#her one redeeming quality is the fact that she never ever gives up.

[teleportationmagic]

The thing about fics with Steph is that sometimes she says that the one thing she has over the rest of the batfamily is emotional competence, and all you can really do is go awwwww sweetheart. Do you really think that?

[velvet-vox]

The insane, untapped potential of Rebecca from Murder Drones.

Hello Murder Drones Tumblr. My name is Markiplier, and I'm the fastest man alive.

To the outside world, I'm a regular Reddit user hiding in their mother's basement, but secretly, I've done nothing except consume Rebecca content for the past 72 hours, with only one objective in mind: spread the truth about this one, singular character that I didn't give a single damn about to convince you that she could have been someone important in an alternate universe.

To do so, I had to consult the classics. Rewatch the entire series again, hogging the murder drones rebecca tag, checking out her Wikipedia page (which has to be rewritten by the way, cause it sucks), create a new Rebecca centered gallery on Pinterest, and stalk the channels of her main worshippers, all in the name of my research.

Once I had collected enough data and ideas, I was finally ready.

Today, I'm going to shed light on some unknown traits and misconceptions surrounding the character, all the while showcasing all the ideas that I've gathered that would have made Rebecca a more prominent part of Uzi's and maybe even N's development.

This was by far the hardest undertaking I've ever imposed upon myself in the history of this blog. Please, enjoy the following content at your own risk and expense.

Chapter 1: The Origins.

Some context for those of you who are uninitiated in the Becca cult, Rebecca is this girl:

She's a minor side character inside of episode 3 and 4, and a background character inside of episode 2; she's infamous in the community for being a "bully" and trying to steal N from Uzi while already dating and making out with other classmates.

Despite never committing genocide and being the only member of the cheerleader trio to not have been responsible for anybody's death, she's pretty hated by the fanbase at large or plainly forgotten/dismissed, at best people just don't care about her and see her as just too unimportant to be hated, at worst they kill her in the most gruesome of ways or accuse her of racism, homophobia, eccetera (before killing her, of course).

Although pretty unpopular, she still has her own niche of fans who gather up at the table to worship her; furthermore, there are a lot of fanarts from people who don't even like her where she survived the events of Cabin Fever but is now disabled and confined to a wheelchair.

The reason behind such treatment is due to the fact that Rebecca has committed five of the worst cardinal sins a fictional character can make: being an obstacle to the most popular ship in a fandom; being mean to a fan favourite such as the main character without any clear motivation; being annoying by proxy according to other characters reactions without doing anything to disprove it, thus reinforcing the idea in the audience that you are annoying; being unimportant to the overall story without having any obvious redeeming or interesting qualities while being perceived as graving in each and everyone of your few scenes; and, of course, being a woman.

But besides all that, whose mostly common knowledge, what else is there to say about Rebecca? What are some of her less noticeable traits and characteristics that make her worth it of an analysis and a rewrite to better include her inside the plot?

Well, unfortunately, the answers are not as uplifting and as satisfying as Rebecca's stans were hoping they would be. Even in an alternative universe, I doubt she would really be as important as some of the other characters, more so an important character for Uzi's development. Maybe even N's.

But don't let this statement fool you into safety: I genuinely believe canon Rebecca is simultaneously so much better and so much worse than the community believes her to be. Rebecca is as much of a freak as Uzi, but not in her obnoxious, extroverted way, nor in Doll's sociopathic, introverted way: she's their uncommon middle ground who somehow manages to be more messed up than the both of them in certain aspects.

Chapter 2: "The quirks"

Upon commencing my research, I've quickly realised that I might be even more unnerved by Rebecca than I was with Yeva, and it's all due to the fact Rebecca facial expressions and body gestures might be the single most obtuse and undecipherable details that Liam has decided to insert into the background of his story. You probably don't understand what I'm talking about because you haven't been losing sleep at night like I did, but let me show you the pictures:

Noticing anything wrong?

Everyone else upon seeing V is immediately frozen in terror or just surprised by the Disassembly Drone presence, but Rebecca instead just looks mildly.... annoyed? Intrigued? It's hard to tell by the image's shots alone but the only time where Rebecca's facial expressions change to the shocked looks of the Worker Drones on the right is when Lizzie says her infamous line and socially excluses her from the popular kids table.

There could be more to say about Rebecca's following lines "Fine, I forgive her! Settle." and how they don't really mean what you think they mean, because, just like we are going to see in a moment, Becca really doesn't give a damn about murder, in some ways, even more than the other Workers, but I haven't found a single more compelling meaning besides, you know, Rebecca's family, which we are soon going to be talking about.

Other weird facial expressions that she does are the weird look that she has when escaping Prom, her reactions to people dying in Cabin Fevers, and probably every single scene she's in when you think about it hard enough.

She also does this weird thing with her fingers. A sign of anxiety? She looks fairly inexpressive. Yet again, she might have learned to mask her emotions and the hand gesture could be a way to let it all out without putting too much attention upon herself. But why? Is the guy standing right beside her one of her parents? More of that in a minute.

Finally, and this is the biggest point of speculation, there's a high possibility that Rebecca might have sensory issues, a possibility that we are going to treat as fact, thus explaining why she's so afraid of falling out of the boat in this scene: aside from the fact that Worker Drones are probably not waterproof judging by the text in episode 1; Rebecca is literally experiencing sensorial discomfort from the erratic movements of the boat, and even if she was able to survive in water, she wouldn't be able to swim due to her disability. (Other possible evidence of this is the squirm she emits when the door of the abandoned cabin Uzi is in slams shut. Darren also reacts to it, but in a much more normal manner).

But now you might be asking: "If she really had sensory issues making these moments where she lacks balance scarier, why did she pick up cheerleading?" Which nicely segway's us into the next part:

(Side note, I've only specifically searched for sensorial discomfort in relation to sex, and based the rest on preemptive knowledge, thus I might have messed up some parts of this analysis; I'm sorry to anyone who experiences these issues and didn't find their inclusion in this essay accurate.)

Chapter 3: Becca the 13th

In the following segment, the line between canon and fanon, reasonable and made up blurs, but I beg you to stay patient and follow my thought process: the far fetched parts are based on the elements already present in the show to make Rebecca a more interesting characther while tying her to the themes of the show and to the preexisting dynamics.

In my research to answer the question "Why did Rebecca pick up cheerleading" I looked up a site explaining all the reasons why girls decide to get into cheerleading, and I've singled out these answers as the most likely possibilities for Rebecca's interest in the sport.

Passion for the Sport: Many women who become cheerleaders have a genuine passion for cheerleading and enjoy the physical and artistic aspects of the sport. They may see cheerleading as a way to express themselves creatively and be part of a team.

Opportunities for Performance: Cheerleading provides opportunities for women to perform in front of large audiences, which can be a rewarding experience for those who enjoy being in the spotlight and entertaining others.

Team Camaraderie: Cheerleading often involves working closely with a team of other cheerleaders, which can foster a strong sense of camaraderie and friendship. Many women value the sense of community and teamwork that comes with being a cheerleader.

Scholarship Opportunities: In some cases, cheerleading can provide opportunities for women to earn scholarships for college or other educational benefits. This can be a motivating factor for women who are looking to further their education.

Personal Development: Cheerleading can help women develop valuable skills such as teamwork, communication, leadership, and time management. These skills can be beneficial in both personal and professional settings.

Love for Dance and Performance: Cheerleading often involves elements of dance and performance, which can appeal to women who have a passion for these art forms. For some women, cheerleading offers a creative outlet to express themselves through movement and choreography.

Which one of them is the most likely?

If your answer is all/some of them, then you are probably right, as there could always be more than one reason driving an individual to commit the actions that they do.

If your answer is none of them, then you must be pretty bold to make such an assumption, but you can't be blamed as it's finally time to bring up the two big elephants in the room:

These two.

Rebecca's relationship with the other cheerleaders can't be anything but toxic, it just makes sense to me: Lizzie's not afraid to throw people under the bus if it means that she gets to stay on top of the social hierarchy, with Doll being the clear exception at this point of the story due to their closeness and intimacy, making Rebecca the most direct victim of Liz and Doll the main target of Becca's jealousy; she can't act too much on her jealousy though, cause Lizzy can just cut out her wings whenever she feels like, so most likely all of the bullying that she does on Doll is subtle and only at most convenient of times. Doll probably doesn't react to Rebecca's bullying seeing as she is Lizzy's second best friend and killing her would inconvenience the cheer's squad, but if her reaction to Rebecca's speech in The Promening is anything to go by then she has at least built up a certain resentment for her throughout their time spent together.

Rebecca is kind of like Heather Duke with the personality of Heather McNamara and Veronica's shaky presence inside of the trio. No, I'm not going to diagnose Doll and Lizzy as Heathers, do that yourself.

But we're going to bring back up the DLR trio back in a moment, as the time has come to fire up the Chekhov's gun:

Remember when I said that we were going to bring up Rebecca's family later on? It's finally time.

In the same boat scene that we talked about earlier, Rebecca asks N this question: "So, my friend wants to know if you've killed her family... and are single."

In case you didn't pick up on it, this is a common tactic used to taste the waters in a relationship, when someone uses the excuse of having another friend who has a crush on you to see if you are up for dating. Naturally, the underlying message of this tactic is "I'm the one friend who I was talking to you about, I'm interested in you. Are you interested in me?" but that's not where Rebecca's sentence stops, no, before doing that Rebecca specifically asked N if he might have killed her friend's family, with the implication that she's talking about her own family.

So... Rebecca is without parents, just like Doll and she was probably left with just her dad much like Uzi. Where the differences between Rebecca and the rest of the cast starts to shine is in her reaction to the death of her parents. Where Uzi's and Doll's mood worsened after the death of one or both of their parents, Rebecca seems to be happier for it.

We can take this a step even further and assume that the possibility that N might have killed her family could be the big reason as to why she's so attracted to him, even more than the other classmates (keyword "family". It means that she could have had a brother or sister too, though I doubt it): she hated her parents, is happy with their deaths, and views N as her saviour and white knight in the dark for killing them.

If we look back at the shot from episode 2, we can come up with a couple of theories: she's probably alone at the parents teachers conference, or, and this is the most interesting alternative, the guy who stands right beside her is her dad, the weird hand gesture that she's doing with her fingers could be genuine anxiety about her dad finding out that her teacher has some bad things to say about her school performance and punishing her for it, which could also further explain why she does anything that Lizzie says if the theory that Lizzie's father is the Teacher is true.

Due to her sensory issues, it's possible that Rebecca's hatred for her family stems from a streak of physical abuse received at home and exacerbated by her already frail physique. She probably has been living alone with her dad for a while, like the girl from the 2017 It movie; so for her to hate her mom too, unless she was still alive and didn't show up to the parents/teachers conference, there are a couple of possible explanations: A, her mother died when she was too young for her to give a s##t about her; B, her mother was also just as abusive as her dad; or C, the most compelling explanation, as it parallels Khan's and Uzi's relationship: Rebecca's father uses the death of her mother as an excuse to wallop into self pity and be abusive, similarly to Khan but ten times worse, thus leading Rebecca to hate her mom even if she never knew her just by virtue of constantly hearing her name being used as justification for her dad's awfulness.

Rebecca could have, in just a couple of minutes, grown attached to N in the same way Uzi's grown attached to him throughout the course of the series: by viewing him as a sort of comfort net for the horrible things that have happened to her and as the one who saved her from her awful home life (by killing her parents).

Her dad probably did the interview right after Khan and thus implying a small space of time where he left her alone for god knows whatever reason, died to Eldritch J right before Uzi and N came in to stop her and Khan finally arrived to the crime scene, thus leading Rebecca to assume that N killed him in episode 4 and, through a connection made up by her wild immagination, her mom aswell.

So, for Rebecca, unlike Uzi and Doll, the day her parents died must have been the best day of her life; knowing how Doll lost her parents and looked pretty happy on the outside, Rebecca took this as a positive that her life could only improve; leading to the time spent between the ending of episode 2 and her death in episode 4 to be happiest period of her life, especially after episode 3 where Doll was revealed as a serial killer and went into hiding, making Rebecca the only friend Lizzie had left and solidifying her place in the social hierarchy.

When you think about it, we never see Rebecca being "happy" before episode 3, and while it could just be because we don't see enough of her, it could also really be that she was unhappy with her home life; Lizzie and Doll clearly weren't helping as despite Doll being at the bottom of the abuse trio of Lizzie and Rebecca, it's pretty clear by the framing of the show that Rebecca was always the most replaceable member of the trio, Lizzie was the master manipulator holding all of the cards of the social hierarchy thanks in part to her dad's influence, and Doll was Lizzie's irreplaceable (until V) main enforcer who at any moment could have just snapped and physically threatened Lizzie with her powers; leading Rebecca to feel constantly anxious of her every move. Plus, it must have been fairly obvious to the entire school that Doll and Lizzie had an affair going on and Rebecca wasn't part of it, therefore other students could have definitely picked up on her anxiety and started a gossip behind her back, leading her to feel even worse about herself than she already was. Which also, in turn, parallels Uzi and her feelings of being socially ostracized, making them even more of a foil to each other, with the main difference being that Uzi tried to fit in by becoming a hero to the colony and failing, while Rebecca carved her own unstable niche into society that she has to constantly struggle to maintain (Doll being at the positive end of the spectrum in this case, by being popular without struggling and willingly giving up said popularity for her revenge fantasies).

Her fear of losing the social stability and bullying immunity provided by Lizzie and Doll eventually turned into paranoia, forcing her to make up lies about dating people, like the guy "Brad" who she supposedly went to Prom with despite that apparently never being the case. To maintain the lies as truthful, she eventually benefitted from the ripple effect that those lies had created for her thanks in part to her good looks: now having the reputation of a nymph, she could get people to have sex with her, probably using it as an excuse for never actually being in a relationship with anyone (Darren is one of those people, she wasn't dating him, she was just making out with him).

There's also much to be said about the way Rebecca views sex and relationships as a whole; I'm not too sure about this talking point due to the aforementioned sensory issues that she has, but she could view sex as a sort of escapism fantasy, which also carries over in her love fantasy of N, and her relationship with the other cheerleaders as a semi functional support system, yet again other similarities with Uzi who, at the start of the series latched onto her fantasy of becoming a hero as escapism from her unfortunate school and home life, and, with a little stretching, we could say that Lizzy and Doll were to Rebecca what N and V are to Uzi, though not quite as healthy.

To ensure that Rebecca's views and actions on sex don't jive with her possibly having sensory issues, I've looked up information regarding the way people with these types of problems engage in sexual activity, and luckily for me, none of what I've found seemed to contradict any of the points I've brought up.

Here I have isolated all of the results of my research that fit Rebecca the most. Note: all of these apply to "some" individuals, not "every" individual. You don't have to check out all of these to have sensory issues regarding sex and other similar activities. I'm not a medic, so don't take any of these as gospel.

Perhaps the most obvious way that disordered sensory processing can affect sexuality is through physical touch. Some individuals may dislike hugs and embraces. Others may seek out a lot of touch or intense touch experiences.

Bright lights may agitate individuals with disordered sensory processing during intimacy. Play around to find the best lighting for you and your partner. Try using candles, soft bedside lighting, or turn off the lights completely! Avoid engaging in intimacy directly in front of a window or another uncontrollable light source.

An environment with a surplus of visual stimulation can be overwhelming and distracting. A cluttered environment can limit your partner’s ability to engage in intimacy because they are using energy to process visual inputs. For this reason, seek out clean, neutral, and minimalist spaces! In turn, assure your partner that it is okay to close their eyes during intimacy. This can help to calm their senses and allow them to focus on you, rather than the environment.

Background noises such as music, television, or roommates speaking next door may be distracting to individuals with disordered sensory processing. Find a quiet, private place to engage in intimacy. Avoid integrating music into the environment unless your partner suggests it!

Some individuals with disordered sensory processing have difficulty understanding where their head is in space; they may become disoriented or sensitive to different head positions. On the other hand, they may seek out intense vestibular sensations by engaging in extreme movements and positions. While some individuals may feel more comfortable being stable and stationary, others crave motion.

Sex is also most likely viewed as a coping mechanism for Rebecca, even if the main reason why she probably does it is to remain upon the popular girls in the school.

All of this added context makes Rebecca's death in episode 4 far more tragic, yet less random than some of the other campers. It comes as a result of one, yet fatal flaw: Her need to stay at the top of the food chain.

At this point in the story, Rebecca was getting closer to N, she could have just simply kept nurturing this relationship until it would have developed into something more genuine and mutual. It could have come to the point where eventually, once N would have chosen Uzi over her (because of course he would), she could have come to accept it and move on with her life instead of keep chasing her escapism fantasies and fawning over her parents possible murderer, maybe she would have even befriended Uzi in the process. But no. Her ego was her downfall: once N went away and could no longer satisfy her current needs, she decided to keep improving her social position, an easier thing to do now that Doll was out of the hierarchy, and proceeded to reinforce her reputation by making out with Darren, which got her accidentally killed by Uzi.

Accidentally, just like the death of her parents probably was.

Her death is almost perfect, even better than some of the others in the show: while Doll's death was brutal and heart wrenching but not really satisfying, Tessa's death mostly happened in the background and the show spent very little time on it, Alice's, Beau's, Yeva's and her husband's death depend on how you view their characters and if you think it fits, and V's death is the closest to perfect but wonky in certain aspects of its execution (just like V's arc in general), Rebecca's death is the perfect conclusion to her character.

She dies segmented, broken in pieces, part of her still lives for a couple of minutes, while the other gets eaten by what is essentially the character's foil of the one girl she was jealous of, and whose disappearance greatly benefited Rebecca. While crawling to the other campers, she must have suffered the whole time, just like she suffered her whole life before episode 2, the split of her torso represents her inability to pick up just one road, and in a meta context represents the fact that she is the middle ground between various character's situations.

It also represents the split in her life's trajectory: she was unhappy with her parents and was happy when they died, then became happy with her life and is now unhappy as she's slowly dying of a pain comparable to the one provided by her dad. All of this because of her ego.

And then lastly, as the final nail in the coffin, once she finally reaches the other students, her insides spilling out (reference to Melissa-titanium Doll's death post), everybody immediately forgets about her, just like they did with Uzi. She spent so much time climbing the social ladder, afraid and paranoid that she might tumble down and her parents would punish her for it, only for her to be immediately forgotten about once her systems shut down, still considered meaningless, tying her death also to Doll's and possibly Uzi's one, as the middle ground exploration of the theme of failure: Uzi fails but manages to achieve everything she had ever wanted, Doll fails but manages to achieve nothing, Rebecca fails but manages to achieve half.

It also ties back to Tessa as an alternate version who got freed from her parents abuse and had a chance to live a better life but still died soon afterwards because of a mistake she made.

Chapter 4: The Results

As you can see, just by using all the stuff present in the show if you squirm hard enough for it, with some added details we get a lot of utility out of Rebecca as a character:

- She develops Uzi, develops N, and develops and challenges Nuzi even more than she does in canon, but in a much more meaningful way.

- She works simultaneously as a foil to Uzi and Doll due to her benefiting from the death of her parents, and as well as a foil to Uzi and Tessa, who both had pretty bad parents but never wanted them to die.

- Her relationship with her dad also serves as a foil to Uzi's and Khan's father/daughter relationship, possibly helping to strengthen Khan's arc by showcasing a worse version of himself to the audience, rendering the reconciliation between father and daughter all the more sweeter.

- She deepens Uzi's and Doll's relationship in a different way than the Nori/Yeva parallels, by showcasing us a middle ground between the two characters that is simultaneously so much better and so much worse than the both of them.

- She also deepens the parallels between Uzi and Tessa, by showing us what could have happened if Tessa had the same sadistic tendencies of Uzi and left her parents to die intentionally (side note: Rebecca leaving her parents to die intentionally is also what could have happened in this made up canon. I doubt Rebecca finds joy in other people's suffering, but I can't help but think that she might have finally felt relief when the source of abuse in her life was finally gone), basically doubling as the middle ground between Uzi and Tessa but without their engineering skills, yet again, being so much better and so much worse than both characters.

- She serves to make Uzi more interesting by virtue of being foils but not in the obvious, narrative way of Doll, rather, in a more subtle, social way: if played right, her death could have hunted Uzi in ways the deaths of her other classmates didn't, by finally making Uzi question if she was ever in the right or if she isn't as much of a monster as Doll is.

- Further explores the themes of abuse present in the show and better ties said themes to Lizzy and Doll, who are currently lacking.

- She could have been used as a "tease" for Cyn, something that I haven't talked about until now (Uzi's and Cyn's middle ground). From what we know about Cyn, it seems like she was coded with some sort of robo neuro divergence, similar to the one that Rebecca possibly possesses; the details of Bec's story could have been reworked to parallel some of Cyn's story details, giving Uzi (and the audience) a taste of what Cyn's story or personality is like before meeting the real deal.

- She also, canonically, served to develop me.

Before I started working on this project, I never gave too much of a care about Rebecca. I didn't hate her like many people did, I actually liked her even if that liked soon turned into contempt once the serious writing for this essay actually started, but now I can confidently say that I'm a Rebecca enjoyer, the ideas that I've come up with for her are just too interesting for me to view her in the same way ever again, and I hope that this lecture might have also slightly changed your opinion of Rebecca as well.

[daisychains111]

live "tweet" books with me (via the Goodreads progress bar) pt.3 Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

Live tweeting as I read...back by popular demand (literally 1 person on Tumblr (@dumpsters-little-matchbook) asked me to do it again and I was already planning to)

stay strong Vi....just bc he's hot doesn't mean he's redeemed himself for his (understandably) traitorous ways

"she's worth a dozen of me" Xanden you shut up right now I'm mad at you

I'm glad Brennen's alive but I do not trust him at all...pretending to be dead for 6 years is fishy as fuck

hashtag: Andarna protection club...if anything ever happens to that dragon I'll burn the world

violet "I know more than you" sorrengail back in action

lol Brennen making fun of her love life

petition for violet and sgaeyl mother-daughter bonding

awww andarna, all growed up

moody teenage angst Andarna is the comedic relief we all didn't know we needed...nothing is as iconic as her growling at Violet for calling her my dearest

idk if Tairn signed up to be the sole father figure to two teenage girls but Violet and Andarna are about to give him a run for his money

he deserves not to trust Dain bc Dain is the scum of the earth

RIDOC AND RHIONNAN ARE SAFE AND ALIVE EVERYTHING IS ALRIGHT IN THE WORLD

call his lying ass out Violet as you should

slay violets mom with the redeeming qualities...glad she actually cared if Violet was alive and isn't completely a heartless bitch

fuck dain but also FUCK HIS DAD

the fact that it's him who officially outs them makes me smile hehe

I agree Nadine...that was hot

Xaden being an absolute tease flirt bc she's mad at him is iconic

YAY SQUAD LEADER RHI!!!

the joke was funny, your friends ate just lame (jk I love them but still)

THE PRINCE???

awwww Liam's sister you better make it across istfg

noooo I wanted to be friends with Sloane

violet in her older sister era

gotta love the "is everyone I care about alive? yes? slay" moment

the fact that even tairn is warry of the orange dragon freaks me out

tairn reporting for fatherly duties will never not be my favorite...violet may be annoying but she's his annoying

I'm all for the Violet and Imogen friendship but they better not be mean to Rhiannan

also if Rhiannan gets annoying and jealous about them I'll be really sad

nooo I liked Nadine...who tf just snaps people's necks like that tf

Xaden warding her room so he's the only person who can come in COMEDY

SIMP

hehehe he wrote her a letterrr

violet lying to everyone about her feelings about Xaden except Tairn is so funny...like who's the dragon gonna tell

Xaden is winning every award ever rn bc 1. he's hot as hell, but 2. he's like I wanna sleep with you so bad, but I won't bc it's for the wrong reasons....honorable mf

literally FUCK VARRISH

Sloane needs to get her shit together and Violet needs to stop avoiding her friends

I'm like 80% sure they just got drugged but slay ig

called it...they were totally drugged

tairn comforting Violet about missing Xaden even though Tairn is the one with the bonded mate thing isn't being talked about enough

I would really love to know what those letters say...just saying, sharing is caring

I want to trust jesinia...I really do but it gives me a bad feeling

you let my babies see each other istg...violet is actively moving towards miserable without him

Imogen is slowly becoming the biggest violet/Xander fangirl and I love that for her

give it up Imogen...yall are friends

girlie just wants to be back in a library fr

period Rhiannan...don't put up with Xaden's shit....you threaten him like a bestie should

If Rhi and Violet don't stay friends I'll riot

ooooo don't mess with Tairn's kids...he'll bring that dad defensive

I'm so glad Violet is letting Rhiannan in..be besties again pls

HAHA "SHOWING OFF (MAKING OUT)" IN FRONT OF MIRA....ICONIC

"omg your falling for him" No matter how many times I hear that I'm media I will always be a sucker for it

"you're my only sibling" REALLY MAKING VIOLET SEEM LIKE A TERRIBLE PERSON FOR NOT TELLING MIRA ABOUT BRENNEN....UNCALLED FOR

tik tok says she finally just fucking forgives him in chapter 27... we're on 20, kick into gear people

at her core, Violet is really just like me fr.... 21-year-old girlie pop vibes for the win

 damn the disdain for Dian is STRONG

Rhiannan wins the bestie of the year award....being the best even tho Violet is being a fuckass about not telling her things

DAIN FIGHTING ISNT GONNA DO MUCH BC YOU DONT DESERVE HER AND NOW EVERYONE GETS TO WATCH AS SHE BEATS YOUR ASS

see, I knew her mom was a bitch

Rhiannan and violets friendship rn makes me so sad

This aaric dude better keep his mouth SHUT

really looking forward to Xaden beating the shit out of Dain for the shit he just pulled

besties having beef in private...which honestly I feel like will be a good thing

"that isn't a secret" I love ridoc....also Violet why tf would you think that's a valid secret

them getting graded for withstanding torture is WILD

WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BRING DAIN INTO THIS VARRISH YOU BITCH

VARRISH YOU ABSOLUTE MOTHERFUCKER...I DESPISE YOUR SOUL

I hate dain to but I love him for that...thank you for being a rule-following asshat

two things: tairn constantly being like "duh your fine, I make great choices" is so sweet but absolutely hilarious....and Rhiannan being a slay icon is my favorite thing

WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN JACK IS BACK FROM THE ACTUAL DEAD....SHUT UP RIGHT NOW

I'm so ready to watch the Fab 4 (I've decided that I'm calling ridoc, rhi, sawyer, and Violet this bc they are so slay) kill jack again bc wtf

YES CHAPTER 27 I'VE HEARD GOOD THINGS ABOUT YOU

watch Mira walk in on them right now...that'd be so freaking funny

tairn and Violet's father-daughter bonding is my fave

tairn is a grade-A overprotective father... it's adorable

no literally....tairn is so over her 21 bullshit...I love them

I have no recollection of who Kaori is...but him standing up to varrish makes him my favorite

YES YES YES LET FAB 3/4 KNOW ALL THE SECRETS

ridoc having the vibes to give violet a hard time while his world was just flipped on its head is why I love him

also shout out to Imogen and Quinn bc yall are slay too

why did Jack save her life...go back to being an ass, not sucky jack is frightening

"argue with you about books? I only pick fights I can win" Xaden clearly knows his place

literally just sobbing at the Liam cameo

why does Varrish keep responding to Liam...is Violet talking out loud or like did he pull a jack

damn dain is just...redeeming himself...didn't have that on my 2024 bingo card

her mom redeeming herself too? damn we're on a redemption roll

very serious war book until someone says something like "show off" during an important meeting (cough garrick cough) and you remember that these bitches are in their 20s

Brennan, Xaden, and tairn: violet protection squad

ANDARNAS BACK YYYAAAYYY

YUH SLAY FOURTH WING

flame section is the iron section? One might say they're the iron flame....wink wink

patiently waiting for a sorrengail sibling reunion...pls bring Mira into the loop

YES MIRA BEAT HIS ASS

Mira beating the shit out of Brennan, Violet yelling at them to grow tf up, and ultimately Mira and Brennen rebonding over the ickiness of xaden/violet pda...the best sibling reunion EVER

"I have control" girl be so for real rn...the only time you use your power is when you're mid-orgasm, you're not controlling shit

Mira and Xaden being "let's overprotect violet" partners in crime...straight vibes

Andarna: The Hungry One (trademark)

oooooooo violets in trooouubbblleeee

jealous Violet storyline is about to be just as stupid as I'm keeping my friends safe by distancing myself Violet storyline

oh God not talking in 3rd person

"I wasn't in love with you then," *jim halpert camera stare* stfu xaden

DAMMMMNNNNN he's def being annoying but saying he's acting like dain is looooooowwwww

yeah cat just stfu...violet is better than you don't be a bitch

YOU WEAR YOUR HAIR DOWN VIOLET...TORTURE HIM BUT ISTG IF YOU LET HIM GET AWAY WITH THAT BS....

YESSS Liam mentions make me so happy...also I'm so ready for Violet and Sloane to bond

dain just bc you saved her doesn't mean you're not on extremely thin ice...stfu

HA, a length joke...I like Maren

IF YOU KILL RIDOC RIGHT NOW REBECCA, I WILL HAUNT YOU

HES SAFE....fab 4 lives another day

cat's a bitch...that's all

Cat's a bitch...but you know who isn't? Rhiannan. gave her bestie the best fighting skills

well that's one way to combat jealousy

he really said "You were annoying and emotional last year, this year it's my turn" Live laugh love healthy relationships

fab 4 are my favorite group of fantasy besties ever....icons..every single one of them

I'm very very excited for the Sawyer and Jesinia subplot...also I don't think I'm opposed to a Dain redemption arch, he just needs to learn his place

"I might even be in love with him after that declaration" HA game recognizes game dain, love that for you

ROLL CREDITS

Garrick doesn't get enough credit for being just as awesome as Rhi....slay besties

girlie pop bickering with a side of danger mission and dragon obedience school...my favorite

HAH grammar jokes

 "I get the feeling that this '2nd signet' thing is gonna be a BIG issue...like the plot twist that ends the book BIG

tbh I feel like I don't know him either so I get why she's mad at him

BRUUUUHHH he redeems himself with the "less than a minute" comment

tairn is girl dad...yelling at Violet and Andarna for their shit, yelling at Xaden for talking to Violet...girl dad icon

"Mom and Dad are fighting" See tairn and Sgaeyl are Mom and Dad

poor mama sorrengail...that's not the best way to break that news brennen you bitch

I'm really hoping Violet gets iron squad to go help bc them leaving the others to die is bullshit

they mentioned that the venin had runes, but they were confused as to how. cat is the best at them, and I really really really don't like how sus that is

everyone is so over Violet and her friends bc they're the only ones saying true things

YUH IRON SQUAD...my favorite squad of besties

FUCKING JACK

that was the most stressful thing ever read in my life...if Rhiannan dies I will never recover

I thought Sawyer was going to die and I started crying

YES ANDARNA BE SPECIAL AND SLAY

The fact the andarna hatched just for Violet is so sweet

you better not fucking sacrifice yourself right now violet unknownmiddlename sorrengail

DUMBASS

rip mama sorrengail...this was the redemption arch you deserved

violet breaking down to Rhi is EVERYTHING

FAB 4 LIVES TO SEE ANOTHER DAY (along with Imogen, Quinn, Sloane, Jesinia, Aaric, Maren, and Cat because yall bitches grew on me)

yay xaden's safe, was worried for a bit

IM SORRY WHAT NOW

I'M SORRY WHAT NOW

saying that xaden cant feel sgaeyl better be a fucking joke rn

FUCKING JACK

[h0n3yk1tt3n]

Chloe doesn't need to be the fandom punching bag

And before anyone tries to say I'm defending her actions in Do You Wanna Hang:

1. No I'm fucking not

2. Like all the characters in the show, she's much more nuanced than the 2017 one-dimensional fanonization a lot of older fans still have lingering on their tongues

Since it's the elephant in the room, let's discuss DYWH a little more in depth. (By all means if the subject matter is triggering to you, skim or skip as much as you need to.)

Are Chloe's actions completely out of line? Yes, I'm not denying that. Chloe does in fact kiss Jeremy unprompted, even after he expresses that he "has to go."

But might I remind you that the squip is Literally Preventing Jeremy From Moving And Forcing Him To Stay Just A Few Lines Before This.

Should Chloe have kissed Jeremy when he expressed that he wants to leave? No, and we don't know how stubborn she would've been even if she was sober. (Not that the alcohol is an excuse, obviously.)

On the topic of alcohol:

Despite what many animatics would have you believe, the squip is the one that makes Jeremy drink, THEN makes him kiss Chloe. Chloe didn't do that. All she did was hand him the bottle.

The squip made him drink it. The squip is keeping him here. The squip holds all the cards.

"But Chloe continues to harass him!" I hear you say. Well, let's look at the next few lines, shall we?

Hear me out on this: Before Jake shows up, Chloe's ready to give up. Katlyn's delivery (in two river, I cant speak for off-bway and on) is dejected and tired. Jeremy's giving really mixed signals, she never even liked him in the first place (see "you're less cute when you're talking" from before the Japanese section), she only ever wanted to make Jake (and probably Brooke) jealous, plus she's REALLY drunk and probably starting to feel sick from it. She's "had enough."

Jake finally shows up though, and NOW "the fun begins." Cue the fake sex noises and emphasizing that they're on Jake's parents' bed.

Plus, isn't it weird that only AFTER Jake can see her that she goes on top of Jeremy? She's not touching him while she's being loud and obnoxious, not as it's written in the script. (Granted it doesn't say when Jeremy's shirt came off, but only now does she try to make things LOOK incriminating now that Jake's here.)

She never wanted to sleep with Jeremy. She just wanted Jake to think she did.

Should she have ever put Jeremy in that situation in the first place? FUCKING DURR NO SHE SHOULDN'T HAVE. But can we please just fucking remember who the real villain of the show is? Ya know, the one force that actually made it so that Jeremy COUDLNT LEAVE.

The SECOND the squip is down for the count (after it spouts of "WARNING WARNING" and isn't heard from again until after Christine leaves), Jeremy guns it! And Chloe doesn't stop him! Jake is pissed off, mission accomplished! She doesn't need Jeremy anymore!

Chloe's an insecure teenage girl that's afraid of being insignificant so she makes stupid fucking choices. DYWH in particular is a REALLY stupid choice.

I'm not asking you to forgive her. I'm not asking you to listen to DYWH on repeat. I'm not even asking you to like Chloe. Maybe just don't declare her the worst character in the show and make others others feel like shit for playing with her character and making her more than Hot Girl #1.

Chloe is among the least developed characters, even after script changes, so maybe you can't pick out a lot of redeeming qualities. Maybe there are none in canon. That's never stopped fandom from making things up and projecting onto their blorbos.

She's catty, she's mean, she's pretty much written to be unlikable. But she's a terrible actress, she snaps a hanger in half at the mere mention of Madeline's name, she gives Jeremy the Absolute Most Backhanded Advice during VIMH and it's Hilarious in both versions of the script. ("She probably thinks that acne is hot," she a little confused but she got the spirit. "Don't dump her on Halloween," YOU CAUSED THAT DRAMA YOURSELF. Call it gaslighting but it's Literally played as a joke, much the same as her mini rant in the second verse of Smartphone Hour. And while we're talking about it,, the truth literally comes out during The Play when Brooke and Chloe find out that neither of them slept with Jeremy. How much that gets elaborated on off-screen is up for fanfic/headcanon to decide.)

As much as people can see all sides of the squipcident (ie how Jeremy and Michael both went through hell in their own ways) it seems like EVERYONE demonizes Chloe for one (1) scene that had way more squip interferance than it seems like ANYONE will admit.

I can compartmentalize: Chloe fucked up AND she has really funny moments. Chloe fucked up AND she has a lot of societal pressures as a conventionally attractive teenage girl. Chloe fucked up AND it barely holds a candle to the part the squip played in Jeremy's life ON HALLOWEEN ALONE.

She kissed him once unprompted, got on top of him for 3 seconds, and certainly made him uncomfortable. But the fucking squip assaulted him more than Chloe EVER did by MAKING him drink, MAKING him kiss her when he didn't want it the first time, PREVENTING him from moving, and KNOWING that Chloe was going to try and make a move on him IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE and ACTIVELY KEEPING HIM THERE when it surely would've known that there was SOME PROBABLE OUTCOME where he wouldn't be ok with it, if there was EVER an outcome where he would be ok with it.

Why the fuck are squip redemption fics a thing? (That's a whole other rant on its fucking own, but I have work tomorrow so)

[ca-suffit]

To go exactlyyy at the other anon, Rice's racism was most blatant when it involved Marius. (Despite enslaver Louis! That's how bad it is!)

So Teskhamen (The God of the Grove from TVL) wanted someone who knew Egyptian/had been to the Lower Kingdom of Egypt to give the Dark Gift, but the Celtic (read: white) druids want a Celtic (read: white) man. Like that is explicitly why Mael kidnaps Marius, because he's a white blonde man (who knows Egyptian). Marius really has no redeeming qualities, regardless of how hard Rice's writing tries to circumvent that obvious fact, besides his whiteness.

I think the reason that Marius de Romanus' flaws and transgressions are so loudly ignored is bcuz he's really Anne Rice's thesis statement. In and by Marius history is literally whitewashed. (Well also bcuz Rice was bad at writing consistent relationships and too hung-up on her Catholic instant forgiveness complex to meaningfully reckon with her characters' actions.) The Pandora-Arjun-Marius "storyline" is probably the most fucked up in terms of sheer racism. God don't get me started on the Orientalism.

As for the pedophilia apologia, I think that has a lot of causes. One is def how normalised pedophilia was in SF/F spaces back in the day (look up Marion Zimmer Bradley), so combine that with people getting into the books in their early tweens and then developing 20+ year long parasocial relationships with Anne Rice so they never dare critically examine her work and... Well. Some fandoms also used to be sort of tolerating towards simulated CSAM, if you don’t know what "chan" was, count yourself lucky. Or look it up on fanlore I guess. Anyway, I think that's where these Marius defenders and Marius/Armand shippers come from. I reckon most of them lowkey got indoctrinated into this stuff.

(This is not meant in defense of them obvs, I just think that's what happened there. Mind you I was never actually in this fandom before the show. I read all the books without ever engaging in this Anne Rice Extended Universe but I am otherwise fandom old.)

Fascinating that they lack the wherewithal to realise the show's fandom won't tolerate them. Or maybe it's just entitlement, since like you've said somewhere before, they feel they're "owed" an adaption of the Vampire Chronicles so they'll "suffer" through IWTV.

Feel free to add to this if you think I missed something. - 🦁

(context)

that covers everything I could think of off the top of my head anyway. sometimes all these details are hard to keep track of bcuz there's just *so much* all the time. it's not just a genre thing either, it was whatever personal reason she put all that in there. most of it serves no purpose to any plot, it's just there. that's why defending a lot of it is even more crazy bcuz u could take a lot out and it doesn't change anything?? that's what makes the books so annoying and ppl who think it's high literature even more so. they don't rly say anything after a point and her themes get repetitive for no reason. she doesn't even write this stuff to make it horror or be critical of it (despite what a lot of book ppl claim), she just liked it for whatever reason. she was also out there in interviews over these time periods saying rly weird shit all the time as an adult woman and nobody ever pushed back about it, which also didn't help anyone to learn to question this stuff.

[accidentally-in-fictional-love]

Top 10 18 Most Hated NonDD Roles

Aka the ‘Fuck You, _____!’ list lol these aren't in order other than alphabetical by movie/show this time since that's a lotta hate, but oh boy almost changed my mind a couple times. Now, everyone knows I love DD characters, especially now that I've finished my love list, but what about everyone else around him? Sometimes I like them, sometimes I'm indifferent, sometimes they gotta kill him and I understand that cause he's a hot villain, but sometimes they just straight up treat him bad in ways I don't like or are so awful that I genuinely hate them, so let's take a look at some pure negativity today lmao

Just to state first that even though I'm very salty in this it's still all for fun, even if I have Some Opinions on all the people below 😖

James and José - 12 Monkeys

This is a tiny fuck you cause I get it, but the man was very unwell, like very very very unwell, this is mostly just me excusing murder because hot man but he was doing it to save time itself or something, doesn't that count for anything? Get him some help and then stop the bad guys and fix time, they should be your actual priority, guys.

Everyone who was ever mean to Simon - Almost Human

I'm just a broken record at this point, everyone knows how I feel about Simon, I'm scooping him up and punching all of them in the face and then we're gunna get fries and watch TV together.

Everyone in AVGN: The Movie

I've seen YouTuber movies before, there's usually something that makes me laugh even if it's still that special type of cringe. This movie just sucks. It's bad. It's sososososo bad. The only part that made me laugh was DD's quick bit because he sells every role he's in and I love him. I'm so glad I never have to see this one again, this one's a fuck you to them for just… not making an entertaining movie :/

Cass' family and Dwayne - Cass

Yeah yeah I know they're kids and that they're lonely and dealing with it in bad ways, but my God. She has zero self-preservation (he had such good points about her following him like????) and it's frustrating, and when she went to take that selfie I became so anxious over what her giving it to him would bring that it made me actually sick. Her brother is straight awful, I felt bad at first cause clearly he only has the two friends, but he wasn't just allowing things to happen he was right there being a genuine shit to that homeless couple that it made me mad. The dad I can't fault because he's just looking out for his daughter, so he gets a pass, but fuck Dwayne in particular for stealing his paintings, pissing on everything else, and then nearly getting Joshua to basically kill himself. Old man yells at clouds but it's me yelling at these kids, fuck them I'm taking care of Joshua now. 

Literally everyone else in Cora

The Vampire is the only redeeming quality of this short and even then he still falls prey ;w; Cora herself is okay, her dad is good, but her mom sucks and those teens at the camp really suck, the cringe dialogue really gets me yeesh. I feel like their entire scene could've been shortened or at least written in a way that didn't make my entire body shrivel up when the guys spoke. Fuck all of them for making me cringe when I'm trying to enjoy those double fangs, I’m so petty I’m glad all of them got got.

Jerome - Gotham

His energy is great. I'm still not sure if he actually is the Joker or if I'm insane and it was a red herring cause I saw comments? But he nailed the Dark Knight energy of the Joker even if he's not, don't spoil, I will watch someday I swear. Anyway fuck him though for killing Dwight in the most Joker way possible, yeah he took his face but he also brought him back to life so c’mon man just forgive him already and banish him, I've got room for him in my bed it all works out.

Olga and Svea - Last Seen Wearing

I don't really hate them, but I really like David Porter and the fact that he brought flowers and they still ate him after all he went through to find them. I'm gunna find him at the club and take him to a different party, in fact I'll become a model and help him write a better story and they can eat some other people instead, this tired party boy is mine now.

The Grove - Light Night With the Devil

Yes, fuck the entire Grove. If he didn't get tangled up with them then everything would be fine. He might never be #1 on the charts but he'll always be #1 in our hearts, and Minnie would still be there for him too, so yeah fuck the whole Grove, I want my Night Owl to be happy.

Amber - MacGyver 2016

This one is quick and obvious but like fuck her for using him to start, but using his son as well? What a bitch, I'm not gunna be Cassian’s stepmom I'm gunna be his mom who stepped up.

The Woman - Making Love

This is totally me projecting here, but fuck her. Anyone who's okay with cheating and jerking around the both of them is genuinely hated in my book, both as someone who's been jerked around and someone who's watched someone very dear to me be jerked around while she was in so much pain. This is a real hate, there's nothing jokey about it this time, he deserves better no matter how beautiful she is. No one deserves to go through what he's going through, even though he's not blameless for pursuing her. I wasn’t, and neither was my friend. This one gets me personally, so fuck her.

Detective Loki - Prisoners

I think this guy might be The Most Hated NonDD Role ever. The amount of people I know who hate this guy for what he did to Bob is astounding and I was really hoping he'd find the real guy and save the girls until he did what he did. This guy sucks, he hurt my most precious boy, I'm glad he saved the one girl but he needs a swift kick to the nuts as my dad would say, fuck you Loki, I’ll be taking your badge now, no retirement, no pension.

The entirety of Ray Donovan

I've been putting away DVDs of this show at work for years but I've never seen anything from it until I watched DD's ep. It was so bad I quit the rest of the video after his scene. This one was actual torture to sit through up until that point, I had to see old man sex that I did not want, the camera was on Donovan most of the time while DD spoke, this one is another personal fuck you for giving me a bad time, that show and everyone else in it sucks. (No offense to anyone who may be following me who likes it but it wasn't for me)

The Bullies - Teacher

I hate bullies. I can't stand them. The only exception is Cam and that's only because he's hot and I want him to bully me. In highschool I was always too invisible to be bullied, but those few times where I was seen? Where my seat on the bus was being kicked because it was hot and I opened the window? Where someone came after me cause I was protecting my friend from her bitchiness? Where I was given a fake love confession by a friend of my crush, only to hear him whisper to my crush that I wasn't reading it so I knew it was his idea? I fucking hate bullies. Fuck Tim and his friends for everything they did to Preston and Daniela. Fuck his dad for what he said and did to James as well as his own son even though I’m mad at him. Fuck everyone who wasn't on his side while everything actively got worse and made him spiral. But especially, fuck Arabella for looking at him that way. Like I said in my other list, she would cringe directly to his face whenever he said something she didn't like, which is so fucking rude??? Even when she accepted his dates and she was supposed to be on his side she was still cringing at him; if I was on a date with someone and said something dumb and I looked up and saw that I'd cry and never talk to them again. If she wasn't interested she could’ve just turned him down, he's a nice guy, he would've understood even if it made him sadder, it would've been better than her treating him that way and then storming out on him after he was humiliated in front of her. I hate the bullies, but she was the worst because she wasn't even supposed to be a bully, she just treated him cruelly while trying to be kind.

Dany Wilkins - The Belko Experiment

Okay for this one I'm just petty. He was freaking out and she made it worse, I may just be spouting nonsense here cause I'm clouded by the Power of Love, but if that were me I would've tried to actually calm him, cause her running did not help. It'd be scary as hell, but if I worked there he'd already know me so I wouldn't leave his side. I maybe kinda cheered when she finally died after surviving for so long, this one makes me petty.

The Boogeyman

Great monster design, hated every second he was around, but also fuck this guy for making such a sweet dad so miserable before getting him. I am once again swearing I will save him and make him happy.

Everyone else in The Employer

I just genuinely hate those guys. Their characters sucked and watching them was insufferable. James was the only redeeming quality and I mean that, way to write everyone as the most unlikable people on the planet, which I guess was the point, but they can be unlikeable and still be enjoyable, y’know, that is a possible combination that makes for a better movie.

Fuerza - The Flash

I just straight up hate this thing for killing him in one swipe. It was cheap, it was bad writing, it left me so annoyed after all the great buildup with his family and him working those eyes and stealing my heart. What the actual hell, why couldn't that have been saved for the next episode, why couldn't he have least been injured but ultimately okay, this one just frustrates me. I’m going to the future to warn him and we’re gunna start a family together, that’s another Ray Guarantee and this one’s all for me.

Dracula - The Last Voyage of the Demeter

Yes, I'm giving a fuck you to Dracula himself. This guy made everyone excited for some good bonus pay fun times, then ate half of them, made him shoot his crewmate, made him cry which is instantly illegal, made him fall like 40 feet where he bumped his head and broke his leg, made him try and sink the ship he called him, and then killed him. By the time he fell I was ready to get up and jump into the movie right there in the theater. The only way Dracula can redeem himself is if Hollywood lets DD play him, otherwise fuck Dracula,  friendship ended with him, now Dr Fearless is my best friend.

Honorable mentions

A super special fuck you to James Gunn and Hulu specifically for giving me the greatest loves of my life and then taking them away from me. I'm going to buy their licensing rights from you and bring them back, I miss Abner and Johnson every single day, life is unfair, this sucks, what the hell.

[phantomoftheorpheum]

hi!! 😊 i liked that christian was a major red herring. it was nice to be validated even though i was expecting it. i like christian but i think he is a little too similar to tabby to be interesting as a love interest. they are the male and female versions of each other 🤣

johnny deserved better. although i think he was a little too understanding with imogen at times, he knew she was going through it and i respect him for that. the way she demanded to see his texts and look at his search history was such a red flag. of course i get it in this context but irl that would not be okay. maybe imogen need to be single for a while.

i don’t like jen. i will never like jen. she’s manipulative and a liar. i will never excuse how she deflected and made noa the bad guy in the conversation where noa attempted to confront her about robbing shawn’s house. how their shippers ignore that problematic behavior is beyond me. i’m sad that she will be in season 3. at least i’m not alone in this as i’ve seen a lot of people complaining about this ship in the pll original sin instagram comments. i hope the writers hear our complaints. it has made noa my least favorite liar when i used to love her.

Hi! I agree!

You are so right about Christian! I should have trusted my 2x01/2x02 gut that he was a red herring, but then I got so suspicious of the fact that no one was suspicious of him when they obviously should be. jksdhfksdf. I'm still baffled by how Tabby didn't think to put either Wes or Christian on their original suspect list, considering their love of horror and the masks stuff, but I'm just gonna have to learn to accept that. I'm glad Christian was good too, though. I never wanted him to be bad, just was very suspicious he might be. They definitely gave him some dialogue that pointed his way. But he was a good red herring! He worked until the finale when they started getting suspicious and then I knew it wasn't him.

I have said it once and I will say it again, Johnny is quite literally the chillest dude on the planet (😂 this will never stop being funny to me, I am sorry). I'm also glad that he's not bad because I think he's an enjoyable addition to the cast and I hope he is in next season (again, assuming they get a next season) because we still know almost nothing about him, so they could do a lot of fun things with his character. But I do think Imogen needs to take some time, regardless of the Johnny stuff (I mean, he really should NOT want to date her ever again because she nearly killed him??) because this was a mess. I also think all the girls (but particularly Imogen and Tabby) do still need mental healthcare, but obviously not with Dr. Sullivan.

Aaaaahhh, the Jen stuff. I just kept thinking there was going to be some sort of reveal/resolution that made the Jen stuff feel like it worked in the season and had a reason to be there. I had so many possible scenarios I was willing to accept. and yet, they managed to find one which was none of them??? I can't believe I sat through so much love triangle crap for literally no payout. I hate love triangles and the only redeeming quality is that they usually have a big blowout scene when it all comes out, but they didn't even give us that???? It will be interesting (assuming they get a season 3) to see if they respond to the criticism like they did with the Ezra thing, because a lot of people feel Noa's carelessness about the situation (and she was super, super manipulative towards Shawn throughout this, as well) ruined her character for them. Now, I think it's fine to tear a character down and need to build them back up, and I think it's good to see the Liars engage in flawed behavior, the problem I have here is... they (the show) have given no indication that they think they actually DID tear Noa's character down? Like, I am sorry, but her behavior was flat out cruel and she felt a tiny bit bad about it for like 2 seconds and faced absolutely 0 consequences, and that, not that she made some terrible decisions, is the real problem here. It's not "tearing a character down to build them back up" or even "giving a character flaws" if those things are never acknowledged as flaws and terrible behavior in the first place? Ugh. There was just so much potential with this storyline (literally so much!) and they just threw it all straight in the trash.

[earth-7103984]

Cassidy Jade - Carnage of Earth-7103984

Often seen as a rebel, a delinquent and an all around bad influence, this girl has a much darker secret hidden within herself.

TW: Mention of suicide of a family member. Violence. Murder. You have been warned.

Cassidy doesn't talk much about herself, her home life or her past. No one at school really knows much about her, aside from the fact that she's a rebel and that she can often be found smoking in the bathroom or behind the school. She's a year older than Spindel, having been held back for a year.

Spindel met Cassidy at a very low point in her life. She had just managed to recover from the death of Gwen Stacy. Everyone understood how much time she needed to recover, being aware that Gwen was her girlfriend, but they had no idea how much Spindel blamed herself for being unable to do more to save her.

Spindel had heard of Cassidy, of course, though she'd only ever seen her walking down the hallway. Once she truly met her, she was bewitched by the rebel persona she had. Eventually, the two began dating, which was something Spindel's friends strongly advised her not to do, but she was blinded by her little crush. Eventually, however, as the weeks passed, Spindel started seeing why they warned her. Whether it was her sometimes violent temperament, her disregard for other people or her genuinely cruel behavior, Spindel was starting to open her eyes. Cassidy tried to explain herself. How her mother killed herself, how her father was a piece of shit, how they always moved before she could make any real connection. It worked at first, but Spindel quickly realized that they were just excuses and broke things off.

She was completely unaware that she had dodged a bullet. There was something far worse than a toxic relationship in the future.

A while later, none other than Spider-Woman was struggling against Venom near one of Cassidy's usual smoking spots. There was a bit of a mess, but nothing major, with Cassidy ending up with a simple cut on her arm, watching as the Spider and the Symbiote took the mess somewhere else. Cassidy hadn't even noticed that a bit of Venom's goo had managed to sneak into her wound, giving birth to something far worse.

While anyone would've thought that Cassidy would use her newly acquired powers for... Well, she wouldn't use them to better humanity, but still, no one could've guessed what she had in mind. The symbiote didn't give her any new ideas, but rather, it was just the push she needed to make them happen. During her first day with the symbiote, she killed her good-for-nothing father, leaving his corpse to rot in the upstairs floor while she continued living in the house like normal. Little by little, she started going out more at night, taking new victims, having more and more fun each time, becoming more creative. Eventually, she just left her home, not bothering to go back, even to sleep there at night. New York had one new great problem... Carnage.

Personality wise... Cassidy is a textbook psychopath. She cares about no one other than herself. If she shows any interest in other people, it's merely from the angle of how they could benefit her and nothing else. Even her relationship with Spindel was seen as nothing more than a momentary amusement. If one were to ask her why she's like that, she might mention her mother's suicides her bad father or the fact that she never managed to make a real connection with another person growing up. Hell, she might even make something up. In reality, all of this is just another manipulation tactic to get whatever it is she wants at the moment. She has zero redeeming qualities.

As for some non in universe story... A big inspiration for the character, mainly her backstory, was Jason Dean, from Heathers (the movie). The original idea I had for her was way more heavily influenced by the character, but I didn't want to have a carbon copy. Still, she retained many aspects, like the similar past, the rebel style and their nicknames (Jason Dean = JD | JaDe=JD, using her last name).

Art commissioned from @Angelesrevill_ on Twitter.

[gojuo]

Tell us now your top 5 most hated characters on ASOAIF and F&B please!

My no.1 most hated ASOIAF character is Tywin Lannister. I hate this man. I hate him very much. I wish he would go away and die somewhere where he will inconvenience no one but the vultures. I loathe his manner. I loathe his style. I loathe the fact that he dares draw breath in a world where my loved ones do not or rather cannot because he murdered them. I loathe that he was rewarded for behavior which, in-universe, he should have been quartered for. I want him dead. I want to kill him and destroy him. I want him died. #SCENE #ANGER #FUCK #DIE #HATERED

There is not a single ounce — not even a miniscule amount ­— of sympathy I have for this scumbag. Not a single thing likeable about him. Not a single redeeming quality he has to his name. From the first moment he showed up on page until the very last mention of him, he was nothing short of disgusting. He is diabolical, satanic, monstrous, loathsome, ghoulish, sadistic, cruel, insert every single synonym of the term demonic here, etc. etc. I hate him. I hate him I hate him I hate him I hate him.

The whole “Yeah he’s evil uwu but Charles Dance is so granddaddy I can fix him <3" sales pitch this low IQ fandom has been pushing since the dawn of that accursed adaptation on top of it all only makes the intense disgust I hold for him so much fucking worse. Tywin Lannister has no conscience, no charisma, no morals, and he has no honor — all of that in an un-sexy way, one of the greatest crimes a villain with no traumatic backstory could objectively ever commit. Never mind the beyond immoral execution of the Red Wedding (“Machiavellian” my ass. Any stupid fool who says this crap needs to go back to elementary school in order to relearn how to read and how to interpret literature and themes in literature right the fuck now), never mind the severe mental torture he’s put his own flesh and blood through to the point where two of them are in a destructive incestuous relationship with each other and the other pushed to the point of patricide, this monster had his son's fourteen-year-old little child-wife gangraped by his guards, had each of them give her a silver coin after one was done with her, then had thirteen-year-old Tyrion rape her last and, contrary to the others, give her a gold coin because “Lannisters are worth more”. All because she was a common-born little girl who dared to marry the disabled son he hated so much. Am I supposed to think this piece of shit falls under the sexy evil category of villains? What sad backstory does this trash have to his name that would woobify him enough to “if villain bad why sexy” him? His father had a few mistresses after his mother died and gave them gifts and cared for them? Was that the tragic past of his that elevated him enough for people to wash their conscience clean so to cross moral boundaries all to lust after this so-called “sexy villain”? Tywin Lannister had his father’s mistress, who was nothing but a poor common-born daughter of a candle-maker, stripped naked and paraded through the streets of Lannisport for two whole goddamn weeks, and forced her to tell every man she came across that she was a thief and a whore, quite alike to what he did to Tysha as well. This man hates women. I cannot stress this enough, like Tywin Lannister hates women. And not just women, but especially commoner women. His modus operandi is inflicting sadistic sexual violence on any and all women he doesn’t like (which is like, all of them). As a true “if villain bad then why sexy” connoisseur and quite frankly, the president of the club, this man is not, never was and never will be a part of that esteemed category of villains.

And you know something that’s a veeery personal ick of mine — and this is really the icing on the cake for me — is shit-for-brains dickriders of this ghoul having the gall to pretend like he did not explicitly order the murder of Elia and her babies, that he apparently just “let” Clegane and Lorch loose on them. These low IQ fucks know what that demon did to his father’s poor mistress and what he did to little Tysha, and then somehow they still think this sadist with a severely fragile ego did not tell Clegane and Lorch to do what they did to her with his own mouth? Any waste-of-space who parrots this BNF-drivel (all said in order to minimize what happened to Elia, Rhaenys and the baby in place for Aegon) is not only going on my blocklist like immediately, they also need to die. Respectfully.

Now, I mostly spoke on his character from a moral standpoint, but I want to make clear that this loser’s shortcomings aren’t only morality-based. All the shit-for-brains stans this demon has know he has no morals so they always deflect to the “b-b-but he’s a military genius, that’s why I like him, I’m so edgy!!!” excuse and I want to emphasize how fucking stupid you have to be to believe Tywin is anything but brainless. AFFC is literally right there. GRRM’s explicitly spells out to the reader through Jaime’s POV how fucking stupid Tywin was in everything that he did. How the only show of military genius this demon had was through being nothing but a bully. All his work unraveled the second he died. He built nothing, and he will go down in history as nothing. That’s why his one and only legacy will always be that he got murdered on the shitter by his own son, like the fucking loser that he is.

I hate this fucking character with every fiber of my being.

On number 2 stands Aerys II Targeryen. Do I even need to explain this? What I said about Tywin applies to this racist, rapist, fascist piece of shit as well. I’m not going to waste my time and money psychoanalyzing this bottom-of-the-barrel trash. Aerys is the pinnacular culmination of three hundred years of Targaryen delusion, self-worship, egotism and five thousand years of Valyrian hubris, god-complex, and megalomania. Him and his daughter both, but I’ll get to her in a minute. This man’s lucky he’s only got 2 stans — and those two are only stanning just to be contrarians — unlike Tywin, who’s got an actual dedicated fanbase. Ugh. Two peas in a pod. One edge he has over Tywin is that at the very least Aerys has some sort of tragic backstory that’s actually valid. Too bad for him idgaf. Pour one out for Rhaella :(

My third most hated is ... Daenerys. Man… How do I even open this can of worms… I’ve a whole tag dedicated to hating her, soooo awkwardly waves hand in that direction. Everything about Daenerys is just so … racist. Racist on an in-universe level, racist on a meta level and racist on a fandom level, so I was never going to like Daenerys no matter what. The fact that she has the most insane and delusional and downright disgusting fanbase ever in all of media history really doesn’t help her case. If they hadn’t been this rabid and racist, then I don’t think I would have hated her this much. Because then I could’ve just had her character be as she is: the Paul Astreides of the series. A false Messiah, basically. The meta-level racism (GRRM making every single antagonist in her plotline nothing but walking, talking Reel Bad Arabs tropes; the use of POV trap which leads to none of the brown and black supporting characters in her story having a voice; GRRM’s own racism as in exotic-erotic tropes for all of the Essosi people, really badly researched POC cultures he based the Essosi off of, using brown and black people as nothing but props for the main white girl) and Daenerys’ in-universe racism (conquering and colonizing lands and peoples; white saviorism; imperialism; her hypocritical use of slavery) would still be there, of course, and I still would not have been able to stomach it meaning I still would not have rooted for her in any way, but then at the very least I would not have been subjected to a long decade of fandom racism being justified through the excuse of her freeing slaves from evil Reel Bad Arabs (spoiler alert: she is not freeing anybody).

Ugh, I don’t wanna talk about her. Everything about her from her character to the plot and storyline and her place in the narrative is downright insulting to me as a WOC, and quite frankly, any WOC that lays down their lives to defend this girl baffles me. Like, stop it. Please have some self-respect.

Then comes Jaehaerys the Old King. Father and inventor of misogyny. It’s crazy.

No. 5 is Rhaenys I and Daeron I the Young Dragon. EVERY TONGUE THAT RISES AGAINST THE DORNISH SHALL FALL!!!

[madoheart]

I wanna try and make a sweetheart angst fic,, i need suggestions

I may never post it thoug

me myself personally I'm not too knowledgeable on fanfic stuffs, I've read like 1 or 2 in my time on the internet, but if you want any problems that Sweetheart may have I can most likely provide

To clear things up that WOULDN'T be a problem, I'd say body positivity. Sweetheart is 100% in love with her looks I'd say that's painfully obvious from her merch alone.

Mentally though she's absolutely fucked, Considering that the only parental figures she has is her Donut grandma, and even then her grandma comments about how she doesn't visit much, Sweetheart probably has a very loose connection with her. Her castle and shows and everything she does to garner attention to herself I think is a result of her suffering from neglect as a kid so she's trying to make up for that. It'd also make sense with her lack of social skills and 0 actual friends as well as the fact that she holes herself up in her castle, literally NO ONE taught her how to interact with people and how to live in the real world. I don't think she's entirely oblivious to these problems, just shutting them out with her golden ego and blinding herself with her "perfect" life. Lot's of issues with how she refuses to see how fucked she is, but I think she still absolutely knows it. In my big fucking post about Sweetheart I brought up how I thought her battle is torment for her cuz she's slowly coming to the term with the fact that her world really isn't perfect, and I don't think it's a new feeling just one that's been amplified during her battle, she knows deep down her current situation is terrible but it's not like she can do anything about it. Accepting it will make her feel worse and it's not like she has any friends she can go to, who the fuck is she gonna get help from? a sprout mole?

Post Humphrey Sweetheart is absolutely 100% way fucking worse. Any redeeming qualities her castle had is now gone and she's at probably the worst spot she's been yet. Any denial about how terrible her life was has been thrown out because she is at the undeniably worst spot of her life. She now has to deal with the fact that she took her castle life for granted, unaware of how worse things could get, but going back to it would mean going back to the lonely fantasy she had before, so while it's a saving grace compared to her maid job it definitely won't fix her problems. To make things worse Perfectheart is also thrown into the mix. Perfectheart is quite literally a perfect Sweetheart, a mockery of Sweetheart, everything Sweetheart wants to be is right in front of her watching over as she toils away at her maid duties, stuck in the spot her selfishness and greed brought her to. I think I've brought up before what I think of Perfectheart and Sweethearts dynamic for any potential Sweetheart character arc. Perfectheart can see Sweethearts troubled, she acts as her overseer to keep her in line so she pays off her debt, but also tries to nudge Sweetheart in the right path so she doesn't stay as the lonely brat she is. I like to think Perfectheart is TRYING to be SWHs friend, doing things and giving her things to make her feel more comfortable in her current situation. And on the other end, Sweetheart absolutely HATES Perfectheart, not for anything she did, just their existence mocks her. While Perfectheart just thinks Sweetheart being so dismissive of her is because Perfectheart didn't end up as her perfect suitor, Sweetheart wants nothing to do with what is basically everything she couldn't be. I'm sure at some point they'll get along and Sweetheart will open up, but when Sweetheart DOES open up it is going to be EXTREMELY messy.

tl;dr, Pre Humphrey Sweetheart suffers from neglect and denying her imperfections. Post Humphrey Sweetheart has accepted her imperfections, hates herself more than she ever could, and the one person trying to be her friend hurts to look at.

Anyways that's all I have to say about Sweethearts problems, I hope at least some of this is good fuel for your angst

[princesssarisa]

Character ask: Cinderella's stepsisters

Favorite thing about them: Well, most adaptations portray them as comic relief, and they typically are very funny in their cattiness, their vanity, and their clumsy efforts to be charming ladies and win over the Prince. They're usually characters we love to hate.

I especially like it when adaptations make an effort to give them distinct personalities. For example, one of them haughty and overbearing while the other is a nervous woman-child, or one of them clever and conniving while the other is a simpering ditz. Although even pairs of sisters that are basically interchangeable, like Clorinda and Tisbe in the opera La Cenerentola or Disney's Anastasia and Drizella, can still have plenty of personality and comedy. And while I don't want it done in every new retelling, I do enjoy the recent trend (starting in 1998 with Ever After's Jacqueline) of redeeming at least one sister if not both by the end, as long as it's done in a way that feels believable.

Least favorite thing about them: In-universe, their abuse of Cinderella, naturally. Different adaptations give them different ways to bully her, but the worst has to be the moment in the Disney version when Anastasia and Drizella rip her dress to shreds before the ball.

Out of universe, the fact that they're traditionally portrayed as ugly while Cinderella is beautiful, implicitly linking beauty with goodness and worth in women. This probably explains why so many of the more recent adaptations either make them pretty or make at least one of them sympathetic, with Disney even joining the trend and redeeming Anastasia in the direct-to-video sequels.

Three things I have in common with them:

*I like elegant clothes.

*I can be hot-tempered.

*I don't have small feet.

Three things I don't have in common with them:

*I try to be a nice person.

*I have no desire to marry into royalty.

*Both of my parents are still alive.

Favorite line:

From Perrault's version of the tale:

"For my part," said the eldest, "I will wear my red velvet suit with French trimming."

"And I," said the youngest, "shall have my usual petticoat; but then, to make amends for that, I will put on my gold-flowered cloak, and my diamond stomacher, which is far from being the most ordinary one in the world."

From the Disney version, mocking Cinderella when she wants to go to the ball:

Drizella: Hah! Her, dancing with the Prince!

Anastasia: I'd be honored, Your Highness! Would you mind holding my broom?

From the 1957 version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, Portia trying to talk like her Shakespearean namesake as she dances with the Prince:

"I'll stand up in some old courtroom someday. And I'll say something to some old judge, about how the quality of mercy is not strained, ya know what I mean? And then I'll say it splashes down like the gentle dew..." (Cinderella enters at the top of the staircase and captures everyone's attention) "...from heaven?"

From the 1997 version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical:

Minerva: Did you ever see such a lazy girl in your life?

Calliope: Who are you calling lazy?

Minerva: Not you, stupid, Cinderella!

Calliope: Oh... Who are you calling stupid?

And from Ever After:

After Marguerite throws a screaming tantrum in front of the Queen when she learns that Prince Henry has been seeing Danielle, she tries to justify it:

"There was a bee."

When Jacqueline is forced to dress as a horse for the masked ball:

"Oh well, why don't I just pull the carriage while I'm at it?"

When Baroness Rodmilla and Marguerite's lies to the Queen are exposed and they're about to be punished, Jacqueline's response when Rodmilla wonders if she had something to do with this:

"'Course not, Mother. I'm only here for the food."

brOTP: Each other, in the rare moments when they're not competing.

OTP: The two courtiers from Perrault's version.

nOTP: The Prince.

Random headcanon: They would never tell anyone, but sometimes, when they're alone together, they talk about how much they miss their childhood, when their father was alive, their mother was happier, and she wasn't always pressuring them to be perfect ladies and to marry rich. (Or in the case of Clorinda and Tisbe in La Cenerentola, when their mother was alive and their father was happier, etc.) Maybe a part of why they hate Cinderella is that as their stepsister, she's a symbol of their changed life.

Unpopular opinion: I'm not sure how unpopular this is, but I'll list it because most stage productions of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella nowadays seem to be the 2013 Broadway version, even though two other stage scripts are still available.

Charlotte and Gabrielle from the 2013 version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical are my least favorite incarnations of the Rodgers and Hammerstein stepsisters. Not that I dislike them, but I think I'd prefer them in a new adaptation, not the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. I like the idea, in and of itself, of one sister being the traditional annoying brat, but the other being secretly sympathetic and trying to help Cinderella... even if it does feel derived from Marguerite and Jacqueline in Ever After. But the two bratty, buffoonish stepsisters have always been a comic highlight of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical (whether their names are Joy and Portia, Prunella and Esmeralda, Calliope and Minerva, or Joy and Grace), and I much prefer "Stepsisters' Lament" as a duet then as a solo for Charlotte with a chorus of other jealous girls.

Song I associate with them:

"Stepsisters' Lament" from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical

And two selections from the opera La Cenerentola:

"Cenerentola, vien qua!" ("Cinderella, come here!")

(Clorinda and Tisbe ecstatically look forward to the ball and run Cinderella ragged with orders to help them dress, while the "fairy godfather" Alidoro – disguised as a beggar – and the chorus of messengers from the palace look amusedly on.)

"Zitto zitto, piano piano" ("Hush, hush, quiet, quiet")

(Prince Ramiro and his valet Dandini – disguised as each other – steal a moment to discuss Clorinda and Tisbe's obnoxiousness, only for the girls to find them. Fake-prince Dandini says he'll marry one of them and let the other marry his "valet," and the sisters react with disgust at the thought of marrying such a "plebeian," "vulgar" young man, little knowing that they're insulting the real prince.)

Favorite picture of them:

This illustration by Charles Folkard

This illustration by Hermann Vogel

This illustration by Margaret Price

Robert Helpmann and Frederick Ashton in Prokofiev's ballet, 1948

(I have misgivings about casting men as the sisters, but I appreciate that for two gay ballerinos in the 1940s, playing these flamboyant feminine roles meant something more than just "Ha ha, the ugly women are really men.")

Disney's Drizella and Anastasia

Alice Ghostley and Kaye Ballard as Joy and Portia in the 1957 version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical

Pat Carroll and Barbara Ruick as Prunella and Esmeralda in the 1965 version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical

Daniela Hlaváčová as Dora, the one stepsister in the 1973 Czech classic Tři oříšky pro Popelku (Three Nuts/Wishes for Cinderella)

Rosalind Ayres and Sherrie Hewson as Isobella and Palatine (with Margaret Lockwood as their mother) in The Slipper and the Rose, 1976

Catherine and Jeanne in the 1996 anime Cinderella Monogatari

Natalie Desselle and Veanne Cox as Minerva and Calliope in the 1997 version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical

Megan Dodds and Melanie Lynsky as Marguerite and Jacqueline in Ever After

Johanna Paliege as Clothilde in the 2010 adaptation from the German Christmas fairy tale anthology Märchenperlen (like Three Wishes for Cinderella, this version has just one stepsister)

Pheline Roggan as Annabella in another German Christmas fairy tale anthology, Sechs auf einen Streich (again, this adaptation has just one stepsister)

Holliday Grainger and Sophie McShera as Anastasia and Drisella in Disney's 2015 live-action remake

@ariel-seagull-wings, @the-blue-fairie, @themousefromfantasyland, @softlytowardthesun, @thealmightyemprex

[aajjks]

mommy issues!JK

your hand has a beautiful diamond ring on it. a ring she didn’t even notice the first time ji-yeon met you and let’s just say, she’s extremely disappointed in her son. she took some time to do a little research on you and let’s just say, you’re exactly what she thought you were.

your only redeeming quality is your amazing athletic ability with your back to back wins in figure skating but besides that, you’re just a local. anyone can be maternal, that’s nothing special but jungkook has brainwashed himself into thinking you’re this heaven sent angel when you’re just a plain girl from the streets of gwangju.

you’re nothing special.

“well why don’t you tell your family that, y/n? tell them the good news about your pregnancy and how you’re engaged to my naive son whose heart was healed by your magical pussy”

before you can clap back, your mother reveals herself—your whole family is here. your mother, father, and sister. they’re dressed in fancy clothes from head to toe and your mother is shocked.

“y-y/n…you’re pregnant? i’m a grandma?”

“no you’re not. you’ll never—you bailed them out didn’t you? what kind of sick individual are you? you’re just as horrible as my family!” you say to ji-yeon. “all of you are SICK. you’ve treated us like shit our whole lives and still expect us to kiss your feet. i won’t do it and neither will my husband”

your demons are right here and you’re scared out of your mind…your mother can tell.

“oh y/n, i can easily find you now. you can come back home with us or you’ll run away like you usually do. you’ll take the baby, leave your ‘husband’ all by himself, and remain the selfish person i’ve made you to be”

you’ve done it your whole life. running and pushing people away all because you were scared. you’re scared now and running away sounds so tempting but things have changed. you’ve changed.

you found someone who loves you, a place you can call home, and a family you’ll treat three times as better than your family did. you used to think you had to run away—that running would solve all your problems until you met jungkook.

you’re not running away anymore. you won’t.

“who said i was going to run? i’m not scared anymore, mom. i won’t miss you when you’re gone. in fact, i’ll be happy”

“he’s going to drive you crazy. he’s a killer. you saw the way he shot ji-cheol”

you shrug. “i’m used to crazy. i lived with you after all”

your mother slaps you across your face really hard. “YOU ARE A DISRESPECTFUL, WASTE OF—I SHOULD HAVE KILLED YOU WHEN YOU WERE BORN!!”

~🫧

red.

Before anyone of you can process what has happened, Jungkook steps up and pushes your birth giver really hard that she falls onto the ground.

“YOU FUCKING PATHETIC, OLD BITCH HOW DARE YOU SLAP MY YN LIKE THAT?! HAVE SOME SHAME SHE’S PREGNANT!” Everyone is now watching the scene, shocked gasps fill the room, “I wish you died when you gave birth to her! WHY DON’T YOU DIE HUH!?”

Your father tries to step in but jungkook immediately pushes him away too. “NO ONE TOUCHES THE MOTHER OF MY CHILDREN AND GETS AWAY WITH IT! THE ONLY THING YOU EVER DID RIGHT WAS GIVING BIRTH TO HER YOU PATHETIC BITCH!”

Jungkook starts to laugh, “oh no, I’m not a killer yet, but I will become one after I kill every single one of you for hurting her! SHE CAN BE WITH THAT ABUSER, BUT SHE CAN’T BE WITH ME?! YOU GUYS ARE NOT PARENTS BUT YOU ARE THE SPAWN OF THE DEVIL!”

“so you’d rather watch your daughter, be abused by her pathetic ex but not be loved by me? YN YOU ARE THE UNLUCKIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE WORST PARENTS!”

After insulting your parents to the core, he focuses his attention back onto his mother.

The one he loved so much.

“And YOU. You are not my mother anymore, Mrs Jeon! HOW DARE YOU BAIL OUT HER PARENTS?” He screams, going insane as he pulls you back to his side.

His mother has broken his heart into pieces. “AND THE TRUTH IS MRS LN THAT YOU MADE YOUR DAUGHTER A RUNNER!” He glares at your mother, scoffing.

“Let me guess- you bailed out JI-CHEOL too.” This is so humiliating, your parents are actually the most fucked up people in the world, but his parents are no less.

“You should be ashamed of yourself for wishing death on your pregnant daughter- YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BE A GRANDMOTHER TO OUR DAUGHTER! AND MOM YOU TOO!”

His mother wanted to make a scene and humiliate you. so now he will make a scene that nobody will forget And humiliate her and your parents.

“EVERYONE LOOK AT THIS PATHETIC FAMILY! THESE PEOPLE SUPPORT ABUSE OF THEIR DAUGHTER WHO IS WITH ME NOW BY THE HANDS OF HER EX-BOYFRIEND!”

[anachronistic-falsehood]

SENDING THIS TO U BEFORE I FORGET FEEL FREE TO ANSWER WHENEVER U FEEL LIKE IT <3 talk 2 me about dstuck sam thief of heart and ponk sylph of mind the floor is yours king

OUGHGUGHH. OK. ALRIGHT. OK. UYEAH

okkk alright. csam. VERY heart player negative class vibes for me. like he’s more dirk strider than cwilbur is to me tbh he’s SOOOOO self obsessed but also hates himself. he’s surrounded by himself and reminders of himself constantly and it’s all self inflicted. he has all these different identities so he doesn’t have to face himself. the hotel and sam nook. the prison and the warden. the egg and sam bucket. he hates himself but he just doesn’t want to show it.

thieves wear figurative masks. meenah is a BADASS COOL GIRL!! and vriska?? i mean *gestures vaguely* LOOK at her. feelings?? what are those!!! thieves also have a self imposed lack of their own aspect, or at least feel like they do when they actually could have an abundance of it if they tried: meenah killed herself and the other dancestors, ridding themselves of their lives, and vriska insists that she’s the most unlucky person ever when actually!! most of her “8ad luck” is a result of her own actions!!! IT’S ALWAYS SELF IMPOSED!!! Sam brought ALL OF THIS on HIMSELF! he invested himself in the role of Warden and as a result did horrible things that he normally wouldn’t have done if he just remained as AweSamDude, your friendly neighborhood redstone guy!! (putting the rest under a cut bc SURPRISE!! this is getting long)

ok. Heart players. now the heart aspect has been very dirk-ified in canon so it’s easy to ignore the opposite end of the spectrum, which is represented by the Leijons. they’re very positive!! while they both have negative classes, Meulin with one that leads to a lack of the aspect in the player themself, and Nepeta with a reallocating class (takes and gives, so rogue or thief) but the way they handle these classes is so different. mages and rogues kind of provide others with their aspect in many ways. thieves…. don’t. thieves are black holes. they suck up their aspect and leave nothing behind in return. which can be good if you’re a thief of doom of something!! but a thief of heart??? girl you’re hurting everyone around you and it’s so so tragic.

and yet sam (and dirk!! and cwilbur!!!) still reflects some qualities of the leijons. he cares. he cares so so so much. the difference is that nep and meulin don’t let their hearts consume them. they work in tandem with their aspect. thieves and princes and bards don’t. they CAN’T. and that’s what differentiates a thief from a rogue. rogues give their aspects to other people and use their aspect for the benefit of others. thieves see their own detriment of their aspect and hoard it, never using it, never giving it away, until they’re buckling under the weight. for a thief of heart, they bear the weight of every single action they’ve done and take it to heart, convince themself that they’ve either a) done something so amazing and they’re the MOST WONDERFUL THING ON THE PLANET and become so self centred they end up tearing apart their session, or b) done something so terrible, so unforgiving, that they can’t possibly be anything but an irredeemable monster. that’s Sam. he can never redeem himself, so he might as well lean into the awful things he’s done, right? might as well play the villain. because if he can’t be good, what else is he supposed to be???

ALRIGHT. CPonk my cponk <3 sylph of mind. yeah i picked sylph because of the fact that they’re canonically a doctor and that is SUCH A SYLPH THING TO DO!!! going out of their way to become the only person on the server who can help heal people should the need arise!!! sylphs fix things, that’s their whole schtick. they help, they heal, they fix. Ponk was one of the last people on Schlatt’s side in Manberg. they were so determined to help fix it and take care of Schlatt’s deteriorating health. sylphs are LITERALLY the definition of “i can fix him” IT’S INSANE. babygirl you’re trying your best but it’s at the determinant of yourself TAKE A BREAK!!!

“but WHISKEY wasn’t cpuffy a therapist?? why isn’t she a sylph???” I HEAR YOU!! but guess what?? Puffy knew when to quit. she shut down the therapuffy office because no one was using it anymore. she never saw much success from it from the get go. She focused her efforts on protection and defence instead of healing and help. Ponk stuck with it. And Ponk stuck with Sam, after everything. They confronted him multiple times about what happened between them but they still hung out with him. They still talked to him. They still cared, despite everything. They never stopped trying to make Sam see the error of his ways. They never stop trying to fix him, even when Sam insisted that the only way for him to atone for his actions would be for him to die. (Idk how much of Ponk’s lore you’ve seen, but there’s a scene after the prison breakout when Ponk confronts Sam again and Sam puts a sword in Ponk’s hands and tells them to kill him and Ponk refuses IT DRIVES ME INSANE. HI. THE TRAGEDY OF AWESAMPONK. AUGHHHH). Sylphs help others to their own detriment, Kanaya trying to auspisticize between anyone and everyone even though it hurt her, and Aranea trying to fix the timeline and accidentally sending it all up in flames.

MIND PLAYER. MIND PLAYER PONK. Ponk’s aspect ties in soooo well with their class. Mind players revolve around the consequences of the choices of people around them. Basically KARMA IS A BITCH AND HER NAME IS CPONK BABEYYY!!! Remember the fuckign banquet. That was cponk’s justice in a lot of ways. In a server that beat them down and hurt them when they tried to help, this was them trying to stand up and take something back, even if it was motivated by the egg. But still, they didn’t kill anyone. That’s the difference between a sylph and a seer, i think. Terezi killed Vriska because she Vriska hurt people, and she foresaw that Vriska would continue to hurt people. Sam’s actions hurt so many people, including himself, but Ponk tried to help him, and even their revenge ended up being nothing more than a scare that lead to the death of a person who hadn’t even wronged them, and they weren’t the one who brought down the blade anyway. Yes, Kanaya killed, but it was in defence. Sylphs rarely seem to kill for revenge purposes

Ponk is more often than not an observer. They stand by and watch people’s actions play out and. witness the consequences, and then step in when things get dicey. Ponk got their arm cut off trying to find out more about the prison, the corruption behind it and the way it functioned. They could tell Sam was getting consumed by the prison and his role as the Warden. it cost them a life but they were trying to dig into a suspicious corrupt system to help someone they cared about. A Sylph of Mind tracks the results of other people’s actions and tries to fix them. They try to build up the damage from its broken pieces, even if the shards cut their own hands.

[nebulousfishgills]

let's talk about Diplopia!

what prompted you to write it initially? How did you come up with the idea to have them cross into another dimension? Why Twilight and not another of JCB's roles, like Shadowhunters or Sweeney Todd?

would you write another universe-crossing fic like that, either still with JCB or with other actors?

what was your favorite chapter or scene to write in Diplopia? Was there a scene you especially struggled with? Did writing it come in bursts of inspiration or a continuous stream of motivation? Or with the idea, was it a bolt of inspiration or a gradual build?

If, instead of Emily, you'd chosen to create a new OC to complement Caius, what characteristics would you give them? (Emily is fantastic and I love how she works into the story, but I'm curious to see what a "from scratch" Twilight OC would look like)

Do you like Emily's relationship with Henry or Caius better? Which relationship does SHE like better? Does she ever regret leaving Henry behind? If she were to encounter another of their "doppelgangers" (Jace Wayland, Anthony Hope), would she consider a relationship there too?

Ah yes, the strangest thing I've ever written that turned into one of my most complex fics to date... yes, let's absolutely talk about it! Thanks for the ask!

There will be more shitposts because I want to share my stupidity.

How it Began

I think most people know that I hadn't ever planned on touching Twilight with a thirty nine and a half foot pole. I'd grown up hearing about how god awful it was and that it had no redeeming qualities. For god's sake, the final battle never even actually happened! What are the stakes?? What's the point??

Then, of course, Summer of 2022 comes along and we all know what came with it. The further I fell down that rabbit hole, I came to realize that the pretty (fucked up) blonde I was starting to get eyes for... also happened to be in Twilight, among other things. I told myself, quote, "I'm not breaking my No Twilight streak over this."

Then, my roommate and I made the executive decision to celebrate our first week of college by watching Twilight since neither of us ever had. That was a very strange week and I remember having mixed emotions watching all five movies... the main one I remember was watching New Moon and then realizing that this is where that one meme came from:

Fast forward to that Sunday, I had finished Breaking Dawn (roommate dropped out after New Moon, I don't blame them) and was ready to move on with my life. But of course I can't leave well-enough alone. I was talking with a friend over snapchat about just how awful the movies were, providing examples such as the horrid cgi used when Caius' fake death happens and the Denali's rip his jaw off (I'll spare you the imagery). This friend knew about Emily and was very enthusiastic about her, and that's when this happened:

So that's how it was born. A friend from high school theatre gave me the idea, and it all went back to the arson. In fact, she gave me the idea for the fact that Emily had red eyes at this point in time could be a consideration.

The very original idea I had was a lot less serious and more goofy than it actually ended up being. In fact, one of my very first incarnations of the idea was essentially akin to (and this is such a niche reference) the Goof Off from that one episode of My Little Pony where Pinkie Pie and Weird Al try to one up each other to win over Rainbow Dash to prove who's the better Party Pony:

Except, of course, it's Caius and Henry trying to one-up each other to impress Emily. A flower, new clothes, human souls, arson, you get the picture. And Eddie was always going to be there to bear witness to this insanity, keeping essentially a tally of who was "winning" this asenine contest.

Of course, however, a fic like this needed research. I know, it wasn't supposed to be taken super seriously and I could have probably gotten away with using the bare minimum characterization and knowledge the movies gave me, but I don't know how to half ass fics. So, I just opened the wikis and started reading. The information I discovered was... actually a lot more fascinating than I had expected. In fact it taught me more than I had thought to ask.

I remember laughing stupidly hard at Marcus' "death" because I genuinely thought he was just so over everyone's shit that he was like "thank fuck get me away from these weirdos" but NO, this dude's story is so fucking tragic I sort of feel bad for finding that scene as funny as I do. That, and I realized that my central focus, Caius, was just a, quote, "Trigger Happy Wife Guy" who just wasn't fully realized... which of course brought up said wife, but that's a later issue.

Armed with more knowledge, I needed to figure out how this was supposed to go. I couldn't just plop Henry, Emily, and Eddie in Volterra and have this pseudo Goof Off without rhyme or reason. How did we get there, how did this happen, why did this happen, and so on.

I can't put into words how far this fell from my original dumb idea. I repeatedly say even now that the original joke got lost in translation along the way. The primary source of comedy was supposed to be these two guys with almost identical faces fighting over Emily... and then that posed the question. Why would Emily even consider Caius at all? It's a contest of who's in theory the better lover, but why would Emily give Caius any thought other than the uncanny resemblance and maybe the shallow, superficial gifts he could give her?

Answering this question in the place where all my big writing ideas come from (the shower) could arguably be considered my biggest mistake/triumph.

She and Henry had to get into some kind of fight.

It took me a while to figure out what that was about, but eventually the 'joke' helped me figure it out. Diplopia (I was always proud of the cleverness of the title. It's the medical term for having double vision/seeing double) takes place after the events of Stranger Things 4, so by all rights Henry should look like Vecna, right? No, because then the joke wouldn't land the same way. So, you know, for the sake of the story I came up with an explanation. Consuming enough human souls allowed Henry to shed this gross, viney, fleshy skin, which probably meant Emily not only had to work double time to help the effort, but give up sustenance she could have used. Then it all just fell into place, her insecurities about her own Upside-Down modifications, some simmering issues in their relationship they hadn't dealt with, all that shit.

And suddenly pure comedy turned into an angsty valliant effort on Henry's part to win Emily back because he accidentally fucked up. There are still elements of the original idea in the fic, the gifts Caius gives Emily when she's giving Henry the silent treatment, and the tally board Eddie uses is seen when they're trying to figure out how Henry can fix his oopsie...

Which leads me to the fact that the very original one shot I had uploaded to my Stranger Things one-shots book on Wattpad had a different ending.

(Side note, my character arc has been all but abandoning Wattpad except as a means to store drafts. Friendship ended with Wattpad, now AO3 is my new best friend. It only took so long because of interface familiarity; I stopped reading any fics on there aside from my friends' years ago)

Originally, Emily realized all the effort Henry was going through to make her happy again was proof he was the one who knew her the best, her perfect match despite the fact that Caius provided her things she could also find the appeal in... and then I decided to be cheeky and say the entire one shot was a vision Emily had like how Breaking Dawn 2 ended. Armed with foresight, she could decline Caius' offer for them to stay for dinner and she and her two companions could just go home.

So I posted it and left it alone for about... three months.

Then I watched Breaking Dawn 2 again with, actually, @ohitshoneybee and before I knew it, I felt the familiar horrible tendrils forming.

A new hyperfixation.

Of course, before this I had once in a while thought about what would have happened if Emily had just... decided to stay with Caius, but I never went much further with it than small ideas. But NOPE, my stupid ass decided to write a whole continuation that went through all the movies just to see how they would change if Emily became a factor. That became a small winter break project, writing what I called "The Director's Cut" and posting it to an untagged story on Wattpad because originally I just wanted close friends to read it.

This allowed me to get more extensive and creative with the lore. I had The Wife Problem to deal with, sure, but I fixed that quickly and then could proceed with fully weaving Emily into this... frankly mediocre story and making my own improvements (namely trying to make Bella seem less... you know, flat faced and stupid by making her knowledgable about Hawkins, for example). Now Emily could wreck shop and I could get revenge on the franchise that had begun to ruin my life by taking a fat piss on it and putting my OC into it to make it better.

That original version of the longer story had multiple endings, like video games. A Bad Ending, A Neutral Ending, and a Good Ending. The Bad Ending was basically if Alice's vision was a reality and Emily really had lost Caius, the asshole she gave up everything for... it doesn't end well for anyone, lemme tell you. The Neutral Ending was the closest to the movie, the entire battle being a vision and the Volturi just walk away (not without complaints from Emily and Caius of course)... and then because I really wanted to be an asshole, suddenly Emily woke up back in the Upside Down, none of it having ever happened in the first place.

Once I finished the full story, I waited a bit and then decided I'd be brave and not only upload it to Archive of Our Own, but clean it up and try my hand at smut since I figured I was about to turn 19 and I'd wanted to put on big girl shoes for a while at that point... of course it had to be this fic, but you know. I chose to just use my original Good Ending since I had always viewed that as the "canonical" ending, with the Volturi kicking Cullen ass.

So, now here we are, several months later, and I have a sequel in the works. What started as an idea for a comedy one shot has now become arguably my most notable fanfic series with emotional gut punches and general weirdness.

And that's that.

So, that was a lot, but let's keep going with your other questions.

Why Caius?

I can't really provide an honest reason that sounds clever or complex. It's not like I spent hours deciding to go this route out of several others. I suppose the least complicated way to put it is just that Twilight was my first step into branching out to Jamie's other works and the idea grew because of that specifically. Diplopia was always written to make fun of Twilight and because I noticed that both Caius and Emily had this shared trait of liking fire. That's literally it.

Also I think one of the other reasons was the slowly budding desire to expand upon these characters that Stephenie Meyer, frankly, half assed. I've had the discussion with many people about the wasted potential these characters had and how I, in particular, take offense to it beyond the superficial reason that I think Jamie's more talented than such a one note character like Caius was written like displays.

The Volturi is literally a coven of dramatic, theatre kid, art and science nerds that also happen to enforce vampire laws. Since they stand in opposition to the Cullens, naturally that makes them The Bad Guys since what kind of Monster would stand in the way of Bella's happiness? So why should they get any depth?

Thing is, the few traits Meyer gave to the Volturi are traits that describe me exactly. She created the bones for characters that seem specifically curaited to me and my tastes. So their lack of depth and information bothers me excessively because I want to know more and she won't give me that information.

I'm serious, this is part of Caius' page in the Official Guide Book she wrote herself

"Sometime before 1300 BC" "Unknown" "Unknown" Ma'am this is your official guide book that has everything one needs to know about your series, you can fill in these unknown dates! Not to mention the utter lack of respect she gives the wives. They get ONE sentence, and it just says who they're married to.

Stephenie Meyer, you named Caius' wife after Athena (side note, always been my favorite of the Greek Pantheon, another reason I feel a very strong connection with these characters), she's obviously a badass, not a trophy wife who gets high.

A pet project I wanna start is to write my own guide book about the Volturi using the bones she gave, but adding my own ideas, giving these characters depth, including ideas from fics and blogs that also feel the same way as I do.

All this to say, aside from the main reason I gave, I chose Caius because, in a sense, he and his wacky, weird coven chose me. I feel very protective over these characters and I want to give them their dues. I don't claim to be the ultimate say in this since I'm a baby in the fandom and others have wonderful ideas I subscribe to, not the other way around. But still.

Other Universes?

I don't want to rule out the possibility, but Diplopia/Necrosis really feels like a one-of-a-kind phenomenon. I don't think the same effect could be felt if, say, they ran into Alicent Hightower for some reason.

(Ironic, considering I did actually find a fic shipping Alicent with the Three Stooges Kings... unfortunately it's written in Spanish soooo...)

This has been a trope I've liked to at least play with a little bit in the past, though. I remember a long time ago I thought it'd be a funny idea if my Avengers OC ran into Thomas Sharpe from Crimson Peak, a character played by Tom Hiddleston aka Loki (who she's shipped with). I never did anything with it beyond a few texts with a friend discussing the idea of Olivia and Edith duking it out.

However as of right now, I don't really forsee another forray into the Doppleganger Crossover realm anytime soon.

The Actual Writing

Favorite Scene/Chapter - Honestly I love many scenes in this fic for many different reasons. There was a certain satisfaction that came with writing Henry and Emily's big arguement and inserting Emily into the events of the actual series was wildly fun.

Although I think my favorite scenes to write in this story are as of yet unpublished scenes in its sequel, Necrosis, that I can't talk about for spoiler reasons but have been written because I'm impatient. There are two chapters in particular there that I'm immensely proud of, one where Emily is a complete girlboss and the immediate aftermath where she has a long talk with another character about her past, why she did what she did in the previous chapter, and her feelings about everything she's done as a whole, it's a very touching scene...

That's probably cheating, though, so for the sanctity of the question, I think my favorite scene in Diplopia is either the scene where the secretary has to find plane tickets to get the coven to the Cullens and the computer is infuriating everyone or the scene where Caius and Emily are talking, ah, "post coitus" about their pasts and, specifically, what happened to Athenodora.

Struggles - The smut, for one, since I'd never written smut to actually post before, and I hadn't even written anything smutty at all in a very long time. I'm getting more comfortable with it since it's something I want to include in my writing, this one in particular. It just takes me a whiiiiiile to hype myself up enough to do it. Plus, I know there's the question of whether smut is "necessary for the plot," but trust me, for Necrosis in particular any spicy scenes are important. The reason why will become more obvious as the story progresses.

Also, writing Henry and Emily's goodbye was extremely hard. I'm very protective of them and their relationship and it's something that's very important to me. I think the goodbye made the situation more real to me. I wanted to do it because then I could move on to the fun stuff later in the story, but that scene was very hard on me emotionally. I suppose that brings up the question as to why I did this in the first place, but the only real answer I can give is "shits and giggles." I'm not ashamed to admit I was crying while writing it, and the fact that "Slipping Through My Fingers" from Mamma Mia happened to come up on my shuffle while it was happening...

Motivation - The motivation was strange for sure. Nine times out of ten when I write my fics the motivation to write comes in bursts after days or even weeks being absent. Diplopia was no different. I remember it took me a while to get the original one shot done, but that wasn't necessarily a motivation issue, more like a... "once I go through with this, I can't go back, I'll have officially written Twilight fanfiction" and it was... kind of a battle to come to terms with that, and then overcoming my motivation wave.

This also brings up how I plan my fics... usually I don't plan aside from mentally, but for this one, once I decided to go full send on the Director's Cut, I knew I had to somewhat shape what I wanted to do and have it written down. So I started my trend of writing long messages to myself on a Discord server with only me in it devoted to sending myself stuff or writing down ideas. There are pages worth of notes on Diplopia and Necrosis in there. And when I get more ideas, I just add to it. The idea train never stops with me.

Emily vs. Another OC

Being honest, there were a few times where I had an errant thought or two about coming up with a whole new OC to ship with Caius aside from Emily. I never went anywhere with it other than an idea or two about a backstory or a personality, though, and I don't plan on going further than that. Here's why.

By far, Emily is my most developed, well-rounded OC. As a Twilight OC, she has an entire, fully fleshed out backstory that comes from her "past" as a Stranger Things OC. She works incredibly well as a match for Henry, but she's also very compatable with Caius. My ability to ship her with both of them very seamlessly just feels natural and my best route to go with. For all intents and purposes, Emily is my OC for Twilight just as much as she is my OC for Stranger Things.

The only thing I can think of that makes her Stranger Things ties... we'll say stronger is that she can exist as a Stranger Things character without her additional Twilight lore, but she cannot exist as a Twilight OC without at the very least her base level Stranger Things lore...

I say "base level" and I mean basically everything up until she meets Henry (so her mother giving her up, her shitty orphanage she eventually runs away from etc). I have another one shot planned where Emily manages to avoid the trauma of HNL entirely and skips right to Italy with Caius... and an additional detail but that's another conversation.

So, wouldn't it be easier to come up with a whole new OC without those Hawkins ties?

Well, maybe, but the thing is that she wouldn't be nearly as developed as I would like. And I feel like at a certain point she'd just feel like Emily, just without the baggage. It's just not in my interest to do such a thing.

However.

There are some ideas that I have that just don't quite work with Emily. She's so developed that there are things that just aren't in character for her. Her personality and presence is so unique that at a certain point there's no room for additional base level nuance. She can only change slightly with a "hypothetical" character development, and emphasis on the "slightly."

But you know who could benefit from this base level nuance that Emily can't use? Who is in desperate need of some filling to her character?

Athenodora.

Let's get something clear, Thena is Stephenie Meyer's character, I'm not saying I'm just straight up stealing her character and calling it an OC. But remember how I said I wanted to make it a project to expand upon these near empty husks of characters with my own ideas and headcanons?

All the traits I can't use with Emily I could in theory give to my revamp (no pun intended) of Athenodora. I mentioned a few asks ago how I had a one shot idea cooking that doesn't involve Emily. That one shot is basically going to be me writing out Athenodora's story. Who she was before, where she came from, how she was turned, how she met Caius, and so on. All the stuffing that could have gone into a half assed OC can be added to Thena, a character with bones who needs meat.

So, tl;dr, Emily is the defacto Twilight OC for me, but any and all energy that I could hypothetically put into a from-scratch character would be much better utilized in giving substance to a character that needs it much more.

Team Henry vs. Team Caius

Oh boy! Well, this is the real question for sure. I knew at some point I'd be asked for my opinion on the matter. And after a long, hard debate with myself, my answer is...

I can't pick.

I know, it's such a cop-out answer, but I genuinely cannot decide who's the better match for Emily at the end of the day. It's a cliché but it's like asking me to pick a favorite child. They both have pros and cons, and it's a completely subjective opinion based on the individual which of those pros and cons hold more weight. For example, I know you seem to prefer Emily with Henry for any number of reasons, meanwhile my best friend has a certain preference for her being with Caius for other reasons.

In an ironic twist, this is my Team Edward or Team Jacob in more than just the love triangle object. When it came to Bella, Jacob was the childhood friend who came with what was familiar and Edward was the vampire who came with the family that Bella had lacked to a certain degree.

Sound familiar?

For me, my preference changes with my mood on the situation, and that mood can change in seconds, back and forth.

Sometimes I re-read His Tenebris Moenibus or the other associated one shots and I feel like the absolute worst for taking away, quote, "the only thing [Henry's] ever loved" and how he wants to reshape the world for both of them just so he can make Emily truly happy because of that love he has for her. And I made her break it off with this man because I got the urge to create chaos?? The trauma bonding, the shared goals and ideas, the willingness to literally destroy the world for each other, it's endearing.

And then I take a look at the other side of things. I sometimes forget the base level circumstances as to how this happened in the first place because, to me, Emily falling in love with Caius also has a certain natural way about it. It feels like a legitament, viable option. Similar to Emily and Henry, they're damaged individuals who help each other essentially patch each other up. I think the only reason this fact can fall through is the fact that I just haven't been able to show just how badly Thena's death had affected Caius before Emily showed up since one, the aforementioned under-developing of their characters and relationship by proxy, and two, it's very hard to not only create that from scratch, but blend that in when I have to balance so many other more important plot threads.

Not only that, but as I said, Caius came with a family, something Emily's been without but secretly longed for. She has so many siblings and friends, "more than [she] know[s] what to do with," who help support her and provide a different sort of love to her. Aro's her strange older brother who she fights with, sure, but also sees somewhat of herself in (namely the fact that they're both batshit insane at times and have... spotty pasts). Sulpicia's her matronly sister who in many ways is a rock for Emily to keep her from going too wild, but also can act as another woman who can understand her. Marcus is... just there, unfortunately. He has his own issues and typically Emily's too haywire to pay much attention to him.

And the Guard of course! Her relationship with Jane is I think what Emily wanted her relationship with Eleven to be like. Even if Jane is much older technically, their older/younger sister type bond is incredibly special to Emily, Alec is just a bonus. And we have characters like Heidi, who help Emily branch out and be her own unique self or even yet unseen dynamics with Felix or Demetri. It's a whole support system and Caius is just the cherry on top, someone who genuinely cares for her and wants her to be her best self... even if they light things on fire along the way.

Now as for what Emily thinks...

I think like me, she's not entirely sure who she truly prefers at the end of the day. She knows and understands everything that I said a second ago, just much more personally which makes it an even harder choice.

What I do know is that she never regrets the relationships she had with either of them. She knows they both provided things she needed and she helped them in her own ways as well. Though, and I've said this before, when Emily's with Caius, a small part of her always will long for Henry because of the fact that she's essentially frozen in time still feeling that love for him. Nothing is going to change that. So by proxy sometimes she feels regret for leaving him, but that's not mutually exclusive to also regreting her relationship with Caius. She can regret leaving Henry while also being very happy as she is with Caius at the same time.

Caius also knows that Emily has this deep seeded love and longing for Henry and he will never ever try to erase that. He knows how much Henry meant to her and will never ever say Emily should never have been with Henry. He knows she loves him, and she also loves Henry. He can live with that.

I can't exactly speak on Henry's feelings since I don't exactly know what they are. That's not me just avoiding the question. Since I don't have season 5 to guide me, I don't know how his story wraps up. It seems odd considering this is fanfiction so why should I care about canon, but I feel like I need to know how Henry's story wraps up in season 5 so I know how it wraps up when Emily is with him, and then I have to remove her from that new equation. I'm making it harder than it needs to be, but that's how my brain is choosing to operate.

At least in part though, he feels like if she's happy, then he's happy. In a way, he did give her happiness like he promised, now that I think of it that way.

Some other possible Jamie Variants?

As I said, this story was very curaited to pitting Caius against Henry because that's just how it developed from the start. But I have thought about this question a little bit since clearly Emily Has A Type, so why shouldn't we think about Jamie's other characters?

I think the next most likely candidate would be Jace. Personality wise, he and Emily have similarities. Their snark, their I'll say off-putting demeanors, among other things. That, and their aesthetics are similar. Emily's got tattoos and dresses alternatively, same as Jace. Plus, I think Emily would also be Jace's type since Emily and Clary have some similar traits like their red hair colors and brown eyes.

The primary problem I see with this is kind of a big one, though. Jace is a part-angel demon hunter. Emily is quite literally, for all intents and purposes, a demon. It would make for an interesting variant of the "two lovers on opposing sides of a war" trope, but that seems like a reaaaaaalllllly hard thing to bypass... oh but goddammit Emily as a Shadowhunter sounds like such a badass concept.

SHIT

I'm gonna move on.

Sweet little Anthony Hope I feel like is a much lower candidate. Emily doesn't quite fit in his world, nor does Anthony fit in hers. Emily's far too much of a psychotic bitch for him. Plus, this would have to be like, a younger version of Emily since in Diplopia (our baseline), she's 38, a whole 20 years Anthony's senior. That, and there would also have to be time travel used since Sweeney Todd takes place 159 years before that. I shouldn't really factor in these logical aspects since nothing about Diplopia was logical in the first place, but I can't help consider it.

They don't seem that compatable to me. Anthony should just stick with Johanna.

This one is more for fun, but let's analyze Kit Marlowe. I'll get the obvious out of the way, but there's a slim chance Kit would even be looking in Emily's direction in the first place. If we bypass that, I feel like if we put these characters on a spectrum of hypothetical compatability, Kit would be somewhere in the middle. He and Emily have some similarities, but I feel like if they spent too long with each other, they'd butt heads often. Emily's clingy and Kit pushes people away. That's not very conducive to a good relationship. But they do have a shared interest in more macabre things and both see themselves as damned and irredeemable creatures.

If I'm being honest, the most likely outcome for this, provided Kit is willing to have relations with women in the first place, is a friends with benefits situation more than anything.

In fact, let's have fun. If we put Henry and Caius on a shelf and let Emily play the bachelorette, we have a very clear cut game of Fuck, Marry, Kill for her. None of the options are perfect like with most games of FMK, but if we really break it down, Emily would...

Fuck Kit, Marry Jace, Kill Anthony

But I feel like now is a good time to mention that at certain spots in Diplopia and Necrosis, you can see small influences and references to these other characters.

Emily mentioned a girl from Saint Valentina's that she lit the mattress of on fire. Her name was Clarissa and she "thought she was basically an angel" which is me referencing Clary, and Jace by proxy.

This one is more loose, but to a certain degree, on Caius' part, I feel like in his mind there's a certain "I'll steal you, Johanna" element to how he feels when first meeting Emily. You can take that as you wish, but Johanna was the first "Every Breath You Take" regardless of who's singing it, iconic and adorable as that scene is.

Lastly, this is moreso in Necrosis, but I very specifically call out how in one scene Caius is wearing a black dress pants and a black Elizabethan blouse that was open in the front with his hair slightly wavy and touching his shoulders. This is me describing Kit Marlowe in essence, specifically that scene when he's talking to Will about ambitions and then they kiss (jcbbby would know what scene I mean for sure). Frankly, the Twilight budget was strained when it came to wigs, especially in Breaking Dawn for the Volturi, but to me, if you made Kit's hair Targaryen silver-blonde and he had the red eyes of course, that's my ideal Caius, full stop.

In a few ways I tried to make Diplopia/Necrosis a sort of melting pot for Jamie characters, some elements more subtle than the others, so if you really think about it Emily gets to have all these characters.

And all of this is without mentioning the fact that Emily is also attracted to women, but that's a conversation for another day.

***

Phew, that was a lot! Thanks for the ask and I hope this isn't too exhaustive of a read!

[sapphire-weapon]

IM SO GLAD I FOUND YOUR BLOG IVE BEEN TRYING TO FIND SOMEONE WHO FEELS THE SAME WAY ABOUT AEON.

I only became an avid RE fan around RE7 release so I��m not too in depth in like all the lore but from what I do know and as someone who used to like Aeon a lot, it does ruin their characters (especially Ada’s by a lot) and I have to be honest unless they actually add some depth to Ada in the future, there’s no hope for her character. She’s clearly a terrorist, there’s literally no redeeming quality for her other than she’s hot.

I honestly have no idea why Leon is so obsessed with her considering he knows nothing about her (I know they supposedly met up in damnation or something but it’s implied she left the same night and probably blue balled him) anyways the entire thing with her makes Leon appear like an idiot that never learns.

RE6 was so badly written for Leon’s character like suddenly she shows up and he suddenly becomes a child and she’s in charge. Made some sense in RE2 but in 4 it makes no sense for Leon to act like he’s an incompetent rookie after he’s literally one of the US’s best agents. Neither does her condescending attitude make sense as it’s obvious Leon could probably murder her ass if it comes down to it. It would make more sense if she would have changed her attitude to one of professional respect, without all the patronising flirting.

And like… Ada’s motives are still a mystery after all this time and what we know about her doesn’t make sense. Ada is clearly a better person than the people she works for but she chooses this line of work. She seems to have a different objective than her employers but we don’t know what it is. She doesn’t seem to secretly have a plan to take over the world like Wesker did. She probably just does it for the thrills.

but anyways i honestly would have no problem with aeon if they were actually fleshed out more? especially Ada’s character, I wish she wasn’t just a tool for Leon’s storyline and was actually a character of her own.

Fleshing out the relationship would kill it, though. Like, I've said this before, but I feel like if Ada got to know Leon better in terms of what his day-to-day habits and personality were like, she'd probably like him a whole lot less. She only ever sees Leon at his very best and in his element. She doesn't get to see the fact that he hasn't done laundry in like three weeks or that he unironically still listens to Metallica or the collection of empty whiskey bottles that he's been amassing on his kitchen counter over time or the fact that he probably spends a disproportionate amount of time shitposting on the internet while he has Casino on in the background for the third time this week because he has literally nothing else going on in his life.

If Leon actually had his shit together and respected himself more, Aeon would make more sense. But, because Capcom refuses to pay enough attention to Ada to give her flaws -- much less the same amount of flaws that they've given Leon -- it just seems like he's chasing after a girl who's way out of his league because there's a non-zero chance that his good looks will carry him to the finish line between her legs, because there's no reason for anyone to believe that it's his winning personality that would get him anywhere close to it on its own.

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

Lasso of truth! Byakuya, what are your favorite things about everyone?

Gugh...Alright fine...

I've always been rather envious of Makoto's tenacity and his unwillingness to give up even in the bleakest of times. It feels like the one thing he could do that I could not, and I don't know if I'll ever match it. Kyoko is one of few people who I think can match me in intellect and observation. Even back when we first met, I did always think she was cunning. Dangerously so, in fact.

Hina has an enviable passion, and it stuns me how she can both be so upbeat and positive, but also knows her limits and is realistic when she needs to be. She doesn't live in her own fantasy like most people and is serious about everything she does.

Hiro...Geh...I suppose I can compliment Hiro on trying to get out of his diseased mindset of money and scamming, as well as how he's strong for his friends and family. Other than that, that man unfortunately doesn't have many redeeming qualities.

I don't keep it a secret that I've never been really fond of Toko. However, since she joined up with Komaru and got off my back a little, I came to respect her more as a person. Especially as of late, when she's trying to keep everyone together despite how it's weighing on her too.

Sayaka has a near unshakeable willpower and a strong dedication to fix everyone's problems and right her own wrongs. Even though her past weighs heavily on her, she remains standing. Leon isn't the brightest bulb in the box, but he's capable and strong. He's not the slacker everyone thinks he is. Give him a task, and he'll do whatever his limits allow him.

Chihiro's intellect and digital smarts have gotten us out of scrapes more times than I can count on my hands. Honestly, had it not been for him, we would have lost to Junko a long time ago...And I admit, it makes me feel...indifferent about what I did to his body during the Killing Game.

Mondo is an oaf, there's no denying that, but he cares greatly about his friends and would do anything to protect them and make them happy. And that includes me. We definitely have issues with each other, but we can still make a decent team. Taka's actions don't always go the way he wants, but his heart is always in the right place with everything he says and does. Though his rants about effort get a little tiresome after a while, nothing he says is really wrong. If you're going to advocate a message, there are worse things to stand by.

Hifumi...as strange as his practices are to me, I admire his passion and creativity. His talents and his eye for detail are not wasted on him.

Sakura's strength is obviously something to be admired. But not only her literal strength, but her strength of heart as well. Back in the day, I could not fathom the idea that someone would be willing to take their own life for the sake of protecting the bonds between her friends. I severely underestimated her, and regret my assumptions even to this day.

And Mukuro...The decision to bring her back to life was not an ill one like we thought. Having someone like her on our side made our jobs at the Future Foundation so much easier...and it made me reconsider where the line between Hope and Despair really lies. I wouldn't have learned that if not for her, and I hope she's resting peacefully now, wherever she ended up.