#i just like. dont care enough about arguing with people >_> which is kind of important if you want to debate

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Elisabeth: das Musical (1992) [Elisabeth: the Musical]

Ayyyyyyyyy its been several months but Im BACK BABEY!!! Im not gonna be back for long though because Im not unemployed yet so I dont have the time to watch movies and write reviews about them all the time, but I do have the time to sit down every once in a while and write a little bit of this. which has been taking me several months now

Anyway, if you thought I wouldnt use this project as an excuse to rewatch my favorite musical, you would be very wrong >:)

Now, since this is my favorite musical you would probably think that writing a review would be easy, but because Ive basically been thinking about it nonstop for a few months, its caused me to have this giant buildup of thoughts, its kind of like theres a clogged faucet in my brain right now, to the point where I struggle to properly articulate any of them, especially if Im not being prompted somehow. Like it goes beyond vampire-autism at this point, its not enough to just invite me to talk about Elisabeth, you need to ask me specific questions (on that note, my askbox is always open <3)

So yeah, Im not going to go into a lot of detail but to make up for that, I will be talking about all different productions Ive seen so far in the order that I watched them in (all proshots because Im unfortunately very picky when it comes to my musical-recordings looking and sounding good lol)

The Vienna Production(s)

Thats referring to the original 1992 version, the 1998 version and the 2005 revival.

oughhhhhhh its so good, they really put everything into this one: beautiful songs, strong artistic direction, incredible social commentary, a portrayal of death that serves mad cunt, gay sex etc etc

My first experience with this musical went as follows: my mother bought me the 2001 Essen cd and just kinda put it (and a few other musical cds that dont matter) in my room while I wasnt there without telling me, because we were arguing and our relationship was pretty bad at the time, and it took me a while to listen to it, in part because I was mad at her and wanted to spite her (?) but also I didnt look at the cd cover very closely and for the longest time I thought it was about one of the british Elizabeths and I was like "tch. i dont care about some british queen, im not listening to that". And then one day I actually looked at it and saw that it was a Sissi-musical, which, I also didnt care about her at the time so that didnt really pique my interest either. A few days later I decided to look at the back of the cd cover which had all the song titles, and then I just kinda did that again every few days until I finally took the little booklet with the lyrics out of the case, read through them, and then at last listened to the songs. I do not know why I was doing like, regency-era courting rituals with this random cd, I have never done this before or since, but I did it this one time. And I really liked it so I would listen to it atleast once every day, usually in the mornings because I always wake up at 5am and I needed something to kill time before I had to leave at 7 lol

Theres only 16 songs on this cd and I think they do a decent job at 'summarizing' the story, but I could tell I was missing a lot (although I thought it was just dialogue at the time), and I was really curious about that but I didnt even try to find a proshot or a bootleg or look further into it because I didnt think I was going to find it because I thought it was super obscure because its. german. Idk, does anyone else kindof instinctually assume that every piece of media from your native country is some obscure bullshit that no one cares about (including other people from your native country) or is that just me? Whatever, despite me not looking further into it, I did eventually get the 2005 proshot recommended to me on youtube which is great, i love that google knows my every move and I love that I cant do anything about it. But for some reason I still needed that push to get me to actually watch it, and that push came in the form of a Diana: The Musical review. I watched it and then I read some of the comments and then I left my very own, very long comment where I compared it to Elisabeth: das Musical. Since I obviously hadnt seen either musical in full it was honestly probably pretty incoherent, but my main point was that it looks like Diana couldve really used some satire and social commentary elements similar to the ones present in Elisabeth, which I knew were there because the cd had Milch and Kitsch. Those songs are actually one of the things that I initially found very intriguing because they seemed so out of place among most of the other songs that are these very emotional and earnest ballads and duets, like Wie Du, Ich gehör nur mir, Elisabeth mach auf mein Engel, Ich will dir nur sagen, and Boote in der Nacht are more or less what I would expect from a Sissi-musical, and then Der letzte Tanz is more or less what I would expect from a Sissi-musical where death is a love interest, but Kitsch especially was such a wildcard in there.

Anyway, after I wrote that comment under the Diana: The Musical review, it occurred to me that I should probably watch Elisabeth: das Musical before I start writing needlessly long analyses in random comments sections. And then I thought to myself "oh! since these are both musicals about generally beloved royal women, it would be interesting if I watched both of them for the first time back to back and then maybe made a video essay comparing them" I decided to watch Diana first because what little I heard of the songs in that review sounded pretty bad so I wanted to get that out of the way first, and it was indeed bad, but I was still sure that there was enough there to make a video essay about, especially if Im comparing it to something else. And then I watched Elisabeth and it was so good that I was like "you know, I dont think i want to compare this to that other piece of shit" so I didnt write the video essay I wanted to write originally and started on something that was just about Elisabeth das Musical, which I also didnt end up writing because I usually have a low attentionspan and I struggle with writing alot, thats a big part of why these posts take me so long, along with the fact that I have a job now thats been sucking all the time and energy out of me like a cruel vampire

So yeah, the 2005 proshot was my first time properly experiencing this musical and I do think its a good introduction because things are explained a bit more and it feels like more of a cohesive story compared to the original one which feels more loose with less connective tissue; like, you can tell this musical was made the assumption that the aufience already knew about Elisabeth as a historical figure to some extent, which is fair enough but I missed out on three years of highschool history so I knew literally nothing, like Rudolf's suicide was a huge surprise to me. And it spared me the disappointment of watching the full musical for the first time without getting to hear my second favorite song, Wenn ich tanzen will. That being said, I do vastly prefer the 1992 version simply because the cast is the definition of perfection. I have yet to see or hear an actor that managed to do a better with Lucheni than Ethan Freeman, and ohhhhh you shouldve seen how insane I was about Uwe Kröger's Tod after I first watched that proshot

Of course I also loved Pia Douwes, Andreas Bieber and Else Ludwig but I just feel a little less strongly about them because I think they usually do a pretty good job casting Elisabeth, Rudolf and Sophie, whereas I feel like they struggle to cast actors for Lucheni and Tod that manage to live up to the original cast even a little. Its definitely less bad with Lucheni, the main issue I have with most of his actors besides Ethan Freeman is that none of them ever even try to do an italian accent (probably because they cant do a good one which is good, no accent is definitely better than a bad one in this case, but still) so all the italian bits of dialogue sound really unnatural imo. But with Tod its like, straightup i dont even know what on earth theyre trying to do most of the time, but it very rarely works for me.

Now, the eagle-eyed of you will have noticed that ive talked about the 1992 proshot and the 2005 proshot but not the 1998 proshot, even though I mentioned it at the very start of this section. Thats because i FUCKING HATE IT!!!!! No just kidding, its mostly the same as the 1992 production except it has the longer version of Nichts, nichts, gar nichts and the cast is a bit worse. Its actually kind of impressive because thinking back on it, I feel like literally every actor was just the slightly worse knockoff version, with the exception of Maya Harkvoort as Elisabeth. And thats not to say that theyre bad, I just like them less than the original cast and I dont think they make any interesting acting choices to make up for it. And then theres the guy who played der Tod, whose name I am not looking up because Im about to get mean and I'll feel less bad about that if I dont use his actual name. He just sounds so bad. Hes like Uwe Kröger from an alternate universe where he cant sing. And to be fair, Im pretty sure this is the same guy as the one who played Tod on the 1996 cd and hes literally unbearable on that one, so he has improved quite a bit, but it just wasnt enough.

I remember a while ago when all my Elisabeth-mutuals reblogged this gifset of 1998!Tod and I dont remember if I only liked it or if I reblogged it as well but whatever I did, I did it with gritted teeth because I had recently watched that proshot and hated his performance. Everyone was going #woa mama hes serving cunt and in my head I was just like "yeah, but hes not serving a good performance thoughhhhhhhh". Also, he literally looks and has a lot of the same mannerisms as uwe!Tod, I'd be gravely disappointed if he didnt serve cunt

So yeah, its not like, awful or anything but I think the 1998 proshot is really only worth watching if you wanna see Maya Harkvoort as Elisabeth but in a pre-2001-changes production

The 1999 Schevening Production

Now THIS is an awful Elisabeth production! I hated this fucker so much I didnt even bother rewatching it for this post. Fortunately I did write a little review of it immediately after watching it, so if you care about my fresh 1999 Schevening Production Thoughts, feel free to scrawl through the bog that is my blog to find it

The first (and pretty much only) thing that you need to know about this one is that they cut all of the political songs. So theres no Hass, no Jedem gibt er das Seine, no Milch im pretty sure, and definitely no Die Schatten werden länger Reprise. Honestly I might be missing a cut song or two here because they somehow managed to shave a whole half an hour off this thing. I would be impressed by how they managed to do that without rendering the story completely incomprehensible if I wasnt so busy being angry at the way they just completely gutted this musical. I dont even understand why they did it, the musical is SO MUCH obviously worse for it! Like, okay, I could kinda get it if they had just cut Hass since thats obviously the most uncomfortable song (i would think less of them for it, but I would get it, the takarazuka version does it too) but them cutting the other political songs is just baffling to me because its like. bro. its politics from the 1800s, how is that upsetting or discomforting nowadays?

Whatever, lets talk about some other stuff. The cast was mostly not remarkable enough for me to remember ~1 year later. Pia Douwes is here as Elisabeth and shes very good as always, thats kindof it. This version of Der Tod is the most aggressive and overtly antagonistic Ive seen, which was kinda interesting in the sense that Death is usually personified as a straightfoward villain and vienna!Tod was kind of a subversion of that and a little more complex and now this production is basically subverting the subversion, but I untimately wasnt all that into it

I remember initially quite enjoying the sets and overall style of this production, Im pretty sure in my original review I said something along the lines of "I like the symbolism and abstractness of the original production, but its neat seeing a more literal take on it" and now Im just like. chuckles nervously, Okay guys, its been fun, can we go back to the symbolism. please.

So yeah, I really dont think this one is worth watching unless youre a hardcore Pia-stan or youre just really committed to watching every version of Elisabeth: das Musical you can get your hands on, like meeeeee <3

The 2004 Budapest Production

This is a really good one! I actually rewatched it for this post and I was excited to do so. I dont have too much to say about it though, in terms of story its fairly similar to the Vienna productions except that it has Kein Kommen ohne Gehen and the conspiracy song and der Tod has a bit more of a romantic vibe. Actually, i think a better way of describing it is, its like the takarazuka production but un-takarazukafied, which might not make that much sense if you havent seen both of these especially considering I havent talked about the takarazuka production yet. But what I mean is, both of these productions focus a lot more on the hungarian revolution-side of things and make it into more of a proper subplot, and the way they do it is mostly structurally the same (as in, new scenes/songs are inserted at mostly the same points in the narrative) but takarazuka version is a lot more glitzy and overdramatic where this production is a lot more grounded. I dont really prefer one over the other because the approaches are so different that I feel like they cant really be compared. I do like that they do that overall and I really like the conspiracy song for drawing additional parallels between Rudolf and Elisabeth, even though I know its not historically accurate, although I will say that it feels a little bit off in this production which otherwise does seem to be going for historical accuracy. Like, it doesnt bother me at all in the takarazuka production just because i feel like that one takes so many liberties that it doesn't really stick out, but even here, its not the biggest deal to me

Anyway, other stuff. The stage feels weirdly small, but I really like the sets, they lean a bit more towards being literal rather than symbolic but they do some really cool stuff with them, I especially like the way they'll spin essentially the whole set sometimes, it makes for some very interesting and dynamic staging. The performances were great, obviously Szabó P Szilveszter as der Tod was amazing, he has such a beautiful and powerful voice, and I also loved Janza Kata as Elisabeth. I feel like she played it a bit angrier than Im used to, like you can really feel her her frustration at the world around her even early on during Wie Du, and its so good. mwah

This production is the first one that Ive ever liked Franz Joseph in even a little. With him Im usually like "goddddd he sucks so much, i literally cant believe they got married" from the very start, but with this guy I was like "oh..... hes kinda cute, I get what Elisabeth sees in him" during So wie man plant und denkt and Nichts ist schwer. And I was initially worried that I only thought that because they didnt give him that historically acurrate haircut that the Vienna productions give that looks really bad and stupid, however I have since seen the takarazuka productions where they also give him a better haircut, and out of all the performers Ive seen Ive only liked two, so. yay! Im not shallow as fuck! Although I will reiterate that that era was truly a dark age for men's hair, I have such a viscerally negative reaction to most of those styles. And ugh, dont even get me started on the facial hair...... So yeah, while the haircut is not my only reason for liking him so much, it does help quite a bit

I will say, I noticed quite a few lyrics that I didnt really like. Or rather, because I dont speak hungarian so i dont actually know what the lyrics are and have to go off the subtitles and other translations, I dont like the sentiment behind them regardless of whether the lyrics sound good when you can properly understand them, if that makes sense. Like, the last line of Kein Kommen ohne Gehen was something like "You will be my queen of the night forever" and I just dont like that idea fundamentally, like my opinion of what this line is communicating wouldnt change if it was communicating it in a different way. But there werent too many lines that bothered me like that and most of them are not particularly (negatively) memorable, they just made me frown a lil as I was watching and then I basically immediately forgot about them.

So yeah, its really good and I'd definitely recommend watching it if you havent already

The Takarazuka Production(s)

That's referring to. all of them. I have seen all the normal proshots from 1996 to 2018, all the concert proshots and I have seen a few of the shinjinkoen ones as well (not all or even a lot of them bc theyre very hard to find unfortunately). Fortunately, theyre fundamentally all the same, the only big change that they ever made was adding Wenn ich tanzen will in 2002, and they change the costumes sometimes but thats it, so I dont have to get into every single individual production. Atleast not right now, I might at least compare the different Tod-performances because there are some striking differences, but that would be for a different post

I went on a bit of a journey watching all these different proshots, the first one I saw was the 1996 Star one and I absolutely loved it, then I watched a few more and I started noticing some issues which caused me to start disliking it, but then I watched some more and came around to liking it again. Its like, I have all these criticisms and complaints but I dont really think about those as Im watching it, Im just kinda along for the ride and having a good time and then when Im like, on a walk and I randomly start thinking about Elisabeth: Ai to Shi no Rondo I go "man, theres a bunch of shit here that sucks"

So yeah, lets talk about the shit that sucks, from Bothers Me Most to Bothers Me Least

It feels like they tried to make der Tod the protagonist instead of Elisabeth by giving him more stagetime and also giving him like three reprises of Ai to Shi No Rondo, effectively replacing the Ich gehör nur mir melody as the most important one, which I dislike on principle, but it also just plain doesnt work. Like, theyre trying to make this guy a protagonist with a rich inner world but first of all, hes supposed to be a personification of aspects of Elisabeth's (and Rudolf's) inner world and second of all, even as a more straightforward and human-seeming romantic character, his whole appeal is that you cant really know his inner world because hes mysterious like that and ultimately nonhuman, so all you can get out of him here is shallow little songs about his feelings for Elisabeth that are really bland and boring. Also, him singing about his love for Elisabeth so many times (and at such inappropriate moments like directly after she considered killing herself and at her sons funeral) makes him seem unbearably pathetic, but that actually doesnt bother me that much because I think its very funny

This version is definitely a lot more sanitized with there being no Hass, Kitsch and Kitsch Reprise being heavily altered to be less poignant, the bigger focus on Tod's romantic nature and Elisabeth's rougher edges being sanded down. The colorful costumes and sets also just make it feel like more of a silly fun time which contributes to the sanitized-ness imo. In a way, its kinda like the Scheveningen prod except this one went about its sanitization with surgical precision, where that one just started senselessly chopping off limbs

This version is very sillygoofy, thats the best word for it. This is my last complaint because if you catch me in the right mood this isnt even a complaint, this is just an aspect of the show that I think is fun and that I like a lot, but if you catch me in a different mood then boy will I complain. I dont really know how to properly explain this one in a concise way to someone who hasnt seen it. Instead of that little scene of some hungarians gossiping about little Sophie after Stationen einer Ehe, we get a scene of some hungarians being upset at the austrian empire and planning to stage a protest next time Elisabeth and Franz Joseph come to do some kind of assembly (? i guess) and then the assembly happens and they do the protest and the imperial guards shoot up into the air to intimidate them into stopping and then Franz Joseph turns to Elisabeth like "cmon, we gotta leave" but shes like "no wait" and she takes of her cloak (shes been wearing a cloak that hides her whole body basically this entire time btw), revealing her dress which is hungarian flag-colored and then she says "Éljen, Hungary!" and the crowd goes wild!!!

That scene is the sillygoofiest thing that happens in this production, nothing tops it, all the other sillygoofy bits are more subdued in their sillygoofiness, but still, I feel like its a good scene to use as an example of this show's sillygoofiness. Also, whenever I think about scenes in this show that are sillygoofy I always think of the scenes that are part of the whole hungarian revolution-subplot. Theyre actually not that tonally different from any of the other parts of this show, like obviously they would be absolutely hilarious if you just inserted them into the original austrian production or the hungarian production as they are, but they dont stick out within the takarazuka production itself, yknow what I mean? They've made enough subtle changes to the original material that the things that they added (which would otherwise seem incongruous with that material) dont immediately stick out.

All of this to say, I think the people who have tried to adapt this musical into the 'takarazuka style' have done an excellent job at it, but I could definitely see people who are fans of Elisabeth das Musical not really enjoying it because of that, unless theyre like me, and can be momentarily distracted from its flaws by virtue of featuring a bunch of beautiful women singing beautifully for 2 and a half hours. But if that sounds good to you, I would 100% recommend it because its a fun and very well-made time. I dont have a specific proshot that I would recommend over the others, but I will say that I have a huge soft spot for the 1996 Star one because its the first one i saw and I absolutely adore Asaji Saki's Tod, and for the 2009 Moon one because thats the one I spent a bunch of time making german subtitles for to show my parents

Okay, before I move on to talking about the next production, I just have one more thing to say, or rather ask: why are the takarazuka and hungarian productions so similar? They both premiered in the year 1996 (and there was no pre-takarazuka japanese prod to my knowledge) so it seems impossible to me for one to have taken from the other, and from what I can tell, the changes that are specific to both of these productions and that dont really appear in any others (except for the toho production but we'll get to that) have existed in both of them from the start, so like, how did that happen, what overlap was there between their creative teams because there must have been something or else they wouldnt have turned out so similar? So yeah, if anyone reading this knows more about the behind the scenes history of these productions, please tell me about it, Im very curious

The 2016 Toho Production (White Cast)

Its kinda funny going from the Takarazuka section where I had seen literally as many of them as I could physically get my hands on, to this one where Im just like "yeah, Ive just seen the one that Im pretty sure is the most popular one, its atleast the one I see people post gifs of the most". To be fair, I think theyve only released 6 or 7 proshots even though theyve been putting it on since 2001, god knows why

Whatever, this production is really good and I like it a lot. The songs are overwhelmingly the same as they were in the takarazuka production, although theyve made some changes to the ones that were the most different to make them more like they were originally. Thats honestly a good way of describing this production as a whole; if the Budapest one felt like the takarazuka one but completely un-takarazukafied, this one was like, 50% un-takarazukafied. I was really debating with myself what percentage I would say there, because while the changes are for the most part subtle and the overall sillygoofiness remains intact for the most part, they did keep Kitsch the same and they kept Hass the same which was honestly shocking to me, I was kind of expecting them to censor it somehow or atleast tone it down or something, which is why I was actually looking at the screen during this version for once (Hass usually gives me horrible intrusive thoughts and I usually watch musicals on my tv so I cant just skip ahead, so if Im watching it and its a language I dont speak I just look away for a bit, and if Im watching it in german I'll just leave the room for a bit) but uh. they dont, and not only that but they put a gigantic swastika flag on the stage that takes up basically the entire screen and just gives me the worst intrusive thoughts. And honestly, even though this caused my brain to torment me for like two weeks, Im glad they did it because Hass really isnt a song you should try to censor or downplay, you either do it or you just dont even try. Anyway, my point here is, because that alone was SO un-takarazukalike, I was originally going to say that this production was 80% un-takarazukafied, but then I thought about it some more and I was like "well yes, but then they also added that bit to that already-sillygoofy scene where Elisabeth reveals that her dress is hungary-colored to the crowd where Batthany tried to assassinate her at Tod's behest, so. i gotta lower that percentage I think" and thats how I ended up with that number

Anyway, time to talk about some stuff that isnt the tone and how it compares to other productions. I really liked the sets, theyre leaning more towards being symbolic, although I will say that the symbolism felt a bit more simplistic compared to the Vienna productions. Still, how can i deny the sheer effect of just having like half of the stage taken up by three gigantic coffins? I feel like there are so many scenes that were kindof elevated for me because I was just like "ohhhh theyre singing about this thing while standing on this gigantic coffin and it symbolises that death is all around them and the monarchy is built on death and theyre in the midst of this dying era". One example of this is in the Jedem gibt er das Seine scene, they do it exactly like you would expect, they dont do a carousel-thing like the Vienna production, but they put Franz Joseph and his desk and his whole entourage on those coffins and then the mother comes in below them on the stage, and its just so good, I dont know what to say

I dont have too much to say about the cast, it was pretty good all around, the only thing that I can remember rn is that I thought Hanafusa Mari as Elisabeth was a bit off. Specifically whenever she had to be sad, I just never quite bought it, but I did like her whenever she was happy or glad or during Wenn ich tanzen will when she was all spiteful, and obviously her voice was absolutely beautiful. Shirota Yu as der Tod was also great, he plays it like a real freak, he actually reminded me a lot of Matè Kamaras except I like this guy more because I feel like hes not constantly hissing and growling

So yeah, it's a good production that I would definitely recommend checking out if you can

The 2009 Antwerpen Production

I never thought I'd see a version of Elisabeth: das Musical that I would consider to be basically completely uninteresting, but those freaks over in belgium somehow managed to make it

But before I get into that, I want to tell you something about my experience watching this one (and also the Scheveningen one). So, the only languages I can speak and understand fluently are german and english, so I need subtitles in order to understand all of the non-austrian productions. However, I couldnt immediately find subtitles for the Scheveningen prod and I didnt even really try to look for them that hard because I thought "eh, it doesnt matter, i know this musical inside and out and I'll probably be able to atleast kindof of understand the lyrics without subtitles anyway" because in my head I just kinda think of german and dutch as being very similar because germany and the netherlands are geographically close, even though they really arent, so I ended up watching it just not understanding the vast majority of the words. But again, I know this musical very well so it really didnt matter, although I was a bit disappointed because I was expecting to have an interesting experience listening to this musical in a language that I can somewhat understand but that is also clearly not a language that I can actually speak, do you know what I mean? Anyway, smash cut to like a year later and Im on vk.ru looking for musical proshots to download and I stumble upon this one. Because antwerpen sounds kinda german to me I assume its a german-language proshot I hadnt heard of before so I dont look for subtitles and I just watch it as is, and Im very surprised when it is not in fact german. But I feel like I can kinda understand it, so I just keep watching and I end up having that I expected to have with the dutch proshot with this one which I think is flemish (?). I'm not sure, I dont recognize this language and when I looked it up to see if anyone online knew what it was, all I got was someone on reddit being like "idk, its probably flemish" so

Anyway, back to the actual review part of this whole thing. Why do I find this to be the most uninteresting version of this musical? In a lot of ways, its basically just the 2005 Vienna production except flatter; a lot of the physical sets have been replaced by screens, the performances are all good albeit pretty unremarkable otherwise, the few times they deviate from the Vienna production are fine but also unremarkable to the point that I dont feel like going into detail about them, and the costumes felt worse somehow? Like, theyre not trying to have any kind of symbolism, theyre just historical clothes, which, to be fair, none of the non-Vienna productions that Ive seen so far really try that hard for symbolism with the costumes, I think the reason it stuck out to me here is that its otherwise so similar to the Vienna ones. They dont have a mayerling dress which is immensely disappointing for the same reason, and also now that Ive written that out, Im fully realizing for the first time that literally no production other than the Vienna ones has it and Im getting pretty upset. sighhhhh. when will men-crossdressing enjoyers win

Moving on, while I find the cast mostly unremarkable, I do have a little bit to say about them. I really enjoyed the pathetic wet cat vibes that Jan Schepens brought to Lucheni, especially in the prologue where he has that very brief interaction with Tod, although I will say that I dont like how they made him so unaware of the main plot of the musical. Like, during his little narration bit before Jedem gibt er das Seine he has a newspaper and he has to read it in order to remember that its 1854, I know they do this in some Vienna prods as well and I hate it every time. Because the whole point is, hes just been stuck in this endless loop of retelling this whole story since he died 1898 so by the time youre watching this musical in 2009 or 1992 or whenever, he knows it in and out, thats why he seems so goddamn tired in the 1992 version!!! But other than that hes fine 👍

The other person I have something to say about is der Tod, although its not relly about his performance. His performance is like. in the nicest way possible, the reason i would say hes not literally the worst in terms of singing or cuntserving is that 1998Vienna!Tod and Scheveningen!Tod respectively exist. But while I was watching I was really distracted because I keept thinking "this guy looks so familiar but Im 100% sure Ive never seen him before, he just looks like someone else i know, but who is it that he reminds me of" and then when i got to Mama wo bist du, I realized: he looks so much like one of the guys who played Sebastian in some of the black butler musicals, or atleast my memory of what that guy looks like. And I felt kind of embarassed because I was like "ohhhhhhhh ive enjoyed the concept of Young Boy And Fucked Up Non-Human Have A Relationship Which Is Oddly Soft While Also Being Nothing But Red Flags for way longer than I realized huh" And also, OF COURSE i noticed the similarity in that exact scene, good god

Whatever, theres only one last thing that bothers me and that I wanted to talk about and its Wenn ich tanzen will. I dont like how Tod grabs Elisabeth and manouvers her around like that, which, the choreography here is the same as in the 2005 Vienna production, but I didnt fully realize just how much it bothered me until watching this one so Im talking about it here. I was originally going to do a whole analysis about how I dont think it fits the song very well and thats the reason I dont like it, but upon thinking about it, I think it works well enough. Yknow the contrast between Elisabeth being so defiant and refusing to give into him even though its clear that she knows hes right about all the stuff hes saying and her compromising physical position, and also how it lays bare that der Tod has no real power because hes ultimately a manifestation of her wants, thats all pretty good tbh

No, the reason I dont like this choreography for Wenn ich tanzen will is that its sexual in a way that I dont appreciate because the woman is in the submissive position. Its like. okay so, you know those dark romance/romantasy books about a 17-20 year old girl falling for a ~500 year old guy with overpowered shadow magic and having a bunch of sex with him that are really popular right now and also really popular to make fun of? Well, I used to really like hanging out in the making-fun-of spaces until I realized that people were getting really puratanitical about what people are 'allowed' to write and the extent to which authors are 'responsible' for imparting 'good messages' to their 'impressionable audience' which, these books are not usually categorized as YA, theyre pretty clearly aimed at women who are 18 and up and even if they are, teenagers are not that impressionable but Im not getting into that rn which bothered me, not just because I fundamentally dont agree with that, but also because my issue with them is not that theyre presenting relationship dynamics that are problematic in the sense that the age gap is too big or the power gap is too big or that theyre abusive or whatever, but that theyre presenting relationship dynamics that are problematic in the sense that theyre extremely sexist

And like, to an extend this is just an issue with mainstream romance books as a whole which is why I dont really read them, and Im not saying that anyone who enjoys them is sexist or bad, its just that it personally discomforts me to the point of killing my enjoyment in things like large age gaps or crazy power dynamics, which, for the record, I do genuinely really enjoy! I just dont like it when its like "oh the virginal teeny tiny girl whos barely legal gets with the biggest most bigdicked most powerful ancient MALE to ever exist and whos lowkey highkey abusive", but if a book like that came out where the genders were reversed and it was a cute barely legal ingenue boy and an ancient powerful evil woman, I would not only not have an issue with that, I would find it extremely hot. or if it was gay in some capacity which, books that are exactly like typical romantasy books but gay probably do exist, but I dont really see people discuss them as much, so. My point here is, the typical romance/romantasy relationship dynamic just feels like a model of the patriarchy except its two people instead of like, all of society, and I dont like that and I feel similarly about this Wenn ich tanzen will choreography. Like, its not quite the same feeling but I have trouble articulating my exact discomfort with it, so Im comparing it to a different kind of discomfort that I have with something else that I am capable of articulating.

So yeah, its a fine enough Elisabeth production. watch it if you want, dont watch it if you dont want

Aaaaaaaand thats it. I know Im still missing a couple of korean proshots that I havent seen yet because I havent been able to find subtitles for them, so if theres any korean-speakers in the audience who would be willing to make and share them, I would appreciate it. If no one wants to share them, there is a website called lyricstranslate where people can submit translations of any song into any language, and the korean lyrics are on there so if Im really lucky, someone has translated all of them into a language i know and i can make my own subtitles with those. But Im still working on making a subtitle file for the 2004 Budapest proshot (the version thats available with subtitles on the internet archive is hardsubbed and I'd like the option of having softsubs), so thatll have to wait. I also downloaded a video of the 2001 Essen production, I dont know if thats a proshot or a complete bootleg but I'll watch that one eventually too and if I can muster up the motivation, maybe I'll even write reviews for those as well

Anyway, how many of these have you seen and what did you think of them? Please tell me in excruciating detail, I love reading other peoples Elisabeth-thoughts

[alchemiclee]

i know this has been said 473773474833 times by the kavetham/haikaveh shippers and probably even nonshippers, but i'll say it again. I finally finished the genshin summer event and did the little after quest in sumeru and.....every time kaveh is sneaking around trying not to be noticed coming out of alhaithams house it's just such a gay vibe. he's basically screaming "I can't be caught being gay in a homophobic society!" even if that's not what the game writers are *actually* saying. that's just how it comes off and they can't make it come off any other way. with hoyo's gay history, it makes me wonder if it's on purpose and all a cover-up to have a technically different reason for it so they can get away with it lmao but we will never know.

[snekdood]

theres lots of things i could do but being a political commentator or debate guy isnt it sdjsdvhjf

[raven-dor]

hii, can i reheat a harry potter x reader?? i dont really have anything specific in mind except maybe the reeder could be a slytherin and it would take place during the 5th book/movie so his friends, Sirius and the rest of the order of the phoenix are telling him to stay away from her or something?? that would be an interesting dynamic, i think?? Some angst and of course fluff maybe??

Thank you❤️

us.

In which harry potter falls for forbidden fruit

PAIRING: harry potter x slytherin!reader

WARNINGS: AU where cho and harry aren't a thing, angst, anxiety, dissaproval, arguing, death eaters, mentions of death, fluff

WORD COUNT: 5.3k

🎶 : us. - gracie abrams & taylor swift

Her hair was wild and free, Harry had noticed over the years. She’d tried to control it with a maroon ribbon, but it always fought against her. She’d always been around, at Quidditch games, the Triwizard tournament, always watching. She didn’t make herself known, which Harry found odd. Most people at Hogwarts wanted to make a name for themselves, but Y/N Rosier kept her head down. 

She had good grades, good enough to rival Hermione’s. She was kind; he’d observed her caring for a crying first year on more than one occasion. And she was friends with Luna, and he didn’t take Luna for being someone with a bad taste in friends. 

He’d thought about her this summer before his mind was preoccupied with wondering if he’d even be allowed to go back to school. Thankfully, Dumbledore saved him. 

Again. 

He was sulking in Grimmauld Place for the rest of the summer and could often be found staring out the window longingly. Sirius had even sat beside him one day, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. “What’s troubling you?” 

Harry looked at his godfather curiously. “What do you mean?” 

“I’ve seen that look before.” Sirius laughed. “Your father looked out windows constantly while he thought about your mother. Who is she?” 

“She-” Harry sighed. “You wouldn’t like her.” 

“I’m sure she’s wonderful.” 

“She is.” He looked back out the window. “She’s kind and smart. Caring, too.”

“Sounds like I was right.” The man smiled. “I can’t wait to meet her.” 

Harry smiled back but didn’t respond. In truth, he hadn’t talked to Y/N once in their entire time at Hogwarts. How do you introduce someone to your godfather that you’ve never talked to before?

The first time Harry talked to her was on the third day of school. He’d just had his second detention with Umbridge, the wicked old toad when he saw her walking into the Defense classroom with a solemn look on her otherwise serene face. 

“Rosier,” Harry spoke. 

She stopped as if surprised he was talking. She gripped her wand. “I don’t want-” 

Harry laughed. “I’m not- I’m not trying to attack you, I promise.” He smiled lightly. “Why are you in here then?” 

She hummed. “Same as you, I suppose.”

His eyes widened. “You have detention?” 

The girl smiled. “Something about betraying my house and defending…” She turned red, shaking her head. “Anyways, I have to get going.” She nodded, walking further into the classroom. “Bye, Potter.” 

The second time Harry had talked to her, he’d spotted her from across the pitch. The first practice was always a sort of train wreck, but people still came out to watch. If there was one thing about Hogwarts students, almost all were too involved with quidditch. Bets were placed, fights broke out, and points were taken away and given carelessly. It had amused Harry when he was a first year. 

Now, he was tired of it. 

He’d spotted her Slytherin scarf before he’d seen her. The way his heart started skipping was embarrassing. His cheeks were pink; he knew it, and he thanked Merlin that she was too far away to see. The way his eyebrows furrowed at the sight of green and silver confirmed his thoughts: if he hated Slytherin that much, then there was no telling how much Sirius, Hermione, Ron, and the rest of them would act. She was reading, occasionally glancing up to watch the practice. She was the only one sporting green and silver in the crowd of red and gold, which made him think, why was she here?

He knew for a fact she only hung around Luna and Cho, so why was she at a Gryffindor quidditch practice? Angelina yelled, knocking him out of his trance. “Oi! Watch for the snitch, Harry!” 

He saluted her, flying higher into the sky as he shook his head. Godric, give him courage. And strength. 

Angelina called it a day hours later, and Y/N was still there as if she was waiting for someone. He felt jealousy bubble up in his stomach. Who was she friends with on the team? He flew directly above her, putting on his most charming smile. “Waiting for someone?” 

She shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t know any Gryffindors. Besides Granger.” 

Harry nodded, trying to fight the grin that threatened to give away his crush. “You know me.” 

“And Hermione.” She added. 

“That’s all you need to know, really.” 

She laughed, and in that moment, Harry vowed to make her laugh forever. “I don’t want to keep you.” 

“You’re not.” He responded too quickly. “I mean-” 

She stood up, waving. “I’ll see you around.” 

“I-” His voice got caught in his throat, and all he could do was wave back at her disappearing figure. “Bye.” 

Sirius’s face had appeared in the fire out of nowhere. Once Ron and Hermione had gone to bed, his godfather’s tone switched to a light one. “So, how is she?” 

“She?” Harry tilted his head. “Who-” Oh. Harry flushed. Sirius had remembered their conversation. “She’s good.” 

“Good?” Sirius raised an eyebrow. “Have you talked to her?” 

“Once.” He smiled. “She’s quiet.” 

Sirius smiled. “The quiet ones.” He laughed. “They’re tough to crack but very worth it.” His godfather held a sad sort of look on his face like he was reminiscing on a lost love. “Be patient with her, Harry.” 

“I am,” Harry responded. “But she seems so sad.” 

“Well,” Sirius whispered. “Give her a reason to be happy then.” 

The third time he’d talked to her, she had approached him. Mainly because he hadn’t even seen her coming, too wrapped up in his thoughts, too wrapped up in all the chaos that his fifth year had produced. He was trying not to pass out from the pain that stabbed at him from the back of his hand. He’d thought he was used to it, the quill that cut into the back of his hand, but a weekend off made him weak. 

“Potter?” He hadn’t responded. “Harry?” She tried. That had made him stop and look up. He smiled, but she could tell something was wrong. 

“Rosier, hi.” 

“What’s wrong?” She whispered. “Are you hurt?” She checked him over while he stared at her. She was touching him. Merlin, he thought. Soon enough, she’d find his scar. She gasped. “Your hand.” 

He laughed, pulling his hand out of her hold. “It’s nothing.” 

She raised an eyebrow, looking rather upset at him. That wasn’t a look he thought she possessed enough attitude in her body for. Maybe he didn’t know her as well as he thought. “Harry…” She pulled up her sleeve, the back of her hand holding a matching scar. “You get used to it after a while.” 

“She did it to you too?” He scoffed. “What did your parents say? That’s-” 

“My parents suggested it. Thought it would teach me a lesson.” She laughed, smirking. “Little do they know, the only lesson it taught me is to never trust them again.” Harry grinned, and she shoved him lightly. “Why are you smiling?” 

“You’re just-” He laughed. “Not what I expected.” 

She laughed back. “Well, if it’s any consolation, neither are you.” 

Harry did not want to be here. He’d made that abundantly clear to Hermione, who simply ignored him. Ron laughed at his best friend, who was practically dragging his feet to the meeting. “Bloody hell, mate. It’s only a meeting. You’re acting like we’re marching you to your death.” 

Hermione glared. “Poor choice of words, Ronald.” Rubbing her hands together, she walked into the old building. “We’re here.” 

Harry whispered to Ron. “Where exactly are we?”

“No idea, mate.” 

Harry groaned. “Who’s supposed to be meeting us then?” 

“Just a couple of people.” 

They stumbled up the stairs, and Harry fought the murderous glare toward Hermione. There were definitely more than thirty people, not a few. The boys sat down, but Hermione stayed standing. “You all know why we’re here. We need a teacher. A proper teacher. One who’s had real experience defending themselves against the Dark Arts.” 

“Why?” 

Harry looked through the crowd, glaring at the boy who spoke. Ron scoffed. “Why? Because You Know Who’s back, you tosspot.” 

“So he says.” 

“So Dumbledore says.” 

“So Dumbledore says because he says. The point is, where’s the proof?” 

“If Potter could tell us more about how Diggory got killed-” 

Harry pushed out of his chair. “I’m not going to talk about Cedric, so if that’s why you’re here, you might as well clear out now.” He whispered in Hermione’s ear. “Come on, Hermione, they’re just here because they think I’m some sort of freak…” 

“Is it true you can produce a Patronus charm?” Harry looked over, his eyes widening when he made direct contact with hers. She was here, standing beside Cho and Luna. 

Hermione nodded. “Yes. I’ve seen it.” 

“Blimey Harry. I didn’t know you could do that.” Dean looked amazed. 

“And he killed a basilisk with the sword in Dumbledore’s office.” 

“Third year, he fought about a hundred Dementors at once.” 

“And last year, he really did fight You Know Who.” 

“Wait.” This was all so overwhelming, and now that he could feel Y/N’s eyes staring into him, he felt like he was burning. “Look, it all sounds great when you say it like that, but the truth is, most of that was just luck. I didn’t know what I was doing half the time; I nearly always had help…” 

“He’s just being modest.” 

“No, Hermione, I’m not. Facing this stuff in real life is not like school. In school, if you make a mistake, you can just try again tomorrow. But out there, when you’re a second away from being murdered or watching a friend die right before your eyes, you don’t know what that’s like.”

“You’re right,” Y/N spoke, the room turning to face her. Murmurs echoed through the room; what was she doing here? “And I know that none of us want to know, but it’s inevitable.” She smiled softly at Harry. “So teach us. Because Voldemort is coming, and it’s only a matter of time until we have to fight, too.” 

Harry nodded, truly smiling for the first time that day. “Exactly.” 

The room lined up, signing the parchment of paper Hermione had brought as a sort of roster. When Y/N had gotten to the front, he’d straightened his posture, smiling widely. “Rosier. Good to see you.” 

She smiled back. “Wouldn’t miss it.” She sighed her name, waving. “See you, Harry.” 

Ron squinted his eyes, staring at his best friend curiously. “What is a Slytherin doing here?” 

Harry shrugged. “Dunno. Probably heard about it from Cho and Luna.” 

Ron scoffed. “How do you know they’re friends?” 

“Because I-” He panicked. “Cedric told me they had a Slytherin friend.” 

Ron nodded but was unconvinced. Harry felt horrible for not saying what he truly felt; he’d had a crush on Y/N for a while, not Cho, contrary to popular belief. 

Harry had lost his breath when he saw her walk in beside Cho. She didn’t look any different than normal, he supposed, but her smile was bright, and she looked happy. He walked over. “Rosier.” 

Y/N turned toward him, blushing. “Harry, you can call me by my name.” 

He grinned. “I’ll try. No promises, though.” He clapped his hands together, surprised at how clammy they felt. “Excited for the first meeting?” 

“Very. I love DADA. Especially the days that we practice. And this is practically that so…” She smiled. “I’m very excited.” 

Ron called out, ushering Harry over. The boy sighed. “I have to-” 

She nodded. “Go. I’ll be here.” 

He practically raced through his welcome speech, jittering about knowing Y/N was watching him. The DA formed a single line, Neville going first in their disarming exercise. He was nervous, and so was Harry, but he suspected for two completely different reasons. Neville held up his wand, waving it carelessly. “Expelliarmus!” 

Somehow, his wand flew backward, flying through the line as people ducked out of the way. Harry tried not to laugh, but when he spotted her giggling, a grin broke. He put his hand on Neville’s shoulder sympathetically. “Next time.” 

Y/N was next, smiling shyly at him. “Harry.” 

He nudged her. “Do you know how to cast a disarming spell?” 

She nodded. “Of course I do.” 

He smiled wider, stepping back. “Whenever you’re ready.” 

She flicked her wrist quickly, her voice firm. “Expelliarmus.” The ‘death eater’s’ wand vanished like dust, the dummy swaying back and forth. She nodded, satisfied with her work. Harry clapped lightly. “Perfect. That was perfect.” 

What he’d actually wanted to say was, ‘You’re perfect.’

“Stunning is one of the most useful spells in your arsenal. It’s sort of a wizard’s bread and butter, really.” Harry stopped at the opposite end of the room, facing his opponent. Y/N smiled reassuringly at Nigel; he looked frightened. 

She understood. She would be, too, if she were facing the Boy Who Lived. 

Harry clapped his hands. “Come on, Nigel, give me your best shot.” 

Nigel tightened the grip on his wand. “Stupefy!” 

Harry flew back, hitting the wall, but funnily enough, so did Nigel. Y/N slapped a hand over her mouth. “Good.” Harry gasped. “Not bad at all, Nigel; well done.” He stood up, looking at the crowd. “Perhaps that’s enough stunning for today.” He smiled. “Anyone fancy a duel?” Y/N stepped forward, smirking. Harry’s smile grew. “Rosier.”

“Potter.” She gripped her wand, standing on the opposite side. “Ready?” 

He nodded, eyes full of determination. “Are you?” 

“Impedimenta!” 

Harry couldn’t even get a word out, moving at a sloth's pace. She smirked, sending one more spell his way for good measure. “Depulso!” He flew back, the room gasping. Her spells quickly faded, and she walked over, smiling shyly once more. “I’m sorry, was that too much-” 

Harry had never been more in love with her than in that moment. He shook his head, scrambling to his feet and addressing the crowd. “Take notes, everyone. Rosier here gave you all a perfect example of how to best an enemy.” He gestured to her, clapping. “Fantastic work, Y/N.” 

She blushed, shaking her head. “Please, it was nothing.” 

Y/N watched in horror as Draco started chanting. Ron wasn’t Y/N’s friend by any means, but he was kind enough, and Draco publicly embarrassing him would not end well. She marched over, hissing at the bright blonde. “Stop that this instant.” 

Draco’s eyebrow rose. “And what will you do about it, Rosier?” 

“You-” She crossed her arms. “How would you like it if Gryffindor started chanting about how your dear daddy is a death eater?” 

Draco’s eyes widened, but he continued. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

She stalked away, standing back with Luna. “I can’t believe you actually wore it, Lu.” Her friend was wearing a giant lion’s head made of paper mache. Y/N was very sure the students behind her were less than happy with the obstruction to their view. 

Luna smiled. “Interesting you’re standing in Gryffindor’s section, Y/N/N.” She raised an eyebrow. “How is Harry?” 

“He’s fine, we actually-” Y/N stopped, glaring at her friend. “Why do you ask?” 

Luna smirked but said nothing. “No reason. Curiosity, I suppose.” 

The game wasn’t fair, and when it ended, Y/N felt the tension in the air. She raced to the field, panting from how fast she ran. “Harry!” She called out. He turned around hesitantly, practically glowing from anger. Her stomach flipped, even if he was angry, he still looked gorgeous. Walking closer, she smiled brightly. “You did wonderfully. You’re an amazing seeker.” 

He blushed, still visibly upset from Slytherin’s actions. “Thanks.” He opened his mouth and then closed it. 

Y/N smiled. “I’m sorry about Draco. He’s obnoxious.” 

Harry scoffed. “That is one word to describe him.”

“Harry, I wanted to say-” 

“Well, well, well.” Y/N rolled her eyes, turning around to face Draco. “I heard you were a blood traitor, Rosier, but I never thought it was true.” 

She crossed her arms, standing beside Harry. “Sorry to disappoint.” 

Draco hissed. “Stooping down to the likes of Potter, I can tolerate. But Weasley?” He smirked. “You know, he was raised in a bin.” He looked at Harry. “Did you like that lyric Potter?” 

Harry didn’t respond, grabbing Y/N’s hand and pulling her towards the team. She blushed but didn’t fight it; it felt nice, knowing that he wanted her beside him. Draco continued. “We wanted to write another couple of verses!" Malfoy called as Alicia hugged Harry tightly. "But we couldn't find rhymes for fat and ugly--we wanted to sing about his mother. And we couldn’t fit useless loser either, for their father.” 

Y/N clenched her fist, tapping her foot impatiently. Harry smiled; it was endearing to see how upset she was for them. He whispered, rubbing the back of her hand lightly. “Just leave it.” 

Draco continued once more. “You like the Weasley’s, don’t you, Potter? Spend the holidays there and everything, don't you? Can't see how you stand the stink, but I supposed when you've been dragged up by Muggles, even the Weasley's hovel smells okay-” 

Harry let go of Y/N’s hand, grabbing George. The lot of them were seething, and Y/N understood, not far from it herself. “Or perhaps," Draco said, leering as he backed away, "you can remember what your mother's house stank like, Potter. And Weasley's pigsty reminds you of it-” 

Y/N snapped, glaring. “Draco, stop this right-” 

Harry and George charged at the Slytherin, and she gasped, slapping a hand over her mouth in shock. Good on them, she thought. It serves him right, talking like that about their family. And as much as she loved that Draco was finally getting what he deserved, she couldn’t watch as they got in trouble. “Stop! Harry, stop!” Alicia, Katie, and Angelina were still holding Fred back, and Hermione, Y/N assumed, was off comforting Ron. 

Madam Hooch practically glided over. “Impedimentia!” She placed her hands on her hips, appalled at the sight before her. “Never have I seen such a disgrace. Go to your Head of House immediately!” 

Y/N followed after Harry, casting healing spells over the cuts he acquired while walking. “Harry, I’m so sorry. He shouldn’t have said that.” 

He glared at the ground, humming at her touch. “S’fine. Just-” He scoffed. “Thanks for-”

She shook her head, placing a daring hand on his cheek. “You don’t need to thank me for anything. Just take it easy; we don’t need you in any more trouble.” She smiled, whispering. “I don’t need you in any more trouble. You’re too important.” 

He rolled his eyes. “Thank you for the reminder. It’s not as if I hear it everyday.” 

“Harry…” Y/N blushed, murmuring. “I wasn’t talking about that. I meant…” She sighed, stepping away. “Never mind.” 

He grabbed her hand, pulling her back. “Say it.” 

She smiled. “Harry…” 

“Y/N…” He looked desperate, and it broke her resolve instantly.

“You know that I care about you, and you’re-” She hesitated. “You’re important to me.” 

Harry stood by the mirror, staring at all the newspaper clippings that hung on its borders. So many people lost, so many people still lost, but all he could think about was Y/N. You know that  I care about you. He’d been thinking about it ever since she’d said it, his mind constantly on her. What was she doing? What class was she in, and what hairdo had she done?  

Those were all fine thoughts, but not so much when you had a secret class to teach. They’d just had their last term lesson, and Harry felt relieved. He felt terrible thinking it, but he did. A cough broke through the silence, tearing him from his thoughts. “Harry? Are you alright?” 

He didn’t turn around but nodded. “Fine.” 

She smiled, stepping beside him and staring into the mirror. “You look worried.” 

“Really?” He turned toward her, a surge of confidence racing through his veins. “Odd, I don’t feel worried.” 

She rolled her eyes, shoving him lightly. “Confident today, I see.” Y/N blushed, whispering. “I like it.” 

“Yeah?” He stepped closer. “I like you.” 

Her eyes widened, and she scoffed in shock. “Harry!” 

“I’m sorry.” He grinned. “I’ve been trying to deny it, but- I can’t.” He leaned down. “I like you. A lot.” 

Her eyes watered, and she shook her head. “Harry, I don’t deserve-” 

“Yes, you do.” He grinned, panicking that she wasn’t completely on board already. “Unless you don’t like me?” He backed away, bright red and staring at the ground. “I’m sorry, I thought-” 

Her lips pressed against his quickly. “I do like you. I just-” She backed away. “I can’t.” 

Break had been a nice reprise from Hogwarts. Even if it meant not seeing Y/N every day, he thought about what she said over and over and over. It was becoming habit now to think about what she said constantly. I do like you. I just can’t. What did she mean by that? 

Harry stared out the window once more, gripping a cider in his cold hands. 

“May I assume that she is on your mind again?” Sirius laughed, sitting beside his godson. “What’s happened now?” 

“She kissed me.” He looked helpless, and Sirius couldn’t help but laugh again. “And then she told me that she liked me-” 

“Well, that’s great-” 

“But she couldn’t.” Harry leaned his head back against the chair. “What does that mean?” 

Sirius was at a crossroads. Assuming the worst, that meant she was in danger, and assuming the best, she felt like she wasn’t good enough for Harry or something of that nature. “What could possibly be the problem?” Harry didn’t answer, refusing to look his godfather in the eye. That had scared Sirus. Had Harry fallen for someone he shouldn’t have? “Harry?” 

“She-” Harry didn’t want to tell Sirius. At least, not like this. Sirius was known for hating Slytherins. What would he say when his godson told him he liked one? “I-” 

“Harry, I support you, no matter what.” His godfather smiled. “Nothing you could say could upset me.” 

That made Harry feel reassured enough to form the words. “Don’t be mad.” 

“I won't?” Sirius felt nervous. 

“She- She’s in Slytherin.” 

Ah. Sirius felt conflicted, smiling awkwardly. “Well, that doesn’t mean anything. Not all Slytherins are bad. I’m sure she’s-” 

“She’s a Rosier.” 

“What?” Sirius whispered. The Rosiers were known for their extremely dark nature and affinity for He Who Must Not Be Named. “It wouldn’t be Y/N Rosier?” 

Harry faltered. “Why?” 

“Harry, the Rosier’s are not to be trusted.” 

“She’s not like-” 

“NO!” Sirius hadn’t realized how upset he’d become. “Harry, listen to me-” 

Harry stood up, shocked at how quickly Sirius had turned. “You don’t know her. She’s kind and-” 

“So was Evan Rosier.” Sirius fought. “Her father. He was my brother’s best friend, and he-” His voice broke. “Is the reason Regulus is dead.” 

“Sirius, you don’t-” 

“Harry.” His godfather’s eyes were dark. “Don’t fight me on this.” 

Who was Sirius to tell him what to do? Y/N was nothing like her family, and, at least to Harry, practically was doing the same thing that Sirus had done nearly 20 years ago. “Sirius, she doesn’t get along with her family. She got-” 

“Harry! Leave it alone!” Sirius was glowering with anger. He huffed, stalking off into his study, leaving Harry deeper in his thoughts than Sirius had found him.

His argument with Sirius had put him in an even worse mood than normal, stalking about the castle with an invisible storm cloud over his head. He was a hypocrite, Harry had decided. If he had just heard him out, surely Sirius would understand. He entered the library, pulling out a crumbled piece of paper and started drafting a letter.

Key word started, because about two words in, he heard sniffling, and he became distracted. He walked into the aisle, surprised to see Y/N openly sobbing. “Y/N?” She seemed startled, and tried to wipe the tears off her face, but Harry was quick. He stood in front of her, wiping of her tears gently. “What’s happened?” 

“It’s nothing.” She smiled. “How was your break?” 

“Y/N, don’t lie to me.” He laughed to ease the tension. “Not many people cry in the library.” 

She scoffed, staring at her hands. “I beg to differ. Many a panicked student cry while staring at their homework.” 

“Y/N…” He sighed. “You can tell me.” 

“I-” She sobbed again, trying to fight it. “My parents threatened to kick me out.” 

His eyes widened. “What? Why?” 

“I-” She whispered. “I can’t tell you.” It’s like she had practiced it her whole life, because in seconds, her entire demeanor changed from sad to calm and collected. She stood straight, and walked away from him without a second thought. 

Harry was thoroughly confused. Running back to grab his things, he pulled the map out and followed after her. She looked over her shoulder, shock evident on her face. She turned back around picking up her pace. He groaned, running to catch up. “Y/N, wait!” 

She whipped around, running into him. “Leave it alone Harry!” 

Leave it alone. 

He now knew that was his least favorite phrase of all time. He shook his head. “No.” He grabbed her hand, pulling her down the hall. “Come on.” 

She rose an eyebrow, but didn’t fight him, following after. “What are you doing? Going to kill me?” 

He rolled his eyes, not looking back. “I need you to trust me.” 

She blushed, murmuring. “I’ve trusted you for a while, Harry.” 

The wall in front of them changed, her eyes widening. “What-” 

“The Room of Requirement.” He smirked. “You should know this, Ms. Top of our Class.” 

It was her turn to roll her eyes. “I’m not-” 

“Top of the class. I know.” He sat her down on the couch, sitting beside her. “But you practically are.” Holding her hands in his, he whispered. “Tell me what happened.” 

“You know my parents are…” She sighed. “Avid supporters of Voldemort.” Harry nodded. “Well, now they want me to also become an avid supporter of Voldemort.” His eyes widened. 

“You said no, right?” 

She glared lightly. “Of course I said no. To which they responded, you will do this, or you will not have a home to come back to.” Her eyes started tearing up again, and she fell into his arms. “What am I going to do?” 

He pulled her close, sighing. “I don’t know Y/N. But I’ll figure it out. I swear.” He kissed her temple, whispering. “I swear.” 

He knew she hadn’t told them, he just knew. Harry swore to everyone who told him, Y/N would never tell Umbridge a thing. She had to scars to prove it. Everyone that had once been in Dumbledore’s Army had practically ostrasized her, with the exception of Harry himself. Hermione and Ron were quiet about the subject, but Harry knew what they thought.

For the first time in his life, he hadn’t cared. Y/N was kind and loyal, she wouldn’t have betrayed them like that. She wouldn’t have betrayed him like that. Besides, it wasn’t Y/N that Filch was holding when the walls had been blown in, it had been Cho. 

Yet everyone immediately blamed Y/N. Simply because of her house.

He rolled his eyes, glaring at the fire. Ron laughed, nudging him lightly. “What did the fire ever do to you?” 

He glared at Ron. “You think Y/N told, don’t you?” 

“Harry-” 

Hermione stayed quiet, which came as odd to him. “Have anything to say, Hermione?” 

She sighed. “Harry, you have to understand… she’s in-” 

“Slytherin, I know. Merlin himself was in Slytherin.” He scoffed. “I don’t hear the entirety of the Wizarding World shaming him.” 

“It’s different.” Ron mumbled. 

Harry whipped his head around. “No!” He stood up, glaring at his friends. “She would have never done something like this. You don’t know her like-” He took a deep breath, realizing the other lingering students were staring. “You don’t know her like that.” 

Hermione was beet red. “She didn’t do it.” 

Harry tilted his head. “What did you just say?”

“I know she didn’t do it. I- I charmed the parchment to expose any traitors.” She was now whispering, staring at her hands. “The only person that ‘betrayed’ us was Marietta Edgecombe.” 

He was now fuming. “You knew? You knew and said nothing?” 

Ron was standing in between the two. “Now wait just a minute-” 

“NO! She defended you, she defended all of us, and you just leave her to the wolves?” He felt livid. “What sort of people are you?” 

Hermione sighed. “Harry-” 

He was already gone, the portrait slamming against the wall. 

Ron and Hermione had apoligized to Y/N, and Harry, for behaving horribly. Harry had felt a sense of protectiveness over Y/N that he hadn’t felt since becoming friends with Ron and Hermione. 

Sure, school had been horrible, but at least he had had her and his friends. And Sirius. 

Not anymore though, he thought bitterly. Because Sirius was dead.

He was going through Sirius’s belonging in Grimmauld Place when he spotted a letter, addressed to Prongs Jr. Harry had rolled his eyes. He ripped the letter open, eyes watering at it’s contents. 

Harry,

After writing Dumbledore multiple letters, I found that you were correct, Y/N Rosier does not get along with her family. From his accounts, she is like you said, kind, caring, and smart. You’re a lucky man.

I feel horribly about our fight. You’ve always seen the good in people, and are rather optimistic for such a melancholy boy. You’re parents would have been proud. 

I’ve told you this many times, but I feel trapped in my own home. I know Uncle Alphard meant well by keeping me heir, but I swear if I ever see him again, I’ll give him a peice of my mind. 

I meant what I said before you left, we’ve all have light and dark inside of us. Thankfully, Y/N has chosen to hold onto the light. Her family cannot say the same. I should never had judged her so harshly, and for that, I apoligize. To both of you. I understand all too well what it is like to have a wicked family. Hopefully you forgive me, and bring her around the old prison soon. 

You are a good person, Harry. Never forget that.

Your Godfather, 

Sirius Bla-

The words on his last name were scribbled, and Harry could only assume his godfather had been writing this answer when Remus told him what was happening at the Ministry. A single tear fell down his cheek, and he angrily wiped it away. “Harry?” He turned around, smiling at his girlfriend. “Oh Harry, it’s alright.” Y/N knelt beside him, huggin him tightly. “He’s still with you. You know that.” 

Harry laughed, nodding. “He wrote a letter to me. The day he died.” 

She smiled. “That’s wonderful.” 

“He talked about you.” 

Her cheeks flushed. “Oh.” 

Harry smiled, kissing her cheek gently. “I love you.” 

“Harry!” She scoffed, shoving him away and standing up. “What have I said about-” 

“I love you.”

“I love you too.” She glared. “Now, will you please help me move my things in here? I feel bad enough that Dumbledore himself is letting me stay in a house that isn’t even mine.” 

Harry rolled his eyes, stood up, and followed after her. “Sirius would have wanted you to stay here, trust me.” He smirked. Besides, this is technically my house."

Y/N laughed. “Sirius didn’t even know me.” 

“He did,” Harry teased. “In a way.” 

Y/N sighed, turning around and hugging Harry quickly. “He was a great person Harry.” 

“He was.” He agreed, looking deep into her eyes. “And you are too.” 

taglist: @beebeechaos

[miiilowo]

You should make the list of ways you were correct anyways, just for fun ~

eh. sure. why not

Any time a post of mine about afton got a decent amount of notes (aside from fanart) there'd usually be comments on it complaining about how "those" fans [note: i am one of "those" fans] have no idea what his personality actually is, and that they water him down, woobify and mischaracterize him, all while listing things off that are just genuinely part of william's character. while yes, there are fans that DO do that, the stuff they talk about is almost never an actual example of this happening. this is likely due to people not viewing him as a person and just a bland cold serial killer with no personality whatsoever

obviously movie william is not 1:1 with game or book william, but they're gonna be similar in personality. so heres some stuff ive seen people complain was "mischaracterization" thats present in the movie:

hes emotional/sentimental and actually cares about things - william calls the owner of freddys sentimental when talking to mike about the pizzeria (and we all know the owner is william), he visibly regrets/is shocked by the fact he stabs vanessa, he gets really worked up when things dont go his way, very quick to anger, etcetera. one could argue that william is lying about being sentimental and just wants to give an excuse for why the place is still around, but there'd be no reason to do that, considering mike has no idea anyone even died there, let alone the fact HE killed the kids. we know williams sole motive for keeping the place around definitely isnt just sentimental reasons, but i doubt that what he said doesnt have at least an ounce of truth to it. he holds onto trophies from his kills as well if him keeping garretts toy plane is anything to go off of

he actually likes bunnies and has an affinity for them - he has a rabbits foot on his keyring and has a letter/paper holder that's rabbit shaped. the letter holder isnt actually in any shots, but it was present on set on his desk

his personality isnt one note and dull/cold, and hes superstitious & a little offputting/jittery - the rabbits foot on his keyring ties into this idea, because if he actually believes it to be a good luck charm, then it shows some "quirkiness" for lack of a better term that people adamantly refuse to admit is in his personality. this also shows how hes superstitious, which is an idea thats present in the books, and people also like to pretend he isnt. he pokes fun at mike in a somewhat lighthearted way multiple times, he has a has a FRAMED PARTICIPATION AWARD on his wall for christs sake. the kids hair colors match the animatronics they were stuffed into (minus bonnie). he matched them. he made them match he paired them up for fun. not only that, but he gets visibly nervous and antsy when he realizes who mike is, and clearly really wants him to take the job. gets kind of weird. gets a kinda strange. he likes when things match afterall (symmetry, my friend!)

he's theatrical and over the top in personality on purpose (this is also essentially an argument for the last point) - in the books he goes on and on about performance and how he viewed both dave miller & springtrap as characters he plays, and i seriously wouldn't doubt that it'd be the same here, considering how cartoonishly evil he is while wearing the springbonnie suit. the voice changer, the little flourishes he adds to his speech, the fact he wipes off the knife when there wasnt any blood on it in the first place. for what. for what reason other than for pizzazz and intimidation points. the "oh, this is going to be so much fun!" line, and especially his playful demeanor disappearing the second he takes off the mask

he cares about his kids/likes kids - his expression when he stabs vanessa and she falls to the ground says enough i think. obviously hes not a GOOD parent, but being a good parent and caring about your kids are two wildly different things. you can be abusive and still care. most abusers dont process that they are abusers but thats a conversation for another time. william prioritizes himself over anyone else, but he still looks shocked after he stabs his daughter, and i refuse to blame that on bad acting because its MATTHEW LILLARD. the training tape for mike also states that he enjoyed entertaining kids, and yes, while that could be a lie, do you seriously think the creator of what essentially is chuck e cheese would actually despise children. the fact he gives garretts toy plane to vanessa could be a point toward him in this department as well, though its also just as likely he collects them as trophies. i like to think its a mix of both

i included these points specifically because i also have a plethora of evidence for them from both the books and the games, and theyre the ones i most commonly see people stating are unrealistic for afton.

its not a lot of stuff, but its not like he has a lot of screentime. lets be real

i do ADORE how egotistical and shortsighted they made him in the movie, though everyone can generally agree on that being a staple trait of his

[ultimateplaylistmaker]

Honestly I think the Despair Side of DR3 would be infinitely more cohesive and meaningful and actually have a reason to exist if we spent like 99% of it in the reserve course, make the plot not how the goodbye despair cast falls into despair, but to make the tragedy of the reserves hit 20x harder. Fully flesh out Natsumi Sato and Hajime, but also introduce new Reserves, learn the class dynamic, learn more about what the reserve course demands, and give us only glimpses of the golden main course, make us want to reach out and do anything to get there as well, make us know what happens but want Hajime to accept the Izuru Project because it gets us closer to what we want, the talented, the elites, our favorite characters.

Have the plot be utterly chained to the mundane cruelty but make that it in itself the greatest cruelty because of how inescapable it was, make the Reserve building truly something of despair from the absurd banality of it all. Show us their bitterness, exhaustion, their pain, have them enviously seethe in rumors about the main course about how they dont have homework and they dont have to take classes, about how they get gourmet lunches while they have to bring lunches from home, how they shelter criminals and then treat them like they're the true criminals.

Then make Chiaki and Hajime's friendship being the One escape from it, especially as more and more of his peers succumb, the nice boy who shares his lunch is said to have been driven into debt. The loving couple split apart because one of them didn't score high enough on a grade and got expelled. The guards put the boy that sits in front of him in a hospital because he got lost and entered into a main course area and argued back about his right to be there. The class president gets withdrawn and mean after a tongue lashing for trying to do something kind and help. The only true anchor Hajime gets that doesn't get ripped away just a bit later is Chiaki as the Reserve Course is by design completely and utterly unstable, which further cements that need to get out. Chiaki is his one anchor he gets left with as everyone else says he doesn't deserve any anchor at all.

I just think the impact of The Parade and then mass suicide would be better if instead of just faceless blue people, they all had designs, personalities, quirks, if we got to understand and care for them as people, the Most Tragic Event never happens without the Reserve Course, they should be some of the most important characters, but they're mostly forgotten despite it being their riot and their protest and their suicide that fuels EVERYTHING, they should have been what got expanded on, and I know I talk endlessly about the untalented plight in this series but goddammit it's interesting! Give me more reserve course characters! Expand on the catalyst to the entire plot! Expand on your critique on how the school system handles people!

[skittlespizza]

Some thoughts about Shilo (and a lot of my thoughts about the aromantic reading of him)

Okay, so Shilo has been a character that's been spinning in my head pretty constantly. This isn't going to be organized but rather kind of just. Thoughts.

I see a lot of people interpret Shilo as a purely innocent person who has done no wrong wet cat, and yeah! He is! But the thing is, he's... done wrong. He's a vampire. There's something inherently evil in all vampires, and i believe this misconception stems from people not knowing the vtm lore. In VTM, all vampires have a beast inside of them, and this beast is inherently evil and cruel and animalistic, which is the part that forces vampires to feed. Shilo hasn't frenzied, he's never lost control of this beast but the fact he has one is enough to make him "not purely innocent", I'd argue he thinks he's innocent and hasn't done wrong but keep in mind he has zero hestitation throwing guards to die. He's indirectly killed several times, and that's not really something we can ignore when thinking about shilo.

He's also incredibly manipulative. He has no worries dominating or manipulating people for his own gain, and again, this comes from his sheltered life. This comes from him simply not knowing any better, but even then, this is a major flaw that i feel some people dont think about.

Shilo isn't rapunzel, Rapunzel isn't a killer, and she isn't manipulative with a disregard for people's lives. That is to say Shilo isn't pure evil, but rather, he's a morally grey character. He's killed, and he's manipulated, but you could argue that it came from a place of not knowing any better, but even then, he's still killed and manipulated. Do you see where the interesting moral dichotomy lies? Is he at fault for the evil he does if he doesn't know any better. I just dont like the "purely good" Shilo takes I've seen some people have.

The aromantic stuff:

I think it's rather well known I'm an aroace shilo truther (if im being honest, i have a distaste for armored pheasant to an extent, but that is not what this is about). I feel as if that's a rather crucial part of his character, and it's not unsubstantiated. He quite literally says he's incapable of having romantic feelings, and in the newest episode (i am not caught up, forgive me), I've heard there's more he says that hints towards this aromantic reading. He's had zero interest in romance, and the fact he was bloodbonded to Edward without his consent can have rather interesting implications that I believe could be expanded on. A lot of aromantics know that feeling of being told "I can fix you" or whatever and Shilo parallels it quite well with the experience he has had with Edward. Below is the quote where he says he's incapable of romantic love.

(This is my own personal opinion but I believe his character is also sort of dumbed down once someone ships him with Grefgore. A lot of people did from the get go, and I get and see the appeal but I also think they're better as friends but again, personal opinion and I don't care if you ship them but his character falls into the "only interesting for the shipping to the fandom" pit quite easily.)

There's something incredibly validating to have a character like Shilo, who's kind and silly and aromantic if that makes sense. Aromantic representation has been lackluster, and most representation is god awful (coughLovelesscough) so having Shilo would be really nice. He's not canon representation, yes. Unless Bizly straight up confirms it, it's just implied representation but come on. It's right there guys. Give us an aro win.

His character has a lot of interesting bits: a character who's only experience with the world is through media & book (hashtag autism), a character who's incredibly cruel yet kind, a character blind to his own flaws, an aromantic character who loves despite. Give me more morally grey Shilo, more guilty Shilo and most of all. More Aromantic Shilo.

[elainsgirl]

I just had to let this out: I was lurking on Elriel edits on tiktok and saw lot's of comments on why people prefer Elucien or Gwynriel and it's always one of the following reasons: it's too predictable, 3 sisters and 3 brothers, Elain doesn't deserve Az or can't handle his darkness. Always one of these.

Like they don't even bother to list as to why they want their own ship or have solid reasons aside from how they don't like Elriel so they like another.

It almost sounds like: Elriel isn't good so I want ... or ... ship.

It's amazing how most like/want their own ship because of their dislike for Elain/Elriel.

I can't wait for her book to come out so that Sjm can prove how all had been wrongly judging Elain's power and personality ❤️. How she has an amazing strength and is beautiful inside and out. How she is strong enough to handle Azriel's darkness, altough I think the main reason Azriel wants to be around Elain is because he admires and loves her light/her peacefulness.

I also want more to realize that Azriel has this domestic side which longs for the peace and quiet that Elain can offer in relationship. Them sitting in the garden and her baking bread while he taking it from her like the husband of the house. These are already shown to us. I just hate how people ignore that some couple are like this and if that is boring and predictable to you then maybe read some mystery romances that are less predictable as to who will end up with who 😬.

Elriel is so beautiful and underrated within the fandom that it hurts 🤧

They are all thropes together. Opposite attract yet also very similar to each other, forbidden love and pining/yearning, dark and light/ moody and sunshine, friends to lovers and maybe also love at first sight since we don't know much about their POV yet and to when exactly the attraction started. And I can go on and on

Hey anon 🫶

Saying elriel is too predictable is so funny because thats the point. You’ve successfully managed to pick up the foreshadowing Sjm was laying out, Nessian were predictable and obvious yet no one cared as much. 3 sisters x 3 brothers is literally fate and seems predestined which is the whole point of the acotar series. Idk I just think if you really hate the direction the series is going in you can always dnf instead of criticising it. It is a book from the fantasy genre which is often filled with cliches or repetitive plots. Im not even going to argue w Elain not being able to handle Azriels darkness- those antis just coddle elain and treat her as some oblivious child.

Most antis only ship Ga/El bcs they just dont like elriel. With the other ships they’re so undeveloped that you can shape them to be however you want which is 10x more favourable.

YES! I can’t wait for Elains book to change so many peoples minds about her and show how much of a beautiful strong character she is in her own way, a different kind of strength. Im hopinh Elains character makes more people opem to softer coded fmcs. I agree, Elain seems to offer Az peace and quiet. Two people that can just exist together, understanding and truly seeing the other the way no one else has. She isn’t afraid of Azriel, his powers or scars and he didn’t back down and act as though she was crazy during acowar. They’re not afriad of each other. I truly love how Mass wrote them to be & cant wait for her to explore them more. Azriel’s domestic side always comes out with Elain and its just the cutest watching the big, scary shadowsinger blush bcs of Elain, taking her out, flying with her etc.

Elriel truly have the best tropes, and I know more people would like them if Lucien wasn’t Elains mate or Elain was more Nesta/Gwyn coded which sucks but these same people will read the elriel book and maybe change their mind - and see the amazing couple they were missing out on for years 🤭

I think thats one thing im really intrigued to know - Elain and Azriels first impressions. What was going through Azriels mind when he smiled at Elain clutching her fork. What did Elain see in Az that put her at ease and made her ask him questions. There’s so much backstory for elriel that I hope Mass writes and gives to us.

[candyskiez]

thinkin about the conversation abt guilt between jon and helen again. and how the distortion realized “i wasnt going to stop doing it so i decided not to feel bad”. and how Feeling Guilty About It never changed anything for jon. it didn’t stop him from feeding. didn’t stop him from hurting people or being rude or abrasive. certainly didnt fix the apocalypse he was tricked into causing. his guilt never helped or saved anyone, and his choice to carry it around with him was mostly for self flagellation purposes. but also it was because he never stopped seeing people as people. even when they were his prey they were people. it’s just. !!!

GODDD YOU DONT EVEN KNOW. SEASON FOUR KILLED ME. SEASON FOUR CHANGED ME AS A PERSON. Grggrgr. God you don't even know. Ok ok.

Jon wants so badly to be a good person but he doesn't want to *get* better. He wants to BE better. Which. I never saw portrayed so accurately in fiction before and kind of felt like seeing my internal organs just. Out there. On the screen. But yknow. He wants so so bad to be good and he has no idea how to actually Stop hurting people and giving up these awful behaviors means giving up the things thatve kept him safe his whole life. His desperate attempts to do better in s4 are often met with rejection, and regardless of how understandable the others actions are (and I will argue it was understandable till the heat death of the universe) it ends up leaving him in this limbo where he doesn't feel like changing is Working. And it doesn't really help that he only tends to actually understand his feelings and other people's perspectives until they've blown up and he can't ignore them anymore. He so badly wants to be a good person but he's kind of just. He's not given up on per say but he's so angry and frustrated about it because nothing he does seems to be good enough or actually seem to improve in any meaningful way.

Ok ok on the note of the actual conversation you brought up. Sorry i got very sidetracked. Jon and guilt is so so interesting because it's embedded so deep in his personality. So much of who he is was fundamentally shaped by guilt and shame. And it doesn't actually fix anything. Most of his actions fueled by guilt or wanting to Repent don't actually do anything good. It partly stopped his whole murder crusade but tbh. There was also other things going on, less just Jon Guilt and more so Jon actually reflecting. It's almost like actually reevaluating your shit is more effective than self punishing. Guilt is so deeply rooted in every aspect of his actions throughout the series and it doesn't make him kinder most of the time. If anything it makes him more bitter and impulsive. But he can't afford to let go of his guilt less he starts just letting himself hurt everyone near him, but it was never actually the guilt that stopped him. He only really started stopping himself from doing shit out of compassion and care for the few people he had left. Guilt never stopped him, but he never let go because he Needed it to stop him from doing worse. But it wasn't the shame that had stopped him, he'd been ashamed his whole life and it actively made him worse. What did stop him in the end was the one person he had left being so furious at him but staying with him anyway, because he loved him.

Also I have Big Feelings about Jon and Helen's relationship and how Jon giving up on Helen was when he gave up on himself but that is a topic for another day. Jonathan Sims the man that you are. Boy why are you so guilt.

[tfyoulookingatgiuxs]

Gameboy

Billy Hargrove x NonBinary!Reader

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘: You didn't think the day could get any worse than this, but apparently you were wrong. tired from work, you came home and had to endure the shouting of your boyfriend and his little sister Maxine. Billy was going too far and you had enough.

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: +18 MDNI!! angst, blurb, very bad language, argue, broke-up, sigarettes, threats, intimidation, use of Y/N, no prounons NonBinary!Reader, theme about sex, theme about violence, anger issue, daddy issue, toxic relationship, bad ending. (Please be careful what you are about to read, the themes here are quite heavy and with a bad ending. If you don't feel like it, don't read, thanks)

𝐀/𝐍: My first Billy Hargrove One-Shot. I have to say that he's a character i dont have much interest to be honest, but if you want me to do more one-shots about Billy let me know! Please support new writers and reblog! Im sorry for my english, this is not my native language. Hope you enjoy! (DIVIDER NOT MINE)

Fuck, fuck and fuck! You thought in your head when you wanted to scream. You had just left the bar where you worked and you could tell you had had a rough day. Your boss didn't stop tormenting you, by now you seriously thought he was mad at you. But that doesn't mean you stopped trying, moving forward and taking criticism and then improving yourself, but despite this the people around you seem bad every day.

You didn't have to think about it. Absolutely not! Now you would have gone to your boyfriend's house and he will surely console you, tell you that everything will be fine–wait...no. Absolutely not. You haven't done these things for almost two months because of your full-time job and the constant evenings where Billy went out, obviously not caring that you needed him. You tried to talk to him a couple of times to find out if something was wrong but he only answered "I'm fine, we're fine, why are you asking me?" You seriously started to think if you were the crazy one or if tiredness was playing a bad joke on you. Billy seemed calm and sees nothing wrong with your relationship. You didn't say anything. You knew the issues Billy was going through with his father lately, so you let it go and once again agreed with him, and blamed it on the stress.

You got to his door before you even knocked and Billy opened it angrily, which scared you. As soon as he noticed you he took a breath and gave you a simple "Hi" before letting you inside. It often happened that you went to sleep at your boyfriend's house, especially when his father wasn't there. As soon as you entered you felt a certain tension in the air and saw Billy take his jacket from the coat rack. You were about to ask something but the boy with golden curls beat you to it "Leave Max alone, that little bitch won't come out of her fucking room until I say so" With that I left the house slamming the door.

Right from him. He doesn't even tell you where he's going or with whom.

Apparently he had argued with Maxine, his younger sister. You completely ignored what Billy said to you and went to Max's door. You could clearly hear that she was crying and that hurts you. Since you met Max she has always seen you as a second parent: kind, helpful, affectionate and above all loving. You were happy to have this relationship with her and when she happened to argue with her brother, you couldn't help but go and console her or try to resolve the situation. Before knocking you looked around, the house was a real mess, or rather a disaster, all of Billy's things scattered everywhere, starting with: weights, ashtrays, porn magazines and gameboys. Shit...

You still don't understand how you managed to fall in love with an imbecile like him. So handsome with those curls and shining face but also so arrogant, messy and not very polite. You gently knocked on the door “Max, it's me Y/N, can I come in?” You heard the little girl sniff and she agreed. You opened the door and found Maxine in tears and her face completely red from the outburst. Her pillow was wet while her cleres were a shade of red from crying. She was lying on the bed and as soon as she saw you, her breath seemed to come back. You sat next to her while you used your fingers to fix some strands of her red hair.

"Maxine...what happened?" You said almost whispering. It took her a while to answer you but in the end she did "Dad...a little while ago he was here and he was arguing with Billy," she began "I didn't know what they were arguing about but then he started hitting him.. ." Her tone was shaky as she tried to collect herself "Did Dad hit Billy?" You asked and she nodded “Yes, the asshole” okay, you got the point. “I stopped him but after mom and the asshole left, Billy started yelling at me” you raised an eyebrow “Why on earth?” The question of when might be obvious seemed difficult for Max to answer. “I don't know for sure, he just told me that I shouldn't meddle in his business” you hugged her and she immediately hugged you back.

“I'll talk to him, I promise” You said and Max looked up immediately. "No Y/N, don't do it. He's too angry and I don't want him to be angry at you too" you smiled at his sweet thought towards you. Max was now like a little sister or a daughter to protect for you, you wouldn't have let Maxine spend the evening locked in her room even though she hadn't done anything "Don't worry about me, I can handle your brother" Oh well, knowing how to handle Billy Hargrove was a big word, but that didn't stop you from consoling Max and preparing her some snacks to stop her crying.

You laughed and joked and Max had finally regained her smile and as if you were a good parent you put a blanket over her while you turned off the light, leaving Max to sleep peacefully. After at least fifteen minutes, Billy came home with a bottle of beer in his hand, you snorted at the sight. You had been waiting for him all evening and you would have at least hoped that for once he wouldn't come back drunk although he seemed quite sober.

"Where have you been?" You asked as you crossed your arms over your chest. He looked at you with a face that got on your nerves, he was bored.

"I asked you, where have you been" You repeated and he made a small moan and then replied "Outside for some fresh air" You didn't want to ask why he was drunk, you had gotten used to it by now so you let it go. Meanwhile he had thrown his jacket on the sofa.

"Why did you and Maxine argue?" Billy turned to look at you. He sat comfortably on the living room sofa bare-chested while he was ready to light his cigarette which he held between his lips. "Where's Max?" He asked "In her room to sleep after you made her cry" his face didn't change a bit, he was serious and definitely bored "Y/N, I specifically told you to leave Max alone, she was supposed to stay in her room " you nodded "In fact, she stayed in the room, but I kept her company" He let out a laugh and then looked back at your figure "You shouldn't have interacted with her" you shook your head "I'm sorry Billy, but I don't stay at your rules" at that statement he took the cigarette out of his mouth "I just want to know why you picked on her, you know I don't like seeing you or your sister like this"

"It's none of your business. What happens here is none of your business Y/N" you were shocked "Excuse me? You're my boyfriend, what happens to you is a fact that until proven otherwise concerns me too" You took a few steps closer towards the sofa. Billy giggled again and you were sure that the next one he would make would drive you mad "And let's hear, why on earth?" You gave an obvious look "Um, hello? We're engaged Billy, engaged!" You timed the last word well "Oh right, I forgot" he said it in a sarcastic way and now your nerves were getting frayed "Oh, I'm sorry this is weighing on you Billy" you too played the sarcasm card and he rolled his eyes "What the fuck Y/N! Now I have to tell you everything I do?" You nodded quickly "Yes, you piss me off that I have to tell you where I'm going, with who and why otherwise you'll ban me from going out" You almost screamed but then lowered your voice remembering Max in the other room.

Billy had lit his cigarette in the meantime "But that has nothing to do with it -" you stopped him while your blood was boiling "It certainly has something to do with it William!" Your eyes were different, they were like Billy had never seen them and when you used his real name he understood that you were seriously pissed. Billy hates being called by his real name and you knew it very well, you did it on purpose. You wanted him to understand how serious you were and how tired you were of the current situation.

“How dare you call me?” Even though he was drunk, Billy was high and his eyes were fixed on you as they gave you a horrible feeling. They wanted to intimidate you, but you weren't like that and he knew it from the first moment he met you. Even if you were afraid that he would knock your teeth out and then make you spill all your blood until you apologized, but you were brave and you wouldn't let yourself be bossed around.

You pointed your finger at him "Oh no! Don't try to make that angry dick face because I'm the angry one, you understand?" He was surprised by your arrogant response "Things have been going on like this for two months and I can't stand it anymore. You barely look at me, all you do is go out in the evening and you don't even tell me where you're going, but you do it when you're too drunk to drive and I have to pick you up" You started and he looked like he was listening intently "And this happens every Friday night Billy. I come home from work tired and destroyed by those filthy pieces of shit and instead being close to me all you do is complain" He snorted and now gave you a different look. He put the cigarette in the ashtray, even though he hadn't smoked it at all. He seemed calm and approached you smiling lovingly... was it the alcohol by any chance? Or maybe bipolar?

"Okay honey, you're right. I'm sorry, now how about we go relax over there–" you pushed him. You were disappointed. His response disgusted you more than expected "No Billy. You won't play your fucking game on me telling me I'm right when in reality you just want to take me to bed and fuck me the way you like it" his face was back and angry more than first "But apparently the other times you didn't hesitate to open your legs for me" it was cheeky and disgusting and you slapped him. You had become a burning fire and you were sure that you would burn him and his house down "Because I was blinded by a filthy imbecile asshole like you. I thought you loved me..." You felt the burning in your eyes as your eyes became shiny. You were too weak to face the truth but you needed it...as much as you loved that boy with all your heart, he would never love you "Oh so now it's me not loving you?" He said dramatically and the tears came out and this time you screamed "Billy, you never console me and only seek me out when you feel like having sex with me. What did you take me for? A toy? I'm your fucking gameboy by any chance?" He tried to answer but couldn't find the right words and blurted out "Shut your mouth" your nervous system was out of control and you raised your voice again "Not this time Billy! Not after I've opened and closed it as you please!"

Now you didn't care who could hear you or who you would disturb. You were tired. You didn't want this. You wanted a serious relationship with a serious person. You wanted someone who values ​​you and takes care of you when you need it, always available and who doesn't see you as a sex toy giving you false illusions. "Calm down, young lady! Show respect" you looked at him and in front of you you had another person. Not Billy Hargrove, but William Hargrove...the real him. Despite everything he was that and you were sorry for ruining yourself by being around him. You didn't think he would ever threaten you, an attitude you hated and hoped your boyfriend wouldn't attribute to "Wow...now you're threatening me?" Billy later realized what he said and didn't reply "Congratulations Billy Hargorve. You ruined my life. You made fun of me and took advantage of me and used me to please your cock when it got hard and needy. But worse…you became your father” you never thought you would say it, but you did. With that sentence you knew you would unleash his anger and you didn't give him time to react "It's over." You announced and then headed towards the door and exited the house as he yelled after you in anger. You didn't want to hear it or deal with it ever again. You had endured enough and it was time to end it.

You had ended a year-long relationship and you now ask yourself in tears as you walked quickly to your house as you had done. You didn't know that obviously. You will never understand, you loved him, what did you need to know or realize? As beautiful and magical as love could be, it was also blind and cruel. It seemed to be a difficult game where the only possibility of victory was to survive until the game itself got tired of testing you, and then it throws a truth in your face that you would rather ignore. But ultimately it was better to suffer for the truth than to live in something that didn't exist.

Now you needed to get up and continue to live your life but you weren't motivated to move forward and live like you did before working, especially now that the only person you loved was just a liar who loved playing with people's feelings and what's more he preferred masturbating to porn magazines than spending sweet moments with you. Would you have suffered? Yes. And you don't know for how long, but you hoped for little since you couldn't cry and dry up your tears for someone who never deserved you and who the only thing he ever worshiped was your body.

[crguang]

also the overalls on Kafka, her in a suit is always so nice, like I need to put on her tie for her and adjust her collar and kiss her goodbye before she goes to kill a ton of people. When she comes home yank her by the tie and kiss her dumb, and the overalls are coming off. Also she’s drinking again, she went to the bar immediately. I rewatched her trailer, like ik she killed all the guards but I need to be one of them, especially the one at the end, idc if I’m gonna get shot, like her pose, the legs? if Kafka did that to me…I would not survive. And I saw a screenshot of her from like an early game trailer like an anime opening type thing with her name in the background …her legs, omg I need her so bad.

I checked her other replies and it was biographical films and she said “I also enjoy the feeling of reading about and watching others' lives” which makes sense, she def likes analyzing people’s lives and stuff smth smth I don’t like the idea of a movie being made abt me w the director’s interpretation of me, which I thought was interesting, bc obv she’s an “actor” if Elio is the director. And the other one is sci-fi and she says smth like they’re set in the future but the past is repeated in the future. Which is silly bc sci-fi still existing in hsr like what are sci-fi movies abt there? I got gifted lavender oil, to help relax my brain or smth, and makes it easier to sleep, so hopefully that helps too.

-🌠

kafka in a suit always does things to me i love her stupid suspenders so much she looks so edible i need to chew her like bubblegum. and yeah i joke abt her always having a drink in hand but it’s kinda true like maybe it’s time for an intervention…..

we dont talk about kafka doing the world a favor by shooting ipc goons in the head often enough. if i was that dude she was leaning over with her boobs in his face and shot me in the face i’d die happy. like what a way to go. need to sit on her lapppp i need it i need it

learning stuff about her makes me smile so big like of course she enjoys getting in people’s heads it’s her whole thing… did she actually say that she wouldn’t want a movie made about her… it makes sense, since she keeps everyone at a distance and keeps her cards close to her chest no one could know her well enough to understand her fully, so their interpretation of her would never be true to the source material. i really love how mysterious she is and how much effort that goes into staying that way like shes so silly😭 i would argue that elio is also an actor though, he doesn’t control her and hes also just “destiny’s slave”. the scripts/possibilites are already written, he just relays them and twists them to his advantage.

the line about the past repeating itself in the future also makes sense considering that she follows the path of finality, in a “we come from the earth we’ll go back to the earth” kind of way… she also says something similar in a voice line (the past and the future are so similar to each other. i’m indifferent towards them) and im starting to understand what she means by that, even tho im still a little confused about what future she’s talking about. cause she clearly cares about hers lol

[holyblanchett]

I have mixed feelings about Aubrey Plaza but that’s a discussion I am keeping off your account for both of our sanities sake :) agreed tho, if Lady Death ever returns, i dont think it’ll be Aubrey, unless we do get aaa s2 somehow.

I also agree with you that the casting of Aubrey and Kathryn and the fact they just both did really damn good with their characters and dynamic is the main reason people are so okay with letting Disney get away with lacklustre representation. Hell, they still somehow get flowers for it as if the homosexual tension all season to lead to a single kiss (if at all) to lead to one of them dying storyline isn’t a tale as old as time. It’s not that revolutionary and it plays into doomed Yuri and bury your gays and its just straight up not enough anymore in this day and age. Especially in this day and age. But i said I wouldn’t get political here.

Overall im super happy Wandavision and now AAA have made me notice and get into Kathryn Hahn, she is such a joy and i do love an unproblematic fave to get into, I am but a simple faggot after all.

But, and this is also about fandom culture overall, I do see a surprising lack of productive discussion on AAAs problems. People were really mad and then everyone just shut up and was fine because the showrunner said something about cottagecore on a podcast(or article i am not looking that up rn lol).

When we could very well be like No Jac, they didn’t actually live in a cottage because you didn’t write that in your script when you might as well could have. Own up to that Queen. It’s not 2015 anymore, if your queer rep sucks then you gotta take accountability. We deserve better. Always have.

I dunno, I dont like queers as a money maker in media, even tho its actually such an interesting topic too, i could go on forever (clearly). Look guys were so woke! Kind of! A little bit! Don’t look too close and by god, be grateful!

Long Story Short, the more Schaefer tries to sell us this lesbian wives love story epos the less I buy it. Still hoping for season 2 but not optimistic thats actually gonna happen.

Remember kids, Big Corp just wants your money, they dont care about your feeling at the end of the day. Do with that what you will.

- 🐇

Thank you for sparing us both the future discourse her fans are insane lmao. At the time, it honestly felt like I was the only one upset after the episode aired. If you followed me during that time -- I apologize, I think my crash out lasted like three days 😭 I still refuse to rewatch the show because of the way Jac/Marvel treated their relationship. It is by far one of the worst things I've seen in a long time. And before people come for me, yeah you can cry in my comments about censoring all you want. Jac literally said the reason there wasn't more Agathario was because she didn't think people would actually care. So if you're easily triggered, I would suggest you skip this post cus I'm not arguing with yall in the comments today.

Now back to your point. The bury your gays trope, particularly involving wlw ships plays into decades of exploitation of the queer community. Also let's be real, it's such a cliché and for someone that had queer writers (allegedly) on the show idkw no one told her how detrimental and insulting it is. I honestly wouldn't have been as upset if Agatha had died any other way. But killing her while she's essentially vulnerable and in the arms of the woman she has so much unresolved conflict/feelings with is just nasty work. Jac knew Agatha was supposed to die from the beginning. Which means she could have written it any other way. Hell, the final battle should have been against the Salem Seven and I stand by this.

There's going to come a time when playing both sides isn't going to work. I can only hope that in the future Marvel gets with the times and puts more care into their queer ships. It's what we deserve and we shouldn't settle for anything less.

[psychotrope777]

i dont want to sound like im shitting on the show because i do genuinely really enjoy it and i do think it succeeds in other areas im not calling it terrible. the buildup to the demigod arc was genuinely really well executed IMO and you can tell it was planned for a long time but the conclusion was just kind of. a little disappointing and kinda left a weird taste in my mouth

so literally speaking, chikn is a godlike entity with the power to destroy the world, but the demigod storyline is obviously meant to be taken metaphorically. metaphorically, chee is too busy to hang out with chikn and that hurts his feelings. which is pretty objectively speaking not a fucking big deal at all, and the comparison is already in and of itself a little strange. the show does a good job of illustrating that chikn obviously has some shit going on, for lack of a better term. it shows that he struggles with abandonment issues, he's pretty sensitive to how other people interpret him, and it explains why he would react the way he does. but the show hasn't really done anything on that end thus far. i'm hoping it does, and to be fair it might be a little soon narratively, but it kinda... i dont know. like i said i think it's kinda weird how the blame for all of this is placed squarely on chee, who you can still argue didnt really do anything wrong.

im not trying to insinuate chikn is a bad person or a terrible friend. i have been chikn before. this episode in particular really resonated with me because i know this feeling exactly. imagining a world where you arent present and that your friends would be happier / better off without you. i know what it's like to worry that you're an "extra" in your friend group. i also know what it's like to bottle shit up and hold grudges until you end up blowing up on people. it's something that i have and occasionally still do struggle with, and it's WRONG!!!!!! i don't feel like there's enough emphasis put on that chikn freaking the fuck out on his friends IS shitty and he IS in the wrong for that. there's so much blame placed on chee for something that ultimately chikn did. and honestly the whole thing with chee can be boiled down to him getting in his own head over chee not having time to hang out. he could have just talked to her. he could have just met up with her or messaged her and been like "hey, i know you've been busy but it's bumming me out that we haven't been able to hang out at all. do you think we could make plans to do something together sometime?" he doesn't, and he instead allows his thoughts about his friends not caring about him fester until he breaks down. chee couldn't possibly have known how he was feeling and again yeah she definitely kept a poor balance between her friendships and her relationship but insinuating she's a bad friend because she hangs out with her girlfriend a lot (and insinuating that anybody is entitled to her time or attention) is really kind of scummy to me.

and again, speaking objectively the chee situation was chikn making a mountain out of a molehill, regardless of why he did it. yeah, we understand how he feels, but the reaction was still disproportionate and, well, dickish. is there going to be any real effort from chikn moving forward to examine his own issues and insecurities? is he going to work on his own self-esteem and try and be more transparent with his friends? is he going to seek some kind of help for his intrusive thoughts and clearly volatile emotional state? or is the world going to risk armageddon any time something happens that mildly upsets him? is it the correct thing for this friend group to revolve entirely around chikn's feelings and chikn's whims 100% of the time? should chikn's friends shoulder the responsibility for him having poor self-esteem and walk on eggshells constantly because it's going to be a shitshow if he gets mad?

i know the show is trying to send a message to its audience but i think there's also something to be said about the characters having all this discord in their relationships and then immediately shifting into therapyspeak and being posited as emotionally mature and empathetic after the demigod thing only to still... handle the entire thing incorrectly imo. do you know what i mean like the show is trying to show that theyre doing the right thing but they kinda arent so it's just. weird

[exiledelle]

UNDERTALE YELLOW MERCILESS ROUTE SPOILERS

ive seen a couple people here and there be upset over how the route ends, but i want to give my two cents on why i actually really like it

(btw this is not at all me saying people HAVE to enjoy it, or arent allowed to dislike it, just sharing my own take on it)

if youve clicked the read more im going to assume youve played through the merciless route and seen its ending, or dont care about spoilers for it

otherwise what the heck are you doing here

but basically, what ive seen people get upset over a lot, is the fact that clover kills asgore and flowey instantly, takes the human souls, and then just waltzes out of the underground and beyond the players reach (which is my personal take on why resetting goes back to floweys control, and clover forgetting, instead of to when clover unlocks the save ability, is its not clover or flowey resetting, but us. the player IS a distinctly separate entity in ut/dr after all)

but honestly?? what else COULD have happened?? asgore couldnt handle frisk at level ONE. he didnt stand even a FRACTION of a chance against an lv 20 clover, who might i add, has a giant laser beam, a degree of soul magic not even frisk obtains. you COULD argue chara uses soul magic to "kill" our save file at the end of undertales merciless route though, i could see that, but still, clovers laser is a much more direct and obvious show of it. (and just to be safe, before anyone tries to say humans dont have magic, no, thats literally the entire premise of the setting is humans used magic to create the barrier, its just less present in humans than it is in monsters, who are made of the stuff)

and undertale yellows merciless route goes the route of deciding that undertales version already said everything there is to say on the meta aspects and the whole "you can so you need to" mindset, so instead it just calls it what it is: its a power trip. its mindless slaughter for the sake of getting stronger, whether its the player demanding a different ending (like deltarunes coldhearted route(im not calling it snowgrave, but this is entirely personal preference)), or again just wanting to see whatll happen. but either way its to feel strong.

and what happens at the end of that power trip? youve reached level 20. youve surpassed floweys control. you have as much power as you could ever hope to achieve. so, realistically:

whats stopping you from just killing asgore and leaving.

nothing. so you do.

and it leaves you wondering: was the power trip worth it. was the pain and suffering you caused worth it to get such a blatantly, not just non-canon, but ANTI-CANON ending? (EDIT: and i mean this in a positive way, its the same kind of self-reflection over your actions that undertale pulls, just communicated in a more indirect way)

and it being so anti-canon is part of why its such a haunting ending for me.

there really wasnt any other possible way for it to end. lv 20 itself and the way undertale and deltarune characterize that increase in power, in retrospect it feels obvious that it would be anti-canon in a prequel. monster souls are weaker than human souls, even at lv 1. so against a human whos lv 20, and who got there by constantly persisting and trying over and over to get past whatever obstacle is in front of them, and refuses to give up on their conquest, theres nothing anyone can do, and that alone rips the canon of undertale into shreds.

even SANS realizes theres nothing that can actually stop you, not even him, so the best he can hope for is that he puts up enough of a fight to make the player give up and/or reset, same reason his final attack is a turn that never ends.

and having to face that by helplessly watching clover blast an asgore-shaped hole in the story is TERRIFYING to me, in a way i really love the yellow team for doing. idk if its actually intentional or if im reading too much into it, but either way,

[jamlabs]

HI THIS IS WUTHERING-TEMPEST'S MAIN i just gotta say I'm madly in love with your limbus/mgs character assessments and I dont think theres a single one I disagree with. Me and my sibling were mostly just joking around and not putting too much thought into it but. you. you understand it. I just wanted to say i love everything you said in the tags ok thank u i hope your day is good

OH HI!! Yeah I'm like. Notoriously obsessed with MGS LMAOOO . <- has played mgs3 9 times at this point .

Listen I love jokes. Jokes are AWESOME!!! You and your siblings joking made me sit and think about it which was a lot of fun :) I'm glad you liked my tags! Now for the craziness because. I don't stop thinking. Actually I'll put this under a read more because I didn't realize how much I was yapping. I HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD DAY TOO

If you wanted to make the winds of destruction an analogue to the La Manchaland ppl I'd probably do the following:

Mistral: Mistral is someone who was out for revenge, got it, and realized that she loves killing people, actually. She's intentionally written to be a foil to Raiden with a very similar backstory and motives... Well tbf all the winds are written to mirror and challenge Raiden but she's the most obvious with it. I'm putting Dulcinea here because while she's cold, she's pragmatic and cares deeply for her family. I could argue that she would fit in Monsoons spot, but I think Mistral has a more AOE focused kit and (again, assuming Sinclair in the role of Raiden,) her devotion to her family would be a kind of twisted mirror to what happened to Sinclair. I also don't know enough of her backstory to layer it well :(

Monsoon: he doesn't really have a good analogue amongst the bloodfiends but I do think the priest fits the best out of all of em. His unwavering devotion is a very sharp contrast to Monsoons nihilism which I find interesting! They both have an 'it is what it is' mentality though the Priests is explicitly continued with 'because Father says so', while Monsoons is 'because Nature says so.' The Priests mechanic of inflicting bleed on himself can be analogous to Monsoon splitting himself apart. Possibly. And I do think both can cause emotional damage via their various rhetorics!

Sundowner: sundowner is someone who just really likes violence but is also. A very capable leader. Barber reads as the best analogue to me since she's very obviously more unhinged than the other of the main fiends. Her status doesn't quite translate, but I do think personality and fighting style works here. (He literally uses scissor blades!)

Sam: Donqui as I've said... Her character arc pretty heavily mirrors sams with loss of self and then discovering the true self. If you're going with Sinclair as Raiden that tracks even harder because Sam only really came back to remembering his true ideals when Raiden pushed him on em. Also the obvious of being recruited directly from Armstrong and being somewhat separate from the rest of the Winds...

Armstrong: gotta be DQ Sr. Obviously Armstrong sucks but DQ Sr IS the one holding the reigns of the other bloodfiends through the familial line. He also kind of has parallels in that Armstrong is "using war as a business to end war as a business" (he talking out of his ass but that's for another post) and DQ Sr is making bloodfiends surpress themselves and be miserable to end their like. Reputation among humans. Does that track? It works in my brain. MG Excelsus is the ferris wheel.

[nerves-nebula]

yea so anyway mob/vigilante justice is always a bad idea. the people likely to get the brunt of that are always the most marginalized, the easiest targets, the ones no one will miss. we like to talk about csa a lot on this blog (and by we i mean i) and that includes a lot of you sending me very graphic and hyperbolic descriptions of violence you wanna commit against my abusive characters. which is fine (I mean it would have been better if you'd all asked before doing that but lucky for you I enjoy gore so w/e)

but if you like, actually genuinely want to "kill all rapists" or something then you are an untrustworthy person. that kind of lust for genuine violence is really reactionary and disconcerting. it doesn't come from a place of care and it kinda just makes it seem like you really want to hurt and/or murder someone but you're waiting for a good excuse (as in, a "bad enough" person) to do it.

even if you set aside the wave of queerphobia we're living through which asserts that all queer people, and especially openly queer people, are sexual predators (which im only setting aside because i dont have the energy to get into it right now) it's still wholly unhelpful to the actual victims of these crimes cause like. you're not supporting them. you're not giving them resources, you're just satiating your lust for violence and revenge on their behalf. and worst of all you're making accusations of sexual abuse a life or death scenario (even more than they already are for some people)

how is a kid supposed to feel comfortable telling you their parent is abusing them if they think you'll KILL that parent for it? Kids usually love their parents, or at least know that without them they'll have to fend for themselves. (I personally would be afraid that whatever adult i ended up with would be worse, and seeing how the foster care system in the USA is I don't think that fear is unfounded) and tbh a lot of rape & sexual abuse is weird and complicated. I certainly don't want my siblings killed for what they did to me.

you can say "oh that's different" all you want, and I won't even argue that there are some things people do that I personally think make them deserving of death, but it is not my right to go out and kill them. I refuse to acknowledge that anyone, any government or group of people have the right to just decide to murder people. because we all know the people they'll be murdering first and foremost aren't the powerful people who traffic children.

idk i could talk about this for hours but im unusually tired rn. maybe seeing this unthinking blood lust just depresses me. like, I think you guys just hear the word "pedo" or "sex offender" and black out with rage instead of having any coherent thoughts on what we can actually do to support people being sexually abused and keep them safe. I don't care about hurting abusers, I don't want more people hurt! I want the victims safe and recovering!

ack, whatever. don't try to justify your violent desires to me, i've seen enough violence for one lifetime.