the hovercraft appeared just as Oakley lost consciousness.  The Capitol couldn’t allow them both to die.  What would the Games be without a victor?  And live Oakley did.  When she woke up she was told her back was badly damaged.  Surgery to stabilize her spine had been performed, but it did little to stop her pain or the numbness in her legs that made the mere act of walking difficult on the best of days.  

In the time since her games, Oakley has been forced to come to terms with her newfound disability. While many victors have turned to morphling for the high it brings them, Oakley has been forced to use it to manage her pain.  On good days, Oakley can walk.  On good days, her pain is manageable.  On good days she can do the things she wants to do with her life.  On bad days she can barely get out of bed.  On bad days she can’t leave her wheelchair less her legs give out beneath her.  In some ways, Oakley’s life has become dependent on her family to help her.  She can’t simply do things like she used to be able to.  A warm bath to sooth her back on a bad day is a two person project.  It’s the unfortunate reality she’s forced to face.  The once independent and responsible girl, curious about the next adventure, had her wings clipped far too soon.

Oakley is quiet, reserved, and in some ways, invisible.  She is not the inspiring victor the Capitol always wants.  The Capitol wants to paint a picture of triumph, not of a reminder that they did this to her.  Each time she is seen in her wheelchair, the citizens of the Capitol are reminded that she didn’t overcome it.  She is not the triumphant victor they all celebrate.  She’s just a girl who had her world flipped upside down and her independence stripped away.  For what?  Entertainment?  Gambling?  Fear?

In the years since her own victory, Oakley has tried to help mentor, but not been physically able to do so every year.  Those first few years after her games, as she adjusted to her new life, were far from easy.  She struggled to adjust and no one could fault her.  Even still, Oakley is determined to do her best to make sure her tributes have the best shot at surviving.  Physically she may not be able to help them much, but she can help them anyway.  There is nothing she wants more that to help people.  After all, she survived for a reason.  Oakley just hasn’t figured out what that reason is yet.

PLAYED BY // MADI

[lexicondcvil-blog]

hey folks ! i’m lucia and this is joey--a muse i created about a year ago ?? and have written a little bit on my indie, but have never written her in a group, so i’m super excited. if you missed my ooc intro in discord, the tl;dr version is this: i’m thirty. i live in pst, but i work overnights, so my sleep schedule and activity schedule are a hot mess tbqh. i’m a textbook aquarius. and i just finished a book that stole my heart, so i have to mourn that book before i can start another.

below the cut, you’ll find a stats page on joey as well as a little minibio ( i have to pace myself or i’ll never get to maite’s stuff ).

GENERAL INFORMATION.

full name - josephine harper ryan nicknames - joey, ryan gender / pronouns - she/her date of birth - july 12, 1960 place of birth - corvallis, oregon citizenship / ethnicity - american / irish, english, scottish, icelandic. religion - atheist socioeconomic status / political affiliation - lower middle class; liberal. marital status - single, though may depend on verse. sexual & romantic orientation - bisexual. education / occupation - waitress. languages - english

FAMILY INFORMATION.

parents - darby ( deceased ) & felicity ryan. siblings - heather, eldest sister ( deceased ); katherine, younger sister; edmund, younger brother. offspring - none pets / other - none. notable extended family - isabelle, niece and gabriel, nephew.

PHYSICAL INFORMATION.

faceclaim - maika monroe hair color / eye color - blonde / brown height / build - 5′6″ / slender tattoos / piercings - earlobes x 2. a few cartliage piercings. tattoo of ‘the moon’ tarot card on her left forearm. an ‘x’ tattooed on her right middle finger. distinguishable features - big brown eyes, wild blonde hair

MEDICAL INFORMATION.

medical history - anxiety. known allergies - none. visual impairment / hearing impairment - none. nicotine use / drug use / alcohol use - very rarely will she smoke a cigarette or use drugs. drinks socially, but is more inclined to experiment since she is no longer responsible for her siblings and niece/nephew.

PERSONALITY.

traits - ( + ) amiable, stalwart, imaginative ; ( - ) melancholy, reserved, petulant tropes - small town boredom, desperately looking for a place in life, mommy issues, relative button, perky goth, cool aunt temperament - phlegmatic alignment - chaotic good celtic tree zodiac - holly, the ruler mbti - infp hogwarts house - hufflepuff vice / virtue - envy / diligence likes / dislikes - fairy lights over a dark tapestry, old victorian houses, cats, a new pair of tights with no snags in them, a soft knit sweater, lavender lemonade, almond cookies, the sound of fallen leaves crunching underfoot /  people who dislike children, drunk drivers, the after-church sunday rush at her restaurant, ants, boys who are music elitists. quote - “she tastes like nectar and salt. nectar and salt and apples. pollen and stars and hinges. she tastes like fairy tales. swan maiden at midnight. cream on the tip of a fox’s tongue. she tastes like hope.”

FAVORITES.

food - bacon cheeseburger, no mayo, and fries. drink - strawberry milkshake pizza topping - jalapenos, chicken, and pineapple color - black and pink music - bauhaus, the smiths, the germs, blondie, david bowie, iggy pop, the velvet underground, siouxsie and the banshees, x, the damned, x-ray spex, the specials, talking heads, the go-gos … books - we have always lived in the castle, by shirley jackson movies - suspiria, night of the living dead, blade runner, decline of western civilization, poltergeist, raiders of the lost ark, halloween, mad max, jaws. curse word - bullshit scents - peony, pumpkin, rain

BIOGRAPHY. ( tw death, alcoholism )

josphine ryan is born the second of four to darby and felicity ryan on the hottest day in july, 1960. darby ryan dies on her tenth birthday in a fishing accident while working in alaska and his body is never recovered. his salty grave is too far away to feel real; too far away to place flowers at and mourn. the impact of grief affects her mother profoundly, but between the five of them, they make do. heather and joey, as the eldest girls, make sure the younger ones are looked after while felicity works two jobs. even after heather is on her own and starting her own family, she makes sure her siblings are taken care of.

joey is nearly seventeen when heather and her boyfriend die in the wreck that leaves joey with a broken arm and a small laceration to her forehead. hit by a drunk driver, joey’s niece and nephew had been orphaned in one tragic accident. if her mother had been distant following her father’s death, she was beside herself over the loss of her eldest daughter. within a year, felicity had lost both jobs and rarely left the house except to scrounge up enough cash for a trip to the liquor store. everything fell on the narrow shoulders of the eldest remaining daughter that had dreamed of a life outside of small-town corvallis.

instead of following her dreams of film school, joey graduated early and started working two waitressing jobs. there was a small settlement and some government stipend for the kids, but at eighteen she was hardly seen as fit to be granted full custody of her siblings, niece and nephew. on top of raising the four kids, she made efforts to maintain the image that her mother was a charming stay at home mom that was only absent in public--so stalwart in her dedication to staying home for her children. 

by the time katherine and edmund were able to help out more, felicity had enrolled in aa and was taking steps to become a guiding presence in the kids’ lives again. as much as it released the pressure on her, there was a bitterness joey could not salve. after all this time, felicity ryan could return to reality--image virtually untarnished--and be forgiven as easily as children can forgive. knowing she was unable to keep from screaming into her pillow each night while felicity insisted on chaperoning the younger kids to practices and events, joey finally accepted that she had--for the first time in her life--the opportunity to leave.

though things would, perhaps, always be precarious and toxic between joey and her mother, there was love and understanding. felicity gave joey her blessing ( provided she call once a week ) and her father’s old 1970 honda scrambler. it was a long ride before she found herself in new york city, waiting tables again and hoping to find something bigger than herself to fall in love with. there was so much more to see in this big city than back home and joey basked in it all.

after a recommendation from a friend, joey ended up catching a few shows at veto and fell in love with the anger and passion. still a girl who would rather swallow her own screams than let them bear fruit--the catharsis of the pit, the vocals, and the camaraderie made her feel more at home than she’d even felt changing diapers and packing lunches alone. she’s lived in the pit for about seven months and is torn between the fear of losing a place she finally feels herself in and the worry that she hasn’t been there long enough to have a right to grieve ziggy.

[sebbystanimagines]

Prompt:  Hii!! First of all your imagines are amazing! Was just wondering if I could request a Bucky x reader where the reader is like a sister to Tony and he’s quite protective of the reader and tries to keep her out of any avenger business, Bucky and the reader are quite close and obviously have hidden feelings for each other and one day hyder find out about the and kidnaps her, reader gets saved by Bucky, fluff? Thanks!! 🖤 Word Count: 2403 Warnings: Feeling unwanted, kidnapping, self pity A/N: I missed Bucky

Growing up with Tony Stark was not the childhood your parents had envisioned for you, the two of you went to school together under the insistence of Maria Stark that you get the same education as Tony, he helped you with your math homework and you help him with English. In the end, it was Tony who had stood by your side at your father’s funeral and it was Tony who had made sure you would be alright.

“Ms. Jarvis,” F.R.I.D.A.Y called to you, “Mr. Stark is looking for you.”

“He knows where I am.” Going back to punching you waited only a few moments for Tony to walk through the door. “What’s up Tony?”

It was four-thirty in the morning and you were in the basement taking your frustration out on a punching bag, the one usually used by Steve, “What are you doing up?”

Mornings had always been your time, a trait inherited from your father, there was always at least an hour before you ran into Tony and you used it to your advantage. “I’m working out, usually Bucky is here by now to help me spar but he’s running late.”

“Yeah, about that.”

“Tony...what did you do?”

On a fairly regular basis, Tony would get protective and act like an older brother you never asked for. It usually disrupted some routine you had. “I told him to stop training you.”

You stopped and took a breath before turning to face him. “He’s not training me, he’s helping me hone the skills I already have, which you know because I’ve caught you with this left hook more times than you remember.”

“That’s training Y/N.”

“Why would you do something like this? It’s none of your business what I do or who I do it with no matter how much you try to make it.”

Tony crossed his arms over his chest hiding the glowing piece beneath his shirt, you would never get used to it and wondered if he did it to make you feel more comfortable talking to him. “You don’t need to be involved in the Avengers stuff Y/N, it puts you at risk and I don’t think I could handle it if something happened to you. So, I asked him to stop training you because I don’t want anyone thinking you’re part of the Avengers!”

“Don’t you dare tell me that I’m not a part of this team! I’m not just Tony Stark’s personal assistant, I’m Iron Man’s assistant too! Do you know how difficult it is juggling two of the most famous people in the world and their date books? Jesus Tony, we’ve been through everything together and you honestly can’t bring yourself to say that I’m part of this?”

“Because you’re not.”

“I’M LIVING IN THE AVENGERS COMPOUND!” His eyes closed, it was how Tony dealt with you getting angry. “I’m a part of this because you asked me to be here, because you wanted me by your side, and because I’m probably the one person in the world that knows who you are Tony.”

Taking a few steps towards you, Tony placed his hands on your shoulders. “That’s why I need the world to see that you’re not an Avenger. It’s to protect you.”

“Figure out what it is you want me to be Tony, because now matter how much you pay me this bullshit is going to get old.” Shaking him off you stalked out of the room jumping in the elevator before Tony could catch up to you.  

Only a few floors up the doors opened to show Steve smiling as he saw you but quickly changed to a worried look. “I’m guessing you just got one of Tony’s famous Big Brother Talks?”

“He’s driving me insane, he told Bucky to stop training me because I’m not an Avenger and he doesn’t want the rest of the world to think I am.” You could feel Steve bristle beside you, as much as you’d grown up with Tony you’d known Steve for a long time too. “Maybe he’s right.”

“No, he’s not. Without you this team would have jumped down each others throats a long time ago, you’re the reason we all find a way to calm down. Especially with Buck.”

Letting out a short laugh, you felt the anger start to dissipate. “Yeah, how am I supposed to get alone time with him now?”

“I’m sure we can work something out, he’ll admit it eventually.” Getting to the floor you needed the door opened and you saw a few of the others wandering around trying to start their day. “And as for Tony...what’s the phrase you always use? Don’t let the muggles get you down?”

Now you laughed loudly giving Steve a high five before walking away. “I knew you’d like those books.”

Grabbing a shower you got ready for the day and grabbed your purse from the hook just as a knock echoed through your room. “Y/N, are you in there?”

“Hey Bucky,” Opening the door enough to leave the room you stood under his towering figure in the hallway. “Sorry Tony acted like that, it’s not his place.”

“I was coming to make sure you were okay, if you wanted to get out for a little bit or something.” Motioning to your purse he smirked. “Looks like you got that idea first though.”

You had hoped to leave the compound without attracting too much attention, but you knew your absence would be noticed anyway. “I’m going to see a movie, maybe two. I haven’t decided yet. I’ll see you later?”

“You’ll be back for dinner? I’m making your favorite.”

Each of you took turns making dinner for the group, and each time Bucky tried to make something he knew you enjoyed. “I wouldn’t miss your dinners for the world Buck.”

You left the compound as soon as you could, speeding down the mile and a half long driveway only slowing down enough for the gate to open before turning sharply onto the road. Ignoring the calls coming through on your bluetooth and turning the entire thing off as you pulled into the parking lot, you threw the cell phone into your purse knowing you wouldn’t be looking at it for hours.

“What do you mean she left? Where did she go?” It was after lunch already and there had been no word from you at all.

Steve took a step forward, his arms crossed loosely against his stomach. “I think you should calm down Tony, after all you’re the reason she left.”

“Don’t do this Rogers, do not try to father me right now.” Tony was angrier than he had been in a long time, he didn’t like not knowing where you were. “Now tell me where she went Barnes!”

“Again: she didn’t say, just that she was going out to maybe see a movie but didn’t verify.” He’d been at it for an hour already, trying to interrogate the information out of Bucky. “And Steve’s right, she needed space away from you.”

“Just shut up with that already.”

Steve stiffened. “Don’t. You did this, you are the reason she stormed out, don’t try to make this anyone else’s fault.”

“Well if your friend here could just stay away from her we wouldn’t have to worry about her being a target.” Both Steve and Bucky started arguing at the same time about how that wasn’t the reason and Tony was too blind to see it. “Hydra wants the Winter Soldier and they’ll take anyone close to him-”

“You know that’s not the reason.” Without another word, Steve and Bucky left the room.

The theater had been empty for most of the day and you’d taken advantage of it enjoying the freedom to laugh as loudly as you wanted or even yell at the characters for stupidly tripping over their own feet while running away from the murderer. By the third movie the freedom was lost and three men took their seats a few rows behind you.

Feeling the hair on your neck stand with their very presence, you reached into your purse and pulled out your phone powering it back on and silencing it.

Halfway through the movie you heard them move a row closer to you, only a few minutes passed before they moved another row up.

At the midtown theater on Monroe, theater number 4. Come quickly. Cursing yourself for not turning down the brightness you pocketed the phone again jumping as the chair behind you was filled and hot breath met your neck.

“Didn’t you know it’s rude to use your cell phone during the movie?”

“Steve…” Bucky ran into the room practically throwing his phone on the counter.

“Let’s go. F.R.I.D.A.Y can you tell Sam to meet us in the garage?”

But by the time they got to the theater you were already gone. “You’re sure you didn’t see her leave?” Sam was showing your picture to everyone who worked at the theater hoping someone recognized you.

“Her car’s still in the parking lot, nothing broken or jammed.” Bucky was in full panic mode now, they needed to find you. “What do we do?”

Steve was trying to think of a plan when his phone started ringing. “What, Tony?” Fully intending to blow off his teammate Steve jumped when he actually heard what he had to say. “Where?”

“What’s going on?”

Steve started for the door. “Y/N activated her watch, she’s at a warehouse twenty miles from here. Tony’s meeting us there.”

The warehouse looked deserted, no lights were on and there were no cars parked outside besides the truck they had arrived in. Sitting there, they knew that if there was a lookout, they’d already been spotted. Tony opened the door and jumped in. “How the hell did this happen?”

“We’re really not explaining this again, man.” Sam held up a hand indicating he really wasn’t going to have the conversation. “What matters right now is that we know she’s in there, and we don’t know what kind of circumstances it’s under. Let’s just go in there and get our girl.”

The plan was always the same: Tony would go in guns blazing and mouth running to create a distraction while the other three maneuvered around incapacitating anyone they could to get to you, Tony was the only one with his suit so they had to be stealthy. Bucky and Sam went through a vent in the roof while Steve ran through the back.

“Finally,” the man who had taken you smiled broadly. “Iron Man. We’ve been waiting for you, why don’t you come join us?”

When you were brought to the warehouse you were tied to a chair and watched as the men set up an elaborate looking table. Candles were lit, glasses were filled with wine, and fine china was placed at every setting.

You could feel the mascara running down your cheeks, the sweat collecting on your palms...you’d been lucky to fake fix your watch and hit the emergency button as you did. You knew it was only a matter of time, but you were still terrified.

“This looks nice, see Y/N, told you I’d treat you to the finer things in life.” your captor sneered. “Urban construction is all the rage now, this spot will be the talk of the town after I‘m done tweeting about it.”

Seeing Steve move out of the corner of your eye you focused on being saved and not whatever Tony was babbling on about. But the look on his face soured and you brought your attention back. “-ew Miss Jarvis was a close companion to you, with you in every capacity isn’t she? The easiest way to Tony Stark is through her.”

Hearing a knife flip open you felt the duct tape get cut free from your wrists and took it to work on your legs, the chair was too small to hide the super soldier. You’d barely gotten the rest of yourself free before the chaos erupted.

One of the henchmen had been walking towards you and had almost given away the fact that you were free of the chair, but when Bucky grabbed him his gun went off alerting everyone. They all reacted immediately, Tony flipping his mask back on before shooting at whoever he could see, Steve knocking out one guy after another.

“Where are they all coming from?” you yelled sweeping the legs out of another one.

“Dunno, but we gotta get out of here.”

Steve gave a signal and you all moved for the door, with all five of you it was easy and with the police outside thanks to Tony activating his suit function, you could run into the fresh air without incident.

That night, after everything had been smoothed over and you’d taken some time to relax, Tony came to see you. Wrapping you in his arms tightly you could feel his body shaking. “I am...I’m just so sorry Y/N. I thought for sure that you would be seen as an Avenger and they would target with because of that, but it was really just me. I’m the reason you were kidnapped.”

“Tony-”

“No, honestly. If I hadn’t told Barnes to stop training you, you wouldn’t have even left the compound. And they targeted you to get to me. It’s all my fault.”

He took a shaky breath and you pulled back to look at him. “It’s not your fault. I was stupid and stormed off alone knowing how dangerous it is.”

After the apologies and making sure you were okay, Tony looked over your shoulder and quietly left the room.

“How’re you feeling?” Bucky’s voice was quiet as he walked towards you, his hair was pulled back out of his face and even though he was dressed comfortably you could tell he was tense. “Anything you need?”

“Nah, I’m good now.” Now you were pulled to his chest feeling the warmth emanating from him. “Thanks for coming to get me today.”

His lips met the top of your head and for the first time you were breathless around him. “I don’t know what I’d do without you Y/N, I’ll always come for you.”

This was all you needed, just to be here with Bucky feeling safe.

[e-e-paradise]

the last meeting

Peter and I crossed the threshold of an old run-down house on Frank Street. We did not know it at the time, but we were entering onto the stage of what would be a tragic spectacle. Neither of us had seen John in years and we both had jumped at the opportunity for a reunion. We wanted things to be as they were in our romanticized memories of youth. Days that were spent together on vacant lots of construction sites, derelict homes rented by punks and degenerates, and basements of our family homes. Uneasiness and excitement became danced in my belly and the overwhelming optimism I felt about us once again coming together dulled my senses to the tension that was already starting to build.  These two men had once been as close as brothers, but now they appeared as distant as planets, both following the gravity of their own separate moons. I felt uncomfortable in my skin as soon as I saw John. I had imagined us meeting again many times, I imagined the way he might look at me, and what the look might tell me about just how far we had likely grown apart. John hugged me and dark nights of the soul I had spent wondering about our friendship melted away. Years of hurt and tension and guilt flowed out of my body like ice in the spring. Optimism filled my heart and guided me through introductions to his new friends that, before coming here, I had been so nervous to meet. Peter and I had promised each other in the bar before leaving that, if the evening were to sour or uncomfortable, we would just leave quickly and continue catching up without John. Oh, how I wish that we had kept this promise to each other!

John’s friends were nice. We played card games and teased each other like old friends instead of strangers. I confided in a girl, with a shaved head and a Monroe piercing, that I had been nervous about seeing John. I explained to her that we were estranged high-school sweethearts. She smiled and nodded and then continued her conversation with her other friend, a shorter woman with kind eyes and a soft build. I became hot in the face and I could feel shame ooze into my body like a toxic spill from the tar sands. Shortly after this she left, and I wondered if perhaps she and John were sleeping together. I hoped that I had not intruded, but reasoned with myself that, if they were, he probably would have prepared her for the situation, or perhaps she would not have cared either way. Still, the situation had set something in motion inside me that I chose to ignore for the sake of maintaining the buzz of a rekindled friendship. In the background of my thoughts, the idea that I had confided this in her precisely BECAUSE I suspected that her and John were sleeping together buzzed around in my brain like a gnat. This shadow-thought lurked in my mind and I remembered myself as the person I once was, so scared and damaged, so young and reckless. My blood became ice for a brief moment, and I hated myself. I sat with this feeling for a moment and then waved goodbye to it. I reminded myself of all the work I have put in, since being a teenager, to minimize the damage I cause others. A therapist once told me that hurt people can be like injured animals in the wild. When you approach them to try and assist, they lash out in fear and hurt their helpers. I am more healed now and I can recognize people’s kindness for what it is. This thought gave lightness to my heavy mood.

Around this time, Peter began to become surly. This trait often surfaced with his consumption of alcohol. We all went outside for a cigarette and I asked John about his job. Peter was becoming increasingly defensive. He had assumptions about John’s career that were rooted in insecurity. I could not hold this against him. Peter has always been somewhat of a lost soul; in some ways I am too. Whether it be from a complicated up-bringing, or a certain astrological proclivity, we have always connected over pain and discomfort with reality. John was much more neurotypical than us. He had the perfect balance capitalist ambition and artistic talent that neither Peter, nor I, have ever seemed to master. For better or worse. I think that, when Peter left Ottawa after caring for his parents and breaking up with Mary, he needed to get away from himself almost as much as he needed to get away from this government shithole. Seeing John again put him too close to that person that he had been trying to run away from. He began to take verbal jabs at John. I tried my best to quell the tension with quiet reminders to Peter under my breath like, “think clearly” and “let go”, he seemed to not have heard me as we went inside.

Peter and I sat on the couch in the living room in silence together. He was leaned back into the cushions, with pursed lips and his gamblers poker face fully intact. He was watching John as if from far away, observing him like a wolf might observe a distant caribou calf what was straying behind the herd. It seemed he was resisting the urge to pounce and he suggested we leave. I felt relief as I moved to the door and got my coat. Pulling my phone from the left pocket, and searching for my uber app, I ordered a car and approached John to say goodbye. He seemed for a moment to not want us to leave and then invited us into the basement to look at his new drum kit. Peter agreed and I cancelled the uber. Descending into the basement would be the final act of the evening.The smell of stale beer, sweat and mould overpowered my nostrils and made me feel nostalgic. John was talking but I could barely understand what he was saying. Something to do with the specification of the instruments that he was showing off to Peter. I sat at the drums and banged aimlessly on the skins. I never had any real talent for music, unlike the other two men in the room with me. Peter picked up a guitar and strummed a single note. A chugging reverberation made the stale air in the room electric. I watch his gaze meet John’s eyes. It struck me that I had not seen these two men make eye contact all evening All at once words spilled out of Peter.

“What the fuck is wrong with you man?”

“What are you talking about, man.” replied John, stunned, although he probably shouldn’t have been.

I froze and wildly tried to force Peter to look at me. I called to him with my mind and begged him not to continue.

“Where have you been? Here you are with all new friends, and all you’ll talk about is your shitty new job!”

John then suddenly seemed to once again find his voice.

“My job isn’t shitty, I love my new job. What the fuck are you even doing these days anyways?”

Peter flushed with anger as more, and more potent, venom began to shoot from his mouth. He had always struggled to find a career path that suited him. He had tried for years to live up to his incredibly successful family’s expectations of him.

“You’re a fucking bastard John. You talk all night about this stupid job, and it’s like, you have totally forgot who you are! You haven’t kept in contact with anyone. Where the fuck is Greg, man? Do you even fucking care?”

I looked down at the floor and began to feel dizzy. In the corners of my vision a hot-red glow began, and I looked at Peter with the fury of the culmination of this catastrophe.

“That’s not fucking fair, Peter” I said, though no one heard.

Greg had been a friend during youth. I was never particularly close to him but knew him to be a faithful and honest person who had difficulty feeling confident or expressing himself. No one had heard from him in a very long time and rumours that he had fallen into darkness and depression we rampant. I knew that Peter unfairly blamed John for not keeping close enough in contact with Greg, as if this could have somehow helped the young man out of his spiral, it was a ridiculous and cruel thing to say.

“I don’t know, shit. Why the fuck would you even bring that up, Peter? You know what, dude, you’re a fucking ass hole and you’ve always been a fucking ass hole. You’re a selfish piece of shit and I’m glad I’ve moved on with my life.” John barked.

I felt tears well up in my eyes and I began pleading with them to stop. I begged both of them to not end the evening in such an ugly manner, but all my pleas went unheard and ignored as my two old friends tore each other to pieces in front of me. John told us to get out of his house and I selfishly hated Peter for starting this fight that would ensure that my friendship with John was certainly over. Peter began to cry and ask John if he meant what he said, to which John replied that he did. That’s when Peter lost control and with one loud crack knocked John across the face with a blow that landed accurately and brought him to the floor. Men from the living room now began to thunder downstairs in steel-toed combat boots. They dragged Peter upstairs and threw him from the house. I bent over and touched John’s face. He looked up at me and asked me in a voice that I recognized from him; a voice of fear and heartache.

“What just happened?”

I began to cry and told him that I didn’t know, I then apologized and told him that it was nice to see him. His eyes became dark and he looked away from me. I knew in that moment that it was all over. All of my hopes of reconciliation were dead and there was nothing to do now but leave.

I ordered another uber outside and my phone died. I sobbed uncontrollably on the way home. My misery was mirrored as Peter joined me and collectively our broken hearts expressed themselves in a symphony of tears. I told him that his ego was a fucking problem and that, when he drinks, he can be a jackass. He told me he knew that that he was sorry. We went back to my house and curled together on my couch, holding hands, we licked our wounds over tea, and he apologized profusely. I forgave him as he left and promised to call him in the morning.

Peter and I still call each other to catch up every once in a while. He has since completed his red seal and is working as a carpenter. I am very proud of him. John, on the other hand, has only sent me a message once since that evening. It was the day that a close friend of ours died. He asked me if I was okay, to which I replied that I was even though I was terribly sad. He said the same. I no longer think about a reconciliation, all of my past attempts have been met with little to no enthusiasm. It’s funny because, when we broke up, he made me promise him that we would still be friends. For my part, I will always keep that promise and will silently wish him peace and happiness for the rest of my days on earth.

[xtruss]

Is Old Yeast OK? The 17 Rules of Expiry Dates – From Eggs to Meat to Oils

Use-by dates are a food-safety matter so you should always take them seriously. Here’s a guide to where you do – and definitely don’t – have some leeway

— Guardian USA | Zoe Williams | Thursday 23 April, 2020

Breaking the mould ... is Theresa May’s approach to jam-eating a good rule of thumb?

One news event you may have missed this month was that Tesco lost a judicial review over selling foods past their use-by date. The company had been taken to court by Birmingham city council, and was launching a challenge using the evidence of the food microbiologist Slim Dinsdale, a swashbuckler of the pathogenic world, who favours the “smell it and see” approach. All of this was over-ruled by judges, who decided that use-by dates were, overall, still important enough for public safety to be observed.

This was, of course, all overshadowed, by the coronavirus outbreak; but the use-by date controversy has never been more up to date. The cook, author and campaigner Jack Monroe runs ad hoc advice sessions called Lockdown Larder on Twitter, and says: “Since I’ve been doing it, by a country mile the most-asked question I’ve had is: ‘I’ve got this yeast, it went out of date two months ago, can I use it? I’ve got these sardines, they went out of date a year ago, can I use them?’ People want someone they perceive to be an expert to reassure them. As a species, we seem to have lost the ability to trust our own senses.”

This gets to the core of the matter. If you want a blanket rule for everyone, the use-by date is that rule. I can only tell you what I would eat. If it happens to be the same as Theresa May (who famously admitted to scraping the mould off jam), that’s just coincidence.

Erik Millstone, emeritus professor of science policy at the University of Sussex, lays out the ground rules: ignore sell-by dates. “Those are a guidance by the retailers for the retailers, so they can manage their stock. The indications concerning food safety, particularly microbiological food safety, that’s use-by dates.” But are all use-by dates created equal?

Eggs

Eggs, strictly speaking, don’t have a use-by date but a best-before-end (BBE), which is mostly to do with quality and taste rather than safety. Either way, this is a hill I’m prepared to die on: dates are irrelevant to eggs, because of the float test. Drop the egg in a glass of water. If it floats to the surface, it’s definitely off. If it sits flat on its side, it’s definitely fresh. If it sits vertically, it’s somewhere between fresh and off (I would still eat it). A fully off egg will also smell disgusting, but you can save yourself that trauma by conducting this test.

The sulphurous smell of an off egg triggers a useful disgust mechanism, because the bacterium causing it – Pseudomonas – can be injurious. Salmonella is far more dangerous, being undetectable, but British hens are inoculated.

Bread

If a bread past its BBE date is mouldy, or smells of mould, don’t eat it. Don’t just chop off the mouldy bit, because there is a twilight when mould spores are present but not yet visible. Mould on bread isn’t the most dangerous of the fungi, but it’s still revolting.

Spices

I remember being astonished to read (in Delia) that you should do a complete spice overhaul every year, because they won’t taste as good. As I have spices that are older than my children; this seemed extremely wasteful. There are spices that most cooks won’t get through in a year (za’atar) unless you live with Yotam Ottolenghi. But Delia’s right, if you want them to last longer, buy them whole and grind yourself to order, or go back in time and store them in brown rather than clear glass.

Nuts

Ah, this is where things get interesting. Millstone says: “Some of the compounds formed from mould can be seriously toxic, especially aflatoxins, which can be carcinogenic.” These are found on mouldy grain and nuts.

You can’t buy dangerous grains and nuts (because of that blasted EU), but you should take very seriously the use-by date on what you have bought. There is no meaningful trade-off between risk now and cancer later. It’s not like pharmaceuticals; it’s just a bar snack.

Harissa, Wasabi Paste and Other things That Discolour

Some time before anything goes mouldy, it may go a bit grey (if it started out green) or just a murkier version of itself (if it started out red). This is plain pigment oxidisation and is not dangerous, though it is a bit unappetising – if the fat has oxidised, you will be able to smell it.

Yeast, Baking Powder and Other Things That React

Monroe raises the stakes here: “I’ve personally used yeast that is 10 years out of date. But it’s not been opened, and was stored away from direct light in cool conditions. It didn’t rise as well as normal yeast would. If you’re using old yeast, I would always recommend using 1.5 times the amount the recipe states, leave it for an extra hour, and if you’re really running low on flour, make a quarter batch, then if it doesn’t rise, or doesn’t go so well, you can work it into a soda bread and you’re not going to waste half a bag of what is currently quite a precious resource.”

Baking powder and bicarbonate of soda typically have shelf lives of one to two years, but storage is more important than numbers, and there is a school of thought that says bicarb lasts for ever. Yup, for ever.

Fresh Meat and Fish

These are “particularly vulnerable to bacterial spoilage,” Millstone says, “and if it smells off, it’s definitely off.” However, some forms of spoilage are smellier than others, so just because it doesn’t smell doesn’t mean it’s safe. “If I had a piece of chicken one day past its use-by date,” Millstone continues, I wouldn’t simply barbecue it and eat it, but I might put it in a casserole and cook it at a high temperature for quite a long time.”

Vulnerability to rottenness is partly about surface area – how much the meat has come into contact with the outside world, and how much of it is subject to direct heat while you’re cooking. This is why mince is such a minefield, because it has a huge surface area, and if you’re cooking a burger medium rare, the middle won’t have been thoroughly cooked. A whole bird has a much smaller surface area. Game birds are a subtle enterprise, the window between how it’s supposed to smell and “off” being so narrow. It’s eater-beware in this case.

Cured Meat and Fish

Salt, naturally, has a preservative effect, and the sniff and overall appearance test should work with things such as salami. These things have a pretty good shelf life to begin with, and are very low effort (you don’t have to cook them, you just have to pop them in your mouth). So there is something to be said for using your memory rather than your judgment. Eat them before the use-by date, and you won’t have to play ham-roulette.

Pesto, Jam and Other Jars Full of Mould

The food safety scene is united on this – nothing with mould should be consumed, except where it has been introduced deliberately (blue cheese). It does, however, seem a bit absurd, if you have a jam with a bit of mould on, stuffed with sugar so you know it’s fine underneath, to have to chuck the whole lot out. Millstone is slightly forgiving on this. “If there’s a bit of mould on the top surface of jam that can be safely removed, then the jam lower down might well be safe. But if the entire top surface is covered in mould, you should discard it.” Pesto will taste rank if it’s mouldy as pine nuts go rancid very fast.

Dried Fruit

Again, frozen, tinned and dried food gets a BBE date rather than a use-by date. You can sail past the BBE on dried fruit by as much as a year, though the higher the water content, the less time you have – figs and dates won’t last as long as currants and raisins. Do yourself a favour, though, and taste these things if they are very old. If they no longer taste of themselves, that’s just a waste of calories.

Oils

Certain oils (walnut, sesame) seem to go off much faster than others (vegetable, olive oil) but this is usually because we don’t use them fast enough. The smell and taste of a rancid oil is subtle but very insistent, and you can easily ruin a whole dish with a very small amount of it. Don’t give it the benefit of the doubt; smelling it, tasting it, smelling it again, not wanting to chuck it out because it was expensive. It’s much more wasteful to ruin more food than to throw it away.

Dried Pulses and Beans

We think of these as forever foods, but by the end of the best-before date, they will be tough and won’t taste as good. Vexingly, they will have toughened at different rates within the packet, so it will be impossible to adjust your cooking times for toughness without some of them going mushy. Stick with the guidelines.

Flour

Your real enemy is the weevil. Some people say just sift them out, others (Millstone) remind us that you don’t know what else those bugs have been crawling over.

Cheese, Milk and Yoghurt

Hard cheeses are less vulnerable to mould and bacteria than soft ones, since their higher salt content has a protective effect. All bets are off for cheeses in which the mould is deliberate. Those are delicious. I would happily saw the mouldy end off a cheddar and eat the rest. Milk has the fabulous trait of smelling awful – and shortly after that, separating – to warn you that it’s off. Yoghurt is the great unknown (I have never met anybody who takes yoghurt use-by dates seriously). Monroe will eat a yoghurt a week after its expiration. I once found one at the bottom of my daughter’s school bag, decided it would probably be fine, and it exploded. So don’t listen to me (on this one occasion).

Oat and Almond Milks

These new fangled milks will keep in pantry conditions for several months, then for seven days in the fridge. There hasn’t been a huge amount of consumer experimentation; the best anecdotal evidence is that they lose their flavour, rather than becoming disgusting. Oat milk is lower in fat and higher in sugar, so will last longer. Almond milk won’t have a very strong smell, even if it’s off, so taste it tentatively.

Crisps

Best-before dates on crisps are so long, and crisps themselves so delicious, that it’s actually quite hard to find any that are out of date. Monroe got some two-year-out-of-date Doritos from a vending machine the other day (“Were they the best Doritos I’ve ever had? Probably not, but they were fine”); I had some Quavers this morning that should have been eaten by February. They are loaded with salt and preservatives. Probably the worst they can bring is disappointment, of not being crunchy enough.

Tins

The best-before dates on cans range between three and five years from purchase, but this is essentially a way of saying “for ever, all things being equal” – if you’re dealing in units of half a decade, you’re not really talking about the food perishing, but rather the tin. Acidic foods such as tinned tomatoes can attack the can from the inside. Otherwise, rust, dents, any attack on its structural integrity can interfere with its powers of preservation. If you have a tin with a dent in it, even if you can clearly remember the time you dropped it, it’s still better not to eat it. I once had some Swedish anchovies that swelled up like a bloater fish. I don’t know how that happened, but I didn’t try to eat them.

Jack Monroe’s Good Food for Bad Days is out at the end of May

[rosettamoore-blog]

✘ she sees them walking in a straight line, but that’s not really her style ✘

the basics;;

name: sage monroe moore

age: 17

face: sydney sierota

character label: the hoyden

character traits;;

+ outspoken, authentic, fearless

- rebellious, temperamental, sarcastic

bio;;

Rosetta had wished with all her little heart that when she fell pregnant, she’d have a girl. She wanted a little girl that she could dress up in pretty clothes - of her own making, of course - take to tea parties, and do everything she imagined that a mother and daughter could do. Sure, Rose got her wish and got a girl, but the other stuff? Far from it. See, Sage is far from being her mother’s daughter. While Rose is prim and proper, always fashionable and polite, Sage is a tomboy at heart. She loves classic rock and band tees, black eyeliner and ripped jeans. Hell, all she wanted for Christmas when she was six was a skateboard, and she all but threw a fit when she ended up getting a giant teddy bear instead. To put it simply, it perplexed Rosetta to no end how she could make a child so... dissimilar. 

With all that in mind, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Sage was ever an unhappy child. In fact, she was actually fairly happy considering her parents’ rocky marriage and her mother’s clear frustration with how her little girl turned out. Her problems really set in when her dad left them when she was twelve, citing irreconcilable differences between him and her mother. Sure, divorce was fine, but he just straight up abandoned them. While she never lost her sense of humor, Sage did fall into the wrong crowd once she hit high school.  These kids were burnouts, those who could be found smoking behind the bleachers during school hourse. Maybe it was because she didn’t have her mother’s strong resolve, maybe she was missing some sort of stability in her life after losing her dad, or maybe it was even the fact that she knew that she wasn’t the child her mother wanted, but Sage just so managed to fit right into the group. That was when the real problems began.

She started getting in trouble more often. First it was getting caught sneaking out of the house after bedtime, a makeshift ladder hooked to her windowsill. Rose promptly freaked out when she found her daughter halfway out the window, and in typical mom fashion, she cracked down. There was a mandatory curfew, a loss of her car privileges, and a banning of going anywhere with anyone after school. However, her mother’s rules only caused Sage to lash out further, and she just got sneakier. The final straw was when she was arrested at a house party for underage drinking and given the ultimatum: she could either get in trouble with the law or she could go to a reform school. While the choice wasn’t so easy for Sage, it was for Rosetta, and she promptly enrolled her daughter at Walt.

Sage was - and still is - bitter that her mother sent her here. Her family had already been split at the seams once, and now here she is at a reform school under the rule of her mother. She has little to no contact with Rose - though not for lack of trying on her mother’s end - and is basically just trying to make it through this school as quickly as possible so she can get back to living her life the way she wants to live it.

recent texts;;

Recieved from [MOM] at 9:00 am -> hi sweetiepie! 💕💕💕 i hope your day is going well! maybe we can talk over facetime if you’re not busy tonight?

Recieved from [MOM] at 10:00 pm -> you busy hon???

Recieved from [MOM] at 11:30 pm-> Sage?

Sent to [MOM] at 11:40 pm -> (Read at 11:40)

This baby is new and I’d love to make some connections for her! Shoot me a message if you’d like to plot!

[missmentelle]

Thirteen Reasons Why Not

Let’s talk about Thirteen Reasons Why.

I work with high-risk inner city youth for a living, many of whom are constantly suicidal, and most of whom have lost at least one person to suicide. Lately, all that any of them can talk about is “13 Reasons Why”. And it hasn’t been a good thing - for a whole bunch of reasons I’m about to describe. 

“13 Reasons Why”, welcome to your post. 

Before I get started, I want to be the first person to acknowledge that there are a lot of things that 13 Reasons gets right. It’s one of the first shows that really drives home how achingly, painfully soul-crushing it is to be a teenage girl. Looks are everything, and getting a bad reputation - even a bad reputation based on complete lies - can be difficult to overcome. The show’s male characters often treat the female characters as living dolls, and face very few repercussions for their actions - something that’s unfortunately all too real. If this was a show about sexual assault, I would say that they did a pretty great job.  But it’s not. It’s a show about suicide. 

In keeping with the show, there are 13 things in particular that I think the show gets wrong. This is me, coming at this from the perspective of a mental health professional who works with teens every day. I’m also taking information from the Canadian Mental Health Association, the Centre for Suicide Prevention, the American Association of Suicidology, the National Association of School Psychologists and the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, all of which have criticized the show. You might disagree, and that’s totally fine. Spoilers ahead, and content warnings for frank discussions of suicide and mental health:

1. It is messed up to present suicide as “revenge” In the real world, when people commit suicide, they do it to end their pain. When Hannah Baker dies, she does it to get revenge on everyone who’s wronged her. She doesn’t leave behind notes to help her grieving parents understand what happened, and ease their pain - instead, she spends her last days painstakingly planning an elaborate scheme to get revenge on the people who wronged her. In some cases, she instructs people to harass them after she’s gone. And it works. The people on the show are ruined - their lives are consumed by guilt, they are investigated by the courts, relationships crumble, and they turn to drugs and alcohol to cope. Her suicide, and the tapes that come with it, are the ultimately revenge on everyone who ever slighted her, and that’s a pretty messed up thing to show a struggling teenager, especially because the show makes no effort to tell us that Hannah made a mistake or went too far - it all works out just how she wanted it.

2. The show definitely glamorizes suicide

In life, Hannah Baker was an awkward, bullied and lonely teenage girl. In death, she’s some kind of mythical creature. Instead of becoming an empty space in her friends’ lives, she becomes a universal presence - she’s everywhere, continuing to influence an entire town from beyond the grave. And whenever Clay pictures her, she’s not the sad, cowering girl with the chopped hair - she’s beautiful, confident, with long, flowing locks intact. In life, Hannah struggled to make connections with other people, but in death, she has deep conversations and strides confidently down the bleachers at the school dance to meet Clay. Even the one time Clay pictures her corpse, she’s beautifully arranged on the basketball court in a long white gown, slashed wrists at her sides, hair flowing around her like Ophelia from a bad rendition of Hamlet. It’s a much more glamorous moment than anything the real-life Hannah achieved, and it’s textbook glamorization.  I understand that the hallucinations Clay has of Hannah are the result of his love for her, but they also send a darker message. The show implies that the living Hannah would have struggled and stumbled forever. Dead Hannah is perfect, beautiful and immortal. She never says the wrong thing or ruins relationships. In fact, “being dead” is pretty much Hannah’s only character trait - we don’t really know much about her dreams, likes, dislikes, hobbies or desires. Being dead is the most interesting about her, and that’s pretty messed up.  On top of that, the way the show strings you along, tape-by-tape, you quickly forget that Hannah is a “real” person who had died young and tragically. She becomes nothing more than a puzzle to be solved, an amusing mystery to be unraveled. Pretty quickly, “What happened at Jessica’s party” becomes much more interesting than the reality that a child is dead, and her suicide loses the kind of weight that a suicide should carry. 3. That suicide scene is way, way too much

Suicide contagion is a thing. After highly public suicides or mentions of suicide in the media, there is almost always a spike in suicides in the general population. When Marilyn Monroe’s death was officially ruled a “probable suicide”, the USA saw a freaking 12% jump in suicides that month. At least 5% of teen suicides are “copycat suicides”, and can be at least partially attributed to seeing suicide in the media. There are well-researched guidelines for preventing copycat suicides - don’t mention the cause of death, don’t show the cause of death, don’t imply that suicide is an escape - and 13 Reasons Why pretty much takes a steaming dump all over those guidelines with Hannah’s suicide scene.  We know that Hannah died by suicide. That’s the point of the show. It’s mentioned over and over and over again. The show doesn’t gain anything by telling us exactly how Hannah carried out her suicide, and it definitely doesn’t gain anything by making us watch her do it. It doesn’t add to the story, develop her character, or advance the plot. It’s just three minutes of emotion porn. 4. The half-hour debrief at the end of the show doesn’t cut it

One of the big defenses of the show is that it ends with a short episode called 13 Reasons Why: Beyond the Reasons, where the cast and crew discuss mental health, suicide and ways to get help. But it’s not enough. You have to actually sit through the entire show in order to get there, and then you have to sit through that episode. For a teen in distress, it’s just not enough - the show would have been much better off presenting quick resources at the start and end of each episode, especially the ones with disturbing content. 5. The people who suffer the most in the show aren’t her tormentors 

Some of the people on 13 Reasons Why were genuinely garbage people - most notably her rapist, Bryce - and Hannah’s tapes allow her to get a little bit of revenge. But at the end of the day, Bryce isn’t the one who suffers the most; he’s still popular, he still has parents with deep pockets, and with his accuser unable to take the witness stand, he will almost definitely not face any rape charges. Who does suffer the most? Clay. And Jessica. And Alex. These characters are tormented by their role in Hannah’s death, to the point that they (spoiler alert) become obsessed with her and risk criminal charges, develop a serious alcohol addiction and attempt suicide, respectively.  The people Hannah got revenge on weren’t her biggest tormentors. They were the closest thing she had to friends. 6. Hannah’s death is objectively better than her life

As I mentioned before, in life, Hannah was awkward and struggled to make connections. She worked a bullshit, degrading job, went to a bullshit, degrading high school, and dealt with bullshit, degrading things. In death, she doesn’t have to deal with any of that. She has an entire town wrapped around her little finger. The show hints that Hannah actually had very supportive, loving parents, but we don’t really see a lot of that - mostly, we see all the crap that she had to deal with, and how it’s magically gone now that she’s dead. Ultimately, there are very few downsides to Hannah’s death - and the fact that she constantly appears and speaks on screen makes it easy for forget that she’s even dead at all. 7. No one is “to blame” for a suicide

The show makes one thing explicitly clear - the people on the tapes are to blame for Hannah’s suicide. It’s their fault. They killed her, in their own ways. But that’s a really fucked-up thing to tell a teenage audience, or any audience at all. Millions of people around the world will lose friends, siblings, children, parents, colleagues, neighbours or loved ones to suicide. It happens every single day. Some of the people who die by suicide were dealing with shitty situations like Hannah Baker’s, and some of them didn’t have anything outwardly wrong in their lives. Either way, in the wake of a suicide, everyone who loved the person is consumed by guilt - should I have said something I didn’t? Should I have done something? Could I have been a better friend? It’s one of the hardest times in anyone’s lives, and for many people, that guilt never, ever goes away.  Having an entire generation of teenagers form their ideas about suicide from a TV show that tells them “Yep, if your friend kills themselves, it’s definitely your fault and you totally could have prevented it” is messed up. It’s not true. And it’s not right.  8. Most of the people on the tapes can’t be held responsible

Some people on the tapes were awful. Horrible. They did unforgivable, illegal things to Hannah. But some of the people on the tapes weren’t. They were just scared kids making bad decisions, which is what kids do, and they don’t deserve to feel like Hannah’s death is on their heads. Jessica didn’t drift away from Hannah because she was a horrid, evil person who wanted Hannah to die; she was an overwhelmed, self-conscious kid who got caught up in a very adult situation she couldn’t deal with. Same with Alex. Same with Courtney. Same with Zach. Same with Ryan. Same with Jenny. These kids all made huge mistakes, but that’s what kids do. They make stupid, selfish mistakes sometimes. It’s part of growing up. And no kid watching the show needs to be told that their stupid, selfish mistakes totally mean that they’re responsible for their friends’ mental health issues and death, and that it should haunt them for the rest of their lives.  9. In life, Hannah was difficult to be around

The second episode of the show is devoted to Jessica - Hannah feels that her suicide was caused, at least in part, by Jessica failing to show up for their weekly coffee dates and drifting away from Hannah. Clay also gets a little dig for snapping at Hannah after Jeff’s death, and for walking away from Hannah... when she told him to go away. I think the show was trying to say “be there for your friends, because you don’t know if they might be going through a hard time”. But the message I got out of it was “don’t ever, ever drift away from anyone, no matter what’s going on in your life, because if something bad happens to them, it’ll be all your fault”. 

But the show absolutely refuses to acknowledge one crucial thing - in life, Hannah was sometimes difficult to be around. She could be rude. She could be abrasive. She could be flippant and dismissive and dramatic, just like every other teenager alive. She was dealing with a lot of things, but so were her friends, and they had a right to cut her out of their lives if they found her too difficult to deal with or didn’t have the energy to devote to her. The show sends a strong message that you should never let go of any friendship, ever, but that’s not how real life works. Sometimes, you just need a break from someone, and you have every right to take one without feeling responsible for what happens to them.  10. Can we talk about mental illness? Even once?

Mental illness and suicide are too intertwined to separate. The show presents suicide like bad thing + bad thing + bad thing = suicide, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. Some people endure similar, or even worse things than Hannah Baker did, and they never take their own lives. Some kids don’t endure even a fraction of what Hannah did, and they do take their own lives. Instead of teaching kids that their friends’ mental health problems are all their fault because they drifted apart in the 10th grade, the show squandered a prime opportunity to talk about depression and the way it affects teenagers. Honest conversations about mental health are so desperately needed. Even if Hannah Baker the character blamed her friends and didn’t acknowledge her depression, the show could have gone another direction. But it doesn’t.  11. You’re never “too far gone” to live

One of the most toxic ideas that the teens I work with have taken from the show is that, at some point, you can be “too far gone” to keep going. Many of them had the same reaction to the show - that there was nothing that could have saved Hannah. She had been sexually assaulted, she had been shamed, she was having difficulties at school, and she had been bullied, and all those things could not possibly add up to anything other than a suicide. Hannah herself makes this point in her final tape. She hits a point where she doesn’t believe anything could save her, and the show accepts this. But that’s not how suicide works. Nine out of ten people who make a suicide attempt do not go on to die by suicide.  No one is ever “too damaged” to go on, even if they have made up their minds to die by suicide. And that’s a lesson that gets missed.  12. Seriously, most counselors aren’t that useless

If I acted like the counselor on that show, I would lose my job. Instantly. I understand that it’s part of the plot, that Hannah happens to land in the office of one of the world’s most incompetent counselors, and that he becomes part of her tapes, and one of the people who failed her. But seriously... most counselors are not this useless. Everything Hannah did and said in his office at the end was an enormous, 8-foot red flag, and anyone even halfway competent would have picked up on it, and at least asked her if she was feeling suicidal. I have been the counselor in that situation many, many times before, and it ends with the hurting teenager getting resources and help they need, not getting dismissed.  If you are suicidal or depressed and the show has discouraged you from going to your school counselor, I beg you to reconsider. They are there to help. I promise.  13. Life goes on after Hannah’s death The events of 13 Reasons Why take place over the course of an entire school year, which is what makes it so weird that the show neglects one hugely important aspect of suicide prevention - highlighting all of the important, amazing things that Hannah is missing out on because she has died. She misses getting dressed up for Halloween with Clay. She misses Christmas morning with her family. She misses out on movies, concerts, hugs, laughter, time with her parents, school dances, learning to drive, college, new friends, her first apartment, and all the other experiences her friends will get to have without her. Clay dismisses things like college as unimportant, but they’re not. Hannah had a whole life waiting for her that she will never get to live, full of new people and adventures she will never get to experience. By neglecting to show that at all, the show is just reinforcing what Hannah already believed; that she was too far gone to save, that there was nothing out there for her, and that death is a far better fate for her than living.  I know it might not seem like it, but at the end of the day, I don’t think “13 Reasons Why” was a bad show. I don’t think it was made in bad faith. Shows about suicide are a minefield, and there are so few out of them out there that the creators of these one were pretty much navigating uncharted territory. And I’m not saying that people shouldn’t watch the show. But as a mental health professional - and after reading material about the show written by more educated and experienced mental health professionals - I think it’s important to watch with a critical eye. 13 Reasons Why may have raised awareness about suicide, but they also glamorized, desensitized and spread misconceptions about suicide, whether they wanted to or not. In the month since the show came out, teen suicidal behaviour and at least one copycat suicide was reported. It’s important to question the things we see, especially when they deal with such a difficult topic.  If you’re struggling, tell someone. Get help. You have every reason why.