#NONE OF THIS REFLECTS THE REAL PERSON THIS IS JUST FICTION !!!!!! they follow their world equivalent of these versions

[solargeist]

the religious hermit list is growing slowly 👍

Grian - Catholic

Mumbo - Mormon

Skizz - Protestant 🎉

[scr-ppup]

@ Scr-ppup | 🪦👁️

—"Even the divine of the mercy and prayers will not help you..

"For I will still smite your ass to the oblivion's growing hunger."—

- liomogai: neogenders, general & alterhumans flags and terms.

- request status: open

Ask box: — (24 requests) | queue: 35 | drafts: 500+

Creds; PFP mask.

Coinfight info link; team Villains.

Anons; 🌊🐈‍⬛,

— "sir, If the hounds don't kill you, I will make sure I have your head at my feet by sundown."

"You hear me, old bastard?"—

> my main is @ Reveseke and that's where I'll be interacting from. Don't get spooked lol.

> here's my pronouns cc & pronouns.page

> I am neurodivergent & disabled, 06/18 & genderqueer, Finnish entity, transspecies, alterhuman & holothere.

> Call me mainly Koiri or Ashlin on this blog, or Kalma.

> I don't have a DNI for my terms and flags, but I do block folks that are specified in my BYF if following. :)

> please use tone tags with me, it makes it easier for me to interpret y'all when it comes to answering questions and interactions in general. I have a tendency to interpret the tone wrong in text. Also please don't use fonts or colored text in the asks, thanks.

Masterlist nav. — req list - tag nav.

— "The world didn't go too easy on you, did it, Kalma?"

BYF

- I belong into quite a few blankqueer/-punk stances in some way; reclaimed feralqueer, hallowpunk, redemptionqueer, darlingqueer, yandequeer, (ally) rabiespride, eepyqueer, para-health, Beastpunk, mangledqueer, Sataniqueer & freakqueer.

None of these labels will override *my* stances that I've laid in my BYF. Beware of this. (Also I'm going to get all the links in a bit lol.)

I am anti harassment, pro-para - anti-contact (+ a para myself) & pro- safe recovery, anti-censorship & I'm peacefic. I'm pro good-faith / contradicting terminology, I believe everyone has a unique sense of self and should be able to use the terms and call themselves what they want to reflect themselves. I stand with the 4B, land-back, black lives matter movements, and pro decolonization.

My political view is anarcho-leftist, however I do not go into that side much since this is a hobby blog.

I am not interested in ship- or syscourse and I find radical pros and antis extremely harmful from both discourses. Do not include me in them. (Besides I'm singlet thus I don't think someone calling themselves endo or supporting or not supporting them is something I should be "included in" on or concerned by. Pro & anti endos alike can interact if they want, just know where I stand and don't break your own DNI for the sake of it.)

Also, those who cannot separate fiction from reality or glorify and romanticize real-life murderers, S/A, mafias, criminals, and so on, you're not even on the thin ice if you follow me you will be blocked.

I do not fuck with (read: i am a heavy anti of) wrongfully used harmful transid folks, rad./queers, xeno.satanists. white supremacists, nationalists, facists, or racists & ableist at all. (Neo) Na.zis and supporters/apologists, pro-colonialists and -capitalists, pro-cop / blue lives matter / all lives matter believers. Neither do I fuck with those who glorify, romantize, or demonize (or speak over folks with) mental illnesses, personality disorders or disabilities.

Also label lumpers and exclusionists (""bi-spec"", aros to aces, aphobics, transphobic, multitransphobic, intersexists, etc), queer-phobic/anti-LGBTQIA+ folk. SW-/TERFs, Radfems, misogynist & misandrist alike; sexists in general. + folks who suibait, witch-hunt, and harass others or condone/support it.

—"you look like an animal, a cornered hound baring its teeth in front of certain death..."

Themed after a CoD oc named Kalma.

—

Questions are always welcome, but please bear in mind that if the question is asked in noticeably bad Faith it will not be answered unless I feel the need to answer it because it's important.

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🦇 The Most Famous Girl in the World Book Review 🦇

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

❓ #QOTD Are you a true crime fan? OR What conspiracy interests you the most? ❓ 🦇 It's been two years since Rose—a first-generation Middle Eastern American, functional trainwreck, and reporter for online journal The Shred—wrote the investigative article that exposed Poppy as a socialite grifter. Normally, one of her articles going viral would be cause for celebration, but the highly publicized trial that followed turned Poppy into the internet's favorite celebrity. And Rose has been reeling from the aftermath ever since. Although Poppy served her time for defrauding some of the richest, most powerful men in the world, Rose knows this is only the tip of the iceberg for Poppy's crimes. She just can't prove it yet…At least not without the help of a devilishly handsome FBI agent gone rogue.

💜 The Most Famous Girl in the World is loudly and proudly satire. The novel is entirely self-aware, which is quite a feat to write while straddling the line where the fourth wall used to stand. There are so many interesting, complex themes explored in this book that it will no doubt become an interesting read for book club circles. For example, why does society hyper-fixate on certain people? Why do we practically worship actors and musicians? There's a moment during Poppy's confession that's quite interesting. Rose's article paints Poppy as callous, cruel, deceptive--a villain--and Poppy is glad for it. She says society puts too much emphasis on being perfect, that people prefer 'bad' people because she's a mirror, reflecting the worst versions of themselves. "If I can get away with murder and still be beloved, there's hope for them yet." Social media glamorizes people. We see a pocket of their world, perfectly cropped, and see roses instead of the thorns beyond the frame. The Most Famous Girl in the World is a fun, exhilarating ride, but its exploration of fame, mass hysteria, identity, and conspiracy can't be ignored.

💜 I love that Rose is a messy protagonist. As a Middle Eastern American, I've been shoved into boxes and plastered with labels. She recognizes she's hit rock bottom and relies on self-deprecating humor to survive it. Is she a little exhausting at times? Yes, absolutely. Does that make her all the more real as a protagonist? Definitely. However, I do wish we'd seen more depth to her character beyond the mess. No person is one thing. We focus on Rose's substance abuse and obsession with Poppy, her pessimism and disdain for the world around her, but none of the positives that make her equally human.

💙 I have a love-hate relationship with the story's satire, which leaves it riddled with purposeful cliches. The campy-ness ("I've always had villain monologues in fiction. They feel too convenient. Unrealistic.") feels like the fourth wall is constantly getting broken down and resurrected again. And Poppy's confession is exactly that: over the top and unrealistic. All of the pieces are so obvious (Rose getting tipped off twice would mean it was someone at the publication [ie, Cat] or someone close to her [ie, Antanova]). It's possible to write this as a satire without it being so predictable at every turn. The whole "pranks" thing (aka "lies") made the characters seem juvenile, rather than adding levity to their world.

💙 As a Middle Eastern American journalist, I wanted to connect to Rose so much more than I did. The self-reflection about being a child of immigrants could have built Rose's character, made her question her sense of belonging (reflecting the ease in which Poppy assimilates into the world of one-percenters). Instead, it's randomly inserted into the story, added in as an afterthought. There's a brief mention of Rose's articles about her upbringing--feeling like an outsider, an observer straddling the line between two words. Giving us snippets between chapters from those articles would have humanized Rose more. Instead, we dive RIGHT into the drunk, drugged-up, self-destructive version of Rose, which makes her unlikeable and unreliable as a narrator. Rose and Poppy share that mentality of nonbelonging--it should have been a focal theme for the story all along.

🦇 Recommended for fans of true crime and satire.

✨ The Vibes ✨ 💋 Satire/Witty 💋 Anna Delvey/Inventing Anna Vibes 💋 Journalist/FBI Agent 💋 Drug & Alcohol Use 💋 Child of Immigrants/Inherited Trauma 💋 Murder & Conspiracies 💋 Smut

🦇 Major thanks to the author and publisher for providing an ARC of this book via Netgalley. 🥰 This does not affect my opinion regarding the book. #TheMostFamousGirlintheWorld

💬 Quotes ❝ Reality really can write itself better than any great American novel. ❞ ❝ That article I’d written about Poppy set me on fire. I was forged but also burned in the process. ❞ ❝ It was strange and disorienting growing up with a foot in each world. My sourdough-skinned peers could tell I wasn’t actually a blue-blooded American. My skin was brown, and my arms were hairy, and my parents talked funny when they came to pick me up in their Kia Rio. The other Iranian kids didn’t quite recognize me as their own, either. I was too westernized to understand their jokes, to fully feel the weight of their dysphoria. Since I couldn’t be an active participant in either world, I grew into a silent observer. And I began to write everything down. ❞ ❝ I keep them at arm’s length, never letting them get to know the real me. And in turn, they embrace the fake me. ❞

[nashidakyouko]

No, I do not think that liking a problematic or even evil character means you're a bad person.

I'm not condoning the character's actions—often not even in the context of the show. And certainly, I'm not approving those actions in the real world.

But it's a story. The world won't end if someone likes a character. Sometimes they are just well-written characters (obviously not all are well-written, but that's not the point of this mini-essay). Even if they are pure evil, if that is the purpose, then good! Achieved! (i.e. Lion King's Scar, Fullmetal Alchemist's King Bradley, Buffy's Glory, Avatar's Ozai, and many more) (then some characters who are not pure evil, but treated as irredeemable or just scum, i.e. She-Ra's Catra, Princess Mononoke's Eboshi, Buffy's Faith Lehane, etc.)

I can appreciate them for what they are while still not touching them with a 39-and-a-half-foot pole if they were real.

This goes double for characters that could reasonably have redemption arcs (or who have redemption [with varying degrees of success], but for half the fans it isn't ever good enough [sometimes even for me, I admit]—because apparently bad actions make a bad, unchangeable person, forever. But that's another post).

Evil exists in every world. Only shaming it when it's convenient (such as attacking fans of a thing), does very little to help any real victims.

Instead of screaming about an evil character, consider putting that energy into helping real people, real victims, and trying to stop problems (i.e. assault, genocide, misogyny, war, official/unofficial slave labor, hate groups, etc.) in whatever little ways you can. Find a good charity and donate. Give food and money to shelters and victims. Listen to their stories. Some of them might even tell you that the fiction you are so opposed to actually helped them feel less alone. Or any number of things that might have made the story cathartic for them, making it so they like the bad guy as a bad guy. Or, hey, just ignore the people who are bugging you and enjoy whatever media you want. Put your energy there instead unless the truth isn't that you don't care about victims, and you're just virtue-signalling.

*This is not about actual victims who are being upset or triggered. The only thing I have to say there is that you can go to a different media. Be safe, but don't tell OTHER POSSIBLE VICTIMS that the way they cope is inherently bad.

**ABSOLUTELY you can dislike characters or whatever. You can entirely judge them as evil and immoral. I am not saying you have to go along with every single thing. ABSOLUTELY you should not have to engage with things that you hate or make you uncomfortable or even triggered! None of this was meant to undermine any of that. I mostly just mean that everyone has their own experience AND fiction follows different rules, usually for the sake of telling a story. You do NOT have to engage or fake being comfortable. You CAN say you have issues with something. You should say! But your experience is not EVERYONE'S experience, so everyone—on both sides of this—needs to be more mindful of that.

***writing essays about the evils of characters and even how they may reflect or affect the real world is totally a different thing than screaming endlessly about it online. No problem there.

[wirewitchviolet]

Some thoughts on Nazi morale

That earlier reblog about bullies and leverage coupled with some recent news coverage has me in the mind to do a little public educating about the complete lack of a spine any given nazi out there has, the weird rituals and behaviors this leads to, and how some basic knowledge about all this leaves them a completely toothless threat in the vast majority of situations.

The really important thing to remember here, and I always have to remind people I’m not saying this to be mean, but because it is true, and genuinely important to understand, is that to become a nazi you first have to be just the most absolutely pathetic loser in the world. For real, it’s baked in. They have this whole mythology about their own innate superiority and right to rule over everyone else in the world based on some pure magical bloodline BS, but that’s inseparable from the fact that none of them actually have any sort of real power or success or happiness or friends. It’s not some class of nobility making stuff up about traits they have that justify their position. It’s just pathetic losers imagining all this secret untapped potential they have and then a whole second set of fictional beliefs about how everyone else in the world is keeping them back from realizing that potential by cheating at life somehow, all as a pretense for how they’re going to actively do every underhanded thing they can to get to their “rightful” place.

The two important takeaways here are that from the get-go the whole experience of being a nazi involves just this constant immersion in propaganda, self-delusion, and keeping up kayfabe that they have no barometer for what the reality of any situation is (our enemy is simultaneously weak and strong, etc.) and that there are in fact many very real reasons a given nazi’s life falls so short of the life they tell themselves they “should be” living which they’re never going to examine.

All in all, they just... don’t do well in reality. They don’t know anything, they have no social skills, they don’t really have the drive to actually do anything with their lives. They need hype and propaganda like a normal person needs oxygen. And while they’re never going to sit down and really self-reflect on that, they at least get that getting all hyped up and having people cheer them on is important for some reason or other. So here’s how that works out in terms of interactions with the real world.

Most of the time, a nazi just kinda sits around in their little isolation bubble where they don’t interact with anyone besides other nazis, and most of that is one-sided in the form of watching propaganda videos and following simple instructions. Every so often, one of them gets hyped up enough by the bootlicking the rest do to delude himself into thinking he has some sort of actual power to flex, and it’s time to plan an attack. “An attack” can take a lot of different forms. Might be a big organized effort to do something that gets national media coverage, might be terrorizing a single arbitrarily selected teenage girl. Might be a weird elaborate prank. This year for pride month for instance, some nazi had the bright idea to set up a website selling poison as fake HRT drugs and having followers hype it up with impersonations of trans people. The one important thing though is that unless the target is proven and tested as “safe” previously, it’s always going to take the form of something with basically zero risk of blowback or personal harm.

Letter-writing campaigns are a very popular choice. It’s pretty trivial to set up a burner e-mail account (or several thousand even) paste a form letter in, and hit send. Tracing it back to you would be a huge pain, and not something most people would even be inclined to do if you don’t use overtly violent language. This has been the absolute backbone of nazi attacks for the past decade or two at least. Other stuff gets more sensationalized, but if you look at the internal operations of something like Gamergate, 98% of it has always been form letters addresses and quota goals, trying to get various organizations to make public statements or fire people they’d arbitrarily chosen to target.

Now, this is the really important part. People often mistake nazi letter writing campaigns or similar activities for the real thing. When actual normal people organize a letter-writing campaign, it’s collective action. Can we show that enough people care strongly about this thing the company is doing that they reconsider if it’s worth it? If so, hey, mission accomplished, score one for direct feedback over flawed marketing research, everyone moves on with their lives. I feel like legitimate letter writing campaigns are pretty passe, with social media attention grabs having taken over the niche (which nazis will also imitate, but random burner accounts have less impact there). Still, people in positions to field these e-mails are largely still trained, I assume, with metrics like “if X number of e-mails come in griping about something, tell management, we’ll do what we need to to shut people up.”

Nazis however do not organize campaigns like this for the same reason, and capitulating is a tremendously bad idea.

Nazis do letter writing campaigns as a safe form of organizing an attack. It’s testing the waters. The entire purpose is to determine if and how the target will react to what perceived weight they are able to safely through around. If they go, “hey, video game company, apparently one of your employees once did a risque photo shoot, are you OK with values like that?” or “I don’t like seeing a bunch of queer pride stuff when I walk into a store” those aren’t customers you have to worry about losing if they don’t get what they want. That’s a predator in the woods staring you down to see if you’re going to hold your ground or if you’re going to try to run.

See, the whole “our enemies are both weak and powerful” thing completely destroys nazis’ risk assessment capabilities, so they’re relying on yours instead. If they try to scare you with a letter writing campaign about lost sales (or for that matter, if they’re trying to scare you with anonymous letters threatening you with violence), they aren’t making a demand. They’re asking if you are afraid of them. Because if you’re afraid of them, that means they can escalate to attacks that carry more personal risk to them, with the confidence that you aren’t going to fight back.

So what happens is you have the mistaken impression that you can just fire this one employee or pull this one marketing promotion and that’ll be the end of it, but now suddenly you have people showing up in your spaces acting violent. Not so violent it’s likely going to lead to a physical altercation (they’re still testing the waters and building up to that), they’re probably just going to shout slurs at your actual customers to scare’em off, or camp out like they own the place, maybe they smash up some products on shelves if they’re feeling really spicy. And if you don’t respond to THAT in a way that makes them think twice about messing with you, they’re going to keep on escalating, with threats to your employees and families, actual physical attacks, maybe some fires or bombs.

Also every time they take a bite out of someone and it doesn’t turn out to be more than they can chew, it’s just this huge rallying moment they use to do more recruiting and pushing for bolder attacks elsewhere, so they just become more of a threat to the whole world because you went and flinched.

On the upside, you can pretty much always deescalate things no matter how far they get just by demonstrating you aren’t afraid. You just have to do two things. Forcefully rebuke them, and loudly and publicly acknowledge that what you are doing is showing nazis that they can’t push you around. No euphemisms. If you don’t explicitly specify “nazis” or some more specific organization (Proud Boys, TERFs, whathaveyou) they’re going to internally spin that as you secretly being on their side. People constantly falter here and get stuck dealing with the same attacks forever as a result.

Also when I say “forcefully rebuke them” there’s a lot of ways you can do that, but you will need to step it up based on how far you’ve let things go. If you’re just course correcting because you realized you caved to a nazi letter writing statement, a big public retraction should have you covered. If they’re showing up on your doorstep in riot gear, you might need to get a little physical. You don’t have to like, walk up to whoever’s at the front of the crowd and see how many times his head bounces when it hits a concrete slab (although I’m sure that would be quite effective. You can literally throw a milkshake at one of these losers and he’ll start crying and run away like you threw a brick.

[construingseacats]

Umireread: Legend of the Golden Witch - Chapter 14: Boiler Room

Sun, Oct 5 1986 - Indeterminate

The following contains spoilers for the entirety of Umineko. Please do not read if you are yet to finish it.

And we’re off… with another Wikipedia section.

I kind of let it slide last time, when they were talking about Maria and childhood development, but I want to take that back now. George lost both his parents in a horrific murder moments ago. There is absolutely no way he would be engaging in intellectual discussion about the specifics of locked room mysteries, in the same way that the trio shouldn’t have been going “this is also interesting from a sociological standpoint!” a couple hours after they saw their parents/love interest mutilated in an abhorrent murder scene. Bad writing.

Gonna be real: this is fairly uncomfortable. It’s played lightheartedly, but hitting Maria several times, even semi-playfully, feels very inappropriate after the scene in the rose garden. None of these characters are acting anything like they should under the current circumstances.

This story is very obviously fictional and fantastical in nature.

And so we get to the big scene. While the first twilight is my personal highlight of Episode 1, I’m pretty sure most people agree that this one is probably the most important.

So, Yasu throws away the title of furniture, and sacrifices the Kanon persona, knowing there is no turning back now - there’s no shortage of analyses for that. What really stood out to me here was the roulette discussion - it’s something that has been brought up quite a few times, as the concept of the Demons’ Roulette is pervasive throughout Umineko, but I haven’t had any major thoughts on it so far. Here, as the focus, I think the roulette is a reflection of the massacre as a whole.

Yasu wants to be stopped - but she, at this point, knows that’s almost certainly not going to happen. The family are too caught up in their own drama, they’re too self centred, their thoughts have turned to staying alive rather than solving the Epitaph. They want to solve the murders, but they’re not on the right wavelength to understand Yasu. Her motive is inscrutable, her methods esoteric. The Ushiromiya family is doomed. The roulette is red or black.

She, however, is the zero on the roulette. Yasu is the green. When Kinzo spoke earlier of the high risk, high reward of the roulette, this is what he meant - either everyone dies, Yasu gets her revenge, we see the likely outcome of red or black. But if someone solves the Epitaph - if someone understands Yasu - if someone discovers her, this extra spot on the roulette, they win. And she wants to be understood. By someone - anyone. She wants them to win.

Beatrice’s game is one where she always wins; she casts a dice and cares not for the result, as she is content with any. If the roulette is red or black, the house wins, she profits. But if the house loses - and the family are rewarded with their 10 ton payout - she still wins. Because she has traded all the gold for an honour that no money could ever buy.

Man, it always feels unfortunate when I have to go directly from making a deep point to a more surface level observation, or comedic note - but I do like the consistent use of “makeup” across the murders. Very funny when it’s quite literal for the faked deaths. But even for the real bodies - earth to earth - it adds this layer of doubt and fantasy to the level which should have none.

Yasu has had little control in her life. She has suffered because of the actions of others, from the moment of her conception to where she is now. The events of October 4 and 5 - presuming the roulette hits red or black - is a final gambit to wrestle control back from the world that denied her. And just as Yasu decides to go out on her own terms, Kanon wrestles the stake from his chest, a final action that gives him the say in his own demise. It is an act of agency - an act of one who is no longer furniture.

Kumasawa, once again, is having WAY too much fun with this. She can’t even hide the smile this time.

I think there’s something to say about the Ushiromiya pride being their downfall here - bodies are dirty. They don’t want to disgrace their own hands with them. They must send for the doctor so that they may make the inspection. If any of them had taken a pulse, checked for themselves, or even tried to rush to assist - the plan would be over. But Yasu knows that these people will fall prey to the fantasy. Why would they help her? No-one ever has. This must have been cathartic to write.

So given the Kinzo situation, this must be the moment that Natsuhi immediately clocks the servants as being culpable. Being aware of what she knows, and aware of what she knows they know, contextualises a lot of her upcoming jitteriness towards them.

You know, we haven’t had Kanon’s death tip yet. I suppose it might be because they’re going with the whole “he could be alive in Nanjo’s office”, but it’s another cute little hint that something’s off here.

Oh we have it again with the characters going off about the history of polydactyly in the family. Umineko is at its best when we are really feeling the human behind these characters. It’s at its worst when they’re listing off facts in a scientific manner right after someone close to them just died.

Oh yeah we get Kinzo’s death tip before Kanon’s. This scene is so suspicious before you even start to really think about it.

So that means Krauss and Shannon are in the clear, right? After all, we saw Krauss with half a face, and Hideyoshi told us that Shannon was there with half a face as well. It’s a good thing that there are no co-conspirators here who would lie to us to preserve the mystery.

Oh, the clock’s getting bigger as we progress through the Epitaph. I like that a lot. Very imposing.

[alexsfictionaddiction]

Alex Recommends: April Books

This month has been full of my last few assignments for my MA. I can’t believe that I’m so close to the end of it already -it has gone SO fast! I am also starting to sort out my dissertation now, which I’ll be working on over the summer. It sucks that I won’t be able to have any proper time off this year but I am actually quite excited about my topic, so it shouldn’t be too bad.

My brother Luke turned 30 this month. Having a younger sibling in their 30s does make you reflect on your own age and life stage, so I have been doing some self-assessing recently. I am definitely not where I thought I’d be at 32 but I’m actually the happiest that I’ve ever been. I am still trying to be OK with my body and I am forever working on becoming a better person but I am certainly much happier and (I think!) wiser than I was five years ago. So, it seems like I’m on the right path!

I have been continuing to make my way through the Women’s Prize longlist and just like March’s recommendations, that’s where all of this month’s books come from too. Although there have been a few books on this list that I thought were questionable additions, I’ve really enjoyed the majority of them. It’s a real eclectic mix this year and on the whole, I was really happy with the shortlist. I’d love to know your thoughts on it, if you’ve also been following the prize and reading the nominees. I’m really looking forward to the winner announcement in June, so roll on the summer!

-Love, Alex x

FICTION: Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin.

At the close of the Vietnam War, young siblings Anh, Minh and Thanh make the journey across the ocean to Hong Kong, knowing that their parents and younger siblings will follow. But when their family fails to make it to safety, 16-year-old Anh becomes the sole guardian of her younger brothers but their lost loved ones never really leave them. As the years go by and the siblings settle into 1980s London, plagued by xenophobia and inequality, they begin to wonder if love and history is enough to keep them together. This heartbreaking story of unimaginable strength and resilience is the true story of so many immigrants of war-torn countries. I loved the fact that the book’s focus was on a young migrant family who made simple lives for themselves. None of the siblings went on to have high-flying careers and lots of money but they did all find some kind of peace and happiness, meaning the characters felt very real and were so easy to connect to. There are also some beautiful friendships and family bonds forged by displacement and a search for belonging. I was so moved by the message that our dead loved ones are constantly there and will never stop loving us. It’s a highly emotional yet hopeful novel that I strongly believe should have been shortlisted!

LITERARY FICTION: Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris.

Sensing that things are escalating in Sarajevo, artist and teacher Zora sends her husband and elderly mother to her daughter in England. But as divisional lines become clearer, random killings become commonplace and their city begins to deteriorate, Zora and her friends must learn to survive and persist within a world that is becoming increasingly hostile. Black Butterflies is a unique story from a unique perspective. Both the setting (the siege of Sarajevo) and the narrative voice (a woman in her 50s) are rare in popular fiction, so it was really refreshing to learn about a part of history that I knew literally nothing about. I also greatly appreciated that it’s a book about the people who stay behind rather than those who flee war, as that brought yet another fresh take. It also explores the power of art and the horror of losing one’s culture. The actual meaning of ‘black butterflies’ is such a heart-wrenching image, when it’s revealed and I’m pretty sure I literally gasped when that whole concept hit me. The lightness of the book comes in its celebration of community and their coming together in times of crisis to try to find pockets of hope. It was an altogether very well-written and singular book that I’m delighted was introduced to me by the Women’s Prize.

HISTORICAL FICTION: Trespasses by Louise Kennedy.

Cushla is a primary school teacher and barmaid amidst the horror and violence of the Northern Irish Troubles. In her family’s pub, she meets an older, married man called Michael, a barrister who defends members of the IRA. Finding herself drawn to Michael, he and Cushla begin an affair. But when one of her students’ father is brutally attacked, Cushla finds that everything she knows and loves may be about to collapse. Trespasses came to me with some very high praise from multiple sources, so I was very excited to read it. It’s a heady story that depicts 1970s Belfast perfectly. It tackles some heartbreaking themes such as poverty, social divide and of course, war. It’s also an exploration of crossing forbidden lines in the name of love and this takes several forms throughout the book (hence the title, I imagine!). Cushla is a thoroughly likeable heroine who clearly wants to do the right thing in a world where she is an underdog. I wasn’t expecting it to have thriller-esque vibes towards the end but I really appreciated it and it definitely had me completely hooked.

MYTHOLOGY: Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes.

Following her brutal rape at the hands of Poseidon in the temple of Athene, the youngest Gorgon sister Medusa is cursed by the goddess. Now she can kill with her stare, Medusa resorts to a reclusive, solitary life with only her immortal sisters for company. But then a young hero on a quest shows up, needing a Gorgon’s head to prove his worth. The cover of Stone Blind pitches the book as Medusa’s story and while it is that, it isn’t just that. We also get chapters watching the gods and chapters that tell the story of Perseus’ mother, Danaë. It’s an equally funny and equally tragic book that paints a far less than flattering portrait of the ‘hero’ Perseus. I really enjoyed the dialogue between the gods, particularly when Athene was involved. She is completely unreasonable in this tale but still somehow a figure of wit, sass and wisdom. There are also some fascinatingly unique perspectives, such as Medusa’s severed head. Even after its separation from her body, it continues to narrate part of the story, which is incredibly macabre while making some kind of horrific sense. 

COMING OF AGE: Homesick by Jennifer Croft.

Sisters Amy and Zoe are homeschooled in Oklahoma, as Zoe suffers from seizures, the cause of which can’t quite be determined. While Zoe is in and out of hospital, Amy begins to fall in love with her Russian tutor Sasha and nurtures a deep love of languages. When her academic talents send her to university at just 15, Amy’s life changes drastically. Homesick is a touching story of sisterhood and the powerful bond that can forge. It’s also a book about guilt and family duty, which continuously shows itself throughout the narrative. In places, it is full of humour and in other places, the story becomes very tense. Homesick is about learning who you are, what’s important and the realisation that sometimes that journey can take us to dark places.

[inawickedlittletown]

Queerbaiting and Buddie

(word count: 1,900)

I keep saying that I don’t want to spend any more time on 9-1-1 meta or fic, but the events of this weekend made me open up a document where I had some unfinished meta and in light of the S4 finale airing tonight, I thought I might at least write this: 

“Queerbaiting is a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment in which creators hint at, but then do not actually depict, same-sex romance or other LGBTQ representation. They do so to attract a queer or straight ally audience with the suggestion of relationships or characters that appeal to them, while at the same time attempting to avoid alienating other consumers.” 

That is how Wikipedia defines queerbaiting. And I really feel like everyone needs to read that and then read it again and realize that what is happening on 9-1-1 with Buddie is NOT queerbaiting. 

I don’t want to go into the long history of queerbaiting because we would be here all day and anyone that wants to do some research should go and do so. There are a lot of resources out there. Use them. 

But the short of it is this: queerbaiting has a lot more to do with the way a show is promoted, with the way that anyone involved in the show talks about a queer ship, and with the show deliberately scripting scenes that hint at a relationship without any intention of following through. Expectations and wanting a queer ship to go canon and those expectations not being met do not alone equate to it being queerbaiting. 

For any of us that have been around a long time there are a lot of perfect examples and if you compare Buddie to any of them, they are very different. I’ll name a few:

Merlin/Arthur

John Watson/Sherlock

Emma Swan/Regina

Derek/Stiles

Castiel/Dean Winchester (though they did go canon...barely)

Lena/Kara

Buck and Eddie do not fit into that list. Which isn’t to say that someday they could belong there, but I just do not believe that they will even if Buddie never becomes canon. And this all lies in how Buddie as a ship has been treated both on screen and off. I’ll break it down by season. 

S2: 

Eddie is very clearly introduced as a new character, a straight Army veteran with a disabled kid and family drama. He and Buck have immediate chemistry. We can’t deny that, or deny that from that first episode there are immediate sparks. Unintended sparks, but sparks nevertheless. And it is easy to tell that no one on the production team expected that and the story reflects that. 

Yes a foundation for their friendship is formed and yet the season long story focuses on Eddie’s relationship with his estranged wife and Buck is dealing with his own growth after being left by Abby. Their friendship shines and their scenes are great but none of them suggest romance and there are actually a lot of episodes where Buck and Eddie barely interact in S2 aside from in the background or for small work related moments (this mostly happens after Shannon returns). 

S2 does give us the first acknowledgement from the powers that be aka Tim Minear that they know what the fans have seen. This is why the elf scene exists, but it exists in a space where it’s a nod to the fans and not meant to do much more than that. The other moment is during the call with the livestreamer. But S2, places them completely and without question on a strong friendship. 

S3: 

We see a lot more conflict for Buck and Eddie in this season and we see how close and important they are to each other. Those are the two main things. That can be read as friendship easily and it’s a season where both Buck and Eddie deal with their pasts and in one way or another start to get closure while their friendship remains intact. 

Yes there are some scenes that make us squint and go huh, wtf? (I’m looking at you kitchen scene), but narratively we also know that neither of these boys is ready for a real relationship with anyone, let alone each other. But we can bask in how close they are as well as how Christopher fits in into all of it. 

But in S3 we are also introduced to Ana and we see the return of Abby. We also get to see that Buck and Eddie have become closer than ever and that the lawsuit only serves to highlight the importance that they both feel about having the other available to them. I’ll also quickly mention that Eddie Begins worked hard to highlight Buck’s devotion to Eddie. 

S4: 

Without considering the events of the finale (I am avoiding spoilers and know nothing about it or the speculation), we’ve seen Buck and Eddie both grow and get further closure on their past. This season has paralleled them well and their friendship has not faltered, they’re as close as ever. 

The beginning of the season was heavily focused on Buck and we saw him grow as a person and begin to work on himself in a healthy way and we’ve seen Eddie be supportive of that. 

We also have Ana to consider and her relationship with Eddie as well as the return of Taylor and yet the appearance of these women has not changed the Buck and Eddie dynamic. And I find it fascinating that Eddie beginning to date Ana, is the thing that prompted Buck to start dating. The parallels are all over the place but it is the strength of the friendship and the way they care so deeply about each other that remains whether that becomes romantic is still to be seen, but it could still go either way.  

Off-screen by the end of S2, Tim Minear had already addressed Buddie by throwing in that elf scene in a wink/nudge fashion that said “I see you” and in the scene with the girl with the livestream with the comments. During S3 he tweeted about being frustrated by the fans demanding and being hostile and thinking that that would make him more likely to do what they want (I’m paraphrasing what I remember seeing). Tim has never once said that Buddie will happen or shut the door on the ship entirely, but he did say he did not want to engage in conversation about it because he doesn’t want to get into arguments with fans. 

Oliver has always been enthusiastic about Buddie and has even said that he would be perfectly fine with it happening both a while ago and more recently in promo for S4. Conscious of queerbaiting and not wanting to give fans false hope, he has specifically said that he does not know if it will or won’t happen and that he wouldn’t speak on that as he’s not the one making that decision. His support for it happening does not mean he has any sway one way or the other. He’s said this a few times and even wrote a letter to the effect to make it clear to fans that the last thing he wants is to disappoint someone due to something he’s said. 

All in all, it just isn’t a constructive environment for anyone working on the show to interact with fans on this topic because any time that they do, they get attacked by overly enthusiastic buddie shippers that in many ways are making everything worse. 

In all of the interviews from Tim that I’ve seen, he has always been very quick to hint at what was coming up on the show in a way that at times has been misleading on purpose. The number one thing that comes to mind is early in S4 where Buck was said to get a new woman in his life. Tim absolutely made it out to seem like it was a girlfriend while knowing fully well that it was a therapist. This is an excellent example of what promoting and hinting is actually like. No one from this show has done that in regards to Buddie. 

No one has gone out of their way to hint that it may happen in a way that excites the fans. And this is one of my main reasons for knowing that Buddie is not a queerbait. At no point in the life of the show so far has anyone used Buddie in a promotional way to bring in viewers. Because THAT was the whole point of queerbaiting in the past. 

It was a way that some showrunners found to bring in a lot of viewers when they needed to up their numbers in order to show networks they were worth keeping around. Someone figured out that LGBTQ people wanted to see themselves represented so much so that they would tune in to anything that promised an LGBTQ character in some fashion. It was a tactic that worked well in the landscape of tv where there was so little LGBTQ content on mainstream media that anyone wanting it would latch onto anything. And then they just wouldn’t deliver on those relationships or characters. In 2021, that is not the world we live in any longer. 

In today’s tv landscape there is so much to watch and so much to pick from and diversity has grown, it is celebrated. Queer characters are well represented as are queer relationships and queer stories. The times are different. A while back I was listening to a podcast (Bait: a queerbaiting podcast) and something I found interesting was how the hosts both agreed that in today’s tv landscape there is no more real queerbait and that we won’t easily find anything like the ships I mentioned above. I think I agree more with this than I expected to, because I do think that it exists in some spaces, but it definitely isn’t what it used to be. This is a good thing. 

Specific to 9-1-1, this is a show that has that diversity and that isn’t afraid of tackling that diversity and giving us interesting and nuanced perspectives and stories embracing that. We have characters of color, women in positions of power, a F/F relationship, two multi-racial relationships, a disabled character, other queer characters including a M/M relationship. There is so much in this show that embraces diversity and that embraces the reality of what the world looks like. To call it queerbait is to disrespect everything else that this show is and has done and the hard storylines that have been tackled that we would not have seen on tv ten years ago. 

And I get that Buddie would be another breakthrough. It would be a novel way to tell a queer story, and it would be amazing if it were to happen. The set up is there, but it isn’t fully realized, and Buck and Eddie can still be read as just friends if we take off the shipping goggles. But it also isn’t queerbait or likely to become queerbait and people have to stop calling it that. 

What Buddie resembles is one of the many unintended slow burn ships that have frustrated viewers in many forms across fandoms and we just have to go along for the ride and maybe it will happen. Or maybe it won’t. But if we know anything about relationships on tv, it is that a lot of the fun comes from the journey, even if the destination is good too. 

[queenshelby]

The Singer – Part Four

Pairing: Cillian Murphy x Reader

Words: 2,483

Warning: Smut, Semi Public Sex

 ***The Interview***

It’s been three weeks since Kurt’s stunt and things between you and Cillian couldn’t have been better. Whilst you struggled with comments from the press and the public initially, calling you a home wrecker and making an issue out of the age gap between you, it brought you and Cillian closer together and he even defended your relationship in a recent interview.

Whilst you still hadn’t talked about what you were and where you were at, it was clear to you that you were officially dating. But no one really took you seriously. You were seen as Cillian’s midlife crisis.

Cillian cared very little about the press, ignoring the bad rumours and assuring you that none of this mattered.

He was right. It didn’t matter. People were still buying your new album which, under contract, was unfortunately being produced by Kurt. Under the same contract, you were also obliged to engage in interviews and promotional events.

Whilst you were very eager to simply break your contract, Cillian reasoned with you. He was sensible and you were impulsive.

He assured you that breaking the contract would simply mean more bad press and you engaged Cillian’s agent to help you with media engagements. He seemed to take a sensible approach and asked interviewers to not ask you any personal questions.

But this didn’t always work out, especially when you had an interview scheduled with a London based program whose interviewer just loved to get under your skin.  

This interviewer managed to ask you about your alleged affair by referring to some lyrics of one of your songs.

‘Look, my private life is private and I will not discuss my relationship on this show. But what I can assure you is that there was no affair. We both had separated from our partners when we got involved with each other. The song you are referring to was written over a year ago and doesn’t reflect any of my personal experiences. It was written for a movie and just like the movie, it’s fictional’ you explained in response of the interviewer’s intrusive question.

‘There are many other songs you’ve written which come to mind indicating that you do in fact prefer to be with men who are older than you. These songs were all well received but your relationship is not. How do you feel about this?’ the interviewer than asked, not giving up.

‘Again, the songs are fictional, but my private life is not. That might be the issue. It’s all good if it’s fictional but as soon as it’s not, people get curious. Perhaps there is a lack of understanding surrounding relationships that aren’t the norm. Maybe people’s perceptions will change over time. I certainly hope so. After all, there are so many relationships in the history of the world where people have large age gaps and I believe that every adult has the right to date whoever they want without being criticised about it’ you explained before taking a short pause. ‘Anyway, I would prefer if we could chat about my music now rather than my private life. That’s why I am here’ you said bluntly.

The interviewer finally backed off after your request and your agent had already called in, putting the producers of the show into their place.

Cillian had also listened to the interview and texted you, making sure that you were alright and telling you that he thought that your response was well placed.

Kurt, on the other hand, was once again annoyed with you and sent you a rude text message shortly after the interview and he couldn’t help but try to get under your and Cillian’s skin.

***The Function***

Later that day, the studio was hosting a release party to celebrate your new album which Kurt had organised at the theatre complex function rooms.

It was a beautiful venue but you knew that Kurt would be attending which could end up being a complete nightmare.

This was also the first official event which you were attending together with Cillian and you raised the question whether this meant that you are his girlfriend now.

‘I suppose….I don’t know…do you want me to be your boyfriend?’ Cillian chuckled as he buttoned up his shirt.

‘I would love you to be my boyfriend’ you giggled before giving him a kiss and asking him to zip up your dress.

‘Well, I suppose I am officially off the market again then’ Cillian chuckled before returning the kiss, which was also when you heard the taxi pull up in front of his house.

Your agent has taken the liberty to invite several producers to the party, much to the dislike of Kurt. Kurt was even more irritated when you finally arrived, together with Cillian who was holding your hand.

‘Y/N…Cillian’ Kurt said greeting you both, wanting to shake Cillian’s hand but all he got in return was Cillian raising his eyebrow.

‘Kurt’ you responded with an almost evil grin on your face and just before Kurt leaned in and kissed you on the cheek.

You didn’t stay to talk to him and it wasn’t long until you were inundated by other producers, wanting to talk to you.

‘I told you, she can be a real slut’ Kurt said to Cillian as Cillian gave you some space to mingle, unbothered by the attention you were receiving by several of the producers your agent had invited.

‘And you wonder why she left you?’ Cillian chuckled, thinking that Kurt is an absolute douche.

‘You know she sucked my cock just before I signed her’ Kurt said with a smug face and it was obvious to Cillian that he had been taking some coke again.

‘Nice talk’ Cillian laughed before walking away, getting himself a drink and talking to some of the other artists.

After about thirty minutes you sought out Cillian who was standing next to the buffet talking to two female artists and you decided to give him the same space he had given you. Jealousy wasn’t your thing and you knew there was no need for it.

Eventually, however, you received a text message from him which said nothing but ‘HELP’, making you giggle. He obviously didn’t enjoy himself talking to these women and was being polite, hanging out with them and engaging into some small talk.

Just as you were going to get Cillian away, Kurt approached you.

‘Found a new producer yet?’ he asked and you responded with a quick ‘maybe’.

‘You won’t get the same sweet deal you had with me Love…’ Kurt went on to say, causing you to laugh.

‘You remember that night in the record studio together?’ he asked sheepishly.

‘Yes, I do. You lasted a total of ten minutes which was quite something Kurt’ you chuckled.

‘And I bet these were the best ten minutes of your life’ Kurt said just as Cillian approached you, listening into the conversation and taking in a deep breath.

‘Would you please give us a minute’ Cillian asked somewhat angrily.

‘I will…because my date is here’ Kurt said sheepishly.

‘What, did you hire an escort?’ Cillian asked, looking over to the woman Kurt pointed at.

‘She’s a model’ Kurt explained, not realising that Cillian was being sarcastic.

‘Of course she is’ Cillian chuckled before saying bye to him and this is when you broke out laughing.

‘He’s got the IQ of an ape’ Cillian huffed as Kurt walked away, shaking his head in disbelieve.

‘You are being so polite sweetheart’ you giggled.

‘I am sorry, but he just makes me fucking angry. You know what he said earlier?’ Cillian said but, before he could tell you, you crashed his lips onto yours.

‘Are you angry?’ you asked as your lips drifted apart.

‘At Kurt? Yes’ Cillian said.

‘Good. Come with me’ you winked as you pulled him away from the function.

Without questions, Cillian followed you upstairs where the offices of the producers were located.

‘I saw you talking to these women earlier…tell me about them’ you said as you led Cillian towards the back of the office area.

‘Sorry Y/N, I don’t know much about them, they just…’ Cillian said but, before he could finish his sentence, you interrupted him with a passionate kiss in front of the door leading to Kurt’s office.

‘Don’t apologise, just tell me. I think there is nothing more sexy than seeing other women want what I have’ you smirked, your hand moving to his crotch.

‘Seriously?’ Cillian asked, causing you to nod and bite your lips suggestively.

‘Well, unlike you, I don’t like seeing other men want what is mine now, especially not this smug bastard’ Cillian said before pressing his lips back onto yours for an urgent kiss.

‘Please tell me this makes you angry’ you giggled as you pulled a white card out of your handbag.

‘Of course it makes me angry and, if I wouldn’t be so fucking complacent, I would punch him’ Cillian chuckled just as he watched you swipe the card through the black machine on Kurt’s office door before putting in the PIN on the security keyboard.

‘I’ve got a better idea’ you smirked as you pulled Cillian into Kurt’s office.

‘What are you doing?’ Cillian asked and all you did in response was looking over to Kurt’s study desk.

Cillian’s eyes lid up and, before you knew it, you felt your lower back pushed against the desk while Cillian lifted up your dress and pushed aside your panties.

‘You are so wet’ Cillian growled with excitement as, without warning, he pushed two of his fingers deep inside you, causing you to moan loudly. He was so aroused and rock hard, ready to take you, but he wanted to play with you first.

‘You do this to me Cillian’ you moaned, throwing your head back and taking in the sensation of his fingers deep inside your tight entrance.

Cillian continued to slide his fingers back and forth within your wet folds, hearing you moan and gasp at the sensation. He then slipped his middle finger inside you. You cried in pleasure. He loved pleasing you like this and started to thrust his fingers inside you faster and faster, watching your body pulsate with his movements.

He hit your g-spot over and over again and you knew what this meant. He was doing this on purpose, making sure to mark what is his and, in the process of it, possibly also mark the carpet in Kurt’s office if he kept going like this.

‘Oh god Cillian’ you cried, your eyes closed as he was manoeuvring his fingers tilted up to get the pleasure spot over and over again until your legs began to shake.

‘You like that?’ Cillian asked softly as he continued thrusting his finger into you and you barely managed to nod.

You fluttered your eyes open and looked at him as he confidently smiled at you. His unabashed confidence was turning you on even more. He knew that no one else ever made you cum like this.

As he continued to finger you, sending waves of pleasure over your body, you could feel yourself getting close to your orgasm and just as you were about to scream in pleasure, Cillian pushed his other hand over your mouth firmly as you came over his fingers, a wet puddle immediately forming on the office floor.

While your head was still spinning and without allowing you to come down from your high, Cillian spun you around and pushed you down against the cold oak table.

He certainly was angry and you loved every moment of it.

With one swift movement, he lifted up your dress again and pushed down your panties.

‘Spread your legs’ he instructed and you obliged, hearing his belt unbuckle and the zipper of his jeans opening.

‘That’s good’ he said as he was positioning his cock directly at your entrance, ready to push in.

Your heart started pounding with excitement and with one hard and powerful thrust and one loud groan Cillian buried himself deep inside you.

You shrieked at the sensation as he immediately and forcefully bottomed out inside of you. It took your breath away and he gave you no chance to adjust as he began to thrust in and out of you.

‘You are all mine’ Cillian moaned as he hit your cervix with the tip of his cock for what felt like the hundred’s time.

‘I am yours Cillian, oh god yes, fuck me hard’ you moaned.

Cillian grunted with each thrust, getting more aroused by the second as he was taking you over Kurt’s desk.

Each thrust was igniting a fire in you. It felt so good and you cried at the inexplicable pleasure consuming you, calling Cillian’s name multiple times.

Cillian was grabbing your thighs, prying them apart, and opening you up to him even more. He thrusted deeper and harder into you in this position.

You cried, your nails digging into the wood of Kurt’s desk while your pussy clapped against Cillian with each thrust.

‘I am coming Cillian, fuck’ you moaned and just, like that, another loud moan escaped you and your orgasm washed over you, your legs quivering and shaking as a result.

Cillian exhaled and groaned loudly, leaning in and filling you with his warm cum at the same time. You felt yourself fill up with his seed, exhaling at the sensation. He stayed inside you for a minute, then slowly pulled out. He watched his cum flow out of your opening ecstatically, running down your thighs.

You then turned around and grabbed one of the tissues from Kurt’s desk, wiping your legs clean before throwing the tissue into the bin.

His desk was covered with some of your sweat and juiced and Cillian looked at your flushed, glistening, beautiful face as you were still panting and kissed you softly on the lips.

‘Should we clean this up?’ Cillian chuckled as he closed up his belt.

‘Oh god no’ you smirked before collecting a good amount of Cillian’s cum that had pooled inside you and then licking your finger suggestively before pulling your panties back up.

‘Let’s get back to the party and say goodbye, shall we?’ you giggled.

Cillian followed you and the first person you chose to say goodbye to was Kurt, which surprised Cillian.

Giving Kurt a big kiss on his cheek, you wished him a pleasant evening and Cillian’s chin dropped immediately.

He couldn’t help it but laugh, shake Kurt’s hand, with the same hand that had pleasured you just minutes earlier, and wish him a pleasant night also.

‘You are so fucking bad, you know that?’ Cillian laughed later in the taxi on your way home.

‘He deserved it’ you giggled.

   Tag List (Cillian):

@lilymurphy03  @deefigs @theflamecrystal   @desperate-and-broken  @weepingstudentfishhorse   @livinginfantaxy  @rosey1981  @atomicsoulcollecto  @peakyboyslover  @nerdy4itall  @elenavampire21  @hanster1998  @mariapaiva13  @fairypitou  @harry-is-my-sunflower  @zozeebo  @lauren-raines-x @kasaikawa  @littlewierdalien  @sad-huffle-nerd  @theflamecrystal   @peakymalfoyscullymulder  @themissthang  @0ghostwriter0  @stylescanbeatmyback  @1-800-peakyblinders @datewithgianni  @momoneymolife  @ntmynouis @lilymurphy03  @mcntsee​@cloudofdisney​ @missymurphy1985​​ @peakymalfoyscullymulder  @otterly-fey janelongxox  @uchihacumdump

Cannot Tag (please check your settings):

@l0tsofpennies @margoo0 @trolleydolly @avonlady1985 @chrisevanshoeee  @daydreamingnymph  @fookingshelby   @chocolatehalo

[hamliet]

Musings on Redemption + Narrative Obligation

This isn’t a meta but rather musings on a disconnect I see based on takes about Ruby’s role in saving Cinder Fall in RWBY, and Deku/Shouto/Ochaco’s roles in saving Shigaraki/Touya/Toga in BNHA.

Of course Ruby has no moral obligation to forgive, or even save (which is not equivalent to forgiving) Cinder. Shouto has no obligation to forgive Endeavor or Touya, and Deku has none to forgive Shigaraki, and Ochaco none for Toga.

But as the main heroine/heroes of a “save the world” story? Narratively, well, yeah. They do. Saving X character is their (literary) responsibility. That is their job.

This is one of the places where people blurring the line between fiction and reality creates  disconnect in conversations. Fiction does not occur in a vacuum. It is a part of reality and is influenced by and influences reality. However, it is not a 1=1 parallel to anything in real life. (Like, that’s why books almost always include a statement about how “This is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.”)

So when people talk obligation/how Hero will save Villain (tbh I usually don’t like to use the term obligation because the connotations don’t really fit and bring to mind real world issues that are best left out of it), they’re (mostly) not talking about a moral necessity. The expectations (“obligations”) here are in terms of how writing works, not in terms of how life goes or real world morality . It’s not “they’re a bad person/character if they don’t save X,” it’s “the story doesn’t make much sense if X, which has been set up, does not eventually happen. So here’s how the path might look to get there.” BNHA and RWBY are stories. Stories play with tropes, often following them well. Tropes are like markers that help readers navigate through a story to understand its meaning.

This doesn’t mean I think Ruby should be condemned in story or out of it for however she feels about Cinder, or even for hating Cinder (imo she won’t forgive her, either way). It does mean that people recognize where the story’s trajectory is going, and that Cinder’s arc is set up with classic redemption tropes albeit quite possibly without ending up “buddy buddy” with the heroes (that’s imo for Emerald and Mercury). Same for Deku, Shouto, and Ochaco, even if I do think Shouto and Touya will end up as brothers (Deku + Shigaraki and Ocahco+Toga might end as friendly, but we’ll see).

It’s also foolish in real life and out to assume that people can change without anyone else playing any sort of role. This is a purity culture real-world reflected thing I see in progressive circes (literary and elsewhere) that I think is often harmfully oversimplified. No person is an island. Now, that does not mean every single individual on this earth has an obligation to feel empathy for, much less forgive, even more much less reconcile, with people who hurt them or others. However, it does mean that someone probably will feel this way at some point, and whether it’s romantic love--requited or unrequited (Buffy and Spike, Sonia and Raskolnikov), platonic familial love (Luke and Vader, Nina and Johan), or even just simple pity on the basis of both being human and principles based on that (Tenma and Johan, Sing and Yut-Lung), someone’s gotta reach out to a spiraling person.

Generally characters are main heroes because they are that special someone. They’re chosen as the protagonist for a reason, even if they’re not “the chosen one” (like Ruby, Shouto, and Ochaco; Deku is the chosen one i guess shouto kinda is in his family?). That doesn’t mean heroes do the redeeming for them, but instead that kindness or some other positive trait inspires change. There’s nuance there, but there are reasons people expect this type of thing from a heroic protagonist especially in stories with themes of rebirth and hope. It would be far different if this was a postmodern tragedy.

Stories allow us to portray human nature in a blurry reflection, where there are set paths that there might not be in real life. Saying that Ruby will save Cinder/the BNHA kids will save the League of Villains is not saying that real life individuals are under obligations to save real life people who have hurt them. I get why that is triggering, though, because irl ppl do try to weaponize beautiful things to make sense of the senseless. You are not obligated. Let me be blunt about that. Anyone who tries to force you to do such a thing is wrong. It’s your choice, it’s your power, it’s your human free will that allows you to decide what to do with your pain and how to heal.

But most forms of storytelling, when redemptive tropes like “save the cat” and “stop the cycle of abuse” and themes of hope are introduced, it’s fair for readers/viewers to assume that the writers are doing so because they plan to fulfill these tropes. You don’t hint at something you don’t plan on satisfying; that’s Bad Writing 101 (see, Game of Thrones season 8).

Fans analyzing and predicting based on the narrative set up (as well as contemplating what “needs” to happen for a hero to get to a place of saving someone--it’s called an arc because most protagonists don’t start in such a place of extreme empathy and mercy) are not telling fans that you’re bad or that the characters are bad. (Well, I’m sure some ppl are, but to hell with ‘em). It’s merely a prediction based on story tropes.

[choicesarehard]

I keep my streams about Wolf Bride light-hearted. It’s been a hell of a year, and I think we all need a space where we can laugh together. But part of responsibly consuming problematic media is being aware of where it fails. And that’s why I think it’s important to talk about Morgan, and Wolf Bride’s troubling depiction of blindness. 

Morgan is one of the first Love Interests in Choices to have a canon disability. She is representation many players with disabilities, like myself, are eager for. But like any form of representation, writing a blind character requires research. A quick google search will lead you to numerous visually impaired voices who outline the tropes and stereotypes that harm their community. Wolf Bride has included nearly all of them. 

signal boosts are appreciated

Not All Blind People Wear Sunglasses

Morgan is shown wearing dark sunglasses from the moment she appears on screen. And there are certainly blind people who wear sunglasses — particularly those who (unlike Morgan) can still perceive some degree of light and dark, and experience painful light sensitivity. But no context is ever giving for Morgan’s use of sunglasses. In fact, they aren’t even addressed for four chapters. 

[ID: Two screenshots from Chapter Four of Wolf Bride. The first features a text box over a forest background, and reads “You glance at Morgan, and are surprised to see the dark glasses still covering her eyes.” The second features a labeled image of her sunglasses, placed over a black background, with a selectable button that reads “What does Morgan look like without these?”] What follows is a scene Pixelberry could have used to provide insight into an assistive device the sighted community may not be entirely familiar with. They could have touched on degrees of visual impairment, or why some blind individuals need dark lenses while others don’t. They could even have explained that for some individuals with visual impairments, dark lenses make tasks like reading or navigating dimly lit spaces harder.  Instead, and far more troublingly, MC is given the option to ask Morgan not to wear them anymore. And depending on your choice, the book is coded to remove the sunglasses from her sprite in future scenes. This reduces an assistive device to a fashion choice, something our MC can wish away if they don’t find it attractive. And that isn’t okay. 

Unusual Eyes

[ID: Two side-by-side screenshots from Chapter Four of Wolf Bride. The first features a text box placed over a forest background that reads “With a start, you realize her pale eyes aren’t looking at you, aren’t seeing you, aren’t seeing anything.” The second features Morgan’s sad sprite in the same forest setting, and a text box that reads “...I’ve been blind since birth.”] Morgan has a customizable sprite. But regardless of the ethnicity you select for her, she is depicted with pale blue eyes. And that troubles me. Because the stereotype that all blind individuals have cloudy, distorted, or unusual eyes is pervasive and harmful. 

Even when it isn’t tied to another harmful trope — the blind character as mystical seer or psychic — this stereotype create an expectation that blindness is something that always manifests in a visible way. And for millions of blind individuals, that isn’t the case. 

And while cataracts, trauma to the eye, and corneal infections can all cause the clouded effect most of us recognize from media, none turn your brown eyes into blue.  Heightened Senses

Another common stereotype in media is the blind character who’s remaining senses have become heightened as a compensatory mechanism, often to a supernatural degree.

[ID: Two side-by-side screenshots from Chapter Four of Wolf Bride. The first features Morgan’s surprised sprite in a forest setting and a text box that reads “I guess I sort of...feel things. Like the place on my cheek where the branch blocked the wind.” The second features Morgan’s neutral sprite in the same forest setting, and a text box that reads “I can smell the dew on the leaves, and the moss on the bark. Can’t you?] Individuals with visual impairment may learn to rely on their other senses to navigate the world around them. But they do not suddenly gain the ability to sense the location of a branch based on wind patterns, or to accurately throw a dart at a carnival game ballon based on its smell. 

[ID: Two side-by-side screenshots from Chapter Eight of Wolf Bride. The first features a text box placed over a carnival background that reads “Pop! Pop! Pop! Three darts fly through the air, striking their targets.” The second features the white MC with straight blonde hair. Her sprite is surprised, and beneath it is a text box that reads “So you did that by smell, too?]

This trope may seem harmless — after all, it gave us Daredevil, a beloved blind superhero — but it contributes to the unachievable expectations we often place on real-world individuals with visually impairments. And that isn’t fair. 

Of course, we all suspected Morgan’s abilities were due to something other than heightened senses. And that in and of itself is a problem. 

Magical / Supernatural Abilities

To the surprise of no one, Morgan exhibits these unusual abilities because she is a werewolf. But choosing to give a blind character magical abilities should only be done after asking yourself some challenging questions. As visually-impaired Tumblr user @mimzy-writing-online explains:

Your blind characters don’t need a magical ability that negates their blindness. [Ask yourself why it’s so important to you to give them one]. If it’s because they can’t do all the things you want them to do without it, then should you really have written them as blind in the first place? 

And that’s the thing. Morgan isn’t actually written as a blind character, not when it counts. Morgan shoots bullets with accuracy, runs through unfamiliar terrain, and navigates moving objects with ease. She doesn’t use common assistive devices like canes or screen readers. Her sunglasses are discarded at MC’s request. The scientific papers that fill her research facility are not digitized for accessibility or written in braille. 

Even her dreams, which should be reflections of how she perceives reality, look identical to Bastien's — which makes no sense for someone who has been canonically blind since birth. 

[ID: Two side-by-side screenshots from Chapters Five and Eight of Wolf Bride. The first features a scene from Morgan’s lucid dream. Set in a glamorous hotel, it includes visual details like twinkling lights, and patterned carpets. The color is tinted a grey-blue and the exposure on the image has been increased to an unnatural level. The second features a scene from Bastien’s lucid dream. Set in a forest, it shares the same tinted and over-exposed qualities as the first.]

Her blindness isn’t an integral part of her character. Instead, it’s a narrative device, paraded in front of the reader when it can further a central — and deeply disturbing — plot point. [content warning: discussion of discrimination and child abuse / abandonment ahead]  Morgan Was Left to Die Because She Was Blind 

And Jesus, what a plot point it is. In Chapter 11, we learn that Morgan was left to die in the woods because she was born “wrong, sickly, blind.” But the only canonical disability or illness she is ever shown to have is her blindness. 

[ID: Three side-by-side screenshots from Chapter Eleven of Wolf Bride. The first two feature the white MC with straight blonde hair’s shocked sprite in front of a forest background. The first text box reads “I don’t understand...” followed by two dialogue options “Why was Morgan abandoned?” and “Is that what you do to full moon babies? Kill them?” The second panel’s read box reads “Just because she was blind?” The third panel features  the old woman Noemi’s sad sprite, placed over a forest background. Her text box reads “If we know an infant will not survive, it is best to let it die quickly.”]

I...am frankly having a hard time thinking through the screenshot-induced fury to make a coherent argument here. To imply that blindness is an impairment so limiting that death is the only foreseeable outcome? That being born blind somehow makes a child “wrong”? The ignorance and prejudice shown in this scene is staggering. 

But equally troubling is the response of the main characters to this revelation. Yes, in fiction, bad people sometimes do bad things. But Noemi isn’t shown to be a bad person. Neither is Bastien, who knew what his pack had been guilty of in the past, and even seeks to justify it to a limited degree. 

Most shockingly, Morgan herself, who in the second screenshot below has just overheard that she was left to die as an infant because she is blind, isn’t angry or upset. She’s almost apologetic, still seeking a place within the pack. 

[ID: Two side-by-side screenshots from Chapter Eleven of Wolf Bride. The first features Hispanic Bastien’s sad sprite in front of a forest background. The text box beneath him reads “It doesn’t happen often, Clara, but...” The second features white Morgan’s sad sprite in front of the same forest background. The text box beneath her reads “I didn’t mean any harm. Especially after...what I just overheard.”]

By introducing the idea that a child born blind cannot survive, let alone thrive, without superhuman abilities, and then failing to soundly and thoroughly refute that idea through the characters we identify with, Pixelberry is unintentionally perpetuating the same false beliefs that have led to real-world instances of infanticide for centuries. And that isn’t okay. 

I don’t know where Pixelberry will go with the story from here. Perhaps in today’s chapter some of these concerns have been addressed...but I doubt it. In the meantime, I’ve also written to their support staff to express my deep concern and disappointment in the treatment of Morgan’s character. And I’d encourage you to do the same. 

Will I continue to keep streaming Wolf Bride? For now, yes. My VIP subscription is already paid for, and frankly, I want to see Morgan’s arc through. I guess the small part of me that was excited for the representation is still hopeful the narrative can be corrected. 

But I’ll be adding a content warning at the start of each stream for ablism, and that’s something I never thought I’d have to do.  Screenshots courtesy of CrimsonFeatherGames on Youtube

[juliabohemian]

oh dear

I have noticed a number of posts circulating which imply that ANY character being mean to Loki EVER and for ANY reason = abuse.

I will admit that I initially felt mostly irritation at what appeared, on the surface, to constitute such a complete and utter lack of critical thinking. What I’ve realized, though, is that people who make such posts definitely believe what they are saying. And like everything people do and say, there’s a deeper reason for it. The fact is, traumatized characters attract traumatized fans. And not all of those fans are in a good place, emotionally. And those people are perfectly valid, even if the conclusions they draw are not.

When it comes to fiction, good characters are complex. That means they are conflicted and flawed. They make mistakes. They lash out when they are afraid or hurting. They sometimes hurt other characters. Loki fits that bill very well. It’s one of the reasons he is so popular. Not just with traumatized people, but with people in general. He’s relatable.

The problem comes when fans relate to fictional characters, but really aren’t conscious of why, because they aren’t all that conscious of themselves. They haven’t done a whole lot of self-reflection. Maybe because they aren’t ready, because their trauma is too fresh. Or maybe they are still living in crisis and don’t have the freedom to self-reflect. Those possibilities are all valid.

But very often, when a person goes through trauma and doesn’t have the luxury (and yes, it is a luxury) of working through it, their reasoning skills can become flawed as a result. Trauma, especially childhood trauma, tends to have a negative effect on our ability to socialize and form intimate relationships, because it damages our ability to interpret the intentions of others. We call this hostile attribution bias.

The problem with hostile attribution bias, is that it makes it difficult to tell when people genuinely mean you harm. If a person’s words, actions, or facial expressions are ambiguous in any way, they will be interpreted as being hostile in nature. This keeps one on the offensive, constantly, always anticipating the next blow. Very often, no such blow is coming. But it doesn’t matter. Fear is real, and the experience of it is real.

It stands to reason that someone who struggles to interpret the intentions of real-life people would also experience the same difficulty with fictional characters. For instance, fans who identify with Loki because they perceive him as being a victim will have a hard time seeing him as anything else. Thus, anyone who harms Loki in any way is just further proof that the universe is against him and always will be.

This is referred to as an external locus of control. It means that a person sees life as something that is happening TO them, and that they are powerless to affect the outcome. It’s also important to note that people with this mentality struggle deeply to heal from their trauma. They are stuck in a sort of Groundhog Day scenario, living the same thing out over and over again. Because of their flawed perception, everything that happens to them feels like an extension of that initial trauma.

So, it would make perfect sense that a person with a history of trauma, who suffers from attribution bias, and who has an external locus of control, would be extremely uncomfortable watching anything bad happen to Loki. In fact, it would probably be traumatic for them.

And while their feelings and their experience of those feelings are 100% real, their perception of reality is not entirely accurate. In other words, what they think is happening is not necessarily what is happening.

Loki’s initial trauma, believe it or not, was just being abandoned as an infant. Even though he can’t remember it, that experience alone can result in lifelong emotional struggles. In real life, we refer to this as an attachment disorder. A person with an attachment disorder usually develops major issues with abandonment. They also suffer from (wait for it) attribution bias. And that bias absolutely affects their perception.

Loki’s next trauma was being raised in a dysfunctional family. Not only were they dysfunctional, but they weren’t a very good fit for Loki. Loki was a quiet, contemplative person. He was a thinker, an intellectual. He would rather read or do magic. So, not a good fit for Asgardian society. The combination of Loki’s initial trauma, with his inherent temperament, and his dysfunctional family is what led to the inevitable breakdown that is regarded as Loki’s “villain” arc. I’d like to point out that, in reality, such a person would have probably suffered a breakdown much sooner than that. Typically, prior to reaching adulthood.

Loki’s next trauma was encountering Thanos. Now, we have no idea exactly what happened between Loki and Thanos. We know only that it wasn’t good and that it resulted in Loki being absolutely terrified of him. Other than that, details are fuzzy. I think it’s fair to assume that whatever mistreatment Loki endured probably qualified as torture. Whether it was physical or psychological, we cannot know for sure.

While Loki’s Thanos-related trauma was NOT an extension of his family-related trauma, his decision to entangle himself with Thanos was a product of that trauma. By which I mean that his willingness to align himself with someone like Thanos came from a place of desperation, and a desire to prove himself to someone who he perceived as being qualified to validate him.

So, fast forward to the LOKI show. Our version of Loki never returned to Asgard in chains, was never told that it was his birthright to die, nor endured any gaslighting from Ragnarok-Thor. He never got his neck broken by Thanos. He never went through any of that. He arrived at the TVA, fresh off his failed attempt to take over planet Earth. He was all fired up and defensive, as anyone in his situation would probably be.

Now, here’s where we need to put our critical thinking caps on. Because, I hate to tell you this, folks...but unlike most of the Loki content we’ve gotten prior, this content is actually well written. It’s VERY well written. And while it might be tempting to respond to it with pure emotion, it is imperative that we don’t abandon all logic and reason. This show is not an extension of the gauntlet of trauma we’ve watched Loki endure since he first appeared on screen. The creative minds involved in this venture ALL care deeply about Loki’s character and want to see him succeed (whatever that means for him).

Enter Mobius. He’s a cog in a very big machine. He likes to think of himself as being more than that. He establishes a rapport with his boss in the hopes of distinguishing himself from his peers. His interest in his work is personal. He likes what he does.

From Mobius’ point of view, Loki is an asset. He has information that could help solve the bigger puzzle. But Mobius exists in a world that affords him access to multiple realities. He has probably met dozens of Lokis. And he has probably seen hundreds of people casually pruned or executed or reset. It’s just part of the world he happens to be in. And he doesn’t question it, because he has been brainwashed.

So, does Mobius attempt to manipulate Loki? Absolutely. Just another day at the office. And it works, because he knows Loki better than Loki knows himself, has studied him and other Lokis. And it’s hard not to be mad at Mobius for causing Loki pain. Especially when that is followed up by Loki eagerly taking Mobius up on his offer to help track down the other Loki variant.

I think some people might find Loki’s enthusiasm disconcerting. And there are certainly aspects of it that can be considered such. Loki, at his core, just wants to be told that he is doing a good job, that his contributions matter. That part of him is definitely a product of trauma. But is Loki motivated entirely by his trauma? Not really. Despite his manipulations, Mobius offers Loki the closest thing to warmth and compassion that he has seen for a while. Some of that is genuine and some of that is not. And faced with the reality that everything he knows is gone, Loki does what most people in his situation would do, he tries to be productive. He gets busy. He distracts himself. Because at the moment, little else is under his control.

Despite all of that, you simply cannot have compassion for Loki and none for Mobius. Because Mobius is a victim too. He was abducted from his own reality. He is living a lie. He is part of something that, upon deeper reflection, he realizes he doesn’t agree with. He is so very much like the Loki we first met in 2011. He is such a well-written and multi-faceted character, I thoroughly enjoy his on screen time with Loki.

But I understand that there are people who are not in a place, emotionally, where they can overlook such plot devices. And I sincerely hope that those eventually people find healing. In the meantime, let’s try to remember that this is a work of fiction. And unlike real-life trauma, when it becomes upsetting, we can turn it off and walk away.

[kellyvela]

There was one person who commented on grrm blog about Dany being their most hated character and hoping she would die. Grrm replied 'tsk tsk'. Do you know about that post?

This one?

The comment, now deleted, is from this post: Dany and the Dragons - Jul. 8th, 2013.

What about it? Is this about targies clinging to that "tsk tsk" for their lives?

I remember that the user belomor555 wrote that comment as an answer to another user mentioning them, as you can see here:

I like the conversation under grrm's comment, because those users didn't assume that George was saying he won't kill Dany:

We also know that when someone said to George that he’s not allowed to kill Dany, he answered that "Parris has proclaimed that Arya cannot die!" [Source]

Classic George!

But what is that "tsk tsk" compared to all this:

July 21, 2018

In the earlier published Targaryen family tree as found in The World of Ice & Fire, Princess Daenerys did not exist. In her place was Prince Aeryn Targaryen, Jaehaerys and Alysanne’s sixthborn son who died young. Besides Aeryn having been exchanged for Daenerys, several other children of Jaehaerys and Alysanne were shifted in their order of birth.

Regarding these changes, Elio Garcia has stated the following:

… George had some new ideas for some of the names and the stories of the children who died young, and corrected some issues that came out of his original birth order (we actually got the names of all the kids quite late in the production of TWoIaF—literally a month before we had to finalize the book—so there was not much time to interrogate it). However, the stories of those who live to adulthood, as published in TWoIaF, do remain the same (just, of course, much more detailed).

[Source]

November 20, 2018

Jaehaerys loved all three children fiercely, but from the moment Aemon was born, the king began to speak of him as his heir, to Queen Alysanne’s displeasure. “Daenerys is older,” she would remind His Grace. “She is first in line; she should be queen.” The king would never disagree, except to say, “She shall be queen, when she and Aemon marry. They will rule together, just as we have.” But Benifer could see that the king’s words did not entirely please the queen, as he noted in his letters.

(…)

It was the hour of the owl when Queen Alysanne was awoken by her daughter shaking her gently by the arm. “Mother,” Princess Daenerys said, “I’m cold.”

There is no need to dwell on all that followed. Daenerys Targaryen was the darling of the realm, and all that could be done for any man was done for her. There were prayers and poultices, hot soups and scalding baths, blankets and furs and hot stones, nettle tea. The princess was six, and years past being weaned, but a wet nurse was summoned, for there were some who believed that mother’s milk could cure the Shivers. Maesters came and went, septons and septas prayed, the king commanded that a hundred new ratcatchers be hired at once, and offered a silver stag for every dead rat, grey or black. Daenerys wanted her kitten, and her kitten was brought to her, though as her shivering grew more violent it squirmed from her grasp and scratched her hand. Near dawn, Jaehaerys bolted to his feet shouting that a dragon was needed, that his daughter must have a dragon, and ravens took wing for Dragonstone, instructing the Dragonkeepers there to bring a hatchling to the Red Keep at once.

None of it mattered. A day and a half after she had woken her mother from sleep complaining of feeling cold, the little princess was dead. The queen collapsed in the king’s arms, shaking so violently that some feared she had the Shivers too.”

—Fire & Blood - Volume I

May 19, 2019

Standing before the Iron Throne, Dany steps forward and kisses the man she loves. A perfect kiss, an expression of pure love and passion.

We push in on them until we’re tight on their faces – their eyes closed, his hand behind her head, her hand on his cheek.

Dany’s eyes open suddenly as she draws a sharp breath.

Jon’s eyes open as well, already filling with tears. For a moment, neither moves, as if moving will make this real.

In a wider angle, we see Jon with his hand still on the hilt of the dagger he just lodged in Dany’s heart.

Her strength leaves her and she collapses to the marble; he keeps her in his arms as she falls, kneeling down to the floor beside her.

He looks down at what he’s done. Terrible. And necessary. He hopes for one last moment with her.

But her eyes are already glazing over. Winter has come to the Throne Room. Dany lies dead in his arms, Pieta-style, as the snow drifts down.

—GAME OF THRONES “The Iron Throne” - Written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss - Based on A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin

January 19, 2020

WELT: Again: We know what will happen to the Mother of Dragons. How do you want to surpass that in a novel – with an alternative literary version?

GRRM: Counter question: How many children did Scarlett O'Hara have? In Margaret Mitchell’s novel “Gone with the Wind” she had three children. But in the cinema version of the novels she only had one child. Which version is the only one valid - the one with one or the other with three children? The answer is: neither. Because Scarlett O'Hara never existed, she is a fictional character, not a real person, who would have had real children. Or take “The Little Mermaid”. We know her from the fairytale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen and from the Disney movie. Which one is the true mermaid? Well, mermaids do not exist. So you can chose the version that you personally like the best. Changes are inevitable in this process. Even if the adaption is as faithful to the literary source material as it was the case with “Game of Thrones”.

—GEORGE R. R. MARTIN “Die Leute kennen ein Ende – nicht das Ende” - WELT 2020 - (Translation)

April 18, 2021

Q: It is my impression that there are parallels between Westeros history and current events in ASOIAF. so in your opinion to what degree is George martin’s history cyclical? Because we have a lot of parallels. For example with the current history and the dance of the dragons.

Elio: You know George even uses that line from talking about the the arms of house Toland, the dragon eating its tail, but it was from the Archmaester Rigney which is a reference to Robert Jordan the writer of the wheel of time, that history is a wheel or time as a circle. I think George certainly deliberately sees, creates parallels. I mean this is a very obvious example, you know if you read The World of Ice and Fire, you saw the family tree of the Targaryens, and the family tree for Jaehaerys and his offspring changes quite a lot when fire and blood comes out. Because George realized that he wanted to create a kind of parallel by introducing another Daenerys. and he said like, i like the symmetry of it, I like the the sort of the way. You could perhaps read it as reflecting on Daenerys’s story, maybe. I wish it was true. I mean I think fans of Daenerys need to be really worried about what’s going to happen to her. Although I guess Game of Thrones maybe has revealed kind of where things may possibly end. Again the journey is going to be very different. I think you know circumstances, things are going to be very different. So there’s a journey that matters. But in any case, so yes I think George uses cycles and things a bit. He likes setting up parallels of events, he likes paralleling characters, he likes paralleling events, and he likes paralleling the past and the present as well.

Linda: I think certainly that when he fleshed out the details of Fire and Blood, even when he first did the sidebars for The World of Ice and Fire, and they just grew. We could see that, okay here he’s looking at foreshadowing or commenting on current events by doing a similar scenario in the past and he definitely likes to play around with those aspects.

[Source]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[themadamespod]

The Great White Gripe

A lot has been said about the “social commentary” within The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. 

“Since when is Marvel a bunch of SJWs? I don’t need this shit.”

“All this race stuff feels SUPER forced.”

“Oh here we go Marvel tryin to be all woke to get the libs on board.”

If you personally know anyone who spews this brand of ignorance, we’re sorry. 

Let’s make one thing perfectly clear: there is no social commentary on TFATWS. Showrunner Malcolm Spellman and director Kari Skogland simply show the reality of life in America. It’s not their fault that so many (white) people (men) don’t like looking in the mirror.

And some people claim they have no problem with film and television addressing politics and social change.

“Just keep it out of my comic book movies. It doesn’t belong there.”

They could not be anymore wrong, even if Chandler Bing himself was lecturing them. 

If you asked 100 people to name the top ten movies of all time, you’d get 100 different lists. But one thing we can all agree on is that film has power. It has the power to move us, to divide us, to unite us. Entertainment can lead to the kind of discourse that prompts action and positive change.

And that’s why The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and the conversations it’s sparking are so important.

One World, One Reality

“Marvel has always been and always will be a reflection of the world right outside our window.” - Stan Lee

There are two takeaways from that statement:

One: Stan Lee didn’t say that in the 1960s, 1970s, or even the 1980s. He said it in 2017.

Two: Our window, not your window, is a subtle but important distinction, particularly as it relates to TFATWS. The Flag Smashers, led by Karli Morgenthau, live by a simple creed: “One world, One people.” The core message of the show is that white Americans and Black Americans experience the world very differently, but there’s still only one world, one reality. 

It’s just a matter of people opening their eyes and seeing it.

TFATWS is an extension of Marvel’s early support of the Civil Rights Movement. In 1963, Stan Lee created the X-Men as an allegory for the ongoing struggles of the African-American community. Though he didn’t explicitly base Professor X and Magneto on Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, there are ideological similarities.

Five years later, following the assassinations of Dr. King and Robert Kennedy, Stan wrote the following:

“Bigotry and racism are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today. It’s totally irrational, patently insane to condemn an entire race—to despise an entire nation—to vilify an entire religion. Sooner or later, we must learn to judge each other on our own merits. Sooner or later, if a man is ever to be worthy of his destiny, we must fill our hearts with tolerance.”

In 2021, Stan’s words still resonate. Racism in the United States is as virulent and damaging as it’s ever been. Black Americans are facing deadly policing, Jim Crow 2.0 voting laws, mass incarceration, and countless other roadblocks to mobility that most white people have never encountered.

Through the journeys of Sam and Sarah Wilson, Lemar Hoskins, and the heartbreaking Isaiah Bradley, TFATWS shows the unvarnished truth of what Ira Glass might call Black American Life. And through John Walker, the writers nail home the message that’s really making certain people squirm:

White men are the greatest threat not just to Black Americans, but all Americans, because TFATWS is as much an indictment of toxic masculinity as it is of bigotry. 

As aggressive racism has spread like wildfire since 2016, so has hostile sexism towards women of all colors. John Walker is the embodiment of the hyper aggression that the Proud Boys applaud. The clearest example of this comes when Walker dares to clap the shoulder of Ayo, one of Wakanda’s Dora Milaje.

Her swift and, ahem, pointed response had women the world over screaming like they’d just won the lottery. 

One could also argue that Walker’s dogged pursuit of Karli and displaced peoples supporting the Flag Smasher cause mirrors the Trump administration’s war on immigrants. 

There are plenty of parallels to draw. The point is, none of them are forced or manufactured or exaggerated. And whether we’re talking about a fictional road in Latvia or a real street in Minnesota, white Americans need to stop avoiding conversations that make them uncomfortable.

The Politics of Comics 

In 1938, Americans were still reeling from the Great Depression. Enter Superman, the everyman hero, who made his comic debut while the nation was facing widespread unemployment, rampant poverty, and blatant corruption at every level of government.

Superman could have faced off against any number of supernatural villains. But Siegel and Shuster went a different route, setting a precedent for comic books that has prevailed to this day:

They got political. 

Throughout Superman’s earliest adventures, he fought against evil politicians, apathetic bureaucrats, aggressive police officers, greedy businessmen, and even a Washington lobbyist. 

Then in 1941, Joe Simon & Jack Kirby introduced Captain America just in time to fight the nazis and free the world from fascism. A couple decades later, Kirby and Stan Lee would tell the tale of the aforementioned Erik Lehnsherr, who survived the horrors of Auschwitz. These comics endured because their passion and nuance transcended entertainment. So what was the secret sauce?

Like Siegel and Shuster, Simon, Kirby, and Stan Lee were Jewish. Representation matters, folks. 

Later on, the X-Men weren’t the only conduit through which Marvel supported Civil Rights. In 1966, on the heels of the “March Against Fear” from Memphis, TN to Jackson, MS, Stan Lee & Jack Kirby unveiled Black Panther. When African-Americans were fighting harder than ever, Black children could suddenly read a comic book about T’Challa, the noble warrior king of a highly advanced African nation. 

Marvel has never been shy about critiquing foreign policy either. Tony Stark and Iron Man debuted in 1968 as the conflict in Vietnam was escalating. And let’s not forget, Tony made his MCU debut in a film that is a clear indictment of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We could do this all day, but you get the idea. 

Comic books have always reflected the politics of our times, and so has the MCU. Fanboys can’t start crying now just because they’re on the wrong side of history. And when they do, we defer to the great Jon Bernthal when asked about alt-righters appropriating the Punisher symbol:

“Fuck them.”

Life Imitates Art

In 1986, American men felt the need for speed. After Top Gun was released, applications to U.S. aviation forces increased by a staggering 500%. 

Two years later, Errol Morris exposed police corruption in his film The Thin Blue Line. The documentary prompted a new investigation that eventually exonerated death row inmate Randall Adams for the murder of a police officer.

That same year, the Polish government ceased all executions after leaders were swayed to do so by A Short Film about Killing.

Following the release of Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine in 1999, Kmart bowed to public pressure and stopped selling handgun ammunition. 

And 5 years ago, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif changed the law on honor killings in response to the critically-acclaimed film A Girl in the River. 

Like we said earlier, film has the power to spur social change. Even if the effects aren’t always so direct and immediate, television and movies have always contributed to the process in America. 

Seeing the Ricardos sharing a bed allowed some Americans to start relaxing their prudish ways. 

The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Maude empowered women as they fought for reproductive rights.

The Jeffersons and Good Times facilitated calmer discussions about race relations.

And The Ellen Show led to greater representation of queer people on screen and greater acceptance of queer people in society. Though Ellen herself has become a problematic figure in the last year, that legacy still remains.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is hardly the first show of its kind. And given the impact film has on society, we believe Hollywood has a moral obligation to produce content that exposes society’s ills and fosters productive debate. 

Stan Lee would be very proud of the team behind TFATWS for bringing the stark reality of American life into people’s living rooms. The next time you see someone bitching about it, remind them what Stan himself said just a few years ago: 

“Those stories have room for everyone, regardless of their race, gender, religion, or color of their skin. The only things we don't have room for are hatred, intolerance, and bigotry.”

[muffindaddystyles]

𝐽𝐴𝑆𝑀𝐼𝑁𝐸 𝑃𝐼𝐶𝐾𝐸𝑅 𝐴𝑁𝐷 𝑇𝐻𝐸 𝑃𝑅𝐼𝑁𝐶𝐸.

"I know ye' love 'em." He smiles and you didn't know how to response. He hugs you closer to him. For some odd reasons you let him. Inhaling, the rose scent that was kissed to the nape of his neck. He takes you to His rooms. Situating you on his bed. Sitting beside you and taking your hand warning them up. You puts your head on his shoulder and he glances down at you, leaning closer your mushk attracting him. Your enchantness calling him closer but this's not who he's. He retreats back smooching a wet kiss to your forehead.

Authors Note; Everything written down below is based on fictional fantasies. In no case it's related to real life, in my sheer excitement I've perfectly imagined Harry as the prince of all of our hearts. To give your imaginations a roller coaster I've created a moodboard, I'd love!! if you'll give your feedbacks (it means alot to me) and appreciate it. All my love, Moji! Part 2

i.

Amber scent of soil beneath the cream skin of soles, clouds flourished to baby blues then rolled the cotton ruffles of the flimsy gown with themselves. A choir of tinsy emblem sparrows sang songs dancing in the rhythm sat on the branch of oak. Snowflaked downey petals of jasmine perked up at the sweet cooe and they caressed themselves to the tips of your soft fingers as you greeted them in the early morning dew. A basket on your hip, collecting fresh jasmines and the pastel cotton gown of yours sticking to your thighs with each step and pluck.

The tangerine sun winks at you from the tea fields far and kisses your skin shying away when you shushed it to be busy in your work. Then you were done with delicate flowers pilled in a basket and your under skirt poofed when you flopped onto the mother earth, laughing to yourself causing the furry rabbits to gallop to their nearest shelter.

The cackles resonated to your cottage and your curious tumbirous little sister with doe eyes that of yours and gorgeous hair that of your mother, flights like a dove to where you're sprawled upon.

"Ani's coming back home." She informs you sitting beside you and the happy news of your father's return to village from a business trip to another village makes your spine erect in excitement. The crown of jasmines you were intervining together falling in your lap and when you ask her again she bobbed her little head in utter vigour, you wrap your arms around her petite tiny figure spinning her around making her squeal.

The longing of your Anni's affection and the yearn of his embrace will soon vanish to joy and warmth after four months of departure.

♧♧

The wind bubbled to the paths of Clisora a city where springs are luxurious with the bustling trade market of satins and silks. Winters warmed up with down town inns and brothels, summers for enjoying the heat of the weather and the berries riped to core. The nation men are happy and thriving even though their King's the cruelest person alive. But, it doesn't matter to them. The whispers of Castles are none of their business.

His own son's loathes him for their father killed his own brothers for the sake of throne.

In the middle of frozeness the heavy thuds of footsteps startled Harry in his chambers, silken beige sheets damp under his neck and he cranes it with horror as the ginormous wretched shadows lurked in the corridors of his rooms. He throws his brocatelle robe on his bare upper body, stepping outside he follows the thumps of devil and his stomach eats his heart alive when he sees the sight of his older brother's rooms.

The executioners leaving his room with none sympathy because a King's command could never be denied upon. Harry's older brother lifeless with ring marks of noose around his neck his only fault was that he exposed his father's evilness to the inner courts.

To that day, everything crumpled to Harry's feet. The darkness follows him around even to the gardens, the memories of his little self fighting with a wooden sword with his Api his big brother never allowed him to sleep.

His GrandMother the Royal highness and the Lady of Castle that has an eye on every chore going inside the high walls, notices the sadness of her only grandSon gifting him presents from the all corners of the world.

Nothing lulled Harry's heart to tranquility till the evening of ending winters when his grandmother calls him to her spacious chamber to show him new sea of life saving luxurious gifts, in the last corner his eyes fell over the painting framed with golden carving.

She knew it was a cupid arrow straight to his heart. He couldn't resist but to give a smile to her and the night servants placed the painting in his rooms.

He stares at the beauty hidden in every splotch of paint, the young girl portrayed on it seeming as if made of milk, Harry stares right into her soft irises and his heart gives a pump of warm blood seeing her cherry lips. The jasmine crown on her shiny hair gives a blooming fragrance to Harry every night he sleeps and the lamb in her embrace makes Harry smile to her with closed eyes.

"She makes m' heart 't peace." He told his Highness truly and she squeezed his hand feeling good to see his grandson himself again.

"M' lion. M' s'happy to see you happy again. Her name's Y/N. She lives in the village of Serene the potraitist of Royal family went there and found 'er tradin' jasmines."

The Royal Mother gets what she wants. She can do anything for her power, the King's sick and Harry's her only puppet left. She'd use him to every finest. She's in so wrong though, Harry moist his tongue with her name testing how it feels coming from the core of his heart.

How she's like to touch in real? Is she like confettie berries that leaves stains at the tips? What's her voice like when she speaks? I'm sure it's honey dripping and succulent with kindness. Harry thinks, palms flat under his head and his book of poetry open on his chest. Stars tinkling from his golden window pane and a future of millions suns waiting for him.

♧♧

You sniffle with blood pumping into fearful vessels of your heart. Tucking your little sister under your armpit you promised her you wouldn't let a finger harm her as the loud heartbreaking screams feebled to the wooden cabinet you're hiding in.

Everything happened in the blink of eye. Momenta ago you were into your Anni's arms when a ship halted at the port and it was a chaos where ever they stepped leading them to your home, for you. Your mother fell to the feet of those black leather dressed merciless men but they stepped on her pure gowns approaching for Anni.

"Where's Y/N? We know she's hidin' somewhere in thy boundary." You stomach eats your heart alive from a revelation of your name from a stranger's tongue. "'M not goin' to tell ye'." Anni grits with rage while your mother sobs loudly the jasmines in her hair dying out of sadness.

The leader of those cruel men shoves your anni past, "too late for that." He retorts evily and you shrink back trying to protect your little sister Alexa. Prayers on your lips, mercy in your tears and before it reached to skys a grime hand snatches your arm yanking you out painfully.

Your glass features dulls into pity and you flinches harshly when he grabbed your jaw snapping it to meet his eyes.

"What's in ye' that's not in other girls?" He grumbles and when father shouts to leave his daughter they trap him back. "Please, leave me." You beg with innocent frightened eyes.

"Royal Highness's, order." He tuts with none sympathy. You try to escape free from his strong hold but he throws you at his shoulder taking you with him.

You kicked and screamed asking for your Anni as he runs behind you trying to save his precious stone, his moon, and his beat of heart but it's in-vain. You watch your parents falling helplessly to the land you've played upon for years in traumatic shock and confusion. Your heart as if none existed, as if it bursted to stardust.

♧♧

You stir from your darkness into real word. It was a dream, oh goodness it was. Your soul consoles you but the reality lies in the other hemispheres as you found yourself away from your loved ones. Mother, Anni and Alexa. Nobody's with you and it's just rotting walls, a beacon of disappointment and a wrap of dirtinnes around your body.

It's an alehouse. When you descended downstairs your abductors were there with hall full of other manwhores. Getting themselves entertained from women in veils and some of them naked. You jump on the opportunity and try to run when a men puts his sword on your throat. You knock his shins and taking his sword in your control making him lurk on it's tip.

"Help me!! These bloody men abducted me under duress." You crane your head in every direction when the hall boomed with laughter. There's no escape now, it's their territory, their men everywhere. Your're alone with none of yours in a city of pitiless people. The sword clashes to floor ripping past through the wooden planks but the sound echoed from your heart, silver of it reflecting you.

♧♧

Everyone's rude here. They gave you a bath with a bunch of other girls and when you tried to put them into their places they'd bark a warning. You're like everyone else. But, the high salt marble walls of Palace, crystal diamond chandliers, sapphire velvet gold carved giant doors, hundreds of maids, cooks and the luxuries of this cold hearted Palace doesn't faltters you like them. Every minute in these walls where you can't see stars and blue skies is an agony for you. Home's waiting for you. Your mother singing your lullaby thinking you might come. You've lost count of the days and weeks.

You sleep with other concubines in the attic, while everyone giggles and gossips you write letters to your home before going to bed which's just a flimsy mattress on the wooden board. The butler in charge lined you all up ordering the coffiure to dress the new lassies. Satins and chiffona feels weird on your skin compared to the soft cotton gowns used to wear.

"Bow!" She barks hitting her thick jewel covered stick to floor. She shoves your head a little down to make you bow properly and what comes from inside the Royal's bedroom chambers throws you into fits of laughter.

A white Persian cat. Bow my arse. You cursed under your breath.

Sheba digs her nails into your forearm hissing loudly, "behave else I'll throw you in dungeons."

With eyes down you all entered inside the Royal Highness Rooms. She's sitting with high chin onto the lush divans, she sips her morning tea as everyone pays her their services.

You free yourself from Sheba's tight eye watch and falls to Mother Highness feet tugging at her gowns.

"Leave meh' for God's sake. I don't wan' to be here, please send me back home." You keep your head lowered and the Highness gestures the maids to stop when the approached to pull you back, "Forgive us our Highness, she's a hussy with a tongue of witch." Instead, you're bold and unfearful. The Highnes takes your chin and makes you look at her.

"My child. This's your home now. And if the nature wishes you'll have a bright future in this Palace." Anger boils in your veins. Hurt you looked at her in accuse yanking the hem of her gowns and standing your grounds.

"Ye'll are brutal creatures, whom fear their weakness!!! These crowns of yours 'ere made t' fall one day."

"Woman!" Sheba yells in warning pulling you back harshly as everyone gawks you, when the Highness leaves her seat the intimidating aura of her makes you shrink back a little.

"The escape out of this Palace's just death, you've options. Live how we say or get thrown into the sea." You huff with stinging eyes and just like that you're escorted out of the chambers.

♧♧

In the dim lights of night lamps you were writing another letter to Alexa when one of the maidens Lezabel entered into the attic with chin held high and every other lassie ran towards her ushering her to plush pillows.

"How was Your Highness's t'night? 'M sure he's handsome that of jammist of jams." They whisper ask her with gloating hearts and Lezabel looks at you in jealousy, burning heart knowing you're special for the prince. Lezabel just came from Prince rooms in the wee hours of night, she saw your portrait in his room. Prince didn't liked her being nosy and disrespectful to his space so he asked servants to escort her out.

"What's the Prince like?" You ask her too in curiosity and she laughs loudly leaning on her elbows. "He's old and fat with beard that of south long, when you look in his eyes you turn into stone. He eats the hearts of young girls like an ugly lion." Everyone suppresses their giggles knowing she's lying and that Prince's the cherriest of shining moon. You gasp praying to good that time never comes when you'll have to face him.

♧♧

Laila's leading you to another task handing you the Highness's cat and you smile down at her scratching her back as Laila talks. Suddenly someone calls her leaving you and Nilo alone.

You groan when Nilo gallops from your arms and climbs up the ridged stone wall when you efforts to get her back gripping the edge of stone, the wall grinds against the floor. You gasp in astonishment when it rotates to other side, stepping inside you were exposed to the mesmerising sight of garden with that of sky. There's wild turquoise sea under the white cemented broad railings of the balcony.

Jasmine scent sings your freedom after days of darkness, your head slowly rakes upto the vine and you chase after it. You settle your feet carefully climbing up each branch of vine lifting up your gowns. Goosebumps appearing on your bare thighs and a shiver shots in your spine as you tried to get a good hold on the other next branch.

Harry's behind you with a suppressed smile hands folded at back as he watches a girl trying to climb up a vine without a particular reason but he doesn't know, he doesn't know you're trying to escape. His lips parts as your foot slips and before you were about to fall he catches you securing your head protectively tumbling to ground with you beneath his taught chest.

He stares you. It couldn't be real? Could it? Those mahogany eyes and shine of pearls in them. Those cherry lips and plump cheeks of baby. She's not real but another dream of his heart and soul. His jade irises flickers between yours and you stare him back in confusion, he's pretty with a carved jaw, heart-shaped toffee lips, stardust eyes and chestnut curls tickling his high cheekbones.

"What are ye' doin' here?" His voice that of honey dripping and you grunt shoving him off of you covering your legs with your gown and standing up asking him angrily, "are you goin' to tell them?" He's still in awe of your beauty. You're way more gorgeous than that of portraits, he can't belive his lover, his soulmate's one feet away from him.

You walk towards the balcony looking down the sea waves as ever beautiful that of crystal "who?" He asks with puppy eyes and you turn sharply to his front, "Sheba, and other witches." . "will you tell 'em?." He shakes his head in denial with soft eyes and furrowed brows, his heart racing fast and nerves jittery.

"What's behind this wall? Can I escape?"

"Why d'ye want t' escape?" He asks with a loom of sadness in his chest. She hurriedly paces back to him.

"Because of Prince. They took me by force!" Harry's still in utter bewilderment, "Ugly and fat, Prince."

"Ugly and fat?" Harry whispers to himself frowning awfully. "They'll feed me to him."

"He eats the heart of young girls." She says in fright and despair. If Harry could touch her he'd have consoled her in his arms long ago.

"There's a girl who survived, she didn't look him in eyes. He smelled her and went away?" She's uncertain with eyes looking dead straight into Harry's for the very first time and it slashed his breath away. Your eyes like a walk in garden of heaven, the summer river of black-mud and moss of skies.

You again rushed to the balcony, "don't ever look down there." Harry tells you caringly joining you at the higher deck "you'll fall in the waves."

"Then tell me what should I do? Help me." If Harry could he'd, but this Palace's not even his's.

"I think s' ye' should go, if they knew you disappeared they'll put you in a bag and throw you in sea." This would never happen in his presence. When he's alive he wouldn't let a soul touch you but he's saying this to protect you for the time being.

Tears brinks in your eyeline. Your bottom lip wobbling and Harry's thumb itches to caress it and kiss it, "A bag?...and sea? No!" You cry sitting on the small stair step. A sigh left Harry's chest and he sits beside you under the flower and grapevine. "I want to go back to my mother, father and Alexa."

"Don't be scared..." He reassures you placing his hand on your shoulder the first skin to skin touch blossoming his soul, "no one can hurt ye' while I exist, Y/N." You pushes your head away from your arm peering up at him with teary eyes. Then in an instant pushing his hand away terrified, "How did you know meh' name?" His eyes widen but he overcomes his panic blurting quickly.

"Didn't ye' say about Sheba? She told me..." He quirks up a smile gazing down then to her with a scrunch of his nose, "...she told me a lupus monsterous lupus came to Palace."

You scoff with raised brows, "she's the monsterous ones!" Harry chuckles gingerly.

"'M tryin' to protect myself." Harry wishes he could be able too protect his flower, his lover from the shadows of this helll. You turn closer to him whining with sadness, "save me, please. They'll take me again." Harry gazes her moon like face with pain and helplessness. "It's hell here."

He takes her pudding hands in his's looking at her sincerely and bringing her to feet with him, "I'll help you. But, now ye' should go....there are alot of girls we'll find a way befo' your turn." You retorts but still agrees not knowing how your trust and faith in him grew in just a first meet.

"What's ye'r name?" You ask him and he smiles circling the hilt of your thumb, "Leo." He lies. You beam back taking his name.

"Why're ye' goin' to help me, Leo?" He gives a lopsided smile that covets dimples into his creamy cheeks.

"Becaus I also want to run away from this Palace..." You gasp. "Did they took you here unwillingly too?" When your train of questions took a depart he spoke in a serious voice with a tinge of gentleness he only holds for you.

"Go back to attic, I'll find you again." With sad eyes you leave him and he grinned to himself foolishly, butterflies swooning around his ribcages and the noor inside the shell of his skin glowing after ages. Only for you. Just because of you.

♧♧

King's at the dying bed and the Highness knows that he's a few days guest. You're an enthronment gift from Higness to Prince when he'll be throned, their plans were to beautify you in luxuries and get you laid with him on daily nights till he becomes the King and the old one dies. Then use you to make the Prince their puppet so that the control of Country that's in Highnesses's hold never floods away from her.

Unfortunately, he has seen you already and asked His Highness about you explaining that you refreshed his heart and satisfied him like a beacon he was always waiting for, so she ordered that tonight it's your turn to go to his rooms.

They weave your hair with tongs, strokes your neck with mushk and reddened your lips with cherry balm, dressing you in teal gowns and pushing the string of your corsets like you're a rag doll. Tears falls down into the valley of your chest as your reflection strikes in the mirror.

Time slows down, the jasmines burns into ashes and the pearls hides into depth of oceans as they walked you towards a long corridor with lanterns and curtains of sheer chiffon along way.

"C'mon lady..." The servant guides you not caring of your tears, the sadness and the misery on your features, "..we're at the golden pathway right now."

"Pathway of strength, power, love and happiness..." You hiccup with weekend knees, "to the gardens of paradise and the exists to the sea of hells..." Your mind gives you a courageous push and you turned to go back.

"Leave me! I don't want this!" But, Sheba grabs your jaw and yanks you to her.

"What do you want then, death?" She glares.

"Either, sleep with with our Prince t'night or get buried into grave." She gives her a warned grime smile wiping your tears and patting your hair.

The lullaby of your mother lulls you and it filled your heart with more tears.

I sigh but you don't hear me.....My pearl......

The sheer long sleeves of your dress wooshed when the doors to the rooms opened slowly.

I cry but you don't pity me. I cry but you don't pity me......Come my daughter, love me back....

You strolled inside the luxurious bedrooms with blurred vision turning your back to face the bed away from the Prince sranding at the breezy balcony outside.

Swing the child for me, my daughter....

The lullaby resonates to end and you fall on your knees lowering your head down and promising to never look up at him. Your head dizzy, lower lip shaking out of fear and chest heaving with ragged breaths.

You try not to shut your eyes tight when the footsteps slowly approached you and when a long calloused hand came down for you, thumb taking your chin lovingly to make you look up at him you grab it and bite it with ever force of canines.

"Ow!" Harry grumbles gaining your attention and your heart falls in your tummy at the person infront of you.

"You?" Surprise, betrayal and bunch of lies. Harry closes his eyelids smiling gingerly and wetting his lips. Then everything from the past came crashing on you and it lowers your blood rush holding your vision.

You fainted falling into Harry's arms and he picked you bridal style laying you on the bed kissing your forehead, he frowns perpetually stroking your hair and regretting the descions of his life, not knowing when the sleep invaded his senses. If he had not been a promised this would have never happened to you.

♧♧

You woke up as if the sun that of paradise, sheets cool and bed that of silkworms but then you glances to your left sitting up with a gasp. Pulling your hair away from between unconscious Harry's fingers carefully. Finding your shoes when your eyes fell over a painting, you pushed away the piece of clothe on it startling when a hoarse voice came filled your ears.

"Did you like it?" You frown in offend facing him boldly.

"Did I like it?! Did I like it?!" You hits his chest with hard blows and with your shoes.

"I saw it at Highnesses's suite." He murmurs in apology.

"And there you gave orders to bring me!" You yelled not fearful that he's a Prince of the land you're at. "What am I?" "Am I a sheep or a horse?" "Am I olives or eggs?" You hold your tears and the screams.

"Talk to me! I said talk to me!!" You sobbed shouting at him blowing him with shoves and atlast he raised his voice speaking with gentleness at end.

"I didn't gave orders to bring ye'. I didn't even know you were comin', ye' 'ere a gift from Highnesses."

You stare him in disbelief, "a gift!?" ""M not a gift but a human!" "I've a family just like you."

He thins his lips, expression becoming taught as he listens you, eyes piercing fiercely.

"You're such an oppressor, you'll become an oppressing ruler!" You said furious at him. The words were like a on arrow ripping his heart because this's what he always feared of; to become like his dad.

"I'll run away from here, I promise." You throw the painting to floor striding away from him when he grabbed your elbow pulling you infuriatedly towards himself.

"Nobody can run away from this Palace." You huff yanking yourself away and leaving his rooms.

♧♧

Lezabel sits proudly on the plush pillows with her stuff scattered around and she calls you from far, "what?" You grunt. "Help me to move this stuff to special lady rooms."

"Help yourself." Your roll your eyes walking away and she follows you, "and why in the burnin' hell you can't help me?" She might burst from the way she can't fist you.

"Because nobody could ever force me to do anything." You say with chin raised and when she muttered something bad about you under her breath you lost it, "by the way weren't you cryin' last night, you came back in the wee of night. What happened Prince didn't liked sleeping with you?" You smirk at your blow and every lassie started whispering to eachother.

"No...She's lying because she's jealous. I came in the morning." She throws dagger at you but you didn't wavered.

"We'll ask Sheba then."

She remarks at this cockily, ".....don't even try young lady our Prince wouldn't even look at ye'r face." She hits your shoulder and you tighten your lips into a pout standing back tall again.

"I don't even like your Prince, he's a weak oppressor. He'll get nothing in the future!" You were in the middle of your burst when she slapped you hard across your cheek. In defence you knocked her down straddling her torso and hitting her equally. A jasmine picker young girl who was famous for her sweetness, politeness and kindness halted at this corridor of life just because of the vilness of her arounds.

When Harry's Mother the Second Highnesses asked for explanations you just shrugged and Lezabel rambled, "she made me an enemy because I entered seclusion at night, she even mocked me."

"She's lying!" You said loudly. "I did nothing, she attacked me!"

"Shut up, Lady!" "Don't speak without me' permission."

Mother favours Lezabel because she's chosen by her. She nods for her to speak.

"'M not pissed because she mocked me but for about things she said about our prince."

"Throw her in dungeon fo' she'd taste the punishment." Mother Highnesses commands to servants and you groan trying to get rid of their painful hold on you as they dragged you outside. "Don't!!" You scream digging the heels of your feet against the stoney floor to stop them but their power's a thunder storm to your blue rains.

"Please, I promise I didn't started it!" You thrash as they push you inside the pitch dark dungeon slamming the heavy wooden door at your face leaving you crying and begging.

Your head points in every direction afraid of calignosity and you shrink into a corner sobbing loudly, crouching your knees closer to your chest.

Your mind drifting to stardusts, and golden nebulas as your breath turned shallow to stillness, to numbness. Your body giving up, bowing to the visciousness of these walls at your last breath.

The sheer curtains blows letting the cool zephyr to caress Harry's curls. He's sitting at the oak desk which has his brother's poem carved on it in golden letters. He's carving a Red Beryl . A precious stone digged out from the springs. The stone reminds him of you, just like a pomegranate. Sour as if the blood dripping from the sword and sweet as the honey apple tarts.

He frowns when a particular breeze distress his heart and his sixth sense feels something's not right. He calls the servant and asks them for you.

"My Prince. She....Mother—" The servant hesitates not meet Harry's eyes. Harry stands up alert, his jaw set tight as he towers the poor lad.

"Mother Highnesses sent her to dungeons." One sentence's what it took for Harry to flee in resentment. He enters his mother rooms without a knock and she raises her chin smiling looking at her cub. "Ye' know mother she's meh lover, how could ye d'that t' meh?" He asks with dissapointed eyes. "You know that your grandmother and that girl's trying to trap, don't you?" But, he leaves her because you need him more than than the petty explanation.

♧♧

The lullaby of your mother rings in your ears. A mellow light crooning you to sleep as if your soul's touching the sky. After so long you see stary night doomed with lush tress around.

A cough escapes your lungs and you raise your arm to touch that sky, to grab those stars.

How many stars are there in sky?

....My pearl.....

...And they shine one by one.....They shine one by one.

How many times my eyes has seen this?

.....My pearl.....

"Our Father in sky. My Mary. Why did you leave me alone?" You inhale a long puff of breath. Staring at imagination infront of you but in reality it's just darkness. "Mother, Anni. My heart my soul m' sendin' this message by clouds and air that're passin' above." Your eyes shines and skin glows when the moon glimmered at you.

"Prayin' to God that the letters, I sent ye' arrivez t' ye. They took me away from ye'. And they brought me here to Clisora. Caged me in a palace full of luxuries and magnificence. M' only wish's to come back to you in our island our courtyard. Under me's soil of kindness over my head trees of olives, skies full of pearls." You inhale the jasmine scent in your weak state.

"Father m' anni if couldn't come back to ye', death's m' only escape. I don't want to keep your hopes then remember me in your prayers, I love ye' with my whole dying soul." Your brows furrowing tensely when Harry's face glimpsed infront of you. Your clogged lungs nourishing with some oxygen and you gasp loudly hunching in Harry's arms.

"Y/N!" He taps your cheek trying to bring you to life. His heart at brink of devastation. He himself took you from the dungeon to his garden.

You're in his arms. He's peering down at you worriedly cradling your face in his large soft palms.

"'S okay...." He breaths out when you snap your eyes fearfully to your surroundings. Jasmines around you, vineyard infront of you and the cast pearled sky atop your head. It's the same garden where he met you for the very first time.

"...take a deep breath fo' me." He takes a glass of water helping you sit up. When you whine with the pain in your sides he massaged them, putting your head on his shoulder. His chest against your back as he stroked your hair soothingly. His cheek pressed to yours and he deliberately puts his chin atop your head.

"I thought that I died...n' that I went to heaven. I smelled jasmine everywhere.." He chuckles softly fonding the apples of your cheek, "because I brought it fo' ye', look." You see and it's jasmine plants with pink roses everywhere. They seem like they've been planted recently.

"I know ye' love 'em." He smiles and you didn't know how to response. He hugs you closer to him. For some odd reasons you let him. Inhaling, the rose scent that was kissed to the nape of his neck.

He takes you to His rooms. Situating you on his bed. Sitting beside you and taking your hand warning them up. You puts your head on his shoulder and he glances down at you, leaning closer your mushk attracting him. Your enchantness calling him closer but this's not who he's. He retreats back smooching a wet kiss to your forehead.

You don't realise when you sleep in his arms as he scoots you to the pillows not moving too much letting you lay on his chest.

♧♧

When you wake up you quickly untangle yourself from him. Stopping to look at his work desk. It's mesmerising with stones you've never seen in life before. A Gold ring with Red Beryl coveted in it catches your attention and you startle when Harry pops out of nowhere.

"These are beautiful." You tells him honestly. "Is it?" He asks back in small voice and you nod giving him a gorgeous smile in return. It's weird you aren't hating him at all.

"This's ones fo' ye'. Reminds meh of ye'." He picks up the tantalising red ring facing you.

"I don't want it, Harry. I want home." He sighs closing his eyes and putting the ring back.

"If I'll become a King. I promise to free ye', Y/N. Till then past's a bad memory fo' ye'." Harry doesn't know that he has to keep his promise as his enthronment days are very near.

Enemies are plotting King's and His death. Bribing the army that they rebel against the Royals.

♧♧

Laila's taking you to Prince and you shove her to a corner. "Laila, help me escape the palace, please I beg you." She looks at you like you're crazy. "They'll cut our heads." You offer her a bracelet. The only thing you've of your parents.

"There's a secret canal way that leads to back gates of Castle. I could only show you the way." You nod grinning widely, unfortunately the canal lead to one of the higher chief's offices and they caught you.

The chief being a betrayer and rebel thought you were eavesdropping of the plot he was discussing. He knocked you down. Thanks to goodness Laila saved you taking you to nurses.

When you came back to consciousness Harry was there. With others around your bed and that chief too. You stares him in fear.

"Who did this t' ye', Y/N?" He turns his torso to you hands on his widespread knees.

You gulped a lump of tears down your throat. You don't know why but it's hurting you to hurt him?

"I tried to escape." His face falls at that. Monotonous as He turns his back to you. Everyone leaves the room making your anxiety peak up.

"Harry..." You whisper with tears falling. You tried to make him look towards you by grabbing his face but he stood up causing to slip shut your eyes.

The next morning, he wakes up to another girl as you're standing with the Highnesses at the balcony from where his's could be seen.

He's gazing down at you with stern expression going back inside with his chest hurting.

"He don't wants to see me. He's mad at me." You say and Highnesses squeezes your shoulder.

"Our grand son's like this. His anger will soon evaporate. You need to acknowledge he loves you alot."

♧♧

He's standing at the high balcony from where the whole city's under his single glance. He drives his eyes away from there towards you, scrutinizing every detail of you he's in love with.

He's wearing a sapphire gown over the frilled blouse, his hickory curls shining under the moonlight and when he speaks his maroon lips dripped with cherriness.

"Harry." You keep your eyes away from his piercing ones.

"Dont be afraid. 'M not mad." He tells you with gentleness in his harsh voice.

"To show ye' the city." He takes your hand guiding you to him. "Why?"

"To show how quite it's when it's asleep, but it could swallow ye' alive at ye'r one wrong move." He's trying to put some senses in you. He knows you're about to escape. He wants you to wait. He wants to protect you. He loves you. He'd never want anything bad happen to you. Even though he wants to be selfish and keep you to him he can't, he'd have to let you go. At last this's what love's about, that of suffering and agony.

"We can go check it out sometimes. The city becomes yours when you love it."

"I don't lie Harry, I told you from the very beginning I don't want to be here."

You soon changed the topic brushing your fingers at his knuckles taking him by surprise.

"What bout ye'? "You're not happy either." "You're just like me." He sighs letting his forehead fall against yours.

"It's meh life. 'M destined fo' what 'm." You give him a sympathetic smile. Harry felt warm. He never had someone to pity his life everyone glorified him. Now, it feels better.

"Ye' care bout me?"

"I do." You confess and he smiles kissing your temple with affection.

But something turned inside you making you bitter, "I'm your slave, your property I'm supposed to take care of you, right?." His heart pangs at this. He puts his hands on your shoulder speaking to you with ever love.

"Did I hurt ye'? Was I ever bad to you?" You shake your head in opposition. God what's wrong with me. You thought as his jade irirses remain fixated at your face.

"Did I somehow hurt ye' meh, love?"

"You don't get it. You're not the reason of my sadness." You lean against the railing.

"You're a good person, Harry." You continue with dissapointed pout of your lips. "'S just there are so many girls here they all want you."

He instantly grabs her chin. "But what matters is who I want." You roll your eyes.

"Ye' want all of 'em. There's one every night in your bed, leave me." You mutter walking away from him when he catches your wrist, pulling you back and holding both of your wrists drawing circles on them.

"Y're queen of my heart. The soul of me' body. I find ye' in the sky I wake up to and the stars I sleep to. Y're dream of me heart, the beautiful places I've never visited, Y/N." He leans closer to you and you close your eyes anticipating for a kiss but instead he presses his lips against your temple.

His eyes widens when you slip your arms from his armpits wrapping them around his shoulders to hug him. He sways along you inhaling in your pomegranate fragrance until the sun rises to hues of tangerine.

♧♧

You're at the secret garden again. The day's pretty bright today. Harry's at the balcony, hands at his folds peeking far to his sight.

"Do you fear death, Harry?" You join him.

"I was never afraid of death. Death was always closer to me like a companion of mine but this life frightens me, Y/N." It's the way he always let his vulnerable side expose to you without any restriction. You raise your hand to caress his cheek hesitating midway and Harry gave you a shy smile clearing his throat.

"But ye' tiny creature gives me hope and light." You fake offend putting your hands on your hips. "'M not tiny!." He cackles loudly. The genuine belly ache one, with his head falling back. There was a weird feeling in your stomach watching him laugh this hard for the first time.

When he heaves his chest loudly moisturizing his lips, craning his jaw to other side you peer him for long minutes before turning it back to you gently and Harry's heart did a little dance when your fingers touched him.

You tip toes. Closing your eyes and attaching your lips to his's. Everything around you vanished to sweet cotton candy. He cups your face in his clammy palms inserting his tongue inside your mouth and you moan biting his bottom lip with sccachirness. He pulls away at the brink of running out of oxygen. Both, of you smiling like fool's gold.

"'M afraid 'm fallin' for ye' Harry." You rub your palms up and down his chest, he slips his hand intervining with yours kissing the insides of it, "meh too, meh too"

♧♧

A royal party was held at castle. Everyone danced, cheered and drank their arses off. Harry's eyes remained at you as you stood in the far corner not allowed to join. Adorned in red satin gown with work of gold wire and jewelled flowers on it. Layers of clothes and cane cane underneath, heavily embroidered corset pushed so far making your breasts appear plump than they already are, your gorgeous hair beautified with a precious headband of red velvets and sapphire stones around. Highnesses gifted you this dress to look pretty for Harry, ordering hairstylist to put curls in your hair and cherry balmness to your lips.

When the Princess of some state came to dance with Harry it caused something to twist in your tummy. It's jealously boiling inside you. Harry smirks whispering something in princess ear that caused her to laugh and you grunted under your breath balling your fists. It's an alluring sight for him. He wishes he wakes upto it daily.

You gesture him with your brows to meet you and He gave you a lopsided smile with mischief in his eyes.

When he stepped in corridors cooing your name climbing up the stairs. His finger tips brushing agaisnt the each wall kissed your presence.

Then two delicate hands pulled him to a side making him squeak dramatically and leading you inside his rooms carefully.

"Ye' mad woman!" You roll your eyes. Smashing your lips against his's catching him by surprise for thousandth time. He kisses you back with same passion, yearn and vigour saturating the thread like distance between you by taking you from hips.

He seals your squeal as you both toppled back to plush floor pillows. He rakes his hands down your calves locking them around his waist. You take his face kissing him with tongue and he fondled your sides caringly.

He moans into your mouth wrapping a hand around your throat and deepening the kiss. Everything feels so hot like burning maroons and you grind your pelvis against his hard on crotch.

"Want ye'." You whine slipping your fingers in his silk curls as he sucked a spot under your ear. He pushes himself back from the crook of your neck tucking wild errands of your tresses back.

"Ye' want meh, sweet girl?" He whispers with sweetest voice continuously petting your head, "I do, Harry. Only you." Harry's so happy he have no words to describe, but his actions would.

He fondles your chin and all you could do's stare his lips, "Tell meh darlin', wha' do yeh wan' from meh?" Your breaths mingling as he grazed his delicate fingers down between the valley of your chest. He maintains an eye contact with you like a prying loin as he glided down your core leaving kisses over your clothes.

When he subduedly pushes your skirts up your bended knees you scrunch upto find his head hovering over your centre, "what're ye' doin'?" You ask him out of breath and he chafed the flesh of your inner thighs mildly.

"Lovin' on meh pretty girl with meh mouth first." Whatever, it's his words coiled knots in your stomach causing you to clench your thighs together but he tutted spreading them wide.

Cool air hits against your dripping cunt when he gets rid of your cotton knickers. He wets his lips, admiring you for moments seeping in the way your pussy lips shining with arousal fluttered with anticipation.

"'S pretty. Love fo' meh?" You bob your head gasping loudly when he traced gentle patterns to your mound. He lowers himself down halting midway, "look meh, darlin'." He tries to gain your attention by tugging your hand intervining his fingers with yours and he climbs back to smauch a kiss to your lips, giving a long wet wipe to your cupid bow. He boops your nose when you giggle gasping in the middle when he pinched your hip-bones.

"I wan' your eyes on meh, when I lick your sweet cunt." The drift of his voice to sterness made him appear intimidating and you gulp nodding.

Your spine arched beautifully when his warm tongue gave an agonisingly tender swipe from your slit to clitoris. He licks like a hungry kitten, small but rapid that causes you to curl your toes in pleasure. You meander your fingers in his wild curls pulling them harshly that made him groan into your pussy.

"Harry..." You moan when he nibbles at your glistening pussy lips, nudging your clitoris with his perfect nose that shooted zaps of pleasure to your spine. "Mhmph, s' fuckin' peachy." He murmurs sucking and taking your nub between his lips to pull it meeting your gaze.

Your head falls back the instant his emarld eyes glimmered at you. The corners of his mouth fully covered with your arousal and wetness.

You lost it when he inserted his tongue inside you, your walls clenching around the soft muscle as it poked in different directions. The tip of his tongue massaging your sweet spot again and again. He gropes your thighs tightly imprinting the rash of his hands when you thrashed in his hold while he laps at you.

"'M gonna...ah!" You yell almost crushing his head and grinding yourself against his mouth. You gushed. Your pleasure coming in waves upon waves dripping down your slit and coating Harry's lips. Your eyes fluttering like butterfly to come to the sight of him atop yours. He's grinning down at you with his cheeky dimples showing and you poke them with your shivering finger.

You kiss him with parted mouth. This time it's slow, sweet and soft. A kiss that melts you in spot, that causes you to desire for more. Your fingers fumbled with his trousers and he helped you shimming them down his ankles.

He lays you down on his bed. Getting you naked not forgetting to love on you how you deserve. Kissing your bare shoulders, your neck and breasts in the process. He kisses your forehead, the apple of you cheeks and your lips at last.

You whimper when he collects your moisture, sushing you with his delicate lips he uses your wetness to tug at his cock. His bulbous head three shades crimsoned of his heart-shaped lips. Both of you moan together in ecastasy when he with ever softness stroked his head in between your pussy lips, flickering your clit with it.

"Take meh hand, darlin'." He winds his fingers with yours pressing them into velvet sheets, your breath hitches when the tip of his cock brushed agaisnt your hole.

"'M bout to get in yeh'." He tells you temple resting against yours and you gave him a wavering smile pecking the corners of his lips.

You give a kitten cry when he buries himself deep inside you slowly taking care of your comfort, "I know. I know, petal." He swiped the sheen away from your hairline staying still as you bolted your eyes shut clamping around him tight. He grunts in pain his back getting pooled in sweat against your palms, but he doesn't care. For you he could bare any misery.

"Relax. Jus' take a breath fo' me, yeah darlin'?" He takes your bottom lip sucking it tenderly as you milked and nourished his cock buried deep inside you. "Y're doin' s' good baby', s' good fo' meh."

His care. Affection. His gentleness for you building three words in you and you were about to say them with ever love for him.

"I...You can move." He plants a small kiss to your hair. Burrowing his head in between your breasts moving with slow thrusts of his hips, you whine and when he gave a particular hard thrust. When he stops immediately looking for any sign of distress on your face you lulled his beautiful face to kiss him. He smiles against your lips, your noses doing eskimo kisses. He's doesn't want to rush. He want to make love with you. Give you all his lovin' he ever had.

"Feels so warm around me cock. Feels s' fuckin' good."

Soon pain faded to tingling of rapture and you locked your elbows around his neck meeting his slow thrusts.

You swirled his curl around your finger adoring his heavenly features. His brows kinking together as he felt blissful pleasure building inside his spine. The bridge of his nose crimson and his cheeks flushed. He held you tight to his chest coming in inside you in spurts of thickness coating your walls and some of it oozing out of your cunt.

He has never felt this ecastic. In the arms of his love. His life. The reason of his presence. Coming out of his headspace he pulled back carefully with his hand pressing on your tummy, when you whine from the soreness he kisses your outer thighs.

"Dear Lord." You moan at the top of your lungs when he kissed your pussy. He tastes himself and you on his tongue as he cleaned and licked you, knowing you couldn't come on your first he took care of you with his luscious sexy mouth. Making you cum for him twice. He has never heard such a pretty noise that of your little saccharine moans and whimpers.

Your head rests on his bare chest. Calves tangled and silk sheets on your hips as he ran his thumb in soothing patterns over your shoulder blade.

"I love you, Y/N. 'Ve never loved someone this much." You smile up at him pecking the underside of his chin with loud smooching noises and his giggles rumbles through his ribcages making you sigh dreamily. He was drowning into slumber and you stared up at the renaissance painting blinking when the realization dawned upon you. What 'm doin'? Is this even right? Your self questioning came to a drastic stop when the room echoed with a knock. You draped a His silk robes over your naked figure popping your head from the creak of door.

"Laila?" You squint and she nodded vigorously gesturing you to come outside.

"I've found a new tunnel that really leads to the back gates of Castle, we need to slide outta here before midnight at that time the duties of guards changes." She whisper yelled. You look at her in shock and uncertainty, until nodding in agreement at last. Quickly rushing in back to put on your clothes halting in tracks when Harry's little breaths reaches your heart you lowers down to plant a kiss to his forehead, frowning at the fact he's burning giving half of your heart to him you exited his rooms because whatever's your descion pain's written in your destination. Putting on a the hood of your magenda velvet coat, you snatches a lantern running away from the indoors pushing the heavy oak doors as you reach to gate Laila stops you to give a hug. "Take care of yourself." You sighed with your heart shattering to pieces.

"Take care of Harry, fo' me, laila." Saying this you rushed away into the meadows pondering over the 'I love you' you've rested on your lips.

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[thedivinedemom]

An AU of DC with a mass crossover of PS4 properties.

Provisional name: Players Searching for Detectable Changes (Get the pun?)

The setup:

This is the future of DC, a world where the old guard has slowly withdrawn and the newer generations have risen to the occasion. The original Titans in particular, most of which have formed the new Justice League while many other, very similar teams had started to form across the world. One of which was a resurgence of the Teen Titans, led by an older and purified Raven. She wanted to make the Teen Titans something akin as it was for her, a place to belong and learn to use one's powers.

The first 'class' of such individuals include:

Stargirl (of the now-disbanded JSA and still getting used to the Starrod)

Blue Beetle III (Freshly attached to his alien symbiote and freaking out a bit)

Robin V (to work on his anger issues, mostly at the new Batman's request)

Kaldur (a half Atlantean half metahuman who is struggling with his identity and the surface world, Aquaman feels a kinship for the boy seeing their similarities)

Static Shock (a promising new hero but little experience working outside his city or in groups)

Mary Marvel (she's... she's going through alot. Fresh from a coma, her brother is distant as he acts as the new Wizard, and she may be, sorta kinda, being corrupted by Black Adam's gifted power)

The team was rough and there was plenty of head butting (Mostly between Stargirl and Robin/Damian as one is almost the unanimous leader while the other thinks he should be) but they were getting there. They were more of a clean up crew for the Justice League, they did more than the "kiddie missions" that the Outsiders didn't do, and they meant more than the PR grab that was the International team. Though they didn't seem to amount to more than that. They still did their best, pushing past the silent ridicule, as they went about their missions.

This may be why tempers were so high that day.

One day, outside a little city by the name of Weller's Point, the prisoner transport for the villain Plasmus had an "accident". Released and awakened the creature went on a rampage, heading ever closer to the populated area. Luckily, the mentor of the New Teen Titans could teleport. The new team did fairly well in the fight, though they did struggle a bit as Plasmus was not a being where simple brute force would work. It made the fight tricky and more than a bit... messy.

Messy enough that juvenile and emotionally compromised Mary Marvel lashed out against the downed villain but was stopped by her teammates... things escalated from there. Restraint turned blows and the whole team struggled to stop their powerhouse without hurting her. The ones who do the best are Raven, Stargirl, Blue Beetle, and oddly Static.

While both of the former could use their abilities to restrain her to a very effective degree Static was actively draining her of strength, or at least of the electic aura she was radiating and blasting with. Frustrated, done with the situation, and a bit petty Mary launched her largest attack yet by saying her magical word.

SHAZAM.

Virgil did what he did best, he handled that lightning as it came crashing down towards Mary and the Titans restraining her. Well, he tried. The bolt was just too powerful, too unlike anything he had ever encountered. He could not handle it and it was dissipating, if anything it clung to him or tried to jump towards the girl. He had to get rid of it and he had to get rid of it quickly, safely too if he could help it.

He shoved it into the ground, into the power lines. He did it as carefully as he could, trying to prevent overload or flashover as guided the charge into the power grid.

What happened next was a combination of a few things. 1. The Mystic and transformative properties of the Lightning, 2. It is effectively being filtered through a bang baby, 3. The kryptonite power plant owned by, provided by, and operated by Lexcorp.

This interaction, this new charge, cycling through the power grid interacted strangely with a number of devices but none more so than PlayStation 4s and the devices connected to them. This new electricity changed things, literally. It brought fantasy into reality.

Whatever game was loaded into became a part of our reality in a small way. Sometimes TVs, Controllers, and even the system changed to reflect items from the game but the bigger change came with the Players. If a person was playing their console during the surge then they would become a metahuman with abilities based on the playable character they were playing.

The city, the county even, was now flooded by an abundance of metahumans and items of varying power of devastation. Static felt horrible.

He couldn't help but compare what has happened here to what happened in Dakota City but on a wider scale. And this time it was his fault. His sense of responsibility wouldn't, couldn't, let that stand. He had to fix his mistake and his team was dragged along for the ride.

The story to follow is a mix of Final Crisis and Kingdom Come with a bit of the Young Justice cartoon in events and themes, a few twists and likely a bit lighter in tone but to the DC geeks this should give a rough idea… Maybe a bit of Marvel's Civil War but hopefully not the rushed knee-jerk mess that that ended up being.

But it's here that I start having issues with my planning. One part in worry as outside the set up we start to follow the perspective of OCs (something rarely smiled upon) and another part in wondering which OC to focus on.

Now, one thing I love in fiction is progressive powers and the conflict escalating from the different paths people take in said progression. In that vein, I have a pair of protags in mind as well.

The main two/co-protagonists:

The Lawkeeper- a cop before the change and now a member of a task force made up largely of those affected by the surge. A gamer, a man of color, and a believer of the spirit of the law. He doesn't always get along with his fellow officers but he believes in what the blue does. He believes that an organized response is what is best.

His abilities are based on those of Jesse Fades of Control. Meaning he has tremendous psychic potential but he needs 3 things to reach his full potential.

1.Items to bond to so he can generate these psychic abilities. Jesse's used altered items of her universe to get thematic abilities from them (ex: a safe to generate a shield, a carousel horse for a dash ability, ect). Here he can use items generated by the surge.

2. A patron/partner entity to help guide, give insights, and empower. It also let's the user enforce reality, basically becoming an anti reality warper.

3. A bonded morph weapon or a weapon to come to his hand when called.

The knight- a recent college graduate who instantly decided to go the route of the caped hero. She, after figuring out how to get her powers to work, instantly went the route of a caped crusader. Going out to the streets, saving lives, stopping instances of surge item abuse, and (in the humble opinion of the local Police Department) getting in the way of operations. In her opinion they were taking too long to get things done.

Her abilities are based on those of Prince Noctis of Final Fantasy XV. This means she has tremendous physical and magical potential but like the above she has a number of check marks needed to gain access to the character's full power.

1. A gem/crystal to draw power from.

2. 13 magical weapons to boost strength. The generated game weapons will do and I have most picked out in a way that likely would help the plot progress.

3. The blessing of 5-6 gods.

4. A power ring of some king to channel all this power.

I keep debating the two above as I do like the idea of both of them climbing in power and clashing over conflicting ideals of what to do with their power. At the same time, I think that just smooshing aspects of both into one (which is actually where they started, a single character) and play off the different ideologies of how best to help people from within her friend group and precinct along with internal conflict. Maybe have the one be a fellow officer they butt heads with because of the... precarious nature

Another OC I was thinking on, keeping with the theme of what to do when you have power, is a thief who played Persona 5. Like both of the above they would be crippled in their ability to use their abilities without a way to fake the connection to. In this case, without the Mementos App, they would need an item that could affect or enter the hearts of others. Luckily, more unlucky really, there are plenty of items floating around that can do just that. Namely Keyblades.

Most other Players are an odd mix but most are variations of the Shooter build. Peak physical humans who heal quickly and often have bullet time. But there are enough other variations to cause trouble. Demigods of unreal strength, men and women who can easily tap into a patron for powers from the outside, 2 variations of spider powers, cat eyed men and women who can cast magic with simple gestures, and so much more. But the real issue was the first two, the demigods without a parent to protect them and those easily connected to a divine source.

The disembodied New Gods of Apocalypse were very happy with those groups. For how bad this can be please look at what happened to Mary Marvel in canon Final Crisis.

Thoughts and opinions would be appreciated.