#You all feeling so self entitled with Louis like he has to give you his descendants on sacrifice

[louistthegreatest]

All the other artists releasing stuff every damn day... Their fans happily spending all the money...

Louis releasing something from time to time... His fans: OMG he is blood draining us, all he wants is our money, how dare he?

Me to all of you...

[nightcolorz]

If Armand were to kill Marius then how would you think he'd do it, show vs book?

Also what would be the last straw that finally makes him do it?

(Quick psa for followers, so far I have seventeen asks in my inbox about Armand killing Marius lmao ily guys, and I’m going to make an Armand killing Marius tag entitled “Armand kills Marius lol x3”)

Anyways, I think book Armand would be way more likely to kill Marius than show Armand lmao. My reasoning for that is bcus book Armand is meaner then show Armand 😭, he has less qualms about callously killing people, and he’s by the end of the series gone through a lot more character growth and self realization then show Armand has so far where he would be more likely to emotionally be able to handle that. Show Armand has an issue where he falls into the same patterns of depending on people or institutions who hurt him to “survive” and then believing that he’s nothing when he looses said things. He has trouble living independently at all 😭. And show Armand also has a victim complex where he crumbles into himself when he is hurt instead of taking action. And he also seems to have more positive feelings (so far) about Marius than book Armand does by the end of the series at least.

book armand is actually fucking crazy 😭 like if y’all think show Armand is insane then book armand would put u into a coma 💀. While show Armand seems self aware and guilty about his own insane actions and tries to avoid doing those things, book Armand don’t give a shit 💀. If someone threatens him in any minor way he will fucking kill them, lmao. The difference tho, is that show Armand is seemingly more willing to kill his loved ones for his own survival then book Armand is. Book Armand (as far as I remember) has never done that, and it might even be triggering for him to contemplate that, since he was forced to kill his best friend that one time. But book Armand is capable of falling into black and white threat vs none threat thinking, and if Marius threatens him enough to warrant being killed I think he’d push his feelings for him aside and do it. But it’d take a rlly big catalyst, both Armand’s still love Marius (regardless of how aware they r of how he’s wronged them), and both Armand’s would have trouble with pushing past that to kill him.

But I think book armands catalyst would have to be Marius threatening the perceived safety of his loved ones. One of book Armand’s strongest traits is that he is incredibly protective and caring of the people he loves, and he is willing to do anything to keep them safe. People who fall into this category would be Louis, Benji and Sybelle, Lestat, and Daniel. Tho Marius is one of Armand’s closest loved ones, Armand is still implicitly threatened by him bcus of how his trauma lives in his body and affects how safe he is able to feel around Marius. Armand also expects Marius to be the one protecting him bcus of their past dynamic, and doesn’t consider marius someone who falls into his “people who I protect” category.

so what I’m getting at is, I think all it would take for book Armand to decide to kill Marius would be Marius threatening the safety of his loved ones, especiallyyy his children. Marius has already harmed Benji and Sybelle in a way Armand considers nearly unforgivable, so I think they’d be the easiest targets to trigger this reaction. Book Armand is significantly weaker than Marius, so if he were to kill him it would take a lot of strategy and element of surprise type stuff. Maybe the Claudia style poisoning would work (it would take some heavy duty poison lmao)

When it comes to show Armand, I can’t see him ever planning out to kill Marius, for reasons previously described. So I think if he were to do that, it’d have to be nearly accidental. The extent of how powerful show armand is is unexplained, but based on the powers he’s seen to have it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Armand is about as powerful as Marius. I think that if show armand were to kill Marius, Marius would have to trigger one of his trigger buttons, threaten his safety, smth like that, and armand would violently attack him in an emotional rage and then gape in horror at what he’s done. Part cathartic killing of a terrible person, part heart breaking drama. Also a Riccardo trigger lol

thanks for the ask!

[zot3-flopped]

Louis has to talk a big game about himself and his songwriting abilities because he knows the art doesn't speak for itself. Real artists like Harry don't have to constantly repeat “as an artist“ when they speak or give their opinion on something. It's like those people who describe themselves as “honest“ all of the time. If you're really that honest, why do you feel like you need to keep reminding us?

I think Louis knows deep down that he can't sing and that he doesn't have that “star quality“. That's why he keeps focusing on his knack for honest lyrics. That's why he keeps reminding us that he was the one behind the songwriting for 1D's biggest hits (even though he likely only added a few lyrics here and there). I mean, you can delude yourself all you want, but if the whole industry and general public keeps on commenting that you can't sing and that you act like an asshole, then deep down you're going to know it's true.

There are minor changes he could make, but he doesn't think he owes his fans anything. He talks about how he wants to just be himself and for people to accept him for that. Well, fine, dude, but your “self“ is rude, pompous, and worst of all lazy. And he knows he's lazy too. He will never even bother to dress in a way that his fans like. He just throws on a tank top and sweats for thousands of paying fans just so he can be comfortable. In general, he values his own comfort over his popularity, which will be his downfall.

He could have gotten singing lessons. His voice would've never been as liked as Harry's because it's not deep, but he could've at least had an okay voice. Instead, it's like listening to a screeching pre-pubescent child.

He could have put on a fake persona like some artists do, or even just stepped away from social media completely and become “mysterious“ like his ex friend Zayn. That would've been a smart idea since he can't help but not keep his mouth shut and just pisses everyone off and curses at them.

He could have changed his style, even if it's not what he actually likes. He could have hired a stylist who will style him like a popstar and actually try to make him look attractive (as much as they can...). A large part of popstardom is about looking attractive whether he likes that or not.

He could have stuck to making EDM music since those songs gained more popularity than his Oasis copycat music does now. If popularity isn't what he's after, then whatever. Fine. He doesn't have to do anything I listed, but he doesn't get to complain about getting no radio play or not charting.

I mean, I don't even know if he could be considered an indie artist. He's just got a fanbase who like him because they were fans of him in 1D. Even indie artists get played on the radio once in a while, or their song trends on tiktok. At least popular indie artists like Chappell Roan or Troye Sivan. Louis doesn't keep getting new fans. He's like a throwback act. Most of his fans have been bere since 1D and he's not gaining any new listeners on spotify. There's no opportunity for growth because he doesn't try to make himself appealing in any way.

I just think he's making music as an excuse to tour and party, like you mentioned before. There's no other explanation for why an artist wouldn't TRY. He knows he has a dedicated fanbase and that's all he ever caters to. He knows they'll stick around through every “fuck you“ he throws their way, as his clothing choice, lack of attempt to remember song lyrics he supposedly wrote, lack of attempt to preserve his voice let alone train it to be halfway decent, and lack of stage presence all demonstrate.

He's truly just a rich, entitled brat paying for his own career so he can look like he has a modicum of success and so he can party and do drugs on his fans' dime, while he gives them nothing in return.

Brilliant summary of Floplinson's many failings! 👏👏👏

[phantom-ellie]

The Art of (Smashing) Crockery Chapter 22: Blackbird

Summary: Not all gay awakenings are positive, and not all reactions to rejection are healthy.

Click here for CWs/Full Chapter List

---

I opened the door. I followed the lead. They said you just have to move towards the light. Say, ‘Hello. I am a gay man. My name is Stede.’

My mind wrote a letter my heart couldn’t read. A heart confused, misused, shamed, and contrite. So I opened the door. I followed the lead.

Is this how it feels to be freed? To accept who I am, what my forebears would indict? Saying, ‘Hello. I am a gay man. My name is Stede.’

Waking up gay, a gay awakening, is this what I need? Then why does my heart hurt, my chest still feel tight Since I opened the door and followed the lead?

A mirror, I practice, repeating my screed. But my expression remains the same, try as I might. ‘Hello. I am a gay man. My name is Stede.’

‘It’s too late,’ it threatens, it chokes like a weed. Self-acceptance is a resignation, a reaction born from spite. But I opened the door. I followed the lead. Hello. I am a gay man. My name is Stede.

---

Stede doesn’t respond to Ed’s text. Not through the night or the next day. The blog post is angry, sad. Ed assumes that something happened with Stede’s father, but Stede isn’t asking Ed for comfort. He doesn’t want Ed’s love, or his friendship.

Ed was an idiot. Again.

And being an idiot, he does what he’s always done and calls Izzy. His voice is already breaking as Izzy answers the phone.

“What is it, Edward?”

“I’m so stupid, Izzy. I did it.”

“Did what?”

“I kissed him.”

“Fucking hell, Ed! I told you. Why would you do that?”

“I… I love him.”

“For fuck’s sake, this happens every time. And he rejected you, didn’t he?”

Ed feels so small. He can barely get it out. “Mmhmm.”

“And I’m supposed to drop everything and comfort you ,again, is that it?”

“Come on Izzy, you’re my friend. That’s what friends are for.”

“You have no fuckin’ clue about friendship, Ed. You drop me as soon as someone shiny and new comes along, and then I have to fix it when they leave. Every time! Do you know how draining it is?”

“I… I can guess.”

“You can guess, but you don’t know. I’ve been divorced twice, Ed. What were you doing both times?”

Ed sighs. “I don’t know, what do you want me to say, Iz?”

“You were too busy doing drugs with Jack to be there for me, weren’t you?”

Ed is silent for a few seconds. “Yeah.”

“Go to a gay bar, find someone who actually likes you back, get a therapist, I don’t care what you do. But it’s time to grow up. It’s time to figure it out for yourself. I have shit going on.” Izzy hangs up.

Tough love. Ed’s mind immediately thinks of Stede’s father. Then Stede. Then hurt.

Logically he knows not to blame Izzy. Ed has always taken from Izzy. He’s never given back, not where it counts. Anonymous donations to Los Robles didn’t count for much if they were anonymous.

It’s at this moment that Ed realizes that despite all the encouragement he gave to Stede, Ed doesn’t really know what a friend does, either.

---

Mary: Did you meet with the estate lawyer?

Stede: Yes.

Mary: And?

Stede: It should be airtight. Preparing for lawsuit anyway.

Mary: You know I’m not going to ask for any of it in the divorce, Stede. The timing is just bad.

Stede: You are entitled to it and you will have it.

Stede: You deserve it. For everything.

Mary: See you tomorrow @ 11?

Stede: yeah

---

Thanksgiving. So much to be thankful for. Right?

Maybe.

He manages to make it through the dinner all right. He’s quiet, but that’s okay. It gives him a chance to listen to Alma and Louis bicker a little bit, to see the drawings they’ve done and tell him about school. He can hear about Mary’s art show, which of course was a success, and he can feel a tiny bit of gratitude as she takes care to talk around any mentions of Doug.

At one point Alma pointedly asks Stede what he’s been up to, and he’s a bit at a loss to answer her.

“Well… I’ve been thinking a lot, I suppose.”

“That sounds boring.”

Stede huffs. “I haven’t had a lot of time to think recently, Alma. Sometimes it’s nice to take a break.”

“You could take a break here with us.” Alma looks down at her food, pushing her green beans around with her fork.

Stede puts his hand on hers. “I’ll keep that in mind, sweetheart. I just need a little time to myself.”

“I thought that’s what you had work for.”

Stede shakes his head. “No, not even a little bit.”

When they finish, Stede isn’t too far in his own head yet, so he manages to clean up, do the dishes, to look around at the kitchen that he no longer considers to be his. He never considered any of this to be his, really. It’s as if he’s just been borrowing it.

He finishes up and slides on his coat, prepared to sneak out of one life that isn’t his into another life he hasn’t made yet. But Mary spots him.

“Stede… you don’t have to run away, you know? You can stay here. You can live here with us for now. Let me help you.”

Stede stops to think about this, if just for a moment. He imagines living as a ghost in his own home, too afraid to face his wife, his children. He imagines sitting on his bed, confessing everything to Mary, everything he feels. And in this imagination, they have a wonderful talk, one that solves and clarifies everything. Like it’s so easy. And Stede leaves the house, in his imagination, with new-found purpose as he reaches Ed’s apartment, knocks on the door, says those three words, and they embrace and live happily ever after.

In his imagination.

But Stede is a useless, pathetic coward. And his dreams will never come true.

So he gives a wan smile instead, tells Mary, “Okay, I’ll think about it,” and gets in his car.

Stede has always felt safest personifying inanimate objects. His hotel room has a minibar. He tells himself that’s the only friend he needs.

---

Ed: hey

Jack: hey you unblocked me

Jack: ya getting lonely big guy

Ed: what if i am

Jack: door’s always open

Ed: you really gotta lock that shit

Ed: on my way

---

Post from the blog Hear Something Weird:

Now you remind me of something I’ll never have So, blackbird don’t sing

Comments: MauritianSupremacy: Hey, we’re planning to take you out for drinks, you left the group chat. Check your texts PracticallyGayJesus: lucy told me to tell you we miss you LucyFlawless: That was not the way to deliver that message, babe

Chapter 23

[murfpersonalblog]

A few important things:

"But I still feel like the entire Louis is a woman argument boils down to Louis is abused therefore he is a woman."

People are misunderstanding/confusing being a woman with being female-coded.

Coding (a la the Hays Code I've mentioned before X X) is a metaphorical parallel to subliminally reflect/represent certain experiences, dynamics, models & frameworks; in order to convey specific messages. A coded character doesn't have to BE that which they represent--the whole point is that they AREN'T that (queer-coding does this all the time, where cis/straight characters are meant to convey specific queer traits without inherently BEING queer). In this case, being gender-coded doesn't mean that a character IS that gender (obviously--we all have eyes); just that they represent/reflect particular aspects OF that gender's typically associated dynamics.

In IWTV, power imbalances/dynamics within nuclear family units (specifically) and larger communities (generally) are the main theme. Rolin Jones, Caroll Cutshall, and Mara LePere-Schloop all point out the uneven dynamics at play that point to what Louis represents, and where he sits on the hierarchical pyramid: at the bottom, below BOTH Lestat AND Armand.

"I don't think a self insert charachter has to be the same gender as the author and again I don't see him as a woman at all but going with what Anne said she also wanted Cher to play Lestat at some point"

NO. Anne wanted Cher to play LOUIS, read the quote again. Cuz even when Louis was a WHITE man he was still the metaphorical MOTHER/woman; and no one had a single problem seeing Brad Pitt's long-haired bishounen through a female-coded gaze. But suddenly he's a Black man and people wanna act brand new? SUS!

Abusive Mothers

"Yes Lestat's abuse has traits of toxic masculinity. That's the language in our society because most abuse is done by men. I don't think Lestat is a women (flamboyant gay man is right) but he's not a traditionally masculine man either. He expresses his emotions and is very comfortable with his sexuality. I think his relationship with Claudia is more similar to a mother daughter relationship than hers and Louis's. It's just an abusive and dysfunctional one."

I've already said my piece about Les's basis in dandyism & gender expression (X X), Claudia's abuse (X X X), and how Les raised Claudia. But again, just cuz Les is effeminate doesn't mean he's representing "more "of a mother--abusive/dysfunctional or otherwise. Again: Les is no Clytemnestra/Medea--the model "bad" wife/mother.

This tweet sums up everything better than I ever could:

Again: Lestat doesn't even represent Gabrielle (the emotionally abusive/negligent mother/spouse). Yes, they're both abused by Marquis de Lioncourt & ran away. They still occupy opposite ends of the power spectrum--he's still her Maker, and he still resents her for not giving him everything he felt he was ENTITLED to (a nasty AF God Complex patriarchal attitude Les carries into TotBT vs. LOUIS).

I really like Kaelio's post, cuz it shows the cycles of generational trauma and how Lestat becomes a cold & withholding parent to Claudia; while still acknowledging all the ways he's actually emulating his tyrannical FATHER, and NOT his mother. Even in Gabrielle's distance, she SUPPORTED Les when he needed her most: giving him the gun so he could hunt & become Wolfkiller, cashing in her inheritance so he could go to Paris, fighting his father when Les was dragged back kicking& screaming from the church & the Lelio commedia troupe--and being beside him in QotD & the Chateau in the PL Trilogy.

When did Lestat support Claudia's independence? 🤔 When he insulted her being self-educated & called her life "destitute & inconsequential" & choked TF out of her when she said she wanted to travel? When he chased her down like a slavecatcher when she got on that train and said he'd "grind her bones to dust"? Sure, he made Santiago let her say her piece & curse the audience into oblivion--right before she was burned to ash/dust. 🙄😒

Even when Gab crossdresses & asserts her (trans)gendered independence, Les is an oppressive patriarchal a-hole to her--and yet his stupid arse wonders for 100+ years why she never calls or sees him. 🤦 Cuz he wanted her to be his eternal mother/companion/Blood Spouse/HOUSEwife--when the HOUSE becomes her gilded CAGE.

Les was obsessed with living like a typical nuclear family & human HOUSEhold: Gab wanted to roam free in the jungles & wilderness; but Les kept furnishing houses with lavish furniture, making her go to the opera with him & blabbing about music! Sound familiar?

"She could not give me what I wanted of her. There was nothing I could do to make her what she would not be."

Again:

I don't disagree that Lestat represents motherhood via vampirism--it's long been established that vampires encompass BOTH sides of the mother/father paradigm:

"Lestat being more dominant and powerful and higher on the patriarchy ladder as a white man does not mean Louis is not on it."

I've never said Lou wasn't. But I disagree when y'all say Louis doesn't represent motherhood; especially when the only reasons any of y'all ever give boil down to Louis as a pimp & that he's not effeminate & he doesn't crossdress; while deliberately ignoring the ways that Lestat represents not only toxic masculinity, but the toxic patriarchy as well.

"He's a pimp. He's able to inherit and run a business, and one that exploits women at that.

What on earth does that have to do with how LESTAT treated him? 🤨 How did Lou being a pimp affect Lestat's mommy/abandonment issues, that led Lou to being beat within an inch of his life & incarcerated in that crypt of a house by the man who claimed to love him? Louis wasn't a pimp in 1x5 or 2x7! This is the same misdirection SANTIAGO used to smear Lou in front of that braindead audience & justify why they'd KILL him. The same BS used to justify/excuse Eric Garner & George Floyd's deaths! Its RACISM.

He expriences homophobia not sexism so he can still enjoy certain advantages if he masks it enough. He is in fact not a helpless housewife despite what Claudia claims."

I've never said he's the helpless housewife. I've always argued that Louis has POWER in his submission (a la the femme fatale), and that even being not AS powerful as Lestat, he still FIGHTS BACK (X X). But y'all keep assuming Victim = Helpless = Blameless, leaving zero room for a nuanced approach that can simultaneously see the ways that Lou IS an exploitative hypocritical a-hole, and is STILL a victim of white patriarchal gendered abuse.

"To call him a woman for being abused is assuming being abused and submissive are inherently feminine charachteristics which yikes. Or to call all gay men and men of color women because they don't get the full straight white man patriarchy package."

Stop acting like you're unfamiliar with the patented model of behavior and relationship dynamics at work. Lestans keep using that reductive argument/accusation, to act like I'm saying abuse = weak = woman. I'm saying the full package of interracial relationship Black gay man in 1910s-40s → systemically oppressed → socio-positionally vulnerable → "the unhappy housewife" → Ep5 abuse = female-coded. Louis PARALLELS the experiences of women vis a vis wives & mothers under abusive husbands. The lens through which Louis AS woman, not Louis IS woman, can be utilized to discuss the gendered power imbalance in Loustat's deliberately heteronormative family dynamic.

"Because show Louis is not particularly feminine at any point even in Paris or Dubai"

Now we get to the crux of the hypocrisy of it all. Gender's subjective, in the eye of the beholder. To you, Louis isn't feminine, cuz he doesn't look/act/dress according to the white rules that dictate what (white) femininity looks like to y'all. Lestat--A MAN sashaying penis-first into every effing room--can be Barbie, Mother, C*nt Queen all effing day, cuz his outward appearance & affectation fits the mold of the white woman flipping her long hair & twirling around in heels & flicking her wrists (again: see my posts on dandyism). Anything that veers from the heteronormative standard of (super)model behavior is automatically disqualified from the Uwu Olympics, and yet I'M the sexist misogynist cuz I say Lou's feminine/effeminate too.

Which has always been problematic with regard to....

wait for it....

RACE & MISOGYNOIR.

"And you can't have misogynoir against Louis because he is in fact a man in the text of the show and book despite however you want to personally interpret him."

Yes you can. (Meanwhile white!feminists will preach from the mountaintops that homophobia against (white) effeminate men is directly rooted in patriarchal/misogynist sexism against women, that stigmatizes any femininity within gay/straight men (X X X X X X X I literally just grabbed the first Google results cuz this is too easy)--but meanwhile Black gay men like Louis can't experience misogynoir--y'all are WILD! 🤦 But thank you for proving my point.)

I've seen plenty of Lestans who H A T E when Louis' called "Helen of Troy," cuz in their heads he doesn't represent what Helen does: the MYTH of the beautiful (white) woman & most desired creature of all time, whose face launched 1000 ships that sent the most formidable superpower burning down all cuz of tragic/doomed love.

They'll make all these posts reeling about how superpowered vamps like Lestat & Armand fall to their knees obsessed with keeping Louis around; teeheehee isn't it so funny, isn't it wild, they're down bad! down horrendous~! But then spasm like they're having a effing stroke the second you say Louis is Helen-coded.

Cuz in their heads, it's impossible to reconcile the idea(l) of the powerful white femme fatale or the treasured white feminine ideal with Black bodies, male or female; hypermasculinized even when they're VERY MUCH female/feminine/effeminate--which is why Black girls are aged up as Black women in the judicial system (X X) & hypersexualized white male gaze (which all informs the white female gaze); and why Black boys and men are stigmatized as raging sexual predators who're a threat to white (female) goodness/purity (which thus informs the white female gaze AGAINST seeing/accepting Black men as ever being on THEIR same level).

And we see this exact same attitude during the Trial, as the script/LESTAT weaponizes it against Louis.

(Black) Motherhood & Femininity

"his relationship with Claudia does not resemble a mother/duaghter relationship to me."

Again: LePere Schloop already confirmed how the show's BEEN subtly (& even overtly) signalling Louis' relationship with Claudia, and how he ultimately made peace with it: the shift in his existence from suicidal depression to Owning the Night, and owning up to his mistakes: thus, looking to the painting as the ideal representation of what he WANTED to be for Claudia: a mother sheltering her child.

Not that he IS Claudia's literal mother, or that he wanted to BE Claudia's literal mother--he's still DADDY Lou, ofc! But that the representative relationship between mother & child is sacrosanct; Isis & Horus, Madonna & Christ--it's the behavioral MODEL IDEAL, it's the format, parallel, metaphor, CODE. Come hell or high water, this is the universal "mother" figure (read: parent/anyone) who'll move mountains & FIGHT to protect children or die trying.

No one's saying that fathers can't/won't stand up to protect children--I call Lou "Papa Bear" constantly (X X), cuz he IS Claudia's father. But people wanna act obtuse and pretend like "maternal instinct" isn't the universal CODE for idealized/proper parental behavior. Modern derogatory "tradwife" attacks against Lou are ridiculous AF, cuz they ignorantly ignore the reality of life in the effing 1910s-1940s when the tradwife WAS the Euro-American ideal! Louis is an upper middle class conservative southern gentleman born in 1877--wtf do y'all think the model for parents/spouses was in his generation!?

His mother's effing Florence; he parallels/acts like her (X X)! 😅 He was born & raised & surrounded by tradwives--CLAUDIA'S the younger generation that breaks the mold! The Black men in Louis' life are USELESS--his dad's dead & tanked their whole estate, Paul's mentally unfit to take over, and effing Levi's a broke AF motherless sycophant Baptist. We see nothing about Lou's father--it's ALL deliberate, cuz it puts all the emphasis on the roles of MOTHERS, and the plethora of WOMEN who impacted/shaped Lou's life.

Ofc black!Louis won't look feminine to you if you're not familiar with Blackness. But even Jacob Anderson said he looked to FEMALE icons of Black empowerment (Eartha Kitt & Grace Jones) as inspirations for how he embodied Louis; his walk & talk & ethereal trans-human/gender aura.

Louis' been guilt-ridden cuz despite everything, he was powerless. He didn't/couldn't shelter/PROTECT/save Claudia. The dark ironic twist is that he was emasculated by Lestat, and emasculated by Armand & the coven. But just like vampirism didn't give him power over the racist white men, emasculation didn't give him the domestic ideal he tried to mimic in NOLA. He capitulated to Lestat's whims & conformed ("the unhappy housewife"), and it got him nowhere--dropped a million miles in the effing sky. He tried being independent & autonomous in Europe, and it got him nowhere--hamstrung & buried alive as the coven burned his daughter alive. He tried being the carefree vampire f***ing & killing at will in SanFran, and it got him nowhere--yeeting himself into the sunlight on a roof at sunrise, just like Paul. In Dubai, he conducts the interview trying to find the truth, and find himself--the lost pieces of himself; who he's most comfortable as:

The CARDIGAN Mystique

In Carol Cutshall's "visual hierarchy of power," Louis' cardigans & casual clothes are a deliberate contrast with the Power Suits he & Lestat wore in NOLA, and Armand wore in Paris.

Lestans H A T E 1x5, and H A T E when people stress that Louis was abused, cuz that naturally forces one to realize that the abuser is their uwu blorbo c*nty pretty long-haired fave, Lestat & Armand--racism, colorism & texturism all rolled into one toxic sludge at Louis' expense. Louis' story (and thus, analysis) is rooted in abuse--all the SPINDLY ROOTS of how Louis' been abused, controlled, manipulated, gaslit, disrespected, oppressed & taken advantage of.

But it's ultimately, how he overcomes the oppressive societal/mental shackles: finally takes back agency & autonomy & control of his life and his narrative/story.

Lestat - S3 & TVL

"and as you said changed him to her self insert charachter and seemingly forgot he's supposed to be abusive in TVL. The Lestat the show is portraying is a mashup of the two which is why he's not just an abusive villain in Louis's story."

Yup, it's part of Lestat's entire character arc, and his gradual process of growth/development, trying to become a person/vampire/monster/hero going forward.

"But the show dynamic is confusing because there's terrible abuse but instead of being a show about a DV victim escaping his abusove spouse it still expects us to root for this romance and Lestat as a charachter because they're vampires and this is a gothic romance and so on."

Which I'm fully on board with! I LIKE Lestat, and I WANT Loustat to find a way to be happy together. Again: not every couple with IPV/DV divorces--many work to get to the root of their problems, addressing the toxic behavior on both sides so that they can move forward as a committed couple--just like I said before about Ray Rice & his wife.

Cancel culture makes every iota of problematic behavior a criminal offense punishable by effing death--as we see in The Trial. On one hand Lestans defend Lestat's BS with their whole chest cuz he's a vampire/monster they're not human don't judge them by human standards I love him cuz he's awful uwu queen slay yaas~!; but when it's Louis suddenly he's a pimp and he tried to kill Daniel and I hate him and it's his fault his life sucks, boo hiss~! That's what I have a problem with. Like I've BEEN saying: Louis' abuse (by Lestat AND Lestans) doesn't boil down to his gender/sexuality. It boils down to his RACE, plain & simple.

Gotta wake up to this anon in the tags, undoubtedly referencing/shading what I reblogged here:

Nonny, at least say it to my face if you wanna call me an internalized misogynist, just cuz I don't cosign the predominately white court of popular opinion's dogma that ONLY sees Lestat as the female-coded victim of Louis' "abuse" of the crossdressing campy Queen Mother de Lioncourt; while you reject any acknowledgement let alone honest discussion of Lestat as the patriarchal Coven Master terrorizing his fledglings/children--even in effing 2022 when he's setting Rat Catcher ablaze with the Fire Gift in Louis' honor & kicking him out in to the hurricane--another round in the stormy romance of you two.

And plot twist: I (mostly) agree with nonny about Anne Rice, and how she engages with (trans)gender through Louis--and I agree with Nalyra that there's also complexity to how AR engages with Lestat LATER--10+ years AFTER IWTV & her daughter Michelle's death.

It's not at all easy to pin down, especially when in these convos about Loustat & gender, the most integral part of their dynamic is ALWAYS EXCLUDED by Lestans: CLAUDIA. She's only babytrapped cuz, as I've said 1000 times, Lestat was hyperaware of LOUIS' emotional/behavioral resemblance TO LESTAT'S MOTHER, GABRIELLE; and Louis' "maternal instinct," that resembled ANNE'S own excitement to be a mom.

Anne Rice is NOT saying Louis (or even Lestat!) represents her as a woman (in METAPHOR, not biology, DUH) cuz he crossdresses & gallivants around twirling his hair & flicking his limp wrists--I already discussed the effect of 18th century Franco-European dandyism on an 18th-century vampire stuck in the Rococo period (X X), where clothing is just ONE aspect of how masculinity & femininity are expressed--BY MEN.

Gender is MORE than Loustat crossdressing. Like I've said: it's misognyist to assume that everyone crossdressing is female-coded, while blatantly ignoring their BEHAVIOR--just like Nalyra said:

I have screamed & hollered from the rooftops this whole time how the power dynamics between Loustat are being grossly misunderstood or outright overlooked, as everyone gets distracted by fun & c*nty Lestat. Somehow, ONLY Lestat gets to represent Mother, but LOUIS DOESN'T!? Sus! But I'M the misogynist homophobe for calling y'all RACISTS who can't acknowledge/accept a Black gay man in a suit (or cardigan) as a female-coded representation of motherhood, when the show's beat y'all over the head with it 1000 times? SUS!

Esp. when I explicitly say Louis AS Woman, Louis AS Mother--nonny, grab a dictionary and realize that I didn't say Louis IS Mother, Louis IS Woman--it's SIMILE. It's METAPHOR. It's PARALLEL. It's CODING.

It's highly problematic to reject AR's own words being "not solid" evidence (anon), or downplay it as outdated/irrelevant (Nalyra), just cuz it doesn't align with your own interpretations. That's not how proper analysis of primary sources works. It's CONTEXTUAL evidence about the processes of personal growth; just like it's contextual how AR couched her shift to Lestat in direct relation to her tryna move past her maternal depression/grief via Louis. You cannot discuss one without the other, but that's all I ever see far too many ppl do: downplaying the foundational conceptualization of these characters within the books, film, and show alike; and hiding behind accusations of homophobia & misogyny rather than honestly engaging with the characters and their behavior. You wanna talk about misogyny? How about MISOGYNOIR, and how y'all don't know EFF ALL about BLACK MOTHERHOOD, and the hypermasculinization of Black gay men, to even BEGIN to fathom everything Louis represents in contrast & relation to Massa Lestat.

Cuz there's CERTAINLY a marked lack of discussion or acknowledgement about how race factors into all of this. I see NO mention/discussion/analysis of Lestat by that anon rejecting the other side of the conversation I'm arguing against--esp. the white privilege Lestat enjoys that allows him to be far freer with explorations of gender & sexuality than black!Louis, and thus embraced by his predominately white cis female fans--who find it so effing impossible/offensive to see the ways that HIS BEHAVIOR directly contradicts the feminist ideals about agency & autonomy they allege to hold oh-so-sacred--"crushing what you cannot own."

Which only further indicates that this particular propping up of Lestat in the fandom is being done at Louis'' expense in bad faith by bad actors running to everyone's accounts on anon and obfuscating the context they're even responding to.

Claudia never lied: "It's a STONING."

[puckngrind]

What’s In a Name: Epilogue - J. Toews

Epilogue.

Where we left off: Jon and Bekah welcomed Lincoln into the world in 2020.

Warnings: smut, language

Word Count: 3,827

Series Masterlist ) Puck ‘n Grind’s masterlist

2025.

The rink has seemed like home for Bekah since meeting and marrying Jon. This morning it was a bit different as she kneels in front of her now five year old tying his hockey skates.

"Tight enough Linc?" Bekah asks and Lincoln stands to his feet.

"Yes, Momma. Maybe even better than Daddy does it." Bekah muffles her laugh from Lincoln's comment.

"Good. Now, let's get this jersey and your helmet on." Bekah stands and pulls over the house hockey green jersey over his pads. She feels someone staring but doesn't take her focus off the very squirrelly Kindergartener who doesn’t have the patiences for her to stop. Tapping his helmet she hands him the gloves and the eyes she felt moves closer.

"Hey there!  Do ya'll know you have the same last name as the Hawk's captain and your son is wearing his number too. That's cute." Her comment was laced with a sense of entitlement and Bekah bit the inside of her cheek.

"Yup. Heard his foundation bought the jerseys for the league too." Bekah replies and turns her focus back to Lincoln as she rubbed lightly along the JT foundation logo on his shoulder. The woman then got called by her own son and scurried off before continuing.

"Is Daddy going to be off work before my game starts?" Lincoln's voice is muffled with his mouth guard in place.

"He should be here any moment baby boy." Bekah leans down to reassure him. "Speaking of!" Bekah eyes Jon coming through the doors of the rink. He embraces Bekah as he does every time he comes home before turning his attention to the kids.

"Sorry I'm late but looks like you’ve got this covered." Jon whispers after his lips brush hers.

"We are all set. And the fake Louis over there thinks it's cute Linc is wearing 19 and has the Captain's last name too." Bekah smirks.

"Well maybe Scar should run by with her Daddy sweater on." Jon shakes the toddler's hand. "Hey baby girl!" Bekah laughs and goes to take Scarlett out of the toddler carrier attached to her back. The now two year old in her St. Patrick's Day Daddy jersey goes running after Lincoln who started walking to his team. "You would think she runs this place." Jon laughs grabbing Bekah's hand as she tucks the carrier into Lincoln's bag.

"She had grown up coming here. Linc has been taking classes since she was 7 months old, Tae."

"I'm gonna go save Linc from the relentless questions I am sure she’s asking him." Jon heads over to scoop Scarlett up and wishes Lincoln's team good luck playing their first game. The three walk up to sit in the stands and Scarlett starts cheering as the team takes the ice.

"Coot! Core! Let's go Inks!" Scarlett's chubby hands clap.

"You really think he's okay playing with these older boys?" Bekah's leg is bouncing on up and down and Jon's hand settles her.

"Yes. He's playing up because he's good not because he's our son, Beks. No one knows he's five." Jon whispers to calm his wife's nerves.

Lincoln's first hockey game started and even though he was the youngest on the ice by two years, you would never guess. The Toews genes evident in how he played. Bekah, Jon, Scarlett cheered as he scored his first goal and then laughed as he jumped up in excitement but didn’t land on his skates. Bekah looked towards the scoreboard and realized the same mom from earlier was staring at Jon. "I might never get use to people just staring at you." Bekah whispered not realizing she even said it out loud.

"I know Babe." Jon's lips kiss her temple. "Maybe you should bring your Louis with you next game." Jon chuckles knowing the Louis Vuitton collecting dust in the closet was never coming to the hockey rink.

"Funny Tae... funny." Bekah bumps her shoulder into his side. "Maybe if Scar decides potty training is actually something she's interested in I could bring a real purse with me." Bekah spins one of Scarlett's ringlets around her finger.

"She won't even be three until February." Jon bounces his mini-me on his knee and she laughs.

"Yeah, yeah. I know, boys and girls are different." Bekah knowing where Jon was going with the conversation and how she already had Lincoln trained by Scarlett's age. "There you go Linc!" Bekah shouts as Lincoln dives in front of a puck and Jon's laugh rings out.

"You would never know Momma wasn't really into hockey ten years ago. Would ya?" Jon kisses Scarlett's head.  “Now she’s rocking the hockey mom life.” Bekah eyes Jon and he mouths, “sexy at it too.” Bekah feels the heat in her cheeks but turns her attention back to the ice.

The game ended and Jon helped Bekah put Scarlett back in her carrier then met Lincoln and his team.

“There’s my boy!” Jon scooped Lincoln up with all his gear on. “You played hard. We are so proud of you.” Jon drops Lincoln down and the three of them start taking off his gear while Lincoln talks a mile a minute recounting the entire game.

“Did you see my double shift dad? See how I used my skate to kick the puck out of the corner?” Lincoln’s little voice sounding just like Jon and both parents laugh.

“We sure did Linc. Now let’s get home and get ready for Auntie Rin, m’kay?” Bekah feels Scarlett bopping up and down on her back while Jon tries to control Lincoln’s excited dance as he attempts to undress him the rest of the way.

The car ride home was filled with giggles of Brynn’s arrival and recap of the game. Bekah grazed her finger down Jon’s arm and he shifts as she moved to his leg. “What was that for?” She questioned and sees Jon smirk.

“Nothin’ Beks.” The sly smirk permanently graced his face for the rest is the ride. Bekah dropped it knowing if it was something he was hiding she’d find out soon enough.

The kids bolt inside the house as soon as they are unbuckled. “Don’t go too far Rin will be here in less than an hour!” Bekah called out and hears a door shut from behind her and spins on her heals to see her best friend rounding her car.

“How about like one minute? You should know my driving skills would get me here faster!” Brynn opens her arms waiting for Bekah’s embrace. “Now help me with these crazies!” She pulls open the sliding door to a choir of squeals.

“Hey kids!” Bekah leans in and unbuckles Derek and Brynn’s newest edition to their family. Morgan’s little fingers make grabby hands at Bekah. “Hey sweet girl. You taking it easy on your Mommy?”

“You lied about 18 month old girls, friend.  Lied.” Brynn answered.

“Mom’s right Aunt Beks.” Jack, the oldest, pops out and half hugs Bekah. “Morgan is giving her a run for her money as Dad says.” All three adults laugh and Jon scoops up Brynn’s middle son, Jameson.

“How about you boys take Morgan to find Lincoln and Scar. I’m sure they are in the playroom. Remember how to get there?” Both boys nod and run in the house with their sister in tow.

Jon and Bekah flank Brynn as she breathes out. “I love them but they can be a lot.”

“And you are doing a damn good job. Have you heard when Morgan can be adopted yet?” Jon moves to the back of her van to take out the suitcases.

“Caseworker says she’s different than the boys even though it’s the same birth mom. So in the land of foster to adopt... We shall wait.” Brynn laughs. Derek and Brynn decided to be foster parents not long after Lincoln was born. They took placement of Jack and Jameson not long after finishing all their paperwork. Jack was 3 and Jameson was a newborn. When the couple found out that the birth mom had another baby and she could either go into foster care with different family or them. There was no question. They needed to keep the siblings together.

“So glad you decided to spend the boys’ fall break here Rin. I’ve missed you.” Bekah slid a drink over as Brynn launches herself up to the kitchen stool.

“Me too. How do the kids get up here? I see the pictures.” Brynn laughs while taking a sip.

“Have you seen my children, they climb on everything! Scar swings her tiny self up there and then jumps down. It’s resourceful.”

“They are Jon’s kids, there is no denying that.”  Brynn laughs with a sip.

“Hey!  I should take offense to that but I might have to agree there.”  Jon presses his lips to Bekah’s temple and she leans into him.  The friends fell into easy conversation until they were interrupted by Morgan who wanted a snack.  Jon handed the toddler enough fruit snacks for all of them and she toddled back.  “I’ve wondered this for awhile.  Why is she not a J?”

Both women just look at him.  “Tae, I’ve never thought about it.  Jack and Jameson.  A J girl name makes sense.”  Bekah looks at Brynn who just shrugs her shoulders.  The caseworker said her and Derek could change any of the kids names but they decided to leave them for a few reasons then gave the boys new middle names when they were officially adopted.

“They are all alcohol brands, but is that just...” Jon questions and Brynn’s mouth drops opens.  

“I... how... ummm...”  Brynn starts and her eye go wide.  “At least they aren’t named after the place they were...”  Brynn looks down the hall then back to her friends, “conceived.” Her face lights up with mischief.  

“Rin, Linc and Scar aren’t named after that.”  Bekah answers with a puzzled look written all over her face.  

“Sure they are.  Lincoln was in your Lincoln Park place and still miss that roof, every time I come here...”  Jon starts laughing as he’s caught on.

“But Scarlett?  Are you saying she was in Columbus?  Like Scarlett and Grey?  Because that’s not the case.”  Bekah runs her hand over her face.

“Beks, we live on Red Maple.  R-E-D.”  Jon laughs while pulling Bekah into his side.  “And everyone in this room can do the math on Scar’s birthday and my last cup win.”

“Oh.  My.  No!”  Bekah responds sending both Jon and Brynn into a fit of laughter.  

“So if Jon makes the All-Star game this year, maybe we can expect a Seattle named baby to come out of the trip?”  Brynn snickers knowing she’s getting under her best friend’s skin.

“Speaking of trips.  I miss you coming with me.”  Jon seems to have changed the subject before hearing his name being called and he retreats to answer the kids.

“Bekah, you know you could go with him Wednesday.  They play in St. Louis.  I’ve got the kids and Kelly lives here now.  I’m sure she can help if something goes crazy, which I don’t plan on that happening.”  Brynn jumps off the stool and backs up to look down the hallway.  “Seriously, you should go.”  

Brynn was right.  After the shut down of the economy in 2020, Kelly and Zack made the decision to move back to Chicago where Zack started teaching at DePaul for help with future college tuition.  Bekah and Jon hadn’t gotten away as much as they had in the past without taking the kids.  Taking a day and a half to go watch him play and enjoy dinner alone did sound amazing.  

“You sure Rin?”  Bekah sounded giddy.

“Yes, very much so.”  Brynn had wandered into the living room that was now the Sedona inspired room.  Prints hung of Jon and Bekah’s first trip, wedding day, the first time they took each kid and a family picture from the past summer when both kids hiked most of the way up.  “I like the new one!”

“Speaking of new ones.”  Jon’s stealth like entrance made both ladies jump.  “I have something for you, Babe.”  As he spoke, he pulls out a puck from his pocket.  Bekah spins it in her hand and tears come to her eyes.

“Lincoln’s first game 8U game. October 18, 2025.”  She sees that Jon had Lincoln sign the top too.  “Tae.”  She squeaks out.

“We might need a Lincoln shelf.”  Jon wraps his arms around his wife and pulls her in.

“Tell him!”  Brynn breaks the couple’s embrace as she spoke.  Jon looks down with his eyebrows raised.

“How about I come to St. Louis with you this week?”  Bekah stands on her tippy toes to whisper in his ear, “Just me.”

“YES!”  Jon shouts out.  “Seriously, Brynn?  You are making this happen?”  Jon turns and pulls her into a hug. 

“You two lovebirds...” Brynn started and looked at how Jon lifted Bekah up in the air in so much joy about a few moments alone. “Still after all these years I’m happy as hell for you but also your passion for one another is...” she starts making a heaving motion.

With that, Bekah and Brynn soaked up their time together. Let Lincoln take a day off school on Monday to play with what he calls his cousins. And really with David’s kids living in Manitoba, Kelly and Brynn’s kids were the closest thing he had to cousins near him.

Monday night was a home game. Jon rented a box and invited Kelly and her family to join. The kids had so much fun cheering on the Hawks. After years of going to games they still loved the atmosphere. Tuesday morning came quick. Bekah left a giant list of instructions for Brynn which made her laugh. Jon took Lincoln to school before taking a morning skate. They flew out that afternoon. Jon interlaced his fingers in Bekah’s as the plane took off.

“You look like a first time flyer Beks. What gives?” Jon kisses her ear sweetly.

“Just worried about the kids and Rin and...” Jon’s lips land on hers to stop the rant swirling from her brain to her lips.

“They will be fine. Promise.” Jon pulled his arm around her and she breathed him in. The flight was short and the drive to the hotel was too. “You know you’ve never stayed here but could’ve all those years ago. New Years. Winter Classic.” Jon places her bag on top of his and grabs his wife’s hand.

“Yeah, I didn’t make the wises choices back then.” Bekah whispered.

“You are here aren’t you? We are here... so those choices lead to now.” Jon’s knuckle pressed the button. “And while it took some convincing..”

“Sorry.” Bekah mumbled as she pressed their floor.

“Baby, don’t be.” Jon kisses the top of her head as the door opens and leads them to their room. Opening the door he drops the bags as Bekah closes the door. His body pressing hers agains the door and lips locked together. Pulling at her legs to wrap them around him. They break and Jon’s lips slide down her neck. A moan escapes from her lips.

“Tae.” She tries to continue but Jon’s lips are on hers again. His hands tight around her with the door holder her up. “Tae.” She moans out again. Jon leans back a little to look her in the eyes.

“Ca va, mon amour?” Jon leans back and takes in his wife.

“I’m okay. Extremely turned on but also slightly worried about your teammates hearing us as they check in. Plus, there are things I would like to do to you that I cannot do pinned to this door.” Bekah leans to bite at his lips.

“Well for starters we aren’t on the team floor. I made sure of that. Now, what things are you talking about?” Jon pulls both of their bodies away from the door and carries Bekah towards the bed.

“First, Captain,  I’d like you to rid you of these clothes.”  Bekah wiggles free of Jon’s grip and stands to her feet.  He grunts as she starts to take off his clothes.  Running her fingers over his still well toned abs followed by her tongue until her teeth find his boxers.  She pulls on them with only her mouth and Jon helps with an approving grunt.  “When is the last time we didn’t have rushed sex Tae?”

“Too long Beks.”  Jon barely gets out as his entire body reacts to Bekah’s lips running along the bottom of his shaft.  “C'est cela.”  He moans out as he finds the edge of the bed.  Bekah continues until she wraps her lips around him and he stops her.  “I need you undressed and up here.”  He lifts her up and slides her tunic dress over her body then her leggings.  “Damn sexy Baby.  Damn Sexy.”  He stands to carefully removing her bra then underwear kissing her skin as more is exposed.

“Really?”  Bekah questions placing her hands over her breasts.  “Sorry.  Just feeling not as perky as I once was.”  Bekah doesn’t look up at Jon with her admission.  He pulls her chin up to make her eyes meet his.

“Rebekah, you are more beautiful and sexy than ever.  I’m so fucking lucky you are mine.”  He shifts her to lay her on the bed and hovers over her body.

“I’m lucky too.  I just went from confident at hell to catching a glimpse of my stretch mark in the mirror.”  She ran her hand over the mentioned mark from her last pregnancy.  Jon met her hand with his lips.

“This means you worked hard to bring our sassy daughter into the world.”  Jon moves up to her breasts and sucks one in between his teeth.  “And I’m glad I currently don’t have to share these.”  Bekah’s breath hitches then she laughs as he moves to do the same to the other.  He kisses down her stomach and moves his way between her legs.  Spreading her lips with his fingers he sucks on her clit causing Bekah’s hips to jump off the bed and her hand to land in his hair.  Jon hums in approval.  He moves his fingers to scissor deep inside her.  Bekah went to call out his name and bit her lip.  Jon looked up and kissed her thigh.  “Beks, no one to wake up.  Let me hear you.”  He moved back to circling Bekah’s clit with his tongue as she moaned out.  

“Tae.  Fuck.  Tae.”  Bekah feels her orgasm crashing over her.  Jon doesn’t let up as it washes over her.  Her legs tremble and toes curl up his back.  She loosens her grip and he quickly shifts up her body to press himself fully in her.  Both moaning in the familiarity and need for each other.  Jon presses his lips to hers and stays there.  “Tae, move please.” Bekah tries to press her hips up and Jon smiles.

“I love you Beks.” He simply says as he pulls out slightly and starts a rhythm making both moan and spill out affirmations in the moment.  Jon feels Bekah tighten completely around him and with a few more movements of his hips they both hit their high.  Jon crashing into Bekah’s body, chests heaving from the intensity.  They stay like this for a moment then a beeping sound starts in the direction of the pile of clothes.

“Tae, what is that?”  Bekah questions and Jon laughed.  “What?”

“I set an alarm to make sure we made it to team dinner.”  Jon moves to find his phone.  Turning off the alarm he looks at a notification.  “Oh, dinner on our own.  Fantastic!”  He jumps back in bed and wraps Bekah up.

“Can we still go get dinner?”  Bekah asks.

“Or order in.”  A sly smile crosses Jon’s face and Bekah nods.  “Hey, did you tell Brynn we were trying for a third already?”

“No, why do you ask?”  Bekah looks up at him.

“Well she mentioned the whole naming of kids thing and Seattle plus she suggested this trip...”  Jon trails off.

“Oh, no, but she’s Rin.  I swear she knows things without me telling her.”  Bekah jokes.  “Oh, shit.  What time is it?”  She looks at Jon’s phone.  “Get your shirt on, we need to FaceTime the kids!”  Jon heads to his luggage and quickly pulls out two Hawks shirts.  He starts to FaceTime and Bekah looks at her now sexed looking hair and quickly braids it to the side just in time.

“Hey guys!”  Jon waves at the screen seeing Brynn, Lincoln and Scarlett sitting on the couch.  Bekah notices Brynn’s face with Lincoln asked what they have done since they got there and Jon talked about getting to the hotel and checking in.  The family talked for a little and said their goodbyes.  Jon gets up to head to the shower and looks back.

“J’ai besoin de nous.”  Bekah whispers just looking at the floor.  

“Babe, did you just say I need us?”  Jon comes back over and pulls her up to his chest.

“Yeah.  That’s right, right?”  Bekah bats her eyes.

“It is.  You are picking up more French from my mom’s FaceTime lessons with Lincoln aren’t you?”  Jon kisses her cheek and she feels the heat rushing to them.

“Yeah.  Speaking of, he said, ‘j’ai mon voyage’ and also ‘tabarnak’ the other day.”  Jon starts laughing.  Hard.  “Shit, what did he pick up?”  

“Well, I had enough is basically what j’ai mon voyage means and...as for the other.  I’ll talk to my parents.  I’m sure they didn’t mean to teach him what some deem a cuss word.”  Bekah’s mouth hangs open.  “Babe, I’ll fix it, okay?”  He moves her braid and kisses her again.  “Back to the I need us.  Explain.”

“Just that.  I need us.  I love our family and our life and even this team but at the end of the day it’s me and you.”  She spins her ring around her finger.

“Well, Beks... J’ai besoin de nous too.”  Jon whispers.  “I told you hockey is almost over and then it’s just us being parents and husband and wife.”

“You really think you are done Tae?”  Bekah questions.

“Yeah.  Dach is ready to be captain.  I have four rings.  Kaner and I are talking about going out together.  This team has what it takes to win another one too.  Now, I would love baby number three to experience some of this hockey life.”  Jon rubs Bekah’s lower abdomen.

“Are you asking if you think that got me pregnant?”  Bekah laughs and Jon nods.  “Well, you might have to try harder Mr. Toews.”  She smirks and heads towards the shower.  “And if so... I’m not naming the baby Louis!”  

“Death of me Beks.  You will be the death of me!”  Jon scoops Bekah up and heads towards the shower.  

[murfpersonalblog]

SO TRUE.

Cuz like, AR's vampires are not meant to be sympathetic, they're meant to be sexy. Her characters are asexual, but exude so much sex appeal--to an UNCOMFORTABLE degree sometimes, with all the incest and pedo stuff going on, esp w/ Claudia & Gabrielle. AR took the already sexualized metaphor of vampirism common in older vampire media, and amped up the seductive allure of being allowed to literally suck the world dry--killing and raping with impunity, puffing up their lace collars, and then moaning about how no one understands/appreciates them.

At worst, it's insensitive, tone deaf, entitled, and whiny (read: book!Louis). At best, it's played for laughs and dark humor (read: book!Lestat circa QotD, Blackwood Farm). AR/Lestat wants you to feel sympathy for him in TVL (which AMC nodded to when Lestat trauma-dumped his backstory onto Paul & Claudia in Ep1 & 6); but by ToTBT/Memnoch he's self aware enough to know he doesn't deserve much sympathy. AR arguably only committed to giving him anything of a sincere redemption arc in in the Prince Lestat trilogy.

The ONLY vampires I actually feel true sympathy for are book!Armand & book!/film!/show!Claudia--kids trapped in a family of monsters, nurture over nature, products of their environment when the adults in their lives hopelessly failed them. I NEED to see what AMC does with Armand's backstory, cuz how he acts in later books is all tangled up in his own history as a different kind of slave--kidnapped into sex slavery, and then kidnapped into a satanic cult. Them changing his race and aging him up puts a whole new spin on the context behind his slavery, cycles of violence, and psychological abuse--which could potentially turn him into either an even more sympathetic character, or, as I suspect/fear, into the most heinous creature ever, depending on whatever he's doing to/with Louis. 👀

book!Lestat is the carbon copy of Marius, but on meth. The ultimate narcissist misogynist racist imperialist colonial neoliberalist hell demon in leather pants and purple heart-shaped sunglasses; who built a literal cult of himself & his misdeeds through his rockstar career and ultimately his Vampire Chronicles books. Some folks keep clutching their pearls over Ep5, when I'm like did y'all forget how sadistic & effed up villain!Lestat was in the books & movie? 🤨 Even Marius & his own mother were fed up with him! 😅

AR's vampires lean into being monsters. They never truly apologize for it--Lestat arguably comes the closest to acknowledging that he's effed up, only before shrugging his shoulders and laughing it all off, proud that he's an apex predator in the Savage Garden. He makes being a monster FUN, and attractive in a way that utterly appeals to the image of the Aryan protagonist, the cannibalistic Wolf on Wallstreet killing other wolves.

I know AMC has its head crammed up the Mayfair Witches' arse, but TBH the Immortals Universe crossover I am DYING to see is AR's vampires and werewolves. 🙏 THOSE are the monsters I think are the most sympathetic--if we're not counting ghosts like Goblin in BwF or Azriel in AR's Servant of the Bones as a "monster" (that book made me cry, like wtf). The Goldings, Margon, etc, those are actual vigilantes who fully commit to killing the Evil-Doer--the Wolf Gift series is basically AR's version of superheroes, determined to help the needy and literally eat the rich/evil, despite their bloodthirsty impulses as werewolves bitten & turned without their consent.

‘The book challenges you to sympathize with monsters’ sympathizing with book Louis isn’t as challenging and mind blowing as some people think it is and that sympathizing with white racists and abusers is already what you’re taught to do when you live in a society where white supremacy is the foundation and leaks into every single facet of your daily life

[joachimnapoleon]

Hello, What were the opinions of the people who personally knew Murat? Thank you !

Murat tended to inspire strong feelings--both positive and negative--in those who knew him. He had a knack for rubbing people the wrong way and making enemies; I feel like I've said this before at some point on my Tumblr, but it's true: Murat wasn't everyone's cup of tea. At the same time, those who grew to love him, stayed devoted to him for the rest of their lives, like his childhood friend Agar who served him in Naples, or his former chief of staff General Belliard. I wouldn't necessarily go so far as to say "you either loved him or hated him," because I've come across enough instances of people who knew him closely who held a balanced (or conflicted) view of him, but he could be pretty polarizing.

That being said, there are a lot of common themes that spring up repeatedly in the recollections of those who knew him. His vanity and ambition. His bravery. His softheartedness. His dislike of corporal punishments. His susceptibility to flattery. His pride and flirtatiousness. His love of his children. His emotional volatility. His indecisiveness. His lack of moral courage. His frankness and generosity. And of course, his love of outlandish uniforms. It's not unusual to see nearly all of these come up at some point in the accounts of him from both his critics and admirers.

Here are some of my favorite remembrances of Murat, by those who knew him.

***

Murat was a good man. He was dashingly brave, and possessed military talents together with a great desire to please and to be admired. He sought to have good manners and overdid them. One saw by his exaggerated dress and his attentions to the ladies that he wished to resemble the Villarceaux and Sévignés of the days of Louis XIV. These famous courtiers were the models he had chosen, but the rough hearty republican could not be completely hidden, and the mixture of the two opposite types of character would have been ridiculous at times if one had not been conscious of the honest, frank soldier in the background who reconciled the puppets one to the other. Consequently, in spite of his male and martial beauty he was a far less dangerous person than he imagined. He had an excellent heart, a mediocre mind, and the rise of his fortunes had been too rapid not to have slightly turned his head. Ambition without those qualities which justify it is a despicable thing, and only really great men can make it into a virtue. The ambition of Murat was a result of his good fortune, and after being a distinguished general he became a second-rate monarch.

-Hortense de Beauharnais, The Memoirs of Queen Hortense, Vol. 2.

***

Much has been said of this truly extraordinary prince; but only those who saw him personally could form a correct idea of him, and even they never knew him perfectly until they had seen him on a field of battle. There he seemed like those great actors who produce a complete illusion amid the fascination of the stage, but in whom we no longer find the hero when we encounter them in private life.... What, so to speak, idealized him was his truly chivalrous bravery, often carried to the point of recklessness, as if danger had no existence for him.

-Recollections of the Private Life of Napoleon, by Constant, Premier Valet de Chambre, Vol. III, 1900, pgs 207-208.

***

The King put new blood into the public administration, not merely by the activity and firmness which he exerted, but by his practical anxiety to give a proper direction to public affairs. The natural clemency of his character, which even conciliated those who were least likely to be moved by it, facilitated the execution of his intentions.... Had Joachim better known how to organize his army, and to maintain discipline between the French and the Neapolitan troops, he would have succeeded in obtaining far better results. By nature generous, and by no means insensible to flattery, Joachim was extremely averse to inflicting punishment, and was prone to recompense not merely those who merited it, but to reward others whose conduct should have entitled them to very different treatment. This happened, because he could never resist the supplications of the courtiers, still less the entreaties of the ladies about the Court, and like all princes, he was extremely liberal to those whom he termed mes devoués, without reflecting that the less elevated man is by nature, the more devotion he affects to princes, the more he flatters their power. The beauty of his person, the charm of his smile, the natural urbanity of his manner--to which, however, he was inclined to add more importance than was consistent with his proper dignity--and the richness of his dress, pleased the multitude and the army, although self-reputed sages laughed at this last display, and pronounced it ridiculous. The affability and gentleness of his manners, which were such as could not have been anticipated from a man of low birth, endeared him to the Court.... Murat was a Charles XII in the field, but a Francis I in his Court. He would have regarded the refusal of a favour to any lady of the Court, even though she were not his mistress, as an indignity.... Unfortunately for him as well as for our poor country, Murat fancied himself extremely sagacious in the art of kingcraft, and above all, that he alone could manage his affairs in the then intricate political state of the times. I do not mean to imply by this that the King was deficient in a certain sagacity; on the contrary, he could at times reason very aptly, and according to the opinion of his minister, Giuseppe Gurlo, who was a man of no ordinary stamp of mind, the King when in council often reasoned in a manner far superior to any of his ministers.

-General Guglielmo Pépé, Memoirs of General Pépé, Vol I [Pépé served under Murat in Naples]

***

Fouché, who had a fairly good relationship with Murat, describes him in his memoirs as "a brave and noble-minded general, but a king without any firmness or decision in his resolves," and as a man who "always overstepped moderation."

-Memoirs of Joseph Fouché, Vol I (English translation, 1825)

***

Posterity will certainly blame King Joachim for some political errors, which in the end were the cause of his own ruin; but his goodness of heart, his frankness and generosity, command an affectionate remembrace. As a warrior, he became an object of veneration to all nations, from the Arab of the desert to the Cossack of the Don. He was loved even by his enemies, and would have been adored throughout the kingdom of Naples, without any exceptions, had not his officers and functionaries sometimes acted at variance with his intentions, and disgusted some classes of the people by vexatious stretches of authority. One of his foibles was, an incapacity to punish; and this, like an analogous failing in parents towards their children, engenders laxity and disobedience.... His desires were those of a King, but his mind was too much that of a soldier; his heart was that of a warm friend to mankind, and was, as said of the gigantic Sir William Jones, "even bigger than his body."

-Memoirs of the Life and Adventures of Colonel Maceroni, Vol II, 1838, pages 348-9. [Maceroni was one of Murat’s aides-de-camp during his reign in Naples]

***

(And the last few are from Napoleon. Because there really isn't any one quote from Napoleon that really suffices to sum up his feelings on Murat, but taken all together they provide a pretty interesting picture.)

***

He has a good heart, and at bottom he likes me better than his lazzarone. When he sees me he is mine; but away from me, he sides, like all spineless men, with anyone who flatters or makes up to him. If he had come to Dresden his vanity and self-interest would have led him into countless follies in trying to manage the Austrians. His wife is ambitious, and has stuffed his head with foolishness. He wants to have the whole of Italy; that is his dream, and that is what prevents him from wanting the crown of Poland.

-Napoleon, as quoted by General Armand de Caulincourt in With Napoleon in Russia: The Memoirs of General de Caulaincourt, Duke of Vicenza, pages 39-40.

***

Murat was the man most cowardly of character; he was only good under fire: there, he was sublime!

-Napoleon, quoted by Montholon in Récits de la Captivité de l'Empereur Napoléon à Sainte-Hélène, Vol II, 1847.

***

Murat was endowed with extraordinary courage, and little intelligence. The too great disproportion between those two qualifications explains the man entirely.

-Napoleon, quoted in Memorial de Sainte Hélène: Journal of the Private Life and Conversations of the Emperor Napoleon at Saint Helena by the Count de Las Casas, Vol II Part III, 1823.

***

Who is there who doesn’t know of Murat’s wild courage, and who would not believe that a warrior like that has a soul of steel, an indomitable character? Well, there is not a softer, more gentle creature in private life, even more weak at times. If in camp he receives a letter from his wife, he cries like a child. But at the sound of cannon his head is up, he rushes out and throws himself into the fray–on the battlefield that Achilles has twenty elbows.

-Napoleon to Molé, as recorded by the Count of Mosbourg in Murat: Lieutenant de L'Empereur en Espagne 1808, page 73.

***

Thanks for the ask! ^_^

[atruththatyoudeny]

Happy 28th! Sending out all my love to the authors and artists in this fandom! ♥ Here are all the fics I read and loved this month:

Ferricadooza! | suspendrs | 1960s - historical - boxing - period-typical homophobia - violence - sexuality crisis - identity crisis - hurt/comfort - Polari - 65k Harry can’t even fathom the idea of surrendering; he’d fight ‘til he died, if he had to, anything to keep from surrendering. Or, the year is 1963, homosexuality is illegal in the UK, Louis owns a gay bar, and Harry’s an underground boxing champion with an unfortunate enemy.

The Little Dog Whisperer | lovelarry10 | strangers to lovers - kid fic - fluff - dog walking - 29k Louis lives alone with his dog Clifford. When he spots a sign in the neighbourhood advertising dog walking services, along come Harry and his son Alfie into his life…

Pretty Please (With Sugar On Top) | angelichl | a/b/o - Sugar Baby Harry - strangers to lovers - mutual pining - miscommunication - soul bond - soulmates - angst - 113k Harry is a sugar baby omega who cons rich alphas for a living. Louis is a rich alpha with too much self-control.

Step Into The Light | lovelarry10 | PWP - established relationship - 13k Harry’s filming his music video for his new song in the humid heat of Cancun, Mexico after dark. Louis watches him with hooded eyes from behind the visor of his motorcycle helmet watching it all go down. How far can Harry push his desire?

Take on Me | haztobegood | magical realism - 60k Actor Harry Styles is preparing for his next leading role as Antonius the Gladiator with the help of Louis Tomlinson, Hollywood’s top stunt coordinator. When the demands of Harry’s career get in the way of their training, the pair head to a secluded cabin to complete their training. Then, Louis begins to share senses with Harry. What is causing this mysterious connection and can Louis and Harry figure out how to stop it before they leave the cabin?

Don’t Move In (Don’t Move Out) | 2tiedships2 | a/b/o - friends to lovers - mutual pining - misunderstandings - fluff - 14k Only one more week and Harry would be living under the same roof. Gone would be Liam’s alpha scent, quickly replaced with Harry’s. All Harry. Louis was going to fucking die. You’d think Louis would be used to it by now, that Harry’s scent would simply fade into the background like Liam’s did. But Louis had a feeling he would simultaneously be living in Heaven and Hell once Harry moved in. Louis was pulled out of his thoughts when Niall smacked him on the back of his head. "The fuck was that for?" Louis asked, rubbing his head and looking at the bloody Irishman he called his other best friend. "You were basically drooling, mate,” Niall said. “That was a courtesy smack to keep your daydreaming from seeping into your pheromones."

It's A Never-Ending Helter-Skelter | runaway_train | Circus - Desert Island - strangers to lovers - 8k The one where Harry winds up on a desert island with a bunch of circus performers and it might just be the best thing that's ever happened to him.

So...how's parenting going? vol. i: the case of the imaginary friend | thealmightyavocado | crack - established relationship - fluff - 8k Harry and Louis’ three-year-old son has an imaginary friend that is making their life a living, breathing hell.

Ad arbitrium | star_k ❶  Find what you love | a/b/o - soulmates - one-sided attraction - pining - angst - 26k Harry learns 16 years is a lifetime to be in love with someone else. ❷  And let it kill you | a/b/o - pining - miscommunication - 19k Louis doesn't believe in fate, but rather in choice. There's nothing romantic about being stripped out of his own.

Lambing Season | HelloAmHere | Farm AU - comfort - fluff - 24k “Shut up,” Louis says, an involuntary grin tugging at his mouth. It’s not every boy who will stand in the middle of a cold barn in a suit and play musician trivia. “I’m Louis.” //lambing season brings sleep deprivation, noisy alarms, cold barns, demanding animals, and warm strangers.

Its Mutual We (All) Discussed It | nikogda | a/b/o - polyamory - omega/omega/alpha - slow burn - soul mates - 28k Two omegas in a committed relationship are ready to start a family. In the process, their alpha donor becomes part of the family too. Every part of their relationship may be unconventional but all of them have never been happier

Promise in the Sky | Throwthemflowers | friends to lovers - slow burn - religion - sexual repression - internalized homophobia - homophobic language - angst - suicide attempt - implied conversion therapy - healing - acceptance - 99k AU in which Harry Styles, a naïve, repressed, socially awkward Midwestern highschooler tries to navigate his fundamentalist evangelical parents and radically progressive older sister. He’s doing an okay job of this until the Tomlinson family starts attending Lakeside Baptist Church and a boy named Louis changes everything. Harry is forced to come to grips with his true self when Louis becomes more than just his best friend; but their relationship opens a can of worms and sends them on the most painful, heartbreaking journey of their young lives. They risk everything and nearly lose, and Harry learns that perhaps only one Bible verse is true: that perfect love casteth out fear.

This Glorious Mess | theweightofmywords | mpreg - miscommunication - post-break up - 14k His head lolls to the side, and his eyes float open to focus on what used to be his bedside table. It’s empty now, devoid of the framed photo of the two of them. And Louis knows that he has no right to feel hurt, but somehow, this only confirms what this really is. “This is the last time,” he cries, his voice breaking both from pleasure and pain. “I know, baby,” Harry breathes, burying his face in Louis neck.

(It's New) The Shape of Your Body | FallingLikeThis | mpreg - enemies to friends to lovers - angst - hurt/comfort - fluff - mention of abortion - misunderstandings - mutual pining - 18k Taking a deep breath, Louis tears open the packet and holds the test in his hands. Deep down he already knows what it’s going to say. He can feel the certainty of it in his bones but he needs to see it. He needs confirmation. Movies always make it look like you have to wait a bit to know, like you have to set a timer and give it a few minutes, wringing your hands for an answer. Even the box says it’ll take time, but it actually only takes a second after Louis pees on the strip to see the two pink lines appear that tell him what he already knew. He’s pregnant. “Oh god,” he breathes, staring down at it. And just like he’d known the test would be positive, he knows now that everything about his life is about to change.

If We Have Each Other | ishiplouis | mpreg - One Night Stands - friends to lovers - angst - fluff - miscommunication - 23k AU where Harry is a single father and a one-night stand is going to change his life forever.

Little Miracles | Summertimebutterfliesandhome (RoseDaggerLouisHarryLS_28) | mpreg - IVF - infertility - 9k Harry and Louis have been trying to have a baby for ages but they haven’t been lucky yet. The doctors tell them IVF is the only way but when that doesn’t work either they give up. However, some little miracles happen.

We've got a lifetime to kill | louislovesharry | mpreg - kid fic - minor pregnancy complications - 5k Harry and Louis have a three year old daughter, Evie, who is their whole world, and another little girl on the way. When Harry falls and is put on bedrest for the remainder of the pregnancy, Louis and Evie must adjust - but it is all worth it for their newest addition to the Tomlinson family.

Lost in Leeds | Open_Direction | mpreg - camping - fluff - 8k After a couple of amazing nights together at Leeds fest, Harry and Louis get separated with no way to contact each other. This might be less of a problem if Harry didn’t end up pregnant.

Dirty Little Secret | Dont_Stop_Larry | mpreg - secrets - 10k The one where Harry and Louis fall in love, but can’t figure out how to tell Gemma. That is, until Harry gets pregnant, and they don’t have much of a choice.

This I Promise You | xDnicki | mpreg - friends to lovers - friends with benefits - 34k A long awaited boys night out leads best friends Harry and Louis go further than they ever have before. It also leaves them with a surprise pregnancy that will help neither of them to forget that night.

Come In and Change My Life | lightswoodmagic (sarah_writes) | mpreg - a/b/o - fluff - 12k Harry and Louis become friends when Harry looks after Louis' cat during away games, until one night at a party changes everything between them. It's just a shame Louis' going to be away for the FIFA World Cup for three months.

My Sun and Stars, Moon of my Life | OhHarold | mpreg - Game Of Thrones Fusion - arranged marriage - 7k Harry was used to the luxuries of Kings Landing and then Pentos but when his brother is desperate for the crown he is entitled to, Harry must be part of an arranged marriage to a ruthless Khal of a Dothraki tribe.

Dancing With Masks | messofgorgeouschaos | mpreg - fake/pretend relationship - One Night Stands - pining - fluff - 18k With awards season coming up and new films on the way for both of them, Harry and Louis' managers decide it's time for them to date for publicity. They don't mind, given that they are best friends and have known each other for ages. Besides, years of sexual tension built into a fake relationship for press, what could possibly go wrong?

You Wouldn't Believe the Dream I Just Had About You & Me | larryatendoftheday | mpreg - college/university - friends to lovers - slow burn - memory loss - 21k After a back-to-school bash and a few too many drinks, Harry finds himself pregnant from a one-night stand he doesn’t remember. His best friend Louis is the only one who knows about the baby. Together they try to find the father of Harry’s baby, but they keep looking in all the wrong places.

[1ddiscourseoftheday]

Mon 1 Apr

Update theme of the day, me being cranky! We have entitled people treating Harry like an object, and reckless massaging of logic, two things that really chap my hide! April fools, the joke is on anyone who follows me for, well, jokes. Better luck tomorrow. Well let's get it over with...

First up, the Incident with Harry- I laughed about the stalkers getting in a fight in front of him in NY but even that was kind of a bummer honestly, and it turns out the reality was even worse. In fact, a jet lagged Harry came out of the restaurant where he had dinner after his big event, probably dead on his stylishly shod feet at this point, to a small crowd of fans. He understandably said he wasn't up for pictures, sad but okay it happens: at this point one of the fans STARTS YELLING AT HIM about it and condescendingly calls him "sweetie" in a tone that honestly makes me want to smack her. Poor Harry, not being a jerk unlike me I would snap and knowing it'd probably make international headlines if he refused, then has to smile for pictures cheek to cheek with these entitled creeps. The whole display is gross as hell, the idea that people feel such entitlement to anyone's time or body, regardless of their status as, for example, a celebrity; I think it would do (mostly female) fandom some real good to reflect on the ways it parallels female oppression and consider how being treated like an object who owes your body or smile to someone for any reason makes you feel. Is catcalling or grabbing strangers or pressuring in the face of a clear no ever okay? Is it something that's okay to do to men or to famous people just because the dynamic of oppression is different? Or do we want to be better than that rather than just flipping the roles? I know for sure that I at least want these particular boys who I care for to be treated with more respect than that.

Of course, there's more than simple interpersonal dynamics at play here- the chances are high that those fans were told where to wait for Harry by HSHQ, which would have fueled their sense of entitlement, as has been seen over and over again. The boys' management absolutely have power over what kind of behavior is tolerated- if they really started denying access to more people who behave badly, rather than continuing to invite them places and give them gifts, that behavior would stop. It's upsetting that that continues to not be a priority.

AND THAT'S NOT ALL I have even more ranting for you today! I didn't comment a lot on the NYC lousquatch vid cause I didn't really think it warranted it but it's still a hot topic and today people were going around saying that the pics of Louis at the footie game Sat were from an earlier date and were posted now to hide the fact that he was in NY so okay fine. Listen. Are you suggesting that the Hadley official football club AND the opposing team posted pictures on their official Facebook pages of a match that took place at a different time claiming it was the previous day's match and that just... worked? That no-one who follows them thought that was strange? Did they play a whole match that was kept secret to make this possible now? I think people are underestimating the football fandom and overestimating the extent to which LTHQ can manipulate the world, but okay, it was a small footie league I guess anything is possible, I'll keep going. The NYC video is of someone being papped which would be a very odd choice for a Louis who was theoretically sneaking around to be in NY and is honestly the biggest argument against for me, the person in the video is entering a different restaurant than the one Harry was seen exiting, video OP is a creep and a troll but even he said it wasn't Louis, the guy in the video was imo too skinny to be Louis, Harry flew home as quickly as possible alone on a public flight, and no, time zones and flight times do not really allow for Louis to have been in NYC the evening of the 29th and at that game the afternoon of the 30th.... Like yeah, maaaybe it's technically possible and I can muster up arguments to combat most of this but they require a lot of wild maybes and none of them remotely allow for the possibility that Louis is genuinely taking some time off for self care which I hope to god is the case, and I gotta say I think the simpler explanation is a lot more likely; that Louis is in London. And so is Harry now, after pretty obviously running himself completely ragged to manage that. And while Harry was gone Oli and Louis went out for the day. Anyway now more pics of Lou from that day are popping up so you would think it'd be a moot point but I thought that yesterday too AND I just saw someone wondering if the new ones were photoshopped so I'm just gonna leave this here.

Anyway the only funny thing I have today is imagining Louis' dismay at Pizza Hut calling him "fineapple", after his least favorite pizza topping. There's probably a topping joke to be made in there but despite what the rest of this post may make you think I'm not actually trying to get blocked by everyone in this fandom so I'll just let that one go by...

Meanwhile Niall was papped in London looking smoking hot tbh, but like Niall DO YOU MIND I'M BUSY WITH OTHER STUFF TODAY go be visible tomorrow!!

[laurasinele]

When Harry met Hamish (a Fictober19 Galahad/Merlin drabble)

Prompt 18: “Secrets? I love secrets!”

Fandom: Kingsman

Tags: Merlin’s real name is Hamish Blackwood, Harry Hart saves him from his abusers, they both love Pride and Prejudice

Warnings: bullying, beating

Ao3

Hamish hated them all the very moment they stepped into Kingsman’s facilities. Cocky, self-absorbed bastards them all, sons of noblemen proud to be somewhere down, deep, deep, down the line of succession to their queen —careful, Hamish, your Scott is showing.

He wasn’t even supposed to be here yet. Merlin was just being a dick. Though it was probably because he was being a smartass. Computer science advanced fast and Merlin was really old, after all. Nevertheless, putting Hamish to train with this particular batch of candidates was a ruthless punishment, certainly disproportionate given that his only crime was pointing out syntax errors in a line of code, or twenty-five.

“Hey, Blackwood! Come join us by the lake!”

They were camping in the forest around the mansion. It was supposed to be a leisure activity, though Hamish knew, as Merlin’s apprentice, that something was supposed to attack them in the next 24 hours, and this brats were thinking about swimming and bullying him instead of keeping alert.

“Nah, thanks. I’m perfectly fine here”.

“Come on”, said little Lord Wilkinson, swim trunks dripping on the book Hamish was reading, yanking him up by the arm. “You are ruining the fun for us”.

Oh, Hamish knew so well where this was going. He resigned to his destiny and calmly took off his glasses and store them in the zipped pocket of his chest. The blurry figures by the lake were encouraging them, and the sun was beginning to set. Four against one with visual disadvantage wasn’t a good prospect. And at least two of them wanted revenge on him for their shameful defeats on the judo matt —young Lord Willoughby— and the fencing court —Sir Harold Louis Everett's son. Now, despite his good training in close combat, Merlin was unarmed and clearly overpowered. The best strategy was observe and wait for his chance to flee. Except it never came. 

The three little Lords and pompous young Mr Everett, grabbed him each by one limb and threw him into the lake like a dead body, at about ten feet from the shore. Hamish tried to reign his body in and fall as painlessly as possible. He planned on holding his breath to his own 2 minutes, 57 seconds record and swim to the opposite shore, but halas, they had other plans for him. Willoughby lifted him out of the water and over his head like a prize, one hand in the small of his back and the other grabbing the back of the collar of his jumper.

“I’ve got a fish! I’ve got a fish with my own bare hands!”

“It’s the ugliest and skinniest fish I’ve ever seen, Willoughby!”, yelled young Lord Bartholomew from the shore. Everett and Wilkinson laughed out loud and Willoughby started to walk them out of the lake. Then Hamish saw his chance. Willoughby’s arms started to tremble with the effort and his walk through the greenish lake water affected negatively his balance. Hamish kicked Willoughby’s shoulder, making his captor drop him on top of his own head, thus losing grip of his other subjection point and sending them both underwater as his knees yielded to the sudden change of weight distribution. Hamish set off towards the opposite shore but the noblemen teamed up to grab his legs and drag him to the camp, his head hitting all the rocks they could find on the way. 

“Look at this fucking peasant”, said Bartholomew as he kicked Hamish’s ribbs. Except with all the excitement of a hunt, his childhood speech problems came back momentarily, making him pronounce instead “pucking pheasant”, to which Hamish laughed feebly.

“A packing pheasant? Why would it be packing? They’re not a migratory species”, he said falteringly.

At the insult of their self-appointed leader by virtue of his net worth, the others started kicking his sides too.

“What a terrible accident, Blackwood! You decided to climb a tree and fell down into the lake, didn’t you? That’s a great explanation for your wounds”, provided Everett, eager to be accepted by the lords 

“Nobody has to know the truth”, added Wilkinson. “It would be disgraceful if they knew a senior trainee was beaten up by his juniors. It will be our secret”.

“A secret? I love secrets”

Hamish did not recognise the man’s voice, but he did not have much time to wonder if he was friend or foe because he unleashed hell in the blink of an eye. Not surrounded anymore, Hamish rose and limped to sit on the log he’d been occupying before his abduction. He reached for his glasses, but the lenses were wet and his clothes were of no use to wipe them off. Across him there was obviously a fight going on, but he could only make out a swirl the color of the candidate’s jumpsuit, and three pale forms being thoroughly beaten, shaken and dragged across the floor by it.

“Now, gentlemen”, said the swirl after a second or two of none of the noblemen trying to go for him. “I believe it was the founder of the famous Eton School in which you lot undoubtedly met and birthed this beautiful camaraderie, who said ‘Manners maketh man’. As proud Eton alumni, I am sure you want to honor that saying. But I also know that human nature is fickle and pride might be a hindrance more than an aide in this instance. That is why I give you two options: either apologise to Mister Blackwood here, or fuck off this grounds before I get sick of your disgusting entitled faces”.

The water on the glasses was clearing off, giving Hamish the chance to watch four wet and humiliated candidates to enter the service scramble up and run away to the mansion, thus extinguishing their chances to become a Kingsman agent. 

His savior —come on, Hamish, you are no damsel in distress—, his benefactor, turned to face him. He looked much younger than his prowess had suggested. He offered Hamish his hand, although Hamish’s was wet and muddy. 

“Sergeant Harold Hart”

“Pleasure”, said Hamish, shaking his hand. “I am Hamish Blackwood, Merlin’s trainee”.

“I know. Merlin sent me, I’m his candidate. He suspected you’d be in trouble”.

Hamish huffed, not sure if he wanted to laugh or curse, and shook his head. He looked at Hart, who was looking at him with an amiable, non-comitant smile.

“Thank you for your service, Sergeant Hart”, Hart nodded, and turned his head to look at the three miserable figures half running in the distance, probably starting to feel the cold of the dusk. His smile widened. Hamish shook himself out of watching his rescuer — again? Control yourself, Hamish, for fuck’s sake—, adjusted his glasses and picked up his book. The cover sleeve read “Basic guide to programming”. 

“It wasn’t the founder of Eton”.

“Pardon?”, said Hart looking back at him.

“Manners maketh man. It was one of Eton Headmaster’s who wrote it in a book of proverbs and sayings. He took it from Winchester’s School motto”, explained Hamish, making a point to not look at Hart for the whole evening, least his chest would explode. 

Hart’s expression was completely neutral, and Hamish had already failed in his resolution. He tried not to skirm under Hart’s scrutiny, and then Hart smiled widely, this time, somehow, more sincerely, and said:

“Well, thank you for that bit of trivia, Blackwood. Let me repay you with an advise. I fou are going to hide what you are reading, choose a plausible cover. Nobody would believe someone with your level in computer science would be reading a basic programming guide. What is it, actually?”

“Pride and Prejudice”, mumbled Hamish.

“Lovely book. I always identified with Darcy when I was younger, now I guess it was pretentious of me”

“Not at all”, said Hamish before he could catch himself. 

They both shared a look. It was the kind of look that films used to tell you those two characters were sharing a moment of mutual understanding and admiration, which could later evolve in a much more closer connection and intimate feeling. They both independently realised it was that kind of look, and they both self-indulged in it a few more seconds. Then Hamish huffed a small laugh again. 

“I lost count on how many times I read it. It’s my comfort book for when I’m sick or feeling down”

Hamish smiled and nodded.

“I lost my third copy some months ago, in the burning of my barracks. I wanted to get a new one before coming here, but Merlin didn’t give me the time”. Hamish’s heart swelled.

“I could lend you mine”.

“No, then you wouldn’t be able to read it”.

“We could read it together. I was just starting when they pulled me to the lake”, that was a big fat lie, and he knew it, and he was pretty sure Hart knew it. But Hart’s face lit up, He got up and brought a blanket. He wrapped it around Hamish wordlessly, and then set a fire. He sat back next to him and, after a while, he said. 

“Well, go on. There’s not much light left, and they’re coming to pick us up anytime soon, after the boys get to the mansion complaining”.

Hamish smiled, showing his crooked teeth and began to read.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man…”

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Violet's exactly like Pearl. A manipulative bitch, who ruins everyone else's life for her own selfish wants.

.....Uhm.

Okay, this ask has left me kinda jarred. Lots to unpack here within these two sentences...

Anon, while you are entitled to your opinion, I’m not sure if you’re aware that we love and respect Violet on this blog.  I’m a Louis and clouis lover through and through, but I still love Violet’s character and this... is not her character. I just- no, haha 

Now, I don’t know anything about Pearl because I’ve never watched Steven Universe, but I do know about a little bit about Violet. 

Saying this about Violet is like saying that Louis is nothing but a jokester who doesn’t care about anything and only wants to get into Clementine’s pants. It’s just not... even a thing when you actually get to know them. They’re both complex characters with unique flaws and highlights about them. 

I haven’t watched Violet’s route all the way through, I’ve only seen the first two episodes of her route and then gifs from the rest. But, I have seen how she reacts in Louis’ route when you don’t save her. The first time left me furious because I had a lot of emotions about everything going through me [especially after finding out what happened to Louis’ tongue in her route] and I even made a post ranting about it in all my fury. 

Then, I calmed down and replayed it and looked at everything through Violet’s pov. While I think it’s mostly poor writing in the end when it comes to Violet’s capture and them telling us that she was mentally tortured only for them to turn around and say, “Gotcha! She actually got a physical injury like Louis and mental torture did nothing because she forgives Clementine!” Louis’ kidnapped route was way better executed in my opinion, but hey. Can’t have everything. 

Violet has had a lot of things happen to her that lead to her having abandonment issues, and if you go through her route you get insight into that. Even if you go through Louis’ route 100%, after Marlon’s death she still backs you up. She and Louis have the appropriate reactions to the situation. Violet sees Clementine as the one who brought the truth to light, as another girl who she’s warmed up to and a friend she could connect to given their similarities. 

Violet doesn’t try and manipulate Clementine into a relationship with her. If you just want to be friends with her, she’s 100% okay with that! In fact, she’s thrilled! She’s finally found someone she feels she can trust and bond with! Hell, if you go with Louis the whole time leading up to that point, she’s still friends with Clementine up to her capture. 

So, what confuses me the most about this ask is the “who ruins everyone else’s lives for her own selfish wants” part. 

Uhm......... when? 

When she’s constantly rude to Brody? Yeah, it’s not nice and it makes things tense between the two of them, but you can help Violet see that it’s not Brody’s fault and she tries. She doesn’t just go, “Yeah well fuck Brody anyway.” 

When she wants Clementine to stay? Is that ruining the lives of the others? Because... no. It doesn’t. Violet’s right about them needing her to stay and help protect them.  Even Louis, who was left heartbroken after watching his best friend’s murder right in front of him and who was the one who really wanted them gone, admits that he was blinded by all the shit happening and that it was the wrong thing to do. 

When she gets saved instead causing Louis to lose his tongue and “his life to be over”? 

I’m sorry, but Louis’ life isn’t over. It’s not ruined, it’s changed. He may have lost a huge part of himself, something that will take years to heal from [yes, game, it’s not something he’s going to be okay with in a week yeesh] but it’s not Violet’s fault. Violet wasn’t like, “Oh good you saved me ahaha fuck Louis” she’s fucking vengeful. She’s furious, and she’s going to do everything she can to get him back. 

Again, throwing more shade at the writers [but not really because blah blah budget and time blah blah I know] but I can see why some might think Violet doesn’t care about Louis based on her lack of reaction in the cells. And that’s a part that I do have a lot of issues with.  

I’m fully aware of the explanation: Violet had her freak out while Clementine was knocked out and now Violet doesn’t have time to focus on Louis’ condition if they want to escape. 

Which is bullshit. 

The Violet we were shown up to this point would’ve at least asked, “How bad is it?” and follow it up with a “We need to get out of here and get him to Ruby.” It’s two in character lines that would’ve fixed that problem. 

And then there’s Violet and Minerva. Violet acknowledges that this isn’t the Minerva she had a relationship with. And while I am annoyed that she wants to stay with her on the boat regardless of choices, I see it more as “I can’t leave her to just die here I am human after all” in her route. And Violet protects Clementine, AJ, and Tenn from her the best she can on the bridge. 

Which, by the way, her sacrificing her life to save Tenn when you don’t trust AJ? Not selfish. And if AJ does shoot him, she’s rightfully pissed off. 

Anyway, going back to Violet on the boat....

The thing is, when it comes down to the Violet vs Louis choice, you can look at it two different ways when you let her get captured. You can see it as Violet feeling abandoned because Clementine chose Louis over her, or because Clementine neglected to save her. While those two things look exactly the same just with different wording, they aren’t. 

If you consider that Louis and Violet are as close as it’s implied, Violet probably knows that Louis and Clementine are together now. Louis knows when Violet and her are together [suggested when you romance Violet but save Louis, he mentions that Clem and her are really close] so Violet could definitely take that as “You chose your boyfriend over me” after all the mental torture she went through with Lilly and Minerva. This is something that I explored in [with you] because it’s such a conflict within her character that I thought was intriguing. 

And the other way to look at it is that Violet isn’t upset that she saved Louis, she’s upset that Clementine couldn’t save her too. Someone she put all her trust into, regardless of the romance or best friendship. Again, this could be magnified out of proportion when you take into account Lilly and Minerva’s manipulation of her during her capture. 

We’ve seen Lilly work her slimy magic. Given everything that’s happened, Violet stopped fighting and let it all get to her. She was an easy subject [or toy] for Lilly to break, especially since she has Minerva as a tool. It’s not hard to think about for two seconds and come to the conclusion that yeah, Violet’s head really was fucked up after spending all that time with Lilly. 

Now, while I’m not the biggest fan of Violet forgiving Clementine so easily, it does show us that she’s aware that she was wrong to attack Clementine in the cell. She’s also been abandoned AGAIN and now she’s blind because of it. She’s honestly just a mess right now, and all she has in that moment is Clementine and Louis, who she has to trust to guide her to safety. Once again, she has to force herself into someone else’s hand and hope they don’t abandon her, too. 

What I’m getting at, anon, is that Violet isn’t a selfish, manipulative bitch. 

Violet’s sarcastic, but really funny, soft but hardened, sweet and an awkward romantic, and she’s passionate about protecting her family. She can close her self off, turn her head away and stay out of conflict, but she can also step in and lead when she has to. She makes mistakes, she gets angry, downright pissed sometimes. She also can apologize for this and recognizes when she’s wrong. She’s been through some shit in this world, and based on your choices, she can possibly give her life to save a boy she cared deeply for from his deranged sister, and the death is long and cruel.  

Like I said in the beginning, anon, you’re entitled to your opinion, but throwing around things like this only makes you look ignorant and hostile, and it’s stuff like this that I rarely answer. Tonight this just threw me for a loop and hey, I’ve got my own opinions and explanations for things.

So here’s my jumbled essay written at the lovely hour of midnight. 

You probably didn’t want it, but here it is anyway. 

[angelofthequeers]

Shine a Light on Me - part 5

Disclaimer: I don’t own ML.

Thanks to everyone who’s been following this fic! It was originally meant to be a salty oneshot and I can’t even believe it expanded into what it did. And thanks to anyone who’s liked and reblogged this - it means a lot more than you think, considering that this is only my second ever ML fic.

Part 4 | AO3 link

It’s not easy to navigate a building when you’re a group of brightly costumed superheroes trying not to be seen, especially when you’re looking for a fellow hero with a chance of being under the villain’s thumb. Somehow, though, Ladybug, Rena Rouge, and Carapace eventually find Chat Noir hiding in the library in the non-fiction stacks, curled in a ball.

“Chat Noir!” Ladybug rushes to his side and kneels next to her off-white partner. He squints up at her, and with the words ‘Adrien Agreste’ painted across his forehead, it’s a wonder that Luce Bianca hadn’t seen who he was before he could escape.

“Milady?” he croaks. He breaks into a weak grin when he sees Rena Rouge and Carapace behind her.

“How are you feeling, kitty?” Ladybug says, cupping his cheeks. She deliberately doesn’t look at the writing scrawled all over his body; he deserves his secrets, and if there’s anything he wants her to know then he’ll tell her. “Does it hurt?”

“Not now that you’re here,” Chat Noir says before his weak grin slips. “Honestly, it doesn’t. So long as I can’t see Luce Bianca, I don’t feel like I have to start spilling every little dark secret I have – it’s looking at her that hypnotises you into staying close to her. I think I’m pretty useless right now, bugaboo.”

“Dude, you’re far from useless,” Carapace says. “She totally would’ve gotten those kids if you hadn’t stopped her. And there’s gotta be some way you can help like this.”

“If we could find some way to cut the link between him and Luce Bianca when he’s near her, he could get the akuma without the risk of getting zapped,” Ladybug says slowly. “I know I usually wait until we’re in battle to do this, but…Lucky Charm!”

“Uh, okay,” Rena Rouge says slowly when Ladybug’s given a ladybug-patterned can of spray paint. “I don’t think spray-painting Luce Bianca will do much to stop her.”

Ladybug frowns. Her eyes are drawn to Chat Noir, then Carapace’s shield, then Rena Rouge, and she suddenly knows what they need to do. “Okay, guys, here’s the plan…”

“You think you can humiliate me like that?” Luce Bianca is shouting when the group of superheroes crouch in one of the corridors leading to the courtyard. Ladybug can’t help but wonder why Luce Bianca hasn’t left but then realises that it’s probably easier to keep everyone and their secrets close to her if she’s not moving and giving them the chance to slip away. “Well, I’ll expose you to the world, Ladybug! How are you going to defeat me without your mangy cat sidekick?”

“Meowch,” says a pitch-black Chat Noir. Covered in paint like he is, with a blindfold made of curtain fabric to prevent him from being able to see Luce Bianca, there’s no way he can do anything unless he’s got someone helping him.

“You’re my mangy cat,” Ladybug says. “Rena Rouge, Carapace, you ready?”

“Never been readier, dude,” Carapace says.

“Damn right,” Rena Rouge adds, twirling her flute between her fingers.

“Okay. Just like we planned.” Ladybug runs out of the corridor and does a graceful flip to land right in front of Luce Bianca. “Lila, you need to stop this right now!”

“Ladybug!” Luce Bianca clenches her fists. Ladybug shoots a glance at her bracelet, noting how it glimmers. If the akuma’s not there then she can’t think of where else it could possibly be. “Not very smart of you to show yourself like that when you know I want to crush you.”

“I’ve given you chance after chance to forget about your lies and –”

“I don’t want your pity!” Luce Bianca stomps her foot. When the rainbow words shimmer and move with her, Ladybug manages to discern what some of them say. They’re names, most likely of everyone she’s hit; Juleka Couffaine, Max Kanté, Alice Roux, Louis Martin…

“I don’t pity you,” Ladybug says. “I want you to be liked for who you are, Lila. I don’t want you to feel like you need to tell all these lies just to get people to like you.”

“Liar!” Luce Bianca bellows. “You can’t lie to me! I want your Miraculous, Ladybug! I want you unmasked! I want the whole world to know that you’re nothing but a little snake who puts on a cute smile to make everyone think she’s an angel! What would the world think if they knew how you’d treated me when we first met?”

“I already apologised for that,” Ladybug says firmly. “You’re perfectly entitled to not accept my apology, but you don’t get to keep hurting people like you’ve done. Especially with what you’ve done to Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

Luce Bianca gives a shrill, hysterical laugh. “Her? She’s just as much of a snake as you! Always smiling, rushing to help people, acting like she’s some pure princess and everyone should rush to cater to her!”

“Or maybe you’re so used to lying that you’ve even succeeded at lying to yourself,” Ladybug says. She drops her right hand down to her side and counts down from three; when she reaches zero, she hears faint flute music and a call of “Mirage!” In the blink of an eye, the courtyard is filled with hundreds of Ladybugs and Rena Rouges.

“You think that’ll stop me?” Luce Bianca aims at one of the Ladybug illusions and fires a beam of white light, which makes the illusion ripple out of existence. The way she’d used her left hand – the one with the bracelet – only confirms that the akuma has to be there. “You think you can out-illusion Volpina? I’ll destroy every single one of them and then expose you and Rena Rouge! And I’ll take the Fox Miraculous for myself – it should be mine!”

The courtyard is utter chaos as Luce Bianca and her minions attack. The illusions put up a good fight, jumping and darting out of the way, but it’s only a matter of time before they’re all destroyed, so the heroes need to act fast. Out of the corner of her eye, Ladybug catches sight of the real Rena Rouge joining the fray to aid as a further distraction, while Carapace and Chat Noir edge around to get close to Luce Bianca. Whenever a beam of white light gets too close for comfort, Carapace deflects it with his shield while still guiding Chat Noir by the wrist.

“You ready, kitty?” Ladybug says when Carapace and Chat Noir draw level with her.

“I’m always ready, bugaboo,” Chat Noir grins. “Cataclysm!”

Once his ring is sparking, Ladybug takes over the job of guiding him from Carapace. With the number of illusions now severely depleted and Luce Bianca getting angrier and angrier, Carapace ducks away from Ladybug and Chat Noir to cover Rena Rouge’s back so that she doesn’t get hit. This also has the added effect of infuriating Luce Bianca even more, consequently keeping her attention off Ladybug and Chat Noir.

“Follow me,” Ladybug murmurs to Chat Noir, leading him around the edge of the chaos by the wrist. Thankfully, none of Luce Bianca’s minions seem to realise that a Ladybug illusion wouldn’t be guiding a blindfolded Chat Noir, otherwise Ladybug’s plan may have been utterly ruined.

“Enough!” Luce Bianca shrieks. “Give me your Miraculous, you fake fox! Then I’ll take Ladybug and Chat Noir’s for Hawkmoth!”

“Fake?” Rena Rouge says, nimbly leaping over a minion. “How am I the fake one when Ladybug chose me?”

Luce Bianca screams and shoots a series of beams in quick succession. There’s no chance for Rena Rouge to dodge even one of them…and she would have been hit if not for Carapace crying, “Shellter!” to create a glowing green force field that deflects every single beam.

“Now, kitty!” Ladybug dashes forward with Chat Noir while Luce Bianca is throwing her tantrum and focusing on Rena Rouge and Carapace. Luce Bianca seems to realise what’s happening a split second too late, as she whirls to meet Ladybug and Chat Noir just as Ladybug plants Chat Noir’s sparking hand on Luce Bianca’s bracelet.

“No!” As the blackened butterfly escapes from the ruined bracelet, Luce Bianca dives for it and tries to snatch it back. But Rena Rouge and Carapace are there in a heartbeat, each grabbing one of her arms and holding her tightly as she wails and writhes.

“No more evildoing for you, little akuma!” Ladybug swipes open her yo-yo and swings it around to gather momentum as she usually does, then tosses it out to catch the akuma. “Time to de-evilise! Gotcha!” She frees the now-white butterfly and waves it off with a, “Bye-bye, little butterfly!”

“This isn’t fair!” Luce Bianca furiously yanks and heaves against Rena Rouge and Carapace’s grips, but they hold on tight. “You’ve ruined everything, Ladybug! You and Rena Rouge! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”

Not even sparing Luce Bianca a glance, Ladybug retrieves her spray can Lucky Charm from inside her yo-yo, then throws it up in the air and calls, “Miraculous Ladybug!” The healing ladybugs zoom around, reverting all of Lila’s victims to their former selves and fixing the damage in the courtyard caused by the battle with the illusions. Chat Noir beams and looks himself over when the blindfold and spray paint are dissolved along with the effects of Luce Bianca’s exposing beam and he’s back to his usual self.

“White’s never been my colour,” he says, cracking his knuckles. “I’ve always been more of a dark, mysterious, dashing guy.”

“You’re a pussy cat,” Ladybug teases, booping him on the nose. Their banter is cut short by Luce Bianca turning back into Lila, whose head darts around to take in her surroundings.

“Did I – Ladybug, was I akumatised again?” she gasps. She looks at Rena Rouge and Carapace, who are still holding her loosely, and then she begins to cry when they release her. “How could I have been so weak? I can’t believe I let Hawkmoth akumatise me again! Oh, I’m so ashamed – you all probably hate me –”

“Drop the act, Lila,” Kim says, crossing his arms. Everyone else in the courtyard is muttering to each other and staring at Lila. “We all saw the video.”

“How do we know that you didn’t want to be akumatised as some form of revenge?” Max says. “We can’t believe anything you say.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way, Lila.” Ladybug holds out her hand. “You don’t have to lie about us being friends. Everyone makes mistakes –”

“Save the speech!” Lila snarls, batting Ladybug’s hand away. “You’re just trying to make yourself look like the perfect princess in all this! If you really wanted to be friends, then you wouldn’t have humiliated me like you did!”

“That was because you were putting yourself in danger from Hawkmoth,” Rena Rouge says. “And because you threatened two students.”

“I’m not even talking about that!” Lila says. “I’m talking about how you embarrassed me in front of Adrien! How you were so nasty to me, yet everyone thinks that you’re like some goddess!”

“I apologised for that,” Ladybug says. “I acknowledged that I was wrong to react the way I did. But you never acknowledged that you were wrong for deceiving people and claiming to be a superhero when you weren’t. And even if I hadn’t been angry, I still would have called you out, because you’re only endangering yourself when you do that. We can’t allow civilians to put themselves in danger like that, Lila.” Out of the corner of her eye, she notices Rena Rouge and Carapace dispersing the crowd so that there isn’t an audience to this confrontation, and her gratitude for her two friends increases even more.

“She’s only human,” Chat Noir adds. “My lady makes mistakes. We all do. Heck, I’ve made plenty of mistakes.”

“What matters is that you want to fix them,” Ladybug says. “We can offer you chance after chance, but nothing will change unless you want to change. And we don’t pity you, Lila. We sympathise with you. There’s a difference.”

“How?” Lila laughs bitterly. “Either way, you’re still coming from “oh, that poor Lila girl, let’s do the heroic thing and be her friend!” I don’t want your pity!”

“If it was pity then I wouldn’t mean it,” Ladybug says. “I’d be saying it out of duty. But I really do mean it, just like the first time I offered. You don’t need to lie to get people to like you.”

“I couldn’t care less if people like me,” Lila scoffs. “You don’t get anywhere by having people like you.”

“It’s not as though you’re not talented,” Ladybug says. She takes a careful step towards Lila, hoping that she doesn’t spook the other girl. “You’re excellent at crafting stories. You’re charismatic. You’re smart. And I wasn’t lying when I said that I’d like to be your friend. Just because people feel sympathy for you doesn’t mean that they feel sorry for you.”

“Milady, I’m going to transform back,” Chat Noir pipes up.

“So are we,” Rena Rouge adds. It’s just them in the courtyard now, with no audience whatsoever.

“Then you can take the Miraculouses back, Chat Noir,” Ladybug says. “I’m not on a timer, so I’m going to stay here and talk to Lila. And it might be better without others around.”

“I’m not delicate!” Lila growls.

“I never said that,” Ladybug says. “It’ll just feel more equal without my teammates around, is all I’m saying.” Once her fellow heroes are gone, she turns back to Lila, trying to figure out exactly what to say to get her point through this girl’s head.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Lila scoffs. “I already told you, I don’t need –”

SLAP.

Lila gasps and reels back, clutching her face, where a red mark in the shape of a handprint is starting to sear itself into her cheek. If she wasn’t so annoyed and furious, Ladybug might be struggling not to be sick with how she had just slapped Lila Rossi across the face; but right now, all she wants is to make this girl see.

“Shut. Up. And. Listen. To. Me,” Ladybug says. “Listen. Don’t just go off on a self-pitying rant. You think I don’t get what it’s like to have no friends? You think that I’m just as popular and respected in my normal life as I am when I’m Ladybug?”

“How could you not be?” Lila spits. “Why else would you be picked as Ladybug?”

“I was picked because I got lucky,” Ladybug says. “I was in the right place at the right time. Listen. I’ve been in the same class with the same people for literally years, and I never had a best friend or a crush or even anyone I was particularly close to until this year. I was friendly with people, but I didn’t have friends. You can be yourself and try your hardest and still not have anyone who really likes you.”

Lila snorts loudly but doesn’t say anything.

“And I know that it can feel like no one will ever like you when that keeps happening,” Ladybug continues. “Putting enough trust in others to let them decide whether they like you for you? That’s one of the bravest things you can do. I’ve felt how you felt, Lila. I’m on your side. I was already on your side when I offered to be friends with you after apologising.”

“You’ve never once helped me,” Lila says. “All you’ve done is make things worse. You know who has helped me? Hawkmoth. He gives me the power I need.”

“Hawkmoth doesn’t care about anyone,” Ladybug says. “As cliché as this sounds, he’s using you. He’s probably said the same thing to everyone else that he says to you. You don’t need superpowers to be strong. I want to help you now.”

“I can’t trust you,” Lila says. “How do I know that you won’t go and make another video about me if I make a tiny mistake?”

Ladybug sighs. “I’m not sorry for calling you out for threatening Marinette and Alya,” she says. “But I am sorry for causing you that pain from making a personalised video like that. The only reason it got to that point is because I know what you’ve done to Marinette. And when someone is upset enough to tell me about being threatened, especially with video proof? I see it as my duty to help that person. It wasn’t to humiliate you, Lila. I was just so desperate to fix the problem and to make sure that Hawkmoth wouldn’t mistakenly attack you to get to me.”

Lila doesn’t say anything. Ladybug can’t tell if she’s cracking, so she keeps going.

“I won’t reject you,” she says and holds out her hand. “Do you think you can trust me and forgive me for hurting you? Can I be your friend for real?”

Lila stares at Ladybug’s hand with an unreadable expression on her face. Ladybug bites her lip, wondering if she’s truly doing the right thing or if she’s only rubbing salt in the wound and making Lila angrier and more bitter.

“I can’t be your friend,” Lila finally says. Ladybug’s heart starts to sink, but it stops at Lila’s next words. “Not yet. But…I can try not hating you.” She reaches out and loosely clasps Ladybug’s hand.

“That’s a start,” Ladybug says with a small smile. Unlike the last time they had interacted, when she had been Chameleon, Lila’s not wearing a fake smile and cheerfully accepting a truce. Ladybug’s still not fully sure, but it does feel like Lila’s at least genuine about this.

“Everyone’s going to hate me anyway,” Lila says when she lets go of Ladybug’s hand. “They all saw the video. So I’m not even sure what the point of this is.”

“I’ll ask Alya to take that video down,” Ladybug says. “I’ll even film another video asking people not to harass you. And you never know. There might be one or two people who still want to be your friend.”

“Not likely,” Lila says, but she’s not screaming hateful things anymore, so Ladybug counts that as a win.

“I have to go,” she says. “Will you be alright? Do you want me to take you home for the rest of the day?”

“No,” Lila says. “I don’t need to make people pity me like that. I don’t need them to like me.” With that, she turns and heads back into the school with her nose in the air. Ladybug watches her go, then heads in the opposite direction and ducks inside an empty classroom to detransform.

“I’m proud of you, Marinette!” Tikki says as Marinette rummages in her purse for a cookie. “It would have been so easy to give up on Lila and condemn her for what she did.”

“I thought about that,” Marinette admits. She finally finds a cookie and holds it out for her kwami. “But then I realised that we’d only be going in circles. She’d get angry, get akumatised, I’d defeat her, she’d hate me more. Part of being Ladybug is taking down hate wherever I see it.”

Tikki beams and grabs the cookie, taking a huge bite out of the sugary treat. “Exactly,” she says. “Do you think Lila was genuine about not hating you anymore?”

“I’m not sure,” Marinette says. “But there’s only one way to find out.”

After the chaos of Luce Bianca, everyone is quiet as they finish off their work in class, deliberately not looking at each other in the wake of exposed secrets. Even Lila is focusing on her work, refusing to meet anyone’s gaze when they look back at her, but also refusing to curl in and look pathetic. It’s such a stark contrast to her previous persona of constantly talking and making herself look small and helpless that Marinette can’t help but wonder which parts of Lila are just acts and which are genuine. But she can’t focus on that right now; if she looks back at Lila one more time, she’s got no doubt that Alya’s going to start asking questions.

When the bell rings for lunch, everyone rushes out of the classroom. Lila’s left at the back of the classroom without so much as a glance spared her way, but she sniffs and looks away when Marinette tries to catch her eye.

“Alright, come on, you guys,” Alya says, shepherding Marinette, Adrien, and Nino away from Miss Bustier’s classroom and down the hall to one that’s just been emptied. The minute the door is locked, she rounds on Marinette and Adrien, hands on her hips.

“Ladybug and Chat Noir,” she announces. “Right under my nose the whole time!”

“I know, right?” Marinette says with a wide, nervous grin. Alya just crosses her arms.

“I have no idea how I didn’t see it,” she says.

“Miraculous magic?” Adrien offers.

“So, like, did you two really not know who the other was?” Nino says.

“Nope,” Marinette says. “We agreed on that for each other’s safety. Especially after what happened on Heroes’ Day when you two knew about each other.”

Alya and Nino wince, but they both sigh and shrug in agreement.

“And even now, it was a total accident, Marinette finding out who I am,” Adrien says. He gives Marinette a very Chat Noir-like grin and slings an arm around her shoulders to draw her in close. Marinette swallows and tries to cool down her flaming cheeks while also glaring at a smirking Alya. “We’ve already agreed that I’m going to ask her out as Adrien, then LadyNoir will be a thing in a few days or so.”

“If you call us that, you’re getting dumped,” Marinette warns. Adrien just laughs and kisses the top of her head, rendering her so speechless that she groans and hides her burning face in his shirt.

“Okay, not that this isn’t the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen, but I’m actually going to be sick if I have to watch more of it,” Alya says.

“Now you know how we feel about you and Nino,” Adrien shoots back. Marinette snorts loudly. “How do you feel about us just walking into the cafeteria like this, bugaboo?”

“Yeah, I don’t think anyone wants to see some grand thing from the biggest drama king around,” Alya says.

“Hey!”

“She’s got a point, dude,” Nino snickers. “Chat Noir’s totally dramatic.”

“Really? Even my best friend?” Adrien huffs and steers Marinette around. “Come on, bugaboo, we don’t need them.”

“You really can’t call me that when we’re not transformed,” Marinette says as Adrien unlocks the door and the four of them leave the room and head for the cafeteria.

“Good point.” A devilish grin splits Adrien’s face. “Princess.”

“Oh my god,” Marinette whines, while Alya and Nino laugh loudly. “I swear, I will actually dump you.”

“We all know you’re a big fat liar, Marinette,” Alya smirks. Marinette turns and pokes her tongue out.

When they enter the cafeteria, everyone turns and stares at them, and Marinette has to resist the urge to hide her face again. Although everyone’s gotten used to having Adrien Agreste among their ranks, he’s still a popular celebrity, and so the sight of him with his arm around a girl is triggering a lot of whispers and murmurs around the room as he, Marinette, Alya, and Nino go to line up for their lunch.

“You’d think they’d have something better to talk about,” Alya says when they’ve collected their trays. “Honestly, Adrien, you’re not that cool.”

“Fight me,” Adrien deadpans. “Actually, no, don’t do that. You’d slam me into the ground and then Marinette wouldn’t have her gorgeous boyfriend anymore.”

Marinette makes a high-pitched sound and buries her face in his shirt again at the word “boyfriend”.

“Fine, fine,” Alya says. “Only because Marinette wouldn’t forgive me after all the times she’s cried to me about how pretty your face is.”

“Alya!” Marinette hisses.

“I’ll protect Marinette for you, dude,” Nino says when a group of girls shoot them a particularly nasty look on their way to an empty table. “I’ll be her shield.”

Both Marinette and Alya groan.

“That was terrible,” Alya says.

“And I can look after myself,” Marinette huffs. Just as they’re about to sit down at their table, she catches sight of Lila sitting alone at the edge of the room. Everyone’s clearly giving her a wide berth, judging by how people make an obvious effort to stay outside a certain radius if they have to walk past, and something in her stomach twists.

“Where are you going?” Alya says when Marinette picks up her tray again and heads straight for Lila. Everyone around her stares, and Lila narrows her eyes when Marinette draws near.

“Is this seat taken?” Marinette says brightly.

“Obviously not,” Lila scoffs. “And I don’t need you to come and start pitying me or whatever just because Ladybug told you to. I know you talk to her.”

“Who said this was pity?” Marinette sits down across from Lila and begins to twirl noodles around her fork. “I thought you might want a friend.”

“Yeah, right. After how I treated you? The only reason you’d be doing this is to suck up to Ladybug or whatever.”

“This might be a strange and foreign concept,” Marinette says, “but some people actually do forgive others. I don’t like how people are treating you just because Ladybug stood up for me.”

“What did she think was going to happen when she spoke out like that?” Lila says, but her shoulders seem just a fraction less stiff.

“Uh, Marinette?” Alya says from behind Marinette. “What’s going on?”

“I’m making a friend and I won’t take no for an answer,” Marinette says. Adrien’s the first one to cave, sliding into the seat next to Marinette and smiling at Lila.

“I told you there was no need for lying,” he says.

“Oh, shut up,” Lila snaps. “I already know you’re a smug idiot. You don’t need to open your mouth and prove it.”

“Harsh,” Nino says, but he still sits down next to Lila. “So, what music are you into, dude?”

“Oh, fine.” Alya sits down on the outside, next to Nino. “If Marinette can forgive then so can I.”

“Why are you being so nice to me?” Lila clenches her fists. “What do you want? People are never nice unless they want something. This isn’t the first school where someone’s tried to make friends with me.”

“But it is the first school where people still want to be friends regardless of whether you actually do know all the people you claimed to know,” Marinette counters calmly. “And I know what it’s like to have no friends. Before I met Adrien and Alya, I had no friends because Chloé would bully me so badly that people didn’t want to associate themselves with me. You know, in case Chloé targeted them too.”

“Sorry about that, by the way, dude,” Nino says. “I shouldn’t’ve let Chloé stop me from being your friend till now.”

Marinette just shrugs and takes another bite of her spaghetti.

“How the hell can you forgive people so easily?” Lila demands. “Everyone in the class turned their backs on you. They made you sit up the back. They wouldn’t be your friend because it would’ve made their lives harder. I threatened you and made people hate you. And you just – forgive. Why? How?”

“Because if I held on to all of that bitterness, I wouldn’t like the person I’d become,” Marinette says. “Just because I forgive doesn’t mean I forget what’s been done. I just don’t cling to it and let it poison me.”

Adrien takes her hand under the table and squeezes it, so she smiles back at him. Around the cafeteria, even more people are whispering at the sight of people actually choosing to sit with Lila, but she tunes them out.

“My parents are going out tonight, so I totally have to babysit Chris,” Nino says. “You guys wanna come and help? There’s Monopoly and Mario Party and unhealthy snacks in it for you.”

“You had me at Monopoly,” Alya says. “I will crush you, little boy.”

“You had me at unhealthy snacks,” Adrien says. “Man, I can’t remember the last time I ate real teenage junk food.”

“I’ll bring some pastries, then,” Marinette grins. “And I know that Chris likes chocolate croissants, so I’ll bring loads of them.”

“An angel has descended from the heavens to grace us with her presence!” Alya announces dramatically, waving her hands in Marinette’s direction. Marinette rolls her eyes but still laughs.

“You wanna come?” Nino says to Lila, who blinks and looks up from her food.

“What?”

“Do you wanna come and hang out too?” Nino says. “My parents don’t care who comes over, so long as the house isn’t totalled.”

“But if you pick Daisy in Mario Party, there will be consequences,” Alya says.

“Alya, you can’t threaten people not to pick your favourite character,” Marinette says.

“Oh, yeah? Watch me, Peach.”

“At least I’m not the one always getting kidnapped by the bad guys in real life.”

Without a word, Lila stands up with her tray and stalks out of the cafeteria.

“What’s her problem?” Alya says.

“She probably doesn’t trust us yet,” Marinette says. “But we’ll keep trying, even if it takes months.”

“And if she still doesn’t like us?”

Marinette sighs. “That’s her choice. But I don’t want to act like she doesn’t deserve another chance if even Chloé can get another chance after everything she’s done.”

“You got a point there, dude,” Nino says, reaching across to high-five Marinette.

“Well, I hope you’re ready to lose to the power of Waluigi tonight, princess,” Adrien says with a grin.

“And Yoshi, when we team up to take down the princesses,” Nino says.

“Bring it on, meme lord,” Marinette says, cracking her knuckles.

[scabopolis]

LV AU Week: Day 2 - “Secret Relationship”

Here’s another pseudo-outline-pseudo-fic thing. Not vague enough to be mistaken for an outline, not developed enough to be a satisfying piece of writing. Fun, huh!

Actually, this was tremendous amounts of fun to write and dream up, and is going to be something that I (hopefully, please!) one day finish in its entirety. Right now the emotional heart of the piece is much more outline while the plot is very developed. 

An AU where Logan works at a music magazine out of LA - a job he never saw himself having in an industry he never dreamed of having anything to do with - but he’s always been charismatic; able to make people feel comfortable with his ne’er-do-well attitude that can easily morph into compassion tinged with a healthy dose of self-deprecation. LA types love that. So he finds himself in an industry he never imagined being in, in a job as a 30-year old that while barely above entry level is something he loves. The goods of it all far outweigh the bad. But the bad takes the form of --

“Decided to finally come back from vacation and stop leaving the actual work to the rest of us?” The bad takes the form of entitled, self-indulgent, sycophants like the bottom-feeding work that is Sean Friedrich.

“So it was someone else, then, who spent 30-days doing yoga in Nepal and left the rest of the department to meet all their deadlines?”

“That was for a story.”

“And the amount of hash you smoked was, what, gratis?” Sean and his bullshit is usually something Logan distances himself from and does not engage in. But, he was on vacation, and it didn’t exactly go as he’d hoped, and to have his first encounter back be with the slimy bag of bones that’s Friedrich?

He sits down at his desk, keeping it quiet as Jackie, his deskmate, is currently in a heated conversation with the manager of someone who, from what he’s picking up, has a client she was supposed to meet with that afternoon. He tries, really he does, to sit down and keep his eyes focused on the work in front of him, but his gaze drifts to the glass walls of his boss’ office. He frowns when he doesn’t see her there. Takes a look at the time. 8:20 AM. He knows for a fact that -- it’s just that --

Jackie slams the receiver down and he barely registers her tirade -- “That walking, talking, waste of -- that -- him and his -- smelly fuck goblin” -- when she smacks his shoulder with that month’s issue. “How was Mexico?”

“I came, I saw, I surfed. Also, ‘fuck goblin?’”

“It’s not even 8:30. I haven’t had time to warm up yet.”

Even after deleting the junk emails, it still leaves Logan with more than 100 in his inbox to deal with, and if that isn’t incentive to never go on a vacation again, what happened on the vacation itself would convince him of the fruitlessness of the exercise.

He makes it to just after 2 o’clock before he asks Jackie: “Where’s Mars, anyway?”

“Susie said she called yesterday and extended her business trip another couple of days. Poor girl. Thought her head was going to explode when she had to reschedule all those meetings.”

Mars, the senior editor of their whole outfit (and, frankly, the one who does most of the work), does in fact return two-days later, and his breath does this little thing once he sees her that he isn’t too proud of. It’s not an uncommon reaction for her to engender. Mars has incredibly high standards for magazine. It took time to get used to -- but after working there a few months Logan understood why their outfit has never fallen prey to a Rolling Stone / UVA type of scandal. Veronica Mars has no room for that type of incompetence.

Coming off from what was supposed to be a 10-day business trip to New York, that turned into an almost 14-day one, she apparently has no-time for him either. She makes it a point to meet with all the feature writers once a month, to check-in, and do some professional development. His is scheduled with her for three days after she gets back and Susie, her assistant, cancels it the day of. “The editor at Nylon won’t take no, and Ms. Mars says it’s the only time in her --”

“Don’t worry about it, Susie.” And he means it. Because he knows what’s happening. Should have expected it really when he told her -- shit. How’d they even get to this point?

Getting cancelled on - he won’t say dumped - by Mars ends up being a blessing as he’s at his desk when the manager for a little garageband who no one has heard of gives him a call. Logan has been trying to get said manager to call him for months, but his client keeps insisting they don’t want the publicity. Something must have happened, though, because Logan now has an interview with the band scheduled for the following day. A band whose song is currently sitting at number one on the Billboard rock charts. Not sung by them. And charting there without so much as a hazy song-writing credit on the album. The worst kept secret in the music industry: big record labels and music producers blatantly stealing songs from unknown artists with the knowledge that the legal fees mean they’ll never be challenged.

Logan doesn’t even realize how late he’s been working until the lights of the office go off, automatically timed to do so at 7:00pm. He’s got another hour of work to do, at least, but he needs to get some food or he’ll be worthless. And of course this is when it happens: Logan rounding the corner back into the office with a falafel and greek fries from the spot on the corner, his phone cradled between his chin and neck, when he crashes into Mars. She drops her briefcase and her own phone and as he tries to save his dinner he hears her say, “I’ll call you back, Dad.”

Her chapstick, vanilla mint he knows without even looking at it, fell out of her bag, and he holds it out to her. She takes it without even glancing at him, tosses her phone in the bag, and walks past.

Something about that, the way she won’t even look at him, is what does it. She makes it to the elevator before he calls out: “So, I guess we broke up, huh?”

She does this subtle rocking forward onto her toes, tightens her grip on her bag, but those are the only indications she’s heard him.

He stares at her back, sees her watching him out of her periphery, and he’s -- what is he supposed to do here? “Fuck this,” he says under his breath. Walks away.

“Excuse me?” / “What?”

“I thought we were going to be adults about this.” / “You breaking up with me suddenly while we were on vacation and then refusing to discuss it is you being an adult? Good to know.”

“What do you want me to say, exactly, Logan?” / “Something. Saying something would be nice. Seeing as all I got before was you packing up and leaving. Not even a souvenir shot glass left behind to ever prove you were there.”

Veronica hesitates. “Things seemed good,” Logan says. “They were good, and then I told you I loved you, and then you got a phone call and they weren’t good.”

“You think I left because you told me you loved me?”

“Well the timing --”

“You are the smartest jackass I’ve ever met in my life. Seriously? Falling in love with you was the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever done.” / “Then why did you?”

The phone call, it turns out, was from her best-friend Wallace. His gym buddy, Piz, works at the magazine as a low-level researcher and he apparently saw Logan and Veronica grocery shopping together. Out of ‘concern for Veronica,’ he communicated to Wallace that it wasn’t a good look for her. Logan suspects Piz’s motives for sharing this information weren’t entirely altruistic.

“You’re up for a promotion,” she says. “You’re not supposed to know that. But you are. And what would it look like if everyone finds out we were dating and then two weeks later your promotion is announced?”

“Fuck, Veronica. The people who know you --” / “No one at work knows me, Logan. On purpose.”

“I know you. And fuck what anyone else thinks.” He knows it’s not that simple, though. Veronica is fantastic at her job. So good it’s terrifying. But he knows how people talk about her when they think no one important is listening. The subtle undercurrent of how her being a woman in the music industry isn’t ever going to work. Maybe for someone else it wouldn’t be a big deal to date a member of their team. It would be used against her, though, and Logan knows it.

Logan doesn’t attempt to convince Veronica she’s wrong. Veronica doesn’t meltdown during a meeting and confess she still loves him (though he’s certain she does). What happens instead is that Logan takes a few ‘personal days’ and in those days applies for jobs at every other magazine with 30 miles of Los Angeles. Some he’s never heard of prior to applying. He has to fit in interviews between his deadlines at work - the oddest one being over quesadillas at Del Taco - but it doesn’t take long to get offered a job. It takes longer for him to get offered a job somewhere he’s actually interested in working.

He tells Veronica at the end of work on Thursday - a night they both work so late they’ve gone through multiple cliff bars each and then gave in and ordered a pizza. He waits until she has a mouth full of pepperoni to tell her.

“You quit?” / “Yes.”

“Louis was going to offer the promotion next week.”

“Yeah, well, I got a better one.”

And it doesn’t take her long to figure out he did this for her. He doesn’t say it, she doesn’t explicitly ask, and he knows she’s far too stubborn to even allow a twitch of her brow to reveal her feelings on the subject.

Logan tries to keep his departure quiet, mainly to avoid the obligatory post-work farewell happy hour, but it’s hard to avoid the questions when he folds up the picture frames and his assignments get farmed out to others.

On his last day, he turns in his badge and keys to Veronica. A Veronica who barely makes eye contact. He’s promised himself he’s not going to argue that she should feel a way she doesn’t want to feel, but he wants to be clear.

“I only want you, you know.” She looks up at him, her expression softer than she ever allows it to be at work. “And you’re the best person I’ve ever worked for.”

He begs off early from the happy hour he was informed by Jackie was compulsory and sits at home on his couch, kind of watching but not watching Sports Center. He starts a new job next week, and it’s fucked because he really liked his old one. And why did he do it? As some sort of grand gesture? Was it a mistake? Should he have --- ?

He’s interrupted by a knock at his door, tosses aside the absolutely hideous pillow his sister gave him for Christmas that year, and answers it.

He doesn’t even have time to register how beautiful she looks before Veronica invites herself into the apartment by throwing her arms around his neck and pressing her lips to his.

They agree to wait a month after Logan’s left to start letting people know. Once the news is leaked (all Veronica has to do is casually mention something to Gia in the breakroom, ‘you haven’t seen The Quiet Place yet? Hard to say if it was me or Logan who jumped higher at the end.’) there’s not really anything more to do than be together.

And maybe gloat a little when his article on plagiarism in the music industry, a lead he took with him to his new job, wins him a California Journalism Award.

[what-if-rpg]

Welcome to the family, NAOMI! Your application to LOUIS RICHARDSON was accepted. I am really happy to have you around! Make sure to read the beginners checklist, and remember, have fun! I can’t wait to roleplay with you! Have fun!

IN CHARACTER

CHARACTER NAME: Louis ‘James’ Richardson CHARACTER AGE & DATE OF BIRTH: The character’s age and Date of Birth. OCCUPATION: He’s the owner of the strip club called Sassy nights, which is dedicated to his almost-boyfriend from the past that sadly passed away from cancer when he graduated. He also has a law degree, something his parents had forced him into. FACE CLAIM:  His FC is Dylan O'Brien HOMETOWN & CITY WHERE LIVES NOW: born in Washington Dc, now lives in NYC SEXUAL ORIENTATION & GENDER: What is your characters’ sexuality?  Gay demisexual male RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Dating Kurt Hummel POSITIVE TRAITS: He’s kind, patient and trustworthy. NEGATIVE TRAITS: Due to the emotional baggage he fears being abandoned. At times he feels like he isn’t enough. He’s afraid of heights CHARACTER QUOTE/LYRIC:  “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”

HEADCANONS

Louis his father has been abusive towards him throughout most of his life. The latest attack was half a year ago in front of Ian’s grave.

Louis has tried to kill himself three times since I have been playing him. One as a child, one after his father’s attack, the latest one was when his now ex-boyfriend Elliott vanished without a word. Kurt was the one to save him, and things just moved from there.

Louis has a puppy named princess that’s there for emotional support.

Louis has been considering to start a road to the repair, taking professional guidance so he can have a future with Kurt, and be a good influence on Serena.

CONNECTIONS

PARENTS:

Ella St. James

“What cannot be communicated to the mother cannot be communicated to the self.”

Louis his mother

tw: abuse

She would always love him, and she still does. But she also loves her husband, and she couldn’t pick Louis over her husband. Something she regrets for the rest of her life.

Andrew Richardson

“Abuse grows from attitudes and values, not feelings. The roots are ownership, the trunk is an entitlement, and the branches are controlled.”

Louis his father

tw: mental abuse; physical abuse,

He would kill Louis if he could, and there have been attempts where he almost succeeded. He thinks of Louis as the disgrace of the family.  

SIBLINGS/OTHER IMPORTANT FAMILY:

Oscar: utp

George: utp

Isabelle: He calls her princess and is the closest to Isabelle

BOYFRIEND/GIRLFRIEND:

Kurt saved him in a time where he needed someone, now he wants to be the one Kurt can rely on. Spending time with his daughter, and mending the pain that Blaine feels with the divorce. In his ideal world, all of them could be happy.

CLOSE FRIEND:

Chelsea St. James

Well, she is actually family but compared with Jesse, Louis has always felt closer to Chelsea, now that he knows a baby is along the way he can’t help but be happy for her. And eager to spoil the new member of the family/

Sebastian Smythe

They talk to each other, and for some reason, Louis always enjoyed their little talks, maybe it’s because they weren’t as touchy-feely as other talks could be

Kitty Wilde

His best friend in the whole wide world. They drink wine, He gave her a Ferrari, and honestly, she is just the best!

[my-sweetest-creature]

Love Love. H

Not to be dramatic, but I feel like I’ve been waiting my entire life to write this. As most of you following me will know, I fucking love Harry Styles. Many know him as the former curly-haired member of One Direction, but to his fans, he’s so much more. Maybe it’s the way he lacks inhibition when he performs on stage, really letting the music take control of his being. It could be that he’s one of the most genuine celebrities of his time. Or maybe it’s the fact that this man managed to slip and fall on a kiwi in the middle of a performance. Harry Styles has a voice that has the power to captivate listeners and he has the personality that makes him one in a million.

From when he first auditioned for the X-Factor UK back in 2010, there was something undeniably special about the dimple-clad Brit from Holmes Chapel, Cheshire. When asked to tell the judges something about himself, his immediate response was, “I work in a bakery.” This statement has become the ultimate meme within the fandom, as his former job as the cashier, mind you, has followed him all these years later. In fact, we were recently blessed with the music video for “Kiwi”, which includes children, puppies, and a whole lot of cupcakes! If this major throwback doesn’t give off nostalgic vibes, then I surely don’t know what will. The moment he sang the first line of Stevie Wonder’s classic “Isn’t She Lovely” was the exact moment the world and Simon Cowell fell in love with him. Re-watching Harry’s audition video always has me feeling a certain way. At the age of sixteen, he was already capturing the hearts of millions, and now, age twenty-three, the numbers have only grown exponentially.

The success Harry has achieved in the past seven years is incredible. Whether that be as a member of One Direction, or as a solo artist, you can’t deny that he has the “it” factor. However, it’s pleasing to know that he has remained incredibly grounded, despite the found fame and fortune. “I don’t like people saying you’re famous…I don’t like the word. It gives you like no substance.” Harry says in the One Direction documentary, This Is Us. “I was the same guy before. I was the same guy during. And I’m the same guy afterwards” This is a perfect representation of how despite the perks of being well-known, Harry is still that same boy that worked in a bakery all those years ago. In an interview, Harry says that within the top five perks of his job, the money doesn’t come close. For him, being able to look out of his family, who have always been there for him, has always been enough.

Harry is a dork, but in the best possible way, which is probably why so many people love him. He can be awkward at times, but honestly, who isn’t? While he’s a spectacular performer, it’s the moments where he’s just being himself that we just can’t get enough of! In his BBC special, him and close friend, Nick Grimshaw, spent the day in his native, Manchester. If you’ve seen it, then you know how precious Harry is. The poor guy was roasted by the elderly during a game of Bingo! Aww. He showed his competitive side when he and Nick went head-to-head in axe throwing. The determination on his face, priceless! Even back then, we couldn’t help but laugh at Harry’s awkwardness. Who could ever forget that spit comment mishap? During an interview, a reporter had asked him (and Niall) what they found to be unattractive in a woman. Harry answered that he didn’t like it when a girl spat. Although it wasn’t intended to, it ended up being a mess. It was adorable, however, that when he realized his mistake, he profusely apologized. He’s human, he makes mistakes.

The One Direction hiatus continues to break my heart, especially now that all its members are venturing into respective solo careers. One good thing that has come out of this is we got a whole album with strictly Harry’s phenomenal baritone vocals filling our ears until we pass out from all the perfection. This album…where do I begin? It was this debut album that has put me in my current predicament as a major fangirl that is almost too enthralled to function normally. When “Sign of the Times” dropped in April, I was totally taken aback. It wasn’t something I had expected from a former 1D member. This song is reminiscent of 70s/80s rock, but with that modern flare. Around the time, I had come to terms about liking music from before the turn of the century, so when I heard the song, it was definitely up my alley. Each song tells a personal story of Harry’s, giving the listeners a little peak into his very private life. “I wanted to let the work do the talking. Part of my ego wanted to see if I could write something people would like, without them knowing everything about me.”

The self-entitled debut album has been on repeat since its release in May. No longer having to share the spotlight with his bandmates, we are offered a full dose of ten songs that highlight Harry’s vocal prowess. He recorded the album in the famous Abbey Road Studios in London. “Coming in and being around the studio, to do this and play the album for the first time has been quite overwhelming,” says Harry in his Behind the Album Apple Music documentary. Before this, he had isolated himself for two months in Jamaica, in order to focus on writing for the album. Having spent the last five years of his life constantly surrounded by press, this was a much-needed escape. “It felt like a little secret. It’s fun to feel like no one knows where you are. It made such a difference from being in a busy city. It created this total 360 writing experience that I’ve never had before.”

During his time in One Direction, it was obvious that Harry was destined to be a performer. He’s undeniably charming and charismatic, and has whole lot of talent. This has followed along to his solo career, where he continues to show off his impressive vocal abilities. It’s obvious how much he loves to perform, he was meant for this life. The way he loses himself in a song is one of the most magical things to observe. When he sings his songs like “Two Ghosts” and “From the Dining Table,” you can see how personal the songs are to him by how emotional he gets. Whenever he sings “Kiwi” and “Only Angel,” he’ll start dancing around, not caring if he looks crazy. Don’t even get me started on when he starts jamming out to One Direction songs…SWOON. You can’t imagine how hard it is for me to watch videos of Harry singing live without losing my damn mind. Yeah, he’s that amazing. Maybe it’s because I’m such trash for this Brit, but he genuinely is very talented.

Here’s /∞ of my favorite performances: 

Harry manages to form a connection with each person in the room, even those who haven’t witnessed him in the flesh.. Here are some of the things his former bandmates have said about our favorite dimpled-singer:

“You’ve got Harry, who’s like the perfect rock star. He’s born for it, loves it.” – Zayn Malik.

“Harry is just Harry, cheeky and charming.” – Niall Horan.

“He’s great in this situation, he’s great on stage, he’s a great musician and artist.” – Louis Tomlinson.

“He’s just being Harry. He’s just going out and having a great time. He doesn’t want to waste a moment.” – Liam Payne.

Aside from being able to work an audience, anyone who has seen or been to a performance knows how much Harry cares about his fans. The slogan for his solo concert tour is Treat People With Kindness, a statement that perfectly sums up his personality. A few weeks back, Harry had stopped his show to make sure a fan was okay. Despite the pleads of the other audience members to proceed with the show, he was determined to get this girl the proper attention until she was alright. I’m not sure how many artists would do this, but this is something that resonates well with fans such as myself. To have the person you look up to the most, show genuine concern for his admirers, is an unexplainably amazing feeling.

There’s this time set aside at each concert where Harry asks members of the crowd to join hands or even hug. A Harry Styles concert is a no-hate zone. His aim at each show is have every single person feel that they belong and can be whoever they choose to be. “If you are black, white, gay, straight, transgender, whoever you are, whoever you want to be, I support you. I love every single one of you.” His ability to make each individual feel loved and appreciated, makes him all the more lovable and all the more deserving of everything he’s accomplished.

Let’s be honest, I stan a legend.