#like imagine being like 'but gays being together and even marrying is bad!' because according to him

[thetimelordbatgirl]

James Somerton really said in videos on Wiccan and Hulkling from Young Avengers being together and happily married: "Fellas, is it straight to be in a happy relationship?"

[notmuchtoconceal]

I think it's ... it's cruel to ... to reject homosexuals.

Where do you find Jews rejecting homosexuals?

Well, I meant it says in Leviticus that a man to lie with another man is a sin?

And so is eating pork. You see people rejected for eating pork? You see people rejected for committing adultery? You see people rejected for being homosexual?

...

It is a sin. But then again, we all have our sins.

...

Nobody's being rejected for being homosexual. Homosexuality's being rejected, of course. So here we get to the same problem again, if you have someone you admire and respect very much, and you know that they're really good people, with a good heart and you know, everything's fine, but -- he's having an affair with his secretary and his wife doesn't yet know about it. So whaddya say? He's a good man, leave him alone? Or, he's a good man will someone get him to stop doing this, so he doesn't destroy himself. And his family. So you have to separate, you have to be able to separate, that you can have a very good person doing something very bad. Help them find a solution. But don't tell them they're okay the way they are. And what about the guy who says

"but I'm so unhappy in my marriage?"

What do you want me to live in misery for the rest of my life?

I have to have an affair,

it's the only thing that keeps me going!

It's the only thing that's exciting in my life!

My wife makes me miserable and I can't divorce her,

because she has all the money.

... Or something like that, huh? Everybody sins with a reason. Nobody sins just for the heck of it.

But if it's so natural to so many people, and they have love for them, I mean I don't understand ... if two lesbians have so much love, and they raise children and teach them values and they raise children and they don't influence ... I mean, you'll see heterosexual children coming out of, you know -- parents that were lesbian or gay, I don't see how it's...

Destructive? Even if it's not horrible, it's a sin.

Well...

Eating ham is not horrible, it's a sin.

Why ... why is it a sin? What is the reason?

I don't ... I don't know. No no no no. I don't know why it's a sin.

Um, but if it's so normal? I mean,

Normal and not-normal have nothing to do with it. For a man and woman to have sex is not normal ... Is it?

...

Is it?

A man and a woman, or a man and a man?

Man and a woman

It's normal.

It is?

For a man and a woman to have... ?

It's not normal.

You're twisting the question, you're asking me if it that's a normal act...

Hmmm-hmm. Is it?

I said yes?

Is it a natural act? Is it?

for children ... why wouldn't it be?

Hmmmph?

Let's let's ...

... you're playing with the world sex ...

Let's let's let's imagine it. Let's turn the tables here. What is more natural? For a man and a woman to be together, or for two men to be together? What is more natural?

...

Two men. I know.

... what are you talking about?

Nature! We're talking about nature, right? So what's more natural, to cross the gender line, or to stay within the gender line?

... that's not ... God would not have made it one of his commandments.

Woah woah woah, wait. We're not talking about commandments. We're not talking about commandments, we're talking about natural. What's more natural? What's more natural, for you to marry -- What's more natural, for you to marry a guy who you haven't known for the first 25 years of your life, or to marry your brother. What's more natural?

I don't know what natural means. I'm not understanding how you're using it...

Natural Means Given By Nature. What Were You Given By Nature, A Husband or A Brother?

A brother, but that's why it would be unnatural ... there would be something in us that makes that abhorrent.

WHAT IS IT IN US that Makes That Abhorrent? Not Nature.

...

Hmmphhmmm. Second nature, mmmmhmmmhmm

But it's... a member of your family, you don't feel what you should feel for a spouse...

In fact, even according to the bible, even according to the Torah, what was the most natural marriage? In the Torah. Who did Cain and Abel marry? ... Where'd they get cousins from? Adam and Eve were the only People In The World. And they had children, and those children married... whom?

Each other.

Each other.

...

So is that natural or not?

Well, it had to start somewhere, but..

In other words nature makes that necessary. Marriage is an invention.

... so we should all marry our brothers and sisters?

It was a brother and sister.

You're changing it.

Yeah, I'm asking two questions. I'm asking ya two questions -- a man with a man, or a man with a woman? And what is more natural, a woman with a strange man or a woman with her own brother or father?

...

Which is more natural?

And that's incest, I..

So?

...

Is Incest Unnatural?

Is it unnatural?

You know. On the contrary, the sin is the more natural. And that's why God had to come and say no, just Don't Do It Like That. Do It A New Way. Do It A Special Way. Do It My Way. Not The Natural Way. And that's why there's a commandment or a mitzvah, but by nature? By nature, we would, uh ... we would do the sin. Naturally, we would do ... not we would do bad, we would do the sin, we would have the sinful relationship rather than the kosher one, because it is more natural.

So what would ... what should we follow

Commandments.

Commandments.

The point that I'm making is this: When God says Don't Do Such and Such, then Such and Such Must Be Natural. Cause If Isn't Natural, then People Won't Do It Anyway and It Doesn't Have to Be A Commandment. The only time God has to command us not to do something is if to do it is natural. So God says don't eat pork.

/\ Why in the world shouldn't we eat pork?

Why in the world shouldn't we eat lobster?

Yeah, why shouldn't we? So the fish that have fins and scales you can eat, and the ones without not, what kind of sense does that make?

\

And it's not because they're dirty, carp is dirty, and yet it's a shabbist delicacy. So What i'm saying is that we confuse morality with nature, we're not on the right track. It's not that God prohibits us from doing unnatural things, no. God prohibits us from doing natural things.

... Unnatural things people don't do.

Yeah, but isn't that tempting, saying thou shalt not ...

Right, right. And it Doesn't Say Thou Shalt Not Be Perverted. It doesn't say that. Cause if you are perverted, do whatever you want, because it's too late anyway. You're beyond help. But this idea that, um ... the homosexual is wrong because it doesn't produce children, that's not... that's not true. And that it's wrong because it's unnatural isn't true, or that it goes against nature, that's not true... And by preaching that, we only confuse the issue, we don't make it any better. We don't make people more moral by telling them that homosexuality is abnormal. If ya wanna teach moraliy, teach morality, don't teach abnormality.

/

So if you're gonna tell a homosexual not be homosexual, give em the true reason ... don't make up false excuses, don't tell em you shouldn't do this because it's unnatural. It doesn't say that anywhere in the ... in the bible. It says don't do it because that's not what God intended. Even if it is natural. Then you're teaching morality, otherwise you're .... someday, somebody's gonna come along who's an expert on nature and biology and is gonna prove in the laboratory that it is natural. Then what are you gonna say? The Bible was Wrong? ... They're already proving that incest is not harmful, psychologically. So? All of a sudden incest is gonna become kosher? Yeah, because if you keep telling people the only reason incest is wrong is because it messes up the, uh ... the child. What if they prove that it doesn't mess her up, then what? Then it's kosher? Well as long as it doesn't mess anybody up, what the heck!

[itsclydebitches]

(WLW anon) I really don’t like the “bad rep is better then none at all”. I hate that. We should want good rep, because bad rep has been used time and time again by homophobes as to say we shouldn’t get representation. To me it’s not “gay can have the same flaws as het”, it’s “fix the flaws in the het”. Also I know Renora being independent was a good, I was just saying in comparison BB. Also, yes, they were separated, but also didn’t stop thinking about each other. Especially bad with Yang.

Indulge me for a moment because I want to take a trip down memory lane and list some—just some—of the queer rep that has been important to me over the years:

Ellen comes out both as herself and as her character… years later, she’s a hated millionaire who is criticized for how she treats her staff

The wildly influential Buffy gives us two women entering a loving relationship… except then Tara is killed off, Willow goes evil for a time, and Buffy comes under fire for Joss Whedon’s everything

The beloved and respectable headmaster of one of the most popular book series ever published is revealed to be gay… except it doesn’t count because it wasn’t in the text and now all of Harry Potter is cancelled because JKR is transphobic

Kurt is an unambiguously gay teen in a hugely popular TV series, acting as one of the first overt representations a generation has seen… except he’s way too stereotypical and Glee is a joke now

Orange is the New Black gives us a number of queer women, including one of our first trans characters… but isn’t it problematic that they’re all criminals?

Brooklyn Nine-Nine hosts an out gay captain and gives us a bisexual coming out story that resonated with many, myself included… except now we’re supposed to hate all the characters on principle because they’re cops

Korra and Asami walk off into the spiritual sunset together… but they never kiss or anything, so that doesn’t count either

Steven Universe gives us a queer relationship and a wedding… but it’s an issue that this is just a kid’s show and, really, does it count when the rep is embodied by space rocks whose entire species only creates a single gender? Feels like a cop-out

Same with Good Omens. Yeah, Crowley and Aziraphale clearly love each other… but you never see them kiss or declare their intentions. It’s great ace rep though! Unless you want to level the criticism that asexual characters are always nonhuman

A character intended to be a minor guest becomes a show staple and eventually declares his love for one of the two main characters… except then Castiel immediately dies, Dean doesn’t respond, and they never meet on screen again

I finished Queen’s Gambit the other day and the main character had a one-night stand with a woman! … but everyone is talking about how bisexuality is used to represent her lowest point, so that’s bad too

I could go on for literal pages. Some of these arguments I agree with (Dumbledore), others I’ve pushed back against quite strongly (Crowley and Aziraphale), but all of them are valid criticisms depending on what part of the queer community you’re in and what your expectations are. My point here is that it’s all “bad rep.” I mean that seriously. If anyone reading this is scrambling for the comment section to say why [insert media title here] is actually fantastic rep, I guarantee that someone disagrees. Or if they don’t, give it some time. Just wait until the characterization becomes offensively outdated, or another part of the story ruins the relationship, or it comes out that the author did something truly horrific, or the terminology changes and it’s labeled as “problematic” now… just wait. At some point, any rep we feel is good rep now will be criticized, cancelled, and dragged through the mud. The rep that I personally haven’t seen much push-back against—like the beloved Captain Jack Harkness in Doctor Who, or Schitts Creek that just won a ton of awards—is wrapped up in the criticism, “So it’s all just about able-bodied, cis, (mostly) white dudes, huh? :/”  Even the argument that queer characters need to be written by queer authors doesn’t hold up. I absolutely adored Sense8. “Wow, a gay main character in a loving relationship with another gay man, both of whom enter a loving poly relationship with a woman, another lesbian trans main character who marries the love of her life on screen, an entire cast arguably queer due to them sharing orgy scenes centered around the emotional intimacy they share, everyone survives, and this was written by two trans women! Great, right?” Well, not according to the wealth of opinions explaining how Sense8 is horrible rep, actually. Every piece of rep we’ve got is either currently flawed or will become flawed in the future.

So what do we do with that?

That’s where my “I’d rather have bad rep than no rep at all” comes in. For me, that’s not waving the white flag. That’s not an oath that I won’t expect better rep in the future (I do) or that I won’t criticize the rep we get (BOY DO I), but rather just an acknowledgement of reality. The vast majority—if not the entirety—of rep is “bad rep” in one way or another, but I’d still rather have it than nothing at all. Because I’ve lived just long enough and studied media just enough to know what nothing looked like. It was watching all queer characters meet untimely deaths. Before that it was watching queer characters be derided and treated as jokes. Before that it was nothing but coding, where queer characters didn’t exist except in our own headcanons and interpretations. Obviously “bad rep” covers a very large range of issues and “They haven’t even confirmed this relationship yet” is a bigger issue than “This queer character embodies one or two, mild stereotypes,” but ultimately I’d take any of it over nothing at all. And enjoying what we’ve currently got doesn’t mean I’m willing to settle for it indefinitely.

To use an iffy analogy, imagine there’s a factory. This factory makes plates. So. Many. Plates. Big plates, small plates, plain plates, decorative plates, plates for every possible occasion in your life—and everyone with a steak for dinner is pleased as punch. You though? You’ve got soup. You need a bowl. Your entire life you’ve been struggling to eat your soup off a plate (it doesn’t work) and listening to friends and family claim that the plate with a slightly raised edge could be a bowl if you squint (it’s not). To say it’s frustrating is an understatement.

But then, one day, the factory starts producing bowls too. Hurray! Except as soon as you get your hands on one, you’re told you really shouldn’t be using it, let alone praising it. Look at the state of that bowl! It’s cracked right down the middle, ugly as hell, shoddily made all around… you’re not really going to settle for that, are you? And no, you obviously still want the factory to produce better bowls, but at the same time, this is a bowl. You’ve never gotten one before and you can finally enjoy your meal, even if the soup leaks at times. Sometimes a lot. But you’re still feeling better about your meal than you ever have before. And what you then begin to realize is that lots of the plates are a mess too. They also have cracks, they’re also ugly, many are also shoddily made. The difference is that the factory is producing so many plates at such a rapid pace that every steak eater is able to get by. One plate breaks completely? You’ve got a thousand fallbacks. Don’t like the look of this one? A thousand other options. You disagree about what “shoddily made” means? Luckily there are enough plates that everyone can find what they prefer! But the bowls… there’s only a few. Some are really expensive. Others are only available for a limited time before they suddenly disappear. Your bowl breaks and you have to wait months, years sometimes, to get another one. You’re constantly told to go buy this one obscure bowl no one else has heard about and yeah, you like it... but you’d also like to buy one of the bowls everyone is already enjoying. You find yourself looking at the plates and thinking, “I’d like that. I’d like to have so many options that the flaws, while still a problem, are much more bearable.” You’re still going to demand that the factory get its shit together, you’re still going to (rightly) complain about the awful quality of your bowl… but it’s still nice to have a bowl, period. There are still things you like about it, even if it’s a mess: the color, the size, the beauty of the shape of it. Its potential. You’re still pleased you have something to enjoy and that helps serve the need you’re looking to fill, even if that something is imperfect.

That’s “bad rep is better than no rep.” To bring this very long response back to Blake/Yang, I don’t think their problems negate their benefits. Is their relationship currently non-canonical and filled with a number of writing issues everyone has a right to be angry about? Yup. I express that anger a great deal. Are they still half of a team on a very popular show that is (presumably) set to be canonized as queer? Yup. I’d much rather live in a world where big shows like RWBY try to include queer rep and fail in a multitude of ways—with the expectation and hope that they’ll continue to improve—rather than in a world where authors a) don’t care or b) are too scared to try. Because that’s where a “good rep or no rep” stance leads. The danger isn’t homophobes because they’re, well, homophobes. It doesn’t matter if the rep is good or not, they hate it on principle. But if queer authors writing for other queer identities, or allies writing queer identities, or even queer authors writing their own experiences (like in Sense8) continually come under non-stop fire for their attempts… there’s a good chance that many people won’t ever try. We’re already seeing that here on tumblr with young authors admitting that they wouldn’t touch [insert topic here] with a ten-foot pole because just look at what happens when you get it wrong. And authors will get things wrong because authors are fallible people forever unlearning their own ignorance. So though it might sound strange coming from a blog that has turned into such a RWBY critical space, I am glad that RWBY’s queer rep exists, despite all the frustrations that I share about it. I think a RWBY with various types of “bad” queer rep is better than a RWBY with no queer rep at all, particularly when “bad” or “good” is so intensely subjective. There’s a middle ground between passively accepting whatever we’re given, and tearing into rep with such ferocity that we end up rejecting it all. There’s a space where we can be critical of rep and embrace the parts that work for us, simultaneously.

I hope and expect the het rep will get better too, but… that’s never going to happen instantly. To quote RWBY, there’s no magic wand we can wave to fix all our problems. Rather, it will take slow, plodding, meandering, lifetimes’ worth of work to see that change occur and I personally don’t want to spend the one life I have waiting for that perfect rep to show up. Because it’s unlikely that it will. While we work, I’d rather find the good in what rep we’ve already got.  

[thetruthaboutbeliza]

The Truth

A thread of Beliza’s innocence. 

To start out the Pilot for The 100 was filmed in July of 2013 and Season 1 started filming in August of 2013. This would’ve been when Bob and Eliza first became friends. It IS possible they had a brief fling during this time, however there’s nothing to confirm or deny that. 

It’s believed that Bob started dating a girl named Jane Gosden sometime in 2014 and they broke up sometime in 2015. I had trouble finding information about Jane originally and the only source I had found online said they dated 2014-2015 however, that is incorrect. They were together for a few years and broke up some time after May 2014. Jane actually still has quite a few photos on her Instagram of her and Bob together and her with his family. She still interacts with Bob’s sister on a frequent basis as well. I’m still not 100% sure when they started dated but, they were at least together from 2012-2014.

Bob and Arryn met in April 2015 at Supanova in Australia. We know this by photos of them at the con together. Below you can see Bob in the green hat in the back next to Arryn. Barbara is also in the center there in light blue. There are a few other photos of Arryn, Barb, and Bob hanging out during Supanova. 

Arryn and Miles Luna were dating from 2010 until some time in mid 2015 (either May, June, or July). They wrote blog posts confirming their break up in August 2015 and stated they’d been broken up for a little while but didn’t want to announce it until after RTX. In Arryn’s post detailing their break up it is important to note she cited Australia as a reason for their break up.

Everyone wants to attack Bob and Eliza for “moving on quickly” from their exes, specifically Bob from Arryn but, Arryn literally left Miles for Bob. Did they cheat? I don’t know. No one does. But she clearly fell for Bob during Supanova and decided to leave her family/friends/boyfriend behind and pursue Bob and a life in LA. Now it is important to note that she said she wasn’t moving until the END of September 2015. At that point in time she was ALREADY traveling quite frequently out to Vancouver. Vancouver is where The 100 filmed. Some of the cast had photos with her during this time, she was being tagged in posts with them and Bob, her and Bob were talking often on Twitter, and in some of her photos that were more “cryptic” (ie. photos of her at a coffee shop with her and someone else’s shoes) she mentioned something about “Aussies knowing how to do it right.” Bob is Australian. 

So sometime in July 2015 she started traveling often to Vancouver. August 2015 she officially announces her split from Miles but stated they’d been broken up for a bit but didn’t want to tell anyone until after RTX and that she’d be moving to LA to “pursue her dreams” by the end of September 2015. This pretty much confirms that the Anon Twitter account TruevFalse was correct in stating that Arryn still lived with her ex Miles for a brief time when her and Bob started dating. We don’t have the EXACT date/time of them officially starting to date but they were clearly talking seriously July-Aug 2015 if she was flying out that often to Vancouver where he was filming. At some other point she later specifically stated that she moved to LA for Bob. I’m not sure if this was in stream or where she stated this but, I’ve seen multiple people cite that she said that. Confirming she broke up with Miles for Bob. That alone should stop people from automatically attacking Bob and Eliza for getting together quickly. Was it quick? Yes. Even IF that had been cheating like Arryn claims - they wouldn’t have been in a relationship. Having an affair isn’t a real relationship and getting married a few months after officially dating is still fairly fast - cheating or not - but, that’s not for anyone else to comment on. Plenty of people have done something similar - hell some people get married weeks after meeting someone. When you know, you know. But if you’re going to attack them automatically for moving quickly, “Eliza stealing Bob”, or Bob leaving Arryn for Eliza - then you should be equally upset with Arryn for doing the same thing previously to be with Bob.

On to the abuse allegations. She states that Bob was controlling and isolated her from her family and friends and that she had no friends in LA. But that’s 100% HER doing. As I stated, she literally LEFT her boyfriend/friends/family/job to move out to LA where she knew no one to be with Bob. If you’re telling me he forced her to do all of that before they were even dating - you’re crazy. I do believe she left to pursue a better future in LA but, her main motive for moving was Bob. From there he then invited her into his group of friends (The 100 cast) and quite often she was out with certain members of the cast WITHOUT Bob present. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a controlling/abusive relationship but, I have. Also doing any sort of research on the topic will come to a very similar conclusion: abusers/controlling partners do not want you to have ANY friends, they especially don’t want you hanging out with THEIR friends outside of them being with you, and if they don’t like someone they tell you not to be friends with them, associate with them, or hang around them. Arryn was with The 100 cast a ton, like I said, a lot of times she was with them without Bob around. She quite often did photoshoots when she was home in LA with a friend, and she was still constantly hanging out with Barbara. My reason for bringing Barbara up is a few. 1) Arryn claimed Bob specifically didn’t like Barbara and thought she was a bad friend. This *could* be true, who knows. But if we’re going by Arryn claiming Bob was controlling, then he would’ve told her not to be friends with Barbara. Period. Now yes, Arryn would’ve had to see Barbara on occasion for cons or while they were doing promotion work for RWBY but, he probably would’ve told her to limit her interaction with Barbara during those times and outside of that - not communicate with her. That is what an abuser/controller does. 2) My other reason for bringing Barbara into this is because of Barbara’s boyfriend Trevor Collins and his ex Emily. Emily has talked about the abuse she suffered from Trevor for years during their relationship. She was much younger than he was and when they started dating he was controlling/abusive. She specifically stated she was NOT allowed to be friends with his friends or talk to them unless he was around and that he cheated on her with a co-worker (Barbara) and that they manipulated her by calling her crazy while she had suspicions but they denied it. Now that sounds awfully familiar to Arryn’s story and it’s quite hypocritical for Arryn to know her best friend did this and then to hate Eliza for “doing the same thing”. Here are pieces of Emily’s statement/story. Did Arryn steal part of her story for her own? I can’t say for sure. It’s also important to note Trevor is part of RTX which Miles, Barbara, and Arryn were/are a part of and that the “friend group” Emily was referring to probably included Arryn but, I’m not 100% sure on that.

Another part of Arryn’s story was that Bob FORCED her to be friends with Eliza. So he can FORCE her to be friends with someone but can’t FORCE her to not be friends with Barbara even though she specifically mentions he didn’t like her? She said he forced her to be friends with Eliza even though he had told her he “hated” Eliza but, I’m not sure when he would’ve possibly hated her as Eliza and Bob have been friends since filming began. There’s never not been interaction/photos/hanging out of those two. They’ve always been adamant about being best friends/super close. And Arryn was often seen with Eliza, again, without Bob around. I could imagine Bob trying to force her to be friends/friendly with Eliza while he brought Eliza around but, it’s incredibly odd he’d somehow force Arryn to hang out with Eliza on her own. 

On to the accusation of Bob being a biphobe and that he was not happy with her being bisexual. This one is just incredibly wrong for multiple reasons. Firstly, a few people defending Arryn have stated Bob has never shown any sort of support for Bisexuals or LGBTQ and that’s false. He’s actually been fairly vocal (to Bob’s standards anyways as he’s not very vocal on Social Media in general) about LGBTQ rights/support and has commented quite a few times about how proud he was to be a part of a show where they had a leading lady being Bisexual. Bob was also part of one of Australia’s first gay kiss scenes on tv. He went to Pride with Richard well before Arryn ever did and according to her statement she says “when he found out I was bisexual he was furious” but Arryn has always been openly Bisexual. She was constantly talking about it during on twitter during the time they were constantly tweeting each other back and forth before she officially broke up with Miles. There’s no possible way Bob didn’t know Arryn was bisexual before dating her. If he was biphobic, he simply wouldn’t have dated her, nor would he constantly be showing support for LGBTQ over the years. Arryn also frequently talked about being Bisexual still while they were dating. She was never not open about that. 

Those above are some of the times he’s been vocal about Bisexual/LGBTQ rights/support. He’s also a fan of Tegan and Sara and has liked a few posts of theirs. Then we have the post from yesterday of Eliza talking about being proud to represent Bisexuals by playing Clarke and Bob taking the photo/liking the post.

With Arryn deactivating her Twitter I can’t go through and find all the times she was open about being Bisexual while with Bob but, here are two instances I could find. So she never stopped talking about her sexuality while with Bob.

One of the biggest holes in Arryn’s story is when she talks about how she got a rental property for her and Bob in Australia and after doing the paperwork and moving everything in, shortly after he dumped her to be with Eliza and that they stole the place from her and that he never intended for that to be their place. The first thing about that is there was never a place in Australia - the place in Australia that Bob and Eliza have was BOUGHT by them and is NOT the place Arryn is referring to. I was incorrect about this statement - I got confused and thought Arryn had said in her statement that the house was in Australia but, she said “The Hills” and I remembered seeing some fans attacking Bob for posting photos of their house in Australia on his cover on Facebook as “rubbing it in her face” and combined those in my head. So I apologize. 

The place Arryn is referring to is the rental place in LA. I’m not sure how she made that error or why she didn’t correct it but, there’s that. So Eliza and Bob “stole” the rental home from her but, later on in her statement she confirms that she actually DID live in the rental house and that she left because she got spooked when fans found out she was looking for roommates since she couldn’t afford to live there by herself. She states that herself and plenty of fans have confirmed remembering seeing her looking for roommates during that time. Bob gave her the place originally, she couldn’t afford it and got scared, so she gave it back to him. That is the house where Bob and Eliza are currently staying at during quarantine in LA.  Now according to Eliza’s story of when her and Bob got together she states that she had signed a one year lease with her friend Nina in Vancouver sometime in Feb. 2019 and in March 2019 when they were unpacking Bob came over and asked her on a date. Going back to Arryn’s story, this couldn’t be true since according to her they were having an affair for at least 6 months that she knew of and that her getting their rental house in LA in December 2018 was essentially for Bob and Eliza she just didn’t know that at the time. These photos from Nina’s Instagram/Stories confirm Eliza’s side of the story.

So Eliza was still with Nina until at least May 2019. It wasn’t until June 2019 that Eliza was officially living with Bob and they had gotten Panda. 

If they stole this place from her, why did they not move in together until June?

Another part of Arryn’s story is about how she “caught” them together on camera while she was in New Zealand. That trip by the way, she was with her mother while Bob was home in LA recovering from knee surgery. She went on a trip with her mother (aka family that Bob isolated her from) while he was recovering from surgery. You’d think someone controlling would force her to stay and take care of them. Shortly after she “caught” them cheating, she publicly announced how much she missed Eliza and wished her a happy birthday via Instagram. So this was the “6 months” she was referring to, she “caught” them together, and then 6 months later in Feb 2019 he dumped her for Eliza. However, up until Jun 2019 (when they officially married/moved in together), Arryn was STILL friendly with them both on social media. Now I understand people want to say “well she was brainwashed by them, it makes sense”. Again, if you’ve been in a situation like this the moment you’re free from your abuser/s you cut the chord. It makes no sense she’d continue to be friendly with them both AFTER catching them cheating, AFTER he dumped her for Eliza and “stole” the house she got for them, and AFTER escaping her abuser. Giving her the benefit of the doubt and she did still feel the need to be attached to her abuser/s for a while after the break up, why was it that when she caught them cheating 6 months prior did she only claim she felt betrayed by one of her close friends and cut them off completely in June 2019 after Beliza announced their marriage? She had no problem cutting off the “betrayer” then. 

The youtube video below is an interview featuring Barbara and Arryn May 14th 2019 where at she talks about the betrayal. She says she had a friend betray a huge amount of trust even though they thought they were close and the best way to deal with it was to cut them completely off. (This was clearly about Eliza and is around the 53:00 mark). Mind you, going back to her statement she claims Bob “forced” them to be friends. In this same interview she also talks about getting a therapist (around 10:49 mark) “for no reason in particular” and “doesn’t know what she even needs help with” other than her anxiety and feeling like she didn’t want to dump all her problems on friends and wanted someone to talk to. She talks very light hearted about it and in no way indicates that she’s seeking therapy for an abusive relationship or anything similar. While watching this interview, at (29:40) is where she actually confirms moving to LA with a significant other. Confirming earlier that she left Miles for Bob. She also says that she found most of her friends were through said significant other (Bob) and although she’s friends with them even though they aren’t together anymore, she doesn’t have too many friends outside of that relationship but, (again she’s very light-hearted talking about this) that it’s because she spent so much time around them that your friends become theirs and vise versa and that she “really doesn’t want to make friends because she’s comfortable being alone”. She later (around 42:00) talks about how pretty much ALL of her friends have been because of boyfriends. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvBtaCp_5Ro&ab_channel=RoosterTeeth

Now then, in her other statement she mentions her relationship with Miles briefly because people brought up that she cheated on him. She states “they were consenting adults in their relationship and he was okay with me being with a woman”. This is only true to a degree - he was technically okay with it, however she cheated FIRST, she started making out with a girl while drunk and he saw it and him and his friends thought it was “hot”. Afterwards she asked him if it was fine and he said “yes because I’m right here and it’s hot”. He also basically implies that he’d be “okay” with his girlfriend cheating with another girl but not a man. This is all from HIS mouth. Not only is all of that completely derogatory to bisexuals (I’m bi just FYI), it cancels out her statement of them talking about her being with another girl beforehand and him being okay with it because they did NOT talk about it before. He simply said he was okay with her being bi. 

Here’s the video: https://twitter.com/klarkbell/status/1294995706906849281?s=20 In her statement she also claims that Bob cheated on his previous ex (Jane) with Eliza. How would she know this first of all? And secondly, Jane is actually still close with his family. I can’t imagine she would be if he cheated on her. Especially because they dated for a little over a year where him and Arryn dated for over 3 years. Bob’s family cut off Arryn but, not Jane. It’s also a bit odd to me that Arryn’s mother is still friends with Bob’s mother. Terry is Bob’s mother, Bev is Arryn’s. 

Next we have the video that stirred Arryn’s statement to begin with where she was on stream saying “the last two women I dated were batshit, actually most women are batshit” and then proceeded to say that she has a history of dating “psychopaths and narcissists”. These are all incredibly gross statements and if you find yourself claiming that ALL of your relationships are either psychos, narcissists, and/or batshit - you should probably check yourself.

https://twitter.com/klarkbell/status/1302700329138565122?s=20

She says she’s terrified of Bob, always has been and still is. However, she never once claimed he was physically abusive. I don’t know a single person who’s been emotionally/mentally abusive who has ever used the term “afraid” when talking about the abuser. The ex I had that was controlling and the ex I had that was mentally abusive both had a lot of issues, they were assholes, toxic, and terrible partners but, I was never once afraid of them. I’ve dealt with a narcissist (actually the ex of my partner who has bullied/harassed me, not an ex of my own) and while being a pathological liar is a trait of a narcissist - it doesn’t make you automatically a narcissist to be a pathological liar and/or toxic. Nothing she describes = narcissist. So it’s not okay that she uses that term to describe Bob or any of her exes. Talk to anyone who’s been physically abused and you’ll get the statement of them being scared and/or terrified. However, you’ll also get a vastly different reaction from them compared to Arryn’s on how they speak about the abuse they endured and their abuser. If you’re scared of someone after being abused, you don’t call them names, you don’t laugh about name calling, or about the abuse you endured (no, not even to “break tension”), you’re terrified - you’re scared of speaking out extremely vocally because of “what they might do to you”. I’d also like to mention it’s extremely rare for the abuser to dump the victim. They’re controlling/abusive to KEEP you around, they SCARE you to KEEP you around. Not dump you to be with someone else. 

Abusive people also don’t just magically change/get better. They have a history of being this way and more often than not continue to be that way to future partners. Arryn claims Bob wasn’t supportive of anything she did, didn’t let her sing/do music, isolated her from family and friends, refused therapy. Yet, with Eliza it’s incredibly different. She’s always with friends/family and he’s often with them as well. She sings/does music as well and he’s supportive of it and everything she does including her foundation. And, he’s in therapy. They both are so she can figure out how to be a better partner for him due to his extreme depression/suicidal thoughts. I’d also like to remind you that Bob bought Arryn a new keyboard for her birthday one year and was supportive of her being in a friend’s music video in 2018.

Arryn was told at some point in a stream I guess about Bob going to therapy and she said something along the lines of “good for him although I doubt he’s changed”. If she didn’t think it was possible he could change, why did she say she tried to get him into therapy and he refused for years? Why would he refuse therapy but, go into therapy within months of being with Eliza? Since breaking up with Arryn, Bob has been incredibly vocal on social media about his mental health struggles where when he was with her he was fairly silent. He occasionally posted support for mental health awareness but, nothing compared to what he does now. Almost like his mental health got incredibly bad while dating Arryn and he was hiding it from the public/not allowed to talk about it. 

I want to say that the abuse and harassment Arryn apparently endured from The 100 fans while dating Bob and even after is completely uncalled for and I do feel bad that she had to go through that. No one deserves that. However, it’s important to also remember that there is absolutely NOTHING Bob could’ve done to stop that. Nothing he could say that would force people to stop saying shit. People are going to do what they are going to do regardless. True fans, should’ve been happy for him and supported his relationship. No celebrity can control their fans and the few times some of them have spoken out about their fans doing shit like this - nothing happened or it made the fans worse. Bottom line is fans have a problem of feeling entitled and that celebrities/their fav should listen to them. People didn’t like Arryn and nothing Bob said was going to change that. It’s incredibly naive to hold anyone accountable for someone else’s behavior. Much the same as Arryn isn’t able to control her fans doing the SAME thing to Beliza now. Bob and Eliza have both always been very open about how they don’t approve of bullying, harassment, and that you should “be kind”. That alone should be enough for fans to know not to harass/bully someone. They’ve both received hate mail, death threats, been told it’s good Eliza had a miscarriage and they hope she’s sterile, had mail sent to their house, etc. and they haven’t openly talked about that. They haven’t “told fans to knock it off”. Hell their marriage was literally found out by fans before they wanted to announce it because they found Eliza’s number and called her. That’s crossing a line too and harassing them but, they STILL didn’t say anything publicly. They instead announced their marriage and just said “we ask for privacy during this time”. So it makes no sense that you’d expect them or ANY celebrity for that matter - to have control over their fans, “force” their fans to stop doing shit, and blame them for what their fans do/have done. 

I do not believe that Bob is completely innocent. I believe their relationship was incredibly toxic and bad for them both and they probably brought out the worst in each other. I don’t doubt they had yelling matches and probably said mean things to one another. However, I 100% believe it was a MUTUAL thing. Arryn is NOT innocent or the victim/survivor and Bob is NOT the animal she’s making him out to be. It sounds more like she, not only felt betrayed by Bob and Eliza getting together, but that she was tired of their fans harassing her for years and continuing even after they broke up/got together that the only thing she could think to do was release a statement and throw Bob completely under the bus to save herself. If she’s painted as the victim and Bob the villain then surely the harassment will stop. Especially with how people blindly believe any statement released in regards to abuse or rape. After experiencing years of harassment she only decides to deactivate her twitter after people poked holes in her story and she realized not everyone believed her and she was STILL getting harassment. Again, she doesn’t deserve the constant harassment. I believe that is what pushed her to this point. No, it’s not okay that she’s lied and done this by any means but, I think she felt backed into a corner and lashed out. I can understand where she’s coming from, even though it doesn’t excuse it or make it right. 

One last note, something I remembered: she specifically stated Bob was the reason she deactivated Youtube and stopped posting/being on social media as much. However, she slowly stopped doing that while with Miles and in her statement about breaking up with him said she’d be taking a hiatus from Youtube but, would be back. However, I think she just decided against that because she wanted to unplug and live life. 

Now one of the major things everyone says is proof of her statement is that Bob has been silent. I’d like to remind you that usually guilty parties deny deny and are vocal. Bob’s silence is more proof to me that he’s innocent. He knows no matter what he says - won’t matter. If he denies it, people will say he’s lying. The victim/survivor wants to move on, they want to forget the abuser, don’t acknowledge them and just want to be happy. All of the things BOB is doing, not Arryn. I’ve seen people say “if he’s innocent he’d sue her for slander” however, how is that any different than the countless rape/physical abuse victims that don’t come forward or call the cops/take them to court? They don’t want to relive all that. They want to move on. The damage has already been done with her statement, same way as even though Amber Heard was proven a liar in court - the damage was/is done. Johnny still isn’t going to be able to work with Disney again, certain people STILL defend Amber despite the court findings/evidence. What would be the purpose of him denying it? The man is in therapy because he incredibly depressed/suicidal and looks so much happier/healthier in his marriage with Eliza. He just wants to leave it all behind. Denying it/suing her will just continue the lengthy process of moving on from everything and re-stir the pot. I’d also like to throw in there the fact that proving emotional/mental abuse is incredibly hard so it’s not like taking her to court over slander would really do anything. Johnny was able to fight his case because it was physical abuse and there was countless amounts of evidence/witnesses/documents/photos etc. Most people don’t have any solid evidence against mental/emotional abuse because it happens in person/in the moment. Unless you’re recording everything, you won’t have proof. It’s just he said/she said. That’s why the majority of Arryn’s statement was about cheating and not the abuse. 

[marzipanandminutiae]

For the character ask meme, obviously I have to ask Lucille (or Edith!)

Oh no I have suddenly developed an ocular affliction that causes me to read the word "or" as "and"

What a strange and unfortunate-

Edith Cushing

First impression: My first impressions of this movie are kind of hazy in my memory now, because it's been six years but also because all I really recall is how much I loved it. Like, you know those movies where you leave the theatre and you just feel Changed(TM)? CPeak was definitely one of those, even if my Fandom Spiral for it was delayed.

I do remember thinking, "oh thank god, a Victorian female lead who's strong and independent and compelling without giving the impression that the director secretly hates 19th-century women." That definitely hasn't changed.

Impression now: MY STONE-COLD BADASS BUTTERFLY GODDESS. I love Edith so much. I want to write her more, and I have some stories coming up which will give me that opportunity. She's imaginative but no-nonsense, a keen appreciator of beauty but eminently practical. Edith is the eternal "sir, this is a Wendy's," and the epitome of "do no harm, but take no shit." Also her wardrobe is excellent.

Favorite moment: Any time she's talking about her book. It's so relatable and she's so determined to make her dream come true. Characters do talk to you, and I wonder, if she ever found an earlier copy of the text she'd stashed away somewhere, what Cavendish would make of himself now.

Idea for a story: Edith is secretly gay and marries Thomas just to get to Lucille. That's it; that's my next multi-chapter fanfic. Coming eventually to an AO3 near you!

Unpopular opinion: I don't think she was pregnant at the end of the movie. Or if she was, I imagine long-term chronic cyanide poisoning would make her miscarry. I also don't think she ever saw Thomas' ghost again, but I do think she held onto the land around Allerdale Hall and reopened the mines- half to fulfill his dream as a last gift and half because it never hurts to have another source of income. I doubt she ever went back into the house, though.

Favorite relationship: Canon? With her father. I love the scenes where they interact, because it's clear how much they love each other and understand each other as people. We love a healthy fictional parent-child relationship in this house.

Fandom? I am currently the woman in that math meme, except trying to figure out how to morally break Edith in just the right way that she'd fall for Lucille. Without being totally unrecognizable as herself.

Favorite headcanon: It's not exactly headcanon, but Del Toro said Edith dislikes Christmas in her character bio, and I imagine that's because of just how many parties an upper-class American Christmas in the 1890s-early 1900s would involve. Maybe she can get out of going to some, but she's Carter's hostess, and since he enjoys "social frivolity" as much as she doesn't...I imagine she breathes a sigh of relief when January 7th comes around and she can finally just spend evenings by the fire with her manuscript and a cup of chocolate.

Lucille Sharpe

First impression: If Murder Bad Why Evil Lady Hot?

Impression now: I want to suit up in full body armor and give her a hug. She's such a mess, and she's a mess that you can't help feeling sympathy for. Obviously she does so much that's awful and horrifying, and none of it is justified (except killing her parents- they had it coming). But god...there's just SO MUCH below the surface to analyze and poke around in. That's what makes her so fascinating to write.

...also If Murder Bad Why Evil Lady Hot?

Favorite moment: It's not my favorite, but it's a moment I have many questions about. The part in the park where she tries to dissuade Thomas from going after Edith. Why did she do that? Was she objecting to Edith's youth because she actually has some scruples left? Was it just about her own insecurities in the face of a Sweet Young Thing(TM) who Thomas already seems way too interested in? Was it a slightly petulant complaint that Edith's company would be unbearably tiresome for even a few months?

I feel like the answer could say a lot about her as a person. If only we knew it.

Idea for a story: How long do you have? I'm writing a hurt/comfort fic right now about Thomas bringing her home from the asylum and the immediate aftermath thereof, so that's definitely an idea to explore.

Unpopular opinion: I think her relationship with Thomas is more or less consensual. Or at least, I don't think the fact that his eyes were closed when Edith caught them together means what the fandom seems to think it means (that he was uncomfortable). Like. He was kissing her shoulder and actively pulling her closer to him. His eyes may have been closed, but the body language doesn't exactly say "just getting through it" to me.

The power dynamic is undoubtedly screwed up, especially since they were 13 and 11 when everything started (according to Del Toro) and Lucille is not above laying on the guilt trips about everything she's done for him (according to the novelization). So it's still not a HEALTHY relationship, even besides the codependence and the fact that they're siblings. But I don't think Lucille is outright forcing Thomas to have sex with her, or ever has.

Favorite relationship: Canon- I mean. She has one non-murder-motivated relationship in canon, so...I find the Sharpe siblings somewhat endearing because I think, ultimately, they really do love each other. I bet she has a favorite among Thomas' automata, and I bet she could listen to him talk about his inventions for hours.

Fandom- I don't have to math meme this one. Lucille likes having Her People, to love and possess. Lucille likes women. Lucille thinks Edith is beautiful. Lucille has absolutely no scruples about pursuing what she wants, if she can allow herself to want it. This theme has been lovingly explored by fans many times over, and it never gets old to me.

Favorite headcanon: Lucille is an aesthete at heart. You can't tell me a woman who does housework in silk-velvet and owns that nightgown/robe set isn't hell-bent on beauty even at the expense of practicality. Gods help anyone who tried to offer decorating advice if they ever had gotten the house fixed up- she'd lovingly plan every single room herself, and accept no advice or criticism from anyone. (Except possibly Thomas, but I doubt even him.)

[neverendingstories00]

Past The Point Of No Return (Ch.6)

Pairing: Safin x F! Reader

Summary: You feel disgusted after your weekend trip. Safin has made you a shell of the woman you were before, planning to marry you and have his way. Just because he had broken you didn't mean that you couldn't fight back.

Word Count: 4.4k

Warnings: Descriptions of violence, blood, and gunshot wounds

A/N: I really need to go to bed. I keep posting these chappies at like 3am. Like this ain’t good for my mental state but oh well! Safin is going to be the death of me anyways. I also just wanna clarify that I am in NO MEANS trying to glorify or condone this relationship, Safin is 100% psychotic so ladies and gays beware of people like this IRL! Hope you guys enjoy and once again, thank you for the amazing support! 💕

Previous Chapter | Masterlist 

You refused to believe it. There was no way that it could have happened. It all seemed too good to be true. The small grip of sanity that you had left was gone. You felt like your whole body was damaged and scarred by Safin. He took pride in the fact that you were truly his now that you had slept with him. The next night, Safin and you had done it again. You remembered as Safin had his way, you looked at a wax candle on your nightstand. It slowly burned as the wax dripped from the sides. When Safin had finished and pulled you close to him, the fire had gone out.

Just like your fight had.

Returning to the submarine pen, everything was the same as it used to be. Serrano, Safin’s extra flirting, everything. Except for the fact that your wedding date was haunting you. Safin had mentioned it once a day, always asking for advice. He asked what flowers to use, what theme you wanted, everything that a couple would do together for a wedding. You would just nod your head, refusing to say anything. Every night he would come to say goodnight to you, resulting in a full out make out session. You refused to have sex with him again until the wedding night, which you had dreaded.

Safin understood and would chuckle, patting your head. “Your so adorable, y/n. I understand it hard to control yourself. I mean, any man would look at you and lose it. I’m glad I have you all yourself.”

There was no denying Safin had broken you. Knowing that he was responsible for so much pain in the world and that you were going to marry him was mind baffling. Whenever he fucked you, you felt no pleasure or pain. All you felt was nothing. You considered escaping off of the island, but it was heavily guarded. Coming back from your weekend trip, Safin had ordered for you to always be accompanied by a guard around the island, no matter what. You couldn’t even imagine what Safin would do to you if you had escaped for a second time. Not to you, but to your family and friends. Knowing that they would live the rest of there lives unknown to your fate haunted you.

It was selfish of you to do. If you had just stayed put and sucked it up, then it wouldn’[t be so bad. But you were scared that no matter what you do, Safin was going to still hurt thousands. Being a soldier, you put yourself before others and vowed to die for your country. Thinking back your roots, you weren’t acting like a soldier, but a scared little girl. Everything you didn’t want to become was what you were becoming out. No matter how broken you were, you knew what you had to do.

You had to take Safin down. No matter what.

Every day, one of the guards would escort you down to the shooting ranges. He wore a black smartwatch that he would take off as he watched you shoot. You immediately recognized it. Was it crazy to think of a plan? You had to start somewhere. It was risky, but all you could do was wait for the right time to snatch it.

It had been like any other ordinary day as you prepared to shoot down another target, imaging it as Safin’s sick face. You knew the sound of a walkie talkie go off. The solider responded and simply left the room. The seconds dragged onto minutes. You stared at the door with your rifle in hand, trying to detect any footsteps. Placing the rifle down and walking up to the table, you noticed that he had left his watch. Safin’s soldiers weren’t the brightest in the bunch. Picking up the watch, it was the first piece of technology you had held in forever. It was an apple watch, commonly used by the agents at M16. They were used as phones, tracking devices, practically everything a spy needed to do was condensed to a little smartwatch.

The door slammed open. You quickly shoved the watch into your chest and pretended like you had been reloading your rifle.

The guard spun around the corner, tilting his head to the head. “Safin wants to see you.”

“For what?” You asked, following beside him. “I already ate with him.”

“I don’t know. Stop asking so many questions.” The guard grumbled. In response, you rolled your eyes and walked beside him. The guard even noticed that you had stolen his watch. It was all going according to plan. All you could do was keep a low profile.

Safin stood in front of your door, hands behind his back. Upon noticing you, he walks up to plant a kiss on your forehead. “Hello love.”

“Hey...” You muttered, feeling the watch drip down your robe. The guard stood there, a little taken aback. Safin noticed, shooing him away. He grabbed your hand and led you into your bedroom. What the hell did he want?

“Does he make you uncomfortable, Y/n?” Safin questioned, referring to the guard.

You shook your head. “No, why?”

“Oh, I thought he made you uncomfortable. I could always switch a female guard if you please.”

“How about no guard at all?” You proposed. Safin simply chuckled, patting your head. It physically angered you to be around him. All you wanted to do was wipe that smirk off of his face.

“Once we are married, I will be your guard.” He walked around your bedroom, looking at of the books and plants. You simply walked over to the couch and sat to watch it burn. Your [y/e/c] eyes followed Safin as he stalked around the room, taking his sweet time.

“Would you like to use my room or your room for our bedroom?” He broke the silence. You looked straight into the blazing fire, your fists crunching with anger. The thought of your wedding night was going to drive you mad. But you had to persist.

“I thought my opinion didn’t matter.” You stated. A sigh escaped from Safin’s mouth as he walked over and sat right next to you. He placed his hand on your thigh. Attempting to lift it up, his strong grip kept you down.

“Y/n, what is the matter?” He counseled, placing his head on your shoulder. You simply looked into the fire, ignoring him. “You are going to be my wife, of course, your say matters. I’ve noticed you’ve been quieter, moodier, and less energetic than you usually are. Tell me what is wrong so I can make it right. Is it the guards? The stress of the wedding?”

Wedding, what a funny word. The thought made you laugh internally. One wrong move and the watch was going to slip out of your shirt. You stayed still, letting Safin get closer and closer to you. His hand rested on his thigh as his head leaned onto your shoulder.

“Your shaking, you’re nervous. I know the wedding is coming soon and you feel...excited but nervous. I feel the same way, my love. But once we marry, all your pain and fear will disappear. We can start our family and do whatever you want for our honeymoon.”

His lips breathe against your neck before he beginnings to suck on it. You bite your lip as you feel the slide into your pants; the cold metal staining your skin. Safin gently pushes you onto the couch and decorates your neck with kisses. You can feel his erection up against your thigh. No, you couldn’t go through it again.

“S-safin.” Your hands grabbed his shoulders.

He immediately stopped, taking his lips off your body to look at you. He seemed worried. “Yes, y/n?”

“We can’t do this.”

“I thought I was calming you, I’m sorry love.” He apologized, getting off of you.

You stayed laying down, huffing. There was no way you could get up without the watch falling out of your pants. You weren’t a double oh, but your acting skills were going to have to do. “I guess I’m just nervous...I’m sorry.”

“I should be the one apologizing, I’m so sorry.” Safin stroked a few pieces of your hair out your face to admire you. God, you were beautiful in his eyes. He hated to see you so upset. “Love, your eyes..”

The bags under your eyes had returned. Your eyes were puffy and dark from crying and lack of sleep, not from being nervous about Safin. But he seemed to fall right into your trap, just like how you had fallen into his. “I haven’t been sleeping well..I just..”

“Say no more. I will leave you be to rest. Goodnight, my bride.” Safin cooed as he placed a kiss onto your hair. He made his way to the door before turning to catch one more glance of you.

“Y/n, let me promise you this.” His silky voice stated, cool to the touch and pleasing to the ears. “Once we are married, you will be free of all of his. I will make you the happiest woman not through gifts, but through love. You are my reflection in the mirror, the one I have yearned for all these years. I am yours, and you are mine.”

Once the door was shut, you stood up from the couch and felt watch fall from your leg pant. You let out a sigh, grabbing the watch. It was still working, showing the time. Your first priority was to try and track your location. It was going to be tricky since the watch was tiny and not connected to a laptop. But your were determined to bring Safin down.

You opened up the tracking location and waited for it to load. It showed your location, which seemed to be a remote area. Zooming out, you saw that you were on a small island in the middle of nowhere. The island south of you was much bigger, which you immediately recognized as Crete. You had been to the islands before as a child, which gave you a boost in trying to identify your location. Being the southmost island, you assumed you were Gavdos, a tiny island that little tourists knew about. It was also an island used by the Communist Italian party in World War two which explained the abandoned submarine base.

Q had taught you a trick your first year at working at M16. It also had happened to be Nomi’s first year. Nomi was going out on a mission in war-ridden Belarus. Q had set her up with a watch and told her that if she was kidnapped, then all she had to do was enter a tracking code which would alert M16 of her direct location. It turned out to be useful since Nomi was kidnapped and had alerted M16 of her location, saving her within forty-eight hours. It was more of a tip for field agents, but you were thankful that you had that piece of advice.

You entered the tracking code (which you hoped was correct) into the “find my device app”, and waited. Your hands were shaking. There was a chance you entered the wrong code and could be alerting an old woman of a lost watch on an abandoned island.

The ringing had stopped. Bolded words flashed on the screen,

“WATCH HAS BEEN FOUND”

You zoomed into the location and saw that the owner in London had been notified of your location. Q, or whoever got the signal, knew of your location. A smile appeared on your face. There was a rush of adrenaline in your body. It wasn’t forced, but a genuine feeling of joy.

You were going to be saved from this nightmare.

-----

The next few days, you had casually acted yourself. Safin had noticed you were in higher spirits. The man had been so blinded by love, so he assumed nothing of it. As long as you were happy and obeying his every command, Safin was a content man. Within a few days, he could be marrying you, the love of his life. You in a few days would hopefully be off of his god forbidden island, back with your friends and family. Safin would be locked away, just like Blofield. The world would be free of there evil.

Your room had been placed in the farthest corner of the Submarine pen. It was usually peaceful and quiet, yet haunting. After waking up, you opened the doors and didn’t notice the usual guard standing outside of it. You considered it odd but shrugged it off. Maybe Safin needed them for a meeting, which gave you more free time. You decided to head to the shooting range where you found peace. Each hallway you walked down, the only company besides yourself was the dim walls. You decided to take a few rounds with your rifle as a way to pass time.

Two hours had gone by, and there was no sign of human life. You had found this to be rather odd. Safin had thousands of guards in the Submarine Pen. He would casually intrude on an activity you were doing and request to join you. What if something had happened? Maybe M16 had come to the island to save you. It was strangely quiet in the Submarine Pen. Too quiet.

You cleaned up yourself at the shooting range and walk down and up the Submarine Pen, trying to find your way to the main room. All of the hallways were empty, void of life, and sound. You felt like a scared little girl alone in the intimidating and dull Submarine pen. You noticed the familiar stairs that lead to Safin’s meeting room. Instead of being pristine clean, spare bullets had scattered the ground. You saw it as a red flag but were curious. What the hell had happened that you had missed. Walking down the stairs, you noticed it was pitch dark in Safin’s lair. It was never dark in Safin’s lair. No noise came from the room or light. You tried to listen for any signs of life, but there was only a cold silence.

As your foot stepped into the room, the hidden lights flickered on revealing a bloody slightly. The dull room was covered in blood and bodies. Your body froze, unable to process the image in front of you. Bodies of Safin’s soldiers laid on the ground, covered in gunshot wounds. Not only were there the bodies of Safin’s soldiers, but there were military soldiers dead on the ground. It all seemed like a horrible nightmare. Your body began to shake as you froze, your thoughts racing. It brought you back to that fateful day. The building, the humidity, the gunshots. Then the explosion and darkness. You thought you had died, but you were stuck under that rubble, unable to feel your lower body.

“Stalker?”

That name brought back a memory you had forgotten. Nobody had called you that name except for your mates in the military. Stalker was a codename given by your captain since you had a tendency to follow your target before shooting them. Looking up, you see a bloodied soldier with ruffled red hair and widened green eyes.

“Bruiser..?”

Brusier was the only other teammate who survived the bombings in Iraq. He looked more masculine than boyish, growing out a beard and a few wrinkles forming on his skin. Instead of being slim, he put on a few pounds but remained muscular. He looked rather confused. “What the hell are you doin’ here? You gotta run, girl.”

“There’s no time to explain.” You stated, walking over to him. “I-”

“Sergeant Thomas Fraser.” A silky accented interpreted. It was none other than Safin, who looked disheveled and bloodied.  Brusier looks at you, fear in his eyes. The man looked like he had seen hell all over again, which he had. You were better known as “Bruiser” due to your fights with fellow teammates. Many people mistook you for Irish due to accent but in reality your simply Scottish. You were awarded the VC for your bravery in Operation Parachute for saving two hundred refugees and being one of the only two members to survive. Yet, you and I’m sure y/n know that...you didn’t crawl out of rubble or kill the culprits..”

“What the hell do you want?” Bruiser cursed, shifting in his chains. His eyes darted over to you. “More importantly, what is she to you? She’s just some damn receptionist at M-”

Safin pulled out a pistol, shooting the floor an inch away from Bruiser’s body. He jumped back in response. Safin wasn’t his normal self, controlled. Instead, he seemed like he was unleashing the monster inside of him.

“Y/n? She’s not a pencil picker. You couldn’t ever process a woman being superior to you in your shallow head,” Safin spat as he pointed his rifle at you. Just seeing you had him lose his mind. You truly looked scared of him. “She deserved Victoria’s Cross more than you ever did. While you had been pulled out of the rubble and reported y/n dead, she had crawled out of the rubble, losing a leg. Awarded for “in the presence of the enemy" when you had run away? That doesn’t sound like a war hero to me.”

“Safin, please,” You begged, pointing at him. Bruiser was feeling all kinds of emotions. His team had been all killed for a second time as he was threatening to be killed by the world’s most feared Anarchist. “He’s not worth your time.”

“Y/n, stay out of this. This isn’t your business.” Bruiser barked. Safin death stared him, shooting another bullet os acre him off.

“Keep your mouth shut, boy.” He snarled, feeling like a wild animal. Y/n slowly began to away from him, knowing that she was walking a fine line. Safin saw her fear and lowered his gun, walking toward her. Instead of looking insane, his expressions had softened. “I’m sorry, Love. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Bruiser looked over at you, utter confusion in his face. You see him and try to explain, but Safin had beat you to it.

“I took y/n from M16 to save her. M16 never deserved such talent or did the armed forces. I didn’t kidnap her to keep her as a slave or a bargaining chip. Just like you had said, she’s a fighter. At first, she hated me, cursed me out, and refused to obey my commands. But over time..she learned to love me. We plan to have our wedding soon.”

Safin’s slow steps were getting close to you. You backed away, shaking your hands. “Bruiser, that’s no-”

“It is the truth. You even say it yourself, you needed me. You wanted me. So I did what any man did and gave you the pleasure you had desired. I’m certain it was more of a better experience than what Bruiser that ever given you.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” The Sergeant said. Not at Safin, but at you. You were at a loss for words. How did Safin know about you and Bruiser’s affair? It was only a few hookups, friends with benefits. But after your discharge, you hated Bruiser and he was well aware of it. There was no way you could normally explain this.

“Please, Thomas.” You feel like your begging at this voice. “I can tru-”

You hadn’t even noticed Safin was an inch away from you. As you tried to explain, he grabbed your wrist and brought his lips onto yours. He wasn’t as gentle as he usually was, but aggressive and hungry. His hand was firm on the small of your back, holding you close. Your hatred for Safin was beginning to show. Kicking him off, you slap him. “Get off of me!”

Safin holds his cheek, in shock that you would strike him. He chuckled, looking up at you. “Y/n, you promised to be mine. The world will now.”

“Your fucked up, y/n. Both of you.” Bruiser cried, moving away. Everything was happening to quickly. “Y/n, you really turned out to be this way? A double agent?”

At this point, tears are streaming down your eyes. You have no idea what to say. “N-No, I’m not. I was kidnapped, please liste-”

“There is no need for words, you two,” Safin added. He walked over to you and grabbed your hand, placing a gun on to it. He positioned your arm to point the gun at Bruiser. Bruiser saw this and squirmed, tears now coming from his eyes.

“He knows too much. The world will know you are a double agent. You know what to do.”

The cries and pleas of Bruiser start to mess with your head. You turn to Safin, shaking your head. “He has a family. A wife, a child. Pleas-”

“Fucking SHOOT HIM!” He yelled. You shivered down as tears streamed down your face. You couldn’t kill Brusier, no matter how much you hated him. After your discharge, you swore only to kill if needed.

“You WHORE!” Bruiser yelled as his voice croaked with pain and betrayal. “I saved you! I could’ve left you to fucking get crushed by that rubble. God, I should have so you wouldn’t end up with that thing. You’ve lost your fucking mind, y/n. Did you and your boyfriend plan all of this to happen? Most likely. I hope those asshats at M16 fuckin ki-”

A gunshot rang through the room. You had let go of the trigger. The bullet flew straight into Bruiser’s head. His words became slurred as blood gushed from his head. As his body fell backward, his legs twitched before going still. All of the discord had gotten to your head. Safin’s yelling, Bruiser’s curses, all you wanted to do was stop all the madness.

“No...FUCK!” You cursed, running over to Bruiser. Now he was dead because of you. It was taken out of hand. Blood oozed all over the flowers and onto your hands as you pushed him up. You kept shaking him, begging for him to wake up. But you knew it. Bruiser was long gong. Not because of Safin, but because of you.

Footsteps approach behind you. It was Safin. Dropping Bruiser’s lifeless body, your eyes burn into the gunshot in his head. It went clean through his forehead. His green eyes had rolled into the back of his head, blood coming from his nose and mouth.

“Get up, y/n.” Safin demanded. “It had to be done. He knew too much.”

There was one more bullet left in the pistol. Your finger fiddled with the trigger. You hear Safin

but refused to respond. He wasn’t your love, boyfriend, or husband. All Safin was to you was nothing but a heartless monster.

Grabbing your shoulder, Safin hisses, “Don’t make me rep-”

As you turned around, you shot Safin. You attempted to shoot him his chest, but ended up shooting his arm. As he hissed in pain, you scrambled to your feet and began to sprint. Your life depended on it. Running down countless hallways, you could hear the yells and rushed footsteps of soldiers. Due to Safin’s orders, they weren’t allowed to shoot at you. If you could just make it to the outdoor exit, then you would be free and never see Safin or the cursed island ever again.

There was a sharp sting in your thigh. Everything started to become numb as your vision blurred. The world spun as you slowed down, grabbing the nearest table but falling on your face. Your arms try to move you forward, but there is no power in your body. One of Safin’s goons had shot you with a tranquilizer. Your body fought to stay awake, to fight. But then you realized that there was no fight left in you as everything went black.

-----

“I cannot believe you!” Safin stated. The guards had Tranquilized you and placed you in a cell in handcuffs. “You deceived me! Was this all to break us apart?

You looked away from him, huffing, “Yes, it was. I want to far away from you as possible. Maybe if your men weren’t boys, than I wouldn’t have been able to hack the system. Face it, Safin, you’re done for.”

“Done for? You are not thinking, woman. M16 sends a military unit to kill me, and all of my men kill every single one of them. Even your little boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?” You snorted, walking up the cell bars to get up in his face. “It was a hook up for fuck’s sake. I’m sorry I’ve been with other men. Atleast he didn’t kidnap me and force me to be his bride.”

‘I DIDN’T KIDNAP YOU! I SAVED YOU FROM THEM!” The anarchist exploded. You stepped back, startled by his yelling. As much as your body wanted to respond, you knew it was best to keep quiet. The soldiers behind him were just as startled as you were.

Moving his hair back, Safin looked back at you, eyebrows furrowed anger in his bluish-green eyes. “You promised yourself...You will be mine...You will be my wife. If you believe M16 will save you, don’t live on false hope y/n. I’ll kill all of them. Every last one. Whether you like it or not, you are going to marry me and be by my side, forever. I am not losing you so easily.”

“You have NOTHING left to lose.” You retaliated as you felt fury fume at your cheeks. Safin had enough of your bullshit. He yelled at the guards to keep an eye on you and expect orders from him later. Some of the guards had followed him while two others stayed behind, watching your every mouth.

Backing up against a wall, you slid back down and looked at the dark ceiling. You were officially done. Where you becoming Safin? There was blood on your hands now. Bruiser was an awful person, but you never would harm him. But you did as you shot him clean through the head. M16 had sent a team to retrieve you, and Safin killed every single one of them. Even if M16 came, would they stand a chance against Safin? Would Bond and Nomi truly die? All because he didn’t get to keep you for himself.

Safin was right. You were far past the point of return.

[ethelphantom]

The Greatest Miracle

This fandom does not have enough BartAdrien content like, seriously. They're the cutest thing to ever exist. Two sunshine children. Please love them. Please love my greatest creation. Anyway, have some cuteness and fluff and (possible? I have no idea if it is funny) humour for a change! Maribat March day 22, rare pair

Ao3

This is Maribat -- Don’t like; Don’t read

____________________________

“Please don’t.”

“Oh, Adrien. I totally will.”

❋❋❋

“Hey, Bart, give my tablet back! I need it for my speech!”

“Nooopppe! I may not be able to open it but I know what kind of things there are! Kon, catch!”

“Thanks, Bart. Have fun. You forgot I’m also doing the speech. You literally asked me to.”

“Dang it.”

❋❋❋

Marinette snorted as Adrien took one look at her before burying his face in his hands as she stood up, Tim and Conner following suit. She grabbed the microphone from the stand nearby and blew a kiss at Adrien, winking.

“Good afternoon everyone! It’s a beautiful day, even more beautiful than Adrien’s hair, and we all know how beautiful his hair is, soooo… Anyway, before I actually get to any important part, I need to say that I asked Adrien if there was anything that I shouldn’t say in any case, and well. He didn’t say anything in particular, I swear. To everyone else, I’m sorry if this makes your idea of Adrien’s supposed put-togetherness just vanish in front of your eyes. I can promise you, it never existed in the first place.

“I can’t believe this day actually came, seeing Adrien get married to someone,” Marinette said, smiling when she heard the quiet “rude much?” coming from Adrien’s direction. “Oh yeah. In case some of you didn’t know, I’m Marinette, Adrien’s best friend, though I’m pretty sure the only ones who don’t know that are from Bart’s side as Adrien has somehow managed to introduce me to his entire family, all of his few friends — and Adrien, before you say anything, you met most of your friends through me, don’t try — and we went to the same school so there’s that as well. Honestly, I think he’s even dragged me to a few family reunions during the years.”

There was laughter in the crowd but it quieted down as soon as Marinette began talking again.

“Adrien and I have gone through thick and thin. There have been liars, bullies, gold-diggers, over-eager wannabe journalists… Well, we’ve probably seen anything you can imagine. We’re siblings in all but blood, rather literally. My parents even adopted him after Gabitch — I mean, Gabriel, all parents of little children, you did not hear that, and neither did you, Bart, Wally and Dick, but like seriously, if there's anyone that deserves to be called out for being a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad father in a wedding, it's that man —, was arrested. It was easier since that meant he wouldn’t need to transfer schools.”

Marinette tilted her head and bit the inside of her cheek. “Wait a second. Tim, dear, did you have the tablet connected to the projector already? I want the photos, like, five minutes ago.”

Tim laughed at her. “Cuppie, you started the speech less than three minutes ago. But yeah, it’s connected.”

“Shush, you. Thanks! I’ll say when I want the pictures. Anyway. I met Adrien when we were like, 13, and it really didn’t start great. I hated him at first. Like, honest to God hated him. You can imagine how the rest of the day went. Somehow, he cleared the idea I had of him within a few hours though, so we became friends. He’s the best friend I’ve ever had, always been there for me through everything.

“I don’t think I’ve got too much time to speak even though I’d absolutely love to do that for the rest of the day because Adrien’s gonna murder me if I try, so I’ll just tell you one of my favourite things with him. Who everyone knew him on some level when he was 17?”

Maybe a quarter of the room raised their hands.

“Great. How many of you noticed he had a crush then?”

Less than half of those people raised their hands, though rather hesitant.

“Fine, Adrien, you win, but that just means they didn’t spend enough time with you. Anyway. He had a crush on our dear Bart over here though he kept denying it for ages. Tim, the pictures, please? Because I’ve got a compilation of how he looked like when I felt like pointing the fact out to him and after I had actually informed him of his crush. I have no idea how he didn’t realise it right away.”

There were pictures of clearly lovesick Adrien, looking at something (a lot of the time it seemed to be his phone) the same way he had looked at Bart only some time earlier.

Someone in the crowd yelled “he was so whipped oh my god, did he really not realise?” when they got to the fifth photo.

Adrien had hidden his face in Bart’s hair.

He was lucky Bart’s hair was like it was.

Bart, though, he was laughing.

“Yeah, yeah he was, and me neither. He literally had a gay panic after he met Bart for the first time — trust me when I say that he was royally screwed already from day one. And yet. Yet. Considering Adrien had known me for only a day or two when he decided he was in love with me when we were like 13 and actually declared this in front of a whole bunch of people, it’s so funny how it took him actual months to admit he was actually in love with Bart. Fun fact, the three of us—” Marinette pointed at herself and then at Tim and Kon on her left, “still have a group chat full of plans to get those two together because they were so oblivious, especially Adrien, and also idiots. God, do I love them, but I swear they caused me more grey hair than the wild kid I babysat as a teenager ever did.”

Tim snatched the microphone from Marinette’s hands, pecking her cheek quickly. Marinette stuck her tongue out at him but didn’t complain about the interruption. It wasn’t like she had anything important left to say anyway. For now.

“Yes, listen to my beautiful and wonderful wife over here. They were so frustrating, always talking about the other like they had hung the moon and the stars on the night sky but neither realised they liked the other until it was pointed out to them. Well. According to Mari, it took until Kon and I got Bart to realise he liked Adrien, which eventually led to him confessing, that Adrien recognised his own feelings. It’s ridiculous, but oh so amusing to tell now.

“So, hello everyone, I’m Tim, one of Bart’s best friends — the other is over there being a loser. I met Bart through Dick and Wally maybe half a year after Bruce started watching over me because my parents were never there, so we must have been seven or eight. I had troubles with befriending other people back then—”

“You still do, Tim.”

“Mari, this is my speech, yours ended already.”

“Yeah, because you stole the mic.”

“Technicalities, technicalities. Anyhow, I had trouble with getting friends around that time, but it was somehow easy to befriend Bart. He was so open, friendly, positive, full of light and determined to befriend you that it was actually impossible to avoid it. After I befriended him, though, I noticed I started getting other friends as well because he made it easier. That’s actually also how I met Mari, the love of my life and my wife, which has me forever thankful to Bart, but that’s a story for another time. Right now, I’m here to tell you how great Bart is and also make fun of him, because isn’t that what best friends are for.

“So, like Mari already said, we had a group chat just because of those two. Favourite ship ever. Not gonna lie, we all shipped them together since the moment we realised how well they would fit together and the only reason today didn’t happen sooner is because this guy here—” Tim pointed at Adrien, “—refused to admit he liked Bart and scoffed every time we tried to suggest it. Yet, every time he made a terrible pun, and we all know he makes a lot of those, it was Bart he looked at first to see if it made him laugh. Always. Not his best friend, Mari. It was Bart.”

That was when Tim lost the microphone — Kon had walked up to them, now behind Tim, and just took it out of his hands. Tim tilted his head backwards and frowned at Kon.

“And Bart. Bart laughed every. Single. Time. Like, regardless of how horrible the pun was that time, and how it should have not made anyone laugh, Bart laughed because he knew it made Adrien smile, and happy Adrien equalled happy Bart equalled happy Adrien. This is why it was so strange they didn’t realise, and this is why them dancing around one another drove me up the wall. Tim and Mari too, I suppose. By the way. Here’s a list of pictures and videos where the aforementioned situation is shown multiple times so that you’ll understand what I mean.”

The (seemingly endless, if Adrien’s mortification was anything to go by) videos and pictures were projected onto a big screen and it seemed that no matter what Adrien thought, everyone else thought them adorable and heart-warming. Everyone. Especially Bart, who had not been aware of said pictures or videos’ existence and was now beaming and nearly jumping up and down in his seat. Marinette could almost swear he was vibrating.

Once they were done showing them, and the roomful of people had stopped cooing at Adrien like he was still that starry-eyed, adorable, baby-faced fool so very in love with Bart (he was), Kon brought the microphone to his lips again. “So yeah. We all had to suffer. And because of that, now you two had to suffer a little too,” he said, snorting.

Shaking his head fondly at the newlywed couple, he smiled. “You know, I have known Bart for nearly my entire life, and I never thought there would come a day I would meet anyone that was as much of a sunshine child as he was. Then we met Adrien.”

Tim nodded in the background, clearly agreeing. Marinette hummed. Kon handed her the microphone as she tapped her foot against the floor with her heel. “Yeah, same here, though the other way around — I thought there couldn’t be anyone I’d call sunshine incarnate other than Adrien, and then there I was, face to face with Bart who I swear glowed when I met him for the first time.”

Marinette sighed, smiled, and walked to Adrien and Bart. “So, Adrien, Bart, I am so immensely proud of you two. I can’t help but be happy whenever I think about you both overcoming so much and deciding to dedicate yourselves to one another and believe me when I say, I am so glad I got to witness you exchanging vows today. I wish all the best for you, as do those two dorks, and remember that we’re all going to be there for you both. You have two souls but a single thought, and two hearts that beat as one. This is the day that now belongs to one of the most beautiful things I have seen in my life and I could not be happier to have gotten to see it happen.” She raised her glass. “A toast to these two fools and to their union! May you always be satisfied!”

Marinette returned to her seat next to Tim and rested her head against his shoulder as he ran his fingers through her hair.

“I’m happy for them,” Marinette whispered, watching as Adrien danced with Bart, leading him, before Bart grabbed Adrien and picked him up before running around the room, presenting him like the greatest miracle ever granted for the humankind to everyone. Marinette squeezed Tim’s hand, smiling at their best friends.

“Same, Cuppie. Same here.”

_____________________________________

@kris-pines04​ @thethirdwheelfriend​ @maribat-is-lifeblood​ @abrx2002​ @persephonebutkore​ @rebecarojas07​ @corabeth11​ @kadmeread @silverwhiteraven​ @freshbark @maribat-march2020 @catsandfanfic @fertileleaf @eat0crow @cutechip

[bisluthq]

honestly fuck ttb&co for saying/implying that closeted people are liars and cowards. imagine how those poor closeted kids following her must feel. I feel so bad for them

No exactly. I mean in their throne of lies world Kar and Tay would be gross ass liars but... not for closeting. Just for the inane ass details they share about their lives to fans and media that according the the Hard Kays aren’t true (eg “mostly based in London” and far worse “I am Jewish”).

There’s nothing wrong with closeting or not revealing your sexuality or even actively hiding it by having a fake boyfriend or whatever.

But yes the latter is more than a bit weird if you’re two white multimillionaires who’ve been together for 7 years and are having a bébé like no it’s time to stop pretending to have boyfriends. (This isn’t true for them, Karlie is literally married and having a child with her husband and Taylor is with Joe - so if either woman is closeted fluid that makes sense and isn’t a lie!)

And there is something wrong with lying about converting to a thousands year old faith. And there is something wrong with lying about your musical collaborators when your career defining issue is artists rights and owning your own creative output. Like yeah that’s wrong.

Because being gay doesn’t absolve you of shittiness.

However, closeting isn’t shitty and isn’t a fucking lie.

[notthatiwilleverwriteit]

1)I was impressed from your answer to the other anon about zhan so I decided to ask a question about this topic. Zhan looks to me like a guy that will have a "normal" life like falling for a girl and starting a family with her. Do you think it was hard for him to leave this idea aside and fall for jian? At what moment he was like "i like him too it's mutual" I also wanted to ask about jian sexually because zhang was the only guy jian ever showed interest in and he rejected the idea of him being

Good evening, dear anon-san!

“I was impressed from your answer to the other anon about zhan”

You must be talking about this ask about the possibility of Zhan Zheng Xi being quoiromantic. It introduced a really interesting perspective and offered me a chance to learn something new and get some food for thought. Probably for you, too. I’m glad to hear you enjoyed the answer, thank you!

“Do you think it was hard for him to leave this idea aside and fall for jian?”

I share your idea and the mental image of seeing ZZX as the one out of the four to most likely have a girlfriend, get married, and start a family. To have a “normal” life and future, for the lack of a better word. I always had that feeling mostly because his family seems to be the most ordinary. No absent parents, no connections to the underworld, no great tragedies or traumas. I don’t mean to sound like you would have to have something bad happen to you to “turn” you gay etc. More like he just always struck me as a character who would end up with an ordinary job and a wife and kids.

However, I’m not sure if ZZX was really seeing his future quite that way even prior to Jian Yi’s confession. I know ZZX is very mature for his age, but would a 15-year-old boy plan his future in such a serious way? I think, as any middle school boy, he found girls, crushes, and romance quite bothersome (ch. 51 and 102):

He just probably wanted to spend his days going to school, playing video games and basketball, reading his favorite comics, and hanging out with his best friend. Girls and romance were complicated and put him on a spot.

But I suppose you meant that more in the sense of going against the norm in general. I don’t know if ZZX had been planning/expecting/dreaming to have a normal life with a wife and kids but I do believe he very much identified as a heterosexual. And I most definitely believe finding out about JY’s feelings for him and later about his own feelings for JY must have become as a shock and required him to figure himself out again. He might not have been planning to have a wife and kids in so many words but to reach his resolve regarding JY’s confession he must have had to give his future a serious thought. And to realize he might have to give up those “normal” things was probably difficult despite the fact that his love for JY was gaining a new kind of tone.

But instead of thinking there’s some “normal” direction in life that he has to follow, I think ZZX puts more emphasis on making sure his romantic relationship is loving and caring. That comes across by the way he turned down Xiao Hui and how he acts around his younger sister (ch. 159 and 262):

When it comes to both platonic and romantic love, ZZX is serious-minded, loyal, in it for the long haul, protective, and caring. That’s the kind of brother, friend, and partner he wants to be and grow into. Of course, being in a same-sex relationship wasn’t most probably ZZX’s first idea for his future but “normal” wasn’t as important as being with someone who couldn’t be replaced. If he wasn’t thinking so far ahead already, he might have accepted XH’s confession. I mean, what teenage boy wouldn’t want to have a girlfriend even if they didn’t have the first clue about love?

So, in short, I don’t think falling in love with JY was so much about leaving the path of normal in ZZX’s mind as it was about finding what he wanted in a surprising and somewhat shocking direction.

“At what moment he was like "i like him too it's mutual"”

Personally, I see two turning points in how Zhanyi progressed: “do you like men?” and “do you like me?”. In my head, they divide their story and ZZX’s character development into three segments.

The time before JY kissed ZZX JY’s love had been unrequited for a long time, but he hadn’t been fully hiding his affections. He jokingly clung to ZZX and often sneaked physical contact and made mischevious, half-serious passes at him. It was a strange mix of joking around but being serious at the same time. And a lot of the pull of the story in the early days was based on the thrill that we as readers knew about JY’s feelings.

As far as we know, ZZX didn’t know about JY being in love with him but...I don’t think he was completely oblivious, either. I’m not talking about him just getting ragingly embarrassed whenever JY clung to him but rather him being aware of JY’s feelings in a more serious and specific way at least on some level. Two instances especially come to mind.

When ZZX took JY to mountain climbing on his birthday because - and I quote - there was “a place he had always wanted to bring JY to”. As typical as it is for teenage boys to say such things to each other, I’m even more interested in the little moment they had about making wishes to the stars (ch. 113):

According to ZZX, one has to keep the wish in their heart for it to come true, but JY wanted to try to guess ZZX’s wish through his palm. First of all, the chapter ends after that panel with ZZX asking “Did you guess it?”. The question was highlighted by appearing on a blank white background on its own which suggests it wasn’t ZZX just simply asking. Was his wish perhaps something along the lines of always being together with JY?

Another thing that always catches my imagination about that panel is that it also looks like JY is trying to teleport his own wishes over to ZZX. He wants to voice his wish (confession, feelings) but it’s scary for various reasons. So, he sneaks yet another moment of physical connection (and quite tender at that) with ZZX and perhaps has a little moment for himself imagining and dreaming what it would be like.

The first sign that ZZX might be aware of JY’s feelings is immediately followed by another in the next chapter when they’re on their way back home. Before they part ways JY calls for ZZX and begins to say something to him (ch. 114):

To us, of course, it was clear he wanted to say something. Perhaps something along the lines of “what would you say/how would you feel if I told you I like you?”. Whatever he wanted to say he came close to saying it but changed his mind. But did ZZX also catch something? Because his reply was somewhat interesting:

I don’t think he meant it as merely “I’ll wait for you at the station tomorrow”. I’m sure he didn’t know what was bugging JY exactly but it was something and clearly meant a lot to him. And he wanted JY to able to confide in him because as far as ZZX was concerned, they were the kinds of friends who wouldn’t have to keep secrets from each other. But he didn’t want to pressure JY either. “Whatever it is, I’ll wait for you until you’re ready.”

Could all of that hint that he had a feeling, an inkling, something, about what might have been on JY’s mind?

“Do you like men?” and JY’s sexualityThese two themes intertwine, so I’m going to give you my two cents about JY’s possible orientation at the same time. Let’s start with JY. You didn’t make any direct suggestions but mentioned him only being attracted to ZZX but also rejecting the idea of liking men in general (ch. 142):

Personally, I interpret JY as a budding homosexual despite what he said to ZZX. I don’t see his words so much as a rejection of the idea as ZZX just asking him the wrong questions. The kiss wasn’t about JY liking guys (and coming out to ZZX) but him liking ZZX.

We haven’t seen JY being attracted to guys in general, but I think he’s very much still figuring out his sexuality despite his feelings for ZZX. Even if he had been in love with ZZX forever he was still scared and unsure. It seems that his feelings for ZZX and ZZX later returning them have both confused JY and taught him new things about himself (ch. 143 and 187):

Then again, there have been a couple of times when being attracted to guys in general has been brought up regarding JY’s character (ch. 108 and 122):

But I would read these moments as JY being a typical teenage boy. As a 15-year-old boy having a secret crush for your best friend, you wouldn’t probably be open about what or who you like. Especially, to another guy. I’m sure he’s more than aware of the risk that kind of confession would mean. Not only confessing his feelings for ZZX could go horribly wrong but people knowing about him could (and probably would) attract discrimination. Some time ago I answered another ask about homophobia in 19 Days if you want to read more about this topic, but overall I think JY denied He Tian’s playful suggestions because they’re teenagers and boys.

Overall, I think Zhanyi is very much a coming-of-age story and deals with identity-related themes. That entails a lot of vagueness, confusion, reflection, and hazy, ever-developing feelings. I don’t think it would be impossible for JY to identify as a homosexual after the turmoil of his teenage years.

But let’s get back to ZZX and what that moment in the rain meant for him. The kiss flipped their relationship upside-down in ZZX’s head. It wasn’t the usual case of JY just being an idiot and messing around; he couldn’t just get embarrassed-mad at JY or otherwise brush it off. He was shocked and confused but above all, he saw his lifelong best friend crying and being so scared ZZX would abandon him in disgust.

ZZX realized that despite all the years they had been best friends there had been this huge part in JY he hadn’t known about. In my mind, the first initial revelation marks the second segment in their story. Suddenly, ZZX was in a situation in which he had to figure out and build their relationship from the start in his head. He saw his childhood friend in a completely new and strange light (ch. 151):

There’s always been one thing I’m a bit confused about when it comes to the time after the kiss but before JY’s final confession. ZZX asked JY multiple times about what he was really thinking and feeling (ch. 147, 150, 152, and 153):

Did he just want JY to be honest with him? Open up and trust him? Or was distressed by the idea of not knowing about and understanding something this fundamental about his best friend? Did JY hiding things make ZZX uneasy because it proved their connection wasn’t 100% and he didn’t really know JY after all? I’ve always struggled to understand what the questions were all about. But I suppose it fits ZZX’s character that prefers to be straightforward and not have secrets that could lead to misunderstandings. From his point of view, I guess the situation was also a bit unfair. He saw clearly that JY was suffering because of him but he didn’t let ZZX help either by allowing them both to be on the same page.

ZZX was trying to be considerate and supportive but he wasn’t ready to jump fully on board with JY’s feelings. Especially, since he felt like he didn’t have all the answers yet. However, him being understanding but hesitant seemed to cause JY more pain, and it was a bit of an emotional limbo for both of them.

“Do you like me?” and ZZX’s resolveZZX came the closest to losing JY for good when he was kidnapped the second time. And this time around he had been even more helpless than when He Cheng had come for JY. I think all of that helped ZZX in reaching a resolve regarding his feelings for JY. Somewhere along the way, JY had become someone who couldn’t be replaced in more ways than just friends. And the thought of not having JY in his life both scared him but also made him realize the romantic feelings were mutual. Perhaps they had always been there - lying dormant or mixed in with his more platonic feelings.

I see this resolve being a noticeable change in ZZX’s character. He matured, adapted this new level of responsibility and seriousness of returning JY’s feelings and wanting to protect him. Overall, he was on a much firmer footing again - or, as JY put it, he leveled up. By making up his own mind and acting more confident he could now ask JY to give him his answers, too (ch. 206 and 207 and 209):

For ZZX, the feelings were already mutual when JY officially confessed. His answer wasn’t “me, too” but “I know”. When ZZX kissed JY’s forehead I saw them becoming canon. ZZX still needs time to get used to it all but he did accept and return JY’s feelings and made a promise of sorts that JY did have a future with him. And this marks the third segment of their story. Now they can start figuring out this new aspect of their relationship.

Phew.

This was the first more comprehensive question and answer I’ve done about Zhanyi. It was nice and refreshing to talk about them for a change! So, thank you very much for giving me this chance. I never thought I’d have to this much to say about them. I hope I managed to answer your question to your satisfaction!

PS: Also, thank you for your concern and consideration. It warmed my heart, and I appreciate it!

[makeitquietly]

A quick recap of what criticism I remember reading about this Blu-ray set: nobody agrees about the picture quality, or on which films it’s best/worst, but it’s on the waxy/soft side mostly because of too much digital cleaning or whatever, the sound is said to be good, some hissing, out of sync in the 1936 version of Berth Marks, extras are good too, no Blu-ray logo on the case, no booklet, awkward menu always reverts back to beginning, no play-all possibility, the films are not in the order of making/release.

But a lot of people worked very hard for a long time to make this set available. Which is why nothing negative should be said about it? Eh. Next time go for quality instead. Or don’t sell your product. Make it a fanwork.

Anyhow, if I was all powerful and had commissioned someone to restore these films, I’d make them go back and do it again if this set was presented to my ruling eyes.

OTOH, I paid 99 euros for this package and have had lots of fun with it and if there’d been Stan’s scrapbook (pages) amongst the galleries, I’d happily paid double. It’s not about the money spent except when people imply that negative reviews aren’t allowed. I’d paid 99 euros for the galleries alone.

It’s about the fact that the films aren’t as well restored as they should/could be. Beyond me, why it’s so difficult to admit. And it’s clearly not only an issue of getting waxified during some final cleanup or somehow being ruined when transferred to Blu-ray disks.

Any idiot (me) knowing nothing about the processes involved can easily confirm this by watching how different films on the same disk have different quality, likewise first reel can be almost okay, the second much worse, scenes and cuts have often annoyingly varying quality, even single frames look like they came from different prints and nothing was done to make them fit more seamlessly in their surroundings. And I’m not talking about that one wandering frame in Scram!, which must be some person’s idea of a joke, how else could it be so out of place?

Or didn’t anyone watch these that one last important time since it wasn’t removed, nor were the countless spots still there in most of the films? I know, when things get cleaned up that one remaining crumb is much easier to spot... er... see my point?

There are also jumpy frames, which I imagine would’ve been easy to adjust, and to prevent those ubiquitous flashy cuts, you’d only needed to adjust the brightness of that single frame causing the flashing. Even I have done that on GIMP when making gifs. I’m guessing too much contrast on, say, Me and My Pal isn’t a problem created by the wax people either.

The ridiculously softly glowing Brats might be, there’s an awful lot of glowing in One Good Turn too, and in parts of Sons of the Desert, for example, where faces are dangerously close to have that overly scrubbed look, which is a big problem in The Chimp and Come Clean.

When it comes to wax, Helpmates and County Hospital are the most hideous, the latter must be the worst looking of all the films in this set, being also awfully spotty as well as too dark. It’s got other faults too, like wonky frames. The Music Box has a pretty decent first reel (except for the opening scene), and despite not being able to see the stripes on Stan’s and Ollie’s pants because of too much contrast, Me and My Pal is also clearly better wax-wise in the first reel.

It’s interesting to watch some of these films for the first time, thinking that this is crap quality picture, but then the second reel is even worse and suddenly there’s a whole new level of crappiness.

I think the sound is ever so slightly out of sync for a bit in Way Out West and One Good Turn. At least it is compared to those same films on my 21 DVD set. In addition to being very clearly out of sync in that Berth Marks reissue like others have noticed. Berth Marks also has a weird stripey “cover” over the actual film. I suppose it was impossible to remove.

Even with some sync problems, if I had to choose the best restorations from this new collection, Way Out West would be on my list, together with Busy Bodies, Hog Wild and Towed in a Hole. Some parts of Sons of the Desert look gorgeous. With grain and all. Pretty much like Atoll K but unfortunately not as consistently. (Atoll K was restored by different people, I gather.)

The much anticipated but already online for free since 2019 The Battle of the Century then? Well, the first reel is quite good, or would be if it wasn’t a weird blend of an ugly greenish yellow or yellowish green. Sepia isn’t what it used to be. And I would’ve thought they’d made sure to get all those black spots removed at least from this one what with it being one of the “new” things on this set. The second reel is worse except colour-wise. But at least it’s there complete with Charlie Hall and the “what pie fight” ending.

Haven’t mentioned The Midnight Patrol, Their First Mistake or Twice Two yet. The last two are pretty evenly waxy, and comparing The Midnight Patrol to Come Clean and The Chimp makes it not that bad. There’s no actual need to bleach faces or an excuse for Billy Gilbert’s patternless shirt, is there?

For me the treasures from this set can be found on each disk under galleries. Even for those not interested in scripts, press material, posters and assorted documents, there are circa 1,400 photos, many of which really are rare, or at least I’d never seen them before. One of the gems are the about 140 photos from Babe’s Vim days. Awesome! Nothing as gemmy from Stan’s past before Laurel and Hardy, and someone put wrong names on the photos where he appears with the Hurleys, not the Cookes. Yes, there’s a short, handy description for most of the photos. 

So many of them and I must peruse more, of course, but I’m going give a special mention to Stan with both Loises on the set of Brats for adorableness and likewise to Thelma Todd for previously unseen (by me) variations from her photoshoot on that bathroom set. Love the six new-to-me photos of Stan and Babe together on the 1932 British tour especially. Great stuff. Oh, and Mae Busch, Dorothy Christy and Charley Chase in their Sons of the Desert portraits look fabulous.

Another treasure are the interviews with only a couple of slightly dubious moments. Joe Rock made me grin. George Marshall made me cry. Walter Woolf King made me laugh. Most wonderful. Short introduction by Randy Skretvedt for each interview. He’s the one who did the interviewing too. There’s 15 of them altogether. Plus a chance to hear composer Marvin Hatley perform Honolulu Baby and Will You Be My Lovey-Dovey. The audio only interviews come with some more great photos.

I kind of adore how Richard W. Bann casually debunks Anita Garvin’s The Battle of the Century story with one dry line during his commentary of the film. Hurts so good. Let’s have more debunking!

Speaking of the commentaries, and maybe more about them on some other occasion, Bann only comments The Battle and The Music Box, all the rest, including That’s That and The Tree in a Test Tube have commentaries by Randy Skretvedt.

I was expecting Bann to tell the whole story of why it took so long to get The Battle on video but he didn’t; fair enough, I thought, but then in his other commentary he goes on about his grudge with a dead guy, so I guess it was not his, um, politeness that stopped him from dishing on the much more recent and therefore interesting stuff. What then?

Perhaps a third person sharing the commentary duties would’ve been a good idea. That was my thought when Skretvedt obsessed over Stan’s smoking for the third time. By obsessed I mean he listed all the films where, according to him, Stan smokes. What for, you may wonder. I did. No answer. I remember reading somewhere that Stan not smoking in the movies means he’s a child. (Yes, some Laurel and Hardy fans are somewhat weird sometimes. Aren’t we all?) Maybe Skretvedt was trying to debunk that theory? Hehe, okay, I know he wasn’t, because he did the “they’re children, Hal Roach said so” routine in his Their First Mistake commentary, complete with Charles Barr quotes to prove there’s nothing gay about Ollie liking Stan more than his own wife. Made me fume. I don’t know why. Nothing new.

I don’t know why it doesn’t occur to him that if Ollie didn’t spend so much time with Stan, Mae wouldn’t be the lonely, disappointed wife who ends up wanting a divorce after one too many lies from Ollie and accuses Stan of alienation of Ollie’s affections. But no, apparently it’s no wonder that Ollie likes Stan more than his wife because she hits him with the broom. So the hitting came first and then too much time spent with Stan? I don’t think so.

Anyhow, third person, more variety, something newer, or at least an explanation for Stan’s smoking being of particular importance. Ollie’s smoking isn’t mentioned. Also, to digress even more, I always found the claim that Stan doesn’t smoke because he is a child odd, not only because he does, but also because he drinks alcohol too and manages to be married in several films. But the Laurel & Hardy child squad of course thinks the wives are actually their mothers. (Yes & again, weird.)

I did and do also wonder if there would’ve been anyone available and even if there had been, if these old school fans had accepted someone with different views. Probably not.

Still waiting for Skretvedt to notice Stan’s camera looks. Maybe he just hasn’t been a fan for long enough yet... 😛

I’m out of steam now. Need to rehydrate.

One more thing: No booklet, so maybe nobody involved wanted to spread about their name more than absolutely necessary knowing the restoration work was, shall we say, uneven?

Tl;dr: Uneven restoration work. Great extras. Mostly interesting commentaries.

[odannygirl7]

Carnival of Aros - July 2020

I've been meaning to type about this for a while, but then this month's carnival of aros is about music, so I figured... well, two birds one stone I suppose lol.

Musicals are sort of like music right? I mean, I don’t think this is too far from the idea, even if it was meant to be about, like, individual songs.

This is about a whole musical where I just immediately felt that it was a missed aromantic opportunity.

Company.

Company is a musical by Sondheim from the 70s that seems to be brought back every decade or so. It’s about a guy, Bobby, on the night of his 35th birthday. He’s a bachelor, the only one among a bevy of married friends - all of whom wonder why he can’t keep a girl and hasn’t gotten married yet. The show moves through snippets of Bobby’s experiences with his friends… they’re all basically trapped between the horribleness of being married and the horribleness of, well, not. They love Bobby for his freedom, for the advice he gives, for the fun he brings into their life, for watching their kids, for always being there without being a detriment to their coupleness.

But the entire play is them badgering him about why he isn’t getting married.

There’s also three of Bobby’s girlfriends who wonder the same thing, what’s wrong with him, why can’t he commit.

One could also view it as Bobby internalizing everything his friends and lovers have said in the past and having a freak out about it. The whole show is kinda… disjointed in that, while it takes place all on one night, the majority of scenes are from the past or possibly not real.

The show is set up, for most people, to be a commentary about, idk, like growing up or realizing that you can’t be alone or you gotta be open and vulnerable, but like you need to share your life with someone and that someone… uhh, can’t be your friends cause they all have their significant others and that’s the way things are (*hard side eye* lmao). And that’s a real shame, because the show is this wonderfully accidental portrait of a closeted aromantic struggling not only with the pressure of the conventional relationship narrative, but with friends who buy into that. Bobby doesn’t know what he is, or can’t accept it, or can’t admit it, and he’s struggling to force himself to feel the things that come so naturally to everyone he knows.  He wants love, to be loved, but what’s in him, what he’s capable of, isn’t what everyone else has. I mean, look, he’s 35 and has never been in love, doesn’t understand love… *looks into the camera like I’m on The Office* come on.

I’m not going to go through the whole show, just hit on some highlights that scream aromantic to me, cause not all the songs are about Bobby’s relationships. Some are about the other character’s relationships. There’s 18 songs in this musical, lots of material.

Here’s a link to the whole thing … this is the 2006 version with Raul Esparza, who is fantastic.

We’ll start in Act 1 and go from there. About halfway through we get Bobby’s three girlfriends singing “You Could Drive a Person Crazy". This is an upbeat, vicious song about how they feel betrayed that he never takes things to the next level. They can understand if he was gay, or bad in bed, or actually dead… but Bobby is none of those things, instead he’s a crazy, troubled, person who has something wrong with him. He’s a zombie with a loose connection.

I don’t think I’m the only aro who’s been called similar.

Later Bobby sings about someone (“Someone is Waiting”)… an amalgamation of all his lady friends… pleading for this person to wait, because he’s ready. He wants to find them, if he’s not out of luck and too late. He already has what he’s looking for, theoretically… if only an alternative relationship structure existed. As is, he has to try and find someone new. Conform to the idea of the superiority and inevitability of the exclusive pair bonded romantic-sexual relationship.

When one of his friends is freaking out about getting married, close to calling off the wedding, he proposes to her. Because it makes sense. She doesn’t want to be married, he doesn’t want to be married, they can both be married and have their freedom, everyone will leave them alone.

“You have to want to marry somebody, not just some body,” says Bobby’s friend, deciding that she really does want to marry her fiance.

This leads to Bobby singing “Marry Me A Little”, imagining a marriage as being soft and respectful, no big fights, no big promises… and that he’s ready for that. Things like mutual respect and care. “We won’t have to give up a thing, we’ll stay who we are,” he sings. “I’m ready now.”

There comes a point as an aro (tho this applies to aces and people of any orientation who don’t really want a relationship as well), or for, I think, a lot, or a good number, of aros when you start looking at a future that doesn’t have the spouse and the kids and pets and picket fence. When you start to come to grips that you might be looking at an empty road instead. And it’s not necessarily that you don’t want that, or that you really want something else, but there’s a kinda scary point where you realize that it might just be you, alone. That no matter what friends you have or partners or whatever… that they’re eventually going to want to “get serious” and “have their own lives”, lives that don't include you as a main component. And “somebody”, anybody, that will make it so you’re not alone starts sounding pretty good. You’re almost desperate for it. If you could just find that right person, the one that would make it make sense to have the spouse and kids and pets and picket fence… you could do that. You could. It’d be so easy. And then you’d have someone and isn’t that what everyone wants?

Anyway… Act 2.

All the married couples sing about how much they love having Bobby around in "Side by Side by Side". But then also rag on him about how worried they are for him being alone and try to set him up ("Poor Baby" and "Have I Got A Girl for You"), which is par for the course I think for an aro.

There’s also “Barcelona”, where Bobby makes a vague, surface, “going through the motions” plea to one of his girlfriends that she should stay after they’ve slept together. He doesn’t try very hard and when she decides to stay, well he sings “oh god”. ‘Nuff said.

All of that is, you know, it builds, but the real highlight in Act 2 is “Being Alive”, which is where Bobby finally learns that he really does need someone.

Or, you know, when he’s been beaten down by life and his friends and partners so badly and so thoroughly that he decides that he’s not even alive if he’s alone. That he needs another person to make him alive. “Alone is alone, not alive.” Tragic.

He starts off with things like being held too close and hurt too deep, to which his friends comment about how he can’t possibly think that that’s all there is, telling him he has no reason to be alone, encouraging him to keep going cause he’s “on to something”.

Bobby’s seen the terrible bits of their marriages and, to his friends, also the good bits. But if you read Bobby as aromantic then he has no context for the “good bits”. He’s watched them dig at one another with secret info, argue, pester, have the other person say they hate it… and then it’s just fine, because of ~feelings~??? Incomprehensible magic. There’s a trick in there somewhere and Bobby can’t see it.

But Bobby’s trying. Forcing himself. If he just really thinks about everything they’ve told him...

“Hey, buddy, don't be afraid it won't be perfect. The only thing to be afraid of really is that it won't be,” says one friend. Yikes. “It's much better living it than looking at it, Robert,” says another. And I suppose if you do have feelings for someone, it’s not that bad.

Bobby finally… it’s sad, really… like I know it’s supposed to be a song of him figuring everything out, but it feels like a descent. He’s given in. He believes there’s literally nothing for him, he’s not living, unless he has another person. “make me aware of being alive” “make me alive”

Horrific.

I’m not entirely sure how, like if this show were to be reworked with Bobby as aromantic (and god knows it gets revived enough, it could happen if anyone knew what aromanticity was) how that would be communicated. Unless, like, you had Bobby admitting that he is aro from the start, but you’d have to assume that the audience would know what that was and actually, you know, not agree with all the other characters.

The latest revival in 2018 did a gender swap with Bobby, which is something. Now, I had thought it was just Bobby as the swap, but they swapped all her girlfriends into boyfriends and then made one of the married couples gay. Apparently, according to reviews, the whole thing was a revelation and really freshened up because, you know, it’s super hip and modern to do a “ticking bio clock” story line with a woman nowadays. (there's also the soundtrack to the gender swap on youtube, it's got Pattie LuPone in it!)

Personally, I would have just swapped Bobby… I’m not sure how well an aro reading there would play, not because there aren’t aro lesbians, but I feel like there are a lot of layers to a lesbian not wanting to u-haul and then getting harangued for it by her presumably hetero friends steeped in hetero society, just aside from any aromanticity.

But the whole thing takes on a very tragic tone when reading Bobby as aro, I think. I suppose what’s even more tragic is that Sondheim probably has no idea that he possibly wrote an aromantic character. He thinks he wrote a show about fixing someone who was broken. Just like the show Bones fixed Bones from being broken and how HIMYM fixed Robin and (tried to fix) Barney. I need to find a better way to end this, probably, we’ll see…

I wrote this three weeks ago on pillowfort and did not find a better ending lmao.

[raphaellim2468]

21st Century Philippine Literature

Philippine Literature is a reflection of the Filipino lives in this country, it shows how people the struggled, the experiences they felt when the colonizers colonized us and, even modern people share their lives to others because it is their story, and there is no shame in it.

Anim na Sabado ng Beyblade

Ferdinand Pisigan Jarin is a three-time Palanca winning writer and he wrote a well-written story called “Anim na Sabado ng Beyblade.”

The story highlights his personal tragedies, he uses words that convinces

the readers that life is full of different stories and to let the readers feel the

emotions being felt in the story.

In the story, the boy was a happy and had lots of energy but he was small for his age, he enjoys playing Beyblade with his friends and being with his family. One day, he started not being himself and when they went to the hospital, they learned that he had Leukemia. He fought long to stay alive but at the last Saturday of February, he died.

Ferdinand was a young father whose 2nd child, Rebo, dies, this is the most hardest story he ever wrote because this story is about his own child’s death. His grief as a father was placed in the words he used to tell the stories so it made other readers feel the same way he did.

For me, this story is a symbol of love for Rebo, to be able to share his story and his determination to live until the end shows how this child wanted to live on so his family does not have to worry anymore.

The Poor and the Rich

Aviary, a story written by Lysley Tenorio, is about how poor kids were able to infiltrate Greenbelt and see what’s so great about the place. They notice that there was nothing really special about it so they had ideas to ruin the reputation of Greenbelt.

In the story, before the Greenbelt was built, it used to be an aviary for birds but after that, they built a mall which was Greenbelt and that’s how Greenbelt became the Aviary of the story since it was a new aviary not for birds, but for humans/people. To support this answer, in the story the poor kids saw many people spending their money on expensive objects which traps them in a place where they cannot experience the hardship of people like those who do not have money, but those people are unlike these rich folks since they are able to survive without the things bought by the rich people.

Society showed inequality by separating the poor and rich., Iit was shown that the Greenbelt didn’t allow poor people to enter but when the poor kids were able to enter, the workers treated them differently from the rich people.

The poor people were both the perpetrators and the victims. Since they came into Greenbelt even if they weren’t supposed to, they did make an intention of ruining Greenbelt’s reputation. However, they are also the victims. They were victims of discrimination, as the people gave them bad looks when looking at them and because of the sign of Greenbelt saying:, ”THIS IS A PRIVATE, CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT. POOR PEOPLE & OTHER DISTURBING REALITIES PROHIBITED.” It led the poor kids to take an act of revenge by vandalizing objects, messing items on the rack, etc. The most vengeful thing they did was leaving a fake explosive that will cause a panic, on the news, ruining the reputation of Greenbelt.

In conclusion, Greenbelt and the other people shouldn’t have discriminated, criticized, and other for,s of belittling the poor, or they will face their wrath once again

We should not judge other people because when we stop looking at their wealth, appearance, etc. we will see that we are all just people and we all deserve the same treatment.

Two poems describing love

"Pag sinabi kong mahal kita”, a poem written by Juan Miguel Severo, and “Maihahambing kita", a poem written by Marra PL. Lanot. “Kapag sinabi kong mahal kita” is a spoken word type of poetry while “Maihahambing kita” is a written poem type of poetry. For me, Love is something not to be taken granted for, Men should work hard to get it and protect it as hard as they can while for women, love is when you are caring and can accept one another. In the poems, they both show how love can be compared and what it is like to love.

Love according to the dictionary is a feeling of liking and caring for someone is similar to the 1st poem, but the 1st poem explains it deeper. In the 1st poem, this line “Dahil pag sinabi kong “mahal kita” Ang ibig kong sabihin Pagpapaguran ko ito” means that you will do anything for that person to get it, like adjusting for her, doing things to make her happy kind of things. Another line from the 1st poem, “Kaya’t hayaan mong dumating ang mga bagyo” which for me means that, let problems come since whatever it is you will face it for love.

In the 2nd poem, love is illustrated as something that is compared to many things but is more complicated when you experience it. In one of the lines in the 2nd poem,

“Maihahambing kita sa plantsang pumapasada sa damit na gusot-gusot” which for me means, love can change or do things to us in good ways we didn’t know possible. Another line is, “Maihahambing kita sa walis ng aking buhay na unti-unting napupudpod sa agiw, ipis, alikabok,” which for me means, love can help us in different ways but it also gets tired when you do many things for someone but they do not appreciate the things you do for them.

The 1st poem uses the tone and mood of the author to express the emotions to show what love means, for example, the whole poem, you need to use the right tone and mood to kind of feel the poem, The 2nd poem uses the imagery since it compares love to things, and it helps people imagine what the poem says

In conclusion, love is something not to be taken granted for and do not be afraid to take risks to get love, because you will regret it if you don't go after it and when someone does things for you, you have to be appreciative about it.

Truth of Life experiences

Ang Huling El Bimbo” is a musical play inspired by the songs of Eraserheads, it was by Dingdong Nobenario. This musical play is about 4 friends who are trying to reach their dreams together, they accepted each other even with their flaws and enjoyed the time being with one another but everything changed when a tragic night struck them. The 3 friends started avoiding each other and Joy because of the traumatic moment they experienced, but when another tragedy happened, they were forced to reunite and they started arguing. In the end, they became friends again because of Ligaya and the memory of Joy.

The musical play is interesting because it shows us that life has many things in store for us, some of these things may be good like the good times we have with friends and family but some are bad moments where you want to just forget that it happened like what happened in the musical where they got attacked by people and they tried forgetting about it but they could not. Another thing that made the play interesting for me is their journeys in college and how Joy died.

The musical play imitated life by showing us that every decision we make will affect us in many different ways and we can never determine what it may be so we have to choose good decisions to get a good outcome out of it. The musical play imitated the typical dorm life we see, people partying, drinking, enjoying life until something tragic happens like someone gets pregnant, someone is killed, etc. but in the play, someone got raped.

The first truth about life that I will be putting from the play is, many people do not accept different people just because they act and look different from us, as portrayed by the character Anthony, he was forced to keep a secret about him which could embarrass his family so to hide it, he was married to a woman and was never to speak about him being gay. Another truth about life is that whenever problems hit us, we always try to run away from it even though it somehow always catches up to you, just like what happened to them while they were in the car enjoying then they get attacked, Joy gets raped, and they never told the police, instead, they tried to lose their connection to Joy and each other but their problem caught up to them when Joy died.

in conclusion, we shouldn't ignore people during their worst, instead, we should be there for them because they may need someone's help to overcome their worst times.

[meduise]

Whats some of ur fav dino, dino/hibari hcs?

finally i could reply to this ask!! which, anon, i still thank you for bc its the best thing i could ever be asked to talk about ww

reading will likely take some time, but i hope you and whoever else reads this post will share some hcs or at least find them nice ad interesting enough! and of course, i’ll be happy to answer more asks about it!! like the hibari-only post, i may come back to this one and update it over time

general warning for death mentions and spoilers from the novel “haneuma stampede”!!

hopefully this post wont be hidden from the tag search

dino headcanons

until i read about haneuma stampede, i pretty much always headcanoned dino’s hometown being naples, and this because i have neapolitan origins myself www in the light novel we get to know that dino’s hometown is a port city facing the adriatic sea (east) hence the opposite coast to naples, since this town faces the tyrrhenian sea (west). because of this piece of information, tho, i started thinking dino could be from bari, apulia’s capital city

being that a self projection, im still attached to that hc, so to keep at least a part of it i gave dino neapolitan grandparents LOL i mean, it’s not unlikely anyway

this is a recent hc but dino has a huge crush on is a big fan of immanuel casto, a gay italian singer whose most songs are explicit or suggestive and provocative

i think we all can agree that romario is like a second father to dino, right? their bond gets even stronger after cavallone nono’s death ;; romario will occasionally drop his habit to call dino “boss” and call him with his first name instead. dino will remind romario quite often how important he is to him beyond his role as his right-hand man

What Do You Mean Dino’s Tattoos Magically Appeared On His Body When He Was Deemed The Worthy Successor,,, i (falls on my knees) hc’ed that getting them done took A LOT and hurt A LOT and he yelled A LOT to the tattoo artist to stop inking and to his family that he didnt want to belong to that world,,,, im sorry dino

his tattoo and his duty as a boss in general dont give him much freedom (or should i say they dont give him freedom at all) so among the other hcs of situations where he has to cover his left arm, i have this one where dino cant but go to the beach when its empty and/or at night so that no one can see him but his men

the years may pass but he will still blame himself for his father’s death. and i mean. its pretty much true that it was his fault orz thanks light novel for giving me depress

onto the personality-wise hcs,, i talked about hibari’s enneagram type so i cant not do that for dino too. dino is 2w1, which gets called the servant. starting with the basic type: depending on the level of health, the two (”the helper”) ranges from being the most genuinely caring and helpful type to other people to being the type who gives expecting to be given something back to being the type who manipulates people into caring about them. i dont believe dino has fallen or will ever fall into the very unhealthy pit but he does get on the level where he thinks his generosity is the only thing that tie people to him and his people-pleasing attitude starts getting suffocating. he can be quite possessive, too. in a few words, type one is a very principled type, who fears being defective, bad and corrupt. therefore i assigned dino the one wing to kinda enhance the following paradox: being what he hates the most, aka part of a rotten system such as the mafia one. and with a role as a boss, to it. dino as a teenager never wanted to succeed to his father, and even now he wishes he didnt belong to that world but he loves his family, and even tho according to the moral he deserves to go to jail together with his men, he is self-admittedly too much of a coward to do that (theres so much more to add to this but if i do it will get REALLY long. there’s going to be another little enneagram talk in the d18 hcs anyway, lol)

_____________________________________________________________

dinohiba headcanons

these bitches gay good for them, good for them

advanced apologizes for being an angst fucker but for years my #1 headcanon has been a quite twisted one about dino and hibari not allowing themselves die by the hand of someone who isn’t each other’s. its a sort of oath. they feel like if one of them dies it will be unforgivable, and this will lead them to ultimately kill each other. in their mind, “it’s either both or none of them”, both know that they won’t be able to bear with the other being gone forever (yes, hibari too) and the only solution they find is leaving the world together, the same way they fought on it and against it together. the scenario i thought for this is a duel inside the reverse globe of needles. their last fight in hibari’s ultimate technique so that it’s literally just a world made of the two of them lol lol lol

tbh dino didnt like hibari at first, and with hibari being hibari it takes them long to warm up to each other. for long i mean some years w (years of anger, fights, hardship, trauma reveal, and so on)

their first bonding moment happens when hibari finds out about fon (yeah, all the stuff i talked about in my hibari hc post to which i have to add: i made my own timeline where the arcobaleno arc happens about 2 years later than shown in canon). dino is there to comfort him. dino hugs hibari and he lets him do. hibari cries. HIBARI CRIES for the third (3rd) time in his life there

i have this kinda specific hc of dino overhearing hibari sing hitoribocchi no sadame and getting sad about its lyrics

for obvious reasons even when they start dating they’re forced to spend most of the time away from each other but they make sure to be together at least on every anniversary

i love the established relationship trope so much therefore 80% of the times i think and write about them hibari is in his 30s and these two have been married for like 7 years 

i’ll get to the marriage proposal and ceremony another time hopefully in a fic too but of course romario and fon are chosen for their best men

idk if people consider ship playlists and such as hcs, but i associate savages by kerli and someone to stay by vancouver sleep clinic to them ;;

about someone to stay: the line will you fix me up? will you show me hope? is hibari -> dino, and the line can you keep me close? can you love me most? is dino -> hibari

and finally, to go back to the topic of enneagram: their compatibility according to their types. on the institute’s official site theres already a good description, which makes me cry everytime i go back to it because it literally starts with “These two types are more alike than they might appear to be at first”. part of this is given by the fact that unhealthy twos get the unhealthy traits of eights and healthy eights get the healthy traits of twos. i made a scheme for it:

i admit that i have no proof that the comparison is legit for the wings too, but finding out the stress/growth correlation even for them was very validating and satisfying, lol

some headcanons are missing from this post bc i decided to post the most important and my fave ones (the fave ones are those asked for in the first place but i cant shut up ashdjsdhfdjsdhfg)

but either way OVERALL i really, really love imagining both dino and hibari overcoming their hardships, individually and together, becoming the better versions of themselves the more the years pass, bringing their best qualities to each other and learning to accept and appreciate their different points of view. 

because of the way they are at first they... dont really start good, but with health and trust they make a powercouple tbh

[peggy-faces]

Mad Men rewatch: Season 1, Episode 1: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

I finally got around to doing this months after I said I was going to start. Don’t say I never keep my promises.

I’m still trying to work out a good format for these recaps/reviews. Having watched this episode so many times before I’m not really sure how to approach this with fresh eyes but I’ll give it a shot. Bear with me, this is a learning process.

This episode is essentially just “24 hours in the life of Don Draper(with some Pete/Peggy hijinks thrown in)”. I genuinely love this and it is the perfect way to be introduced to these characters.

I won’t focus much on Don right now because there’ll be plenty more opportunities down the line, but the thing that struck me in this specific episode was the emphasis on Don’s age compared to Pete and the “younger guys”. 34 is basically a baby by today’s standards. Pete is only 8 years younger than him! Perhaps(?) the role was intended for a man in his 40s but they cast Jon Hamm instead?

A weird thing that’s always bugged me about the pilot. The show seems to set Pete up as someone who wants to take Don’s job. But Pete’s an accounts guy who never really shows that much interest in being in the creative department in the rest of the show.

Also, I’m still not totally sure what was up with Don’s “It’s Toasted” speech. That slogan has existed since the 1910s. Either Mad Men was attempting to retcon history or Don was using it as an example of a good slogan? The commentary tracks seem to suggest it was the former.

Meanwhile, a certain mousy working class girl from Brooklyn is starting her first day of work at Sterling Cooper. Peggy is my favourite fictional character in anything ever and I unironically adore her despite her faults so I’ll definitely have more to say about her in the future especially about her relationships with Don and Joan. But now I’d like to focus on her relationship with Pete.

In the closing moments of this episode, Pete shows up at Peggy’s apartment and she allows him inside, presumably so they can have sex. First of all, how the hell did Pete get her address in the first place. Secondly, Why? Why did Pete go to Peggy of all people? Why did Peggy fuck him? Let’s take a look at their previous interactions in this episode.

1. Pete insults Peggy’s appearance and insinuates that she’s sleeping with Don.

2. Pete lies to get into Don’s office and gets Peggy into trouble with Don on her first day of work.

I like this episode and I do like the Pete/Peggy arc throughout the show and they normally have amazing chemistry together. But this scene feels so inorganic that there was a lot of speculation that Pete and Peggy knew each other beforehand because that would at least make more sense than what we got.

Fun fact: according to the shooting script for this episode(easily Googlable if you want to read it), Pete arrives at Peggy’s apartment at 9:45. Which means Pete’s bachelor party must have ended at 9 at the very earliest in order for him to get to Brooklyn in time. What bachelor party ends that early in the night? And Pete must have spent chunk of time finding Peggy’s address WHICH, AGAIN, WE HAVE NO IDEA HOW HE EVEN FOUND. I like imagining Pete wandering around Brooklyn drunkenly asking random people where “Peggy” lives.

We’re also introduced to Ken, Dick, and Harry. Yes, Paul Kinsey’s name in the pilot was originally Dick but it was changed when it got picked up by AMC. Ken is the weird sleazebag and Harry is the married guy who does seem somewhat decent compared to Kinsey and Ken. Weird how things change, isn’t it? Paul’s the pretentious guy. At least that never changed.

And then, of course, there’s Sal. Hey, did you know that Sal was gay? If you didn't, you probably missed the numerous “subtle clues" that were dropped throughout this episode. And by subtle, I mean so blatant that the only way they could have been more unsubtle is if you could hear Matthew Weiner screaming "heeeeeeeeeeeeee's gayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy" in the background of every shot Sal is in. The most notorious example of this is when Sal randomly drops the line “we’re supposed to believe people are living one way and secretly thinking the exact opposite? That’s ridiculous.” It doesn’t feel organic to the conversation at hand, it just sounds weird. But if you look closely into the reflection in Sal’s eyes you can see Matthew Weiner patting himself on the back and congratulating himself on being such a genius.

But the most cringeworthy line of dialogue in the entire episode goes to: “It’s not like there’s some magic machine that makes identical copies of things.” Which is the sort of line you’d expect in an SNL parody of Mad Men, not the actual show.

The final plot twist of this episode is that we find out that Don is *gasp* married. Yes, this was actually supposed to be a plot twist. But I guess finding out that the dude who just claimed love was invented by capitalism has wife and kids would be pretty shocking if you don’t know what’s coming?

This is getting kinda long so I’ll touch more on Betty, Joan, and Roger in later instalments as they don’t get much to do here, as well as Rachel and Midge.

Random Observations

I really like the very brief interaction between Roger and Joan. I don’t know if there were was already plans for a secret relationship between the two, but it fits in well.

Elisabeth Moss seems to be affecting some sort of mild Brooklyn accent in this episode that doesn’t exist in the rest of the show. Kinda weird but it does make sense that Peggy would try to hide her working class background later on.

Is this guy in the opening scene Pete? Because he looked like Pete when I was watching it on Netflix but when I put in the DVD to listen to the commentary, he didn’t look like Pete anymore. Pete’s evil twin? Pete’s non-evil twin?

Commentary tracks

There are two commentary tracks for this episode. The first has Matthew Weiner and the second has director Alan Taylor. There wasn’t really anything particularly juicy so I just wrote down the BTS stuff that sounded interesting.

The pilot script existed for five years and Matthew Weiner used it as his writing sample when he applied for jobs.

Weiner was planning to play the role of the judgmental gynaecologist himself. Make of that what you will.

This is the only episode of Mad Men actually filmed in New York. The bar in the very first scene is a real bar in Harlem called the Lennox Lounge.

It took them a long time to cast Jon Hamm, partly because Taylor didn’t believe a man that handsome could be interesting.

Taylor calls Midge the most modern person in the show. Her apartment is a real artist’s studio on 57th street. They were warned it would be impossible to shoot there because it was on the seventeenth floor and only had a tiny elevator and no space for equipment. They built a set based on this apartment when they started filming the show in California.

The traffic sounds you hear in the scene where Don wakes up after sleeping with Midge are real New York traffic sounds.

The actors for Kinsey, Ken, and Harry felt they had to bond so they went out to drink together every night. At least that’s the excuse they used.

If you look carefully at the end of the elevator scene with Peggy and the guys you’ll see Rich Sommer(Harry Crane) walk off to the right because he had mistakenly thought they’d already cut. Classic Harry.

Taylor says the scene with Lucky Strike was very reminiscent of Bewitched and I agree, which is why I initially described Mad Men as “Bewitched with less magic and more adultery” when I was first started watching.

Something weird I noticed: Alan Taylor only refers to Matthew Weiner as “the writer”. Bad blood? Can’t remember his name? Guess we’ll find out in the inevitable Mad Men BTS tell-all someone writes in ten years.

The strip club was a real retro-style strip club in New York.

They’d almost completely run out of money by the time they shot the scene of Don on the train so it’s basically just a piece of plexiglass with water dripping down it. 

Taylor says he dislikes the use of the song Caravan but I actually really like it. 

Overall, great episode, albeit one with some glaring flaws. I give it 7 Scowling Petes of 10.

[transboygenius]

Closet Case (Nick and Betty fic)

Nick Dean and Betty Quinlan walked into the Candy Bar establishment, hand in hand together like a couple. As a matter of fact, they were a couple. The two preteens only dated for about a week now, getting along perfectly fine. They even had fun, such as talking and holding hands, but so far they never kissed. The closest their lips had ever met was during their acting rehearsals for MacBeth In Space. These last couple of days haven't been so bad, like, Nick hasn't broke his leg while skating ever since. Jimmy and Cindy didn't seem to mind their relationship with each other, except maybe all of Nick's heartbroken groupies. Any of them would've had a chance with him, but of course, the prettiest girl in school got to him first.

Before they had became an item, every kid speculated that Cindy would be the lucky one. 'Fortunately, Nick never had any interest in Cindy at all. She was obnoxious, bratty, demanding, and physically harmful. From what Nick recalled a couple days back, he did witness Jimmy covered in ace bandages, with a very angry expressive Cindy walking besides him, on the day their little "date" took place. Breaking his leg every now and then is better than having Vortex as his girlfriend. The reason why Nick had always been nice to her was because his mother always told him to be a gentleman towards females. All the girls that swooned over him greatly annoyed him to a degree, but he'd never tell them to "piss off," or give any rude remarks.

Betty was more understanding, and respected his personal space. Aside from her questionable beauty, she was kind. Needs a little work on personality, but kind. If there's anything to contrast between Cindy and Betty, Betty can be beautiful and nice at the same time. That would explain Cindy's bitter jealousy. While Nick isn't exactly the nicest kid on the block, he's still someone you could easily make friends with. These two were a dynamic duo, based on how people looked at them. They were both good looking and popular. So far, that's the only things they have in common. If that's the case, what had started the relationship in the first place?

Nick and Betty sat at a table reserved for two, and Sam handed them their menus. Nick opened his and browse through the selections. He took a quick glance at Betty, who's still staring at him, and Nick gave a shy grin in return. He lifted up the menu so he could hide his face. Nick was nervous about the whole thing. No, it's not date jitters, it's not butterflies in his stomach, it's only the thought that he may be making a mistake here. This whole week, with Betty as his girlfriend, had been boring. All they do is talk, and nothing else. Rumors have been flowing that the more juicer stuff happens when no one's looking, but that doesn't happen neither. They don't flirt, kiss, anything out of romantic games. They do hug, however. Lucky for him, Betty never pressured him into those things, nor has she bothered asking. Maybe she's just shy. After all, Nick is her first real boyfriend, so she's not ready for anything physical.

Betty is a real sweetheart, and no boy would ever deny a date with her, but why does Nick feel so miserable? Their interactions are quite bland. They don't have any chemistry at all, just similar high standards. No matter how drop dead attractive Betty might be, Nick just doesn't feel it. The truth was Nick had no interest in Betty at all. The reason for this relationship in the first place was a different purpose, but that's personal matters. He could end it right now if he wants, but he wouldn't want to break Betty's heart. She seems happy with them being together. She believes they make a perfect pair. Whenever the two reunite with each other, Betty is the one to run towards him with opened arms, and then hug him like he was her only comfort zone. Being in his presence was ecstasy to her. There was nobody else she'd rather be with than him. She even told him at some point that he made her the happiest girl alive, even if their relationship was made up of the most simplest things but romantic. He's never seen anyone so happy.

He didn't wanna ruin any of that for her. He must continue being a gentleman to the opposite gender. But, if Betty's gonna be happy, what about him? Eventually, she will loose patience for that much waited kiss. If Nick keeps this up, for let's say a couple of years, they'd probably get married too. Imagine forcing yourself to settle with someone you didn't return feelings for. Could Nick continue to live like this just for Betty's own sake? On second thought, it's Nick's life, so he should decide how to live it. He needs to tell Betty, but let her down gently. Maybe she'll understand like any civilized human, maybe she won't. If she doesn't take it well, Nick swears on his grandfather's grave that he'll do anything to make it up to her. It could take months, and he wouldn't give up until she's completely over him. Maybe he could hook her up with another nice boy. Carl needs someone that isn't Neutron's mom. Just because Nick can be a jerk, doesn't mean he's a bad guy.

Their orders arrived to the table; a sundae and a milkshake. While Betty was spooning ice cream into her mouth, she noticed Nick just twirling the straw around in his drink, looking depressed, despite being happy moments ago. She asked if anything was bothering him, but however, Nick ignored her question. He was gonna break it to her now, but then regretted it afterwards. He fears that if Betty receives the news at this moment, not only will she be torn, but he'll have to live with guilt on his conscience. Thinking about it right now made him sweat. Betty hated seeing her current boyfriend like this, so she asked again. Nick just shook his head. Betty knew he was lying, so she tried one more time. Nick took a deep breath, but still refused to look direct eye contact with Betty. She's got him cornered. This is gonna take all day unless he says something.

"Betty, don't take this personal, okay? I mean, you have every right to be angry with me, and heck, you can even hit me if you like. I don't know how long I can live like this." "What are you saying?" "I don't think... ...I'm..." "Go on." "I don't think, I'm attracted to you. ...in any form."

Nick got his response alright, but not what he hoped for. She stood up, planted both hands on the table, then her voice carried across the room. It sounded like relief.

"It's about time you said something!"

The yelling caught everyone's attention, leaving the couple frozen. A public eatery isn't the best place to discuss this. To save them from any further embarrassments, Betty grabbed Nick's arm, pulling him with her out of the Candy Bar.

"YOU BETTER HURRY BACK AND PAY! YEAH!" Hollered Sam.

Betty took Nick into the alleyway of the Candy Bar, where they can have their conversation in private.

"What is this?" Asked Nick. "I don't feel attracted to you either." Betty replied. "Huh? Wait a minute, is it because I'm not good enough for you?!" "NO. It's just that... Something else." "Is that something else a someone else?" "Probably, although there's plenty of fish in the market." "Could you just make sense already?" "You see; Boys aren't my preference." "Then why did you just say there's plenty of fish in the sea?" "Market." "Whatever!" "Nick... I'm gay." "What?" "I like girls, okay!" "So, so you're what we call... ...'lesbians.'"

Betty cleared everything for Nick. She never set her eye on any boy. All the attention young men give her, such as flirting and catcalls, although from the outside she looks like she's amused, on the inside she just wants to scream. These male species annoyed her. She doesn't want them, she'd rather have a girlfriend if it weren't for her parents' homophobic nature. Jimmy wasn't any worse from those disrespectful pigs, but he still got under her skin. The poor clueless genius use to be infatuated with her, going through any measurements just to win her over. Even though she's nice to him, she always mocked him behind his back for his lovesick antics. Betty told Cindy she could have Jimmy just so she'd get him out of her hair. The day Nick asked her out on a date, she told him she'd think about it. At first she wanted to reject him, until her mother found out the proposal came from the most handsomest kid in Retroville, so she pestered her daughter into accepting the offer. Next thing she knew, she got stuck with, of all things, a boy.

"So, now that you know, I guess you'd rather not be around me anymore. The fact that I'm... ...gay." "Wait, Betty, you don't understand! We're in the same boat together!" "You mean you're gay, too?" "*Deeply sighs* Yes. I like guys. Just as you like girls. That doesn't mean I'm looking for a boyfriend." "If you're gay, why did you asked me out?"

Nick had been gay all his life, since he was five, but of course he never knew at the time. It was his emotionally abusive father that drove him into the bad boy facade he's best known for today. Not to mention his dad was heavily homophobic, and would mentally scar his son with degrading words that put him into an insecure state. Nick never allowed himself to show any affection towards the same gender. He knows he'll get judged, it'll ruin his reputation, and like his father said, "Society doesn't want f*gs, they wanna burn them!" What makes Nick question his existence more is the lack of people, people like him, on television/movies. He’s never even met another gay kid (up until now). According to adult "logic," being gay is gradually an explicit thing. So instead, he adapted this "ladies' man" image as a method of convincing people that he's straight, but it always leaves him unhappy in the end. Nick Dean; the king of cool, and macho extraordinaire, likes boys. How ridiculous it sounded. If this secret ever came out, his friends would turn against him, girls would cringe whenever they saw him, and every boy would start avoiding him. He'd be a bigger outcast than Jimmy Neutron. He just wants to be himself.

Since that day Betty and Nick rehearsed their parts for MacBeth In Space, and almost kissed, rumors spread throughout the school about them being secretly into each other. Nick likes Betty, but in a more platonic fashion. Repeatedly for months, Nick has denied his feelings for Betty to be romantic. Everybody began to get suspicious. Nick thought they were all thinking, "If Nick isn't into a hot fox like Betty, then he must be gay!" "Ewwwwwww, you mean he dates boys?!" "If that's true, then we finally found someone worse than Nerdtron!" To keep his true identity from slipping, it was about time he'd give them what they wanted.

"You know, Nick, you really didn't have to go through that trouble." "What was I suppose to do?! I panicked!"

Nick slouched down against the wall, and buried his face into his knees. Betty joined him. She could've sworn she saw a tear drip from his eye.

"Look, Nick. It's hard for me just as it's hard for you." "No shiz, Sherlock." "And, having to deal with the same experience, I don't know how to help you with this problem. There's nothing I can do to make you feel any better." "I feel SOOOO much better now. Thank you." "But, I do know one thing. We're stronger than we are. What our preferences mean doesn't make us any different from anybody else. It's bigotry that makes people think otherwise. Maybe someday, we can stop caring how people would judge us, and just be happy as ourselves, and maybe even fight for our rights just to show how strong we really are. We should learn to not fear everyday, and be comfortable with who we are. Just remember, there are still kids just like you. Take me, for instance."

Betty's speech wasn't the most inspiring, but it did help him feel a little less awful about himself. She's right. He shouldn't let his own insecurities drag him down, and just feel proud in his pride. If Nick ever wants to come out, he needs to make sure he's ready for it, maybe in a few years. Not only that, but he'll also talk his friends into understanding him better. Just in a matter of time, there will be no more hiding. His father's no longer around to tell him what to do. Everyone is free to be themselves.

"It's... nice having someone to talk to. I appreciate it, Betty." "The least I can do for another gay buddy." "Say, what do you say we call this whole relationship off and stage a breakup, in front of the whole school?" "Hmmmmmm, maybe tomorrow. That'll give me time to rehearse it. I'm gonna miss you buying me stuff." "Don't push it. Well, I'm gonna go pay off our orders." "Oh, and Nick? One more thing may I ask?" "Yes?" "Did you ever had a crush on Jimmy?" "Please, there's plenty of nerdy boys I'd rather kiss, and Neutron ain't one of them." "Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight." "Him, and Sheen."

[wannabecatwriter]

OC Interview Tag Part 3

Thanks for tagging me @shhhushhh.

RULES :

1.Pick a character you’ve created.

2.Fill in the questions/statements as if you were that character.

3.Tag at least four people to do this meme

Tagging @drudragonrose @thatsimslove @hyperkaos @reverieinsimlish, but only if you want to do it.

I’ll pick Terra for this.

1. What is your name? 

Terra Sidheins. 2. Do you know why you were named that? Probably because Mom and Dad liked the name. I’ve never asked. 3.Single or taken? Single, most certainly, single. 4.Have any abilities or powers?   I’m a witch, so I can do magic. It’s not as strong as my brothers, though... 5. Stop being a Mary Sue! Oh boy, that term! Mom was so pissed when I told her what it meant. According to her, it was invented “mediocre male writers, who are incapable of comprehending that a woman can be better than them at anything.” Yeah, I don’t know enough about writing to really make up an opinion on the topic, but based on Mom’s explanation, I’d take being a “Mary Sue” as a compliment. 6.What's your eye color? Pale grey, like Mom’s. 7.How about hair color? It’s reddish, blue, yellow, like Dad’s. Everyone says I take after him a lot. 8.Have you any family members? My parents, my twin brother Bristol, my younger brother Xander, and now my little sister Circe. Can’t imagine life without them. 9.Oh, how about pets? Well, Bartholomew isn’t exactly a regular cat, and he’s been around since I was a baby. It’s more like, he has me. Even if we’re not on the best of terms at the moment. 10. That's cool, I guess. Now tell me something you don't like. People who hurt those I care about. I would do anything to keep my family safe.

Also, on a personal level, I hate not doing well at something. Even if it’s something that seems insignificant to others, I need to do the best I can.

11. Do you have any activities/hobbies that you like to do? I like learning magic and spells. I feel like I’m always pushing myself in the right direction when I’m practicing or when making potions. For non-magical hobbies, I love playing the guitar. When I was younger, Dad and I would always play together, with him on the piano and with me strumming away. Good times. 12. Have you ever hurt anyone in any way before? I don’t know... have I? 13.Ever ... killed anyone before? I hope not!  14.What kind of animal are you? I’m not really sure. I’d love to be a dolphin, though, they’re so cute! And smart, too.  15.Name your worst weaknesses. 

I guess, I have a really bad poker face. I’m bad at hiding my emotions when something gets to me. And I think, people often baby me because of that. But, I mean, aren’t people supposed to feel things? It makes no sense to me, why is being emotional a sign of weakness in this world? 16.Do you look up to anyone at all? My parents, without a doubt. It’s probably cheesy, but they are really inspirational. I know Mom had a tough life when she was my age, but she, despite her less than conventional career choices, pulled though just fine. And Dad was often told that the arts won’t get him anywhere by his parents, but he continued with music and photography, and he’s doing pretty fine with that, so he proved his naysayers wrong. And they are seriously relationship goals. If I could be anything like them in my life, I’d consider it a success. 17.Are you straight, gay or bisexual? I think I’m straight. I usually find boys cute.  18. Do you go to school? Yes, although I’m supposed to graduate soon. I feel like I’m one of the few people who actually like school. But I do. 19.Ever want to marry and have kids one day? Sure, I’d like that! 20.Do you have fangirls/fanboys? I don’t think so.  21.What are you most afraid of?   Never finding my brother. I know he’s alive, I can feel it. It sucks that he had to get involved with out idiotic grandfather. Ugh, it grosses me out to even call that man by that title. I just really want my brother back, ok? 22.What do you usually wear? Jeans, shirts, a dress if it’s a formal occasion. Nothing too over the top, though. 23.What's one food that tempts you? The apple turnovers from the coffee shop near school! They were sold out the last time I went to buy one, though :( 24.Am I annoying you? No, not at all. 25.Well, its not over! Ok, ask away! 26.What class are you (low class, middle class, high class)?

I guess we’re comfortably middle class. 27.How many friends do you have? A few, I guess. My siblings, their girlfriends, I guess now Jamel too, then Sage, my parents’ other friends... I generally get along with people well. 28.  What are your thoughts on pie? Is it apple pie?  😀 29.Favorite drink? Hot Apple Cider!!! Even if it’s not winter. 30. What's your favorite place? Home. Especially after a tiring day of school. 31.Are you interested in anyone?~ Romantically? No, not since that school dance fiasco, when someone with a girlfriend asked me out. That was really weird, and I’d rather not repeat the experience. I kind of feel sad about it - everyone is meeting someone, falling in love, and I’m just sitting here, perpetually single...  32.That was a stupid question. ... No, it’s ok. I’m a firm believer that people meet when they’re supposed to meet. 33. Would you rather swim in a lake or the ocean? I like lakes. There’s something really calm about them. 34.What's your type? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  Really, I don’t really know. I haven’t had enough crushes to determine of I have a type, to be honest!  

35.Any fetishes? What’s that? Is this something sex-related? Ok, moving on, if Mom hears us talking about this, she’ll start explaining stuff and she always gives way more information than anyone is comfortable with! Even Bristol, and he’s usually ok with whatever! 36.Seme or Uke? I really don’t even know what that is... Wait is this something to do with anime? I’ve heard Laurel mention it with Xander. (googles the term). OK, MOVING ON!!! 37.Camping or indoors? I prefer staying indoor. I don’t mind camping, but being home is just more comfortable, you know.