#and complicated for her but she does love it

[famouskoaladetective]

My mom was an abusive alcoholic for most of my early childhood.

She got sober but surrounded us with people from AA who she knew were sex offenders and she didn't protect me from them because she thought being sober made them good people who wouldn't hurt me.

She got married multiple times and prioritized her partners over me, even lying to have me hospitalized when she wanted to elope with husband #2, and she let him hit me.

She repeatedly voluntarily put me into foster care or the care of family members growing up because she couldn't handle having a disabled queer kid, especially with her drinking and mental health problems.

She made me drop out of school because she didn't want to be awake when I would have to do homeschooling if I homeschooled. Plus, me dropping out meant I could work in her boyfriend's tattoo shop, until the artists (my bosses) relapsed, and gave my aunt hep c, closing the shop and leaving me with nothing.

She promised to let me live with her until I got on my feet when my dad died when I was 17, but put me out on the street 6 months after I turned 18 because husband #3 didn't like my Abyssinian cat or my boyfriend (who his kids/my step sisters had beaten up and stolen Adderall from in highschool)

She basically let me be homeless. She doesn't help me with leaving abusive situations and we've been estranged on and off during my adult life to the point where we stopped talking and when I reached back out, I had another kid she didn't know about and she was onto husband #4.

But she's my lawyer.

She's the only family I have left since my dad's dead and my partner destroyed my relationship with my grandmother (who's so far gone with dementia, she doesn't know who I am)

I'm kinda forced to have a relationship with my mom to protect myself.

Granted, she's doing much better than she was when I was younger. Living overseas and marrying my current step dad mellowed her out.

But yeah... I don't like my mom very much, but I love my parents, and I need their help a lot as single disabled trans parent. So I deal with her mental health symptoms, including narcissistic tendencies (don't come at me, I'm not claiming 'narc abuse ', but she is diagnosed with severe BPD with narcissistic tendencies and it does affect our relationship because she does the whole "I hate you, don't leave me" thing towards me out of habit. She's done it my whole life and it's getting better but it's still a problem. I understand that it's due to her trauma and I don't hold it against her but ngl it hurts.)

So yeah sometimes people's relationships with their parents are complicated but they just have to deal with it. Don't judge people, we're just adults dealing with lifetimes of baggage.

[aquaticmercy]

Not a request but just some thoughts! I don’t know how to explain it but:

Bucky: girl dad through and through

Steve: Boy dad (I love him so much but i genuinely feel if he had a daughter he would raise her like a son because he don’t know what he’s doing)

Sam: Both boy and girl dad, but the boy always turns into a carbon copy of him while simultaneously being a mama’s boy

omg thank you anon for these thoughts!

Enjoys these Dad! Bucky, Steve, and Sam blurbs!

Bucky Barnes

Bucky Barnes would make the best girl dad. And he’s the best girl dad precisely because everything he’s been through. Because all of the violence and trauma. It’s why he’s so gentle with his daughter, why he’s extra careful around his little girl. 

He spent years being nothing but a weapon, and now that he has the life he shares with you and your daughter, he is so scared of hurting either of you that he treats you both like you’re made of glass. 

He still has that 1940s mindset buried in there, though. Not because he’s a jerk— he knows better than that— but because it’s just there because it was drilled into him from a very young age. 

He catches himself sometimes thinking her daughter should be all dainty and protected and doted on 24/7, and he reminds himself that she has to learn how to be on her own someday.

Still, he treats his daughter like he’s her bodyguard, the way he does with you. He still opens doors for you, stands just a bit too close on the sidewalk. He’s got this invisible shield around both of you. He doesn’t even mean to; it’s just there instinctively.

So now imagine his face when his little girl starts ditching dolls and princesses for more  traditionally masculine things. 

Bucky is very supportive, although he has to manually override some of his 40s brain.

She loves the drums, and he’s all for it. He gets her lessons. He sits next to her during practice to catch all the sticks she drops trying to do complicated tricks. He high fives her whenever she does a sick beat. 

She’s also all about football (soccer). He notices it when she’s cheering for the women’s national team during the World Cup like her life depends on it. 

Bucky immediately starts looking at tryouts and academies. When she has a game, he’s out there on the sidelines, grinning whenever she does anything even remotely good, screaming encouragements when she loses the ball, and celebrating with her when she scores a goal.

But god, it’s hard for him to watch her take a tumble, all elbows and skinned knees. She hits the ground here and there and he winces every time, heart in his throat. He’s so adorably worried until she gets back up and gives her daddy a big thumbs up. 

And yet when she goes in for a not-so-great tackle, he’s the loudest one cheering on the field (and the first one complaining when the ref gives her a yellow card).

But then. Then she decides she wants to try Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. She says she wants to be tough, like him.

This is where Bucky might draw the line. “There’s no way,” he tells you. Not his little girl, rolling around on some mat with kids twice her size, learning to choke people out. 

It makes him think of all the things he’s done, the things he was forced to learn, the violence he was engineered to deliver, and he can’t bear the thought of her going anywhere near that world. 

He wants to shield her from it, to keep her protected, untouched by any of that.

You, of course, see right through him. You sit him down one night and tell him, gently but firmly, that she’s her own person. 

That she’s got his strength. And if she wants to do this, it’s because she wants to be more like him. Because she looks up to him. Because she thinks her daddy is the best person in the world.

It takes a while, but he comes around. But not only because his little girl wants to be like him, but also because he sees so much of you in her. 

You both have the same spark, the same drive, the same way of nudging him to grow. To challenge his thoughts and beliefs.

He watches his daughter march into her first Jiu-Jitsu class with this fierce little smile, the kind he remembers seeing on his own face back in the day.

Don’t get me wrong, he’s terrified. But he’s proud, too. Because she's challenging him to be better, braver, just by being herself. 

And every time he watches her spar, he finds himself cheering—softly, at first. Soon, he’s the loudest parent in the room. His little girl, fighting her own battles, just like her dad.

-

Steve Rogers

Steve Rogers would be a fantastic boy dad.

He’d never admit it, but part of him always fantasised having that kind of relationship with his own dad—playing catch and putting on barbecue, doing all those white picket fence  father-son things. But his dad died when he was young, and even if he hadn’t, Steve would be too small, too sickly, to keep up. 

Now, with a son of his own, he absolutely craves bonding with the kid. And of course he’d love him no matter what, but there's just enough super-soldier serum running through his son’s veins to let him be strong and athletic.

And for a while, everything’s perfect. Steve takes his boy to baseball games, teaches him to throw a curveball, and they spend endless afternoons in the yard sprinting (Steve slows down a bit) and throwing frisbees. During the summer, you could hear them both laughing and talking from sunrise to sunset. It’s everything he dreamed about.

But as his kid grows, Steve starts to feel a distance.

His son’s childhood is just... different.

He’s popular at school and his biggest worries seem to revolve around sports day, acing his tests, and keeping up with all the clubs and extra classes he’s signed up for. His son doesn’t have to fight his way through the day just to be heard or seen. People listen to him. He’s the kid everyone wants to be around. His friends look up to him.

Steve can’t help but remember how different his own childhood was—every day a fight just to prove himself, to survive in a world that didn’t give a weak kid like him any breaks.

He remembers those long, lonely days where he’d sit at the edge of the playground, watching the other boys run across the field, laughing and tackling each other in games he could never join. Sometimes, he’d be nursing a bruised rib or hiding a scraped knee, feeling a bit isolated. He remembers how desperately he’d wanted to be a part of it—to have a world that embraced him instead of challenging him at every turn.

Now, watching his son grow up so different from that—so at ease in his own skin—fills him with happiness. Still, Steve feels a strange tug in his heart. 

Steve can’t help but feel like he’s on the outside looking in, wondering if he can truly understand this world his son is growing up in. He’s scared that him and his son wouldn’t have anything in common anymore.

One evening, after the kid’s asleep, Steve finds himself talking to you for hours about his anxieties.

He tells you how strange it feels, how he doesn't know if he can relate to the person your son is becoming. He can’t shake the feeling that, in some way, his boy’s growing into a world Steve himself never got to experience. A world he cannot help him with.

But you’re there, holding his hand, reminding him that love doesn’t need to look like a mirror. 

A few days later, Steve goes to pick up his kid from school, and what he sees, he will never forget. 

His son was on the playground, standing tall, facing down some older kid who’d been picking on another student— a little boy in a wheelchair. 

Steve’s son was defending someone who couldn’t defend themselves, just like Steve would’ve done back in the day— just like he always does.

When they get home, Steve’s got tears in his eyes as he hugs his son, barely able to say how proud he is. He runs upstairs to tell you what your son did. 

After that moment, all his worries vanish. Steve’s son might not have his struggles, but he's got his heart. 

And that’s all you ever really wanted.

-

Sam Wilson

Sam Wilson as a dad? He’s wonderful. 

You’ve never seen someone so comfortable just rolling with whatever his kids throw at him. 

His little girl has him wrapped around her finger.

When she drags him into one of her imaginary plays, he dives right in without hesitation. 

The two of them have this whole routine now: she’ll declare herself the “Queen of Cupcakes,” and before you know it, Sam’s transformed into her nemesis, “The Grumpy Troll.” 

He’s got a whole stash of masks and scarves just for these characters. He looks ridiculous in a pink tutu and tiara, but he’d never miss the chance to be part of her little kingdom.

But his daughter is not only about tea parties— She’s only eight, but she’s strong-willed and headstrong. She insists on trying things herself first, even if she has to wrestle with it. 

One time Sam reached over to help her open a jar, and she looked up with the most serious little frown, shook her head, and said, “Daddy, I got it.” And she did, after two minutes of huffing and puffing. 

Another time, Sam finds his daughter in the kitchen, a stool dragged up to the counter, sleeves rolled up, determinedly making her own peanut butter sandwich. She’s got peanut butter smeared from cheek to elbow, but she’s concentrating hard, tongue poking out a little as she spreads it just right. When Sam offers to help, she shakes her head without even looking up, determined to get it done.

Then there’s his six year old little boy, who’s gentler, in that way that Sam is. He’s kind-hearted and hilarious in a way that catches you both by surprise. 

After every mission, his son’s the one who toddles over and asks, “Daddy, are you okay?” like he’s got this radar for how people are feeling. He reminds Sam of himself, especially when he worked at the VA.

Sam even found him in the backyard last week, carefully placing a bowl of water and crumbs of bread on the grass. He said “The little bird with the hurt wing might come back, and I don’t want him to be thirsty.”

Another time, he offered his favourite blanket to his sister when she had a cold, even though he always sleeps with it himself. He just tucked it around her shoulders, giving her a quick hug before running off.

And just like his dad, your son is very clingy— very attached to you. If he sees you’re tired, he’ll nestle up on the couch next to you. And when you’re out of the house, he’ll carry your sweater around, or ask a hundred times when you’re coming back.

On the first day of school, your son’s practically clinging to your leg, not quite ready to let go. His eyes are all big, and you could feel how nervous he is without you there. 

Sam crouched down and starts giving him one go his famous pep talks. Before he could finish, his big sister steps in. 

She promises him they’d sit together on the bus and during snack and lunch time, and that she’ll teach him how to be “brave like Daddy.”

Your son squeezes your hand one last time, then lets go, holding onto his sister’s instead as they both walk on the school bus.

“Did you see that?” Sam whispers, his voice full of pride. 

He wraps an arm around you, pulling you close. You lean back into him, watching your kids grow up in front of your eyes.

-end

[batcavescolony]

Why do people keep saying they want Agatha to adopt Billy or that Billy is a motherless child or that Agatha is Billy's new mom.... Y'all he says Rebecca is his mom, canonically in the show. Agatha isn't his mom.

[karasbroken]

I am still in escape-from-reality mode, so have an essay on John being smart, I guess?

I loved this photo of the shuttle interior, though of course I can't view it without sparing a few thoughts for the crew who lost their lives for our quest to be free from being trapped in our one, beautiful, complicated, suffering planet.

But what it made me think about next was Farscape, of course. It's so briefly mentioned, and never referred to again, but the Farscape mission was John's third trip to space, minimum. He'd been on two previous space shuttle missions. And they must have been significant and successful roles because he was commander for the Farscape project. So this overwhelming morass of switches and readouts was familiar to him. He could probably name what every control did, what every blinking button meant.

John's ability to adapt so quickly to alien technology doesn't seem so improbable when you consider how much Earth technology he was used to dealing with. He struggled mostly with the stuff that had no labels or details to guide him, like handles that turn unintuitively back and forth instead of up and down, or doors that open by waving the right way at specific unmarked spots. (I feel like PK techs also found the doors of Leviathans baffling because they engineered specific glowy pads for all of Talyn's doors.)

I'm positive that John knew every subsystem on this shuttle. There's a reason they let a guy go up to space in a ship of his own design, and it's not just because he's the son of a famous astronaut. (Good for publicity at a time when the space program was struggling for mind share and funding.) He might use half his brain for pop culture and Aeryn, but the rest of it was more than enough to make John that rare super genius who can put his math and science into practical use building shit. So of course the vast majority of the time we see John being idle, he's taking something apart or putting it back together.

When he goes back home, John claims not to understand how the hetch drive works, "he just installed it", but his friends know that's bullshit. Of course John knows how most of it works, but he doesn't have full grasp of the math and science because he's had to deduce everything from tinkering and an under-trained Pilot without full grasp of the science himself. John is being coy partly to not bias what other scientists can figure out from their own experiments and partly because he doesn't want to get stuck all day every day being interrogated for his knowledge. Kinda been there, done that.

But anyway, this picture made me think things, about Earth tech, and our wonderful, adaptable human in the wilds of constant space magic and a hundred species worth of tech....

(Okay, just one more rant: I'm convinced Aeryn becomes a tech herself at least partially because she hangs out with John a lot, and she hates being idle, so she started messing with tech too.

I can just see him opening something up and asking a lot of questions that irritate her because she has no idea why any of her equipment works and it has never been necessary to know how to fix it, yet the way he asks questions makes her feel ignorant. But then after he pokes around enough to figure out what the red squiggly button does, he shows her and wants her to understand it too. Which she wouldn't be interested in, except she can shut him up faster if she makes him show her how to put it back together, freeing him up to go play with the next thing that catches her eye.

Or he'll go into this rant about how this particular thing is always breaking and should really be redesigned and she tells him she'll fix it, again, just to shut him up.

Because she quietly loves being in his frittery, high energy presence; there's enough John to fill up a squad's worth of space and he helps her feel less lonely on this giant empty tomb of a ship. But she wishes he talked less because she can't not pay attention to him and three quarters of what he says is nonsense. John earnestly messing around with something too intent to even talk is perfect. She'll happily sit there and clean parts or do the tedious soldering if he just limits himself to occasional mutters and "youreekas!", whatever that means.

John, of course, being a super genius, eventually figures out the pretty girl will sit with him all day--really close to him actually, their knees will bump a lot--if he tells her he really needs help assembling backup circuits or whatever. But only if he shows her how to do it once, provides minimal feedback from there, and limits himself to two Earth pop culture references per arn.)

Flight Deck of the Space Shuttle Columbia image credit: Eric Long/Smithsonian Institution                          National Air and Space Museum

[beddybites]

do ypu think babynai would be emberassed to be in baby mode around mitsuri? like he thinks shes gonna see him as weak or emberassing so he hides from her

i think theres more to it too-- he doesnt wanna burden her, doesnt want her taking care of him (he much rather prefers taking care of her, not the other way around) and just doesnt want her to see him like that-- period

he absolutely trusts her and he loves her for being such a devoted and loving person and wanting to help him out, but he's a whole Baby. he cant do anything for her in return and it drives him mad

i imagine in the beginning, sanemi and giyuu respect the fact that he doesnt want mitsuri knowing about him getting deaged, so they hide obanai from her as long as possible. however, mitsuri starts to get the idea that obanai is avoiding her, and it makes her really, really sad--- so that's when obanai finally shows face and it-- of course-- just results in her claiming him instantly and fawning all over the little guy. just total baby fever and cuteness aggression. and from that point on its very difficult for mitsuri to give up the baby willingly

it's just a complicated situation. whatever obanai does mitsuri might interpret it as him not wanting her around or not liking her anymore, when that's far from the truth--- he loves her, and its because he loves her that he doesnt want her near him-- goes back to the whole evil blood thing!

overtime they kinda figure something out. mitsuri recognizes obanai feels a lot of guilt for not being able to help mitsuri, but mitsuri reassures him just having obanai around is enough for her. whether hes big or small, she loves being with him. she especially loves when she can actually hold him and hug him-- she keeps telling obanai he's a great snuggler!

i wanna draw this at some point!! rn i admit im just very tired and drained (gestures to the election & school) but. one day

[partfae]

i love feral knight galadriel who holds the world in her teeth as much as the next girl, but the thing about galadriel is that she is just as motivated by her grief as she is her pride and rage. this is why her character is established by the scenes of her with finrod in tandem with her in the frozen north. she is bitter and broken and bitter because of the brokenness—and it’s further complicated by how she’s treated like an inconvenience, an embarrassment, like a rough stone amidst smooth glass. her feelings are large and messy and too big for her to hold and her anger is a plea to be believed, a cry for the burden to be shared. and it’s a further tragedy that she gets ignored.

but even holding the tension of how she is perceived by the ensemble, it is her grief that is the cause and catalyst for her rage. this, i think, makes her choosing to set aside the sword and let gil-galad take the lead in 2x08 incredibly beautiful and not at all a destruction of her character. it is, instead, an ode to her growth. it is her wrenching finrod’s dagger out of her heart. in setting down her sword, she severs the head of the ouroboros of her grief.

and the best part is that she doesn’t lose her strength. she is a sorceress, a ring-bearer, a queen. she continues to fight and lead and protect, it just takes a new shape. she puts down her sword but does not lose her edge. she is the lady of light, the one thing the shadow of morgoth fears. she is the one holding the storm at bay.

[custardkittyyy]

QUCIK CONTEXT: this takes place in a story that's your classic 'hero vs villain' pulp comic with a twist. Diane is a villain (and really, a vigilante with a cause) in this. tw: torture, physical & emotional ab*se, mental health issues and death. 1. Probably Diane,, she's always going through somethijng no matter what au she's in. Usually it's something like she can't control her powers

2. Once again, Diane. It's either because she's trying to protect other people or is in fight or flight mode due to the ab*se she suffered at home or at the hands of those who were supposed to protect her.

3. .... Is it obvious that it's Diane at this point?

4. Diane. Usually it's emotional rather than physical. Emotional (having to watch her sister, dema be harmed, or being taken away from her). Physically, being beaten to a pulp by other 'heroes'.

5. Diane ☠���

6. Dema, actually. She disagrees with what her sister does most of the time, and has complicated feelings of love and anger for those who've hurt her and her sister. These disagreements usually result in her and Diane butting heads over morality issues.

7. Dema, for the reasons above. She's at the center of everything and the reason Diane acts the way she does.

8. Diane, because she's a villain and she HAS to survive. She usually *barely* makes it out alive,

9. Diane has. One notable time (without spoilers) was when she almost was completely burned alive by a 'hero' with his powers. She as a phobia of exposed heat sources (like electricty) but powers through it (as much as she can)

10. No.

11. Dema is afraid the most. Fear motivates a lot of her actions, and she can't seem to rest no matter how much she tries.

12. Diane has a severe form of OCD & anxiety due to her fear and stress. She hasn't really realized that she has this issue yet so it's yet to be seen how she deals with it. she kind of just... feeds into it.

13. Dema; seeing her sister in a lot of physical and emotional pain and not being able to realize just how deep in the mess that she's in.

14. Diane copes with everything that's happened to her up to this point with being in control and constantly having 'contingency' plans in case anything or anyone goes south. She has a hard time trusting people because of this.

15. Usually has something to do with death or her 'ultimate' destiny. No, you can't know what im talking about just yet,

Torturing your ocs ask game :)

(Delightful, I know. But we all do it sometimes)

1. Which of your ocs do you most often imagine sick? In what ways?

2. Which of them do you most imagine injured in other ways?

3. Who do you put through the most emotional turmoil?

4. Which oc has been tortured? Through what means?

5. Which of them has the worst luck?

6. Who goes through the most relationship conflicts? (applies to any relationships)

7. Who do you put most into stressful situations or other drama?

8. Who ends up in survival situations the most? How do they fair in them?

9. Has any of them had to be saved from the brink of death? Were there any consequences after?

10. Has any of them had to be revived / brought back to life? How did this affect them?

11. Who is afraid the most? How does this effect them?

12. What kind of health repercussions has your oc experienced through intense stress? How do they manage them?

13. Who cries the most often? What are the usual causes?

14. How does your oc cope?

15. To cap off what kind of hurt/comfort scenarios do you put your oc in?

This can be about canon story events or simply rotating scenarios for fun!

[yandere-paramour]

Why is noelle so openly unhinged towards darling? Does it stem from hidden fears? At least the others try to find common ground.

Noelle has DEEP psychological problems stemming from her childhood. Basically, Noelle grew up in a shitty 3 bedroom house with her mother, 4 sisters, and a rotating cast of stepfathers. She shares a father with her older sister, Odette, but is half-siblings with her younger sisters. She has no idea who her father is because he dipped when she was a young toddler.

Noelle's mother is a... complicated woman. To put it simply, she was a serious alcoholic more interested in trying to keep a man than she was raising 5 daughters, which left Odette and Noelle with most of the responsibility. After school, they would both go home to make bottles, give baths, clean the house, cook dinner, and basically raise the other sisters. Mom brought home a paycheck, but it was sparse and usually only enough for rent and a few groceries. Odette and Noelle went without food more than a few times so the younger ones could eat. It was worse when they were younger, but once Odette and Noelle got to their early teens, they started working to supplement the meager income.

In addition to this, Mom was also not too selective with the men she brought home. There was always a new man sleeping in the house one door down, and the bedsprings were always squeaking, making another little sister to take care of. Multiple men were creepy with the many girls, but Noelle always managed to threaten them/scare them off before anything too bad happened, but it seriously scared her; they never slept without the doors locked. Noelle and Odette escaped because they did well in school and got scholarships, but they are both deeply scarred by their childhoods. Their mom is older now (40s), and it's harder and harder to keep a boyfriend, so she mostly drinks, leaving the younger sisters home alone. They're teenagers themselves now, and Odette and Noelle send money home to help out and visit when they can, but they don't interact much with their mother. None of them really do.

Obviously you can see why Noelle is the way she is. She doesn't eat because she's used to skipping meals to feed her younger sisters. She has insomnia/sleeps very lightly because she's used to staying up to study/watch the locked door. She works/cleans/controls constantly because that is all she knows how to do to keep herself sane. Every aspect of her adult life is controlled by her shitty childhood.

This clearly spills over into her relationships too. The reason Noelle takes so much time with stalking gathering information and getting to know her Darling during dates at first is because she doesn't want to make the same mistake her mom continues to make over and over again. She needs to know you, needs to know how you'll react and if you'll be able to love her because any uncertainty scares her. Once she knows she loves you, she can't let you go. She can't let you walk out like everyone else in her life.

She keeps you inside because the inside is safe. She can control the inside, she can keep you safe and pure away from a heartless world that will crumble you up and spit you out, god knows she knows that. She wants to keep you pure and unspoiled by the horrible facts of life, untainted in the way she isn't. Your virtue and loveliness purify her, make her feel like her past doesn't have to haunt her so bad because you are here and you love her so maybe she is worth loving. She loves you so so so so much, she just wants to keep you close and safe because she doesn't want you hurt, she has to protect you.

Since Noelle does so much surveillance with you, she also knows you quite well and tends to pick a Darling that she knows will be receptive to her love and (eventually) love her as much as she loves you. Noelle's Darling tends to be someone who is overwhelmed and exhausted, afraid of the endless painful choices of life, and who wants someone to swoop in and take care of them, treating them like a precious treasured spouse while they sit loved and adored on a soft pedestal. Noelle will absolutely do this for you. She will shower you with gifts and luxury as long as you're a good girl who listens to and obeys her. She knows what's best for you, she loves you more than she loves anything, just let her protect you and everything will be okay.

When she lets you out of the house, even if you're with her and in her sight, she feels like she can't breathe. The world is dangerous and unpredictable and if something random happens and hurts you and she can't prevent it, she'll never forgive herself. She can bring anything you need inside, or she'll ask Ata for a favor and make sure no other people will be at the event to hurt you. She can protect you, she's not a little kid anymore, she's stronger now. Just please please let her protect you.

She doesn't know if she can handle it without you there at home, knowing you are waiting for her with a cuddle and a kind word, making her feel like she's worth something.

[rosenotactuallyquartz]

“when i was thinking of pink/rose i thought of it being a cautionary tale about what can happen when someone has dangerously low self esteem, and also the kind of environment that can create that situation.” — rebecca sugar, q&a the art of steven universe

"on the flip side, [rose & greg] enable each other. she never unpacks what scares her about her past, and neither does he. — rebecca sugar, end of an era

every now and then, i come across some steven universe fans who like rose and they glorify the end of her life.

they say something like,

“by the time rose gave up her physical form, she was in a good place. she made peace with herself and her past. she was in a stable loving relationship and they communicated their decisions perfectly!”

rose is my comfort character & she’s also the character i relate to most. i can understand why someone would have this take because i think this is what they want to believe about rose. they don’t want to believe that the last few years of her life were as complicated & tragic as they were.

in reality, she became incredibly withdrawn before she made a decision to end her own life. she can love the life that she created with all her heart & she can be extremely self destructive at the same time. that’s an ongoing theme for rose. there were also many conversations that she never had & yes, those conversations were important.

her life, all of her relationships, and how she felt about herself… all these things were not in a very good place when she died

that’s also why we see the characters go through a lot of the things they go through! they discover things about rose, they process them, & then they eventually find closure. to really see just how complex rose’s character is, as well as understand her loved ones, i feel like we have to face the harsh reality of what things were like when her life ended. things were terribly communicated & again, not in a good place. there was no closure, really. steven’s parents genuinely loved him and wanted him to exist, that’s the positive side of things, but on the other side there’s many problems that are rarely talked about because they really are extremely dark.

[nevermoredragon-main]

I can’t help but wonder about the separation of titles from feelings, in alien stage. I don’t know how to describe it but like, Io has motherly feelings for Till and fulfills that role, but she is called “Provider.”

Shine called Mizi “lovable creature,” and possibly saw her as a daughter.

But then in Sweet Dream there is that one lyric that goes “My Father, My Universe.” Father in this context is God/the Anakt, but still.

And then Sua does call her sister “Sister.” Though their relationship is a bit… complicated, I guess. Strained, but I think the Sister was being honest with Sua out of some form of love.

It’s just interesting how humans no longer know most of the common phrases we use, but the feelings remain. And in some cases the words remain in their songs, but do they even understand the meaning?

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Is there a reason Marinette’s lying to Adrien about Gabriel doesn’t make sense to you from a character-standpoint? She’s lied a fair bit in the show for reasons other than keeping her identity or crush on Adrien a secret, and her love for Adrien has consistently created a blind spot for her in terms of her “general” morals/behavior.

Is there something more specific to Marinette’s pattern of behavior that indicates how her lying about Gabe would be OOC, or is the lie something you believe Canon!Marinette should recognize as too egregious to take part in?

(The closest alternative explanation I’ve seen thus far is that she shouldn’t have any reason to lie for Gabe because they share zero good will, but if we interpret it as lying for Adrien, then I’m not sure if that explanation fits.)

I have, admittedly, not gone through the show and tracked every lie that Marinette has ever told to see if I can weave together a pattern that backs Marinette's behavior at the end of season five. It's possible that there's a lie that I'm forgetting that would totally change my stance and, if you think that's the case, then feel free to respond to this with a comment or an ask on that topic! My "this is BS" stance is based on the overall story of the show and the ways that I've seen people try to justify the season five lies as those are the arguments that I've thought through and found lacking.

We'll start by discussing the two lies people use to try to back Marinette's behavior at the end of season five: the scarf and Chat Blanc. Then I'll talk about the story's lead up to the season five lies and why it makes for a horribly unsatisfying story in my eyes. If someone gave this to me, I'd be suggesting some major edits to make it work on a technical level.

The Scarf

For those who don't remember, the season one episode The Bubbler sees Marinette make Adrien a scarf for his birthday. She drops the scarf off at the Agreste mansion with a note for Adrien and the hope that this will get him to finally notice her. Nathalie then takes the scarf and uses it as a gift from Gabriel instead. Marinette learns about this during this exchange at the very end of the episode:

Alya: Yo, nice scarf, Adrien. Off the chain. Adrien: Yeah, can you believe my dad got this for me? (Marinette looks surprised) it's so awesome. He's been giving me the same lame pen for three years in a row.... Alya:(to Marinette) You gotta tell him you were the one who knitted the scarf. Marinette: But he seems so happy about his dad. I don't want to spoil it for him. Alya: Aw, Marinette. (they hug.) You're amazing, girl. You know that, right? And someday Adrien will figure it out too. Promise.

I can see why someone would look at this and call it a setup for the end of season five. There are some parallels here. The problem is that there are a lot of massive differences, too. Differences that make this a really crappy setup:

Marinette does not lie in this scene. She simply overhears a lie and doesn't correct it. Remove her and Alya from the scene and nothing changes. The lie still exists. Meanwhile, without Marinette, the season five lies would never have come to be.

Marinette knows about the scarf lie for about a minute on screen. She hears about it and tells Alya to let it go within the same scene. That's a gut reaction, not a carefully planned and considered deceit. Once again, wildly different from what season five gives us.

Adrien and Marinette aren't shown to be close friends in season one. They rarely talk to the point that I didn't even know that they were supposed to be friends until we got to Origins. That complicates correcting the scarf lie. How does Marinette approach a random classmate and explain a situation that she doesn't even fully understand herself? That's very different from Ladybug telling a lie to a civilian or Marinette lying to her boyfriend.

Season one Marinette has no idea how messed up Adrien's home life is. All she knows is that Adrien liked her gift, but that he thinks it came from a different person. She doesn't even know that a lie was involved in this confusion! As far as she's aware, this could just be a minor misunderstanding that she'd rather let go because does it really matter who the gift is from? This is extra true because the scarf never comes up again, meaning that this is not an ongoing or damaging lie as far as canon is concerned.

That last point and the issue of Marinette never actually telling the lie herself are probably the biggest points in Marinette's favor. If Adrien wore the scarf all the time and used it as a comfort when he was fighting with his dad, then you'd have a solid case for Marinette needing to say something because the lie is arguably doing actual harm. This is especially true if you let Adrien say things like, "I wear this to remember that my father loves me," to Marinette. But that's not what canon did.

As far as canon is concerned, the scarf lie exists for all of a minute. A minute in which Adrien expresses delight in the gift, but gives it very tepid weight in terms of what it means for his relationship with his father. (Adrien's room is full of nice gifts, I don't think a scarf was going to make-or-break their relationship.) After that, the scarf never comes up again, meaning that Marinette's gut reaction to not immediately destroy Adrien's happiness is all we get. That's hardly a great setup for her being the source of massive ongoing lies about Adrien's personhood and the truth of his father's abuse.

I'll also remind you that this all happened at the very start of the show. The Bubbler is one of the first episodes people see. If this is your best argument for Marinette's behavior five seasons later, then we have a major writing problem on our hands. You should not have to dig back to the very start of the show to justify a major character beat like this. There should be more relevant material. We'll circle back to that problem in a minute. First let's quickly touch on lie two and why it also falls flat.

Chat Blanc

Another thing people point to as foreshadowing for the season five lies is the fact that Ladybug kept Chat Blanc from Chat Noir and, if Chat Blanc was actually affecting her, then I would agree with this take. However, that doesn't seem to be the case. The official story is that Ladybug's actions in season four had nothing to do with Chat Blanc. It was just guardian stress! If that's true, then I don't think she should tell Chat Noir about Chat Blanc.

Why?

Since when do we tell people about all the awful things they did while they were akumatized? There's no point to that. It's cruel. Do you think that Ladybug also needs to walk him through everything he did while under the control of various akumas like Dark Cupid? If no, then how is Chat Blanc any different? What's the value in telling Chat Noir the gory details of what will happen if he ever has a moment of weakness and becomes akumatized? He already knows that it will be bad! Why tell him exactly how bad it will be? I can't come up with a single good canonical reason.

Ladybug has no idea what caused Chat Blanc, so she can't warn Chat Noir what he needs to avoid. You can't even use the "he should know about Bunnyx" argument because that wasn't Bunnyx's debut. Canonically speaking, the only reason that Ladybug should talk to Chat Noir about Chat Blanc or any other bad thing that he's done while under the power of an akuma is if it's effecting her or their partnership and it's apparently not! That's why Marinette never reacts to Chat Noir getting a white makeover (see: the Paris special & Jubilation) and why Chat Blanc is never discussed in the show outside of that one brief nightmare callback in Sentibubbler.

To be clear, I think that's an asinine choice as Chat Blanc's memory hurting Ladynoir would have been semi-decent foreshadowing for the season five lies, but the writers decided to go another route. They also let Chat Blanc haunt Adrien even though he doesn't know about it, which I don't even know how to dissect because it's such terrible writing! If you don't know what I'm talking about, this is the official explanation for why Adrien couldn't make it to the final fight. The reason for the white-and-blue Chat Noir that haunted his nightmares:

Mélanie says that he "could become Chat Blanc" and the others add that even though he does not remember and has never lived it, Chat Blanc still has an influence on his actions.

Quality writing here folks. Quality writing. At the very least have season five Adrien be freaked out about the fact that he cataclysmed a human! That would make this make at least a little sense, but we don't get that. Instead we get Adrien almost cataclysming several akumas like it's no big deal while having nightmares about a thing he's never even been told about (see: Derision and Jubilation and probably other's I'm forgetting.)

The Events of Season Four and Five

As you can hopefully see, we don't have a great, ongoing pre-end-of-season-five lie to point to as proof that Marinette would decide to tell the massive lies that she does. That's a pretty big writing flaw, but it's not a show stopper. A lie like this could still fit her character if the story sets it up right.

The problem is that the story doesn't do that. It actually sets Marinette up to be primed to want to tell the truth.

For all Miraculous' nonsensical and wacky writing, the season five lie still comes at the end of two seasons with relatively clear messages. Those messages were to trust others and avoid lies. Let me show you what I mean.

While season four's writing is an absolute disaster, we cannot ignore the fact that the stated lesson in Strikeback is that Marinette learned to trust others, give up control, and stop lying:

Ladybug: Why don't you just give up on me? I've lost ALL the Miraculous! I'm the worst Guardian EVER! I wanted to control everything, I didn't listen to you, I lied to you, I kept you at a distance! Every time you offered me a helping hand, I never took it! I really made a mess of EVERYTHING! (continues sobbing)

This is what Marinette says to Chat Noir directly after losing the Kwamis. This is the lesson that she supposedly learned. The end note of the season. The word of god meant to be internalized by children everywhere. The show even goes so far as to have Ladybug give Chat Noir more responsibility in the first episode of season five (Evolution):

Cat Noir: Catch, m'lady! (throws the Rabbit Miraculous at Ladybug and she catches it) Only the holder of the Rabbit Miraculous can open a time portal. Ladybug: (contemplates shortly then places the Rabbit Miraculous on his chest, smiling) You do it, kitty. Cat Noir: You want me to control time? Ladybug: It's you and me, remember?

Really driving home this idea that Ladybug is going to be more trusting and open with others moving forward.

The meat of season five sees Marinette and Adrien start dating. During this arc, Marinette learns to be more open with her feelings around Adrien while also being confronted with the reality of just how messed up Adrien's home life is. Marinette and Gabriel clash with each other over Adrien with Marinette fighting for Adrien's freedom and Gabriel trying to control everything:

Gabriel: I don't think you understand, child, so let me put things differently. Life is like fashion. You think you have a choice, but all you have is the illusion of choice. And I decide what choices are given to you. Marinette: You're wrong! (Shows Gabriel her sketchbook.) Fashion is about listening to people, it's about understanding who they are, what excites them and creating the clothes that will help them express their inner world. Help them connect with others and make their dreams come true.

This conflict means that Marinette and Gabriel do not have a single positive interaction in the entire season outside of maybe the final. We also see Adrien defy his father more than ever before. This is not the kind of setup you write if you want Marinette to tell Adrien that his father was a hero. Why in the world would she think that he'd want to be told that kind of lie? Why would he even buy it after all of the things that Gabriel has done? The final literally sees Adrien locked in a padded prison cell!!! Writers, what are you doing??? Why did you write this???

There's also the fact that season five has a major theme of lies = bad. It's the season where Lila's lies are finally outed, but only after they almost cost Marinette's friends their futures. For those who need a reminder: Lila tried to mess with the forms that stated where everyone wanted to go for lycée and would have succeeded in pulling off that harm and blaming it on Marinette were it not for the lies being outed.

On top of that, we also see Adrien keeping the plan to ship him off to London from Marinette, ending in this exchange:

Marinette: (on the video call) Adrien! Adrien: (voice breaking; in tears) Marinette, I should've told you sooner, but... up until the last minute, I thought I'd find a solution. I tried everything, I swear. Marinette: (on the video call) Adrien, what's... what's going on? Adrien: I have to leave Paris. (his voice breaks) I'm not worthy of your love. I feel terrible for hurting you.

Adrien kept the truth from Marinette to try to keep her from being hurt and ended up hurting her more than he otherwise would have because they don't even get a proper goodbye.

None of this is a solid setup for Marinette turning around and lying to Adrien about his father. Why would she do that after all of the harm lies and Gabriel caused in season five? Between this and season four, she has not been setup to want to lie to Adrien. Season five needs massive rewrites to make that choice work! (Note: I have yet to see the London special, but based on everything I've heard, I think it's just going to cement my annoyance at Marinette's wishy-washy writing by continuing to ignore the plot of the seasons leading up to the final and the special.)

Final Thoughts

I don't think that Marinette lying to Adrien about his dad is a terrible idea. It's a believable struggle! It just doesn't fit her character's journey. They've failed to have her tell that type of lie before and they had her tell this lie after two seasons where the main lessons were how much lies have hurt her and the people that she loves. If she hasn't gotten the message that you shouldn't lie by now, then when exactly is she going to learn it? It's incredibly hard for me to get invested in characters that aren't allowed to grow and learn from their mistakes and Miraculous has made it abundantly clear that it will not let these characters grow if growth messes with the plot that the writers want to tell.

I will openly admit that I think that Marinette's lie was a last minute retcon to make there be a cliffhanger to season six, but let's ignore that and give a quick three-point plan of how you could make this ending work:

Really lean into the negative consequences of people knowing the truth about things. Nino knowing Alya's identity outing Alya. Luka getting shipped off to Brazil. Make the truth hurt Marinette at every turn. Basically remove all lies = bad consequences and have Ladybug see losing the miraculous be the result of trusting others because she trusted "Adrien" and lost, leading her to keep pushing people away

Don't let Lila be outed. Have Lila be a good president and make that part of her big plan for the next season.

Have Gabriel and Marinette get along. Gabriel has said that Adrien is like Emilie, let Gabriel see himself in Marinette, leading Gabriel to trust Marinette to be Adrien's support should the worst happen. Let the final fight be a heartbreaking moment between two people who have an actual relationship built around loving Adrien. Have Adrien going to London be a "convenient" trip to get him out of the way on the day of the evil plot and not a prison sentence so that Gabriel doesn't look cartoonishly evil. Make it feel like he cares! Sell the redemption!

Do that and, yeah, I'd buy Marinette's choice even without setup lies because you don't need setup lies! Setup lies don't matter anywhere near as much as selling this lie and the writers simply didn't do that. I don't believe for a second that Marinette would lie for Gabriel or think that this was what Adrien wanted based on the relationship season five gave us for those three characters. It is so glaringly obvious that this is nothing more than a stalling tactic that has nothing to do with Marinette's character and everything to do with the show's rule that "there must always be a secret between Adrien and Marinette." I genuinely struggle to understand how anyone sees it as anything else.

[randomwriting]

Love Letters I Won’t Send

Pairing: James Potter x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 1.1K

Summary: In the midst of summertime heat and breakdowns, you find yourself falling in love with all the people around you. (some, more than others.)

A/N 💌: I intend to make this a series, haven’t decided if I should make it fully Poly!Marauders x Reader or not yet, so let me know what you think!

Also this is my first fic ever so kindness & reblogs are sincerely appreciated 💕

Beneath the annoyance permeating the halls of Hogwarts, and infesting every common room but the ones conveniently hidden under wonderfully cool lakes, (an amenity you were not jealous of at all), there was an amazingly rare heat wave sweeping over the entirety of scotland. You had to admit, the timing could not have been worse.

The unrelenting heat was the worst in the Gryffindor dorms, where some of the residents had begun looking an awful lot like one of their house colors. This unexpected side effect meant that dorms were essentially uninhabitable, and swarms of students had taken to the courtyard, the common room, or the halls, in refuge. And since hiding from your lingering feelings in your dorm was no longer a viable option, Lily, Marlene, and Dorcas had been forced to drag you out into an open space where you were far too susceptible to seeing the three boys you had been avoiding like the plague.

“You are going to bloody fucking kill yourself if you do not get out of that room.” Marlene practically shouted at you, after yet another failed attempt to free you from the boiling temperatures of your bedroom. Her exasperation with you, general fury with the world, and hatred of the weather was a dangerous combination. One you couldn't entirely fault her for.

“I'd sooner die than have to face those men, marls.” you heard her grumble something along the lines of “Merlins fucking beard” at your response.

“Look, I know this whole thing is complicated and whatnot, but you are driving yourself mad, holed up in a ridiculously hot room, overthinking about James, Sirius and Remus, when you should be swimming, or living, or fucking someone else to get over them!”

“I agree. You are too pretty and smart and funny and frankly too fucking hot to be sitting here moping.” Lily chimes in, smiling at you, unrelenting in her beliefs, you take a second, in the midst of the chaos, to admire her smile. The ridiculously engaging quality of her shiny teeth, the perfection of her skin and the red hair that floats around her in the sun, too much like a halo for you not to take note. It is so easy to love her. All of them, really. You only wish, quietly, that it was so easy for you to be loved. The way everyone knows Mary loves Lily, the palpable way you all can feel how Marlene loves Dorcas. It radiates under the surface of the whole group and flows further out into the school, they radiate love, and you feel it, in that brief and wondrous moment before you have to face the world, you ask yourself how on earth you got so lucky, that they might tolerate you enough to allow you this close to the masterpiece of their friendships and lives.

“Okay.” You relent, soft yet reluctant, as you come back to the present, a feeling of inadequacy settling heavily on your shoulders and in your lungs, “I'll leave the room but I'm bringing a book, and I insist on snacks and enormous amounts of lemonade if I'm being forced out into the wild.” You allow them to pull you up and out of the sweltering room, only because you’re not entirely convinced you won’t be able to simply meander away into some obscure hallway, cooled by the touch of the century old stone in refuge, the moment Dorcas and Marlene begin to notice just how little clothing there is between the two of them due to the immense heat. You stare ahead as you walk down through the common room, shoulders tense with something indescribable. Lily notices it, she also noticed the soft, odd look on your face earlier, and just like Lily Evans does, she files it away in a neat folder in her mind with your name written on it, one new thing to figure out about you, where exactly it is you go when your eyes get foggy and you drift off.

“Why are you avoiding the boys?” Dorcas asks suddenly, and you feel marlene and lily stop, to turn and look at her the same way you do.

“It’s just easier, if I don’t see them.” You tell her this half truth slowly, as you all continue to walk down the stairs, you don’t miss the dry look you get from Marlene.

“Easier? You were miserable earlier and I can’t imagine they’re thrilled at the prospect of one of their best friends disappearing without explanation.” She somehow manages to be blunt and soft and so uniquely wise.

“I have to move on, because we are just friends. That’s easier to do when I’m not constantly overwhelmed by Remus reading to me, and Sirius’ relentless flirting, and James calling me-”

“Angel! There you are.” A sweaty James Potter practically yells from across the courtyard as he sees you. Your heart stops, the sun is on his face and bouncing off of his glasses, his hair has never looked this good, ever. It’s damp and sideswept and you just know Sirius has been somewhere near it, because it looks particularly soft. You aren’t sure he isn’t actually an angel of some kind as he jogs over to you and the girls in his white tank top and shorts, positively beaming.

“Nice to see you too, potter.” Marlene snarks with a grin as James enters your personal space.

“Oh come on Marls, you know I’m always positively thrilled to see you.” His smile unwavering as he looks over at her, you take that moment of freedom from his gaze to wipe the sweat that formed away from your brow, and to start a silent conversation with lily, which really only pertains you mouthing “help” and her grinning at you happily, thrilled with the confrontation. She hated when you hid from things, from yourself.

“Did you put on sunblock? Sirius has plenty, if you haven't.” James asks you softly as he leads the small group to the tree where he had come running from, you can just make out Sirius and Remus under it, Sirius sprawled out on the grass, head in remus’ lap, who’s back is against the tree as he reads. You’re struck with fondness yet again as you look at them, finding it all too easy to fall back into that habit of loving them from afar.

“I did. Lily made me.”

You answer, with a playful glare at your favorite redhead. James’ smile grows somehow larger at the playfulness. You watch Lily sling her arm over Dorcas, you laugh as Marlene shoves it off, grumbling playfully about how she should go find Mary if she wanted to get all lovey dovey. Despite the tension you can feel, always present it seems, since you fell for James, there is an easiness. Perhaps because of the warmth and the abundance that comes with this time of year, or maybe just because you have found yourself living here, with people who you feel if you didn't already have magic coursing through your veins, would make you believe in its existence. They were just that wonderful.

[sarahreesbrennan]

I think this is a lovely addition and I am so glad you feel that way. I hoped some people would! I knew not everybody would.

Under a cut to spare your dash, friends, some thoughts about villainy…

I don’t know that we differ in substance, though perhaps in style. I’d say that I agree with you… but it’s complicated.

Long Live Evil poses many questions about the nature of villainy, who is assigned villainy and who gets the sympathy and understanding. It’s about the experience of being assigned villainy, but also understanding the assignment.

Rae is absolutely going through something so awful. She is very understandably angry about it. Indeed, most of the main characters of Long Live Evil have been THROUGH it. That’s part of why they’re seen as villains - though this perception also exists on an axis of gender, class, race, sexuality, disability. These things affect how they’re perceived and how they’re treated and how they act, and there is almost no way to disentangle cause and effect.

‘Under the present brutal and primitive conditions on this planet, every person you meet should be regarded as one of the walking wounded. we have never seen a man or woman not slightly deranged by either anxiety or grief. we have never seen a totally sane human being.’ - Robert Anton Wilson

This world hurts people. And then it can be very harsh to hurt people. We’re blamed for our wounds.

I agree Rae is a more interesting protagonist to me. That’s why I picked her. But there are very, very popular protagonists in fiction I find absolutely dull as ditchwater. (Not saying I find Alice dull. I love Alice.) I’m still interested in why audiences like them, and as I would like to have many readers too, I think about why things are popular a lot. I learn rules… sometimes simply that I may break them.

You might think Rae’s plight would engender sympathy: and for some it does. For many it doesn’t. And I knew that would be the case. I’ve seen it happen in real life many times.

—Someone in my close circle of friends publicly made fun of me for my ‘terrible anger issues’ at a time I was literally too sick to walk and barely able to breathe. I know that person thinks she’s a good person who was good to me.

—this is a very common thing to happen to chronically ill people. Most of my mentees, especially my younger mentees, have been abandoned by many friends who would all confidently state that this is the patient’s fault for being a bad person.

—one woman I know had her ex accurately recount all her behaviour to his new girlfriend without adding the reason why she ceased intimacy, got irritable and didn’t help around the house.

Sick people are legitimately hard to be around sometimes, and they get blamed for being so because it’s easier to blame a person than a disease. Other people don’t want to be the villain, so they make you the villain.

And the making of a villain is an interesting thing to me.

Rae being sick and Rae being perceived as evil and embracing that perception are inextricable. As a society, we are not truly sympathetic to victims. I knew it would be this way, but I still found myself shocked by the way some readers responded to her - she’s so evil that bitch got Key killed, she’s not even evil enough so she’s something pathetic that can be dismissed, she’s cringe because she uses humour as a coping mechanism, everything is her fault, it’s disgusting how much this formerly emaciated by illness woman talks about her boobs. But then, did Katniss in the Hunger Games get as much sympathy for literally starving as Peeta did for having his feelings hurt? (Note: Peeta also had many legitimate problems and I really like both characters.) And then again, isn’t feeling any kind of way about a character a compliment?

This is one of the reasons Rae is a woman. Society is set up to dismiss women’s pain, and discourage empathy with them. (And yet at the same time, we can’t demand anybody likes any specific character, regardless of gender. We can only observe patterns.)

And listen, I am not equating being a gorgeous talented famous artist with being chronically ill, but there is a phenomenon my friend who’s a psychologist has observed, which is that audiences get tired of famous women after a certain number of years (seven at most) and begin to criticise their looks or say they’re annoying or problematic.

Anne Hathaway and Jennifer Lawrence, both relatively inoffensive women, just had to basically go away for a while, until audiences were ready to go ‘wait, is Anne Hathaway talented and beautiful?’ (Yes she has been the whole time.)

The only woman who I’ve seen not have to slink into oblivion for several years when the tide of public opinion turned is, actually, Taylor Swift - there’s a piece online called ‘Darling, Villain, Victor’ which covers this very well. I like Taylor’s songs because a lot of them are narratives. And it was interesting to me to see the way she engaged with the narrative - going ‘okay yes I eat men for breakfast but also they flee from me, I’m drowning in diamonds, I’m covered in snakes, I’m wearing the evil makeup but also the eyeliner is running down my face because I am HYSTERICAL’ - and people looked stupid for saying the thing she’d already said about herself, outsized. Someone who also does this is Dolly Parton. ‘Yes I am everything you say about me. Now what?’

I did find that inspiring. I did want to claim, for my vipers and myself, the beauty and freedom of that ‘Now what?’ Anger is how we survive. We will be blamed for anger and for survival. Okay. Now what?

Another inspiration is the Interview with the Vampire quote ‘evil is a point of view.’ Not one of the Time of Iron characters think of themselves as people who enjoy cruelty for cruelty’s sake. Sure, some glory in justified vengeance, but that’s okay, right…?

To be able to see yourself as the villain in someone else’s story is, in some ways, an act of radical empathy. It’s an early thing Key says that makes him fun to me - that he’s like oh yes, I am evil. He’s very clear-eyed about the fact that, say, many of the people at the glass blowers’ guild (relatively innocent pleasant individuals) were from their point of view flat out murdered by a homicidal maniac for no reason whatsoever. Still when he tells his story, Rae is sympathetic - and it is also the tale of an abused child and a pitilessly corrupt society.

Key isn’t human. And he’s not a sociopath. Key is a god. And actually, it’s considered morally acceptable for gods to raze cities or worlds for sinning, and even to kill their children. But if a god thought he was human and evil, then what? (Was Athena traumatised by her birth?)

Yet another inspiration for me is Congreve. ‘I love her with her faults. Nay, I love her for her faults.’ I did want the vipers to not just be misunderstood darlings but to commit crimes and have serious personality problems.

Does Rae deserve more sympathy than she gets? Sure. At the same time, I really wanted her to have hubris. I refer to Greek plays a lot - where the deus ex machina was invented, art designed for the audience to be rocked and purged by emotion - and it’s this classic failing, to be arrogant and think you can avoid destiny and get this outsize punishment for it. (And people haaate women to be arrogant, and I knew they would find that annoying about her.) Rae doesn’t want Key or Emer to be hurt, but they are both people of a lower class in her employ, whose lives she knows are only saved in the original narrative by another aristocratic woman - and she deliberately sets out to use them and that does put them in harm’s way. Emer is whipped. Key is whipped twice and killed. Rae is not corporally punished in the same way servants are. But then again, when death looms, what choice does she have? Is she the one ultimately responsible for hurting them? No. But does that mean she bears no responsibility at all, when she made a bargain with them? Do we get to hurt others just because we’re hurt? When is lashing out because of trauma okay, never or always? Well…

It’s tricky to discuss personality flaws, because some characters get more sympathy while others’ faults get magnified. I’ve seen Rae discussed as more privileged than Marius - Lord Marius Valerius, second-most powerful man in the kingdom, in possession of literal superpowers, and uh - very arrogant at times himself. (And I love Marius and he has many very legitimate problems!) They are both flawed people. Very few feel villainous to themselves. Very little of what the people we love do to others feels villainous to us. I will miss Octavian so much as an antagonist, because he was such a great one - never for a moment did he consider he was being anything but heroic, and I do think at bottom he was a very ordinary guy, with an absolutely normal capacity for empathy. Yet all that power and privilege and the empty assurance of others and fame ate him right up. He didn’t ever have to look through anyone else’s eyes, and see himself the villain.

But also, can you look at the abyss, and not be changed? Rae at the start of the story would not be capable of tossing a man off the battlements of a tower into a yawning ravine full of flame with a wild, mocking laugh. But she IS that person by the end - and some of us are with her! It’s a villain origin story, emphasis on origin.

So yes it’s wish fulfilment, and yes it’s about villainy, and about having different perceptions of villainy, and which sins and flaws are forgivable in which people... We all have different perceptions. I am posing the questions, but you may have a different answer than I - if either of us find any answers at all.

Still the questions are worth asking. I do believe that.

Truly, thank you for having sympathy with my viper queen.

I remember reading in one of your blog entries (years ago??) that in the new book you were writing, the main character's *sister* had cancer. Does that mean that Alice was originally the main character of Long Live Evil? Was she going to go into the book to save Rae, instead of Rae going in to save herself?

How extremely kind of you to remember!

No, that was actually a YA murder mystery that I wrote while ill, revised while recovering, and sent out into the world where it died on submission. (Which means we sent it out to about 12 editors and the editor either said no, or said yes and took it to acquisitions - a group of people at the publisher including sales and marketing - and acquisitions said no.)

One editor told me she really wanted and really tried to buy it. Another person who worked in publishing (and has since changed jobs, or I wouldn’t share this) said the response at her acquisitions was - if you like this writer, find the next her (implications about health and youth were made).

I was terrified my agent was going to ditch me too, but she said ‘We’ll sell that one day, for now let’s write the next thing.’

I remember another writer telling me she missed my work that wasn’t a tie-in, and I felt ashamed to tell her it wasn’t that I wasn’t writing other things - it was that I couldn’t publish them.

The tie-ins meanwhile were paying the bills (they still are tbh!) and I was and remain so grateful for them. But I also really loved writing them - especially my Sabrina tie-ins, you don’t forget the first, and it reminded me I want to write horror and poly one day - and how they got me to love and sympathise with so many fandoms.

I see the burnout of caregivers all around me, and I wanted to write the story of one. But maybe I also wanted to take a step back from cancer. I didn’t think I did, at the time. I had a whole lot of things I tried writing before Long Live Evil, and I think some of them were really good. One of my critique partners gave me a lipstick with the same name as someone in the murder mystery. There was a romance novel another critique partner said was her favourite thing I’d ever written. But none had someone with cancer at the heart of the story.

And even though Rae isn’t much like me, maybe I had to start there. You can’t make real magic using someone else’s liver. Maybe I had to wait to be brave enough to use my own liver.

I do get requests for advice on how to cope with rejection of your writing, and I always worried I didn’t have anything else to say, but I suppose my example says - if you can, (and I know it’s hard, you feel so terrible at writing and so useless) (and you love the work you’ve done so much and you don’t see a way forward to loving the next thing) (but still, if you possibly can) write the next thing.

Even if the first thing sells, you’ll want the next thing one day. Writing the next thing is more writing practise, so it’ll make you better. Write the next thing.

Ultimately I’m really glad Long Live Evil was my comeback book. I think it needed to be. It took the time it took.

But maybe it was a shade of that past book (where the heroine’s sister with cancer was six, so not much like any of the Time of Iron characters) that made me think of the YA version of this book, which I always had in my mind as something I was intentionally hewing away from - a more straightforward book, a book that might have sold better - in which shy reader Alice was the hero. She’s the one with the suggestive hero name - Alice through the looking glass - the heroine looks, and the more projectable-upon personality. She’d get called annoying less often (though still some, because she’s a girl), partly because she is (with love, Rae knows I’m right) a genuinely less annoying person. Much kinder, much sweeter, and much better at in-depth reading! Her sister being in trouble would’ve been a backstory, a catalyst point, and - you’re totally right - a great motivation for her to get the Flower. Saving a family member is a much more sympathetic and heroic motivation than saving yourself and one I do love (the Hunger Games, Labyrinth, Mahy’s the Changeover, and I write it a lot!). I think Snarky While Tragically Dying Rae would’ve been a pretty popular side character, too. I think it would’ve been a good book! Just not mine.

I love your question because I love thinking about POV, and all the decisions that are the building blocks of a story. To me, the Alice centric Time of Iron is a version that exists. As are several versions of the Lia centric Time of Iron. And versions centring other characters exist to me, too. (Eric, absolutely.)

Speaking of POV musing, I think Rahela the wicked stepsister featured more in the musical than the book. If the Time of Iron series ever became a TV show (and at this point in time I think I’d rather a movie because it wouldn’t… get cancelled…) and I got to write it (don’t know why I would…) I would start with the beginnings for three characters about to go on a journey to somewhere strange to them: Key in the Cauldron, Rae in the hospital, and Vasilisa in the icelands. There are so many possibilities! And I really wanted the sense that there were so many possibilities, too.

But I wanted the chronically ill one to be the centre of the story, and for it to be her villain origin story, and to ask a lot of questions (hence a lot of villains!) about who gets villainised and why. And I thought hers, to my mind, would be the most fun of all the possible stories.

So that’s the one I made. But Long Live Evil has a lot of origins. Thank you for remembering one of them! I don’t think I would’ve dared tell the story, if things hadn’t worked out for me (so far, fingers crossed).

And I also tell it to be clear my publisher was taking a RISK with me and Long Live Evil, and I really appreciate that, and I’m so happy it’s worked out for them (again so far, early days, fingers crossed, etc).

I hope some writers - whether in the process of submission, rejection or making the choices that are the building blocks of story - find this helpful, and some readers find it interesting.

Let this be one of the universes in which your story is told.

[k-dokja]

Life is so much better when you don’t take anything seriously 🫠 Kayden x f!reader.

“…What?” You cross your arms, meeting Gestella’s eyes without flinching. For all you know, you haven’t done anything wrong to receive her attention. Maybe she wants your hair care routine, you can’t tell with her glaring at you in silence for the past few minutes.

“What is your relationship with Kayden?” She asks point blank, making you raise your eyebrows in surprise. Truthfully, you expect that this conversation might come at some point, but you had thought she’d dance around the topic longer.

“Why does it matter?” You shoot your own question in return, leaning back on the couch with the blasé confidence you associate to your beloved pain in the ass more than anything.

Gestella’s eyes narrow by a minuscule margin before she tears her attention away from. “Tch…”

“Hey!” Her lackey, whatever her name is, blows up in the place of Gestella. More than a few times now, you’ve seen her inserting into the conversation when Gestella’s social ineptitude fails her. But you struggle to think of her as anything but Gestella’s mouthpiece when speaking for her boss is all she does. “My lady demands an answer from you!”

You’d assume Gestella has already given up on the idea, but her lackey seems to think otherwise.

“I’m his supplier,” you drawl, barely holding back a snicker, “he’s horribly addicted, you see, can’t live without having a whiff of it every day.”

“Addicted?” Gestella frowns. “To what?”

You shrug, “Can’t say,” you lower your voice conspiratorially, “it’s privacy protection for my client you see.”

Her ire heats up the entire room, but once again, she gives up without pressing you. With another click of her tongue, she turns away from you. “Pathetic…” She mutters before taking her leave, vanishing into the thin air.

With her departure, you contemplate visiting Jiwoo less often. There is more than enough to deal with now that Kayden is suffering from his long recovery, you don’t need some silly drama on your plate to complicate everything. Besides, it’s not like you have anything more you can do for him at this point, it’s all on him to expedite his healing now.

“Huh, was Gestella just here?” Kayden’s familiar voice penetrates your musing as he paces towards you from the stairways.

“Yeah,” you tilt your head towards him in acknowledgment, draping your arms over the couch, “done for the day?”

Kayden leaps on the couch gracefully, padding over to curl up on your laps, “Not yet,” he says, “one more thing.”

Without giving you any other warning, he buries his entire face into your chest, drawing a lungful of breath before groaning in contentment. “That’s so much better.” His words are punctuated by heavy nuzzling into your soft flesh, rubbing his scent all over your torso.

With his final grumbles, Kayden plops back down, bearing a content and lazy smile on his mouth, “You should stay here everyday, save me the trip to your place to recharge while I’m this weak.”

“Isn’t this crowded enough with all the cats and… dog?” You snort, but the corner of your mouth curves into a smirk. “Besides… you could use the exercise.”

”Hey, that’s no way to talk to the love of your life.” Kayden huffs, lashing his tail at your face. “What’s the point to your cat form if you don’t use it, anyway? Yours is far more compact than any of us.”

“Some of us don’t enjoy being an animal all day, weirdo,” you swat his backside, making him jump slightly, “although, I don’t oppose to you staying in this, you’re much more tolerable this way.”

Kayden growls, “You’re just profiting off being bigger than me for once,” he snaps back at you, but the fury in his eyes dim into a smouldering gaze when his sight lands on your chest once more, “still, can’t deny that you’re much more delectable as you are… good enough to eat—”

“Ehem.”

You both turn in time to see Kartein mid-coughing. He adamantly refuses to meet your eyes, and the same goes for Pluto, who sits by him. But the muttering Kartein makes is directed towards the two of you anyway. “Just reminding you that there are other people in the room.”

“Tch,” Kayden grunts and settles back down on your lap. “Spoilsport.”

“See why you should make the long trip now?” You tease, ruffling his soft furs.

He snaps back at you with his sharp teeth, but visibly deflate when he knows there is a limit to his actions. “I will deal with you when my strength is back.”

“Promises, promises.”

There is something you can still help Kayden with for his recovery after all.

[alexa-mwll]

Where is Bell? 🔔

-Let's say I locked him in a trunk and threw him into the sea- Adler says looking at her, she knows something.

Adler and Anastasia looked at the man standing at the railing, it was Case.The two looked at each other, it was a look, not of complicity but of something more, they knew something.

-Anyway, once I finish this shit, I'll be leaving- Anastasia says looking at the view of the Safehouse.

-Does that mean you'll stop being my kids' babysitter?- Adler says making an oe that the joke.

-I admit that the pay is very good- Anastasia jokes- But don't think I don't know that you changed the subject of conversation, I'll soon know what happened....

Hello my loves, here I bring you another drawing, I hope you like it, it is a little of the conversation that Adler and my dear Anastasia have. 💜🦋I hope you have a good weekend

[syndrossi]

Jon and Daemon arriving right behind one another is a juicy scenario I hadn't even considered.

Angst potential is definitely off the charts, especially with how it plays into Jon's curse to never know his mother, other than through stories (Lyanna) or his original counterpart's memories of Rhea. And Rhea herself is in a complicated place as a mother. I could easily see Jon hardening his heart to her memory, a bit like Resonant!Jon tries, because of what she did both with him and the twins--though I'm sure original!Jon doesn't fully let him, since she would have been a constant presence in his secret life until his kidnapping.

Honestly, even that is complicated. I'm sure Volantis's tactics included convincing him that his mother did not care to find/rescue him, and that his father clearly did not want him at all. And they had ample examples to drive that home. Perhaps they even pointed to the twins, after their birth. "See? She already replaced you." For younger Jon, especially.

Absolute agony, of course, for Rhea when she sees that he's alive and not dead like she'd been led to believe by whatever fire had been conjured to cover his disappearance. Had she known to look, how differently might things have gone? I like to think she found some peace at least in being able to give him his birthright, and his apparent love for siblings he had never met.

Very wtf for Jon though, to be sure. He's already rolling with all the punches that have been thrown his way since waking up. I think he judges Rhea and finds her wanting--Ned hiding the circumstances of his birth and raising him as his bastard came from a place of love for his sister and for Jon. Rhea hiding him away had come from a place of selfish (paranoid) fear that she might be replaced. To the outside eye, it would seem like she had not wanted to relinquish power.

Daemon's pain and confusion puts all others to shame, of course. Talk about punch after punch after punch. He has twin sons! Wait, three sons. Teens? No, one teen, two younger. This one--had been kidnapped? But now safe, with a dragon. The other two: definitely kidnapped, likely by the same bastards who took his firstborn, and BOY HOWDY does Daemon want to get to burninating Volantis. Gather up the dragon posse, incinerate the Triarchy's forces and fire a few warning shots over their Free Cities, then continue on until Volantis is leveled and no longer able to threaten his children again.

But who is available in that moment for his wrath? As you said, not Rhea. He has to be gentle for Jon's sake, to let her pass in silence as he seethes. And then in walks Allard, all but cheerfully whistling at his successful maneuvering. (I mean, he did care for Rhea and wasn't glad that she died, but what a nice inheritance to salve that sorrow!)

I think you're right. I don't know if it occurs to Jon in the moment, still reeling, but definitely after he's had some time to think things through after. When they're in the eventual debriefing with Viserys, and he wants to know how Jon knew that the twins were in danger, he has the brightest yarn to spin about the evils of Allard Royce...

I like to think that Jon pushes for him to be allowed to take the Black. Allard Royce was ambitious, but he didn't commit any actual crime, and he is no threat at the Wall.

Uuuugh but going back to Jon and Daemon and the twins now. New siblings, surrogates for Dany (Rhaegar) and...hm, himself, I suppose in little!Jon (Baelon, with Daemon getting his way). Daemon also has so much more power with Jon as an ally with Rhaegal? Like, where he has to bow and cater to Viserys's every whim and mistake in Resonant, he and Jon can just...do things. They have the carrying capacity for the twins, the might of Runestone as a refuge from which to protect their family, and dragons. Jon hears about what Crayne threatened his little brother(s) with, and he's organizing the man hunt himself across Essos, pulling Jaehaerys-style "threatening you with dragons but not actually threatening you...you hope" maneuvers to secure the cooperation of the other Free Cities. It especially helps if they did singe the Triarchy cities just a little.

Jon also protecting the shit out everyone, including Daemon, who keeps trying to be his protector and restore some of his shortened childhood to him. Jon finding it much harder to put down his sword vs Baelon, who's not strong enough to wield it and is dealing with eight-year-old emotions and limitations. Jon understanding Baelon in a way that no one else can. Seeing pieces of Dany in Rhaegar and missing them both somehow. Daemon...being like no one he's ever been close to in his life, pure intensity and warmth, more like the Free Folk than he'd ever dare tell someone so proud of his dragonlord heritage.

On the topic of what Viserys does when he has the political headache of a severely ascendant Daemon with three prophecy children... I think he cuts his Velaryon losses, possibly. Jon's dragon makes up for the loss of Vhagar, and the twins' hatchlings will only grow. So a scandal is made about Laenor's "bastards" (aka Corlys's bastards), the marriage annulled, and Viserys gets his Rhaenyra-Daemon match to both cement his loyalty and achieve future prophecy babies (he thinks/hopes) of their shared line.

Plus it would be plain cruel to skip over Daemon for his son, given Daemon's feelings for Rhaenyra and vice versa.

Jon meanwhile could be offered as a match for Laena, but it will depend on how House Velyaron feels about what happened with Laenor. Maybe Viserys eases the sting by offering to have the Crown dissolve her betrothal to the sealord's son? I could definitely see Jon being quite into Laena, given her own fire, and since he was nineteen before, a woman of twenty-three doesn't seem that old to him.

The ultimate loser in all of this is Otto and House Hightower, if Viserys gets all the things he wants, which means Otto will be doing his best to sabotage everything he can without kicking off the Dance early, which he can't afford because he has no dragons.

So I have another "what if" prompt that is very out of left field. Jon gets brought back as his 14 year old self in the 8 year old body (same as Rhaegar) only he's not the only version of himself that the got Summerhalled. They managed to grab 19 year old war vet Jon who is transported into the actual conception child Rhea and Daemon would have had. Rhaegal and Ghost come with (he doesn't get an emotional support twin so he gets 2 service pets to compensate). He's the one who stops in and saves the twins and inadvertently helps sell Daemon's fiction that the twins are true born because he is literally an older version of Jon.

This ask predates Restoration AU, I think, which is funny because it's sort of a reverse Restoration AU? Two Jons but in Resonant era, and one of them the same age as Winterfell!Jon in Restoration, while the other is the nineteen-year-old vet version.

I don't think the math quite works out for 19-year-old Jon to be the consummation baby of Daemon and Rhea's marriage unless he's a few years younger in the Dance era, and Daemon wouldn't have abandoned a trueborn son (nor would early marriage Rhea have hidden him). Maybe it works if he's 14, aka born 3 years into Daemon's marriage with Rhea, when she was much more embittered against him, though again we have to handwave that Rhea was willing to hide an actual trueborn son when Jaehaerys himself was still alive!

The logistics of Rhaegal suddenly appearing in the world would certainly be...interesting. Vet!Jon would have to be pretty clever with his explanation there! Once the Volantis shenanigans are known to him, maybe he can claim that he was kidnapped by them as a child and only recently escaped/returned to Westeros.