#effort made at actually representing them - is anything but a shit for brains take

[bigskydreaming]

Me venturing briefly into 911 fics after Buck came out as bi: I am BEGGING people to stop basing their entire view of two men having later-in-life gay or bi awakenings on that one fucking reddit post about the guy thinking he's homophobic after his roommate came out.

[lyriquette]

Old AU description from the Frosen Steel server 1/23/2021

This is where Salem also does the Ozma reincarnating thing. And they both end up in the same place, Penny's brain. I've fleshed out the beginning part in the Good RWBY aus, I believe, but I left the original piece here too for my own reference if I want to expand this. I don't think any one on Tumblr saw part 2 though.

I think this was around the Penny hack, so some of us in the server may have been a little salty about that. 8\

---

lilac — 01/23/2021 8:24 PM

An AU where Salem is forced to do the reincarnation thing as punishment instead of immortality, and Ozma gets punished all the same. They still wage their secret wars on each other using their reincarnations all the same.

After thousands of years, they finally meet each other on the greatest battlefield yet: Penny's brain.

lilac — 01/23/2021 8:46 PM

They both somehow reincarnate into Penny, and the first thing they notice when they awaken is that Penny's mind is unlike anything they've ever encountered before. Whereas most people just have a dark blank area to represent their unconscious mind where they typically hang at, Penny's mind is organized like a giant mansion filled with memories that occasionally transverses into the strange and magical depending on what fiction Penny has read for the day.

As soon as Salem realizes who she's stuck with, she immediately tries to murder Ozma on sight. Ozma meanwhile isn't taking Salem's shit after a couple of millenia. After failing to kill a beaten Ozma despite her best efforts , Salem just decides to wipe the mind she's in and take her chances with the next reincarnation.

Her magic wipes the entire mindscape into barren land, and the mansion filled with precious things disintegrates in her rage.

Nothing was left beyond the death she brought to this world. However, what awaited her was not the disorienting feeling of entering a new body but..

With a strange staticky effect, the world quickly reverts back to how it was before except a dark shadow now looms over the lands.

Salem looks up for just a moment and learns that she's not the one in control.

A giant hand as tall as her yanks her by the scruff of her robes and pulls her into the sky above the clouds. And soon she finds herself eye level with a giant red-eyed redhead staring at her with annoyance.

Salem tried to use her magic but all she could do was cast sparks, her powers suppressed by the clearly godlike being in this domain.

The girl just stared at Salem for a long time before making her decree.

"Stop that." With that said, the being vanishes, and Salem falls a couple of kilometers of height into the ground with a painful crunch. Hearing her once loved, now most hated foe laugh at her plight, she knew this lifetime was going to suck all kinds of awful.

-----

lilac — 01/23/2021 10:07 PM

The next day, Penny wakes up somewhat confused inside a half-derelict shack in Mantle. Surrounded by scraps and mechanical parts, she slowly drove herself over towards her both creator and father. Unlike canon, Pietro Polendina never gets a chance to show his genius to the people of Atlas. With Salem out of the picture, the Grimm were more of a nuisance than world-ending threat. Even a civilian militia can take them down with dust rounds, and thus more villages existed in Remnant.

Her father accidentally gave life to a mechanical android he scavenged several years ago with his Semblance and then chose to take responsibility for the life he created. Most of her torso and head had been retrofitted for more human-like features over the years, though her arms still needed work and her legs needed to be replaced for actual legs instead of the treads she kept hidden inside long skirts – and made others think she was gliding rather than walking. She guiltily accepted her dad’s gifts, knowing they didn’t come cheap – the technology such as the synthetic skin likely came directly from Atlas. Her dad was just a poor engineer who repaired Mantle’s heating devices and machines, helping customers who didn’t have much themselves. Her dad wouldn’t let her refuse – called her “the only thing he’s done right in his life” – so she chose to try and help him out to decrease his burdens.

Unlike her dad, she didn’t have the specs to doing anything dexterous; she was operating on extremely old hardware – the only saving grace was that the part that seemed to hold her soul, a strange amalgam of broken vacuum tubes and microchips, didn’t actually need to function for her to command her body – perhaps the only sign that she was not a robot and was actually a real girl. So instead, she helped more on the software end of things; unlike others who had to sift through lines and lines of code to find something wrong, she could literally see where the code broke down and generated errors.

In the tiny world that was her and the code, she was its goddess. Modifications and repairs didn’t take her much more than a thought or two. Sometimes she was sorely tempted to leave a bug in the software, so people would be forced to return to their shop in regular intervals. But it was just a thought; she liked to think she was her father’s daughter, and her father was an honest, trustworthy man.

Lately, she’d been working on design and animation, an unprecedented game that would run on a Scroll and connect to other Scrolls using the CCT. It was a project she’d been working for a couple years now, mostly during her sleep cycles.

She vaguely recalled some sort of catastrophic error occurring in the game world she’d been creating over the years. Those occasionally happened when she was implementing major changes like a physics engine or environmental damage, which she was implementing at the time….but she didn’t expect it would require a complete revert to reverse the damage. She had wanted to send the prototype game to her online friends, but the error had set everything back a week or two. She’ll look into it later.

Ring. Ring.

<IceQueen> and <CrescentRose> have joined the chatroom.

Speaking of….

---

lilac — 01/23/2021 11:17 PM

Penny’s known Weiss for two years now, ever since she popped into their shop with her younger brother in tow. She remembered that day clearly - how the fresh snow layered upon the ground unbroken as everyone stayed inside and celebrated the Vytal New Year.

She left her door open to air out the scorched scent of fried electronics she’d been experimenting on: it didn’t bother her, but her dad didn’t like it.

By the time she came back downstairs, she found the door closed with both Schnee siblings covered in blood.

From what she heard on the news later on, the Schnee’s shuttle had been hit with a rocket, and they crash-landed into Mantle. The whole thing apparently was a kidnapping attempt by the White Fang who were trying to go for Jacques Gele: the man had abandoned his kids in his escape and left them to fend for themselves. While most of the White Fang chased after the Schnee patriarch, some went searching for the Schnee kids through the city of Mantle.

--

After Weiss told her tale and about people chasing them, Weiss glanced at the flecks of red on her hands and suddenly realized something, her face becoming pale with fear.

“Whitley, stay here with the nice girl,” Weiss said hurriedly as she prepared to go outside, “I’m going to get help, alright?”

“But Weiss…” Whitley tried to stand up from the chair he was sat on, but his broken leg prevented him from doing so.

“I’ll be back, alright?” Weiss said with a smile that didn’t quite meet her eyes. She turned to Penny. “Please take care of my brother.”

Penny placed a steady hand onto Weiss’s shoulder, sitting her back down onto the chair she sat on.

“What are yo-“

“I won’t let you sacrifice yourself. You’re both going to survive this. We’re all going to,” Penny said resolutely as she rummaged through the junk pile near the door.

“But you’ll be in danger too!” Weiss retorted, “This isn’t a joke! They have guns!”

Her hand clenched around a familiar textured handle.

“So what?”

Penny smugly said, projecting more confidence than she actually felt. The blaseness of her answer stunned Weiss silent.

Knock knock knock!

“We know you’re in there!” a gruff voice called out from outside, “Will you do this the easy way or the hard way?!”

Before Penny could interject, Weiss yelled out, “Alright! Alright! I surrender! Just...just don’t hurt anyone.”

“You’re not in any condition to make requests, Schnee,” the gruff voice retorted. “We’ll give you three seconds to come out or else…heheheh,” said a second voice from outside the door.

“One!”

“Whitley, hide under here. Don’t make a sound,” Weiss ordered.

“Weiss…” Whitley got out before Weiss placed a hand over his mouth.

“Two!”

“…I’m sorry to have brought you into this,” Weiss said with a downcast look as she stood up and made her way towards the door, “...I’m Weiss. I never did get your name.”

“Three!”

“I’m Penny Polendina,” she replied.

Before Weiss could reach the door, Penny lifted a hand to block her. The long sleeves of her shirt fell onto her elbow, revealing the dark shiny gloss of metal. Weiss’s eyes went wide at the sight as Penny grasped onto the hilt of her weapon with both hands.

“And I’m not an ordinary girl.”

--

Crack!

The blow that broke the door open was not the pair of kicks from the henchmen outside but from the wide swing of the baseball bat she wielded. The full force of her swing carried both door and henchmen through the streets and crashing straight into a stone wall - a flicker of Aura signaled that she put her assailants out of commission.

Meanwhile, a pair of awe-filled gazes from the Schnee siblings before her made Penny feel extremely self-conscious.

“Ummm…maybe we should call the police now,” Penny awkwardly said.

------

[marybeatriceofmodena]

You know, I’ve been thinking today about how Alina doesn’t even really work as a Reluctant Hero, compared her to Frodo to see the key differences (since Frodo is pretty much the Poster Child for the Reluctant Hero), and then I realized... 

You know, I think L/eigh B/ardugo wrote TGT as a very black-and-white fairytale, where Alina is the princess, Mal’s the knight in the shining armor, and the Darkling is basically the dragon, except it doesn’t really work because the worldbuilding requires an approach that’s... a lot more grey? 

The thing is, though, I realized... Alina and Mal are basically meant to be Frodo and Sam. Except that, again... it doesn’t really work. 

Frodo works as a Reluctant Hero, because he makes it clear multiple times that he doesn’t want to carry the Ring. He asks Gandalf to do it for him, he asks Galadriel, he asks Aragorn, and they all refuse, because they are (or are called to be) in a position of power, and while them being in a position of power is presented as good, the One Ring essentially represents the fast, easy way to get to it, which will ultimately corrupt them rather than have them fight their way towards their goal. 

Frodo, meanwhile, is the right person to carry the Ring, because he comes from a humble place and he doesn’t really have any aspirations to become powerful. And while he’s clearly burdened by having to carry the One Ring, and that he makes it clear that he wishes the Ring had never come to him, he still goes on anyway, despite all the hardships he faces, because his ultimate goal is to save the Shire and his friends, and that desire is stronger than any fear or greed he may have. 

Now, J.R.R. Tolkien himself said that he didn’t really see Frodo as THE Hero, and that Sam is the real Hero of the story to him. Which makes sense, given how Sam was based off young men from rural England he met while fighting in World War I. But also, the story makes it very clear that without Sam, who’s arguably the most pure-hearted person in all of Middle-Earth, Frodo would have definitely failed in his task. The reason why he resists the temptation to carry the One Ring is LITERALLY because him protecting and helping Frodo is more important to him. Sam doesn’t give two shits about power. Helping Frodo save the Shire and coming back to everything he’s ever loved is more important to him. 

Both Alina and Frodo are pure-hearted orphans who are given tremendous power: Alina is the Sun Summoner, and Frodo carries the One Ring. In both cases, power is represented as a corruptive force, that makes people go mad with greed. It works in the context of The Lord of the Rings, given how the rings were given to leaders of Elves, Dwarves and Men, and that Sauron created the One Ring to rule over and control all of them. The Grisha, on the other hand, unlike the Ring-bearers, are not in a position of power, given they are essentially victims of Fantastic Racism in pretty much every country. While Ravka treats them slightly better than in Fjerda or Shu Han, it’s still not ideal and it’s something that could be taken away from them at any moment. It would be an entirely different matter if the Grisha were the ones rulling over Ravka and viewing otkazat’sya as lesser, and in that context, Alina being the Sun Summoner would be a very obvious road to her becoming corrupted. 

Frodo refusing to carry the One Ring and asking other people to take that burden from him comes from a place of genuine fear of what the Ring might do to him. In his place, we’d probably all do the same thing. That’s what makes his acceptance of his task all the more admirable. Alina, on the other hand, refuses to be the Sun Summoner and to help her fellow Grisha because that stands in the way of her ending up with Mal. She never gives any sign that she’s truly empathizing with the Grisha’s plight, she tries to run away not once, but twice, and most importantly, she never sees herself as one of them. They are othered, but it matters little to her, because she doesn’t want to be othered herself, because that stands in the way of her running off with a boy. It’s basically the equivalent of Frodo being overcome by fear after seeing the fate of the Shire in Galadriel’s mirror, and just demanding to be sent to the Grey Havens straight away to save his own ass from it all and just leaving the One Ring to whoever wants to deal with it. At that point, it’s not being a Reluctant Hero: it’s being a coward at best, a selfish bastard at worst. 

(And that’s why I don’t really buy her when she tells Aleksander that they could have had it all if he had told her all the truth from the start, because... again, she didn’t seem to care about the Grisha that much and Aleks telling her everything would have actually been a sure way of having her run as fast as possible the other way. I know the story is trying to tell me otherwise and that the plot point I’m supposed to see here is that Alina was willing to do something until she felt betrayed by Aleks, which is... not what was shown here, and it’s especially annoying considering how Alina is a deserter in every sense of the word, and that any army would have court-martialed her for running away.) 

So if Alina is meant to be a pure, selfless heroine, who loses her powers because she also refuses to be greedy... that just falls completely flat, because if anything, she’s as selfish as Frodo is selfless, because all of this really just boils down to her wanting to run off with Mal. 

Now, onto Sam and Mal. Both of them are basically Everymen who are there to help the Hero and keep their feet on the ground. As mentioned earlier, Sam is the one who helps Frodo finish his mission to Mordor, and the story makes it clear Frodo would have failed without him. TGT meanwhile presents Mal as Alina’s “True North”... which could work on paper as Alina’s reminder to temper Aleksander’s efforts and to remind him that in order for Grisha to be viewed as people, it is important for them to also remember that balance and peace between Grisha and otkazat’sya will be essential, so resentment and hatred can be healed between both groups. 

The key difference here is that Sam is completely supportive of Frodo at all times. Even when Frodo sends him away in the film, Sam goes back after him the minute he realizes he’s been tricked by Gollum. He never shames Frodo whenever he falls prey to temptation, he simply reminds him of who he is and what he must fight for, and even when he’s climbing Mount Doom, he still carries Frodo on his back despite being probably completely exhausted, because Frodo’s more exhausted than he is. He completely accepts Frodo as both his friend, the Hobbit from the Shire, and the Ring-bearer he needs to help, even if he might die in the process. 

Mal (in the books, that is) makes it very clear that he does not accept Alina as both the girl he knew and the Sun Summoner. He only wants the girl, and whenever Alina makes steps towards being the Sun Summoner, he basically sulks and yells at her for not paying attention to him. Despite Alina becoming othered in the eyes of the world, he refuses to see her as othered, mostly because it is inconvenient to him rather than because he loves her for who she is. That’s why in the end, people feel like Alina lost her powers in order to be with Mal, because Mal would never accept her in her entirety. Sam, on the other hand, accepts Frodo as both Ring-bearer and Hobbit, because if he didn’t, Frodo would have failed. 

And while they made Mal in the show a lot nicer than his book counterpart, he still doesn’t work as Alina’s “True North”, because he cossets her in her selfishness. He may say he doesn’t care about how Alina is a Grisha in this one, but he also doesn’t consider the implications of it all - which is especially glaring given he’s a soldier himself. Like, look, if you’re going to slap in a racism plotline to make Mal/ina work, you’d think that being half-Shu would give Mal a little awareness that people are going to treat Alina badly for being half-Shu AND a Grisha, and given Alina is the MOTHERFUCKING SUN SUMMONER AND A SAINT, maybe, just maybe he’d tell her: “Heh, it’s kinda lame we’ll just run off and let everyone else in the dust, you know, especially since we could make our lives as well as everyone else’s better?” Seriously, if you’re going to make Mal Alina’s “True North”, have him face her duties and her calling whether she likes it or not, don’t coddle her when she wants to run the other way because she wants to hide under a rock for the rest of her life. 

With all that being said, that leaves us with the Darkling, who... I mean, given his whole schtick is that power corrupts and makes you evil and crazy, I guess that makes him Gollum, but sexy. 

Gollum, but sexy. 

That single expression has been haunting me ever since I started writing the above novel and I fucking hate it. You’re welcome. No one wanted Sexy Gollum. Absolutely no one. Fuck this shyte. See, this is why I want Darkling Redemption. I do not want to live in a world where Gollum is sexy. I need brain bleach. 

Even here it doesn’t even fucking work because Gollum hid in a cave with the Ring with a strategically placed cloth because no one wants to see his crusty ass family jewels anyway, while Aleks worked his ass off to give the Grisha a safe place to live and to at the very least ensure they’re useful enough to not be killed like animals. Like, if you’re going to give the world something that’s gonna definitely not make me sleep tonight like Sexy Gollum, at least do it right. 

[wyn-n-tonic]

I think there are so many talented writers on this site that can write 100x better than most books I’ve read.

Honestly I fell in love with Frizzy and I’ve started to write stuff for Benny because you’ve inspired me. I’ve started to write it up as one shot reader inserts, like how you’ve done, but honestly the “reader” just fully becomes their own character. I think my issue is that I know more people will read it if it was a reader insert rather than in third person.

I’ve had another fic, probably nearly 3k words in and I keep going back and changing it from first person to third, and then changing it back again. Sometimes it’s just exhausting to write on here. You want to create original work, but people won’t read it because it’s not a reader insert.

okay i've decided to answer this not privately because i think a lot of people feel so similarly to you. i know that i did/still do.

first of all, the fact that i inspired anybody to do anything is mind boggling. that is such an honor and so fucking cool, you have no idea.

so here's how i feel about reader insert and the second person: besties, i don't really like it. for a variety of reasons!

1.) i feel as though it stunts the creativity of writers because they are so anxious and worried about making everything as blank of a slate as possible that the only character that is truly fleshed out is the one the fanfiction is about. writing it makes me feel like i'm writing half of a story in all honesty. reading it is also hard, because i have to come up with a character for myself, it's a lot of work and takes a lot of brain power.

2.) if you fuck up one (1) blessed little thing, you're fed to the wolves. there's no grace and patience with creators who are trying so hard as it is in order to make second person/reader insert something that anybody can fit into. one little mistake and you're intentionally triggering people/don't care about others/a malicious dick. IT'S A LOT OF PRESSURE!

3.) i actually don't think reader insert accomplishes diversity in fanfiction at all. it's designed to be a blank slate that anybody can fit themselves into, right? so explain to me how it's supposed to achieve inclusion if i'm reading it as a white girl reader insert and somebody else is reading it as a Black nonbinary reader insert?

do you know what made me fall in love with literature? it was the way that people could take these simple words and string them together to show me what it was like to walk in another person's shoes. literature stretches and builds empathy, it opens eyes, it exercises the muscle of imagination and it teaches me things that i never knew about before and then it makes me want to learn more about it.

i started writing fanfiction for the internet at ten years old, i thrived on building OCs, i thrived on reading them. i loved seeing people build things that were meant to represent them in the worlds (LOTR, HP, Star Wars) that we loved and they got to see themselves there and i got to see them there too. i miss seeing that because reader inserts by and large have wiped that away.

and then there's the pressure of nobody reading your shit/giving a shit if it's not reader insert. at the end of the day, we writers do like validation for things we've worked hard on. reader insert is popular and so we stress ourselves to change what we've worked on and built in our heads in order to instead have something that will be seen. because otherwise it's lonely! and we want to build community and connection, no? so we try to create within what's popular instead of what we feel in our hearts/souls/emotions. and idk about you but it's ended up making me feel lonelier because, at the end of the day, i feel like i'm just used as a machine to pump out tailor made porn for people who then do not even acknowledge the time and effort it took to make it, they just want more. or they want to eat you alive for not doing it well enough.

at the end of the day, babe, write for you. write what moves you. write what feels right to you. some stories need first person. some stories need third. some stories need a revolving door of first person POV. and i'm personally nosy af so i love a third person omniscient because i want to know what everybody's thinking. but it's your story and only you can tell it and you're writing it because you want to read it. and i guarantee when you approach it with that kind of passion, it will shine through no matter the tense you utilized and it will move people. i think that part of the reason why people love Lizzy is because of how passionate i am about her and that shines through. her story is important to me, she is important to me. and somehow that's become important to others. so many more people than i could've ever imagined. and i don't think that would've been the case if i had followed these rules that are popular in fanfiction at the moment.

[mego42]

What are some of your favorite GG song Moments. ? Here are some of mine.

1. Easy ft lorde- OMG this soong is such a bop. it just fits the scene so well. HONESTLY one of my fav scenes. HE IS LIVING HIS BEST LIFE IN THIS SCENE. I LOVE CHAOTIC RIO

2. Wild heart by SPELLES.- THIS SONG IS SO HAUNTING just fits the vibe so well. SO ANGSTY

3. The most recent song. Used in that Brio moment. Idk what its called . I know that Beth is having the time of her life but that song is just HEAVY. The lyrics 🙏😭😭❤❤❤ such a pretty song fr 😔

omg anon i love this question nearly as much as i love your taste. YES!!!! to Easy (i too love tf out of personification of chaos rio), YES!!!!! to Wild Heart!!!!  it’s SO HAUNTING and disorienting and PERFECT. and Y E S !!!!!!!!!!!!! to the most recent song (whole life by perfume genius). i am LIVING for the heavy ballad vibes, super agree it’s so pretty. 

in no particular order, my top 5 music moments:

blanket me / hundred waters

1x09 - beth makes the calendar laying out her kids future in case something happens to her

i’ve already exposed myself as an absolute loon when it comes to this song and you can read the whole breakdown here

but tl;dr it’s a song about relying too much on a person and needing to break free and be independent but not in a toxic sort of way, more in a for personal growth and the best for everyone because co-dependence holds everyone back and i really, really, really love that in context of beth and her children, her learning to step back and not smother them but also not give so much of herself that she disappears entirely because that’s not good for them in the long run

basically it’s sort of a thesis statement for beth’s underlying s1 arc

plus it’s just like, heavy and haunting and absolutely gorgeous and not to be like, unreasonably pretentious, moves me and i love it

notable lyrics: You're my blanket, you're my skin / You're everything within / You're my guardian, I'm your sail / A boat in your harbor / Gone under, capsized and sinking / Blanket me, blanket me, blanket me, blanket me, blanket me

-

whole life / perfume genius

4x06 - beth looking for a place to hide the wire/hooking up with rio

the song is all about leaving behind the things weighing you down and moving into a brighter, more free future and i love love love how that plays with the duality of beth hiding the wire and securing her source of information for the secret service BUT ALSO marking this moment as a turning point for beth and rio because it absolutely is.

(like not just the fact that they’ve resumed a physical relationship but rio’s invited beth deeper into his world and we’re seeing beth crack on a level we really haven’t before)

this season is leaning SO HARD into duality and the tangled up truths and lies between them and i am absolutely UNHINGED over it

i also really love the like, passionate ballad nature of it juxtaposed over this twisted, extremely sexy moment (intercut with dean joyfully trying to seize hold of his new hobby only to be IMMEDIATELY denied)

there are just so many layers to it and i love all of them

notable lyrics: The mark where he left me / A clip on my wing / Oh, let it soften / I forgive everything

-

ocean rain / echo & the bunnymen

4x04 - the beth and jane/rio getting the drop on fitz montage

the whole theme of this song is two people tearing each other apart and destroying the bones of their former intimacy which like, hello subject matter aptitude and it’s told through this GLORIOUSLY dramatic hurricane at sea imagery with ships being dragged below the waves by the hurricanes the two people have called down on each other set to a gorgeous over the top orchestral score

on a yrical note, i love that the song is basically the same verse over and over (interspersed with the chorus, obvs) and the only change is me vs you when it comes to who brought the storm down on them

basically, if you were challenged to come up with a song that represented two peak dramatique heaux nightmare factories locked in a never ending game of deadly cat and mouse, you couldn’t top this.

i am ABSOLUTELY OBSESSED with the choice to pair it with a montage of beth finally pulling the trigger (with foresight and intent, shooting rio was p obvs a oh shit look what i did moment), a milestone rio’s been dragging her (down) towards since the beginning of s2 AND using him to do it, dragging him (down) into her mess (m ade all the more messy when you consider he was the target of it) (i just! love it! so! much!)

i want to live in johnathan leahy’s brain

notable lyrics: all at sea again / and now my[your] hurricanes have brought down this ocean rain / to bathe me again / my ship’s a-sail / can you hear it’s tender frame / screaming from beneath the waves / screaming from beneath the waves

-

el musgo / gabriel bruce

3x04 - rio watches beth make money

UGH GOD when that high hat and bass kicked in the first time i was like oh shit we are in for some DRAMA and sure enough we were as well as a more sexual montage than anything you’d find in actual porn.

idk, the fact that they chose this deep, dark, mournful about lost love to an elongated montage slow motion montage of rio watching beth make fake cash and deciding not to kill her for nearly killing him doEs stuFf to me

all i’m saying is johnathan leahy ships brio harder than any of us and is a more dramatique heaux than either of them, which are two really impressive feats to achieve

AND THEN!!! AND THEN!!!!! they CHOPPED THE SONG UP!!!!! so they were able to take advantage of the dawning drama of the opening bars BUT ALSO include the closing stanza about wearing the marks the subject of the song gave the singer like a scar where they took his heart from him and the INTENTIONALITY of that creative choice puts me on the FLOOR

LIKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

notable lyrics: I'll wear this mark like a medal / But it's a scar / Where you took my heart from me

-

kimono hill / sophia kennedy

3x01 - rio leaves the hotel

honeslty, lowkey surprised this one made my top five. not because it isn’t a fabulous song deployed with johnathan leahy’s usual mastery, but bc i didn’t realize how much i loved it until making this list

i don’t really have like, a deep, lyrically rooted storytelling reason for loving it, i just think the way they used it in the show is Such A Vibe

the way the vibrating synthy tones and underlying organ kicks in while rio’s getting in the elevator has this beautiful held breath anticipatory quality to it that works SO WELL to set up the montage of rio strutting out back into his life while turner gets murdered (a scene i have some uh, complicated feelings about but setting those aside), and the bolands’ fresh start to the tune of bouncy drums and looping vocals

idk it’s such a shining note to end the first episode of a new season on, i remember feeling refreshed and super hype for what’s to come

notable lyrics: no lyrics, just the vibe of the opening bars

tl;dr i really, really, REALLY love how this show uses music. you can tell they put a lot of time and effort and thought into it and while i know the trajectory isn’t working for everyone, personally i love it. granted, as you can see from this list, i clearly love the shit out of a down tempo dramatic ballad, so. if you are more of a bangers and bops person, i would point you to @nickmillerscaulk’s inbox as she is a Certified Bangers Afficianado.

[kintatsujo]

LoZ AU: The Courage of Running Away Supplementary Post FOUR

I think it’s four!  I don’t know for sure at this point!

The next actual story post is going up right after this don’t worry

#AU August

#LoZ AU: The Courage of Running Away

So I mentioned early on that I don't think about game mechanics too hard with CoRA because it's more focused on the story

And I mentioned last post that I've been thinking about it more lately as we've been getting fight scenes lmao

I don't think as many people are interested in this but it does have a lot to do with how I'm managing what the characters can and can't do, specifically Queen Zelda, so here's an overview of what's in my head:

CoRA's game play, if it were a game, would try to marry the botw gameplay with both alttp and Age of Calamity

(why try to include something that's technically a different genre? More examples of a higher variety of characters than just Link, that's why)

The major thing this means is that all characters have both a stamina wheel and a magic meter, and the magic meter also functions like the A-move bars in aoc; if you can't do general magic you can still use it for things that take immense effort, which covers things like A-move style attacks but also probably includes shit like making a wish so hard that it comes true.

[Image Description: Part of a fake screenshot of CoRA as a game.  Link is running across a green field, hard enough to sweat.  He has a bright green stamina wheel by his head that’s partially depleted, twelve full hearts across the top left of the screen, and to the left of the hearts is a long thin blue meter that’s been partially depleted as well.  End ID.]

(The Magic Meter is blue here because that way all three Goddess Colors are represented in Link’s personal resources.)

The magic meter can be replenished by three things: rest (both sleep and meditation), potions designed for it, and success in battle (smacking dudes in the face successfully). It cannot be replenished by food the way that stamina and hearts can but since on average most people don't use their magic every day, most people are walking around with a full meter at all times.

In other words, Queen Zelda used the equivalent of her A-move to blast Astramorus through that wall, because she could afford to do so.

That's also why she was being slightly less active in some of the other fight scenes, including why she didnt step in when Astramorus was getting slapped around by Ghirahim, because she didn't know that she COULD afford to waste an A-move when Ghirahim's rather obviously a high level threat.

She did spend one on the Silver Hinox but as anyone who's played aoc knows it tends to take more than one A-move to take out a red hinox.

There's items that draw on your magic meter and then there's items that have their own internal reserves, like the wizzrobe rods.

As for the stamina wheel, it functions more or less like the one from botw. Some people use it for different things depending on their aptitudes; Marla and most other Zora wouldn't use stamina for normal speed swimming and Rito wouldn't use it when gliding. An old man might use his stamina wheel for a trot he didn't need it for as a youth. After Marla gifts Link with one of her scales he doesn't need it for normal speed swimming either.

Generally weapons would have a more complicated durability interplay than what we see in the botw system; cheap weapons and wooden weapons would have durability that looked similar to that but metal weapons in general would never break until Link got the power gloves in Subrosia, and then they'd start wearing down more quickly and sometimes shatter after an A move. The flipside is that Link can hit harder. He CAN turn the effect of the power gloves off, which is good because he'd keep breaking cups.

The Master Sword wouldn't break at all but he's not getting it until the sequel.

The power gloves also increase Link's strength just in general and he absolutely went around Subrosia picking up huge rocks when he got them. If he wanted, he could probably go moblin tipping.

[Image Description: A blue round globe or disc, it’s unclear, labeled “Moon Pearl.”  It has sparkles under its surface.  End ID.]

The Moon Pearl, which is what Serenumbra used to awaken Ghirahim and summon him to where he wanted, does basically whatever I want that makes sense (if the Dungeon Master in my brain likes it that's what I go with.) It largely works in things that involve interworld travel, but it can also transform things according to reflections on their souls OR it can protect the bearer from general interdimensional shenanigans.

I actually tend to think that he hasn't fully understood what this means yet but that Ghirahim has been made slightly more "human" by having its powers worked on him. The main thing this has meant that he's already noticed is that he's been eating and sleeping, but it's also probably a factor in why he was too dazed by the process to do anything about Serenumbra right then and there.

The thing that the Scarred Woman used to summon Chekov the hinox is a Force Gem like from Four Swords Adventures, Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, because if my inner gamemaster thinks she can use something she does. I think in CoRA they're basically little shards of power left in places gods and other powerful spiritual beings have trod, and they're less rare than you'd expect, because there are little gods everywhere. Serenumbra has a lower level spell of some kind that lets him use them as warp points for various purposes, hence why the Scarred Woman could put a hinox in the middle of the castle throne room with one.

[Image ID: The Scarred Woman in her fox mask holding up a small glowing green crystal with triangular sides.  End ID.]

If anyone hasn't connected the dots yet, that's ALSO where the hinox Link fought in the tutorial dungeon came from. Astramorus wouldn't see this as absolving him of his own responsibility for how things played out but it's absolutely true that Serenumbra has been actively encouraging, aiding and abetting every worst impulse he's been able to catch out of Astra and has planted just as many as he's helped along.

Anyway that all got longer than I meant but it's relevant for the incoming posts, so!

[robin-hoodlum]

Do you have ideas for your cowboy au or is it just aesthetic?

I DO HAVE IDEAS -Cracks knuckles- but they are jumbled just as my thoughts usually are so I apologize. This is what I have so far:

1- the clones were rescued by Jango (at the behest of Boba tbh). I’m not sure precisely how the little details were, but basically this gunslinger saw his clones, how they were being raised and went “This is fucked” And stole them all. The clone war was more of a war of rights and they won. (with the help of, surprisingly, the Jedi and the Mandalorians) They work all over, a lot becoming farmers, some becoming bounty hunters (a group largely run by Boba and Jango), basically they are actual fuckin citizens and that’s how it SHOULD BE. 

(1a- so the side result of this is that when the fight to take down the Jedi started, they really didn’t have as much structured support. The ultimate goal of freeing the clones worked, but the Jedi and Mandalorians were reduced significantly in number and now sort of stay low to keep from drawing too much attention. 

1b- Vader never existed, And the twins are thriving as both political and Jedi persons. Leia was trained as a Jedi, Luke runs a little school now and both were raised by their parents. Anakin is a disaster. Uncle Obi wan runs a ranch where a lot of the clones chose to work and it makes a great vacation for the twins when Padme and Anakin need a break)

2- The Mandalorians are still a religion/creed with different sects of belief. They are still known as badasses in all forms, tho. The one common thing is the darksaber, and whoever wields it is largely seen as their leader and representative. During the clone wars, their planet (lands? I think its in space but this can all be argued seeing as I messed with it all anyway) was destroyed and stripped of its resources because the imperials saw them as a threat. 

3- The Jedi are kind of the same... kinda. More of a code of living. (The force still exists because I said so). Just like the Mandos, their own home was also destroyed and taken over, forcing them into hiding and functioning largely as an underground group. Once the war was won, and all settled, they came out of hiding for the most part, but still made an effort to be strictly peacekeepers and resort to battle as a last resort, as it was supposed to be. 

3a- I imagine they all started their own sorts of peace keeping groups too. Like for some examples, I like to think (and I know) Plo koon took care of orphaned children (Clone cadets, Padawans, basically any child that was affected thusly by the war) alongside several other Jedi. Mace probably became some sort of liaison or political leader to represent them as a people. (Maybe? Idk. He seems like he wants a break maybe he runs some sort of general store) For examples.

5- It’s got kind of the same political settings as The Mandalorian I would imagine. Most of the empire is gone but they still exist, and a lot of people deny the signs. Mando (HErE WE GO THE GOOD STUFF) is the provider for his clan, as it is in the show. the difference is he’s not the only named one. -looks at paz- and so it’s more of a joint effort. 

6- So Mando gets the same sort of storyline there- definitely large differences tho because of how much I changed shit. He goes to get the bounty, bounty is kid. Well shit gotta adopt. Duh. Mandalorians treasure kids why tf would he turn him over? No. Congrats Din, It’s a bean boy. He worries about how he’s supposed to care for this kid that can MAKE SHIT FLOAT and TOSS PEOPLE AROUND WITH HIS BRAIN and also be making money for the clan, so he asks around and finds out about the Jedi that still run around helping people, and also there is a school teacher who happens to be a Jedi. Gotta find that guy

7- Well once more it becomes the side quest storyline of the century. We have Razor, who is our loveable and dumb steed, she loves food more than anything (guzzler, if you will) except for Din himself, who she would carry into the depths of Hell if he had asked. She also starts off by not liking Grogu, because he’s stealing her best buddy’s attention away from her. Thankfully, they figure it out over time. And it’s adorable and one day Din wakes up to see Grogu sleeping on Razor’s flank, and she has her head near him in a protective way. 

8- He meets with Boba when he needs information (Slave is Jango’s baby but he will throw shoes for Boba as well) And they go on a mini adventure to find this sith-damned elusive school teacher who always seems to be on the move for some reason. They meet several clones, Jedi, Mandalorians, and Imps along the way and it’s nuts

9- Accidental Manda’lor Din? Accidental Manda’lor Din. Poor man has no idea what is about to go down but it’s gonna go down and it will be glorious

This got really long and I apologize but these are the basic(?) ideas I have 

[la5t-res0rt]

this was written several weeks ago in response to asks i was receiving i am posting it now it is very long the longest i have ever made and it is not very well edited but here it is in this final essay i talk about how shitty rae is about black people in her writing as well as just me talking about how her writing sucks in general lets begin

hello everyone 

as you may know i have received a lot of anons in the last week or so about issues of racism in the beetlejuice community both just generally speaking and also within specific spaces 

i was very frustrated to not be getting the answers i wanted because i typically do not talk about what i do not see but in an effort to be better about discourse i went looking through discourse from before my time in the fandom and i also received some receipts and information from my followers and from some friends

keep in mind that the voices and thoughts of bipoc are not only incredibly important at all times but in this circumstance it is important that if a bipoc has something to add you listen and learn and be better

i admit that when this happened i wasnt aware of the extent of what occurred and im angry at myself for not doing more at that time and i want to work harder to make sure something like this doesnt go unnoticed again

im a hesitant to talk about months old discourse because i have been criticized for bringing up quote old new unquote but this is very important and i am willing to face whatever comes from to me

lets talk about this

content from our local racist idiot that may be months old but its important

putting my thoughts under a cut to spare the dash but before i begin obviously this is awful

lets fucking unpack this folks

right out the gate op states that she supports artistic freedom but then within a couple words she goes against that statement

being entirely canon compliant isnt artistic freedom and even so if this person has so much respect for canon they wouldnt be out here erasing lydias obvious disgust for beetlejuice in the movie or ignoring lydias age for the sake of shipping that shit isnt canon either 

also we love the quick jab at the musical there hilarious we love it dont we because god forbid a licensed and successful branch on a media have any standing in this conversation but whatever

now lets scroll down and talk about the term racebending

the term racebending was coined around 2009 in response to the avatar the last airbender movie a film in which the east asian races of the characters were erased by casting white actors in the three leading roles of aang sokka and katara 

whenever the term racebending is used in a negative light it is almost always a case of whitewashing like casting scarlett johansen in ghost in the shell or the casting of white actors of the prince of persia sands of time instead of iranian ones

this kind of racebending erases minorities from beeing seen in media and is wrong

all that being said however racebending has also been noted to have very positive after effects like the 1997 adaptation of cinderella or casting samuel jackson as nick fury in the marvel movies nick fury was originally a white guy can you even imagine

i read this piece from an academic that said quote writers can change the race and cultural specificity of central characters or pull a secondary character of color from the margins transforming them into the central protagonist unquote

racebending like the kind that rae is so heated about is the kind of creative freedom that leads to more representation of bipoc in media which will never be a bad thing ever no matter how pissy you get about it

designing a version of a character as a poc isnt serving to make them necessarily better it serves to give new perspective and perhaps the opportunity to connect even more deeply with a character it doesnt marginalize or erase white people it can uplift poc and if you think uplifting poc is wrong because it tears down white people or whatever youre a fucking moron and you need to get out of your podunk white folk town and see the real world

the numbers of times a bipoc particularly a bipoc that is also lgbt+ has been represented in media are dwarfed by what i as a white dude have seen myself represented in media is and that isnt okay that isnt equality and its something that should change not only in mainstream media but in fandom spaces as well

lets move down a bit further to the part about bullying straight people which is hilarious and lets also talk about the term fetishistic as well lets start with that

this person literally writes explicit pornography of a minor and an adult are we really going to let someone like that dictate what is and what isnt fetishistic

similarly to doing a positive racebend situation people may project lgbt+ headcanons on a character because its part of who they are and it helps them feel closer to the character and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that

depicting lgbt+ subject matter on existing characters isnt an inherently fetishistic action generally things only really become fetishistic when the media is being crafted and hyped by people who are outside of lgbt+ community for example how young teens used to flip a tit about yaoi or how chasers fetishize trans people

but drawing a character with top surgery scars or headcanoning them as trans is harmless and its just another way to interpret a character literally anone could be trans unless if their character bio says theyre cis and most of them dont go that deep so it really is open to interpretation and on the whole most creators encourage this sort of exploration because it is a good thing to get healthy representation out in the world

as for it being used to bully straights thats just funny i dont have anything else on that like if youre straight and you feel threatened and bullied because of someone headcanoning someone as anything that isnt cishet youre a fucking idiot and a weak baby idiot at that like the real world must fucking suck for you because lgbt+ people are everywhere and statistically a big chunk of your favorite characters arent cishet sorry be mad about it

lets roll down a bit further about the big meat of the issue which was when several artists were drawing interpretations of lydia as a black girl which i loved but clearly this person didnt love it because they have a very narrow and very racist and problematic view of what it means to be a black person

and before i move forward i must reiderate that i am a white person and you should listen to the thoughts of poc people like @fright-of-their-lives​ or @gender-chaotic it is not my place to explain what the black experience is like and it certainly isnt this persons either

implying that the story of a black person isnt worth telling unless if the character faces struggles like racism and prejudice is downright moronic 

why use the word kissable to describe a black persons lips now thats what i call fetishistic and its to another extreme if youre talking about a black version of lydia on top of that

the author of this post says herself that shes white so clearly shes the person whos an authority on the black experience and what it means to be a black person right am i reading that right or am i having a fucking conniption

how about allowing black characters to exist without having to struggle why cant a black version of lydia just be a goth teenager with a ghost problem who likes photography and is also black like she doesnt have to move to a hick town and get abused by racist folks she doesnt have to go through any more shit than she already goes through and if you honestly think thats the only way to tell a black persons story you need to get your brain cleaned

you know nothing about the complexities about being a black person and i dont either but you know wh odo black people who are doing black versions of canon characters they fucking know 

lets squiggle down just a bit further 

so the writer has issues with giving characters traits like a broad nose or larger lips if theyre a woman but if theyre a man suddenly its totally okay to go all ryan murphy ahs coven papa legba appropriation when approaching character design like are you fucking stupid do you hear yourself is that really how you see black men like what the fuck is wrong with you

none of the shit youre spewing takes bravery it takes ignorance and supreme levels of stupidity

do you really think you with your fic where a black lgbt+ woman is tortured and abused where you use the n word with a hard r to refer to her like that shits not okay its fucking depraved and yeah we know you love being shitty but like christ on a bike thats so much 

can we also talk about this

what the fuck is this fetishistic bull roar garbage calling this black character beyonce dressing her up in quote fuck me heels unquote are you are you seriously gonna write this and say its a shining example of how to write a black character youre basically saying ope here she is shes a sex icon haha im so progressive and i clealry understand the black experience hahahaha fuck you oh my god

on top of that theres a point where this character is only referred to as curly hair or the fact that the n word is used in the fic with the hard r like thats hands down not okay for you to use especially not in a manner like this jesus christ

oop heres a little more a sampling for you of the hell i am enduring in reading this drivel

oh boy lets put a leash on the angry black woman character lets put her in a leash and have the man imply hes a master like are you kidding me are you for real and what the fuck is with calling her shit like j lo and beyonce do you actually think thats clever at all are you just thinking of any poc that comes into your head for this 

also lydia fucking tells this girl that she shouldnt have lost her temper like she got fucking leashed im so tired why is this writing so problematic and also so bad

hold up before i lose my head lets look at some of her own comments on the matter of this character and what happens to her

hi hello youre just casually tossing the word lynch out there in the wide open world as if thats not a problem that is still real like are you fucking unhinged there have been multiple cases of this exact thing happening in our firepit of a country in the last five months alone like how can you still have shit like this up for people to read how can you be proud of work like this in this climate

and also what the fuck is that last bit 

what the actual fuck

i dont speak for black people as a white person but you do!? im sorry i had to get my punctuation out for that because wow thats fucking asinine just because one black person read your fic and didnt find the torture and abuse of your one black character abhorrant doesnt mean that the vast majority of people not only in the fandom but in the human population with decency are going to think its okay because its not 

i started this post hoping to be level headed and professional but jesus fucking christ this woman is something else white nationalism is alive and well folks and its name is rae

if you defend this woman you defend some truly abhorrant raecism

editors notes 

in order to get some perspective on these issues more fully some of the writing by the author was examined and on the whole it was pretty unreadable but i want to just call back to the very beginning of this essay where the person in question talked about holding canon in high regard but then in their writing they just go around giving people magic and shit and ignoring the end of the movie entirely like are you canon compliant or nah 

the writing doesnt even read like beetlejuice fanfic it reads as self indulgent fiction you could easily change the names and its just a bad fanfic from 2007

also can we talk about writing the lesbian character as an angry man hater like its 2020 dude and als olets touch on that girl on girl pandering while beetlejuice is just there like here we go fetishizing again wee

i cant find a way to work this into this already massive post but

im going to throw up

okay so thats a lot we have covered a lot today and im sure my ask box will regret it but this definitely should have been more picked apart when it happened

please feel free to add more to this i would love more perspectives than just my own.

[incarnateirony]

Representation, Authorial Diversity, and more.

“I’ll take some beef jerky and a pack of menthols.”

Been a while since most of you thought about that line, hasn’t it? And for some of you it somehow sends some primitive lizard brain gaydar into overdrive and you can’t really pinpoint why, can you? It makes no sense, that line alone, and how it stands -- but between all of the talk of both Bobo Berens and LGBT media history, including The Celluloid Closet/Vito Russo or the Vito Russo Test, this moment actually puts a pin in a shift within our show, its handling of content formerly completely overlooked by creatives, and the importance of diversifying our writing crews that we all press for.

It was the moment our show leaned, and frankly-- should have been the moment the straights panicked. In fact, some of them did, just before it aired, and then everyone has played at oblivious since.

Before seasons air, we get news on new authors being added to teams, or other workers. Pre-S9 was no different, with fandom finding a tweet from Bobo Berens, our first open-closet LGBT author. I mean, Out And Proud. A true king.

The association if this is the mention of the Bechdel Test, a step aside of Vito Russo.

Now let us begin.

Well first of all I’m just gonna let everyone get a giggle at how Bobo handled the straight male knee coil:

But anyway the response to his initial tweet was a merry go round of concern trolling in the area of “OH DEAR I FEEL SO SORRY FOR YOU PLEASE ALLOW US THE NORMAL ASSBAGS OF THE FANDOM TO TELL YOU AN AUTHOR HOW STRAIGHT THE CHARACTERS ON THE SHOW YOU’RE WRITING FOR ARE” and I dunno, it’s comedy.

Whether or not Bobo was addressing SPN as a new project in particular -- and it, from a dark age of SPN I’ve covered the upheaval during -- this is important. Really, really important.

Let’s say that timeline does overlap Bobo’s, and he did implicitly believe it; he might have had to write them as Straight Guys; but his own deep-seated place in the LGBT community developed resonant text, he made change. Change enough that when his first script was put into motion, the showrunner took one look at it and, for the first time in recorded history, we had note of some sort of intent --

Misha went on to say “so that’s what we played there.”

Regardless of anyone’s misunderstanding about how the fandom riled themselves up prematurely and shot themselves in the foot by lighting a CW exec on fire in the middle of network level board/CEO rotation commotion, or whether or not it’s visible enough for anyone--

this, this moment, this content, created by this LGBT individual led to this first known forward motion of intentful creative subtext. People can hilariously try to argue semantics about it that summarily boil down to “I mean it could be metaphorical jilted lovers it could be this it could be jilted lover bros, it’s just a turn of phrase!” in a loop as they’ve done with this data for six years until it dies every time, but this was it. This was the moment.

There is a nuance in this sort of writing -- how easy would it be for Dean to come up and say, “I’ll take some beef jerky.” Dean’s the meat man, Dean loves meat! We’ve seen it in other, new, straight authors the first time they try to tick off the Dean checklist, but like many lessons, that extra line leading into that smile holds volumes of LGBT history unspoken.

I think several of us Old Gays(TM) have banged on about the necessity of reading the Celluloid Closet, because for as much as people think they’re chasing queer subtext around here, it’s like they have completely missed that there actually is like, a printed, accepted code of conduct on this shit, basically. That’s not exactly what it was released for, but if you’re LGBT and engaged in lit and over 40 like you’ve read and understand and know this.

I’m not going to sit here and over-needle that line; most of you felt it the second your eyes drifted over it; but the sum of it is -- why that, what charming secret comes with that smile, a dean we’ve never seen smoke either, how is this part of how Dean throws himself back before his ex buddy leaves more unseen, *why* is that the hook? These are ironically things that no lit crit study *beyond* excessive citation of Celluloid Closet will really capture. This is a form of queer coding -- not the villainous disaster type that queer coding actually *is*, but the subversive form as it’s begun to be casually addressed in the population with positive, resonant content by authors choked out by IP holders while trying to service an audience. Or sometimes, even starting to accidentally.

So you know, you can unironically double down on the simplicity of Dean implicitly probably being a smoker (a possible read of subtext!), and I think this is kinda where the bizarre split happened tbh, because dude bros double down subconsciously into each reading of this kind of coding-- Dean just smokes, or this or that, though it grows thinner by year. Not about why that line is tossed, and how, and does just set off some sort of TV pheremone we all swamp like a bee hive. None of these moments truly mean anything independently. But it is the perspective and voice the text begins to take. The difference between that and “Hey pal [chews on jerky before buying] marlboros and got any pie?” in one moment that knocked everybody around on their ass in the fray of it. And then it all just went gayer from there, as if framed by one sharp moment that set the rest of the tone.

Hopefully you’ve all read my giant post about the history of this all to remember what I mean by accidentally, but even Bobo posted on it before,

That’s all an aside to the general point but worth placing into the edge of the conversation here.

The simple fact is, an activist gay man joined the show, and possibly with ‘keep it straight’ notes wrote some stuff so resonant, due to his point of view in life and the world, that even the showrunner decided to further guide it in that direction. It blossomed a direction.

The direction was small and slow and meek at first, (well, in final product -- don’t get me started at how S10 looks if all the cut scenes were included) with subtext running as dull echoes in Colette (oh look he wrote that too), and maybe more obvious with classic heart songs -- but even this was more structured than “Misha inherited abandoned storyline they scrubbed the romance out of as best they could”, or “Sera Gamble is a dumbass” that just happened to feature great chemistry and some resonant elements, like Bobo mentioned, we all connected with. But to actually constructively choose to incorporate these, no matter how quietly, was... *new.*

And some called it queerbait and I’ve already given history lessons from other angles on why no, but also now why here, definitely, no.

By season 12 we gained Yockey, another LGBT man, another activist in his own way like Bobo, but his less in writing political stuff and more in writing LGBT specialist plays. And everybody loved him, and saw it, and Yockey gets a boat load of praise -- deserves a lot of it -- but sometiems I feel like Bobo gets trampled over without recognition of how he shifted the playing field, the calculated effort he started putting into mastering those accidental resonances into something new, and ultimately to guiding the new author crew, Yockey included, or Jeremy on this newest episode who thanked him.

The same man that picked up Wayward and connected Dreamhunter... back to his own work and moments. The insanity of yelling “HOW DARE YOU LESSEN DREAMHUNTER BY COMPARING IT TO DESTIEL!” when, dead ass, you’re looking at this author who has carefully incorporated work and, with an already resonant story, made another relationship familiar to us by making it similar. Because that’s how writing stories works! But either way, Bobo has been in here doggedly growing the breadth of the legitimacy of queer narrative in supernatural -- to the point that it HAS narrowly, quietly breached into text even if not “loud” or “visible” enough for some people -- and the point where the subtext is so wall to wall and flooding every piece of cinematography in shooting and not just set or lights but complete mise en scene -- a point where everybody OUTSIDE of fandom is just addressing this shit as what it clearly is --

...That’s something that came with bringing the scope of an LGBT male author into the show. Whether you like the volume he’s been allowed to take his work to or not is your own thing, but before yelling queerbait at any creatives, perhaps it’s time to play “sit down children, and learn to appreciate the activists who came before you and how they’re fighting for you right now”. You wanna yell at something, get organized, pelt the CW in a non-aggressive, non-light-on-fire way, do activism like the books Emily put together that are resultingly still on the current showrunner’s desk now 6 years later, but most of all, don’t take a shit all over content you would otherwise enjoy, at the expense of a man in the demographic you’re trying to represent, who has battled, LITERALLY, for both the women and the gays in this show. Wayward was his baby. This slow swing in S9 that turned into a loud din in S12? 

It wasn’t magic. It was a gay author. A gay author that has now climbed to be an Exec alongside dabb and the others and SURPRISE now suddenly everything’s so gay the whole goddamn world is seeing it. Literally SEEING IT, not just guys looking at each other with stories, but intentful, meritful choice in extremely bold cinematography choices that don’t require chasing a post-it on the wall, but instead are shot with care and devotion. Be that 12.19 Mixtape (OH DAT HIS) or 13.5′s Never Too Late (OH DAT YOCKEY. check what antis said to Dabb in his mentions after, even they saw it). Be that 14.18′s het drama PR promo (OH OOP DAT WAS HIS), be that 15.1-3′s entire tension and the openly addressed and so-called by media sources break up (OH DAT HIS), be that 15.7′s low key textuality (to which the new author thanked the elder for guidance, huh), or 8′s heavily shot domestic separation moment loudly filmed in the choicefully hollowed out and dimmed kitchen bereft of family -- this change? This had a moment. And you can find it.

I’ll have some beef jerky and a pack of menthols.

So this has been eating at me ever since this whole topic came into play. 

Anyway full circle them trying to ride Bobo to Keep It Straight probably wasn’t their smartest idea ever. We gays are contrarian by nature so tell me to do it again, motherfucker. And now here we are in Destiel Divorce Season 15 as heavily managed by Bobo.

Everyone got so fuckin dramatic when Yockey said he was leaving like, tolling the burial bells of Destiel and-- like??? hello? BOBO? JUST? GOT? PROMOTED? Like Yockey didn’t make that entire platform all by himself, and hell, he didn’t leave without laying out unironic empty space of it. Yo guys, Berens done been here a WHILE to the point he’s now *callbacking his own season 9-10 material wtih him and dabb*. Like. Lmao. Guys. Guys listen. Listen. Think.

Whatever your weird goalpost is I’m not promising anybody’s anything is about to get hit. Whatever clown nose expectations you all have enjoy those and honk those loud and proud but remember most of those are yours. But respect the fact that Berens has essentially cornerstoned an entire queer canon within Supernatural discussion, of which others are included in as they joined.

And yes, queer canon. Not the way fandom throws it around for weird kissing spots, but articles of discussion of queer narratives, of which we can literally draw a wealth of episodes from LGBT authors or their understudies and literally point and go “all of that right there, officer.” Whether it’s visible or textual or undodgeable or marketed enough or glittery enough or whatever for everyone’s very unstable definition of “canon” -- Berens has literally cornerstoned an entire architecture of queer canon within this legacy show.

[fanfictionfortheappreciative]

Support Group - Chapter Two

Ao3 link :)

CHAPTER 2

My whole morning was just like regular. Breakfast in the main hall, where I ate too much food as a force of habit - when my brain realized food was free and in large numbers, it made a connection to the times I had been forced to starve in my closet for days, and from that moment I hoarded food into my body. The consequences of this were that I would be walking around with a tummy ache all morning, but the upset stomach was still way easier than going against the childhood trauma. 

After breakfast we went to the common room, and hung out in there. Yes, we were all traumatized young adults who fought and won a war, but we were also still kids, and being lazy on a Saturday is just an important part of being a student. So, while Hermione was searching through flyers and applications for job positions and study possibilities - we still did not know how to get her to relax, although being with Ron had helped a bit - Ron and I were lazily sitting on the couch looking through some albums of the Chudley Cannons, while ignoring the Transfiguration essay that had to be done by Monday. 

It was a normal Saturday, but the support group flyer kept appearing in my thoughts. Who had put it there? Which of the Slytherins would it be, and mostly, who would show up? It was not a secret, you know, that everyone still struggled and some people were in need of more support than they were getting. It wasn’t a secret, and not even taboo to talk about really, but it just felt weird to openly share some of the stuff your mind goes through. Nobody wants to remind each other of those bad times, and if your sharing of memories could awaken traumatic feelings in someone else, why not keep them to yourself?

So that is why most talks and memories were shared on late nights, with one of your best friends, while the rest was a sleep. Hushed whispers about nightmares that kept appearing, the people you missed and the way Hogwarts had changed. Late, silent nights.

Thatś why this sudden appearance of a so-called Support Group was… Out of the ordinary, and sparked my curiosity. Maybe I would drop by, say hello and goodbye and leave again, just to see what it was about. But then, they might expect me to share war memories, and that was definitely not something I would be up for. Sharing was a sore subject for me, something I barely even did with Hermione and Ron. Sometimes I did, when I woke up from a nightmare or came back from a flashback, cause I couldn’t just not tell them anything, but the days and weeks I felt hollow and numb 24/7? There was no use in telling them. They would just feel guilty about not being able to help, and apart from numb and hollow, regret would also be added to my emotions.

The rest of morning I spent weighing curiosity against anxiety, and when lunchtime came I still had not made up my mind. That was, until Neville walked over, came sitting next to us and started talking.

“Hey guys! What are you doing today? I was considering homework, but I think I can postpone that til tomorrow, don’t you? Anyway, did you see the new posters? The support group thing? It’s surprising huh?” He grabbed a croissant, put it in his mouth, and looked at us, expectantly. 

I didn’t dare reply, as I had not yet made up my mind, but Hermione had already opened her mouth. 

“I saw, yes. I don’t think it’s that surprising at all, Neville. In fact, creating a group where people can go when they need help is wonderful.” 

“Oh, so are you gonna go?”, I asked, carefully not revealing any interest in my voice. If Hermione was going, then I could just tag along with her, and if both of us were there maybe people wouldn’t expect me to talk. I could just be the quiet Boy who Lived and she’d be the representative of our trio adventures. 

“Don’t think so, no. I’m a little busy with all these program applications and to be honest if I ever want to talk I can just go to you two or Ginny, you know”.

She had a point, most of the people in our circle had enough friends or family to go to when in need. That’s why the Slytherin part was not that surprising; they often did not have these connections. Still, with my very close group of friends, I still had nowhere to go or vent. I talked to Sirius and Remus sometimes. I would sneak out of bed at 2 am, not being able to sleep, and go to look at the stars. Sometimes I could actually see Sirius up in the sky. Sitting there, I would start talking and talking about what was keeping me awake, and although it helped, there was not any response, and I think I needed a response.

Sitting at the lunch table I thought about Sirius, about the late night one-way talks, and about the fact that if they were alive, any of them, they would want me to seek a response.

So right there and then, I decided I would go.

“I’m going, yes”, I blurted out. It got me some weird looks.

“I did not know you were that into therapy and support? When did that happen, mate?”, Ron asked me, rightfully so.  We both weren’t the touchy feely type. 

“Yeah, I know… I’m just curious, and maybe some people will appreciate me being there”. Shit. Was that too cocky? I saw Hermione looking at me observingly, but I did my best to avoid her glance and tried to recover myself. 

“You know, cause maybe not everyone is comfortable sharing their stories, cause they uhh, feel like it wasn’t that bad, but if I share something light but bothersome, you know, they might think  ‘Oh, if Harry Potter shares that, I can share this’, right?”, I proposed. This wasn’t going smoothly, but they seemed convinced and Hermione’s look stopped being intense. Phew.

 “Yeah, guess so”, Neville continued “Maybe I’ll go as well, but not this time… Still a little awkward for me… With the snake and stuff”, he finished. Neville grabbed another two croissants and left the table, walking over to Ginny and starting a conversation there. Ron and Hermione picked up the conversation on Hermione’s study programs abroad, but I did not pay attention anymore. I had made my decision, and I was gonna hold myself to it. Support group it was, then.

It was five minutes to three when I made my way to the Charms classroom. I didn’t want to be early, but I wanted to be late even less. It would have been a bit too ‘Harry’ of me to stumble in 10 minutes late to a war support group and be like “Hey guys, I’m the savior”. Could not do that. Very inappropriate. 

-

The classroom had been adjusted to a more welcoming setting, which had been achieved by moving the school banks in a circle and having no one sit at McGonagall's desk, which was smart,  I don't think she would have liked that. On the board was written in chalk, in a very classy handwriting:

"Support group: first meeting. Introduce yourself. Share information in the manner you want. Listen to others. Feel free."

-

A good message, a little cold maybe, but good. Walking into the classroom, it appeared that despite my efforts of being casual, I still was one of the earliest people there. Better than being late. Most of them were young students, the kids who had been first and second years during the battle. There were about three of them, all Hufflepuff, gathered around at a single desk. They looked vulnerable, and I felt slightly impressed by their bravery of showing up to an event like this. In my second year, there were amazingly many things I would have done, and did, to avoid talking about my problems. To be fair, with the snake and all, I shouldn’t blame myself for that.

The other people looked as they had come here on their own. A few Slytherins, around my age, or 7th years. I’d expected them. It was their meeting. Still, there was tension. Blaise was there, his dark eyes looking down at the desk, focused on picking the grout out of the wooden cracks. A few others were next to him, the Slytherin kids who always used to hang around Snape. Then there was Luna, which surprised me, but only a little. Distracted as always, she was talking to the moving cat pictures that were on McGonagall's desk, and they seemed to be talking back. Curious.

There didn’t seem to be anyone who was taking charge, I noticed. The person who wrote the message on the board couldn’t be one of these kids, right?  Maybe they tried to be casual, just like me, and were actually succeeding at it, I thought. Although, the briefness of all the messaging did seem to belong to a strict person. Well, nothing to do but wait. 

“Hello everyone, good to see you all, I’m, uhm, Harry”, and as I spoke I realized that I did not have to introduce myself to these people. And that I was an idiot.

“We know Potter, I think we noticed you sometime last year”, Blaise snickered, but not in a mean-spirited way, just regular, Slytherin sarcasm.

I had learned to understand it, a little. It wasn’t like I was never sarcastic, I’d just always thought the Slytherins were mean and cruel. But in actually talking to them, I’d discovered they were blunt and full of jokes that only they understood, but without ill intent. Most of the time, that is.

“Well it said introduce yourself,” I tried to recover, “and after that to share information the way I want to. So, er, hi I’m Harry, and the war still really sucks?” Apparently it had become absolutely impossible for me to act normal and casual anymore. Lovely. 

The Hufflepuff kids looked up at me in a confused admiration. They whispered something to each other.

“This is Nicky, this is Mary, and I’m Robb, and we think the war sucks too”. It was a little black haired boy who said this, bright eyes and dark features. He couldn’t be older than 13. How were these kids so cool? 

“Thanks Robb,” I responded, “does anyone know when our host is coming in? I don’t want to act like this whole ‘the war sucks’ thing is me taking over the meeting… Do you guys have infor-” 

“Terribly sorry to be late everyone. Extremely bad manners, I know. I hope you all have made yourself comfortable and have had the opportunity to introduce yourselves a little. I’m not sure it is neccesary, but nontheless I shall introduce myself as well. My name is-” 

 “Draco?”,  I blurted out, quite suddenly and loudly.

“Well yes, Draco it is, thanks for the introduction, Potter.’ He said this with a tone of amused surprise, and not the snark I was used to, and might even have deserved in this situation. Attempt number three of acting normal, ruined that too.

“I’m, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt. Just, not what I was expecting and all that. Please continue”, I responded in my most civil tone, trying to show him, and everyone else, that I was not going to have a duel with Draco right here right now. 

“Thanks, will do. Anyway, hereby I open our first group session of post-war support, there’s tea in the corner and I’d love to hear everyone’s names. Let’s get started, yes?”

[graffitibible]

Building ocs to complement the characters like that is an absolute galaxy brain move, are there any specific ones from starry eyed??

thank you!! and yes, all the most prominent ocs in starry-eyed (i.e. the other two crews he had prior to the fab four) were built to complement or highlight some aspect of jet. i’m not sure how well some of them came across but they were all meant to correspond to or develop a trait of jet’s.

doublestar signifies jet’s relationship with assertiveness. he’s not a super assertive personality by nature (he tends to be drawn to people with a lot of conviction and external confidence, like dust devil and party poison) but some of that has to do with his upbringing. he wasn’t really encouraged to figure out his own relationship with leadership because doublestar was a very “i take charge and you do what i say” personality even if it was with benign intentions. it’s in part because of doublestar that jet has a lot of doubt about making his own decisions for himself and feels more comfortable following someone else’s lead, and also one of the key reasons he puts so much weight on himself to always perform well. she complimented him a TON for the things he was really good at and she did this with good intentions - he’s a great sharpshooter, he’s a fast runner, he’s got excellent instincts for survival. but because jet’s a heavy internalizer, he took all that to mean “oh, i have to perform those things ALWAYS and it’s my direct fault for things that go wrong in those areas because I’m The Best At Them Like Doublestar Said.” so for all that doublestar did her best to prepare him and her group for desert life, she didn’t excel at that in every respect lol

coma doze represents a humor, impulse, and lust for life that jet didn’t really allow himself to have, even as a kid. coma chases emotional highs; jet never allows that for himself. jet’s own enjoyment of something is literally always the last thing on jet’s list of priorities. coma’s a much more lighthearted, spur of the moment kind of guy than jet ever allowed himself to be, and also incredibly pathos-driven. coma’s willingness to throw himself at the fight taking place in the analog wars has more to do with a need to do something with himself than any genuine investment in the struggle taking place. those moments where jet says “fuck it” and does something stupid (like charging a scarecrow while he’s completely alone and without backup for example lol) come from a similar place. most of the time coma’s willing to let his emotional high dictate where he ends up without considering the why or how or the aftermath of it. this is meant to be a clear contrast to jet, who even at his angriest and stupidest, has a reason for doing what he does. he sees a scarecrow, he’s overcome with anger and frustration and a willingness to avenge his friends - but even in that state of heightened emotion he still has a moment where he weighs the risks of the action before he decides to take it.

nova cane indicates jet’s skewed priorities and his sense of strategy, which ties into the above point, as well as his familial mindset and loyalty. that moment before he does something stupid or does something big where he checks himself and weighs the risks of it, that’s something that i wanted nova to represent. nova’s the voice of dissent when coma wants to charge in guns blazing and try and turn the tide of the analog wars, because she’s got the presence of mind to note that two people aren’t going to change the landscape of an entire war. and yet she’s also the person who doesn’t register that she’s been shot because she’s too busy fucking up the dracs that fucked with her crew. the risks to herself don’t sit on the same level as the risks to the crew as a whole, which probably seems pretty familiar since jet’s very much the same way. the risks he takes when it’s his own life on the line are significantly greater than the risks he’s willing to take when it’s the well-being of the group that’s put in the crossfire. nova was there to vocalize and highlight that a little since it’s not something that jet ever sat down and verbalized to himself, and not necessarily something he’s even aware of. it’s a little more evident when it’s someone else falling into those same patterns because that’s less subject to the inherent biases of jet’s pov.

nine-volt rocket was there to highlight jet’s tendencies for codependency. there are a lot of instances in part i where rocket was having a hard time (both physically and emotionally) and jet helps them out with basically no prompting from anyone. a lot of the “nurturing” (read: self-sacrificial) instincts jet picked up early in life have to do with rocket and this notion of “other people have it worse than me so i have to push myself to help them out since i don’t have it as bad” which is categorically not true but jet has a piss-poor conceptualization of his own limitations because of it. he always prioritizes other people above himself, and part of that is because for as long as he can remember, he’s kind of had to do that. of course the idea that he “has” to do it is more or less manufactured. no one asked him to take care of rocket or anything. he internalized the idea that he’s the “most capable” person in the group and so assumed that the responsibility fell down to him and because it tied into the “survival of the group” mentality, no one questioned it.

dust devil is one of those assertive personalities that jet’s drawn to. they’re representative of some of the early germs for the sense of justice that would later drive jet and by extension the fabulous four. dust devil’s aware that some things in the world are very broken and really wants to fix them but ultimately his plan to do that comes down to “break shit very loudly and raise hell doing it” which made for great catharsis but not much in the way of tactical warfare. because jet didn’t have any great stake in the analog wars other than the loss of nova and coma (which more came down to both of them being in the wrong place at the wrong time), dust devil was pretty necessary to introduce that element of “this affects everybody in the desert and you should care about it.” also on a less serious note dust devil existed to make it evident that jet’s Very Gay. i write the fab four as a family unit more than anything else so writing romantic interactions within the group doesn’t super jive with me. but i wanted it to be apparent that jet’s a dude who likes other masc-aligned folks so that’s what that whole mild panic over dust devil planting one on him came from.

fever queen is another character that highlighted jet’s self-sacrificial and codependent tendencies, and this was meant to call to light just how unhealthy they were. queen likes to vent to him and doesn’t really take into account how jet feels about these things - it’s a surprise to zir when jet chimes in because what queen really wants is a blank wall to throw things at so ze can get it out of zir system. queen also has this innate cynicism that’s supposed to counter jet’s own mindset - ze doesn’t think that any efforts to fight back against BLi are worthwhile and are ultimately doomed to fail, but sticks with the group out of necessity. while jet’s not so optimistic to feel like he can singlehandedly tip the balance of a desert-wide struggle, there’s a reason that he’s drawn to the idea of hitting back against better living, and that’s because of the sense of justice i touched on in the point above. queen was also meant to indicate that jet’s ultimately a pretty extroverted person, despite how nonverbal he is. he gets his energy from other people. queen similarly wants to be surrounded by other people, even if ze doesn’t believe in what they’re fighting for, and that’s something jet can relate to.

haywire is a natural exaggeration of jet’s self-destructive tendencies, and is also meant to indicate that a lot of those tendencies stem from a fundamental sense of self-loathing. haywire is dying and knows it. she doesn’t give a fuck about long-term survivability. she hurls herself headfirst into every firefight and when it isn’t charging straight into every clap she runs across, it’s out and out baiting people into fucking with her. jet might not be dying but he’s got a similar mindset. he’s super willing to put himself in the line of fire because he thinks nothing of himself, thinks nothing of the worth of his own life. his self-destruction isn’t big and flashy the way it is for haywire or someone like party poison or fun ghoul, but it’s very much present nonetheless. there’s that moment where haywire basically begs jet to kill her because she’s got a lungful of poisonous gas and she’s dying in a very slow and painful matter, and jet refuses. this is supposed to be a demonstrable contrast to how jet indulges his own self-destruction at the end of part ii. he’s not the kind of guy to put a gun to his own head, but he’ll wander the desert until he dies. he’ll entertain the idea of waltzing into battery city or out into the remains of zone seven just to see what happens. it’s a passive self-destruction as opposed to haywire’s active self-destruction, but that doesn’t make it any less retroactively horrifying that he and haywire are so goddamned casual about how willing they are to Fucking Die.

100% titanium is maybe the most obvious. they gave jet a “voice” in a sense because while jet’s a primarily nonverbal dude, titan was entirely nonverbal due to injury. but even before jet started picking up sign language from them, he got them in a way that not a lot of the other members of the group did, with the exception of raya. titan was there to make it a little more obvious that jet’s actually extremely good at reading other people’s body language and communicating nonverbally. he doesn’t need words to make his point and other people don’t need to spell out their points to him when he can pick most of the big points from the little things - how they stand, how fast they’re talking, how much they’re moving, their expression, etc. titan’s easily one of the characters in part ii that jet has the closest and best relationship with, and i also wanted a character to emphasize that jet has a massive capacity for a genuine love and warmth. some of his most genuine moments in part ii come from his interactions with titan.

mantarraya is meant to represent jet’s faith. she was initially there out of necessity - there was this nonverbal character that no one else would logically be able to understand, so mantarraya was there to streamline that. but more than that, i needed someone to remind jet of the faith he kept back in part i since queen was an outright nonbeliever and neither haywire nor devil were all that devoted to the idea of the witch. so raya believes in the witch, she believes in destroya, and she’s hopeful that she’ll see the latter raze battery city in her lifetime. for her, her faith takes the sting out of the inevitability of death - the witch will take care of her once she eats it, so it’ll be okay. jet doesn’t have that same confidence, in part because he pours so much of himself into others rather than into himself. so much of him wants to shut down and stop but he refuses to indulge that because other people need him. maybe the witch will take care of him, but he won’t be there to help of everyone else who needs him, and what’s worse is he’ll be helpless to stop whatever happens next. it was that existential fear that raised its head toward the end of part iii, because he hadn’t really taken the time to confront it until then. 

[ghostmartyr]

SnK 126 Thoughts

Doctors hate him.

Local man faster at finding new fingers than modern medicine.

It’s nice that we never have to wonder which parts of the story Isayama finds interesting. Clearing out all the titans after a hundred years? Dull. Uninspiring. Have a beach day laced with sadness. Announcing the identities of the Armored and Colossal Titans? We got a fight to get to, chop chop.

We have several groups of people who all think this is a terrible idea but have internal disputes and distance issues that interfere with them collaborating and making a feasible offensive?

-looks for the fast forward button-

Like. Part of me -- a very considerable part of me -- finds this hysterical. In a good way.

I have spent the last... more months than I feel like counting slowing writing my way through a oneshot only I care about. It is taking a long time to write, in part, because of pacing. I am very worried about making sure the pacing of the story stays steady, so all of the beats land right.

Some of the additions such care requires are not my favorite things to write, but for the good of the story feeling like something I can say with confidence I’ve put my best effort into, they’re necessary.

So I’m in flabbergasted awe, here, that someone is out in the world, getting paid to skip everything they evidently find too boring to actually spend time on.

The worst part is it’s really hard to even fault the logic.

Presenting our resolved conflicts!

Is Connie going to kill Falco???

Making Falco and Gabi’s island getaway even more traumatic for the dozenth time even though they’ve had all their character development for it??????

Is Armin going to get make it in time to stop Connie from committing a murder that will definitely happen????

Will Gabi hate everything all over again!?@?!12?

The answer to the first question is no.

It has been no since the concept was introduced.

Even Sasha’s dad is all, “Yeah, it’s probably fine that Connie kidnapped this child.”

Is Jean on Floch’s side now?

No, he’s had that character development already.

Is Mikasa on Floch’s side now?

No.

Is Mikasa doing anything at all or joining Reiner in his depression nap on the floor?

Mikasa joined a rebellion but didn’t have a depression nap on the floor because she was given a bed and also only like five people can sleep with all the rumbling going on.

Will she find her scarf?

Who has her scarf?

Is it the last person seen with her scarf?

Is it the last person seen with her scarf who idolizes Mikasa and first met Mikasa when she was wearing that scarf?

Who also idolizes Eren, who gave her that scarf?

Does Louise have the scarf?

scarfscarfscarfscarfscarfscarfscarfscarfscarfscarfscarfscarf

Mikasa found her scarf.

Louise found it first.

As with most things lately, Eren was a bastard about it.

Mikasa has her scarf.

Is Annie going to reunite with the gang and cause shenanigans?????

Sure, why not?

Is Reiner being left in some building somewhere with food no one is making him eat going to result in something bad for Reiner?

Nope, Armored Titan. Plot included.

Is Reiner ever going to wake up?

Yep.

Are the two volunteers with names in any real danger?

Yes, but Floch’s probably not likely to shoot them now.

Is Falco going to find out that his life got even sadder while he was asleep? :(

Yes.

Are the people of Paradis going to get used to their new Titan overlord just like they got used to the walls, leaving the majority to figure this is not their problem and creating the kind of moral squalor that led to their new Titan overlord completely losing his shit in the first place?

Yep.

Does the plot’s chronic abandonment of Hitch imply a good future for her?

Totes.

Are any of the conclusions to these events surprising in a way that would require more buildup to provide understanding of what is going on?

Nnnnnot really?

Fantastic, let’s not waste time on it. We’ve got a volume to end and a badass crew we want looking pretty.

(Also, Levi still really wants Zeke dead.)

It’s really important that all of these high stakes that the audience is so concerned with are dealt with so we can move into the final arc without any lingering thoughts about things that might get in the way of actually writing the final arc.

I think the worst victim here is Connie’s subplot, because things move too quickly for the emotional weight to come home. At the same time... Connie was never going to kill Falco. There’s only so much suspense you can put there when half of Connie’s thoughts about killing Falco are how maybe he shouldn’t be killing Falco.

Armin’s inclusion and the callback to Serum Bowl likewise doesn’t have much meat on it. Armin feeling inadequate is nothing new, and his complicated feelings on who receives Titan powers are likely always going to be complicated. The only conflict to really resolve here is the physical one of getting Connie away from Falco before some dumb accident happens.

That conflict happens, and squared away it gets.

More, “You betrayed me, Mr. Kru -- I mean Connie, :( :(” doesn’t actually benefit the plot at all. More time given to Falco to react to something the audience has known for months doesn’t really benefit the plot at all. Less time with Gabi and Falco being sad little munchkins arguably does benefit the plot, with how many times they’ve been called on for that role.

Connie cooling down and being pals instead of perpetually angry was going to happen at some point. Throw it in with the rest. Armin needing someone to lean on without melodramatic childhood bonds fits right in. Throw it in.

Did we need Louise?

I would argue I wanted more of Louise, but my opinion seems to matter very little in these things

Mikasa needs Louise. Louise is someone Mikasa inspires into following Eren down the wrong path. Louise is the mouthpiece that tells Mikasa that Eren, who promised to wrap her scarf around her as many times as necessary, wants nothing to do with it anymore.

Louise is someone Mikasa protected, and she’s dead.

One last nail in that awkward coffin.

And I guess we just don’t like children anymore and Falco and Gabi have all the survival tokens, so yeah, throw Louise on the pyre too.

What else, what else... oh, more Floch and speeches. Because he’s still allowed to talk. More happy voices about how no one has to worry about dying anymore because everyone who would think of killing you is going to be murdered.

Uhhhh. Annie could conceivably be there, right?

Yeah, sure.

Annie’s here now.

We all are agreed that was always going to happen, right? No problem?

Public executions in front of an angry mob?

For one morally bankrupt religious nut and one Good Boi who deserves the chance to punch Floch in the face a few times before shooting him?

Yeah, pile that on. Make it really clear that if Eren was going to destroy the world, he might as well have taken out the island too, since we’re doing the whole party anyway.

Give Onyankopon a really solid moment, too. Someone in the chapter has to represent that genocide is bad. Well, Connie sort of implied that already. But Onyankopon has been screwed over the most for doing absolutely everything right, so he deserves the chance to point out that everything is fucked and also fuck you this is terrible you were supposed to be better.

Then like, uh.

That gives us a cast, right?

We’ve got Jean, Magath, Pieck, Yelena, Onyankopon, Hange, and Levi on one side, and Reiner, Annie, Falco, Gabi, Connie, Armin, and Mikasa on the other.

Fourteen!

One over thirteen!

That’s like lucky, right?

Can we do the plot now?

Can we, can we, can we?

It’s amazing.

It’s abominably paced, but oh wow is it incredible. Need everyone on the island who has an interest in stopping this in agreement? Well, here’s a chapter for you. Now they are. Now we can actually maybe like. Do stuff. Against Eren.

Good luck figuring out how, but we’ve at least got everyone assembled now.

Except Historia.

Because you know, fuck the Queen.

...Does anyone on the island remember they have a Queen?

This is a serious question.

Like no, this is amazing. It’s like, well, we could have a bunch of chapters slowly building up to this point while everyone starts counting Wall Titans in the background and wondering when we’ll get on with actually fixing this massive problem instead of just detailing it further for the hundredth time.

Or.

Or.

We could just admit that we all basically knew this was coming, so we can skip to the good stuff. Good? Good.

Only we make sure to draw it all out so there’s no argument over how it went down and no one does anything dangerous like apply imagination while a hasty time skip patch job takes hold.

Because that’s probably next chapter.

SHOUNEN POWERS ACTIVATE.

Team Fuck Zeke vs. Team People Die When They Are Killed And We’re Not About That (right now).

Pray tell, do any of you have the power to do literally anything about this?

I do wonder if that’s some of why we’re zooming through these points. While I think there’s a slightly legitimate case to be made that extra time on things we all realized were going to go down is not needed (...it... is needed, for like. enjoying things, but you know let’s just not), part of that hinges on the complications they’re about to face.

Stopping Connie from child murder eats up time. Finding Annie takes time. Confirming Mikasa’s scarf reunion takes time. Confirming Levi and Hange are alive takes time. Confirming Magath and Pieck are willing not to murder them immediately takes time.

I don’t think Levi and Hange’s side is too badly harmed from the pacing. It’s fast, but it’s working with the backing of time. They’ve been absent for a while, and catching us up on where they are and what ground they’re standing on proceeds smoothly. Without the rest of the chapter being what it is, I don’t think the starting scene would feel particularly unusual.

Even the rest of the chapter with its speedrunning ways isn’t too terrible once your brain is expecting it.

...I can’t really excuse Annie.

Unless Rule of Funny comes into play. But even then, yeah. Wow.

Anyway, what I’m getting at is that despite our full cast of degenerates assembled, we still don’t have a workable plan in sight. Five of the nine Titans are working together against Eren. One remaining is missing in action, but also generally anti-Eren at this point.

Then we’ve got nine humans.

So what?

One Colossal Titan with a baseball enthusiast destroys the Survey Corps, and only dies due to human error and someone’s willing sacrifice.

Eren’s got more than we can count, and the stegosaurus behemoth he’s using as a body now.

It’s all very nice and good to form a united front of fourteen people deciding to kill a god, but what does that actually mean?

Even if we’re generous, and include Shadis and his allies in the available forces, how does that actually help anyone? Does anyone have a good idea of how to get to Eren, let alone stop him? Has anyone in this group had a single stable conversation with him since he set out on his own?

If we took an extra couple of chapters to settle down all of the live wires this one grounds, those issues would still be at the front of the main plot. Drifting into the side pools doesn’t damage the story, but it does interfere with momentum.

Stories are hard. Balancing a story’s pace between what the completed work will look like and what the audience is currently experiencing is a nightmare.

This story has the largest conflict it will ever probably face, and a bit of a list of things to check off before it can get around to dealing with that. So it goes with the option of speeding through the list and skidding to a halt in front of the main show.

I don’t exactly approve of it, but given that this is what was chosen, it’s hard to turn away the benefits. I didn’t really want to read about Connie’s shenanigans with Falco and Armin turning into more shenanigans when they come across Annie and try to figure out if they have to kill her, then yet more with --

There is a lot going on. Consolidating that into a lot going on, but with everyone on the same side proactively working together... I like where this lands us.

It’s just really, really funny.

I don’t think I have another example of an author not wanting to write something, so just. not. This whole chapter is like, “oh wait I wrote myself into a hole well now I’m just going to erase that hole and move along.”

From a writing standpoint, it’s hard not to find that endearing. Wiping the slate clean is something you can do endlessly in unpublished works, but with published works, once you ink yourself into a situation, that situation tends to demand attention.

These situations got a little. As a treat.

:)

But back to the state of the story, the primary conflict is pretty firmly locked in, “Well now what?”

Ideally, you lace, “Well now what?” in with all the subplots you have going, and then upon their conclusion you have a solid, “What has arrived!” moment, and everything plays together beautifully, but this has chosen not to do that. Except with the emotional resolutions.

Team Fuck Zeke.

Team People Die When They Are Killed And We’re Not About That (right now). 

-underlines the clears philosophies of the teams-

Wait Yelena doesn’t fit in on Team Fuck Zeke. Unless.

But yeah, so now what?

Does all of this friendly bonding help?

I mean. Maybe Magath and all of his highly influential Marleyan politics can land the good people of Paradis (aka the ones not enjoying their coup) a deal with the rest of the world to unite in taking down Eren?

Or something?

(Seriously, how many countries are looking at this and thinking to themselves, “If they hit Marley first, that’s one problem solved”? I do not think anyone has forgotten they hate Marley, they just hate other things (Eren) more right now.)

While we’re at it, maybe Armin and Mikasa shoot beams powered by friendship into Eren’s stegosaurus skull.

The story potentially still has a lot of downtime. Mixing that in with all of the subplots would absolutely be preferred, but doing that while keeping enough of the main story going to keep the tension up regarding the end of the world...

It gets tricky.

I am sympathetic to the difficulty.

Amazing.

What a chapter.

[finnschuesters]

YOUR EVERLASTING LIGHT

WHO: @leo-mccarthy and finn schuester. WHEN: saturday, sept. 26th. after the dance. WHERE: wmhs parking lot. WHAT: leo and finn share a moment together after homecoming.

FINN: Finn had foolishly believed counting prom court votes with Benji would end in anything but disaster. Their conversation had been productive , and it seemed things would change moving forward. Ultimately it was good, but it didn't make things any less draining. After their discussion, the night seemed to drag along. Finn went through the motions of reporting the results then returning to the table her and Leo had been posted up at all night. She was only slightly surprised to find him gone, but hoped he was out enjoying the dance and having fun. Finn on the other hand, would remain seated, tapping her foot and waiting for the event to swiftly conclude so she could hopefully decompress from the intensity of the Benji incident. When Leo returned, asking if Finn was good to drive, she nodded and issued a soft "Of course." Though, not without going bug eyed and silently panicking for a moment. Truly, she didn't mind. The timing was just poor. Despite having obviously been drinking, Leo miraculously picked up on her hesitation in that fraction of a second which brought them to the present: Back against the windshield, Finn laid on the hood of Leo's car beside him. As students began trickling out of the dance, her gaze remained fixed upward as she puffed on a cigarette that came from the box she had purchased him in lieu of a boutonnière or corsage. Some Student Council President she was. Since Leo had been nice enough to sit and chat with her most of the night, she wasn't stingy with the music that was playing softly from her phone. A mix of Arcade Fire, Springsteen, and The Killers soundtracked Finn's miserable attempt at unwinding, and Leo's seemingly failed efforts to sober up. Taking another drag, she shifted her gaze from upwards to over at Leo. The dance was coming to an end, but Finn wasn't quite sure she was ready to call it a night yet. Figuring she might as well be transparent, she asked, "Um, would it be alright if we maybe don't go to that after party?" Having a feeling the answer would be yes, she added "I'm not ready to go home or anything, I'm fine with hanging out if that's what you wanna do." Finn admitted, bringing the heel of her hand which held the cigarette to wearily rub her forehead. "Just figured I'd check."

LEO: Leo would’ve skipped out on Homecoming entirely if Finn hadn’t asked him to be her date. School dances were famously not his scene. They were performative, dramatic, and they represented everything he hated: social hierarchy, popularity, glamorizing youth, etc. He actively dreaded attending functions like this, but surprisingly, this particular dance hadn’t been that bad. He owed the decent experience to Finn for being on the same wavelength as him. She didn’t seem to mind that he didn’t want to dance or engage in the court or whatever else. She was content to just sit with him at their table and talk, which he actually really enjoyed. However, the second she took off to deal with her student council president responsibilities, Leo’s night took a turn. One spiked bowl of punch later and Leo was drunker than usual sitting on the hood of his car, Finn at his side, as students trickled out of McKinley at the end of the night. Chain smoking wasn’t exactly a common remedy for sobering up...but that didn’t mean it wasn’t worth a try. As he lit his third cigarette (thanks to the fresh pack Finn gifted him), he tilted his chin up to the sky. Leo surely looked a little disheveled with his unkempt curls, flushed cheeks and glassy eyes, but there was a calm and satisfied expression on his face now that they were finally away from the crowd. At Finn’s request, he turned to face her and chuckled softly. “You read my mind,” he stated, playfully nudging her arm with his, “we can just keep doing this.” Even in his drunken state, Leo could practically see the cogs in Finn’s brain turning. What was she overthinking? “Did you have an alright time?” he asked as he brought his cig to his lips and inhaled deeply, letting the smoke sit in his chest for a moment before he exhaled. “I’m no expert at this shit but it looked like people had a lot of fun,” he added with a crooked half smile, “so...hats off to you, madame president. You did a good job..” Summer’s warmth was officially gone and as a gust of autumn wind blew past them, Leo glanced down at Finn’s bare legs and hummed to himself. He let his cigarette briefly dangle in his mouth as he shook himself out of his jacket and tossed it over Finn’s legs. “You need it more than I do,” he explained simply before leaning back against the windshield and letting out sigh.

FINN: As Finn felt the fabric of Leo's jacket slipping over her legs, she glanced over at him with her brow raised, "Thanks." she commented, flashing him a tight lipped smile. She appreciated the gesture, but as she puffed on a cigarette of her own, it was clear her mind was focused elsewhere. She adjusted the jacket so it would cover just above her knees and down to her ankles. "Let me know if you get cold." Finn said, still looking over at Leo. The last thing she wanted to do was quite literally take the clothes off of his back if he needed them. Flicking some ash off onto the ground beside Leo's car, she cleared her throat, "Um, yeah, it was all good." she answered vaguely with a nod. Though the lines on her forehead as she pensively stared through Leo rather than at him betrayed her. "Thanks but this. . ." Finn sighed, maybe a little dramatically, "This was mostly Benji, he's on the dance committee." she explained, before bringing the cigarette to her mouth and inhaling. Unable to hold for very long without coughing, Finn turned her head back upward to the sky and blew out smoke. Eager to turn conversation away from Benji, she settled back to looking at Leo. Her stare no longer bore through him, rather she made an effort to actually focus on his tousled curls, lopsided smile, and flushed cheeks. He looked so effortlessly apathetic for someone she knew could get so passionate about certain things: Tarantino, Arcade Fire, and the uselessness of High School Pep Rallies to name a few. She wished she had brought her camera so she could snap a photo, but wishing wouldn't plant it in her hands. Instead, she tried to memorize how he looked in the moment. With a more genuine smile and slightly more relaxed, she nudged him in turn, "Did you have fun, drunky?" she asked playfully. She felt much better knowing there would be no after party to keep up appearances at, but it still wasn't the perfect antidote to shake events from earlier in the night. "You were missing for a while, what did you get up to?" Finn further inquired. Maybe focusing on his night rather than her own would briefly clear her head. "Other than refilling at the punch bowl, I mean."

LEO:  Leo gave Finn a vague nod in lieu of saying ‘you’re welcome’ at the gesture of giving her his jacket. It was the least he could do. He gave a genuine and lazy smile at her follow-up comment, shaking his head as he brought his cigarette back up to his lips and inhaled deeply. “Nah, don’t worry about it,” he assured her, smoke floating out of him as he mindlessly adjusted the jacket to cover a spot on her thigh that she’d missed, “all you.” They didn’t run in the same circles really, but Finn was one of Leo’s constants. She was sturdy, she was reliable, and she was always there when it counted. He wasn’t sure how she did it, how she always seemed to know when she was needed, but her presence always made a difference to him. Always. Leo studied her face as she answered his questions. She was far away somewhere. How could he get her to be here? “I see,” Leo said once she explained the situation, ashing his cigarette before he brought it back up to his lips, “that sucks. I’m sorry you had to deal with that. Feels complicated.” Leo marveled at the way Finn tilted her chin up and blew out the smoke from the cigarette she held gingerly between her fingers. In his drunken state, he found himself staring at her cheek bones and focusing on the way he could see her jaws clenching at her temples whenever she was deep in thought. When she came back down to earth and they locked eyes, a wave of calm washed over him. If his life were a movie, which part would this be? He kept his gaze on her and tried to commit the scene to memory. Here was the student body president, smiling at him, using his jacket as a blanket as the chill Ohio wind gently blew her loose curls out of her face. He answered her question with a “you look really beautiful.” He let out a breathy chuckle following his comment, shaking his head and averting his eyes in slight embarrassment at the surprising display of verbal affection. “But I did have fun,” a pause, “I think?” He chuckled softly again, pinching the bridge of his nose with the hand that loosely held what was left of his cigarette as he tried to recall what he did after Finn left. Nothing came to him. “I don’t remember,” he admitted, dropping his hand and turning  to look at her again, “but I do have a confession...” Leo finished smoking his cigarette, put out the butt on the hood of his car and then flicked it on to the ground before leaning closer to Finn. “I spiked the punch bowl,” he whispered into her ear, smiling proudly to himself as he settled back into his spot, “don’t get me in trouble.”

FINN: There was comfort that came when interacting with Leo that was both familiar and foreign to Finn. Familiar in the sense that their friendship was really effortless, like she’d been around Leo just as long as she’d been around Zoe or Eli. But foreign in the way that she had never connected with someone as easily as she did Leo. He had successfully reeled her back to the present as she attempted to commit all his features to memory. Maybe she was being sappy because it was her senior year, but she was pretty confident she’d never meet another Leo McCarthy-- let alone one who would chainsmoke with her in the parking lot after a school event. She didn’t blame herself for wanting to remember the moment and just how everything looked. Just as she was gearing up to take her next mental photo, Leo had boldly told her she looked beautiful. Finn didn’t read too much into it, but it made her cheeks flush pink. While he averted his gaze, she continued staring at him in all his bashful glory. Peeking her foot out from beneath Leo’s jacket turned blanket, she nudged his foot so he’d look back at her. Once he did, Finn wasted no time to smile at him. “You look really beautiful, too.” she told Leo with a soft, genuine quality to her tone. That was the best way to describe him really. At least to Finn. He had a beautiful mind, heart, and looks to match. Although Finn recognized returning the compliment was kind of like playing with fire, she could be a little irresponsible in this private moment. Swiftly, the topics switched and as it was revealed Leo didn’t really remember what he got up to in her absence, Finn laughed softly. Then before she knew it, Leo’s breath was was warm on both her ear and neck. Before she could even process the electricity the sensation sent down her spine, Finn was jolting up at yet another confession from Leo. Though some might expect her to scold him after staring with her mouth agape, she simply scoffed. “You did not” Finn exclaimed in a joyful disbelief. “Oh my god, how did you pull that off?” she asked curiously as she leaned back into the windshield once again. She had unintentionally settled closer to Leo than where she lay before, but oddly enough to proximity didn’t bother her. Instead, Finn continued with the conversation, “I won’t tell.” she assured. After tossing her cigarette off the side of his car and onto the pavement, she found herself once again inching closer to Leo. It was a cold night, the warmth he brought was nice, and not to mention she actually kind of liked being close. Their distance now undeniable, Finn just wanted to be sure she hadn’t made things weird. Trusting Leo to be honest, she simply asked, “Is this alright?”

LEO: Sitting on the hood of his car chainsmoking cigarettes with Finn was unsurprisingly the best part of Leo’s night. The dance itself hadn’t been terrible, but at some point he hit a wall in the gymnasium. He was ready to leave. This though? Hanging out with Finn, listening to music and talking about everything and nothing in particular? Quite frankly he could do it all night. Leo was a bit of a recluse and he knew it. His circle of friends was small by design. Most people got under his skin, but there were a select few people that put him at ease and Finn Schuester had always been at the top of that list. No matter how much time they went without talking, it was always like no time had passed when they eventually reconnected. In a small town filled with cheerleaders, jocks and show choir lunatics, Leo marched to the beat of his own drum and Finn was one of the only people who didn’t make him feel wrong for that. To put it simply: he liked her and he liked having her around. So sitting with her and shooting the shit while all of their peers went to some rich girl’s after party to get wasted and make regrettable decisions? It was kind of perfect. Leo told Finn she was beautiful because she was and also because she deserved to hear it. He got shy after doling our the compliment and only looked back at his date because she nudged him to. Apparently Finn Schuester was the type of girl who called boys beautiful and apparently Leo was the type of boy who got flustered by it. “Me?” he said with a playful scoff, blowing a loose curl out of his eyes through the corner of his mouth, “you sure you haven’t been drinking?” Leo wasn’t a very soft person, but the alcohol in his system paired with the way Finn made him feel weightless led him to believe that maybe he could be gentle and open hearted...even if it was just for tonight. As they joked around about homecoming and how he spiked the punch, Leo found himself subconsciously scooting towards her. “I did,” he confirmed,  a little too proudly, “Frankie helped. She stayed on the look out while I dumped a fifth into the bowl.” The act was simultaneously unlike him and painfully on brand. “You gotta promise not to tell though,” Leo joked, drunkenly holding up his pinky as he stared at Finn with a hazy smile, “it’s like sacred or whatever. Come on, humor me.” Once he got Finn to promise in a juvenile but ultimately fun fashion, he dropped their hands and smiled to himself as she inched closer to him. The air around them was undoubtedly getting colder, so he welcomed the warmth she brought as she pressed the side of her body against the side of his. Although the longer they sat there close to each other, the less sure Leo was about the source of the warmth. Was it her body or was it the way his heart was suddenly rattling in his rib cage the longer he looked at her. The question surprised him. Was it alright? Maybe not, depending who you asked, but right now Leo didn’t care about that. “Yeah,” he said quietly, turning his head to look at her openly. Something clicked into place in that moment and Leo realized what part of the movie this was supposed to be. Just kiss her. He wasn’t sure what consequence such an action would bring, but fuck it. Right now there were no other people. Only them and their cigarettes on the hood of his car while ‘everlasting light’ played softly in the background. Fuck it. Leo reached a hand up to Finn’s cheek and turned her head towards him before he crashed his lips into hers and let his hand get lost in her hair.

FINN:  Leo’s bashful response to her calling him beautiful stirred some deep feeling within Finn. It came in a sudden, strong wave that spurred an odd sense of urgency to run towards it. Something was churning that was painfully real. This was a type of real that couldn’t be captured on camera or fabricated any old day. While she couldn’t place just what this was, she tried to embrace it rather than shut it out. As Leo tossed out a ’Me?’, Finn verified with a nod and an ’Uh huh.’ as she watched a single curl fly upward than pack on to his forehead. Again, she marveled at how cool and collected he looked even while he was flustered. She smiled to herself as she looked away from Leo for the first time in what felt like hours and swapped him out for the moon. “I called you beautiful because you are. . .” Finn answered, though there was some lingering concern that maybe he  thought it was weird. Hence, the lack of eye contact. Though after a moment of quiet, she found herself with her head tilted in his direction once more. Unable to help it, laughter slipped past her own lips in an attempt to soothe her slight concern in having scared him. As their conversation continued, it became more and more apparent that Leo hardly thought anything of it and Finn was falling right back into comfortable communication with him. Seeing him so proud made her smile, even if it was about something as stupid as spiking the punch bowl. From what she gathered over the years, Leo was hard on himself first, satisfied second, and only proud sometimes. It was a nice change of pace. Grinning more noticeably as he held up his pinky, Finn didn’t think twice about locking her pinky around his. ( It did warrant a soft chuckle though. ) “I promise I’m not going to tell.” She verbally confirmed, surprised she didn’t want even this slightest of physical contact to end. Deciding to make another comment about in order to delay the parting of their pinkies, Finn added, “Even if I did, Principal Remington would only be mad it wasn’t one of his star pupils anyhow.” she joked. “You’ve got Presidential immunity, for tonight.” and as her light teasing came to a close, their pinkies dropped. And then the silence settled. Other than the music and the occasional gust of wind, things were quiet as Finn basked in Leo’s warmth and Leo basked in hers. It was mostly cloudy, but the moon was bright enough it made for an interesting mismatch of both star and cloud gazing. There were few people Finn Schuester felt comfortable enough to lay around silently with, and apparently, Leo McCarthy was one of them. It was nice. And even nicer? Just when she least expected it, Leo threw her for another loop with his hand on her cheek and lips against her own. Had it not been the night of their last homecoming, maybe Finn would’ve had half the mind to pull away and suggest they drive home. Instead, she propped herself up with her elbow and leaned into the kiss. With an arm on either side of Leo and her torso hovering over his own, she moved her lips against the taste of spiked punch and cigarettes as ‘Everlasting Light’ faded out along with any inhibitions about the kiss.

END.

[ansgar-martinsson]

The Best Intentions - Ansgar/Joline Part 1

((A/N - I’ll be reposting parts of this RP with @theothercourse every few days. Revisited it and I enjoyed re-reading it. Hope you do too. Lots of *ahem* in this RP, but that’s par for the course with Ansgar. Plot, too. :) Enjoy and if you like it let @theothercourse know!))

The Best Intentions

Part One

“Mamma, are you sure I can take the car?” Joline bellowed through the craftsman style home that she shared with her mother. She scoffed at the trainers she’d just laced upon her feet and toed out of them again. “I can take my bike.”

The older Lindberg woman sauntered through and handed her daughter a proper pair of pumps. “Wear these. They’re smarter.”

Jo folded at the waist to slip on the new pair heels, hopping on one foot when one shoe refused to cooperate. “You sure about the car?”

“Take it. I’ll ring up Elias to take me to my treatment.” She reached out and caressed her daughter’s hair. “Knock ‘em out today, yeah? Go do justice!”

“I will, mamma.”

“You work too much.”

“So you tell me,” she leaned and kissed her mother’s cheek. “Thanks for the ride. Call my mobile later, yeah? Tell me how it went today.”

Emelie Lindberg nearly pushed her daughter out the front door. “Go. Before I go for you.”

*~*~*~*~

Joline unfolded herself from her mother’s borrowed Mini Cooper and stepped onto the distinguished carpark of @martinssonconstruction. Her knees protested the confines of the stupidly small car. She glared up at the glittering tower feeling under dressed to be standing in the carpark, let alone entering. And she dressed for the occasion, a freshly pressed purple button down blouse over a denim skirt and the Louboutin heels her mother burgled from only she knew where.

The late summer sun beat down, an oppressive heat that made it difficult to breathe. She could feel her natural blonde hair thrashing against her black dye job, fighting to get free of its prison.

Dipping back into the car, she fetched her clipboard of work permits, purchase orders, requisitions and recent estimates for repairs at the Stockholm Opera House. Despite her wounded pride, she also included some of the letters addressed to her of where she failed. Each pointed out just where attention was required in her house. The house manager could do only so much without owner intervention.

Joline rolled her shoulders back, pushed her reading glasses into place high on her nose and marched a steady pace across the carpark. She flung open the glass door and clicked her heels on the marble floor from the front door to the reception desk. Two administrative assistants answered an influx of ringing telephones.

‘Martinsson Construction, won’t you hold please?’ repeated over and over for the onslaught of calls.

After signing her name in the guestbook, notably three pages long for the 28th of July already, Joline stood before the receptionists to ask (insist) that she see Froken Wiessing immediately. But the phone calls didn’t stop…

Against her better judgement, after waiting an exorbitant amount of time, she marched into the President Office. “Froken Wiessing, please forgive the rude and unannounced intrusion, but I must insist. Its imperative that we go over these repairs. The sprinklers in the rehearsal room have been going off at random and the director… is… not… happy.”

She slowed her speech as she realized that her eyes didn’t deceive her. Froken Wiessing and all her family portraits and certificates of accomplishment had been replaced by someone quite different. “You’re not Froken Wiessing.”

The floor didn’t swallow her up.

How she wished it had.

Typically, Ansgar Martinsson hated virtual press conferences. Hated them with a passion. Despised them. Loathed them. Wished the person who had come up with the very innane and fucking stupid idea would have his skin sloughed off in the depths of hellfire and be hoisted upon a pike to rot for eternity.

He much preferred the in-person version. Much preferred speaking his mind, standing on a stage in front of an audience, interacting. He loved charming the shit out of the reporters in the room; both the females who wanted to fuck him and the males who wanted to be him… or in some cases, yeah… to fuck him.

But that time, Ansgar actually relished answering the press’ questions within the solitude of his office, enjoyed being able to shut his door and hide behind his computer screen, where he could take his time, where he could engage his slightly sluggish brain before his motor-mouth. He appreciated his PR VP’s insight into his strangely fragile psyche in that moment. He’d even given Janetta the indulgence of a “thanks,” a handshake, and a “nice job,” when he’d learned she’d arranged for the press conference to be a virtual one instead of a live one.

“It’s okay,” Janetta had said, shrugging. “You need time, Sgar. I get it. I got your back.”

***

… But apparently his receptionist did not have his back. Judging from the way the intruder was ranting, there would be no appreciative “thanks” or “nice job” in the cards for Britta. Just the opposite. Quite the opposite.

“What the fuck?” Ansgar stood quickly, and almost by reflex, wrenched his top right-hand drawer open. His fingers twitched as they hovered over the pearl handle of his Ruger Blackhawk within, ready to snatch it up and shoot - defend himself if need be. “Who are you, and how did you get into my office?”

“Oh, uh… hi,” Jo intoned absently while flipping through her overloaded clipboard, sifting through document after document to search for… well, hell, she didn’t know what. Anything.

“Yeah, I… uh, I used the door.” She indicated with a tip of her head in the general direction of said entry way to explain her appearance.

No sense of humor, noted.

The man growled and gnashed his teeth at her, his jaw rippling with the effort. If he could spit fire, she sure as shit would be singed.

Maybe all the way burned.

Third degree burns by the heat and intensity of the glare from the lion of a man. Then he flared his nostrils, and she wondered if he could in fact breathe fire.

Jo tapped her foot on the marble floor to check her escape route. Only solid.

Damnit! Hard unforgiving marble. Her rescue chasm must be on holiday. No black hole to whisk her away from the wrong place, wrong time, and wrong person.

But she wouldn’t wither, she wouldn’t retreat, she wouldn’t show weakness. The theatre needed her, her performers needed her, her season subscribers, her box office staff, her technical designers.

Could she lie about her identity? Should she? She tried to remember how much she’d gotten through of her rehearsed speech that she wrote in her head during the nearly hour long wait by reception.

Maybe she’d just ignore that bit.

“Yeah, uh… I… this is a matter for Wiessing. I’m here for that.” She clasped her Opera House work file between her palms, holding it up as proof. “May I see her? Please?”

The lion in a suit worth more than her house pressed his hands into the massive desk and dropped his head to his chest. Summoning fire or just breathing, Jo couldn’t tell for sure. But when he lifted his head again at her, he held a broody confused smolder.

A resignation?  A surrender?

Then it was gone again, an exasperated sigh escaped him. The incredulous annoyance returned, his impatience driving off him in a steady current.

Thank Heavens! No fire. No sunburn or heat blisters.

Jo raked her hand through her pin straight hair. “I waited. Out there. For an hour, but I’ve been waiting since February for a meeting. With her, with Wiessing. I’ve got a new season starting in September, companies that need a proper and functional rehearsal space, season ticket holders threatening to pull their patronage if they’re not entirely satisfied, and a sprinkler system that goes off without warning.”

Pressing her luck, she stated, “That’s who the fuck I am.”

Companies… rehearsal space… ticket holders… patronage….

Sprinkler system…

I waited for an hour…

Waiting since February…

If Ansgar was angry at this… this… girl… this girl in obviously borrowed Louboutins intruding into his private office, he’d suddenly and swiftly become furious at her words, and the implications thereof.

He lifted a hand, silencing the tirade he saw coming in the massive inhale of her breath. “Wait, let me understand you,” he said, preternaturally calmly, his eyes narrowing. “Are you telling me you are a representative of the Stockholm Opera House?”

“Yes,” she said, her breath huffing out through her nose.

“And are you telling me that the sprinkler system in the building is… faulty?” He cocked his head. “Do I have that right so far?”

“Yes,” she answered, “and the Prima Donna is….”

“I don’t care about the Prima Donna,” Ansgar barked. And then, after a calming breath, he continued, the words pushed out through grit teeth. “What I do care about is that you represent one of my largest customers, and that customer is dissatisfied.”

“Not so much dissatisfied, but…”

He cut her off again. “And not only that but you have been, quite rudely I might add, made to wait since… since how long?” He squinted, cocking his head as he strode out from behind the desk.

“Um, February.”

He nodded in annoyance. “February,” he repeated. “Your building has had a leaking sprinkler system since February.”

The young woman before him shrugged, her lips pressed together in a resigned moue. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. It’s not just leaking, it’s… it’s going off whenever, getting everyone wet, ruining set pieces.”

“I see,” he said, his own lips twisting into an expression not unlike hers. He nodded again, an irritated, whispery chuckle burbling up through his nostrils. He pushed off the edge of the desk, and turned one of the guest chairs around. “Please, sit,” he gestured. “I do believe we need to discuss how I can make this right.”

And then, he held out his hand, a broad smile brightening his face. “Allow me to introduce myself, I am Ansgar Martinsson. I am the CEO of this company.”

“Joline. Joline Lindberg,” she introduced herself wearily, accepting and shaking his hand. She smiled weakly when his didn’t quite reach his eyes. “House manager,” she stated, “Stockholm Opera House.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” he said automatically, but not entirely sincere in the delivery.

She quipped, “Charmed, I’m sure.” She kept it to herself, under her breath. Jokes landed on executive types as well as water to a flame. A lot of hissing.

She waited. She waited for the usual faux impressed high-pitched, ‘Fancy title for a woman.’ 'How did you get that job?’ Or something as equally as vile. But it didn’t come. Instead she got a solid, “I’m positive we can sort this.”

Okay, so Ansgar Martinsson wasn’t that type of man. From the superior attitude that drafted her way from her intrusion, she assumed male dominance, but no. His was a general arrogance, believing others capable (man or woman), just not as capable as he. She could live with that. Possibly work with that.

Jo hugged the portfolio of problems to her chest as she situated herself to the guest chair. Soothing her denim skirt down for the sake of modesty and decorum, she perched herself on the edge of the seat in anticipation. She flattened the stack of documents in her lap, squeezing her thighs together. She adjusted her thin-rimmed glasses and breathed.

“Your predecessor…” Ansgar began confidently taking another seat opposite her.

“Steffan,” she reminded when he hesitated.

“Ah, yes… Steffan. Forgive me, I’ve been away,” he almost dismissed out of hand, but his eyes gave him away.

“I met with him,” the CEO explained, “a number of times, in regards to–”

“–Restorations!” Jo blurted out suddenly, interrupting them and taking them both by surprise. Her face lit up like a spotlight on the Prima Donna performing her eleven o'clock number.

His name. Ansgar Martinsson. She recognized it from her files, some of the early ones when she inherited the job as manager. A delayed response, but her mind had been running it over and over again as familiar for another reason than the obvious founder of Martinsson Construction.

She muttered, “Sorry. Sorry. I’m so– it just came to me.” She rifled through the files, her fingers walking deeper and deeper into the stack, her back curling forward. “Sorry… I know it’s just here. Somewhere.”

With a ‘aha’, she finally produced at least one of the documents left to her. ‘For the future,’ her colleague had told her. “Plans for the small theatre in the south wing. You’re mentioned, and there are some estimated costs. I’m sorry… I just recognized your name.”

“That’s quite all right. I strive to make my name memorable.” A glint of mischievous joy brightened his features, so much that he almost looked like a young boy.

“I don’t want to ruffle feathers or step on toes or point fingers at anyone,” she admitted softly. “i took over this job from Steffan six months ago. I only want to do what’s best for the theatre but I’m afraid I can’t do it alone. Wiessing kept promising help. ‘Soon,’ she’d say. She was swamped filling your shoes, there simply wasn’t enough of her to go around. So… i guess my plea is, may I have her back please before anyone else gets soggy in my house?”

[stozkpile]

i accidentally lost my entire essay that i was writing abt biden and bernie but nothing can stop me so im doing it again.

the only reason biden got this far was due to a bunch of "coincidental" drops from the race RIGHT before super tuesday, and because the red scare tactic american politicians still hold onto make bernie (who is, for most of the world, a center left candidate at most, as american politics is skewed to the upper right) seem unreasonable. let's go over some of the common arguments against him:

1. BERNIE IS A COMMIE: bernie is a self proclaimed socialist. ok. do you really think he, as president (not as king of america. or as dictator. did we all forget what the president does?), will seize the means of production and sentence everyone to work in the gulags? what the hell is wrong with people? he wants to give people free healthcare and free education. and he wants to tax the ULTRA rich into helping/cut military funding.

1. why cant we create more tax brackets? people who make $520,000 a year, $100,000 an HOUR, and $60,000 a MINUTE, are all supposed to pay 37% of that money in taxes. make more tax brackets. tax capital gains more. close tax loopholes. ANYTHING. so much money is being spent on nothing.

2. military funding gets around 685 BILLION dollars a year. if we HALVE that, it'll still be hundreds of billions more than what China (which has over a BILLION people and is the second largest economy in the WORLD) spends on military, which is around 181 billion. that, simply put, is a fuckload of money. we could easily still have the biggest fucking military in the world and provide more help to the people, which i still don't agree with (america feels like a warmongering state to me), but compromises have to be made, right?

BERNIE HAS NO PLAN: and biden does? do you think every american president had a dissertation written about what they would enact if the got the office? bernie, if he wins, will hire cabinet members and staff, who will be better at certain things than he is. bernie is also an experienced politician who has worked multiple blue-collar jobs and was politically active as a youth.

1. bernie is campaigning and trying to win votes. being a president is about representing your country as much as it is having a working brain on your shoulders, which means you have to have a semblance of charisma and marketability. bernie isn't throwing facts and plans at people because thats not what most people want to hear. in fact, that was a weakness of warren's campaign. and any good plan wont be easy to explain during a short speech where youre supposed to rally people, or on a podcast, or on tv. he's passionate and empathetic, which is refreshing, considering how sociopathic politics are in general.

which leads to part 2. bernie probably has a better idea of his plans than people think. hes been doing politics for a long time. he was able to pass a lot of favorable policies as mayor, and has consistently been on the right side of history, even when it wasnt popular. and honestly, even if he's not able to pass as much as he would like as president (because i know american politicians/people who keep american politicians in their pocket are determined to stop him), it will at least represent a change in the american pathos, and itll show them that the disenfranchised finally have power. this scares dems as much as republicans.

BERNIE/HIS SUPPORTERS ARE TOO ANGRY: do you think they're mad for no reason? it's easy to think everyone is too emotional when you don't have to care about politics to survive.

are you five? do you think everyone has to be nice all the time? do you think that if someone has feelings about their argument, that renders their argument invalid? being nice doesn't change things and recent events prove that. trump bullied everyone and became the sole republican candidate.

just because something is legal or illegal doesn't mean it's right or wrong. do you think the civil rights movement was everyone being nice and putting together nicely-worded arguments? do you think stonewall was a fun little party? do you think the civil fucking war was a bunch of people talking to each other very politely about whether black people deserved freedom or not? people died. people were beaten. people were furious. and because of their fury, and their actions, we live in a better time. it can still get better. progress doesn't end. it doesnt have to come to blows anymore, but it wont be nice.

BERNIE HAS NO CHANCE AGAINST TRUMP: "vote blue no matter who." bernie is the only candidate that has a real chance against trump, and we know this because a sizable group of voters who would've voted for him voted for trump instead/didn't vote at all because hillary is so violently unlikable. and hillary still eeked out the popular vote, although she lost the electoral college. we can complain about the electoral college being a thing at all but if hillary still almost won, bernie would do better than she did. if people would vote for ANYONE over trump, then be willing to vote for bernie, because even republicans like him. bernie has working class clout. and nothing infuriates a poor white more than the intellectual elite flaunting their money at them all the time.

trump doesnt have a lot to say about bernie either. trump might think theres no way that bernie would make it to november, or maybe he's "supporting" him in an attempt to drive a wedge between him and the democratic party, or maybe he actually likes him (which would be fucked up lol), but one thing's for sure: bernie will not choke. trump would try to stir him up or attempt to make fun of him, as he does (and let's be honest...trump is very good at bullying people), and bernie would just take it and throw it all back at him. bernie has hutzpah, which is what none of the other candidates have, and what trump's whole campaign is. bernie is also cool, which biden isn't.

biden is:

a well-documented creep

a faux-progressive with a history of repugnant political decisions, including the 1994 crime bill (he changed his reasoning for it later to seem less racist), gutting welfare, opposing school integration in the 70s, and voting for the iraq war

a plagiarist

the kind of guy who lies about his son's death to get an inch (multiple counts, but the most egregious is when he implied his son was killed because of the iraq war in an effort to defend the vote. although he was there, beau biden died of a brain tumor and complications.)

losing his brain faculties, which is very easy to see. he's old. bernie is too, but at least he can string together a sentence.

is winning in states that will ultimately vote red. and republicans hate him.

tl;dr if you dont give a shit, vote bernie. if you give a shit, think critically, and then vote bernie. it isn't over yet.

[lastsonlost]

GET THE FUCK OUT?  Creepy Uncle Joe Biden is a creepy ass motherfucker?

No shit.

In 2014, I was the 35-year-old Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in Nevada. The landscape wasn’t looking good for my party that year. There were no high-profile national races to help boost turnout, and after the top candidate bowed out of the governor’s race, “None of the Above” ended up winning the Democratic primary.

So when my campaign heard from Vice-President Joe Biden’s office that he was looking to help me and other Democrats in the state, I was grateful and flattered. His team offered to bring him to a campaign rally in an effort to help boost voter turnout. We set the date for November 1, just three days before election day.

In a state as large but sparsely populated as Nevada, it takes nonstop travel to connect with all its residents. You’re lucky to get properly fed, much less look properly coiffed as female candidates are often required to do. I was exhausted and short on time, so decided to not to wash my hair the morning of the rally. I sprayed some dry shampoo in my hair, raced off to the Reno airport, and flew back to Las Vegas.

The event proceeded as most political events do: coordinated chaos with random problems that no one can predict. I found Eva Longoria, co-founder of the Latino Victory Project, roaming the parking lot trying to figure out how to get inside the union hall. My staff was running around town trying to purchase ferns because according to Biden’s team, no other vegetation was acceptable for the stage.

I found my way to the holding room for the speakers, where everyone was chatting, taking photos, and getting ready to speak to the hundreds of voters in the audience. Just before the speeches, we were ushered to the side of the stage where we were lined up by order of introduction. As I was taking deep breaths and preparing myself to make my case to the crowd, I felt two hands on my shoulders. I froze. “Why is the vice-president of the United States touching me?”

I felt him get closer to me from behind. He leaned further in and inhaled my hair. I was mortified. I thought to myself, “I didn’t wash my hair today and the vice-president of the United States is smelling it. And also, what in the actual fuck? Why is the vice-president of the United States smelling my hair?” He proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of my head. My brain couldn’t process what was happening. I was embarrassed. I was shocked. I was confused. There is a Spanish saying, “tragame tierra,” it means, “earth, swallow me whole.” I couldn’t move and I couldn’t say anything. I wanted nothing more than to get Biden away from me. My name was called and I was never happier to get on stage in front of an audience.

By then, as a young Latina in politics, I had gotten used to feeling like an outsider in rooms dominated by white men. But I had never experienced anything so blatantly inappropriate and unnerving before. Biden was the second-most powerful man in the country and, arguably, one of the most powerful men in the world. He was there to promote me as the right person for the lieutenant governor job. Instead, he made me feel uneasy, gross, and confused. The vice-president of the United States of America had just touched me in an intimate way reserved for close friends, family, or romantic partners — and I felt powerless to do anything about it.

Our strange interaction happened during a pivotal moment in my political career. I’d spent months raising money, talking to voters, and securing endorsements. Biden came to Nevada to speak to my leadership and my potential to be second-in-command — an important role he knew firsthand. But he stopped treating me like a peer the moment he touched me. Even if his behavior wasn’t violent or sexual, it was demeaning and disrespectful. I wasn’t attending the rally as his mentee or even his friend; I was there as the most qualified person for the job.

Imagine you’re at work and a male colleague who you have no personal relationship with approaches you from behind, smells your hair, and kisses you on the head. Now imagine it’s the CEO of the company. If Biden and I worked together in a traditional office, I would have complained to the HR department, but on the campaign trail, there’s no clear path for what to do when a powerful man crosses the line. In politics, you shrug it off, smile for the cameras, and get back to the task of trying to win your race.

After the event, I told a few of my staff what happened. We all talked about the inexplicable weirdness of what he did, but I didn’t plan on telling anyone else. I didn’t have the language or the outlet to talk about what happened. Who do you tell? What do you say? Is it enough of a transgression if a man touches and kisses you without consent, but doesn’t rise to the level of what most people consider sexual assault? I did what most women do, and moved on with my life and my work.

Time passed and pictures started to surface of Vice-President Biden getting uncomfortably close with women and young girls. Biden nuzzling the neckof the Defense secretary’s wife; Biden kissing a senator’s wife on the lips; Biden whispering in women’s ears; Biden snuggling female constituents. I saw obvious discomfort in the women’s faces, and Biden, I’m sure, never thought twice about how it made them feel. I knew I couldn’t say anything publicly about what those pictures surfaced for me; my anger and my resentment grew.

Had I never seen those pictures, I may have been able to give Biden the benefit of the doubt. Had there not been multiple articles written over theyears about the exact same thing — calling his creepy behavior an “open secret” — perhaps it would feel less offensive. And yet despite the steady stream of pictures and the occasional article, Biden retained his title of America’s Favorite Uncle. On occasion that title was downgraded to America’s Creepy Uncle but that in and of itself implied a certain level of acceptance. After all, how many families just tolerate or keep their young children away from the creepy uncle without ever acknowledging that there should be zero tolerance for a man who persistently invades others’ personal space and makes people feel uneasy and gross? In this case, it shows a lack of empathy for the women and young girls whose space he is invading, and ignores the power imbalance that exists between Biden and the women he chooses to get cozy with.

For years I feared my experience would be dismissed. Biden will be Biden. Boys will be boys. I worried about the doubts, the threats, the insults, and the minimization. “It’s not that big of a deal. He touched her, so what?” The immediate passing of judgement and the questioning of motives. “Why now? Why so long after? She just wants attention.” Or: “It’s politically motivated.” I would be lying if I said I didn’t carefully consider all of this before deciding to speak. But hearing Biden’s potential candidacy for president discussed without much talk about his troubling past as it relates to women became too much to keep bottled up any longer.

When I spoke to a male friend who is also a political operative in Biden’s orbit — the first man who had heard the story outside of my staff and close friends years ago — he did what no one else had and made me question myself and wonder if I was doing the right thing. He reminded me that Biden has significant resources and argued points that made me question my memory, even though I’ve replayed that scene in my mind a thousand times. He reminded me that my credibility would be attacked and that I should be prepared for the type of “back and forth” that could occur. (When reached by New York Magazine, a representative for Vice-President Joe Biden declined to comment.)

I’m not suggesting that Biden broke any laws, but the transgressions that society deems minor (or doesn’t even see as transgressions) often feel considerable to the person on the receiving end. That imbalance of power and attention is the whole point — and the whole problem.

 Now all of you who follow me know that I am a firm believer of innocent until proven guilty. So I’m genuinely asking out of curiosity. How much evidence is there and how much more is needed? If I’m being perfectly honest Lucy Flores  for the most part isn’t telling us anything that we haven’t already known for years.

But I wonder if we’re just going to continue to ignore it because he’s not wearing a Maga hat. I’m sure the guardian or Huffington Post will make some excuse right?