#So she grew more and more extreme with her abuse and self destruction

[rubberduckyrye]

You guys ever think about the tragedy that is Junko Enoshima? That she wasn't a sadistic girl seeking out to hurt others for sadistic glee?

Because everything Junko did was her trying to emotionally abuse herself? That she wanting to feel something so badly that she hurt the people she loved most, and even brought about ruin to the world, simply to destroy herself with it?

[lightparty-fullparty]

Gods okay I need to talk about the Stormblood Antagonists for a hot minute. Whatever personal issues I have with how Stormblood is paced or how certain characters are handled, the villains are absolutely fantastic.

If there is one singular theme that ties the main three antagonists (that being, Fordola/Yotsuyu/Zenos) together. It's the idea of the Ouroboros. The snake that is caught in a self-destructive cycle of devouring it's own tail.

Historical in our real world, the Ouroboros has been symbolic of main things, the cycles of life and death, fertility, even immortality. However, it can also been seen in a more negative light as a symbol of perpetuated suffering. Of being unable to let go of something that only end up hurting you more. And gods doesn't that just sound familiar?

Now I can hear you, in your head saying "But Gengar - Yostuyu and Fordola obviously have those parallels of suffering abuse and becoming abusers themselves, but what the hell are you doing throwing Zenos in there too? He's the abuser." And I get it, I do. Aside from the fact I'm a self-admitted Zenos lover, he doesn't at first glance really fit in with the ladies. But hear me out okay?

It's not just suffering abuse. It's refusing to let go and allow yourself and your perspective to change, even though your current way of thinking and acting is only making you suffer more. Yotsuyu was victimised for *years* at the hands of her Aunt/Uncle/Asahi. Then sold off to an (asummedly) abusive husband, and then sold again into prostitution. She was never offered a shred of sympathy or kindness during this time. And when she was given power, given authority and the means to protect herself physically. She choose to return all of the suffering she endured onto the people of Doma. She did not see them as being in the same position as her, suffering under the abuse of the Garlean Empire. She did not offer them any sympathy or kindness of her own, because (in her mind) they had denied that basic decency to her. Yotsuyu couldn't let go of her hatred until a literal giant wooden beam smacked her on the head and gave her complete amniesia. At which point, she displayed the ability to be kind. To think of others and to try and do nice things for them (Persimmons anyone?). Tsuyu was freed from her self-inflicted cycle of pain. She stopped letting herself be comsumed by her own anger and fear. Fordola was much the same, though her family at least very clearly cared for her. She grew up in an occupied Ala Mihgo. In a family with supported the Imperial force. Out of genuine agreement with the Empire or as a means of ensuring a sightly better life for themselves we don't really know (as far as I can remember at least). Fordola's suffering, much like Yotsuyu's, came at the hands of her own 'countrymen'. People who (rightly) despised the Empire for it's brutal oppression, but who choose to take it on someone more vulnerable and accessable. A child. A young girl who was given a horrible and sudden lesson on just how cruel people can be. On both sides of the conflict.

Fordola chose to join the Garlean Army in the hopes of amassing power for herself. Of trying desperately to carve out some place of herself and her friends where they felt they actually belonged. Where they would be respected. Unfortunately, she found none of this. The Garleans saw her as a 'savage', the Ala Mihgian's saw her as a tratior. Like Yotsuyu, Fordola couldn't let go of her desire for revenge. Her desire to "make anyone who ever looked down on (her) pay!". It drove her to extremes to try and hold onto that scrap of power she had managed to gather. The resonant, the Castrum, all of it more teeth biting into her own tail. So what can Zenos not let go of?

His belief that the only joy he can find in life is from dying in combat. Because let's be honest with ourselves, Zenos has no desire to live here. He wants a meaningful death, a brilliant, climactic, perfect moment and then he wants to not be alive anymore after that. It's why he chooses to kill himself after the Royal Menagiere. You beat him! You gave him his perfect moment! He knows (believes) that there's nothing left for him after this! So he dies. Zenos is infact suffering. It's just not as clear as Fordola or Yotsuyu. He's miserable. He's perpetually bored, and lethargic, and consumed by apathy. A prison of his own making because he has had tunnel vision since he was like 8? 10? that combat was the only thing capable of making him feel anything. So he chases after it, chases after you (the WOL). Trying to push you and push you like he was until you're capable of giving him what he wants. His perfect, transcendant moment of pure joy, and then death after.

Really what it comes down to is that Fordola, Yotsuyu, and Zenos are stuck in their own self-perpetuated misery. Yotsuyu in her fear of powerlessness, Fordola in her need for revenge, and Zenos in his desperation for meaning.

And none of them can see a way to break their own cycles until it someone outside of it comes in to try and do it for them. (Gosetsu/Lyse + Arenvald/WOL+Alisaie)

'Ere does the head devour the tail.

[talkfantasytome]

It's Instinct - Chapter 1

The Archerons arrive at their townhouse in Yin, settling in for a season of society.

Warnings: Emotional Abuse | Word Count: 3,251 | Read on AO3

It's Instinct Masterlist

a/n: Hello @dustjacketmusings!! Idk which you'll see first, but yes, it is I, your secret santa! I was soooo excited to get you and to have the chance to build something special for you! I hope you like it. I took into consideration your enjoyment of magical/supernatural AUs, am sprinkling in some rivalry, and definitely there will be some angst (I hope it comes across well). However, my schedule did not allow for me to write a short book in one month - how rude - so this will be some time in the making, but hopefully you'll enjoy taking this journey with me!

And thank you @acotargiftexchange for putting this all together and organizing this lovely exchange!

"Will you stop shaking your leg? Honestly, one would think you have to relieve yourself."

Her mother started on a new rant directed at Nesta. Droning on about proper, ladylike behavior again. A lady doesn't reveal her needs. A lady doesn't display extreme emotions. A lady doesn't fidget. A lady doesn't shake the carriage.

Nesta knew all these things. She was typically very good at them. But it took every ounce of will in her to remain even this calm as they neared Yin.

The scent of the dew unfathomably mixed with the first snow of winter grew with each mile they traveled. And the rattling of the wheels seemed to sing to the beat of "closer, closer, closer". Nesta's heart picked up the rhythm, beating along and growing in strength.

She hadn't seen Yin since her graduation day. That night her mother whisked them all back home and then on to a three-year tour of the most eligible bachelors the continent had to offer. Disguised as an opportunity to hone her power further, to learn from the best Reason masters in the world. Unsurprisingly, her mother didn't care to hear much about those lessons. Her thoughts and conversation revolved entirely around what Nesta would wear to the next ball, who she should speak to, what she should ask about, who to accept dances with, and regular emphasis on keeping her thoughts to herself.

For families who cared so much about intelligence and power, they seemed far more interested in finding a vapid and thoughtless jewel to adorn their sons' arms.

Not that the sons had much to offer. Nesta found their conversation bland and mediocre. They had nothing to say that was challenging in the least, save for their misogynistic undertones and expectations.

It shouldn't have come as such a shock that Nesta didn't manage to secure a 'suitable' marriage. The ones that were determined enough to make an actual offer never lasted longer than a week into the planning, much to Nesta's pleasure. And even more so to her mother's chagrin.

Nesta couldn't regret it, though, no matter how unpleasant her mother could be. As excited as she was to travel the continent, to learn from the masters and take in new knowledge they didn't teach in Prythian, she was ready to go back. Back to the city that had stolen her heart in her three years at the Academy.

She hadn't expected to be back so soon after they returned from the continent. But apparently her mother was in a rush, worried that news of her unfavorable disposition would reach Prythian before she could get Nesta married. And Yin was the only place in Prythian where they might find an appropriate match by her mother's standards. The only place that held families rich and powerful enough for that, though none so much as those on the continent - as her mother kept reminding her.

"It's really no wonder you couldn't find a husband. Your lack of self-control will be the destruction of this family."

Her mother had managed to pivot back to Nesta's horrible showing on the continent by the time they finally reached their town house. Her favorite subject.

"Eileen," their father sighed.

"Don't start with me, Owen!" she snapped before he had a chance to say anything else.

He let out a breath and gave in, opening the door to their carriage and leading the family into the house. Nesta was surprised he even bothered trying. Absent is too kind a word to describe his presence in Nesta's upbringing. He never cared for his eldest. Nesta sometimes wondered if she were really his.

The three sisters followed their parents in age order, not one of them feeling a sense of relief for being in the town house. It was never a home for any of them.

From the street, the house gave off a sense of welcome and life that would be drowned out the second Nesta stepped into the foyer. No one knew the lie that was the façade of this house. How the perfectly kept up flowers, bushes, and crawling ivy and morning glory was all just a front for the despair that laid within.

Inside was more of the same. Pristinely decorated, it was designed entirely for show. A place for the family to rest the few times a year they were in Yin. To help keep up appearances, ensure everyone knew they maintained a certain degree of wealth. Everyone who was anyone had a house in Yin. And while many wealthy families did permanently resid here, the Archerons main estate was in the port city of Adriata. It was far easier for their father, as a tradesman and merchant, to do his business from there. And when he had business in Yin, he often didn't bring the family, knowing he'd be able to keep his trip shorter that way.

Nesta hated this house. It was worse than the manor by the sea - at least that one was large enough she could hide, avoid her mother when it wasn't time for her various lessons. The grounds were sprawling. It was so easy to find a tree on the edge of them to settle under and read. It was well decorated, always perfectly clean and ready to entertain visitors, but it was still lived in. Books and notes and clothes were strewn about her room. Flowers from Elain's garden adorned almost every table. Feyre's paintings were hung in the private rooms of the manor. Their father's favorite treasures could be found accenting various rooms, a great conversation starter for those curious.

This house had none of that. It was filled with the latest trends in home décor. The right rugs and settees, tables made from the finest of mahogany or whatever wood was currently in season. Paintings only from the most famous of artists, flowers from some boutique shop, and there was not one ounce of character in any of the bedrooms. Any family could live here and no one would know.

She never truly felt at home in the manor, but here she was a prisoner. Made all the worse by her adoration of Yin. It was easier to be trapped far away from the city than to be just one wall away but unable to enjoy it.

Nesta reached her ordinary room, draped in fabrics of pale blue and silver, and plopped down on her bed. The journey from Adriata was long. She was certain she could've slept for two days, but before she could adjust her body to be properly on the bed, she heard a knock on the door.

"Nesta?" Elain's soft voice called from the other side of it.

"Hmmm?"

Taking that as an invitation, Elain opened the door and walked in, followed quickly by Feyre. They shut the door behind them and walked over to Nesta. "We were going to walk to the market and wondered if you'd like to come with," Elain offered.

"Get some fresh air," Feyre added. "Away from mo-oof." She was cut off by Elain's less-than-gentle nudge to the stomach.

Nesta let out a sigh and sat up. The stresses of travel were weighing heavily on her, but getting out of the house and into the city did sound wonderful. "Yeah," Nesta agreed. "Let me just change first. I'll meet you in the foyer in 15 minutes."

Her sisters nodded and left the room, likely to change out of their travel clothes as well.

The trunk with her dresses had already been brought up to the room, the carriage carrying their things likely arriving before they had. She walked over to it and quickly dug through her clothes, picking out a simple, purple grey dress. It had some minor detail on the torso, but was plain enough it wouldn't draw too much attention.

She pulled off her shirt and skirt and threw the dress over her, using the external straps to tighten the waist enough to show off her figure. The floor-length skirt shimmered slightly in the light breaking through her windows, giving off a slight glow to the fabric. She walked over to the mirror and took out her hair, the updo disheveled from the journey. She brushed through the long, golden brown locks and then re-did it, sticking it right back up into her favorite braided coronet style.

Nesta grabbed her deep purple, valor cloak and fastened it as she made her way out her room and down the stairs. The fur trim around the hood was already beginning to warm her up, and the delicate silver flowers at the bottom popped with each step she took. Elain and Feyre were already waiting for her in fresh dresses, pulling on their gloves and chatting quietly.

"Are you ready?" Feyre asked as Elain handed Nesta her own gloves.

"Absolutely," Nesta replied.

Sharp footsteps that had all three girls straightening sounded behind them. "And where are you three going?" their mother's pointed voice asked.

"We were just going to take a walk to the market, mama," Elain explained in a sweet voice she used to get her way. It almost always worked.

"We just arrived. Surely you three have to get settled in your rooms."

"Yes, but we've been traveling for so long. We thought getting some fresh air and sunshine would be good for us."

Their mother looked at each of her daughters, moving an assessing gaze from one to the next. "Fine. Be home in time for dinner."

"Yes, mama," the three said in unison. They turned and hastened through the door before she could change her mind.

Once out of the house they each took a breath of relief. Nesta was bristling with excitement as she took in the city around them. The clouds were as white and fluffy as ever, drifting across the azure sky. It was midday, and yet something about them looked as if dawn were still lingering, a rose gold glow lining them.

With their house residing in the Rì chū - as the locals called their neighborhood - it was only a short walk to the Lí míng Market, the unofficial center of the city. The true center was still a mile away, filled with golden buildings where business and politics took place. But the market, that was the social center. Shops lined the street and stalls filled it, displaying goods from all over the world. Political hopefuls would gather in the center, preaching their opinions and fighting for change. Old friends would meet in the various cafes to catch up over cups of tea. New lovers would wander the aisles, browsing aimlessly as they sought to know each other better.

There was always something to see or do at the market, always something to entertain. But what Nesta loved best was the variety. People from all over Prythian lived in Yin, and you could see them all at the market. Their different dress styles and how they wear their hair, the various accents and intonations they speak in. It was all here, in this bustling market.

They were browsing a small jewelry stall when Elain let out a loud sigh. "You know, as lovely as this city is, I do wish we could've spent a bit more time in Adriata before coming here."

"Speak for yourself," Feyre said, her eyes tracking a pack of boys around her age that were passing them. "Did all the guys look like that when you were at the Academy, Nesta?"

"Like rowdy, eighteen-year-olds? Yes." Nesta didn't even bother looking at the group, more interested in a rose pendant painted to look like flames.

She could hear the roll in Feyre's eyes as she responded, "Cute, Nesta. I meant cute."

"I wasn't paying that much attention," she explained, placing the pendant down. It was beautiful, but her mother would never let her wear it out. Even looking at it she could feel eyes on her, as if her mother was watching all the way from their house. "Some were cute, some weren't, I'm sure. But if you're truly interested, you could always enroll in the Academy."

Feyre let out a loud snort that drew more than a few eyes, but Nesta tried to ignore it, moving them along to the next stall. "As if I'd be allowed to," Feyre lamented. "Mother didn't allow Elain to enroll."

"Really? As I recall it, Elain opted not to enroll," Nesta countered.

"What?!" Feyre pivoted, eyes on Elain, who suddenly found a new stall she wished to see halfway across the market and rushed off. "She never told me that." Her voice softened slightly as she slid up to Nesta's side.

Nesta turned to give Feyre a small smile. "I think she was worried you'd think she was staying for you. You just assumed she didn't have the option, it was easier to keep it that way."

"Was she? Staying for me."

"Not entirely. She didn't want to leave you alone, but she also wanted to stay for father. And, in the end, she's not as interested in our magic. She was more interested in staying home, getting to spend time on her hobbies and the garden. But it was her choice. Believe me. I tried to convince her to go."

Feyre let out a contemplative sound, her eyes moving to the clocks made from wine bottles that were displayed on the stall in front of them. "I still doubt I'd be allowed to enroll, assuming I could get in."

"You'd get in. You're an Archeron."

"Doesn't change the mother of it all. She'd never let me go. She'd never spend that kind of money on me."

"Feyre," Nesta sighed, knowing exactly where this was going.

"Nesta," Feyre parried. "Don't pretend. Our whole lives, everything has been about you. She doesn't care about us. Only you."

Nesta simply shook her head. "That's not true."

It wasn't about Nesta.

It never was. Not one thing in her life. Not the dance lessons, the private tutors, the fancy dresses. Not even her birth. As her mother always said, she was bred. No, she wasn't born or conceived or made with love, but bred. Like a prize show pony.

It was one of the reasons Nesta enjoyed her time at the Academy so much. The freedom. She could stay up all night, engrossed in a book if she wanted to. She could spend hours in the various museums, devouring chocolate from her favorite shop, or strolling through the Lí míng Market.

It hadn't been perfect freedom. Her mother's eye was far-reaching, she still kept Nesta 'in line', but the boundaries were far larger than Nesta had ever experienced. She just needed to stay away from Instinct - the other school of magic. Emotional, raucous, intense - they were dangerous. Nesta had heard the stories of Reason practitioners who'd gotten mixed up in Instinct. It never ended well.

Feyre could lecture her all she wanted on how Nesta was given everything. How their mother's life revolved around Nesta, but it never truly did. Their mother's life revolved around their mother, and Nesta was a mere tool in the process.

Her tone turned sharper. "Well, that's how it looks to me." And with that comment, Feyre stalked away.

One day Feyre might understand, but Nesta sure hoped that would never happen. That her mother would never shift her focus to Elain or Feyre. She prayed to the gods every day that they would never know what their mother's 'caring' felt like.

Leaving her sisters to their own interests, Nesta continued her path down the aisle of stalls, stopping whenever something caught her eye. She never lingered for long, unable to shake that feeling that she was being watched. The hairs on the back of her neck remained upright, a tingling sensation spreading through her body.

Nesta was sure she was growing paranoid. There were hundreds of people at the market. Plenty probably looked at her for a moment, but surely no one was watching her. And her mother hated the market, she certainly wouldn't have come out to it just to watch Nesta shop.

When she reached the end of the aisle, Nesta looked around for the tenth time, her eyes scanning every divot and alleyway when her gaze fell upon a pair of bright, hazel eyes that were clearly following her. Even being caught, they remained on her, a spark igniting in them, mesmerizing Nesta and holding her stare. She lost her breath for a moment. It took a minute before she gathered the strength of will to break away from his gaze and look upon the face those eyes held.

His face was nearly as intense as his stare. A strong jaw and high cheekbones, with a scar through the left eyebrow, half-hidden by some of the dark hair that fell in his face. His lips were spread into a knowing smirk. It ignited something deep within her that she couldn't quite name.

He was leaning against a lamp post, his ridiculously muscular arms crossed over his just as insane torso. Even in that stance he was daunting. She could only imagine what he'd be like at full height.

Meeting his gaze again, she finally realized what it was she was feeling.

Fury.

The audacity of this man, to watch her go through the market. To give her such a smug grin, as if he knew she would come up to him now that she's seen him. She had the mind to do just that and tell him off. Before she could, she heard her name being called.

"Nesta! You must come see these!" Elain exclaimed, walking up to her and grabbing her hand, beginning to pull her toward some stall. Nesta looked to her sister reflexively, and when she looked back the man was gone. As if he'd disappeared on the wind. "Nesta?" Elain asked, noticing her sister not moving.

"Sorry," Nesta breathed, turning to Elain. "I was lost in thought. What are we looing at?"

Elain grinned widely and led her to a stall selling cloak clasps. Feyre was already there, holding up a beautiful clasp of stars. Nesta wasn't entirely sure how the designer was able to make a full clasp of defined stars, but there it was in her sister's hands, one of the most beautiful cloak clasps she'd ever seen.

"That's lovely, Feyre," Nesta said, the best peace offering she could provide. Feyre gave her a big smile and nod, her form of an acceptance.

"And look at these!" Feyre held up two others, a floral bouquet clasp and one of silver flames.

"Oh, wow!" Nesta could hardly get the words out as she took the clasp of fire and examined it. She'd never seen its equal.

Feyre could never full explain it, but whenever she was painting a representation of her sisters, she always painted these three symbols. Flowers for Elain, stars for herself, and flames for Nesta. Nesta's favorites were always the ones where she turned the flames silver, 'like your eyes,' she would say. Not that Nesta's eyes were actually silver, but apparently they could look that way in some lightings.

"It's just too perfect, isn't it?" Elain asked, already reaching into her coin purse and handing money to the keeper of the stall for all three of them.

"It's more than that. It's fate," Feyre agreed.

Nesta smiled softly as she wrapped her hand around her new clasp. "It's certainly something," she murmured.

a/n: I hope no one minds some sisterly moments. It wasn't truly purposeful, but there's something about giving the sisters a better bond that felt right for this fic.

I stuck with East Asia as inspiration for aspects of this city - particularly the names for now, but I'm going to be trying to work in more around fashion and other things throughout the fic - because this is meant to take place in the area that would be the Dawn Court in canon Prythian.

Pronunciations - I am linking to "word hippo" for the words I used. They have a little speaker icon you can click on to hear the pronunciation, as technically the English spelling is the phonetic spelling. I did speak with a native Mandarin-speaking friend to make sure I got the right words, but she could not help me with phonetic spellings, so this is the best way to do this, I believe.

Lí míng | Rì chū

Tag list: @live-the-fangirl-life @generalnesta @secretlovelybeauty @julemmaes @boredserpent @autumnbabylon @moodymelanist @sv0430 @nesquik-arccheron @gwynrielsupremacy @katekatpattywack @moonstoneriver77 @swankii-art-teacher @lemonade-coolattas @emily-gsh @my-fan-side @champanheandluxxury @imsointobooks @sayosdreams @simpingfornestaarcheron @imsointobooks @perseusannabeth @shinya-hiiragi @a-court-of-milkandhoney @pintas3107 @embersofwildfire @superspiritfestival @thewayshedreamed @lunabean @xstarlightsupremex @mis-lil-red @wannawriteyouabook @dealfea @bridgertononmymind @daydreamer-anst @chosenfamily-valkyriequeens @hiimheresworld @c-e-d-dreamer @kale-theteaqueen

[autolenaphilia]

Fluids by May Leitz

Fluids by the truly multi-talented May Leitz, musician, youtube video essayist, and author, is the goriest book I have ever read. It’s also about queer love, identity, and being transfem. This is a truly fucked-up sapphic love story. It’s the opposite of tenderqueer.

My recommendation is that if a story about sapphic love and trans identity that is also an incredibly gory and disturbing horror book appeals to you, go read it. The prose is beautiful and disturbing, a nightmare about queer identity and abusive love. It’s available in print or audiobook format from Leitz’s bandcamp, and in e-book form via her patreon. Pay attention to the trigger warnings.

I’m going to put the rest of this book beneath a read-more, because to talk cogently about the novel I had to spoil it. And it’s quite an experience, so if you care about spoilers, read it first if you can stomach it.

It’s about Lauren, a cis lesbian woman who meets Dahlia, a young trans woman via the internet. Lauren is a deeply fucked-up individual, who hates herself, is deeply selfish, who lacks meaning in her life and takes it out violently on others, dragging others into her self-destruction spiral. Lauren is truly in love with Dahlia, but uses Dahlia to find meaning in life for herself.

And Dahlia is also fucked-up and violent. She grew up with abusive and transmisogynistic parents, and like many abused children, had her parents conception of the person she should be forced upon her, making it difficult to form her own independent identity. So Lauren steps in and becomes a second mother to Dahlia, assigning her various identities to perform, complete with alternative names. And Dahlia is so unsure of her own identity, as an abused child, as someone who has recently realized she are a trans woman, that she accepts this. Her most violent act is trying to kill Lauren shortly after they meet in person in order to steal her identity and life. Yet she is less fucked-up than Lauren wants her to be, as she wants Dahlia to be a reflection of herself. Lauren herself feels like a void, and uses and abuses Dahlia to find identity herself.

The resulting relationship is of course incredibly toxic. It is sado-masochistic way, way beyond any conception of safe, sane and consensual. It’s co-dependent, as both depend on the other for their own sense of self. Yet Lauren is the dominant partner. Lauren hurts Dahlia, and tells her “I can teach you how to like it.”

And Lauren drags Dahlia into an orgy of violence and murder at a combined casino/hotel. It’s a book full of detailed descriptions of violence and gore. There is plenty of the eponymous fluids in this book, mostly blood and vomit. There is a point to all the violence, the themes of identity and a well-developed characterization that I already described. Yet it doesn’t make the violence any less disturbing.

The plot and violence is phantasmagorical and surreal, it feels like an intense nightmare and runs on that logic. The violence is so extreme, with people staying alive and conscious when they really shouldn’t, that it in itself becomes dreamlike despite the detailed descriptions. A major part of the plot is literally that Lauren is able to commit violence with impunity as the casino/hotel as this ruthless capitalist entity cleans up after her crimes to avoid dealing with the police. She becomes a serial killer out of a nightmare, no one hearing the screams coming from the hotel rooms. There is nothing outright supernatural, but realism doesn’t matter here.

Lauren is a self-described monster, but most of the book is from her POV, and she feels like a complex character. She has flaws that are relatable, she just takes it into horror novel extremes. Same thing with Dahlia, who is more sympathetic.

And the book does speak to the side of us that has violent murder fantasies. That’s what makes good horror violence not merely disgusting but actually disturbing. It is because for many of us the violent acts in this book is something we would never do in real life, but may fantasize about. If you are abused or oppressed, you often will fantasize to strike back in ways that are entirely disproportionate. A fantasy of gaining absolute power, of life and death over those who have power over you. The violent fantasy is an outlet for the resentment that builds up.

Such fantasies are rooted in emotions of fears and anger, and like most private fantasies entirely self-indulgent. It’s not pretty, and such violence is usually something people don’t actually want to do, because they recognize it’s wrong, but still find appealing as fantasy. The book’s initial act of violence is Dahlia pouring gasoline on her boy clothes and then light it and the house on fire as she escape her abusive transmisogynistic parents. And then as Lauren takes the lead, the violence only grows more extreme, selfish and disproportionate. It becomes about torturing and kill the rich dude who treats you like a sex object and wants to buy your body with his money. And then torture and mutilate his privileged cishet wife to death. It’s dark, it’s disturbing, but I get it.

And yet, despite all the violence and darkness, the book is not entirely nihilistic. It ends on a relatively hopeful note of transfem resillence, despite everything. Dahlia realizes that she can survive on her own, that she can form her own identity, she can be independent, she doesn’t need Lauren’s destructive and abusive love. Dahlia walks away to be her own person. The fact she has endured and done so much makes it even more resonant. She has the trauma of being abused and raped, and even lost her right hand, yet she survives and will try to live. It’s a beautiful ending, for a disturbing, but beautiful book.

[cleo-c-art]

oh while I'm asking in the ask box. any way we could get a quick n dirty masterpost for some of the ocs you're most into?

OMG this took me FOREVER! Sorry about the delay, I got way too excited to do this and spent way too much time on it. I just stuck to flats because I was already taking so long, but I included all my PCs from various games and a few of my favorite NPCs from my favorite player characters. They are *roughly* listed with more information in order of most to least favorite (although I love them all) after the text break! Fair warning, some stories got kinda dark, so proceed with caution as there is gore, violence, and substance abuse mentions below.

Cleo’s DnD Characters!

Davhace “Stonearm” Turen

Age: 54 Level: 10 (leveled up since drawing this) Class: Swashbuckler Rogue (5)/Champion Fighter (5) Race: Svirfneblin (Deep Gnome)

Stonearm is my favorite character I have ever made or played. She is so fun and sad, it is really fun to play with. She was found by her adoptive parents when she was around 8 with two unrecognizable dead bodies and a sword, with no memories. The couple assumed the bodies were her parents and took her in. They had previously adopted two other kids, first a boy (5) and second a girl (10), so Stonearm was the last but fell in the middle. they noticed that on her left side, her fingers were stone up to the first knuckle. They took her in and eventually found someone to help train her with the sword, as they thought it was a very important part of her story. Her parents have her the first name Davhace, but gnomes really only use nicknames so they called her Cranta (complete in Gnomish) and her siblings called her Aithwen (sword in Gnomish.) The stone grew, leading to other gnomes calling her Stonearm, but she hated the name and it meant a lot to her that her family did not ever call her that. She is extremely self-destructive and easily has a good time ruined. She has trouble enjoying things and consciously would choose the wrong thing to do on purpose, leading to a lot of bad streaks as a child. It was really hard for her parents to address this behavior and to help her make better choices, but she was impossible and kept getting deeper into vices and small crimes. She would disappear for a few days at a time and they could not find her, but she would quietly come back. She very easily slips into really bad emotional states, which caused her behavioral issues. When she was 16 she ran away for real and found Belusog ar Anord, a Gnomish gang. She traveled with them for 6 years, eventually dating the "leader," Aitha. She left the group when she was 21 because she got arrested to let all of her friends get away from drow guards. She got sent to Velkynvelve for 33 years before breaking out with the rest of the party at the campaign start. During the campaign, she learned that her arm was actually turning to ooze, but her birth parents had served Segojan Earthcaller, and he was turning the ooze into stone to help her. Juiblex, the demon lord of slime and ooze, was trying to talk to her but she was able to get the blessing of the Earthcaller, removing the demon's hold on her and restoring her arm (it had been worsening quickly.) She found out that in the time that she was in jail her city, Blingdenstone, got taken over by a tyrant named the Puddin King. 10 years before the campaign, the city launched a revolution attempt in which Stonearm's brother and three of the five other members of Belusog ar Anord died. There was a sickness in the city that was slowly killing people, and her mom as was sick. Stonearm reconnected with her ex amid all the chaos happening in the city and tried to figure out if they really could have a future together. She had to assume a position as a leader in the city and learn about the legacy of the chosen of the Earthcaller in a few weeks. A bunch of really, truly terrible stuff happened to her and she lost her sobriety. She also died right after finding out her brother died and had to be revived but the method of revivification messed with her Earthcaller sword and her arm before she got his blessing. They saved the city but she felt very useless in the process. Her gf ran away before she could talk to her after the battle and the party left Blingdenstone. The first night out of the city, they got captured by a cult. She recognized the city they were brought to and used a sending stone to message her sister to message Aitha to see if she was nearby. She was, and is helping them right now, but asked Stonearm to come home with her to the surface after. Stonearm's tattoos are my favorite part of her design and I love adding to them, especially in game. Stonearm has been carrying a ring around for a while, and I am leaving the game so she will leave with Aitha.

Arilin "Aitha" Pembleamble

Aitha means "to prick or sting" in Gnomish, and Stonearm calls her Caithi (kiss.) Aitha is two years older than Stonearm and three years younger than Peak. The Pembleamble's dad was abusive. One day when Aitha was 6, their mom broke and killed their dad. She and Peak saw everything. Their mom went to jail and the kids were sent to the orphanage then ran away so they would not be separated. They chose their own last name together. Eventually, they picked up more party members, Stonearm being the last to join. Aitha was the unofficial leader of the group, but Stonearm generally challenged her the most. Stonearm always felt safer around Aitha and slept way better around her (Stonearm has a lot of sleeping issues.) When Aitha was 21 and Stonearm was 19, Stonearm kissed her to shut her up in an argument where Aitha was mad Stonearm took a hit for her in a fight. They were purely physical for a while but eventually they fell in love. Aitha got really mad at Stonearm for "leaving" when she got arrested. When Stonearm found her after getting to Blingdenstone, she immediately offered to help her without any hesitation and without having to be asked. Aitha at this point owned a bar and ran the "Rouge Fold," a criminal group that ran drugs to the surface. When they spoke about their future and how they would work together, Aitha refused to float the idea of trying to get sober, which was not great. Despite this they established that whatever they did they would do together and that they would work together. After the battle, Aitha thought that Stonearm needed to go with the party and didn't want to stop that, so she left a note for Stonearm and ran. When Aitha showed up to help Stonearm later, she was guilty drunk and obviously felt horrible about it.

Relin "Peak" Pembleamble

Peak got his name from always operating at "Peak" performance. He has a -2 INT and a -1 WIS, but is a great fighter/barbarian. He follows Aitha most of the time, affectionately calling her Gumri (Gnomish for problem.) When they were teenagers, he met a gnomish girl named Tag and brought her around. Tag eventually joined Belusog ar Anord and was the one who designed the symbol they all have tattooed on their right hand. Tag and Peak loved each other but were never brave enough to commit to it. Tag died in the first revolution attempt, and Peak saved Aitha (but she did lose her right arm.) Peak has always been supportive of Stonearm and after a bit of their dating started to trust her. He occasionally would offer her advice with his sister, but mostly he just threatened her if she hurt her. He was invited by Stonearm to spend a lot more time with her family, as they are very open and he didn't have anyone besides Aitha and Stonearm.

Quissa "Cwess" Turen

Cwess is a recent nickname Stonearm gave Quissa, it means "proverb." Quissa is the head cleric of their city's temple to the Earthcaller. When she was little, most people called her Bean. Cwess was the second adopted of the siblings but is the oldest. She is very kind and has become very focused and effective. She led the first revolution attempt, which caused a lot of problems between her and Aitha because they blamed each other for losing their loved ones. They have been able to put that aside and worked together for the new revolution. Cwess for a while resented Stonearm for being chosen by their god without having been devout. She saw that Stonearm made poor and selfish decisions and she worked hard and was good, but by birthright, Stonearm was a member of the Earthcaller's chosen. Eventually, they got through this, and Cwess apologized for being hostile and resentful towards Stonearm over a blessing she didn't ask for. Now that the city is free, Cwess is going to explore the Underdark and spend some time with herself.

Pyre Miorvrois

Age: 18. Level: 11 Class: Ascendant Dragon Monk Race: Fire Genasi (base unknown)

Left at the Monastery as a baby, Pyre grew up never being told why she was separated from her family. She was raised primarily by a couple, Utror Tussay Igen, the Champion and the Powerful One, and Arakli, Cleric of the Dragon Cycle, but the entire monastery had a hand in her rearing. Utror is the Grand Master of the monastery and the only monk to have completed two "Claimings." The Monastery is dedicated to maintaining what they call the “Dragon Cycle.” They believe that a dragon never truly dies. They do not have to return as the same type of dragon, or with the same alignment, they retain little to no memories from previous lives. The monks consider themselves the law keepers of dragons. They either kill or ally with dragons to keep the powerful beings in check. They speak in draconic at the Monastery. Once they have trained to their Shodan (beginner belt), they are eligible to go on their Claiming. When knowledge of a dragon reaches the Monastery, it is all recorded and organized in the archives. A student ready to Claim will be assigned this dragon and sent on their claiming, if multiple are eligible, it is whoever seems the fittest for the dragon, based on the knowledge known. At this point, they take the name of the dragon as their last name and are sent off to find and make contact. They are encouraged to meet and create an adventuring party, allies are good to the Monastery and, if their mission ends with a fight, backup is good. Pyre was always extremely high-energy, managing to piss off many of the older monks, but she was always just too sweet to stay mad at. As if her father being the Grand Master of the Monastery wasn’t enough to put pressure on her as she starts her claiming, he is the only monk to have completed two Claimings, taking two names and claiming two titles. Pyre was sent off with only the name Miorvrois to go off of. The monks were concerned about the dragon because it was so unusual and suspicious to not find more information. Pyre does not get along with one of her party members in particular but is very committed to her quest. She has found that her dragon is "The Dragon of the Masquerade," and was given the role of Jack the Giant Slayer in the past. The entity called the Library is forcing people into fairy tales, and the dragon ate all the old giants (who were big compared to her.) Now, Jack's role has been passed to Pyre, and the giant's role to Miorvrois. Pyre can basically email her parents with paper birds, and they are very concerned with the previously unknown size of the task that lies before their young daughter (this manifests in letters that are very funny to the players.) Pyre is also fully Charlie Kelly conspiracy red string and is 98% sure that her dragon is the dragon that destroyed Kryn (from before she did that) and that they are in a time before the spell plague right now. Pyre's skin is made of ash, so her tattoos are actually brands because her skin would not take ink and reacted to burns interestingly. She found this out by accidentally burning her hand as a child after her parents said not to touch really hot stuff and she was like, I'm made of fire nothing will happen I'm not listening to you! Unfortunately, I won't get any resolution for Pyre's story as am I leaving the campaign.

Utror Tussay Igen, the Champion and the Powerful One

A very put-together yuan-ti man, Utor lacks ears and has green skin. He was also left at the monastery as a baby, but his adoptive father was much more open with him about it (which makes Pyre more suspicious of why he wouldn't tell her about her origins.) Despite his father, Robin Lord of the Blue, being very easygoing and chill, Utror was always very up-tight and rigid. He loves order and does well now being a moral enforcer of the rules, as part of his job as Grand Master. He met Arakli when he was 16 and Arakli was 17, and they did not get along. When he came back from his first Claiming at 18 they realized that they had grown closer and liked each other. He got married at 21 and adopted Pyre at 35. When she was four, he went on his second Claiming. He was not happy to claim another dragon, but saw it as his responsibility as a high-ranking master who was probably the strongest and most able, as there was no one ready to start their claiming and the threat was very large. He did not complain and his only hesitation before accepting the task (without being asked) was to make sure everything would be set up for his family while he was gone and in case he didn't return. He came back scarred but in one piece and eventually rose to lead the monastery. He is quieter and more stoic but loves his family deeply.

Arakli, Cleric of the Dragon Cycle

Arakli is the charismatic son of a noble Seldarine half-drow family. He was a party kid who did not get along with his rude, prissy family. He ran away as a teen, eventually drunkenly stumbling upon the monastery. He traded chores for a bed for a while, before eventually chilling out and starting to train under the very, very old cleric that was there at the time. Because of his jovial and rambunctious nature, Utror fucking hated him at first, and he hated Utror for being so uptight and a stick in the mud. Arakli came around to Utror first and would try to be friendly to him after a while. Their relationship turned into aggressive banter, but they both would have vehemently denied that they would ever be able to not hate each other. When Utror left on his Claiming, Arakli didn't realize why he was so anxious at first. Their getting together after the Claiming was kind of awkward, as at that age Utror still kind of struggled to put aside his pride enough to admit he had been wrong about Arakli. Having been so disapproving towards Arakli, admitting that he had grown so much and become someone that Utror both trusted and really cared about required him to be much more vulnerable than he was used to, but he has never once regretted it. Leading up to their wedding ceremony, Utror gently asked if Aralki wanted to reach out to his family but he was very against this. Utor did not push this or think Arakli should have invited them or anything, he just wanted to make sure that Arakli had the option in case he wanted to take it. As a parent, Arakli is much more laid back and goofy than Utror, but he still enforces strong morals and supports Utror well. Arakli was not happy that Utor went on a second claiming, as he had already completed his “dues” and Pyre was four, but he understood and supported him. He ut up a little protest at Pyre getting branded, but she was very confidently okay with it so he dropped it quickly.

Rowan Sipreet

Rowan was born a human and turned into a werewolf at a young age. When Elturel fell, their family was on the outskirts of what was left on the material plane. Their family died, but the draconic monks who resided nearby found them while doing damage control and search and rescue. The monks took them in, Utror and Aralki especially watching them. Rowan was asked by Arakli to watch over Pyre when she was adopted. They use their divination wizard magic to do this, which Arakli is uncomfortable with but like they are doing what he asked. Rowan has some of the monastic tattoos but got away with as few as they were allowed to get. Pyre only actually met Rowan when the campaign started somehow, but Pyre loves them so much. They are her best friend. Rowan is the only DM-created NPC in this post, but they are very important to Pyre and her backstory.

Vesryn “Ener” Ayen

Age: 117 Level: 11 Class: Phantom Rogue Race: Kalashtar (Elf base)

I play Vesryn in two campaigns, for ease, I refer to them as the Baggage and Ryn timelines. In both, her middle name refers to the Quori spirit she is bound to. Her people are Kalashtar, dual souls, one elven and one dream spirit. They keep the spirits very, very secret both to protect the spirits and to protect themselves. In the Ryn timeline she is from the Feywild, so keeping her Quori name secret also protects her from Fey. In both timelines, her father is the chief of the city, and she is an heir. When the chief dies, everyone they have appointed as an heir enters a fight to the death, anything goes competition. The heirs can either renounce heirdom at this point, concede when they are obviously going to lose to another heir, stand until they are killed, or they can win. While Vesryn expects one of her siblings to renounce heirdom, she is not sure if the others will concede or force her to kill them. Not all of the chief's kids are heirs. The chief can appoint anyone they see as strong, capable, and good as an heir, which often happens to include their children because they are raised to be good leaders and fighters. Vesryn is the third oldest of the chief's kids but would refer to herself as the second oldest. Her oldest sibling, Aila, ran away 36 years ago under very suspicious circumstances. The family does not acknowledge her existence, so Vesryn knows she did something very bad if her parents won't address or acknowledge it after decades. One of her brothers, Aeson, is 37, and does not know his oldest sibling even exists, as he would have been too young to remember her and they would not have talked about her at all. Vesryn's parents separated around when her brother Arel came of age (he was around 100. Vesryn and him have the smallest age gap of any of her siblings: only 6 years.) Both parents have new partners and children, leading to a total of 10-11 (in Baggage her mother is pregnant, in Ryn she has already had the baby) siblings, half-siblings, and step-siblings. Because the elven Kalashtar live to be 1,000, the kids are often born very far apart. Her story hook is that she has been having nightmares of her city being destroyed for months, and her people take dreams incredibly seriously. Her father has sent her to the material plane to decipher these and solve the problem. In Baggage, the dreams include hideous flesh monsters, in Ryn it is a dark smoke accompanied by alternating types of massive death (plague, undead, war, famine, etc.) In Ryn, Vesryn will have a romance with the changing bard PC played by my best friend (the PC, Naya, has nicknamed her Ryn.) Time moves much more quickly in the Feywild here, so the few months before the game started were years for her family. That game is much newer than Baggage, we have only played a few sessions. I joined Baggage late into the campaign, so we have addressed some really fun dream stuff in her city, and now she is helping with the end game, fighting the litch responsible for the flesh monsters. She believes Aila to have been somehow dragged into this and corrupted.

Toimeen Panija

Age: 41 Level: 7 Class: Thaumaturge Race: Mostly Elf Half-Elf

Toimeen is my Pathfinder character! She is a very elven half-elf who grew up on the edges of the Empire. Her mom died when she was 7 and her sister, Viine, was 4. When she was 27, her dad died in a farming accident. They had extended family in the town, but Viine and her moved to a big city, Dunwall after. She started dating a half-elven man named Darith after a few years in the city, and Viine started dating a woman named Kaly. After studying and saving up, she started to study at the arcane university to join the elite squad of thaumaturges and magi that worked for the Empire, and her sister started working to become a scholar. She got married to Darith after around a year of enrollment in the University. Two years later, her sister was killed. Because they were not rich or powerful, the guard did not really care. Despite Toimeen pestering them, they didn't do anything, so Toimeen started ignoring her studies in favor of looking into it. She found her husband's family ring, a rip of fabric that matched one of his tunics, and other assorted clues in the room of Viine's house where she was killed. She couldn't figure out a motive but was convinced of his guilt after she discovered Darith's alibi was false. Toimeen arranged for them to leave the city and go to the countryside. She killed him and ran from the city, using her skills to become a traveling mercenary. She found an occult temple sword in a crypt while fighting a monster. Now it has been 6 years, and she's starting to make a few new friends (the party.) They just found out that her killing her husband is the reason why she is can't go back to Dunwall and she is so nervous around members of the city's guard. She is assumed dead in Dunwall right now but she knew a lot of guard members and thaumaturges/magi, so if any of them were to see her she would be in trouble. The party just got the deed to Blackwood Manor in the town of Mournhold, which is so obviously haunted so the bard and Toimeen are very excited. The bard's occult magic interacts weirdly with Toimeens, recently causing her temple sword to become a scythe. Besides the party, she is friends with a member of a smugglers guild, a noblewoman, and tries to check on Kaly, her sister's girlfriend every so often.

Lopun Landosis

Age: 0? Level: no levels in the Laughing Moon System Class: Mage, but no classes in Laughing Moon Race: Sinowen Elf (Drow) (former Bandiar)

Lopun was my first character in the Laughing Moon system and setting. This was where I met one of my groups! We all were brought back as bandiar (resurrected heroes, the word means fate bound in-universe) to serve the Wheelhouse, the entity keeping the broken world together in the third age. Her base race was the equivalent of drow, and she had spent her first life fighting underground in a territory war against the deep dwarves. She also had two younger sisters that she was responsible for. She used chaos magic, which is very risky but has big rewards. She died in the first age because her magic blew up in her face. Her use of chaos magic (and selfishness in that she would endanger herself and the party for knowledge or new spells) caused lots of rifts between her and party members, so she became a loner. The group was okay with her though, we made sure she wasn't selfish or divisive to the point of being a bad character to play with. Eventually, the wheelhouse almost nuked her for not obeying it. Later, the whole party was kicked out of the order and returned to their base races instead of bandiar. The party TPKed to save the world, but the child that knew the party had made a deal for them to be resurrected with their old loved ones from their touchstone lives in order to have an actually good life. When he was old and dying, he called them all together and in doing so they got most of their memories back. Lopun now has a husband and three kids, the youngest of whom is named after a party member. He was not brought back, but his name had appeared in her dreams before she got her memories back. She has two girls (both 7) and a son (baby.) She still researches magic, but is much more chill now.

Promise

Age: 20s Level: 1 Class: Paladin Race: Tiefling

Promise is my newest character, I haven’t played her at all! She is purposefully ridiculously edgy. She has bat wings, patches of black scales, and no shadow. Her parents were adventurers, and her dad had a warlock pact. He ended up breaking the pact, unwilling to cross any more lines. He and his girlfriend settled down and got married. After some time, Promise was born (not with that name, I just haven’t figured out her birth one yet.) Her being born a Tiefling allowed the government to connect her father to demonic crimes, so the family went on the run, and she mostly grew up in this situation. Her parents lo he and treated her well, but it was a stressful upbringing. At some point, she found faith in the Raven Queen and allowed her to guide her. Fate is a promise, as are pacts. She is living proof that even with a broken pact a promise still exists, and that proof will continue as her whole bloodline is now cursed. As so much of her life is attached to promises, she took Promise as her virtue name. Despite her edgy backstory and appearance, she’s really pretty chill, happy, and go with the flow. She was made to fill a gap in a party that needed both a martial and a healer.

Karne d'Honaire (not pictured)

Age: 29 Level: 11 Class: Paladin Race: Scourge Aasimar

Karne is my backup for Pyre in Dementlieu. Karne was born to be a personal, specialized soldier to serve the Dutchess. She is not technically the Duchess's child, but she is her aasimar "divinity." She has been repeatedly broken and almost killed doing dangerous and secret missions for her "mother." Most notably, she broke her back a few years ago and it was months before the healers could get her walking again. If she gets used, Karne will join the story having just had a bit of a mental break and tearing away from the crown, finding the party as they pose the strongest opposition to the Dutchess. She is a follower, having always been forced to do exactly as told, so she will start being very subservient in the party.

Edryn Whitecaller (not pictured)

Age: 23 Level: 4 Class: Profane Soul Bloodhunter Race: Variant Tiefling

I really didn’t play her for very long but Edryn was awesome. For a while there was a party member named Egryn Whitecoak by complete coincidence 😂 Edryn grew up in a Tiefling safe hub, but it was raided she was 26. Adults were killed and teens/children were maimed, leaving Edryn without eyes or horns, and heavily damaging her wings. Eventually, she got a magical eye for one socket and made a deal with her devilish ancestor, gaining more powerful magic. If the campaign had continued, she wanted to find a healer with the regenerate spell in order to get her old body back.

[majesticwren]

due to high demand - me. I'm high demand. this entire project is being written entirely for my pleasure, be warned I'm being extremely self-indulgent - I've decided to write a little prequel to the events that take place here. this is set in 2018 and is the beginning of Fletch x OFC. billy will have his own little prequel at some point. enjoy.

Trigger Warning/s: OFC is her own trigger warning she is damaged goods and slightly toxic and emotionally unavailable, mention of addiction, mention of heroin abuse, mention of sex, mention of trauma, angst, mainly friends to lovers/impossible relationship dynamics.

nuclear season: part I -> | part II -> | part III -> prequel: <- part I | <- part II | part IV -> Masterlist

Beginning of April 2018

Erika sat on the porch swing, comfortably curled on herself. She was slowly rocking herself, naked foot pressed on the wooden patio floor, as she enjoyed the sundown of that exceptionally hot evening. She sipped on the cup of homemade peach iced tea she was so proud she made, deciding to accept that as something small to be grateful for today.

She was melancholically watching some of the neighbour’s kids playing on their familiar street. Their excited little voices, breaking through the evening, mixed with the noises of the place she called home. It was music for her soul. Something that resonated through her, always reminding her where she came from. She didn’t need to like Brisbane, to always have her inside compass pointing to it.

Her gaze cruised over the street cutting across the residential uptown area she grew up in. She could see herself, as clear as day, wearing her new pink helmet, on her birthday, learning to go on her little pink bike as Mark taught her how to ride all afternoon. And then again, when she was just a little over twelve, he did the same teaching her some skating tricks. She remembered how they used to walk over that road together every morning and every evening, as he was used to getting her to and from the bus stop to go to school or practice. Later, years later, she could still see them two sitting side by side just outside their garden, on the pavement. Erika had touched her first rock bottom and had asked him for help.

“You look so sad, honey,”

Erika huffed softly, moving her attention to her mother, who looked over her from the other side of the porch. She was still wearing her straw hat and was holding an old empty flower pot, in her cute gardening outfit.

“I am ok,” Erika tried to reassure her, offering a small smile, stretching on the swing. “I promise.”

The woman softly chuckled, putting the vase down and removing her gloves, walking to her, “What mother would I be if I believed you when you have a broken heart?”

Erika simply smiled, making space for the woman as she sat next to her.

For years, Erika had convinced herself to resent her mother for the flat life she thought the woman had. The life many would consider a good life. Housewife, happily married to a good man, carrying a family, caring for the house and herself. And Erika, especially in her teenage years, hated her for it. Considered her stupid and much worse things.

She was a sweet woman. A good woman. A good mother. And Erika still had to find the courage to apologise for how difficult she had been and how rocky she made their relationship. Not that her mother ever expected her to. That woman still loved her, Erika was her child and she never missed an opportunity to remind her. Though it was stronger than her, Erika felt more awkward than anything else around her.

It was shame. It was inadequacy. It was everything she regretted, knowing her mother was one of the many victims she had taken down in her path of destruction over the years.

“Mum,” Erika sighed, looking away. “Please, I am fine.”

“Mh,” Erika felt the woman looking at her with the wisdom of someone who just knew better, “Mark called. Again.”

Erika flinched.

Her chest was still broken. It was undeniable. Her heart was in a thousand pieces. Thinking about her brother hurt her too much. It was still such a sore, open wound. The longer she spent apart, the more it felt as if she was missing part of her.

After what happened, Erika left. She left the job at RevPro and she left England for good, not saying a word. Not leaving a message. She changed her phone, her number, everything and tried to continue with her life.

The only thing she dared to do, breaking her own rule to become a ghost, was to steal one of Kyle's t-shirts. Just because she wanted to have something that smelled like him. It didn’t carry his scent anymore, now, but she still kept it safe under her pillow and slept hugging it or wearing it.

When she disappeared without leaving a trace, she knew Mark lost his mind about it. Especially in the first forty-eight hours she spent flying over to Australia. But she wasn’t interested in his concern. When she landed and surprised her parents, she didn't care whether or not they had let Mark know. It wasn’t her responsibility to make him feel better.

She hadn’t talked to him in a couple of weeks. And she had no intention of doing so. Not yet. She wasn’t ready.

There was so much she needed to fix before she even decided to consider forgiveness. But, like it or not, he was always there with her. She’d see him around the house and in all the familiar places they grew up together. And he’d still be her voice of reason, even despite the terrible things he had said the last time they spoke.

Her anger had calmed by now, leaving behind only pain. Pain, she had to learn to deal with. It wasn’t something she had done before. Before, she would have tried to do anything to numb it, cancel it, erasing herself in the process. Even this time, as soon as she landed back home, she went close to embarking on yet another self-destructive trip. She was there. She almost went to see her old friend who’d always have a fresh fix for her. But this time, differently from ever before, Erika understood consequences and she just knew she would have seen the end of it either in a hospital or six feet under.

So, she was learning to deal with her emotions being clean. She was learning to become her own person, doing a lot of healing and mending in the process. And it was the hardest thing she had ever done in her life. However, there was no other way forward. She needed to fix herself to fix it all.

She was still mad at Mark, and she would have been mad for a long time. But he wasn’t the only one she was upset at. She was angry at herself for proving him right. For doubting her own choices and abilities. And for having caused pain to the only person she was supposed to love. And she had no intention to let self-doubt ever bring her that close to ruin her life again.

“I don’t care,” she finally replied, shaking her head. “I don’t want to know.”

“He is so worried for you, honey. You-”

“Mum,” Erika snapped in a gentle warning, looking over to the woman by her side, “Please, leave it alone. Please. You don’t know what happened and you can’t understand it. I am not ready.”

“Then tell me what happened, sweetheart. Help me understand,”

Erika's chuckle was dry, maybe even cruel, even though she didn’t mean it to be. “You can’t understand,” she simply said, shrugging. “Ask your son to tell you what he did.”

“I did.”

“And?”

“He cut me off.”

“See?” Erika chuckled, shaking her head. “Leave it alone, mum. It’s ugly and it’s between us.”

“I can’t stand having my two children not talking. You were so close. It was my only joy,”

Erika had to bite her tongue and think twice before abruptly replying. “No,” she gently placed a hand on her mother’s. “Mum, it’s not that I don’t want to tell you for kicks. I won’t tell you what happened because I can’t have the responsibility to put you in a position to reconsider your son’s worth or choose sides or whatever.”

“After everything you have done, I still consider you so highly, my child, do you think what he did is worse than that?”

Erika took no offence to her mother’s honesty. She wasn’t wrong, after all. “To me it is,” she simply replied, “It is a matter between me and Mark, and we are both adults, we’ll figure it out, one day. He’s still my brother.”

Her mother cupped her face in one hand, making her look at her. The two looked into each other’s eyes for a long moment, as the older woman smiled softly at her. “I am proud of the woman you are becoming. I am sorry it is all so painful to you.”

“I’ll be fine, mum. Thank you,” Erika squeezed her hand.

End of April 2018.

“Mum?” Erika called as she entered her childhood home. “Can I have a hand?” She wondered, balancing herself as she carried as many bags of groceries under her arms as she possibly could. “The car is packed full. I’ll help you put it all away, I promise,” she still chirped moving through the still big house, receiving only silence in response.

As Erika moved to the kitchen, she finally began to hear two low voices chatting from the back porch. One was her mother, who now was chuckling the other Erika couldn’t recognise. In the background, she heard the noise of the lawn mower too, but it was far enough she wasn’t sure if it came from her garden or the neighbours’.

She left the grocery bags on the counter and popped her head out the door, looking for the two women with a certain urgency and curiosity. They were both comfortably sitting on the two garden chairs on the deck. Both wore sundresses, facing the pretty garden her mum was so proud of, sipping on fresh lemonade. They both watched closely the young-looking gardener working at the end of their lawn, cutting the grass.

“Hey,” Erika began, quickly losing interest in the view the other two seemed to be so lost in. She didn’t even want to think about it too much. “Was looking for you,” she hinted to her mum, “been talking to myself a while.”

“Hello honey,” her mother chuckled, “I’m sorry, couldn’t hear you from out here.”

“Is this her?” The other woman wondered, looking at her mother first and then back at her. She studied Erika with such interest she felt the need to shy away.

“Yes,” her mother too looked up at her with certain pride in her eyes. “She is so pretty, isn’t she?”

The second woman smiled, nodding silently. “Pardon me, sweety, you are probably wondering what kind of rude manners I must have, I am Pamela, and I live a few doors down, pleased to meet you,”

It was beyond Erika. The way the woman spoke, sitting in her lovely yellow dress, with her legs elegantly crossed and her glass of lemonade at hand made her think about a sophisticated housewife from the sixties. She still smiled politely, trying to mirror the approach that the woman was showing her. “Nice to meet you too, I am Erika, but you must know that already. You must be a friend of my mum’s?”

“Yes!” The woman and her mother exchanged a little look, giggling to themselves. “We met at Pilates only last year!”

“Can you believe women our age are still making friends like teenagers?” Her mother giggled, sipping on her lemonade, all pleased with herself.

“As soon as you two don’t go create a Burn Book for the neighbourhood, I think we are safe,” Erika chuckled with them, doing her best to indulge her mother and her small joys.

“She is a beautiful young woman and a funny one too? Jackpot.” Pamela giggled, clinking her glass with her mothers in a silent cheer.

“I told you. My daughter is a catch,”

“Must have boys coming for her left and right.”

“Oh,” her mother chuckled again, “You don’t know the beginning of it.”

For a moment Erika felt like they forgot she was standing there, even though both women still studied her like a prized pony or something.

Pamela giggled, nodding. “It doesn’t surprise me,” she then turned over to Erika, rosy cheeks and the largest smile she had ever seen before, “you know? I have a son.” The woman hinted to the boy in the garden with pride, “He’s really nice. Kind, handsome and very smart.”

As any son is to any mother. Erika thought it but didn’t dare to say it. She now understood so many things and started to suspect the two women’s words in an entirely different light. Instead of saying what she truly wanted to say, which was that she didn’t need her mother to fix her up, she smiled politely, gently shaking her head. “I am sure he is, ma’am, don’t doubt it for one second.”

“Ah,” Pamela's smile only grew as she and her mother exchanged a complicit look Erika didn’t like. “You’d like him. Your mum tells me you are single. See, my son is single too. We thought that it would have been nice to introduce the two of you.”

Erika had to bite her tongue hard. Their idea of introductions was to have said boy on parade, cutting the grass shirtless, of course. “How thoughtful of you,” this time Erika only pretended to be polite but wasn’t doing much to hide her slight irritation. “But I am not looking for-”

“Oh, God, honey, of course not! Who do you think we are?” Her mother jumped over her words, gasping, as if Erika was the one who misunderstood the situation. “I only thought you just moved back and don’t have many friends. Then I met Pamela, and one thing led to another, we thought maybe you two could hang out like kids do?”

Erika may not like her mother’s behaviour sometimes, but she still pulled out an amused smile, looking at her trying to find a way to justify herself and digging herself a deeper grave. It was somewhat funny though.

“Yes!” Pamela innocently agreed, “Who knows where things lead, I say.”

She cleared her voice, trying to ignore their silly behaviour, justifying it as the ways mums went about their kids sometimes. “Anyways. Sorry to interrupt, ladies, but mum, if you could give me a hand with the groceries that would be lovely.”

“Oh! Trevor can help you with that,” her mother chirped.

Pamela immediately followed, nodding eagerly. “Yes! What a nice idea,” she was up in a second and, even before Erika had the time to catch a breath and ask questions, she already hopped in the garden, waving at the guy handling the lawn mower.

“Mum?” Erika wondered suspiciously, “What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do I feel like this is going to be a set-up?”

“Don’t be silly, dear,” her mum giggled some more. Erika started suspecting the lemonade could have some gin in it. “This is just one of those friendly neighbours’ moments. Pamela’s son so kindly offered to help out with the lawn since your father is always busy with work and,”

“And I am getting introduced,”

“Well, yes, we thought you needed a friend.”

Erika rolled her eyes, still smiling. “Who’s conveniently a shirtless guy cutting your grass, mum?”

“Well, it is about thirty degrees out there. God knows how hot the poor thing is under the sun.”

Before she could reply anything, Pamela was back and her son trailed her. He too, looked somewhat feeling as awkward as she did. At least they could both agree their mothers were being embarrassing.

“So,” Pamela began, pushing her son forward, “This is Trevor.”

He was still catching his breath, as he offered Erika a smile. “Hi, how do you do?” He threw her a hand that she felt obliged to accept.

He was her age, maybe just a little older. He was attractive, that was undeniable. Quite tall and fit too. But Erika looked at him with the same interest she’d have for a lamp post. It wasn’t because she was rude. It was simply because it did nothing to catch her interest.

“Hi, I’m Erika. But I am sure my mother already said that, didn’t she?”

“She did,” he nodded, “they are terrible sometimes, aren’t they?” He wondered, catching the first opportunity possible to give her a complicit look.

This time it was their turn to talk about their mothers like they weren’t standing there.

Erika smiled. Only for that, she was warming up to him. “Yes. Did they convince you to do this?”

“Well, I was allured in with the request of cutting some grass and the promise of some lemonade,”

“Ah,” Erika shook her head, chuckling, “I think your payment is a hot date.”

He hissed, only pretending to be annoyed. “That won’t do. I rather the lemonade.”

They both turned to their mothers, finding both women looking at them with the utmost pride as if they had just won a prize or something. Erika felt like they didn’t catch on to their humour.

Pamela leaned into her mother with a proud smile. “See? What did I tell you?”

Erika huffed and then decided to do the only sensible thing and turned to Trevor, “So, are you helping me with the grocery? It won’t put itself away and I’ve got places to be after.”

“Sure thing,” he chirped willingly, “anything to get away from my mother trying to find me a girlfriend.” The look he sent his mum was pure banter.

Erika wondered if he truly was unaware, or if he was simply trying to charm her into a plan, he was well aware of. Either way, she didn’t care too much.

They unloaded the car as quickly as possible. Erika had no time to lose. Especially if it was to linger and mingle with a shirtless, sweaty, guy placed in her house only for her to look at him.

She grabbed the last two bags and, before she could instruct Trevor to just shut the door, he already leaned in to grab the heavy bag containing all her camera equipment. It’s been left in the car since she came back to Australia. It was the only thing she hadn’t unpacked yet. And she pretended, lying to herself, that it was simply too heavy to carry upstairs.

“No. That, leave it there, please.”

“What is it?”

“None of your business,” she snapped before she could even realise how uncalled it was. Erika immediately regretted it and rolled her eyes, looking back at Trevor. “I am sorry. That wasn’t nice to say. It’s my camera, I am a photographer.”

“You are?”

“Yes. Good at it too. But I haven’t worked in a while now,” she cleared her voice, shaking her head “It’s complicated to explain but I just don’t want to have it in the house.”

“You kidding?”

“No.”

Trevor looked down at the black back he carried, “It might get ruined left in the car under the sun all day, you know?”

“Yes. I am aware,” she huffed, feeling cornered. “Fine. Bring it into the house. Leave it by the stairs, please.”

“Yes ma’am,” he chirped and followed her without saying a word as they returned to the house. “So, how is it you haven’t worked in a while?”

“My field of expertise is very specific,” Erika explained, knowing how lame that excuse was. She could have done anything. The problem was she hadn’t picked her camera up in weeks. Not once.

“And what’s that? Wildlife?”

“No,” she chuckled, “I wish. It’s actually pro wrestling.”

“You shit me!?”

“No.” Erika frowned. “I moved to England some time ago to follow my brother and worked for one of the biggest companies in the UK.”

“Your brother is a wrestler?”

“See?” Erika chuckled, “My mother thought to introduce me and left out all the juicy details. He is,” she then explained, a smile crossing her lips, “he loves it. Always loved it. So, now, that’s what he does.”

“Who’s he? Is it possible I’ve heard of him?”

“It’s possible you know him since he lived around here up to a few months ago. Mark Davis?” She dropped, not hiding the pride she felt for her brother even despite everything.

“Fuck me, Davis!? You are Erika Davis?”

“In the flesh,” Erika smiled, nodding, “guess the neighbourhood is a big place after all.”

“Nah, yeah, it is. I went to school with your brother. Not the same year. He was a senior when I started. Didn’t know Mark or anything but he was known in school.”

“Yep,” Erika sighed, shaking her head, “and no one ever let me forget that.”

“So, he’s a wrestler now, uh? That’s crazy. Is he making a name for himself or something?”

“He is trying, yes. He’s working with the UK's biggest pro wrestling company and doing some indie stuff on the side. He’s in a tag team called Aussie Open with another Australian wrestler.” She didn’t say his name on purpose. Her tongue was tied.

“Wow! I still can’t believe that.”

“I know. So, are you a wrestling fan?”

“Well, not so much, no. I grew up watching it like everyone else through the Attitude Era but then I grew out of it.”

“Oh,” she shrugged, “shame, I find wrestling extremely underrated.”

“Yeah,” he paused, looking at her closely, “so, you said you are a photographer for this stuff?”

“Yes. I get booked to events and my job is capturing every second of the show, making the boys look as good as possible as they do their thing. It is mostly for advertisement.”

“What’s the schedule of a job like that?”

“Busy. I used to work almost every day in different venues every time so it’s a lot of travelling and living in hotels. Usually, I’d follow Mark and get booked to his same shows.”

“Sounds hard.”

“Yeah. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but I liked it. It’s part of the business. You travel around and after a while, it becomes the same people and the same places you see so you get used to it.”

“How the hell did you end up back here?”

“Well,” Erika busied herself putting away some stuff in the cupboards. “That’s a long story for another time, perhaps.”

“A’right,” Trevor hung by the kitchen counter, passing her stuff, “consider me curious, though.”

“The short version is that I fucked my brother’s best friend. It ended up badly.” Erika didn’t even look behind her back to see Trevor’s reaction. She didn’t care. And things didn’t exactly go that way. But there was part of her that wanted to clarify the fact that she may look like a good girl and her mother may have presented her as a good girl, but she was far from it.

“Ok? That doesn’t necessarily justify leaving a career behind, does it?”

Erika rolled her eyes and turned to face him, shameless. “It does when said boy I fucked was my roommate and coworker. He’s the other half of Aussie Open. So, I had to take myself out of the equation.”

“Right,” Trevor was avoiding eye contact, slightly intimidated by her honesty. “There’s wrestling in Australia though, right?”

“Yes. But doing weddings and whatnot is a much easier gig to get back into.” Which was a fat lie. She had good expertise and the references to back her up, if she needed, to land a job in any of the Australian companies. But she didn’t want to. She needed to stay away from wrestling.

“Is that what you want to do?”

Erika just looked at him for a long moment, before taking a step back, deciding to rummage in another grocery bag and hide herself in the fridge as she put away some more stuff. “What is this? A job interview or something?”

“Sorry, no. I was just trying to know you better.”

“Well, I don’t want that,” she simply explained, shrugging. “Sorry, you look like you are a nice guy. You got the looks too and everything. But I am not looking to meet anyone.”

“Ah,” Trevor nodded wisely, “the best friend?”

Erika turned pale, glaring at him for the longest moment, unsure if she wanted to run, throw something at him or just disappear into the ground.

She opted for a grocery bag, digging in it like her life depended on it.

“Right,” Trevor continued. “Well, I am around, if you ever fancy hanging out.”

Erika had to give it to him, the guy had balls. But, at the same time, she was quite done with that conversation. Any of it. Anything that brought her even remotely close to thinking about Kyle was banished from her mind.

She wasn’t ready.

“Thank you,” Erika cleared her voice, this time, even if she felt awkward as hell, she looked straight at him. “I won’t take you up on that, you know it, right?”

“One can only hope,” Trevor offered her a small encouraging smile, nodding.

Erika shrugged it off, turning around to put away the last thing. “Don’t get your hopes up, mate,” she explained with a tired sigh. She was trying to be nice. She could have just told him to fuck off. That would have been much easier and much more directed to make that guy understand that despite whatever their mothers have said, she had other things to think about. And despite it all, she wasn’t being polite to him for his interests. She was doing it for her mother. She was happy with her new friend; Erika had no intention of causing them any problems because, yet again, she was gonna be selfish.

No. She was going to be a controlled, polite adult. That’s how she was supposed to behave, right?

“Maybe you should go finish cutting the grass for my mother now,” Erika suggested, dropping in a massive hint for him to catch. She was done chitchatting.

Trevor pulled out a massive smile. His dark eyes glimmered with amusement as he looked her up and down. “Wow, I never thought being treated like a little errand boy could be fun.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. But you know what I meant, don’t you?”

“Sure,” he nodded, still smiling. “Absolutely no offence taken, by the way.”

May 2018

“It’s on!” Her father’s voice called from the living room as everyone in the family buzzed through the house, responding to his call and running to gather in front of the TV.

Erika took it easy. She casually held back in the kitchen, pretending to make herself a fresh cup of coffee, just so she had an excuse to delay her attendance as much as possible.

“Erika! Quick, you are going to miss it.”

“What a shame,” she whispered to herself, deciding not to reply directly to her mum’s bubbly excitement.

It was not even six in the morning in Brisbane. In London, it was almost eight in the evening the day before. Their entire family, including unrelated so-called uncles who were only good family friends, were gathered around to watch a live episode of Ring Of Honor featuring Aussie Open. Everyone was there to see Mark on the screen, doing the thing he had left the country months ago to go and do.

Even Trevor was there. Not by her invitation. Her mother had taken a liking to seeing them hanging out and, despite her attempts to get her to stop, she kept inviting him around.

Erika was trying not to think about it and did everything in her power not to pay attention to him, even though he kept coming onto her.

“You're not interested in seeing your brother on TV?” He wondered leaning against the door frame, looking into the kitchen.

Erika hid behind her cup of coffee, trying her best not to roll her eyes. “Coffee,” she simply explained, hoping that would be enough.

“Oh, fair enough,”

“You can go watch it though. My mother invited you over for that reason,” she didn't want to sound rude but it was too early in the morning for her to deal with unrequited interest. Especially when she never led him on.

Yes, both their mothers had tried to find every excuse to have them hanging out, but Erika had never stopped reminding him how not interested she was. Although, politeness and awkwardness aside, she started suspecting he was taking it like a challenge. Which she was more than happy to let him do. She was the one who would have won in the end, anyway.

Erika approached him, hinting to move to the living room, encouraging him with a little look only pretending she would have followed him. Instead, she kept herself in the back. By that point, as soon as Trevor took a seat in one of the chairs placed around the room, expecting her to sit by his side, it was too late for him to realise she didn’t follow him.

Erika’s lips bent in a small grin that she hid behind her cup of coffee.

Her attention then distractedly moved to the TV screen. She was only pretending she didn’t care. She knew how big of a deal a match in Ring of Honor could be and she wished she could be there with them.

By now, everyone knew she wasn’t talking to Mark, so no one would have second-guessed her weird behaviour. She only needed to keep appearances up, like her biggest problem was Mark on the screen. It was more than convenient for her to stay behind everyone so that everyone’s eyes were pointed at the TV and no one would have noticed the way she pined over the tall Aussie boy playing pretend fighting by her brother's side.

She was working so hard to become someone she could be proud of. Someone she would think worthy. Someone who could consider apologising. But she felt like her way was still long. And she wasn’t ready to see Kyle, yet.

She barely allowed herself to think about him. Because only the thought of him was enough to destabilise her. She missed him so much it was unbearable. And thinking about how things went was a wave of regrets that rolled from the inside of her, ripping her chest open.

At night it was worse. When she was alone, trying to sleep, the thought of him crept into her mind, leaving her breathless, and Erika would find herself grasping on that lousy piece of clothing she stole as if it could ever replace the real thing. Often, she’d cry herself to sleep, suffocating her pain into the pillow.

Her entire body ached anytime she thought about what she had ruined and how there was a chance she’d never get it back.

She wasn’t ready to see him now, doing his thing, working on his dream. It was too easy to take the image on a TV and filter it off the truth, convincing herself that he was happy with his life as it was and she’d only ruin it even more if she ever dared to get closer to him again. Even just looking into a TV screen made it so easy to convince herself it would have hurt him, somehow. It would have surely ripped her apart. And she couldn’t afford to have a breakdown in front of her entire family.

Erika held her breath as she focused on the screen, definitively losing the battle with herself. She watched the boys circling the ring. They had just been announced. Both walked with their typical cocky stride, filling up the space.

Mark looked imposing and casual as usual, confident smirk printed on his lips, in line with his character who wasn’t afraid of anything only because he just knew he was stronger and bigger than most. Erika’s heart still trembled looking at him and a small, sad smile popped on her lips. She hated to think about it. He didn’t deserve it. But she missed him.

Then, her attention shifted to Kyle. He was just as pretty as she remembered. Maybe even more. He had a black strip around his bicep, making his arm muscles pop. That was new. And it made her heart stop. The way just looking at him walking around, all serious, trying to be imposing, as Aussie Open were generally heels, made her feel inside was impossible to describe. Her heart leapt out of her and through halfway across the world, reaching for him. God, how much she wished to be by his side. A shiver crossed her as the memory of knowing exactly how his lips felt on her skin haunted her.

If only her problem was simply longing for him. The worst part was knowing how she had him in her arms, to keep safe, to respect and love. And she just broke his heart out of stupidity.

As usual, he wore his hood up, only so he could cock his head back and kick it off himself on the top buckle, presenting himself to the crowd in his archer pose.

“Why does he do that?” One of the older cousins asked distractedly as everyone looked at the boys and commented on their entrance.

“He’s known as the Aussie Arrow,” Erika explained, keeping her arms crossed to her chest, ignoring the few that turned to look at her. Trevor was studying her particularly closely. She had to try everything in her power to remain as stoic and detached as possible. “Fast, lean and sharp, get it?”

“Oh!” He wasn’t the only one replying with that, putting Erika’s words together.

She had witnessed maybe thirty seconds, top. And she already couldn’t handle it anymore. Kyle and Mark crossed in the ring and exchanged an affectionate fist bump. That too, made her chest ache.

“Such a sweet boy he is,” her mother started, “spoke to him on the phone just the other day,”

“Don’t say that, auntie!” The younger of all cousins, only eight, complained, warning her, “We need to believe he’s evil!”

“Oh, sorry!”

“He’s so cute though,” her cousin giggled, hugging her pillow. Them two were the only girls spawned in between all the family kids. She wasn’t much younger than Erika and yet she felt like there was an abyss in between them.

“Yes,” her mother agreed, “very pretty young boy.”

“What do you mean you spoke to him?” Erika intervened between their chattering, letting her question roll out of her chest before she could even think about it.

Her mum popped her head up, looking at her from over the sofa. “Sorry, darling? What’s that?”

“What does it mean you spoke to Fletch?”

“Hey,” one of the uncles cut through, “we are trying to watch Mark here, take your gossiping somewhere else,”

Erika ignored him, pressing on. “Mum?”

“Why do you care, honey?” The woman looked at her for a long moment, “We had some light conversation as Mark couldn’t come to the phone, so he was kind enough to entertain me in the meantime.”

Erika’s chest ached.

Of course, he was. He was a delight.

She wished so badly to hear his voice. She wanted him to talk to her. To whisper sweet things into her ear just like he did that night, as they giggled in between the sheets.

Her mother was still looking at her, waiting for an answer that didn’t come. Not with words. Erika bit her nails nervously, looking away. And then something seemed to strike the woman as recognition sparked through her eyes. “Darling? Do you have anything to do with the boy?”

“No,” Erika lied badly. “I mean, yes, of course, he is my friend,” she tried to correct herself, not helping her case at all.

As more and more people’s attention moved on her, Erika tried to hide only for her mother to gasp softly. “But you aren’t talking to him, I take it.”

Erika grumbled, rolling her eyes. “Can we just go back to watching?” Erika pointed at the TV. “Look, you are missing it.”

“Now I understand why he asked about you.” Her mother smiled, “I thought it was for Mark at first, but it wasn’t, was it?”

Erika was hit so deeply that she didn’t even realise how evident her reaction to her mum’s words was. “Did he?” She gasped, breathless, even before she could bite her tongue and force herself to shut up.

The entire family was watching. Everyone now knew or suspected there could be some drama. And their attention only grew, like bees on honey.

“You know what? It doesn’t matter. I don’t care. And I don’t care about that stuff either,” she dismissed them all and, with her coffee mug, proceeded to leave and exit from the backdoor, finding some peace on the patio.

Erika dug her hand into her cardigan pocket and picked up the cigarettes, feeling the need to calm her nerves.

She sat down on the steps of the back porch, leaving her cup of coffee by her side and lighting herself a cigarette. The moment she inhaled the hot smoke into her lungs, was the second she found herself able to breathe again.

Her eyes were stinging because of the tears she was desperately trying to keep back. She squeezed herself into the light cardigan she was wearing, curling up on herself. Everyone was going on with their lives. Everyone was still existing. When she felt like she was stuck to a single moment from two months ago and had no guarantee she’d ever made it out.

What if Kyle had moved on? But then why would he ask about her?

What if she was only fooling herself and would have never changed? Never enough to be good for him, anyway.

The back door opened and closed as the wood of the patio creaked under someone’s weight.

“Go away, mum,” Erika warned, looking straight in front of her, not in the mood to have a conversation. “I don’t want to talk.”

“Good thing I am not your mother, sweetheart,” Her dad's soft chuckle slipped right through her. He sat by her side on the steps and gathered his hands on his knees, not saying a word more. He just sat there, with her, looking into the garden.

He was a sweet man. Maybe oblivious sometimes. A perfect match to her mum. He wasn’t too good with small talk, but he was there and that was what counted, even when Erika didn’t ask for it or want it. That’s where Mark learned to be so caring, most of the time.

He wasn’t a bad father, but Erika did find herself to hate him in their youth since he was more at work than home. Now, she knew it never meant he didn’t love his children, but at the time, a lot of the bad stuff she was doing she did also to get his attention.

She pushed her cigarette packet over to him, offering a smoke that he accepted gladly. “Your mother can be intense sometimes, I know. She doesn’t do it intentionally.”

“I know.”

“And sometimes she doesn’t read the room either,”

Erika still found the strength to chuckle, nodding. “No. She doesn’t, does she?”

Her dad leaned against her, giving her a small bump shoulder to shoulder. “She only means well. She wants to make sure you are ok.”

“But I am ok! I’ve been saying it every day,”

“Yeah?” Her dad looked right at her. Both she and Mark were a spitting image of the man. “I don’t want to overstep, but it looks to me like you are always so sad.”

“But I am ok, dad,” Erika still pushed out a soft smile, looking at him. “I could be so much worse,” she didn’t need to explain, “instead I am here, sober and doing my thing. I am ok.”

“And I am proud of what you are doing. I have to admit when you came back so abruptly, I was scared you’d fall back into the old habits. But you can’t just take care of your responsibilities.”

“What am I supposed to take care of?”

“This,” he tapped his chest, sending her a meaningful look. “You do not have to talk about it with me. But find someone to talk about it, because what you are carrying will eat you up, one day.”

Erika thought her dad’s words would have hurt her. She was ready to react her usual way, closing up. Instead, she took a deep breath, feeling some sort of release abandoning her chest. “I don’t have friends here. Mum only keeps trying to fix me up with Trevor who’s now convinced he has a chance.” She chuckled, but it wasn’t funny, “I used to talk about this stuff with Mark.”

“I know, sweetheart,”

“But then I fell for Kyle and,”

“That Aussie Arrow boy?”

“Yes.” Erika felt the boulder pressing on her rolling off her chest. It was the first time she admitted to someone else what she felt for Kyle. For the first time in months, she felt empty and free. It wasn’t relieving enough to push her pain off, but it made it so she could breathe easier. “I didn’t tell Mark. I kept it a secret for maybe too long. In the beginning, I thought I could pretend it wasn’t happening. I knew I wasn’t right for Kyle. But it got progressively worse and I just couldn’t stay away. To the point, Mark became suspicious first and protective after. Kyle is like a younger brother to him. He wants to protect him from harm, I know that. I respect that. Only he thought I was going to be harmful.”

“Is that why you don’t talk anymore?”

“He said some pretty bad things to me about my past. Made me think I wasn’t good enough. So, I bolted. Breaking Kyle’s heart in the process. And now, here I am, trying to keep it together. So, I am fine, dad.” She tried her best to smile, even though her chin was shaking and her eyes were glossed by the tears she couldn’t keep back anymore. “I fucked up. I had something good going on and I ruined it.”

Her dad left her the space to cry, rolling an arm around her shoulders and pulling her to his side, cradling her softly. “I am sorry, sweetheart.” He kissed her forehead once she calmed down, trying to lift the mood slightly. “And what did Kyle think about you not being good enough?”

“He would have skipped backwards for me.” She smiled distractedly.

“I like this boy,” her dad smiled proudly.

“He doesn’t know what I did though. He doesn’t know who I was I couldn’t tell him.”

“But he didn’t meet the girl you were. He met you for you.”

“But I am still so ashamed. My past doesn’t stop existing just because I decide to change.”

“But look where you are now and all the things you accomplished, honey.”

“And look all the bad I did, too. Mark wasn’t wrong, doubting me-”

“Don’t justify Mark.” Her father simply and calmly huffed, as if he was settling a quarrel between two kids over a toy, “Your brother should have known better. He should have expressed his fears differently trying to be more understanding, not making it so to scare you off and making you burn bridges.”

“Maybe. But what if he’d end up being right? What if I don’t deserve that kind of happiness? What if I keep fucking up?”

“But what if you don’t?” Her father made her look at him, pulling out a sweet smile, “What if you are sober, keeping the pieces together and doing ok?”

“That’s so scary, dad.”

“I know, honey, I know.” He patted her on the shoulder then, he pulled his phone out of his pocket, passing it over to her. “Call your brother.”

Erika froze, looking down at the black screen of the phone he handed her. She held her breath, trying to find a way to put her thoughts in order and find some common sense. But she had none left. It was either keep running away and ignoring things or decide it was time to grow up and forgive.

“He’s having a match right now.” She hesitated, trying to find an excuse.

“We both know he’ll be done soon. If not already.” Her father released the soft sigh of someone wise enough to know better. “Call Mark, darling. It doesn’t need to be to reconcile. But you need to unload what you have inside. And that’s the only way.” He pushed the cigarette butt into a soil pot and then leaned in, kissing her temple, before standing up.

There was something unspoken going on with her parents. The less they reminded her of what she did in her past and the bad she caused, the easier it was for her to feel at ease enough to feel like she belonged with them. It wasn’t enough to let her forget and she still didn’t like the idea of living in Brisbane in the long term. But for now, she was already juggling too many plates, she didn’t have the time or focus to think about the future that way.

“I’ll be inside, making sure no one is disturbing you,” her dad continued, “Especially that Trevor guy.”

“Thank you, dad,” she didn’t necessarily refer only to that last part. She was truly grateful.

Her father replied with a simple yet meaningful nod before disappearing into the house, leaving her all the time and space she needed.

[toprayarc]

CHARACTERIZATION NOTES: A COLLECTION OF FACTS IN REGARDS TO MARI'S PSYCHE AND MENTAL STATES. CONTENT WARNINGS ARE AS FOLLOWS— MENTIONS OF ABUSE, ALCOHOLISM / ADDICTION, C-PTSD AND SYMPTOMS SURROUNDING IT, MENTIONS OF MURDER / DEATH / VIOLENCE, MENTAL ILLNESS / DELUSIONS, AND EMOTIONAL ISOLATION / SELF DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIORS.

NOTES ON ... INTELLIGENCE.

mari is an extremely intelligent individual. she has an incredible capacity and drive to learn, as long as it is something she cares about. her vocabulary is expansive, and her ingestion of information is wildly in-depth  —  however, only centered around her specific interests. she holds both a level of book-smarts, and street smarts, that assist her greatly. she’s very quick on her feet even in casual circumstances, and this only increases when she is in a more intentional mindset.

with that said, mari also only holds this large amount of interest for certain things. she focuses and fixates on the topics that enthrall and compel her, but any other things often go unattended to. she’s well read, and well versed in philosophy, literature, and can recite passages and facts verbatim. yet, she cannot do anything above eighth grade math, could never pass a geography quiz, and struggles with emotional intelligence.

mari attended private school growing up, but rarely  (if ever)  invested herself into anything that occurred in that setting. she finds zero merit to formal education, and would never credit any of her knowledge to it in a million years.

mari is driven to be the best and most knowledgable at whatever she is focused towards and on, and because of this, will go to excessive lengths to learn as much, as thoroughly, and as quickly as possible. 

emotional intelligence is where she struggles the most. often times mari will navigate blindly in genuine scenarios for this reason, and within manipulative scenarios, she treats a great majority of it as a mathematical equation or science experiment. everything collects into a matter of both addition and subtraction to gain the result she wants, and is something that she’s learned to navigate through experience, rather than intuition. where she does the best in any emotional and genuine circumstance are situations where she understands directly, from her own experiences in life, how the other is feeling or what they are going through. otherwise, in non-genuine circumstances, she tends to navigate as if it’s a game of mental chess.

having said that, mari does have a level of nurturing instinct within her. this is extremely selective, but she grew up exhibiting these behaviors  —  she comforted mark consistently, she would routinely leave water and advil for her mother the mornings after she drank more excessively than usual, and had attempted to comfort her father in younger years. in most circumstances, this is not something seen or known about her. she is very selective with who she cares about  (usually limiting herself to around 4 individuals at most)  and often surrounds herself with people who do not want or need comfort. however, this piece of her does exist, and regardless of if she acts on it or refrains from doing so, it can help guide her in genuine scenarios that she is navigating blindly in.

NOTES ON ... MEMORY / HYPERTHYMESIA.

hyperthymesia is not the same as eidetic memory, nor photographic memory. mari’s ability to recite passages from books, or memorize facts, is the same as anyone else’s. however, hyperthymesia is the ability to hold an autobiographical account of your life, with every memory being the same exact size, and that includes details that were noticed or prominent in those times. while she is able to spontaneously recall these things, it also must be mentioned that hyperthymesia has an associative factor within it. mari can see something as simplistic as a stray cat, and will remember all of the other times in her life that she’s seen a stray cat  —  even down to the smallest detail of how many cats she may have seen in one day, and what day that was on. this isn’t something she would attempt to remember, but instead, something that her brain simply decides to show her. hyperthymesia has been described as seeing things often times in a  "split screen." one half being in the present, the other being in the past, while flipping through memories repeatedly.

mari does hold an immense amount of information on subjects within her mind, and she can recite quite a lot of things at the drop of a hat. but it must be emphasized that this isn’t because she can look at a text and remember it for the rest of her life. mari repeatedly reads things and researches the same topics over and over again, and especially in her youth, spent a large majority of her time doing this. her memories hold a collection of this repeated behavior and investment into knowledge, and now holds a longstanding place in her mind, rather than something she looked at once and then could pull out infinitely. 

hyperthymesia is both association based, and experience based. it’s also autobiographical, which means that none of mari’s memories are particularly objective. over time, as she remembers them more, two things occur: a new memory of remembering that memory is created  (and furthermore, layers on top of the original memory and makes it larger,) and the memories shift. as everyone else does in their lives, they remember things in a different perspective years down the line than they might have experienced it in the moment. details can shift. things can become smaller, or bigger, easier, or harder, idealized or painful. the residual imprint of the initial experience lays the groundwork, of course, but as memories are remembered over and over again, not everything remains the exact same. things are prone to begin to distort, and this does lead to some of her older memories not being particularly reliable.

the intrusive nature of how mari’s memories play back in her head consistently is a large part of why she finds it so hard to move on, or forward in her life. she cannot forget. even memories from ages as young as four or five are still present in her mind, but where they become consistent and nonstop are around the age she hit twelve  —  the year before mark (her brother) left. the escalation to the severe dysfunction and heightened abuse in the household began to occur right around the time that any escape from her memory became impossible, and as the years traveled onward, although mari escaped her household and killed her abusers, she also lives with a reality that feels very present  (no matter how much it is not)  in her mind. something as simple as smelling a cologne that is too similar to what her father wore, or seeing the same brand of gin that her mother drank, will pull out memories to play them without mari having any choice in the matter. despite mari not having active ptsd episodes daily, she is forced to micro-dose these moments of unwanted reminiscing consistently and relentlessly.

NOTES ON ... C-PTSD / MENTAL STATES AND SYMPTOMS.

AUTHORS NOTE: mari experiences varying levels of mental states and symptoms, all of which are things that she lives with on a relatively consistent basis. some are circumstance dependent, but others are not, and although she doesn’t identify it as c-ptsd, nor have any official diagnosis for her other mental illnesses, she does live with them. short notes are outlined below on symptoms and coping mechanisms.

feelings of threat / paranoia:   mari is extremely paranoid, and almost always is in a state of hyper-vigilance due to the consistent feeling of being under some sort of threat, or expecting one to appear. because of this, her social withdrawal is relatively high, and relationships with others can skew or be impaired.

feeling different to others:   although mari is generally a very singular person, she feels a mass amount of isolation. the world around her feels nigh unreachable at points in time because of the dividing line she feels is there, and is coped with her consistently lowering other individuals down to nothing. she doesn’t see other people as people, and has warped the feelings of isolation in order to cope.

disconnection from others:   mari has felt separated from a majority of  "normal"  people and connections with others for a very long time. as she has gone throughout her life, the disconnection and after-effects  (or current effects, dependent on timeline,)  of isolation are things that commonly create feelings of alienation. while this is something she holds a level of insecurity in in her interpersonal relationships, she also has skewed her mentality to the point of not registering other individuals as actual human beings to connect with unless they strike a point within her that shakes her awake, so to speak. mari’s disconnection with others, combined with the immense trauma she suffered from, combined into a need to separate herself in a  "positive"  light, and create a disconnection that felt more like lifting herself up, rather than a disconnection that outcasted her.

feeling permanently damaged or ineffective:   this is frequently combated with mari’s delusion of being higher   (or, in a  "positive"  sense, different to others)   and more capable than others. regardless of her own warped self image, mari feeling a sense of damage is something she fights against actively. this is why we most commonly see her surge into manipulative and violent behaviors when feelings of inadequacy or inefficiency rise up; having a direct need to  "prove"  herself. she can, time and time again, see evidence and proof of her quote-unquote usefulness and effectiveness. she can, in her mind, prove to herself that she is better, or more. 

somatisation:   often occurring when distressed, usually nausea related. she’s experienced this from a young age, and in her most distressed and fearful moments, has gotten physically sick from the stress levels.

intrusive thoughts:   i do not designate mari’s violent or homicidal thoughts as something that is intrusive. she does not feel any sense of shame, concern, or regret towards them. however, she does experience frequent intrusive thoughts and fears of becoming her parents in one way or another. mari’s lack of willingness to label herself as an addict stems from the direct fear   (and sometimes the direct thought)   that she will become her mother. there are times that she feels an immense amount of disgust towards herself for this, and then will combat it with a drawn line between functioning addicts and non-functioning addicts, rather than focusing on the addict title itself. becoming her father is something that will never allow mari to harm children, but more than that, she has deep rooted fears of ever even exposing or implicating a child in any small harm. she feels a striking amount of compassion, care, and empathy for children in any regard, but the fear of becoming an abuser is so intense that if mari even accidentally harmed a child, it would destabilize her. she would never forgive herself.

dysregulation of emotions:   because of mari’s detachment and lack of ability to see a majority of people as people, her dysregulation isn’t as common to witness. however, mari is an incredibly sensitive person as she is. when combined with this symptom, she often is prone to lashing out, spiraling into her own impulses, and engaging in reckless or self destructive behavior in a want to self-soothe. mari’s dysregulation of her high highs and low lows can often result in damaging behavior to those around her, sometimes at extremes, and she tends to isolate or push people away in hostile instinct. her irritability, despair, and skewed self-perspectives worsen when her emotions are unregulated, as well as her stutter.

psychogenic stutter:   mari developed her stutter when she was around 14, and while it can go up or down in terms of how much it is present, it is something she has never received  (or has had accessibility to)  any speech therapy or assistance with. she does not know it is psychogenic.

feelings of emptiness and hopelessness:   mari often feels as if there is something missing or hollow inside of her. she does not tend to imagine anything other than the way she functions in the present moment, and beginning to find hope for herself is something that she struggles intensely to even begin to do, however, it does tend to be skewed. both mari’s feeling of emptiness and her hopelessness are twisted into a perspective of her having everything she needs, or that the emptiness  (or the hollow feeling she has inside of her)  are things that make her even more effective and efficient, rather than anything that hinders her or leaves her feeling alienated.

nightmares  /  night terrors:   mari does experience night terrors, which is a massive factor in why she sleeps very little. mari’s consistent drinking tends to be a crutch on her sleeping to begin with, and the nightmares that she experiences can be incredibly severe. being able to feel safe in her own house, space, body, and surroundings is something that mari struggles with outside of sleep, but particularly within this arena is where it becomes the most present.

[darksideofparis]

I really love this! Sky's background is pretty dark, but really intriguing at the same time. The Weeping Angel background and resulting trauma is so heartbreaking. And oh, yeah, the Doctor would go absolutely mental if their grandson was harmed. No one would be safe. Again, I love this and great job!

TW: 18+ topics such as addiction and an abusive relationship

Name: Skyler Jayden Harkness

Gender: Non-binary trans-masc. He/him or they/them pronouns, preference for they/them

Age: 21 (body stopped aging at this point)

General appearance: 5'7 with short and messy brown hair, hazel eyes, lean and lithe with a gymnast's build. Slender but muscular

Personality: Snarky and sarcastic, flirty but defensive due to trust issues. Sky can become serious in and instant and is a cunning individual with a ruthless streak like their father.

Special talents: Various Time Lord abilities, immortality, enhanced physcial condition, hand-to-hand training, extensive weapons and starship knowledge, total mechanical genius, fluent in over 1200 languages, skilled pilot, mid level psychic abilities.

Who they like better: Skyler's always been their dad's kid through and through. Jack was the 2nd person Sky came out to after their brother Johnny. Jack was also there for Sky when their ex boyfriend became horribly abusive, giving them weapons training. Despite that, Sky is still very close to their mother, Jenny encouraged Sky's gymnastics and cooking hobbies and gave them hand to hand training. Sky goes to Jenny if they need a hug.

Who they take after more: Sky takes after Jenny more. They're less of a flirt then Jack or Johnny. Sky's a genius, prefering to spend their time in a workshop or off adventuring through space and time. Sky lives by their grandfather's quote of "Not impossible just a bit unlikely". Skyler's a bit of a daredevil and adrenaline junkie and once stole Missy's TARDIS for "shits and giggles"

Weaknesses: PTSD (their ex boyfriend was physically, verbally and sexually abusive), extreme fear of The Weeping Angels due to them losing their best friend from childhood to them (their friend grew up in the past and eventually became Skyler's playschool teacher when Sky was a toddler), anxiety, arrogance (Sky has some of The Doctor's arrogance in his intelligence), alcoholism, cigarette addiction, ruthless and even cruel at times, impulsive and reckless always chasing adventure. Believe in their ability to get out of any situation due to their immortality

Backstory: Sky was born after their brother Johnny as Lacey Marigold Harkness, in Bristol KY, in October 2011 as Jenny wanted her mom and dad at the birth and The Doctor and Alex were visiting Alex's old friends at that point. At 2½, in preschool, Sky met and quickly befriended a young girl named Isabella "Izzy" Jones and the two stayed friends throughout elementary school and into middle school.

At 13 Izzy was Skyler's first kiss and she was the first person outside the family Sky came out to as trans. Tragically, less then 6 months later, a few days after Izzy's 14th birthday, while wandering, Sky and Izzy walked by a graveyard and Izzy noticed a statue that hadn't been there previously. Before Skyler could react, Izzy has turned away and The Weeping Angel moved and sent Izzy back to the past. Sky, moving through shock ane having been taught by The Doctor, led the angel to a shop window so it was always staring at its reflection, then fled back home and broke down in their father's arms.

This tragic event led to Skyler falling into a self destructive spiral, leading to a teen life of drinking and a relationship with a much older boy named Elijah Jackson that turned horribly abusive, which ended after Elijah forced himself on Skyler and Johnny caught him. The now 16 year old Skyler went back to therapy and put in their effort, allowing themselves to heal, despite gaining new trauma beyond seeing their friend die.

Skyler graduated top of their class and way beyond any human, having used The TARDIS library and knowledge from The TARDIS to learn about starship piloting and maintenance, hundreds of alien languages and intergalactic engineering. They then got picked up by their mom's parents to be gifted with a sonic device

The Doctor took them on some trips in The TARDIS with Alex and the family bonded. Skyler learnt how overprotective their grandparents can be after they took a blast from a Cyberman intended for Alex. Skyler came back to a life to discover Alex kneeling over them and several destroyed Cyber Squadrons around the family, The Doctor standing among it all, smoke curling off their jacket.

During one of their adventures, Skyler, now 19, stole Missy's TARDIS and briefly took it for a spin, proving to be a much calmer pilot then their grandfather and when asked by Jenny simply responded with "I read the manual". Skyler helped Alex and The Doctor lock Missy's TARDIS away but the Time Lady escaped. Skyler joined their father and their godmother Martha, acting as a liaison between Torchwood 3 and UNIT

Personal headcanon: Skyler is very close with all of their family but something of a loner when it comes to friends, still struggling with not shutting themselves out from friendships after losing Izzy. He's very close to his older brother Johnny and his Aunt Daffy. Sky once messed with Amy and Rory Pond by calling them "Great Aunt Amy and Great Uncle Rory".

Face Claim: Sasha Allen

[porcelainnpines]

did i see correctly that dolly and quentin end up married? how does that happen?

Oh boy this is a complicated one so buckle up!

(Tw mentions of suicide and abuse) essentially, Dolly and Quentin first met when Dolly was arrested for attempted robbery and Quentin was the one who held her, so already off to a less than ideal start for a relationship lmfao. Dolly managed to convince Quentin and his deputy Emmett to let her work off her charges by working around the town, to which they agreed. Now, through this, Dolly found out by cleaning Quentin’s filing cabinets that there was a serial killer issue in their area. It had been going on for years and there were pretty much no leads, women just keep showing up with their faces skinned off and organs removed. After a while, Dolly is done working off her charges and decides to try to look further into the case, because to her it looks like Quentin isnt really putting in much effort because hes too preoccupied with cocaine and alcohol. This all goes fine for a while, and Dolly even thinks hes getting somewhere, and forms a good relationship with both Emmett and Quentin, but then Emmett dies.

And Emmett doesnt just die, he kills himself, and Dolly finds him. Or at least it looks like he killed himself, but that’s another story lol. Dolly and Quentin were both very close to him so it destroyed them. Emmett did have some difficulties, and was torn up about his mom dying because of the serial killer a while back, but otherwise it was completely out of nowhere. After that, Dolly and Quentin both grow very distant from each other. Quentins just sulking, and at first so is Dolly, but then as Dolly spirals, he turns back to crimes such as armed robbery to release the awful emotions shes feeling. Dolly does have a past with this, her getting arrested was definitely not his first time, but he thought hed grown past it for a while. Out of everything, though, the one thing that weighs down on Dolly unlike anything else is that she killed her abusive father many years before. It always has, and slipping back into crime just makes the guilt come back more. Dolly believes he’s irredeemable because of it, and that theres no point in trying to better herself after shes done something so bad. (Even though his dad totally deserved it lmao) because of all this, Dolly avoids Quentin even more, because hes the sheriff, and if he found out she was committing crimes again she would definitely not get off as easy as he originally did. Dolly had no one else to turn to though, so became desperately lonely.

Then, one day Dolly sees Quentin in the woods from a distance covered in blood kneeling over a body and he comes to the originally horrific realization that it was him all along. It’s completely shocking, but after that wears off, Dolly’s completely affection starved and self hating mind begins brewing the worst fucking idea ever. That being that Dolly was just like Quentin, they were both irredeemable, and that now Dolly could come back to him without fear of being found out. Desperate for any type of company and very self destructive, Dolly came to Quentin asking to do crime together, and he agreed. Once they were together again, things went much too quickly, and they were married within a month. Dolly was extremely scared and uncomfortable with the things that Quentin was making him do, but just pushed all his feelings down with denial and substance use, even as Quentin slowly grew more and more abusive.

[ghoulking]

Kuroneki : Profile

Character Name: Ken Kaneki Age: 18 Canon: Tokyo Ghoul Canon Point: Chapter 52 Character Information: Wikia

Personality: Ken is an eighteen years old boy who loves books, specifically ones that are quite deep and thought-provoking. Kaneki is also softly-spoken, and polite and carries a smile when talking to others. He’s pleasant and rarely gives the impression he dislikes someone, capable of talking to other people and fitting the part if the situation requires that of him, but he is also very good at deciding when to show more of himself - and thus he only bares the minimum. If given the chance, he prefers to retreat rather than speak out.

He is an introvert and always had a hard time connecting with others, which means he always led a pretty lonely life. His first (and apparently only) friend Hide, seems to be the only person who managed to get close but there are still many things that kaneki doesn’t show or say even to Hide. He bottles everything up, including the many issues that plague him – including how lonely he truly is, or even the abuse he suffered at his mother’s hands.

Despite always speaking with love and admiration about his mother, she physically abused Ken when he was only a small child, and with it, she taught Kaneki something very clear: “Be the one who is hurt”. Kaneki was taught to sacrifice his own happiness so others wouldn’t be in pain. He shouldn’t demand nor be selfish, and a kind person should only find happiness in protecting others and be the one suffering if that means others will not. This explains why Kaneki is so selfless and self-sacrificing, doesn’t show himself to others and also why he is set on protecting the ones he loves while avoiding getting anyone else hurt; it’s a balance hard to keep, but a balance he is set on keeping.

Because of all of this trauma and abuse, Kaneki grew up with a kind of emotional isolation that causes him to retreat and leaves him disconnected from others. He has a difficult time seeing himself as someone that matters or has a meaningful place in the world, and even when he has others around him, he ultimately still doesn't feel like his presence matters in any way, and he is just a transparent figure in the world. This translates into him pulling away from his own honest emotions which he refuses to show others, often seeing his feelings as one-sided and not truly important. Kaneki simply believes he does not have a place and therefore his feelings don't either, leaving him disconnected from the meaningful relationships he actually has.

As wrong as it sounds, Kaneki deeply craves a connection with other people, sometimes even ignoring how toxic and cruel they may be towards him. Yet again, his mother is a big example of this: when she wasn’t beating him to the ground, she was gentle and Kaneki held on to those moments. After her death, he felt so alone that Kaneki's trauma caused him to believe being beaten is better than being abandoned. Kaneki truly and deeply wants to be loved and cared for just as much as he loves and cares, but he is so afraid of losing those he loves that he'd rather be hurt than be without them. He is desperate for affection to the point of accepting harm, which may in the future lead to self-destructive behaviour (spoiler alert: in future chapters, kaneki attempts suicide as a way to become a hero to his friends, so it will certainly go that far).

Sometimes, this leads him to also trusts others too fast and he doesn’t realize he might get in way over his head. His naivety may translate as idiocy at times and his naivety may also be due to how kind Kaneki is, who’d rather believe others than expect bad things from them. Kindness is still a positive trait, but Kaneki often focuses so much on being kind towards others that he forgets the danger it might put him in, and ignores how it made him suffer.

Ken is, indeed, extremely kind and this has allowed him to connect with those that have even hurt him in the past. He has made friends out of foes and the gentleness that exists within him is the single most important thing Kaneki has: his kindness makes him loved by others, even if he doesn't realize he is so. He is gentle, kind, and sweet, and it's a trait very hard to come by in the ruthless world that he lives in, and an even harder trait to have after being abused mercilessly. It's not a weakness; it's something so good that no matter what happens, Kaneki will continue to be kind no matter what.

Kaneki is also intelligent and that’s his biggest weapon. He takes his knowledge from books and manages to introduce it into his life here and there, making him more resourceful than he looks. His love of books has taught him many things. He is capable of reading people emotionally thanks to all the knowledge he acquired and is often able to say the right things when needed, making him very understanding and educated. The same books he reads can also teach him practical skills in theory, which he applies in practice with much ease, and is able to logically calculate the things he needs to do. He is able to surprise a lot of people thanks to this!

Naturally, that means he can adapt more easily than expected too. While it is true that Kaneki seems weak and his soft-spoken and shy nature can make him a bit awkward, in just a couple of months Kaneki's life was turned upside down after being turned into a ghoul and yet, he managed to adapt to his new reality and work with it. From investigating the ghoul world, to befriending ghouls (even some that tried to kill him before), to learning more about his situation, (even though he cries a lot about it) Ken was able to come forth and use his half-ghoul nature in order to survive: he decided to see things by himself instead of relying on his human perception of the world or on Ghoul's perception of the world and this gave him great advantage.

But ultimately, Kaneki is an unreliable narrator. The way Kaneki describes his life and feelings isn’t always true, not because he means to lie but because he was taught to see things that way. He often speaks like little bothers him, does not ponder on his own trauma, and lies to himself the most, making up his own narration in order to keep going and in hopes to keep affection from others. He does not admit how lonely and sad he truly is, and how his mother's teachings are, in the end, causing him more pain than happiness... so he continuously lies to himself by pretending he is fine with being hurt.

Questionnaire

What is your character's main motivation? What drives them and keeps them going? Kaneki is someone who is desperately in need of love. He just wants to be loved by others, and because of that, he follows what his mother always taught him: be kind all the time, never be selfish, always please others, and always put others first. If you are kind, then that’s all you need in order to be happy and loved (no, his mother was not a good person). He believes if he does this he will, then, be loved. And that’s truly all Kaneki really wants.

What is their biggest regret? Why? (cw; child abuse) Ken believes he was partially to blame for his mother’s declining health for being a bad, selfish son. Despite always trying to do what his mother said and try to be kind, because the Mom was not really a good person, she’d snap at him and be physically aggressive towards him. Kaneki took that as him not being the son he should be. To this day, he believes her being tired and overworked and exhausted (which ultimately led to her death) was partially his fault because he was so needy and demanding (in truth, he was not. Kaneki is just not a reliable narrator and does not realize he was abused).

What is their worst fear? Their greatest comfort? Kaneki is deeply afraid of not being loved. He is afraid of being unkind because he ultimately just wants that in life; so if he doesn’t have it, then it means he is just a bad person and he can’t be what his mother always wanted him to be. That’s very scary to him. As for comfort, his books are! Kaneki is a bookworm thanks to his father, who died when Kaneki was very young, thus Ken doesn’t remember him. The book collection was the only thing Kaneki had as a connection to his father, and because of this he always saw it as his biggest comfort.

Top three strengths? Kind – Ken is extremely kind and this has allowed him to connect with those that have even hurt him in the past. He has made friends out of foes and the gentleness that exists within him and this makes him loved by others, even if he doesn't realize he is so. It's a trait very hard to come by in the ruthless world that he lives in, and an even harder trait to have after being abused mercilessly. It's not a weakness; it's something so good that no matter what happens, Kaneki will continue to be kind.

Adaptable - While it is true that Kaneki seems weak and his soft-spoken and shy nature can make him a bit awkward, in just a couple of months Kaneki's life was turned upside down after being turned into a ghoul and yet, he managed to adapt to his new reality and work with it. This gives him an amazing advantage when dealing with the world around him.

Intelligent – Kaneki takes his knowledge from books and manages to introduce it into his life, making him more resourceful than he looks. His love of books has taught him many things. He is capable of reading people emotionally and is often able to say the right things when needed, making him very understanding and educated. The same books he reads can also teach him practical skills in theory, which he applies in practice with much ease, and is able to logically calculate the things he needs to do. He is able to surprise a lot of people thanks to this!

Top three weaknesses?

Introvert/Lonely - Because of all of this trauma and abuse, Kaneki grew up with a kind of emotional isolation that causes him to retreat and leaves him disconnected from others. He has a difficult time seeing himself as someone that matters or has a meaningful place in the world, and even when he has others around him, he ultimately still doesn't feel like his presence matters in any way, and he is just a transparent figure in the world. This translates into him pulling away from his own honest emotions which he refuses to show others, often seeing his feelings as one-sided and not truly important. Kaneki simply believes he does not have a place and therefore his feelings don't either.

Selfless - As wrong as it sounds, Kaneki deeply craves a connection with other people, sometimes even ignoring how toxic and cruel they may be towards him. he is so afraid of losing those he loves that he'd rather be hurt than be without them. He is desperate for affection to the point of accepting harm, and putting himself at risk for those he loves, which may in the future lead to self-destructive behaviour (spoiler alert: in future chapters, kaneki attempts suicide as a way to become a hero to his friends, so it will certainly go that far).

Unreliable narrator - The way Kaneki describes his life and feelings isn’t always true, not because he means to lie but because he was taught to see things that way. He often speaks like little bothers him, does not ponder on his own trauma, and lies to himself the most, making up his own narration in order to keep going and in hopes to keep affection from others. He does not admit how lonely and sad he truly is, and how his mother's teachings are, in the end, causing him more pain than happiness… so he continuously lies to himself by pretending he is fine with being hurt.

What was their last lie? “I’m okay”. To himself, to others. That’s Kaneki’s biggest on-going lie: that he is okay. Kaneki has never been okay.

What impression does your character give when meeting someone for the first time? How does the first impression differ from your character’s true nature? Ken is an 18 years old introvert who doesn't like to socialize. He looks like a pretty normal guy, lacking a strong personality and who will smile so he won’t have to talk much. Kaneki is softly-spoken and polite, and he‘s pleasant and rarely gives the impression he dislikes someone; he's capable of talking to other people and fits the part if the situation calls for it. He’s good at deciding when to show more of himself, but he only bares the minimum, and his choice is often to retreat and close up, rather than speak out.

This means he bottles everything up inside, including the many issues that plague him. Kaneki has led a very lonely and depressing life and was even abused at his mother’s hands. With all of this, Kaneki learned something very clear: “Be the one who is hurt”.

Kaneki was taught to sacrifice his own happiness so others wouldn’t be in pain. He shouldn’t demand nor be selfish, and to want reciprocation isn’t kind, and a kind person should only find happiness in protecting others and be the one suffering if that means others won’t. This is why Kaneki sacrifices for others, doesn’t show himself and is why he’s set on protecting the ones he loves while even getting hurt himself.

After his mother's death, Kaneki was terribly lonely, and though he doesn’t open up to others and doesn’t admit to his feelings because he “has to be kind”, Kaneki truly wants to be loved and cared for just as much as he loves and cares. He's fiercely loyal because of that, but doesn't seem to believe it's reciprocated. He also fears the moment others see a flaw in him, they will abandon him instead and because of this Kaneki always tries to be perfect while feeling guilty that he can't be.

How does your character handle stress? What do they do in an emergency? While it is true that Kaneki seems weak and his soft-spoken and shy nature can make him a bit awkward, Kaneki is extremely adaptable. He does cry a lot about things and often seems like he is hopeless and has given up, but the fact of the matter is that Kaneki's life turned upside down when he was turned into a ghoul, and yet he managed to adapt to his new reality and work with it - and even went as far as exploring it.

His intelligence is his biggest weapon when dealing with tough situations. He takes his knowledge from books and manages to introduce it into his life, making him more resourceful than he looks. Kaneki is surprisingly good at thought process and logic. He is intelligent, acts fast, is capable of planning and theorizing, and he can adapt to extreme situations; he is resourceful and capable of emotionally connecting to others, making him very understanding and educated. He is able to surprise a lot of people very often because, during intense moments of stress, Kaneki is able to figure out what action to take next and which way to go without getting distracted by his own helplessness.

This means that stressful situations are dealt with with logic and intelligence and quick thinking from Kaneki.

(he will still cry a lot about it, though).

What are your character’s fears? How do they hinder or challenge your character? Kaneki is afraid of two things: of being abandoned, and of being cruel. Both these things are related to his own relationship with his mother and how he grew up.

Despite always speaking with love and admiration about his mother, she physically abused Ken when he was only a small child, and with it distorted Kaneki's idea of love and kindness. Under his mother's words of "be the one who hurts", Kaneki learned that his pain and suffering did not matter if that meant others will be happy; he should not be selfish, he should not desire, and he should not want because all he should do, in order to be kind, was to find happiness in other people's happiness. Because of that, he is afraid of being flawed, of messing up, of being selfish - because that means he will be cruel instead, and it means he will go against everything his mother taught him. That, to him, is unbearable. Being called a cold or cruel person is something Kaneki can not deal with.

He is also very scared of being abandoned. While he was taught to sacrifice his own happiness and taught "to be kind", Kaneki does it all because he ultimately is trying to find a way to keep the people around him. Kaneki deeply craves for a connection with other people, sometimes even ignoring how toxic and cruel they may be towards him. After his mother's death, he felt so alone that Kaneki's trauma caused him to believe being beaten is better than being abandoned. Kaneki truly and deeply wants to be loved and cared for just as much as he loves and cares, but he is so afraid of losing those he loves that he'd rather be hurt than be without them.

What's their biggest potential? Kaneki's potential is fairly well known because he reaches it at the end of his canon: to be loved and to love. Kaneki is a tragic character and his trauma made him believe he is a bad awful person, who needs to always justify why others should be with him. At the end, he needs to accept himself and accept that he can be loved and he can love others, and love does not come at a price and he is not an awful monster that needs to constantly fight to be loved and love. Kaneki's potential is entirely connected to other people - Kaneki needs others and wants others, and that is in fact reciprocated: others need and want him. And love, does not have to come with a heavy painful hand, and it can be gentle and kind.

[yurimother]

How 'She-Ra' Delivered on Queer Promises and Helped Revolutionized LGBTQ Representation

DreamWorks's She-Ra and the Princesses of Power has already cemented its place among the short but rapidly growing list of children’s animated shows with impactful LGBTQ representation. Showrunner Noelle Stevenson made it a point to push and fight for more diverse characters in every aspect from race, to personality, to sexual and gender identity. However, the finale of the GLADD Award-nominated program delivered on a revolutionary promise built up throughout all five seasons and completed one of the greatest queer narratives ever seen in children’s media.

As She-Ra progressed, Stevenson became more encouraged and inspired to pressure executives to allow more and more explicit LGBTQ characters and relationships. While ever-present in the series, season one only featured a background couple, Spinnerella (Noelle Stevenson) and Netossa (Krystal Joy Brown), and of course, the famous dance sequence between Catra (AJ Michalka) and Adora (Aimee Carrero). While this amount of representation is comfortably leagues ahead of the vast majority of cartoons, the show only upped the ante and the amount of representation from there. Season 2 introduced viewers to George (Chris Jai Alex) and Lance (Regi Davis), Bow's fathers. The series presents them in a normalized fashion as a happy gay couple in love that built a family together. Jacob Tobia's non-binary Double Trouble featured heavily in season four, making them one of the first non-binary characters in children's animation and one of the first to holding an integral role in the show, a major step in representing such identities.

The many achievements and strides She-Ra in LGBTQ representation featured in She-Ra will doubtlessly affect other projects in the industry and help further programs walk a similar path. However, the greatest queer story inShe-Ra is the spectacular series-long arc exploring the relationship and dynamics between de facto antagonist Catra and protagonist Adora. The former friends, who grew up together in the ranks of the Horde, turn enemies at the start of the series after Adora gains the power of She-Ra and betrays Catra, joining the Rebellion.

Fans quickly began speculating on the nature of Adora and Catra's relationship during season one, mainly because of the Princess Prom dance scene. After the young women shared a charged and sinister dance, fans quickly began supporting and analyzing "Catradora." The next three seasons would gradually and gracefully define both characters' complicated feelings for each other. Initially, Catra attempts to rationalize Adora's leaving as a relief or else forces herself to appear apathetic towards it. She continuously uses the excuse that she is no longer living under Adora's shadow to gradually build up more power, rising through the ranks of the Horde while stepping on those who helped her.

While Catra's motivations are appropriately layered and complex, it becomes clear that she is attempting to win approval, to be less alone than she has felt since Adora abandoned her. She seeks others' approval, including her abusive maternal figure, Shadow Weaver (Lorraine Toussaint), and the cruel Hordak (Keston John). However, Catra does not realize until confronted by Double Trouble's gut-wrenching and emotionally resonating analysis of her psyche. They inform Catra that the reason she is alone and abandoned, she pushes others away. The realization that her problems and loneliness are by her own doing combine with her guilt for betraying her allies Scorpia (Lauren Ash) and Entrapta (Christine Woods), leads Catra to an emotional breakdown.

Thee fifth and final season of She-Ra opens with Catra still plagued by loneliness and self-doubt. She starts to form a bond with Prime's captor Glimmer (Karen Fukuhara), seeing her guilt reflected by Glimmer's regret for trying to use the Heart of Etheria's power. Eventually, Catra learns about Adora's impending rescue attempt and the villainous Prime's plants to capture her once she arrives. Ultimately, all the feelings and circumstances surrounding Catra clash together as she remembers a childhood promise that she and Adora would always be friends. The revelation that she loves Adora finally causes Catra to turn and do "one good thing," protect Adora. She frees Glimmer to prevent Adora from walking into Prime's trap; thus, Catra becomes the Horde's prisoner.

Adora's character arch is much less tragic than Catra. The "frenemies" clash multiple times throughout the early seasons with an ever-shifting dynamic that hints at their intricate relationship and confused romantic feelings. But, at the end of season three, Catra's reckless plan against Adora almost leads to Eternia's destruction. As Catra taunts and blames Adora for her suffering, Adora seemingly ends their conflicted relationship, noting that Catra's misdeeds are all her own, "You made your choice, now live with it."

In the final season, Adora has lost the powers of She-Ra. But, she continues to charge into battle headfirst, exposing herself and her tendencies to put other's wellbeing before her own. This tactic mirrors why Adora left Catra's side in the first place all the way back in the first season. She places more importance on duty and service to others than herself and her friend. Later, while Adora, Bow (Marcus Scribner), and Entrapta are traveling towards Horde Prime, Catra sends a signal to their ship, apologizing for everything she has done while teleporting Glimmer to them. Adora decides that she cannot leave Catra behind, and the Best-Friend Squad hurries to rescue Catra from the Horde. Adora saves Catra not only from Prime's vile clutches but her loneliness too. Adora's exclamation "You matter to me" is a powerful and victorious moment, as the two friends turned enemies unite, and acknowledge their connection.

Unfortunately, even after the Adora and Catra are together again, conflict continues to rise between them and with themselves. Catra feels unlovable because of her past and so convinces herself that Adora will not accept her feelings. She continues to struggle with abandonment, especially when Adora willingly takes the responsibility of a suicide mission to destroy the Heart of Etheria, yelling, "It doesn't always have to be you." Sadly, Adora again abandons her, putting the good of everyone else above herself and Catra. Acknowledging that Adora, "Always sacrifices everything for everyone else," Catra runs away. However, upon realizing that Prime is moments away from taking control of the Heart and killing Adora, Shadow Weaver and her run to rescue the girl she loves.

As Adora journeys to the Heart, she sees and an illusion of Catra, envisioning that her friend meets her to approach the suicide mission together. Soon, Adora faces a vision of Mara (Zehra Fazal), the previous She-Ra, who tells her that she does not always need to sacrifice herself and is deserving of love too. She becomes trapped without her powers by a first-ones' guardian until Catra and Shadow Weaver save her. Telling Adora to go on, Catra stays to fight the beast in vain. Moments before destroying the Heart and herself, Adora finally chooses to return to Catra, to put Catra and her own happiness over her sense of duty.

As Adora and Catra approach the Heart, the former almost succumbs to Prime's power and has one final vision. Adora dreams of living a life in peace in Brightmoon alongside her friends, Glimmer and Bow, and with her loving, playful partner Catra by her side. In the apparent final moments before her death, Catra reaches out to Adora. At last, the two confess their love for each other and embrace in a momentous kiss, restoring She-Ra's power to Adora. Renewed in strength and standing beside her beloved, Adora finally destroys Horde Prime. The series ends as Adora and Catra plan to travel together and restore magic to the universe and fades to black as the couple prepares to take their next journey together.

as Adora and Catra plan to travel together and restore magic to the universe and fades to black as the couple prepares to take their next journey together.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power has always been a powerhouse of LGBTQ representation, especially the final season. For example, it heavily features former background characters and married couple Spinnerella and Netossa in leading roles, as Netossa attempts to recover her wife’s mind from Prime. However, the relationship between Catra and Adora is not only the series highlight but a revolutionary in LGBTQ representation in children's television.

LGBTQ history in children's media and cartoons is disappointingly brief and, at times, unpleasant. Early examples mostly featured coded queer characters with harmful and stereotypical traits, such as the Silver Spooner from Dexter's Laboratory. Some works were able to include less harmful depictions. Networks allowed characters like Richie from Static Shock, who is gay, to exist as long as their identity was kept extremely subtextual.

Slowly some more limited progress was made, and a few less offensive or hidden characters were permitted to appear in one-off and minor roles. Nelvana's Canadian animated sitcom, 6teen included many vague but most neutral references to homosexuality and eventually a one-off character Jean, who says that she is "gay" and has a girlfriend. Notably, this 2009-episode marks not only one of the first moments of a character confirming their sexuality but also using the word "gay." This feat is so rarely replicated even in LGBTQ family media that even giants like Steven Universe do not include it. Outside of pedantic educational programs on minor networks, it may be the only time someone said "the-G-word" in such media until 2019's Kippo and the Age of Wonderbeasts  (live-action sitcom Andi Mack on Disney Channel also used the term that year). Sadly, American showings cut 6Teen's references to homosexuality, and the episode featuring Jean never aired at all outside Canada.

When most people look back to the beginning of the recent small boom in cartoon LGBTQ representation, they point to The Legend of Korra. In 2014, the series finally ended with female leads Korra and Asami taking hands and going on a private vacation in the spirit world. The Korra moment set the LGBTQ fandom on fire. Even so, the show faced incredible resistance and backlash. After the final episode aired, creator Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino had to go online to confirm that the somewhat ambiguous finale indeed depicted a same-sex romance. They then began to face backlash from a section of the fandom who believed bringing this badass bisexual moment to television was only for fanservice or to forward an agenda.

The Legend of Korra was a revolution in modern children's television, putting cracks in the oppressive dam that kept such dynamics out of the limelight and slowly pushed back against the status quo, allowing for more LGBTQ representation. Now, over five years after Korra, numerous children's programs feature queer characters in minor and supporting roles, often more explicitly than Korra was able to do. The Loud House includes a main bisexual character, and there are queer characters and couples in multiple works, including but not limited to Gravity Falls, Adventure Time, and Craig of the Creek.

The most notable LGBTQ representation in a children's cartoon comes from Rebeca Sugar's incredible creation, Steven Universe. As with She-Ra, LGBTQ characters make up a large portion of the cast and it features several groundbreaking LGBTQ scenes, including the iconic wedding of Ruby and Sapphire.

Sadly, many of these works had to fight tooth and nail or suffer through horrific backlash because of their dedication to diversity. Alabama banned an episode of Arthur that featured a gay wedding, and the depiction of lesbian mothers in Clifford the Bid Red Dog caused some parents and organizations to speak out against it. Perhaps most famous of all, Rebecca Sugar had to struggle to put LGBTQ representation on the small screen. Ultimately, to make the wedding scene happen, Sugar had to lay everything on the table and was willing to see themselves separated from the show and have it end to bring their vision to life. Unfortunately, many other countries censor the show to remove LGBTQ content. Still, Sugar's tireless work has pushed the boundaries of LGBTQ representation in children's media so incredibly far, allowing shows like She-Ra to exist.

The recent rapid progress of LGBTQ representation becomes apparent when comparing She-Ra to the "originator," Korra. The series share similar themes and mutually place importance on diversity in its main cast. At the climax of both programs, two female main characters became romantic partners for the other. However, the differences are what truly sets them apart and highlights the progress representation has made. Back in 2014, holding hands and staring into each other's eyes was the most action Korra could feature.

However, a myriad of queer characters and identities perforate She-Ra, all of which are more apparent and obvious thanks to actions including kisses, confessions, and other actions. This difference is especially true in season five, where even the title cards feature Netossa and Spinnerella engaged in a passionate kiss. Of course, the main couple was permitted a full on-screen confession and kiss, as Catra and Adora locked lips in the final episode. Finally, many "critics" complained that Korra and Asami's relationship came out of nowhere, despite it progressing the show’s last two seasons. If one were to assert the same claim about She-Ra, they need to completely ignore how Stevenson built Adora and Catra's romantic relationship as a fundamental aspect of the show from the very start.

She-Ra's depiction of queer characters was deliberate, explicit, and incredible. Not only did LGBTQ side characters express their identities in a variety of ways, but the main couple also got to show their love with both words and a kiss. Furthermore, and perhaps even more importantly, the main couple in She-Ra got a happen ending and a future for them and the viewers to imagine and look towards with excitement. Sadly, many LGBTQ characters and couples do not get to experience such conclusions. For decades, queer relationships ended in tragedy, often with the death of one or more queer characters killed off as part of the "bury your gays" trope. Even if the characters live, narratives rarely provided a happy future for those with queer identities. Sadly, this trend is alive and well. Recent examples include Adam from Voltron: Legendary Defender and Annika and Neha from The Dragon Prince.

Stevenson actively set out to avoid this trope in She-Ra, telling the Los Angeles Times, "I can't see another gay character die on TV for the moment." Not only did she not kill Adora and Catra, or any of the show's other queer characters, she gave Adora and Catra, the two lesbian leads in love, a happy ending. The show even offers viewers and Adora a glimpse of one possible future for the couple in the final vision of domestic bliss in Brightmoon. Both Adora and Catra struggle and suffered greatly, but they were allowed a happy ending and the opportunity to look forward to a life together. For the two main characters of a children's cartoon to achieve such a fantastic ending in such an explicit way is a genuinely revolutionary moment of representation, proudly standing alongside defining scenes like and Ruby and Sapphire’s wedding in Steven Universe. Importantly, both shows are made by queer creators, showing young viewers that people like them can achieve and create great things and that there are those out there fighting for them. For these reasons, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is one of the single most significant works of LGBTQ representation in children's media.

Queer representation in children's media matters so much, likely more than it does in any other medium. It normalizes LGBTQ identities for families and sends a powerful message to all LGBTQ children who may be feeling sad or alone or sacred: 'You are not alone, you matter, and you are accepted.' These words, implied with every positive depiction of queer identities, save so many children and young adults from unnecessary suffering and sometimes even saves lives. Noelle Stevenson and She-Ra will likely create giant waves in the medium just as Steven Universe did before it, and generations of queer people, myself included, wait with bated breath to see what results from it.

[ghoulschooldropout]

Literally had no idea you had OCs I would have been sending asks this WHOLE TIME spill the beans about them please and thank you 👁👁

you're all getting big ol' cartoony bugs bunny smooches rn i swear<3

OK SO most of my OCs are created through my writing, so a lot of them I don't have drawings of (yet! I'm working on it) and all my fics are WIPs but i can give you a brief intro/over-view of the main OCs that occupy my brain...

(BEWARE: VERY LONG)

Nathaniel J. Pearce (Nate) - the "canon" Sole Survivor - he/him

MY MAIN MAN i have like 5 WIP fics currently going for him...(the pic above is from a comic I’ve been working on, I’m not sure when I’ll finish it tbh, I’m currently in the process of redrawing old pages bc the style was so outdated)

He is the middle sibling of 3: younger brother Adrian & older brother Ethan- they have their own stories going on for them too but I won't get into that

He grew up poor in a very bad family situation, let’s just say his dad was out of the picture & he never had a great paternal role model (other than his brother who was only 4 years older than him). his mother also struggled with addiction & depression and was eventually institutionalized at Parson’s Asylum. so through his teenage years he and Adrian lived with their grandmother (Ethan left and joined the army straight out of high school)

Music was his passion & life's ambition before the war: he plays guitar, trumpet, and piano (his favorite). he also loves to sing & he writes his own music (but NOT the lyrics bc he thinks he is bad with words/poetry)

He was going to college for robotics & computer programming but he dropped out to pursue a career as a musician; this is how he ended up working construction as his day job, and spending his nights entertaining at a club as part of a band in the pre-war combat zone (where he met Nora)

Then of course to be canon compliant he was drafted into the war (turns out he is great at it) which killed a little bit of his soul and fucked up one of his hands; afterwards he swore off violence & promised himself he would never take a life ever again for any reason (which causes him a lot of pain, self-hatred, & inner-conflict post-war as you can imagine)

Before the bombs dropped he was planning to go back to school to become a music teacher

He struggles with PTSD, alcohol abuse/dependency, and grief; basically he's a mess mentally but like who wouldn't be in his position tbh?

Personality-wise he’s a people pleaser and a peace-maker, he gets nervous easily and feels awkward often but he is really good at hiding it. most people think he is very easy-going and likeable with a winning smile (but really he just smiles and jokes/laughs a lot when he’s uncomfortable)

He would probably consider Piper to be his best friend, with Nick and Cait as close runner-ups, but he’s also extremely close to MacCready & Deacon (they sort of fill the bickering brother-shaped holes in his life)

Nick is his love-interest; slow-burn, lots of pining bc they both think the other isn’t interested (& they have Issues) so they don’t get their shit together until after Far Harbor (After the Institute’s destruction)

I don’t really have an over-arching story for him, I just love using Nate to write scenes & give life & detail to the Commonwealth/Fallout 4. So I’ve created a lot of side characters/OCs by giving names, faces, and personalities to the NPCs he meets (such as Minutemen, Triggermen, & Raiders)

this is a lot of information and it’s not even Everything about him! so feel free to ask more facts about him I would be happy to share!!!

I’ve posted a little bit of him HERE, HERE, & HERE (His face is inconsistent, I know, I haven’t got him “just right” yet)

Lenora Mission-Pearce (Nora or Lenny) - she/they

(sorry the only pic I have rn is a doodle I made with the vague idea of her in mind- I’m working on a character sheet!)

Lenora is my sole survivor in an alternate universe where Nate never comes back from Anchorage, so she is a widowed single mother raising Shaun on her own (+Codsworth ofc)

Since there’s no backup Kellogg is less inclined to shoot her when attempting to kidnap Shaun, so in the end they kidnap them Both

The Institute offer her a place to stay there with Shaun, which she accepts at first (feeling she has no choice)

Of course she’s very nosy and asks too many questions & gets on the nerves of the Director, she befriends some Gen 2 synths (they are more human than the Institute gives them credit for) and learns about the organic synth plan (they leave out they are using her son for it), and THEN she finds out that the director kidnapped the rest of the Vault 111 residents and is using them for FEV experimentation which is the last straw leading to a confrontation with the director

the fight goes Very Badly and she asks to leave which presents a problem for the Institute bc they can’t let her go (she knows too much) but they can’t kill her (she’s befriended too many scientists and they would mutiny if her termination ever got out) so they end up forcing her & Shaun back under freeze in Vault 111 (they got what they needed from Shaun, but might as well keep him safe under freeze in case they need him again)

SO eventually she gets released 60ish years later and she’s fucking PISSED and ready to start a war with the Institute but she also has to face the difficulties of raising an infant by herself in the wasteland

So overall it’s Lone Wolf and Cub sort of adventures, with her desire for revenge against the institute keeping her from settling down

BACKGROUND & PREWAR INFO - she grew up rich, her parents divorced when she was young, her dad is Boston’s District Attorney, she went to boarding school where she met and fell in love with Jennifer Lands, so eventually when Jenny moves to Boston with Nick she becomes roommates with Lenora (causing Lenora to want to leave her apartment often and get drunk, which is how she meets Nate), Nate becomes her best friend very quickly and she loves him a lot & marries him but she never considered herself “in love” with him like he was with her

POST-BOMBS, her best friends are Nick and Codsworth

her love interest is Hancock, it’s an enemies to friends to lovers dynamic, they clash and argue a lot but they come to respect each other, Hancock definitely falls first. eventually they rile each other up for fun because they like arguing with each other (and the sex is great)

personality wise Lenora is very straight-forward and blunt, she is competitive, prefers to get her way, and is extremely smart. she speaks her mind and isn’t afraid to make enemies by doing so. honest to a fault. she has a bit of a temper, but she has it very under control (she is a professional after all). she loves her son more than anything in this world and will destroy anything or anyone that threatens her and her baby

Lucinda Mission AKA "Cinder" (Cindy, Cici, Boss, Cinder) - ghoul - raider boss - she/her (pre-war) they/them (post-war) 

Lenora’s half-sibling (younger, father’s side)

They were a chemist before the war

They were on their way to Nora’s house to take Shaun to the park when the bombs dropped and they ended up ghoulified

By the time Nora finds them, Lucinda is the leader of a raider gang occupying the Ironworks by Finch Farm and goes by the name Cinder

They offer settlements in their “territory” protection from other gangs & defense from mutants in exchange for “taxes”

Eventually Cinder & Nora work together to create a unity/treaty between the settlements, minutemen, & raider gangs (but not without a lot of conflict and fights first)

Eventually they become the Nuka-World Overboss

They have an affinity for chems, fire, & demolition, and prefer to use the Shishkebob (flamesword) as weapon

Personality-wise they are a boss ass bitch and they know it, their sense of humor has been warped a bit over the centuries, they can be a hard-ass and even a bit cruel at times but they are a good person still at heart and command respect from their gang

No drawings of Cinder yet unfortunately :(

Amias - super mutant courier six - he/they

Amias’s story is a little muddy, especially to Amias himself who has a lot of memory problems already (getting shot in the head was no help there)

He was turned into a super mutant when he was twelve by his own mother who believed she was “saving” him - his memory of this is warped due to trauma so he thinks that someone was forcing her to do this

Since he was turned so young he is a bit smaller than most mutants, but also because of his age his body was able to adapt better and grow into his mutation than those that were turned as adults

He’s very smart, he has an affinity for computers and robots, and he loves to read and he writes poetry (his handwriting is not the best though)

After his mutation he is abandoned by his mother & “family” (the organization they were a part of) so for many years he wandered the west coast looking for them

Because of this he has wanderlust & gets restless being in one place for long

Eventually as he travelled people asked him to pass along messages & packages as he went and he found himself becoming a courier

He has forgotten most of what has happened in those years searching for his family and it bothers/haunts him, he remembers somethings in his dreams but they are startling & out of context and only serve to stress him out more wondering what part of him he is missing

During New Vegas he becomes close to Raul, Lily, and Arcade (and he never goes anywhere without Ed-e)

He develops a big crush on Arcade, but it is unrequited

He doesn’t like the NCR (and they don’t really like him either) and he hates the Legion, so after befriending Yes-man he fights for an independent (and mutant friendly) New Vegas - but he has no interest in running things so he leaves the Mojave afterwards

Eventually he hears rumors of the Memory Den and so he makes his way east, hopeful to recover his memory & the part of him he thinks is missing... (Where he can become a Companion and you can convince him whether or not the memories are important to his identity)

You can also see Amias HERE

Clyde T. Spade (Courier, Spade, or Clyde)- she/they/his (genderfluid)

I created Clyde by accident, they started out as just a courier I could juxtapose with drawings of Benny (because I find courier/Benny relationship vastly entertaining) but then I started giving her a personality

Spade & Benny’s relationship is volatile and defined by their attempts to kill each other, but they are also inexplicably attracted to each other which makes things weird and complicated

They end up taking over New Vegas together (after Spade has to chase Benny across half the damn Mojave and convince him they actually like the guy despite wanting to kill him sometimes)

I honestly don’t think I have much to say about him right now other than I love drawing a seductive little bastard giving Benny trouble

I don’t know, it’s like this:

you can also see Spade HERE & HERE

Sharps & Maverick (Troy Merritt & Brian Maverick/Z4-21, package deal)

these guys were my first ever fallout OCs, i think i first created them back in high school? I used to have a few drawings of them but they were on a flash drive that is unfortunately no longer with us (RIP)

Sharps & Maverick are business partners that run a caravan company out of the Commonwealth, at least that is what it is on the surface

Their company can be hired to provide protection (normal caravan guards, but also Advanced Protection), but they can also be hired as couriers & delivery across the Commonwealth

They don’t discriminate to whom they provide their services-- be it for the triggerman, gunners, raiders, settlers, the railroad, the brotherhood, etc.

They refuse to traffick people, but they do offer synths jobs on caravans so they can discretely leave the region

Sharps manages most of the business side, the money, the routes, etc.

Maverick doesn’t care much for the details of the business, he enjoys being hands on with the caravans and the people themselves, and he trains Deathclaws & Mutts to provide the company’s Advanced Protection services

The nature of their caravan is mostly hush-hush and underground, they do a lot of their transportation at night, so they’ve managed to go under the Institute’s radar for a long time until Maverick gets replaced by Z4-21

Sharps realizes something is wrong with Maverick pretty quickly, but he lacks the proof and conviction to do anything (but he does start filtering the information he tells Maverick)

This is where the Sole Survivor can come in, they can be introduced to their organization through the Railroad, the Brotherhood, or possibly the Minutemen (looking for an alliance to aid with supply lines)

(or I guess you can come with the Institute to try and destroy/take over the caravan company)

You can convince Sharps to hire you to investigate Maverick (it helps if you have Nick Valentine with you)

You can investigate Maverick’s bedroom & terminal, go to Maverick’s last known whereabouts before his noticeable personality change (according to Sharps), or you can tail Maverick to see/report if he does anything suspicious (you’ll probably have to do all three & make sure you get concrete evidence, Sharps takes a lot of convincing to betray/confront Maverick)

Of course you can confront “Maverick” directly and if you’re convincing enough he will confess to being a replacement, but he will tell you he means Sharps (and the company) no harm and doesn’t want to work for the Institute (it’s up to you to decide if he’s lying)

The ending and what happens to Maverick is really up to you

Depending on the outcome you choose, if you’re aligned with the minutemen but not charismatic enough for the local leader perk you can use Sharps’ caravan to establish supply lines between your settlements

If you got this far I am amazed, thank you so much for reading! If you have any questions about any of them, feel free to send me an ask or DM me! I’ll be posting character sheets eventually that will be much more palatable than this exhausting wall of text, so stay tuned! <3 <3 <3

[guardianspirits13]

I wanna talk about Natsuo Todoroki for a second here.

tw// mentions of abuse, self harm, and suicide

Natsuo visibly has the most emotional trauma out of anyone else in his family (Touya not included), and I really wanna talk about why that is.

For starters, we haven't seen him really smile since he was introduced in chapter 187. He's introduced as having a friendly, easygoing persona and it's easy to imagine this is how most people outside of his family know him. However, every time we see him appear since then, another layer of his trauma is revealed and expanded upon, and it cuts DEEP.

I think the main reason that Natsuo still seems so vulnerable compared to the rest of his family is different than what you'd assume. Fuyumi and Shouto both spend a lot of time around Endeavor, and have been in close proximity to his (relatively recent) decision to atone. They have seen his growth firsthand and come to terms with it. Rei has obviously taken a very different path to healing- not entirely voluntarily- but she has been working with doctors and therapists for years to change and recover and reconnect with herself and her children. Natsuo is off at college, and takes every opportunity he can to avoid Endeavor. He (understandably) wants nothing to do with him, and shows stagnant resistance to his attempts to atone.

The reason why Natsuo can't move on from the past is because his trauma didn't come from Endeavor. It came from Touya.

Now initially we were led to believe that it was simply Touya's untimely death that still bothers Natsuo, and it makes sense seeing how Endeavor drove him to the edge. Losing his best friend and brother as a young kid without parents to support him or any therapist to speak of can absolutely been the source of persistent emotional damage, but the more and more we learn about Touya's situation, the more evident it becomes that Natsuo's trauma is much much deeper than even grief.

Touya, as we know, was driven by an ambition instilled in him by his father and experienced extreme rejection sensitivity when those ambitions were no longer realistic. Touya's relationship with his parents could be described as insecure attachment, a psychological term primarily regarding how kids react and respond to their parents and other close relationships. As he was raised, Touya learned to equate his potential to be a hero with his personal worth and similarly confounded attention with love. The difference being, of course, that love is unconditional, but even attention was being continually directed away from him as a punishment for continuing to train and burn himself so he could once again become worthy in his fathers' eyes.

This is where Natsuo comes in. At first it was assumed that all of the Todoroki children were born out of Endeavor's strong-willed desire to have a child that could surpass All Might, but we learned that this isn't exactly the case. I'd argue that it was narratively poetic on Horikoshi's part once this was expanded upon. Fuyumi was born to support and encourage her brother, and that is the exact role she plays 23 years later, keeping her family together.

Natsuo's case is even more intersting.

It was bad enough if Natsuo was only born for the potential of his quirk, but it's even more sinister that the sole intent behind his birth was to discourage Touya from his ambitions. I'd say it was to replace him, but it was more to promote the idea that Touya was expendable than to raise aonther kid with the same ideals but the potential to actually achieve it, although that was definitely a secondary motivation.

The parallelism in this is how much Natsuo's life revolves around Touya. He was born because of Touya, he looked up to and took care of Touya as a kid, and the absence of Touya in the present continues to drive him and his decisions in life (but more on that later).

I continue to pray that we will eventually get more solid backstory on Natsuo and Touya's relationship as kids and where it cut off, wether on a bad note or not, but there are a few things we know for certain. One, Touya was mentally ill. Yes, he was rejected by his parents but he seems to have been particularly vulnerable to this compared to any of his siblings since he was the first of them and thus relied only on his parents for validation in his early years. He shows early signs of a variety of different mental disorders, particularly BPD, which I have previously written a whole analysis for on its own. Touya is shown self-harming both by the very nature of his quirk and even by very directly ripping his hair out. He was incredibly self-destructive.

This is why it is so much more concerning to me that Natsuo, who was AT LEAST four years younger than him, was his primary source of comfort. Natsuo was too young to have known anything more than 'my big brother is sad that daddy won't train him anymore' and he obviously wasn't equipped in any way to handle Touya's severe mental illness. Touya most definitely needed professional treaatment as his forms of coping were abnormal even for the neglect and rejection that he experienced. Natsuo comforted Touya through breakdown after breakdown, and more than that Touya relied on him and came to him voluntarily for support. Natsuo was the best option he had, and he took full advantage of that. The main source of Natsuo's trauma was Touya's reliance on him.

Not to say at all that this was in any way Touya's fault- he was mentally ill and desperately in need of some form of comfort to keep him sane; it was almost a survival method at this point since neither of his parents really acknowleged him at all anymore. Touya's instability hurt Natsuo more than parental neglect ever did, but it was the neglect that enabled it and striped Touya of the supportive atmosphere he would have needed at this point not only to prevent but to heal from the mental damage he had already suffered.

Natsuo dealt with this for years and you can see how much it hurt him to see Touya in so much pain, not only from Endeavor's rejection but from his own self harm as well. For Natuso to know that his brotherly love would never be the same as having loving parents; would neve be enough- but at least it was something so he continued to love and care about his brother for little in return- is indicative of the kind of character he is.

(Edit: After the events of chapter 302 we know that Natsuo's relationship with Touya wasn't perfect. I will elaborate more on this in a different post, but I just wanted to clarify that although we were shown a very high-tension scene between them, it is implied that this was a regular occurrence that Natsuo was usually more receptive too but tired out of, in addition to Touya's spiraling mental health. It fit with the natrative to show the tension Touya was feeling with his family from all directions, but Natsu and Touya clearly had a stronger relationship up to and before this point, evidenced by their sharing a room and playing together regularly.)

He is incredibly selfless, and it's interesting to note how many of his positive qualities as an adult stem from negative experiences as a kid. He never really felt love from his parents, so he relied on Touya (and likely also Fuyumi) for that as well. If he grew up learning he had to give love in order to recieve it back, it absolutely influenced who he became in the future, a solid example of this being the responsibility he feels to reach out and have a relationship with Shouto and further regrets that he wasn't able to help his abuse in the past either. Another aspect of his character that intruigues me is how gentle he is. Personality-wise he seems about as opposite as he could be from the awkward, stoic, emotionally-stunted person that is Endeavor.

There are a couple of reasons for this, beyond what I've already discussed.

One, he had little to no contact with elements of toxic masculinity growing up, especially not from Endeavor.

Two, most of the influence he did have growing up was from Fuyumi, who is established to have endlessly cared for him since he was a literal baby.

Three, he grew up in a household where almost everyone around him was in much more literal, immediate pain than he was so he developed a very strong sense of empathy that might also have been tied to early survivor's guilt.

Now I have one important distinction to make, and that's the temptation to label him as a 'softboy' or something of the like after seeing him caring for his family and more pointedly, watching him break down in tears during chapter 252. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with men being soft or vulnerable (on the contrary it's actually so so important and relevant that Hori is writing characters like this in a mainstream shounen manga but that's an essay for another time), it is unfair to label him as such based on a moment when his trauma is being exposed.

Because his truama stems from such a young age, there is a blurry line between just being born with more emotional intelligence and the situation he was in fostering those traits. You know, the classic nature/nurture thing. My point being, it's important to tread carefully when discussing the nature of his personality to avoid invalidating his trauma; I have no doubt that he is very strong for having survived these things, and the moments we see of him onscreen are definitely among his most vulnerable.

Another thing that people less familiar with Natsuo's character might assume is that he is hot-headed and argumentative. I thought that at first too- after all, he doesn't seem to shy away from yelling at Endeavor when given the opportunity. However, this doesn't seem to be the case at all.

The first real scene we see him in with Endeavor, the man walks into the room and Natsuo decides he can't handle it and goes to leave. However, Endeavor happens to be blocking the doorway. Endeavor physically stops him and provokes him to his face, asking him to say whatever is on him mind. While Natsuo is notably not confrontational, Endeavor is. I think it's fair to say that he felt at least uneasy at this gesture. Natsuo is very honest with his feelings, and it's obvious that he's pissed at the audacity of Endeavor to be so oblivious to his own son. This is presumably one of the first real interactions they've ever really had, and at this point Natsuo has been dealing with trauma (caused by Endeavor!) on his own for years, and Endeavor seems completely oblivious to his pain and dismmisive to the rest of the family's as well.

Again during the internship arc Natsuo tries to get along with Endeavor and this time he actually gives it a fleeting chance. Tensions are high, however, and the conversation very quickly becomes uncomfortable, at which point he leaves. It is continually implied that Natsuo is uncomfortable being around Endeavor because his very presence brings up painful thoughts and memories of a time when sharing the same space as him was a warning to run and hide. This is later directly confirmed by Natsuo as he says that every time he looks at Endeavor's face he remembers Touya and the pain he was in.

I feel like an important side note is that we have never seen Natsuo outside the context of his family, which is understandable, as the role he plays in the story directly relates to them. However, if you take a look at Shouto, even though his experiences have shaped him to become who he is, he definitely acts differently when Endeavor's not in the vicinity.

Back to Touya's death, it would be very rare that someone would mourn a death for an entire decade without finding closure unless there are other factors preventing it, and uncomfortably this seems to be the same thing for both Natsuo and Endeavor: guilt.

This is getting incredibly long already, but it's important to note that Natsuo probably felt an incredible responsibility to take care of Touya and protect him because of his empathetic nature. His love was never going to be the same as having loving parents. His encouragement was never going to be the same as having support from Endeavor. Even further than then neglect and abandonement, it was not being able to save Touya that really made Natsuo feel worthless.

He seems to try and remedy this inability to save Touya and diminish his guilt by doing everything he can to be better. He reaches out to Shouto to be a better brother, he consistently pushes his limits to entertain Fuyumi's notion of a happy family, and he's working hard towards a degree rhat will allow him to help people like Touya (and Rei) because he failed to do so in the past.

His bio mildly implies that he didn't have much of a direction he was heading in after high school, but Fuyumi's encouragement led him to seek out his current college career. This goes back to Natsuo's 'purpose' in a sense revolving arount Touya, from his birth to his relationship with him to his death, after which he lost his direction. They were always rather inseperable, so naturally their seperation hit Natsuo hard. He lost his direction in life so when Fuyumi encouraged him to rediscover it, he thought of helping people, because that's ultimately what he was born to do.

Thank you so, so much for reading this if you made it to the end! I clearly have a lot of thoughts on this. Let me know what you think about it as well, and hopefully we'll get more info on this soon in the manga :)

[fishyfod]

Winter & Yang Parallels and Contrasts

A comparison of Winter Schnee and Yang Xiao Long, and how they are shaped by their society and circumstances.

Or a thinly veiled excuse to gush about two characters I like

[gif by 5by5brittana]

This is split into four parts:

Pre Volume 1 backstory and characteristics

Relationship with younger siblings

Parallel Journeys between V1-5 and V7-8

Rough Speculation for Volume 8

Spoilers for RWBY V8 E1-7. Under the cut because this turned out very long.

Also, take this with a grain of salt? I wrote this for fun. This really is just, me going off the deep end.

I. Childhood and Upbringing

Winter and Yang are both the eldest children of their respective families, and have spent most of their lives growing up in the shadows of their legacies: the Schnee name and the fallout of team STRQ. These legacies are tragedies, and for better and for worse Winter and Yang are in the unique position where they also know the before, the brief time their families were whole (at least on paper). As their families broke apart, Winter and Yang have felt the need to fill the parent role for their younger siblings (more on that later).

This is the curse of the parent-sibling*, in which the lines between adulthood, childhood and parenthood are all blurred together when one is still a child. Winter grew up as Willow and Jacques’s facade of a marriage slowly fell apart and Willow turned to alcohol, leaving Weiss and Whitley under the care of  Jacques - a manipulative abuser - and someone had to step up between him and Weiss and Whitley. Klein, it should be noted, was the exception to the rule, as most staff reported to Jacques. Yang never had Raven, she lost Summer and for a while Taiyang after he shut down - someone had to take care of Ruby. Qrow just couldn’t be a full-time replacement to any of them

* [I believe the professional term is “parentification”.]

[RWBY Official Manga Anthology Vol. 4: I Burn]

This is Winter and Yang’s own personal tragedy, and as inspiring as it might seem from the outside - a mature, responsible child that helps parent their younger sibling - it is not at all healthy for the child in question. It does not matter if things might’ve improved later, the damage has already been done. Parent-siblings tend to become caretakers as well, and this manifests in both Yang and Winter, albeit in very different ways.

Which leads me to the next point, which is to emphasize the differences in both of these scenarios. The expectations from the Schnee name are very much a product of high-class society and Atlas superiority, which is very different from STRQ’s private falling out. Winter is roughly 7 and 10 years older than Weiss and Whitley, so she’s about 12 when Weiss (5 at the time) would become more aware of Jacques’s behavior, 17 when Willow began drinking. Yang was about 6 when Summer disappeared and the trek to the woods happened, and it is unknown for how long Taiyang shut down. Willow became seriously depressed just before Winter left for Atlas, whereas Taiyang eventually got back on his feet. Winter was abused by Jacques, Yang was abandoned by Raven.

Winter’s speech often involves doublespeak with hidden meanings, a strict deference to decorum, and a fair share of veiled (or unveiled) insults. She is closed off, and rarely engages in open physical contact. In private with her siblings or close friends, she tends to be softer, and may hug or pat on one’s shoulders. She has learnt this behavior in order to navigate Atlas society and quell her father whilst protecting herself and her siblings. Unfortunately, Klein appears to be the only staff to put the children’s needs before his servitude to Jacques, so even Winter’s interactions with Weiss and Whitley are soured by this prim, and at times, hurtful behavior; even then appearances must be kept. This is why Winter doesn’t act like a typical “Mom friend”, and why her need to take care of others manifests differently: in her conscience and willpower to protect others. Hence, she trains to become a huntress, the personification of protection, a way to help despite her difficulties expressing that need more conventionally.

Yang is open and outgoing, an easy conversationalist and very physically affectionate with her peers. She is upbeat, and also tactful at the same time. Why? Some of it has to do with her severe abandonment issues, making her more prone to bask in her connections to others. Equally important are the experience and circumstances she had growing up. She grew up in Patch, a relatively small community that is at best middle class. She had Ruby - only two years younger - to entertain and to teach, and in such a small household that also means many chores and mundane responsibilities to take on. By all accounts, Taiyang made enough of a recovery from his depression to parent well enough, and seems a fairly affectionate person himself. With all this encouragement and learnt skills, little hinders Yang from caring for Ruby and others openly and proudly. Ergo, Yang acts like a “Mom friend”.

These are Winter and Yang’s main personas, one uncaring and one unreserved. It is only natural that away from prying eyes or when put on the edge, they drop the facade and act contrary to it. For example, when Winter is angry or provoked, she lashes out and loses her composure. Usually, when Yang is angry she acts quite cold and restrained in her anger, and tries to project an unaffected persona. Alone with those she loves, Winter is more open and talkative, where Yang allows herself to be melancholic.

Yang may be open and candid, and could even be described as wearing her heart on her sleeve, but she is extremely reticent when admitting weakness or sharing her own personal grievances. Which is incredibly like Winter, though she is also taciturn in general. They have a tendency to avoid creating truly personal connections with others. They’re both used to putting on mask of strength and reassurance, and are quite adept at controlling their emotions (to a point). This is a defensive mechanism - they emulate the adults in their lives (who know the values of keeping up appearances) since they do not believe they will be taken seriously otherwise. They have internalized that no one will act on their behalf unless they offer something in return. By acting quasi-maternally to their younger siblings, they continue this act because it’s how they think a responsible adult should raise children.

[RWBY Official Manga Anthology Vol. 2: Mirror, Mirror]

The “practice” in home on their sisters developed in them the belief they should put others before themselves, even outside their family. Selfless as it may be, without moderation this behavior could be quite unhealthy. The lack of concern to themselves makes them feel lost and without purpose, with low self esteem and self-destructive tendencies.

Winter gives up the luxury of the Schnee inheritance for servitude in the army, a perfect place for someone who believes herself expendable. She says her personal feelings don’t matter, and is willing to throw down her life for others. Sounds familiar? Yang wants to become a huntress, which conveniently allows her to help others while drifting along life with no true purpose. She has very low self esteem initially, and her semblance literally benefits her taking hits for everyone else.

Intertwined with this, is a desire to find purpose, and to find value in oneself. They seek independence and a sense of control. For Winter, this meant training in the Atlas Academy and abdicating the title of Schnee Heiress. She remembers well when she could no longer rely on her father’s allowance. For Yang, it’s having a bike of her own and going out at night. She becomes protective of her appearance and long hair.

It’s worth noting that particularly a physical aspect of this independence - fighting - was something taught to them by the neglectful parents. Taiyang taught Yang to fight hand-to-hand before Beacon, and the hereditary nature of the Schnee semblance means Willow was most likely Winter’s first mentor.

Part of this behavior is also a need to escape the situation at home. With Winter that goes without saying - Jacques is abusive. Yang wants to leave the home she held together when she was a child; note her desire to travel the world, and her attempts to distance herself from Ruby so she won’t have to be relied upon even at Beacon.

In a sense, they’re both searching for the same thing - a parent to replace the ones who failed them. Ironwood and Raven both offer to be their replacement parent, at the cost of asking the children to leave with them to a new home, the one they’re leading and ruling. This doesn’t fix their family problem, and personally I believe neither Winter nor Yang full-heartily saw it as a solution, but they were both desperate enough to find anyone - anyone at all - that would take a weight off their shoulders and put them first. Yang searches for Raven, hoping she’ll find in her a mother despite everything. Fortunately for her, Qrow saved her from running after Raven prematurely. Unfortunately for Winter, James’s close friendship with Jacques meant he has known her from a young age, had observed how Jacques manipulates her and her family, and eventually offered himself as a savior from her situation at home. He had subtly groomed her into thinking the military - and more importantly, himself - was her only option to escape Jacques.

Despite this major difference, some similarities between Yang and Raven’s relationship and Winter and Ironwood’s relationship persist: the bandit lifestyle Raven offers Yang is militant and violent, similar to Ironwood’s army. Yang’s learnt conditional trust in authority would fit quite well with a bandit hierarchy built on perceived strength. Winter’s authoritarian outlook lends itself quite well to rise up in the ranks of the military.

Lastly, I’d like to point out the “inherited” philosophies of their respective replacement parents:

Raven’s philosophy: The weak die, so the strong survive on their own.

Yang’s philosophy: If I am not strong, I am weak and will be alone.

Ironwood’s philosophy: Every sacrifice is worth the cause.

Winter’s philosophy: I am not worth anything, so I can be sacrificed.

They’re all destructive mindsets, but the children inverted the implied destruction caused to others into their own self-destruction, in concordance with their shared need to put others before themselves. Part of the children’s progression will be to rise above these philosophies.

II. Yang & Ruby vs. Winter & Weiss

In the previous section I explained why Winter and Yang both act quasi-maternal and how it affected their growth and character. Now let’s examine their primary familial relationship, with their younger sisters Weiss and Ruby.

The simple truth is that much of what I said about Winter and Yang’s childhood is equally true for Weiss and Ruby, which could be explained quite easily - there’s only so much a child can do to replace adults. The important distinction is that for Weiss and Ruby someone did put them above everyone else, and that’s Winter and Yang. Consciously or by instinct, the elder sisters wanted to provide the younger sisters the safety they felt robbed off, and to give them the opportunity to grow and live as children like they couldn’t. In turn, the younger siblings put them on a pedestal and idolized them.

It is heavily implied Winter acted as a buffer between Jacques and Weiss, and was her confidant. Note how fluently they communicate their true thoughts  to each other by hiding them in sneers and insults, yet drop all pretense in private and speak clearly what’s on their mind then. Winter worries about Weiss’s health and well-being, and isn’t interested in her studies and ranking; this is a deliberate choice to belie what Jacques instilled in Weiss, to put her happiness before her image. Winter mentored Weiss’s semblance training and is her harshest critic. She was Weiss’s main motivator to rebel against Jacques, and advised her to cut ties with the Schnee name like herself; she warns her of the futility in trying to reason with their father on his own terms. Winter encouraged Weiss to follow in her footsteps as a huntress, and also in her decision to figure herself out independently.

Yang, in her own words, was the one to hold everything together following Summer’s disappearance. She protected Ruby from feeling loveless and alone as she herself felt, by putting herself there where Taiyang couldn’t be. She gave her attention, she read to her and hugged her. She played with her and entertained her, and went along with every joke and scheme Ruby wanted to make. She enables Ruby to let loose and have fun, to take pride in her accomplishments and to stand up for herself. It’s important for Yang to show her support and pride in Ruby as frequently as she does, most likely to compensate the times Tai couldn’t. Among her family, Ruby goes to Yang when she is worried and afraid. Yang truly was Ruby’s best friend growing up.

Note how both Winter and Yang instilled values in Weiss and Ruby that are better than their own, and encouraged them to be better than themselves. They want them to actively search for happiness, although they themselves seem incapable of following the same advise - Winter went to a thankless job with little reward, Yang is afraid of forming friendships that are not just surface deep. The younger, prodigal sisters are assertive and have set themselves clear goals and ambitions in contrast to their elder sisters, who both prefer to follow and dedicate themselves to others.

[gif by deshieart]

The idyllic picture I described here is not complete. Winter and Yang may have significantly improved Weiss and Ruby’s childhood, but in their limited power as children - or perhaps their simple human limitations - there are blind spots in their relationships. There are issues the younger sisters have separate from the ones the elders tried to shield them from.

Winter still grew up in Atlas and under Jacques, and she is not immune from the dangerous influence of both. Early on, Weiss seemed to believe in similar ideas, and part of that behavior is due to Winter’s influence. Although Winter’s escape from home is understandable, it must’ve left some Weiss bitter being left behind. Winter forwent the Schnee name, where Weiss wants to  change it for the better, and part of me can’t help but think Weiss’s conviction was affected by Winter leaving home.

As she grew up, Yang had two main caretakers - Taiyang and Qrow - who both experience difficulties addressing and sharing their problems openly. Yang, in turn, learnt not to share her own issues and put on a reassuring facade. She compartmentalizes, keeping her issues separate from what she shared with Ruby. But children are more perceptive than we might think, and Ruby must have picked up on Yang’s behavior and took it in. Ruby has her own version of keeping to herself - she ignores her problems and represses, avoiding the issue altogether with seemingly no healthy outlet. [x]

The narrative of the show tends to juxtapose these relationships against each other, cutting from one to the other and comparing them side by side, parallel or anti-parallel. The most obvious contrast is in their warmth: in Volume 3, Winter and Weiss are polite and reserved even privately, having lunch at an outdoor cafe. Yang and Ruby are loud and brash, playing video games and ribbing each other with their uncle. Winter pushes Weiss to confront Jacques directly, Yang seems content to support Ruby’s initiative by following her.

In volumes 4 and 5, the narrative matches the sisters in opposites: it is Yang and Weiss that are bound home and want to leave, and Winter and Ruby fighting in Mistral. Yang and Weiss overcome their personal struggles, and view their sister as their salvation, but end up finding each other first by chance (incidentally, Yang “returns” to Raven at the same time Winter returns to Atlas back to Ironwood). Meanwhile, Winter and Ruby become aware of Salem and the larger war at play.

When they are united with their sisters, this trend continues as Yang initiates the hug with Ruby and stops her nervous blabbering, and Weiss hugs Winter to stop her alarmed frenzy. Yang and Weiss reassure Ruby and Winter of their well-being.

[gif by sirianhewigxiii]

Come Volume 7, Winter returns as a full-time character and we see how after their respective reunions, the sisters return to their preestablished roles. Winter and Yang support Weiss and Ruby in their decisions and actions, listening to their younger sisters as they did before. Now, however, the sisters are on a more even footing: Weiss is now free of Jacques like Winter, Yang acts more assertive like Ruby. As a result, the relationship is less one-sided. For example, though Winter is not as doubtful of Ironwood as Weiss, she listens to her input and divulges a secret to her, showing that despite having differing opinions they begin to see each other as equals. Yang goes along with Ruby’s plan to hide Salem’s immortality from Ironwood (and even takes it a step further when she reveals Amity to Robyn), but she’s not afraid to tell her she doesn’t feel comfortable with that decision. It’s a step up from what they had before.

In the finale of Volume 7 and the premiere of Volume 8, the bonds between sisters are challenged, and they separate from each other. Winter chooses her loyalty to Ironwood over her trust in Weiss, Yang chooses her conscience over her innate trust in Ruby. Mind, these situations are not completely the same: the split between Ruby and Yang is pragmatic and they still view themselves as united, the split between Weiss and Winter is ideological and they are on different sides of the conflict.

I’ll leave my speculation what will happen to the sisters in the latter half of Volume 8 for the last section.

II.V - Winter & Whitley

A brief aside about Whitley, would be to ask if what I said about Winter’s relationship with Weiss could also apply to Whitley. The answer is of course no, Whitley and Winter clearly have an entirely different relationship here. Frankly, pinpointing its exact nature more precisely is difficult, since the center of the Schnee narrative is Weiss and we have little interactions between the Schnees that don’t involve her. I cannot offer you a definite reason as to why the difference exists, but I have a few guesses.

I’ll assume what we see of Weiss and Whitley in volumes 4 and 7 is similar to what Winter and Whitley had, and take into account Weiss’s statement that Whitley never really liked Winter (or her).  As Willow pointed out to Weiss, Whitley was left alone with Jacques, and began imitating him and emulating his hurtful behavior. Jacques took him under his wing, when Willow was at her worst, Winter away, and Weiss in the process of leaving. Deep down he understands he was being abused by Jacques, but with the cards stacked against him his damaging attitude becomes clearer - and particularly, the likely reasons he resents Winter and Weiss for.

[gif by chittychittyyangyang]

So how come Weiss and Whitley turned out so different, and how does Winter factor into this? For starters, I’ll point out again that Winter’s influence on the Schnee household is very limited, and that humans tend to make mistakes. For her to gloss over Whitley, or to presumably ignore him, could be due to several reasons. Perhaps connecting with someone 10 years your junior was just too difficult. Maybe Jacques intervened more often with Whitley, seeing as he was younger and impressionable.

It’s difficult to tell what exactly happened here between Whitley and Winter, and I don’t think specifying here is helpful. I’ll sum up by saying that however their relationship turned sour, I lean towards the reason being human error rather than malicious intent. Family situations tend to be complicated.

III. Yang & Blake vs. Winter & Penny

Here I want to talk about more subtle parallels between Yang’s journey throughout volumes 1-5 and Winter’s journey in volumes 7-8.5. The major comparison here would be between Yang and Blake’s relationship, and Winter and Penny’s relationship.

Before I begin, I’d like to stress that although Bumbleby is clearly romantic in nature, here I’m more interested in their development separate from the romantic aspects of it. As such, it’s not my intention here to argue in favor of romantic Winter/Penny, though I have nothing against it. I view it more as a platonic relationship with some familial undertones.

I explained in the first section how Yang and Winter keep people at arm’s length, so it’s natural to wonder about the exceptions to that rule, their relationships with Blake and Penny respectively. When they meet their new partners, Yang and Winter seem mostly set in their ways, with no real tangible goal beyond wanting to help others where they can. To them, Blake and Penny are a breath of fresh air, determined and purposeful, and they’re challenged by their perspective.

To me at least, how Yang and Blake interact during Beacon is quite similar to what we see of Winter and Penny’s relationship in volume 7. It starts off as a working relationship, but the continuous presence around each other has lead it into easy affection. It’s a give-and-take of differing personalities finding common ground, though here the more apt analogy would be Yang/Penny and Winter/Blake. They begin feeling safe with one another, opening up and sharing intimate details about themselves, and the other’s opinion and well-being matter to them. They even work well together as fighting partners.

[gif by chittychittyyangyang]

Yang tells Blake about Raven and her complicated family life, partially in an attempt to stop Blake from overworking herself. After Winter’s outburst at Jacques, she shares with Penny her vulnerability regarding her family, and tells her she can’t let her emotions take control of her. Neither Blake nor Penny accept their lessons at face value, and question those beliefs. Was Blake’s determination really like Yang’s quest to find Raven? Are Winter’s emotions truly a hindrance and Penny should follow suit? Still, their disagreements don’t stop them from caring about each other, as we see when Yang hugs Blake and Winter holds Penny’s hands.

Blake is a faunus rights activist who fights for what she believes in, and Yang admires her for it, and is also subtly inspired by her. Penny is dedicated to her role as the Protector of Mantle, and Winter is endeared by her devotion to the cause. In both cases however, this beautiful aspiration is soured by Adam and Ironwood, who use Blake and Penny’s noble efforts for their own gain.

Next both relationships experience a “falling out”. Yang fights to save Blake from Adam at the end of Volume 3, and sacrifices her right arm trying to protect Blake. At the end of Volume 7, Winter and Penny fight Cinder, and Winter sacrifices her body (and purpose as a Winter Maiden) for Penny. We have Yang and Winter, defeated and critically injured, left behind by Blake and Penny, both running away from their controlling abusers Adam and Ironwood.

There’s an interesting tidbit here about their natures as characters, as both “falling outs” hammer on a shared flaw between the couples. Yang and Blake are both afraid of putting their trust in someone else, one is afraid of being deemed unsatisfactory and the other afraid of hurting by association. Winter and Penny are both self-sacrificial, the former thinks her opinion and thoughts are worthless, the latter wishes to put all the weight of the world on her shoulders. The finales and aftermaths of volumes 3 and 7 are a cruel display of these flaws.

Yang and Winter are both injured enough to require a replacement for parts of their bodies, a robotic arm and an exoskeleton. The supplier of both limbs is Ironwood, who projects himself onto both women, “rewarding” them for selfless acts of heroic sacrifice like he sees himself. He saw Yang’s fight the the tournament, criticized her harshly for it, then heard about her noble sacrifice and told her he wishes she’d return fighting soon. He groomed Winter to be his second, scolds her when she disobeys him, and after her injury emphasizes her importance to him. It seems to me that Ironwood attempted to make Yang indebted to himself like he managed with Winter before.

The process of recovery for both women is difficult, and in Winter’s case rushed. On a purely physical level it could be argued they have recovered from their injuries, as both eventually return to the field after their recovery. If we consider their emotional state, things become trickier; though Yang was at first offered a fairly lengthy recovery period on her own terms, in Volume 4 her main motivation to recover is not for herself but for other’s sake - appeasing Tai and worrying for Ruby. Similarly, Winter’s recovery is overshadowed by Ironwood’s orders and the current situation’s time constraints.

This behavior on Yang and Winter’s part is not so strange to me, when I consider Taiyang and Ironwood’s roles in their lives. Because of Taiyang’s issues when she was a child, Yang learnt to put others before herself, particularly when it concerns Ruby and Tai. Yang’s recovery becomes less about herself and more about others after Tai subtly insults her intelligence and her “moping”. I view this as falling back into old habits, Yang learning that if Tai is put through too much then she’s taken too much space (she puts on her arm after overhearing Tai saying he has to stay to take care of her), and must compensate by putting Ruby (and in a sense Tai) first.

[gif by sister-ilia]

After accepting Winter to the army, Ironwood acts as some form of surrogate father to her. Winter looks up to him because he offered her safety from Jacques, and looks for his approval constantly. Look at her reactions when she’s scolded by Ironwood for misbehavior. Ironwood offered her asylum in exchange for subservience. When Winter is in her hospital, he first reminds her how reassuring it is to have her on his side, and then proceeds to kill a councilman for disagreeing with him. It’s an indirect threat against Winter, one carefully cultivated throughout their working relationship in the military.

Regardless, the physical recovery is only part of a larger process Yang and Winter have to go through. Volume 5 made it quite apparent Yang suffers from PTSD and emotional trauma from her fight with Adam, and Blake leaving triggered Yang’s fear of abandonment. She faces Raven for the first time, and is haunted by Blake’s mere mention. She struggles against the past - the parent she wanted to put hope unto - and the future - the hope she has in Blake.

Winter faces similar struggles in the first half of Volume 8 parallel to Yang in Volume 5. She is traumatized by the fight against Cinder, most likely with PTSD as well, and Penny leaving as she did has shook her inner beliefs. For the first time, we see her visibly struggling to adhere to Ironwood’s orders with ease, and she’s deeply concerned for Penny’s well-being. She is torn between her loyalty - to Ironwood, the parent she put her trust in - and her moral compass - to Penny, who challenged her to follow her feelings.

Coincidentally, RWBY chose to portray Yang and Winter’s stress with a shaking fist, where they were injured. Having said that, Winter displays many similar physical ticks like that before her injury, but the deliberate focus on the same tick as Yang is too great for me to ignore.

Both of these struggles are also marked by a decisive choice to take action and be assertive, which is remarkable where these two are concerned. Yang forms the plan to find Ruby via Raven and refuses her offer to join the tribe. Winter forgoes Ironwood’s orders to bring team JYR to custody, and instead relies on them to save Oscar from the Whale.

Yang’s recovery does not in Volume 5 either (nor does it end in Volume 6 for that matter), but at the moment Winter’s parallel arc is unfinished. I’ll speculate about this a bit more in the next section.

IV. Rough Speculation

So when I say rough speculation, I mean it in two different ways. One, is that I’m mostly focused on characters arcs, and they’ll be fairly abstract. Two, is that I’m fairly sure most of these parallels are accidental and not intended, so I don’t hold much hope any of these will come true. Instead, think of these as “if I wanted to make these parallels intentional, how would the story proceed next?”

One parallel I do think is intentional is between the sisters. It is the first time we observe both relationships put into the test, and the outcome of this split will obviously change the sister’s dynamic with each other. How will these two relationships compare to one another by the end of the volume, I do not know, the current arc isn’t finished yet. I can only comment on how I want and hope these relationships will proceed. Currently, I see the physical split between the sisters as an opportunity to reevaluate themselves independently of the other’s influence. And, I think this change will be positive for all of them.

Though it’s obvious Yang’s choice deeply affects Ruby and will contribute to her expected breaking point, I think Ruby will come out stronger at the end of it. Yang’s choice to take charge herself is obviously very important to her growth as a person. Given how RWBY framed their split around a mutual understanding both sisters’ viewpoints are correct, I don’t think their reconciliation will be one-sided - they will come to understand where the other is coming from, and their relationship - and team RWBY - will grow from it.

Despite the difference in circumstances, I think Winter and Weiss will echo this development as well. Jacques may be mostly neutralized, but the Schnee family won’t be miraculously healed because of it. At the moment, Weiss is facing that reality now with Whitley and Willow, and I think her arc this volume will lead her to begin healing her family in earnest. Winter will almost definitely leave Ironwood, and for the first time in her life she’ll be free from someone seeking to control her, free to follow her conscience. It will also give her an opportunity to reconcile with her family without Jacques’s influence, which ties in quite nicely with Weiss’s arc - Weiss pulling her family together, Winter letting herself be pulled to them. Weiss and Winter’s bond will come out stronger, and the Schnees will finally have a chance to heal.

[gif by wnterschnee]

You might’ve noticed I put a lot of emphasis on when and where Winter and Yang make choices for themselves, because I think these moments are vital for them to grow as a person. Starting with Volume 5, there’s a been a slow progression where Yang asserts herself more often, which culminates in her decision in Volume 8 to break away from Ruby with her own objective. Like her, Winter in Volume 7 quite often disagrees with Ironwood’s plans, yet follows them anyway because of her loyalty to him. This loyalty is no longer enough to sway her in Volume 8 when she starts disobeying his orders.

Again, I’m comparing two unfinished arcs, but I’m excited to see where this development will lead us. Having Winter and Yang parallel each other like so would really hammer home how similar these two can be beneath the surface. If at some point it involves more direct contact to drive each other, that’d just be icing on the cake. For now I’ll enjoy that their only personal interaction with each other is Yang telling Winter “[she’s] still just following orders?”, followed by a glare - hopefully this preludes a future conversation between them talking about this exact point.

I’ve already touched upon predictions related to the first two parts of this analysis, what about the third? Here we can go a bit wilder, because we already know what happens to Yang (and Blake) in Volumes 5 and 6. How would I mirror Volumes 5 and 6 with Winter (and Penny)? When I think of Yang’s recovery arc, two major scenes at the ends of Volume 5 and 6 come to mind.

The first is her confrontation with Raven in the Maiden Vault, an incredibly powerful scene where Yang properly confronts Raven and calls out her cowardice. One of the reasons it works so well is how difficult it is to realize Raven’s place in Yang’s life is not clear cut; Yang hates her for abandoning her and shirking her responsibilities as a parent, yet there is still love between them. Raven’s reaction itself is both an admission of care when she concedes to Yang, and also another failure on her part by leaving her off with the responsibility, running away again. In simpler terms, Yang reluctantly confronts someone she cares for deeply, yet isn’t on her side.

Who would be the Raven to Winter in a parallel scenario? One possibility is Ironwood, who holds a similar position to Winter as Raven did to Yang. Ironwood is an almost paternal figure to Winter, but he’s making wrong and dangerous choices, and Winter seems to realize it as well. He used her and exploited her, but also offered her safety and stability. Even after Winter defects, I don’t think Winter will want to fight him physically (if she’s capable), and would probably attempt to sway him with her words. Admittedly I don’t foresee Winter’s attempt at non-aggression to be successful like Yang, so it might come to blows anyway.

A second possibility it to put Penny in Raven’s place. Given that Penny’s also Maiden like Raven, and she’s on her way to the Atlas Vault, there’s some potential thematic parallels. Given their established relationship, I think neither would want to confront each other physically, and would rather talk instead. It’s possible here Winter and Penny will switch metaphorical roles, and it might be Penny that gives Winter the final push towards the heroes sides. It’s also possible, given Penny’s hacked plot line, that Winter will instead have to sway Penny back from whatever the hacking did to her. The last interpretation would also fit in quite well with Winter and Penny’s arc focusing on personal choice and feelings winning over.

The other incredibly important scene in Yang’s arc is the Bumbleby vs. Adam fight. Blake and Yang finally liberate themselves from Adam, Blake’s abuser and Yang’s personal enemy, and they defeat him by working together. Yang is freed of her personal demons, Blake of her literal demons, and in the aftermath of his death they mend their relationship. Their trust in each other won over strength.

[gif by sister-ilia]

If a parallel scene to the Nevermore fight would exist for Winter and Penny, I can think of three characters that could fulfill Adam’s role. Cinder already set her eyes on Penny and is fairly likely to fight her again, and in their previous clash injured Winter. It matches fairly well plot-wise, but I don’t think Cinder is enough of a personal villain to either Penny or Winter to match the same gravitas as Adam. For similar reasons, Watts, Penny’s “puppeteer”, can also fill Adam’s proverbial shoes in this imagined scenario, but I fear he’s too inconsequential overall.

Or, it could be Ironwood in Adam’s place. Ironwood seeks to control Penny (like Adam did with Blake), and acts as Winter’s personal demon (like Adam was to Yang) by continuously conditioning her to repress herself. Like the Nevermore fight, there’s a motive for them to avoid killing him, but given Ironwood’s current state of mind he might push them to that edge in self defense. Even if Ironwood’s defeat would not involve death, it would be a liberate Penny and Winter, freeing them from his control once and for all - but a Pyrrhic victory all the same. I’ll admit, this might be my favorite way to defeat Ironwood.

Coda

I’ll emphasize one last thought regarding these character arcs -  it is my strong belief character progressions, and healing arcs in particular, do not have a clear and set timeline. What I outlined here are not endings, but steps in the way. RWBY seems to agree with my train of thought, and with Yang in particular we see this in her current arc: yes, she has progressed immensely from Volume 3, but the healing process does not simply end, even if it may seem that way on the surface. I approach Winter’s character in the same manner; I have high hopes of her character and as a person, but change is an ongoing process, and I’ll treat it as such.

Thanks for reading my analysis! I know it’s a bit long and messy, I’ve had to skim through some ideas that could be expanded upon, so send an ask my way if you’d like me to elaborate on anything.

Other interesting reads:

Kali-tmblr’s essay regarding siblings relationships.

Tumblingxelian’s review of Yang’s Volume 4 arc.

Petracore’s review of Winter’s Volume 7 arc.

Theseerasures’s comparison of Winter and Yang.

Schneefamilyincorrectquotes talking about Schneeblings.

[slytherinsnekxvii]

let's talk about severus snape. he's one of the most controversial characters the internet has to offer, with several blogs, channels and pages dedicated specifically to hating him, despite him having one of the most—if not the most—intriguing character arcs the series has to offer. so, as a result of me coming across far too many of said blogs, channels or pages, here's an extremely detailed explanation of why i like him and think he's easily one of my favourite characters :)

1. he's not that bad of a teacher.

just so you know, i'm a teenage girl fresh out of high school. so, my experience with teachers? still keeps me up at night :)

my family is pretty strict about religion. you can guess what that means. anything that was magic-adjacent, especially something that, god forbid, had an entire school dedicated to witchcraft and wizardry was a hard no if i wanted to have any sort of freedom over the media i paid attention to, and any opportunity to go about my life without being monitored to make sure i wasn't suddenly possessed or something. thanks to this, i ended up secretly reading the philosopher's stone in my last year of primary school. i would've been 11 at the time, just about to turn 12, so a little bit older than harry and co. going on what i'd heard from those who had already read the series, i went in expecting to absolutely despise this man. i went in expecting to read a demon. i finished the book and came out thinking... that really wasn't that bad.

my mom found out, so i didn't get to read the rest of the series until i ended up on the executive committee for my school's book club and my friends were appalled that i'd only read the first book. at this point, i'm still expecting him to get worse and... he just doesn't. when i was in primary school, i had multiple teachers break wooden meter-long rulers across my classmates' backs. the first time it happened, i was in infant year 2 (about 6/7 years old). i had teachers who would insult us, based on anything from hygiene to behaviour to intelligence if you looked at them wrong. my sister (who was three years ahead of me) had a teacher who kept her in hours after school was over because the teacher had a written a note in her workbook upside down, and when my sister corrected her, the teacher made her rewrite it, turning the book each time the note was written so it would never be done the correct way.

in secondary school, i had teachers who would actively humiliate us in front of the class if we didn't do as well as they wanted. i had teachers who would throw markers and whiteboard erasers at us if we did something they didn't like during class. i had a teacher who looked for a friend of mine who was petrified of attention and then mercilessly picked on her until she went to the bathrooms to cry. these are the kinds of teachers that i was used to. so, when i read harry potter and read snape, who would have probably been one of the nicer teachers i met in my lifetime, i thought to myself, he's really not that bad. he's just... strict.

antis claim that he traumatised every kid that ever went through his class, that he straight up abused them and... no. he didn't. all of them are comfortable talking back, they talk during his class, no one trembles when he walks past, except for neville, who usually bore the brunt of snape's anger because he was consistently messing up in a potentially lethal class.

after school, i hated the thought of formal education, so now i'm working until i feel ready to do university. coincidentally, one of my jobs is teaching maths and english to kids writing the end of primary and secondary school exams. given the sheer amount of annoyance i feel sometimes, i actually respect him for not being more harsh with them, especially when they're all running off into danger or exploding cauldrons.

he really isn't that bad of a teacher, and we know this, since his classes' owl results are said to be consistently good.

plus, he was written in the 90's when all this was okay behaviour for teachers. hell, compared to some of the teachers in text, given that he goes out of his way to make sure the students are always protected, he's a lot better than most people give him credit for.

2. i relate to him.

come on, the man grew up to be a dramatic, queer-coded, petty bitch who wears all black all the time and likely has at least one mental disorder. i'm a petty, emo bisexual with (actually diagnosed, don't worry) depression and anxiety and I'm in a theatre group. what did you really expect from me?

on a serious note, both of the schools i went to were considered "prestigious". i got into my primary school because of a teacher's recommendation (she was a family friend). the second school i got into was because i scored ridiculously high on the placement test that would determine which school i went to. in primary school, i was the poor, really awkward, really smart kid who got left out of everything, and my best friend was the only kid who was worse off than me.

in secondary school, i was just as smart as everyone else... but i was still poorer, and still more awkward and still got left out of everything.

i got that isolated feeling, that feeling of not being good enough, that feeling where life always seems to have it out for you and that's even though i still got dealt a better hand than snape ever did. so, i get it. i'm never ever going to have it as bad as he did, but i acknowledge what he went through and i sympathise, because i have a chance, but it only ever got worse for him.

3. i genuinely enjoy his character.

this dude went through absolute hell for basically his entire life. the best years he had were probably when he was neck-deep in the group of people who hated witches and wizards like him, but somehow managed to treat him better than the good guys.

all of that, and he still manages to be one of the most entertaining motherfuckers in the whole series, with one of the most interesting character arcs ever. it's the witty lines, the sheer dynamic of his character, the change from the twitchy, hypervigilant kid from the slums to the adult that managed to spy on the Dark Lord himself and save the wizarding world in the process, while still being a hot mess of a person. it's the managing to get shit done while everybody hated him and everything was going to hell. it's the everything, and i haven't even talked about how badass he is.

come on, potions prodigy turned master, exemplary duellist (cough, cough, winning 4-on-1 vs McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout and Slughorn, and leaving a scratch on nobody, while managing to not take a single hit himself, cough, cough), spellcrafter, spy and one of the only wizards to ever figure out unaided flight. dark arts master, proficient at healing (dumbledore would've been dead a lot sooner, if it weren't for him, most likely). he's one of the most powerful wizards of his time. i've said that any universe where he's actually a bad guy—or just legitimately loyal to the death eaters—is a universe where voldemort wins and this is why. if he was motivated by literally anything other than lily, the wizarding world was more than likely fucked.

the point is, i just think he's neat.

4. spite.

every time i appreciate snape, a snater feels like someone is walking over their grave. every time i appreciate snape, a snater turns blue out of sheer rage. every time i appreciate snape, a snater loses their mind looking for their non-existent reading comprehension.

the spite in my veins is tempered only by the broth of instant ramen and ungodly amounts of sugar, and i'm going to use them all in my mission to cause antis pain when they refuse to acknowledge their lack of critical thinking and analysis skills.

so, yeah. why do i actually like snape?

tl;dr: he's not that bad. for a teacher written in the 90's and compared to teachers i've had within the decade, the guy's just strict. sure, he's a dick (who i personally think is hilarious), but he always makes sure the students are safe and he didn't leave any lasting effect on any of the students. he's really not that bad of a teacher. and hell, he's not even that bad of a person. i fully admit that he was an asshole and i entirely believe he was prone to self-destructive behaviour, but he still tried to atone for his mistakes and he did, is the thing, even though the odds were stacked more or less completely against him. i like him because he entertains me, and because i relate to him, as a teen who went through some shit and probably would have joined up with some bad people if it weren't for my friends and family, and as a teacher who really can't stand my students sometimes. i also like him because it irritates people who don't like him :)

also, istg if any of you respond to this with "bUt hE was ObseSsED with LiLY and just WAnTEd to FUCK hEr," i'm crawling into your bedroom window with the most unrealistic, mangled interpretations of your favourite characters and making sure they haunt you in your dreams. meet me in the fuckin' pit, babe. reread the series, actually think about it and come with receipts that aren't Voldemort, because i don't think you want to have the same opinion as the character who canonically doesn't understand love, now, do you, sweetheart? when you do that, then, and only then, will i consider entertaining your bullshit :)

that's about it from me, thanks for reading!

[thedreadvampy]

talking to my mum last night and getting fucked up about the degree of trauma my grandparents' generation faced and how. unwilling and ill-equipped the care system is for the obvious fact that there's a huge incidence of PTSD and complex lifelong mental health issues in those generations

grannie was 17 when she became a nurse and she was working immediately in London at the height of the Blitz. her first day she saw blown apart children and had to comfort their parents. she was almost hit by a rocket cycling home.

grandpa spent the whole war in labour camps before being trapped behind the Iron Curtain in the ruins of Dresden, almost dead from starvation from the camp, for another 3 years before making it back to Blackpool to find out his parents had died in his absence.

granny got radiation sickness at 13 from being put under an X-ray with no protection and forgotten about for hours; she lost all her hair and developed chronic pain and health problems. after years of severe physical, emotional and sexual abuse from her family and the men around her, she got engaged to an American pilot who was shot down and killed in the last month of the war. her former boyfriend came back a dissociative shell of his pre-war self and she ended up trying to raise three small children on her own, with her family at the other end of the country and her husband often having violent flashbacks and outbursts of rage. she was suicidal and had violent psychotic breaks and got institutionalised and medicated on and off her entire adult life.

like. it isn't just the war. people born in the early-mid 20th century, especially women, have been subject to so much sexual trauma, domestic and social violence, bigotry, and grief on grief on grief.

with my granny, it's entirely understandable that she was 'mad'. when I knew her, she was on heavy daily dosage of lithium - she stopped because it was destroying her gut after 30 years and she became violently aggressive, vindictive, scared, psychotic, paranoid, frequently delusional and extremely abusive. She was terrified of doctors because of her repeated experiences with medical abuse, she was furious with everyone around her, she coldly hated her husband and seemed actively happy when he died, and the thing is all of that makes perfect sense because she was profoundly and repeatedly traumatised for at least the first 50-60 years of her life.

but the thing that worries and answers me is that the elder care system and the mental health system are completely unwilling to engage with the fact that many many many old people have severe pre-existing mental health conditions. after all, how many of us have PTSD or psychotic episodes or bipolar or BPD or special care needs related to autism or OCD or ADHD or whatever? those don't just Cease To Exist after a certain age. and our parents and our grandparents grew up in times with much less support for mental health and much less awareness of trauma. granny's early traumas were familial but she was institutionalised repeatedly and treated appallingly throughout her life and that's in itself traumatic.

when granny was 82 and she stopped taking her lithium, she was frail, ill and a danger to herself and others.

they put her on a dementia ward when she was sectioned because she was Old, and Old Mad People Are Demented. but she didn't have dementia! she had chronic PTSD and paranoid delusions but she knew who, where and when she was and she was perfectly sharp, she just wasn't coping. when we went to visit her she'd say furiously 'they think I'm like the other people in here but I'm not, I'm not losing my marbles, I've always been this way'

none of us got any support looking after her while she was in hospital or after she left the inpatient ward - nobody checked in on grandpa while she was in hospital or on weekend release, and after she was released Dad looked after her single-handed while trying to deal with his dad's death. (she may have murdered grandpa while on weekend release, or he may have died of heart failure - either way when she went off the rails after 20 years stable, he gave up on life and I me and my sibling (for the record we were 10 when she left hospital) listening to her trying to continue unpicking her past trauma was I think the most therapy she got after she left.

she couldn't go into a regular elder care home because she was too unstable, she needed specialist mental health care and she sometimes needed to be constrained for her own safety and that of other people. residential mental health care facilities weren't equipped to deal with her needs as a woman in her 80s. she couldn't go into dementia care, which is about the only residential care available for old people with serious mental health needs, because she didn't have dementia and it would have been utterly inappropriate and harmful for her and the other residents. she lived to 93 and for the last 11 years of her life it was up to Dad and us to look after her in her home because there was simply nowhere else for her to go.

and what really fucks me up is that she wasn't past help. a lot of people thought she was but when she left hospital she was trying really hard to continue therapy on her own without a therapist, she drew and wrote about her life and memories and she used to sit opposite me and open up in a way I now utterly recognise as trauma therapy, she would try to find ways to talk about what had hurt her and state into the middle distance for tens of minutes trying to get it together enough to continue. she wanted to do the work. but the only people there for her were her son who was shellshocked from losing his dad and traumatised from effectively losing his mum again and who was spending all his energy just trying to get through work and home and get her physical needs met, and a couple of preteen children who had the will but not the capacity to help. we were barely holding ourselves together (mum drove granny places but mostly her capacity was being spent being about the only support Dad or us could get) and we just couldn't meet the work of a trained therapist. and eventually she gave up on getting better and got angrier and more bitter and more abusive to everyone. but she wanted to feel better. she wanted to deal with her shit. but there was no support.

and there must be thousands of people like her. older people with lifelong trauma and mental health issues who are too mentally ill for elder support and too old for mental health support. and the MH system doesn't think they're worth the resource cost because after all they're old, they'll die soon. but where are they meant to go? and how much harm does unsupported home care do to the person in need of care and to the people carrying for them? it just multiplies trauma down the generations. you can't just expect mental illness to only affect the young when the old have been just as traumatised and you can't treat them as separate issues when old people need carers who are qualified to deal with both their age and their mental health issues.

like yes many people develop late life mental health issues like Alzheimers and dementia, just as many people become disabled for the first time by age. but a lot of people are disabled or mentally ill for decades before they reach anything approaching elderly, and those things don't suddenly go away and don't have the same support needs as late-life issues.

idk. I'm very angry. if there was recognition of the need to support older people with lifelong trauma then my grandpa wouldn't have died hopeless and unsupported, my granny might have got her life back and got some healing after 80 years of living in fear, my dad wouldn't have had his own mental breakdown and slide into paranoia and conspiracy theory, and me and my siblings wouldn't have lost our whole adolescence trying to shore up two badly neglected adults' catastrophic mental health while under constant fire.

literally a ten minute weekly phone call with grandpa while granny was in hospital and weekly follow-up talk therapy for her after she was discharged could have made so much difference but nobody fucking cared. because she was Old. she was in the hospital because she was a danger to the people around her and they discharged her for the weekend as a trial run and her husband died suddenly while she was in the house and she seemed totally unbothered and they still. let her out for good two weeks later with no followup care or therapeutic follow-up and no support or advice for Dad on looking after her. they started talk therapy in hospital and then dropped her abruptly and left her raw and cracked open without any way to put herself back together. and she isn't unique it's just. Careless. and so destructive.