#for people to actually understand the story here

[mono-dot-jpeg]

big sister - hyun ju

summary; a big sister will always protect, but when will she be able to relax?

genre/extra tags; one shot, found family, fluff, hurt/comfort?, canon typical violence, i dont like the second season writing, but i can not deny myself this diva, that's mother !!, teen! reader, hyun ju is the only reason i decided to watch this season, slight canon divergence bc i have the mind of a goldfish, canon typical sad heavy conversations, big sister is written to be seen as the korean honorific "unnie", older sister moments written in the point of view of a younger sibling, unintentional love letter for my appreciation to my sister, reader is implied to be some form of lgbt but not out (im projecting)

[platonic] [gender-neutral reader]

[warning; mentions of transphobic ideas]

a/n; before people ask, no, im not doing requests for this show. i just don't feel fully comfortable writing for squid game. i just really wanted to write this because, believe it or not, i write for my enjoyment. even i do switch off here every few months or every other month.

dinner had rolled around after an intense "game" of life or death. how you managed to survive this long is beyond you. but you might have a strong idea of why you're living so long, and it was the strong woman who was sitting beside you with some of the other women who were surviving so far.

the old lady had pointed out that hyun ju was not like other people. and it really was odd to her. but hyun ju was used to that. more than used to it. she lived through it since she decided to come out.

you listen to the conversation, not really putting your two cents in as it seemed like there was no right time to butt in. but as the conversation continued, the mood was just a little lighter. and that was more than enough morale. the old lady seemed to slowly understand hyun ju and her struggle.

you've zoned out so much, you almost fail to notice hyun ju sneaking an egg onto your shabby given lunch box meal. you look up at her as she gives you a warm look before pretending that she didn't just do that.

you mix the rice with not much thought, spilling some bits of rice and egg over its metal container before you slowly eat. unbeknownst to you, hyun ju glances back at you as if to make sure you're actually eating and not staring off with a tired look that no teen or child should have. you've seen everything, you're part of this sick game, she may not know your story, but she knows you don't deserve any of the bad you've been through.

you're the youngest in the entire room, a room filled with people with insurmountable debt and issues. hyun ju can only imagine your worry, your anxiety, the burden.

when the first game got serious, you were trying your damned hardest to keep your fear contained under the watchful eye of that robot scanning every movement. she was right in front of you, keeping you safe along with the rest of the people who lined up with her. you look like you wanted to cry the moment you got to the finish line. if she wasn't full of adrenaline at the time, she probably would've heard how hard your heart was beating.

somehow, she had taken two people under her care. you and young-mi. how could she not care about a young woman like young-mi and a teen like yourself? two anxious people forced to live a life full of debt and pain when you both deserved nothing but comfort and love.

people start lining up in their beds for nighttime. gi-hun was very insistent on being careful at night. it was dangerous. some people were not behind just killing others at night to sweeten the pot of money that loomed over everyone's head like a golden sun.

as most of the adults started to climb in their beds, you stand awkwardly. you weren't a stranger to sleeping a room full of people, but you were definitely a little paranoid after what gi-hun was talking about.

you find yourself naturally gravitating to hyun ju. her presence was just so calming, and she was so caring for others. it was hard not to get attached. young-mi had taken to calling her big sister. and you found yourself doing the same when you call out to her softly.

"big sister?" you gently tap at her arm as she turns to look at you. she silently urges you to continue speaking with a gentle look. you can see the tired in her eyes, but she looks at you, unwilling to say no. "this is embarrassing..." you mutter.

"it's okay. i'm here." she reassures you.

"can i stay with you tonight? i'm-" you choke a little bit on your words, not only out of embarrassment but fear. "i'm really scared. i don't wanna be alone." you confess.

she softens, "i would love to let you, but it's too risky. if people come for us, it would be very hard to fight back. i'm so sorry, kid." she opens her arm out for a hug, and you take the comfort you can get in this shitty place. "i will do my best to keep you safe, alright? when we get out of here, i'm going to find you again, and we can help each other, yeah? i'll protect you."

you nodded with her words, not finding the heart to say anything. she takes this as a sign to start guiding you into your bunk bed on top. at least the top bunks would be somewhat safer for you. you hesitantly climb into bed. "if a fight breaks out, hide. run. just be safe. i will find you, and you'll be safe." she continues to reassure you the best she can.

"okay. goodnight big sister." you whispered. "please be safe."

"i will." she said with a calm confidence that only she could pull off that didn't make you feel worried for her.

you hope that you get out of here, so you don't have to see the worried exhaustion in her eyes anymore.

she was a big sister by heart and soul. you just hoped her big heart wouldn't lead her to her doom. she protects and gives, but when will she relax?

[monzabee]

park avenue polyanna (social media au) - mv1

masterlist ||

Summary: The one where everyone is confused how Max, the resident villain of f1, has such a wholesome girlfriend.

Pairing: max verstappen x gallerist!reader (model used: random people i've found on the internet)

Warnings: none other than some cursing

Author note: okaaaaay, this is kinda all over the place but to be completely fair, i started it like a month ago and i finished it right after the singapore gp, so it has been a while, lol. miss charlotte york is here (my personal fav alongside samantha), so i hope you guys enjoy this one as wel!! we have one more to go, and boy is that one going to be fun to work on!

Please also note that all of my works are protected under copyright, and not available for reposting on other platforms.

yourusername just posted a story!

yourusername

Liked by maxverstappen1, yourbestfriendsinstagram, f1wagss and 34,826 others.

yourusername: would %100 recommend pilates if you want to make a grown f1 driver cry because he can't handle the stretching!

user: please tell me there is video evidence of max doing reformer

yourusername: i can neither confirm nor deny these allegations against my beloved boyfriend

yourusername: but if i had to, the answer would be yes, yes i do

user: I LOVE YOU YOU ARE A NATIONAL TREASURE

user: she is probably the nicest people on earth and i can't, for the life of me understand how she and max are in a relationship

user: maybe we should stop assuming people's personalities and also speculate about their relationships bestie

yourusername: period!

user: thank you for giving us the best content on this app, queen

user: i will pay thousands and millions to see max verstappen do pilates

user: everybody say thank you yn for the best piece of information ever

view all 2,647 comments.

user: i just know some of the drivers on the grid are going to have so much fun with this brand new piece of information

maxverstappen1: not so simply lovely🙄

yourusername: but you were sooo cute

yourusername just posted a story!

yourusername

Liked by maxverstappen1, elleusa, f1gossipworld and 39,267 others.

yourusername: mandatory busy week recap

user: nothing to see here just subtly flexing her chanel kelly on us (i love you queen you're so iconic)

user: omg she works??

user: stop this right now you're embarrassing yourself

yourusername: i wish i didn't need to work but gotta feed the kids, you know? (max, the cats and my dog)

user: she might be the busiest girl in the world, but one thing about yn is that she is NEVER missing that pilates class

maxverstappen1: come back hoooooome

yourusername: soooooon

view all 3,456 comments.

user: i can feel it, she's going to be in singapore

user: manifesting this for the looks

yourusername

Liked by f1wagsupdates, maxverstappen1, yourbestie and 43,2647 others.

yourusername: lesson from this weekend: kill them with kindness, or in our case, with a no comment interview!

user: the look on max's face is so telling of the situation

yourusername: nothing a bunch of cuddles can't fix!!

user: this relationship is the proof that opposites, in fact, attract

user: i can't believe we got a max mention before gta 6

user: oh to be wearing vintage chanel and dating max verstappen

user: she is who i wanna be when i grow up (i'm 23)

view all 5,253 comments.

maxverstappen1: no comment

yourusername: not disappointed and not surprised

maxverstappen1

Liked by yourusername, redbullracing, landonorris and 601,3674 others.

maxverstappen1: i don't know what you are talking about i'm always nice

user: the duality of men

user: mad max to gentleman pipeline is actually insane

yourusername: can confirm that you are VERY nice

maxverstappen1: simply lovely

user: okay but are we winning the championship oooor??

view all 10,273 comments.

user: MAX VERSTAPPEN IN A SUIT, I REPEAT, MAX VERSTAPPEN IN A SUIT

user: this relationship confuses me a lot but i also love it so much

user: it's giving grumpy x sunshine to the extreme extents and i love it

[whetstonefires]

You know I'm realizing one reason you keep seeing mdzs modern AUs where the Jiang parents are alive mainly so they can dramatically fail and betray Wei Wuxian by cutting him off financially--defaulting on his college tuition or formally disowning him etc--isn't just that people want to translate the Burial Mounds II arc into modern terms while keeping Jiang Cheng clean of it.

(Despite the fact that the internal logic of Jiang Cheng's character is largely built around him being a person who would abandon someone he intensely cared about under these specific circumstances.)

It's because it's hard to set up a modern analogue for the way that Jiang Cheng is responsible for Wei Wuxian, as his Sect Leader.

We live in a highly individualistic society. People are trying to write Wei Wuxian Tragically Wronged, and because there's a normative expectation that people in the position of parents will provide you with resources, and certainly won't withdraw them without warning, but no such assumption that people in the position of siblings necessarily owe each other support, making this work in modern setting with Jiang Cheng in his canon role would require a lot of extra work, just to get a less readily resonant result.

But I keep thinking about it. Because something that's getting lost here is, not just the nuances of character and relationship, but like...it's sort of key to the story that cutting Wei Wuxian off was, in fact, Completely Socially Appropriate.

The level on which it was a betrayal is subtle, and deeply cutting. And intensely tied up in the very different opinions each of Jiang Cheng's parents had about what obligations existed in their family wrt Wei Wuxian, and what these meant.

The level on which it was the obvious, normal course of action is blatant. That is to a huge extent why it happens: because Jiang Cheng's instinct to conform is a survival instinct, reinforced by trauma, and Wei Wuxian's choices meant he had no coherently compelling reason not to obey it, and enormous peer pressure to do so.

The fact is that Jiang Cheng was making a reasonable choice, the actual thing 'anyone would do in that situation,' unlike Wei Wuxian and Jin Guangyao's respective wildly warped ideas about what that is.

Wei Wuxian wasn't betrayed by Jiang Sect like your foster parents cutting you off because you're disobedient. Wei Wuxian was betrayed by Jiang Sect like your brother refusing to drop fifty grand to bail you out of jail.

Of course Wei Wuxian tells him not to. And of course the fact that Jiang Cheng already chose in the moment not to pay a cent because Fuck You Wei Ying still stands there glaring, a precedent that can never be taken back.

And then later he's betrayed by Jiang Cheng like your brother cooperating with a police investigation into a manslaughter you really did commit, that's being handled like domestic terrorism. And then like your brother calling the cops on you. And then like your brother helping the cops find where you're hiding.

I'm personally fascinated by the way Jiang Cheng's lifelong resentment for the way Jiang Fengmian reliably bailed Wei Wuxian out of everything informed those decisions to do the normal thing, the way he's reacting against his dead father as well as against Wei Wuxian and the actual situation.

But even without that daddy issues angle, the fact that the person who made that choice was Jiang Cheng, and that it was simultaneously the reasonable appropriate normal upstanding citizen rational thing to do and so shitty Wei Wuxian would be entitled never to forgive it is sort of. The Point.

Of the scenario, and also to a considerable degree of the entire finely tuned narrative construct that is Jiang Cheng.

[aishangotome]

"Ah, No Need for Money" - Azel (His POV)

Card and story provided by @shatcey!

Azel: Enis, please tell the High Priest...

Azel: ...that God seems to be infatuated with a foreign girl.

-

Some time had passed since I began using Rhodolite's foreign girl as a shield against women –

Due to official duties, there was a day when I absolutely had to leave the solitary desert castle and stay at the royal palace.

(...Damn it. This is why I don't want to stay in the castle for long.)

(That damned geezer keeps sending me woman after woman whenever he gets the chance...)

The place I quickly head to, so as not to get entangled any further, was the room prepared for foreign guests.

(At this rate, the woman is probably being targeted too.)

(I've assigned her a guard as a precaution and had given those around her strict warnings.)

(She shouldn't be drugged with aphrodisiacs like before... but I should still go check on her.)

(Not that I'm worried or anything, but I couldn't leave her alone in the temple.)

(Since I brought her to the castle for my own convenience, I'll have to compensate her if anything happens.)

(...That's right. It's just that simple.)

Making excuses to no one in particular, I reach the designated room.

When I knock on the door, hurried footsteps and a loud clatter overlap from inside.

(What is it?)

Azel: I'm coming in.

I open the door before I hear permission.

Emma: Th-this is a misunderstanding!

The first words I hear and the scene before my eyes are something even a miracle diviner couldn't predict.

(I gave them strict warnings, though...)

In the moonlight, the woman, who had fallen to the floor, is dressed in harem attire.

The area of exposed skin is greater than usual, and even more concerning is the design of the clothes.

The color and material clearly imitate the attire of a God, and it's tailored in such a way that 10 out of 10 people would recognize her as God's woman.

(Is this the geezer's doing? Or the maid's meddling?)

Emma: I didn't expect anyone to come to my room at this hour...

Azel: Ah, so you do know that's harem attire.

Emma: ...The head maid brought it to me as an apology for the aphrodisiac incident before.

Emma: It seems the harem has many outfits prepared so that Prince Azel can receive women at any time...

Emma: She gave it to me out of goodwill, saying it would suit me.

Azel: Goodwill? You mean malice.

(It's transparent that they want me to lay my hands on her no matter what.)

Exasperated, I still extend my hand to the woman.

I understood from the situation that she had tripped when I knocked on the door.

Emma: ...Thank you.

The woman seemed to understand my intention and obediently took my hand to stand up.

(No injuries... good.)

Emma: The maids only gave me the outfit, they didn't force me to wear it.

Azel: Then why did you put it on?

Emma: ...Well, that...

Emma: I-Isn't it cute?

Azel: Huh?

The woman's face turns a distinct red.

Emma: This outfit... it's so Tanzanite-like and cute, I thought.

Emma: And see, it matches with yours, Prince Azel.

Emma: I just wanted to try it on once since I wouldn't be showing it to anyone.

Emma: I didn't expect you to come right after I put it on...

Her voice trails off, and in the end, she even puts some distance between us.

(...What is this strange feeling?)

For no reason, I withdraw the hand I had started to extend.

Azel: You have a peculiar hobby, wanting to try on harem clothes.

Emma: I thought you'd say that, so I was going to wear it in secret...

Emma: ...By the way, what brings you here so late at night, Prince Azel?

(...)

Azel: Actually, the High Priest sent another woman to me...

Azel: I felt my life was in danger, so I came to take refuge with you.

(It's not a lie.)

(...Although I've already shaken off the woman and there's no need to take refuge.)

Emma: I see...

Fortunately, the woman didn't seem to notice anything amiss.

Emma: ...Wait a minute. You're not planning to stay here all night, are you?

Azel: That's my intention.

Emma: I didn't hear that!?

Azel: I just said it.

(This is the quickest way to ensure your safety from those crazies.)

Emma: Then I'll go change.

Azel: You can stay in that outfit if you want to.

Emma: ...It's not exactly calming, is it?

Azel: You said yourself it was "cute."

Emma: It's more embarrassing than cute in front of you, Prince Azel.

Azel: Don't worry about it. I don't feel anything even if you wear harem clothes.

Emma: Even so, I do mind...!

I instinctively grab the hand of the woman who tries to escape to another room.

(Ah...)

Emma: ...Prince Azel?

Azel: No...

(Why did I stop her?)

(...It's not like I thought she looked good in it or anything, or that I wanted to see more...)

(It's not like that...)

Unable to back down now, after hesitating, I sit down on the nearby bed.

Emma: ! ?

As I pull the woman onto my lap so she can't escape, an indescribable silence swallows everything.

(What am I doing?)

(...How am I going to explain what I intend to do from here?)

Emma: Um...

Azel: You're interested enough in the harem to wear that outfit in secret, right?

Emma: Eh?

Azel: Then let me give you a bit of trivia.

Though I know it's forceful, I take an apple from a nearby fruit basket and place it in the woman's hand.

Emma: ...What's this?

Azel: Aren't you hungry? You can eat it, you know.

Emma: There's definitely something behind this, isn't there?

Azel: I'm a benevolent God.

Emma: A benevolent God wouldn't force someone onto his lap like this...

Azel: Just eat it.

When I urge her, wanting to silence her, the woman obediently takes a bite of the apple.

Emma: Mmm... It's delicious.

(Why is she needlessly exuding sex appeal just by eating? Is it because of the outfit?)

Whether intentional or unconscious, the woman puts her arms around my neck for support.

Though I brought this upon myself, I felt dizzy.

Emma: But what does biting into an apple have to do with trivia?

(That's right, I almost forgot the main topic.)

Azel: ...There are a few unspoken rules in the harem.

Azel: What do you think it means to eat fruit in front of the master?

Emma: .......

Emma: "Aren't you hungry?"

(...Damn it, she's too cute.)

(No, that's not it, that's not it.)

Azel: "Won't you eat me?"

Emma: Huh!?

Azel: If the master bites back into the apple... I'm sure you understand what happens next?

Emma: I don't understand, I don't want to understand!

I put my arm around the clearly flustered woman's waist and bring my face close to the apple.

Azel: The act of eating fruit openly in front of someone requires self-confidence.

Azel: If you're confident you can captivate me, try it. If you can...

My lips touch the apple – the woman, red-faced, watches in a daze without stopping me.

(...Stop me.)

Emma: Eek...!

Instead of biting the apple, I pinch her cheek.

Emma: Wh-What are you doing!?

Azel: Learn from this and don't carelessly wear harem clothes.

Azel: It's a good thing it was a benevolent God who found you. If another man had seen you, he might have misunderstood.

(...Did I manage to gloss over it?)

(I glossed over it, I must have glossed over it.)

Emma: ...No one but you, Prince Azel, would come to my room this late at night.

Azel: That's good to know.

(...)

(................)

(...................This is awkward.)

(Even though I didn't eat the apple, why is it strangely sweet...? Damn it.)

[whousestypewriters]

──── ୨ৎ RED WAS THE CARPET — GRAYSON HAWTHORNE + READER ‧₊˚

a/n: and everyone rejoiced. welcome back to the grayson series that is keeping you all alive bc it is shhh. lets all collectively ignore how i havent update this in a month but we move on and enjoy part threeeee !!! and pls forgive me idk anything abt events or red carpets so if i get anything wrong js pretend. also idk why but i love the title and the fact that is somehow makes zero sense and yet is still understandable i need to shut up ive rambled too much ENJOY (love you lots <33)

[part one] i'm a fan [part two] the book club

red was the carpet that you walked on earlier.

it matched your dress.

alya, your very annoying plus one for tonight was wearing black.

there was a lot of things that happened tonight. a lot of things you were never going to forget. everybody you met and talked with... especially one of them...

"oh my god, pheebs and ki are going to be so jealous," alya squeals - quietly of course, you're still surrounded by people, and although sometimes you think alya could actually fight god and win, in public, she's behaving surprisingly calm.

well calm adjacent.

its not exactly seen as calm and collected when you're jumping up and down every three seconds when you see another celebrity walk past preparing for the carpet.

to her credit though she has somehow managed to get the numbers of four actors and singers in the thirty minutes you've been here.

you were lined up at the end of the carpet along with a few other select interviewers, waiting for the start of the event. alya was a bundle of nerves when margot robbie and zendaya stopped for their interview barely getting a few words out and opting to just hold the camera instead.

when xander and jameson arrived though, that was a different story. you'd think they were life long friends. you chatted with max of course, promising to invite her to your next book sleepover, jameson was suspiciously quiet and smirk-y and xander kept looking over his shoulder a shit eating grin on his face.

you knew what was about to happen.

pictures don't do him justice.

that was to be expected, of course. you don't have millions of people following you, or watching your every move for no reason.

the screams on the red carpet, increased when he stepped foot on it, pleas to look at the camera, answer questions, how to pose, everything. he seemed to follow along well, looking hauntingly beautiful in his suit, his face practically carved but when he scanned the large crowd twice over before his eyes settled on you, it went quiet.

he smiled - and by the way it was really hot gorgeous - and you smiled back, a private moment between the two of you in the middle of chaos.

which was totally ruined when alya latched onto your arm and freaked out that she could see grayson.

"oh my god, he's like ten feet away. ohmygodohmygod!" she squealed.

"yeah i know, i can see him," you mutter back, attempting - and failing - to stop her jumping up and down.

"but he's like right there and he's looking at you!"

"i know."

"oh, oh, oh he's coming over to us now, oh my god i think i'm going to faint, hold me."

when the grayson hawthorne stopped in front of you a soft and rare smile on his face you faltered slightly - not because of alya standing there with her mouth agape, because... wow - before raising the microphone and starting.

"hi grayson, its lovely to meet you, i'm y/n."

yn.books

liked by alya.green, maxine.liu.loo, pheobethereader, kirasbooknook, graysonhawthorne, and 852, 679 others

yn.books im am honoured to have been invited to this event!! it was so lovely meeting everyone and asking you questions 🤍 (also kinda freaking out because i met anne hathaway omggg)

view all comments

user1 i see no mention of grayson......

user2 avoiding talking about a certain someone are we?

user3 if they didn't meet im actually going to riot, i'm shipping them so hard.

user4 we have confirmation from jameson that he was there... why didnt you talk to him....

user5 maybe she just didn't want to show that?? its not always about grayson

alya.green best night of my life.

maxine.lui.loo it was so good seeing you again babes <333

yn.books we should catch up while im still in texass

────

graysonhawthorne

liked by thehawthorneheiress, ticking.time.bomb, yn.books, kirasbooknook and 9, 853, 927 others

graysonhawthorne met some nice people tonight.

view all comments

user1 MET WHO GRAYSON??? MET WHO??

user2 ugh he's so delicious i love it

user3 everyone wake up grayson posted

user4 he better have met her or im going to quit

alya.green oh... i see how it is then.... i will do what i must...

user5 ALYA WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO??? OH MY GOD???

user6 ALYA ????

user7 in the likes she's in the likes againnnnn

────

[camera: on]

you should've know alya would have a shit eating grin the entire interview. it was tempting to punch her, very tempting.

"i honestly think divine rivals is my favorite book i've read this year," grayson's deep voice answers your question. his eyes stay on your face and he has a soft smile.

alya is elbowing you now. and you nudge her back as you ask your next question, smiling because now there are even more cameras on you.

"okay," you smile laughing nervously. "now i've asked everyone this tonight, i have a youtube channel."

"oh right yes, i follow you," grayson's voice is calm and his eyes are still on your face.

"you do?" with all of the things that are happening you weren't actually expecting him to be following you.

"yes, you're videos have become a guilty pleasure almost."

if anyone was wondering alya is losing her shit next to you. she has the biggest grin on her face, she's whipped out her camera and is taking an excessive amount of pictures.

"thats really sweet of you," a smile is present on your face now and you raise the microphone to ask your question, ignore the now fully smile grayson has on his face at your flustered-ness. "anyway my question was, do you have anything you want to say, a quote or just anything you like to tell the people watching?"

you turn the mic over to him and he looks down at you with a fond expression on his face - your insides are butterflies now - before looking at the camera.

"i'm going to say, you've made a good decision following this girl. she's a lovely person and keep supporting her," he pauses for a second, "and read divine rivals."

you laugh and nod at the camera, "i agree 100%." turning back to him you start. "well thank you for your time tonight, grayson, it was lovely to getting to know you," you look over to the over excited alya who's just standing back and nodding as if she's a proud mother. "and maybe we'll see you inside."

"hopefully we will," grayson smiles and waves slightly before moving on to the next interviewer.

[camera: off]

────

alya.green

liked by yn.books, maxine.liu.loo, pheobethereader, kirasbooknook, graysonhawthorne and 11, 483, 228 others

alya.green two things: 1, my dress tonight and 2, if they won't do it... i will.

tagged: graysonhawthorne, yn.books

view all comments

user1 OH SHE IS SO MESSY

user2 THIS IS THE QUEEN BEHAVIOUR I SUPPORT

user3 and when i tell you cackled BC LOOK AT THEIR SMILES. LOOK AT THE WAY SHES LOOKING AT HIM.

pheobethereader and you're officially invited back to the next book sleep over.

alya.green i don't need ur validation i dont have to come to the sleepovers

pheobethereader ok then :)

alya.green no wait i'll do anything i have like zero self respect when it comes to the sleepovers

user4 OH HELL YEAH THEY METTTT

ticking.time.bomb and then after the premier... the restaurant....?

alya.green all in due time my friend

user5 EXCUSE ME??? THE RESTAURANT WHAT HAPPENED???

user6 im going to need you to spill the tea RIGHT NOW

user7 the fact that they both liked this but didn't comment 😭😭

────

the restaurant was another story though, for another time.

a/n II: guys i lowkey hate it but i was determined to finish this so :)))

𐔌 . ⋮ 🏷️ tags .ᐟ ֹ ₊ ꒱

@arqbella, @midiosaamor, @maybxlle @reminiscentreader, @sweetreveriee

@elysianwayy77 @tornqdowarnings, @catapparently, @zenikswaffleshop, @thelov3lybookworm,

@anotherwriternamedclara,

[melmedardaapologist]

ok, so here are my thoughts from what i remember about this whole thing from the top of my head (long ramble incoming, please forgive me if i get anything egregiously wrong):

in season 1, ambessa implies something along the lines of mel's father being more like mel, intellect-focused and not falling along the line of the ideal noxian, and in season 2, we get the famous "she fell in love" line from fake kino

so from the first part, it's implied that mel's father was in the picture, or at least that ambessa talked about him to mel enough for it to be a familiar subject, but from the second, it sounds like a much more secret affair

so either ambessa significantly edited the story about an absent parent, or they're separate people—the second of which i think is totally plausible, since the idea of adopted family is very integral to arcane's plot, and so i feel it could very well be plausible that mel's father in the emotional sense is a distinct entity from mel's biological father, who only starts to matter when the black rose and mel's magic enter the plot

so moving on, if we're going to trust leblanc's story of "ambessa fell in love" (which yes, we know that leblanc as "deceiver," but they did reveal mel the truth of her abilities, so we can't discount everything they said as a lie as well), what this paints is quite a tragic story—from the "blood sweat and tears" video, we see that mel's conception happened while ambessa was still in the process of "becoming the wolf," with the imagery of her giving up the lamb implying that she had to give up some naivety/idealism in order to achieve that (and would make her conflict with mel all the more interesting if she treated mel's "softness" so harshly not because she couldn't understand it but because she recognized it as a vestige of her own past self)

so we have an ambessa who has not quite yet become the ideal noxian, and she meets a man who is presumably connected to the black rose with a long history of hostility between their factions, and they shared enough to have a daughter, and then he either disappears from her life completely and another figure (possibly kino's father?) becomes mel's parental figure, which could point to some falling out, or ambessa still fondly told mel stories, which i actually think would imply that he's dead so she doesn't have to fear mel finding out the truth (if it weren't, of course, for leblanc)...

i just have so many ideas. all of them are inherently tragic though, but i guess that's also another inherent trait of arcane that can't be escaped

ok so who the hell did ambessa fuck

[soulfulazrael]

"Media literacy" in HB fanbase. OH MY GOD is r/HelluvaBoss dumb. Also Vassago.

I made a mistake

Well 2. One of them is using this gif given recent... funny things with certain VA, but the other, relevant one is visiting the dreaded r/HelluvaBoss

Now I do not engage in discussion there. It will lead nowhere as most of you will realize the moment you will see what I have to show you, but first let's talk about a spectacular case of confused character writing that is Vassago.

I wont discuss who he is in Demonology. That is kind of irrelevant because this show barely follows any of it anyway. What is important is their appearance in Mastermind as the sole defender of Stolas's honor and all I can say is... Who the fuck are you?

And let's be honest. If none of us watched promotional material we would also ask ourselves the same thing. Who is this guy?

And it makes sense because suddenly at a very high point in the story this character is thrown at us as if we are not only supposed to know who this is, but also be amazed at that he defends Stolas. His one friend... brother... lover... someone who comes to his aid among all the other Goetias.

And there was no build up to this character, there was no name drop of him before, no flashback, not even a peep that would relate in ANY way to his character and all we are left with are questions and not the good kind. Why is he for instance speaking spanish in between english? Why is he so important? Why is he the only one in Stolas's corner? Why is he in this pivotal moment that is meant to cap off the entire season's story?

But not to worry because bright people from a beautiful place that is r/HelluvaBoss come to our aid to help our 'media illiteracy'

Do I even have to say anything? I mean I do, but still... come on.

Let us first address top comment "He will be important later". I am sorry, but what kind of justification is that? When is that later? 3rd season? Because if so then this is terrible way of introducing character that is going to be important in 3rd season. Because this show already presents him as if he has been part of the story for a while and gives him a prominent role (as prominent as like 5 lines are) like there was some kind of foreshadowing towards him being the only one to defend Stolas.

There was not. Vassago is put in a role that would be more fitting for character like Ozzie. You know. Actually important character that was given previously some screentime and has established relationship with the main cast who can stand in this proceeding and do SOMETHING aside from looking down at his phone like an average 12 year old today during Christmas Dinner.

And that is the thing. Such a role in an episode should NOT be given to completely new character. This is a role that should be given to already pre established character that AT LEAST is mentioned by word. Like I dunno. With Stolas maybe wondering how Vassago is doing or how maybe at some point he mentions him. SOMETHING. Dropping this character so suddenly in such a crucial moment of the story is just very strange. In a way same goes for Satan who also had about nothing about him besides I believe Verosika episode having him mentioned... one line... that is the level of foreshadow we are doing here.

And then there is that other comment that talks about "media literacy". You want to add a new character? How about do it ANYWHERE ELSE than a crucial part of it. Because those moments are not good for introductions of new parts of main cast without any prior mention of them. Those moments are meant to be culmination of everything that came before. Leave intros for before and/or after.

And then we have some of this

I love those people man. All talking about "media literacy" or "anti-intelectualism". Just... AAAAGH! God. Yeah. You are so smart. You understand writing so well.

Let's just put it into perspective. This is as if Verosika's first appearance would be in Apology Tour as one of the people Blitzo hurt and we are suddenly supposed to care for her even though she never showed up or was mentioned before. That would be STUPID right?

Well that's what they did with Vassago. Apparently VERY important character to Stolas introduced haphazardly during climax of the Season in a prominent role of being the only one who defends him even though not only is this part better suited for other character that is there, but also this role is absolutely wasted because he has about 5 goddamn lines. And it is telling how much in that first image the long comment does mostly just theorizing because we know absolutely NOTHING about this character and people are already supposed to be hyped for him despite that he was introduced so quickly. Also take a load of this.

Yeah. Because a character introduced at the very start of the book is the same as goddamn Vassago. In fact this is like Gandalf being introduced in Moria. Wouldn't that be just dumb? And you know what's sad? This.

Those people actually bring up good points. And they either no attention or get downvoted. Why? Because critical thinking is a sin on that subreddit. The first one especially (upvoted by me now BTW). Just... ugh...

This is the state of people on r/HelluvaBoss. If you value your braincells do NOT go to that damn place. There is about as much critical thinking and praised "media literacy" as there is on ragebait thread on twatter spouted by some idiot talking about how "west has fallen" because woman.

It's stupid. And makes me dumber just thinking about it. Jesus. This fanbase man. It's amazing.

Now there are smart people in this fanbase. There are good people in it. There are very much great, talented people in it. And some of those people who I mentioned who's comments hurt my brain could be talented and could be smart, but are just not about this part of HB. But considering what they are saying... I needed to vent about this because this hurts to see.

And the worst part is that Viv probably likes that this fanbase is like this. No critical thinking or doubts. Just spouting insults. Making headcanons to counter criticism and refusal to leave their echo chamber.

It's sad. Because not only I feel bad for them, but I feel bad for the show, because with fans like those how could it EVER improve? To many of those probably the only time to say anything critical is when it's all over. But at that point... who cares?

Also do not think I am some pillar of 'media literacy' or 'intellectualism'. I am not. I am really not. I am just passionate about writing and those people cause me headaches.

[scarletdreamers]

There ultimately is one question that bothers many when it comes to Will: Is Will Graham actually a bad person? (because no one knows what exactly swims around in the hot darkness of his mind, but I tried to sum it up anyway)

The thing about Will is that yes, he is certainly not a ‘good’ person. At least not after Hannibal started messing with his head, though I’m convinced Will never was in the first place. However, not only Will’s character, but pretty much the whole show is about the thin and multi-shaded line of good and bad. Moral and immoral. It’s exactly that blurry line that makes Will such an interesting protagonist. He is not the bad guy, neither is he the hero in his own story. He tried to play the roles of both (FBI agent vs killer), managed to fool even himself for a while, but Will knows very well who he is and what he was doing.

It’s an ancient question, isn’t it? What is good and what is bad? Are those two defined by societal norms and standards? Are they based on culture, religion, or is morality something personal? Something only you can decide for yourself? 

I’m going to include Hannibal here for a second, because when it comes to Hannibal, the last one of those options applies. The thing with Hannibal is that he has his own philosophies, his own ideals and morals. Hannibal constantly rivals God, claiming that he himself can’t be called evil because God does the same things and isn’t considered ‘’bad’’. Hannibal has his own borders and limits very straight. He can recognise plain cruelty, but the thing with Hannibal is that he is a very stylised manifestation of sin.

Hannibal is religious, though there might not be a specific religion or deity he believes in and he worships no higher beings, he does believe in the ‘’rules’’ of certain religions. He is well aware that he crosses most of those. They hold no value for him. He makes his own rules, plays his own game. In his world, there is no ‘’good’’ or ‘’bad’’ when it comes to actual crimes against humanity. A bad person is for him someone very rude, someone who lacks respect and manners. He doesn’t consider himself a ‘’good’’ person. He is something entirely else. A way of perceiving life and his own morality that no one except from Will can truly understand. 

Hannibal, however, is to us a bad person. He is the ‘’ultimate bad guy’’, because the way he feels about Will doesn’t excuse the rest of his behaviour. Hannibal is a sadist, a narcissist, a manipulative and awful man. He kills and feels no remorse for most if not all of his victims. For him killing is an art, a pleasure, he delights in it. For him, that is not as ‘’bad’’ or evil as it is for us (society), though he knows he is alone in that world. 

For that same reason, Hannibal doesn’t consider Will a bad person. He considers Will his equal. He knows that the both of them are deemed ‘’bad’’ people to the public, but that doesn’t matter in his world. In Hannibal’s mind, it’s just him and Will against the rest of the world. They are neither good nor evil. They simply are.

So back to Will, who understands Hannibal’s view of morality, but doesn’t necessarily think the same. If we look at it the same way as we looked at Hannibal, in a societal and common sense, yes, Will is a bad person. Can a stereotypically ‘’good’’ person like killing, even if it’s bad men? The satisfaction in killing, even if it’s a bad person, isn’t a moral thing. Someone truly ‘’good’’ would always choose punishment over murder. Then there’s also the fact that Will didn’t blink twice when he and Hannibal ate human meat and that he consumed it, knowingly, without a single complaint.

Will had no issues using innocent people (Chilton, Freddie Lounds, etc) to achieve his own goals. He is as (if not more) manipulative as Hannibal and is sometimes cruel in ways that even shocks the Chesapeake Ripper. Will made absurd sacrifices to get what he wanted, did things no stereotypically ‘’good’’ man would ever think of doing. Then I’m not even talking about maybe the simplest and most ordinary example of how little he actually cares for most things, which is his sweet wife, Molly (her son Walter, too). 

However, Will did try to be good. He tried very hard. He wanted to be a good person, to save people. Will can care for others in ways Hannibal can’t. Hannibal has no moral compass, Will does. A broken one, but he does. Will wants to help people more often than he wants to hurt them (The conversation with Bedelia about crushing or saving a wounded bird is a perfect example of this. So are his needs to save dogs and Abigail.) The thing about Will is that he desired to be good. He worked for the FBI, saved many lives, because he understands pain and suffering like no other. He doesn’t wish such horrid things upon innocent people. 

During the show, Will's morality is completely tied to Hannibal, so much that Hannibal himself and the stag even serve as metaphors for his corruption, while at the same time, his morality has nothing to do with Hannibal. Will always had dark urges. He always knew that there was something fundamentally wrong with him, with the things he wanted and was capable of doing. Perhaps that’s why he joined the police and later the FBI. He suppressed the worst of him by focusing on the best of himself. By forcing himself to save people through a job, he couldn’t afford to misbehave and do things he knew were wrong. Will’s fantasies, dreams and understanding of killers throughout the show make it very clear that he struggled with his own morality, even before Hannibal.

Then came, of course, Hannibal. Who fueled those urges and gave them attention. Who didn’t create them, but cared for them. Allowed them to sprout and grow until Will got entangled in such a web of situations and feelings that he couldn’t suppress them anymore. Hannibal forced Will to deal with who he really is, he broke Will’s shield. His costume, the same way Will did with Hannibal’s person suit. Hannibal is a ‘bad’ influence on Will because he brings out what’s always been inside him, but was repressed for years because Will was aware that society would label him a monster or a freak if he acted on those feelings. Will felt alone and alienated his entire life, of course he tried everything to not fall into a complete pit of loneliness and darkness. 

That was until Hannibal came into his life and Will realised that there was someone who understood him, who loved him for who he really was, even (especially) his ‘darker’ side. Someone who was like him. Who understood how he felt and didn’t see him as an immoral person because of it. Will spent his whole life understanding others, but Hannibal was the first person to actually understand him in return. 

Hannibal thinks Will’s ‘worst’ side is the most beautiful version of him. Will himself is torn between what Hannibal (the one person who understands and cares for him) and society (his upbringing, religion, anyone he ever met, norms and values) think of him. He doesn’t know what to believe. He knows he’s a bad person, he doesn’t try to make himself believe he isn’t. As I said, Will still has a moral compass, he’s self conscious about the things he does.

However, there is a great possibility that Hannibal changed Will’s perception of himself. That he made Will see that there’s no need to think of himself as a bad person. Just as a person. A human with urges and desires. Who can decide for themselves whether their actions are good or bad. Law is far beneath them at this point. In the end, Will and Hannibal navigate their own morality through their perceptions of their own actions. They both have a dislike for labels. Good and bad, moral and immoral, those are all labels society has forced upon humanity. Cruelty and kindness are not. Will knows very well when he’s cruel and when he’s kind.

So my conclusion is, yes, Will Graham is stereotypically a self-conscious yet immoral person. At the ending of the series after everything has happened, at least. 

But, I think that, just like Will himself, it’s up to you to decide whether he’s truly good or bad. Some people have other reasons to believe someone is one of the two than others. Some believe that if a person can love, or if they feel guilt or know what they’re doing, they aren’t a bad person. Others don’t. I think that’s entirely up to you to decide. It’s just what you like to believe, because believe me, to Will the line is just as blurry as it is to us. He is as unpredictable to Hannibal as he is for the audience. Will is a mystery of a character, certainly when it comes to his morality. And I think that that is exactly what makes him so fascinating.

[charcubed]

Okay in the genuinely least shady way possible and not trying to start a debate here: I understand the wider point OP is making but I also, personally, feel insane when I see posts about this topic phrased in this way lmaaaoooo

“queerbait tv”

???????

What, supposedly, was “queerbait TV”?

[Rhetorical question. I can rattle off the list of shows people would probably reply with, and yet I'd also probably insist that each of them is vastly different and should be viewed through a unique lens rather than compared to the others because no 2 situations are alike]

Because what this post is describing (and what some people are even understanding in the notes of it) is subtext. These discussions are often really about subtext and queercoding and thematically compelling narratives!! That’s what’s described here and it’s what people – or at the very least me personally – desperately crave!!

And look, I’m obviously not saying that advocating for gay people being openly explicitly represented on TV was or is a bad thing. Of course that’s important, whether the gay people are going on healthy dates or killing for each other lmao.

But for God's sake... this is why my repetitive rant and personal hot take is that we need to abolish the word "queerbaiting." It's done so much damage in this regard and it doesn't even fucking mean anything of consistent substance or value at this point, if it ever properly did. Once upon a time and only briefly, "queerbaiting" was intended as an accusation that corporate marketing and false advertising were deliberately being used with the intent to increase viewership of a show with no explicit follow-through or validation of queerness within the story itself. It was a type of pinkwashing for ads about TV shows – something that was actually pretty rare in the grand scheme, to be honest – not about the writing or execution of a story itself. But that potential meaning for a very specific thing quickly became entirely lost, and now the use of the word "queerbaiting" is literally just about vibes. You'd be hard-presssed to get even 10 random people to define it the same way. And more often than not, using "queerbaiting" is about derogatory vibes specifically thrown in the direction of devaluing subtext or deriding creators for whatever a fan personally considers to be a failure, disappointment, subtlety (or even too-slow burn) in a story's writing.

[Btw OP, if you're reading this, I'm really not trying to make an aggressive accusatory example out of your singular use of the word here lmao. I apologize if it feels that way. I'm working up to a point]

At the end of the day, so much of these recent takes about boring gay people on TV or ~queerbait hits harder~ route back to how, in the (still worthwhile!) pursuit of explicit representation and the implicit assumption that it's always the Best, somewhere along the way people got it in their brains that subtext and queercoding deserved vilification as the Worst. And that became the loud and prevailing opinion. Of course a lot of that also stems from personal hurt, anger, or disappointment by past TV shows which is all obviously understandable... but that's why people cling to the simplicity of the word “queerbaiting” as an umbrella anytime something's upsetting, and the accusation is often hurled with misplaced ire at creators.

Ultimately in some ways the concept of subtext became synonymous with "not good enough," and in other ways it came to be seen as something cowardly or malicious that creators put into stories to tease, bait, and disappoint fans. Nuance got lost, as well as the understanding that subtext/queercoding exist at all because they're tools used to tell (or enrich!) stories despite interference, constraints, and censorship – obstacles which have never fully gone away.

So we've ended up here: the need for whatever constitutes Good Representation – an endlessly shifting goalpost – and room for little else. The fear of all the ways stories can hurt and the advocacy for avoiding that hypothetical or potential hurt. The "all or nothing" mentally where if a ship isn't canon in the way someone personally deems acceptable – or in a way where every straight person on the planet will miraculously, mythically accept it's queer – then the story has Caused Harm and therefore doesn't have much value or can't be queer. And the overall cultural framing that subtext only exists when creators are too cowardly to do something more, rather than possibly as a creative choice to add complexities or a byproduct of censorship or both.

I find it all pretty fucked and exhausting to witness.

So, judging by [gestures broardly] the hamster wheel of bullshit out there and specifically the high note count on this post...

Here's where I land, as always:

I truly believe so many people and fandoms would free themselves if they realized that “queerbaiting” as a term is mostly bullshit, and as a concept the fear of Being Baited often robs people of finding joy and meaning in stories on their own merit. And I think they'd also free themselves a bit if they learned, understood, and acknowledged that subtext and queercoding are forms of canon. They're canon and they "count." Explicit queer storytelling is important for all the reasons we all implicitly know and understand, and of course we want to see sweeping epic character arcs reach the natural loudly queer conclusions we and the characters often deserve. But even if a story doesn't have that or get that, if you see and understand it's queer, that's still enough in its own way. It still has value, and you don't need permission or validation from anyone else to maintain that to yourself or to others.

Final apology to OP for hijacking their post. And maybe the TL;DR is I genuinely am "advocating for a return to queerbait TV" – or rather the sorts of storytelling and subtext people too often derogatorily slap with the "bait" label, past or present. Maybe people should think a little more about how stories like that were and still are good as well as often legitimately queer... and examine why there's often an implication that they're somehow not.

I am genuinely not advocating for a return to queerbait tv, I was vocally against it the whole time it was happening that was like my whole shtick for a while but it is kind of wild that when gay people weren’t allowed on tv, gay characters (who weren’t allowed to be gay) would be drinking poison for each other and killing bad guys for each other romantically and offering to go to prison in each other’s place and now that we are allowed to have gay people on tv…gay people will just be having a healthy conversation and going going on a date like normal people. Get OUT of my face with that

[covetyou]

single rider

ao3 ⋆ main masterlist

pairing: Dieter Bravo x gn!reader  rating: teen (18+ only blog!)  warnings: broken theme park rides, fluff, hand holding, scared!Dieter, Cliff Beasts slander, swearing, seriously so much hand holding though. word count: 2.5k  summary: Not a thing goes wrong when you visit a theme park for festive fun with friends. Not a single thing at all.

A/N: happy dieter bravo brainrot club secret santa-mas @burntheedges! I'm so sorry this is basically at the last possible minute (15 minutes late, actually). The spoon drawer is empty and I'm working with forks rn.

I took liberties with your "accidentally booked the same rental" and "randomly assigned tour buddies" prompts and mashed them up with the real life experience of getting stuck on Toy Story Mania for like 10 minutes in 2023 (let me tell you, that music does NOT stop). it makes sense, I promise.

 @dieterbravobrainrotclub

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The time mocks you, numbers glaring down bright in the darkness. Seventy-Five minutes. Over an hour of your time. In a queue.

Another day, it'd be funny. Another day, you'd have the time to spare, no friends waiting in the parking lot for you to ride the one thing they all refused to. You suppose that's what you get for coming here with a bunch of thrill seekers.

You didn't really understand their objection. The thing had thrills and excitement, just not the kind that would flip you upside down and launch you into the air at a million miles an hour. It wasn't old and decrepit like some other rides.

Okay, so it wasn't exactly new, either. Or good. You knew that.

But you liked it. You liked the jaunty music and the silly little shooting game - pelting eggs at anything and everything that popped up as you slowly trundled through scene after scene. It was charming. Nostalgic, somehow, despite only being something you ever experienced as an adult. It was exactly what you needed after an entire evening of listening to your nearest and dearest scream themselves hoarse on rollercoasters.

But seventy-five fucking minutes? Was it worth seventy-five minutes?

The people still joining the queue seem to think so. The bored looking attendant waving them through seems less thrilled, staring into the middle distance as they absentmindedly wave group after group into the line.

That was just the thing. Even on a regular day, the queue was something to behold. It was cheesy and tacky and glorious, everything you wanted just about every day of the year. But, every year, they did something special for the holidays. A festive overlay like you've never seen. Gaudy and horrendous in all the right ways, and part of you just needed to see it.

"Single-riders can queue over there."

It takes you a moment to realize the monotone drone of the ride attendant is directed at you, standing frowning up at the sign that now reads eighty minutes.

The attendant speaks again, waving one hand to guide yet more people into the rapidly growing queue, while thrusting a thumb over to another sign - arrow pointed away from the main queue - that says single rider.

"But does it -" you start, before that same monotonous drawl cuts you off.

"Still got the decorations."

Naturally, you don't even think before you're moving. Even when the single-rider line looks supiciously like an emergency exit.

It's not. It's everything you hoped. You track alongside the queues and groups, music blaring and people laughing and chattering over it all. Outdated animatronics from all over the park sit in here, draped in holiday outfits, santa hats flopping around on their stuttering heads.

And then, once you've breezed past all eighty minutes of queue in no time at all, you make it to the front of an empty line, feeling like you've cheated the system and screwed over all the people infinitely more patient than you.

"Six to a car! Split up your groups! Six to a car! Three each side!"

You know the drill, even if the other people do not. Groups of four trying to scramble to fit into sides with only three launchers and not nearly enough ass space. Others getting split awkwardly between multiple cars. All while you stand, and wait, for whatever space you might be slotted into.

It takes all of two minutes. You missed who loaded into the front side of your car - too busy grinning to yourself at a particularly shitty animatronic and the absolutely not PG way it's moving in it's old age - but you're being called over and loaded into the car and whisked away to the training room in no time, the little jerking goblin soon forgotten.

And fuck is it just as delightful as you'd hoped.

Baubles and ornaments replace the eggbasket - each one smashing against targets as they hit home, no bursting yolk in sight. The car spins and turns with each new room, and you're poised and ready to begin firing each time, jingling bells and twinkling lights guiding you through scene after scene.

Even if you waited eighty minutes, it would've been worth it, you think as the car flips again, sliding you to one side as you begin shooting again, the sounds of giggles and shouts from other cars drowned out by your own laughter.

The score on your screen rapidly increases. You miss the hot air balloon, but you knock back the snowman with an ornament straight to the head. The big 1000 pointer just escapes you, but you nail three 750s in quick succession. You don't hear the swearing from your car mate, back to back and shielded from each other as you both are.

You're so lost in it, racking up points and taking in the music and carnage in front of you, that you're still shooting when the lights dim and the swaying car grinds to a halt. The launcher in your hand becomes unresponsive, the music going around and around in a loop as other cars start to look around with the same question in their eyes as you.

What the fuck is going on?

"Sit tight, the ride will begin moving again shortly!"

You don't believe the automated voice coming through the loud speaker the first time, and you certainly don't believe it the fifth. After eight minutes, you're starting to understand just why the queue was so long in the first place.

Then, just as you tap out a frantic message to your waiting friends, your car starts to rock and shuffle, your unseen car-mate moving around behind you.

"Hello?" comes a man's voice, just about audible over the repeated cycle of music.

"Anyone there?" he asks, a knock to the back of his seat making your turn in yours.

"I'm here."

You expect to make small talk with the unseen stranger until the ride starts moving again. You expect to never see his face and just shout over the music, between the calls of the automated message, having a stilted conversation until you're both back to shooting again.

You don't expect the ride car to sway again, or to hear scrambling feet on plastic, and you certainly don't expect to first seen an arm, then a foot, then a scruffy head, clamber around the side of the car, feet not touching the ground as he switches sides to sit right next to you.

"Thank fuck," he says breathlessly when he plops himself next to you in the car, looking around with frantic, terrified eyes.

You gape at him. Usually you'd be scared of a strange man climbing into your ride car, but his own look of terror far eclipses yours and, beyond that, you're certain you know him from somewhere.

"Are you okay?" you ask tentatively when his eyes shoot from side to side at the start of another loop of that music, once jaunty and cheesy in a fun way, now infuriating and borderline creepy.

"No!" he says. "Have you seen this shit?"

He finally looks at you - you definitely know him from somewhere - and you're stunned. He's a mess of scruffy, curly hair and patchy beard. He might be tanned in other lighting, but right now he just looks a splotchy mess of technicolor wearing loungewear and, fuck, is he beautiful.

Another sudden burst of color - a light glitching and resetting, yet again - and he recoils in the seat next to you.

"Oh fuck no. This is some Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory shit," he shouts, gripping the bar in front of him with white knuckles. He's looking around frantically, as if terrorized by the idea of Santa on his sleigh, until a jaunty looking snowman pops up and has Dieter throwing himself back in his seat with a yelp.

"The one with Gene-"

"Yes the one with Gene Wilder, there is no other."

He's holding himself now. It's surprisingly endearing watching him restrain himself from gripping onto you, and instead clutching his hands tightly to his arms, while he shakes his head and mutters something about how he can't believe this.

"Scared?" you probe, and he shakes his head again.

"You cannot tell me this isn't nightmare fuel."

You shrug. "I like the ride."

"So do I, but this," he says, flapping around to the swirling lights, "is not what I signed up for. I queued an hour for this. I've had bad trips better than this. This would be better on a bad trip."

The announcement sounds again - shortly feeling like more and more of an infuriating lie each time you hear it - and the man takes a deep breath, slouching back into the seat, releasing his arms, and gripping the plastic edge of it.

You don't know what compells you. You never would do something like this usually - you are a strictly hands-off person where strangers or vague acquantances are concerned. Still, you reach for his hand where it sits near to you on the plastic bench seat, and grip it softly in your own.

"What - What're you doing?" he asks, letting his hand sit limp in yours.

You clear your throat and stare ahead at the repeating scene on the screen - hot air balloon, target, Santa's sleigh, snowman, fireworks, hot air balloon, target, Santa's sleigh...

"Holding your hand."

He nods, as if that's all he needed to know, and looks ahead too, shuffling a little in his seat. You both watch another full cycle, the lights dancing in the same exact pattern they have over, and over again, and you think this must be how you go insane, sat trapped here on a ride car with a beautiful, if slightly unhinged, strangers hand in yours.

"Why?"

You blink. You're stupid. You're weird. You're unhinged. He climbed around the side of the car and yet you've out-stranged him in one simple movement, and now you're stuck here, committed to the bit until -

"You're scared. It's nice to have someone when you're scared," you say quickly, uncertain as you possibly could be as the words tumble out of your mouth. In truth, you don't really know why you did it, or why you're still doing it, other than he seemed like he needed it. And maybe you did too.

He just grunts, and you sit in as much silence as you can among the repetitive chaos of the ride.

Then, with no warning, he starts moving his thumb, stroking the side of your hand in a gentle wave of movement. Your breath catches, and you watch from the corner of your eye as his nervous energy dissipates until he slouches against the seat of the car.

"Dieter. I'm D - fuck - Dieter," he says softly, a red and green light blasting him right in the face and making him wince.

But then it hits you. Not the light - that, thankfully, stays on the other side of the car, blinding a squinting Dieter beside you.

No. It's this man. Dieter. You know him. You've seen him on your TV about a million times this last month - that shitty movie always plays just before Christmas, and this year is no exception. The movie was terrible, for all you'd seen of it. It was some ensemble cast mostrosity with terrible CGI monsters and even worse acting, not at all festive in the slightest and made even more annoying by the ads littered throughout it.

From what you remember, he was terrible too. An Oscar winning actor, cast in some movie so shitty it didn't even gain a cult following. The only thing you heard was any good was the documentary that came out of it, but if your friends were to be believed, that was only good because of copious amounts of explosions and illicit substances.

He sighs, easily spotting whatever baffled look just slapped you in the face the moment you realised his identity, and looks away from you.

"Yeah, that Dieter."

"Cool," you choke out.

Because it kind of is. It's not every day you get stuck on a ride with a famous actor. It's not every day you get to hold his hand and have him stroke soothing circles across your knuckles. It's not every day you get to see just how much more beautiful he is up close compared to his slick-haired, eyelinered counterpart in that god damned movie.

"Sit tight, the ride will begin moving again shortly!"

"Bullshit," he grumbles from beside you, shifting closer to your side so he can rest your arm against the seat.

"Favorite food?" you ask suddenly.

"What?"

"Favorite food? Time's gonna pass anyway, may as well fill it with something that isn't hot air balloon, target, sleigh, snowman -"

"I hate that fuckin' snowman. Tacos. Yours?"

"Who doesn't love tacos."

The ride never does get started again.

Instead, minutes pass, and you throw question after question back and forth with Dieter. The lights go out. He grips your hand a little tighter, and you pull to scoot him a little closer. The lights come up. The spell is broken. The nightmare is over. You're fairly sure you'll have that song ringing in your ears for weeks.

You still hold his hand.

One by one the ride cars are evacuated. Yours is last. Dieter helps you down from the car, his hand finding yours again, still warm from being in his for so long.

Then, you're walking beside an illuminated track and blank screens, abandoned ride car after abandoned ride car, and you're free, with Dieter by your side.

You escape via the gift shop - the novelty toys and candy ignored, Dieter's hand guiding you toward the exit so he can throw his head back in glee at the sight of the wide open sky above him.

In your pocket, your phone buzzes frantically, messages bombarding you now that you weren't trapped in the depths of a metal building. 6 new messages. 2 missed calls. Your friends, still waiting in the parking lot, trying to reach you while the lights blared and the music played.

>>did the ride eat you?

>>if she doesn't hurry up i'm gonna eat her

>>sorry I get grouchy when I'm hungry

>>have you got locked in the bathroom again?

>>THE QUEUE IS OVER AN HOUR?!>!?!?!

>>this egg game owes us dinner

"You want tacos?" Dieter asks from beside you as you hastily tap out a reply, and before you can answer you look up to see him striding away into the crowd, parting the stream of foot traffic with his broad frame until it engulfs him.

You can't help the feeble whimper that escapes you when you watch him walk away. Or the way your arms fall limply to your side when he's out of your view and gone.

You can't help the smile, either, that pulls at your cheeks when he bobs and weaves back through the crowd, stopping a few steps away and jabbing the thumb on one hand over his shoulder and holding the other out to you.

"You coming?" he shouts, with an expectant look on his face, and with a swipe of your thumb, the message is deleted, quickly replaced by another as you make your way toward him, hand reaching for his.

>you guys go ahead, I'm gonna be a while longer

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Hi! Sorry to disturb. I'm a quite inexperienced writer, I'm trying to write my first long work and I don't want to just get it out and be done with it, I want to put care in it, so your blog has been super helpful for both small tips and for big deals. So I have a doubt and I thought I'd ask you, if you can't or don't want to answer that's fine!

One of my main characters is a singer but most importantly a song writer so the songs she writes really have a meaning with the story and are meant to get a reaction from her counterpart. I tried a few ways but I can't seem to incorporate her singing very well in my pages, how would you go about it? Do you have any tips?

Thank you and have a good days and holidays if you celebrate xx

Hi! Here are some references and tips from various sources I found for you. Use which ones would work best with your specific story, and alter as needed:

Writing Template: Singing Scene

Part 1

What perspective will this be from? The singer or the audience? Maybe both.

There is more to singing than using the voice.

Will the audiences’ emotions be front and center for this scene or will it be the character’s? It doesn’t matter if you are writing first person or second person. The character can show the reader what the audience is thinking based on body language. 

If the character is singing alone, the audience can be more than just themselves. It could be a deity they believe in, or a loved one that passed away and is present either in physical spirit or thought. Could be a pet or even nature itself (trees, grass, etc) as the character’s audience. They all would respond in their own ways. Maybe the trees dance in the wind while the character sings a melody. Or the birds and bees join in on the tune.

Part 2

Connect a deep feeling and understanding back to the reader.

Remember, overall experience is more important than mechanics.

What is the song about? What genre? How does it sound? Is it slow or fast? Lighthearted or formal? Does the singer have a high voice or a low one, or a mix? 

How does the song make people who hear it feel? Is the singer doing anything else while they sing?

Let’s say the main character has a song stuck in their head. One way to show the reader (if it’s important to the overall plot) is when every time the song gets stuck in the character’s head, the paragraph would stop and a new one would start with the lyrics.

Part 3

Create an emotion profile for why the character is singing

Is there a message you want to convey? This can be shown by how the character sings.

Tone/breathy, maybe the sound of an exasperated sigh would be heard in parts of the singing.

How the character holds tension in the body can really influence the emotion. Are they rigid, loose? Perhaps seemingly overthinking it.

Diction can be shown through how you write the lyrics the character is singing. For example, hard/soft on the consonants using bold letters or capitalization. The character can have pauses and slurring in the singing, shown through the way you write the lyrics.

Breath. Every emotional state has a breathing pattern associated with it. Ways to write breathing for singing would be through body language and onomatopoeia. For example if the character is scared and is hyperventilating: He placed a hand over his heart, barely able to stare into the crowd of onlookers. Wheeze, gasp!  Was all the lyrics we heard from him that night”.

Think about the type of song and the genre. For example, if you’re writing about rock music, the instruments will be guitar, drums, piano. So ‘Her voice rose higher, while trying to follow the raspy, intense notes of the musician’s bass.  

Is this a new song?

If you’re using well-known songs, include action, internal monologue, and scenery description to avoid a reader skipping over to the actual story.

If a song is new or a unique take, you can paraphrase the lyrics in a way that tells you something relevant to the character or moment.

Example: The goofy man staggered down the street in his drunken stupor singing: “You ma-a . . . blue-eyed girl!” He took another swig from the bottle in his hand. “Do you remember when . . . we used to sing: Oh la la, la la, la la, la la, la te da! Just like that!”  He took another swig. “All alone on my own. I thought I saw you the other day. But it was my dreams—” He was silenced by sirens coming from behind him down the alley. He bolted!

Part 4

Create emotion profiles for the song.

Purpose of the song. Is the message in the content of the song or the characters reaction to them?

Songs in fiction have multiple purposes such as giving background details, foreshadow, used as a metaphor, portray emotion or conflict, reflect or mirror events of the story, used for character development, etc. The message you are trying to convey will determine how you write them.

One method is good for when the content of the song is unimportant or secondary to the characters reaction. Simply include a description of the song. Using broad terms, describe the topic and style of the song but keep focus on how it affects the characters.

Part 5

How does it end? Good note or bad? Audience wanting more? Character feeling happier?

Don’t be afraid to end the scene or chapter here.

When it ends, is there thunderous applause?

How are they feeling? What are they thinking? Their posture. Are there any subtle movements in their hands, eyes, and breathing patterns?

After singing the character could simply move on to later that night or the next day. You don’t necessarily have to show what happens right after. It may even make the reader curious. You can show the results of singing throughout the story, for example, if other characters start treating the singing character nicer, or they get a contract deal, or if their depression has subsided. Example:

Intense, was the crescendo as it built to a slow roll that crashed like a great wave into the souls of those that listened. A calming silence fell over the eager audience; they were captivated by the intoxicating tune coming from this slender throat. From the depths of his soul, the lyrics rose and swelled around everyone in that room as if all could feel his misery. In this moment, his pain was their pain and the audience and singer were as one. 

Some Personality Traits of Singers

3,088 singers were surveyed to learn what personality traits and interests make them unique.

Singers are artistic and enterprising. They tend to be predominantly artistic individuals, meaning that singers are creative and original and work well in a setting that allows for self-expression. They also tend to be enterprising, which means that they are usually quite natural leaders who thrive at influencing and persuading others. [Using the Holland codes]

The top personality traits of singers are openness and social responsibility. Singers score highly on openness, which means they are usually curious, imaginative, and value variety. They also tend to be high on the measure of social responsibility, indicating that they desire fair outcomes and have a general concern for others. [Using the Big Five]

Character Development through Music

One device that is highly effective in understanding character is music. Music is nearly universal in its influence.

It’s a bit too easy to just answer the question, “What kind of music does my character like?”

More difficult might be, “What kind of music would my character turn off?”

You might think of an entire type of music or, more likely, a specific song. Maybe a song that would break your character’s heart in two at just the first beat.

Think about instances of revealing character traits using music as a way to show your reader more about how your character interacts with the world.

Music can be explored in literature showing us just how responsive this device can be to character.

Our knowledge of character may be deepened by their interaction with music.

How might this work in your own writing?

Try this exercise, using the first few words from Prince’s iconic “Kiss”:

“YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE BEAUTIFUL…”

Copy this line, including the quotation marks. Unless your character is Prince, write says, or sings, or said, and your character’s name.

Imagine your character speaking these 6 words.

To whom did they say them? Where are they talking? Are they singing at a bar? Or is your scene NOT connected to the reality of this song at all?

You can imagine that your character is the first person to ever say these words to another. Take time to free-write this scene, and see what happens next.

More references:

On Sensory Language ⚜ Word Alternatives: Auditory

Words to Describe Someone's Voice ⚜ Key Musical Terms

Sources: 1 2 3 ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

Hope this helps. No need to apologise, this was such an interesting request for me to look into. So thanks so much for that & happy holidays to you! <3

[isa-ghost]

I think my final stance on the cQuackity finale is:

Should it have been done? Eeh. But is it valid to want to revamp what was previously done because the time period the prev happened in kinda sucked? Absolutely. As an artist, writer, and veteran roleplayer with 13+ years experience, I 100% understand why Q redid it and I respect that. He also has every right to close off the chapter of his mcrp journey that involved those shit people, especially Mr. Racist Ringleader, the way he did.

And with that in mind, the finale we got was the best it could be given... *stares at how, again, half the ccs involved with cQ's story suck.* Quackity shouldn't have to sit unhappy with something he did just bc he can't conclude it to the full extent it could've/should've been. I would've loved for him to be able to unpack everything he should've been able to. It just isn't possible bc people suck. At least Q cares enough to want to redo it in the first place, even if the redo maybe isn't better or whatever. Caring enough to redo it at all is more than could be said for quite a few ex dsmp members. :/

It 100% fit the character and people are being way too pearl clutchy about how not every character gets a happy ending. Listen man, I'm sick of mcrp stories ending with "and then I killed myself" too (/gen), but in cQ's case at least it's fitting. I haven't seen a single person that's mad about the ending suggest a better "happy" alternative that fits cQ as a character or is a choice cQ would Actually make. I'm not gonna write another whole analysis about why the ending makes sense again, go find that post. I could say more over there if it matters that much to someone, but I'm not gonna argue about it.

Also this might shock some people: *gasp* Quackity can do what he fucking wants with his characters. That doesn't mean you have to like it. What the fuck ever happened to "don't like it? Don't interact"?? I'm so tired.

I liked the finale and I think it fit cQ. It's not perfect by any means, but of the finales we've gotten after the tension of dsmp's fallout died down, it's a decent one.

People need to chill the fucking hell out, they have been WAY too hostile about the finale. I've seen people call Q a garbage writer, wishing he'd go broke, that he doesn't care about any of this (despite the fact that he was NEARLY IN TEARS because of how much these stories mean to him, especially cQ), that it was a ruse to plug merch, etc. Absolutely ice cold heartless garbage takes about Quackity. And some of them are from blogs who are supposedly fans of his bc their entire BLOG is decorated with him!!! Those are fucking nuts things to say about a guy you supposedly like!!!! You don't know someone's OC better than they do. Period. Fuck you, cope. I can't fucking stand people who feel entitled like that.

Anyway if you start shit on this post or with me I'm just blocking you. I'm not here to argue about this shit man, I'm just sick of people being so black&white and overly critical of shit so I wanted to air out the thoughts buzzing around in my mind so they stop driving me crazy.

Shout out to everyone who's actually capable of being nuanced and fairly critical of things they like without being a total fucking asshole that blows shit out of proportion and takes every little thing in bad faith to the furthest extreme.

[mandalhoerian]

i've been in the far orbit of this argument for a while and I'm really baffled why people can't be understanding of each other's perspectives and i'm sorry for what you're going through...

i want to have a little break-it-down for reblog's sakes if anyone wants to put this in their blog because there is MUCH to be said about the non-MC and you are the MC angles. spoiler alert: there is no wrong answer. it's about respect & understanding.

you are the main character

This perspective is all about inclusivity and self-insertion, which is honestly such a big draw for otome games in general. The idea is simple: you’re not just playing a game--you’re imagining yourself in the game. Your avatar is customizable, so you can tweak your appearance to reflect how you see yourself, or even how you want to see yourself. It’s like being dropped into an isekai where you’re not just some regular person--you’re someone special.

and HEY, who doesn’t want to imagine themselves as this badass, idealized version of themselves? In this game, you’re a cool hunter, you’ve got skills, you’re navigating this wild sci-fi/fantasy world with monsters and powers & oh yeah, you’ve got a literal aether core in your chest. That core isn’t just a plot device, it’s a metaphor for potential, for becoming something more. The game practically screams, “Hey, this could be you! Look how powerful and capable you could be!” It’s empowering in a way, and I totally get why people love this angle. It’s fun to imagine yourself as the one charming the LIs, holding your own in battle, and rising to the challenge of this world.

For people who vibe with this, it’s about escapism and self-expression. You don’t want to read about someone else being awesome, you want yourself to be awesome. It’s the ultimate power fantasy.

key word: power fantasy. which brings me to

you are NOT the main character

The argument here is that while the game tries to sell the MC as us, it just......... doesn’t land for a lot of players. Let’s start with the fact that this is a Chinese game, and the default character design is heavily rooted in East Asian beauty standards. Which is fine. It's their game, I'm not complaining I'm just telling it as it is. Yes, the skin tones are inclusive, and I’ll give them credit for that, but the body type? The facial features? The overall aesthetic? It’s not exactly universal. I mean, take a good look at my big fat ass and tell me how I’m supposed to feel immersed when the MC looks like a dainty stick figure who’d snap in half if she ever actually tried to fight (despite all the "abs" talk.) Like, she’s cute, sure, but she’s not me. And definitely not you. (Don't talk to me about "she has to look like that because she's a hunter, remember". all of us know that's not the case. it's about beauty standards.)

And then there’s the way she acts. Oh boy,,,,,,,, Sometimes it feels like she’s actively trying to make the worst decisions possible. It’s one thing to be flawed, flaws are human and relatable, but there are moments, especially in the Sylus arc, where I’m sitting there like, “Girl, what are you doing?!” She makes choices that I would never make, and it pulls me right out of the story because it’s not even a matter of imagining myself in her shoes anymore. It’s like watching a character in a TV show make a bad call, and you’re yelling at the screen, but it’s not like you can change what happens. That's okay, though, it's not a sin. She has her own personality, her own reactions, and her own story, and while that makes for a compelling narrative, it also makes it really clear that she’s not us.

For people who lean toward the “non-MC” argument, it’s frustrating because the game is selling this experience as one where we’re supposed to see ourselves in the MC, but she’s written in a way that feels so disconnected from how many of us would act or feel. It’s hard to immerse yourself in a story when the character representing you feels so far removed from who you are or who you want to be.

so what?

Honestly, I think this boils down to what you’re looking for in the game. If you’re someone who loves the “you are the MC” vibe, then you’re probably willing to overlook or even embrace the gaps between you and the character because the customization and the overarching narrative of personal growth are enough to make you feel seen. But if you’re in the “non-MC” camp, then every time the MC makes a cringe-worthy choice or the story reminds you that she’s more of a predefined character than a blank slate, it’s going to take you out of the experience. (This was me in "No Defense Zone", I had to put my phone down and do laps around in my room out of second hand embarrassment.)

Maybe the real issue here is that the game is trying to have it both ways. It wants to tell a story with a strong narrative and a compelling lead character, but it also wants to let players insert themselves into that story. And honestly? That’s a tough balance to strike. It works for some people, but for others, it ends up feeling like a half-measure that doesn’t fully satisfy either camp.

At the end of the day, I think it’s okay to feel a little jealous of the MC because, in a way, she isn’t us. She’s her own character, living her own life in this world, and we’re just along for the ride. And whether you see her as “you” or as “another character,” what really matters is how much you’re enjoying the story. So let’s keep discussing it, but maybe we can stop tearing each other apart and harrass people over it. It’s okay to love the game for what it is—or even for what it isn’t.

Guys I may be mentally insane but ... Why do I low-key feel jealous of MC when I see clips of the upcoming cards... Especially the Sylus one..

IK SHE'S MEANT TO BE US BUT 😭😭

[elrielsgarden]

A lovely friend sent me this post today, which is a screenshot of a comment I posted on IG. Likely this was found on this very Tumblr page, where I shared this comment to make a point about Elain and the hate she receives from people in the fandom.

What can I say to get what I wrote here into your head?

“Feyre is a beautiful character, and to dismiss her is to dismiss every reader who identifies with her”?

“Nesta is a beautiful character, and to dismiss her is to dismiss every reader who identifies with her”?

Both of those statements are also true. But I don’t usually need to defend Feyre or Nesta or the people who read their stories and saw something of themselves in the characters.

That’s such a large part—if not the largest—of why we read: to live a thousand lives, to connect with characters, to see parts of ourselves in these characters.

Allow me to define “identify” for you:

To identify with a character is not to self-insert. “Self-insert” by definition is not something a reader does; it is actually a literary device, where the author writes themselves into a story as a character within it. By definition I cannot “self-insert” myself into Elain’s character because I did not write her story.

I read Elain’s story, same as every reader. Whether you choose to see what Sarah J. Maas wrote and described in canon is up to you.

I, and the beautiful people who love Elain and Elriel (which also includes the large majority of casual readers outside the online fandom), will understand the words written and believe them, too. We feel no need to make Gwyn, Elain, Lucien, Azriel, and sometimes even Nesta into people they aren’t—just to make our theories and head cannons work. We simply don’t need to, because we understand the character on the page.

I will always defend Elain. I will always defend the readers who identify with her. I will always defend Azriel. I will always defend Feyre. I will always defend Nesta. I will always defend Gwyn. The list continues. And every time, I will defend who they are based solely in the words of Sarah J. Maas in the ACOTAR series. To defend them is not to excuse faults or flaws, but it is to support a reading of the text that comprehends the whole picture of their character.

I will say it again, as I said in that original comment.

Elain Archeron is a beautiful character, and to dismiss her is to dissmiss every reader who identifies with her gentle soul. 🌸

[aishangotome]

Azel Radwan: Chapter 6 His Side Story

Chapter 6

Thank you @passthechloroform for providing the video for this chapter!

♡———♡

I tied that woman down with debt as a warning to the Rhodolite Knights, but that "God's infatuation" bit was just something I said in the heat of the moment. It wasn't part of the plan.

If I play my cards right, I can use the current political instability as an excuse to keep sending the woman to that old geezer and drive him crazy.

I never thought I'd instantly regret such a simple whim.

Azel: Hey...didn't I tell you not to betray me?

Emma: ...Yes.

Azel: You also said, "Consider it done," didn't you?

Emma: ... ... ...Yes.

Azel: Then let me ask you...

Azel: ...what is the meaning of this?

Emma: That's what I want to ask!

The woman before me is kneeling on the ground, desperately trying to catch her breath.

The faintly sweet scent that reaches my nostrils makes my discomfort grow. Even though I know she's a victim, my gaze involuntarily turns cold.

(...I can't believe she was drugged with an aphrodisiac so soon.)

*flashback*

High Priest: Emma, please pray sincerely for peace in the heart of our Living God.

High Priest: And that his body may be blessed by the moon.

*flashback over*

(Damn...I should have finished her off back then.)

(I thought it would be fine since Izzet was watching her, but I guess I was naive.)

My downfall was not paying enough attention to the woman.

I didn't care what happened to her, but—now that she's here in front of me, my conscience is stinging.

Azel: Any idea what happened?

(First, I need to find out how the aphrodisiac was administered. Everyone involved will be punished.)

Emma: Come to think of it...

Emma: Before I left...the maids prepared some perfume oil for me. Maybe that was it?

(Such a classic trick...)

Azel: Perfume oil is aphrodisiac 101. How could you fall for such an obvious trap?

Emma: ...! I never thought it would be in the perfume oil!

Emma: To begin with, I've never even seen an aphrodisiac, so I don't know what it's like...

Azel: Huh? You've never seen one in your life?

Emma: Of course not!

Azel: There are people like that?

(I always thought they were commonplace...)

Judging by the woman's reaction, it seems there's a difference in our understanding.

Gods possess vast knowledge, but they don't live amongst us mortals. So, sometimes they're not aware of common sense.

(Isn't it normal for women who've taken aphrodisiacs to appear before you at every opportunity?)

(...That geezer...)

Perhaps sensing something from my expression, the woman seemed to forget about the aphrodisiac and lowered her eyebrows with a look of pity.

Azel: Don't look at me like that, don't pity me. It makes me want to cry.

Emma: I-I'm sorry...

Emma: Um, is there, like, an antidote for this?

Azel: No. We just have to wait for it to wear off.

Azel: But luckily, it doesn't seem to be that strong.

(Compared to the women I've seen before, her symptoms are mild.)

(...Actually, it's too mild.)

Unlike the women who readily succumb and shamelessly flaunt their lust, this foreign girl seemed to be desperately resisting the effects of the aphrodisiac.

Azel: It's rare to find a woman who remains so unalluring even after being drugged.

Emma: That's just unnecessary commentary.

Azel: How straightforward.

(There are actually women who don't cling to me.)

(...My guilt is growing.)

The woman's misfortune is not only being slathered in aphrodisiac but also being dressed in harem clothing.

Her breasts and stomach are exposed, her flushed skin practically screaming with desire.

(...)

(Why isn't she saying anything?)

She has every right to curse me, to blame it all on me, to demand I do something.

But the woman just clutches at her flimsy clothes, furrowing her brow as if trying to tighten her loosened tear ducts.

(Even under the influence of an aphrodisiac, how can you be so...)

Belle of Rhodolite is said to be the most beautiful woman in the small country.

I was skeptical until I actually met her, but seeing her now, shouldering everything herself without blaming others, it all makes sense.

(I underestimated her, thinking she was just a strong-willed woman.)

(...You're actually an exceptionally kind person.)

Azel: ––...I feel bad about this.

Emma: ...? Did you just say––

(I can't just leave her like this, can I?)

As I roughly lift the woman who seems unable to stand, my ears are suddenly filled with noise.

Emma: W-wait...what are you doing!?

Azel: You're going to be attacked if we stay here. I'll...

Emma: Huh!?

Azel: I'll teach you how to deal with being drugged with an aphrodisiac...for a fee.

Ignoring the woman's blushing face, I begin to coldly calculate in my head.

(She said the aphrodisiac was administered through a maid, right?)

(The maid is obviously guilty, but so is the merchant who supplied her with the oil.)

(I'll have to make an example of them... It's time for a thorough purge, the likes of which they haven't seen in a long time. It's the only way to ensure they never lay a finger on God's favorite again.)

As I enter the temple, I glance to the side and my eyes meet Kamal's, who was melting into the shadows.

With a single glance, she vanishes, acknowledging my silent command.

(I had a change of clothes prepared for emergencies, but I was hoping I wouldn't have to use them.)

(...It's been a while since I've felt this guilty.)

.

.

.

Chapter 7

If you’d like to support my translations, feel free to buy me a coffee here! :)

[beauty-and-passion]

And finally... the Ithaca Saga

We did it. We reached the end.

And we did it this year, in 2024! I suppose the moral of the story is: if you're truly passionate about something (and have big plans), you can do anything.

And by "anything", I don't mean just "finishing the concept album": I mean fighting against weather, bad luck and probably the gods themselves, to do what you planned.

I imagined everything, except that Mr. Jorge's plan for the final stream of his entire album, was to go to the goddamn island of Ithaca and stream there.

But, you know, it was right. It felt right. It was a very poetic choice, to bring a modern version of the Odyssey back home. To let the musical reach its artistic birthplace. And it's even more impactful that it wasn't just Odysseus' voice to (figuratively) return home: it was the entire story, through the voices of all artists involved.

However, since it's the Odyssey we're talking about, the trip to Ithaca couldn't have been simple either: what kind of boring story would it be, if everything went smoothly from start to end?

Greece's weather is overall warm, even in winter. However, there are the occasional storms/typhoons/rainfalls that last for a couple days and drown or destroy parts of the cities. And Jorge faced them not at the end of his trip, not in the middle: at the beginning, just in time to stop him from reaching Ithaca too easily.

And I believe this is all Ithaca's influence, because something similar happened to my father and brother. Last summer, they were supposed to visit Ithaca as well, but first found no available ferries, then the rain started to pour down, their car died on the nearby island, there was no available mechanic and when they finally found one, their car got fixed just in time for my brother to go to Athens and get his flight back home.

Sooo... it looks like Ithaca doesn't want visitors at all, no matter if it's summer or winter, and it does everything to keep people away - or at least, to make them have a small personal Odyssey before reaching it. Also because, according to the last shorts from Jorge, it looks like the weather changed into the usual warm, greek temperatures now. And he seems to enjoy his stay too, so I suppose the true obstacle is just reaching the island.

But enough about Ithaca, let's talk about Ithaca: there were huge expectations for this Saga. This is the final one, this is supposed to wrap up Odysseus' story and the last loose threads.

And it does. It takes its time to wrap up the last characters and it does it organically and coherently. There are no OOC moments - and this is a huge point for me, because my main complaint in the last Saga was that Odysseus moved too quickly from "let's try to discuss" to "stabbing time": here you can see and understand why he gets so angry and he even takes a few lines to further clarify his emotions.

The pace of this Saga is good too: there are no dead moments and the songs move smoothly from one event to the next. It surely helps that they cover a period of 24 hours more or less, but still.

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The Challenge: this is the first time we actually hear Penelope. Not the one from Odysseus' memories, not a siren, not a vision, but the real one.

And the real one is truly the perfect woman for a clever man like Odysseus: she's intelligent, she's resourceful, she reads the signs and does the right things to buy more time. That's what she did in the Odyssey too, so it's nice to see this trait of her character here as well.

And even though the events here happen for slightly different reasons (in the Odyssey, the bow challenge was just another attempt to buy more time, while here it's something Penelope proposes right after the storm, as if she feels things are going to change very soon and her husband is coming back), it still doesn't sound forced or unnatural. It fits Epic's narrative, without damaging or going against the spirit of the original work. That's how you do a good rewrite.

One last thing about Penelope: I love how, with one single song, we can see her pride, her strength, her cleverness... and her love too. She herself says she didn't expect to end up like this, but for love, she's ready to do anything. Even waiting 20 years for a husband she doesn't even know if he's still alive, buying him time in every possible way and keeping on hold 108 dangerous, younger men who need just an excuse to rise against her and her family.

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Hold Them Down: what did I say about that excuse?

Jokes aside, this is some powerful villain song and I ADORE it. The rhythm? Great, majestic, terrifying. The drums and the chorus are chilling.

But even more than them, it's the entire song, to be terrifying. And not because of its themes: it's because of the details.

Antinous doesn't just say "We will kill Telemachus and rape Penelope": he describes step by step what he wants to do. He presents a clear, precise plan of what he wants to do and how he wants to do it.

That's what makes it so chilling: how careful he is with the details. How he pondered about everything. His willingness to do all the things he says, without an ounce of doubt or fear.

And what's even more terrifying, is how Antinous' words are welcomed by the chorus of the other Suitors. There is no coldness, no shock, no fear: there is this palpable, growing excitement, that grows stronger the more he describes his plan. The chorus accompanies his words, anticipates them eagerly: they cannot wait to hear what he wants to do next.

And when Antinous says Penelope will be at their mercy after Telemachus' death, silence drops for a moment and the line: "And then we'll" is welcomed by pure silence. This perfectly shows how all Suitors held their breath, for one second, waiting for Antinous to say it out loud, to push his plan further and say what they were all thinking: without a man in the house, they could've had access to the queen's bedroom and body. They were waiting to hear it. They wanted, needed to hear more.

This is how you make a great villain song. This is how you build a terrifying villain: it's not just Antinous, who can stir up an entire crowd, by pushing on their primordial instincts. But it's the crowd itself, that welcomes the terrible images he proposes, because they were already in their minds. They were already thinking all of that: all they needed was someone to propose it out loud.

Of course Odysseus goes into full rampage mode after that: who wouldn't?

One last detail I appreciated a lot: the allusion about how the prince was on a diplomatic mission. Sure he was, that's how Odyssey starts: Telemachus leaves Ithaca to search for more news about his father, visits Sparta, Menelaus tells him about the Troyan horse and so on. It was a nice reference.

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Odysseus: a song better known as "Odysseus cleans his house from 20 years of filth".

I've already talked about the first lines and I appreciate them a lot, not just because they further clarify Odysseus' thoughts and actions, but also because they imply he spent some time in Ithaca before this moment, enough to see how the Suitors treated his palace. There's a huge lack of Argo, the only dog who lived something like 20+ years and died right after seeing his owner one last time, but I suppose that his dog's death would've sent him into ultraviolence mode instantly.

I lovelovelove the ensemble chanting Odysseus' name. It's solemn, it's ineluctable, it reminds me of old church hymns and I am a sucker for that stuff.

But I am also a very bad person, so when I listen to Eurymachus saying "hey, what if you spare us and welcome the world with open arms instead" and he gets slaughtered with a "no" as a reply, I laugh.

Yes, I am a bad person.

Okay, fine, we can acknowledge how this wasn't what Polites meant with open arms and how no one has been able to fully understand his mentality... but also, it works perfectly to show how Odysseus changed. In the past, he would've been tricked by these words - and it would've led to him losing more people he loves.

But after going through so much shit, he's not willing to trust others anymore. The time of open arms is gone forever. As he says, "And as long as you're around / My family's fate is left unknown".

And so, it's ruthlessness time. Because, as Poseidon told him, ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves. And Odysseus would find peace, only if he gets rid of all the dangers around.

Because come on, we know the Suitors would've found a way to still try to kill or hurt him and/or his family. They don't play fair, they said themselves. Sparing them would've only hurt Odysseus in the long run.

And if we consider the time period, killing all the opponents was all Odysseus could do, to regain control over Ithaca.

Think about it: he has been away for 20 years, leaving the island without an adult male ruler. Of course this led all other, younger men to become restless and prideful and do things they would never do, without a strong leader: like trashing the leader's palace or trying to hurt his family.

Odysseus' only way to regain control was to show everyone he was still the strongest. And the only way he could do it, was to get rid of all the people who were undermining his authority. This way, he got rid of the dangerous ones and taught everyone else a lesson: do not even try to oppose my authority again, because I am still the strongest man of this land - and therefore, the only leader.

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I Can't Help but Wonder: so, right after showing everyone he was still the ruler and the stronger and so ruthless, Odysseus takes his time to softly listen to his son and tell him how much he loves him.

No, I am not crying, I got this song stuck in my eye.

But seriously: the softness, the love, the affection he holds for his son. And how this is all beautifully portrayed through Jorge's voice.

I know others already said it, but the way he modulates his voice is incredible. He really sounds older here, an old man talking to this young boy who is so confused and full of doubts about his own strength... and like the father figure Telemachus always wanted, Odysseus reassures him: he's sure his son is strong, he understands his pain and the troubles he experienced. And he loves him, with the unconditional love a father has for his child.

I said I am not crying.

The Athena part has been a surprise: honestly, I feared Jorge forgot and we would never see a closure for them, but we actually got it!

And it was a very good one: Athena asks if there is a world where empathy is stronger than fighting. A world where people can understand each other more and not always resort to violence and ruthlessness.

There's an implicit invitation in her words: would Odysseus help her pursue this world? Would he still be her warrior and work for this new, greater tomorrow?

And Odysseus refuses. He's too old, too tired. This world is too far beyond his reach. We are still trying to reach it and we are getting glimpses of it in our everyday lives.

Athena, thanks to her immortality, can live long enough to see this far-away future, but Odysseus? Maybe in the past, when he was younger, he would've loved to see it. Now he's had enough of adventures. All he wants is to finally see his wife again.

And Athena proves her growth, by that simple "very well". You can hear a smile in her tone. She's not angry at him, she's not resentful: Odysseus made his choice and she's okay with it. Their paths divide forever, not with bitterness but with understanding.

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Would You Fall in Love with Me Again: better known as "I am not crying, I said I am not, I just got the Odyssey stuck in my eye".

Odysseus reveals his wife all the awful things he did, he insists he's not the same man - Tiresias told him too, he's not the same kind and gentle husband he was and he will never be anymore: he's a man marked by hardships, by the war, by the world.

By saying it, he reminds me of the war veterans, the people who faced horrors and survived, to come back as changed people. Odysseus is one of them: the war left a mark on him and the following 20 years deepened that mark, made new ones, scars and terrors that will haunt him forever.

So of course he's not the same and he will never be: life and its hardships changed him too much to come back to the naive, younger man he was.

And yet, despite everything, Odysseus is still the same man. And Penelope proves it, through the bed trial. Again, I love how it has been used here: in the Odyssey, it was Penelope's way to be sure the weird beggar-looking guy who just killed everyone truly was her husband. Here it's her way to prove to him first that yes, he still is her husband. He may be rougher, more ruthless, filled with more regrets and anger than before... but he's still him. And she doesn't care what he did: all she cares about is that he's finally back.

Does that make Penelope a bad person too? Personally, I think it makes her more human. She spent 20 years imprisoned in her own house, with 108 possible predators trashing her place, desperately trying to buy more time for a husband she didn't even know if he was still alive, all while trying to hold the predators down as long as possible, so they wouldn't hurt her or Telemachus. Can we really blame her, if she doesn't care about what her husband did to come back, as long as he's finally back?

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A truly passionate project

Epic the musical is a project overflowing with love. Every artist, every voice, every song is filled with passions and emotions and they shine here, in the final Saga, more than ever. Jorge's voice has been incredible, the way he went from sounding like an old father, to a younger man again. How we shifted from love and affection, to anger.

Penelope? Amazing, brilliant, incredible. All female voices are A+ and she's no exception.

The instrumentals? Always on point, they highlight the emotions and the mood of every song perfectly.

All the artists? Incredibly fitting, superb voices. Each of them did an amazing job with their characters, each of them brought their own spin to it and made them iconic. I don't think we'll easily forget characters like Hermes, Circe, Calypso, Athena, Scylla, Tiresias or Zeus. I know I won't.

And yes, I will fondly keep this version of the Odyssey close to my chest. It's so hard to find good modern versions, now that I found one, I won't forget it so easily.

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The end?

The concept album is done, but that doesn't mean Epic is over. Jorge already said he wants to make videogames and, hopefully, give the musical some live adaptation.

So it's now right to say this is the end: this is the first step of a bright future for this series. And I personally can't wait for what it will bring.

In the meantime, as always, do not forget to stream the Ithaca Saga (and the whole musical for that matter), support Jorge and show love to all the people involved: they deserve it. Every last bit of love. It would be only fair, considering how much love and commitment they poured into this project.

That's why I would like to thank them all again for their hard job. It has been a truly wonderful journey and I can't wait for what 2025 will bring them - and us.