#insufferable and also so mother-daughter coded

[dovaeh]

dialogue prompts. " i’m trying to fix your hair, so hold still. " @ulfhrafnx.

it reminds her of when she was small — her mother raking fingers through her hair and tugging painfully at the roots, making neat and pretty braids of once messy hair — and in that it is a great comfort to maesena. especially where her stomach is a thorny bundle of nerves that only grows with time sat still, snaking and twisting in anticipation for the coming march to battle.

and even the scolding is a little nostalgic, voice holding the same touch of softness behind reproach — no real bite to the bark. still, maesena silently obeys and her knees snap together, hands disappearing beneath her legs to keep her energy locked in. it's a nightmare on the inside, wormy and restless, but she tries to simply focus on the little pinprick pains of individual hairs getting pulled too tight, cool fingers raking her scalp as lira divides the thick mass of hair atop her head.

were she not so electrified, she could easily fall asleep to this... and has before. instead she fiddles with the loose string at her knee and sweats until lira steps back, immediately standing and running the tips of her fingers over the hard edges of each knot. "so..." she grins, bright and only slightly pained from the firmness of it. "do i look like a proper nord? or will i have to dunk my head in a cauldron of cheese first?"

[miss-kittyy]

Rewriting Briarlight and Longtail’s Deaths

So I am disabled, like very disabled, I am %50 of the teenagers ever diagnosed with my special combination of pain disorders, and I also unfortunately hyper fixated on warrior cats, which is bad news for me because warrior cats is super ableist, and to add insult to injury, the fandom can also be pretty ableist.

My biggest problem with the majority of “anti-ableist” AUs is that they “fix” the ableism stemming from the narrative and able bodied characters by making the disabled character less disabled, this so bad for many reasons. I’ve talked more about in other posts. The justification that real life disabled cats are less doesn’t make it not ableist, since when was warrior cats meant to be realistic? If you’re making an au where the disabled cats function like actual disabled cats you also have to make all the cats genetically accurate, and retcon Lionblaze lifting a tree.

My problem with warrior cats is not that the disabled characters cannot become full conventional warriors, I’d like it if they got to choose what duties the perform instead of being crammed into the medicine den, but I don’t care about Cinderpelt not being able to complete a marathon. Most of the fandom seems to think the issue is that the disabled character are not useful enough, instead of the way that able bodied characters deny of them agency and make remarks like “you wouldn’t want to return to a life like her’s would you?”. Disabled people do not need to be “useful” to be worthy and empowering.

It’s very obvious that most of the fandom just wants the disabled cats to be more palatable to abled bodied people, so I’ve decided to make my own rewrite instead to hopefully make myself feel better. A lot of these things are inspired by my own experiences and not every disabled person is looking for the same things in representation, this is totally self indulgent.

The goal of this AU is to highlight the many unique and valuable aspects disability and how being disabled does not infringe upon anyone’s worth, ever.

- Longtail doesn’t die in the storm, Briarpaw is still injured, but he’s found besides her, trying his best to help her cling to life.

- after Briarpaw begins to recover he stands up to Millie and other cats insulting her quality of life, he says her journey will be hard, but it is one worth taking.

- She asks him why he’s an elder, and he decides to request to have his warrior ship restored as Briarpaw is dreading the life of an elder.

- On his first patrol the cats accompanying him insist on speaking to him in an incredibly infantilism tone, and whispering amongst themselves over what he can or can’t do, without consulting him,

- He initially gives up on patrolling after that insufferable experience.

- Briarlight begins to create marks and blobs on the wall of the medicine den using crushed up dead herbs she asks him to retrieve some berries for her, and he complies.

- Jayfeather shows him how he navigates the territory with the help of some of the sighted cats, and Mousefur is quick to volunteer as his guide. He finds her company surprisingly empowering. He realizes that it was not his blindness which was limiting his abilities, but the other cats attitudes.

- Mousefur and Longtail return with mouthful of berries and herbs, Briarlight describes to him what she’s drawing on the side of the den and he helps he mound the materials into paint.

- The cats begin to pop into the medicine den to see Briarlights painting and soon Jayfeather has to kick her out occasionally so they’d stop crowding him, she’s given the walls of camp to decorate instead.

- She begins to illustrate Longtails stories of the old territory and Bloodclan, and this new form of storytelling becomes a tradition amongst Thunderclan.

- because more young cats are aware of the clans history it becomes harder for the dark forest to recruit them, unfortunately, Blossomfall’s resentment towards her sister means she never cared to listen.

- Ivypool is still recruited and trained like in canon, given her relationship with the dark forest was much more emotionally charged and manipulative than just plain lies.

- at a gathering Longtail meets Grasspelt who inquires about Briarlight, Longtail is surprised about how little he knows as the she-cat had mentioned how well they got along as apprentices. Despite Millie nagging him not to tell him the truth about her daughter he does anyways, but puts much more emphasis on how well she’s doing than Millie expected. Grasspelt thinks this sounds really cool and decides that he is going to see her and her paintings, and that nobody can stop him. Longtail makes sure to put any opposing cat in their place, but Briarlight is a very respected Clanmate, so most warriors don’t say anything.

- Briarlight is nervous and doesn’t want to come out of the medicine den at first, but when Grassheart darts into the den holding berries and flowers for her to paint with she quickly warms up to her visitor.

- Grassheart is happy to tell Briarlight that he’s never been able to be a “functioning” warrior, and that he has always imagined that his spirit is shaped different, the medicine cat says his body is normal, but he’s never been able to keep focus in a fight or react as quickly as he should be able to while hunting. (He’s autistic because I say so)

- As dusk nears he’s visually hesitant to return to Riverclan and when Longtail inquires on why he says that he hasn’t felt so “here” for a long time. On the way back he wanders off and comes back with a chipmunk, when returning to Riverclan territory his father, Mintfur, is shocked to see his catch. After talking with his family a bit he realizes that it was the noise from the river that was making him so tense and dissociated, Brackenfur, who was escorting him, notices that he keeps rubbing himself on the ground and wincing.

- For the next couple moons Grasspelt returned to Thunderclan to bring Briarlight plants that only grow in Riverclan territory, he begins trying to fish from the quite lazy stream in their territory and soon both him and Briarlight have got it down.

- Longtail notices the sadness present whenever Grasspelt left and exclaims that it’s rather stupid that he’s living somewhere so unsuited for him just because of words long repeated.

- Grasspelt confesses that he feels the same, but knew he wasn’t supposed to say anything. Briarlight tells Longtail that her and the Riverclan warrior had been thinking of each other as mates for moons.

- Longtail accompanies Jayfeather to the next half moon meeting where he proposes his addition to the warrior code, “no cat should be confined to laws which harm them due to an inherent physical or spiritual difference.” (Cats don’t really know how brains work, so they see mental disabilities as a difference within a cats spirit)

- A moon later the leaders meet to discuss this proposition, it is accepted and Grasspelt makes the journey to Thunderclan for the final time.

- Grasspelt is renamed Grassspirit when becoming a Thunderclan warrior, unlike prior renaming of disabled cats this is a celebration.

- Grassspirit spends most of his time taking care of the elders and kits, he’s incredibly compassionate especially with kits and is able to solve many problems within the nursery.

- When twigkit and Violetkit arrive in Thunderclan Briarlight and Grassspirit help raise them, after Violetkit is taken Briarlight and Twigkit paint her on the side of Thunderclan camp.

- Briarlight still gets sick and her illness progresses without any treatment, Grassspirit notices her trying to hide it and when Longtail finds out he’s very upset. Jayfeather frantically treats her, expressing his frustration that she didn’t tell them sooner, the second Millie steps out she breaks down and explains that she just wanted to deal with it herself, and perhaps if she were successful Millie would finally treat her like an adult.

- Longtail gives Millie a stern talking to, he tells her that Briarlight is a warrior of Thunderclan and as her clanmate she should show her some respect.

- Millie is inherently very reactionary, as she had not realized the full extent of her suffocation, but eventually after a couple moons her and Briarlight begin to rekindle their relationship, like adults.

- Blossomfall sees how Brairlight wasn’t basking in their mother’s attention like she imagined, and feels the urge to seek out an actual sisterhood after ignoring Briarlight for moons and moons.

- Briarlight isn’t really mad at her sister, and understands why she felt the way she did. Jayfeather suggests that Blossomfall help Briarlight with her painting, Blossomfall seems put off with the suggestion of being her sister’s assistant.

- The interactions that follow are less than ideal, Blossomfall commends Briarlight’s able friends (Thornclaw, Poppyfrost, Alderheart, etc) for being so nice to her, as if that’s not what friends do. She seems very sad the entire time, sighing when her sister dragged her legs around with her mouth to sit more comfortably, even though she was completely fine. When watching her paint she comments that it’s good she has “something to keep her busy”, and finally she expresses her view, of Briarlight’s injury and her (Blossomfall’s) suffering being all worth it because of her talents, as if her life was not worth living to begin with.

- Briarlight tells her that if that’s truly what she wants she’s going to have to put more effort into understanding and respecting her way of life, and that she won’t apologize for their mother’s actions.

- When Blossomfall has her kits they take a liking to Auntie Briarlight, and Blossomfall seems to have reflected on their past interactions, trusting her sister to watch her kits. Briarlight teases a bit, a subtle way of telling her not to rush things, but they do begin to feel like something close to sisters.

- Right before Briarlight’s Nieces and Nephews are made warriors Longtail dies of Greencough. Throughout the entirety of his sickness he kept his sense of humour, his mean streak, and his immense love for what he had made of his clan.

- At his vigil Grassspirit began whaling like a bird in new-leaf, he insists that the vigil is too sad, and that Longtail wouldn’t want everyone moping around, for Starclan’s sake, his life was good. Standing amongst them, Longtail’s spirit can feel every cat in Thunderclan standing around him, singing the song of a life well lived.

[southslates]

Zutara head canon: When their newborn starts to stir at dawn, Zuko takes them to the balcony to watch the sunrise

Zuko has lived his whole life with a certain set of guidelines; he has rules he must follow as a member of the Fire Nation's royal family.

When he was a child he had enjoyed playing with the palace servants. Azula always had Mai and Ty Lee, but he was too awkward to make friends and too kind to find subjects of his own. He had learnt, at age seven, facing his father's burning, aurelian gaze, that princes do not hang around with the common folk - he had learnt that all must abide to his whims, to the whims of Prince Ozai.

He had remained friendless, quiet, had sulked his way and grown with only his mother as company. He was only adhering to his birthright.

Then his father had burnt off half his face for speaking out of turn in a meeting. The Agni Kai is sacred to the Fire Nation and he had refused to fight his father and suffered an ineffable amount. He had learnt, at age thirteen, eyes of the entire court upon him, that you must always stand your ground - he had learnt that pain and suffering are the only teachers half of his bloodline knows.

He had shaved off half his head afterwards, had been an insufferable captain and sailed the seas. He was only adhering to his birthright; he was only facing horrors he had created.

As an adult, Zuko is still held to a strict code; a moral code, one written in blood (in lightning scars). But some rules are almost enjoyable to follow. Some guidelines are formed from love and not propriety, from mutual respect.

Katara lies in bed next to him. They sleep together - this is a rule he likes to follow. Izumi lies in their room, close enough so that they can always protect her - this is a rule he likes to follow.

When his eyes open in full he first glances to the window, a sky still slightly blackened. He can feel the fire in his veins rejuvenating itself and pulls himself out of his wife's tight grasp, sliding her posessive hand off of his waist. She moans and he stills. There is one rule in his household that Zuko, at age twenty-five, is absolutely terrified of breaking -

Katara is not to be woken until hours after sunrise. He rises with the sun, she with the moon; she bends and heals far later into the night than he does, and she rages when she is roused early. She is always adorable with the vestiges of sleep written across her features, but Zuko . . . he knows that look is not really worth the consequences of awakening her before her time.

At that same moment Izumi gets up, like she can also feel the flames. He wonders if this means she is a firebender almost briefly before his gaze turns back to Katara, who is rising with him, and looks almost - almost so close to consciousness. Oh, no.

In a burst of confidence he turns her off of him and jumps across their cool floor, barefoot, and takes Izumi out of her crib. Her features are red and she looks like she's on the brink of tears before she takes him in, gurgling and reaching out for his face. There are only two people in this world he trusts to touch his scar so easily.

"We are not," he hefts her up, placing her face over his shoulder, "going to wake up your mother. Do you understand?"

His tone is teasingly serious, and his daughter calls him out on it, gurgling against his side. He sighs in complacence and happiness before side-eying Katara once again, relief smothering him when he realizes that she's out again, lightly snoring against their pillow. "Let's go outside. I think that'll be fun. We can look at the sun. Do you like the sun?"

Izumi obviously can't respond to him but when he looks down he sees her bright smile and feels his heart fly out of the window he opens. When he steps outside, stone against his feet, his daughter in his hands, the sun is still climbing into the sky. It paints a gorgeous picture at this moment, showering them in pure gold; he feels its energy in his veins.

"That's firebending, Izumi. That's energy. Can you feel that?" She turns around in his hands and looks out at the horizon, her blue eyes wide.

He can lose himself in this moment; his daughter in his arms, Katara in his bed, fire in his veins. It feels so intrinsically correct, and he thinks that rules can't be so bad if they've landed him in this life.

/

I’m accepting all prompts right now! Drop a headcanon/request in my askbox and I’ll get to it. Thanks for asking this one @thegreysunflower-blog!

[sunnomnoms]

Hiiii I Found Your Blog In The Tags And I Never Thought I Would Enjoy Ace Attorney Imagines Before. I've Been Into It For Years And I Think This Idea Is So Adorable. I Hope Requests Are Open, And If I Can Ask For Relationship Headcanons For Hobo Phoenix Where There Is An Established Relationship Between You Two, And How It Continues Once He Gets Disbarred? I Always Wonder How Those Eight Years Would Have Been When He Had Some Light In His Life Besides Trucy. Btw I Love Your Aizawa Writing!

Aaaa ! A new anon that actually likes my AA stuff ! I’m so blessed :,) I’m truly flattered my writing is what got you interested aha, you’re too sweet ! Also, thank you!

I got SUPER CARRIED AWAY WITH THIS I AM SO SORRY

Fun fact: I actually cried while writing it 🥺🥺

Some warnings: this is female coded! Some angst, some fluff, family cuteness, family struggles, agh-! It has a happy ending though!!!!! 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

You had known Phoenix for at least a year or so before you started dating. You were a witness to a crime he took, which is what brought you two together in the first place. If it’s important, yes, your testimony did help a good bit for solving the case!

While working on it, Phoenix found himself feeling a bit... fuzzy, around you. It wasn’t ever something he intended to happen, he wasn’t even sure if he wanted to be in a relationship. But he couldn’t just deny the immense amount of chemistry going on between the both of you.

Oddly enough, the two of you didn’t lose contact after the case was over. Phoenix took it upon himself to go and see you sometimes when he wasn’t working on anything. This fuzzy feeling was starting to get worse, and the chemistry was slowly turning into tension...

... and within a year or so of knowing you, he took it upon himself to ask if you would be interested in something more. You happily accepted.

With you now at his side, Phoenix felt a bit more confident. You meant a lot to him, and he made sure to express it as much as he could to you. He really was a sweetheart, he made it his goal to let you know how much he loved and appreciate all you did for him. Whether it be helping him figure out a case or just making him dinner after a long day in the office, he never took any of it for granted.

The incident happened a few years later, and it wasn’t something you could have seen coming from a million miles away.

Your boyfriend, an attorney, came home without his beloved badge... and a few days later, was asked to care for a child.

Phoenix was reasonably shaken about losing his badge due to his fatal mistake, but he was more worried about someone else.

“[Y/N], she’s got no where to go...” He said as he held your hands, tears brimming his eyes. The little girl I’m question, Trucy, sat in your living room as the two of you spoke quietly in your bedroom. You felt Phoenix give your hands a gentle squeeze. “Why don’t we give it a try...?”

Truth be told, you and Phoenix had been trying for a baby for a good while now, but nothing seemed to be working. It had started to take a toll on you mentally, making you fear you would never have children at all. Trucy had appeared at a time when you were sure you were going to give up entirely. Perhaps... this could be what you needed all along...?

With tears in your eyes, you agreed happily to raising Trucy with Phoenix. He brought you into a tight embrace as you began to feel yourself cry. He quietly whispered about how good of a mother you were going to be to her, and how he’s going to do everything he could with you to give her a normal life.

Raising Trucy wasn’t a struggle at all. Though mischievous at times, she was a delight to deal with. Your stresses of how you were raising her was fading, because despite everything... she held on tight and was strong. She seemed just as determined to live a normal life as you were to give her one. That is, as normal as raising a little magician can be!

Phoenix, in the beginning, was also great with her. You had never felt so close to him until now. You felt like you had that family you always dreamed of. Granted, it wasn’t perfect, Phoenix was still struggling with coping over his lost badge. You did what you could to assure him that life would untangle itself with time, and that no matter what, you were sure things were going to end up okay. You were there on the countless nights he felt himself fall to apart, you always helped him put back the pieces.

For awhile, you were sure things were getting better. Trucy was doing great, and it seemed like Phoenix was...

Unfortunately, your beloved wasn’t always honest with his feelings. He had suppressed so much... and before you could help him, it’s as if he fell into disrepair.

The struggles came with Phoenix’s sudden and rapidly declining mental health. He had gained a habit to isolate, and you began to go days without seeing him. When he’d show up again, he was vague as to where he was, if he told you at all. It began to take a toll on you, you were beginning to practically raise Trucy alone at this point. Sometimes he’d disappear with Trucy, and that tortured your poor heart more than anything. You could only handle so much paranoia about where they were.

It got to a point in which you basically begged for Phoenix to get professional help. He seemed stubborn when it came to the topic, as if he didn’t want to better himself. You couldn’t even be mad at him, you were too busy sorting out your feelings of dispair and hopelessness. You just wanted a normal life, you wanted a lover, a child, a stable family... you were so close, why did everyone have to fall apart...?

You had ended up taking yourself to therapy to sort out your feelings. Your family and friends gave you conflicting answers as to what to do. Some said to leave him and take Trucy, some said to stay and try and talk to him more, some said to take legal action...

You couldn’t tell what was right at this point. With so many people saying so many things, you weren’t sure what you were supposed to believe. Part of you downplayed the situation, this was how all dads were supposed to be, right? Part of you felt hypersensitive to everything, part of your conscious screaming that you should have ran away the second the red flags began to appear. You didn’t know what to do... so you chose to endure. For Trucy.

It didn’t help that Phoenix picked up a habit for drinking.

The only thing you could ever thank him for was that he stayed away from Trucy when intoxicated. She didn’t need to see him like that. Besides that, he was insufferable to deal with when intoxicated. He was the “I’m not that drunk!!” type, even if he couldn’t stand up. If you had a dime for all the times you had to drag him to bed, you’d never have to worry about the bills ever again. When drunk, he wasn’t physically violent or anything, but he had a habit of saying things that really hurt. It was common for you to put him to bed and spend the rest of the night crying and wonder what went wrong between you two. It was awful that occasionally, Trucy had to come and console you. You felt safer with your daughter than you did you own boyfriend... was it truly supposed to be this way...?

When Apollo came into the picture, you were delighted to meet him. He reminded you of how Phoenix once was when he was a lawyer. Apollo often questioned the family life of the three of you, but you always responded with vague answers. Things like “it’s certainly not perfect, but when is life ever supposed to be perfect?” We’re common time hear from you. It satisfied him for awhile. You’d always hear a ton about Apollo through Trucy, and it was for the most part positive things. Whenever he and Trucy visited the house, you’d quietly thank him for looking over Trucy when Phoenix wasn’t around. He always said it was no issue or whatnot, but you knew deep down he wasn’t expecting to be lowkey babysitting as a lawyer.

As far as you were concerned, Apollo was an addition to the family. Trucy always spoke of him as if he was a big brother, and it warmed your heart to know Trucy had a positive male figure in her life now.

When Phoenix had gone away for longer than usual for his “secret mission”, you had only expected for him to be away to go get messed up in a town over or something. But when he came back, he... brang news.

It was so much to take in at once. Trucy participated in her fathers “disappearance”, her mother was still alive, and Apollo was her half sibling.... what were you to do with yourself? What was it all supposed to mean? Was Trucy going to stay with you? And Apollo, was he now... your son?

You saw Apollo a bit less for the next week or so, you knew that case took a toll on him mentally and you were sure he was up to his eyes in paperwork. You made sure to call him at least once a day to make sure he wasn’t overworking himself.

Trucy was home a bit more now. You were happy to see here in the midst of the storm passing over the whole lot of you. You could tell she was torn up inside, but she still beamed at you with that beautiful smile you adored the second she came into your life. She was so strong, you couldn’t help but tear up a little when you saw her smile in the face of it all.

And Phoenix...

He was still gone for a bit after the fact, but one night he had come home late without you realizing. You were about to go to bed when you heard him call your name from the porch.

You felt your heart drop hearing him, worrying he might be drunk again. You padded your way to the back door, opening it and walking out onto the porch. Phoenix stood from his previous position of leaning on the railing, gesturing to some of the chairs on the deck. “Come sit. I... I wanna talk.”

You sat in one of the chairs, Phoenix pulling up one right in front of you. He inhaled deeply, then letting out a sigh. You were about to ask what this was all about when he gently took both of your hands.

“I... I’m sorry I dumped a bunch of information and left for a few days.” He apologized softly. “... I’ve been getting help.”

You let out a soft gasp. Phoenix looked up at you, and you felt yourself get lost in those beautiful steal blue eyes the same way you did all those years ago. You knew he was being sincere when he said it, but part of you didn’t believe it, what was this supposed to mean...?

“N-Nick, what is this about...?” You said, your voice barely above a whisper as you felt yourself getting choked up.

“[Y/N], this is about us. I lost sight of everything all those years ago- this isn’t what I wanted. This isn’t what I want and I know it’s not what you want.” Phoenix said, his gentle gaze never leaving you. You searched his face for any sign of insincerity but it just wasn’t there.

“Nick...” you croaked, tears beginning to roll down your face. You watched the tears begin to well up in his own eyes, but he quickly blinked them away.

“[Y/N]... I want to be a family again. A real family, [Y/N], I don’t want to be a stranger in this house anymore. I don’t want you to be afraid of where I am anymore, or be afraid of how Trucy is gonna grow up. I want a real family. I want you, me, Trucy and even Apollo to function like a real family...” He said, bringing your hands to his lips, placing a gentle kiss to them.

“... I’m so sorry [Y/N].” He spoke against your fingers. “I understand if you don’t forgive me, but I regret these past years so much... I need you to know that I’m sorry [Y/N]....”

You tried to hold back so you could speak, but your frantic sniffling caught Phoenix’s attention immediately.

“Nick, I-I-!”

He wrapped his arms tightly around you as you fell to pieces in his arms. You sobbed harder than you probably ever had for those past seven years or so. You clutched onto him for dear life, terrified he might disappear again if you let go.

“N-Nick- I-Ive waited s-seven years to hear you say you’ll come back!!! I-I-I’ve waited so long for you to c-come back home again, I-I-!” You wailed, your sobs getting the better of you as you gasped for air between your tears. He whispered gentle apologies to you as he ran his fingers through your hair.

The two of you stayed like that for a good bit. You sooner or later leveled out, your sobs dying down to gentle sniffles. Phoenix gently released you from his embrace, taking your hands in his again.

“[Y/N]?”

“Y-Yeah?” You responded shakily. He looked you in the eyes again, a gentle smile on his face.

“I... I want you to be my wife.” He said gently, earning another gasp from you. “Y-You don’t have to say yes now, I understand, b-but I don’t want to just be a lover to you anymore, I-I want to be your husband, [Y/N].” He spoke gently. You felt the tears sting your eyes again. He watched your face for a second, waiting for any sign of an answer to his proposal. You brought a hand to your face as you wiped the fresh tears rolling down your face.

“Oh Nick, I... I’d love to be your wife, Nick. I-I truly thought you would never ask...” You said, smiling as you watched his eyes light up. He let out a laugh of disbelief.

“Y-You mean it? After everything I’ve done you... you still love me..?” He asked. You nodded. “Of course I do.” Letting out another laugh in disbelief, he cupped your face and brought you into a deep kiss.

You were basically smothered with kisses, the two of you giggling like idiots, as giddy as teenagers getting their first tastes of love.

“I’m gonna get better just for you, and I’m gonna go retake the bar exam and I’m gonna fix all of this [Y/N]. I’m gonna give you the life you want and the life you deserve. I’m never going to lose sight of you again. Not you, not Trucy, not even Apollo, we’re gonna be a family and I’m not gonna let anything ever destroy that again. Maybe we can try again for another kid, maybe we can adopt another, I’ll give you anything to make our life perfect again...”

“I love you so much [Y/N].”

[bushyhair]

❝ then he said, leaning forward: ‘you’re strange animals, you women intellectuals. tell me: what’s it like to be a woman?’ i took my rifle from behind my chair and shot him dead. ‘it’s like that,’ i said. ❞ merlin’s beard, what is ( HERMIONE GRANGER ) doing out at this hour? for a ( MUGGLEBORN ) who is ( 47 ) years old, ( SHE ) really ought to know better. you know, i hear that they’re aligned with ( THE ORDER ), but that could be just a rumor. i do know that they’re a ( CIS WOMAN ) and a ( GRYFFINDOR ) alum who works as a ( POLITICAL ACTIVIST ) though. they’re very ( DAUNTLESS ) and ( ANALYTICAL ) but also quite ( VINDICTIVE ) and ( ACERBIC ), which could be why they remind of ( DESPERATELY SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS THE ONLY WAY YOU KNOW HOW – IN A DARK, MUSTY LIBRARY FILLED WITH ANCIENT TOMES WRITTEN IN LANGUAGES LONG DEAD TO MANKIND – BUT NOT TO YOU; A CEASELESS TUG-OF-WAR BETWEEN YOUR BRAIN AND YOUR HEART, BETWEEN RATIONALE AND COMPASSION; THE CELESTIAL HEAVENS THAT YOU CARRY ON YOUR SHOULDERS NOW THAT ATLAS IS NO LONGER AROUND TO BEAR THE BURDEN FOR YOU ). some people say they’re the spitting image of ( GUGU MBATHA RAW ), but i’ve never heard of them. word on the street is that they’re ( THE ERUDITE ) and their prophecy is ( PROPHECY 54 ), but only time will tell if that’s true or not. [ SARAH, 23, SHE/HER, PST ]

parallels: spencer hastings (pretty little liars), elphaba thropp (wicked), annabeth chase (percy jackson), amy santiago (brooklyn 99), sydney sage (bloodlines), beatrice (much ado about nothing), cristina yang (grey’s anatomy), monse finnie (on my block), jal fazer (skins), peggy carter (marvel cinematic universe)

hermione was something of a miracle baby (and a complete surprise). the couple found each other later in life than most, and they’d long since given up trying to conceive as her father was in his fifties and her mother was pushing forty. nevertheless, even though she was unexpected, her parents showered her with love and affection – they had always wanted a baby girl to call their own. hermione would be their one and only.

[ HOLOCAUST TW ] her parents named her hermione after the virtuous queen of sicily in shakespeare’s the winter’s tale and the only daughter of king menelaus and queen helen in greek mythology. her middle name is jean, which is a female variant of the name john, meaning “god is gracious”. i think hermione is, albeit probably unintentionally by jkr, coded as jewish (her appearance, how she faces oppression for her blood by the death eaters/voldemort which are analogies for the nazis/hitler/the holocaust, how she isn’t shown to have a particular attachment to christmas and rarely goes home for the holidays, etc.). thus, i’ve headcanoned that she comes from an interfaith family; her mom was christian and her dad was jewish, and they raised her with both religions with the intention of letting her pick when she grew older. while she is not spiritual and ultimately considers herself to be an atheist, she’s still very proud of her interfaith heritage. anyways, her parents didn’t actually name her jean because of its religious meaning; they named her after jean valjean from les misérables. much like her parents, hermione is also a fan of victor hugo’s work, and that was why she named one of her children hugo.

her father never spoke about how he was a victim of the holocaust, how he almost didn’t survive, how he lost his entire family to the war. sometimes hermione saw the number tattoo on his arm, and her own battle scars felt like they were on fire. her father was a survivor of the second world war, and she is a survivor of the second wizarding war. now more than ever, she understands the trauma, grief, and survivor’s guilt that he tried so desperately to shield her from. it is the same pain that she now carries. [ END TW ]

[ RACISM, BULLYING, AND ANTISEMITISM TW ] there were almost no black children in the posh neighborhood she was raised in, and hermione always felt out of place among her white classmates at the expensive primary school she attended. growing up, despite being upper middle class and an incredibly well-behaved child, she of course still experienced her fair share of racism due to her black and jewish heritage – dirty looks on the street by complete strangers, mean schoolchildren declaring her ugly for not meeting westernized beauty standards (especially when it came to her hair), shopkeepers keeping a watchful eye on her when she entered their stores, adults assuming she couldn’t possibly be as intelligent as her white peers. not only was it demoralizing to little hermione, it was enraging. she developed an overwhelming need to prove herself and her capabilities – she always had to work so much harder than white children to be properly recognized, but every year, she still outperformed everyone else. of course, young hermione was seen as rather swotty, condescending, and insufferable by her classmates, so she was incredibly unpopular. her only friends were her parents, and the one place where she actually felt like she belonged was the library. books were an escape, a refuge. they offered her some comfort in an otherwise comfortless world. little did she know that this world was not truly her world – that there was something else waiting for her.

hermione developed a strict adherence to following the rules and an unwavering respect for authority partly because of the prejudice she faced from an early age. as a young black girl, she knew that if she did not present herself to be well behaved, responsible, and mature – if she ever acted out in any way – there could be a high price to pay. black children were punished (or hurt – or even killed) for very, very little. while she eventually outgrew this behavior as she found her place in the wizarding world, it took her a little time to blossom into the revolutionist that she is today.

when she first came to the wizarding world, she noticed a stark contrast in how she was treated by most people upon first glance. after all, it wasn’t as though blood purists could tell that she was muggleborn simply by looking at her (even though she didn’t realize that was what it was initially). and because of the difference that she noticed, she had hope that maybe – just maybe – this was somehow a world free of prejudice and racism, a world in which she could finally find belonging in. but of course, the wizarding world was not quite as she first thought. there was still prejudice; it was merely towards a different group of people. mudblood. when draco malfoy first spat out that venomous word in reference to her, she didn’t immediately know just what it meant, but she understood well enough. she’d been called slurs before. hermione was once again rattled with that familiar fury. she was top of her year, with an extraordinary amount of power, but still she was viewed by many as inferior. she vowed to prove her worth and become an instrument of change. she would fight for herself, her friends, her parents, the enslaved house elves, and the other muggleborns. if this world tried to tell her she did not belong there either, she would show them all that she did. she would be the best and the brightest – better than draco, pansy, and anyone else who tried to diminish her. and that was just what she did. it wasn’t enough for her though. [ END TW ]

because while hermione might have been a know-it-all who seemed rather confident in her abilities, the truth was that she was deeply insecure and terrified of failure. identified as highly gifted from a young age, this unintentionally placed an insurmountable pressure on her to overachieve in order to measure up to those high standards – to confirm to everyone, including and especially herself, that she really was as intelligent as they all thought she was. and to make matters worse, whether she was in the muggle world or the wizarding world, she always had something to prove. (in fact, she was only able to attend her expensive private school because of the scholarship that was granted to her due to her high marks and test scores. because while she was upper middle class, her family still wasn’t wealthy enough to send her there otherwise.) she somewhat grew out of her insecurities as the years went by – she’s proud of who she is and knows that she’s capable – but some of her insecurities still linger to this day. that compulsive need to be perfect will never truly go away. it’s an innate part of her now.

[ PHYSICAL ASSAULT TW ] even though she is extremely socially conscious and compassionate, she is very much a paradox and can often be abrasive, insensitive, and overly blunt. she’s also far more ruthless than she appears to be at first glance – this is the girl who destroyed marietta edgecombe’s face when she dared to betray the d.a., erased her parents’ memories, set a professor on fire, imprisoned rita skeeter in a jar and blackmailed her, and left umbridge to the centaurs to rot. while she does have a rigid sense of morals, she’s vindictive and will ultimately do what is necessary to achieve the right outcome. she honestly does not regret any of these actions – the ends justified the means in hermione’s opinion. (aka draco malfoy should consider himself lucky she only slapped his sorry arse so hard that he bruised) [ END TW ]

[ DEMENTIA/ALZHEIMER’S AND PARENTAL DEATH TW ] once the dust settled after the battle of hogwarts, after the seemingly endless funerals and memorials, she left everyone behind for a few months to search for her parents in australia and bring them back home. tracking them down took several weeks in and of itself, but once she finally found them, she quickly realized that she had her work cut out for herself. memory magic is an incredibly intricate process because it involves reconstructing the brain, and without proper training, it can easily go awry. she spent many days working on properly restoring their memories, and even after she was sure that she had done it perfectly, something was still wrong. the doctors ended up diagnosing her father with early stage alzheimer’s. although her friends reassured her that it wasn’t her fault, she still blamed herself for this – her father was well past middle aged, but perhaps his mind would not have deteriorated so much if she hadn’t cast those memory charms. she began distancing herself from her parents early on in her school career, opting to spend her holidays with ron and harry instead of trying to fit into a magicless world she no longer belonged in, and she became wracked with guilt and regret for pushing her parents away even if it was partially for their safety and peace of mind. she thought she would have more time than this, years to make up for it all. there wasn’t. a few years down the line, her father finally succumbed to his dementia and passed away, her mother following very soon after. although she died of natural causes, it was almost as though she couldn’t bear being apart from the love of her life, to go on living in a world without him. [ END TW ]

[ PTSD, DEATH, PARENTAL DEATH, GRIEF, PHYSICAL ASSAULT, AND TORTURE TW ] at some point, she returned to hogwarts to complete her seventh year, determined to graduate with all o’s on her n.e.w.t.s, and of course she succeeded because she’s hermione and she buried herself in her schoolwork, very much as a distraction from her grief, her trauma, the diminishing health of her father, and her newfound fame. being a war hero thrust hermione into the spotlight, and at first, she didn’t know how to handle it in the slightest. through time, she came to use her celebrity status to become a voice for the oppressed – house elves, werewolves, other muggleborns – because again, she’s hermione and she wouldn’t be hermione without her vehemence for social justice.

upon graduation, she landed herself a job in the department for the control and regulation of magical creatures. she stayed there for a while before transferring to the department of magical law enforcement. she never considered herself going into magical law when she was younger, but she soon realized that it was the only way she would be able to bring lasting change to a long broken system. for several years, hermione immersed herself in her work as much as she could. it was absolutely a coping mechanism, especially after her parents passed. as always, she was constantly fretting over her loved ones, asking them multiple times a week if they were alright and reassuring them that she was always here if they need a shoulder to lean on, but she hadn’t quite dealt with the fact that she wasn’t alright, not by a long shot. in fact, she was barely holding it together. rather than living, she was merely surviving, and it wasn’t for herself. her work and her friends were the only real reasons she managed to drag herself out of bed every morning. she hadn’t properly grieved the people she lost, and she suffered from petrifying night terrors, and the worst ones were of bellatrix torturing her in malfoy manor. she tried everything to remove or cover her scars from the incident, but as they were magically carved into her by curses of bellatrix’s own creation, she wasn’t able to. eventually, she gave up, deciding she would wear them as signs of her courage and resilience. but there were still those nights where she woke up from a chilling nightmare, wailing and thrashing. she cast muffling charms on her room every night as a precaution. she couldn’t even bear to visit her parents’ graves, too overcome by guilt, knowing in her heart that their deaths were her fault. she didn’t know how to carry that pain.

eventually, she settled down with ron and had two children with him, and slowly, with her two best friends by her side, she started to heal from her war wounds. there was no orderly, linear process to follow, like the five stages of grief. it was messy, and it was hard, but she pushed through it. she sought therapy at the urging of her friends, learning how to better handle her emotions, especially the ones involving grief. it took time, but she learned to live to again. she was able to move on and finally forgive herself. she healed – only for that arduous work to be undone when the third wizarding war started and the world fell into shambles again.

hermione was angry. she was so angry at the world for putting them all through this again. so many people died to prevent another war from happening, and despite her best efforts to make their sacrifices count -- to make it all mean something -- it seemed like it was all for naught in the end. after all, here they were again -- the same fight. always the same fight, with most of the same people.

and then harry died. then harry, her best friend, died for the second time, and hermione’s world shattered into pieces. it was only her love for her family and her vehemence for justice that gave her the strength to move on--but only barely so. she knew that she would never completely heal from it all. the truth was that when harry died, a part of her died along with him. he was not only her first friend but her true best friend (because ron had always been something else, something much more complicated). she considered him to be a brother, and she always did everything she could to help and protect him. she loved him so much, and she would’ve died for him without a second thought. they all would have. his death -- along with her parents’ deaths -- will always be her biggest failures, and she will forever blame herself for them. what good is it – being so smart – if she couldn’t save the ones that she loved the most? once her boggart was failing her exams, but now it is harry and her parents telling her the truth that she already knows – that their deaths were her failure and her fault. of course, this boggart is as irrational as the one she had in her childhood. harry and her parents would never say such a thing. logically, hermione knows this, but she still blames herself all the same – even if they would never, even if it’s not truly her fault.

then, miraculously, harry evaded death once more, coming back to life like the messiah himself -- but at the price of the life of one of her dearest friends. she’s even more furious now, but that anger doesn’t have anywhere to go. ultimately, she knows that even though it was the foolhardy, reckless knights who performed the ritual, the blame rests on the order’s shoulders. they failed their children. they drove them to this. in a way, she truly understands why the knights did what they did because she missed harry with all her heart and would have given (almost) anything to see him one more time, but still, it horrifies her. she wanted him back -- she is so grateful to have him back -- but not like this. not at the price of neville longbottom’s life. this is beyond anything she could have ever conceived. this is an aberration. it should have been impossible. and yet, here her best friend is, alive and (almost) well. she never expected that she would ever have him back, but now when he looks at her without any recognition in his face, she cannot help but be reminded of her father’s death all over again.

in the end, she will keep going on, and she will fight until her last dying breath to protect her loved ones and the world, but she’s so tired. how many times will they all have to fight the same war? how many more people will have to die for them to finally end this – for good this time? will this ever truly be over, or is humanity doomed to make the same mistakes and fight the same wars forever? for the girl who’s supposed to have all of the answers, even she doesn’t know.

it should be noted that hermione has never believed in prophecies or even divination at all, and even now that harry is alive, she still doesn’t. ultimately, she would argue that the reason why harry came back to life isn’t because it was destined in any way but because the knights truly believed in the prophecy and thus made it happen, much like how voldemort marked harry as his equal out of his doing after he heard trelawney’s first prophecy. in a way, it was almost a self-fulfulling prophecy. in the end, hermione doesn’t believe in predestined fate, and she never will. instead, she intends to shape her own future.

edit: also! i forgot to mention that, before the ministry was taken over, hermione was head of the department of magical law enforcement, but when she was thrust out of her position, she made the decision to dedicate herself to the order fully. hermione has never been minister of magic in this verse. although the ministry was never perfect by any means, she was a strong supporter of minister shacklebolt and worked with him personally for many years. ultimately, she was fairly content where she was at before all of this, but who knows what could happen if and when the war ends. [ END TW ]

[dumbdancemomssideblog]

S1E1: The Competition Begins

okie dokie first ever episode of dance moms rewatch starts now :0 i actually remember watching this the very first time it aired on lifetime because i was channel surfing and saw a commercial for it earlier that day. that was the summer between 8th and 9th grade. ah memories... i didnt know what to expect because i did dance when i was a kid but not on a competition team and it was mostly ballet so i was pretty unfamiliar with this whole world. 

anyway lets begin. this is probably gonna be a longer post than what i’ll end up writing for the other episodes in season 1 bc the first episode introduces so much info, just a heads up

Act 1: (aside: yes its insufferable to divide this into “acts” when its really just like “segments separated by commercial breaks” but thats how they’re called in actual tv scripts so im just going with that cuz i cant think of a better/easier way uwu)

god this is so fucking early 2010s lmao

i miss these days where they were just talented nobodies from pittsburgh on a low budget reality tv show that nobody even knew would be successful. and the bad hair and makeup but idk if that was also just a 2011 thing lol

THE REAL HOUSEWIVES GREEN SCREEN INTROS IM DYING

the chalkboard !!!! they werent doing the pyramid on the mirror yet 

(apparently abby never did anything similar to the pyramid thing but the producers made her and it became a whole Thing on the show and thats why the moms were like wtf is this bullshit the first week)

mackenzie looks like a toddler. chloe is so tiny. theyre the 2 who changed the most physically over the course of the show

i remember watching this for the first time being used to ballet lyrical and jazz but never having done or really seen acro/gymnastics in dance choreo and being SO flabbergasted. i was thinking “a chin stand is not dancing what the actual hell” and yknow what? i was right

melissa: “my boyfriend knows how much i spend on dance because he signs the checks...............hermehhemrherrmehermh” (the most awkward laugh omg)

maddie is wearing a fucking bumpit in her hair i cannot

melissa deadass just said out loud “im here for my daughter im not here to make friends” ok everybody mark that one off on your catty women’s reality tv show bingo card!

camera man accidentally getting in the shot filming right in front of the huge wall-mirror.... what is this, amateur hour? i’ll let it slide since its the first day of filming rehearsal but step it up, boys

aw i forgot about maddie getting sick and crying :/ poor kid

melissa saying “i cant stand a chid that’s sick” sounds so edited like the intonation made it seem to me like they just cut her off mid-sentence i love lifetime

oh this was still when they were wearing normal stuff to class/rehearsal like black leotards bc they werent getting sent a trillion crazy 2-piece dancewear outfits for free yet bc they werent famous, man those were the days

Act 2:

[obligatory b-roll footage of downtown pittsburgh] 

the maddie chloe paige trio !!!! this is making me feel so nostalgic

“knees together, paige. you’re bow-legged, you need to fix that”

“you’re tall, you’re skinny, you’re a beautiful girl, you can do better than this. FOCUS” shes like 10 abby what the hell

“people think im tough and i guess i am but i would rather be the one to make your kid cry in the privacy of my studio than at an open-call audition in front of hundreds of people”

okay unpopular opinion alert: i agree with a lot of what abby says about stuff like this but her delivery is flawed, to but it euphemistically, that being said i think the production team of the show and the fame inflating her ego changed all of this somewhere over the course of the second season and its really sad to see :/ i can expand on that thought later tho

aw paige crying bc abby correcting her (but not saying anything personal or out of line, just technique corrections (at based on what we were shown, we dont know everything she said oop)) shes a sensitive kid she never should have been put on this show :( 

paige looks exactly like her mom i didnt realize that before

nia and holly were done so dirty throughout the whole series in terms of the narrative the producers set up about nia being the weakest link :/ 

Act 3:

cathy’s entire involvement in the show from the very beginning was so painfully obviously scripted (or at least heavily staged) 

vivi was also done dirty by the show’s narrative and she was only 6 and they presented her as like the butt of the joke bc her mom’s “character” was crazy and also she wasnt good at dance. i wonder how she feels about the show now that shes a teenager hmm. she really seemed not to give a fuck about dance for better or for worse when she was a kid tho so maybe she doesnt care ?

in what universe would an owner of another competitive dance studio bring her own kid to another studio more than an hour’s drive away, AND be under the impression that she could compete with them in a week, especially when they showed the kids’ and moms’ shocked reaction at the start of the episode to having to learn a dance in a week and compete it? like really what is the point of cathy and vivi being a part of this show im so ????

Act 4: 

THE MINISTER DAWN OUTBURST HOW DID I FORGET ABOUT THIS

this fight is about 50% of what got them a full season 1 and then things took off from there tbh. the other 50% was the electricity dance but thats a point for next episode..... :)

“you’re a minister act like one” “YOU’RE RIGHT I AM A MINISTER! LET’S PLAY THE BIBLE GAME ABBY, WHEN JESUS SAW THINGS THAT WERE WRONG HE WENT AFTER THEM, AND YOU’RE NOT GOING TO DO THIS TO MY KID” ma’am i think the wrongs jesus addressed were of slightly more importance than a preteen being told she cant take a dance class if shes violating the studio’s dress code

this is so good bc it wasnt staged afaik and there are regular students all throughout the building just STARING at them like lmao what even is going on, so im pretty sure this is real???

regardless, yeah dont wear socks and a tshirt to an acrobatics class, thats common fucking sense

another cameraman-in-mirror sighting, but its hard to think about angles when filming spontaneous drama like this, so i wont count it against them

“you called me fat” (i remember that being in the episode but thats not on the episode available through lifetime on demand that im watching from my moms tv hmmmmmm) “i told you to close and tuck in your two-piece costume, theres a big difference. HOW CAN YOU REMEMBER THAT BUT YOU CAN’T REMEMBER TO TURN YOUR FEET OUT” uh scream

she really called the police on this woman i cannot handle this. can you imagine being a police officer responding to this call? 

“we have a parent thats out of control. pardon? no shes doesnt have weapons, just her mouth” iconic

im sorry im still not over the hair and makeup. the flat hair with the side bangs. the black pencil eyeliner applied all the way around the eye. why did any of us think this was a look :( why did we do this :(

Act 5:

they went all the way to phoenix to compete 3 numbers, only 2 of which are shown in the episode.

i think this is the only time they ever went to west coast dance explosion because its an actual competition and they wouldnt allow filming after this lol i think they did go to wcde one weekend in addition to a competition where they were filming but it wasnt shown or mentioned at all

abby not wanting brooke and paige to have a french manicure on stage if theyre the only ones in the group with the french tips is perfectly valid idk why it was framed as some crazy micromanaging shit

i also am really not a fan of the whole “high functioning alcoholic wine mom/crazy stage mom” schtick they were pushing for the first few episodes of this show

in retrospect i feel like so many of the quips in this episode were intentionally fucking crazy just to get the audience engaged enough to want to watch more episodes...

“see those girls down there, those girls with the legs? thats who you’re up against, so step it up”

abby warning them that its dangerous for their little party hats to slip when they’re doing aerials and pirouettes and stuff: “what if you were at radio city music hall and they had the ice rink out and you were doing a side aerial and fell 13 stories down and died, huh?” fantastic point abby thank you for saying that to 5 girls ages 8-12 less than 5 minutes before they went on stage. perfect time for a teaching moment like that :)

i forgot how bad the camera work was in the first few episodes for footage of their performances. like they really didnt think the show’s audience would actually want to watch the kids dance, the producers and editors thought we just wanted to see stage mothers yelling at each other lol

also the mic feed over the music of abby talking to herself giving them corrections while watching them dance on stage.... im so glad they quit doing that. i dont remember them doing it like that for any other episode, i hope im right

this choreo is very basic and its a cute dance i guess but its very cringe in some places and for the first episode this is such a forgettable group routine

their scandalized reaction to placing third and the sad piano music is so funny honestly

and maddies reaction in the interview which was almost definitely fed to her by the producers where shes like “i win all the time i dont really know what its like to LOSE i always win or get runner up” so many of maddies lines from season 1 interviews sound so fake and she was probably too naive to know they were getting her to say that stuff so they could paint her as a conceited brat (she was EIGHT)

the trio costume was so ugly im sorry (is it supposed to be like a 50s pinup bathing suit?) (and the headband thing looks so bad) and also the music is bad but they had no real authority over that bc of copyright stuff

chloe’s headpiece coming forward and the ensuing drama was another moment in the episode that really solidified public interest in the show imho.... 

“YOU’RE IN THE BAR HAVING A DRINK AND YOUR KID’S HEADPIECE IS FALLING OFF” “it did not FALL OFF it CAME FORWARD it was FINE!!!”

“mistakes happen, we’re human.” “YOU are. mistakes like that dont happen to me”

and then the “next time on dance moms” with the WILDLY INAPPROPRIATE electricity dance, of course. genuinely that was really smart of the producers in terms of structuring things to generate intrigue lol. and obviously it ended up working....

[shy-petty-weirdo]

Can I go on a Rant about Netflix's Tall Girl? *LONG POST*

*Note* The charator's names are not the same as in the movie, as the movie is unclear about what their names are, I even had subtitles on, and honestly can not tell you their names, non-the-less how to spell them

*Note 2* I am bad at spell, don't have my glasses and it's late, so bare with the middle-school spelling(also the color and the spacing are to not only help me keep track of what I'm writing, but anyone who has a hard time reading long things)

*Note 3* SPOILERS duh

Okay, so I am in no way 'tall' I'm barley the hight to be an astronaut, so I don't have much say in 'how it's so hard to be a tall girl'

Non the less I thought this would be a fun movie to watch with my best friend, who is a year younger than me, but taller, (The only friends I have that aren't taller than me, are the children I watch)

We are both in highschool, and have watch Netflix's orignal teen romcoms before, and loved the ones we watch, little cheesy, but still a good watch for weekly movie night.

I knew from the description of the movie before it came out, it was going to be an overload of cheesy-ness, but it seemed like a good laugh, like the kid of movies one watches for the pure stupid 'hello fellow kids' stuff.

The opening scene itself was something we thought was funny, from the color coded library (I use to volunteer at a library, so I def noticed it) to the fact that the girl who is suppose to be torrmentted for being tall, isn't reconized by not one, but TWO boys who go to HER school until she stands up.

We thought this was just cheesy fun, and her older brother even sat down to watch some of the begining, just to see if they asked her, what the weather was like up there, which they did, atleast five time, and was almost the only thing the 'bullies' actually bullied her about

I want to be clear I am extremly ANTI-bully, and so is my friends, her brother got bullied when he was young, and would get beat up, and even among their younger sibblings, bullying is NOT allowed.

So, there is some stuff behind when I say, Tall Girl wasn't really bullied, but more so teased. Now I know how small comments can over take someone's life, but the way that Tall Girl put it, she was more of a bully to her self than anyone else.

The 'iconic' scene of Tall Girl walking down the hall had us all stop, while my friend's brother pointed out she was literally friends with some one who is a minority (and later shown to be pressured at home to follow a strict life path and not one they want to) And my friend explained how, if Tall Girl wanted to make her life seem worse via shoe size, that she should have gone with a different brand, since Nike makes their shoes bigger, (Now that I think of it, this is def product placement)

Through out the movie Tall girl drags her friends through the mud, and yet plays the victem card the entire time, even though there are bigger issues that could be addressed, such as, the competing her sister does, and the pressure that is placed on her to be more, The social differenaces for the Transfer Student, the Beauty standards placed on girls, ANYTHING ELSE.

The way Tall Girl acts is nothing like any teen I have ever seen, it felt like a terrible 80s teen movie that died before production. I understand that they were trying to 'break' the teen romcom 'code' by making the mean girl not a dumb blonde, and have Tall Girl not get back with Transfer Student at the end, but they ended up with the exact opposite.

Most teens are not looking for a S.O.

Being tall is not a major hinder on a highschooler's life (espically being 6ft 1.5 inches)

Physical things that can not be changed are not something that most people even notice, non the less complain about on OTHER PEOPLE

Teens are more concerned about the STATE OF THE WORLD than any of the 2d personallity traits given to the main character

The most realistic/likeable character(s) were

1. Girl with glasses

2. Boy in the background of the scene in the science class balancing a pencil on his face

3.Tall Girl's father, who does everything he could think of to make his daughter happy and "normal"

4. Tall Girl's O.T. who was actually cultured in the world, really liked the Transfer Student, didn't know about him cheating, tried to be a good wing-girl to her best friend, even after he said that Tall Girl was hotter

5.Dudly(?) Crate-Boy who despite being possesive over Tall Girl in the movie scene, tells Transfer Student to do the right thing, which not just is so Tall Girl won't get the guy, but so Transfer Student doen't lead on the Multi-lingual Girl, which is solid advise anyway

6. Maya Hart, aka Tall Girl's sister. Through-out the movie we see Maya continusly working hard to acheive her personal goals, and simply try to be a good big sister. Though her advice to Tall Girl to fight for Transfer Student isn't the kind a rational person would give to someone, who just kissed a person in a relationship, we can really see how hard Maya is working towards her goals, and how much she wants to help her sister, as seen in the I Liked It When You Needed Me scene

7. Even though Pink hair girl doen't get a personallity in the script besides being into fashion and being an awesome amazing friend, She deserves better by Tall Girl, and her out burst at Tall Girl throwing her-self a pitty party, even though Tall Girl has all the tools to succesed in life, all the support, and everything she needs, except for a romance that, even Tall Girl's sister said was doomed from the begining

The begining of the film, gave off B-rated fun, but slowly moved down hill, as if this was the rock that us teens are forced to push up hill in this afterlife.

Tall Girl, herself slowly but steadly became more and more toxic, not only to herself, as she was in the start, but to her friends, family and classmates too.

At the start, her toxicity was contained in self pitty, which would have been a wonderful plot for the movie, being a tall inscure highschool girl, who finds her place in life, with her friends ad family, learning to love herself. Unfortunitly that's not what happened.

Tall Girl puts all of her energy and worth into finding a boyfriend, and I can't stress this enough, WHILE IN HIGHSCHOOL! I know everyone has heard it before, but the highschool years, though they seem all important, aren't that important, Humans are living into their 100s now, 4 akward years, where people just like you are trying to surive aren't going to make as big of a dent in your life as they use to make. Her friends, would probably be the only thing that she would take past the highschool years, if she wasn't so toxic

Tall Girl reminded me very much so of early 2010-2013, which may not seem like a long time ago, but it is almost 2020. Many of the traits Tall Girl showed are traits that many people stopped exibiting in 2016.

The only emotional smart charactors are Glasses and Dad,

While it IS a teen romcom, and so one would expect many 'crazy' ideas and things, This doesn't mean modern teens can't tell what toxic behavior is. I know the closer one is to the person, the hard the traits are to reconize, but just being aware of other people, and a general nice person one can see where the toxic traits are, even, if not more so in ones-self

The only time this movie seemed aware of the differance between the real world and the movie was the mother stating that her hardships in highschool was turning down all the boys that asked her to prom, and then Tall Girl rolls her eyes, and there is a very obvisous nod to the fact that being to popular is not really that much of a hardship to face

Many people often look on the 'Crate-Boy uses the crate to kiss Tall Girl' scene as romantic, and I will not tell them they are wrong for believing so, as everyone has their own perspective. I for one though saw it as Tall Girl still getting undeserved attention, and what she wanted.

The Prom scene is a prime example of this. Tall Girl doesn't like that Multi-Lingul Girl and Transfer Student are prom king & queen, and so, instead of letting them have their 15 sec of fame, she goes on stage, unanounced, Which I believe is not allowed at most proms, and make a speech, (usally these speaches show how the main charactor has changed for the better, and will not be forced to be what they are not)

This speach how ever, comes across as an ego boost, espically if one keeps in mind the very first scene where the two boy in her school didn't even know who she was. She goes on stage an makes a speach about how she is impowered by being tall and no one will make her feel bad about it.

This on paper sounds like it would be a real turning point, except THE MAIN CHARACTOR DOESN'T LEARN

Tall Girl faces no conciqueses for pushing her best friend (pink hair) to the side and using her as an emotional punching bag, she 'gets the guy' that she treated the EXACT SAME WAY SHE DIDN'T want to be treated, and nor is her self-pitty problem solved

All in all, this movie was insufferable, unrealistic, made my friend and I root for the 'villians' and side charators, and somehow make a film where it would be better off with the main charator being a side charator

I would really love to meet the writers and see the teens they are around, to see how they possible could have though such a toxic thing was okay to show to teens, espically the way they try to frame it as 'Goals'

***This is in no way against the actors/actresses that played in the film, nor those who helped backstage, (ex makeup, sets, etc) this is more aimed towards the writers of the script, and whoever thought that this was something good for teens.

[wanderingnork]

Writer's ask! 1, 8, 15, 25, 33, 37 👀

1: Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.

Hmmm. Really, when I’m writing, I’m happiest doing extremely nerdy things--like looking up the construction of World War I uniforms, train travel times in the 1920s, the ins and outs of the Protestant Reformation, the procedures of medieval midwives, and so on and so forth. It’s better when I get to pair this with found family tropes, idiots in love, or a combination of both. It’s even better when I get to add sprawling casts of NPCs and heavy sociopolitical context.

And it’s at its best when IT’S ALSO A ROAD TRIP.

(Okay. So my comfort zone is basically “the accidental epic” and the “as yet untitled Thedas revolutionary road trip” I’m working on now. Shhhh.)

8: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

Pulled from “An Insufferable God” (Dishonored, corvosider):

Narrowing his eyes slightly, the Outsider crowds Corvo against the door. “You’re incomprehensible to me,” he says, with even more of that youthful petulance. “Ridiculous man…slipping in at nursery windows to retrieve runes and have conversations with me…”

“Conversations we could very well have on the Dreadful Wale,” Corvo points out, holding the Outsider by his lapels, “if you would bother to show up anywhere but at a shrine.”

The Outsider soundly ignores him. “…a man with pocket change to his name, contemplating giving it all to a woman acting as a mother to children of unhinged fanatics…”

“My daughter is a child of one of your unhinged fanatics,” Corvo says.

I make myself laugh sometimes, and that last line of Corvo’s makes me giggle every time I read it. XD

15: If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose?

SOMEONE PLEASE FILM THAT DISHONORED CYBERPUNK FIC.

You know, “Cogito Ergo Sum” is a SUPER gorgeous fic. I wrote it with the intent to capture a particular visual feeling and it worked. Piero’s grimy garage workshop, the flying whales over storm-wracked Dunwall, the bustling neon streets, swirling lines of computer code hanging in the air, the cinematic action, the Outsider’s pretty face...

Also, I’m pretty sure the plot is simple enough that it could be packed into a 2-hour film without too much trimming. Lots of the wordcount is just me rattling on with descriptive passages and scene-setting, which in film can be done with much more visual brevity.

25: What do you look for in a beta?

Glib answer? That they’re either @pyxyltheamoeba or @accio-toffy.

More serious answer, I need someone who is willing to be a cheerleader, but is also willing to give me the Bad News when I make a big mistake. I don’t really look for people to help me deal with the nitty-gritty of line-by-line editing (which, for fanfiction, I feel comfortable doing myself), I look for people who are willing to help me with other stuff. I need a second eye to check the tone of a scene, overall consistency of character and lore, emotional content, and sometimes to look me in the face and say “You need to rewrite ALL of this, because it’s bad.”

What has made @pyxyltheamoeba such an amazing beta reader is that she’s pretty much willing to do it all for me. She catches errors in my spelling (memorably, the time I turned “Graves,” a wizard, into “G Raves,” a rapper), checks me on character, tells me when my action scenes don’t make sense, informs me that I’ve launched into poetry mode and am coming across as pretentious...it’s great.

Right now, @accio-toffy is mostly checking me for lore and emotional content of my fic. She’s helping me keep the feel of Dragon Age and keep my characters feeling...well, in-character...while I write.

Between them, they keep me on course.

33: How do you feel about crack?

In the right mood, I enjoy crack! Hell, I’ve WRITTEN it--does anyone else here remember my old IKEA series? Although a few fics in there don’t qualify (they’re just modern AUs or something that could happen in the actual series), the Odyssey one and the Legend of Drizzt one are unabashed crack.

Basically, Odysseus gets lost in IKEA on the way home from Troy, instead of getting lost in the Mediterranean; meanwhile, Drizzt must venture into the heart of IKEA (taking the place of the Underdark) to seek the Crystal Shard.

You might be able to count the Suburbia Squad series as crack? But it’s more “crack taken seriously” than straight crack. I took a ridiculous plot device and followed it to its logical outcome. (And with the release of Birds of Prey, I should REALLY write the wrap-up fic for the series.)

(I’ll answer 37 in someone else’s ask!)

Ask me more?

[curestardust]

if you want: mediocre idol anime with a lot of missed potential

It had a promising start and a letdown of an execution.

The first episode is actually quite interesting. We’ve an idol group called “Ongaku Shoujo” aka Music Girls who’re quite unpopular. At one of their busking events in the airport, our main character Hanako runs into them. She is the daughter of two musicians who’re there for their Japan tour. After the girls do their performance they find out that Hanako has an extraordinary ability of learning dances just by seeing them once. However, when she gets on stage it turns out that she is absolutely shit at singing.

So you’re probably thinking: aaahhh, so she will join the group and work hard to improve her singing and then they get popular in the process? Well, no. Hanako is immediately shafted into a staff position and...that’s it. So what IS it about then? 

The group getting popular. Obsviously, this is an often used schtick in idol anime but the way they went about it was horrible, you know why? Cause WE DON’T SEE IT!

Ongaku Shoujo has 11 members and this anime has 12 episodes. Each episode advances the “plot” a tiny, tiny bit while it also puts one or two of the members in the spotlight. This formula is fine. I can at the very least list one personality trait of each girl even if I don’t remember their name. 

Back to the plot, we’re barely shown them getting popular. It’s obvious from the fact that they’re invited to shows ans given CF opportunities but besides a few moments it really doesn’t come off as them being a “popular”.

Even worse is the second main character of the anime, Ouri who is the leader and the center for the group. She has an incredibly annoying personality. Has a really short fuse, likes to shout at people and act on impulse and doesn’t discuss her problems with her members. 

Aaaand the finale episode. Without spoilers: the biggest bullshit of a deux ex machina I’ve ever seen.

Technical side isn’t even worth talking about. Average to laughable art and animation and mediocre music, of which there’s few anyway. 

So, yeah. The majority of the cast is kinda lovable but it’s really just. Lame. Not worth watching if you have any standards whatsoever. [4/10] (x)

BONUS: Ongaku Shoujo’s “origin” is worth a few words. A 25 minute long OVA by the same name aired at the Anime Mirai in 2015. And it’s pretty good! The animation is fluid and the artstyle is soft and nice to look at. They manage to fit all the highs and lows of the story, which IS a quite typical idol anime themed but it’s not too jarring. I honestly thought that the TV version was going to rework the story we saw here but unfortunately besides 2 of the characters resembling and having the same names as the 2 protagonists of the OVA, there is no further connection between the two. But if you want something short and sweet idol stuff, I’d recommend. [7/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

if you want: family movie / interesting take on the flow of time

Mirai no Mirai is a movie with an interesting basis. 

Our main characters are a family, the Ootas. At the start of the movie we find out that the mother has given birth to their second child, Mirai. We mostly follow around their first child, Kun.

The movie presents an idea: what if time was not linear but fluid where characters from other times could visit you and you could visit them? We’re shown this idea through Kun. He is goes through the many problems a boy his age would go through. Jealousy because of his new sister, the frustration of not being pampered 24/7, trying to learn new skills for the first time etc. Each time he dashes out into the yard out of impulse where the tree would light up and throw us into the fantasy side of the story. The first few times he meets the personified version of the family dog and her sister from the future but as the movie goes on these time jumps become more extreme. Kun meets multiple of his relatives in numerous points of their lives where he learns something related to the problems he is facing...or he is supposed to.

The idea of the movie is fascinating and was the reason I decided to watch it, but multiple problems plague Mirai no Mirai which can drastically take away from the enjoyment of the movie. 

The most drastic one is Kun’s personality. Making an impulsive, loud, rebellious and rude 5 year old boy the main character of the movie was a questionable desicion. However, this wouldn’t have been as annoying if he showed improvement. Each time he comes back from the other world the tree took him to, he seems like he learnt a lesson. But when we cut into the next scene that’s all gone and he is acting as annoying as ever. It doesn’t really show that his meetings with his other relatives left any long-lasting impression on him.

The others are more technical. Many of the voice actors are rookies and it shows, especially on Kun which is another questionable decision, considering that we have to listen to him throughout the whole movie. 

The animation and the art direction are both quite well done, with the background being expecially gorgeous. However, they used CGI with certain scenes and it’s quite obvious due to the different movements of those scenes. When used sparingly, they were fine, but there was a scene near the end with a HEAVY use of quite ugly CGI that didn’t really fit the tone or the look of the movie and it was...weird.

I’m pretty sure that I’m simply not the target demographic for this movie. People who could relate to the struggles of the parents trying to balance work and kids while also being able to find Kun and Mirai’s constant whining adoring would most likely enjoy this more. [6/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

if you want:an amazing magical girl anime / one (1) actual healthy romance / nice cast of main characters

Haying reached another milestone, I yet again decided to rewatch one of my childhood favourites and this time I settled on Tokyo Mew Mew.

TMM, Mew Mew Power in English and Vadmacska Kommandó (Wildcat Commando) as I personally knew it, still holds up surprisingly well.

Having aired in 2003, Tokyo Mew Mew sticks to the magical girl themes mostly present at the time which is the story putting just as much emphasis on the romance as the magical girl aspects. The latter of which uses formulas that are still in use today: monster-of-the-week, colour coded characters, the Big Bad etc.

While we have 5 Mew Mews in the team but Ichigo, our leader and pink magical girl, gets the most airtime our of all of them. The other girls get a few episodes mostly focused on them here and there but it’ll be kinda a letdown for those who’re HUGE fans of one of the other Mew Mews.

Which is why it’d be quite a big problem if Ichigo was insufferable but she isn’t! She does have the usual tropes: ditzy, noisy and all-over-the-place. However, she is also loyal, kind, hardworking and strong. 

Now I’d like to say a few things about the romance. It’s incredibly rare to get that right in magical girl anime. Almost every relationship I’ve seen was unhealthy or annoying. But not here, oh no! In the very first episode we find out that Ichigo has landed a date with the school’s most popular guy, Aoyama. This makes it so that we don’t have to suffer through the “will they, won’t they” and we arrive when their relationship begins to take root. They go through highs and lows but they support each other all the way and I just love them.

But as good as the Aoyama romance is, the others are....not so much. As usual the romances center around our main character, aka Ichigo. The 2 culprits are Ryou and Quiche. Ryou is the brain behind the Mew Mew Project so he’s sort of like Ichigo’s boss. He doesn’t outright pursue her nor seems too interested in her however he has a bad tendency of kissing Ichigo a few times and NO. I very much didn’t like that. However, while he kinda exists the picture toward the end we have the rapey romance aka Quiche. He is an alien aka the enemy. He become infatuated with Ichigo for seemingly no particular reason and is just generally uhhhh...rapey. Unfortunately, his character doesn’t really go through much of a development which is a shame.

Anyway, before I finish, let me bring up the transformations. U G H. Yes they are much more simple than the ones today but I’m still in love with them. My favourite was Minto’s. The fluidity of her movements, the angles used, the material of her clothes and the pure creativity....they’re just gorgeous.

So, my true score of this is a 9/10 but my nostalgia would kill me if I gave this anything other than a perfect score so there’s that, If you’re a magical girl fan, Tokyo Mew Mew is a MUST! [10/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

[fierce-little-miana]

Hello^^ As threatened here I am with my pile of questions regarding the Color Ask! Sooooo here we go: Crimson, Amber, Olive, Brunswick, Denim, Ghost, Shadow, Black and Onyx for my problematic fave Bassel; Rose, Amber, Jumpsuit, Emerald, Peacock, Ash for my girl Saran; Coral, Coconut, Sepia, Hickory, Penny for my not-so-secret absolute favourite Sichilde and Ink for the whole cast! :D

For spoilery reason they will answer these questions as they are at the beginning of the story so the view of the characters on some questions might be different by the end of the story. But this is what they become, not what they are/were. So let’s start with who they are (so we might understand who they become)

Also people lie, to us and to themselves ;)

Bassel:

Crimson - Have you ever been in war? If so, describe how it impacted you

I have never personally been in a war. I have had the chance to be a third party witness to other’s wars and to speak directly with officiers. It is interesting and distracting; seeing men panicked and taking bad or out-of character decision for situations they more than often created. I have a particular affection for leaders capable to remember who they are and what they are supposed to do in a war and who do not shift the blame. They are not numerous.

I have however been implicated in two coups. It would be a euphemism to say that the first one completely changed my life and the second one, which was butchered, cemented those changes. I wish people who have no business dealing with power stayed away from it.

Amber - Do you wield any sort of superpower? If so, what is it?

Well technically I am perfectly normal for someone of my family but I guess this uses humans as reference? Well let’s just say that I am particularly found of flying, that I have a pretty good health, and that fire is a part of me.

Olive - What is your Greek personality type? (sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, or melancholic)

What is a greek personality type? It sounds interesting.

(Note from Avit: He tends toward sanguine)

Brunswick - Are you a person who is often jealous? what makes you jealous most often? 

What is there to be jealous about? I am sometimes resentful of the freedom granted to others but this is a hardly jealousy. I a more than ready to share something or someone that I love if this is the only way to make sure that I can still have them.

Denim - What is your fashion style?

I have pretty expensive taste. I like rich and dark fabrics with complicated embroidery. I also love high quality thin leather. I am not overly found of fur though. A bit as a decoration can be nice but I don’t see the point in more. While I love clothes that are structured they must still be confortable to move with.

Ghost- Are you easily scared? What scares you the most? 

No I am not. I don’t think there are things that scares me particularly. However there are things that anger me.

Shadow - What is your biggest regret? 

Regrets are for things you are responsible of. I do not make choices that lead me to regrets.

Black - What is the darkest thing you’ve ever done? 

There was a time with Alpaïs… No this was an accident. 

Onyx - What are your nightmares most often about? 

Having to stay stuck on the ground in Vicis. Who would want that?

Saran

Rose - Would you consider yourself a romantic person?

If you are asking me if I am the type of person who would die of anguish on a desert moor, the answer is no. If you are asking me if I am type of person who would stupidly ruin their life in a duel, the answer is no. If you are asking me if I would built my entire life around notion such as true love, the answer is still no.

Amber - Do you wield any sort of superpower? If so, what is it?

I have absolutely no power or capacities that are out of the ordinary. None. And the people telling you that I am a too lucky for not being a bit of a witch are obviously sore losers and there is no truth in their allegations.   

Jumpsuit - Have you ever been arrested/ in trouble with authority?

I tend to avoid being noticed negatively by the authority even if I am not very convinced by how most of its representatives wield power and I will discuss it but not with anyone.

I have insulted the entire ruling council or Arcem, but in my defense I was already in trouble and they were making the situation worse.

Emerald - If you could be immortal, would you want to be? 

What would be the point of being immortal? I have nothing to accomplish that I can’t accomplish in my life-time and I do not want to be alone forever. 

Peacock - Are you a more flashy person, or do you like to blend in?

To be perfectly honest I do not tend to blend in, but I don’t really have control on that, there aren’t a lot of people whose family is from the Horde of the Blue Wolf in Écre. However I am not a flashy person either. I might be a bit to outspoken sometimes though.  

Ash - Is there something or someone from your past that you miss? 

My father and my mother.

Sichilde

Coral - Do you have a strong moral code? What are some moral things that you feel strongly about?

I think everyone should tend toward being moral. For me the core of morality is respect and I try to respect others, social expectations and decency. It makes everyone’s life easier, isn’t it?

Coconut - What would be your ideal vacation? 

I wouldn’t leave someone else to shoulder my duties and I have to be here for my father but a quiet place with a chosen like-minded people does sounds nice.

Sepia - Do you have any hobbies? If so, what are they?

I love music, playing the luth and singing. I try to write my own songs but most of the time I just put already existing story in music. I wish more artists would come to Vicis so I could learn new things from them but it is complicated. 

I enjoy embroidery too but I tend to get bored with it after some time. 

Hickory - How smart are you? Would you consider yourself more book smart or street smart?

I am not bad at navigating the court I think, but I must be lacking when it comes to reading certain people. I enjoy learning things and I try to know everything someone of my rank should strive to know but I would not pretend to the name of erudite.

Penny - If you could make a substantial living doing anything, what would you do?

I would enjoy being a court musician, of teaching music to people passionated by it, but of course it is no what I am supposed to be.

and for the all cast!

Ink - write your autobiography in one sentence 

Bassel: I am  Bassel Derkomaï Prince of Arcem, last member of the most noble line in the world, but don’t hesitate to talk to me about things I don’t know about.

Saran: I am the daughter of Bat-Erdene and Doria and I intend to become one the best goldsmith of Écre and all the West to honor their memory.  

Rémi: I come from Clerveille and I have had the chance that my mother did everything for me and that Sir Roland tutored me.

Sichilde: I am the daughter of Monseigneur Fergal, Marechal of Arcem, and a member of the Derkomaï court.

Avit: I am the Chancellor of Vicis, and please to do not think the words of his Eminency Bassel Derkomaï are an invitation to make him lose his time, or make me lose mine.

Robert: I happen to be the most promising knight and best looking one in Clerveille, I also try my best to make Rémi have a bit a fun sometimes.

Kénaël: I am supposed to deal with mostly incompetent guards and soldiers while being in a delicate cross-authority situation and my best friend is the most insufferable person on earth and my prince.

Césari: I am just a man out to right the wrongs, and by that I mean using all the means imaginable to right the wrongs done to my rights.

[aion-rsa]

Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous Reveals That Friendship is When Trust Defeats Loneliness

https://ift.tt/32S9epU

In Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, a group of teenagers from very different walks of life learn that they have to depend on one another in order to survive the ordeal of being abandoned on an island full of dinosaurs. As much as the series revolves around escaped dinosaurs, jump scares, and corporate conspiracy, at its core are six lonely teenagers who really just want to have someone to connect to. By the time the season has concluded, those teens have found that they can trust each other with their lives, if not with everything else.

Darius

The series opens with Darius, a video gamer who wins a trip to Camp Cretaceous by successfully completing a game mission. He’s the only one of the Camp Cretaceous campers who truly loves dinosaurs for their own sake, and his only ulterior motive for being at Camp Cretaceous is to fulfill a promise he made to his father: that they would go to Jurassic World together.

But his father is gone. It’s not completely explained until episode 4 “Things Fall Apart”, but even from the first episode there’s the heavy implication that Darius’s father has died. Although his brother and mother both seem supportive, it’s clear that the loss of his father—who shared his passion for dinosaurs—hit him hard. When he arrives at Camp Cretaceous, it’s clear his father is present in his thoughts, and he’s determined not to waste a moment of his opportunity to be on Isla Nublar.

It makes sense that Darius would find like-minded fellow dinosaur lovers at camp, that he’d find a kindred spirit to help mitigate the loneliness he feels in losing the person who understood him best. But instead, he seems to be alone in his passion. He wants the other campers to like him, but that seems almost unattainable in the first few episodes, where he has no real way to connect with these other, not-dino-loving kids. In fact, they label him “Dino Nerd” early on—not in a complimentary way—and Darius is treated like a kid by older, richer, cooler Kenji. When Darius bails Kenji out for breaking the rules, landing them both in deep water, and discovers he’d fallen for a false sob story, he’s justifiably angry, but not angry enough to keep Kenji, who claims insider VIP knowledge of the island and park, for leading him on a second misadventure.

The two don’t like each other until far later (and even then, Kenji is mostly insufferable), but that bond of rule-breaking—and saving each other’s lives in dino encounters—starts forming the friendship and trust they’ll need when things get tough. It ends up being Kenji’s rightly-placed trust in Darius that helps Darius become the group’s leader. But it’s also the memory of Darius’s father, pledging that even when things fall apart, “we pick up the pieces and keep going,” that becomes Darius’s own inspirational speech—and one that the other campers quote back to him when he’s at his own moment of hopelessness. Their faith in him helps him realize that the memories of his father go with him everywhere, and when he tells them about his father’s death toward the end of the season, it’s less awkward for him than it is for the others, because they’ve helped him come to terms with it through their belief in him.

The Cattle Drive

The isolation of both Brooklynn and Yasmina is the focus of the third episode in the series: “The Cattle Drive,” as well as Sammy’s complete lack of understanding that people might prefer not to be surrounded by others. Sammy, daughter of ranchers, who has several siblings and extended family living around her, can’t fathom that a person might be a loner. When Kenji says, “You know how sometimes people just wanna be left alone?” She bursts into laughter, responding, “Kenji, you’re hilarious.” But Yasmina has no interest in being drawn out of her shell. As an athlete, she practices alone. Her hobbies are private. She has no interest in inviting the criticism of others, so she shuts everyone out.

Read more

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Brooklynn, on the other hand, is the focus of thousands of viewers on her own social media channel. She’s constantly taking footage to share with her followers—and she’s constantly under the scrutiny of strangers, desperately craving their approval. “There’s a lot of pressure when your whole life is about being popular,” she confesses to Darius. She can’t fathom that anyone else in the group might just really want to be liked, even if it’s not on the same scale. And while she admits later on that she’s not great at “IRL friendships,” it doesn’t initially occur to her that maybe what she needs is for real friendships, rather than the adoration of strangers, to make her feel validated.

Sammy’s speech to a sinoceratops, showcasing her own bravery as she tries to befriend the huge dinosaur, hits Yasmina right where it counts: “It’s hard to trust strangers,” Sammy says, promising, “I’ll trust you if you trust me.” Suddenly, Yasmina realizes that giving someone her trust is exactly what she needs, and the two become fast friends.

The Betrayal

Ultimately, it’s because that trust is betrayed that Yasmina is so crushed when Sammy reveals she’s been spying for Mantah Corp. Sammy is Yasmina’s first real friend. She defends Sammy when Brooklynn airs her suspicions that Sammy stole her phone. So when Sammy admits to her own lies—only after she’s been caught red handed—it totally undermines every ounce of faith she’d developed in others.

Sammy’s first loyalty is to her family, whom she clearly loves deeply—enough that she’s willing to risk everything to save them. But she’s also the type of character who easily gives her love and friendship to others. In the middle of a group of strangers at camp, she’s the one determined to make connections and friendships—the one unwilling to accept loneliness as a default. She’s open with herself, and one would think it would make her the worst kind of spy. (The fact that the kids do catch her supports that theory.) 

When she tries to make up with Yaz, it’s with that same selfless sharing of herself. After Yasmina risks herself to save Darius and Sammy, gratitude and admiration push Sammy to try to mend the rift between them. “That was amazing,” she says. “You’re amazing.” (The speech may encourage viewers to suspect Sammy’s feelings for Yasmina are also romantic, especially with the precedents set in Dreamworks series like She-Ra and the Princesses of Power and Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts. If there is a romantic tension underlying their friendship, these scenes pack an even harder punch.) But forgiveness doesn’t come easily; it takes more than just an apology and gratitude to bring Sammy and Yaz back together.

Last Day of Camp

It’s been hinted at that rich-kid Kenji is mostly left to his own devices when he’s at home. He’s full of put-on confidence, but when he talks about going home, the first thing he says he’ll do is go down to the bowling alley in their mansion, where the staff always lets him win. But as he describes it, he loses all enthusiasm. “Life of a VIP,” he says mournfully, looking at Darius. Later, he describes that he and his father have almost never shared an experience together, countering that sadness with a reminder that he’s wealthy, as though that should make up for his time alone.

Ben, still mocked by the rest of the group for his fanny packs and non-sugar, non-caffeine lifestyle, doesn’t argue with the teasing of the others, because he believes they’re right. He feels like he’s the one holding everyone back. The best friend he’s made by this episode is Bumpy, a baby ankylosaurus, that he was unwilling to abandon the way the adults abandoned the campers. 

When the other campers ask why he came to Camp Cretaceous, he acknowledges it’s because his mother wanted him to face his fears—but instead, he’s only had more things to be afraid of. And he’s tired of it, to the point that he realizes in order to be one of the team, he has to take a risk, too. That moment of risk and triumph is when he becomes a real member of the team, finally. It’s also why his loss in the next episode hits the other campers so hard.

To Friendship

As the campers believe they’ve finally made it out of Jurassic World alive, taking the monorail down to the South Ferry Docks, Sammy offers a toast to “the six of us being best friends for life,” the other campers don’t share her optimism. Brooklynn feels like friendships take more than a few days to form; Yasmina insists that they were only thrown together, and that their lack of anything in common will make it impossible to maintain any semblance of friendship after camp. 

But the crestfallen faces of the group make it clear that they don’t want that to be true. They want to believe that they’re friends. As Sammy protests, they’ve been through too much together to not be friends. But Ben reminds them the odds of their ever seeing each other again are small, and they sit in silence, stewing over that, each of them sitting alone in their own seat on the monorail.

Just one episode later, as the first season concludes—and they realize that they won’t be saying goodbye to each other until rescue comes—Darius reminds them that until help arrives, “we’ve got each other.” The nicknames that at the beginning of the season felt like teasing have become their proud monikers. They’ve learned that their trust is much better placed in each other than in the adults running the park. The friendships that they protested just an episode before have formed solidly, and the five remaining campers no longer separate themselves, sitting alone, mourning a lost opportunity. They interweave their arms, or lean on each other’s shoulders, acknowledging that they’re better together.

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And that wherever they go from here, Sammy’s right. They’ve become friends, and maybe even something deeper: they’ve become a team.

The post Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous Reveals That Friendship is When Trust Defeats Loneliness appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/35YU9oe

[polarishq]

Meet HENRIETTE VASSEUR. They are ONE HUNDRED and THIRTY-SIX years old and hail from LILLE, FRANCE. Henriette embodies the star, DIPHDA. They use she/her pronouns and are currently employed as an FBI MAGIC LIAISON. Their faceclaim is DAKOTA JOHNSON.

Eridanus reminds me of patterned blazer over a band tshirt, red lipstick, high heels, the sound of ice rattling in an almost empty venti cold brew, an expensive chess set, a New York state of mind, dating older men, a black cat familiar, supplementing magic with technology, fluent in fifteen languages but most apt to just say “shut the fuck up” in response to everything, concluding a long day with a Vodka Tonic and a few rounds of Modern Warfare, knowing you’re lying by a single twitch, total aloofness, Devil’s Advocate, getting caught in the proverbial weeds of a situation, putting hot sauce on everything.

BIOGRAPHY

Although born in France, Henriette has spent very little time in her native country; daughter of a French diplomat, she’s traveled often and large chunks of time in different countries. I won’t bore you with the details of her childhood, as it was mostly just a blur of various boarding schools, pulling the Diplomatic Immunity card, and sneaking bottles of alcohol to get through boring dinners with career politicians and their families. Henry’s formative years had no tragedies, nor any majorly toxic family dynamics aside from a father who worked too much and a mother who liked to complain.

The only thing that stood out was the fact that she was wickedly smart, which likely explains her ridiculous superiority complex. Granted, when she was younger, there was nothing to say that this was tied to her magic; she was in a position where she could have a top tier education and a well rounded cultural experience, something that most of her peers didn’t have access to. Learning always came easy to her, though; she was the kid in class who’d be doodling in the back, not paying attention, but knew the answer anyway, delivered with an insufferable nonchalance. Various aptitude and IQ tests measured her incredible retention abilities and photographic memory. If Henry had ever really applied herself, she probably could’ve done great things; as it stood, she was honestly just bored more than anything else.

Henry could feel Diphda’s effects before she found the constellation just shy of her seventeenth birthday. With her sponsorship, Henriette could walk into a room and recognize the small details; the appearance of a fingerprint in the dust on a windowsill that wasn’t there yesterday, the way her calculus teacher’s gaze flicked to her for a millisecond every time they passed in the halls, the almost imperceptible way her dad’s tone shifted when he lied. It was, at first, an overwhelming sensation; she couldn’t do anything without her senses being bombarded, constantly distracted as her mind tried to sort out each and every situation. It’s still something she struggles with whenever she enters a hectic situation, but time and practice has made her better at weeding out at the more useless pieces of information.

The combination of her father’s job giving her status in both the mortal and magical realms and her sponsorship made her an early recruit for the government. The existence of witches is a well-kept secret amongst those in high power, but it’s also a dangerous balance to keep—tensions can be high and the disruption of these relations can cause a cascading series of problems, so witches are carefully sought after for these somewhat scarce positions. When she accepted the proposition for candidacy, Henry knew she was setting herself up for a difficult, high-pressured, yet lucrative career, and for the first time in her life, she actually… tried. A novel concept, I know.

Automatically given a full ride to study International Relations at Georgetown, Henry spent the next five years of her life in D.C. working alongside other recruits training her magic, martial arts, and weaponry skills. It was an intense program designed to weed out the weaker candidates, but early on in the process Henry recognized that she couldn’t imagine herself doing anything else, so she put her all behind it. After earning her degree, she was offered the opportunity to train at Quantico, followed by training with the magic bureau in Wisconsin. Upon completion, Henriette was offered the opportunity to replace the FBI liaison.

Henriette spends most of her days as a representative of both worlds’ interests, though is primarily brought in on cases when a witch is suspected of putting mortals in danger. Her career is her entire life—it’s all she’s ever been groomed for, the only thing she’s ever wanted to do, and it’s something she knows she’ll spend the rest of her life doing, if she can manage it. Her dedication to said career is what broke up her marriage. (Edward working for Polaris gives her the opportunity to be biased, and she could lose a lot of trust if anyone found out, so the divorce was prompt.)

In a hilarious turn of events, recently her work has prompted a (hopefully temporary) stay at Polaris Village, where she’s been instructed to do damage control after the recent curse disrupted a lot of the good mortal-magic relations between powers. Henriette isn’t thrilled about having to leave New York, but this could be the biggest opportunity she’s had yet, so—needless to say, Henry’s here to fuck shit up.

INCLINATION

Diphda cares not about a witch’s natural element, but rather only their mind; those sponsored by Diphda are naturally intelligent even without the use of their magic, and only after they’ve proven their superiority in that regard do they earn the mark. Diphda gifts the user the ability to notice and quickly analyze small, almost imperceptible details and easily commit them to memory. As a result, however, those sponsored by Diphda often have trouble looking at the big picture, making them somewhat easily susceptible to others’ ideas to give all of those details a higher purpose.

CONNECTIONS

Filling the role of Edward Vaughn’s Ex-Wife.

Filling the role of Irene Chen’s Cheat Codes.

Filling the role of Clarissa Aligheri’s Best Friend.

Penned by Ashley ★

[eveningmaxidresses6]

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[thevalkirias]

Female adolescence and prestige dramas: the case of Sally Draper

The most famous dialogue in The Virgin Suicides – “you're not even old enough to know how bad life gets” / “obviously, Doctor, you've never been a 13-year-old girl” – says a lot about the way society sees the anxieties carried by young girls growing up and building their identities around us. The afflictions that come with not only adolescence as a whole, but specifically female adolescence, which adds the burden of misogyny to the mix, including the misogyny ingrained in ourselves, seem to make teenage girls particularly interesting for the storytellers that aren’t actually talking about them, but about their parents. Dana Brody in Homeland, Grace Florrick in The Good Wife, Paige Jennings in The Americans, Sally Draper in Mad Men: these were all part of TV shows that dedicated plenty of screen time to the teenage daughters of their main characters, who were marines/ alleged terrorist agents, lawyers returning to work after stepping away to be full-time mothers, Soviet superspies by night and suburban parents by day, or sad and alcoholic ad men.

In the four shows the exact same premise can be found: raising children is hard, and it is potentially harder if you are a spy, or someone who turned against your own country, or a good wife whose husband was very publicly arrested for corruption, or perhaps just empty on the inside. When Dana Brody takes the more cliché path of the rebellious teen and has her “Dana does drugs!”, “Dana has a questionable boyfriend!”, “Dana hates her father!” moments, or when Grace Florrick – whose mother is firmly set on the agnostic-atheist territory – and Paige Jennings –- whose parents believe that religion is the opium of the people – decide to fully dedicate themselves to Christianity, it’s all done with a single goal: to make these girls a Problem for Their Parents. Consequently, they become insufferable and, above all, uninteresting from the point of view of the narrative, since all they do is disturb the main stories.

When Homeland tried to humanize Dana, exploring the consequences that being the daughter of a traitor, terrorist and national enemy brought to her life, adding up to the experience of being a girl coming of age, it was too late. Because after two years no one had learned to empathize with her and no one wanted to watch that plot unfolding, not on that show. By then Alex Gansa and his team of writers had already made Dana only a shadow of a character, completely one-dimensional, since she existed only so that Sergeant Nicholas Brody could react to her. Just like Grace existed to create drama in Alicia’s life, the working mom (and the truly excellent character, complex and well developed). It’s because she doesn’t fit in this common and cliché categorization, which can be so unfortunate (Dana could have been a great character), that Sally Draper is so special.

There is a fundamental difference between Sally and the three other girls, of course: when Mad Men began Kiernan Shipka was seven – in other words, Sally was still a child. Back then there was still not much for her to do, except showing her unconditional love for her mostly absent father who sometimes was there to tuck her in. She existed mainly to help us read Don as a pretty terrible father – this was, after all, the man who, scared by the possibility of everyone finding out he was a deserter who had taken a dead man’s identity, decides he should run away with his mistress and has to be reminded by her that he had children to raise. Don seems surprised when he’s reminded of the children, but he assures her he would provide for them, as if his relationship with his kids was nothing but a financial matter. Sally also existed, beyond Don’s universe, to show us the difficulties Betty Draper had with her role as a mother, even though she tried more than Don.

Sally’s first big moment, which showed Shipka’s precocious talent, came in season three, when Betty’s senile and ill father moves to the Draper residence, and Sally develops a close relationship with him. When her grandfather passes away, young Sally goes through her first experience of mourning and is unable to understand why the adults around her can sit at the kitchen table and laugh when her grandfather was never, ever coming back. A young Kiernan, then a ten year old, competently portrays the complicated feelings Sally had to experience so early. The situation is further complicated when Sally’s baby brother is born soon after, and Betty decides to name him after her late father: Gene. Sally then needs to deal not only with the natural feelings of jealousy awakened in a child by the arrival of a new baby who demands attention, but also with the fact that this baby receives the name and the room that belonged to the grandfather whom she liked so much, as if her parents were trying to exchange her Gene for another when he was no longer supposed to be there. This moment is also crucial in Don’s complexification as a father: he is the one who sits Gene and Sally on his lap and tells her that that’s only her little brother, just a baby, not her grandfather – he is the only person to tell her everything was going to be alright.

Sally never becomes insufferable because Matthew Weiner and his writers make the right decision of never writing her or her stories as a mere problem that Don had to deal with. On the contrary, the father-daughter relationship exists to add nuance to a character who was always rather complex. We’re talking about a man who was chronically unfaithful and addicted to extramarital adventures, but who, when Peggy suggests a campaign based on the sexualization of the female image, stating (not wrongly) that sex sells, suggests another path – one that is based on the “I love you, daddy” card he got from Sally and is sitting on his desk. What truly sells anything, he says, is to awaken some kind of feeling. This is a discussion he has within the scope of advertisement, but it’s also a discussion he has with himself, about being more than the standard executive who “likes short skirts”, as Peggy puts it (not necessarily wrongly), about not being the man who wouldn’t understand Frank O’Hara’s poetry, like the unknown man he sees at the bar reading Meditations in an Emergency assumes, or about not being just the man who can no longer have sex with his wife – everything that builds the context surrounding him in “For Those Who Think Young”, one of the many episodes that emphasize that Don has not been a young man in the margins of the system for a really long time.

In such a context it would be easy to say that Don simply did not care about Sally and would rather not have to deal with her and fully dedicate himself to his adventures – as it happened in the abhorrent episode when he has the children with him for the weekend after the divorce and decides to go on a date, leaving them with his neighbor. But that isn’t really true, and part of the problem comes from his own internal issues, including the fact that he never had any decent father figure: Don does not know how to be a good father. To the extent that he believes that a woman who has literally just met his daughter would be better at talking to her than he would. This is what makes the character so rich and fascinating. Even when Sally exists for her father to react to her, it’s done in a good way, adding complexity to him exactly because she isn’t a one-dimensional character who exists to create problems.

One of the most important moments in this relationship is season six’s “Favors”, when Sally catches her father and his neighbor and mistress in bed. The situation was not only uncomfortable, the way it would be for anyone, but Sally knew that the neighbor was the wife of a man whom Don called his friend, a man she had seen sincerely thanking her father when Don helps freeing his son from being recruited for war. Sally had gone through a lot because of her father, but this is the big moment of rupture between them. If we all eventually find out that our parents are as flawed and human as anyone else, and this is part of the process of growing up, Sally has to face the fact that her father is absurdly flawed and, more than that, is very, very distant from the heroic father figure she had idealized for so long simply because she spent most of the time very far away from him, but under the incessant scoldings from her mother. Mad Men chooses to explore the quite devastating effects of this rupture not only for Don, the main character, but also for Sally. This choice resulted in one of the girl’s most famous scenes, when Betty offers her a cigarette, saying Don surely would have offered her a beer by then, and Sally responds, cigarette in hand (a pose that mimicked Betty herself): “my father has never given me anything”. It was an obvious but powerful case of double meaning.

Beginning with Sally’s big moment in season three, and increasingly as she grew up, she was given her own plots in some of the episodes. Maybe the good response to this choice is related to Mad Men being essentially character-driven, to the inexistence of a bigger plot that lies beyond its characters; it was common for a myriad of them to be highlighted in different episodes. So, when season six came, we were given Sally’s boarding school plot, when she was finally free from the mother about whom she complained so much. Once there, Sally smokes, drinks and takes boys to the dorm illicitly, incited by her roommates. This could represent the establishment of Sally-the-rebel-girl, but it doesn’t. Because none of what happens there reflects on Don or Betty; those are not “Sally smokes! What now, Don Draper?” moments, but moments in which Sally is away from home for the first time and has to decide who she is and what she wants to do for herself. These small transgressions of the school’s code of conduct (sometimes of the law) don’t make Sally a “mean girl”, just like her increasing interactions, full of discreet flirtation, with the boys that cross her path don’t make them the absolute center of her life. All of this is part of Sally, but none of it defines her. She is not a girl-problem, neither is she daddy’s little girl.

“I’m so many people”, says Sally in the next season. In “A Day’s Work” she spends a day in the city to go to the funeral of her friend’s mother, but also to go shopping. Sally loses her wallet and has to resort to her father, the adult she had in New York. By then she and Don were speaking to each other again, after he told her his real story right after he was forced by his partners to take a compulsory leave of absence. But Sally did not know about the second part, and she finds out in the worst way: looking for her father at the office, sure he could only be there. In face of another gigantic lie, Sally is once again upset and responds to Don’s attempts at conversation with monosyllables. It’s only when he explains what was happening and that he was ashamed and did not know how to solve it – and she sees herself being treated as an adult and as an equal –, that they make it up. After this conversation she calls one of her school friends who had been in New York with her; the girl wants to talk about trivial things, on the same day they had been looking at the dead body of someone important to their friend. Sally cuts the conversation short impatiently and soon after tells her father that the funeral had been horrible, but she had only been there so she could go shopping later. Don says he doubted that, and it’s easy to see he was right. Sally seems to take what he says under consideration as well, declaring then that she was so many people.

Mad Men allows Sally Draper to be so many people, to be the version of herself she presents to her mother, to her father or to Megan, her stepmother. It allows her to be the version of herself she presents to Glen, her long-time neighbor, or the one she presents to her roommates and to the cute boy at the hall of the fancy building where Don lives. It allows her to worry about boots and sandals, but it also allows her to be affected by a funeral. The script allows her to be much more than a mere accessory in the stories of the grownups that surround her, who are traditionally considered more important and relevant. Matthew Weiner allows Sally to at last see her parents very clearly, showing a maturity that sometimes seems to surpass theirs. It’s notorious that she declares, right before leaving on a trip with other girls, that she hopes to be someone very different from her parents and that her dream is to live far away from them – in an episode in which both Betty and Don are ridiculously flattered by the attention they receive from their daughter’s teenage friends.

Eventually Sally is forced by the circumstances to go back home, because nothing in life is so simple, and in the final stretch of her story it becomes evident that she mimics many of Betty’s mannerisms and ways. But it is in the responsibility towards her brothers that she automatically takes on when it’s necessary to do so, it is in her understanding that if there is one person she cannot count on that person is her father, it is in her realizing that her mother’s cold and stoic ways do not signify she is not feeling pain, that Sally shows an admirable level of maturity. These are moments which show us that the little girl we saw growing up throughout seven seasons and ten years is someone who has the chance of being happier – and a better person – than her parents were. At the end of Mad Men, the story of Sally’s growth functions as a formidable bildungsroman: of a character who was complex, solid and well developed, who was way too many people to be the thorn in her parent’s side.

About the author

FERNANDA

Officially a translator and proofreader, Fernanda has a special love for literature and for this writing thing. A loyal follower of the uncool lifestyle, she doesn’t believe in guilty pleasures nor in the concept of liking something ironically.

This piece was originally published in Portuguese on August 23, 2017, as "Escrevendo a adolescência feminina nos dramas de prestígio: o caso de Sally Draper". Translated by the author.

[ethicalredhat]

Darby Warner

Career Information

Occupation: Freelance Hacker and (unlicensed) Private Detective

Affiliations: ട0ṬeRiậ (Formerly)

Biographical Information

Aliases: Heedless Murmur (Handle)

Date of Birth: September 21st

Age:28~34 (It really depends on the verse)

Status: Alive

Pronouns: She/Her or They/Them

Ethnicity: Mixed-race Native American and Caucasian

Nationality: 🇺🇸 American

Sexual Orientation: Asexual  ♠︎️  (Doesn’t fully recognize that’s what it is/kinda denies it)

Romantic Orientation: Biromantic ⚤ 

Family: Terri Warner (Father), Rose Walten (Mother), Phillis Walten (Half Sister)

Physical Description

Gender: Female

Height: 5′7 (171 cm)

Weight: ~165 lbs (~75 kg)

Appearance

Darby is a muscular, handsome woman with tousled curly hair that rests atop her broad shoulders (sometimes worn in a bun or ponytail). Her dark eyes by default hold a calculating if not deadpan look in them though sometimes during social interaction there’s a spark in them.

Her clothing style stays on the “masculine” side and Darby seems to prefer flamboyant prints. Mostly seen in more professional clothing (button ups, trousers, blazers, loafers, ect) though she’ll go for more casual looks depending on the situation. For accessories she has the same old men’s wrist watch she’s kept since high school. Any other accessories are for necessity such as caps and sunglasses for Incognito Mode.

Personality

Not much for talking except for when she is, a true ambivert at heart. She avoids people like the plague but when the option for social interaction appears Darby will almost always bite, although cautiously since she has a paranoid streak. One of Darby’s biggest problems is that she unknowingly lies to herself. Deep down she craves human connection but due to her lifestyle (mostly after the events of La Galerie as she’s on the run from the UK branch of Mobius) she tries to keep herself isolated for others protection. Going by her cold exterior, Darby could be chalked up as your usual The Stoic archetype if not for the playful side of herself she sometimes lets run amok.

Long ago she learned to use her taste for dry humor as a defense mechanism, a shield between herself and the world. So at times, though rarely, Darby may seem she doesn’t take dire situations seriously but it’s all just a way for her to avoid her own emotions. Post La Galerie her already dwindling self-assurance has dropped, leaving her mind partially scarred from the months she spent inside the machine. During her lower moods when she’s just about hit rock bottom Darby can become successful in her attempts to keep her feelings snuffed out. Some days she’ll walk about like an empty shell and this is when the darker under layers of her personality can arise.

During these moods Darby has been known to display harmful and impulsive behavior such as having a complete disregard for her own safety, moral conduct, and lack of empathy. Her etiquette almost becoming Sociopathic in nature.

So all in all, Darby is just your typical human being with many different sides, moods and layers.

History

Though her parents are reluctant to admit it, Darby was born as the result of infidelity as her mother Rose Walten was stuck in an unhappy marriage when she got involved with Darby’s father Terri Warner. Unable to safely divorce her current husband as he was extremely abusive she simply walked out the door with her two daughters-Phillis Walten, and an unborn Darby who was still growing inside her.

Rose ran her cafe so she often wasn’t home and Terri had an office job though once the kids got older he started mostly working from home so he could spend more time with them. Darby’s love for computers started early when her grandpa bought her dad a newer model computer but he never used it, preferring his chunky 90′s computer to complete his work. It was then she began learning the ins and outs of computers. Long nights were spent pouring over any relevant books she could get her grubby child hands on, or through whatever info she could find over the internet which eventually led to her learning coding and programming as she got older.

Since early childhood Darby had always been athletic and only became more so as she grew older. It didn’t take long for her to be labeled a “Tomboy” but due to her androgynous appearance and unusual demeanor many of her classmates second guessed her gender. This naturally drew unwanted attention and cruelty. When high school arrived her confidence lowered significantly and she kept even more to herself. It came to a point where Darby just stopped going to school and got her GED, shortly after getting involved with a hacker group that simply went by ട0ṬeRiậ. Although they only communicated though a screen for the longest they were Darby’s closest companions. She had dabbled with hacking in the past but it was with ട0ṬeRiậ when she truly began to learn, but as her skills grew so did the ambition of the groups members. She had a falling out with them and that seemed to be the end of that until they threatened to frame Darby for a cyber crime a member of ട0ṬeRiậ had committed if she didn’t return to the group. Pushed into a corner she returned to ട0ṬeRiậ until she manages to collect and report all necessary information about the group and their crimes to have them arrested-keeping her own existence anonymous from the authorities all the while. Now with her former friends out of the way, Darby once again found herself alone.

She had few friends in school but after having to drop out they drifted further apart. She had the love of two, albeit, busy parents and her older sister Phillis but deep down Darby couldn’t shake the seed of loneliness that had long ago planted itself in her heart especially after the betrayal of ട0ṬeRiậ who she had believed in the beginning were her friends. This is the point where Darby started turning her hacking skills into a career. For the next several years she would turn over many criminals to the law in a very “cyber vigilante” fashion. Once she started making a name for herself people would contact her offering jobs. She did the usual missing persons, cheating spouses, ect, but later on the jobs started getting more bizarre and dangerous. For example the events of “La Galerie” Read Verses Page For Further Information

Relationships

Terri (Terrance) Warner

Darby had a good relationship with her dad but there was always a wall between them as her father suffered from undiagnosed depression due to his sad childhood. She still kept in contact with him until La Galerie where she cut off all ties with her family for their own safety.

Rose Walten

The two also had a fine connection but as her mother was almost always away at work Darby didn’t see as much of her as she would have liked growing up. Last time she spent any real time with Rose was a weekend after Darby graduated where she helped out at the cafe. Any other interaction after that had been over a phone and now nothing at all.

Phillis Walten

“I won’t leave my sister to die.”-Phillis, talking about rescuing Darby from La Galerie

The sisters always had a close bond since in their childhood it was mostly just the two left to their own devices. Growing up they did start to go their separate ways but they still found time every so often to do things together. The two haven’t had any contact since La Galerie.

Marnie Michelle

“This place messed with my mind, but I remember enough to know you don’t deserve an easy death.”-Darby, preparing to kill Marnie

One of the two hosts hooked up in the janky makeshift Stem system. Very hostile to one another (more so on Darby’s part), the almost opposite morals of the two women made them natural enemies. Marnie spends the entire plot of La Galerie serving as an antagonist to Darby, either thwarting her attempts at escaping the machine or tormenting her. After the months of torture Darby is subjected to during her time in the machine the hacker makes sure to pay it back tenfold when she kills her.

Dr Stuart Turney

“Is that where you got your degree in being an insufferable pretentious bitch?”-Darby, interrupting Stuart

The other host of La Galerie, Stuart almost tries to befriend Darby at times seeming a bit smitten by the hacker. Darby is openly aggressive towards the doctor, attacking him on almost every occasion they run into each other. Once he realizes she can’t be swayed he becomes much more unsympathetic to her. He eventually meets his end at the hands of Phillis who entered the machine to save Darby.

Trivia

In her free time Darby enjoys exercising (most notably yoga), puzzles (Darby has wasted many an afternoon on puzzle boxes), watching dramas (mostly foreign ones), and staring into the void.

In the past Darby has suffered from slight body dysmorphia most likely stemming from the criticism she received about her looks in both child and adulthood. Nowadays Gymnophobia is her only issue. Nude artwork won’t necessarily bother her but being seen naked can have varying effects for her. This has lead to some rather unbearable situations for her during times when getting undressed was required.

Has no qualms (at least in the moment) with killing someone if she has to and has done so in the past either in person or indirectly.

Doesn’t fully realize it herself, but Darby has a manipulative side and is a bit of a control freak.

Although never displayed as of yet, but if Darby were to acquire a friend (whether it be platonic or romantic) she might develop a well meaning tendency of lying to them/keeping them in the dark about what she does for a living if they aren’t already aware.

Darby has no faceclaim but Michael Hudson a Native American model and Ezra Miller were the inspiration for Darby’s appearance. Update: Technically Q’orianka Kilcher is Darby’s main faceclaim but she’s just too damn pretty and has like the opposite vibes that I need (I have very few icons using her because of this) so sometimes I use other folk for icons such Mica Arganaraz, a little bit of Ezra Miller and Willy Cartier but as they are all the incorrect ethnicity I try to partially obscure their faces.

[bluboothalassophile]

Dates and Distractions

Life for Sarada had always revolved around her single mother. Mom was the one who came to the rescue, mom made the brownies for school functions, mom cleaned the house, mom worked for the money, mom got the groceries, mom took care of her, mom helped her with her homework, and mom loved her. Her mom was special, and dangerous, and lonely. But tonight she had decided to do something for her single mom with her absentee father because he was back tonight. Still tonight was mostly for her mom rather than anyone else; it was to make her lonely mom happy.

Sarada noticed how lonely her mom would be some nights. Those were the nights that Sarada concealed her chakra and saw her mom sitting alone on the porch with tears in her eyes. Sarada was four when she first remembered seeing her mom cry, and she didn’t know why her mom was crying. Promptly she had run out into the night and hugged her mom saying she loved her and didn’t want her mom to be sad. Her mom had hugged her and said she wasn’t sad, then her mom had tucked her into bed again, kissed her brow and left her to sleep. Sarada remembered that night like it had happened yesterday.

And for years she noticed that about her mom, her mom never cried unless she thought she was alone, and Sarada had never revealed that she knew her mom was crying. In that respect she had a very different view of parents. Though all her friends complained about their parents and complained about being pestered Sarada knew parents hurt too so she didn’t complain about her mom. Instead, from the time she was really small to now she always helped her mom out in every way she thought possible, cleaning the house (though she had to learn sweeping the dirt under the rug didn’t make it clean), to buying groceries (usually she was short on money and the shopkeepers loved her so they let her take what she needed and pay with her allowance, her mom would still go back and pay for the food though), and even cooking (ramen was good). Her mom let her help, and Sarada would always feel happy about this.

Her mom was also different from her friends’ parents because her mom was a single parent. Sarada hadn’t understood when she was younger that her father was merely absent because he was off saving the world, she had only known that her mom was alone. When she was about six she started asking about her absent father, she had noticed at that age that she didn’t have a father and all of her friends did. Her mom had smiled and poked her forehead affectionately with an ‘I’ll-tell-you-when-you’re-a-little-older’. It was code for 'it-hurts-to-talk-about’ for her mom; and yes she noticed that now but when she had been six she hadn’t. Nothing could hurt her mom when she had been six, because her mom had a monsterous strength, superb chakra control, and was the best medic-nin in the history of shinobi; even surpassing her Grandma Tsunade.

Though she only had one parent Sarada had a lot of adoptive aunts and uncles and grandparents. She had Grandma Tsunade and Aunt Shizune who were funny; Aunt Shizuno was a worry wart and Grandma Tsunade let her do as she pleased, which usually involved learning a bit about chakra and medical ninjutsu. She had Uncle Kakashi; though her mom would threaten him with death if he read any Icha Icha books around her; she wondered what Icha Icha was; but Uncle Kakashi was fun to be around. He told her stories about her mom when her mom had been little and they were so funny sometimes she would die laughing; she couldn’t imagine her mom being so love struck that she would be that weak.

Uncle Naruto and Aunt Hinata were always busy, they had Boruto and Himawari to take care of but she was always welcomed in their loud home. Uncle Shikamaru and Aunt Temari were fun too, though she hated playing shōgi because she always lost after hours of planning and executing; Shikamaru said she was a challenging opponent though. Her Aunt Ino and Uncle Sai were so strange it was like she was on a different planet when she landed with them there. Aunt Ino was loud, bossy, demanding and nosy; Uncle Sai, while having good intentions; was just weird but she still liked being around them and Inojin wasn’t bad company when she desired company.

For the most part though, Sarada would rather be alone than with her friends, and she thought it odd. Chōchō said that was just because she was cool, but Sarada didn’t care. All she cared about; even now was her mom and her dad and keeping her few friends safe. It was because of her minimal affections for others that had led her to doing this tonight; well this and a devious plan which would probably scar both Chōchō and Boruto for life but they deserved what was coming to them! Anyways, back to her harebrained scheme she had enlisted the help of Shikadai for that tonight and now both she and Nara were watching from the shadows to see if her plan was working.

Her mom was smiling with joy, her dad was irritatingly indifferent but at least her parents were here and her plan was working as she happily bit her bottom lip to keep herself from cheering at the sight. The Nara boy sighed about this being troublesome but she ignored his attitude because he had offered to help her; and why he had been willing to help her when this was so 'troublesome’ was beyond her.

“Shush, they’ll hear us!” she hissed, he lifted a brow and looked at her with blank green eyes. She frowned then peeked as her father seated her mom in the restaurant. Sarada smiled with glee then grabbed Shikadai’s arm to drag him after her as they slipped stealthily through the shadows. For her climbing the tree with chakra was no problem, she had to drag Shikadai up after her as they sat on the branch watching the date she had arranged for her parents.

“Why are you doing this?” Shikadai asked as he got comfortable on the branch. She looked at her long time, lazy friend and sighed.

“I want my mom to be happy,” she murmured. And it was apparent that her parents were happy when they were together but she didn’t know if her father was happy or not. Her dad was not the easiest of people to read.

“How do you think Boruto and Chōchō are doing on that blind date you set up?” Shikadai asked.

“Probably cursing, but they had it coming and I never said I was going on the date,” she defended. Boruto hadn’t been as easy to dupe into the date as Chōchō but she had been successful in her quest to get him to agree to the 'date’ by saying she had been looking forward to it. The dobe had thought she had been asking him on a date, she had merely planned it to get back at his insufferable ungratefulness and Chōchō because she was being dramatic about her parent situation. Sarada thought it would be a fitting punishment for those two for being annoying. Still she like them both but lessons had to be taught and forcing them to endure each other’s company for a prepaid night would be a good lesson for them. She smiled a bit as she activated her Sharingan to see better just how her parents’ date was going. Shikadai used his shadow jutsu to keep her from falling.

~~~*~*~*~~~

Sakura smiled a bit, both from being happy and sensing her daughter’s chakra. Sasuke smirked a bit.

“She’s here,” he murmured sounding amused.

“Of course she is, who do you think set this up?” Sakura asked him amused by her daughter’s antics. Sarada had set this up obviously and she was going to see this date through though her father had wanted nothing more than to sit at home and relax. He was here merely because their daughter had demanded him to take her out; Sakura had had nothing to do with arranging this date.

“I didn’t know she and the Nara kid were close,” Sasuke said after they had been served dinner. Sakura smiled at the waiter who blushed the hurried away under Sasuke’s glare.

“She’s close to all the kids but she would rather be alone, I’m surprised Shikadai even bothered to come with her, he’s so like his father it’s amusing.” Sakura ate her meal in a silent bliss. What her baby didn’t know was that she was most used to this silence and indifferent behavior that Sasuke displayed; it was difficult to be mad at him for being himself. But it appeared that Sarada was determined for them to be on this date and Sasuke had caved and brought her here and now she was being spied on by her daughter and Shikadai. Though Shikadai helping with this was most surprising as she and Sasuke ate in a comfortable silence.

“Her Chūnin Selection Exams are coming up,” Sakura said indifferently.

“Uh-huh,” he replied. She smiled.

“So Boruto? Is he going to participate?”

“The dobe’s son is just like him and determined so yes; besides I’ll only teach him if he’s willing to participate in the exam.” Sasuke shrugged and Sakura laughed happily because that sounded just like Boruto and Naruto. Honestly the two were so similar that it made her laugh. And the funniest thing was Boruto tried to be as different from his father as possible; he was failing miserably at it because he was turning out to be exactly like Naruto in the long run.

“Remember when we were genin and Naruto was hell bent on being better than you in every way?” Sakura asked.

“Hn,” he replied meaning yes.

“I think he did beat you in the long run,” Sakura said happily. Sasuke’s eyes narrowed then, she smiled. “He’s Hokage after all, and he’s in control of Kurama so I think he beat you in the long run.”

“I got you,” he pointed out, she smiled brilliantly and the sighed.

“Yes you did, and just think you and Naruto have children the exact same age on the same team who despise one another, oh the possibilities,” she mused deviously. It was good for Sasuke to worry, though it was also good that aside from Chōchō, Sarada was surrounded by boys. Sasuke paled, she let her lips curve into a devious smile as she leaned forward on the table. “After all, you despised me when we started, and being hated by an Uchiha…”

She was silenced when he grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her close to him.

“Sarada is not marrying anyone!” he hissed through clenched teeth, she laughed before he kissed her. She then just stared at him, he smirked and there was a loud crash outside.

“Lets go,” he dragged her away then, she laughed.

~~~*~*~*~~~

The fastest way to shut Sakura up and to distract a daughter; kiss Sakura. He had seen his daughter and the Nara brat fall into the bushes and then he had grabbed Sakura to drag her off. It also got his wife off of the topic of his daughter growing up and getting married.

Come tomorrow though, that blonde idiot kid was going to have the fear of Kami installed in him because there was no way in hell his angel would ever marry that blonde dobe. He’d make that clear, but for tonight and right now he’d enjoy the pinkette he had stolen from the older blonde dobe when they had been children. And he’d leave his daughter to her own devices for the night. No doubt she’d try to follow them, she was like her mother in that aspect; and she was dragging the Nara brat along. For some reason her being with Shikadai did not bother him as much as her being with the other boys of her age group, Shikadai wasn’t going to try anything because he was too much like Shikamaru.

Sasuke smiled a bit as he laced his fingers with Sakura’s and they walked home in silence. He barely got her home before his mouth was on hers’ again and she was shoved against the door. Sarada’s date had worked better than she would ever know as Sasuke dragged Sakura to bed and smiled when she laughed.