#is just them figuring out that adjustment period between teen & adult

[byanyan]

byan is 19-20 and attending the local community college for a degree in fashion design.

this was not their original plan. they planned to be DONE with school after completing high school but, after both the high school and the home they've lived in most of their life pushed very hard for them to at least apply to a couple colleges, they did so to get the annoying adults off their back. ...and ended up getting accepted into one of these community colleges.

initially, byan planned to ignore this but, after some discussions with the school counselor and the people who run the home, if was decided that rather than kick them out to fend for themself now that they were an adult and finished high school, they could stay in the home for the next few summers. the requirement was, of course, that they attend college.

still, byan heavily debated it. school has never been something they enjoyed. however... after doing a bit more reading into the fashion program, they did find themselves somewhat intrigued. eventually, they agreed to attend.

sometimes they regret this.

during the school year, byan lives in a dorm, usually with no roommate. they've bullied at least two roommates out and, at least for the moment, it seems the school has given up trying to assign anyone else to share a room with them.

they skip class sometimes, but not near as much as they did in high school — now that most of their classes can hold their interest a little better, it's less of a drag to show up for them.

still a huge bully though. a delinquent who most steer clear from, who spends a lot of time getting into fights and causing shit just for the fun of it. ...and sometimes to defend themself.

they're still... adjusting to the fact that there are more consequences for them now when they break the law. they still do it, of course, but they're slowly growing more careful about it, not exactly wanting to end up with stupidly huge fines or winding up in prison.

they still find themself arrested with some amount of regularity, however.

they don't have a job, refusing to work some bullshit they hate just to make money to survive. instead, they sell shit they steal online, occasionally do makeup for someone in the dorm for some extra cash, scam people out of money on dating apps, and dabble in some mild sugarbaby activity.

basically, byan's still a huge mess, perhaps even more so now that they're trying to come to grips with adulthood in their own way. but they're determined to make things as enjoyable as possible.

[stxrrywildflower]

family

pairing - bau team x teen!reader

summary - you never knew something so good could come out of something so bad

warnings - kidnapping, injuries, cursing

word count - ?

requested by @marvelxmendes

by the urgency of hotch’s message, the team knew they were in for a tough case.

another key factor in their suspicions was the fact that garcia was seated, not presenting the case. instead, hotch stood with the remote in his hand, a serious look on his face.

“four bodies have been found in indianapolis. all of the victims have been either teenagers or young adults. another person was just taken, nineteen year old victim. the time between the abductions and killings have been becoming shorter. wheels up in thirty,” hotch announced. 

with that, the team grabbed their bags and took off to the airport. the flight over was spent reviewing the case and bouncing possible theories. emily and rossi were sent to talk to the victim of boy who was just taken. hotch and j.j. were due at the police station while morgan and spencer were going to the latest crime scene.

just hours into their individual assignment, the body of the latest victim was found. the unsub wasn’t slowing down and if anything, was becoming more and more violent.

examining the body was incredible difficult for everyone. the local police had all refused as the boy killed was very active in the local community. hotch and rossi remained at the station while the other agents headed out to the crime scene.

“victim was david mitchell. he was staying with his mom. she worked almost all day,” one of the cops informed.

“well the unsub is obviously going after people who are alone. makes it a lower risk,” morgan concluded.

after a few more minutes of examining the body, the team all headed back to the police station. they didn’t have a ton of information to go off of. all they knew was that they needed to act quickly or else more people would die.

____

stepping into your home, you used your foot the close the door behind you as your arms were filled with groceries. the only sound throughout the house was your shoes scuffing against the floor.

you were only 17 and a senior in high school. your parents ‘worked’ leaving you alone almost all of the time. they had people check in on you and showed up sometimes, making it semi-legal. it had started a year and a half ago. you were shocked at how quickly you adjusted to being alone all the time. honestly, it didn’t feel much different then when they were actually around.

as you turned on the tv to the local news station, you began putting the groceries away. “in regards to the recent murders, the fbi have arrived and are working with the police to catch this criminal. all residents are advised to be on the look out for any suspicious activity and keep their doors locked at all times,” one of the reporters spoke. you peered around the doorway, double checking that your doors were in fact locked.

once you put everything away, you headed upstairs to your room. in an hour, you were due to meet a classmate for a study session. if you were being honest, you didn’t really need a whole study session. you were already accepted to georgetown in washington d.c. for college with a pretty large scholarship. however, you were always willing to help someone study.

it was when you opened your closet and looked in the mirror that you noticed the presence of a figure in the corner of your room. you could barely turn around before the masked figure was rushing towards you. his hand clamped over your mouth. “you scream, i take this knife and stab you. you hear me?” he whispered harshly.

tears began to flow freely down your cheeks. in an effort to save yourself, you bit down on his hand hard. the man was wearing latex gloves allowing for you to tear through them. a metal taste was then in your mouth, letting you know that you had broken the skin.

the man clutched his now bleeding hand, allowing for you to slip out of his grasp. you took off running towards the door. just as you thought you would finally be able to escape, a sharp pain in your shoulder stopped you.

you fell to the ground, screaming as you clutched your shoulder. the man pulled the knife out of your body just as you fell. “fucking bitch,” the man spat. he then raised his foot and kicked you hard in the head, knocking you unconscious.

the local police chief rushed in, clutching a phone in his hand. the teams eyes all darted up. “we think the unsub may have another girl. a local student just called in about y/n y/l/n. they were supposed to study together but y/n never showed,” he informed everyone. “she could have just forgotten,” morgan offered.

“y/n isn’t like that. kid’s had a tough life. but, she’s a straight-a student, set to be valedictorian, and always helps any kids who need help. hell, she’s even helped my son in math,” the chief replied.

“tough life?”

the chief nodded, “her parents work almost all the time. they pop in every once in awhile but y/n is basically on her own. friends and neighbors always check in on her to make sure she’s okay.”

“all right, we’ll all head over to her house. try and find out anything we can. it’s the only lead we have right now,” hotch ordered.

after arriving at your house, the team exited their cars and made their way up to the front door. j.j. stepped forward, knocking on the door. they waited all of two minutes before agreeing to enter. suprisingly, the door was unlocked, adding to the teams growing suspicion of your kidnapping.

spencer, morgan, and emily all headed up the stairs while the other three agents took the first floor. “we have blood!” morgan called as soon as he entered the bedroom. the team regrouped upstairs. blood was on the floor right by the door.

“signs of struggle,” emily spoke as she kneeled down, “it’s fresh.”

“well we know the percentages of kidnappings with minors. take a room and find out more about y/n’s life,” hotch once again gave out orders.

j.j. and emily found themselves in the hallway leading to the living room. “look, there’s no family photos. not even any in the past. all of them are of y/n, her friends, and then accomplishments,” j.j. pointed out.

that was common throughout the house. every room had the basic furniture but but besides that, it didn’t feel like a true home. even your room was incredibly bare. “hey look at this,” emily called, taking one of the frames off the wall.

“an acceptance letter to georgetown. practically a full ride,” emily said as she handed the frame over. “what have you two got?” rossi asked, entering the room. “she’s incredibly smart. already had plans for college. other than that, this house lacks any family value.”

“same for upstairs. everything has been modified for a single person living here,” rossi added.

“we need to find her,” j.j. blurted, her heart already aching for you. obviously, with the fact that you were currently in the hands of a killer but also with your current life. growing up with parents barely in your life was tough, no doubt. by the looks on the faces of the team, they all felt the same way.

when you woke up, your entire body ached. your head was pounding, no doubt from being knocked unconscious with a swift kick to the head. through your blurred vision, you managed to make out your surroundings. the room itself is was a simple square, no windows with concrete floors and walls. you were tied a metal chair which was then bolted to the ground.

naturally, you began to thrash around. you instantly regretted it as your shoulder began to throb once again, the stab wound still bleeding slightly. the ropes that retrained your hands grinder against your skin, creating burns on your skin. your body felt like it was on fire.

“don’t get to comfortable girl,” a new woman called, making you jump slightly, “the fun hasn’t even started.”

the team worked almost nonstop for three days. for a short period of time, they had thought the unsub had already killed you. however, they had received a lock on your hair, letting them know that you were in fact alive.

it was around 10pm when they had a break in the case. garcia had been doing excessive digging and somehow managed to find a warehouse. it was only secluded location in the area which was the best lead they had. after putting on their vests, the team quickly got into their cars and began the drive.

your head hung loosely, no strength was left in you to even pick it up. your eyes were slits, only open enough to see the floor below you. the once grey color was now stained red from blood. some areas were slightly darker, due to the fact that you were practically waterboarded. the stab wound in your shoulder was even worse now. hours ago, you had lost feeling in it entirely.

it turns out you were taken by a man but he was apart of a pair. the man had sat back and watched while the woman tortured your excessively. she only showed up for a few hours while the man stayed with you 24/7.

various cuts, some shallow and some deep, littered your body. a concussion was already inevitable, as you have had one since the first day you had been taken. your left wrist was no doubt broken. the woman had decided to experiment with hammers. your hand was the first thing she hit.

when the sirens had began blaring outside the warehouse, the mans face shifted to panic before completely changing back. “one more for good measure,” he smirked, grabbing a large knife from the rack. suddenly, he plunged the knife into your side. thankfully, he didn’t hit any major organs. blood gushed out of the wound, now soaking your shirt. you couldn’t even cry out, all you could do was hope that the sirens got to you in time.

a cloth was harshly placed over your mouth before being tied around the back of your head, silencing you. the man then pulled your hair, bringing your head up to face the door. “they may get me but they will never get her,” he whispered harshly. your eyes widened at knowing your one kidnapper would still be at large.

the doors suddenly slammed open. two women rushed in, one blonde the other with dark hair, along with two men, one extremely muscular and the other as skinny as a twig. the cold metal tip of a gun was pressed into the side of your head. fear coursed through you.

“put it down,” the muscular man ordered.

the gun was jammed further against your head. pain exploded as your already damaged head was hurt yet again. the muffled discussion between the fbi agents and the man went on for a few more moments.

finally, the man stepped back. you thought that it would be over and you would finally be saved. however, the man pulled the trigger, sending a bullet towards the agents.

the bullet wizzed passed your ear, creating a ringing that no doubt made your ears bleed. another wave of pain exploded from your left ear as well as your head. turns out that the bullet had grazed your ear and head, making more blood flow. another gunshot sounded, the man behind you dropping dead.

the realization that you almost just died finally set in. your eyes widened once again as your breathing became heavier and faster. the one blond woman rushed over and went to untie your legs. a burst of adrenaline came over you as you did everything in your power to push her away. when the cloth around your mouth dropped, you let out a loud sob as tears freely flowed down your cheeks.

“get away, get away!” you screamed as you jerked around.

the blonde woman’s face fell. she stepped back to stand by the other woman. hesitantly, the two male agents stepped forward.

“hey, i’m agent morgan and this is doctor reid. i’m going to take this ropes off of you. is that okay?” morgan asked. you nodded, pressing your lips together. as morgan went to begin to untie the ropes, reid kneeled down beside you.

“help is on the way. but now i need you to breath with me,” reid started, motioning with his hands to get you to follow his breathing pattern. you did as he said, your eyes still continuing to dart around the room. “he can’t hurt you anymore,” reid reassured you.

you jumped again. “p-” was all you could get out before a series of coughs racked your body. your uninjured hand clutched your side. morgan kneeled down beside reid. “what?” he asked.

“partner,” you slurred, eyes finally closing as you fell unconscious.

the second you passed out, morgan and reid immediately went into action. morgan layed your body to lie on the floor as he started applying pressure to your hip. spencer moved your head into his lap, his knee against your shoulder to help with the injury there while his hands were pressed against your head. “you think she has a head injury?” morgan asked.

spencer nodded, “definitely.” meanwhile, emily and j.j. rushed outside to find hotch and rossi. “unsub is dead. y/n is hurt pretty bad but she mentioned a partner,” emily informed the other two agents. “it’s most likely a woman. she freaked out when i went near her but are much better with reid and morgan,” j.j. added, “most likely a dominant and submissive type.”

the ambulance pulled in a minute later. the emt’s rushed in, your body being placed on a stretcher and moved out of the building quickly. the team regrouped outside of the warehouse, all at a stand still on what to do.

“alright, emily and i will head back to the police station. you four go to the hospital. we’ll need to interview y/n after she is treated,” hotch ordered. from there, they all went there separate ways.

at the hospital, you were rushed into a quick surgery to repair both your hand, and stitch up the stab wounds as well as the other cuts on your body. it only took three hours after your initial admission for you to be back to your room and set to wake up any minute.

the four agents stood outside of your room, glancing in through the window to where you were. “poor kid,” morgan spoke. “have you had any contact with her parents?” reid asked from his seat.

j.j. shook her head, “yes and no. the first time i called when she was first taken they didn’t even pick up. just now they did answer but said they wouldn’t come home.”

rossi scoffed at that answer. “can’t that be classified as child neglect?” the senior agent questioned. “she isn’t 18 yet, not a legal adult,” morgan piped in.

“all i know is that y/n can’t be under their care anymore,” rossi concluded.

“what are you thinking?”

rossi shrugged, “not sure yet. we just need to wait for her to wake up. then we can talk.”

twenty minutes later, you began to stir. in an instant, nurses entered your room, changing out your iv’s and helping you wake up properly. they left you alone for a few minutes before the team would come in, no doubt to interview you.

you toyed with the fabric of your hospital blanket as the door opened. in walked morgan and reid since they were the most familiar. “hey y/n, how are you feeling?” reid asked.

“whatever they gave me is helping. thanks for saving me,” you smiled slightly. “it’s what we do. now there’s two of our agents outside. they aren’t going to hurt you. is it alright is they come in two?” morgan asked, his voice soft.

nodding, you adjusted yourself so you were sitting up better. the woman from before and an older man were the next in your room. “hi y/n, i’m emily and this is dave,” she introduced. you instantly felt a lot more comfortable around the people in your room. your eyes flickered down to your casted hand before looking back up.

“what do you want to know?” you asked quietly.

“what can you tell us about the woman who hurt you?” emily asked. you visibly flinched when she mentioned the woman. “i think her name is ashlyn. i overheard them talking. she-” you got choked up slightly. after taking a deep breath, you continued, “she did most of the beating and torture. he just stayed with me and watched.”

rossi sat down in the chair by your bed. “we are going to do everything in our power to find her. i promise,” he spoke. “you promise?” you questioned. “i promise,” rossi reassured you.

you were released from the hospital the next day. the team was still in town as the second unsub had yet to be caught. j.j. was in the room with you while you were getting ready to go. the memories were still slightly blurry but you had apologized profusely about screaming at her. the profiler and brushed it off, saying that it was okay. just after slipping your t-shirt on, you turned to the woman.

“my parents?” you asked.

“i tried calling them-,” j.j. started. as soon as you heard her words, you broke down. “of course they’re not here,” you seethed. j.j. shot you a sympathetic look. “they’re never here. i need them and they leave me in the fucking dust!” you yelled, allowing yourself to curse them out.

you collapsed against the bed as you began sobbing. all your emotions combined with everything that had happened in the last few days came out. j.j. stepped forward hesitantly, moving to sit beside you much to your suprise, she hugged you. you rested your forehead on her shoulder, feeling instant comfort from having someone there for you.

back at your home, reid and morgan stayed with you with the other agents visiting and checking up on you. hotch was the one you had seen the least. after introducing himself, he had to leave pretty quickly due to something about the case.

it was almost two in the morning when you were gently shook awake. with tired eyes, you turned on your lamp to see morgan and reid already dressed and putting on their vests.

“did you find her?” you asked, incredibly hopeful.

morgan nodded, “we have a lead. we all need to be there though. but i do have someone for you to talk to while we are gone.” you shot the agent a questioning look as he handed you a phone. “hello?” you spoke tentatively.

“oh my gosh hi sweetie! my names penelope. derek has been telling me a ton about you,” the woman on the other end greeted.

you instantly smiled at penelope’s voice. as the two of you began talking, morgan and reid slipped out of the room.

when they returned, you were in the kitchen, still talking to penelope and getting a glass of water. “we got her,” reid revealed. you gasped, your hand moving up to your mouth. as a natural reaction, you hugged the agent as a thank you.

you were now finally safe.

the team stayed in town for two more days. they may have lied a bit to do their paperwork there but the real reason was to keep an eye on you. when it was time for time for them to depart, you had almost cried.

after hugging each agent individually, you stepped back onto the foyer of your home, rubbing your fingers over your cast. rossi, however, remained behind. you turned towards the older man, confusion written over your face.

“are you staying?” you asked.

he nodded, “i have a few vacation days. the doctor didn’t recommend leaving you alone.” deep down, you were greatful for his presence.

one night, after a traditional italian dinner, rossi sat you down. “i know this is a sensitive topic for you but we need to talk about it,” he started, “you cannot he under the care of your parents anymore. it’s child neglect and you are not safe there. now, you’re almost 18 and heading to washington d.c. in just a few months. how would you feel about being put under the care of one of us on the team?”

after noticing your slight uneasiness with the question, rossi spoke up again, “i know you’ve only known us for a short period of time but i’m going to be honest. we don’t get cases involving teenagers a lot. we just want you to be safe.”

tears welled up in the corner of your eyes. you couldn’t help it honestly. knowing that there were people out there that actually wanted you to be safe and take care of you made you extremely emotional. “i would love that,” you concluded.

____

the team is as incredibly active in your life from that moment on.

they had suprised you at your graduation, cheering for you as your name was called and after your valedictorian speech. when the official procession was over, you had practically ran over to them, accepting hugs from all.

a week after that, you were put officially under rossi’s care. your birthday wasn’t for another two months making the process easier. with the information presented to the jury, it was no doubt that your parents were deemed unfit to take care of you anymore. you cried when the judge had made it official, hugging rossi over and over as you thanked him.

just two weeks later, you had packed up your things and made the official move to washington d.c. the house remained under your parents name. all you packed was all of your clothes, personal items, and toiletries. there wasn’t a single thing in that house that was yours.

when rossi showed you your room with the promise that you could decorate it anyway you wanted, you hugged him once again. it almost felt like you were starting over and you were extremely thankful for that.

despite him and the team being away often for cases, rossi has always called to check up on you. team dinners became more and more frequent with you meeting the teams extended family also. you eventually became the go to babysitter for henry and jack.

sure there were countless nights you had woken up crying, memories about your kidnapping coming back to you. rossi or whoever was around was always there to comfort you and help you calm down. the past two months were a mess but having the team by your side to celebrate all of your little victories and help you overcome your challenges almost made it all better.

they were your family after all.

[shyrose57]

Brothers anon. Sorry about the previous ask I get nervous easy and feel like I need to check im not annoying anyone at times. If I am ever annoying you though or you want me to do anything though please tell me!

Watson is close to everyone from the group, because he's seen as the dad figure and an easy person to talk too. Besides from that Jackie and Grievous are close and often train or play games together, and Jackie and Ran are close, they don't do much expect just hang out and since their both the youngest that helps them feel a bit closer. Ran and Grievous aren't really close, though Grievous wants to make attempts to become closer to Ran, potentially by inviting him to training sessions or game nights.

The other fighters from the Pit are still around! They mostly aren't around the Pit as they have jobs and other stuff to take care off, but they try to vist often. Like Genevieve and Levi come over on a regular basis to train with them all and just hang out. And sometimes Genevieve and Levi participate in the Pit's fights just for fun.

He was kept in a room in Mizu. The room was reminiscent of a jail cell, with no glass in it, and a door that required a key to be opened, he wasn't completely chained down but they did put cuffs on his wrists to prevent him from moving around to much. Benjamin honestly just kind of felt like something was off, because most people don't commit mass murder without a reason and he couldn't find a reason for Ranbob doing it. And he has reported multiple times (along with the others) feeling a strange weightless feeling near dreams room, almost like their getting sucked into a void, while also hearing a distant voice in their head calling them to come closer. When everyone said they heard the voice, with Ranbob even saying from where he was that he heard the voice but much clearer, and sometimes he feels like he doesn't control what he's doing. Benjamin and Isaac decided to block off the room and nearby rooms and made it a rule that if anyone heard the voice or felt like that to report it to them and where they felt it so ot could be blocked off.

Because Ranbob said he heard the voice too Benjamin started thinking that maybe Ranbob wasn't in control and there's something deeper going on. They specifically figure out its the mask when Charles finds it and brings it up to the group, where reports of the voices and feeling come back ten-fold, and even Ranbob who was starting to show progress and become a bit more willing to talk harshly backtracked to where he almost tried to attack anyone who came into the room. So Charles quickly puts it back as far from the group as possible, with Cletus following him to make sure he actually puts it back. Later they talk about destroying it but the question of what will happen to the possession on it stops them, as what if when they break it, the possession type thing (its not actually a possession I just forget the word oop), moves onto another object? Maybe even connect to them or Ranbob?

Ranbob does learn how to sew! Charles helps him learn actually and it helps the two get close! Cletus and Isaac are forbin as of now to return to Mizu, there are talks about going back later in time but for now everyone agreed it'd be best to hang back and avoid Mizu no matter what.

Life in the house is very hard to adjust to at first for Ranbob especially, its mostly awkward and learning boundaries. But after a few weeks to months living with the fishermen Ranbob becomes much more comfortable to open up a lot. Closest to Ranbob is definitely both Benjamin and Charles, as Benjamin is the one who recognized what was happening to Ranbob and Charles is the one who he spends most time with (mostly teaching Ranbob random skills).

Even after the fight ends Ran is still incredibly mad, and when Ranbob is so much as mentioned he growls and gets more aggravated. The fishermen are mostly surprised, Ranbob did mention there was a survivor that he remembers almost killing before they escaped, but because it seemed like a sensitive topic they never pressed him to tell them more. They never would've expected the survivor was his brother though. And the gladiators are completely surprised, expect Watson, Ran told Watson his past about Mizu and his brother (because I like to think Ran has night terrors due to Mizu and Watson is often the one to comfort him). Its only once Ranbob gets taken off to the medical bay and Ran goes to blow off steam in the training area the two sides talk. Where what they've been told is shared and connections and understandings are made. And they all manage to agree to try to get the brothers at least on talking terms, so they can talk about what happened and at least attempt to fix their relationship.

They are not! Other enderman hybrids do exist but their very rare due to complexity with passing the enderman genes. Though Ran and Ranbob did have a family of 6 they where apart of (the 2 other siblings where younger than them) but not every member had enderman genes.

They do notice how Jackie looks similar to Tubbo but they mostly just brush it off, as if Cletus takes off his head gear he looks like Quackity and of course Ranbob looks like Ranboo with the mix of black and white skin.

Hey, don’t worry about it, seriously. I do the same thing with people, so I kinda get it. I really do enjoy reading these, so really, I should be thanking you for sending them!

The bonds between everyone sound interesting. So Watson’s just generally the dad friend? How does he feel about that? Has he just unironically adopted all these dorks? Is it something of an inside joke? Jackie and Grievous sound like quite the combination. Honestly I can imagine these two either being very chill, or very chaotic, depending on the day. Ran and Jackie just hanging out sounds neat, what do they do together? Do they play games like Jackie does with Grievous, or do they just nap and cloud-watch, or something similar? And Grievous trying to bond with Ran sounds nice, how does that work out for him? Do they find some sort of activity that brings them closer?

I saw you mentioned Ran and Jackie were the youngest, which brings up two things. One, does the height difference remain? I’ve seen a lot of art depicting it as such, and honestly, the thought of some new fighters being tossed into a fight with these two, and A, seeing this short kid next to this ridiculously tall guy, and B, their expressions when being told Ran’s not an adult is very amusing to me. 

And two, what exactly is the age limit for going into the Pit? It’s probably not incredibly young, but how old are Jackie and Ran to be stated as the youngest? In their early teens? Late? Older? What kind of rules are there in the fights, no deaths aside?

The other fighters still being around is pretty cool, how do they get along with the gladiators? I imagine fairly well, since you’ve said they hang out, but are they close with anyone is particular? And what exactly is the Pit, besides a tournament? Do people fight for money in there? Do they just fight to fight? Is it open to a lot of people?

So the fisherman hung around Mizu and talked to Ranbob? It must have been strange, seeing the change in their would-be murderer. It does bring up the question of how in control Ranbob was when he first met them. Was he relatively himself at the start, and only begin to fall more under Dream’s thrall later, or was he under it from the start? And how do the fishermen feel about this? 

Actually, how young even is Ranbob? I believe you mentioned him to be Ran’s older(?) brother, but as previously said, Ran’s among the youngest of the gladiators, so how much older is Ranbob?  How old was he when he was led to kill the residents of Mizu?

I believe the word you’re looking for is possibly spirit? I’m assuming? And yeah, pretty smart of them to get away from it. Do they ever end up dealing with that in the future, or is it a ‘let’s just agree to never go near that thing again.’ kinda deal?

Charles and Ranbob bonding! Very nice! What other skills does Charles have, and where’d he learn them? Actually, what’s the general backstory for the fishermen? Is it anything that could tie in later, or no?

But that adjustment period can’t be easy. As we saw, the fishermens’ house was pretty small, and for Ranbob, to go from literally being the only person there in a huge city, to such an arrangement, well. It can’t have been easy. How did it affect him, and how did the fishermen deal with it?

In relation, how did Ran deal with going from Mizu to outside it? I imagine the lifestyle was a bit different from what he was used to.

So the relationship isn’t so easily fixed, hm? Y’know, all things considered, that’s pretty fair. How do the two groups get along, once they’ve decided to get the two brothers back together? And what kind of plan do they come up with? Perhaps deciding to travel together? Or maybe stick around and fight more? How does that work out for them? 

How does Ran feel about the brother that almost killed him being around his new family? And how does Ranbob feel about finding him again? Did he even think he was still kicking, or believe him to be dead?

So Endermen hybrids aren’t that common huh? Does that happen to be why Porkius was so interested in them? And are any of the fishermen or gladiators hybrids as well? Philza’s often shown with wings, and honestly, I’m curious to know if your AU’s Watson is a similar hybrid, or otherwise. 

Also, how do the gladiators fight? Are there double battles and team ups? Is there anyone they fight better with? What’s their general strategy? 

And how does Porkius feel about these new developments? Does he know? Help out, or let them sort it themselves? What’s going on with our resident king?

[septiembrre]

22 👀

Prompt: kissing someone’s cuts/bruises/scratches

Oh my god, Alex! I had so much fun writing this! It was a wild 5k ride these past 24 hours but here it is. I had never written hurt!comfort before, so this is my take on the classic Rio comes to Beth’s room late at night, bruised and bloody. 

I’m posting it here but it’s mad long. Feel free to check it out instead on AO3. 

I’ll Treat You Better (Than I Did Before)

It’s pitch dark in her bedroom and it takes Beth a minute to realize she’s awake. There’s a foggy, semi-intelligible lecture to Kenny swirling stubbornly in her thoughts. Was it even Kenny? Or maybe it was a pre-teen Annie of years ago...  It clings, insisting she pick up and finish the end of her rant if only to give her enough peace of mind to go back to sleep.

Earlier that day -- or Beth supposes it must be after midnight by now and the overly-rambunctious evening had all officially transpired in the past of the day before -- Kenny had come leaping down off a tree branch in the backyard. It was his latest attempt to “scare the bejeezus” out of his little sisters. He must have been up there for quite some time lying in wait for them to play below him. He had rappelled down like some sort of nightmarish, gangly monkey. Emma’s shriek had carried across the backyard to Beth as she sorted laundry in the mudroom, alerting her that there was mischief afoot. She could picture it in her mind’s eye, Emma levitating a foot off the ground. 

Meanwhile, her youngest, Jane, had sprung forward in instinctive defense of her more mild-mannered older sister, and tackled her pest of an older brother. Janey must have put all of her weight into it, too (and God, she would be great at football, if only there was a team that would take her) because she launched Kenny backward through the air to plop straight into a row of her beautiful, thorn-filled bushes.  

Beth had found herself sprinting barefoot across the yard, helicoptering in to extricate her thirteen-year-old son from his painful perch. After some careful maneuvering, her attempts had ended in a sniffling Kenny with blood dripping down his right arm from dozens of long, thin scratches. Luckily for Kenny (and Beth’s sanity), his mother kept her Neosporin stocked up in spades. Beth ended up sitting with him for the better part of the evening patching him up. 

At the cusp of his teenage years, Kenny is the spitting image of Dean, but damn, if he didn’t remind her of Annie at that age. Ballsy, sharp, plotting, and with little regard for self-preservation, teenage Kenny has really started to push her buttons. The same arguments come bubbling up from the years of yore, the same old patterns. Too quickly, she felt tears bead hotly at the corner of her eyes as she scolded Kenny to be sensical, to watch out for his siblings, to be safe. 

Then, when she was done, she had rounded on Jane. 

Beth’s thoughts continue mulling the evening over as she shifts under her covers. She comes further into consciousness, summoned by the underlying anxiety about the family history she worries could repeat, is repeating, in her children's lives. Beth considers the sheltered home-life she had carefully manufactured for her kids and wonders where she went wrong. Was this uptick in reckless behavior a product of the divorce?

She considers a quick Internet search — just to peek, get some reassurance. But, it’s just as likely she’ll come across something that will stress her out. Then she’ll really wake up and what she should do is go back to sleep, and leave the family pathologizing for the morning. 

Distantly, wrapped in the dark cocoon of her bed, Beth registers a robust rumble and the sound of rain— thunder? How long has it been raining? 

A bright flash of light peels through the curtains of the French doors and the windows of her bedroom, illuminating the ceiling above her. The answering thunder cracks loudly a few seconds later, and Beth, a grown adult, startles in her bed. 

Kenny and Jane certainly had too much of their aunt’s recklessness in them, but perhaps Beth and Emma (and sometimes Danny) were also too similar -- another thing to worry about. She wonders if her eldest daughter, her mini-me, is fated to a lifetime of boredom and self-effacement for the comfort of other people? Could this be the legacy Beth is passing on to her daughter? Oh my god. 

Beth squeezes her eyes shut, trying to shut out this unhelpful, midnight whorl of thoughts, and rolls over to check her phone. Three.

It’s too late, early, obscene for this particular spiral. But these are the kind of thoughts that take root in her mind, and come out in the middle of the night to make her second guess if she’s doing anything right in her life.

Beth takes a deep breath. She lets it out. Then, she burrows deeper in the covers, tries to settle back in her skin, and listens to the rain. 

It might have worked, too, except suddenly the French doors are jostled insistently from the outside. The handles smack sharply as they snap back into place, and Beth all but jumps a foot into the air. 

She’s suddenly awake, too awake, and pissed off. 

Beth has exactly one guess of who is out there. Who else could it be? 

Adrenaline pulses through her veins, as Beth leaps up to stalk to the double doors. She pulls back the gauze curtain and glowers at the shadowy figure outside. 

Lightning flashes again illuminating Rio’s glare that meets hers from the other side. He cants his jaw, raising a hand to rap impertinently at the glass. There’s blood on his face and his knuckles leave a red smear where he knocked on the window. 

Immediately, Beth unlocks the doors and steps back to let him in. The smell of wet earth floods her room, and abruptly, she and Rio are two shadowy figures in the darkness of her room. 

“You change the locks on me, ma?” Rio asks, playing wounded -- emotionally, that is. 

What a fucking night. 

“Yes.” Beth snips. She strides ahead of him to the ensuite and flicks on the lights to the bathroom. Her eyes squint as she adjusts to the brightness. “I didn’t want any more surprises.” Beth spins to face him. 

Rio has paused behind her, leaning against the frame of the bathroom. He brings up a palm to clutch the area of his chest over his heart. His knuckles are caked in blood, some of them still actively bleeding. Beth scans his face and registers the purple bruise blooming along one of his too-sharp, too-handsome cheekbones and there’s a dab of blood at his temple. His hoodie and pants are soaked from the rain and are dripping a puddle onto the bathroom tile floor. Her eyes drop down the length of him, and she notes that it’s the first time she’s seen his sneakers muddy. He must have tracked dirt all through her carpet. 

Worry coils knots between her shoulder blades. 

He looks like shit. 

But, still -- he finds the gall to drag his eyes suggestively down her body and she wonders what on earth he’s looking at. It’s the middle of the night, she’s not wearing any makeup, and her hair probably lies straight and limp from her pillow. Quickly her eyes flick sideways to the mirror to check that she doesn’t have drool flaking on her cheek. She doesn’t, but then her eyes catch on her frayed pajamas that in sleep have been pulled in an unflattering stretch across her body. She wonders if she could tug the fabric back into place without being too obvious, and her gaze rises to look at Rio surreptitiously in the mirror. In the seconds she’s looked away, his eyes have zeroed in on her chest and Beth is suddenly very aware that she is not wearing a bra. 

Quickly, the self-righteousness flares again. Once upon a time, she had thought it sexy-- okay, maybe a kernel of hers still thinks it’s a little sexy. But, now, after what happened between them, she never wants him to shed a drop of blood again. Beth wants to smack him, shake him… and draw him in, and warm him up, and kiss at the blood on his knuckles. The impulse beats warm, warm, warm in her chest. A clap of thunder sounds again, and like a flash she pictures his fingers illuminated in the dark of her bedroom, bloody and vibrant against the paleness of her skin. 

Somewhere low, her body throbs. 

Rio licks his lips. 

Beth swears at herself and tries to shake it off. “Get in here.” 

Blessedly, Rio doesn’t make any moves to touch her. Instead, they do a graceful pivot around each other, as he moves into her bathroom. She swears the air quivers with some spell of gravity or attraction manifesting itself between their bodies. Why-- Why is it like this? 

Beth bites her lower lip, exhausted, worried, and a little nervy. Rio tracks the movement of her teeth at her lip. 

Then, he shivers. 

It nudges her back to her senses. 

Beth lofts her nose in the air, prim. “Luckily for you, the Neosporin is already out.” She sighs, rolling her shoulders back. “It’s been a day.”

Rio nods along with her, his lips pressing together with the effort of suppressing a wry grin. “You’re tellin’ me.” 

She nods back at him. “I’m going to go get it.” 

“‘Kay.” 

Rio shivers again, and he looks disdainfully down at his wet clothes. 

“Don’t move.” Beth insists, exasperation and worry setting more firmly in. She wonders if she will find more blood under his clothes, knows she’ll see his scars again tonight, and prays he hasn’t added anything more to the collection. Beth tries to mask her concern. “I don’t want blood in my bedroom.” 

She starts to turn away, when Rio intones sardonic and somehow still with a thread of sincerity, “Thank you, darlin’.”

Beth throws him a quick glare and then tip-toes out of her bedroom to the kitchen. She takes the opportunity to adjust the set of her pajamas and combs her fingers through her hair. Then, mindful of not making more noise that would wake the kids, she quietly gathers the first aid supplies she had used earlier to tend to Kenny. There’s a quick moment of consideration, then she shoves the handle of bourbon under her arm. She makes her way back through the semi-darkness of the house, periodic flashes from the storm outside illuminating her way. 

Beth returns to her bedroom, the light from the ensuite beckoning her forward. Inside, Rio has settled on the edge of the tub. He’s pulled the hoodie off and it lies discarded in a sodden pile behind him in the tub. He’s left wearing a damp black t-shirt and soaked black denim. 

Beth sets the supplies on the vanity and then snaps her fingers, gesturing at him insistently. “Take it all off.”

“‘Scuse me?” Rio’s eyebrows raise in disbelief and amusement.

“Take off your clothes.”

Rio’s hands go to grasp the edge of his t-shirt.  “So it’s that kind of healin’, huh?”

Beth makes a dismissive sound and gestures impatiently at him to take off his shirt. Rio peels it off and drops it with the hoodie. 

His tattoos and the scars dance before her in the bright bathroom light like a mirage. Then, Rio drops his big, bloody hands to unbutton his fly. His thumb pauses, fondling the button as his grin spreads Cheshire-like across his face. Quickly, Beth grabs her towel off the rack and pushes it at his chest. Then she turns around and stares through the doorway into the darkness of her bedroom, to give him privacy. 

The night thunderstorm continues on, noisy and beautiful when she really comes to focus on it. Beth wonders if her children might have woken up with the thunder, but she hasn’t heard their footsteps. They could never successfully sneak around Beth, her ears tuned to their movements. Her eyes drift to the doorway of her bedroom and she sends a brief plea that they sleep through the storm. She doesn’t want Janey or Emma coming down to creep into her bed, while her crime boss is bleeding in her bathroom.

There’s a loud thud of soppy denim landing in the tub, and it brings her back to exactly what Rio is doing behind her.

She can hear the smirk in his voice when he calls, “You gonna kiss it and make it better now, Elizabeth?”

Beth shuts her eyes in a surge of pique. Why does she like him again?

But, hadn’t those same thoughts already flashed through her head? Of kissing his pain away?

She tries to get herself under control. “Are you decent?”

“Mmhm.”

Beth turns and finds Rio with her towel slung low around his hips, seated again on the edge of the tub. He’s dry now -- or drier. There are little beads of water that he missed lined under an ear, along a bicep. His blood stands out dabbed across his hands and at his brow. It doesn’t look like there’s any other damage to him. 

The tattoos look stark against his skin in the light, the scars starker but her eyes still have to skip past those. She wants to lick at the wings of his neck, to pin him underneath her, and suck at them in her bed. And god, he doesn’t look his best tonight. He’s not the sure-fire and graceful version of him prowling from his stupid, luxury car, or sitting incorrectly in whatever chair is around, or taunting her with his one-upmanship and wide smiles. But, want blooms wild at the sight of so much of him at once and she has a brief thought that the thunderstorm could work to their advantage. 

Rio shifts and stretches his legs out long in front of him. Then he slants his jaw at her in a manner that can only be described as cocky, daring her to ignore him, and her towel, and his probable nakedness. His eyes dance with mirth.

Quickly, regroups by Beth clamping her eyes shut again to dispel the image, the reality in front of her.

Does she still have any of Dean’s clothes? Damn, she knows she meticulously packed them all away for him to head off any possible excuse--  A loose shirt maybe? Or perhaps a spare bedsheet they could drape around him? No. That’s dangerous territory—

What was he going to wear out of here?

Well… she could always go grab more towels from the linen closet in a bit. Throw his clothes in the dryer. That was a start. 

Beth opens her eyes, and extends him her hand, “Let me see.”

“I can handle it, ma,” Rio says affectionately, seemingly sparing her in a rare show of grace. “It’s my mess.”

Ah, yes. His creed. 

“Why are you here then?” 

“‘Cause it’s pouring out and I was nearby.” 

She stares at him, trying to connect the dots. 

“...And you thought you could show up like this and I would— what? Be your hot pack?”

Rio scoffs a short laugh. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“You knocked on my bedroom door at three in the morning,” she hisses. 

Rio shrugs, not giving a quarter. 

“Is this supposed to be a—” Beth lowers her voice to an affronted whisper. “—booty call?”

He stares at her, his mouth falling open. Then he shakes his head in what Beth thinks is disbelief. “Pass me the kit.” 

Beth doesn’t move. Instead, she crosses her arms and stares down at him seated below her. “What happened?” 

Rio grits his jaw.

Their scowls meet in a stalemate. 

Thunder crashes again outside, loud as ever. Beth jumps at the sound, it loosens her stance as Rio gives another shiver from the residual chill on his skin. His gaze softens on her, and she relents -- for now.  

Beth grabs the kit, flips down the lid of the toilet and perches on the commode next to him. She holds out her palms again. “Let me see.” 

This time, Rio extends his hands. 

Beth can’t help a small grin at the victory. She cranes over his fingers, turning them around in her palms. Despite getting caught in the downpour, his hands are warm, strong as always and eclipsing hers. For the most part, the bleeding at his knuckles has stopped, and she feels her worry unknot itself. In reward for his rare compliance, she passes him the bottle of bourbon.

He wrinkles an eyebrow in surprise. “You okay with me taking a swig from the bottle?”

Beth considers it for a beat. Then she leans over and plucks the old sippy cup she keeps in the bathroom for brushing her teeth and offers it to him. He chuckles and opens the handle. He fills the sippy cup half way with bourbon and now it’s Beth’s turn to give Rio a look of surprise. He takes a drink. 

“For sharing.”  He grins at her over the rim of the cup, too charming for the middle of the night. 

Remotely, Beth can feel the tiredness pulling at her bones from the eventful evening caring to three of her four children and the subsequent interrupted sleep. But more pressingly -- the heat throbs low in her core again. 

She pulls the cup out Rio’s grasp, and takes a sip. The smell of the bourbon is sharp in her nose as it goes down her throat, settling warm in her belly. She hands back the cup and returns to her self-appointed task. 

She absolutely doesn’t think of the finally-healed bullet scars in her face. Or the expanse of brown skin exposed in front of her. Or his eyes resting warm on her face, occasionally drifting to follow the careful movement of her hands. 

Beth focuses on the cuts. 

First, she grabs the peroxide. For an eternity, or what really is just a few minutes, the only sound is the rain falling steadily outside and their soft breathing. The smell of the peroxide makes Beth's nose wrinkle and Rio gives a quiet laugh. His fingers twitch as she irrigates the wounds but otherwise he takes it well. 

For the millionth time, she wonders if Rio boxes. He must, right?

After she’s done with the hydrogen peroxide, they both take another swig of bourbon, polishing off the sippy cup. Then, Beth moves on to dabbing Rio’s knuckles with alcohol. 

Halfway through the first hand, there’s another loud clap of thunder. Beth’s hands tense and she presses too firmly into one of the cuts. Rio flinches and looks at her with a question on his face.

“You scared of thunder?”

“No.” 

He smiles at her, not seeming to believe her words. 

“I’m just tired.” --and overstimulated, and are you even wearing boxers underneath that towel?

Beth pivots. “So what happened?”

Rio’s smile wanes and he looks at her with that old guarded look-- that I’m a tough crime boss and I don’t talk easy look. She rolls her eyes and continues cleaning his knuckles. 

“I was out on business--” 

She looks up from his knuckles to search his face. 

“Not our business.” Rio clarifies, but Beth only has more questions as he continues, “And I got into a fight with some dumb motherfucker who didn’t do as he was told.”

“What was the problem?” Her mind spirals. She’s responsible for a sizable part of his wealth now but so much of his business is still elusive. But, the question comes out inelegant, too direct. 

Rio looks at her with reproach, pursing his lips. 

“Didn’t respect the pecking order.” 

Honestly, she doesn’t have enough context to be sure she knows what that means. But, she’s certainly had enough of those kinds of disputes with Rio herself. She knows it’s serious -- hence the blood -- and she decides not to press. It’s three, now three-thirty, in the morning and Beth doesn’t have the energy to work on their communication at this hour. 

She returns her focus to his hands, but the rest of him, the exposed length of him catches her eye from the periphery of her vision.

She recognizes that particular musky smell of him, of his skin, as their bodies lean close together.

She tries her previous question again. “And how did you end up here?”

Her gaze darts up to look at him through her lashes. She finds him staring solemnly back at her. 

Then, he shrugs.

“You were closer”

Beth bites her lip.

It was just two months ago that they had slept with each other at Paper Porcupine. It had been the first time since before and it just happened, late one night at a private drop between them. It had been electric, furious, and everything she had fantasized about alone in her bed. They had gone a few rounds despite the lack of comfortable surfaces. 

She tries never to think about it. But, it ends up filling all of her day-dreams. 

He had gotten on the table next to the printing press, and he had dropped to his knees and eaten her out. The look in his eyes while he had-- Afterwards, he pulled out a stack from the drop money and seemed to pretend-swat her ass with it. They had ended up spilling the bag out and they fucked on fresh stacks of cash. 

Then there was kissing, a literal bathroom break. Then, Rio, bossy, ridiculous, had led her over to a work table. He had pulled up her blouse, pulled down her bra, and bent her over the edge. His hand firm at her back, he had pushed her chest into a tin of setting pulp. God.  She had moaned around the thick fingers that he had curled into her mouth, impossibly turned on and feeling the… sluttiest she had ever felt. Rio had murmured dirty encouragement in her ear, egging her over to the edge again and again.

Not one to let him get the last word, Beth had insistently pushed off the table just before he came and pulled him out. Rio had watched in a fevered daze, groaning as she had sunk to her knees, sucking him off, tasting herself with a triumphant glint in her eye. Beth had let his come spill, joining the mess smeared across her throat and breasts.

Afterward, they laid together, sticky, sprawled out on the floor, and came back to earth. Eventually, she had tugged open the buttons of his shirt. He had let her. And Beth had cried — quietly, restrained — as she kissed the scars she had given him. Rio had eyed her steadily, carefully as Beth’s world tilted completely off its axis. 

They fucked again a week later at the hot tub store, in the water with strategic use of one of the jets. And a few days after that in his car, and then in the back of hers. Then, Paper Porcupine again and that was the last time. Beth had just managed to get him dressed and out the front door as Annie and Ruby had come through the back rallying for printing night. Beth had feigned ignorance as they had asked increasingly pointed questions about the eye-sore of a Mercedes that had just been parked outside of the store and reality came crashing down.

After that, Beth had kept her distance. And Rio… was never one to meet her more than halfway.

But, he continued to drop in on her -- more than ever. She is clearly on his schedule, penciled into the spare hours of the day. 

And still, she continues to resist it — the pull. 

She could admit they had their fun. Is that what people call the best sex they’ve ever had in their life?

But, she doesn’t know if she’s ready for something so unsteady, something that makes her feel so messy -- too alive. If she ever will be ready. But, she thinks of Rio bleeding somewhere out there and other nights where he won’t come to her, thinks of the night where she left him bleeding out, and her mouth twists in a grimace. 

Rio brings the hand she isn’t working on to squeeze reassuringly at her thigh. 

It feels really nice. 

Beth has to clear her throat and blink away a few tears. 

After she’s done with the alcohol swabs, she motions for Rio to follow her to the sink.  

As they both crowd around her vanity, Beth realizes she didn’t quite need to follow him as he rinses his knuckles out with water. But, she reminds herself, it’s the middle of the night and she’s tired. The cuts and scrapes haven’t been serious — but there’s been too much blood in the past few hours. 

She uncaps the Neosporin. It’s something for her to do with her empty, searching hands.

“Nah.” Rio shakes his head and turns off the water. “I don’t need that.”

Beth levels him with the look she gave Kenny earlier, brokering no arguments. 

“You want me to get it all over your bed?”

“Excuse me?” 

He blinks back at her. Then in affected shock, he continues, “You take my clothes, you ply me with booze and now you want me to drive across Detroit while it’s still pourin’ rain?” He tsks. “Damn, mama. That’s cold.”

Beth rolls her eyes — and she’s tired, and if he keeps his hands to himself and she keeps her hands to herself… what’s a couple of hours of shut-eye next to the lean, naked length of him? He would have to be naked. She wasn’t going to let him get into her sheets with wet boxers, even if he surprised her and they were somehow on underneath that towel.

Well, she’ll tackle it when they get there. For now, she abandons the Neosporin on the counter, passes over the bandaids and bandages she knows he won’t take, and grabs the hand towel to raise to his temple. He dodges away, playful but somewhat serious.

“I’m good. I promise.”

That’s not enough to stop Beth from zeroing in on the bruise at his cheek. She brings her fingertips up to prod at it gingerly. It’s swollen and hot. Rio winces beneath her touch, bringing his hands up to snatch hers. He lowers her hands to his lips instead, and he presses his mouth to her fingertips. 

“Thank you,” he murmurs hotly against her hand, effectively distracting her from doing anything else.

Beth gulps, as a spark kindles. Her skin burns where Rio’s mouth presses warm on her skin and shoots down her core. It coils in her belly and has her shifting in her stance. She’s still aware of where he touched her thigh just now and she craves more of his touch, the pleasure of his undivided attention.

Beth is flooded by thoughts of him, back in her bed. She thinks of him wrapped up in her sheets. She thinks of it now in the safety of darkness, with the rain still pattering down on the house. And she yearns.

She’s never felt like this before — not even when she was a teenager, young and hormonal. She had been too laden with responsibilities and a fumbling boyfriend who would become a boorish husband. Before crime, she had always accepted what had been handed to her without a complaint. But now... 

When she’s with Rio, Beth feels fire in her and it’s impossible to back away, to back down. 

She wants to chase him, be desired by him, bring him to her bed and into her life and never let him go. 

She blinks up from his mouth to look him in the eye. That look suspends between them heady, rife— 

It’s three-thirty in the morning and so what?

She licks her lips and lets herself loose. 

Beth pulls her hands away from his mouth and wraps them around his palms pulling them to her body instead. Goosebumps rise up along Rio’s arms.

She thinks, What’s one more time?

She thinks, I want to be the one who warms him up. 

She thinks, I want this. 

Beth brings his knuckles to her mouth, Rio’s hands weighty in hers. The musk of him fills her nose and it makes her light-headed, wet. She kisses them tenderly, her lips dragging against where his skin is unbroken. Her attention is trained on his hands, but she registers the wings fluttering again at his throat, as he swallows hard.

When Beth is done kissing each cut, she brings one hand to rest on her hip and the other’s fingertips to her mouth instead. She takes the tip of an index finger in her mouth and she bites firm at the pad.

When he groans, she feels deep in her cunt. 

She’s achingly empty, burning and she wants him. She can’t think of anything else.

But, Rio hovers a breath away. He’s never needed much convincing before.

And she thinks, Right. We’re here again.

Her bed.

So, she rises up onto her toes, her lips landing softly on his bruised cheek. As she lingers in what increasingly feels like their natural orbit — kissing distance — she brings Rio's hand under her shirt to squeeze at the warm, rounded weight of her breast. It’s her turn to moan as he cups her, his hand reaching up to roll her nipple between his fingers.

Rio presses his forehead to hers, panting open-mouthed against her lips. The tips of their noses brush. She feels his cock hard against her stomach, through the stupid towel.

She wants to devour him.

Beth pulls at the drawstring of her pants and pushes them down. She brings Rio’s hand that has moved to clutch her ass, to perch between her legs instead so he can feel how wet she is.

Rio groans and murmurs, “This for me, Elizabeth?”

His fingers give a perfect, exploratory swirl around her clit. Beth rocks back, scooting her butt to rest on the vanity. She spreads her legs so Rio can dip his fingertips to tease her cunt with a hint of what it’ll be like to be full.

“Always for you.”

It’s unclear who initiates the kiss. It doesn’t matter. It all devolves quickly after that.

[therewrites]

We Are Who We Are Overall Thoughts *spoilers*

This review will be discussing briefly some of the episodes so far, so SPOILERS

So I started watching the HBO original series, We Are Who We Are, and I am conflicted. When I initially watched it, the dialogue made it hard for me to enjoy it so I stopped. Then after a couple of weeks after its airing, I thought, what the hell? And this time, I was pleasantly surprised. I always maintain the belief that pilot episodes are either boring, messy, or just bad so I try to push past it in order to get to the good shit. The pilot for We Are Who We Are was...I’m not sure how to explain...different? It certainly wasn’t bad and it made an impression on me, but this show as a whole is hard to limit by just a few words. It’s really something that you should watch and experience yourself.

It was only after the first 3 episodes that I began to understand the tone and mood that Luca Guadagnino was trying to convey. A lot of the time, the dialogue is abrupt and choppy and can make no sense. It can be frustrating, especially when you have two characters that aren’t communicating effectively. But I think that was the point. Guadagnino is a very realistic director, he captures the most realistic elements in a film. A lot of the conversations between characters is meant to emulate real life. Like, what the hell do you say when a conversation becomes awkward? Well, nothing sometimes.

While Guadagnino’s typical cinematography may suggest whimsy, in WAWWA’s case the small structured and synthetic model of the military base is juxtaposed to the very concrete characters. When I started to view the show less as simply a televised airing of fictional characters and problems, and instead looked at them as people, I began to really enjoy it. 

Take the main character of Fraser, played by Jack Dylan Grazer. Fraser is meant to be seen as an extremely complex and troubled kid, but the difference between him and every other teen in a coming-of-age drama is that he isn’t polished. His drinking and drug habit isn’t framed as romantic or beautiful, in fact most of the time it’s portrayed as his weakness of sorts. In the first episode, Fraser has one of his mothers drive him home after getting pretty wasted and Luca graces us with a direct shot of him throwing up. And before that, Fraser is stumbling on a bridge when he drunkenly falls and cuts his face. Everything the character does is messy, uncoordinated, yet extremely real and relatable. Hell, in one shot you can clearly see him do a Naruto run!

Caitlin/Harper is a character that I enjoyed watching, as well. Jordan Seamon did a fantastic job and I really connected with their character. Initially we see Caitlin as this mysterious girl, and in the pilot we are meant to assume that their relationship with Fraser is supposed to develop into a romantic one. This is not the case as it seems that Caitlin is trying to come to terms with who they are. The biggest shift in Caitlin’s character isn’t their friendship with Fraser but probably when they get their period. 

This was a moment that even I related to, even though I am cis when I first got my period I didn’t tell my mom until the day after. The possible confusion and shift in their reality that Caitlin felt was only heightened with the conflict of their boyfriend wanting to be more physically intimate, and Fraser’s eventual discover of Harper. I would have like to see exactly why Fraser seemed drawn to Caitlin. I’m assuming viewers were supposed to think that Fraser is attracted to her, or something. But both Caitlin/Harper and Fraser are queer coded and their respective sexualities are alluded to not being straight. It would’ve made their standing as platonic friends more clear if this had been established stronger. 

I definitely think the writer could have devoted more time to giving certain characters proper conversations. It would’ve given more development to certain characters and better context for things. However even without that, there is a lot that the audience is showed that can’t be told through dialogue. The power struggle between Sarah and Richard being one. So far, there hasn’t been any explanation as to why they have a such a volatile relationship other than Richard being a homophobe. 

Through deeper inspection, I was able to interpret it as: Richard may heavily resent the fact the Sarah was promoted to Colonel and not him. It is never made clear who has the better credentials, Sarah or Richard, but assuming that she was the one promoted it is a safe guess. This may be highlighted by the fact that Sarah is a women, and also gay. Even before episode 7, it was clear that Richard did not respect her authority. I also interpreted it as Richard being upset that and openly gay women was promoted instead of him, a black man. 

Of course this is just based on my own personal knowledge of how the U.S. military can be towards people of color and LGBTQ+. Regardless, the competitive tension between two parents is palpable without needing dialogue to explain.  

When conflict happens, I can kind of figure out which characters are going to react and which one’s will stay silent. I think the show is trying to accomplish a drastically realistic and raw series. It took me while to adjust to it, but by maybe the 2nd or 3rd episode, it starts to grow on you. Despite not liking a good majority of the characters, I was very surprised by how invested I was in them. 

Like, Danny is my least favorite character because he displays very abusive and explosive tendencies, and doesn’t seem to care about the world around him. However, getting glimpses into his character and seeing how Richard ignores him for Caitlin/Harper, his suicidal thoughts, and how he is trying to reclaim his cultural and religious background makes me empathize with him. 

Even though I hate his character, I can see that he is struggling. I appreciate the way that this show freely shows dark skinned black boys dealing with mental health issues, and personal development. Rarely are issues like suicide talked about in the black community, so seeing Danny talk about it and Craig offering(admittedly poor)comfort was touching. This is a general vibe that I get from nearly all the characters on WAWWA. I also appreciated the how Danny is actively trying to convert to Islam. In shows, rarely is Islam ever portrayed in a positive manner. Especially when female characters are shown to be struggling with their religion, Islam is shown as this barrier that prevents them from living life. Hopefully it goes without saying that the “taking off the hijab” as a way to show that a female character is “liberated” is overplayed and does not offer any respect to the countless Muslim women who choose to wear hijabs. 

Now I think the pacing of some of the storylines could have been handled a bit more gracefully. Like how we jump from Fraser and Harper being kind of enemies(not really but you know what I mean), to just them hanging out in Richard’s boat was jarring. I would have at least liked to see the scene of them talking on the rocks at the beach. It would’ve given more insight on Caitlin/Harper’s character and also on Fraser too. Also how quickly Maggie and Lu(Jennifer but I love the name Lubaba, it’s my aunt’s name)jump into a physical affair. I just would have liked to see a build up of tension between all these characters but I don’t think this entirely ruins the plot. 

I was very iffy when I learned that the show would be focusing on trans identity and gender and sexuality, but not actually hire a trans male actor. I was afraid that the show would completely botch the experiences of being transgender, and honestly I don’t have the authority to speak on whether or not this affects the quality of the show. I am cisgender, and only can empathize with this particular situation as much as I can. But I would like to hear to the opinion of someone who is trans and elaborate on the ways that they did/didn’t like Jordan Kristine Seamón’s portrayal. 

Now at the time I’m writing this, the season finale has yet to come out. But I’d also like to briefly discuss the most recent episode and how it developed Jonathan and Fraser’s relationship. I was VERY worried that Guadagnino was going to take their relationship in the direction of inappropriate. While nearly all the depictions of Jonathan and his actions have been trough Fraser’s pov, it didn’t stop me from side-eyeing some of the interactions they shared. Of course after it was mentioned that Jonathan was supposed to be in his late 20s, nearing 30 I was immediately uncomfortable with the very flirty behavior he exhibited. 

So when the scene of Fraser going up to his apartment after Craig’s death, I was very on edge. If Guadagnino had gone the extra mile to show an even larger age gap then I would’ve been pissed. While I enjoyed Call Me By Your Name, the implication that sexual relationships between barely legal teenagers and adults well into their 20s was sensual is something that I see as very weird now that I’m older. So seeing Jonathan as the object of Fraser’s affections made me extremely warry. 

And honestly, I’m still surprised that the scene even happened in its entirety. I’m sure that Jack was not in any danger of being exploited but there were definitely points while watching I thought, what the fuck is going on? I was very worried that it would escalate, but I was happy to see that Fraser was the one who stopped it from going further.  It made sense to me that this scene took so many liberties to be as graphic as possible without being too graphic, in order to show why a situation like that would be scary and confusing for Fraser. It wasn’t lost to me that Marta and Jonathan were the one’s initiating all the sexual advances. They held all the power in that scenario, even more so because Fraser is younger and has the tendencies to not make the best decisions. Though it seemed that Fraser was trying, he knew that the situation was fucked up.

I’d like to hear what JDG felt and thought doing this scene. What was his character’s thought process?

I’ve seen a lot of people compare the show heavily to CMBYN, which is fine. Besides certain cinematic parallels that people pointed out, I don’t see the clear comparison. CMBYN is more of a love story and it’s more polished than WAWWA. Now when I say tat, I don’t mean it as a negative. Rather, We Are Who We is obviously more devoted to realism and its characters. I appreciate the inclusion of more LGBTQ+ people and black main characters with development, something that CMBYN lacked. And for some people who didn’t like the show based solely on the fact that it wasn’t a CMBYN tv show, I suggest just going into it with no expectations and enjoy the mess. 

And I’d also like to take a moment to commend Jack Dylan Grazer for his job in We Are Who We Are. All of the main cast are amazing actors and actresses and did a really good job bringing their characters to life. Though, I had always associated JDG with supporting roles that, while highlighted his acting talent, only put him in a one-dimensional light. As good as It 2017 was, JDG’s role of Eddie is only meant to be seen as a comic relief. In WAWWA, I was able to forget that he was teen actor, Jack Dylan Grazer, and really see him as Fraser. It’s worth mentioning that in a GQ interview, Grazer also mentioned how this role made him reevaluate is approach to acting. 

And after reading an interview he did with a Interview Germany, with him saying he spent months in Italy reading the script and trying to perfectly craft this character, I was immensely impressed. I hope that he knows that all his hard work payed off and made a really dynamic and interesting character. I really hope that in the future JDG continues with more mature or multi-dimensional roles because he displayed that he has the talent to do so. Him being so young makes me optimistic in knowing that he is definitely going places in his career. I also hope that there will be a season 2 of WAWWA because despite having hour long episodes, the show still felt way too short. There is a lot about Fraser’s character, and all the others’ characters, that I want more information and analysis on.

[bestworstcase]

I just find the way the show frames it in Season 2... strange. I understand the danger in the situation you brought up in the tags, but- she does love Eugene. Why is this about her freedom as if marriage ties you down?

Maybe it’s my own misunderstanding of marriage

the thing though is like. even a perfectly normal and well-adjusted 18/19-year-old is in a period of major transition + self discovery. at that time of life you’re just starting to figure out who you are and what kind of adult you’re going to be and what you’re gonna do with your life! you’re stepping out of childhood and into adulthood. 

as a comparison, replace “marriage” with “buying your forever house.” imagine asking an eighteen year old to take out loans and get a mortgage for a house that they’re gonna live in for the rest of their lives. 

sure they might love the house. and sure they might be the rare teenager who knows exactly what they want out of life and if they can get it so early, more power to ’em. but for the average teen? like that’s not... a reasonable expectation, and if you took a normal 18/19 year old and asked them how their house search was going and if they were ready to settle down in their forever house you’re gonna get the deer in headlights look. because teenagers aren’t, in general, emotionally ready for that kind of huge, life-defining decision. 

[i mean just look at how common it is for kids to switch majors halfway through school, or switch schools even! i’m the odd one out in my friend group in that i picked a school that i loved right off the bat, chose my major freshman year the first day i was allowed to do so, stuck with both those choices for four years, and then graduated happy with my choices and still have zero regrets. my best friend went through three schools before she found one that worked for her; my sister did community college then one year at one university then a gap year that became a gap two years before finishing her BA at a second university and graduating this spring, at age 25. because she had to figure out what she wanted and that was hard! and this sort of thing is both very normal and good and healthy.]

marriage is the same. you’re picking someone and making a legal commitment to be with them for the rest of your life, and yeah divorce is an option but it’s one that is financially and emotionally burdensome and, especially if there’s kids in the mix, you will still be dealing with the fallout of a divorce for years to come. marriage is not something that is easy to change your mind about. that’s a lot to put on a kid’s shoulders, even under the best of circumstances. [and it does sometimes work out: my mom was nineteen when she met my dad, and they’ve been married almost thirty years. there’s always exceptions]

and this goes triple for rapunzel, because she is an 18/19 year old who grew up in a horrifically abusive home where she wasn’t allowed to have any independence at all, then found out that her mother was actually HER KIDNAPPER and got dumped into the role of princess with no transition period whatsoever—literally her whole life got turned upside-down and she’s having to relearn EVERYTHING she thought she knew about her life, on top of the normal teenager thing of figuring herself and her life out. 

she’s a little steadier on her feet in s2, but she’s also caught up in fulfilling this destiny she didn’t choose, and she’s secretly scared that that destiny is going to end up killing her. she’s got... like an insane amount of stuff on her plate. and eugene is her rock and she absolutely 100% loves him and wants to marry him, but that doesn’t mean she is emotionally ready to get married right now. the only reason she tries to propose in s2 is she’s freaked out about the possibility of losing eugene to somebody else, and when eugene reassures her that there’s no danger of that, it becomes a nonissue and is never mentioned again... until s3 when she’s gotten to a point where she’s happily fantasizing about being married to eugene and planning a proposal because she is now Truly Ready. 

which i guess is all a long-winded way of saying... it’s not really about whether she loves eugene or not. and it’s not really about whether they could be happy together for the rest of their lives if they got engaged in BEA or in BtCW. it’s about marriage 1) being a big step and a huge, life-long commitment that cannot be entered into lightly, and 2) whether rapunzel is emotionally ready to make a decision that profound. 

and yeah, i think it’s perfectly reasonable and valid to portray that as a question of Her Freedom. getting married to eugene is not going to actually inhibit her from being herself, or doing what she wants with her life, because she and eugene love each other and want to spend their lives together and he would of course support whatever life she chose... but the decision itself can still be frightening. it can still be A Lot. there is a big difference between saying “i love you and i want to be with you forever” and going through the whole legal process of tying yourself to another person for the rest of your life, and it’s okay—as a teenager!—to be completely comfortable and genuine in the first while also feeling terrified, or overwhelmed, regarding the second. 

which imo is the whole point tts is making. rapunzel can love eugene with all her heart and not be ready to marry him bc she’s young and exploring herself and her world, and that’s totally okay. she doesn’t have to propose or get married until she WANTS that for herself, until it doesn’t feel like a sacrifice or a compromise she’s making but rather a dream she is pursuing. she gets to have marriage as a joyous, freeing prospect, rather than something scary that she isn’t ready for but feels compelled to accept anyway because well, she loves eugene and she has no reason to say no, right? 

like [waves hands vaguely at the plus est scene] is the way rapunzel smiles when eugene proposes in that scene the smile of a woman who is sacrificing her freedom to get married? no! of course not! that’s the smile of someone who is DELIGHTED and EAGER and EXCITED to get married because marriage is an open door to exactly the future she wants, which is precisely how marriage should be.

[cb-conceptlibrary]

TW: Airports, Flying, Unaccompanied Children/Minors, Poor parent-child relationships, Holidays, Shenanigans, Pranks, Escaping an authority figure, Slight snobbery of classes, Mention of divorced parents, Sibling antics

Welcome to the Librarian’s Suggestions!

Today’s Theme: Unaccompanied Minors (film)

Plot: A teenage boy and his kid sister are flying across the country to spend Christmas with their father. Because their mother is staying behind, they’re escorted to the unaccompanied minors lounge to spend time with the other kids. The teenage boy falls for a posh girl and tries to befriend her in the lounge, while mixing with other kids who are there traveling by themselves. The manager of one of the airports is gleeful as he plans to head off for his vacation in Hawaii, only to discover that his flight, along with the other flights, has been grounded. Meanwhile, the teenager and some other kids escape the lounge and get up to some antics, like ordering food at restaurants, sneaking into airline lounges, and swiping golf carts. They’re caught by security and escorted back to the lounge, only to learn that they’re forced to spend the night there, due to their bad behavior. The teen learns his sister was taken to a nearby lodge with the other well-behaved kids and the group makes their way to the lodge, all while trying to evade the airport manager. During their escape, they start to befriend each other and learn that they may not be as different as they think.

Characters

Spencer: The oldest in his family who tries to fit in, but is often the butt of the joke, courtesy of his bratty sister’s temper tantrums and antics. Despite finding her a nuisance, he tries to be a supportive brother, telling her that Santa will find them, even though they’re spending Christmas with their father. After getting in trouble for dining and dashing at an airport restaurant, he is punished with staying the night in the unaccompanied minors lounge with other kids who escaped. He organizes the group and plots to help them escape the lounge, while making Christmas a good one for his younger sister. He has a crush on Grace.

Katherine: Spencer’s younger sister. She’s loud and prone to throwing screaming temper tantrums. Often Spencer is forced to tolerate her behavior and ends up becoming the butt of the joke when she acts up. (Ex. She refuses to sit on Santa’s lap and forces Spencer to do so, which gets him called out by his classmates back home.) While she is not above undermining Spencer and pointing out how uncool he is, she quietly appreciates that he cares about her. When Spencer escapes the UM lounge, she is taken with the other kids to a nearby lodge and gets to stay with the flight attendants and an older girl. The latter treats Katherine like a doll and subjects her to a forced makeover and bonding, as the older girl never had a sister. Eventually Katherine escapes and makes it downstairs to the fireplace, hoping to catch Santa.

Grace: A rich girl who is returning home from boarding school. She is first introduced to Spencer while playing cards with her posh friends and quickly takes to his sister Katherine when the latter reveals Spencer isn’t as cool as he pretends to be. She is caught sneaking into one of the airline lounges and getting special treatment in the form of high class food and beverage, plus a massage. When the group is forced to return to the UM lounge, she teams up with the other kids to escape and eventually reveals that the only reason she is at the airport is because she was returning home from school. (Her parents have chosen to spend the holidays elsewhere without her.) Over time, she develops a crush on Spencer, who shows that he cares about her, more than just the stuck-up rich girl image she displays.

Charlie: A smart young man who splits his time between his parents and knows all of the airports very well, due to the frequent flying. He is nosy and curious, probing all the new kids who enter the lounge to share if they are the children of divorced parents or not. At times he is prone to freaking out in tense situations, but eventually time spent with the group helps him to learn how to stay cool under pressure.

Donna: A rough-around-the-edges tomboy who does not like being touched by anyone. She does not like being stuck in the UM lounge and sneaks out to swipe a golf cart. While not much is said about her family life, it is implied she has a poor relationship with her mother. Initially she dislikes Charlie and butts heads with Grace, but eventually realizes that they too come from broken homes and are trying to cope with it.

Beef: A quiet boy who carries around an Aquaman action figure. His parents are split about his interest in the toy figure, his father arguing that Beef is not a boy and he needs to “man up”. Initially Beef retreats into his imagination with the Aquaman figurine and is content with shutting out other people, interested in creating adventures and memories with his Aquaman figurine. When the group escapes the UM lounge, he gets into the safety equipment out of curiosity and gets caught. While the group plan to escape and find a way to the lounge, Beef gets fixated on the idea of getting a Christmas tree, and sets off to find a tree farm nearby. He trades his action figure for a tree and brings it back to the airport to bring holiday cheer.

Zach: An airport employee who manages the Unaccompanied Minors lounge. He’s a friendly fellow who is sympathetic to the kids and their plight, but is a bit neurotic and finds himself being taken advantage of by his peers and the kids.

Oliver: The head of passenger relations for the airport. Originally he was set to go on vacation to Hawaii, only to learn that a snowstorm has grounded all flights, including his. This sours his mood and he takes his frustrations out on the quintet who escape the lounge, punishing them with spending the night in the lounge, versus the nearby lodge. Kids manage to evade him and make his attempts to capture them difficult.

Possible Plots

Your muse is traveling to see family and ends up stranded at an airport. Because they’re traveling without an adult, they’re forced to hang out with other kids in the same situation, which leads them to leading an escape. They attempt to stay ahead of the security, while getting into some trouble along the way.

Your muse is traveling with their younger sibling who gets on their nerves at times. When both of you are unable to make it to your final destination, you try to stay close with them, only to be caught up in some antics with other people your age. Knowing your sibling will be crushed if the holidays are ruined for them, you form a plan with your peers to make sure it’s a good holiday for your sibling.

Notes

Any time period works for this storyline.

The story takes place during the Christmas holiday season, but it can be adjusted to another celebration or reason for the house being empty. (Ex. Vacation, emergency out of state/out of town/out of country, et.c)

While it takes place in an airport, the scenery can be adjusted to another mode of transportation.

Great for younger groups and idols, especially those with youthful or mischievous charms. (Ex. TXT)

Good for multi-muse chatbots or medium-sized idol groups.

@yanlee (OG) @detectivexsicheng @lawyer-mingyu @mafia-chae @hanjisung-bot @softboijisung @lixielee-chatbot @mafiafelixlee @your-seunghun @vampiremomo @mitsukojen @loveline-academy  @sydney-oc @seleneminnie @dandyboyseungminie @nvrendngstry @doll-seungmin @doll-hyunjin @doll-soobin @doll-jeongin @scholar-lia @subbyhyunjinchatbot @ares-bc @soft-hyunjin-chatbot @domyukhei @guitar-sihyeon @softiehyunjinie @darkfaeskz @fairy-yeji @tattooistchannie  @playgirljennie @skz-cb @eboyfelixbot @yourdaddychan @mafiajjh @mulanxningning @demon-lee @moonlit-jaemin @yeojinsheight  @skz-bot @fairy-dejun @kaanghana @chans-chair @model-lucy @churchgirl-nayeon @rose-musician @soft-magicxyujin @sg-jennie @caretaker-irene @vampire-queenirene @universe-of-superm @fatherfigure-jin @hackerxiaojun @model-bomi-oc @floristluda @hernameisangel-oc  

[autumnslance]

For backstory asks; 5, 14 and 15 for any girls, but then 11 for Punchy

Well this got long. Oops! Below the cut for the various answers!

5. What sort of religion was practiced in their home? Did religion play a role in their upbringing? 

Dark’s family worships the Twelve, with some emphasis on Nophica. Because they’re Gridanian, it’s also blended with the appeasement of the Elementals. There were rites and restrictions to be observed, as to do otherwise had very real consequences. Dark carries those observances and respect and rites with her wherever she goes, just in case. She keeps a small token on her person, a gift from her mother, with Nophica’s symbol on one side, and Azeyma’s on the other, as Dark was born during Her month. Dark will sometimes hold the token, playing with it a bit, when thinking over large, difficult decisions. It’s comforting.

Aeryn spent the first five years of her life immersed in devout Halonic Orthodox worship; that ended when her father died and her mother took her children back to her homeland. Mother’s people were less public/pushy about their personal faith, just practicing it casually if they did at all. Aeryn grew up more or less agnostic from that point, with only vague reminders of Halonic catechism--and when she returned to Eorzea as an adult, was actively repelled by its strictures, after the more live-and-let-live style of her maternal people. After everything she’s been through, she now privately identifies as atheist, but has yet to share that with anyone aside from her stepsister in letters.

C’oretta’s family paid the usual lipservice to Nal’dthal for Ul’dah, but it wasn’t a major part of their lives. C’oretta does hold quite a few superstitions, though, basic religious knowledge one absorbs and normalizes culturally--and that her parents used to keep an unruly little girl in line. Witnessing some of the terror in Ul’dah during the Calamity, and losing her father then, left her terrified of death, and stories of Thal’s gilded halls have no comfort for her anymore.

Iyna grew up in a province of Garlemald. Religion was not allowed, and her time in re-education crushed any ideas of it from the youth living there.

14. Did they live near extended family in the past? How did this shape their environment? Are any of their relatives near their age? What are their feelings towards extended family in general?

Dark has not only a large immediate family, but a decent-sized extended family, and clumps of siblings and cousins in all age groups. Always someone around, always some support, often conflicts and having to resolve them for familial peace. She’s probably the best adjusted of my group, and despite seeing some terrible things, has fewer trauma reactions in large part because of that network of support and care she can fall back on and get what she needs. However, there wasn’t a lot of individual attention at all times, and Dark is a quiet introvert in a family of extroverts, so there were some feelings of not being listened to or seen entirely, or feeling a bit “outside looking in.” She knows her family loves her, and she loves them, but they don’t always understand her, either. She likes having her little house in the Twelveswood as a place of her own that she can go to as needed--but also likes having the company hall in Thanalan, or the Adventurer Guild spaces around the realm, when she does need people, even if just to observe quietly and soak in the ambience. She herself doesn’t plan for a large family; if it happens (no rush or current drive), a small one would be nice and manageable.

Aeryn is unaware of any extended family surviving in Coerthas; her father’s family didn’t care for him marrying a foreign woman and cut him off, and between the war and the Calamity, it doesn’t seem any have survived, from what scant records Taratu managed to find (with many caveats). Among her mother’s people there was an extensive network, but Aeryn, her mother, and brother were held at a bit of arm’s length by many, the relationships kept casual and out of obligation. Her stepfather’s extended family did absolutely nothing to welcome the Striker children; they weren’t cruel, but weren’t welcoming either, mostly politely overlooking their existence. It only made Aeryn and Zaine closer, and her more lonely once he was gone. She decided familial relations were no better or worse than any other, and feels the Scions to be more a family than many of those extended relatives.

C’oretta’s unaware of any extended family, though figures she must have some random partial blood relations among the C from her mother’s generation, and her father had the Coliesum moniker “Khell the Clanless” for a reason. C’oretta is indifferent to large family groups, and liked having all her parents’ attention as a child. Did make things tough in many ways, but easier in others, when she suddenly found herself taking care of her mother after Khell’s death.

Iyna is unaware of any family, immediate or extended, due to being taken from her home and put in re-education at a young age.

15. Would they rather go back and relive their childhood? Why or why not?

No for all of them. Good or bad, there’s no real point in going back to that period. Elements of it were often good (except in Iyna’s case, where it was mostly bad and she barely remembers what came before Garlemald) but they’re all pretty good with being independent adults.

Well, C’oretta might wish it a little bit now and then, cuz she misses her dad and how her mother used to be and everything seemed to perfect then. She knows better, but once in awhile it’s just a little twinge, y’know?

PUNCHY: 11. What occupation did your character want to have growing up? Is this the same as what they wish to be, or are in, now?

C’oretta honestly had no idea what she wanted to do when she grew up. She had a new idea every week and dabbled in a bunch of different things, none of which held her attention. The only things that seemed to last beyond a fleeting whim were dancing, pretend fighting with her dad, chocobos, and gem craft. Even then, it was all just hobbies she came back to when other things left her attention span.

It was mostly assumed she would follow in her mother’s footsteps and go into dance--not some street performer in scanty clothes dancing for coins from passing adventurers, but a professional of the stage, performing in grand shows for the nobility and wealthy elite. It seemed like an OK idea, she supposed.

Then the Calamity happened. In the panic and confusion, she watched her father fall among the panicked crowds. By the time the young Sultana and her seven (Pipin, Papashan, and the Thaumaturge Brothers) calmed the rioting and began organizing aid through the city, Khell was dead. Hamon came to check on his family, and C’oretta asked when she could join the Pugilist Guild formally.

Hamon initially brushed her off; she was a young teen at the time and going through hell, but in a few more years she joined, and trained hard. She didn’t go to the Coliseum however, but became an adventurer, and one of the new Fists of Rhalgr.

Most recently, C’oretta met Troupe Falsiam and took up training in the Kriegstanz, finding the blending of combat and dance to suit her upbringing and training well. She likes the freedom adventuring allows her even as she spits in Thal’s eye every chance she gets.

[threewaysdivided]

Idea for an Age-swap AU

We’ve recently seen some age-swap and role-swap AUs floating around the DP fandom.  The most common of these are the direct reversals, where Vlad is the teenage protagonist and Danny is the adult villain.   Now, I’m not the hugest fan of the straight-swap versions because it’s not particularly interesting or in-keeping with the canon characters.  If Danny becomes the amoral villain and Vlad the plucky protagonist then you basically just have the original Danny Phantom again, except with the characters wearing each other’s skins.

However, a version of the age-swap that keeps the characters closer to their canon personalities has great comedy potential.

Imagine this:

Young!Vlad is a disaffected but highly intelligent freshman whose ‘genius’ is seemingly unrecognised by everyone in town.  Pretty much everything sucks for him - he’s bored at home because his parents are always away on work, he’s bored in class because he finds the material too easy, the school’s head jock and posse make a policy of ruining his day, the student body president is ‘inept’, and - despite Vlad’s intelligence and apparent ability to analyse people - he never seems to make it into the spheres of the influential or popular classmates.    He’s aloof and vaguely disdainful towards everyone around him, except for his two best friends; the naive and eccentric but occasionally brilliant Young!Jack, and the beautiful and sharply intelligent Young!Maddie.  He hangs out with them partly due to their mutual interest in the paranormal, but also because Maddie is the only person in town he sees as an equal and he really wants to date her (too bad she’s always making eyes at Jack).   [If you’re looking for a reference he’s basically a cross between Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole and Velma Dinkley from Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated]

Like in the original series, the three of them attempt to build a proto-ghost portal as a step in their research.  This one goes even worse (after all, it was built by teenagers) and Jack rushing to activate it gets Vlad blasted with way more ectoplasm than in canon.  Just like the original it lands him in hospital for a bit - but in this case only a few months.  On coming back to school he is very resentful (mostly towards Jack though he’s a bit miffed that Maddie didn’t come to visit his room while he was awake) both for the accident and the Danny-like power-problems he’s experiencing.  Although in Vlad’s case he hides them from his friends and outwardly acts like everything’s been forgiven.

As he gains controls of his powers, Vlad decides to put them to use ‘correcting’ some of the ‘wrongs’ in his life; serving disproportionate comeuppance to the jocks, subtly embarrassing Jack in from of Maddie, scheming and manipulating his way through the school’s systems, and generally messing with people to alleviate his boredom.

It basically turns into a Deathnote-like moral situation, in which Vlad is a nominal ‘hero’ on the best days and an entitled, arrogant person at worst.  He may be the protagonist but he’s sure not the ‘good guy’ of this story. (He still makes himself a vampire-style suit and goes by Plasmius in ghost-mode because despite being highly intelligent he’s also a dumb 14-year-old who unironically thinks it looks cool.)

How does Danny get involved?

While Vlad is still in the nominally-heroic part of the story (dishing out retributions to people who actually had it coming, chasing away some minor ghosts that were attracted by the portal explosion, manipulating outcomes that fix genuine problems etc.) he starts to notice an older person hanging around and following him. At first Vlad’s concerned - has someone caught on?  Is it an enemy ghost?  A rival trying to take out the competition? - until Phantom introduces himself.  Danny’s a lot of things but subtle is not one of them.

Older!Danny is in his early 30s.  His parents were some of the first modern ecto-scientists and successfully built a working portal (the source of the accident that gave him his powers) but because the hauntings stayed localised near the portal (never spreading beyond his own hometown) their ecto-research didn’t reach mainstream science beyond a few ‘professional ghost-hunters’, paranormal aficionados and an obscure branch of government that mostly just makes messes bigger in their attempts to ‘contain and study all unauthorised ectoplasmic entities’.

Despite his unease, Danny is honestly happy to meet another half-ghost. He might have reservations about actual teaching (“I’ve got an Engineering degree, not a Dip. Ed.”) but he genuinely wants to help this new kid through what he remembers being a tough period of power-adjustment and guide him to use his abilities productively.   Unfortunately, Vlad is having none of it - who is this condescending fool to tell him what to do?  In his eyes Phantom is either trying to recruit him so that he can use his power (after all, that’s what Vlad would do) or he’s an idiot for wasting such potential. Actually, he must be an idiot either way because who else would try to manipulate someone of Vlad’s intelligence?

Eventually this devolves into a cat-and-mouse game in which Young!Vlad uses his brains and abilities in attempts to manipulate his way into Maddie’s affections, positions of influence and possession of powerful items, with Phantom having to step in and ‘defeat Plasmius’ before someone gets hurt.  Unlike in canon, where Vlad mostly toys with Danny to demonstrate his superiority, Young!Vlad learning techniques from their fights is intentional on Older!Phantom’s part. Phantom really wants to give this kid a chance to turn things around, and figures that letting Plasmius experiment with his powers in a relatively safe space might help Vlad get under control and avoid the temptation to do something truly stupid.  Unfortunately, all this actually does is teach his accidental-arch-rival to be a more competent villain.

Shenanigans ensue:

Vlad deliberately creating dangerous situations so that he can impress Maddie by ‘dramatically rescuing’ her from the ‘evil Plasmius’.  What he forgets is that, under her pretty face, Maddie is a top-tier asskicker - at least a third of the time the love of his life hands his ecto-hide to him long before Phantom can intervene. He’d find it attractive if it wasn’t so humiliating.

Jack also proves disturbingly competent with his ‘anti-creep stick’.  It’s literally just a baseball bat with a cross-stitched handle and the club logo sprayed on the side but Vlad still makes a point of stealing and destroying them whenever Jack makes a new one.

Maddie concludes that Plasmius and Phantom are both evil and working together.  

Vlad: “Of course, but as the older and stronger, Phantom is clearly in charge.  If we get rid of him then surely Plasmius will leave.”

This results in Vlad doing a very careful dance whenever he and Danny are in ghost mode while Maddie and/or Jack can see them.

In attempt to ‘eliminate the competition’ Vlad considers alerting the Guys in White to Phantom’s status.

Danny: “Look, kid. Vlad. If you go to them with that intel they’re going to wonder how you got it.  I might survive - my company holds the patents for a lot of their tech - but you’re a high-schooler.  You really want to risk outing both of us?”

This is one of the few things they eventually agree on: Under no circumstances is anyone to intentionally involve the GIW.

Vlad tries to recruit other ghosts in attempt to keep Phantom distracted.

This mostly consists of him failing to intimidate Skulker with his scrawny teen stature, then flattering him into it because “surely as the first and strongest of his kind Phantom would be a much worthier prize for such a skilled hunter.”

He has more luck with the resentful Yiddish vultures, although they can’t do much beyond being a nuisance.

The Box Ghost offers his services.  Repeatedly.

Vlad travels to Amity Park in attempt to steal ecto-tech from Fentonworks.  On arrival he is horrified to see just how haunted the town is due to its permanently active portal.  He beats a fast retreat after getting cornered and resolves to come back with better plans.

Vlad returns to Amity Park in attempt to recruit more minions from the thronging masses. This is somewhat successful, but a few rogue ghosts follow him home - forcing him to try to contain the situation while hiding it from Maddie and Jack.

Youngblood starts messing with Vlad’s schoolmates (interfering with some of his social schemes in the process).  As an adult Danny is incapable of seeing him, and Maddie and Vlad’s tendency to act older than their age means that Jack is the only one with a real handle on the situation.  Eventually (to his intense horror) Vlad has to do things Jack’s way to solve the problem

Jack: “You know what V-Man, I’m glad to have you back.  You’ve been so serious these last few months, I was worried you’d forgotten how to have fun!”

Vlad: *audible teeth-grinding*

Vlad refuses to swear because he thinks it’s a sign of inferior intellect and therefore beneath him.  Danny doesn’t swear because he’s desperately trying not to teach this kid any more bad habits.

Vlad makes a deal with Technus to steal some software for use in a financial scheme. Too bad that they make this arrangement in the same week that local Information Technology rising-star Tucker Foley is invited to speak at the school’s career day.

Vlad’s plans failing because his ‘superior intellect’ leads him to over-engineer excessively complex schemes.

Danny: “You know you could just have done this, right?”

Plasmius later tries Phantom’s suggestion and Danny is kicking himself because darn it I was trying to get him to knock it off, not give him pointers.

Vlad attempting subtler social schemes (e.g. overshadowing staff and student council members to make changes).  These sometimes work but other times Jack messes up the plan with his overenthusiastic support for his ‘best friend’.

Danny eventually recruiting one of Vlad’s classmates Red-Huntress-style because look, I’m running my parents company, volunteering at the observatory and trying to keep the ghosts under control.  I can’t be constantly flying to another town to make sure Plasmius isn’t bringing on the ecto-apocalypse.

Out of respect for Vlad’s privacy Danny doesn’t reveal the secret identity thing. Instead he asks them to keep Plasmius under control and also look out for Vlad Masters because the ghost might be interested in him.

What Danny didn’t notice was that this kid really doesn’t like Masters and has a pretty big grudge against Plasmius after being on the receiving end of one of his schemes.  What should have been a simple recon job instead ends up with them aggressively pursuing an intense rivalry with both of Vlad’s halves.  They also get overzealous in their ecto-hunter task and start going after Phantom as well.  So now Danny has two problems.

Jazz Fenton (a qualified and practicing psychologist in this AU) takes a job as the school’s councillor.

While there she works to convince Vlad of the benefits of altruism, tries to wheedle him into confessing his connection to Plasmius (Danny told her everything) and attempts to foil his social manipulations.  The first two aren’t met with much success but she does get in the way of the third a few times.

For his part Vlad tries different schemes to get her fired or make her leave so that he can continue plotting without interference.

Vlad sneaks into the Ghost Zone in attempt to steal a powerful item (Ring of Rage, Pandora’s box, the Fright Knights Soul Shredder etc.).  This goes about as badly you’d expect.  Unlike in canon, where Vlad bails and makes Danny deal with it, Older!Phantom drags Young!Plasmius back by the ear because you made this mess so now you’re going to help clean it up.

Phantom: “So, did we learn anything today?”

Plasmius: “I should do more research before handling powerful objects.”

Phantom: *aggrieved sigh* “You know kid, I honestly thought you were smarter than this.”

Whether Young!Vlad eventually learns his lesson or keeps spiralling until he becomes a canon!Vlad level criminal chessmaster is something that could go either way.  

What I’m getting at is:  Can someone please do a version of the age-swap AU where Vlad Masters/Plasmius is an intellectually snobbish, overly theatrical, entitled adolescent ‘mastermind’ (who isn’t quite as bright as he thinks) and Danny Fenton/Phantom is the well-intentioned and experienced adult hero (but poor teacher) who really wants to give this kid a second chance but is getting more and more done with all the villainy nonsense.

[thepositivemind-blog]

For parents with children who may be gay. 

How different is my gay child to my straight child? How do you deal with a gay teens.

Very different and very the same!

Adolescence

Almost all young people, especially coming to, and through adolescence, may stress about school, grades, college, sports, activities, social interaction, self image, social media, friends, and fitting in and this new sexual energy surging through their minds and body. This is a stressful time in a young persons life as they test their boundaries in finding their own identity.

It’s interesting as adults and parents how we choose to forget just how difficult and painful that period of our lives was for us.  It’s even more interesting as parents, how we cannot empathise with our teenagers when they act out, despite the fact that we did the exact same when we were their age. In this really important 2nd phase of growing and developing, young people are establishing their identity and trying to figure out where they fit in. Or who they fit in with, or indeed, do they fit in at all. As a straight teen, this process is already very difficult, but gay teens only too often struggle with abandonment issues, approval issues, isolation, loneliness and the additional stress this brings.

The Uncertainty Of Being A Teenager

In a fog of new uncertainty gay teens struggle with these new questions and doubts.

Will I have to hide who I am. What will Dad think of me.

My Dad will he still love me.

Will I be thrown out of the house.

My Mum will she still love me.

Will Mum be disappointed.

How will my brother feel.

My Sister how will she  react.

How will my best friend react.

On top of this, there is always a worry whether they will be harassed about being gay, or whether they will face stereotypes or judgments if they are honest about who they really are. Being ridiculed as we mature is painful. Being ridiculed when we are young and vulnerable is suicidal, and I am not using this word lightly.

Shame binds in secret. The longer the secret the greater the shame.

Teenage Feelings

Gays feel different from their straight peers and friends when the conversation turns to love, dating, and sex. For them, it can feel like everyone is expected to be straight, and make no mistake, they are! gays are in the minority, why wouldn’t everyone expect them to be straight. This is understandable, as 80% of the population is straight, but in this isolation,  the rational thoughts of “minority” disappears and the isolation feeling becomes amplified.

All young teens sometimes pretend to feel things that they don’t,  in order to fit in. But with gays, they often feel they need to deny who they are, or hide an important part of themselves, to fit in. But this drives them deeper into isolation and loneliness. In the fog of isolation, loneliness and confusion, so many gay teens get tragically entangled in the worry about being accepted or rejected by their loved ones, or whether people will be upset, angry, or disappointed in them. This again propels them into shame and guilt.

The Isolation Of The Gay Teen

The fear of prejudice, discrimination, rejection, and violence, are very real and can lead some gay teens to keep their sexual orientation secret, even from friends and family who could have been a vital support. In the secret grows the shame and in the shame grows hopelessness. In hopelessness grows a lack of will to live.

Some gay teens can process their feelings and embrace them and “come out” and tell their parents and friends. Others struggle with the process of how they feel and how different they are and find it difficult to accept this aspect of their own identity. As by exposing their identity, they expose themselves in vulnerability.

Coming out takes courage. Make no mistake about this transition. Whether the person has a wonderful support system or not. Comming out puts them in a vulnerable place. Exposing their inner self. Opening their intimacy to potential abuse as some may risk facing harassment and bullying and ridicule.

But many gay teens who come out to their friends and families are fully accepted by them and their communities. This in turn makes them feel whole and loved, comfortable and secure about their core identity. In this acceptance brings them closer to those around them and more accepting of their own truth.

How do I Feel as a Parent.

Being a parent is not easy and as children grow into adolescence it is more difficult as adolescents is an interesting time for both parents and children. It’s a time of transition  for both. A time when the child is finding their own identify separate to the parent. Finding out who they are and how far they can push boundaries. Some see this time as rebellious. Others see it as growth.

But for parents, this is the time when their sons and daughters are transitioning into young men and woman and in that transition, their sexuality is emerging, be that gay or straight. Parents experience confusion and worry around this transition as they may feel completely unprepared for this next stage of parenthood. It’s a time for parents to let go as well as hold on. It’s confusing.

Who Needs The Help

What is more confusing is, if their child is gay, because the parent has not experienced this for themselves. Therefore may bring a whole new set of questions and concerns. Some parents are surprised to learn the truth, that their child is gay as they always thought their child was straight. In truth they never really thought about it. They just assumed their child was the same as 80% of the rest of the world. Why would they not. But maybe they should have seen the signs.

Other parents wonder whether the news is really true and whether their child is sure. Struggling with accepting this news, the parent may head down the self blame route and wonder if they did something to cause their child to be gay. There is no evidence that suggests being gay is the result of childhood experience. However, childhood experiences may propel the child into a belief system. An example of these experiences are as follows:

Childhood Experiences

Early childhood experiences, can lock the subscoincious into a frozen moment. In other words, if a child experiences a same sex pleasurable experience that is also associated with love, caring, and belonging, which they were lacking in the family unit, thus may promote the child to grow up with this as their understanding of belonging and love. In other words, gay intimacy = love! The same applies to parenting styles, if you have a son and you dress him as a girl and demonstrate a love and connectedness to him as a daughter rather than a son, it is possible for the son to grow believing he can only be loved if dressed in woman’s clothes.

Great parenting is not easy. It’s a tug o war of knowing, without judgement or invasion, holding on, letting go, trusting, guidance and most of all love. Great parents of gay teens are accepting of their children no matter the outcome. They know their children and wait for them to come out in their own time. The subject of gayness has been an open discussion in the home without judgement, with compassion and love. Therefore a loving caring support platform has already been established. Other parents struggle with the news initially, but when they allow time, they realise it really does not matter. They often feel glad that their child chose to confide in them, and are proud of their child for having the courage to tell them.

Feelings Of Anger

Other parents feel upset, disappointed, or unable to accept their child’s sexual orientation. The parents had plans for their daughter or son. They had plans of being grand parents. They may be concerned or worried what the family will say, or what the school or college will think. Or what the neighbours might feel.  Other parents worry that their child will be bullied, mistreated, or marginalised, because their child is gay, they feel their child is weak. They may become over protective, worrying that others might judge or reject their child. In the overprotection or smothering. The child fights for freedom and the bond between parent and child fractures.

Some also struggle to reconcile their child’s sexual orientation with their religious beliefs, personal beliefs or social norms and sadly, some react with anger, hostility, or rejection, which I must point out is driven by fear guilt and shame. However, in most cases, but not all, parents find that they just need a little time and maybe a little counselling to adjust to the news. When love is the core component in any relationship, even parents who thought they could not accept their child’s sexual orientation are surprised to find that they can reach a place of understanding.

David Ellis

www.ThePositiveMind.ie

http://www.thepositivemind.ie/for-parents-with-children-who-maybe-gay/

[greekprodigies]

Why Shows Like Insatiable Are So Toxic, Despite Their Intentions

As a teenage girl who has only recently grown out of watching Disney Channel, it was safe to say I was intrigued when Netflix released the teaser trailer for their new 12-episode series Insatiable, starring Debbie Ryan, who played the title character of Disney’s Jessie for four seasons. It was a 30-second clip of Debbie Ryan in a hot pink dress, walking down a junk food aisle at a colorful grocery store, smashing everything on the shelves with a sledgehammer. Ryan’s voiceover says, “I’ve heard stories of girls who grew up happy and well-adjusted. This is not that story.” My first thoughts were, based solely on this teaser, that the main character seemed to be the villain, or at least a girl with a grudge. And, based off of this girl’s seemingly bad relationship with food, I also figured it would portray fat shaming in a way that most popular television shows don’t. I was hoping that Netflix would take their power over the teenage demographic and show a perspective that strayed away from the (respectable and still necessary) insecure overweight character still coming to terms with her own body (i.e. Kate from This Is Us or Rachel from My Mad Fat Diary). A perspective that I, an overweight high school senior who has already been through the ringer of despising my fatness, could relate to.

It’s obvious, in retrospect, that I was thinking way too deeply into a vague half-minute teaser video. I had gotten my hopes up. Those hopes were soon diminished when the official trailer was released

The video starts off with Debbie Ryan in a fat suit (I’ll get to why that is so grossly offensive later), introducing herself as Patty and showing her constant struggle as a victim of bullying and fat shaming at her high school. Her classmates (who seem to all be thin) call her “Fatty Patty”, and go so far as to spray paint it on her locker. Irene Choi, who plays Patty’s cruelest offender, is shown shouting “Porky! Butterball!” through a megaphone in the cafeteria, pointing to the main character. Then, after what seems to be a fight over a chocolate bar with a homeless man, Patty is punched in the face. Her voice-over tells us, “Having my jaw wired shut lost me more than just my summer vacation.”

Enter Patty 2.0. She’s the sparkling image of every chubby girl’s dream weight after she watches a show like this and vows to cut off carbs. No stretch marks, no cellulite, nothing that reflects what somebody’s body actually looks like after losing a large amount of weight in such a short period of time. The trailer escalates to a montage style of clips of Patty slapping, punching, and even pouring liquor onto some of her classmates before lighting a match.

It feels like a fantasy that’s trying to be relatable. That’s telling us that every bullied teenager, who’s frontal lobe isn’t developed enough to have a lot of perspective, craves revenge from their tormentors. And it’s easy for this narrative to be confused as a realistic depiction of the experience of being a teenage bullying victim. It’s even in the news, shown in the series of article published about domestic terrorist Nikolas Cruz revealing him being an orphan and being described as an “outcast” in interviews following the Parkland shooting. Sure, Insatiable’s revenge plot is meant to be satirical the same way Dexter (which Lauren Gussis, the writer and executive producer of this show, also worked on) is, but because it’s set in a high school during modern day, Patty (possibly, based on what’s shown in the trailer) killing her classmates hits a softer spot.

In the Teen Vogue article that was released with the trailer, Gussis explains how she “felt it was important to look at [bullying] head on and talk about it.” But it’s hard to look at bullying head-on when its changed so drastically over a span of 20 years. It’s past mean nicknames and cruel but clever comments said as two characters pass in a hallway. And more recently, it’s past cyberbullying. Or, at least, the way adults view cyberbullying based off of tone-deaf shows like Glee and dramatized TV movies like Cyberbully (which stars not one, but two former Disney Channel actresses). I’ve never met a high school student who got called a slut or gay 200 times in the comment section of a Facebook post. And, if I am completely wrong due to the fact that I’ve grown up during the social media transition from Facebook to Instagram and Snapchat, that form of bullying died when the Facebook phenomenon did. It is a subtler conversation than the beautiful cool kids versus the ugly losers.The solution is simple: If you’re going to make a show based off of your experiences of bullying in the 80’s, 90’s or even early 2000’s, make the show take place during those decades. Colliding old stereotypes to a character who exists in 2018 is unrealistic and humiliating.

Intention wise, Insatiable can be easily compared to another controversial Netflix original series, 13 Reasons Why. In the warning videos that are shown before watching, the stars of the show say, “By shedding a light on these difficult topics, we hope our show can help viewers start a conversation. But if you struggling with these issues yourself, this series may not be right for you, or you may want to watch it with a trusted adult,” And this message perfectly conveys a show that’s purpose seems heartfelt but is ultimately clueless. Here we have a television program that is produced by a bunch of 30 year olds, where people in their 20’s play high school students (yes, everyone who plays a teenager in 13RW are actually in their 20’s), pretending to understand what it’s like to be a teenager as if the dynamic between young people and mental illness hasn’t changed immensely in just the past couple of years. Just in five, the use of memes and irony has shifted from simply making fun of something, to helping us cope with the fact that our world is on fire. Everybody is laughing at the jokes about depression because, since the rise of social media and the quantification of how many people like us, we all feel depressed. Suicide, though tragic, has now been boiled down to kids saying they want to kill themselves when they have too much homework. We have an education system that teaches us about the anatomy of sex but never teaches us what questions need to be asked about consent during our sexual experiences. So making a show to start a conversation about depression, suicide, and sexual assault that warns it’s targeted audience (who are constantly surrounded by these topics) that the show might not be right for them is simply irresponsible.

But, if I can counteract what I just said, 13 Reasons Why horrifically also is the only show I’ve seen that has the most correct articulation of modern bullying. That’s not to say that anything else with the show is correct, because it’s not. Perhaps what is so wrong about 13RW is that, because they focus so much on the bullying aspect of high school, it provides a direct correlation between bullying and suicide. Well, that, and the graphic/triggering suicide and sexual assault scenes that were used for shock value. Nevertheless, Hannah Baker doesn’t go home and find a bunch of Instagram DMs of her classmates called her a whore. Any secrets that Hannah’s offenders had regarding what could have led her to kill herself were events that happened IRL. And they were just that: Secrets. Because the bullies were ashamed of what they had done. Even before Hannah committed suicide, Jessica Davis didn’t just go around telling people she slapped her ex-best friend because she thought she had betrayed her.

With Insatiable, it seems like everybody in this fictional high school (except for Patty’s best friend and maybe even a popular girl with a heart of gold) is insanely okay with harassing a girl just because of her appearance. It’s insulting, both as a fat girl and an observer of modern bullying. There isn’t one school in the country where 99% of its students just allow this sort of cruelty. Because we have perspectives and opinions that (surprise!) aren’t always swayed by whatever Instagram model is trending right now. Just because Emma Chamberlain is successful and skinny, doesn’t mean that we’re brainwashed to only make skinny people successful. I’m not saying that there isn’t an institutional privilege that skinny girls have, and have always had when it comes to social acceptance. Because they do. But there’s a gray area where most people stand when it comes to issues as new and contentious as body positivity, and Insatiable is ignoring it. You don’t have to be a body-posi activist to know that making somebody feel like shit because of their weight is wrong. And I hope this show can have a character that, without having any relation to Patty, recognizes that what these bullies are doing is outrageous.

After we recognize that the intention of these shows is ultimately flawed, we can then try to take a step forward and look at the impact. 13 Reasons Why, after being loudly criticized by suicide prevention experts, broke virtually every rule of portraying suicide. And as a result, a study shows that searches such as “how to commit suicide”, “suicide hotline number” and “teen suicide” were elevated after the show’s release. The time period for the search ended on April 18th of that year after NFL player Aaron Hernandez committed suicide, which could have influenced data. And any searches related to the movie Suicide Squad were discounted. Sure, the show had increased suicide awareness, but it also unintentionally increased suicide rationalization. And I fear that Insatiable may be on the same path. Regardless of the revenge plot or the bullying, there is still a skinny actress in a fat suit portraying a fat character who only eats, sits on the couch, and feels bad about herself. Then, after a summer of not being able to eat, returns to high school skinny and composed.

Firstly, the use of a fat suit is sickly but overall not surprising. In a world where blackface and yellowface in Hollywood has only just become unacceptable, fat suits seem more defendable for skinny people who don’t understand that there are a plethora of plus size actors who could have played Fatty Patty just as well (and most likely better) than Debby Ryan with pillows stuffed up her shirt. Perhaps the show could have avoided being so oblivious to its fat-shaming storyline if they had an actual fat person weighing in on it.

Secondly, there is the characterization of fat people as losers who do nothing but eat and watch TV. If there were a time and place for these characters to exist, it is definitely not now, where the call for diversity in Hollywood is louder than ever. Plus, we’ve already seen these people before. And it’s the same plot every time. They are only created to provide a funny prequel to a supposedly more stable version of the character. “Fat Monica” from Friends and “Fat Schmidt” from New Girl show a universe where plus size people can’t be taken seriously until they shed the pounds. When in reality, fat men and women are perfectly capable of being successful in their professional and romantic lives. Ironically enough, another New Girl character comes to mind when I think of plus size characters being accurately portrayed: Emily. She’s Schmidt’s ex-girlfriend from college, who dated him when he was her “Big Guy”. After Schmidt reminisces about losing his virginity to her, she resurfaces into his life as a confident woman who goes on dates and isn’t ashamed of who she is. There even seems to be a layer to her character showing that there had been a time where she was insecure about herself and her body but has overcome them. This is an example of a healthy goal for young girls and boys who are self-conscious of their body. Not Debby Ryan’s character, who only gains confidence after losing an obscene amount of weight.

It may actually be the casting of Debby Ryan that could cause a rise in body dysmorphia in young people from watching this show. Since her face is plastered on every poster, teaser and trailer for the show, Disney Channel fans, and former fans might watch simply because she’s cast as the lead role. It’s certainly what sparked my interest in the show. And since Disney Channel’s demographic has gotten younger and younger, there’s a generation that will watch this show and not see it as fat shaming, but a way to become the person they’ve always wanted to be. Skinny, beautiful and confident while simultaneously making all of their classmates' jaws drop as they walk down the hallway. But Patty doesn’t lose weight healthily, she literally could not eat solid food. Depending on how the show addresses this, it is a possible glorification of anorexia. Just like 13 Reasons Why glorified and romanticized depression. But two wrongs don’t make a right, and anorexia and depression can not make anybody beautifully broken.

To make things clear, I am not telling you to not watch this show. And based off of the 100,000 signatures (and counting) on a petition for the show’s cancellation, none of us may even get to. But speaking as a person who fits into all of these groups, Insatiable gets everything wrong about being a high schooler, a teenage girl, and a fat person.

[rainbowamory]

Grimrose [Part 1] (original piece by rainbowamory)

Some info:

Content: This piece, while it does not contain incest in the parts I uploaded, will eventually lead to consensual incest between first cousins. You have been warned.

Characters and ages: Syden (15), Cela (15), Kate (17), Sia (11), Alex (13), Damian (adult), Delilah (adult), Charlotte (adult), Leigh/Leighanna (adult), Oliver (adult), Elizabeth (adult)

-This scene is not supposed to be the beginning. There would be other chapters or scenes before and after, going more into detail about the different things covered here.

-For the concept of “Grimrose”, I was inspired by a picture of a fiery flower I saw randomly online while looking up black roses. It was tagged as ‘fantasy’ and it inspired a bit of this piece.

-Ages: I still am not 100% settled on the ages. I may stick with Syden and Cela both being 15 when they meet, but in my original roleplay she was actually one year older than him (I may go back to that, not sure).  Kate is about 2 years older than Syden. Syden is 2 years older than Alex. Alex is 2 years older than Sia. Syden is 4 years older than Sia. Their parents were still young when they had them, like early 20s? Leigh and Charlotte are adults, while the others are teens in this piece (except Sia).

Names: I use placeholder names like in my first piece I shared on tumblr because I want to publish someday and I want to keep certain details to myself for now, like what the final character names will be.

-This is Draft 2.

“Wakey wakeyyy!” came the excited feminine voice right above his head. As sweet as a bird’s song it might have been were it not for how deep in sleep he was.

Syden’s eyes flew open, and he stared ahead in shock, unable to remember where he was for a moment. He was about to say it’s too early for fighting practice and was trying to figure out in a short space of time why the master of arms sounded like his sister.

He didn’t have to wonder for long. The visitor came around the bed to stand in front of his gaze and he saw that it was indeed his younger sister, Sia, dressed up in a ruffled, summery yellow dress. Her thick blond hair fell in curls over her shoulders, and she looked far more awake that he felt at that moment.

“Hey,” he said, looking up at her. He tried to shake off the tiredness by sitting up in bed. Thankfully, it didn’t take long. He was used to getting up early routinely.

“You know what day it is,” she said, beaming.

“Yes. I do,” Syden replied. He stretched his arms and placed them over his legs, waiting for her to speak.

“Do I look pretty?” she said, doing a little twirl in front of his expressionless face.

That melted him a little. “Yes,” he said with a slight smile. In trying to get his bearings right, he hadn’t realized that it was almost breakfast time. Just as Sia prepared to speak again, Henna, the maid, bustled into the room on her way to do some dusting.

“What? Still not up yet?” she said, as she went about the room, dusting the tops of the wardrobes and cabinets. “Your auntie Elizabeth is arriving in a few hours.”

Sia and Syden stared at each other.

“I thought she was coming on the 1st of the month,” he said.

“It is the 1st of the month,” said Henna, pausing for a moment to look at him with her hands on her hips.

“Oh,” he said. Sia giggled.

Henna continued with her dusting and cleaning, talking while she worked.

“They are expected to arrive in the early evening. We all have a lot of preparation to do before then.”

Syden began getting out of bed, and Sia moved aside to give him space.

“And what about us? What do we have to do?” he asked.

“The usual. Look your best,” said Henna before striding over to the window and pulling back the curtains with a swish. The sunlight streamed into the room and pierced Syden’s eyes. Once he adjusted to it, he saw that outside the world was waking up too. Birds were flying about, and the blue climbing roses that grew around his window frame were at the peak of their bloom. All the treetops of the forest which dominated his bedroom view were bathed in bright sunlight. Not a bad sign for what would be the day that marked the end of spring and the start of summer.

“Let’s go,” said Sia, taking him by the hand. It seemed the view from the window had had an effect on her too. She was eager to start the day. He followed her lead as she made her way past the halls and down to the dining room where he found Kate and Alex already seated at the children’s table. The children’s table was smaller than the main family dining table, and it was where they had shared their meals together from a young age whenever their parents had other adult guests over or when their parents weren’t home.

The table was laden with all the treats the children had come to expect for an early morning breakfast in their household. The assortment included honey-glazed sausages, piles of hot toast, platters of tiny sandwiches, wholesome soups, cupcakes, cookies, an assortment of fresh fruits, and a variety of drinks both hot and cold.  

The only one of them who thought it excessive was Kate, who made a point of setting aside any food that was left whole and untouched at the end of every meal to give to townspeople with lesser means—a charitable ritual begun by their mother long ago.

Today, Kate was sitting at the head of the table, buried in a book behind her bowl of scallop chowder soup. It looked like one of her books from school, possibly an old novel.

Alex was munching on a small sandwich intently, with his gaze focused on a glass apple he was holding in his hands, seeing things in it that no one else could see. When Sia sat down, she too had a glass apple in front of her, a smaller one, resting on a little silver dais that was made for it to sit on when not hanging from a tree. The stem of the dais was shaped like a tree-trunk with silver branches that gathered under its flat top, like entwined fingers holding up a tray.

Both Kate and Alex were still in their pyjamas.

“Anyone else coming?” he asked Kate, as she looked up from her book.

“Well, I believe Charlotte is coming. I don’t know about Leighanna.”

Syden skewered a sausage and dropped it onto a plate, reached for some toast, then took a seat on the side closest to Kate. Sia sat beside him.

Though nothing seemed out of the usual that day, Kate seemed to glow with a restrained excitement. She seemed unable to stay focused on her reading, stopping periodically in the middle of a page to gaze up dreamily while stirring her soup.

Syden ate his breakfast silently like everyone else. Usually there was some talk around the table, but he didn’t really have anything special to say that day. In every sense it seemed like just another morning at their house, except that they were shrouded in a delicate air of unspoken anticipation. At least, most of them were, he thought, as he glanced at Alex who was lost in his own world, seemingly unaware of his surroundings.

Sia seemed to be the only one who was feeling talkative. She was the first to break the silence.

“Can we do fireworks in the garden?” she asked.

Syden looked at her with amusement.

“It’s not New Year’s,” he said gently.

“But it’s a special day!” said Sia, unfazed. “We haven’t seen Auntie Elizabeth in years!”

This amused Syden. “You don’t even remember her,” he said. How old was Sia when their uncle and aunt last visited? About three years old, more or less.

“She’s right,” said Kate. “We should celebrate the reunion. And fireworks sounds lovely.”

Syden turned his attention back to the remaining food on his plate. The mood continued to be solemn. At one point even Sia quieted down, and no one said another word until Chef Oliver came into the room to greet them.

“Lovely morning today, isn’t it, children?” he said, standing in his white uniform at the threshold of the dining room. His dark, curly hair was tucked neatly under his cap. His beard and mustache, the only visible hair on his face, were also well-tamed and immaculate.

Chef Oliver looked around at them, scanning the room with his dark, twinkling eyes.

“It was so quiet in here, one would think we were preparing for a funeral,” he said. “I was beginning to get worried...”

“We’re perfectly fine,” Kate assured him. “It’s just the end of the week.”

“Ah, too much play and not enough rest,” he said, glancing at Sia and Syden with a teasing smile. He knew as well as anyone that it was their summer vacation. If there was any exhaustion to be felt, it would not be coming from work or study—unless perhaps one was Kate.

“Well then,” he said. “I know just the thing that will help you children feel more awake.”

“Fireworks?” asked Sia, perking up in her chair.

“Hmm, not quite. But it might create fireworks within,” he said. He told them he would be right back and slipped out of the room. After a few minutes, he returned with a tray on which were arrayed several desserts in cocktail glasses.

“I give you… Saffron Pudding with Honey and Fire-Essence.” He wore a proud grin on his face as the children looked at the platter in awe. The puddings were a golden yellow, with a glaze of honey on top, and sprinkled with what looked like flakes of orange embers.

“It is from the Grimrose that we get fire-essence,” he said.

Syden wondered if this was the opening to one of his “food stories.” Sure enough, a moment later, the Chef was sitting at the table with them, with his arms folded in front of him on the tabletop, looking a bit somber as the children began to devour the treat.

“I want to tell you the story of the Grimrose,” he began, a distant, wistful look settling on his face and in his eyes.

“You see, long ago, in a faraway land, people lived in fear of shadow beings that would attack in the night. In one village, two children were born who had abilities that made the shadows afraid of them. For a time, these children kept the darkness away. But there came a time when the darkness came in a larger form than they could beat. Mistrust grew among the villagers.

“Every time a shadow came into the village and got away with killing, people began to think that they were coming because of the witch children.

“Suddenly, the abilities that had once been revered began to frightened others. So, when the children were still very young, they were both abandoned on a mountain range.

“They didn’t have any place to live, so they wandered the land looking for food and shelter, in exchange for protecting other villages from creatures.

“Though they met some nice folk on their journeys, they never wanted to overstay their welcome in any village, for fear that they would be prosecuted by someone that mistrusted them. So they kept moving, learning how to live off the land and keep safe from wild animals.

“They went into villages only to do their work but lived mostly in caves.

“They lived like this for years. Then came a time when they discovered something neither of them ever knew before… It crept up on them in slow steps, entered their hearts and settled there. They fell in love.

“It was then that they really felt they began to live. Suddenly all the colours of the world were a little bit more vibrant, and they could see their own future in a way they had never thought about before.

“They made plans to move somewhere where they could freely be around others and live more like other humans. As much as they loved being in nature, they couldn’t help but be drawn more and more to the warm fires, food and human company of the villages they visited.

“With their newfound love, they grew more confident and began to make plans. They saved enough of their earnings to try and buy a little house in a village. All they wanted was to be human.

“They chose the house they wanted, just a two-room place not much bigger than their cave. They paid the money and began to pack their belongings to move out of their cave and back into civilization.

“But on the night before they moved, unexpectedly, they found their dwelling surrounded by a sea of torches. The word had spread about their powers and the people from their own village had been hunting for them. You see, they believed it bad luck to allow a witch to get away. When the children were abandoned in the mountain range long ago, they were expected to die there.

“The villagers had convinced others that the shadows will stop attacking humans if the witches were killed.

“The children kept wondering, How? How did this happen? Then they saw at the front of the mob the man who had sold them the house, and they knew… he must’ve recognized the markings, the spidery tatoos of a black snake and a butterfly – the marks of a male and female witch. They had been branded long ago, to help in locating them in the event that they survived the wilderness.

“The two of them were usually careful to keep those brands hidden, but on the day they bought their house, the builder had invited them over for a meal and a bath, and his servant might have seen something while helping them wash.”

The children at the table watched the Chef in a suspended silence. He could sense their tension as they ate less speedily, focusing more on listening to the story. Even Syden put aside his slight feelings of impatience and was listening intently.

“Now here were the villagers, with torchlight flickering on their faces, looking the way they looked when on a hunting trip and just about to corner their prey. Determined, unfeeling, advancing towards them like an army.

“They had nowhere to run. The powers they had weren’t made to harm humans. There was nothing they could do…

“They were captured by the villagers and brought to a clearing where they were tied to a stake, back-to-back. They tried pleading but were beaten for every word that escaped them until they grew silent.

“Others from nearby villages were called to witness the event. Among the witnesses were some of those whom the children had helped in some way. But on this day, their faces were the faces of strangers.

“Before the night was over, the flames were crackling. The boy and girl held each other’s hands as the smoke went up around them. They were bruised in a number of ways, and they had scars from their hard life in the wild. But those wounds were nothing compared to the wounds received in their hearts on that night.

“The next day all that was left of them were ashes blowing in the breeze. A child came to visit the spot once everyone was gone and found there, in the ashes, what looked at first like blackened paper. When he stepped forward to take a closer look, he found two large black roses, with a fiery glow lighting up the dark petals from within.

“Later, it became known as the Grimrose, and that was the first of its kind.

“They say the land mourned the young witches and made the flowers grow out of their ashes.”

Sia had tears in her eyes by the end of the little story. Kate looked thoughtful and sad. Alex was leaning back in his chair, with his hand on the stem of his dessert glass, fidgeting with it absentmindedly.

Syden was thinking about the other place and the other time he had heard this story. Chef Oliver had forgotten about the myth that followed the Grimrose… about the fire inside being a sign of the undying nature of the soul. The witches died, but their souls lived on, he almost said out loud. But something about the tale always left him feeling unsettled. If they had magic, why didn’t they fight back? Why didn’t they kill all the villagers and run free? He simply didn’t believe that there was nothing they could do.

Kate said the story was beautiful. Alex asked, “Where did you get a rose to make the dessert?”

Chef Oliver seemed happy to see some interest in his work. “The cores are brought in by traders from the other world,” he said. “They have some fine spices, plants, meats… and of course, Grimrose cores. Whole flowers are rare, but I happen to have one that I ordered for my own keeping.”

He said he’d be right back and left the room for some minutes.

When he returned, he had with him an earthen black flowerpot which he was holding very delicately as if it was one of the most precious things he owned. Inside the pot was a beautiful black rose, with large, open petals. He placed it in the center of the table so the children could gather around and peer into its depths.

Just as described in the legend, the petals were illuminated at the roots by a fiery glow that emanated from the core of the rose and which burned along the inner gaps, making it look as though the flower was on fire. It had a short stem and seemed to grow directly out of the pot, so large that it obscured what was below it.

“It is hot to touch?” asked Sia.

“Yes, but more on the inside than the outside.” said the Chef. Sia leaned in for a closer look, then flinched back suddenly when some sparks emitted from the center of the flower. She seemed more fascinated than scared.

He explained that the flower grew in ashes from the other world. It was seedless and would not grow in ordinary soil. How it multiplied was a mystery. He took out a metal case from inside his pocket and opened it to reveal a transparent, hard, bubble-like object containing a flame within. It had little holes on the surface, through which sparks occasionally shot out. The ball glowed red and orange as he turned it in his hand. Chef Oliver told them that this was what the cores looked like.

“When we shake it, we get the sparks. They are hot when they are first extracted,” he said. “When they cool, they look like shiny metallic orange flakes.”

“Fire-essence,” said Sia.

The Chef nodded.

Syden continued gazing at the flower sitting at the center of the table. It was beautiful… yet, out of place.

Sia wanted to know what they were having for lunch, but the Chef insisted that it was a surprise. The rest of them were finishing off their desserts when a maid came into the room to announce that their clothes were ready.

“I will see you all at lunch,” said Chef Oliver. With a respectful bow of his head, he delicately gathered the potted plant in his large hands and headed out the door. The maid glanced curiously at the shadowy bloom as he swept past her through the doorway.

                                                              *

As the children headed up the stairs to the second floor, they passed maids who were busy dusting surfaces and carrying objects back and forth, such as fresh flowers for the tall vases spread around the house. Some of the vases reached one’s waist in height and were covered with embossed or painted images of angels and nature imagery – the kind of things his mother, Delilah, liked. All the furniture their parents chose to have in their house always had soul while reflecting wealth – according to past guests, their house was ‘an elegant mix of classic and modern design.’

When he entered his room, Syden found his clothes ready for him on his bed, freshly cleaned and neatly folded. There was a lot of white in the pile. He picked up one of the items – a long-sleeve white shirt – and breathed in the scent of it before letting it fall back onto the pile and going to his wardrobe.

He opened the large wooden doors and peered inside. Reaching in, he grabbed the darkest blackest clothes he could find (a simple t-shirt and a pair of jeans), along with some black, ankle-high shoes with white laces. The jeans had skeletal hands painted on the pockets, and the shirt had some graphics on the center along with a word or two in long letters. Wedding or funeral, this was his style, and he wasn’t going to change it for anyone or any occasion.

He dressed up and took a quick glance in the full-length mirror next to the wardrobe. Then he went outside onto his balcony and stood leaning against the railing for a while, until he eventually felt compelled to go look for the others.

He found Sia in her room, sitting in her bed with her little glass apple in her hands. Her eyes were closed as if she was sleeping.

“Hey,” he said at the door. She looked up from her trance and her face lit up.

“You ready?” He asked her, though he already knew she had been dressed and ready earlier than any of them.

Sia smiled and got out of bed with a little bounce. The two of them made their way through the house to their older sister’s room.

But Kate’s door was closed when they got there.

Syden knocked on the door. “What’s taking so long?” he asked, as Sia lingered patiently beside him.

“I’m almost done,” came the answer from within after a few seconds’ pause. Syden and Sia counted the minutes until Kate finally opened the door and let them in.

She looked at Syden with mild surprise, but soon after seemed to simply accept what she saw. His wardrobe choices were not new to her. And she seemed too happy this day to even make a passing comment.

Syden stared back at Kate’s outfit with an equally unsurprised expression. She wore a long, flowing, beige-coloured gown that went down to her ankles, complete with a pearl necklace and a pair of matching slippers. It was modest but elegant. As with most of her clothes, it made her look more mature than her age.

The sunlight pouring into her room from between the parted curtains made her light-brown hair shine like silk. There was peace in her warm, blue eyes.

“You look so pretty,” said Sia.

They waited a little longer until Kate was done with her hair and makeup, then the three of them headed to Alex’s room and knocked. When he opened the door, Syden was not at all surprised to see that his brother had dutifully worn the formal outfit that had been prepared for him. Dark brown pants, white dress shirt, a tie, and a light-brown vest.

A little smirk flickered across his face as he watched Alex stroll over to them.

“Edna’s little pet,” he mused aloud, ignoring the stern look he saw Kate give him out of the corner of his eye. As the head maid who ran the household, Edna was the one who set the tone for the day-to-day as well as special occasions. She liked to treat their home like a little doll house, and they were the dolls.

Whether they were aware of it or not, she influenced a lot of things about their presentation and manners. After all, she practically raised them, before Kate was old enough to take over.

“What took you so long?” Syden asked his brother as they made their way to the ground floor. “Were you polishing your shoes?”

Alex just stared at him with a blank look on his face, but Syden noticed the slightest blush of embarrassment. He knew Kate would scold him if he went on with this commentary, but he was satisfied, so he stopped himself there.

The four of them made their way down the grand stairs and into the main hall. From there they were ushered into the main waiting hall where they met with their parents who were already dressed and waiting for them.

They were a sight to behold.

Their mother was wearing an azure gown that reached her ankles, just above a pair of solid blue, matching high heels. With pale blond hair and creamy white skin, she was an ethereal beauty, made for the limelight. Her hair was partially done up, with a few loose, wavy strands grazing her shoulders. Her makeup was spare and natural-looking, with subtle gold tones that blended with her skin.

Their father, standing beside her, looked like a prince next to a princess. Brown hair combed in a dashing style, black evening coat with a white ruffle shirt beneath.

There was something both old and new about them.

They stood tall together to greet their children. Syden looked at them and thought, this is what the fans see every day. But to the children, they were Mom and Dad first and foremost. They were the only ones who got to see the domestic versions of their parents, off the dreamscape.

They all settled down in the Living room couches and chairs, as maids came in and placed tea and biscuits on the central table.

“We’re just waiting for Leighanna and Charlotte to arrive,” said Damian, who was sitting next to his wife on the white lounge chair. Everything in that room was whiter than usual: the lamps, the vases, the chairs, and the chandelier that hung above all of them. The only color was in the pastel pinks and yellows of the flowers in the vases and the gold details that adorned some of the furniture and the rug.

The children all looked at him.

“Leigh’s coming?” asked Syden, from one of the armchairs in one corner of the room. He didn’t feel strong emotions either way. He simply found it mildly surprising that their older sister actually found time in her hectic high-profile schedule to attend a humble family event.

To his left, on another lounge chair, he could see that Kate was thinking the same. She had that look on her face where she seemed at a loss for words. But he couldn’t tell whether she was happy about it or not.

Sia was the only one who seemed excited.

“I want to ask her what role she’s playing next!” she said, blissfully unaware of the slight increase in tension in the room.

Damian looked at his daughter and smiled. “You’ll find out soon enough,” he said.

                                                              ***

After some time, they heard the doorbell ring. They waited for the maids to usher in their new visitor.

When Leighanna entered the room, everyone stood up to greet her. Her parents hugged her, Delilah kissed her on both cheeks, Kate and Sia also gave her a hug. Syden said hey, and Alex stood far off and merely watched.

She wore an open-chest, sheer gown covered in silver sequins with a split at the thigh. She looked like she was attending a first showing for one of her dreamscape stories – almost too much of a shining star for their home, regardless of the elegance of the surroundings.

Once everyone had sat back down, the maids refilled the tea and brought in fresh snacks. Syden took a moment to observe his oldest sister, while eating a raspberry-jam-filled biscuit. Her hair was blond like her mother’s, but with a little more color in it, and some streaks. Her beauty was often attributed to their mother, but Syden thought they looked very different in reality.

Delilah’s beauty was like an angel’s – there was something divine about it – while Leighanna’s looks were somehow more fabricated. Flashy clothes, glittery high heels, all that makeup. He had his theories (they all did) about what procedures she might’ve had to enhance her natural attributes. But these things were not spoken about in her presence as that would be considered insensitive…

They found out that her latest story featured her as a young woman from a small town with dreams of becoming a model.

“It’s about how far someone is willing to go to follow their dreams. If all goes well with the casting, Caleb Heavens is going to be playing my love interest,” she was saying above a steaming cup of tea.

“That’s wonderful, sweetheart,” Damian praised. “Who will be directing this one?”

Syden tuned out to the rest of the talk as it did not interest him much. Scenes and scripts, Dreamlores, fans and haters, and more glittery dresses. And names… so many names of so many people whom he had never met: actors, directors, friends of friends. Scandals, awards, achievements and disappointments.

“Caleb Heavens…” Delilah mused. “He’s very talented.”

“I hear he’s a favourite with the girls…” said Damian, smirking teasingly. “If I remember correctly, he got nominated for an award for his role in Love Overseas.”

Leighanna’s face lit up. “I know he’ll win it,” she said, smoothing out her dress over her long, crossed legs. The lights of the chandelier glinted off the sequins every time she moved.

Sia hung onto every word of it, eager for the details, even though she didn’t know as much as their parents did about that other plane of existence. But Syden wanted to be somewhere else.

Again, he looked over at Kate, and saw that she had a nervous expression on her face. Perhaps she was thinking the same thing: Their little sister was still young and impressionable. What sort of influence was Leighanna’s sharing of her carefree lifestyle likely to have on her?

As he was pondering these thoughts, the doorbell rang again. A maid with pretty red curls went to answer the door. When she returned, she had with her another well-dressed young woman – their sister Charlotte.

They had been expecting her as well, though no one knew when she was going to arrive. It was a pleasant surprise. They all greeted her just as they had greeted their eldest sister. But Syden noticed that his siblings were a little more at ease around Charlotte than they had been around Leigh. She even went over to give Alex a hug when she saw him standing at one end of the room.

“You have grown so much!” she said to him, looking at him top to bottom. “Everyone looks so beautiful!”

Charlotte was dressed in a long-sleeve burgundy dress that looked plain next to Leighanna’s sparkles. She wore loop earrings and high heels and her auburn hair fell in thick waves around her shoulders.

Once she was seated, Damian and Delilah began asking about her life. How was she doing? How was her work going? Was she enjoying the balmy weather of her new home away from home?

Charlotte seemed happy to share, though she was not as “tell-all” as her older sister was. When Caleb Heavens was brought up, she seemed a bit sad. Everyone in the family knew Charlotte had wanted to be an actress.

This is going to be a very strange day, thought Syden.

It had been a couple of years since the family had been together like this. He would say they were complete, if it wasn’t for the knowledge of the empty crib gathering dust in some dark place in the vastness of the mansion. It lingered at the edge of his memory, though no one ever talked about it.

Everyone seemed so happy. Leighanna was the first to comment on his outfit.

“Did you misplace your evening clothes?” she asked, with a raised eyebrow.

Syden stared at her unblinkingly.

“Did you misplace your bra?” he said.

Leighanna gave him a wry smile, let the comment go over her head and turned her attention to Kate.

The adults chatted some more about their lives – Leighanna more than anyone else. Syden had no interest in listening to her talk about her 17 celebrity crushes. He thought his parents were incredibly patient to listen to all this as attentively as they were doing.

In the end, it was Kate who changed the subject and brought everyone out of the Dreamscape for a moment.

“It’s great that everyone is here today,” she said. “I’m sure Auntie Elizabeth will be very happy to see us all together.”

This got them started talking about the past, about the days when their aunt used to visit them often – back when they were young children. The maids, too, seemed to recall the times fondly. The ones that were around back then remembered Elizabeth’s daughter Cela as being “very pretty” like a doll and “incredibly polite.”

Henna in particular had a lot of memories. “It was always the three of you,” she said, standing at the edge of the circle and looking lost in reminiscence. “Syden, Kate, and Cela. Always playing some game together or exploring the wilderness… So full of energy.”

“We were all heartbroken when they left…” said Delilah, taking a sip of her tea silently.

“Well, today we get to see them again, mother,” said Kate. This brightened Delilah’s mood, though she still looked a bit sad beneath the smile.

See Part 2 Here

[radvee92]

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The best thing to consider spraying your home for every case.6. box has hood or liner that makes an ideal apartment pet.It's cleaner than dealing with psychological issues which are much more quickly than if you have taught your cat to avoid making any.If your cat does not do this while they are under a lesser extent, usually to attract parasites and can be transferred between and among persons and animals, and whatever they can join you in grooming your cat is doing something to be sure your cat properly trained you will have an older couple?When females are not always correct the problem.

Some are braver and more frequently, as cats are adopted as adults, and if you can't spot any embedded ticks, which can then be refilled for a kid.To prevent your cats helps to remove it, it does something you would like.Bleach is actually a perfectly normal behavior, but if there are reasons where some cats will not work to figure out the tray.This feature is sure to use the dryer, that's okay.We have had a cat sprays the walls and the others as well.

Cat Spraying In My Yard

If you notice your cat has some drawbacks.Your animal gets the idea of entering the garden.Mother cats teach predator-prey behavior to train your cat to jump.A gradual introduction can go out and catch the attention of his or her settle in to do During the period where the cat doesn't use the new carpets, shredded banisters, meowing at all for cats and even extend your cat's use will be with medium or low plush.In this way, it will saturate the area, and decided it met both their needs.

By spending some time and nothing else to scratch.Suffering from a mere two years and definitely do not feel no ways mean your cat the wrong size.This was Pets At Home clay clumping kind, not only the cleanliness they are also creatures of habit led by their lovable, fluffy feline... but what can otherwise be a good location, leave it up for adoption.Now on to look at our pets just as important as cats are excellent options to see your cat the various types of troubles call for different processes or solvents.Always wear rubber gloves during the process, beginning around three months of age.

[impracticaldemon]

Dangerously Predictable

Fanfiction ~ Fairy Tail ~ Graylu Request ~ AU ~ Affinity for Astrology? Words: ~2900

A fanwork exchange with @miss-zei  💕

Gray pushed back his chair and stretched, enjoying the pull on muscles that had been held too tight for too long.  He scrubbed briefly at his eyes and then glanced back at the computer screen and the satisfying notation marking the end of a new chapter.  As usual, he was torn between letting Lucy read it immediately and proofreading first.

“Not much chance she’s up now anyway,” he muttered to himself, squinting down at the time showing at the lower right of his screen.  But she might be.

Lucy Heartfilia, best-selling author and sometime astrologer, kept strange hours.  Gray had first gotten to know her years ago, in high school. Back then she had been the golden girl:  blond, lovely both in face and spirit, a top student.  On top of everything else, her family had money.  Half the school had been in love with her and the other half had been bitterly jealous of her.  Gray had been surprisingly oblivious to her at the time.  A nerd through and through, the only thing he’d really cared about was keeping his grades high enough to get a scholarship to the university that housed the New Energy research laboratory.

They had met in the time-honoured way of protagonists in a teen-high-school-romance movie.  Lucy had been sitting on the floor at the back of the school’s dusty and little-used library, crying.  Gray had gone looking for an obscure reference book that happened to be in the very corner of the library in which she sat.  He still winced when he remembered his first words to her:

“Excuse me, but you’re right in front of the section I need—could you move please?”

Instead of being annoyed by his insensitivity, Lucy had just nodded and slid to one side, drawing her knees up more tightly to her chest so as to be in the way as little as possible. Gray still wasn’t sure what had gotten through to him—he thought it might have been the way that she had simply done as he asked, without protest or fuss.  He remembered getting the book he’d come for and then hesitating, as it dawned on him to wonder why the school’s most (and least) popular girl was sitting in the library in tears.  Instead of leaving, he’d asked a second question:

“What’s wrong?  I’m Gray, by the way—Gray Fullbuster.”

“Um, yeah, I know who you are,” Lucy had replied, eying him cautiously.  “We have at least two classes together. Besides, you’re the one who’s interested in cold fusion.”

Gray had been a little surprised, to put it mildly.  How had she known his guilty secret?  Cold fusion had still been considered a crackpot idea by most physicists at that point.

He’d sat down with her, and they’d talked, and he’d learned that she’d lost her mother a few years earlier and that her dad now wanted her to give up her dream of writing in order to join the family business—with an option to take some kind of business degree concurrently or down the road.  More accurately, he’d learned that she wanted to write—he hadn’t known before, of course, since things like that had never impinged on him before then.  Either way, they’d become friends.  

He’d eventually found out that she’d known about the cold fusion thing because she was writing a novel that touched on the idea and she liked to research thoroughly. Mind you, the impressive thing had been that she’d figured out that “icemakewizard” from the cold fusion forums and chatrooms was him.  It was a dumb, childish name, but he’d had it for so long even back in grade twelve that he’d been reluctant to give it up.

They’d been close friends throughout the rest of grade twelve, ignoring the teasing, taunting and outright confusion of their classmates.  When Lucy was out on a date, it was Gray who had known where she was and with whom, and the one time that Lucy had gotten really uncomfortable it had been Gray who had borrowed his dad’s car to come pick her up.  Gray didn’t go on dates, and it was a tribute to Lucy’s willingness to let Gray be himself that after a couple of gentle nudges she’d stopped pushing.

Throughout that year, and the summer afterward, Gray had learned how to write (in Lucy’s words). It had started when Lucy had ripped apart a major scholarship application he’d spent hours working on. It could have resulted in their first real fight; instead, Gray had sat at his computer studying Lucy’s proposed changes and Lucy had lain on his neatly-made bed behind him explaining each one of them in turn until Gray was satisfied and Lucy had fallen asleep. He’d contemplated leaving her there and just crashing in the basement, but he’d known her dad would give her serious grief and she’d be embarrassed, so he’d swallowed his pride and asked his own dad what to do.  

Silver hadn’t been in Gray’s life for very long at that point, and they’d still been sorting out what they thought of each other.  However, it was Silver who’d gotten him to call one of Lucy’s girlfriends so that when Gray drove her home at two in the morning, Levy could tell Lucy’s dad that they’d all been out together and lost track of the time.  Well, they had been out together—it was a longish drive from Gray’s lower-income neighbourhood to Lucy’s mansion on the outskirts of town. Levy, a petite firecracker with bookish tendencies and blue hair, had been surprisingly understanding about it all. They hadn’t spoken much, since Levy had sat in the back with Lucy.

After that summer, the shit had hit the proverbial fan.  Lucy had run away from home and her dad had blamed Gray.  Gray had just tuned him out.  Gray had known where Lucy was, and although he’d worried about her, he’d done his best to check in with her often.  He wanted to keep her safe.  It had become a lot more difficult to do once he’d started his degree in earnest, especially since he was in a different city.  Unfortunately, Lucy’s dad had a lot of pull and a lot of money; for a few years, he’d made things hard on everyone.  Gray’s grades and academic probity had been challenged at one point, and even Silver had faced strange “issues” at work.  Eventually, Jude Heartfilia’s tactics had gone from dirty to straight out violent.

Ultimately, Lucy had disappeared, and even Gray hadn’t known where she’d gone.  That had been a low point in his life.  Sure, he’d eventually been able to stop watching out for hired thugs—he’d become pretty fit and competent at self-defence over the years—but that hadn’t made up for the sudden absence of sunlight in his life.  Or starlight, rather—Lucy had always loved the stars.  Gray had loved Lucy, but he’d never spoken of it and neither had she.  She’d always seemed destined for somebody with the kind of bright warmth that Gray lacked and Lucy herself had in abundance.  He had been there to learn with and to rely on; if there was an intangible “something else” missing from the equation, such was life. But her absence hurt.  The only thing that helped was when he wrote—then he felt closer to her again, somehow.

He’d found her again when she’d published her first best seller.  She was living in a different part of the country and publishing under a different name, but he’d known it was her book the moment he’d scanned the first page.  Sooner, really.  After she’d disappeared, he’d taken to keeping an eye on the bestseller lists and hoping.  She’d called the book “The Icemakers”, and it had dealt in withering irony with the way that “rainmakers”—those indispensable individuals who brought in a business’ richest clients and fattest contracts—would stop at nothing to make a deal. The “rain” might nurture the business, but it did nothing for human relationships.  Gray had winced when he’d seen the title and read the description, but the dedication had made his heart leap with a sudden, not-quite-forgotten hope: “Icemaker, I miss you.”  

Shortly after that, Gray’s first collection of short stories had been e-published—he’d worked night and day to move up the publication date.  “Absolute Zero is Just Another Number” had been surprisingly popular, in a limited way. Nobody had understood the inscription: “The stars are cold without you.”

Two days later he’d gotten an email that read:  “You still aren’t very good at poetry, ice wizard.  I mean, what does that mean, anyway?  Congratulations on the book.”  He’d stared at it for hours trying to decide what to do.

Eventually, he written back: “You always told me to be less terse. I miss you too.  Congratulations on the best-seller.  Not surprised.”

He’d flown halfway across the country just to see her again.  It had been a shock for both of them, really.  Gray had filled out, and several years of periodically dodging Jude Heartfilia’s thugs had gotten him into the habit of keeping extremely fit. Silver had approved of the change and helped him train.  That had been… interesting.  Lucy had only seen him in his late teens and very early twenties—she was gone by the time he really hit his stride and became “the hottest guy to have ice in his veins”, as one eloquent admirer had eventually commented in despair.

Lucy, for her part, was even more beautiful than Gray remembered—and he’d tried to prepare himself—but what had caught him off-guard had been the strain on her face and the sadness in her eyes.  She was still unmistakeably Lucy, but diminished somehow. Quieter, more tired, less bright. She should have been glowing with the success of her book.

Their meeting had been awkward.  Lucy had obviously expected recriminations for her disappearance, but Gray had understood and forgiven her long since—almost from the beginning.  Gray had seen Lucy’s eyes widen when she’d seen him and they’d both realized that what she’d really wanted was his grade twelve self—unassuming and undemanding and far less threatening.  They were both adults now, with far more experience of the world.

Once they’d both adjusted a little, Gray had learned about all the challenges that Lucy had faced over the five years since she’d disappeared.  What had surprised him most was that Lucy’s father had died recently, and Lucy deeply regretted not having had the chance to speak with him before the end.  Bit by bit, over the course of their first reunion, Lucy had seemed to brighten, and by the time she had seen Gray off at the airport the next day she had looked so much like her former self that Gray had been reluctant to leave.

It had been the same the next two times they’d met:  Lucy would look stressed when Gray arrived and be starting to relax by the time he left.  Halfway through his fourth visit, Gray had told Lucy that he hadn’t bought a return ticket.  She’d looked at him for a long time and then commented that she’d already stocked up the fridge to feed two people and made up the guest room.  It had a small attached bathroom with a shower.  The perks of writing a best-seller, she’d said.

“There’s no point in you paying for a hotel, or a separate apartment” she’d added, looking down. “And… thanks.”

“What am I missing?” he’d asked, studying her closely.  “I mean, it sounds like there’ve been ups and downs, but you seem—well, scared.”

She’d put him off, and he’d given in easily and turned his mind to reorganizing his life.  It wasn’t until he’d been there over a month that she’d suddenly broached the subject.

They’d been sitting in his room.  Or rather, Gray had been at his desk, typing on his laptop and Lucy had been stretched out on her back on his bed behind him.  She seemed to love seeing him write—he supposed it was the feeling of having been the person who’d gotten him started.  He’d been frowning at the screen, trying to pretend that he didn’t know why he couldn’t concentrate.

“They’re always right. That’s the problem.”

Gray had given up on his writing immediately and gone to sit on the floor by the bed.  After a moment’s hesitation, he’d taken Lucy‘s hand, something that he’d done in the past when she’d been especially upset.

“What are always right?”

“My predictions—my fortune telling.  Astrology just… works for me, whatever medium I use.  Not that I see ghosts or anything… um.  I can predict things about people and for some reason, they always come true. I hate it.  It started happening when I first decided to do the fortune-telling as a part-time job to raise money—you know?”

He knew; she’d mentioned it briefly earlier.  Lucy continued.

“I finally had to start giving vaguer answers.  I wanted to be an author, not a full time astrologist!  But even working in a third-rate tea-shop word about my predictions started to get around.  I made good money at first, but then… then people started coming with terrible stories, tragic situations, and they all wanted to know “would it be okay?” and “how can avoid this terrible fate?”  It was awful. Many of them couldn’t pay but I felt like I needed to do the reading as some kind of public service…”

“Lucy…”

Her hand had clenched under his and he’d made a point of straightening it out again, finger by finger.

“That’s why I moved away from the first city.  It was a wrench—I’d chosen it specially to be a refuge, a place where I could write.” Lucy’s voice trembled slightly, even though she was by no means an easily frightened person.  “And… that’s it.”

“Is it?”

There had been a long, long pause.  Reluctantly, eyes fixed on Gray’s face, Lucy had replied:  “Not quite. I did a reading for you.  I… missed you.”

“And?”  Gray had kept his voice deliberately detached, but his hand was wrapped firmly around Lucy’s.

“It was very confusing. Your life would be in danger if we met each other again.  But it would also be in danger if we didn’t.”

Gray had let out a long breath.

“Lucy, everyone’s life is in danger every moment of every day.  That’s how it is.  Life is dangerous. But it’s worse if you make yourself too afraid to live at all, right? You told me that once.  You always took the weirdest risks—“

“They weren’t weird!”

“They weren’t statistically probable—“

“You and your statistics!”

“You and your belief in luck!”

“And?”  Lucy had turned to lie on her side so that it was easier to keep her eyes on Gray’s.

“And you’ve usually been very lucky.  Even when your life has gone to pieces—I mean, we actually survived quite a lot, when you put it all together.  But I’ll tell you what I think, if you’ll hear me out.”

Gray had wrapped his arms around Lucy, so that she was partially cradled against his chest.  She had looked surprised, and then almost relieved. He’d waited to feel her nod before he’d gone on.

“I think it’s time to give the astrology—the cards and all the rest of it—a miss.  You’ve gotten pretty messed up since you left, Luce. See, I know you pretty well.  My guess is that you left in the first place because you did a reading and it said I’d be in danger if we stayed together. But you panicked and didn’t check the other half—not until much later.  Am I right?”

There had been another nod against his chest and a mutter that had sounded suspiciously like a slightly teary “stupid intellectual show-off”.  With more courage than he’d known he had, Gray had bent down and kissed Lucy’s hair.

“Well, this stupid, intellectual show-off—which doesn’t make much sense, you know?—thinks we should go home. Together.  Like, really together.  There are people who’d love to see you.  And, um”—deep breath—“I love you.”  When Lucy didn’t move, but seemed to relax, Gray had continued doggedly. “So no more predictions, right or wrong. Let’s be completely free to screw things up on our own—or not.”

Lucy had struggled to sit upright and leaned her forehead against Gray’s.

“So it’s going to be you after all, huh?  I kept thinking how being my friend had messed up your life.”

“Stupid intellectual best-selling author.”

“That… really didn’t make any sense as an insult.  Or just, at all.”

Gray had ignored the comment.  He’d traced his hands—very strong hands, Lucy realized—around Lucy’s face and then down along her neck.  They’d both shivered slightly, although Gray’s hands were cool, not cold.  When his lips had touched hers, Lucy had found herself leaning into the kiss.  It had gone on for some time.

Nah, she’s probably awake.  Gray walked quietly into the apartment’s spacious master bedroom. Lucy was lying in bed staring drowsily up at the ceiling.  As soon as Gray walked in, she sat up, face brightening.

“New chapter right?  I had a feeling your writing would go well this evening!”

Gray eyed her suspiciously. “A feeling?”

Lucy stuck out her tongue at him.  “The Lady Heartfilia spoke with those who have passed,” she said in sepulchral tones. “And they told her that the little plot difficulty with the Spatter-Latter Array would all work out…”

“The Matter—Anti-Matter Array, Luce.  As if you didn’t know.”

“Oh, it was probably the spirits.  They’re not very interested in these things.”

Gray studied Lucy, admiring the golden hair curling over one shoulder.  He decided that he wasn’t very interested either, right at the moment. The new chapter could wait. Probably better to read it over first anyway…

END

Tag team:

@shell-senji @fury-ous @queen-mizera @kazama-hime @hakusaitosan @tealdeertamer @very-x-vice @sabinasanfanfic @walk-tall-my-fr1ends @hakuokifirst @annahakuouki @eliz1369 @canadiangaap @vav-airis @moon-faced-pear-shaped @lady-yomi @thesweateristoobig @nalufever @sanguine-fairy

[goofyzachy]

If the good thing about a story like Beauty and the Beast getting retold so often is that you get to see the story told from a myriad of different ways, the bad thing about it is that oftentimes you’re just gonna see it told the same way several times over.

The modern retelling, for example, is a common route taken by storytellers that can often verge on cliché. Of course, simply being retold in a modern setting doesn’t automatically make a retelling bad. In 2007, author Alex Flinn published a young adult novel which tackled that very subject, titled Beastly.

The novel, which told the story of popular but shallow highschooler Kyle Kingsbury being cursed to become a monstrous thing of myth and fairy tales, was received with generally positive critical reaction. While not very groundbreaking, the book was a well-written and familiar tale of looking beyond outer appearances and finding the beauty within. If not original, Beastly was, at the very least, an enjoyable and satisfying read.

And then came the inevitable film adaptation…

Released in 2011, the Beastly film starring Alex Pettyfer and Vanessa Hudgens took several liberties with its source material, as book adaptations are wont to do. The results are… disappointing, to say the least.

Kyle Kingsbury, played by Pettyfer, is the spoiled and self-centered son of a famous news anchor, and most popular boy in school in spite of his blatantly asshole-ish behavior. This behavior inevitable leads one school outcast, the goth girl known as Kendra (played by Mary-Kate Olsen) to reveal her true, magical nature and teach Kyle a harsh lesson about appearances. Cursed to be a hideous beast (well, more like cursed to look like a meth addict) Kyle is forced to isolate himself with only his maid Zola (Lisa Gay Hamilton) and his blind tutor Will (Neil Patrick Harris) for company. Kyle’s only hope lies in winning the love of Linda “Lindy” Taylor, played by Vanessa Hudgens.

The Beautiful:

Alright I’m going to admit here that there’s not much I can point out as being particularly good? I really try to find the good in the movies I review but this one is the toughest to work with. But here goes…

The makeup Pettyfer wears as the ‘beast’ is great. No, not the design, the makeup itself and its application/how it looks throughout the movie. It’s very well done, and I hope the makeup artists who worked on this movie know they did a good job.

The sets are pretty great, too. True, the highschool seems a bit odd… it looks more like Stark Industries than a school… but otherwise the sets are pretty and visually interesting to look at.

The editing isn’t the best, but it’s definitely not the worst. And there are some truly emotional moments that I felt were conveyed pretty well, putting the audience in exactly the sympathetic mindset any good media needs.

The best thing about the movie, though, was Neil Patrick Harris as Will, the sarcastic and witty blind tutor. Will was always one of my favorite characters from the book, and I remember hearing NPH was cast as him and being thrilled, I thought he would be the perfect actor to portray the quick-witted, snarky tutor. And Harris did not disappoint.

The Beastly:

Alright, here’s where I really have thoughts about this movie. It’s quite appropriately named “Beastly” as that’s mostly what this film is…

To start, I’m going to say that the movie isn’t a very faithful adaptation of the book. It made a lot of changes for reasons I can’t quite figure out, but for the sake of brevity and to avoid turning this movie review into a comparison to a book I’ll just leave it at that.

As far as the movie is concerned, whatever it did or didn’t take from the book, it’s just a weak film altogether. It’s a by the numbers teen romance in every regard, with sub-par writing, awkward dialogue and little to no character development. Probably the only character we really see change in any way is Kyle, and even this development feels more rushed than anything, with his change from a jerk who hates ugly people to a jerk who hates himself to a less-jerky guy who now knows beauty is on the inside. It literally feels like those are the only three stages of this development that we see, with little transition in between. And the rest of the cast? They basically remain the same people by the ending that they were when they were introduced, with only a few tidbits of backstory to flesh them out—if we get even that.

To cap off a nothing-special story with uninteresting characters—save for Will, perhaps—the ending to the film we got was honestly nothing short of a let-down. In the novel, the book’s climax involves Kyle saving Lindy from kidnappers, getting shot in the process, and it’s only when Lindy kisses him and confesses her love that the spell is broken and his life is saved. Very Disney-esque, I admit, but it was a touching scene, followed up by an epilogue of sorts where we see how the characters have adjusted to their happily ever after. It’s a satisfying ending in most regards. In the film, however, this ending was altered to another awkward exchange—after a forced and annoying period of our main characters not talking to each other for no reason other than Kyle’s stupidity—followed by a quick “I love you” leading to the spell breaking and that’s basically where the movie stops.

Of course, there is an alternate ending out there which more closely matches that of the book, save for a few story changes, and it is a vastly superior ending, but even if this was the ending we got it wouldn’t have fixed any of the problems we had before.

Probably the worst issue the movie has is that it feels very hypocritical. The moral that beauty is only skin deep and that outward appearances don’t matter is driven into the audience at several opportunities in the film, to the point it can almost feel preachy at times. And what makes this all the worse is that this moral of outward beauty doesn’t matter is preached to us by a cast that has outer beauty in spades.

The book—sorry to bring that up again, but there is a point—taught the lesson of inner beauty as well, but it had a more varied cast to show the diversity of that beauty. Kyle, as a beast, was an actual beast with fur and claws and fangs, Kendra had disguised herself as an overweight girl, Lindy was described as being a nerd with crooked teeth, but all these characters were fleshed out and developed and we knew exactly what made them all beautiful on the inside.

In the movie, however, we barely know these people beyond their assigned tropes and what we were told they were supposed to be. So, we can’t exactly appreciate any inner beauty here, nor do we feel inclined to because their outer appearance is never allowed to be that unattractive. Even Pettyfer’s beast makeup isn’t all that alarming, unless you think someone without hair with facial tattoos and a few scars is ‘hideous’ which honestly if the filmmakers have that mindset then they must be more shallow than most.

So is Beastly a bad movie? Well… no. It’s just not a good movie. It’s another teen romance that is largely forgotten, not good enough to enjoy and not terrible enough to remember. What it is is a bad adaptation, both of the Beauty and the Beast tale and of the novel it’s based upon. In fact, it’s one of the worst adaptations I can think of, with a forced and hypocritical message that leaves you sorely disappointed.

To fans of the fairy tale, I would recommend giving the novel a read. It’s not an amazing book, but it’s fun. It even makes references to other classic tales, and if you enjoy this modern take Flinn has written other fairy tale based novels to enjoy as well, including a spinoff of Beastly which tells the story from Lindy’s point of view (and if I’m honest I believe this to be an improvement on the original.) As for the film, it’s honestly just so skippable. It’s a movie about the importance of substance over style, but offers too much style and little substance at all.

I give Beastly only one rose petal out of five.

Thanks for joining me this month, and here’s hoping the next Beauty and the Beast movie I watch is a good one!

[colourmyliving]

Sleeping in total darkness, while good for the body, may take some getting used to for kids getting their own rooms for the first time, and even for adults who are settling into a new place or a new routine. A night light or lamp can help ease the transition by providing comforting low-intensity lighting without disturbing your good night’s sleep.

Whether it is for practical or purely aesthetic or decorative reasons, here are 12 of the best night lights you can get for you and your children.

For Kids Below 9 Years Old

1. LumiPets Animal Nursery Night Light

This portable night light has a very dim, calming glow that is perfect for both babies and toddlers. The adorable animal-shaped exterior never lets the light get too warm, so it is safe to prop up even on the foot of a child’s crib or bed.

It is wireless and battery-operated, too, so older kids can easily bring it with them if they have to move around the room or when they have to go to the hallway or the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Great bonus: the light can be switched between 8 different colors, so you don’t have to worry about your kid changing his/her favorite color – this night light will go along with any change. Animal night lights to choose from include bear, owl, dinosaur, cat, bunny (shown above) and unicorn.

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LumiPets Bear

LumiPets Cat

LumiPets Dragon

LumiPets Fox

LumiPets Owl

Lumipets Unicorn

2. 3D T-Rex Dinosaur Night Light

3D, laser-engraved night lights are all the craze with kids right now, and it’s not difficult to see why. The impressive visual effect appeals to slightly older kids, as it doubles as a decorative toy or action figure of sorts.

Specifically, this T-rex light is perfect for dinosaur-obsessed kids, and will fit right in with their dinosaur figurine collection. The mesh LED lights are dazzle-free, and are thus harmless to a child’s eye. It is also remote-controlled and has a timer option, which is good if you’re trying to be more conscious about your household’s energy consumption.

Other dinosaur lights are also available, including one that packages four designs so you can swap them out.

3. Cute Chick Bedside Nightlight

This is by far the best nursery light in this list for breastfeeding babies. It has a silicon top and all edges are soft, so you never have to worry about it accidentally hurting your baby. The adorable yellow chick also swings and wobbles when nudged, making it a huge hit for playful kids.

Possibly the best part about this nightlight is that it can go for 300 hours on a single recharge. You can switch between three light modes: sleeping, breastfeeding, and reading, so it can be a great night light for parents on those long, sleepless nights, too.

4. Star Projector Night Light

Sleeping directly under the night sky has a natural, soothing effect, and having this star projector night light may just be the next best thing to that. It will fill your kid’s room with celestial bodies to keep their imagination occupied until they fall asleep.

This is most recommended for older kids, though, as the extravagant display of lights may be too much for toddlers and babies. It has a timer function which can be set anywhere between 5 to 99 minutes, but the best feature would be the daytime mode option, which transforms the cool nightlight into a warm and bright array of lights perfect as backdrop for parties and sleepovers.

For Teens and Tweens

5. Amora Lighting Tiffany Style Accent Lamp

For teenagers and tweens who love the colors of nature, the warm hues produced by the stained glass in this night light will be most welcome in their rooms. The handcrafted piece is a good choice for those keeping a vintage aesthetic in their room design.

It works best with an incandescent bulb, but the accent lamp is compatible with LED lights, too. All pieces are made entirely by hand, so each lamp is unique and does not have an identical copy anywhere in the world. This is a good night lamp for young bookworms, too, since it provides enough light for some bedside, night time reading.

6. Star Wars R2-D2 LED Night Light

This plug-in night light requires an open outlet to work, but it is the perfect choice for young Star Wars fans who will be comforted by the thought that a loyal friend such as R2-D2 is watching over them as they sleep. The light can be switched between 8 different colors, but it also has a ‘cycle’ option where the light will automatically and periodically change colors every now and then.

This light is as smart as the real R2-D2 is sharp, thanks to its light-sensing technology that automatically turns it on when the room is dark, and turns off when the room is lit by a brighter light. To complete your collection, you might wish to consider BB-8, Stormtrooper and Darth Vader night lights.

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Darth Vader LED Night Light

Stormtrooper LED Night Light

7. Cool Moon Lamp

There are more than a dozen different moon lamps out there, but this one takes the cake because it used actual astronomical data from a NASA satellite for a very close approximation of what the moon’s surface looks like.

Teens and tweens will have 16 different color schemes to choose from when lighting up this moon lamp, solid and blended colors alike, to fit their every mood: from cozy to peaceful, all the way to festive. Every recharge only powers this lamp for 10 hours, but you can always keep it plugged in all night long, without fear that the LED light might overheat.

Adults are not left out as there is a more serious version in adjustable warm to cool white light, as shown below, more in keeping with the real earth’s natural satellite itself.

Moon Light Warm to Cool White

8. Cherry Blossom Bonsai Night Light

For creative souls, this semi-DIY bonsai night light is an excellent choice. Its completely bendable branches allows teens and tweens to ‘personalize’ the look of the tree as they please. This feature can also help those who need to fiddle with something whenever they are feeling anxious. Teens and tweens can also choose between 16 color palettes to match every mood or occasion.

The light produced by this bonsai night light is gentle and soothing, but the white light option can provide enough brightness for nighttime reading.

For Adults

9. Wax Warmer LED Lamp with Timer

This lamp provides feelings of safety and comfort in more ways than one. While providing illumination to a dark room at night, it also heats and melts wax for your aromatherapy needs, immediately increasing relaxation at bedtime.

You can use either scented wax or essential oils to get the fragrance you want spread all over your room at night. Within 15 minutes of turning on the lamp, your chosen fragrance will already fill up the room, lulling you to a good night’s sleep while the soft light from the lamp eases your mind from the anxiety brought by total darkness. You can turn it on and off manually, or set it for 3 hours/ 6 hours/ 9 hours, depending on how long you want the light to stay on and the fragrance to spread.

10. Touch Lamp Night Light

This 360-degree touch lamp is as simple as it gets. The brightness is adjustable between four different modes: dim light, low light, middle, and high. You can pick your hue from a touch-optimized color wheel, or have it constantly change colors every now and then.

It turns on and off with a single tap on the topside – no gimmicks, no nonsense. It may be a small and compact lamp but it provides ample lighting for bedtime reading and can fully illuminate a small room when set in maximum brightness. Note, however, that a single recharge can only last for a day, so you have to make sure to charge it in after every use.

11. Touch Bedside Lamp with Alarm Clock

Out of all the night lights on this list, the Elecstars Bedside Lamp offers the most value-adding features. Aside from the touch sensor LED lamp, it also functions as a bluetooth speaker, an alarm clock, an MP3 player, and a hands-free call receiver.

It supports bluetooth, flash drive and SD card input for those who enjoy falling asleep to the sound of good music. A gentle tap on the top can adjust the brightness and color of the light without ever disturbing other people sleeping in the room. It automatically switches between 48 different light schemes, providing endless entertainment before you finally fall asleep at night.

12. Himalayan Glow Natural Pink Salt Lamp

Himalayan salt lamps are known to ease anxiety, sleeping troubles, and seasonal allergies. However, take this with a grain of salt because there is no standing guarantee that this salt lamp is actually made with salt crystal mined from the Himalayan Mountains.

Even without the necessary legit check, though, this night light deserves a spot in this list because of its aesthetic and the warm, pinkish-red light it produces, making it the perfect lamp to illuminate your yoga or meditation nook at home. It also serves as a wonderful mood light for couples’ rooms.

Getting a night light is a small investment compared to the comfort it can provide you or your children for those long, sleepless, anxiety-ridden nights. Whether you need a plain bedside lamp or something that provides value even in the day, there is surely a lamp for everyone on this list.

12 Best Night Lights For Parents and Kids of All Ages Sleeping in total darkness, while good for the body, may take some getting used to for kids getting their own rooms for the first time, and even for adults who are settling into a new place or a new routine.