#but these children are affected by his resentment. and so does the flesh mother. she hides them away like dionysus in the ivy.

[feralthembo]

i actually like ballas as an antagonist. hes believable. hes just some guy some fuckin nepo baby. whatever the orokin equivalent of a tech ceo was. this guy was like space roman apple guy. i want to put him in a jar and study him like a bug.

[silurisanguine]

OC character deep delve - Seren Jones

Questions originally from a post by Painted-Bees, but the post seems to have vanished. Luckily I'd kept my draft as i started answering so here they are in their entirety. I tag the Coemancer Crew as always and anyone who'd like to do this as i really found it helped flesh out my ocs as the questions ask things i hadn't thought about. This is for Seren Jones, my Starfield OC - See her original look, her look during her early Starborn days and her more settled self.

Under cut because there are 50 questions!

1. How does your character think of their father? What do they hate and love about him? What influence - literal or imagined - did the father have? She loves her father Michael dearly. He helped give her a strong understanding for the need for education, but made learning fun, even in the most trying circumstances. She loves his enthusiasm for learning, but wishes he'd be more careful with his gambling. Though knows he is a secret card shark when it comes to poker!

2. Their mother? How do they think of her? What do they hate? Love? What influence - literal or imagined - did the mother have? She adores her mother Anne. Her mom was always the rock that held her family together even when they had to move from one planet to another. She was always there when Seren was upset, though she knows she got her emotional reactions to things from her mom too. As well as she thinks her empathic nature. She knows her mum hides it but now she is an adult she sees little tells and wishes her mum was more open about it. Once Starborn, she senses it clearly from the versions of Anne she brings herself to meet.

3. Brothers, sisters? Who do they like? Why? What do they despise about their siblings? Thanks to the Colony war, it put a scupper on her parents wanting any more children, instead choosing to focus on Seren alone.

4. What type of discipline was your character subjected to at home? Strict? Lenient? Her parents were pretty laid back with her growing up, never really needing to be strict with her as she was a quiet child who never really got into trouble, who enjoyed learning and kept to herself mostly.

5. Were they overprotected as a child? Sheltered? She was protected as a kid, mainly at first from the war, as much as possible but when she moved back to Akila, she soon learnt about prejudice and resentment from others that was only made worse when they moved to New Atlantis again. Her parents may have been laid back with her, but were protective against those who tried to bully her.

6. Did they feel rejection or affection as a child? Only ever affection from her parents.

7. What was the economic status of their family? She remembers them living in a large home in Midtown when she was little, then a modest apartment in New Atlantis, then when they moved back to Akila, the home was smaller in Mid town. Thanks to her father being a professor and her mom working for various businesses as PA, she never went without, but they tended to be modest with their income, just in case. It's why she was happy to help fund a nice central apartment for them when they retired to NA.

8. How does your character feel about religion? Her parents are both Enlightened, though not deeply involved and she is an atheist too, but doesn't subscribe to any system. She can respect other faiths until they start assuming she is like them or tries to push their beliefs on her. Now she is Starborn she knows there are things she doesn't understand, but still doesn't think a divine being created it.

9. What about political beliefs? She grew up Freestar and values freedom, but she also sees the theoretical benefits of the UC. Having grown up in both societies she sees the good and bad in both. Now she feels both systems need a major overhaul and redesign. Ones that care for all walks of life.

10. Is your character street-smart, book-smart, intelligent, intellectual, slow-witted? She has two degrees, one is starship design, the other business, so yes she is well educated. She wasn't street smart at first, but soon learnt to be once she became a whistleblower.

11. How do they see themselves: as smart, as intelligent, uneducated? She knows she is smart and thanks to her empathic nature, can be manipulative. She hopes her compassionate morality tempers that.

12. How does their education and intelligence – or lack thereof - reflect in their speech pattern, vocabulary, and pronunciations?

As above she can use words to manipulate people to her point of view. People have always considered her to have a 'silver tongue'. Being Starborn now and knowing how events usually play out makes it even easier for her.

13. Did they like school? Teachers? Schoolmates? She did a combination of virtual and in situ learning. She didn't enjoy early school as jumping from Freestar to UC then back, made her a target for kids from both sides. It wasn't until secondary school, where she had settled into Akila again, did she find at least some fair weather friends to make life less lonely. When she moved once again to UC space, she stayed with the school for a bit learning virtually so she'd be with people she knew, even if they were never close with her. Her teachers were alright, though she knew they also held prejudices against her, especially the UC teachers when they found she was educated in FC space. She often had to work to prove she was as educated as the rest of the students. Thankfully her father being an acclaimed professor himself, was often able to have a quiet word now and then with them and put that to rest.

14. Were they involved at school? Sports? Clubs? Debate? Were they unconnected? Not really. She did get involved in history club at one point as she was fascinated by Solomon Coe and how he started the FC, but she often argued with the teacher who ran it, who often was very biased against the UC for everything, which Seren knew wasn't accurate. Other than that she tended to keep to herself.

15. Did they graduate? High-School? College? Do they have a PHD? A GED? She graduated with honors in Business and starship design.

16. What does your character do for a living? How do they see their profession? What do they like about it? Dislike? Currently? She doesn't have a set occupation. Each universe is so unique she has to adapt to them. Practically she is an explorer and adventurer...sometimes thief and smuggler: acts she does to survive. In the original universe she loved being part of Constellation and hopes to go back to that when the time..and universe are right.

17. Did they travel? Where? Why? When? She moved a lot with her parents between Akila and New Atlantis, as her father took what ever teaching jobs he could before, during and after the Colony war. When she as an adult turned whistle-blower against the company she worked for, she had to move around a lot whilst she was in hiding as a miner. She made the best of it, her explorer nature developed as part of it. Once she joined Constellation she travelled so much she lost count of the planets she visited. Now her travels take her to places she'd never though possible.

18. What did they find abroad, and what did they remember? That people are the same no matter what.

19. What were your character’s deepest disillusions? In life? What are they now? That when you think things are bad, they can get worse.

20. What were the most deeply impressive political or social, national or international, events that they experienced? Oh boy...The fact the UC kept Vae Victis alive and he knew and used Terrormorphs? The fact Ron Hope was a traitor to the FC, that the UC created the Crimson Fleet in their vile treatment of prisoners. That the artifacts Constellation were collecting led to the multiverse! Just a few things...

21. What are your character’s manners like? What is their type of hero? Whom do they hate?

She is polite, but she is street-smart now and can get the feel for how to interact with people. That was how she was so good at going under cover with the CF for Sysdef. She doesn't have heroes, though her parents are close to that. She hates anyone who enjoys cruelty- The Hunter especially.

22. Who are their friends? Lovers? ‘Type’ or 'ideal’ partner? She is close friends with Barrett and Andreja, as well as Vlad. Less so with Sarah, though she respects her. The love of her life is Sam, in all ways and forms. She never met someone who sparked joy in her life, like he did and still does.

23. What do they want from a partner? What do they think and feel of sex? A best friend, someone who understands them and supports them. She loves sex, the intimacy and connection with another person on that deep level. Thankfully she found a partner who was very into it too.

24. What social groups and activities does your character attend? What role do they like to play? What role do they actually play, usually? Reluctant leader in her original verse. She never wanted to take such a role in Constellation, and even though Sarah was the defacto leader, she often felt that she did more to run the group than Sarah did, when it came to the Artifacts at least. Now they play what ever they need to be to survive each new universe.

25. What are their hobbies and interests? She used to love ship building, and that will come back to her soon. she also loved decorating her homes and outposts. She enjoys weapon and spacesuit design as well as everything that comes with exploring.

26. What does your character’s home look like? Personal taste? Clothing? Hair? Appearance?

Her OG home in Akila was cosy as was her apartment in NA. She liked to mix the more rustic FC style with contemporary features. Clothing wise, she is smart practical, favouring darker colours. Her hair was originally dyed silver grey, but she's since been dark turquoise blue and now sporting deep purple.

27. How do they relate to their appearance? How do they wear their clothing? Style? Quality? She like to wear darker makeup, especially lipstick, getting some semi permanent makeup done at Enhance so she doesn't have to worry about it. Hair wise, she loves colour even if her styles are practical. In fact everything now is practical, but she is keen to maintain her appearance.

28. Who is your character’s mate? How do they relate to them? How did they make their choice? Partner? Sam Coe. She and Sam share a similar sense of humour, she adores how devoted he is to his daughter and thinks she fell in love with him over that first. It showed how compassionate he was.

29. What is your character’s weaknesses? Hubris? Pride? Controlling? Grief and vengeance.

30. Are they holding on to something in the past? Can he or she forgive? At the moment she cannot forgive the Hunter for what he did and from everything she's seen and experienced, she never will. She wishes she could have held onto something from her past, but lost it all in the Unity except her memories. But she holds onto her love for Sam.

31. Does your character have children? How do they feel about their parental role? About the children? How do the children relate? She doesn't have any biological children, though she became much like a mother to Cora originally. She believes Cora thought of her as a mom too, but things didn't go well after Sam's death, with Cora blaming her for not saving him. Now she's Starborn, she's not sure she can have children herself.

32. How does your character react to stress situations? Defensively? Aggressively? Evasively? Depends on the situation. When she knows it's going to be stressful, she can be steady. But sudden events can knock her for six and she can be very emotional about them.

33. Do they drink? Take drugs? What about their health? She is Freestar, so can hold her liquor. She enjoys a glass or three of whisky or bourbon. She had tried Aurora once, didn't think much of it. Now she is Starborn her health is exceptional, but she knows it comes with caveats.

34. Does your character feel self-righteous? Revengeful? Contemptuous? She believes in vengeance. She crosses the Unity in order to become strong enough to end the Hunter.

35. Do they always rationalize errors? How do they accept disasters and failures? She didn't do well after Sam's death. Found it very hard to accept it wasn't her fault. Since then she'd had to time to accept that The Hunter played them all.

36. Do they like to suffer? Like to see other people suffering? They do not enjoy suffering. They jumped universes to try and run from it! But they would happily see The Hunter suffer as well as anyone else who enjoyed cruelty.

37. How is your character’s imagination? Daydreaming a lot? Worried most of the time? Living in memories? She daydreams a lot about finding somewhere to just stop. She worries she will never find that. She keeps her memories close, though she is starting to be more open to living in the moment.

38. Are they basically negative when facing new things? Suspicious? Hostile? Scared? Enthusiastic? She has no choice in experiencing new things, if she has a chance to find a universe she can stay in, she'd take it. She is often terrified of what she will find next but she is quick to adapt.

39. What do they like to ridicule? What do they find stupid? Stupidity and arrogance. She likes to bring down those who are both. See her original universe Delgado and The Crimson Fleet...also Ron Hope.

40. How is their sense of humor? Do they have one? Sometimes quirky and light hearted, sometimes dark and dry. Her experiences have changed her somewhat.

41. Is your character aware of who they are? Strengths? Weaknesses? Idiosyncrasies? Capable of self-irony? She is now acutely aware of the fact she is Starborn. She isn't human anymore. She knows she has powers beyond any human and that comes with a sense of superiority she fights to restrain. Thankfully her empathy helps her keep her sense of compassion and morality.

42. What does your character want most? What do they need really badly, compulsively? What are they willing to do, to sacrifice, to obtain? To find a universe with a Sam just like her first. She knows now it wont be the same, but she can try again and do better this time. She sacrificed her humanity to do this.

43. Does your character have any secrets? If so, are they holding them back? She keeps her Starborn nature close until she trusts those she's with as there is no hiding her abilities in a fight.

44. How badly do they want to obtain their life objectives? How do they pursue them? Desperately. She jumps universes to find the right one.

45. Is your character pragmatic? Think first? Responsible? All action? A visionary? Passionate? Quixotic? She is passionate, but holds it back as best she can in situations where she needs a clear head.

46. Is your character tall? Short? What about size? Weight? Posture? How do they feel about their physical body? She is 5'6" and strong, wiry physique. She is Akilan born so stronger than she appears. She holds herself tall. She knows her Starborn body will always be healthy, but worries what it has changed about her.

47. Do they want to project an image of a younger, older, more important person? Do they want to be visible or invisible? She knows she can command authority, but temper it with camaraderie that people just happily work with her. Being Starborn and in new universes she plays the role she needs to whilst learning where she is.

48. How are your character’s gestures? Vigorous? Weak? Controlled? Compulsive? Energetic? Sluggish? She tends to mirror people when she talks with them, as her empathic nature uses that to make them feel comfortable around her.

49. What about voice? Pitch? Strength? Tempo and rhythm of speech? Pronunciation? Accent? Her voice is cultured Akilan though again she can mirror accents if needed to work with people. Slightly melodic and well spoken.

50. What are the prevailing facial expressions? Sour? Cheerful? Dominating? Very neutral face, but she's been told her eyes are piercing as if looking into their souls.

[vivacissimx]

Do you ever think about how obscenely unfair it is that every single member of the Dead Ladies Club is put on a pedestal and held up as some sort of epitome of virtue because most of them died young and beautiful and desired and are remembered from a considerable chronological distance whereas you’re not supposed to acknowledge any positive points of the living women at all, especially not those with mental health issues.

I believe the pedestal treatment was the initial critique of the OG Dead Ladies Club post, however art imitates life. Re-imaginings that position women as (mainly) courteous, good, kind, beautiful etc. are not always* trite but it's imp to note that those are qualities upper class women have historically been able to aspire to. Someone being [insert positive] is fine. Good for them. But why were they like that? What did it gain them? Cost them? How far did they go or conversely how easily did they break? If we are going to theorize about dead fictional women we need to ask these questions instead of just using them as rubrics to grade other women against.

*When I say not always: I mean in cases like Ned recounting that Lyanna was beautiful, in between chastising Arya for being willful and allowing her to keep Needle. Her beauty isn't the point - that moment and the conversation with Robert in the crypts opens the question: does Ned sympathize with Lyanna? In those final moments they spent together, is it possible they found an understanding? In what direction does his guilt run? His resentment?

*When I say not always: I mean assigning those traits to dead characters is not inherently frivolous. Death is a site of memory. Is that dead girl beautiful because well, we gotta say something about her? Or is she beautiful because she had unrealized potential, because she's a promise yet to be kept? That said, using random virtuous traits to 'flesh out' a character when there are others places to explore is a missed opportunity. Example: the unnamed princess of Dorne. We know she served as Rhaella's lady-in-waiting, a prestigious courtly position. We know she had a friendly and/or strategic relationship with Joanna Lannister, yet a less than cordial one with Tywin. Did that begin in King's Landing? Was the Princess ambitious, ambitious enough to choose living in King's Landing above Dorne while she was possibly already ruling, enough to threaten the Hand of the King? And why were her children all partnered out of Dorne - did she approve of Mellario, of a relationship with Norvos? None of Oberyn's first four baby mothers were Dornish, the eldest Sand Snakes likely conceived out of Dorne entirely, and the Princess wanted Cersei for him. Elia married Rhaegar, which was certainly of the Princess' design, and she likely hosted him when he visited Dorne on the trip that would bring Rhaegar to Griffin's Roost. Why did any of that happen? Did she have a ten-year plan for Dorne, a plan that would benefit even the smallfolk she valued enough to remind Doran to remember them? Northern ambitions perhaps?

*Did Aerys, attempting to punish Rhaella for her lack of affection for him by repeatedly pursuing her ladies, try to seduce the Princess? Did she rebuff him? And in the case of Rhaella, the Princess, and Joanna: why did three women all connected to each other have similar difficulties carrying children to term [Rhaella's numerous miscarriages and dead children, the Princess' Mors and Olyvar, Joanna going 9 years between Jaime/Cersei & Tyrion]? Was the maester's conspiracy at play?

What I'm saying is, if you are so inclined, many a dead lady can be fleshed out without martyring or villainizing her. Erasing misogyny, mess, and mistakes from stories about women makes for a bunch of tragic saints who died in the misery of always knowing better.

In which case, I couldn't care less about them.

Because, on a personal level, I hate re-tellings/headcanons that position characters as predicting (and in AU, successfully avoiding) a future. Useless to me. If you died a long-suffering flawless do-gooder who deserved better, then frankly you should've been more selfish. Everyone should get something they want in a story, but nobody gets everything or nothing. Granted this is at times the fault of the author, of the male gaze, of there simply being no space or leeway for a certain character to get more than they got. But in the business of fleshing out your minor blorbo, remember that they can't just be something, they must also do something. Something which includes missteps & misunderstandings.

Sorry for the essay, anon, but to your last point: yes exalting noblewomen who are provided the resources to perform the theater of womanhood and are successful / reviling those failed women who don't. Hm! Does anyone else remember when bell hooks said feminist sisterhood is when we enforce benchmarks of race and class on each other? Remember that dragons are nukes? And if we give a woman the nuclear codes she'll get her period and obliterate Moscow? Yeah. "Subversive."

[logicalbookthief]

Things Left Unsaid -- An Analysis of Rei & Touya

Apparently Rei has been getting a lot of flack lately, all of it undeserved, and since I had a post analyzing her relationship with Touya in the works already, I figured no time like the present.

Disclaimer #1: There are a lot of issues with the writing for Rei’s character that have nothing to do with her and everything to do with how the storyline is using her, which I will address and examine.

Disclaimer #2: I’m someone who, while always curious as to what kind of relationship Rei had with her oldest son before he died, never thought it would be revealed that Touya was close to his mom. I don’t think you get the Dabi we see in Chapters 290-295 without him being so warped by his relationship with his father yet so dependent on his attention that he was willing to kill his brother and himself simply for his father’s acknowledgement.

But that’s what I find so interesting about Rei and Touya -- it’s a relationship that mainly consists of regrets and things left unsaid. There isn’t the anger or resentment Dabi feels for Endeavor, because that intense level of emotion sprung from the loss of the father who used to be his whole world. His feelings toward his mother seem more amicable, but also more distant.

And while she could’ve done some things differently in regards to her oldest, I want to make it clear that the distance between them was very much by design.

After all, Touya was the end goal of their marriage. It was never any secret as to why Enji wanted to marry her and to some extent Rei must’ve realized that this child was not meant to be hers: the child was the transaction, the thing she was needed to create, to give to her husband. Of course she loved Touya and was likely his primary caregiver for most of his life, but there was no doubt that once his quirk manifested and he could begin his hero training, his life would be dominated by his father. Which is what happened.

Here, I would like to point out something I noticed in the flashback chapters. We never see any panels of Enji alone with any of his children during their infancy -- even with Shouto, the perfect child he longed for, we see Rei holding Shouto, sitting by him as he sleeps. Enji is there tangentially. Once Shouto begins his training, that is when we see him with his father.

So to see Enji with Touya when he was a baby, prior to his quirk manifesting, strikes me as a big deal. But it makes sense if you remember that he’d placed all his hopes, dreams and expectations on his firstborn. Initially, it doesn’t look like he even considered the possibility that Touya wouldn’t be his successor or that his little eugenics experiment would fail; this was his first, most optimistic attempt at a masterpiece. So I don’t believe it’s far-fetched to see him spend more time with Touya right off the bat (it’s what will make the eventual abandonment all the more crushing).

However, Rei isn’t seen at all in the snippet of Touya’s infancy, despite us knowing she was relegated to the caregiver role. Rei is literally out of the picture. Compare this to how she features prominently in Shouto’s infancy or how we see her holding a baby Natsuo. You could argue that, hey, we don’t see her holding a baby Fuyumi either, but there’s other scenes where Fuyumi’s attached to her mother’s hip or crying over her being hurt. Things that suggest a closeness, when the only scene we get of just her and Touya is one where they’re at odds. 

As we move further into Touya’s childhood, though, Rei becomes the only voice we hear advocate for him against his father. I’m referencing two specific instances:

When Enji coerces her into having more children to replace Touya now that his father has deemed him a failure, something she knows will hurt their son deeply.

And after Touya lashes out at Shouto, which Rei doesn’t blame on Touya, but rather on his father. She delivers such a satisfying condemnation of his actions, probably the most cutting one Endvr’s received to date, and it so accurately sums up one of his major character flaws.

How can you call yourself a hero when you can’t even face your own son?

The tragedy of it all is that Rei never said any of this in front of Touya -- it was always said in private, just to her husband. That alone took courage, yes, but it would’ve meant everything to Touya to hear her condemn his father aloud. Instead when she does speak to him, she says this:

It’s why I can’t wrap my head around that scene in Ch 302, where after Enji admits he didn’t know what to say to Touya, Rei replies, “Neither did I.” 

When we’re shown in flashbacks during that same chapter that she did understand her son. “He just wants to be acknowledged by you” is quite the indication that she, at the very least, understood the cause of Touya’s turmoil even if she couldn’t fully relate to it herself. So why can’t she say any of this to him?

The answer is in the way she addresses Touya, as it is nearly identical to how Nao addresses Tenko in this scene:

Both Touya and Tenko grew up in similar households: the father had all the power, physical and financial, so the mothers were left to try and comfort their children in a way that didn’t go against their husbands’ desires -- and so, to use Tenko’s own words, they would “reject them with kindness.”

So it’s no wonder that Touya lashes out at his mother after she suggests he pursue other things. He isn’t five like Tenko was, he’s thirteen and has a much clearer understanding of why she says this and why it’s a bit hypocritical, since he’s aware of her situation, too.

Just as she was bound by her family, who wanted her to marry Endvr for the money and status, he’s bound by the expectations of his family. I’m not sure if I’ve seen anyone else touch on this detail, but when Touya states that he knows his grandparents sold his mom into marriage so his dad could have a child, we could infer that Touya knows enough to realize that his mother might not have necessarily wanted him.

Not him specifically, but any child — the story has neglected to flesh her out beyond her marriage and motherhood, so we have no idea if Rei wanted to become a mother prior to this arrangement, despite how much she loves her kids now — although it is possible that he might’ve internalized it this way.

So you have Touya, who at least knows with certainty that his father wanted him to exist, yet he comes to understand that his father only wants him if he can meet a specific set of expectations, and if he cannot, he’ll be discarded. If he can’t surpass All Might, he can’t fulfill his reason for existing and his father will have to replace him. So to have his mother urge him to follow a path other than becoming a hero would mean, to Touya, accepting that he is the mistake he fears he is. Of course he isn’t going to respond well to that.

I don’t like when people try to compare Touya’s reaction in this moment to Shouto’s when Rei tells him he isn’t bound by his father’s blood, using that to paint Shouto as the “good” child and Touya as the “bad” one. They didn’t react differently because of any innate sense of goodness or lack thereof -- they reacted differently because the situations are different.

Telling Shouto that he didn’t have to be like his father comforted Shouto, who only knew his father as the bully who hurt his mom. He associated his father, and his father’s fire, with all of that fear and pain -- and thus, he associated the part of himself that took after his father with those feelings. She wasn’t denying his dream of becoming a hero, only assuring him that when he became a hero it could be whatever kind of hero he chose to be, that he wasn’t doomed to be like his father.

Whereas what she tells Touya sounds a lot like what his father told him, which was to give up on being a hero and pursue other aspirations.

Encouraging Shouto to become his own version of a hero still falls in line with what Endvr ultimately wants, which is for Shouto to be a hero capable of surpassing All Might. Whereas this is what happens when Touya continues to train to do that against his father’s wishes:

This is where the framing begins to bother me and where Rei’s characterization becomes inconsistent. 

So in this scene from Ch 302, we see Enji abusing his wife for “letting” Touya continue to train, punishing her for her “failure” to stop him. Obviously, none of that is Rei’s fault. If anything, Enji would be more responsible for preventing Touya from hurting himself since he’s the reason his son is hurting himself in the first place.

Moreover, the fact that he hits Rei over this sort of muddies the water of an previously-established narrative. Since the Sports Festival arc, we’ve known that Endvr abused his wife because she tried to interfere with Shouto’s training. It got to the point where she was terrified of her husband and it drove her to a breakdown. Why introduce this new aspect to the abuse, when it was already established that a) he was physically abusive and b) his motivations for abusing her were explicit to the audience? 

I’m not saying it doesn’t make sense that a man who hits his wife for one reason could find another reason to do it and justify his actions to himself. And while the scene does portray Endvr in a bad light to show how wrong his actions are, literally draping his figure in shadow, why does it even dare to suggest the idea that Rei was remiss in her duties as a mother? Again, the scene isn’t even necessary, since the narrative has long-since showed the audience that Enji abused his wife. 

By itself, the scene would read as further exploration of how Rei was victimized and how it affected her children. When you look at it with the chapter as a whole, though? Remember, this is the chapter where Rei claims that all of the family shares the blame in what happened to Touya, displacing some of the blame that rightfully rests on Enji. 

But my major gripe with this scene is how it reframes the sole moment we get of Rei and Touya alone. Because we know that Rei understands Touya, based on her confrontations with her husband in Ch 301 & 302. Rather than encourage him to be what he wants or acknowledge that his father is in the wrong, however, her advice falls in line with what Enji wants -- to stop Touya from training. And this comes after a scene where we see Enji beat his wife when she doesn’t stop Touya from training.

With all that in mind, it could potentially be read as Rei trying stop Touya for the sake of protecting herself and the family -- I don’t think it’s coincidence that in the scene where he hits her that we see Shouto, Fuyumi & Natsuo all as witnesses who are very distressed by what’s happening to their mother -- at the cost of Touya’s need to be validated. And if executed well or at least better than it has here, that wouldn’t be a bad choice of narrative per se, and it would fit into the pattern where the households the villains were raised in -- notably Shigaraki, Dabi & Toga -- mimic the society they live in, just on a smaller scale.

Except. Does that sort of narrative make sense based on what we already know about Rei?

Certainly, it is natural to want to protect yourself under physical and/or emotional duress by appeasing your abuser. This sort of complicated dynamic appears in the Shimura family, too. Just like in the house that Kotaro built, the Todoroki family revolves around the desires of the abuser and is dictated by his whims.

I would argue that Nao does give us a well-written example of this narrative. From the beginning, it’s established that she loves Tenko dearly. But in the house her husband built, there’s no room to love her son as he deserves. She prioritizes the feelings of Tenko’s father for the sake of maintaining peace in the household and this is established quickly and plainly.

Early on in the flashback, Kotaro exerts his control over the house, while Nao + her parents look uncomfortable. Despite this, we watch as they comply with his rules, all at the expense of Tenko’s feelings. When she stands up to Kotaro at last, it is not where Tenko can see and already too late. It’s a painful story, full of regret and sadness, but it is consistent from start to end. Nobody feels out-of-character or there to prop up anybody else.

So why doesn’t Rei feel as consistent in this narrative?

Because it doesn’t fit with everything we knew about Rei prior to her abuser’s subpar redemption arc.

The way she interacts with Touya would make sense, if this was how she was portrayed from the start. However, her behavior in Shouto’s flashback -- where she was first introduced -- contrasts what we get in the later Todoroki flashbacks.

Let’s compare this to the scenes in Ch 302. Here, Rei interferes on Shouto’s behalf. She advocates for her son in front of Shouto where he can hear. She stands up to his bully/villain and tries to protect him, while also validating his feelings in the process. Directly after this, Enji hits her, not for failing to comply with his demands, but for defying him. 

It is difficult to reconcile this Rei with the Rei we get in Ch 302. And if you try to find an in-story reason for the inconsistency, the options either do a disservice to Rei or make things even more painful for Touya. But I’m sure most of you have realized that I’m going to suggest a reason for this inconsistency that goes beyond the canon.

Because when Rei was first introduced in the story, Endvr was unequivocally the villain in the Todoroki family, not some misguided patriarch trying to atone for his “past” mistakes. Years later and in the midst of his redemption arc, the narrative seems to be intent on making this man more palatable to readers, and it’s used Rei at every opportunity to prop up his efforts to be better. Often, though, it takes some of the heat off Enji by displacing it onto other family members, most significantly Rei & Touya.

Like, you can literally see the difference in the frame from early in the manga to now:

Ch 39: Endvr trains his five-year-old to the point where he’s throwing up due overextension and being punched by a fully grown adult who is also his father. Rei tries to protect her son and gets slapped by Endvr. All the blames rests squarely on Endvr, who is clearly the aggressor and painted as the villain here.

Ch 302: Endvr hits Rei for not preventing Touya from sneaking out to train, knocking her to the ground. Again, Endvr is clearly the aggressor, but oh this time it’s not driven solely by his selfish desires it’s also cocnern for his son; Rei is the victim but oh she also should have been watching him more closely, and oh well why was Touya going out in the first place, when everyone has told him to stop and he knows his mom will get punished for it?

Honestly, I can understand where some people have mixed feelings over Rei’s character, particularly since the writing has done her such a disservice recently. With that being said, however, it takes a minimum amount of critical thinking to recognize that while you can criticize some choices she made, you cannot hold her to the same standard of accountability as Enji, it’s absurd. The power imbalance was obviously tipped in Endvr’s favor, always.

It is a shame, too, that we can’t have more discussions that don’t turn into some readers (a lot of whom are attempting to make Endvr sound less horrible than he actually was) trying to demonize her. It’s doubly a shame the story itself doesn’t bother to flesh her out as a person, instead using her as a prop, because the complex relationships she has with Touya -- with all her children, really -- has plenty of room for exploration. 

Like, there was no reason to add this new dimension of resentment due to her spouting Enji’s words back at Touya, when there was already a source of tension supported by previous canon -- the neglect the Todoroki kids suffered because Rei couldn’t be the parent they needed, due to her declining mental health and eventual breakdown.

Or, if you want to complicate their dynamic further, why not add something that focuses on Rei and has nothing to do with Enji? We learn in the flashbacks that Rei agreed to the marriage more-or-less to please her family, lamenting that she “intended to smile through it to the end,” essentially admitting that her hope was she could grin and bear it. It is telling that she had this attitude before entering her marriage; evidently, she was raised with the idea that she should be acquiescent to her parents’ whims and not express herself if she was only going to be contrary. Maybe she didn’t know how to deal with Touya’s very expressive, very emotional outbursts as a result. And her inability to respond would be the exact opposite of what Touya was seeking.

Not to mention that Touya died, and for the last decade, Rei was under the impression she had lost her son forever. He died while she was hospitalized, torn up with guilt over what she did to Shouto, only to find out that her other son died in a frankly horrific manner, and she could do nothing. By the time she would’ve found out, it was too late to even try to do anything. I can’t imagine what she must’ve felt in terms of regret alone, plus her grief. And I’m still mad we were robbed of her reaction to Touya being alive, because now suddenly there is a chance to do something, to change what was once written in stone.

Or what about Touya’s feelings for his mother, that have yet to be given much depth? As the oldest and most aware of his existence, it seems like he was the first to truly understand his mother’s situation and I can’t help but wonder: If Touya knew he vessel for his father’s ambition, and his mother was sold into role of creating/caring for him, did he question her love for him? Once he found out one parent’s love was conditional, it wouldn’t be a leap for him to consider it for the other. And yet if that’s true, Dabi doesn’t appear to hold any ill-will towards her for that. He was angry at her hypocrisy, because he knows she should understand, but her words to him didn’t reflect that.

All of that is fascinating and so much better than what we got in canon, so far at least. I’m hoping for them interact in the present at least once before the end of the series, and I think they will, but as to how satisfying a reconciliation it’ll be, I guess we’ll have to wait to see how the Todoroki plotline progresses from here on out.

[bellatrixobsessed1]

She Never Liked Flies

More Lady Dimitrescu fics! Because I love her very much now lol. 

Summary: A lonely Alcina only has flies for company and she hates them very much. And then she is given a Cadou to work with.

She never liked flies, they are pests. They are bothers. They seem to be drawn to her, especially on days that are sweltering. Days when the bodies she has stacked are festering and baking. She hasn’t gotten around to tasting their meat so the flies have begun to make work of them. She is content to leave them to it so long as they leave her be.

But they don’t seem to appreciate her mercy. They’d rather antagonize her; land on her and make her skin twitch and crawl. She snarls and swats them away; having more success with slapping herself than any of the vermin.

She plucks one from her dress and flicks it away with a scowl. She supposes that she should just be rid of the bodies that are attracting them in swarms. She can harvest the village for new, fresher ones anyhow. Alcina’s face bunches in disdain as she makes her way through a cloud of flies. Their buzzing is incessant and aggravating and--with so many of them--impossible to ignore. They hang greedily about the corpses. Her corpses. She thinks that they may have gotten more of a feast than she had. She waves them away with her hand only for them to drift right back into place as though to antagonize her specifically. She thinks to crush them all, but what a mess that would make and one that doesn’t suit her aesthetic quite as well as blood.

She stoops to pick up one of the bodies. Her hand only has to graze it for a swarm of flies to burst out of the corpse’s chest cavity and into her face. Her face contorts once more in agitation. She thinks that one of the teeny pests has made its way into her mouth. She hoists the body up and over her shoulder. One by one she collects them. One by one the swarm grows larger

A few more moments, she reassures herself. A few more moments and the bodies will be outside and out of mind. A few more moments and she will be mostly rid of this loathsome flies.

She puts it in her mind to never leave the corpses in her dining room for that long again. Their blood is a honey for the flies and the meat is an incubator for their maggots. They multiply at such a ridiculous rate in such optimal conditions.

She ducks under the door and pulls it shut behind her. If she never sees another fly again in her life that would do her just fine.

.oOo.

Alcina finds that the flies are her only company. She isn’t exactly sociable but she shouldn’t like to call herself a recluse. She likes to think herself a fine, well-mannered lady. The sort that worthy, powerful folks might seek kinship with. And yet she has no one at all.

No one who comes by her castle save for Heisenberg every now and then, but his company can be loathsome at the best of times. She thinks it beneath her and yet she can’t help but to crave companionship nearly as ravenously as she desires flesh and blood. She gracefully licks her fingers clean of it.

The girl she drinks from is a pretty thing; youthful and willowy, just older than fifteen. She has the face of innocence, though it is growing ashen and hollow. Sometimes it is hard for her to remember feelings. Sometimes she forgets that she still has them. For her forgetfulness, when emotion does work its way back in, it takes her by surprise. And with surprise comes intensity. Intensity that is almost too much for her to shoulder.

This time it creeps up on her. Slowly. Subtly. Undetectable until she is taken by emotion in full. This time it stirs within her in such a way that she feels almost human again. Weak.

It comes upon her as she stares at that youthful face. It comes under the guise of her yearning for companionship and intimacy. Alcina steps away from the girl’s body and takes to her bedroom, the feeling follows her. Whatever it is, she can’t quite name it. Can’t quite name it and can’t quite shake it. Neither can she understand it. And so she can’t process it.

Putting it aside is her best option. This emotion, like a single breeze through a long abandoned crypt, clings to her. She tries to bury it under the elegant hum of a cello. She perches near her bedroom window and slides the bow over its strings until her wrists start to cramp. And when the melancholy still refuses to leave her she tries to mask it beneath smoke. A drag from her kiseru does little at all. She thinks that she could smoke the night away and see little pay off.

And it comes to her what she is feeling. It is longing. Longing and mournful nostalgia. A touch of regret. And she remembers. Remembers something from very long ago. From what might as well be another life entirely.

She remembers children. It is distant now but she is almost certain that she had, had one. A small boy. A broken boy who didn’t last past his third winter before withering the same as a rose.

She remembers nights both long and short of trying to have herself another to replace the hollow left by the withered child. The child who became feed for the flies. Those hateful flies that have tasted her child on their maws.

She remembers babies who died before they lived. Two of them before she gave up.

Alcina craves company more than ever. The castle seems somehow too big even for her. The only company she has are the flies.

.oOo.

She plants three Cadous. And three Cadous are taken by three separate swarms.

Her lips curl back in resentment, nose crinkles with aggravation. They take her meals and now they tarnish her experiments. Loathsome little beasts. She will be rid of them somehow. She watches them flick and flit about, untroubled and ignorant of what she has in store for them.

They dodge the slap of her hand. Swirling around her as though she is of no concern at all. Her temper rouses. They fly higher as though they think that they can ever be out of her reach. And then they begin to take shape and color.

She very nearly slices them to ribbons and then she sees a face. A young and pretty face. A smiling face with soft doe eyes. The young woman reaches out, her fingers brush the fabric of Alcina’s dress. “Mother?”

She yanks her dress out of its grasp and swats at the thing. A pest, one giant, talking pest.

She hates the face it makes, that pitiful expression.

“Leave.”

It furrows it’s brows.

Perhaps it isn’t as sentient as she had initial thought. It is, afterall, only a cluster of flies. “Leave my castle.” She turns on her heel. Decidedly, she will destroy it if she comes back to find it still dwelling in the room.

.oOo.

She hadn’t expected to come back to two more of them. Surprise and outrage alone became their protectors. “Mother?” The eldest of them inquires again. It’s voice is soft and quiet. The way it looks at her…

It is only a bundle of flies and yet it looks at her with such warmth and love. They all look upon her with the sort of affection she hasn’t seen since her mutation. Something in her breaks. She hadn’t realized that she could still cry, not until she feels wetness on her cheeks.

“It’s okay mother.” Assures the one with the yellow pendant fixed around its neck.

“We’re here now.” Says the third, the youngest presumably.

They are just flies. So many flies. But the eldest steps forward and when Alcina stoops down, she wipes her tears away. Gently, tenderly. Just like a real child.

Hesitantly, Alcina takes her tiny hand. The fly child peers up at her with such adoration, a bright and eager smile.  “You’re going to be alright, mother.” Declares the middle child. “You have us now.”

“You won’t be alone.” Adds the youngest.

And she believes them. She believes her...her children. Absently she finds herself wrapping her arms around them. She can feel the beating of thousands of wings and if she squeezes too tightly some of the flies break off. She can’t help but make a reflexive cringe.

They are unperturbed. The nuzzle their faces against her chest. Her children. The company she had longed for; her human dream finally fulfilled and yet she is apprehensive. They are flies, just an assembly of flies.

.oOo.

She is thankful that she never found it in her to exterminate them. They love her. They look up to her. They give the castle an aura that it had needed. They each have their own quirks. Their own hobbies. Their own peeves and dislikes.

Bela is quiet; a young woman of academia who finds entertainment in discovery and literature. She is a poet and a linguist.

Cassandra is an artist of her own.  She can pick a body apart in ways that Alcina herself could have never dreamed up. The girl has a knack for knives and a sharp tongue to match.

And Daniela is unpredictable. A feral little thing. She is difficult to tame, prone to making a perfect mess of Castle Dimitrescu. Her interests change day to day.

They are a handful. A handful and a helpful. Harvesting the village is easier with their help. Mealtimes and glasses of fine wine are richer now that they are here to make conversation with her. When they laugh with her and inquire, “mother?”

Sometimes she lets them fall asleep leaning against her. Sometimes she reads to them. Reads the stories that she might have read to that little boy had he not wilted. A part of the woman she once loved is still ever present and that part of her loves her little darlings dearly, as though they were born of her own womb and not a Cadou and hundreds of eggs.

They are flies. They are her children. They are her Bela, Cassandra, and Daniela.

She never liked flies but she loves her children.

[voidstilesplease]

love and war

a demigod au [companion] ficlet

~•~

Theo's eyes snap open when he hears the loud honk from outside the motel they're staying. He sits upright in his makeshift bed on the cold floor. It's still dark, and when he checks the clock in the room, only an hour has passed since they went to bed.

He transfers his gaze at the sleeping lump on the single bed, wrapped tightly in the comforter like a human burrito. Stiles is dead to the world, open-mouth with a bit of drool on one side. He looks so young and innocent and can't hurt a fly like this. But under his pillow, Theo can see the handhold of his dagger. They're almost to the entrance of the Underworld now. More monsters are after them. Caution and vigilance are of utmost importance if they want to come back from this quest alive.

Soft snoring takes his attention from Stiles to the shape on the couch. Involuntarily, Theo scowls at the sight of him. Derek Hale, son of Poseidon. He still can't believe he's on a quest with him, or even that all three of them are together in some mad twist of fate and managed not to kill one another yet. Barely, but still. Their godly parents are the worst rivals and are the three Olympians on the verge of a war if Theo, Stiles, and Derek fail. The last thing they should become is allies.

Derek shifts and Theo notes that he looks uncomfortable in his position. It makes him oddly satisfied.

He hears the loud honk again, but it's apparent now that only he does among them. Otherwise, his two companions would have sprung up, wide-eyed and ready to pounce, no matter how exhausted they had been from a full day of running and fighting monsters.

Theo gets up to his feet, clutching the hilt of his sword, and approaches the window guardedly. With sure fingers, he pulls down the blinds enough to peek. The image that greets him gives him a moment's pause, lips parting in surprise. 

Outside, a spotless, white limousine casually parks on the deserted road. A muscular man in black jeans, combat boots, and a red muscle shirt underneath a black vest leans against it. There's a familiar sneer in his mouth noticeable even from afar, and though he's donning sunglasses, Theo knows his eyes are on him. 

He's imagined this happening since his claim at Camp Half-Blood. If he appears to him right now while Theo's in the middle of a make-or-break mission, things must be getting worse in Olympus. He usually communicates to Theo in vague dreams, in a voice in his head, in some other weird manifestation since this started, but never coming to him in the flesh.

He lets go of the blind, delays for a second of contemplative silence, and then opens the door to meet his father, the God of War, Ares.

~•~

He slows his steps as he nears the broad figure. Up close, Theo notices the fire reflecting from inside his glasses. He has heard from his siblings that their dad had fireballs in his sockets instead of eyeballs. And that any children of Ares are compelled by unexplainable force to meet those flares, cowering.

Theo stops and raises his chin to meet his father's gaze, and no matter how he tries and how tough he is, he still dips his head in submission to the god. He swallows, "Father,"

His reply was a terse and detached, "Son,"

Theo lifts his head again, not quite meeting Ares's eyes this time, and hesitates for a second, but asks, "What are you doing here, father?"

The god's face twists like he has swallowed a lemon. His head fastens in the direction of the room Theo is renting for the night. "You have such unpromising companions," he spats, glaring at the window as if he sees through it. Ares probably does. "The son of Poseidon I can scarcely forgive," his attention slips back to Theo, and even without the proper organs, Theo can feel the disgust that would be reflected in them if he had eyeballs. The disapproval is rolling like waves in his aura, and it makes dread crawl up Theo's spine. He hates that his father can evoke such emotions just with his presence. He's also starting to feel his blood boil. "but Athena's spawn?"

Theo bites his lip and balls his fists to avoid saying something that will make his father smite him to smithereens. That is not at all the way he had imagined his first meeting with his father to end.

"She dares call me a thief," Ares's voice does not rise, but it doesn't have to. Theo's hyper-aware of his father's rage, and it makes his knees quiver to kneel and supplicate. 

Theo forces to say the words, "Stiles is helping to find an end to this conflict,"

Ares scoffs, unimpressed. "And by an end," he crosses his burly arms. "You mean victory against our enemies in the war."

Theo shakes his head, breathing through his nose. "I was thinking about not starting a war at all."

The look Ares gives him makes his stomach coil, and he hates it. The god regards him similarly to an insect: small, insignificant, and revolting. "No child of War runs from war."

Theo breathes in deep, his blunt and dirty nails digging in the skin of his palms. "There isn't one yet, that is necessary."

Ares's face thunders and the fire in his eyes glow brighter. It seems the god expresses no aversion to smiting his son right then and there. "She slandered my name-"

"Ares, dear, do be nice now." A silky, feminine voice interrupts his father from inside the limo. And amazingly, the god's anger deflates, albeit grudgingly. He's still enraged, but he's holding himself back from committing a crime. Theo inwardly sighs in relief.

The god purses his lips, nose flaring slightly, "My Lady wishes to give you a weapon,"

Theo draws his eyebrows together, "Your Lady?" Just as he says the question, the answer comes to Theo. He remembers the afternoon Stiles discussed with him in their session about his father's amorous relationship with a fellow Olympian.

"Aphrodite is the goddess of love and beauty and is married to Hera's son, Hephaestus, the god of the forge. The union forced upon Aphrodite as it was a condition made by Hephaestus so he would free his mother, Hera, from being bound into a magical throne he built and tricked the queen of the gods into sitting. Zeus granted it, and so they were married. Aphrodite resented his husband because Lord Hephaestus was, in the standard of the divinities, ugly and lame, and therefore, not befitting the goddess of beauty.

The god tried to gain her affection by designing beautiful jewelry for her in his workshop. But she wasn't interested. Instead, she used the opportunity of his husband's work arrest in his workshop to be unfaithful and be with other gods or goddesses, and even mortals.

Then she met Ares, and they fell in love. They kept on having affairs with other immortals and mortals, but they always came back to each other -even though that's against the rule of formal infidelity of the Greeks."

"Bring him in, dear,"

The soft voice breaks Theo's reverie, and with a huff, his father motions him to the door as requested by the goddess Aphrodite.

He doesn't know what to expect the goddess of beauty would look like, but when the door opens, Theo catches a glimpse of the car's occupant, and he thinks he hallucinated Stiles for a brief moment. When he blinks, he now sees the flowing hair and feminine features instead of gelled up hair and slender muscles.

He takes a seat, and the door shuts. Theo finds himself captivated by the different aura that she emanates in comparison to what he had felt with his father. His skin feels warm instead of burning, and his heart steadies instead of races. He stares at the face of the goddess, and if he isn't so gone, he would have remembered his manners -whatever little he has. At least, the goddess doesn't seem offended by the rapt attention -she's probably used to it- but amused.

Theo had never mentally built a picture of the goddess, but he didn't expect for her to have moles sprinkled in her pale face or have amber, almost molten liquid, eyes. But she has an elegant upturned nose and pink cupid's bow lips, which are as expected. Her features remind Theo so closely of Stiles. That must be why he thought he saw him for a second there.

When she smiles, it even feels familiar to Theo.

"What do you see?" She asks.

"Um," Theo swallows and licks his dried lips. "Your beauty, goddess."

She emits a soft, coy chuckle. "It is not universal. Do I resemble someone specific that you know?"

The question throws him for a little, and he blinks. "Yes," He says honestly, figuring there is no point in lying.

The smile on her face broadens, "My beauty is an individual's perception of it, son of Ares. It is one or the other, depending on who's looking."

He frowns, confused. Before he can ask what the goddess is trying to say or process it himself, Aphrodite procures an object in her hands that she passes to Theo. When he looks down at the item, it's a palm-sized rose looking-glass. He sees his reflection as he studies it. It's a simple circular mirror with roses encrusted around it; each petal is elaborately carved.

"It is a present from my husband," the goddess says.

Theo nods, thinking it makes perfect sense. Something as well-crafted as the item he holds must only be from a god. 

"When you absolutely need it," she continues, "look upon the mirror, and help will come. It grants only one call."

He gives the goddess a quizzical look, "Why are you giving it to me, though, Lady Aphrodite? I am grateful and honored to receive such a gift," he hastily adds, remembering Stiles's warning of always showing gratitude to the gods. It avoids spontaneously combusting. "But I don't know why me?"

Thankfully, she seems to be in good spirits because she only inclines her head. "Do you think it appropriate if I gifted that to the children of my beloved's rivals?"

Theo made a humming noise.

"I must say," she adds, "I assumed if it was the son of Poseidon I invited, I know what image he would see in my face. But, I wonder," she gives Theo a look, her brown eyes twinkling in the same fashion as Stiles's when he formulates a clever, and devious idea. "If it was the son of Athena, whose face would he have seen between two?"

Theo pauses, caught off guard.

Then, the goddess straightens. "Remember. Only once. Choose the moment wisely."

Theo opens his mouth to thank her once more and asks what is in exchange for the goddess' generosity. Stiles had also taught him that gods don't just hand out presents to the mortals they favor without a deed or a sacrifice. But, the next time he breathes, he's back inside the room, sitting in his comforter on the floor.

He blinks rapidly and scrambles to his feet toward the window. He pulls the blinds aside and sees nothing but a deserted road outside where the limo has been.

He almost thinks he dreamt it, but when he looks at his hand, Aphrodite's mirror is in there.

"Remember. Only once. Choose the moment wisely."

~•~

[1][2][3][4][comp 1]

[biiscione]

               INTRODUCTIONS: Panagiotis  &&  Konstantinos                  “ Κατα μανα κατα κυρη κατα γιο και θυγατερα                                        De tal palo tal astilla.                        The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. ”

***please check the end of post for tw/cw before continuing Background Panagiotis, preferably Panos, is of Greek and Armenian descent. His parents, formerly Greek nationals, immigrate to the United States after the birth of their first child, Jocasta, and it is in the Olympia, Washington that their son is born. His early childhood is happy though odd as he grows into two worlds: one of his revolutionary refugee parents exiled from their homeland and the other of American Suburbia. Death continuously alters his course, distorting a happy childhood into one of pain and suffering. Forced to live with his father’s brother and his wife in New Jersey, he endures abuses hurled at him until his late uncle’s death. Hardened and barely a teenager, he travels northward to the Big Apple. In Brooklyn he finds a way to make money, not in the most honest of ways, but hey, it keeps a roof over his head. While collecting rent for some big mucky - muck landlords in Bushwick, he ends up meeting who will be the mother of his son. She’s a few years old than he but just as calloused to the world. There time together is short - lived and a few months after Konnie is born, Panos is a single father. Strapped for cash and getting to know the truth of his parent’s past as anarchist revolutionaries, he endeavors to travel to his distant family in Macedonia where he then leaves his son and travels to Athens. Following in his father’s footsteps is quite easy and he takes to the streets just as he had to fight tyranny and fascism. This dreamlike sequence of valor ends with the death of a close friend, collateral damage to the volatile politics in Athens, and Panos’s own incarceration in his own failed attempt at a revenge killing. After serving his time, he returns to Macedonia to find his infant son already a smart, sensitive little boy. In a quarter-life crisis and realizing he needs to get his shit together for his son, he finds mercenary work in Central Asia and the Middle East.... and he hates it. There’s just something about assisting a private military organization stage de facto wars on resource - rich regions that didn’t sit right with him. So, after ensuring his payment, he throws a wrench or two into his employer’s plans and dips as fast as he can. He returns to Athens briefly, hoping to find permanent work that didn’t necessarily compromise his morality. A friend informs him of a mercenary job in Italy as a glorified bodyguard so he takes it upon himself to travel there with his son and what little money he has left. There’s nothing like an in-person interview, right? Panos lands the job working for a reclusive, wealthy man ( mostly on account of him being somewhat attractive and a single dad ) and the rest is history. Personality Abrasive and aggressive doesn’t necessarily mean bitter and unkind. He can be loud and a little too friendly at times ( a mask for his borderline - crippling anxiety and undiagnosed mood disorder ) but just chalk it up to his blended accent. Overtly sexual jokes and blunt questioning is meant to vet any weakness in the prospects of friendship, while also being a handy - dandy tool to be antisocial. He dislikes authority figures but as he ages, he tends to keep his cool as long as they leave him alone. While he airs less on the polite side of socializing, he does hold himself to a high moral code, nothing too chivalrous or anything, but he would defend another’s human rights with his very life. He’s loyal to a fault and has a hard time distancing himself from those he has grown fond of, even when their morals do not align with his own. Appearance He stands 6′ (give or take a half inch) with lax posture and lean frame. Tawny - colored hair, long - topped with a short undercut, is typically dressed in pomade and slicked back. He has blue eyes, icy or azure dependent on lighting. Olive - toned skin stays paled as he keeps away from the sun. Nose is shaped in the classic hellenic fashion, rather, it was . . . it’s been broken so many times that it sits crookedly upon his face, a bump breaking the Greek silhouette of his bridge. Full lips settle into a pout on his rarely expressionless face. His face is quite square, accentuated with a wide jaw. High cheekbones are accentuated not by makeup but tattoos, a broadsword along the hollow of one cheek. Misc. tattoos dress his arms and neck. A tattoo of a Roman/Sol Invictus diadem and ‘Κωνσταντῖνος’ along the crown’s band is on the left - side of his chest. Fingers are tattooed with anarchist and subtle anti - fascist symbols, blurred and faded with age. The juxtaposition of his rugged physical appearance with his bespoke wardrobe accentuates the starkness between his past life as a revolutionary and his quiet life as a mercenary/gun-for-hire. Notes ● is a devout member of the Greek Orthodox Church, despite his negative relationship with his priest uncle. ● avoids romantic and sexual relationships ● physical affection that he doesn’t initiate himself his wholly unwanted and is often violently rejected ● uh... heterosexual? sort of? ● loves to paint ppl, especially portraits ● thinks knives are pretty cool ● good at making things look like accidents Background Konstantinos, fondly Konnie, is American - born like his father and mother of Puerto-Rican and German descent but he doesn’t remember much of where he was born, his mother, and the apartment they lived in together. His earliest memory is of his father’s grandmother, the scars upon her flesh concluding stories she could not finish herself. In Macedonia, he has many mothers; though they remain faceless in his mind, they carry with them the same sweet scent of chrysanthemums. He does not recall his father being in his life till he’s just learning how to read and write, when he takes him away from the comfort of his many-mothers. As he grows, the gentle boy is troubled with this realization but cannot come to resent his father for his decision. He is whisked off to an unfamiliar place where unfamiliar people speak in an unfamiliar language. However, he is still young enough to teach, to mold, and he takes to this new language so easily that he almost forgets the tongue of his many-mothers. In his time in primary school, he earns the badge of polyglot. As he grows and becomes an acceptable age to be sent away, he is offered the chance to go to several prestigious boarding schools by his adoptive grandfather but, much to his relief, his father softly declines this generous offer. As he has been torn from comfort before, he holds the pain of the trauma of being taken from familiarity, causing him to be anxious and he is, although he excels in much that he does, unsure of himself, even at the tender age of eleven. He clings to his father and grandfather and the many people who work/reside upon his grandfather’s estate, for everyone there is gentle and keenly aware of his nervousness. Even now, at fifteen/sixteen, he still finds himself most comfortable in the quietest corners of his grandfather’s estate. Personality Those who are unfamiliar with him, especially extroverted adults, may find him, not shy, but haughty on account of his observant quietness and stature. He does not interact well with children his own age and, if he does find himself accepted into a friend group, he is the reserved listener. However, timidness is overshadowed by his morality, defending others valiantly and with a vulgarity that almost completely mirrors his father’s. Silence is complacency, his father taught him, and he is steadfast in his actions in the face of injustice and cruelty. Opposite his father, he is soft - spoken and educated in his speech. He is quite agreeable in mood and disposition though is considered “irregularly emotional” for a teenage boy by those stuck in the Old World. His emotional intelligence was nurtured by Panos, whose own emotional intelligence was stunted, and he is particularly empathetic and kind, with others and himself. Maybe that could get him in trouble later in life. Appearance At sixteen, he is 5′11 but looks taller with his stately posture and lean build. His face shape is much softer than his father’s with rounded jaw and fuller cheeks. He has his father’s full lips and his mother’s narrow, bowed - bridged and wide - tipped nose. Head is topped with light brown, tawny - tinted waves, hair long enough to curl around his ears, at the nape of his neck, and on his forehead. He has his father’s color-changing, light hues and they are further accentuated with his olive - toned skin that darkens easily in summer under an Italian sun. His attire is always shifting and evolving though always echoes the softness of his personality. Notes ● though raised in a Roman Catholic household, he is a practicing member of the Greek Orthodox church ● loves animals.... so much. often babysits his grandfather’s pet snakes (though he prefers the furry sorts) ● a casual art historian ● wants to be a mary wollstonecraft shelley historian when he gets older ● dad taught him how to shoot and he’s a very good marksman ● because his father constantly changes his own last name, panos and raphael agreed that konnie would take raphael’s, if not for stability, for social prestige

Shipping p: it’s rare that there’s chemistry for a sexual/romantic ship but i’m pretty open to trying! love enemy ships for him tho! k: no sexual/romantic ships since i’ll play him as a minor both: platonic and familial ships, ftw Selectivity/Activity p: always active/ will interact with everyone and anyone k: quite finicky/ will interact with anyone ***Trigger Warnings talk of: physical, mental, and sexual abuse, violence, death, graphic sex, death, mental illness, disordered eating, anxiety, weapons actions: physical and emotional violence, murder, body horror, disordered eating, weapons (guns and knives) Panos’ childhood was full of abuse: mental, physical, and sexual. I won’t bring up specifics in my writings unless prompted and will tag them accordingly. Panos does engage in a lot of violence and uses violent language. Panos suffers from disordered eating and a mood disorder, the earlier shown in less than subtle ways. Konnie has generalized anxiety. If any of these things are a serious problem, message me and I’ll be sure to constantly tag them. If you find yourself overwhelmed or know you will be, please don’t be afraid to soft block. I really wouldn’t mind.

[magaprima]

In the scene in the freezer, when Sabrina is out of time and needs to sort Lucy and Jimmy out, Lilith says “I’ll see to the girl” and reaches out to Lucy, encouraging not just Sabrina to hand her over, but for the girl to come to her. 

It’s a very natural movement and I’ve talked about the fact that when Lilith was created, she was made with the intent to be what Eve eventually was the All Mother and the All Wife, so maternal instinct will be written into the very fabric of her being. It’s just Lilith acknowledge being naturally maternal doesn’t mean you have to be  Mother, that you have to engage it, she rejected it and through her time in Hell and time with Lucifer and over the millennia learned that maternity is viewed as weakness and used against you so she repressed it into non-existence. But it does come out in moments such as when she’s acting as Principal, when she’s with Sabrina, and now here with Lucy, where she has even put her hand around her to draw her close. 

Lucy is already clinging to her and Lilith hasn’t even noticed. Primarily, because she’s fully focused on Sabrina, but also because, as I said, she was created with this in mind and that instinct is in her whether she acknowledges it or not (in the same way, babies and kids do love me, I’m naturally great with them. But I currently have no desire for children at all, and I will only willingly look after little girls. Little boys are a no-no because the chaos and noise and sports-focused habits are not being brought into my life. Yet, left with one, I’d probably do a good job. Instinct does not equal desire. So what we’re seeing here is instinct). 

She’s even holding Lucy in return, keeping her hands around her, and it’s only when Sabrina leaves that she suddenly realises ‘wait, there’s a child attached to me’ because it didn’t feel unnatural until she noticed it. And that’s when you get this moment because she’s now conscious of the child and everything in her conscious instinct rather than subconscious rejects it

Also as an extra note I love when the kid looks up at her and they meet each other’s eyes and Lilith’s expression does not change at all. She retains the ‘a bug has attached itself to me, please do not imprint on me and act like I’m your mother’ kind of look 

 But Lucy is entirely unfazed because, by the time Lilith has wiped her memory of being in there (’all she remembers is eating ice cream and then you’) and gotten her back to her home, the child is STILL holding onto her tightly. Lucy clearly sees Lilith as a safe adult, as a grown up who is going to help her, who is the only motherly figure in the nearest vicinity and so clings to her until she finds her actual mother. Children are more perceptive than adults, and kids, tend to draw away from people who have bad energy, they can’t explain it or understand it, they just know they don’t want to be near this particular person. Lucy clearly feels no such thing with Lilith, quite the opposite in fact, and I think that says a lot about the kind of person Lilith originally was. 

Lilith is not touching the kid at all by the time she drops her off. She is going out of her way not to touch her. Part of me feels this is because that unconscious instinct, that maternity she was originally created with, can be felt by Lilith herself if she gets too close to the child, even simply by hugging her, and so she avoids it at all costs. It’s not just the ‘ew mortal child’, it’s also ‘I refuse to feel things’. She knows the traps of getting attached (Sabrina, Adam, the Fright Club) and she ain’t gonna let this child get under her skin either, so she keeps herself from making any connection at all. And just hands the child off to her Mother like she’s a handbag ‘I believe this is yours’. And goes to leave

Only she doesn’t...she hangs back and watches the Mother and child hug. 

She really watches them and it’s not with a hateful or bored or disgusted expression. She’s genuinely watching them being reunited and seems to be considering it. 

Considering the fact that her work means these two are reunited, considering the mother and daughter hugging each other tightly (as Lilith as absolutely no one who would ever be that relieved to have her back. She’s looking at something she doesn’t have in any shape or form and perhaps even wonders at it or laments it) and then it’s yet again that case, as it was in the exorcism episode, where Lilith is being genuinely thanked for something. Her actions are being appreciated, and that is something that always emotionally reaches Lilith. 

Which leads me to the pre torture scene

“But I’m not sure how much use you’ll get out of his body once I’m through”

Lilith is personally taking on the job of torturing him. She’s not assigning it. She says ‘once i’m through’ not we’re or they’re, but I’m, and I think that’s significant, especially as she’s also implying she will torture him to the point of being unrecognisable, not even worthy as a flesh bag. I feel like Lilith has taken this case a bit more personally, just as Sabrina has, and I do believe it’s because of her brief time with Lucy and seeing how relieved her Mother was. As I said, Lilith doesn’t have anyone at all who cares about her that way, and the way she attached herself to Adam 2.0 and the way she fell in love with him because he cared about her that way, shows it is something she misses, and it was something she briefly enjoyed with Lucifer in the beginning. She’s had it twice and lost it twice, and so I feel this whole Lucy returned to her Mother thing has struck a chord with her...hence her place to personally see to Jimmy’s torment. 

And now, onto the way I feel this is foreshadowing for the pregnancy storyline. 

This scene is all about Lilith having the responsibility of a child she doesn’t want. The pregnancy is basically Lilith having the responsibility of a child she doesn’t want. The child’s name is Lucy, which is apposite considering Lucifer can be shortened to Luci, and is nice foreshadowing for the baby being Lucifer’s. 

Yet, what we see is despite Lilith not wanting this responsibility, she does well with it. Lucy seems to like her (Even the Mother says that Lucy just remembers Lilith rescuing her so obviously made an impression) and certainly likes her enough to hug her, showing physical affection, and even though Lilith consciously rejects it, there’s obviously something that effects her, because of the way she looks at the pair of them and her plans to torture Jimmy. 

So is this what we’re to expect from the child storyline. Even though undesired, are we going to see that Lilith does well with it? Are we going to see that despite her stand-offishness and resentment, the child in question is going to be attached as Lucy was, and that the way Lucy was with her Mother, two people who actually care more about each other to not give a shit about everyone else essentially, is that something Lilith is going to have in a permanent way that previously? And Lilith planning to torture Jimmy personally, is that foreshadowing for how violently defensive/protective Lilith will be? Hopefully against Lucifer. I think it’s interesting that Lucy and her Mother seem to be a single parent only child family, because that’s essentially what Lilith will be. 

People often think of Mother as being a softer role-- loving, gentle protector. But they forget that a Mother will burn cities to keep their child safe. I mean that whole ‘do you save five strangers or one loved one’ question where you’re supposed to say five stranger? My Mum openly said once ‘I’m sorry, but if you were in danger, fuck those strangers. I’m sorry but they can burn in that building. I’m getting you’. Being a Mother can be a great strength not a great weakness and is this not only what we’re going to see as an audience, but something Lilith will discover for herself. I mean Joyce Summers knocked a vampire out with a fucking axe to protect her daughter and she was a mere human who had no clue what was going on. Lilith is the Mother of Demons, First Witch and Rightful Queen of Hell: what levels of strength and fight will she discover through this new part of her life. 

I’d personally love if this foreshadowing to show the child is not going to be Lucifer’s heir, but Lilith’s. And instead will be Lucifer’s undoing. 

[razberryyum]

The Untamed/陈情令 Rewatch, Episode 14, Part 2 of 2

(spoilers for everything MDZS/Untamed)

[covers MDZS chapters 55 and 56]

WangXian meter: 🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰+🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰+🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰+🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰+🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰+🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰+🐰🐰+🐰🐰+🐰🐰

Every glimpse we’re provided of the Jiang family life is really equal parts discomfort and electricity because of Madame Yu. Even though each scene usually involves both familial and marital strife, which is usually very uncomfortable for me to watch, I find myself completely incapable of turning away because of her, even as I’m wincing for Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian’s sake. Madame Yu is just so AWESOME. The way she sweeps into every scene she’s in, eyes flashing, taking charge and commanding the room is really breathtaking. As I’ve mentioned before, while I would never want her to be my mother nor do I support her method of mothering, I still completely respect and love her. Every line of dialogue from her is spoken with such conviction and impact and ferocity that I can’t help but grinning in admiration, even when her words are meant to hurt and belittle the boys I love.  

I mean, that alone is pretty brutal to say in front of her son and ward.  While I’m sure Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying spent most of their lives hearing divisive statements like that from her, it’s really a testament to their basic good natures that they still ended up being so close.  I’m sure Jiang Fengmian being present to counter his wife’s harshness helped a lot, but if JC or Shijie were even the least bit petty, arrogant or unkind, they could’ve been easily swayed by Madame Yu’s influence and held her words against Wei Ying. The fact that they didn’t at all and still loved this orphaned boy like their own flesh and blood brother really makes me love the siblings that much more. I’ve always thought it’s quite sad that Madame Yu couldn’t find it in her heart to love Wei Ying as well, especially since he really is so lovable and adorable, but jealousy is an ugly and powerful monster that is hard to defeat, so it’s really a shame that she let it overcome her to the point that even her relationship with her husband and children was negatively affected.  Not to mention, I can only imagine how unhappy Madame Yu herself felt, believing as she did that she will always be inferior to the memory of a woman who has already passed and also questioning her husband’s fidelity and loyalty even so many years later. It’s obvious that her quick temper and biting words are the manifestations of her unhappiness. For such a capable and strong woman who could have easily been a sect leader in her own right, I really wish she could have been had a more joyful life.    

It should be noted that for her all her magnetic screen presence and impressive performance, actress Zhang Jing Tong, who portrays Madame Yu, is only 30 years old with just a few credits to her name. It’s amazing when I think about the fact that even though she’s only two years older than Xiao Zhan and Xuan Lu and seven years Wang Zhuo Cheng’s senior, she pulled off the Jiang matriarch role with total aplomb. Watching her I never for one second doubted she was their mother, head of the Yunmeng Jiang sect and household because of the authoritative air she possesses. Prior to looking up her professional history, I actually thought she was an industry veteran and I somehow just never saw any of her shows even though I’ve watched my fair share of Chinese dramas. The fact that she hasn’t been in that many shows just makes me appreciate her work in CQL even more. The degree of success in which she's brought Madame Yu to life is truly amazing: it’s as if the character literally just walked off of the pages of the book.  I hope she gets a lot more high profile professional opportunities from now on as a result of her wonderful performance in The Untamed.

Yunmeng Bros Love

It’s so difficult not to cry or at least get teary-eyed watching this scene now; I sure as heck couldn’t get through it without a few tears this time. The love these brothers have for each other, what they sacrificed for each other, just makes my heart hurt so much. What’s most heart-aching is that this really is the last time they can still laugh and embrace like this without any reservations, without any sadness or true regrets, because their family, despite its imperfections, is still whole. So this moment, this promise, in addition to serving as a testament to their bond, also feels like a marker of the end of their childhood and their innocence since soon after this is when all their dark days start arriving.

Clive Barker Would be Proud

Going back to the Xuanwu of Slaughter’s cave, even though I still don’t understand enough about the anatomy of the creature to be able to figure out how it can have so much room in its own shell to allow for storage space since the last I checked, that’s not how a tortoise’ body fits inside their shell, and if it’s actually a snake then why couldn’t I just come out of its shell to go after the boys earlier, I still appreciated the set design within its disgusting abode. Team CQL really did execute the gore and squelch elements quite well. That interior was pretty effectively creepy and gross.

Prelude to the Yiling Patriarch

Not gonna lie, that smirk does funny things to my tummy. It’s so deliciously sexy and evil. Makes me wish they had gone full darkside with Wei Ying when he became the Yiling Patriarch, or at least retained most of the moral ambiguity he had in the novel. We get his Yiling Patriarch smile a few more times after this, thank goodness, but since this is the first glimpse we get of it, I will always have a soft spot for this moment.  

I would love to see Xiao Zhan take on a truly villainous role one of these days since I think he would really excel at it and can totally succeed at making the audience both love, hate and fear him in such a role, but considering his elevation to leading man status now, I doubt that will ever happen anymore. Such a shame. He would’ve been scarily effective and alluring.

Jin Zixuan Appreciation Time

I’m going to take a moment here to show some appreciate to our dear bro-in-law. At the outset, I had thought he was a dick unworthy of our dear Shiji because of the way he treated her in the beginning and his rudeness towards Wei Ying.  I have since warmed up to him considerably, and now I think some words of praise is due. For being the son of a perverted piece of shit and growing in the lap of luxury, Jin Zixuan honestly turned out to be much better than his genetics and upbringing should have produced. Actually, I should give Madame Jin some credit, since she seemed to have a somewhat good head on her shoulders considering her favoring of Shijie. Most likely the reason why JZX turned out to be a decent enough man was because his mom did most of the parenting work. Despite his initial treatment of Shijie, I was impressed by how protective he was towards Mian Mian when she was being targeted by Wen Chao. Being a product of a total lecher of a father, it’s actually amazing that he never predatorized Mian Mian himself. Hell, I wouldn’t even be surprised if he had to protect her from his own father (yeah I really don’t think highly of Jin Guangshan at all). But no, he’s absolutely upstanding and I did also appreciate the fact that he went back with Jiang Cheng to rescue Wei Ying and Lan Zhan when he could have easily just not do so having already escaped. He was risking the Wen’s wrath in doing that so I know it did take guts and a strong sense of chivalry. I guess that’s why Shijie fell in love with him early on: she obviously saw something in him right from the start that took me this long to see.  

Other Odds and Ends

I remember being flabbergasted when I first saw this image on Wei Ying’s headboard because I simply could not believe what my eyes were seeing. Naturally I wanted to know everything about that illustration: did Wei Ying draw it himself? Who was he thinking of when he drew it? I know it can’t be Lan Zhan since the drawing obviously predates their relationship, so who could it be? Jiang Cheng? That thought actually did cross my mind very briefly way back but since I prefer their brotherhood above any shipping possibilities, I dismissed that thought almost as soon as it arose.  I know now that drawing is probably nothing more than an Easter Egg by Team CQL, but I still appreciated it since I thought this was even more blatant than the gay porn they snuck in back at Cloud Recesses’ library pavilion scene. That drawing wasn’t as clearly shown as this one and seemed more ambiguous. Really, bravo to their boldness, and bless the censors for overlooking this little bit of fun as well.

This poor kid. I should’ve known his life would soon come to a premature end as soon as they focused on him and gave him a sweet learning moment.

Just FYI for anyone who cares: looks like this while thinking of Lan Zhan is the reason this scene gets two 🐰.

Questions I Still Have

- Why did Lan Zhan let Wei Ying keep that disgusting, bloody sword even though he had to have clearly seen the demonic black smoke coming from it and surrounding Wei Ying while they were fighting the Xuanwu of Slaughter. Even if Lan Zhan missed the smoke, why wouldn’t he have at least sensed the all the evil and resenting energy emanating from the sword? Considering its origins, you’d think its ominous aura would be so overwhelming that even someone with a low level of cultivation would sense it, much less someone as cultivated as Lan Zhan. Not to mention, just in terms of sanitary issues, why would someone like him, who prefers cleanliness and has some knowledge of infection prevention, even let Wei Ying continue to hold on to that filthy thing anyway? I know story-wise, the sword is important and needed for later on, but I’d honestly rather they kept with the novel in this instance and had it just fall back to the bottom of the water in the cave.  It could still magically reappear at the Burial Mounds later on because it already recognized Wei Wuxian as its owner or something like that.

- Actually, what I also don’t understand is why Wen Ruohan never sensed this most powerful piece of the yin metal when it was so close to his stomping grounds? Why did that the first piece of metal he obtained call out to the pieces that were farther away instead of this one which was much closer? Unless, the reason is because the yin metal sword was activated because the other pieces finally reunited?  

Huh.  

I actually never considered that possibility until now, but if that’s the explanation, I can accept it. I guess this question might have been answered.

Overall Episode Rating: 9 Lil Apples out of 10

Disclaimer: The Untamed would not be possible without Mo Dao Zu Shi and Mo Xiang Tong Xiu-laoshi. I mean no disrespect whatsover when at times I may favor the shwo over the MDZS bible that is the novel. All hail MDZS and MXTX-laoshi, always and forever!    

[kshitij1997]

Hi everyone!

Hmm, so I have introduced a lot of the main characters already in my fanfic. Here’s a short summary of what defines each character, if people don’t fancy reading the whole story, or are confused by who’s what. Also added some characters not introduced yet, titbits and many future plot points.

 

Runeard:- Ruthless, oppressive tyrant whose destructive actions against the Northurldra are the lynchpin of the epic, and will affect Elsa, Olva(Original Character) and Anna decades down the line as they effect Agnarr and Iduna presently.

Agnarr and Iduna:- The present king and queen of Arendelle(Stand-in for Norway and Sweden). They are presently in marital and familial bliss as they have just welcomed Olva in the family, just 14 and a half months after Elsa was born. They’ll be put to the ultimate test of their lives soon enough.

Reginald and Sophia:- The present king and queen of Corona(Stand-in for Prussia) and close friends of Agnarr and Iduna. Princess Sophia hails from Austria-Hungary, from the Habsburg clan. Their union has made them the dominant power couple in Central Europe. Alas their child, princess Eva Rapunzel has been kidnapped. They have spent a massive amount of their personal wealth on finding their daughter, building the kingdom’s strength through alliances throughout Europe, but to no avail.

Princess Eva Rapunzel:- Feared dead. There have been rumours of sightings in the small islands near Northern Cyprus in the present-day Ottoman empire, however the ships sent to navigate the region seldom come back, and the Ottomans are not too keen on helping Corona, ever since relations soured between the two when the Monarchs of Serbia were brutally assassinated. There are some disputable stories that claim that she may have the ability to grant life. (May have a fascination with the human body and healing and treating people.)

Flynn:- Some very murky details on this one. An orphaned street rat who at one point supposedly ran the most profitable dodge racket criminal empire in the Rhinelands with fellow partner in crime, Markus. With Markus gone, Flynn is on the run, a warrant out against him where he has been charged with the burning of the Mansion, a very important monument to Corona.

Princess Elsa:- The heir apparent to the throne of Arendelle, and the first-born daughter of Agnarr and Iduna. Blessed with powers over Ice, she may be destined for greatness, or great pain, whatever makes the mythical hero’s sacrifice count. May have problems with self-worth, self-pity, anxiety, depression and emotional distance from her loved ones.

Princess Olva:- The second-in-line for the throne, a feisty kid with an academic bent, cares deeply for her family. May experience trauma from an accident, in order to recover from said trauma, she may take the supernatural path destined for her. Unlike Elsa, she tries to live in the real world. She may not suffer from anxiety issues, but there may be problems with rage, bitterness, pain and obsessive tendencies.

Princess Anna:- Soon to be youngest child of the Arendellian Monarchs, she is happy go lucky, loves her family and is outdoorsy. Which does not mean that she doesn’t have dark secrets of her own. She may struggle with abandonment, trying to reconnect with those she lost. She wears her heart on her sleeve. Her innocence may be endearing to some, but the same quality renders her a target for the world. Despite all that, she tries to be courageous for those she cares for the most.

Prince Hans/Janus:- The fated prince thirteenth in line for the throne, he may have an enormous responsibility entrusted upon him by his imposing mother. Is trying to find peace, may be a people pleaser but values freedom and joy over everything. May go to any length to achieve his desires. If not freedom, then power for sure. His heart may be driven towards the ocean.

The Northurldra:- The largest minority in the kingdom of Arendelle. The Northurldra and southern Arendelle have been at loggerheads since the middle ages, but in recent history, the divide has been deepened when Runeard waged war against them. With the mist splitting the north from the south, the Northurldra have fallen on desperate times and must resort to piracy and smuggling. Growing resentment against the crown of Arendelle may lead to assassination attempts or might even lead to all-out war.

Kristoff:- Not yet introduced in the story, but he is from a family of commoners with a trusty reindeer friend he calls Sven. His family cuts and sells ice for a living. After a nasty incident with some border bandits from the north, he’s left alone in the wilderness where the clan of the rock hermits find him and take him in.

Grand Pabbie:- The patriarch of the rock hermit clan, he is a being of half rock and half human flesh and blood, with vines and moss in place of hair. A supernatural being possessing great ancient powers, he is the curator and guardian of the Arendellian wilderness. Every winter, he goes deep into meditation in order to appease the gods to keep the winters forgiving. Knows past, present and future, but sternly believes in letting things take their course and not intervening with fate and destiny.

Queen Paulina Karazmov:- The sixth and present wife of the king of the Southern Isles, she is bitter about the loss of the kingdom of Poland, which was her ancestral homeland. She hopes to see Poland rise from the ashes, even if she must sacrifice her son Janus, also known as Hans by his father, the king.

King Christian the eighth of the Southern Isles (stand-in for Denmark):- The present king of the Southern Isles, the king is in his late middle age, father to thirteen children. He is confident that his large family could help gain control in Europe and wrest the supremacy from the Habsburgs.  Little does he fathom or know; he might be nursing a succession crisis in his wake.

Tsar Alexander the first of Russia:- The sovereign of the Russian empire, the Tsar conquered Napoleon, but is in his twilight years. Seen as a respectable presence in Europe, he has often played the peacemaker. Alas, he is childless & on his way out and his two brothers are not very keen on succeeding him. One due to the huge responsibility, and the other due to fear, even though the fear is disguised as military discipline.

The Duke of Weselton (Stand-in for Belgium):- Considered a gangster among royals, he rules with an iron fist, forever subjugating and trying to weasel out a deal that makes him prosperous. At one point a staunch ally of Arendelle, he has had a falling out with Iduna and Agnarr over a dispute of sovereignty. Now he lies in wait, akin to a viper in the grass, whilst indulging himself with Opium and Marijuana, ready to strike and sink the treacherous kingdom of Arendelle.

The British and the French:- The two great powers who sit and watch the whole drama play out, eager to switch sides on a whim, wherever their interests were better served. Bitter rivals throughout history, they have now come to a strained, mutual understanding of peace.

What do you guys think?

[blossomhcney]

( brent antonello. 34. cis male. he/him. ) in texas, thomas horne is more commonly known as tommy. they’ve been living in newton for thirty-four years and currently a florist. some say they are resentful & emotional but i’m more inclined to believe those that say they’re calm & trustworthy. if you walk by their house, you can sometimes hear river of tears by alessia cara playing from their window. ( blood stained dog tags, muddied boots, the smell of freshly cut flowers, rose thorns pricking soft skin, early mornings that lead to late nights. ) 

yes, yes. i am back again with yet another character. pls feel free to hit me up for connections with my lil love bug ! he is my fave baby atm i love him so much do not hurt him. or ...... or do. 

PINTEREST BOARD !

NAME. thomas malcolm horne. NICKNAME. tommy. AGE. thirty four. GENDER. cis male. PRONOUNS. he/him. SEXUAL ORIENTATION. homosexual. ROMANTIC ORIENTATION. homoromantic. HOMETOWN. newton. OCCUPATION. owner of the bloom room & horne family farms.

ZODIAC. virgo. POSITIVE TRAITS. calm, trustworthy, honest. NEGATIVE TRAITS. resentful, emotional, guilty. LANGUAGES SPOKEN. english, french, spanish, arabic.

HEIGHT. 6′1 EYE COLOR. green. HAIR COLOR. brunet. TATTOOS. can be found on the pinterest board ! - with the addition of ‘aiden’ across his heart. 

QUICK INFO.

trigger warnings: pow, death, mentions of torture, mention of cancer.

thomas horne was born to mary and jacob horne on a stormy tuesday evening. he was the second born horne child, but not the last. they would go on to have three more children, growing their family steadily over the years. jacob had always joked about needing to have five children so they had somebody to pass their businesses down to when they died and whilst he was making a joke about it, he would have three children who wanted nothing to do it and two who would dedicate their lives to their family businesses. 

thomas was a shy child and he rarely left his older brother’s side, clinging him to as though his life depended on it when they went anywhere outside of their home. it took him a long time to finally become comfortable with the idea of being alone, not lonely, because he would never grow accustomed to such a feeling. he began to play alone and try to branch out and talk to the other kids at school. there was one in particular that almost seemed to take pity on him, but they became fast friends and, before he knew it, they were inseparable. they were most certainly his best friend in the whole entire world and thomas could not imagine a day without them.

upon discovering that his father had been in the army, thomas had become fascinated with the idea. the thought of helping his country and making a difference was so very attractive. he could not help the obsession as it slowly grew. looking at old pictures of his father, looking at his dog tags, listening to his stories. it was hardly thomas’ fault that he was as interested as he was, especially when his father described it the way he did. there was nothing wrong with just looking into it, right?

wrong. the second thomas began ‘looking into it’, he was hooked. he was absolutely determined to join and he longed for the satisfaction that his father had found whilst serving. his mother was reluctant to get on board with the idea, but she saw the way thomas’ face lit up each time he even mentioned going away, so how could she say no? his siblings constantly talked about how jealous they were that he was going to get out of texas, but truly, he was scared to do it. he was terrified to leave his family behind and become somebody new, somebody that he was so.. scared of meeting because what if he didn’t like them? what if he hated the person that he was to become?

eighteen came and thomas joined the army. the feeling was only to be described as elation as his father hugged him tightly and wished him all the best, his mother grasped his hands tightly and told him to write to her and call whenever he could. his siblings gave him small tokens of their affection and off he went. he felt like he had won the lottery and everything was going perfectly. his mos was translation and it was the best decision he could have made. 

just as he thought that nothing could get better, he fell in love. it was as cliche as it could be, but he slowly began to develop feelings for another on his team. finding out that he felt the same only made it better and more complicated. secrecy was something that thomas was highly skilled at for all his years of only spending time with himself, but it did not make things any easier. he wanted to be able to tell the world about the man he loved and he could hardly tell him.

he had been on patrol one night when everything turned to shit. he and aiden had spent the past few years discussing the potential of their future and thomas had been so excited to take aiden home to meet his parents because his mother would adore him. and he had absolutely every intention of following through with that. until he had been taken as a prisoner of war. not just him, the guy who was on patrol with him that evening had been taken, too. he would go on to spend the next year and a half chained up and tortured because he refused to give up information. the problem was, the information he was refusing to give up? he did not have. he watched as they killed the man he had been taken with and the only thing that got him through each agonising day was knowing that he would see aiden again. 

when he was finally rescued, they told him that there was nobody waiting for him and that he needed to go back to his hometown and not tell a soul about the experience. it took him a while to believe that aiden truly did not care, but he never came for him, so he resigned himself to the fact that he had cared more and opened himself up to heartache. and he had lost that battle. upon arriving back home, his parents were distraught at being told their son was alive after being told he had been killed in action. seeing him in the flesh was something else entirely and it took his mother an entire week to stop sleeping in the bed with him. hell, he needed that more than she did, because he couldn’t close his eyes without seeing images of the torture he had endured. 

after a while, he had been sat at home, not really doing anything and he needed to get back out there and experience life. perhaps not in the ways that he once had the joy and time for, but he needed to do something. he started helping out on the family again and helped his mother with the flower shop. he grew to love the bloom room more than he had when he was a child and he took a course to become a florist with the help of his mother. he finally felt that he had a purpose to his life again.

some months later, his mother fell ill and thomas threw himself into working at the bloom room in her absence. he was there before opening and after closing and people were beginning to associate his face with the face of the shop. when his mother died after a six month battle with cancer, she left the shop to him in her will. it was devastating, that after such a long period of her believing her son was dead, she got him back. but thomas knew that he could never have her back. she was gone and she was gone forever. 

now, he works nonstop at the bloom room and helps out at the farm most evenings and early mornings. he does nothing but work and spends what little free time he has with his family and the few cherished friends he still has. 

WANTED CONNECTIONS.

childhood best friend: i mean ..... this one is super cute and self explanatory, but they were the bestest friends as kids and teenagers and grew apart when he left for the army. they were the first person he came out to, they literally told each other everything and were inseparable.

first girlfriend: so, thomas had a tiny period where he thought he might be straight and this would have been the girl that sort of .... confirmed for him that he wasn’t. he was 16 at the time, so she would have been 16 or 17 at the oldest. it was not a ‘she turned him gay’ thing (which is not a thing at all but i digress), so there would be no hatred here, but we can discuss this in length. 

first boyfriend: now, this was literally right after his first girlfriend. they weren’t even technically dating, but they took his virginity and he took theirs and it was cute and they ‘dated’ right until he left for the army and he will always cherish them for giving him the experiences he felt he needed before he went off to grow up.

close friends: literally anybody that would wanna love down a lil damaged army boy who secludes himself and want to help pull him out of his shell. he’s basically gone back to his childhood ways of closing himself off so pls feel free to drag him tf out.

and uh anything else y’all want !

[pennypeabody]

Let me preface this rant by pointing out that I love Betty Cooper and my opinions are not a reflection of anyone else’s who may share my favourite character or ship. So the biased opinions you may have from viewing my username need to be rethought before you continue reading.

 What attracted Mädchen to the role of Alice in the first place was her complexity, which was promised from the start. The back and forth, the twists and turn. That has been a character trait that has been done on purpose to keep the character interesting. I see so many keyboard warriors tapping away making posts about how awful Alice is, and guess what? She can be, but so is every other character. The difference between Alice and a categorical villain is that Alice genuinely loves the people she holds dear to her. She genuinely loves Betty, genuinely loves Polly, genuinely loves Charles, genuinely loves FP, and because of her love for her children, and the man who owns her heart, that love extends to Jughead and Jellybean too.

 You can dispute this claim til the cows come home but let’s take a look at all of Alice’s faults and see what we can conclude here.

 Helicopter parenting:  From our very first introduction to Alice, she uttered the words that she hoped Jason suffered in his last moments. It was clear to us from the get-go that this woman hated Jason Blossom. It wasn’t until about 6 episodes later did we learn why she had such a strong reaction to this seemingly normal boy. Jason was a jock, he was a blossom, and he was the one who got her 16 year old daughter pregnant. Everything about Alice in season 1 screamed overbearing mother as though this was how she had been for a long time. Yes? She was strict and in the beginning the show was told in the point of view of teenagers, and us as an audience sympathise with teens with strict parents because we relate to that. We either are teens or have memories of those same experiences. We want to paint the parent as the bad guy because how dare this adult be such a downer on the fun these teens want to have, but as Roberto has so skilfully engrained into the character, we start to see Alice’s layers unfolding. In episode 1x08 we witness Alice experience heartbreak upon learning that her husband, who is supposed to be upfront and her teammate had gone behind her back and tried to force their daughter to have an abortion. She screeches at him because “you did to Polly, exactly what you did to me.” This is an underlaying problem we come to learn later with Alice. She has spent her entire parenthood experience trying to make sure that her daughters don’t take the same path she did. This was the first hint we got into why Alice is so protective of her daughters. She has tried for the longest time to keep them focused on school, to keep them away from the children of her peers who she believes will lead them astray. She spent her life turning the southside into villains, to protect her daughters and keep them from wanting to be involved with serpents, who bring her so much pain in her memories. 

 Her secrets: One of the first major secrets we learn from Alice is that in high school she ended up pregnant and sent away to the sisters of quiet mercy, just like Polly had been. We know this because someone from her past made it impossible for her to escape that secret, which is also a clear indication as to why Alice never wanted her family associated with the southside, or the Jones family. As suggested three episodes earlier, the dinner scene in 1x11 is another clue leading up to the reveal in the season finale. Alice becomes increasingly distressed as FP recalls an argument he witnessed in passing, one that he assumes would rattle Alice who has spent years concocting the perfect image. The old bitter feelings between the former lovers is apparent from this moment. He knows what will make her blood boil and he goes for it. He knows that Alice isn’t this perfect northside woman, and he realises her marriage isn’t built on love and perfection because he saw the two arguing viciously, about what we are to assume is related to the near forced abortion conversation that was hinted about in 1x08. Alice has more secrets than even FP is aware of, and since season 1 was a journey for Betty, one that included her discovering not only her town is filled with dark secrets, but so is her picture-perfect family. Her parents didn’t fall apart because of Polly being pregnant, they’ve never been perfect and FP throwing that in Alice’s face is yet another one of Alice’s fears. Much like her obsession with keeping her daughters safe from her own unsafe path, Alice has spent this whole time trying to make sure her daughters had the perfect upbringing, shielding even the most minute of problems from them. Even Jughead has commented in his narration on how ‘perfect’ this family seemed to be from the outside. This was a combination of Hal’s need to live a sin free life, and Alice’s need for control to avoid her own past interfering with her daughter’s road to a happy and successful life. The secret that hurt her the most to keep close to her chest is of course the existence of her son Charles, whom she lied about to many people. Her daughters never knew, which is the most understandable part of the entire secret. Her discussion with Betty about this revealed how much pain she had been keeping to herself and revealed the biggest and most revealing layer of them all. The bottom line here was that Alice had been living her entire adult life feeling guilt for giving her son away, and had been spending this whole time keeping her other children as close to her as possible to mask that pain. 

  Her relationship with Polly: As mentioned earlier we know that Alice and Polly have an extremely strained relationship. It is uncertain what we can and can’t believe about Polly before the pilot. Hal’s words to Betty when questioned about his eldest daughter may have very well been an exaggeration to sell the fact that she was sent away for her own good. What we do know however, is that Polly resents Alice. Any sane person can see this and agree she has reasons to feel this way. Not only was Polly sent away with the intention of giving her babies away, Alice stood by and let it happen. That cannot be disputed. (unless of course you have the personal opinion that Polly is an unreliable narrator) Polly being sent away meant she spent months believing Jason was still alive, when he had been dead. She didn’t get to spend her life with the father of her children, which is the issue with the biggest weight here. Alice did not kill Jason, but her actions alongside Hal’s, were a factor that came into play here and Polly will never forgive them entirely for that. Polly’s reaction was to stay away from her parents, and once again this is understandable. However we do see how this affects Alice who we know loves her children more than anything. She maybe deserve it to a degree, but Alice is a human being and that pain does reflect on her character. Polly’s later actions to willingly let her mother join a cult, which is now apparent that Polly isn’t a blind victim to brainwashing, but has made herself into a recruiter who wanted to torture her own sister, we can see that Polly is very much her father’s daughter. 

  Her disdain toward Bughead: I feel that this is a big reason why some people criticise Alice. This point is no longer relevant to the current storyline but it is still an important part of the story. At first Alice’s disdain toward her daughter being involved with Jughead came down to him being a boy of any description. If you factor in WHO Jughead is, the son of Alice’s own high school boyfriend, and father of her only son, you realise why she is so uneasy about this budding romance. Alice is so fearful of Betty following in her footsteps. Polly did. Polly got pregnant as a junior with the BMOC football player, and now Betty is dating FP’s son? Alarm bells went off. This is the woman who plans everything and wanted to fabricate the perfect life for her daughters. She already had one teenage girl end up like herself, and now Betty was literally involved with the flesh and blood of the boy she made a baby with. You can see Alice’s relationship with Jughead change over the 3 seasons. Season 2 had the most growth. She apologised to Jughead for her judgement of him and his serpent friends in 2x17. And in 2x16, she finally came clean to Betty as to why she was so on edge about her having sex with Jughead. This conversation was another stand out moment between mother and daughter and Alice letting Betty into her trust circle. In 3x02, we see Alice being upset with Jughead and many people have used that as an excuse to hate on the woman, but if you look at it from her perspective. Alice’s daughter had a seizure just hours earlier and was already running around trying to solve mysteries. Alice knows Betty better than anyone. She knows Betty inherited her need to get to the bottom of everything, and she knows in her heart that she can’t stop Betty’s curiosity. But Jughead? The boy who loves her daughter, and would do anything to protect her, which is something Alice can relate to. She can hold him responsible with the hope that he might actually listen and agree with wanting to keep Betty out of danger. 

 Her relationship with FP: The flashback gave us insight into this relationship to help reinforce what the show had already been showing for two seasons. In high school Alice was a serpent girl without any friends. FP was this popular guy who was living under a falsified image. He did not want anyone to know he was a southsider just like she was. We know he came from a rough home life, one with abuse and alcoholism, but he wanted to go places and become something more than that. Maybe Alice resented that about him, we can only guess as to how she felt about that side of things, but what we do know is that Alice is the one who ends up with the life FP always wanted, and his life stays the same. In high school FP and Alice started off as a hook up, that bred into feelings. We know from 3 years of experience watching Riverdale, that the Jones men, and serpents in general tend to struggle with talking about their feelings. FP never talked about how he felt in high school, and we still see him struggle with that in present day. He loves his son, but he doesn’t know how to express that. Alice on the other hand was head over heels for the boy who presumably took her ‘virginity’ but knows that he’s Mr Popular, and she’s just the southside girl he liked to screw under the bleachers. She ended up pregnant and the midnight club months were montaged to show us that fp and alice eventually got their shit together and became a couple. Now, what would a scared 17 year old girl who has never had a boyfriend, or possibly ever had a friend, do? Would she tell this boy who has only recently decided he had feelings for her to, that surprise we are having a baby! Or would she want to keep it to herself out of fear, just to try and hold onto the good she finally has now after so long of wanting him to finally express he has feelings too? We’ve all been there. We all know the feeling of being scared that this person who likes us back, will get spooked off at any moment. When the midnight club fell apart and they all went their separate ways, Alice made a choice, one that is arguably the wrong choice, but she found someone else who had the means to take care of her baby, only he never did. We don’t see much of what happened between high school and present day, but through Jughead’s narrations we know that Alice had spent many years publicly detesting the serpents and the southside. And what have we learnt about Alice? She is a woman who has been holding onto a lot of pain her whole life. Acting out against the people who she has an excuse to dislike, (they’re criminals, it’s easy) is her only outlet for her pain. At home everything is to be perfect. At work she can write whatever she wants about the serpents and the southside, because her readers will read and agree with her. That’s how Riverdale has always been. Northsiders have preconceived ideas of what the southsiders are like, and they don’t care enough to check whether Alice is accurate enough. She gets away with it.

 their children get closer, FP and Alice are then thrust back into each other’s lives. She has pushed and pushed for so many years and FP finally has his chance to push her buttons in return. In 1x10, he reminds her of serpent law and has a jab at her, almost taunting the woman for pretending to be something she’s not. She did the same to him in high school, and he finally had his shot to do the same. He’s hurt by everything too. They were fine together until suddenly it was over, and he was the one who drew the short straw. That’s how he sees it. His friend did him dirty and left him to rot in that trailer with a shaky marriage and beer bottles for company. Fred didn’t want anything to do with him professionally, and Alice kept attacking him and his serpents personally. The man had reason to want to bite back and he did so. The dinner Alice invited him to in 1x11, he had his second shot at speaking up to her. He was on his best behaviour and would have kept that way if it wasn’t for Alice taking a jab at his kid. One thing FP and Jughead have in common is their endless love for their children. They are both heavily flawed, but unlike a lot of Riverdale parents, they’d do anything for their kids. FP could take Alice berating him, but Jughead was off limits. He took a swing and it obviously hit her where it hurt. He knew her perfect life wasn’t so perfect and clearly Alice knew it too.

 we have Alice feeling comfortable to throw out some playful banter with FP as he finally got released from prison. The man is amused, and really you can’t blame his wrongful assumption that maybe Alice has softened just a little. Right? Then back at Pop’s she is back to her old shit, assuming he was going to be a serpent again. She is still the same judgemental Alice underneath, but he dared to be playful with her just to test the waters. He knows the old Alice is still in there and for the first time in a long time he is playful with her in return. Time passes and Alice is growing increasingly worried about her daughter spending time with serpents. Her fears are returning and FP is the one retiring, so of course the party being for him, makes Alice redirect her fear and upset onto the man. Her confrontation isn’t one of anger, it is one of her fear. She is scared and her public scene reflected that. She came in guns blazing ready to yell at him, but instead he does his best to calm her down. FP and Alice are always quite explosive and neither one gets exactly what they intended. FP accidently blurts out the suggestion of Alice leaving Hal, and Alice is left speechless. It isn’t the words spoken, but the unspoken change in atmosphere between them that speaks volumes here. Alice spent the conversation making up excuses not to attend FP’s party, but ends up taking his invitation seriously. We FINALLY see this woman let her hair down and be herself back in her old stomping ground. Alice misses the life she had where she could have fun and be herself, a person she doesn’t know anymore. We finally see her acting like someone we could all ENJOY. Until her fear comes true. Alice witnesses her daughter’s initiation into the gang she had spent so many years trying to scare her away from. FP clearly recalls the conversation earlier, and in an attempt to avoid Alice embarrassing the teen, he covers the girl up and distracts the audience with a speech.

 could have left straight away, taken her daughter far away from that serpent nest, but instead she wanted to hear what FP had to say first. His speech was the opposite of what she was expecting. He mentions her briefly, even looked right at her as he claimed his family turned his back on him. That’s when Alice couldn’t take it anymore. She can’t stay in the bar where everyone knows she left them behind. She turned her back on the serpents and FP once again.

came to Alice wanted a divorce. It wasn’t until then did she approach FP and want to pursue something. She could have done so earlier, but she did not. After sleeping together in 2x17, Alice finally felt happy again until FP got cold feet and iced her out. We literally saw her put her guard down. She was flirting with him, inviting him to come and see her perform. That was Alice holding onto one last bit of happiness and he hurt her again. And you know what happened after that? She spiralled. Gladys came back and Alice wasn’t stomping all over that failed marriage either. FP didn’t want anything to do with the woman known as his wife. Every scene they had was either him ignoring her or being irritated by her actions. Alice was not a home wrecker by any means in canon. She defended FP and Jughead when FP talked down on himself saying everything that went wrong in his family was his fault. We all know how much pain Gladys put Jughead and through, and Alice was the one who defended that boy which once again proves the point that Alice has grown to love and care for Jughead. Which is what I like to call, character development. 

Chic/Charles: Alice had spent so long feeling so guilty about giving her son up, and when Hal was firm in saying they shouldn’t meet this son that Betty tracked down for them, Alice agreed. This gave another glimpse into how Alice wasn’t the only one who was controlling. Alice may have been trying to monitor how her girls lived their lives, but on the flipside, Hal was the one who had final say here. She secretly tells Betty she does want to meet her son, and Betty takes her to meet Chic. This boy who is living in Charles’ apartment. Alice didn’t force Betty to find this boy, or to invite him into their home. Betty did this because she wanted her mother to stop being depressed. She loves Alice. This is one of the examples of how Betty has done the wrong thing for the right reasons, which is exactly how Alice and Betty’s relationship works. They do what they can to help the other, but it’s not the right thing to do, and suddenly Alice fans hate Betty, and Betty fans hate Alice. The bottom line is that Betty and Alice love each other so very much, and both Lili and Mädchen would tell you that too. Alice had spent over 20 years longing for this boy, so of course when a boy the right age, and similar features to her own, and her daughters shows up and acts the part of her son, of course she is going to believe he is her son. Chic clearly had his own mommy issues and attached himself to Alice too. People often overlook the Chic situation, when the bottom line is that Alice finally had her baby boy back, and she had been through so much traumatic pain from their separation that she was clinging to that relationship. You cannot blame the woman for holding onto it for dear life after so many years of pain. She believed her own child had killed a man to save her. So of course, she would cover it up. If it had been Betty killing someone, she would have done the exact same thing and we all know it. She wanted Betty to stay out of it. She told her to go to bed, but Betty wanted to help. All of the claims that Alice was a drill sergeant who forced others to be involved is just not true. Alice was handling it on her own but those who love her got involved to help. She didn’t want outside help, but Betty and Jughead involved FP. She did not think “Oh let me call up FP who is on parole and guilt him into helping me.” Either. And she was so heartfeltly sorry to him for his son being involved too. She wanted to believe that Chic was her son, but when he wasn’t and she found out the truth, she owned that and once again she protected Betty. She told Hal she acted alone. She didn’t bring FP or Jughead into it either.

 learning that Charles had ‘died’ her first instinct was to go and tell FP the truth. She knew then how wrong it had been to keep it to herself and wanted FP to know. She didn’t do this for sympathy, she even expected him to be mad at her for it, but he wasn’t. The man was clearly hurt but he was not angry with her. Season 3: We can all agree that season 3 was the worst Alice we have ever seen. The writers were so inconsistent and didn’t know what to do with her. Betty is arguably the main character of this show. I know it’s based on Archie, and Jughead is the narrator, but Betty is the main character. This comes down to Lili’s amazing talents and being able to run with whatever the writing throws her way. This pays heavily into why Alice and Betty’s relationship is the way it is. Mädchen and Lili have both said that they want the mother and daughter to just get along instead of this back and forth nonsense, but the show wants Betty to have the most difficult life ever, and with her father being a serial killer, having her mother be an obstacle is something that comes with the territory of them both being played by the most talented cast members. Season 3 Alice was so inconsistent to a point where I stopped watching. Alice giving away Betty’s money made me sick, even Mädchen hated that storyline. The writing was so bad that we got whiplash trying to figure out if Alice was brainwashed every episode or not. And since they decided she was an informant, we are now being forced to believe that she was undercover this whole time. Which makes it more difficult to excuse and make sense of her actions. 

  The bottom line is that Alice wanted Betty to stay away from the cult in the end, which once again shows that she wants to protect her children. She wants Polly out of the cult. She wanted Betty to give up on saving her. It’s very hard to analyse a season that wasn’t written consistently. And I do not fault anyone for being angry at Alice’s actions in season 3. However that season is over and they started a new direction, one that is now canon. So choosing instances from season 3 to hate Alice for things she hasn’t yet done in season 3 is premature and a waste of your precious time. Hate Alice all you want, but she’s not the villain you want her to be. Alice is the way she is because it makes Betty’s stories family motivated, which is exactly what Alice’s been this entire time. Alice would do anything for her children, just like Betty would do anything for her family, and her boyfriend. 

[antagonisms]

BASICS

Name: Evan Czarnecki

Gender & pronouns: cis male, he/him

Species: werewolf

Age: 27. Jokes about being 63, because he was a wolf for 6 years, which is 42 dog years + those 21 normal human years. Either way, age is a really weird concept now.

PERSONALITY

Traits: Pretends to be flippant to put the world at a distance. Vulgar as a means of distancing himself from genuine vulnerability. Perceptive, but won’t let you know that. More self-aware than he lets on. Self-absorbed. Self-destructive. Loves being seen, hates being known.

Moral alignment / MBTI / enneagram: Chaotic neutral. INTP-A. 5w6.

Values: In other people, he likes independence, open-mindedness, the ability to dress well, a lack of tolerance for bullshit, genuine altruism, and resilience.

Flaws: Judgmental. Narcissistic as a defense mechanism. Occasionally rude, but mostly just cheeky. Not a team player. Reckless. Hedonistic. The brokest bitch in Blackrock.

HISTORY 

( shorter version is in the app. i just like details. trigger warnings for child abuse and sex as self harm.)

1) CHILDHOOD

You had a family, once. Your mother’s a piano teacher and your father is — you don’t know, really, but he’s got enough old money to buy nice things even if he’s stingy on principle. He’s polite, and she’s funny, and your fellow patrons at Sunday Mass love all three of you because you’re down-to-earth, surface-level beautiful — a perfect American family.

But they don’t know what happens inside the too-big house at the foot of the mountain. Your mother’s a pessimist, and your father’s a sniveling piece of shit who copes with his worthlessness by making everybody feel small. He’s kinda good at it. They’re both as loud as they are erratic and it’s all a matter of bracing yourself for when the floor inevitably falls through. You make do, mostly. You hide in your room. You lock the door. You put your ears behind headphones. You drown out their screaming matches and your too-loud mind. 

It all falls apart when Mommy decides she hates Daddy more than she loves you. No goodbye. No explanation. She just leaves. 

Her departure plants a lesson you will later find impossible to uproot: love is earned, Evan, you’re not working hard enough. At least your father stayed. At least he sometimes loved you. At least, you think so. He might have loved you when he took you fishing, or gave you that book you really liked, or when he buys you clothes that look really nice. You flip through your mother’s old sheet music and fumble through the piano keys, and you think he might love you when he watches you fill this house with her memory without saying anything.

But mostly, he’s not very kind. You don’t want to think about it anymore.

2) ADOLESCENCE

You inherit your mother’s cynicism and your father’s stingy heart. The skill you develop is as much a sense of humor as it is a safety net. If life’s a joke, beat it to the punchline. By the time you’re fifteen, you can no longer pretend that your world is worth saving. You keep it at arm’s length. Your mind makes a mockery of the darkness to keep its jaws at a distance, because if you couldn’t do that, your pitch-black pessimism would swallow you whole.

Growing up feels less like maturing and more like mutating. By the time you’re sixteen, you stop feigning perfection to earn the affection of a father who’s heart is colder than your Blackrock winter. Popular misconception claims control is a word you never learned, but that’s just what you let everyone think. The truth is: control is a lesson you pried out of your body when the need for acceptance evolved into a need to rebel. You’re an embarrassment, Evan. Adolescence meant insurrection. You’re a failure of a son. Pills and booze and boys and girls biting the hand that hit him. Your heart is a bullet and your mouth is a shotgun and you will make yourself repulsive if the alternative is admitting that — Evan, I wish you knew how difficult it is to love you.

You only apply yourself when it matters. You get into Stanford. You take a loan. You don’t let your father pay for tuition, because you’re not letting him control your life anymore. You leave your tar pit town the way your mother did, and it’s only a matter of time before your goodbye is permanent. 

It gets better as much as it gets worse. You leave home, but home doesn’t really leave you, and you don’t recognize your body when it’s not in pain. You’re beautiful, though. People see you and want to make you theirs. You let it happen. Too-rough hands salve the ghosts of bruises your father left you. This is the ugliest way of putting it: you feel damaged. Every person you kiss has too-sharp teeth, and maybe that’s exactly how you want it, because if this body doesn’t feel like it belongs to you, then offer it up in a way that feels good.

You always leave first. You love much how it tears them apart. This is your inheritance: your Momma’s love of leaving, and your Daddy’s stingy, stingy heart.

3) THE BITE

Unlike your mother, you tried to come back. Your father called one night, asking if you wanted to return for Christmas, and the small, stupid flicker of hope that your pessimism couldn’t kill begged that you give him a chance.

He didn’t change. He argues about the degree you’re taking with the money you don’t have and insists on carving a future for you, his way. He doesn’t like your independence. He doesn’t like your protests. Your fights are explosive until they aren’t, until a raised fist reminds you exactly what violence he’s capable of.

At least he sometimes loves you. Maybe he loved you when he picked your wounded body up, carried you out of the woods, and bandaged up bite on your side. Maybe he loved you when he brought medicine to your room, and maybe he loved you when made you chicken soup just the way you liked it, even when you didn’t ask. Maybe he loved you when he sat by the side of your bed, and talked about his father, and his father’s father, and how none of them really knew how to grow up without making their sons feel small.

But the fever is strange. A new kind of anger tears out whatever capacity for forgiveness you might have had. Your bones are changing. Something wretched twists and grows inside you, and with a hot flash of pain, you’re something new entirely.

You have one last coherent thought before the wild takes your mind completely.

I have to kill him. So you do. 

3.5) THE THINGS YOU DON’T KNOW

The news of your father’s death spreads like wildfire in Blackrock. It’s not your father’s mangled body that causes intrigue, it’s your disappearance. Wolf attacks, while uncommon, aren’t exactly rare, and everyone’s heard the folktales. Neighbors assure that you were there during the evidence, but the police find no evidence of carnage, not a pound of flesh nor drop of blood to support the fearful need to conclude that there’s nothing supernatural about this. You can’t prove the Czarnecki kid isn’t a werewolf, the gossipers say. Nobody can even prove that he’s dead.

4) WOLF-HOOD

You don’t know what strange circumstance landed you in your new body, but maybe you don’t care. Maybe the bite and the fever killed you, and the Buddhists were right. You don’t really know if you earned enough good karma to deserve this reincarnated form, but either way, you’re never letting it go. You hunt deer. You roll around in the snow. You snarl at any predator that dares to get near, and bite the ones that move into your space without permission. Sometimes you walk into the backyards of strangers and wait for children who aren’t afraid to try and approach you. You don’t eat them, because just because you’re a monster now doesn’t mean you don’t have principles.

You lie down. You let them rub your belly.

It’s a really nice life.

5) NOW

Six years after you thought you died, a woman drags you out of the woods you back into your body. Even a lifetime of pain couldn’t prepare you for the shift back. New bones tear your animal flesh apart, piercing your skin open to make room for your wretched old body. It aches in too many ways. The people — the wolves — the ones who did this to you, they tell you this is your home now.

So it wasn’t Buddhism. Maybe it’s the Catholics who’re right; eternal damnation does await the unrepentant sinner, and it looks like this: you’re here, trapped in a frat house for furries, without a  cellphone, a car, or clothes of your own, or money to pay a doctor to confirm whether or not you’d acquired a tapeworm.

You realize you owe Stanford 213,000 dollars.

You are a very tired wolf.

TLDR:

Evan has a bad childhood. He becomes a wolf. He kills his father. He mistakes lycanthropy for reincarnation and lives in wolf-nirvana for six whole years. You drag him out of nirvana. The realization that he didn’t actually die puts him in a terrible mood. 

CONNECTIONS 

( So uhhh I wrote up possible prompts for the existing werewolf skeletons before I knew what anyone was like and I think they can be good jumping points! If you don’t feel this fits your character, or if you want a different sort of dynamic, just message me! )

1) WOLVES (AND BITTEN HUMAN)

ALDER: You’ve seen him at his ugliest — a small, scared creature writhing on the floor, that horrific cross between a howl and a screech leaving his shifting throat. Now there’s a flare of red-hot resentment in his eyes whenever he looks at you, and it makes you wonder if he’s more monstrous as a human than he is a beast. You saved him from death. You realize you cannot save him from life. He’ll never forgive you for that.

HEMLOCK: You are a bootlicker and he does not like you.

HICKORY: It’s not your job to keep the feral wolf in line, but your brother seems to resent whatever circumstance it was that landed him the role of mongrel babysitter. Consider picking up the slack. The guy’s only half-terrible — sullen and strange but mostly manageable, and maybe earning his trust is only a matter of affording him the patience that nobody else wants to offer. If it’s an opportunity to prove this pack your worth, try taking it.

MAPLE: You’ve worked too hard to protect this pack, to earn your position. Now your lot has dragged some feral creature out of the woods, offered him their home, their humanity, and still, he has the nerve to be ungrateful. He makes it clear that he doesn’t trust you. He makes it even clearer that you cannot trust him. Maybe the demons in your head are concussed, but the new demon in your home now insists on giving you a migraine. 

PINE: You are a mirror of lost days. You are the young flighty creature he once was and can never become again. Home is a word you might have both forgotten, but circumstance has offered you both a new roof over your heads, and a family to go with it. Maybe these similarities should draw you closer, but there’s a glimmer of resentment in his eyes whenever he looks at you. You don’t know why it’s there. It could be pity. It might be envy. It must be grief. 

OAK: He had a father, once, and that shit didn’t end well. For some reason, he sees it fit to pass some unearned blame on you, and now years of buried resentment are yours to bear. Family’s a broken word, he seems to think, but you cannot let him break yours. Still, it’s evident that he lacks the capacity to be as self-sufficient as he’d like, and as long as that’s true, it’s your thumb he’ll be under. You know he needs you. Offer an open hand, or pull the leash tighter. The choice is yours.

REDCEDAR: He shows up at the bookstore to read a new title of Animorphs every other day and you don’t know how that makes you feel.

WILLOW: He might take more kindly to you than he does the others. You’re both new to a home you’re not sure will ever welcome you, and more importantly, you both wanted this. The bite. This beastliness. The difference is that he’s certain. Your condition is a new part of yourself that you have yet to fully love, but he seems to think he can teach you. Man and beast are equally monstrous, he tries to convince you. So let’s be the kind with bigger teeth.

2) OPEN CONNECTIONS

( Open to humans ) has taken an interest in the Czarnecki Werewolf Conspiracy. They’re familiar with the incident — a dead father, a missing son, and the wolf that allegedly kill them both. All the facts line up too neatly, and when somebody who looks to be the ghost of one Evan Czarnecki returns to haunt the streets of Blackrock, they think it’s finally time they get some answers.

( Open to humans ) once knew Evan. Yeah, the kid who always got straight A’s and played piano for Catholic mass? What the actual shit happened to him? They’re watched Evan go from familiar face to murder case overnight, but now, the town recluses have found a new adoptee — and he’s the splitting image of the boy they once knew. Maybe it’s time to reconnect.

3) VAGUE CONCEPTS

he uhhhh (spins wheel) flirted with ( open ) at last drop for free drinks and then realized that spending six years as a wolf made him de-acquire the taste of liquor and now he’s having a crisis

( open ) tells him he needs therapy. evan laughs

this is actually very hard he’s so unsociable

jsut message me... we’ll think of something

[philomaela]

Is there any characterization of the Ragnarssons in the show that you think is close to the ones in the saga?

Disclaimer: I need an easy way to refer to Ragnar’s saga, the tale of Ragnar’s sons and the Gesta Danorum book 9, since I do believe those texts are the core influence on Vikings. I’m going to refer to those texts as the main trio.  Yes, that is the best name I could come up with lol.

I guess if I had to pick… I would say Hvitserk and Bjorn? However, it’s not necessarily because what Hirst wrote for those two is so in line with the main trio, but rather because they are less fleshed out compared to their brothers. While they do things and have a certain level of characterization, most of their actions take place while the brothers are acting as a team, rather than acting as individuals. The result is that the bulk characterization often rests on things that can be ascribed to the Ragnarssons as a whole, rather than on them as individuals. So you have more wiggle room with them, you’re not contradicting anything instead you’re just supplementing, if that makes sense.

On that level, both Hvitserk and Bjorn are regarded as honorable-ish, passionate men who are great warriors. Bjorn also has a desire for maternal affection/praise that is implied by one of his verses in Ragnar’s saga. Bjorn in the Gesta Danorum is also a strong leader who inspires loyalty in his Kingdom and he’s very close to his father, choosing to fight beside his father against his half-brother Ubbe. All those things are in line with his characterization in the show imo.

However, I should add… as is the case with everything on Vikings… Hirst isn’t just drawing from the main trio, he’s drawing from other sources that sometimes contradict the narrative of said trio (even those texts sometimes contradict each other lol!). For example, Ragnar’s adventures in Paris come from contemporary French sources, not from the main trio. And it’s not incorrect to do that, it’s a valid storytelling choice! I just think the way it’s done sometimes leads to some problematic elements.

I know you didn’t ask, but I find it fascinating how Hirst has (imo, obviously) essentially given Sigurd, Ivar and Ubbe the opposite characterizations of the ones they had in the main trio. So, I want to go into detail about that, I’ll put it under a cut because it’s slightly off-topic and also this is already too long lmao.

Sigurd:

This one I’ll mainly be talking about Sigurd as he stands in Ragnar’s saga and the tale of Ragnar’s sons. So, do you want to know what the key is to understanding Sigurd’s characterization in those texts? It’s that he is Aslaug’s son. He is a living symbol of his mother’s proud lineage, his birth saves her marriage and reveals her true background to the world. Sigurd, Aslaug’s youngest son, earns her the respect she deserved, but could not get while she was known as the daughter of peasants. While Aslaug loves all her sons (including her stepsons), to me the text makes it clear that Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye is her favorite. And Sigurd is a mama’s boy in through and through. When his brothers are refusing their mother’s advice to go to war, he speaks up on her behalf, even though he is only 3 years old. In the tale of Ragnar’s sons, Aslaug is given Sigurd’s sword and shield when he dies and raises his children, one of whom is a daughter named after Aslaug. (TBF, the translation I’ve read says that Aslaug gave her own name to the girl, but due to some weirdness in how facts are revealed in the story, I’m not sure if she did this before or after Sigurd died…)

Anyway, the thing about Sigurd as he stands in Vikings… his “origin” is totally different! Aslaug is known as a princess the moment she enters the story, she makes the prophecy of Sigurd’s eye due to anger at Ragnar making fun of her. In fact, the snake in Sigurd’s eye is treated ambiguously, rather than a straightforward blessing linking him to the Volsung line. So in this world, where Sigurd’s birth is not a transformative point in Aslaug’s story… well, he’s not quite linked to his mother in the same way, is he? Sigurd is not her precious boy, instead that spot is reserved for her “new” youngest son, Ivar the Boneless. She gives most of her affection and attention to the son who needs it most and so Sigurd grows jealous and resentful of Ivar. Rather than being a great king who rules justly, as in the Gesta Danorum, he’s seems somewhat petty and spiteful and since he dies young, he never has a chance to grow beyond that.

Sigurd goes from a favorite son and mama’s boy, to a resentful, less-favored child. Rather than inspiring (a small level of) jealousy in his brothers, he is jealous of his brother. Rather than being precocious, he’s just petty and in terms of the narrative, he dies before he has a chance to be anything else. These core character changes imo, come from the decision to change Aslaug’s origin story and as a result, erasing the original narrative importance of Sigurd’s birth. Oh sure, Sigurd’s still got a snake in his eye, but it’s purely aesthetic, it does not carry the same thematic weight and importance that it did in Ragnar’s saga.

Ubbe:

The changes to Ubbe’s characterization are similar to Sigurd in that his origin story is completely changed and this subsequently changes his characterization. For Ubbe, I’ll mainly be discussing the Gesta Danorum, though Ubbe is briefly mentioned in the tale of Ragnar’s sons (as “Husto”) all that is really said about him is that he’s one of Ragnar’s illegitimate children. But anyway, in the Gesta Danorum, Ubbe is indeed Ragnar’s illegitimate son, born out of an affair with a woman of lower-birth. As far as I can tell, this class difference creates some resentment in Ubbe, because there is a line about how he respects his mother more than his father. Later, Ubbe’s paternal grandfather convinces him to stage a rebellion against Ragnar. Ubbe asks his half-brother Bjorn for help, but Bjorn prefers to fight by his father’s side. Interestingly, Ivar picks neither side, claiming that there is no honor in fighting against family. Either way, it’s Ubbe and his grandfather against Ragnar and Bjorn. Ragnar wins and kills Ubbe’s grandfather for inciting the rebellion and Ubbe eventually is captured. After Ragnar’s son Hvitserk dies, before Ragnar leaves to take vengeance, he forgives Ubbe for his rebellion. After that Ubbe disappears from the narrative.

Now in Vikings, Ubbe’s origin is again… completely different! Rather than being the an illegitimate son whose mother was of a much lower social class than his father… now he’s the legitimate son of a princess and an earl/well regarded hero! He’s not an only child anymore, now he’s an eldest son, with many younger brothers to look after. As well, his father isn’t a king whose achievements lay in conquest and forging an empire, but rather a king whose dream was to find farming land. So he transforms from a resentful and ambitious son into a responsible, unambitious son. Power is given to him so easily, he doesn’t need to take it by force and rather than taking away his father’s empire, he aims to fulfill his father’s dream.

So much changes for Ubbe once he becomes Aslaug’s son, you could say his fortunes are completely reversed! It’s funny in a way, Ubbe in the show complained about Margrethe having so many ambitions, perhaps because of his princely upbringing. However, Ubbe in the Gesta Danorum has a far more troubled background and the way he straddles class lines makes him far more ambitious and willing to challenge the societal norms.

Ivar:

So… Ivar is unique case, because I don’t think his “character flip” comes from the changes in his origin, like with the other two, but rather in Hirst borrowing from multiple other sources for Ivar. The dichotomy that comes from reading sources about Ivar are fascinating, you get the sense that the Ivar of the Great Heathen Army and the Ivar of Ragnar’s saga were two very different people lol. In sources such as the Íslendingabók or the writings of Adam of Bremen, Ivar is an evil pagan, the cruelest of all tyrants, continuously waging war, killing and torturing christians. But, interestingly, Ivar is not “boneless” in these sources, no mention is made of him having a disability (unless there is another source I am forgetting?). Now, in Ragnar’s saga, Ivar is very different. He is born disabled, the result of his father ignoring his mother’s prophecy. He is the eldest son and all his brothers follow him because he’s the wisest and most clever of them. He is so well-regarded, that when his brothers try to go to war without him, they’re not able to gather that many forces. He takes vengeance for his father without technically ever going to war and he rules well, watching over England even after he dies. There is a line in the tale of ragnar’s sons about how he didn’t lack cruelty, but… it seems like he is only cruel under very specific circumstances.

So, Ivar’s “origin” is changed a little bit, he goes from the eldest son to the youngest, so he has to fight for control against his brothers. He’s less responsible and more resentful. However, it seems that unlike Sigurd and Ubbe, whose new characterizations follow largely from changes in the story… Ivar’s personality in the show is the result of grafting his characterization from various other sources onto his backstory in Ragnar’s saga. Now, we have an Ivar who was born disabled and is a cruel, angry Pagan. Ivar does inspire loyalty… but as a tyrant, he also inspires fear in the people he rules over. Now, he kills one brother and gladly goes to war against the others, something he refused to do in both the Gesta Danorum and Ragnar’s saga. He’s still clever, but now he’s impatient and has rage issues, rather than being able to maintain a level of calm and work on long term plans like he does in Ragnar’s saga.

I… struggle, with this change more than with the others tbh. There’s nothing inherently wrong with changing an origin or pulling from multiple sources, but in the implication and effect they have on the story. While I don’t really care that Sigurd isn’t a mama’s boy or that Ubbe is a responsible son in the show, I’m not sure if I appreciate the decision to keep the disability of his Saga characterization but to cast him as a cruel, monstrous tyrant, as he is portrayed in other sources. It feels especially egregious when his brothers are painted as more noble and fighting against him. I wonder if there was maybe a middle line that you could have walked, either by making Ivar a little less gleefully evil or by making his brothers a little less virtuous.

[chhandlrs]

[ MUSE 15 ]  ●●  is that  KRISTINE FROSETH  ? no, that’s just  NORAH CHANDLER  , the  EIGHTEEN  year old  CIS FEMALE  who is a  HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR  . some say they’re  BRASH & RESTLESS , but their family and friends will swear they’re  LOYAL & IMPASSIONED . when i think of them, i think of  speeding down a moonlight highway with the windows down, chain smoking cigarettes outside of the party, flower petals crumbling in your palm, shoes slapping the pavement. it almost sounds like running .  i wonder if HER family knows that SHE WAS CHEATING ON HER BOYFRIEND BEFORE HIS DEATH .  ●● ( nica && 20 && cst && she / her ) 

hello everyone !!  to start i have to say .. i can’t believe it took me so long to discover this group because it’s GORGEOUS and so fresh and full of such wonderful writers god can you tell i’m excited to be here ??  i’m nica and as of right now  ( wink wink )  this is my only child, hot mess miss norah chandler !!  please excuse this awkward period while i’m still fleshing her out because she is a BRAND NEW muse but i love her sm already .  SO bio under the cut !!

❝  SHE LIVES IN DAYDREAMS WITH ME  ❞  ...  GENERAL 

full name :  norah lane chandler 

age & dob :  eighteen yrs & september 16 

zodiac :  virgo 

mbti :  ENFJ 

religion :  raised somewhat catholic , agnostic 

❝  SHE'S THE FIRST ONE THAT I SEE  ❞  ...  APPEARANCE 

 defining attributes :  doe eyed , round cheeks , long dirty blonde / light brown hair , tall, slender frame 

height :  5′8 

distinct attributes :  a birthmark just between her shoulder blades, pierced ears 

❝  AND I DON’T KNOW WHY  ❞  ...  BIOGRAPHY 

none of the chandler children were accidents  ( quite the opposite, norah’s birth was carefully planned, as though she was a project and not a labor of love )  but she loves to believe that her birth was as reckless  -- even meaningless --  as the rest of her life to follow. 

though her parents’ affection for each other may have lessened over the years, norah was brought up with love from the both of them. her brother’s shadow may have loomed over her head -- the golden boy, the perfect son -- but she didn’t often feel competition for a spot in the family, nor did she ever resent rowan. 

she embraced the spotlight in other places. at school, where she seemed undeniably able to attract attention just for existing, for flashing a smile or curling a strand of hair around a delicate finger. at parties, where she snuck off to when her parents had gone to sleep. she liked to be a spectacle. she craved the adoration. ashcroft was small, but being known made her feel large. 

her reputation was less sparkling than her brother’s. that perfect chandler family ..  except for the one. not a black sheep by any means, but norah didn’t feel the need to uphold any traditional values. she grew bored easily, spoke her mind sometimes a bit too loudly, shook up family dinners with tales of wild nights and boasted about drunken mistakes at the lunch table.   ‘ she’s a wild card, that norah. ’ 

norah always held dreams of making it out of the suburbs closest to her heart. guarded, maybe because she feared hurting her family with the admittance. despite everything  ..  her unruliness, her tendency to disappoint  ..  she was strongly devoted to her family. still sometimes her wings felt clipped by the neat houses all lined up in a row and the crowded house parties where everyone knew her name. 

DYLAN was her first boyfriend. she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t had a crush on him for years, the boy her brother always brought over to the house, the one she used to catch bugs with outside, who drove her to homecoming so she didn’t have to show up alone. she loved him. a difficult thing for someone as fickle as norah to admit, but she loved him. 

how do you tame a wild thing ?  despite her feelings for her boyfriend, or maybe because of them, norah ended up in the bed of another once. then twice. then another time again. she and dylan had been dating for over a year by then, had talked about marriage, about settling into a house in ashcroft and raising a family. maybe it scared her, being stuck forever. maybe love was the one thing that really truly scared her, silenced her, made her cowardly. 

she was with the other boy when she received the news of her brother’s crash. four missed calls from her father. ten from her mother. one last text.   ‘ your brother is driving me home. ’ 

no one knows but her, and she’ll let is fester. let it eat her up inside, let it create a rift so big she can hardly look at her own brother without seeing red. it’s better than sharing the truth. 

❝  I DON’T KNOW WHO SHE IS ❞  ...  WANTED CONNECTIONS 

the OTHER man  ..  really huge part of norah’s secret, quite literally the other half. bonus points if he knew dylan or her brother. 

her CLOSEST FRIENDS ..  fellow ashcroft high students, some college students as norah never quite stuck to any age group. big party crowd 

a BOSS ?? ..  norah probably has a job that she isn’t any good at, maybe she works for one of the older muses ? 

hook ups ..  anyone to distract her from the fact that she’s been permanently branded the girl with the dead boyfriend throughout the entire town 

rivals / enemies / frenemies ..  she doesn’t get along with everyone, this list would possibly be larger than her list of friends. an acquired taste , this one 

family friends ..  friends of her brother’s , friends of her parents , the children she was forced to hang around at neighborhood block parties and barbecues 

MENTOR figure ..  an older muse that wants to take norah under their wing, a confidant, someone who sees she’s spiraling more so lately than she had been before 

BLACKMAIL ..  anyone who might have figured out she was cheating on dylan , maybe someone who doesn’t know for sure but has their suspicions. 

anything else ??  i’m sure i’m missing things in this section but i’m down for any wild dramatic angsty sweet plots you have to throw my way !!  LIKE this post & i’ll message you to plot xx

[charismastaticarchive]

hubert hc

“fearing great heights, bow down at the waist. servitude suits you. defy your fate only by bloodying the path so carefully paved and tread before you. if the goddess will not love you, if your father will not love you, if your mother cannot be reached or touched or felt, then love the anti-christ, and put her on a pedestal no man, especially you, cannot reach.”

people forget.

the holy kingdom of faerghus was once a part of the andrestian empire, and the andrestian empire was once the place considered ‘holy.’ it was blessed by seiros herself---seiros’s blood, her very crest, ran through each royal’s veins starting from wilhem himself, its first emperor. seiros loved the empire as she loved her husband and her children. the andrestian empire was loved by sothis herself, and they were her faithful children. 

that was a thousand years ago. wars have rocked fodlan since. the empire has lost ground and power, and propserity. even the religion which once lavished itself upon them has divided itself away---the andrestians, who once wrote the rules to which every devout person lived, is now relegated to being called ‘the western church.’ their traditions and rules deemed old or wrong or un-righteous or warped by time by the kingdom, always vetoed by the archbishop at the center of a new world.

but a vestra does not forget anything---least of all their storied traditions.

house vestra, at first glance, would not seem to be an important house. and in many ways it is not. it does not conrol the military, the economy, religious affairs, or any sort of public ruling. house vestra is viewed by many to be little more than a glorified house of servants---little more than butlers or secretaries in charge of servants, public and private meetings. their official duty is titled ‘household affairs.’

but only the master of the house can control what goes on in it. and the vestras run a tight, meticulous ship.

the vestras know every contact every emperor has ever come in contact with. the vestras know every known poison, every known common courtesy and tradition and proper forms of ettiquette in dagda, brigid, duscur, the kingdom AND the alliance (pity it is, that the kingdom and the alliance would be different, but their children learn anyway, before they learn to tie their boots or read). hubert is fluent in sixteen dialects of a total of eleven langauges and speaks them with perfect pronunciation. hubert memorized every known assassination in the history of fodlan (and how to prevent it from happening in the future) before he turned six.

but the power of house vestra does not come from their many talents. it comes from their Superior breeding and Superior Child Rearing and impressive arsenal of information dating back a thousand years (that they, again, never forget) meaning they are the perfect family, the only family, that can control every aspect of the royal family’s life. 

and they do so. with vigor.

how the emperor stands and sits and how he chews his food and wears his crown and how he waves, who he talks to (if he talks to anyone at all, some emperors are far too stupid, not that a von vestra would ever say such out loud), how he talks to them. the vestras control strategy, the vestras control the emperor’s goals, and they control these goals before the emperor even makes their own, so in tune are they with their lords, who they worship as holy beings---pharoahs more than emperors, rulers with divine holy right living in their veins, a power that must be tended to with tradition, with order, with meticulous guidance and knowledge no one but a von vestra could ever hope to possess all at once.

hubert, an only child, had impossible expectations on his shoulders.

hubert’s father was a devout man. his mother was a quiet woman, who never talked. his father liked it that way. when hubert would try to get affection from his mother, her hands would go limp, and his father would glare. hubert was raised on the bottle by nurses---an oddity for the time period, but one the vestra’s saw necessary. they needed their child to be tough---to be solitary. they did not want to spoil him. he was too important a servant to the cause.

hubert was born four years after the empire’s firstborn son. this already put him at a disadvantage. he would have to catch up. hubert’s father had meticulously planned to have a child every time the emperor and patricia did---but unfortunately all hubert’s siblings had died in childbirth or worse. a disappointment to be sure, but one that could be rectified with the proper discipline instilled in hubert. they would try to have more children over the years---to match the emperor and patricia. but hubert’s mother would die from birthing complications when he was only four.

thankfully, a vestra never forgets. so hubert can still remember his mother’s limp hands, her pale face, muscles not even strong enough to pull her mouth into a frown. she was not beautiful, nor ugly. but she looked like hubert, weak-limbed with hard, dangerous eyes, even though she never spoke in the little time he had with her in between study sessions and time spent with him.

‘him’ is tybalt. edelgard’s oldest brother, the boy everyone assumed would one day become emperor, if luck permitted and he produced his crest.

tybalt was an older boy, (four years older, remember?) with auburn hair, and a smile that could melt gold into embers, a particular talent with horses. hubert was told to worship him. but instead he loved him like apollo loved the sun. when hubert’s father beat him, he pictured a glorious future, dragging the sun behind him on a chariot, racing through the clouds. when his tutors spoke of sin and hell and the wife hubert would one day have to take in order to continue his household---hubert pictured heaven instead, side by side, serving his first, most secret love.

but tybalt did not produce a crest, not at eight, and not at nine, not at ten, or eleven, or twelve.

but edelgard did. just a minor crest of course---but that was enough to make her a viable heir, where tybalt was not. 

she was five. and where hubert could have resented being pulled away from his crush---he was falling deeper and deeper into depression as his future, and his father’s religious fixations---became more real and terrifying to him. edelgard was five years old, three years younger than hubert. and while hubert loved tybalt---and always would, because a vestra does not forget---spending time with edelgard did something that time with tybalt did not. it made him ignore his whole terrible life.

tybalt was a kind boy, a prince among princes, but edelgard was boisterous and rambunctious, an adorable bouncy little girl who was both bratty and a self-assured know-it-all in the adorable way only girls can be. with tybalt, hubert had begun picturing his father’s hell every time he saw him. no more clouds. only dirt&disease, bone-rotting flesh and eternal damnation.

but edelgard never forced him to see the clouds in the first place. she was high maintenance. to a fault. she was silly, and ridiculous, and sharp as a tack. she did not make him picture heaven or the sun---though she had grand beliefs about the future of the empire, goals far beyond what tybalt ever held.

instead she brought him down to her world, as only a child can. for the first time, with edelgard, hubert knew family, and he knew requited, platonic love, as edelgard made no secret of her affections with hugs and cheek kisses that hubert did not care that he would be punished for later. edelgard made him feel like a person, instead of an object or a servant.

and all that would change, for the worse, by hubert’s own hand. but hubert would never forget how special that little girl was.

edelgard and tybalt both left one night no more than three years later. his father had something to do with it, hubert knew.

and as hubert attacked every branch member of his house---his own father, who attempted to kill him in turn for disobeying him, as he stood his ground running outside the house to try to find edelgard (somehow tybalt started to fall by the wayside. surely the angel could protect himself. surely only the child needed him.). only to be attacked for three days straight. he did not eat, or sleep, he let himself soil himself if it meant another yard off the grounds of the von vestra estate to find her. but eventually he was taken down. and tortured. he did not beg for the goddess’s forgiveness as he was told to. he knew she would not listen. (she never had before. a vestra remembers.)

in his father’s dungeons, in which he realized some lessons he had learned from his house were not really just in case of emergencies... he stopped fearing the goddess. he stopped fearing hell. he began to crave it---a sadomasochism working its way into his heart.

he would attend lessons, repeat the motions, learn, and learn, and learn, paying special attention now, with spite bit into his tongue. but he would not be whole again until he saw edelgard and she explained everything, until the hate in his heart had a name and his vengeance worthy opponents.

he would follow the path he was given, the path he had always wanted, to be by the emperor’s side. he would make her dreams come true---and make everyone, even the goddess herself pay with blood. sothis forgot her children---turned her backs on the empire. but hubert remembers everything, and he’s here to burn it all to the ground.

despite his vitriol and his passion. hubert is ruled by fear, like a snaked coiled in a corner. he does not feel he can stand on his own two feet. he relies on edelgard for purpose, for clarity. he is most comfortable when treated as a servant of her will, as a mere extension of edelgard and nothing more. he no longer wants to be human. despite his fascination/aesthetic of the dark and occult, hubert still remembers those clouds, that chariot, flying through the air, being in love and holding that love tight to his chest. he wishes sometimes, to be a pegasus rider. but such roles are reserved for women. he’s better suited for groveling at their feet---not in prayer for the goddess, but digging himself deeper into the dirt & blood, to protect his emperor from things a child should not see.