#all the grandparent marriage and death family drama

[astrosky33]

HOUSE MEANINGS IN ASTROLOGY

[READ] People often question why there’s so many meanings for each planet/house and the reason is so that you can learn more than just one thing about yourself through each placement. Otherwise astrology would be very vague and boring. These are all meanings that I’ve learned from my astrology classes at Kepler College

1ST HOUSE: identity/self, outward personality traits, outlook on life/approach to life, appearance, physical body, beauty, confidence, beginnings, how you initiate/ambition, your mannerisms, your outward behavior, physical fights, your presence, individuality, and passion

2ND HOUSE: money/finances (how we spend it, store it, and manage it), work, short term jobs, your work ethic, material possessions, self worth, values, emotional security, stability, financial security, how you meet financial obligations, your singing voice, giving/receiving, and resources (both material and non material)

3RD HOUSE: communication, your speaking voice/the way you talk, your mind, the way you think/your thinking skills, your perceptions, your opinions, your conscious mind, neighbors, siblings, interests, gossip, ideas/information, mathematics, literature, transportation (only ground not flying/air), local media, social media, cell phones, phone calls, visits, social activity, publishing, early education (before college), short trips, and short journeys

4TH HOUSE: homes/houses, family/family roots, your parents (particularly the mother/motherly figure), your inner child, emotions, foundations, your childhood, heredity, tradition, self-care, places of residence, real estate, properties, femininity, and conditions in early life

5TH HOUSE: children, childlike spirit, talent, creativity, drama, risk-taking, spotlight, romance (shows short term relationships, flings, hookups, and if long term relationships then only puppy love), hobbies, pleasures, objects of affection, vacations, games, speculation, fertility, concerts, festivals, and joy

6TH HOUSE: daily routine/day to day life/daily tasks, your health/fitness/the work you do on your body, your duties, self improvement, consistency, step-siblings, your hygiene, innocence, systems, service to others, co-workers, analytical nature, diets, animals, and your pets

7TH HOUSE: long term relationships, marriage, concern for others, attraction/attractiveness, charm, conflicts, partnerships, business partners, contracts, love affairs, open enemies, close associates, lower courts, negotiations, peers, agents, equality, harmony, and sharing

8TH HOUSE: major transformation, sex, death, longevity, changes, joint/shared finances, investments, stock market, your partners resources, taxes, inheritance, reproduction, seduction, intimacy (in general not only sexual), rebirth, merging, taboos, resurrection, loans, assets, secrets, mystery, businesses, spiritual transformation, magic (especially black magic), psychology, surgery/operations, trauma, periods, and the occult

9TH HOUSE: wisdom, law/laws, beliefs, religion, philosophy, higher education (college/university), viewpoints, languages, foreign environments, in-laws (your relatives through marriage), ethics, long journeys, travel, ideologies, higher courts, media, television, interviews, cross-cultural relations, grandparents, and learning

10TH HOUSE: your legacy, your career, your public image, your status, your reputation, fame, long-term goals, worldly attainment, sense of mission, responsibilities, recognition, authority, father/fatherly figure, experts, bosses, achievements, and professional aspirations

11TH HOUSE: friends, friend groups, gains, money made from career, desires, step/half parents, step/half children, uniqueness, inventions, technology, film, social awareness, influence, manifestations, hopes and wishes for the future, ideals, humanitarianism, associates (not just close ones), groups (in general), politics, social networking, where you make your debut into society, companions, allies, science, socialization/social interaction, clubs, organizations, and parties

12TH HOUSE: healing, the hidden, karma, karmic debts, old age, sleep, mental health, solitude/isolation, dreams (the ones you have when you sleep), hidden enemies, hidden causes, illusions, secret bed pleasures, spirituality, fears, losses, endings, escapism, impersonations, closure, need for withdrawal/privacy, afterlife, limiting beliefs, subsconcious memory, subconscious mind, hypnotism, self-undoing, hidden desires, the past, delay, and restrictions

MASTERLIST

MORE BEGINNER ASTROLOGY

PLANET MEANINGS

© 𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐤𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟑 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐝

[wangxianficfinder]

In the mood for...

~*~

1. itmf a fic where lan zhan interacts with wei ying’s mom. ty!!

Cartwheels In Cloud Recesses Series by ShanaStoryteller (Not Rated, 23k, WangXian, CSSR/WCZ, CSSR and WCZ Live, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Cloud Recesses Shenanigans)

💖 Magical Marriage Ribbons Series by starandrea (Varies, 1m, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Accidental Marriage, Fluff, Happy Ending, Telepathic bond, Kink Negotiation, Family Drama, Magical Pregnancy, Dual Cultivation, Shapeshifters, Modern with Magic, Immortality, Yilling Wei Sect) the later part of the Magical Marriage Ribbon series

the world will follow after by dottie_dramas (dottie_wan_kenobi) (E, 8k, wangxian, CSSR/WCZ, modern, humor, smut, love at first sight, CSSR & WCZX live, meet the family, genderqueer WWX, shotgun wedding, fast burn, fluff) and the second part of the world will follow after series

in case of fire, break glass by Jenrose (T, 65k, WangXian, Time Travel, Established Relationship, Hurt/comfort, Everyone loves/nobody dies)

Wújī by FairyTaleDreams (M, 50k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, WCZ & CS Lives, Rouge cultivator WWX)

From the Warm Sun by sunshine_sparrow (T, 58k, WangXian, CSSR & WWX, CSSR & LQR, Discussion of Rape, Period-Typical Sexism, Mostly CQL but probably some MDZS too, CSSR Lives, Madam Lán Lives, Qingheng-jun lives, But WCZ Still Dies, Fix-It, Happy Ending, All Soft and Very Little Angst, the wens live, Yīn Iron, Good Person MY, Good Person LQR)

mother of mothers by SpeedingCheetah (T, 11k, wangxian, CSSR & WWX, canon divergence, fairytale elements, implied/referenced self-harm, implied/referenced character death, BSSR is WWX’s grandparent, LWJ pov, LWJ centric, WWX centric, trans WWX, curses, curse breaking, LWJ’s grief & unresolved feelings about his mother, triggers in notes)

~*~

2. Hi, I have no idea if this even exists but do you know of any fics involving a time loop/groundhog day kinda situation?

Wearing Down Every Bone by CSHfic, VSfic (E, 30k, WangXian, Groundhog Day, Time Loop, Temporary Character Death, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Case Fic, Curses, Pining, Getting Together, Time Travel, Night Hunts, Hurt wwx, Mystery, Angst with a Happy Ending, Use Your Words, Mutual Pining, Depression and Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, gratuitous use of empathy)

the cycle of regret by KouriArashi (T, 14k, WangXian, Groundhog Day, Fix-It, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Alternate Canon)

see you yesterday by glyphic (M, 138k, WIP, WangXian, Modern with Magic, Ghost Hunters, Time Loop, Case Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Memory Loss, Angst with a Happy Ending, Slow Burn) it's incomplete, but glyphic's 'see you yesterday' is an AMAZING russian doll/time loop AU

A Necessary Evil by GravityWinsAgain (M, 8k, Wangxian, Major Character Death, time travel, hurt/comfort but mostly hurt, I’m not going to lie this is all angst, not a happy ending) we only see one iteration of the loop, but it's definitely a loop

~*~

3. Hi, I'm looking for fics that give Wei Wuxian a good childhood, time travel fix it or just retelling, either with the Jiangs or adopted by another major sect

Do you know any you can recommend? @forestandstardust

Hope Series by RoseThorne (G/T, WangXian, Transmigration, Time Travel Fix-It, Memory Loss, Angst, Sharing a Bed, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Good Parent YZY, Referenced Sexual Slavery, Sexual Tension, Arranged Marriage, POV Alternating, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Good Parent LQR, Butterfly Effect, Kid Fic, Epistolary, Cultivation Sect Politics)

~*~

4. for itmf, could i ask for ppl's time travel recs, specifically where:

A) other characters travel than wangxian (even OC if there's a fic like that)

B) its "a glimpse of future happiness" type of deal rather than erasing the timeline (basically time travel to the future or characters temporarily going to the past) - i would love if it leads to actual written payoff in the new timeline <3

thank you! @danmeiireader

4A)

Lessons relearned by Iamnotawriter (T, 44k, WangXian, LQR & WWX, Not Madam Yu Friendly, Time Travel Fix-It, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inventor WWX, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, No Golden Core Transfer, YZY Bashing)

Lynchpin by ShanaStoryteller (Not Rated, 103k, WangXian, ChengQing, Time Travel, Fix-It)

i told you when i came i was a stranger  by Caramelized (M, 70k, LXC / OFC, minor wangxian, canon divergence,   Isekai, transmigration, fix-it, Butterfly effect, sunshot campaign, not everyone dies au, no golden core transfer, dimension travel,   self-insert, angst w happy ending)

With Surgical Precision by metisket (T, 20k, WQ & WN, WQ & WWX, WangXian, Time Travel, Families of Choice, sibling bonding through murder, Z chirurgiczną precyzją (podfik) by tehanu, [PODFIC] With Surgical Precision by Gwogobo, With Surgical Precision [PODFIC] by Opalsong)  

4B)

A Wedding For The Ages by pupeez4eva (Not rated, 6k, wangxian, time travel, humor, everyone lives au)

~*~

5. hii for the next itmf do you know any fics where wwx disappears for some time and then comes back kinda changed and everyone is shocked? pls wangxian and preferably modern au

~*~

6. Hi!! Do you guys know any fics that are alternative takes to the scene in the untamed where WWX drinks the wine for LWJ?? or anything that expands on that scene, really?? Many thanks!!

At the bottom of the bottle, you're the poison in the wine by KatAnni (T, 11k, WangXian, Fainting, Angst, Poisoning, Golden Core Reveal, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, POV Multiple, Attempted Murder, hinted Chengqing, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fix-It of Sorts, Canon Divergence)

every breath that comes before by tardigradeschool (T, 10k, WangXian, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Poison, Golden Core Reveal, Sharing a Bed, Hair Brushing, very very background 3zun, Angst with a Happy Ending, PTSD)

Blackouts by GravityWinsAgain (M, 11k, wangxian, modern, date rape drugs/roofies, but nothing bad happens, JZxun & SS & WC being assholes, hurt/comfort, Mojo’s post) starts with a modern au of that scene

~*~

7. do u know of any fanfictions where the avatar movie crossed with mdzs? The one with the na'vi in it. @chrystalstitch

~*~

8. Are there any protective wen Ning fics? Wn protective for wwx

~*~

9. Itmf a)scholar wwx fics

b) lxc bashing

9A)

🧡 Stunted, Starving Juvenility by TomatenMark (E, 644k, WangXian, WIP, Fix-it of sorts, Talisman master WWX, Not JFM Friendly, Study Arc, Getting together, Fluff and Angst, Engagement)

Truths Laid Bare For All by Preludian_Staves (T, 42k, wangxian, arranged marriage, not Jiang friendly, truth serum, love confessions, golden core reveal, implied referenced abuse, getting to know each other, genius WWX, falling in love, courting, WIP (hiatus))

In Walls of Glass by Comfect (T, 43k, LQR & WWX, WangXian, XiCheng, Good Uncle LQR, Teacher LQR, Canon Divergence, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fix-It, Butterfly Effect, JC friendly, Family Feels, Cultivation Theory, POV LQR, Seriously the only WWX Bashing is in the first chapter or so and is canonical in LQR's head, Initial WWX Bashing, Eventual WWX Appreciation, JC appreciation)

🧡 One Can Keep A Secret (If He Does Not Know It's There) by H_Belle (T, 5k, WangXian, Modern Cultivators, Inventor WWX, Secret Identity, Identity Reveal, YLLZ WWX, Rogue Cultivator WWX, Pining LWJ, POV WWX, Background Wangxian Getting Together, Jiangs are only mentioned in the passing, inspired by a tumblr post)

To Respect a Scholar by FlautistsandPeonies (G, 5k, wangxian, LQR & WWX, WWX's canon genius, not JC friendly, author WWX)

Lessons relearned by Iamnotawriter (T, 44k, WangXian, LQR & WWX, Not Madam Yu Friendly, Time Travel Fix-It, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inventor WWX, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, No Golden Core Transfer, YZY Bashing) (link in #4A)

the roots in my heart (also grow in yours) by halfdemonvash (M, 16k, WangXian, Modern AU, Plants, Botanist WWX, Botanist LWJ, the burial mounds are a greenhouse, Fluff, Mild Smut, WWX POV, Getting Together, Falling In Love, Sexual Content)

🧡 i really want to know (who are you) by Stratisphyre (M, 19k, WangXian, Modern with Magic, Golden Core Reveal, Single Dad WWX, Reasonable Authority Figure LQR, Allusions to violence and murder, Hospitalization)

~*~

10. Hello! Thank you so much for all you do - your posts bring me joy. 🥰 For the next ITMF post, any fics where WWX or LWJ (or both) are circus performers? Thank you! @youhideastar

Flying High and Falling Hard by UseMyMuse (E, wangxian, circus au, silk aerialist WWX, ring master LWJ)

🧡 Faire thee well by Scrippio (T, 77k, WangXian, ChengQing, XuanLi, 3Zun, Modern AU, Renaissance Faire, Mutual Pining, Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Slow Burn) They don't work at the circus, but they do work at the renaissance faire, and I think there's some overlap

~*~

11. Hello! I dont know if I should label this as fic finder or ITMF or maybe both.

its a fic where lwj and lxc compete for wwx's heart. i know that ive read one like this but i cant find it anymore [its a series where wwx died right, then when he came back, lxc said to lwj that if wwx chose him before, lxc will stand beside him (talking about the siege)] but i also want to read some fics like this. Added also to FF ~Mod L

~*~

12. Hello, I want to request some fics for the next ITMF. Is there fics where everyone (the jiangs or whoever his family/friends is) is being overprotective over a naive, oblivious and spoiled wei ying that they regarded lan zhan as a thief who wants to steal away and defile wy? Thanks you in advance ppl ♡

~*~

13. Hey! Thanks for all you do! I was wondering if you know of any really good CSSR-centric fics for the next ITMF post. Thank you in advance!

~*~

14. Hi! For the intmf, do you have any recs for where wangxian gets together early like during the Cloud Recesses Arc? Preferably WWX's POV, and the relationship is mostly kept as a secret. But I don't mind them being shameless abt it either lol.

~*~

15. ITMF where Lan Wangji is cradling his husband Wei Wuxian's unconscious body @yupkook​

Talismans by brooklinegirl (E, 10k, wangxian)

~*~

16. ITMF the lans found out about the whip marks at the back of wwx. It can be jiang bashing, good lans, anything like lans rescued wwx / give him sanctuary or any.

💙 Holding shreds by barisan (T, 5k, WangXian, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, No Sunshot Campaign, Body Swap, Not for sexy shenanigans, Chronic Pain, Hurt WWX, Hurt LWJ, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Abusive YZY, Bad Parent YZY, Bad Parent JFM, Good Uncle LQR, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Inaccuracies, POV  WWX, Angst with a Happy Ending, Jiāng Family Bashing, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Getting Together, Smart WWX)

Warming up (to him) by barisan (T, 9k, LQR & WWX, WangXian, Hypothermia, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Temporary Character Death, Medical Inaccuracies, YZY Abuses WWX, JFM Bashing, pre-wangxian, Good Uncle LQR, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort) this one and "Holding shreds" from the same author, but they are both locked

What If..... Jiang Cheng Understood? by ToxicAngel13 (M, 45k, WIP, WangXian, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, WangXian Get Married in the Cold Springs Cave, Protective JC, Confused WWX, Angry LWJ, Fix-It of Sorts, Good Uncle LQR, Implied/Referenced Child Abus, ePOV LQR, YZY Bashing, POV JFM, Not JFM Friendly, Hurt/Comfort,Protective NHS) Just caught up on this last night, so good timing!

~*~

17. are there any wangxian fics where post canon (any time period is fine really) where they find out wwx and lwj are actually blood related? @sentientcongee

~*~

If you didn’t get an answer to your ask here, don’t forget to make use of @mdzs-kinkmeme and MDZS KINK MEME on Dreamwidth. Authors actually do use them for ideas. You may get what  you order!***Your prompt doesn’t have to be kink! Fluff, crack,  whatever - it’s all good!***

[ourimpavidheroine]

just so you know, its racist to claim that prince wu is brown because he has a mother from the water tribe.

So this is the fourth Ask in the last 24 hours that I've gotten about my headcanoning Wu as being brown because he has a mother from the Water Tribe.

Now either somebody has written somewhere - on Tumblr, Discord, Twitter, I don't know - the erroneous information that in my fanfic Wu's mother is from the Water Tribe and folks have, without bothering to read my fic, decided to let me know how wrong I am OR it's a single Anon who has a real bug up their ass, but I will address it this once. Any other Asks about it are going to get instantly deleted.

Prince Wu, in my fanfic, does not have a mother from the Water Tribe. This is never stated anywhere in any of my fic and indeed, his mother is written about fairly frequently and in great detail.

My fic headcanons go as such:

Wu's father is a prince of the Hou-Ting house, the only one of his generation. His biological father is Queen Hou-Ting's (she of The Legend of Korra fame) younger brother, Zaichun. Zaichun had five wives, all of them but one political marriages. (This was pretty standard for Qing dynasty royalty, which is what the Hou-Ting family was based on.) His second wife (who was a nonbending Fire Nation noble lady) had a daughter who died very young; his third wife has his only son. This third wife was originally a Ba Sing Se kitchen maid and a concubine; she is given official consort status when she gives birth to the only (living) heir. The prince's first wife legally adopts the baby boy and raises him (poorly) to be the next ruler. It is from his Hou-Ting father that Wu gets his green Hou-Ting eyes, the rather large ears, the sweet smile and the very curly hair, which is a legacy from the kitchen maid who is his biological grandmother. (Again, all based on actual Qing Dynasty history, which is absolutely fascinating and chock full of fabulous royal drama.)

Wu's mother is the last of her house, a first tier noble home. First tier nobles are at the top of the food chain, extremely wealthy and usually with close familial/blood ties with the ruling family. (Beifongs are first tier, for example.) This is certainly the case with Wu's mother. It is from her that he gets his brown skin and large nose, as well as his thin build. Now. I did state, in one of my fics, that one of Wu's maternal great-grandmothers was a princess from the Northern Watertribe, a non-bender that came with a very large dowry and very favorable shipping/trade contracts, which Wu holds even after the death of his great-aunt. (In fact, I have made it clear more than once that while he certainly has a lot of wealth on the Hou-Ting side, it is his inheritance from his mother that is what really makes him so obscenely wealthy.)

Why did I bring up this Northern Water Tribe great-grandmother? To "give" Wu his brown skin? No. Not at all. In fact, if you'd actually read my fanfic, you'd know that Wu explains how all of the various royal and top tier noble families in the Earth Kingdom are very much inbred (happened in Qing Dynasty China, as well) and that royalty/nobility from other nations were brought in, and that included the Fire Nation before Sozin went all Genocide on them. Wu also mentions, off-handedly, that he is distantly related to Korra, Eska and Desna as well as King Bumi's descendants and that there was Fire Nation royalty in his father's bloodline back in the day as well.

CLEARLY Wu is meant to be South Asian; not only his skin color but his features reflect that, never mind his voice actor. (Sunil Malhotra's voice is always in my head for Wu.) If I had written that Wu had gotten his brown skin only from a single great-grandmother then how on earth would he have been so brown if the rest of his family had been strictly East Asian, including Queen Hou-Ting and his great-grandfather Kuei? A great-grandparent is only about 12.5% of your DNA. Wu very likely would have been considerably paler than he is if there had only been one brown great-grandmother. But he isn't. His warm brown skin is a legacy from his mother's entire family, whom I have established in my fic as being South Asian. In other words, think if an Inuit woman had married into a family from New Delhi. Her great-grandchild probably wouldn't resemble her very much.

TL:DR - Wu does have a Northern Water Tribe maternal great-grandmother, but she was brought into my fics for historical authenticity and not as an explanation for Wu's brown skin, which is clearly South Asian.

[gianna-palazzolo]

BASIC INFORMATION:

Name: Giovanna Palazzolo. 

Nickname: Gianna to most. Gigi to her family and close friends. 

Birthday: July 24th.

Age: 32.

Gender: Female.

Place of Birth: London, United Kingdom.

Places Lived Since: Hereford, United Kingdom.

Current Residence: Camden, London, United Kingdom.

Nationality: British.

Parents: María Morelli (mother, originally from Naples), Giancarlo Palazzolo (father, originally from Agrigento)

Aunts & Uncles: Emilio Morelli (maternal uncle) 

Number of Siblings: Nine. Five brothers: Carlo, Marcello, Francesco, Roberto and Antonio. Four sisters: Chiara, Sofia, Laura and Caterina. Gianna is five out of ten, and was the first of her siblings to be born in London instead of Sicily. (For my reference, the order: Chiara, Carlo, Marcello, Francesco (dad’s prison time gap) Giovanna, Roberto, Sofia, Laura, Caterina, Antonio.)

Relationship With Family: Very good. Even though they sort of encouraged her to leave at an early age (hence her signing up for the army at sixteen) she never begrudged her parents that. There were a lot of kids living under the same roof, and it wasn’t always easy for them. They never went without love, but they sure went without a few luxuries that her friends at the time had, and whilst it might’ve been hard to deal with back then, she definitely looks back on her childhood now knowing how lucky she was to have what she did. She’ll take seeing her parents in a happy, loving marriage, spending as much time with their kids as possible over it all being substituted with material things... Gianna definitely prefers what she had. Was close to her father, in particular, and that remains the case to this day. There are ten siblings all together, and whilst she’s naturally closer to some than others, family is hugely important to all of them. There are no rifts, there’s no drama, no estranged siblings. They genuinely all get along when it matters (arguments and disagreements are always sorted quickly) and she’s fully aware she’s lucky to have that. All of the sisters are equally close, one hundred per cent inseparable no matter how far life takes them from each other, but of her brothers, the eldest, Carlo, is her absolute rock. Loves him to fucking death, and he’s for sure her best friend in the world. Marcello and Francesco have since moved back to Sicily to work for the Cosa Nostra, so she’s sees them the least. Doesn’t hold it against them, though. They’re still always there when it counts.

Happiest Memory: The trips they’d take to see her paternal grandparents in Sicily as a kid. They were few and far between because getting them all over there was a logistical nightmare, but she still visits whenever she can to relive those moments where her family was free of London for just a little while. Gianna loves London, and being British, but there’s always a part of her heart in Italy, for sure. They try to all get over there once a year, together, as a family, and apart from the times where work kept her away, they usually manage it. Her happiest memories will be her happiest yet to come, too.

Childhood Trauma: Not really. Though I’m sure finding out her family moved to London after her father did prison time for the mafia was an...unusual pill to swallow. He was very honest about it, though, and she appreciates that.

PHYSICAL:

Height: 5'11”

Weight: 140lbs.

Build: I mean. She’s built enough that you might question trying to fight her idk. Not insta fitness model style muscle mass but enough of it to get some looks at the gym. The abs, man. She works hard on those abs.

Hair Color: Brown.

Usual Hair Style: She wears it up in a ponytail specifically so she doesn’t have to do anything to it. Gianna cut her hair into a short bob whilst she was in the army, and was pretty excited to grow it out once she left, until she remembered that requires actual work to maintain. So yeah, usually up, because she’s lazy.

Eye Color: Dark brown.

Glasses? Contacts?: Neither.

Style of Dress/Typical Outfit(s): Big Gianna vibes here. Usually just blends in. Nothing too in your face, because she’s used to trying not to attract attention. 

Typical Style of Shoes: Flats. Anything as long as they’re flat. Can she walk in heels? Absolutely. Does she ever want to? No.

Jewellery? Tattoos? Piercings?: Wears a gold St. Christopher medal that her Nonna gave her at all times. Has three tattoos. One of Mary on her right forearm which can be found here. All of the Palazzolo sisters got matching ‘sorella’ tattoos, in different fonts, on their left arms, which can be found here. (Gianna’s is the middle one, pretend there are two others okay.) Had to get an underboob tat because she can, and it reads ‘be beautiful in your own way’ and can be found here. 

Scars: Many. Most that she will never discuss. 

Unique Mannerisms/Physical Habits: None.

Athleticism: Very high. Marathon level runner. Sure not afraid of weight training at the gym, either, and could undoubtedly give some of the guys a run for their money. Keeping fit is a big part of her lifestyle because it’s pretty engrained into you in the military. Especially if you’re going to make it through SAS selection; she really went overboard on the being fit thing because it was the one variable she could really control. I think she had ideas about having a more laid back approach to it when she left, but it didn’t work out that way. It’s something she enjoys. Too much of a habit to shake. Actively trains in both boxing and Muay Thai. Loves playing football almost as much as watching it. 

Health Problems/Illnesses: Eh, she went through some pretty heavy shit whilst she was in the SAS, not going to lie. I imagine there’s a little PTSD going on, but nothing bad enough that she’s willing to confront it. Yet, anyway. Nothing physical, though. 

INTELLECT:

Level of Education: Rudimentary secondary school education. Signed up to the army before she ever got to sixth form to take her A-Levels. Look, she’s not super smart, but she’s not unintelligent, either. School just wasn’t for her. 

Languages Spoken: Italian and English natively. Spanish fluently. Intermediate French. Enough Russian to get by if she’s thrown into a conversation with one. God forbid.

Level of Self-Esteem: Healthy. I wouldn’t say she’s arrogant, but confident. Doesn’t beat down on herself like a lot of people. 

Gifts/Talents: Not really, as much as she wishes she did. Maybe if she’d had one, she wouldn’t have ended up in the military...

Mathematical?: Eh. Sort of, if she needs to be.

Makes Decisions Based Mostly On Emotions, or On Logic?: Logic. 

Life Philosophy: Family first.

Religious Stance: Roman Catholic. Though certainly not as staunchly as some of her family is, much to the disappointment of her mother. 

Cautious or Daring?: Daring. It’s in the motto...

Most Sensitive About/Vulnerable To: Oh, her family, without a doubt. If anything were to ever happen to them, she’d lose her mind. Apart from that, I don’t really think she’s sensitive to much at all?

Optimist or Pessimist?: Pessimist. Hard not to be in her shoes.

Extrovert or Introvert?: Mid-ground.

RELATIONSHIPS:

Current Relationship Status: Single.

Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual.

Past Relationships: Nothing with any real longevity until Jasper Menzies. They’d pretty much planned a life together until he decided, out of nowhere, that cheating on her with Lara Rutherford whilst she was deployed was a good enough reason to throw that all away. Broke her heart, honestly. She really did love him, in spite of the absolutely glaring differences in their starts in life.

Primary Reason For Being Broken Up With: I think career first was a problem for a lot of people who tried to date her. They didn’t like being second priority, which is fair enough. Gianna doesn’t blame them for that.

Primary Reasons For Breaking Up With People: Honestly, she can be kind of fussy. If the vibe isn’t there, she won’t stick around and waste her time. 

Ever Cheated?: No.

Been Cheated On: Yes. 

A Social Person?: Somewhere in the middle. Though she’s not introverted by any means, and is definitely comfortable around people. she also needs time to wind down. Some of her work took her away from her friends and family for extended periods of time. And then, sometimes as part of those deployments, for weeks on end, she’d only see the same handful of people. Gianna likes to be social, but she’s learnt to cope without. I think she’d changed a little since coming home.

Most Comfortable Around: Her family. Her former SAS squad. That’s it. Everyone else, thus far, she still has a little guard up.

Oldest Friend: Doesn’t really keep in touch with anyone pre-military. Hasn’t spoken to anyone from her school years since she left. Has a couple of girls she went through basic with that she still stays in touch with, though. 

How Does She Think Others Perceive Her?: I cannot tell you how much she doesn’t care enough to put any thought into this.

How Do Others Actually Perceive Her?: Not a clue. I guess she’s a bit of a difficult one to figure out because she doesn’t really share much. Gianna tries to be a nice person, though, so I don’t think people would view her negatively.

SECRETS:

Life Goals: Eh, she’s working on that. Doesn’t really know what the fuck she’s doing right now, because she’s still trying to transition back to (sort of?) normal life. For a really long time, her entire life was focused around succeeding in her career, and now that it’s gone, I guess she’s trying to find something else to focus on.

Dreams: Retiring to a vineyard in Sicily. That’s the whole dream. 

Greatest Fears: Gianna certainly fears failure, and that might be the only thing she’s ‘sensitive’ to apart from her family. Any of them getting hurt is a major fear, too, of course, but that goes without saying. 

Most Ashamed Of: Nothing. Genuinely. Gianna tries to live her life avoiding regret, because you can’t change the past. There’s no point dwelling on it. I think she’d prefer to focus on doing better than being ashamed, even if there was something that would meet that mark. Maybe crying over Jasper, because he’s trash af.

Secret Hobbies: Not being interesting.

Crimes Committed (Was she caught? Charged?): Hahaha. Is it illegal if you’re doing it for the government? No, then. I guess there’s plenty of time as she explores her work for the Sovrani to make up for that, though. 

DETAILS/QUIRKS:

Night Owl or Early Bird?: Early bird.

Light or Heavy Sleeper?: Somewhere in the middle. Leaning toward light.

Favorite Animal: Ferrets. They’re fucking chaotic and she loves it.

Favorite Foods: Sfogliatelle. Anything with Nutella on it ever. Sweet stuff, generally. Also seafood. All the seafood ever to have existed.

Least Favorite Food: Pesto. Worst Italian ever.

Favorite Book: The Foundation series by Asimov.

Favorite Movie: The Matrix.

Favorite Song: Time of the Season - The Zombies. 

Favorite Sport: Football! This girl supports Roma like no other.

Coffee or Tea?: Coffee. Espresso with one sugar.

Crunchy or Smooth Peanut Butter?: Neither. 

Type of Car She Drives: Driving? In London? Pass.

Lefty or Righty?: Righty.

Favorite Color: Pink.

Cusser?: Not often. Gianna prefers not to, but sometimes they slip out if she’s particularly mad or upset with somebody. Never around her parents, though. That’ll earn a good clip around the ear. 

Smoker? Drinker? Drug User?: No to smoking. Drinks very regularly, in true British fashion. Never used any drugs, and never will, grazie.

Biggest Regret: Answering this question earlier.

Pets: Three moon jellyfish that she never actually named because she can’t pretend to tell the difference between them. But she loves them, though. Adores them. Never really had pets whilst she was in the army because of how long she had to be away from home at a time, but I think she’d like a dog one day if she can ever afford her own place. It might be a nice change for her, and she had one growing up.

[nessie665]

helloo for the fanfic questions id love to hear about #20 for home and #29!!💕💕

20. If you wrote a prequel to [Home], what would it involve?

omg, when I rebloged that post I thought to myself ''I'm gonna keep my answers simple and short, bc that's why people don't talk to me, I never shut up'' but keep it short for that gem of a question? I could NEVER. First of all, thank you so much for your ask <3

My mind immediately went to Christine. Her growth as to become the person she was in the series. That would imply writing about her father's death, her relationship with her foster parents, the loss of them, her working her way up to be able to go to Paris, her discovering her talent, her first relationships with women. All that could be a very meaningful story to tell.

BUT, I'm a messy bitch, so I would instead choose to write about Erika's childhood and teenage years, and her relationship with her family

Erika's relationship with her paternal family was always a big factor in the way I wrote her in that series, and i just never brought it up! I never did, I had all this trauma and lore stuck in my head and I never did anything with it.

In Home's canon, Erika was brought up as Gerald's ''goddaughter'' after her mother's death, but anybody in the Carrière family with 2 brain cells could put 2 plus 2 together and knew she was his daughter. So, even if she couldn't be recognized as such, she was raised as a granddaughter more

Of course, that did stir a lot of controversy. Her grandfather DESPISED her. He hated the image she gave to the family, he was repulsed by Erika's face and just disgusted by her unique behaviors and health problems, not to mention her ethnicity -I have always written Erika as being wasian-. However, he was quite intrigued by Erika's intelligence, so he tolerated her presence as a child. But as she grew older, he would get more and more aggressive with those behaviors.

Those opinions influenced her older aunts and uncles, who then passed that same dislike to their children

Her grandmother (who is actually still alive up to the Home events, remember Gerald was basically a teenage dad, so he is not that old) is a whole liege on her own. A better grandmother than a mother, gives zero fucks and has no chill. She, NEVER stuttered choosing between her granddaughter and her husband, she didn't even think about it

She adored Erika. Not only because of her intelligence, and talent, but of her grace, passion, and creativity; her dark sense of humor and sensitive character, and dotted on her. Fiercely protective of Erika, and presented a blatant favoritism for her, (both bc genuine love and connection, and to compensate for her asshole children) which eventually became a factor in her poor relationship with the rest of the family, and later, to their own.

But moving on, after her grandfather died, the whole family began turning on each other, and Erika was just the easiest to point with a finger. After all, her being a child born out-of-wedlock was a big tension point at the time, and the fact that her very existence seemed to cause countless conflicts in her grandparents' marriage.

Not all of them were bad, but she did eventually cut contact with all of them, by getting out of the county as a teenager, and returning way too scarred to ever initiate contact again. I feel Erika has a very forgiven heart, mostly because of her desire to being loved, so she may forgive them one day.

She still has contact with her grandma, tho sporadically, and she has no idea Erika is in the same country as her, Erika would love to see her again one day. She likes to think her grandmother would love Christine, but knows she would side eye her once she learned she was an actress first.

So yeah, that's my choice, I would do a speed run through 30 something years of Carrière family drama.

[alyssalikestoreadbooks]

Same Time Next Year - Tessa Bailey

"Adored by all, Britta is an ambitious waitress working at Sluggers. The popular bar holds a special place in her heart and is a regular hangout for the Bridgeport Bandits, the local hockey club. With a half brother on the team, Britta has a strict no-dating policy for hockey boys. But she does have a soft spot for one particular player.

A beast on the ice, Sumner Mayfield is on the brink of breaking into the NHL. But time’s running out. With his work visa about to expire, Sumner’s only chance to stay in Bridgeport is to marry an American—and get a green card. Otherwise, it’s back to Canada for the defenseman.

On New Year’s Eve, the team begs Britta to marry Sumner that very night. Sum is embarrassed yet hopeful—he’s desperately in love. But Britta balks at first. Until something about Sumner’s soulful brown eyes and ripped physique makes her reconsider…"

Listen Date - July 2024

Length - 144 pages

Genre - Romance,  Sports Romance, Novella

Rating - 4/10

Stars - ★★★☆☆

Notes - Wow! My first audiobook! I actually found it hard to connect at first because I thought it’d be like watching something in the background, but I really have to focus when listening. So far I really like the book. The dynamic between Sumner and Britta is different from other books i’ve read, and I like how it stands out. The drama between Sumner’s work visa expiring and not being around the Britta anymore is interesting, and adds drama to the story. The proposition of Britta and Sumner getting married for his visa is so interesting, and i love a good fake marriage trope. I love that the family trauma is brought out. The spice of this book is brought out from the second chapter (very lightly) and it literally had me going “woooahhh okay” because I just wasn’t expecting it. Britta is so funny. I love the conversation she has with Sumner about marriage. You can tell she’s very afraid to open up, but she’s willing to do so for the green card. she HAS to in order to not get charged with fraud-- she has to get to know this man. The smut in this book is a little bit constant with Sumner, and I’m not really into it, i’m not gonna lie. I have no motivation with them yet, so it all feels very preempted. It’s in my face and I don’t know why because I barely know these characters. The time skips are a bit much for me (like the distance in the passage of time) but it makes sense why Tessa did this. Britta realizing she’s crushing on Sumner is really cute and I think their relationship dynamic is adorable. They’re there for each other, even when they don’t want to be necessarily. The conversation about Sumner’s grandparents was really heartfelt and sad, and it makes sense why both Britta and Sumner don’t have family in the seats. Britta because she’s scared to BE his family, and Sumner because of his grandmother’s death. I love how overprotective Sumner is over Britta, and it’s honestly done in a way that isn’t controlling or aggressive for once! Very very nice. The conversation at the concert is sooooo smutty and I’m finally starting to like it, like I finally understand why the characters should be together. The concert scene is sooo yummy and well written. I love how Sumner offers to commit to Britta in a different way, which gives her comfort in the relationship. It makes the sex between them make more sense in the end. I’ve gotta say.... listening to smut in audiobooks is very awkward! They are out here moaning on these tapes!! The writing is very good however, though i could do with a little more perspective from Britta. I’m genuinely glad that there’s no miscommunication trope at play here, and everyone properly talks to each other to work through the tough emotions. The talk of Britta’s trauma with relationships and meeting the family was actually really nice. There’s a little bit too much smut in my opinion, but I can see how somebody who likes spice would love a book like this. I’m just asexual! Sumner getting signed brought a lot of drama that i enjoyed, with Britta having to question where she stands in the relationship with her commitment issues. Britta going to the game where her father was showed how far she’s changed from the first chapters, when she was avoiding relationships and anything that reminded her of her dad. The last chapter is very cute, its a “couple month later” style epilogue where you get all the updates of their life, and we see how Britta has fully adapted to the relationship and is happy to be committed to Sumner. It’s a very sweet transition from the old Britta, and I just generally think that this was a VERY very cute story, i could just do without the spice levels it had. 

[kakiastro]

Houses

The houses is the next important part of astrology. The houses represents the area of life the planets and signs affect.

1 house - Aries house

Self

You are the main character of your life

How you look

First impressions that people make lf you when the first meet you

Head/ skin complexion

Incarnation

Worldly outlook

Public conscious

Manners

Habits

Early Childhood

One indication of life purpose

2 house -Taurus house

Your finances and wealth

Your family values/ your values

Banks

Investments

Comfort foods/foods

Chef

Farmers/farming

Food resources

Your voice

Throat

Taxes/ revenue

Friends of partners

Economy

Secrets pleasures and desires

Pleasures

Skills and resources

Possessions

Fashion aesthetics

Music taste

3 house- Gemini house

Communication

Radio

Information

Tv

Writings

Journals/ books about specific topics

Siblings

Transportation (cars, trucks, trains and boats)

Lungs

Fingers/finger nails

Aunts/uncles

Short trips

Education (k-12)

Teachers

Critics/ criticism

Video games / board games/arena games

4 house- Cancer house

Women/feminine

Mothers

Parents in general

Babies

Breast/chest

Milk

Showers/ baths/ ponds/rain

Home life

Family life/ ancestors

Hidden thoughts and feelings

Digestive system

Private life

Realtors/real estate/ renters/ home owners

Father in law

Old people

Nursing/nurses/nursery

Hotels/ motels

5 house- Leo house

How we have fun

Actors/actresses

Directors/filmmakers/ motion pictures/

Entertainment/amusement

Movie theaters

Concerts

Games/Arcade games/arena games

Theater/ dance/ acting

Music/musicals/musicians

Drama

Pride

Ego

Romance

Lovers

Dates/date night

Creativity

Child(ren)

Youth

First born child

2nd sibling

Gambling/gamblers

Royals

King/ Prince/ Queen/ Princess/ other novels

Your Heart organ

Lottery

6 house- Virgo house

Health

Health professionals (doctors, nurses)

Healers/ outer healing

Animals(small and domestic)

Artistic abilities

Birds

Body health

Hygiene

Physical examination

Bowels

Medical drugs

Caretakers

Brother/sister in law’s reputation

Critic/criticism

Judgement

Organizations/organized

Notes

Writing in details

Cooking

Employees

Co workers

Intelligence

First responders

Butler, maids, busboys

Cleaners

Grandchildren reputation

Offices

Companies

7 house- Libra house

Relationships (platonic & romantic )

Business/ business partners

First Marriage

Divorce

Alliances

Grandparents in general

Grandma

Husband & Wife

2nd Child

3rd sibling

Lawyers/law suites/laws

Court of law

Agents

Agreements/disagreements

Liver

Kidneys

Bladder

Butt

Lower back

Controversial

Dealings with the public

Open public enemies

Art, artist

Actors/actresses

Bars

Contest

Serious lovers

Close fan base

Affection

8 house- Scorpio house

Death/rebirth

Giving birth

Joint finances with partner

Wealth through marriage

Other people finances

Deepest fears

Obsessions

Genitals

Sex/sex work

Heirs

Heirlooms

Occult/occult studies

Debt

Underground crime

Surgery

Inner power

Psychic abilities

Psychology/ psychology therapy

Therapist

9 house- Sagittarius house

Spirituality/ religion (church, clergy, prophet, spiritual gifts)

Philosophy and ideals on life

Long range travel

Long range communication

Dreams and faith

Higher learning(college, grad school)

Teachers

Astral travel

Books/journals about broad topics

3rd child

Logic

Intellect

Metaphysics

Airports

Ships/shipping/shipping docks

Horses

Pets end of life

Hips and thighs

Liver

Upper legs

Supreme Court

10 house-Capricorn house

Career

Public status in society

Public image

Publicity

Success

Ambition

Knee/kneecaps

Skeletal system

Teeth

Famous family/family name

Fame

Popularity

Infamous

Scandals

CEO/ supervisor/managers

Father/fatherhood

Authority figure in your life

Government(president, senates, house, prime minister) all officials

Vocation

11 house- Aquarius house

Humanity

Humanitarian

Community

Friend groups

Social groups

Acquaintances

Friendship

Friends appearance

Science

Technology

Stans (loyal fans)

Support system

Aspiration and dreams

4th child

Step children

Daughter/ Son in laws

Community projects

Wealth within social groups

City

Lower calves/ankles

Flattery

Social media

Memberships and clubs

V

12 house- Pisces house

Deep dreams

Mythical/mystical/ ethereal

Asylums

Bondage

Blackmail

Fraud

Bootleggers

Spiritual

Burglary/burgalers

Cheating/cheaters

The unknown

Conspiracies

Hidden talents

True talents

Clinics

Prisons

Pass life

Karma/karmic

Monks

Intrigue

Hidden society

Hidden cults

Misinformation meditation

Inner Healing

Spiritual gifts

Drugs

Addictions

Orphanage

Partners career

Veterinarian

Voting/voters

Inner pain

Nurses

Big cats

Bigger animals such as elephants ect

Thank you for reading and I hoped you enjoyed this post

[rueluxprince]

Different taboo topics between English and Chinese fandoms

Because of course there is, different cultural context, different things people find abhorrent, and so one must take extra care not to go all “if you don’t also find the things I find disgusting, then you are being disgusting” when one is entering into a fandom that was not of your culture. *nudge* *nudge*

Case in point: Chinese fandom, does not really care if you ship incest, or underage. They really don’t give a shit. Yeah the shippers wouldn’t do it in real life, but if someone does an incest side-pairing in a fantasy webnovel the readers wouldn’t bat an eye. Like, Thor/Loki is still one of the biggest ships in Chinese pop culture today, while Thor is Patron God of Lesbians in the West with no prominent ship of his own. MCU!Peter Parker/Tony Stark is also pretty huge there, while in the West those two are kept strictly familial. And that’s not counting the literal thousands of Chinese webnovels with the specific trope of “old and wise master raises poor but cute disciple, disciple grows to want to top his master.”

Even when Jin Guangyao’s various crimes were revealed, the fact he accidentally married his biological half-sister had the smallest splash. His stans didn’t really care and proceeded to make a lot “Qin Su: I am his First and Proper Wife until my death! And you! Lan Xichen! Will forver remain his side piece!” crack fanfics. His antis mostly focused on his murders. No one really dragged him for that? It won him a lot of pity points actually? Whereas here there were a lot of Horrifed Gasping when that plot was revealed.

(Sidenote: incest ships depends also depends on the chemistry of the characters, like you would with any other ship. Jiang Cheng/Wei Wuxian is decently big in China, in the West not so much. But no one anywhere really pairs Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian together, or her and Jiang Cheng. The latter two ships is way too familial and filial to even be conceivably turned romantic.)

On the other hand, Chinese fandom does not take to polyamory or polygamy or even “I had previous relationships before I entered this one where the plot things started happening.” They do not like it. The ship must be exclusive and monogamous. One of them can have some previous relationships but the audience will hold that as a black mark against their soul forever onwards. Seriously. To the point where a character who had several previous romances is often used as a narrative shorthand to show how horrible a person they are.

Again: platonic 3zun, decently popular in China. Romantic polyamorous 3zun, does not exist, a blasphemy to even suggest it. You are either a Nieyao or a Xiyao or a Nielan. You are either Stony or Stucky or WinterIron, you pick a lane and you stick to it. No Chinese fan will ever suggest “just do a threesome.” Absolutely not. Inconceivable. They will send you puking emojis and “I’ll book a psychologist appointment for you” gifsets.

(Sidenote: legit. I watched this C-Drama called Love is Sweet in October and the love triangle follows this phenomenon almost exactly. There were solid foundations for the main girl to go with either the male lead or the second male lead or for the two men to come together. Good basis for a poly ship right? Well. I’ve found exactly one fanfiction that had those three be in a poly romance, and it’s on Ao3 and in English. Everywhere in Chinese? Three different monogamous ships producing their own fan edits and fanfictions, ignoring the other two completely. Seeing this unfold in real life is extremely trippy tbh.)

And I honestly have no idea how to dissect this. The closest explanation (read: bullshiting) I have is that fanworks and fandom activities and shipping are largely driven by women, and whom, unconsciously or otherwise, chose to back away from the deeply ingrained cultural harm their fandom taboos has historically wrought upon them.

Historically, in the West, it was socially acceptable or even encouraged for close cousins to marry (hello Hapsburg family, honestly all the European nobility. Also Darwin, he did that too). While in Ancient China it was never socially or even legally acceptable (you can’t marry your cousin if they are related to you in three generations. So if you share the same great-grandparent, no can do. And they would know. One does not mess with Ancient Chinese record keeping.)

Whereas in the West, Europe and North America, monogamy was largely the norm for marriage. The nuclear family is the staple. Husband and wife and not legally recognized mistress on the side if the husband is a bit of an asshole. In China, polygamy was the norm. Men could have as many concubines as they could afford, Qianlong Emperor had close to forty. There are also inheritance laws and ceremonial regulations and all manner of legal rules giving them legal status. And the wife would have to tough it out and bear it and be nice to them, or else they are labeled as “jealous” and “not a good wife” and that is enough grounds for a divorce.

And as the modern fandom is often a place where anti-culture scenarios and relationships are imagined and interrogated, it can be argued that fandoms from different cultures have different taboos because they grew as backlash to different historically oppressive cultural practices.

[hayleysayshay]

On Wu’s backstory:

Wu is a character many people find annoying, but I enjoy. His backstory is vague at best. Here is what we know.

Wu is the grand nephew of Hou-Ting. He is the only heir to the throne.

At some point he moved to Republic City. Commentary implies that he was there doing a degree

At some point Mako was made his bodyguard. Commentary implies that Mako was his bodyguard for the three years.

The canon status of all commentary is debatable. As far as I see it, the show is true canon, the only reason we take the commentary as canon is because nothing contradicts it, but it is particularly substantial.

So, let’s analyse this backstory. This is all my personal opinion and headcanon and based upon what I find interesting and what fits Wu’s character as we see it in Book 4.

Was there a Royal Family massacre and is Wu traumatised?

We don’t see any other family members than Hou-Ting in Book 3. In Book 4, we are introduced to Wu, and only Wu. He is the heir to the throne.

At the end of book 3, Ba Sing Se falls to a the angry citizens of Ba Sing Se. We do see them enter the palace. They are seen looting and burning.

So, did this mob murder the rest of the Royal Family? Wu is the only heir. He is the grand nephew. This implies both his parents and grandparents are dead. What happened to them? They all must have died fairly young if Wu is the heir as a twenty something in Book 4.

I believe this is the basis of the ‘royal family massacre’ argument. Wu is too young to be the only heir to the throne. And the mob were angry. Therefore, the heirs above Wu were killed.

Now to be clear: the real reason Wu is a young heir is because Bryke wanted someone young for Mako to bounce off of. He’s around the same age as Mako but has a completely different life to him. Wu is not serious whereas Mako is. Wu is flippant and Mako is serious. Wu is extroverted and Mako is introverted. Wu is rich, Mako is not. This contrast is more fun if they’re the same age.

I say this because I think it’s clear that Wu was created with no clear trauma in mind. Wu does not act especially scared, or traumatised by the past. He is cautious and scared of hearing of Hou-Ting’s death, but acts in a comedic manner (fake strangling sounds) but then resumes a proper mourning action (may she rest in piece). Wu acts fairly silly throughout the series, enjoys the attention from fans, and even towards the end he creates a plan that he hopes will gain him attention from Korra. Wu is breezy and flippant and shallow, only really maturing towards the end and appears to be genuinely committed to dismantling the monarchy.

The trauma seen in fan works is a result of fan expansions, and personally I don’t really see it having a strong basis in the show. Wu is never really shown to be scared, or withdrawn at any points. Wu is never shown to be angry at the local populace who killed his family, as although Wu is shallow he never treats anyone badly. So is he masking? That’s totally up to your interpretation. Wu could be burying all his negative emotions and is acting out to hide his trauma. This is perfectly plausible. Personally, the lack of anger is what slightly damns this interpretation for me, I’m sure he’d show something.

Also I don’t think Wu not being fully prepared to take the throne is unreasonable— it makes sense if he was going to finish his education before starting public duties and gaining more political experience. And he could have made public experiences but still be fairly shallow. It’s implied that the Dai Li have a great degree of power so Wu not taking things that seriously or having a lot of experience is perfectly reasonable: it’s not needed for him to do so. So no, I don’t think Wu being the primary heir to the throne has to be sudden and unexpected because Wu isn’t very well prepared or serious.

How Old is Wu?

If you take the idea that he was in Republic City doing a degree when Hou-Ting was murdered, he could have been eighteen at the time, and twenty-one by the time of Book 4. He could be older. He could have started the degree at a younger age however, so he could even be nineteen at the start of Book 4.

If you ignore the idea that Wu was in Republic City prior to Book 3, and only came to Republic City to be safe after the Queen’s death, he could he even younger, potentially around eighteen in Book 4 if you HC him as young, but he could also still be older than Mako. Basically nothing confirmed, but I think it does depend on how seriously you take the commentary about the degree.

Have Wu and Mako worked together for three years?

This is going to be my strongest opinion, but I don’t think their relationship makes much sense if they’ve known eachother for three years.

I feel like this was meant to explain what Mako was doing for three years, but Mako doing his job as a detective was enough. So I don’t think it was needed.

In the episode where Wu’s coronation is ruined, Wu has a breakdown. Mako asks why he even wants to be King. He apologises, and Wu says that ‘no-one ever spoke to him like that’.

No-one has ever spoken to Wu like, even Mako. For three years? I don’t buy it. Mako is professional but he does talk back to Wu. Mako doesn’t think Wu is deserving of power just because he was born into it. I can’t believe Mako would his tongue on Wu for three years.

Also, I think Wu and Mako have a nice arc over Book 4. They get to know each-other more deeply. Mako sees the more mature side of Wu. I just don’t get the impression that they really knew each other that well beforehand, and I think you’d learn more about each other if you were together 24/7 for three years.

Obviously a lot of fan works expand on this and make the whole three years together thing make sense (by making them fuck usually and then having ensuing drama), but my critique is that I often think this over explains Wu’s character and ignores the very real shallowness Wu does show in early Book 4 by making It doesn’t meant I don’t love these fics, but I just don’t really ever reconcile them with the version of Wu we see in the show.

What I headcanon.

Again, this is literally just headcanon, and the events have no real confirmation in canon, it’s just what I think is both interesting and what I think matches with Wu’s characterisation in the show, whilst also giving him a backstory and more depth.

Wu’s grandparent and heir to the throne had one child, who became Wu’s father. This grandparent and heir dies. This grandparent dies young.

Wu’s parent’s were married. It was a political arrangement as Wu’s mother was from a rich family. Their marriage is strained. They have one child, Wu and don’t really talk to eachother much. Wu’s Dad dies young from partying too hard. Wu is left the only heir.

Wu’s mother remarries a wealthy baron or something. Because of not doing widowhood properly she is not welcome at the palace and moves away from Ba Sing Se. She and Wu have a strained relationship, since she never really wanted Wu in the first place. They sometimes exchange letters. (This could be swapped for his father and his mother was the heir but honestly I just wanted a strained relationship with a maternal figure. She got her happy ending but not with Wu).

Wu and Queen Hou-Ting have a very strained relationship as Hou Ting considers him weak, and despises animals which Wu loves.

Wu ends up with no real close familial relationship and is used to never really caring about anything. He is very isolated and is mostly raised by Dai-Li appointed carers.

At twenty ish Wu decides he wants out and asks to study in Republic City. The Queen is against this but Wu is insistent and she sees it as an excuse to get him out of her hair.

Wu moved to Republic City. After the fall of the walls, the Dai Li are in disarray as much of the leadership flees the city. Wu was previously appointed Dai Li bodyguards but Republic City officials replace them with city appointed bodyguards instead to maintain order. Unsure of how to proceed with Wu, Raiko and the other leaders agree that Wu shall complete his degree whilst Kuvira restores order. Wu is rarely included in meetings that decide the Earth Kingdom’s policy because they don’t like him and everyone just accepts he will be a King supported by his advisors and won’t rule himself.

Wu is of course horrified but he has a lack of personal stake in the death of his great aunt other than the realisation that he is now under a lot of pressure, which Wu mostly just ignores.

Wu completed his degree. After this, he begins to move into the public sphere and begins to make public appearances. Instead of a rotating team of bodyguards he requests a personal one, Mako, because he saw him a newspaper and thought he was hot really cool. This happens around six months before Republic City.

Mako treats Wu as a job, but the events of Book 4 eventually push them to become better friends and get to know eachother. Wu matures What happens next is either comics canon or my own ideas.

This is complete headcanon and I expect some people disagree! Hope it makes sense.

[rosesastrology]

What are you dreaming of?

Neptune in the houses/signs is quite good at showing what themes your dreams might frequently have.

Neptune in the 1st/Aries: your appearance, appearance issues such as teeth falling out/balding, your self, your identity, sense of self, drugs, alcohol, substance abuse in dreams, very abstract dreams (cloudy, misty, abstract forms), energy fields, sensitivity regarding the environment, naked in public, clothes, change, weight, moving slow

Neptune in the 2nd house/Taurus: your possessions, theft, debt, money, loans, shopping, money, relaxing, leisure, self-worth related dreams, losing everything you own, house being burned down, losing your possessions, clothes, banking, materials with sentimental value, university, food, eating, gaining/losing weight, inability to fulfill needs (ex. going to the toilet), having your house broken into, wealth

Neptune in the 3rd house/Gemini: dreams related to school (up to university), old classmates, extended family, siblings, friends who feel like siblings, communication, speech impediments, not being able to talk, conversations, trauma related to childhood school experiences, the clouds/being in the clouds, traffic accidents, going to school/work, haste, nervous energy, walking in school hallways, windows, getting bad grades, your neighborhood, seeing something written down

Neptune in the 4th house/Cancer: immediate family, parents, grandparents, dying physically, being old, drowning/sinking, water, the ocean, hidden treasures, your roots, ethnicity, race, earth, community, mining, ores, minerals, the ground, your country, issues with your house (house broken into, burned down, flood, etc), death of family members

Neptune in the 5th house/Leo: pregnancy, children, sex (NSA), pleasure related activities, substance abuse, overindulgence, amusement parks, parks, spas, leisure, fun, a creative process, art, music, drama, theater, very creative dreams (dragons, creatures, etc), flying, falling, meeting people, fame, games, vacation

Neptune in the 6th house/Virgo: day-to-day life, work, being late, plants, pets, service, serving someone, chaos, instability, disorganization, guilt, nervous energy, sickness, family member sick, injuries, health, exercise, swamps, dirty places, being dirty, being chased, falling, going nowhere, medicine, hospitals, bandaids

Neptune in the 7th/Libra: love, romance, marriage, finding the one, soulmates, commitments, business partners, groups, crowds, helping your partner, enabling, being chased, pregnancy, enemies, contracts, analyzing communities or other people, philosophy, gossip

Neptune in the 8th/Scorpio: death, sex, pregnancy, abuse, violence, gore, blood, transformations, bugs, pain, often very metaphorical dreams, substance abuse, murder, suicide, spiritual dreams, money, possession, jealousy

Neptune in the 9th house/Sagittarius: higher education (uni and above), astrology, religion, prophetic dreams, philosophy, trying to find meaning, obscure dreams, space, journeys, travel, bigger purpose, bigger pictures

Neptune in the 10th house/Capricorn: career, ambitions, work, public image, power struggles, control issues, being crushed, goals, reputation, men, parents, fame, experts, professionals, confinement, construction, feeling constricted, asphyxiation, how we want to be (perceived)

Neptune in the 11th house/Aquarius: gossip, communities, friends, humanitarian goals, society, crowds, charity, earned wealth, technology, something not working, society, colleagues, freedom, independence, being lost, change (through death in any form), rebellion, protesting

Neptune in the 12th house/Pisces: abstract dreams, misty, weird dreams, everything you try to hide, secrets, emotional baggage, what you need to face, what you're neglecting, spiritual sex, the unseen, the unknown, being lost, endings, healing, death, suicide, the afterlife, reincarnation, loss on all aspects, being constrained

[drivingsideways]

in search of a better dream

This is about three pieces of South Korean media that crossed my path recently: the dramas Search WWW and Flower of Evil, and the novel Kim Ji Young, Born 1982.

Disclaimer and context : I'm not Korean, I don't speak the language, and I've watched a very limited set of kdramas. The criticisms I make in this piece are not to single out kdramas, or kdrama fandom,  as what I've described exists in Western and other Asian media and fandoms as well.

 Under the cut for length:

There's a scene in the first episode of the hit 2020 k-drama "Flower of Evil" that made me want to quit watching the show within the first ten minutes. The scene goes like this: our protagonists, Cha Ji Won and Baek Hee Seung meet Baek Hee Seung's parents along with their four year old daughter. The occasion is Baek Hee Seung's birthday, and loving wife Cha Ji Won has set up a special birthday dinner for them. On the way to the restaurant, the daughter has already complained about how she's scared of her grandparents, and they don't like her. When we meet the grandparents, we see the truth of this- they are as cold as the Arctic to all three, but especially to their daughter-in-law and granddaughter. In a bid to smooth out the social awkwardness, Cha Ji Won instructs her daughter to greet her grandparents the way they had "practiced" earlier- a cutesy little greeting where the adorable Eun-ha makes a heart over her head and chirps "I love you grandma and grandpa". When this fails to soften them, Eun-ha retreats, looking scared and disappointed. Not to worry, Cha Ji Won has this completely figured out: if you try harder, she tells her four year old daughter, they'll eventually love you.

Reader, I was, as they say, mad.

We find out soon enough that this stellar bit of parenting follows from an abiding principle in Cha Ji Won's life. Her romance with Baek Hee Seung starts when a handsome oppa walks into the family store, and is a saga of her stalking and pursuing a man who repeatedly tells her he's not interested, until he finally gives in. The power of her persistence pays off when the emotionally distant and abrasive man, in a classic beauty-and-the-beast transition, becomes a loving boyfriend, and then later, husband and father. It's a fantasy- some might even say feminist fantasy come true- he's handsome, supportive, reliable, artistic,  the primary housekeeper and caretaker of their daughter while she pursues her demanding "dream" job as a police officer, and they have enough money to live in a charming and lovingly set up two-storeyed house in ruinously expensive Seoul. This is heterosexual female wish fulfilment at its peak, and it is all made possible because she persevered.

It all threatens to come apart with the discovery of the perfect man's dark past- for a brief period, she's forced to contemplate the idea that he's actually a serial killer who's conned her for the entirety of their relationship of fourteen years; that the perfect life was, in fact, a lie.  

However, since this is written and billed as romance melodrama, this horror is short-lived. As the story progresses through increasingly improbable, violent and sometimes downright hilarious twists and turns, we grow closer to the (inevitable) happy ending. Baek Hee Seung/ Do Hyun Soo is no killer, just a traumatized child with a horrific past. The lies are the result of psychological damage inflicted by a society that unfairly deemed him a monster; the cage of repressed emotions that he'd locked himself in needed only the unshakeable conviction of Cha Ji Won's love to be broken open. "I wish you could see yourself as I see you" she tells him, in one of the show's endless supply of tearfully emotional moments, "I wish you could understand yourself the way I understand you."

This framework continues right to the end, when a bout of short term amnesia (!!) has Do Hyun Soo questioning himself and her: do you know, he asks her, when I'm lying to you, and when I'm not, because I don't.  The show answers that almost immediately- it doesn't matter, because it's her vision of him that he wants to be; in other words, he chooses the version of himself that she wants. The horror of the lie was a red herring, Cha Ji Won was right from the start about her husband- all it took was the power of her love and her perseverance to overcome the lie at the heart of her marriage,  to restore it to its previous shape- quite literally. The dream house they built together, which was destroyed by the villain, is shown in the last shots as unchanged from how it was in the beginning. One of the last shots we have of the couple is of them kissing in the artisan husband's workshop, an almost perfect recreation of the first time we see them. Paradise Regained, and all of us- and Cha Ji Won- can breathe a sigh of relief. You, the twenty-first century woman, are the architect of your own fantasy and can have it all. What could be more powerful than that?

 In Kim Ji Young, Born 1982 , a novel published in 2016, and often credited with kickstarting a new conversation about feminism in South Korea, the eponymous protagonist's story is also one of perseverance. It's a starkly written tale, an everywoman tale, a dryly narrated fact finding mission report complete with citations and references, about a woman born in the late twentieth century into a rigidly patriarchal culture, whose very existence is an aberration- her parents didn’t opt for a sex-selective abortion unlike many of their contemporaries when they found that their second child would also be a girl. Kim Ji Young, like the rest of us, grows up immersed in a misogynist culture. Even before she understands it, she learns to work around it and through it, rationalizing the micro-aggressions, burying the anger at the casual and institutional sexism that permeates her life, compromising and coping with it all, and achieving some semblance of having it all: a job, a decent, loving husband, a child. However, it's when motherhood arrives that it all falls apart- Kim Ji Young, faced with the exhausting carework of having a baby at home and another regular, full time job, does what so many women in her position do- quits her "outside" job for her parenting one. Fighting exhaustion and depression, a casually cruel and misogynist remark from a stranger in a park proves to be the proverbial final straw; Kim Ji Young suffers a mental breakdown, dissociating herself completely from her own life, and "seamlessly, flawlessly" taking on the personalities of other women she's known- her mother, her friend, her colleague. The novel ends with a narrative twist that's both horrifying and appropriate:  we learn that our narrator is actually her male psychiatrist. Kim Ji Young doesn't even get to be the voice of her own story; instead, it is told by a man cocooned in his own privilege, who displays the same paternalistic and misogynist behaviour that he correctly identified as the cause of her breakdown.

There is no escape here for Kim Ji Young save that of a complete break from reality. In the light of the narrative that leads her to that point, it feels both inevitable and even more horrifically, a blessing. This is a horror story told as it is shorn of any hope; the ending is death or insanity.

Reading Kim Ji Young, Born 1982 was to confront the familiar and heart-breaking and horrific neatly distilled into 200 odd pages; it's "fiction", but not really. My only surprise was how similar the culture described there was to my own in specifics; how incidents in Kim Ji Young's life were things I had actually experienced myself or seen other women experience, in a country several thousand miles away.

I read this novel just after watching the 2019's Search WWW, a show with a bit of a cult following, I think. Before I started watching it, one friend assured me that I would love it, that it was made for me; another said that  she dropped it because it "rang false" to her at the time. I've seen the show described several times as a feminist power fantasy, sometimes, if the reviewer wanted to demean it, with the qualifier, unrealistic.

This seemed an odd sort of criticism to me- after all, who turns to k-drama romances or really, any romance, for realism? Female wish fulfilment, which is the cornerstone of romance as a genre, whether in books or film, is still written and recognized as fantasy. So what was particularly unreal about Search WWW?

Well, simply put, it is written like the patriarchy doesn't matter, and has never existed.

The three female protagonists are all in their thirties, in powerful positions in their careers. As such, they are constantly walking into meetings where women speak more than 33% of the time. There are men in the room, but they never outnumber the women, and they don't silence the women.

The interests and decisions and choices  of women in the show- even the lead antagonist, who is an older woman whom we often see casually making beefy young men pose nude for her paintings- matter, not just to domestic and private realms, but to society at large; the antagonist is a power broker whose reach goes right up to the highest echelons of the country's politics; the younger women's ethical choices directly affect the republic's functioning as a democracy.

What about the men? It's not that they've been ignored; it's just that their place in the narrative has been decentered. Do with that what you will, the writer seems to say, as she writes in speaking roles for women wherever possible—every second side character is a woman— I have no time or inclination to justify that choice.

As for romance- it's not just that two of the three romances fall into the "noona romance" category, which is subversive in itself. It's that the power of decision making in these relationships clearly rests with the women.

In the "main" romance track, in a reversal of the usual trope, the woman is the one who is emotionally unavailable, and whom the man has to convince to take a chance on their relationship. What was hugely refreshing was that the reason for her emotional unavailability isn't trauma, that the man has to help her heal from, unlike the gender reversed versions we often see, eg in Flower of Evil. Instead, it's a difference in perspective that has its roots in the years of experience she has compared to him; it's the difference in life perspective of a twenty something man, and an almost-40 woman. She considers the implications and possibilities of entering into a relationship with a man who wants marriage and kids, while she doesn't want either and is unlikely to want them in the future. She thinks through it, and sees the pitfalls of it, perhaps all too clearly. In the end, when she makes a decision to commit, it's with the understanding that she's choosing to live in the moment, that he makes her happy; that they make each other happy and it is worth something, even if it doesn't last.  But both of them understand that her happiness is not centered in him or their relationship being successful. The other two romances end on a similarly open note- the possibility of love with the man you just divorced, but there's no hurry to get there; and a long distance relationship that may or may not last the two years of military conscription the man has to undergo.

The happily ever after in this series is not the perfect heterosexual family unit; it was always going to be the complicated, thorny and intense queerplatonic relationship between the three women, who, in the end, literally drive off along an endless open road under a blue, blue sky, to "a place with no red lights", as one of them describes it.

For a week after watching Search WWW, I wandered around in a daze. How did this show get written, I kept asking myself? How did it get produced? Aired??? What magic was worked to put it in my eyeballs, and how can it keep happening?

That feeling intensified when I read Kim Ji Young, Born 1982. But the book also provided the answer, at least to the first question. Because it is Kim Ji Young's voice in Search WWW. This is the fantasy that Kim Ji Young would have wanted to live in; a society and a life where she's seen as a person, entire, and it's not something she has to fight every day for. The gigantic leap of imagination that the writer of Search WWW took was only because that fantasy has been yearned for, in a way only a person growing up in Kim Ji Young's world- our world- could.

"Flower of Evil"- and other dramas like it— are also, undeniably, products of this world. It's unsurprising to me that in many ways, Cha Ji Won's little fantasy domestic world in Flower of Evil, on the surface, looks exactly like a post-feminist world. If the real revolution is men doing housework and childcare, then that fantasy has already been achieved on the individual level for Cha Ji Won. Sure, she's the only female member on her squad, and maybe the entire police force, for all you see women in her workplace. Sure, the other female characters with speaking roles exist mostly to be tortured for manpain by the narrative or literally by men as part of the plot. She seems to have no friends outside of work, which means that all her friends are men. As for relationships with other women, except her mother, who exists mostly to share the burden of childcare, and her mom-in- law who turns out to be an evil sort herself, there are none. When she meets her sister-in-law, the entire scene gives off a strange catfight vibe- her sister in law is the only other woman who can legitimately be said to have a claim on knowing the real Do Hyun Soo, and Cha Ji Won's reaction is to deny that claim and tell her to buzz off, basically. "I'm his family now" she tells her sister in law, "He has a wife"; firmly establishing the primacy of a heterosexual romantic relationship over all others.

Her "dream" job means nothing much despite the work she has put in to get it; for most part of the narrative she ends up betraying every professional ethic and her squad- her only friends. Of course, she is easily forgiven for it, without doing any of the work to earn that forgiveness, but that's really because who has the narrative time to develop those relationships which do not matter, like her work, which is shown up for the narrative prop it is, just like her daughter?  Even her sociopath (but not really, poor baby) husband ends the series with a tentative sort of friendship with a person he's not married to, but not Cha Ji Won, whose entire world by the end of the series has narrowed down to the four walls of her perfect little house and her perfectly-rescued husband. "I can't be happy if he's not happy," she tells her mother, who suggests that maybe it's time she let go of her not-so-perfect husband. "So please accept him."

In the end, the fantasy is based on this : self-improvement as the winning strategy, not structural change. Try hard enough and you'll get what you want. In the fine print, easily ignored: as long as what you want falls within the bounds of heteronormative patriarchal standards. It's an attitude that is passed down to the next generation; Cha Ji Won's early conversation with her daughter is an example.

The writer's vision is clear- what could have been an interesting and intimate look at our deepest fears in a relationship- that the other person will see us for who we are and horror-struck, leave; or even a deconstruction of the heterosexual woman's fantasy of The Perfect Man, is instead a tired repetition of the Beauty-and-the-Beast trope. You can dress it up and put a gun-toting, career woman wig on it, but that disguise falls apart pretty quickly. Cha Ji Won openly states not once, but several times, that she would rather live the comfortable lie; it's only when even that isn't an option- and not because of her choice or agency, but circumstances and the man coming to a decision, that she begins to let go. But only for a little while- barely ten minutes in show time- because ultimately, this is a female wish fulfilment fantasy, isn't it? Her longsuffering perseverance is rewarded when he decides to mould himself to her fantasy version of him, and the past is erased, and time reset, complete with soft lighting and soaring soundtrack.

Some love stories are horror stories, but others are horror stories masquerading as love stories. Why are we so often sold the latter, and so accepting of the narrative gaslighting? When I look at the popularity of Search WWW vs Flower of Evil, I feel bitter despair and quite a lot of anger. Why do so many women- and it is women, who are producing this work, for women, primarily (I mean, romance, as a genre)- settle for so little? It's the twenty first century, I think, why are we still here, I rage, gnashing my teeth, and indulging in the vicious satisfaction of giving Flower of Evil a single star rating that will make not a dent in its popularity. If we can't demand and aspire to a better class of fantasy, what hope do we have? As you dream, so you will do.

I often think that these days feminism is made toothless because we're shaping it into something that will validate every little feeling of ours;  we don't want to be made uncomfortable by it. But feminism is not meant to make anyone comfortable; interrogating your own desires and pleasures is as much a part of smashing the patriarchy as fighting for fundamental human rights like bodily autonomy.

I guess, in the end, what I want to say is this: for the love of sanity, dream better.

[pleasantlegacy]

The Pleasant-Broke: Angela

The sweet angel, Angela has quite changed over the years. The divorce of her parents made her want to find prof for true love, despite the cost. And she found it, I mean, she never really had to look that far. Even though Dustin Broke could be a challenge, Angela could see he had a good heart. To her, he was always caring and sweet.

Also, Angela always envied his family: they loved each other so much… After the divorce of her parents everyone knew that the Pleasants were not that pleasant, and Angela found comfort in the thin walls of Dustin’s messy home. Brandi always treated her like a daughter and her food was much better than the frozen dinners.

She also had her grandparents, although she preferred talking to them over the phone, since they had little Danielle to take care of and Lilith visited them a lot.

Unfortunately, her relationship with Lilith didn’t recover much, however, they’re now more civilized and don’t fight or scream every five minutes. It wasn’t Angela’s fault that her parents had a problem with Lilith. To her concern, Angela’s life was not that easy either: she always had forced by her mum to take part in every school contest, from spelling to math and science or simhistory. And her father encouraged her too much, training her in various sports. At least, her sister had time to do what she wanted.

Speaking of her parents, the divorce happened right after she landed a spot on the athletic team, making her find her father way too much, despite not wanting to look to his face. Even though she didn’t like to see her father at all, she really started to enjoy being in the team. So much so she started training more outside of work, going for jogs, and cycling indoors when was cold. It was now an escape to her life since everyone enjoyed gossiping about the Pleasants these days.

The one thing her new job didn’t give her was approval from her mum. Right before turning eighteen, they offered her a professional contract for the seniors’ team. All that training really paid off!! She was so happy, but all Mary-Sue could think of was she wasn’t going to uni. “All the times I helped you studying, all the extra classes and extra credits… Are you really going to throw all that away?” Angela knew it was like she was choosing her dad’s side; except she was just being Angela… Was it really that bad she wasn’t going to university?

She wasn’t like her friends and neighbours, Dustin, and Dirk. They really wanted to go to college. Dustin wanted to live better than he lived before, and Dirk was literally made for college. Her sister wasn’t going to college either and mum didn’t make a big deal out of it!

Still, after her birthday, Angela stayed home. Her grandpa was ill, and mum’s belly was getting bigger day by day. She couldn’t leave now. She wasn’t like her sister. Family mattered. Besides, staying was a good idea. Her mum started to see how successful she was in the team, and after grandpa’s death grandma and Danielle moved in. Angela loved being closer to Coral.

After Garvey’s birth, she found out how much she liked babies. He was so little and cute!

But time, was time, and grandma didn’t last long after grandpa’s… It was harsh on the whole family… Fortunately, little Garvey helped brighten up each day.

Despite the cuteness, Angela still needed to work. And that also meant exercising out of work hours, resting well, and eating appropriately… Not waking up in the middle of the night to change a nappy, or having the fridge full of baby bottles.

So, after her long-time sweetheart proposed not only marriage but her moving in she immediately said yes. Dustin’s place was not far from her mum’s, besides, her mum had Danielle to help her around and keep company. And Dustin’s place could use a feminine touch.

Angela was now the happiest she’s ever been. Besides all the losses and drama. She had love, true love. She made amends with her dad, and he even came to the wedding, even if he still didn’t like Dustin. Also, Dustin surprised her with a full-on nature honeymoon.

But… All that sickness she was feeling for a couple weeks… Ups, it turned out she wasn’t just nervous with the wedding!

[harryglom]

UNORTHODOX- The Price of Freedom

(Spoilers for the entire mini series Unorthodox)

Unorthodox is a very conventional story and also an unprecedented one.

It is at its core a coming of age story, a fish out of water story, a marriage story and a drama about finding a meaningful life. However it is also the first high-budget mainstream exploration of the lives of members of the ultra-orthodox Jewish community. It gives voice to a woman, and in-turn many women like her, who have never been seen or heard from in mainstream media. We are party to the self discovery of a woman who has had too much expected of her from God, her community and herself. She escapes to Berlin from New York, running away from a life without freedom to a liberal metropolis resting atop a historic centre of Jewish hatred, the regime her own grandparents had escaped from. The show refuses to give easy answers, happy endings or tragic melodrama: we are witness to a single part of Esty's story and in it we see her begin to assert power in her life or, at the very least, recognise she has more power over it than she had previously thought.

Esty's journey is shown in two timelines: her time in Williamsburg transitioning into a marriage with the well-meaning Yankee whilst under the watchful eye of the community and her time in Berlin, having befriended a group of liberal musicians who help her to adjust to the outside world. The scenes themselves are often matter of fact but the depth of the performances, the pacing, cinematography and music create an atmosphere that allows its naturalism to transcend into more than a slice of life drama. Berlin is distilled into its most outlandish: bars spill out onto the streets, clubs are loud and full of smoke, coffee shops are alien and austere, concert halls are modern and bright, fashion is extraneous, flesh is bared and squares are packed full of men and women from all walks of life. We can sympathise with Esty if her curiosity blooms or she gets overwhelmed by this modern world due to the sheer vividness of the city the show brings to life.

Between these frames, for most of the run-time, stands our protagonist: Esty Shapiro. Her world view is communicated quietly, often silently, in the way her eyes interact with the world around her. The subtlety of her characterisation is married with the movement of the camera: when Esty is stressed or determined we follow her closely, the outside world blurred into insignificance whilst when she chooses to observe the world, time is taken to pick up the sort of details she would also be acknowledging. From the smaller moments, like noting the strangeness of night club wrist stamps and the initial starkness of seeing queer intimacy shown in front of her without shame, or grander changes, like naked bodies at the beach or the beauty of an orchestra operating as a single organism-- the camera and Esty are unified. This makes us intimately aware of who she is, how much this experience means to her and, thanks to the flashbacks, how much she fights to be the person we see in front of us.

The behaviour of the Ultra-Orthodox community is realised with unflinching realism. Where lesser dramas would have made moralistic tales about any number of the themes touched upon-- post-Holocaust guilt, cultural trauma, matchmaking and arranged marriages, gossip and pride, gender roles, alcoholism and gambling addiction within the community, the relationship of the community to other Jewish streams and Israel, the tactics deployed to control the community and alienate those who do successfully escape-- they are explored as they would be experienced. These are all just parts of people's lives: they're presented anecdotally, matter-of-factly and, because of the pressures of the community to appear perfect, suppressed from being discussed explicitly. The most frank exploration of a single issue is in the third episode, arguably the show's best, where the story uses both timelines to interrogate and reclaim female sexuality. This may sound like hyperbole, but the rigidity and oppression of sexual norms, the objectification of Esty's body that is enforced by both men and women alike, recalls The Handmaid's Tale at its worse and it is abominable that any woman should live as deprived of information, emotional support or the right to consent. Even when Esty quotes the Talmud, that textually demands of men the pleasuring of women, Yankee simply says that women shouldn't read the Talmud. The frustration, ignorance and pain is expressed viscerally and uncomfortably.

Yet, in another way that recalls The Handmaid's Tale, the Berlin timeline adopts a very tactile filming style and direction that allows us to empathise with a point of view that has become more appreciative for what they've been denied: where desire cannot be stated frankly, where the language to invite affection is alien and bodies are beautiful and mysterious. This episode shows this reclamation of sexuality juxtaposed with the reveal of the moment Esty decides to pursue her freedom at all. With very few words at all, having withheld her thoughts from the blinded Yanky, she stands alone in a corridor and we know exactly what she is thinking. The catalyst for Esty running away is not the sexual imprisonment, the absolute lack of connection or personability with anyone around her nor the restrictions put upon her pursuing her passions but Yanky's demand for a divorce. It symbolises a multifaceted betrayal of her faith, her body, her dignity and, ultimately, every sacrifice she made for them. This triggers a single disillusionment that makes Esty's story possible: that this is no place for her child to grow up. This profound moment rests upon an incredibly moving performance and a script brimming full of understated depth.

The show should also be praised for some of its peripheral characters. Yanky is not a typical brute but a devout, vulnerable and lost little boy. Esty's aunt is as much an Orthodox woman as she is a fighter for her family's dignity. Moshe is no two dimensional villain but a man who played his hand at life beyond the walls of the community and lost. However the character most deserved of praise is that of Yael, an Israeli born music student at the conservatory Esty auditions for. She, as an Israeli-born Jew, takes Esty's experiences for granted, diminishes her community's felt Holocaust guilt, laments to her non-Jewish friends with uncaring abandon the terrifying reality of Esty's own life and calls her a baby machine. She represents a subtle nuance never before explored on television: that the wider Jewish community, for thinking they know about people like Esty and for wanting to distance themselves from being identified with that kind of Judaism, can actually be their most harsh and inconsiderate critics.

One character that could have done with more development is that of Esty's mother. Though portrayed to perfection, balancing a calm earnestness with a hidden maternal strength, there is not enough time to open her life up in the way it could have been. Queerness is visible in the show. There are two out gay couples, including one that Esty's mother is a part of. It feels strange that there is no articulation in either timeline of the homophobia that must have driven Esty's mother from the community but also the opinions that would be residual in Esty, having never been exposed to gay people in her life. Whilst the deftness with which some issues are taken as they are is admirable, this seems like a topic that would have invited a conversation between mother and daughter or, at the very least, Esty and anyone in her group of friends.

Regardless of any shortcomings, Unorthodox is a series that will stick with you for a long time. It offers a unique perspective of the modern world from the point of view of someone who has been locked away from it. Partly a modern-day fairy tale where modern life becomes a wonderland and partly the harrowing struggle of an outsider to find freedom. The series cements the success of its story with the ambiguity of its ending. We don't know how Esty will deal with motherhood, whether she will get her scholarship, how she will react to her grandmother's death, how she will fight against the community's attempts to intimidate her out of her child's life. The viewer and Esty have discovered the world together. She has friends and her mother on her side. We've seen her grow into a fighter and recognise, alone in a cafe with a quiet smile, that no price is too high for her freedom.

[klaineccfanficlibrary]

Do you know any KLAINE fanfics in california?

There are 15 fic recs under the cut. Happy Reading! - HKVoyage

Ride by @nellie12

Blaine is pretty popular in his city of Long Beach, CA. Summer is here and he’s ready to spend it with friends- BMX bike riding in the skate park and surfing when the waves are perfect. Flirting with girls is a definite. But when a new kid from Ohio shows up, Blaine finds himself wanting to share all these things with him, too. But Kurt’s just his friend, right?

~~~~~

Sotto Voce by GSJwrites

Wine critic Kurt Hummel can make or break careers with his column for Taste Magazine. But when his publisher orders him to spend a year profiling rising stars of California’s wine country and organizing a competition between the big name wineries of Napa and the smaller artisan wineries of Sonoma, his world gets turned upside-down by an enigmatic young winemaker who puts art before business.

~~~~~

Needles & Thread by msslss  [PDF only]

While a student at NYU, Kurt visits his family who recently moved to Southern California. A chance encounter in the unlikeliest of places may just spark the one thing Kurt lacks: romance.

~~~~~

Haunted by a Broken Record by DaybyDay

Once in awhile things make sense. A lot of times, they don't. Blaine Anderson and Kurt Hummel lose and find one another once again; this time under the California sunset. Kurt/Blaine

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All for you by reidbetweentheelines

“Never be afraid to love.” Too bad Kurt never wants to find his soulmate, but sometimes fate has a funny way of doing the exact opposite of what you’d like. After the death of his father, Kurt moves to California to live with his cousin Nick Duval. A new state, new school, new family, and a Grammy nominated singer who wants nothing more than to find his soulmate.

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Something Unpredictable by tonks42

Kurt moves from New York City to Los Angeles to take a job working in the wardrobe department of a television show. Once there, he’s introduced to Tina and Mike’s ex-roommate, Blaine. The two hit it off, but will their budding romance be derailed when Blaine unexpectedly takes custody of his nephew? 

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If I Could Use Your Love by raeofultraviolet  

Blaine Anderson is an incredibly talented musician living in Los Angeles and trying to make a name for himself. He is also incredibly shy and can’t assert himself enough to get in the limelight. When a chance meeting with Kurt Hummel, a famous actor, opens up an opportunity for him, how can he say no? The only problem is, it requires the two of them to lie to everyone around them.

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Rumor Has It by @xxxraquelita

When their careers took off, and took them from New York to Los Angeles, Blaine and Kurt had dealt with their agents and friends all giving them the same advice – end their engagement if they wanted to be successful. So they had. It took years for for any of it to come back to them, but when it did, it certainly did, and the truth was more than anyone anticipated.

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Make a Lover of Me by @twobirdsonesong

Kurt Hummel has just moved from Ohio to Los Angeles and he has no idea what he's doing there. He begins an internship at a talent agency where he meets Blaine Anderson, an assistant who has more to his name than Kurt knows.

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It Takes Two by AlexaCardew

In 2009, recent college graduate Kurt Hummel takes a job as talent agent Ari Gold’s assistant and is asked to pretend date Blaine Anderson to help with the actor’s coming out. All hell breaks lose when a jealous co-star and the media get involved.

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Letter to a G.I. by DyrneKeeper

Cast opposite the successful actor and performer Blaine Anderson as a romantic lead in a historic drama Kurt, a relative newcomer to the screen, has to learn to navigate his relationship with his character – and with his co-star.

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Every Word by pene

After years apart Kurt and Blaine have moved on from one another and built separate lives. Kurt is developing a quiet reputation off-Broadway. Blaine is a fledgling musical theatre writer and producer on the West Coast.

Then they reconnect - because of the music, because of the theater. Because of course they do.

"This show is Blaine’s baby. The madness is that the only person he can picture in the lead role is a boy he has been failing to forget for six years."

Sequel: Every Road 

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Those Summer Nights by thelilacfield

Kurt Hummel and Rachel Berry are the power couple of Hollywood, madly in love and smiling for the cameras. But in private, their marriage is one of convenience and friendship. Until Rachel decides to hire a young and gorgeous pool boy and Kurt starts to wonder if he wants this for the rest of his life.

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Not Like the Movies by Knightlycat

When new Hollywood golden boy Kurt Hummel receives some disturbing letters, his manager hires bodyguard Blaine Anderson to be with him 24 hours a day. In an attempt to hide Blaine’s true identity from the press they decide he needs to go undercover…as Kurt’s boyfriend. Famous!Kurt Nevermet!AU

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Find Your Freedom in the Music by Teilo

Elizabeth A. Hummel died on September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center. While visiting his grandparents in California Kurt decides to throw away all his future plans in order to honor his mother’s memory.

[kainumbernine009]

I literally cannot do anything else until I get this out.

I’m... really not okay.

And when I say that, I’m not mentally unstable. I say that because I’m tired of waiting on empty promises, I’m tired of never having money in our account, I’m tired of living in a fucking city where half of the white people fucking worship the ground Trump walks on, and where most of the gay community has so much messy drama that it’s worse than middle school. And I went to a rough middle school.

I never talk about my past, because I don’t like to. It sucked. HARD. Being and only child in my family was nothing less than torture, especially as a closeted queer person. We grew up in the white Christian part of Nashville that dominated Music Row in the 90′s and early 2000′s. I played basketball with Alan Jackson’s daughter, and being around famous people was just no big deal. But, my parents decided to leave Nashville after my dad lost his job at TPAC, and we moved down south an hour to the town where the KKK got started (Pulaski, TN).

I had maybe two non-white people in my private Christian school growing up. I was never afraid of Black people, but my parents showed their racist asses quick when we moved there. The KKK has never left America, guys, no matter how many articles you read or studies you do. From 2005 to 2009 I saw a white town show its very worst to the Black community. I’ll never forget the first time I saw a march for “White Christians for Purity” the summer before Obama got elected. The disgust I felt inside was palpable. I had all kinds of friends in school, and I didn’t give TWO SHITS who they were or what they looked like... but I saw children my age, being brainwashed by their parents, that “white” is “right.”

Ever since then, I have been learning and growing about the issues of race. I remember my white classmates using the N word and getting away with it. I remember hearing about the principal at the high school punishing all the Black kids but not the white kids. I remember being invited to a church south of town that was a historically Black church, and how nice the ladies were to me for coming.

But I’ll never forget the racism that the religious groups promoted there, especially First Baptist Church and the 12 Tribes. I’ll never forget how FBC told me that my friend was going to Hell because she killed herself. I’ll never forget my mom telling me not to marry a Black man because of “impure genes.” I WILL NEVER FORGET THE INJUSTICES I SAW WHITE PEOPLE DOING TO BLACK PEOPLE THERE. NEVER.

And thank God, I have shaken the burden of religious guilt, but I still fight against this mentality. I live in a place that’s usually not even 10 minutes away from Trump-humping, sister-fucking, meth-addicted Confederate cunts in any direction. And we’re even closer to the rich white people who silently supported him, upset that their taxes would go up because of Biden.

And in the past four years since Trump got elected, I’ve gotten married, graduated college with honors, started my own photography business, and was making more than my husband there for a minute. I did my own taxes, marketing, editing, and everything. And then I came out as trans.

I lost everything.

I lost my studio. I lost friends. I had rumors started about me. I had people post hate messages on my wall. I had people at my drag shows tell others not to tip me, for whatever fucking reasons. I’ve had bosses give cis people jobs over me, and I’ve had government workers give me second looks when I hand them my license.

It. Fucking. Sucks. To. Live. Here. Like. This.

Oh yeah, did I mention I’m also a witch/medium? I’ve talked to dead people before and have told their relatives things I shouldn’t have known otherwise about their grandparents. Like, this information doesn’t even exist on Google. And I’m attuned to reiki. I’m always aware of what’s happening on at least SOME metaphysical level. This is a gift that I’ve had to go through life developing and learning about myself, with no one’s help but me.

I didn’t even know until I was an adult that I have autism and ADHD.

I’ve taken bullets from people who were about to kill themselves. I’ve yelled at 5th grade music classrooms for doing racist dance moves and appropriating Native Americans (I have a degree in Music Education K-12). I’ve consoled kids in classrooms who suddenly have panic attacks. AND I’ve told horny teenagers to stay in their fucking lane and respect the girls around them. I’ve apparently been an inspiration to those around me, but inspiration NOR exposure pays the bills. I’ve already had COVID, and so has my husband, but I knew that after graduating college that I would never have a fulfilling life being a music teacher in Tennessee’s public schools.

And now that we have COVID, and an orange, small-dicked, pedophilic, rape apologizing, dirty, crusty white president who STILL REFUSES TO CONCEDE, who is DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR HAVING HIS FOLLOWERS SEND DEATH THREATS TO MY FAMILY, I really don’t know what the fuck else to do other than go burn down all the houses I know of in North Georgia that belong to these Christian sex cult pedophiles and call it a day. My girlfriend unfortunately was born into one of those families, and I know just how bad it can get. In fact, her dad’s lawyer threatened me with blackmail earlier in November, so that was fun!

And now, on December 11, 2020, I’m still sitting here in the same fucking house, doing the same fucking things I’ve been doing all year - trying to get a job and failing horribly. I’M SICK AND TIRED OF THIS COVID BULLSHIT AND OUR INCOMPOTENT CUNT OF A PRESIDENT! And there’s only ever one other person I’ve ever called a cunt... my own mother.

I’ve lived in many places. I’ve met many different people. I’ve made mistakes, and have grown, but there’s one thing for damn sure that I always make sure to do, every single fucking day.

I ALWAYS try to do better.

In addition to this, I treat everyone with the same amount of respect, unless they have done something directly to me to negate that. If I know that someone believes in something that directly harms me or my family, I don’t even associate with them. I don’t spend my energy on things that don’t need it. And everyone else should, too.

The problem with some of y’all is that you care about the wrong things. Like will Becky text me back or did I get front row seats to that concert, or did I slave my life away to capitalism just so that I can own a Mercedes and have my friends jealous. I’ve had way too many dear death experiences to know that EVERY single fucking day is a gift. EVERY day.

I don’t want to be remembered first for the art I create. I want to be remembered for my character. I want to be remembered as the courageous person who never backed down in the face of adversity. But when you live in a place that already hates you and that is against you, that’s really fucking hard. Trust me. My marriage went from a cis straight passing couple to a white gay passing couple. I’ve seen how people’s attitudes changed around me as I transitioned. I know what it feels like to slowly lose a piece of your privilege you were born with.

So yeah, I kinda get a little fucking upset when I see people saying All Lives Matter, or when I see doctors refusing to treat trans patients in pandemics, or when I see cops YET AGAIN harassing Black people only a few blocks away from my house for no other reason than racism. And at this point, anyone who thinks they know me but only knows what people think they know about me can suck my entire ass and eat ten dicks. I don’t give a FUCK about who you are or what you’ve done. If you treat me or other people with no respect for no reason other than to be an asshole, you’re just plain shit. If you SERIOUSLY believe every little rumor and lie that someone tells about me before meeting me, fuck you AND the horse you rode in on.

What I can’t stand is people doing or saying things just to get a rise out of me or others. I thought we left petty shit in high school. Some of the people that “know” me really need to fucking grow up and grow a pair and either say what they want to my face, or stay mad. I’m tired of playing fucking petty games with y’all. We have a whole ass pandemic to solve.

So here’s the ultimatum... if you agree that Black Lives Matter and that queer people deserve basic human rights, EVEN THE ONES YOU HATE, then that’s the bare minimum to even be a decent person. If you can’t even do those things, then I don’t fucking know what else to say to you.

So NBC, maybe not have John Mulaney joke about my license debacle with my gold van on SNL, and Seth Meyers... maybe HIRE ME INSTEAD of Mulaney because clearly y’all don’t know about the south as much as I do? Oh, and that gazeebo joke with Lee University... I caught that. I may have autism, but I’m not a fucking idiot. I mean. I’m funny when I’m given the chance. And yeah, I’m on a watchlist, but who the fuck isn’t these days? At least all my secrets are out for the world to see, and I have a bangin’ tattoo.

I’m tired of everyone being like “omg, I’ve seen what he can do, it’s fantastic!” or “omg you’re so funny haha” and bragging on me and then NOT FUCKING HIRING ME. I’m TIRED of waiting on something that’s clearly at this point never coming.

I don’t even have testicles, and my balls are bigger than most of the cis men I have EVER met.

So, if you want to help me, or hire me, or get me out to an audition... I’ll be there. But until then, I’m so fucking MAD at some of these producers. Yeah, my mom is a cunt, but she worked in various forms of digital production from the 1980′s until she retired this year. She taught me SO MUCH about directing, writing, shooting, and more. I know how these things are supposed to run behind the scenes. I know what the fuck I’m doing, and I don’t take constructive criticism like a bitch. I actually WANT to be criticized, so I can do even better.

So PLEASE, for the love of Christ... y’all need to get your priorities together AND PLEASE STOP LEAVING ME OUT OF THE LOOP WITH THIS BULLSHIT. Grow a fucking pair and either call me, email me, or leave me alone. It’s really not that fucking hard. Looking at you, Lorne Michaels.

Oh and someone tell my husband what the fuck’s been going on because I’m tired of him gaslighting me about it.

[homenum-revelio-hq]

Welcome to the Order of the Phoenix, James!

You have been accepted for the role of ALARIC MCKINNON with the faceclaim change of Charles Michael Davis! (Details for Alaric & Marlene’s background will come following discussion with their players.) We really enjoyed reading about how Alaric’s tough exterior can get him into some trouble with others from time to time. We’re also looking forward to his interactions in relationship with the wolves! Welcome to the roleplay!

Please take a look at the new member checklist and send in your account within 24 hours! Thank you for joining the fight against Voldemort!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME & PRONOUNS: James, He/Him

AGE: 24

TIMEZONE: EST for the next two months, after that it may change!

ACTIVITY LEVEL: I’m currently in job school, so I’ll have the evenings and weekends free!

ANYTHING ELSE: I have about 10 years of RP experience, 7 of those being on tumblr. I’m currently active duty military, so my timezone and availability may change here and there, but I should have more than enough free time to be very, very active here!

CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME: Alaric McKinnon

AGE: 26

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Male, He/Him, Straight

BLOOD STATUS: Pureblood

HOUSE ALUMNI: Hufflepuff

ANY CHANGES: Could I change his faceclaim to Charles Michael Davis? I feel like he fits this character perfectly, as do the gif/photo resources that are available for him! I couldn’t picture anyone else in my head reading his biography.

CHARACTER BACKGROUND:

PERSONALITY: While he has a solid heart, Alaric’s tough outer exterior has gotten him into trouble handful of times. He’s stubborn and strong willed, and has trouble seeing things from other people’s perspectives, but he’s also fiercely loyal to his family and friends and would go to any lengths to keep them safe. Having left his life to set off on his own grand adventures shortly after graduating, Alaric found that the things that made home, well, home, were the things he wouldn’t find anywhere else in the world—family. Sure, family could include more than those who share blood, but to Alaric, no one means more to him than those who share his name.   While not a “blood purist” by any means, Alaric has always been very proud of his name and family history, even if he doesn’t always agree with their decisions. The young man feels his family plays a large part of what defines who he is: a proud, loyal and hardworking man just trying to make his way in the world.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY: Being raised on property that required hard work turned out to be one of the biggest blessings in his life. Alaric was raised on the farm, one of many McKinnon siblings, and learned early in his life the value of hard work. He will forever be thankful for the work ethic his father instilled in him as he grew up, teaching him the value of a galleon and that all things worth having come from hard work.  While he found it easy to get lost among his siblings when it came to having their parent’s attention, it forced him to become independent at a young age—another one of the important life lessons he was glad he learned early. Though they had their hands full, his parents were always careful to make sure each child had what they needed to be successful in school and beyond, and while some of the other siblings have left to pursue their own lives and careers, Alaric always knew deep down that his future was right here.

OCCUPATION: Alaric works full time on the family farm- there’s surely no shortage of work to be done. And with a werewolf community so close by… he often wonders how safe it would be, for his family, for him to be away for any extended period of time.

ROLE WITHIN THE ORDER/THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ORDER: While he can’t bring himself to resent Marlene for bringing the Order to their doorstep (literally), he resents the Order for taking over his home like they have. Was it even his home anymore? He knew Marlene had the best intentions bringing them here, but he finds the lot of them dangerous and an unnecessary risk to his family.

SURVIVAL: Because their business had been unaffected, and it was so easy to remain isolated on their property, thus far Alaric has heeded his father’s advice to ‘stay out of it’. ‘Let the politicians fight their own bloody wars,’ he’d been told, ‘No need to go catch the wrong end of a killing curse for people who wouldn’t do the same for you.’ The inevitable reality that one day, especially now that the Order has moved in, the Death Eaters might show up on their doorstep demanding answers was becoming more and more apparent to Alaric, and while he’d love to continue to pretend the world isn’t falling apart around him, he’s not sure how much longer he can carry on his indifference.

RELATIONSHIPS: Alaric made some good friends in London during his time away, but since he’s been home he’s spent most of the time with his family. He knows he would never forgive himself if something happened to one of them, so he works hard to look out for them (especially the younger ones) and consequently hasn’t had much time for friends. While his parents are still eager to find him a wife (despite his declarations that he was perfectly capable of finding someone himself, thank you very much), he hasn’t found anyone yet that he feels is a perfect match. “Never settle,” his grandfather once told him, and he didn’t intend to- if he had a marriage one day that was half as happy as his grandparents had been, he’ll have accomplished one of his bigger goals in life. Not that he’d ever tell anyone that it was.

OOC EXPLORATION:

SHIPS/ANTI-SHIPS: I don’t have any in mind, but if the chemistry is right and works, I wouldn’t be opposed to it! It would have to be someone either soft enough to melt his tough exterior, or stubborn and hard-headed enough to challenge him on equal footing.

WHAT PRIVILEGES AND BIASES DOES YOUR CHARACTER HAVE? Alaric has a very obvious bias against the werewolves, one that existed even before they lived in the woods just off his property. He’s not ashamed of it, as he feels its justly warranted- after all, he reasons, look at all the horrible things the werewolves have done in history. While he doesn’t consider himself prejudice when it comes to blood status, he does have a bit of an issue with people who don’t value family. It’s hard for him to accept those who turn their backs on their family, mostly because he has trouble realizing not everyone was as lucky as him when it comes to a happy upbringing.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? The whole layout, development and organization of the main really caught my attention, and after digging into the plot/characters/world building I knew I had to be a part of it! I’m looking forward to writing with everyone and delving into some deep, character driven threads that really develop Alaric and push him beyond his comfortable boundaries!

PLOT DROP IDEAS: It would be an interesting plot drop to have some of the werewolves forget to take their potion (or perhaps it was tampered with to be ineffective?) on one of their full moons? Could be a fun Halloween drop- suddenly you have several out of control werewolves on the property and everyone running for their lives? Just an idea off the top of my head! Perhaps someone wasn’t killed, but infected? The fallout would definitely create drama too!

ANYTHING ELSE? Thanks for reading my application! I’m excited to hear from you.