#margaret. because shes SMART unlike SOME people

[hballegro]

i wasnt lying when i said henry was 85% done last night

file name is 'its MY hyperfixation and I decide who lives'

previous editions

lieutenant colonel henry blake here wearing pants that DEFINITELY arent swim trunks that he's pretending are normal shorts

hes wearing goldtoes for no reason i just didnt like how it looked with all one colour and didnt have the energy to give him funny socks. potter will probably have to wear horse socks to compensate 😔

i enjoyed completely Making Shit Up with the fishing lures. like i followed his hat in the show for most of them but for 2 they were literally just the first cool thing i saw looking up 'vintage fishing lures'

the group shot NOW WITH EDITS!

before long im gonna have to break this group shot into 2 sections. tumblr is getting PISSED at me.

breakdown of what all i changed + bts under the cut

the list is not long. most of the list is trapper.

everything is before/after, so first image is old and second image is new

smoothed stuff out for marg's skirt so it looks more like spandex or whatever

slightly nudged sidney's right eye [our left]. like its really slight but it makes my brain happy

bullied mulcahy's legs. AGAIN.

lessened hawkeye's stubble. just a tiny bit.

broadened radar's shoulders a little, made him have a bottom lip, messed with his neck

and for trapper. im just putting a fullbody; i changed his face. widened his shoulders a bit. fixed his head so its in the right place. changed his skintone by a degree of like .0001. i think i made his legs longer too. also his pants are a colour that makes my brain less mad.

there isnt much bts this time;

week 1 of college has kicked my ass but we stay winning. we stay drawing lieutenant colonel henry blake. we cant be stopped. we being I, myself, and Me

anyway. i need to go eat something.

three to go. we can DO THIS

also this IS field day, and im keeping with the red sweatbands/bandanas/other things but it also serves dual purpose as a beach episode at this point. Good Ending where instead of the chicken on the bus [or henry's plane] its all of them crawling back to the 4077th with sunburn

SHOUTOUT TO ME FOR NOT HAVING TOO MUCH OF A BLUE BIAS. WE ACTUALLY HAVE A DECENT BALANCE OF COLOURS. I REALLY LIKE BLUE SO THIS IS BIG FOR ME.

anyway if you scrolled this far and have any thoughts abt what potter, charles, and klinger should wear, including just colour speculation, leave a reply or something, i DO monitor my posts very closely

[husbandohunter]

You want Vitamin F, then let me supply you one;

Genshin boys transform into cats.

A Furry Predicatment [Cat Genshin Impact x Gn!Reader]

♤♡◇♧☆

Synopsis: Venturing to Springvale the boys inhale the fairy dust that turns people into cats, now they must endure the consequences.

Characters: Diluc, Kaeya, Xiao, Albedo, Zhongli, Childe, Venti

(A/n): My student just sent me a video of her cat. I think thats a sign anon. This was meant to be written. part 2 here :P

=======================

[Diluc]

The grumpy cat (to no one's surprise) who wears the same iconic frown with the same matching gloomy eyes. He's grumpy about this outcome in particular, plus the fact he can't even voice his frustrations except for meowing noises and the endless craving for raw fish. RAW, how despicable.

The maids were looking for Master Diluc except that he was already there...in your arms. Just like his hair, his fur is the fluffiest as if he were a gigantic ball of hilichurl hair. You would nuzzle your face into it because he just feels so warm!

Absolutely will NOT live like a cat. The uncrowned king of Mondstadt refuses to drink water from a bowl. He cannot eat anything unless you feed him with utensils. NO, no he will not shove his mouth into the plate, its uncultured and unsanitary.

He never though taking baths would be so nerve-wracking (cat instincts). It was terrible, choosing between the feeling of water against his body or licking his paws to clean himself (a much more comfortable choice). This kind of lifestyle was miserable.

~xx~

[Kaeya]

The mischievious cat (oh no) cue pink panther music, he's the Tom with Jerry's brains. Unlike Diluc, Kaeya will ultimately fall into his cat instincts and somehow uses it to his advantage.

You bet he's gonna spy on people. At night he would jump upon the rooftops to peek through Goth Grand Hotel's windows (watching closely at the Fatui), until the Darknight Hero comes in. Diluc knows it's Kaeya, it's rather uncanny how he does it, hence the cat runs away immediately.

The type to lick you upon contact. You think this was a quirk that came with the spell but he was actually doing it on purpose. Usually targets the neck because he could get a reaction out of you (ohoho you're tickilish there eh?)

As he is roaming out on the streets, always manages to escape the dogs. Kaeya knows his way around the city like the back of his hand, he enjoys watching them bark endlessly while he licks his paws in a mocking manner. Until one of them hopped up, now things got tricky. Basically Kaeya gets himself to alot of trouble as a cat, the worst part was when a bunch of kids started to join in too.

~xx~

[Xiao]

The fiesty cat (he was always a fiesty cat) who hisses alot. Even his fur stands up like a porcupine when expressing his distastefulness. The way he meows almost sounds like a low growl, bares his fangs as if he were a thirsty vampire. Will scare alot of people away with his behaviour, even dogs.

But damn he would make a pretty cat. Golden eyes, dark green stripes and teal fur, the purple diamond still tattooed between where his eyebrows once were, it didn't take long for Verr Goldet to realize that was Xiao.

And the worst nightmare of all, while Cat Xiao roams around the city at night he happened to attract alot of other stray cats who lived in the streets. They were very attracted to his beauty, cornering him until there was no where to run, that was the only situation where Xiao was scared enough to run away.

His ears are the most sensitive. He can't help but purr whenever you pet between them. Though if anyone were to grab his tail, the outcome would not be very pleasant...

~xx~

[Albedo]

The curious cat (who does not die) that will appear from every corner, silently, mysteriously as if he teleported. Once Lisa found him between the bookshelves of her Library while seeing a pile of books stacked upon the floor. Before she could shoo him out, she realized that the cat was way too smart to be a mere cat and quickly deciphered that it was the Chief Alchemist.

Of course no one else in Mondstadt knew it was Albedo, they thought you just had a very talented pet. Margaret even decided to put him against Prince to see who's cat was the best. It wasn't even a competition. Catbedo could paint a picture just by using his paws.

But Klee found out eventually (she deserved to know). She would open her drawer, take out her bow and stick them upon his fur. It seems that Albedo can never get a break when it was against his little sister, she will find indulging activities to do without consent.

Astounded by the sheer talent your cat possessed, the Knights of Favonius offered to hire your cat to be trained as a Knight Cat because animals are very good at deciphering clues for investigation. Oh how unaware they were.

[Zhongli]

The type of cat for crazy cat ladies. It's the vibe he gives being an old man ranging to a thousand years. Zhongli is very behaving, very considerate and very calm in his cat form. His favourite activity is to snuggle upon your lap while you quietly read a book.

He is indeed a tall black cat. Has incredible and refined posture and if he were to stand up on his hind legs, he can even reach as far as the kitchen counter! Though he does not like the fact that he sheds so much fur, it leaves a huge mess behind him (in which you had to clean up)

Zhongli decided to venture into Liyue's streets and see what it's like to be a cat. He starts communicating with some of them, speaking his cat language (meow meowmewomewo? meeoooow). Needless to say, the cats had no idea what he was saying.

If there were any cat-related dish he eats, it has to be sushi. Raw sashimis if possible. You worry if the choice was even healthy for a cat but you remembered that he was still a god. He'll be fine, right?

[Childe]

The annoying cat (that you must take care of, remember) whos a little too impulsive for his own good. Childe finds the excitement running through him whenever he spots a mouse, a squirrel or even a bird. One moment he's in your arms, the next he just leapt high into the air and running into the streets.

Adventurous as always. You take him to the pond to get some fresh air. Childe is not afraid of water, at all. He plays a game with the fishes, trying to see how much he can catch in one swipe. You had to keep a close eye on him otherwise he'd fall in and drown.

Loves climbing trees but shortly realizes that he can't get down. You tell him to jump but he feels hesitant so you had to climb up and get him. However, now the two of you were stuck and Zhongli had to get you both down one at a time.

Childe has the prettiest blue eyes as a cat. They were big and bright, almost feminine. But you knew that look was the look of upcoming trouble.

[Venti]

Oh God Barbatos.

Venti can't stop sneezing. His own fur is all over the place and he just couldn't catch a break (or a breath). Every second he will hiss-sneeze, they sounded like dying noises.

You had to get him to Lisa as fast as possible otherwise the death of Barbatos would have been caused by his own self.

[siriuslyreads]

My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix: A Review

Title: My Best Friend's Exorcism

Author: Grady Hendrix

Genre: Horror/Thriller/supernatural

Rating: 3.5/5 Stars

Release Date: May 17, 2016

Format: Physical

Synopsis:

Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fifth grade, when they bonded over a shared love of E.T., roller-skating parties, and scratch-and-sniff stickers. But when they arrive at high school, things change. Gretchen begins to act….different. And as the strange coincidences and bizarre behavior start to pile up, Abby realizes there’s only one possible explanation: Gretchen, her favorite person in the world, has a demon living inside her. And Abby is not about to let anyone or anything come between her and her best friend. With help from some unlikely allies, Abby embarks on a quest to save Gretchen. But is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?

Review (with potential spoilers):

This book was an interesting read from start to finish. I am not sure yet if that is a good thing or not. From the beginning we meet Abby and learn that the person who performed the exorcism on her best friend in high school has died. We get taken back to the beginning and learn of their friendship, the trials, and errors, then we are thrown into the inciting incident where the story begins.

Here are our main players:

-Abby: the main character

-Gretchen: the BFF for life, DBNQ

-Glee and Margaret: the other close friends

-Brother Lemon: The Exorcist

There were other characters that spent some time in the limelight, but these are the mains. Honestly, this friend group was the typical type of friend group you see in YA books. It’s a typical kind of trope of girls who aren’t really friends and like to pick at each other in order to make themselves feel better. When we open with the inciting incident of this story, the girls are at Margaret’s house and take drugs. Gretchen goes off by herself and they lose her until the morning comes. Shortly after that Abby and others begin to notice that Gretchen is acting strange, not showering, wearing the same clothes, etc. She also begins speaking to Abby about someone who hurt her and won’t let her sleep because he keeps touching her.

Setting this story at a time when the satanic panic was in full swing made it difficult for Abby to get anyone to take her seriously. But Abby doesn’t even take herself seriously. This was honestly my biggest issue with this story. Abby is said to be a smart girl, but so many time she is presented with the supernatural facts, and she refuses to see them, instead she tries to push them away and find the closest normal thing to latch onto. Gretchen mentions a few times that someone keeps coming into her room and not letting her sleep, but Abby doesn’t even shrug and thinks that Gretchen just means she is having nightmares. Gretchen said that someone hurt her that night she was missing, And Abby immediately thinks it was Margaret’s boyfriend. Instead of talking to Gretchen about it and trying to get an answer, she just jumps to conclusions and alienates herself from her other friends because of it. And the birds? During the book club? How do you just pretend that doesn’t exist? Now, I know, this is a plot device, it is used to make tension and move the plot ahead, but lord have mercy this was a lot of Abby being stupid.

Not even to mention that the adults in this story tried their hardest to throw Abby under the bus. It was a stark reminder of how little people care unless you have money to give them. Abby went to multiple people for help and just received nothing in return. And when she finally did get someone to help her, Brother Lemon the exorcist, he took things way too far because he wanted to prove himself. In the end, she was the one who had to help herself and Gretchen. For the entirety of this book, Gretchen’s issues are blamed on anything from drugs, Abby, rape, trauma, or just being a girl. No one listens to her, no one takes her seriously. Everyone gaslights her and Abby into thinking that Gretchen’s issues will resolve themselves when she fixes herself.

Throughout this book, there are comedic elements entwined with horror elements and some truly disgusting imagery. There were times that my stomach turned, but other times I was giggling at my desk. Overall, it was a decent read. I don’t believe I would re-read it, but I am glad I did this first time.

[hhawkeye]

*chanting* mash! blorbos! now! mash! blor-

alright. so so so many people sent me this. here we go

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most): you think it's gonna be hawkeye, right? wrong. it's trapper. every day of my life i think about trapper and what would have happened had he been part of the later seasons and had some more Character Moments. i dont think there would have been room for both him and bj in the show of course and despite popular belief i would not get rid of bj for Anything, but i do think about trapper and what potential was there for a deeper dive into his characterisation and motivations tbh. in a technical sense bj does fulfill more of the blorbo characteristics but when i think about him its with malice in my heart

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped): honestly idk if there is one! if we're talking aggression obviously bj but it's not about him being cute. however he is Shaped. sometimes hawkeye makes me like my god i need to crawl into the tv and wrap a warm blanket around him but other times. Well. Anyway,

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave): again i dont know that there are many characters who are underappreciated on mash (or at least within the mash circles i am in bc i follow correct smart people) but honestly i was thinking about how early seasons margaret really is like... not underrated but whenever someone just starts watching the show and theyre like, oh hot lips, and i have to take a second to be like... who? not that i forget they call her that, but i forget they pretty much only call her that, and i honestly think she really Isn't That Bad in early seasons, and i love her growth throughout the series, but so does everyone obviously. remember the talent show when she sings my blue heaven. i love her. i really really love her and she does on many levels stand up for what (she feels) is right and she has lessons to learn of course but i love the moments where you get a glimpse of who she'll be in later seasons and it makes me so <3 idk. it might just be because i rewatched so recently but i have a lot of feelings for early seasons margaret and i think she's a really interesting character tbh

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week): i feel like spam lamb really is my glup shitto in every single possible way and thats fine. that's fine.

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave): hes not problematic unpopular or controversial unless youre a right wing freak but the ONLY answer for this is of course hawkeye. the man the myth the legend. THEE poorest little meow meow on the planet. he literally could be the original poor little meow meow. are there any characters so unbelievably sad and pathetic that precede him? i dont know

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason): haha umm nobody because im normal and wouldnt torment people for fun, unlike some people who i wont name 🙂🙂🙂

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell): genuinely ok this is mean and i know there are definitely worse people but my answer for this is potter. i just dont love the guy. he's FINE and he has great moments but every time he gets on some high horse about something i'm like yeah but you're a career army man though soooo. i love harry morgan and think he plays him well but i just cannotttttt get behind potter as like. A Guy. i think there was potential there for an interesting and compelling story about yknow joining the army young and being manipulated and used by it but i dont think late season mash was in a place where it could outright be like hey fuck the military. so

[lady-plantagenet]

What are your top ten novels about the Wars of the Roses? And why?

I think it’s obvious by the length how enthusiastic I was to answer this ask xx thank you for asking me and giving me also an opportunity to make a masterlist of some sorts of all my reviews xx. But you know? I speak like quite the expert but in reality I’ve read very little histfic about TWOTR because I just newly got back into this hobby (about a year ago) and have little time in general so tbh the last three books on this list I do not personally care for but since I’ve read so little novels of this kind they are here nonetheless hhh (so please people, give me no angry asks asking me why I am endorsing PG, I’m not).

1. The Last of the Barons by Lord Edward Lytton-Bulwer

This is quite possibly the best book I’ve ever read in my life. The gap between these books and the rest is a chasm the size of the world and I wpuld genuinely reccomend this book as an actual piece of literature to anyone, not just TWOTR fanatics. It is written in 1840, in quite old timey lingo and it centres around Richard Neville 16th Earl of Warwick, but in the true tradition of a real classic it is more than just a character drama, it astutely showcases the purpose of Warwick and what he did in the context of his wider world and doesn’t just chalk it up to personal greed. There is also this fascinating subplot about courtship, science and such. Hell, you even get this eccentric ‘natural philosopher’ guy called Adam Warner who tries to make something like a steam engine and gets employed as an alchemist by Jacquetta and Edward IV.

From a historical standpoint it is quite biased as the author himself was a politician (and an actual baron) and tbh I don’t completely agree with his interpretation of history and I can see some of the Victorian inluences slip in, but some of his takes are very refreshing and he clearly consulted the primary sources. I am much interested in his philosophy and life outlook though and while I don’t think his Warwick is the Warwick, I think he (Lytton-Bulwer) understood him like no other novelist could. As for the writing style... here’s an excerpt of a good reads review that I agree with and tells you all you need to know:

“Of course, such a style of writing no longer exists. The language used is essentially foreign to us. But the nobility, the pride of this story work their ways into your bones, your heart. You will yearn for honor once you have left it.“

Basically, go type it into google and see what I mean. You don’t even need to purchase this book it’s all online at the first click on Gutenberg.

Nevertheless, I’ve posted excerpts of it here, here and here =)

2. The King’s Grey Mare by Rosemary Hawley Jarman

This book (unlike the latter) has zero actual historical value. Actually, it sort of does in the way that it hilights certain real events that most people are unaware of when it comes to its protagonist: Elizabeth Woodville, eg the whole Cooke tapestry affair and the whole Desmond affair. Both things which I still stand on the fence about (if you don’t know what I’m talking about send em another ask or pm me). But like, it isn’t political, philosophical or such in any way like the first book, yet you still feel like you are *there* in the 15th century - by the time I finished reading it my heart was wrung dry and I kind of fell into a down for a couple of days because I just wanted to feel the magic again. If anyone would ask me I would give this 5 stars because it perfectly achieved what it set out to do (I can’t expect all books to go above and beyond like #1), it made me feel for the characters who were super complex, was accurate historically and even when it wasn’t it made sense, it got very creative with its themes (which I like to see because I am not interested in reading the exact same story over and over again) and the prose was absolutely magical and brought all the depth to this novel. I’ve read classics with less flowing and poignant prose, yes actual classics!

This book also switches POVs quite a lot (basically it headhops because it’s written in omniscient- but whatever, rules are meant to be broken), so you’ll get to see many of your faves in there, Edward IV, Margaret of Anjou and Grace Plantagenet feature quite heavily. One thing that disappointed me is that it wasn’t really Edward IV/Elizabeth Woodville (at the time I bought it for that), she never really likes him and his love for her kind of wanes towards the end. If you’re not too bothered about that then I say go buy it.

3. The Daisy and the Bear by K L Clark

I put this here because we are already going into shakier territory when it comes to this list. This is kind of the last *really* good, truly five star one. It is a long spoof about TWOTR but god it’s smart! Yet, It does not take itself seriously and has Margaret of Anjou/Warwick the Kingmaker as a crackship and centrepiece and had me in stitches the whole time. I’ve written a long detailed review for it here.

4. Death be Pardoner to Me by Dorothy Davies

This is a novel about George Duke of Clarence. Quite possibly the only novel ever written about him in existence and boy is it a trip - the author claims to have channelled him (she’s a medium). I’ve written a detailed review for it here. I read this last spring and my views have unfortunately changed, the thing is, I’ve come to find out through my research that this was quite possibly a hoax as there are some indisputable inaccuracies (Ankarette Twynyho’s age, the details of Isabel’s death - we *know* she did not die from childbirth, Isabel did not reunite with him after Tewksbury 1471, but right before Christmas 1470). It’s also quite Richardian (the author admitted) and she could have *had* me had she not chose to divulge it in the foreword. Nevertheless, I still like this book because it did get to me at certain points and it’s good quality as a novel, I remember shedding a tear at one point even which is extremely rare for me but I think that says more about my sentiment for the subject matter than the book itself.

5. We Speak no Treason by Rosemary Hawley Jarman (not yet finished, so ranking may vary)

I haven’t finished it yet, so I’ll leave it here for now. This book is a Richardian book about Richard III, but I can’t get enough of this author, I haven’t found anyone to replace her with. The prose is magnificent as usual and I must confess that I’m happy that this book is told through the POVs of three OCs and not Richard, he remains rather elusive and tbf I find the three OCs very interesting and at this point I’m more interested in their stories than anything else. Of course, Richard III is still a fairly prominent part of this novel (even when he doesn’t appear) and it has led to me getting annoyed quite a bit. Given who I am I fumed massively at that one aside that Clarence and Edward have bastards whereas Richard isn’t like that... like are you serious?? At one point the author reassociated the Games and Playes Chesse book to Richard when it was in reality dedicated to Clarence and I got even more annoyed. Leave the poor figure something ma’am? Whatever, as a book about three medieval commoners it’s fantastic and that’s what I pretend it is.

6. Wife to the Kingmaker by Sandra Wilson

Nothing more to add than what I wrote in my (super-long) detailed review on here. This is the case because I read it very recently. This is a novel about Anne Beauchamp 16th Countess of Warwick, it’s ranked higher than Sunne because though it’s less accurate it’s got panache.

7. The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon K Penman

I feel very strongly about this Richard III book and what it represents. I wrote a long detailed review about it on here and a follow-up post on the discussion is here ft my awesome mutual @beardofkamenev ‘s insights also thrown into the mix. Xx

8. The White Queen by Philippa Gregory

This is a step higher than the other two because this book pretty much changed my life. The thing is, I read it translated into my own language by an extremely talented translator and I was also only about 11/12 years old so it was all very impressive to me then. This book about Elizabeth Woodville effectively introduced me to the TWOTR; an interest that has never really left me these past ten years (though at one point (ages 14-19) it was quite wane). It’s not a good book by any standard (I was quite shocked when picking it up at a bookstore, I had found that when read in the original language it lost all its magic), but I owe a lot to it and some people who now endlessly discourse about how bad PG is need to recognise their debt of gratitude and be a bit more respectful, I think. That is of course unless you came into this era via different media, but you got to admit that a massive part of us got to this place through TWQ, though we outgrew it.

10. The Red Queen and The Kingmaker’s Daughter by Philippa Gregory

Exact same commentary as above, just objectively not good books. Flat characterisation, misunderstanding of the era, historical innacuracies which don’t add anything, lack of nuance in prose which often dances too close to *gasp* YA prose *shudders*. But these are lower because I don’t owe them a debt of gratitude as I do TWQ. Funnily enough, they are still better than the series.

[auroras-blend]

Don't Talk to Strangers

Summary: Alessia POV where she tracks down Marilyn and Patience.

The summer wind was a nice refresher as the breeze caressed Alessia’s face. The small town of Summerfield was as pleasant as a place can be with the friendly neighborly waves that she, a stranger, received while strolling on the sidewalk. It was the type of place where everyone knew everyone and everything about everyone. Thankfully the friendliness of the people and their need to gossip suited her task just fine. For a former P.I., she would’ve thought that Patience Winslow would’ve been harder to find, especially if she knew the bounty on her head.

But Alessia wasn’t here to kill anyone, not that she wasn’t capable, mind you but her task was much more important. To find Borghese’s daughter. Though someone will probably end up dead by the end of it, she thought. Her heels clicked loudly as she walked along the sidewalk of the park and playground. The bright colors of the playground, the laughing children, gossiping mothers, and the grating sounds of the swingsets squeaking proved that this was a place of community. And Patience didn’t fit in one bit.

Whereas the other mothers convened on a picnic table or sat with each other on the other benches, Miss Winslow was completely and utterly alone. Winslow was reading some book that Alessia couldn’t be bothered to see or ask what it was about, with a frown etched on her face. The frown lines around her mouth had set from years of turmoil, but Alessia hated to admit it, the woman still had a beauty to her. Not a youthfulness or brightness mind you, but she was nothing to scoff at. Freckles sat like snowflakes on her round English featured face that concentratedly read the pages.

Alessia bit her cheek and wondered what it was about this woman that had Leonardo so obsessed. Her whole demeanor reeked of bitterness as she sat tautly on the bench alone in her bland-looking brown pantsuit. You owe me eight hundred favors Leonardo, she thought and rolled her eyes. With pep in her step and an air of confidence, she walked over to the bench and without asking sat down next to the woman who ruined so many lives. As she sat down on the hard cool metal, she politely said, “I hope you don’t mind. I’ll only be here for a moment.”

“It’s fine,” Winslow said, not tearing her eyes off of her book.

Winslow’s posture was tenser, not that Alessia minded. She just chalked it up to the woman’s personality. Alessia slid her shoulder bag onto the space beside her, not that there was a lot of room to begin with. I hope the chipping paint doesn’t ruin the bottom. Alessia’s hazel eyes roamed the playground looking for the little girl with blonde curls and green eyes, which was all the information she could gather on her appearance from the women who had quite a bit to comment about the little family.

“Such a sweet and polite girl. A little shy, doesn’t have a lot of friends,” one of the women said.

“Her mother’s fault. Patience makes no effort whatsoever on behalf of herself or her daughter to be a part of the community,” another one added.

“Such a shame,” another woman added in a syrupy tone, “A beautiful child like her needs friends. I fear she’ll make a spinster of her own daughter.”

“The girl is beautiful?” Alessia asked.

The first woman gasped, “Oh yes. Little Marilyn is just a doll, more beautiful than one too! Beautiful blonde curls that my stylist can’t even match.”

The women laughed at the first woman’s joke. “I suspect she looks quite a bit like her father, whoever he is,” the woman added the last part nastily, “She has very little of her mother in her, with the exception of her eyes and nose.”

Really, Alessia had to ask very few questions because the women were happy to give their opinion on Patience who seemed to be rather unlikeable in the community. There were a couple of girls who matched the description, though Alessia was too far away to see their eyes to make out the color. Ugh, I have to talk to her then. Alessia smiled softly and did her best to make her eyes gaze off whimsically, “Children really are a blessing, huh?”

Patience bristled but didn’t tear her eyes off of her book. “Yeah,” she said stiffly.

It was a response with no honesty behind it, but then again what else are you supposed to say in a town and world like this? This is her mother? Poor dear. Those women really were honest about her coldness. “Which one is yours?” she asked.

Patience finally looked up, tearing her eyes off of her book to get a proper look at Alessia. Alessia had noticed Patience peeking up at her while she was “reading”, but she pretended to ignore that. “What?” she asked with a gaping mouth.

The woman looked surprised that Alessia was talking to her. The little woman seemed genuinely intimidated by her, whether it was her beauty or glamor she didn’t know. Maybe both, she thought smugly. Alessia laughed, “Which child is yours?”

Patience’s mouth set back into a firm line and looked out, her eyes settling on the girl on the swingsets. “That one,” she said quickly.

Alessia looked out at Marilyn. All alone, like her mother. Her heart ached as she saw the beautiful little girl look longingly at the other children playing with each other, but she still swung contentedly. Poor baby. Marilyn was the spitting image of her father. He’ll be pleased. “She’s beautiful,” Alessia complimented meaning every word, “Just like her mother.”

Patience didn’t say thank you, but looked over at Marilyn before eyeing Alessia, “Where are your kids?”

Her tone was distrustful, as were her eyes. Smart. “I have none, but my sister does. A boy and girl, and the three of them are supposed,” she stressed the last word, “to meet me here right about now.”

She pretended to read the time off of her watch. Patience looked like she couldn’t decide where to keep her eyes; on her daughter or Alessia. Alessia sighed in pretend annoyance before smiling at little Marilyn. “What’s your sister’s name?” Patience asked.

“Paula,” Alessia answered swiftly.

Given what she heard about the woman’s community involvement or lack thereof, she was sure Patience could never figure out whether what she was saying was true. “What’s your niece and nephew’s names?” she asked.

The small woman’s tone had changed. An interrogation? “Mark and Dorothy,” she answered, making sure her expression seemed unbothered and uninterested.

“How old are they?” Patience asked quickly, giving Alessia no time to ask the name of her daughter.

Alessia smirked and raised her eyebrows. “Twelve and six…” she responded before changing her tone to lace it with suspicion, “Why do you ask?”

She wanted to turn it on Patience, make it seem that she was the one asking questions that were not her place to ask. And it worked. Patience blushed in embarrassment, the color looking odd on her pale freckled cheeks, probably believing she had overstepped herself. “Sorry,” she said as she tucked a strand of brown hair behind her ear, but recovered her tone, “I was just wondering if they were my daughter’s age and in her grade.”

“Oh…” Alessia said thoughtfully, “How old is your daughter?”

Alessia could see Patience bite the inside of her cheek, realizing she had opened herself up to an invasive question. She saw her look thoughtfully over at her daughter, probably wondering if she could get away with lying about her age, “She’s...seven.”

Lie. Alessia knew the girl had just turned six. “What a great age,” Alessia said, “Dorothy’s still so sweet. Mark is getting to be a bit of a handful.”

She laughed, “Lucky I’m the aunt though.”

Patience didn’t respond and trained her eyes on her daughter as if her gaze was the only thing that kept Marilyn from being snatched away. Alessia pretended to check her watch again, before she heard the distrustful voice, “What’s your name?”

“Margaret, but everybody calls me Maggie,” she said familiarly, “What’s yours?”

Patience paused. I thought she was supposed to be a professional. “Sue,” she lied.

“Well Sue,” she said the woman’s fake name sweetly, “How about I ask Dorothy if she knows your daughter? What’s her name?”

Alessia refocused her eyes on Marilyn, watching the wind blow her father's blonde curls out of her face. She could feel Patience’s eyes, searing and distrustful. The woman clearly didn’t want to give out her daughter’s name, but she was in a corner. After several moments she answered. “Abby,” she lied with a firm tone.

“Abby...cute name,” Alessia smiled, “And your last? I’m sure there are a lot of Abby’s”

“I can always talk to her mom to arrange something,” she said swiftly, “When’s your sister getting here again?”

Patience was calling her bluff. There’s no way a woman like her would openly engage with another mother, nor did she have the skills to. “Well, she’s supposed to be here right about now,” she said, frowning, “I wonder if I have the wrong park. Is there another one around?”

Alessia knew there was. “Four blocks down then you take a left on Seel Street, then two more blocks, you’ll take a right on Baker,” Patience replied tersely, “There’s a payphone over there. You should call her.”

Patience snapped her book closed and pulled her purse towards her, opening it just enough to make Alessia see a flash of a gun. It was a warning. Stay the fuck away from me and my kid. Patience clasped her purse and harshly swung it over her shoulder, as she stood up from the park bench and marched towards the swingsets. “Nice to meet you, Sue,” she said pleasantly, giving Patience a wave.

Patience didn’t respond, but her posture was stiff as she felt Alessia’s eyes on her. Alessia left the bench and went near the payphone and parking lot. If she was lucky, she could get a photo of the girl. From there she watched the woman and the little girl argue before she saw Patience roughly grab Marilyn’s arm and pull her along. Alessia frowned as she watched the little girl’s lip wobble and tears form in pain. She’ll be better off.

As Patience dragged her daughter towards the car, she looked back at the bench and her eyes scanned the playground for Alessia who had already hidden herself. Alessia trained her camera on the mother-daughter duo and snapped several pictures until she was satisfied she had one good enough to give to Leonardo. Even from the distance, she heard the rough slam of the car door and the screeching of the tires as Patience violently drove out of the parking lot. Her resolve hardened. Don’t worry Marilyn, your father will be with you soon.

[margo-richards]

Margo's full bio can be found here

Name: Margaret (Margo) Amelia Richards

Gender/pronouns: she/her

Date of birth: October 18th, 1995

Age: 25

Hometown: Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Length of time in crescent harbor: Roughly one week

Neighborhood: sunstone beach

Occupation: Daisy Chains Flower Shop

Faceclaim: Kristine Froseth

ABOUT.

Margo is loosely based on a mix of Rachel Green from Friends and Lorelai Gilmore from Gilmore Girls. She is a bit of Rachel in the sense that she grew up privileged and has never had to work a day in her life. On the flip side, she is somewhat of a Loreali because although she has never had to work it doesn’t necessarily mean that she doesn’t want to or that she wants that kind of life for herself.

At the age of twenty-five, Margo is still unsure of what she wants for her life. She never really dreamt of being anything when she was growing up. It’s almost as if she didn’t know that people actually had dreams and went off to chase them. She attended college, as part of her parents plan, and got a degree in Business Administration. Her father had advised her that getting a degree in BA was not only smart, but also a safe move for Margo and something she could fall back on throughout the rest of her life. Again with her being loosely based on Loreali Gilmore, she has recently (within the past few years) grown fond of the idea of opening her own Inn. Right now, Margo has her first real job at Daisy Chains Flower Shop, along with her first real sense of responsibility and being an adult. She plans to do well at Daisy Chains, while also trying to figure out what exactly she will do with the rest of her life.

Her move to Crescent Harbor was a bit of a spur of the moment decision, but it was also something that was a long time coming. Being in Crescent Harbor is the first time that Margo has been on her own. From living on her own to making her own money, it is all brand new for her. She got a job at Daisy Chains Flower Shop because of her love for being outdoors and the beauty of all things floral. Back home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Margo spend the majority of her time outdoors. She loves to hike, swim, bask in the sun and explore the beauty around her.

Margo is very easy going and loves to have a good time. However, she has been fairly sheltered for the majority of her life, so being out in the real world is unsettling but also exciting and something unlike Margo has ever experienced before. She is a sweet girl who genuinely wants to make good friends, however she can appear to be reserved and closed off until she gets to know someone a little bit better. Margo is very intentional about who she spends her time with, and does not give away her time very easily. She might almost be a little too naive about the real world, but she is determined to make it on her own and not let the fear of the unknown or brand new stop her.

Margo is a huge fan of a good fling. Something short and casual is all she really wants for the time being. She tries her best to never fall for anyone or start to develop any kind of feelings, because she knows nothing good ever lasts. She has been in one serious relationship that ended poorly on both sides. In addition to Margo’s commitment issues, she couldn’t say the L word to him and he ended up self sabotaging the relationship and cheated on her. That relationship has negatively impacted her and her romantic interests moving forward. It was a devastating situation for Margo and has been the cause of a lot of issues in her life. Not only that relationship but also from the marriage of her parents that she had been a witness to her whole life. Margo had an awful feeling that her parents never really were in love with each other, but they got married because that’s what was expected from them. She knew that no matter what she never wanted that to be her.

Let me know if you want to have a connection with Margo! I am open to just about anything and she for sure needs some pals

[jonismitchell]

hey arden do you have any book suggestions? i don’t have any preference/specific genre i’m looking for but i just need something new to read while in quarantine :)

you’re in luck! i happen to be a massive nerd and i’m going to compile a gigantic list of recs for you. here we go.

the only classics worth reading: i want to preface this by saying i did not pick these books because they are written by women. they are just good and they happen to be by women. this reinforces my theory that only women can write.

emma by jane austen: better than pride and prejudice by a long shot. the characters are funny, the romance is swoon worthy (don’t think too hard about the age gap), it says very smart things about society, and i could write an essay on how it revolutionized fiction.

wuthering heights by emily bronte: my all time favourite book about how awful people are and how the cycle of abuse perpetuates itself. it’s absolutely exceptional in every respect. i won’t go into too much detail because i don’t want to give anything away, but you should definitely read this book.

jane eyre by charlotte bronte: i’m not saying i’m a bronte sister stan, i’m just saying i’m a bronte sister stan who can’t be bothered to take five seconds to copy the accent. anyway, i read this book when i was a wee lass and i stole it from an apartment in nice. the characters are genuinely amazing, and it’s an early feminist book, which i think is fantastic.

the handmaid’s tale by margaret atwood: you don’t get more feminist classic than this. set in a dystopian future where women are only valued for their ability to procreate, atwood examines gender roles and still delivers a brilliant adventure story. if you end up liking this, try the power by naomi alderman, which essentially tells of the opposite society.

the bell jar by sylvia plath: an introspective story about mental illness. it’s the type of writing that i feel hits hard at about any age, and i remember feeling really haunted after finishing the whole thing in a night. definitely high up on my list of amazing novels.

feel good books: sometimes, we need to read something that’s not revolutionary but still radical. don’t worry, i got you. here’s the lasagna of novels.

finding audrey by sophie kinsella: this book is funny, heartwarming, and makes you think. as someone with anxiety, i felt really represented by a lot of audrey’s behaviours. her mom is lowkey nuts, but i feel like that shouldn’t impede your enjoyment of the book.

the shadowhunters series by cassandra clare: LISTEN. objectively cassandra clare is a terrible person. objectively these books are not good. but they are amusing! they are comforting! they are interesting! also, there are a million of them. start with the infernal devices: clockwork angel, clockwork prince, and clockwork princess. set in old old london, this series features the only valid love triangle ever, girls who like to read and kick ass, and boys who are soft and play the violin. next, head to the mortal instruments, which is pretty much drinny fanfiction. don’t think too hard during these and you’ll have a good time. after that, read the short story collections the bane chronicles and tales of shadowhunter academy. if you got really into the lore (like me) these books are funny and a little captivating. finally, get to the highlight of this whole thing, the dark artifices. the one true love of my life, emma carstairs, stars in this brilliant trilogy about forbidden love. yes, it’s super corny, but all these books are super corny. if you can’t get enough of the universe (or accidentally got hooked) try out the collection ghosts of the shadow market. once you finish that, you can read the first books in the new series(es), red scrolls of magic and chain of gold. all of these books are jam packed with magic and vaguely plagarized demons. not brilliant, but a fun ride.

emma mills books: emma mills writes cute happy contemporary romances and i can’t recommend her enough! first & then tells the story of a jane austen obsessed nerd who crushes on a jock. which could actually be about me, and if you trust my judgement, you probably like me enough to read this book secretly written about me. foolish hearts gives theatre kids and boy band stans alike a chance to feel represented in what could be one of the sweetest (and funniest!) romances of all time. famous in a small town gives band kids and people who are clarinet-sized a chance to shine, and includes a country singer who struck me with her similarities to taylor swift. (our song is even referenced in the novel!) by far my favourite would have to be this adventure ends, which is hilarious and heartbreaking and talks about fanfiction without looking down on it. all of these books are definitely feel good and will make you believe in heterosexual romance.

mildly upsetting fantasy: just fantasy trilogies that will hurt you.

the poppy war by r.f. kuang: wonder what harry potter would be like if the magic system was complicated and the murder was high? no, like high on opium? and the plot was based on chinese military history? look no further than the brilliant work of art that is the poppy war. this book is by far the best fantasy out there, i cannot exaggerate that enough. also out is the equally compelling sequel the dragon republic, and the final book in the trilogy is set to hit shelves this year. please please please read this amazing book.

six of crows by leigh bardugo: six dysfunctional criminals try to steal from the most heavily guarded prison in the world. what could go wrong? this novel is intelligent and witty, and will keep you on the edge of your seat as you’re dragged into this scheming and brilliant world. in my opinion, this is the only valid book in the grishaverse. this and its equally well plotted sequel, crooked kingdom.

the gilded wolves by roshani choski: this one is definitely similar to six of crows in its funny and smart main cast. the magic system is super unique and the plot is endlessly enjoyable. it’s also set in old old paris! so france is always fun. there are also tons of mythology references and disaster bisexuals. and apparently the sequel (the silvered serpents) comes out july of this year.

scythe by neal shusterman: the first book on this list by a man, wow! i’m so inclusive. anyway, this genius trilogy is set in a world where humanity has solved almost every single problem, except overpopulation and corruption. an elite order called scythes are tasked with killing and managing the order of death. it’s like the hunger games went took a political science seminar. everything spirals out of control very quickly and the characters are so great. the sequels are called thunderhead and the toll respectively, and the overarching tale is gripping.

the cruel prince by holly black: i’m not kidding when i say this is the only faery book that matters. this book stars a human girl who grows up in the magical world and more violence than is statistically necessary. but it’s good! this is also a trilogy (every book on this list is the first one in a trilogy, i am the worst, i’m sorry) and the sequel the wicked king is quite possibly the best scheme-y magic politics thing i’ve ever read. and the final book, queen of nothing, doesn’t disappoint by a long shot.

contemporaries no one talks about

the boy who steals houses by cg drews: this book has autistic representation! and it’s written by book blogger paperfury, who is even more of a delight on the page than she is on the internet. be warned, this book includes heavy mentions of abuse and graphic violence that are unavoidable. but it will break your heart and stitch it back together again. also, waffles.

some boys by patty blount: this book deals very candidly with the aftermath of rape and public pressure. it is also one of my favourite books of all time for its treatment of ‘bro culture.’ and the heroine, grace, is incredibly strong. i read this book in maybe fourth grade? and it essentially inspired me to start giving a damn about social justice. so yeah, there’s that. (i also haven’t read it since fourth grade, so someone will have to tell me if it holds up).

emergency contact by mary choi: i’m rereading this for the second time right now and it’s still really awesome. it tells the story of an unlikely friendship, big dreams, and does it all through a really interesting narrative voice that manages to effectively capture two very different people. it is yet another romance, but it’s really wonderful and heartwarming. (unlike the other two books in this section).

children’s books that treat kids like people

a series of unfortunate events by lemony snicket: this is quite literally my favourite series of all time. it’s upsetting and kind of wrong once you think about it a lot, but it’s also maybe the best thing ever written. i literally cannot explain how much i love these books. there are thirteen books, so you’re definitely in for a good, long time.  

the mysterious benedict society by trenton lee stewart: three books about propaganda and smart kids and found family. i literally do not know what else you want out of a series. it’s fun and there’s only a little bit of kidnapping, so it’s very family appropriate compared to the other books on this list.

wuh luh wuh

the seven husbands of evelyn hugo by taylor jenkins reid: i KNOW no one shuts up about this book but you really should read it. like, there’s nothing that will ever top the narrative. the drama, the glamour, the girls who love girls, you know? all the components of a brilliant novel. it’s also got some truly poetic prose and genuinely beautiful moments. the reason everyone talks about this book is because it’s amazing. send tweet.

girls of paper and fire by natasha ngan:  (massive trigger warning for sexual violence)  haha! another violent fantasy book that’s part of a trilogy! thought you escaped that, didn’t you? this magic system is brilliant and the book is so good. it’s a breath of fresh air into young adult fiction. and did i mention it’s a wlw romance? i read this during a math class and had to go to the bathroom to cry when i finished it, because there was finally a heroine in a fantasy novel who i could see myself in. there’s also a sequel, girls of storm and shadow, that is equally amazing.

it’s not like it’s a secret by misa suigura: wlw girls with soft poetry vibes. complicated family lives. candidly dealing with racism, sexism, and homophobia. this book is really good. simply read this book.

i have even MORE book recs but i decided to cut myself off because this is the longest thing i’ve ever written for tumblr. hope you enjoy!

[let-it-raines]

another kind of green (8/10)

Emma Swan spends her days in pretty white dresses and heavy layers of makeup. Day after day and dress after dress, she poses for pictures and acts like she’s in love and having the happiest day of her life with the man standing next to her.

It’s not. This is all a gig, and at the end of the day, she’s no longer the girl in the pretty dress who’s faking getting married for a magazine cover or a wedding convention. Instead, she’s the girl who probably never wants to get married.

Little does she know, she already is.

Rating: Mature

a/n: as always, this is for @xemmaloveskillianx​ as part of my fic giveaway, and this chapter is also for @carpedzem​ because I accidentally made her think I’d written some more of Indirect Deposit yesterday 🙈

ao3: beginning | current

Tumblr: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

-/-

“I am so bloody exhausted that nothing could keep me awake.”

“Have you tried caffeine?”

“Three cups of coffee.”

“Ah,” Ariel sighs, “you need a nap. If three cups of coffee aren’t working, you’re beyond the point of caffeine helping.”

“Can’t nap,” Killian yawns, his eyes watering. “I’ve got to study these laws for my practical tomorrow and then head over to Emma’s.”

Ariel clicks her tongue.

“What, A?”

“Nothing, nothing.” She pauses, and unlike Ariel, Killian holds his tongue. She’s obviously about to tease the hell out of him. He knows that without even having to see her face. “It’s just that you’ve been spending a lot of time with Emma lately, and you’re going over to her apartment for her birthday. That seems like kind of a big deal.”

“Aren’t you also going over to her apartment for her birthday?”

“I am.”

“Well, you don’t see me making it a thing with you going.”

“That’s because I don’t have a thing for Emma.”

“I do not have a thing for Emma.”

“I wish you could see my face right now. I’m majorly rolling my eyes.”

“I can imagine it. I’ve seen it enough times.” Killian sighs and leans back on the couch, closing his eyes and pinching his nose with his free hand. “Emma and I are friends, and she mentioned the thing tonight that Mary Margaret and Ruby are having at her place. I was supposed to take her out for dinner anyways, so this kills two birds with one stone.”

“Wow. You’re such a romantic,” she jokes. “You should take her out for dinner anyway. She’d love that.”

“I will see you tonight, love,” Killian tells her as another yawn takes over. “Try not to be an asshole while we’re there.”

“No promises. You should bring her flowers. I can ask Mary Margaret what her favorites are for you.”

Ariel hangs up before he can protest, and he’s left sitting in the silence of his apartment. Will is at the bar working a double today, and it’s quieter than usual without his nagging and curses under his breath about every little thing. Killian’s thirty years old. He really shouldn’t still be living with a roommate, especially when he can afford his own place, but living on his own has always been few and far between.

After Liam died, his apartment felt barren and like it could never be full again. Everything was full of Liam from the items in the fridge to the novels on the shelf. When Milah moved in shortly afterward, the place had been full of Milah and her clothes and the smell of her perfume on every pillow in the place. He thought maybe, just maybe, having her around more would make the emptiness better.  But then she’d left, and the only trace of her was the ring she left on the kitchen countertop.

Maybe he needs his own place where everything is his and his alone. That might be nice for a change.

Emma Swan: Did you know Boston is named after Boston, England? I feel like that’s a sign or something for you being here.

Killian snickers and drops his phone to his chest before picking it up.

Killian Jones: Why do you know that?

Emma Swan: I got a pamphlet listing fun facts about Boston with my lunch takeout.

Killian Jones: Fancy.

Emma Swan: I know. You still coming tonight?

Killian Jones: Aye.

Emma Swan: I’ll have to regale you with more facts about Boston.

Killian Jones: I look forward to it.

-/-

He brought her flowers like an idiot.

They’re lilies with a few other flowers and stems mixed in. Killian’s always enjoyed flowers, but he’s never taken the time to know anything more than the most basic of brands. He didn’t know what Emma liked, didn’t want to ask someone despite Ariel’s offer, but the damn thing was what put the idea in his head. Emma specifically said no gifts, but he showed up with a gift card to their smoothie place and flowers.

What the hell is this woman doing to him that he actually wants to do things like that again?

Possibly making him crazy while also driving him crazy with how she looks tonight.

Emma’s wearing a white sweater that dips down her back, showing the curve of her spine and the freckles on her back until it stops right over the curve off her ass that’s shown off by a pair of sinfully tight jeans. He’s not sure how the damn sweater is staying on or how she even managed to get those bloody jeans on. All he knows is she looks absolutely stunning, and if he stays in this apartment for much longer, he won’t be able to handle himself.

As if he’s fifteen and not thirty.

And there’s not a lot of places for him to look around. Emma lives in a studio apartment, and as spacious and open as it is, it is still one big room with what he assumes is a bathroom in the back.

What has he gotten himself into with this woman?

If he asks himself that question enough, maybe he’ll figure out an answer.

“If it isn’t the husband,” Ruby exclaims when she sees him, and Emma quickly turns around so he can see her face. It’s no less distracting than the view of her from behind. “Fancy you coming to your wife’s birthday party.”

“Is this going to be the joke we all make all night long?”

“You two got drunk and got married in Vegas. I have to make fun of it every single day. It’s the greatest thing.”

“For the record,” David starts, “I don’t think it’s the greatest thing.”

“David, right?”

“Yes.”

Killian sticks his hand out to shake David’s, but the man doesn’t take it. Instead he crosses his arms over his chest and stares Killian down. Well, this is certainly going great. His wife is obviously the nicer one.

“Oh my God,” Emma grumbles, walking over toward them and slapping the back of David’s head, “don’t be a dumbass. I’m an adult, you’re not my guardian, and every person in this room knows my history with Killian. We fucked, we drunkenly got married, and now I kick his ass on our morning runs. Does anyone have anything else they’d like to say?”

“I mean, I’d say that we made love, not – ” Emma turns to slap him this time, and he deserves it. He was fully expecting her to do that. In response, he dips down and brushes his lips over her cheek. “Happy birthday, Swan.”

“Thank you, asshole.”

“The flowers are for you.”

She takes them out of his hand and examines them, a small smile still pressed to her lips. “They’re beautiful and definitely against the no gift policy.”

“Cut the man some slack,” Ruby huffs. “He’s just trying to woo his wife with flowers.”

“Oh my God,” Emma mumbles.

“Emma?” Mary Margaret interrupts, “do you not have any plates?”

“Of course I have plates. They’re…shit. I don’t have enough plates. Someone text Ariel and ask her to pick some up before she gets here.”

“How do you not have enough plates for eight people?”

“I live by myself and don’t have much company. I don’t need eight plates.”

“You knew we were coming over.”

“I was also told that you would take care of everything since I didn’t want to do anything big to celebrate.”

“And I am, but pregnancy brain is a very real thing.”

“Your wife is pregnant, mate?” Killian asks David, not wanting to intrude on Mary Margaret’s conversation with Emma. “Congratulations. That’s wonderful!”

David is still studying him, and Killian might as well have committed some unspeakable crime. Eventually, though, the corners of his lips turn up. It’s very obviously got little to do with Killian, though, and everything to do with his love for his wife. “Thank you. We’re excited.”

“Alright, lover boy,” Ruby sighs as she wraps her arm around his shoulder, “I’m going to save you from David. Mulan wants to talk to you about how you’ve been keeping Emma out of her gym.”

“I feel like that’s not a safer conversation.”

“Oh, it’s definitely not. You were not smart for showing up here.”

He’s definitely in over his depth when it comes to all of Emma’s friends, and while David should terrify him the most, he thinks Ruby might take that crown.

“I’m starting to pick up on that.”

His life gets significantly easier when Ariel and Eric show up, especially since they come with a small bag of paper plates so everyone can start eating, and with more people there, less attention is on him. He rarely shies away from it, can usually handle it, but he doesn’t know Emma’s friends enough to be truly comfortable with it all.

That is until everyone – except Mary Margaret of course – gets a drink or two into them and is full of lasagna and overly sweet cake. They all settle in Emma’s living room area, Ariel and Eric on two barstools from the kitchen, Ruby and Mulan sitting on the bed, Mary Margaret and David sharing an oversized chair, and he and Emma sitting on her couch. Emma’s got her feet curled underneath her and her head propped up in her hand. She looks relaxed, comfortable even, and it’s a wonderful thing to see after the last time he saw her.

They haven’t managed to go on their runs in the past week. He’s been too tired from training and she’s had shoots in New York and in Connecticut, and the last time he physically saw her he’d taken his teasing too far and tried to get her to share information she wasn’t ready to share. They seemed to have mended things over their texts, but he could never be sure until now.

Three months ago when he knocked on this front door and had it slammed in his face, he never could have imagined he’d be so willingly let inside.

That he’d be invited inside.

It’s easy to get swept up in the way that everyone here is comfortable with each other. Even with Ariel and Eric here, he’s the odd man out, but that doesn’t matter as he gets to hear stories of Emma and her adventures with tequila, a pair of heels that were one size too small, and she, Ruby, and Mary Margaret having to hide under a table in a bar from a man who was not too happy with Mary Margaret losing her dinner over his shoes.

“That doesn’t sound like you at all, Mary Margaret,” Ariel snickers.

Mary Margaret shrugs. “Give me some tequila, and you can see that side of me.”

“After the baby is born, we’re going out then.”

It’s fun and relaxing, and Killian likes learning more about this woman who slowly but surely is allowing him to know and understand her layers. He doesn’t know much about her past, but he knows how she is now: funny and graceful and fiercely protective of the people she loves.

As well as a badass runner who likes hazelnut in her coffee and smoothies and spends far too much time trying to decide what to watch on TV until she ends up not watching anything at all.

How did they get so lucky to have to work together at that convention? It could have been any two people who work in this insane industry, but all of the bumps and stops and goddamn roadblocks enabled him to meet her.

He’s so damn screwed when it comes to her.

Killian looks down to see Emma’s fingers ghosting over his wrist and moving up and down his forearm until she’s messing with the rolled up cuffs of his flannel shirt. He doesn’t even think she knows she’s doing it. She’s been slowly inching closer to him all night, and he can feel every single breath that he’s taking.

He’s got training in the morning, so while he’s only had two beers, he might as well be drunk on Emma.

And really, he should get up and leave. Everyone else has left, giving their excuses and saying their goodbyes over an hour ago, but he’s stayed and kept watching episode after episode of Friday Night Lights. Mary Margaret had put it on. It’s older, but it’s apparently what she’s been watching while working lately.

“I know I didn’t attend high school in America, but is this what it was like?”

“I was a foster kid. I didn’t exactly have the quintessential high school experience. I don’t know, maybe if you’re athletic and look like you’re thirty when you’re sixteen.”

“Those are actors, love.”

Emma scoffs and squeezes her nails into his arm. “You know what I mean.”

“Aye, I do. So this wasn’t what it was like for you?”

“No,” she laughs, shaking her head from side to side. “God no. I – ” She stops, turning to look at him, before looking away and moving her hand down his arm again. She’s going to mark him with her nails if she keeps this up. “It’s nothing.”

“What? You can tell me? You were secretly prom queen, weren’t you? Did you play a preppy sport? Or were you on the debate team? You’re damn good at arguing. I mean – ”

“I slept with an older guy who apparently had a thing for girls much too young for him and got arrested for his dumbass crimes that he fucking framed me for, so I didn’t get the high school experience like these obviously too old actors.”

Wait. Where the hell did that come from?

“Swan – ”

“I think it’s so ironic that one of the only jobs I’ve been able to get because of Neal is modeling wedding dresses. He made me not want to ever get married, and yet here I am having to pretend I believe in some kind of happily ever after. What if I’d wanted to go to college? What if I’d wanted to be a cop or a teacher or something? What if I didn’t have to check the box on job applications that says I’ve got a felony to my name? But it’s fine. It’s normal. It happened, and I don’t care.”

She likely doesn’t even hear how contradictory she’s being.

He’d like to punch that asshole and break his nose so badly it can never be repaired. Of all of the shitty things that have happened to him in his life, at least no one ever ruined his life for work. Any troubles he’s had have all been his own doing. He can be as fucked up as possible emotionally, but at least he can work wherever he wants.

At least he can follow his dreams.

At least he can be a regular human being without restrictions.

“What that bastard did to you isn’t normal, Emma.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. I shouldn’t have said anything. Forget it.”

Emma stands from the couch and walks to the other side of the room, arms crossed over her chest as her feet keep moving back and forth. He has a feeling she’s going to be like this all night. He may not have been in the foster system, but he had a rubbish father who left him after he’d had to move countries to be with him and a mum and brother who both died. Birthdays haven’t been happy days for a long time, and if Emma is anything like him, her emotions are running a little higher than they would normally be.

Birthdays aren’t truly the same when you haven’t lived your entire life having someone to celebrate them with.

The two large glasses of wine swirling around in Emma’s stomach likely won’t help. At least she hasn’t had any tequila.

“You know,” Killian starts, figuring he might as well just go for it. He’s nowhere near buzzed, alcohol not giving him any liquid courage, but Emma makes him want to let her know him. Something about her makes him want to share, and he’s never been able to pinpoint what it is. “I was with someone for a long time.”

She stops pacing and turns to look at him. “Yeah?”

“Aye. She was brilliant and beautiful, and without getting too much into it, I proposed to her. For months she wore the ring on her finger. She had been with me before Liam died and when Liam died, she was the only thing that kept me from…she kept me from lashing out at the world, and then one day she left the ring on the kitchen counter with a note telling me she was going back to her husband and her child. I didn’t know they existed, but looking back, I should have seen the signs. So, the not wanting to get married part, I get that.”

“That’s fucked up.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“People are such assholes.”

“You’re speaking a lot of damn truths tonight.”

Emma huffs and then walks back toward him until she plops down onto the couch and shifts. “I’m sorry about your fiancée.”

“I’m sorry that bastard did what he did to you.”

“It’s okay.”

Killian knows that it’s not and that Emma knows it’s not, but if this is the way she wants to deal with things, he can’t change that. Just because he wants to channel his anger and his disappointment over life into some kind of action doesn’t mean Emma wants to. And the way that she’s biting her lip and tapping her leg makes him think maybe she doesn’t want to talk at all right now.

That’s fine. He can be the one to fill the silence, not that they really need that. So he tells her of his mum and her kindness and the way she would sing him lullabies even as he grew older. He tells her of his father and the way he left and how Liam was basically his father despite only being five years older than him. He tells her the simplified version of most everything, at least the big moments, but as easily as it was to fall into spilling his heart, it’s even easier to fall back into talking about the simple things: favorites movies and hobbies and telling stories about their friends or the weird things that have happened to them on the job. Neither of them have made their livings in a conventional way, and it will never not be nice to talk about how insane the industry could be.

“So what do you want to do, Swan? If you could do anything.”

It’s verging into dangerous territory, and he fully expects Emma to tell him to shove the leftover birthday cake he’s eating up his ass.

She shrugs. “That’s kind of a loaded question.”

“Try me.”

Emma hums as she scoops up a glob of yellow icing and licks her fork clean. Killian shifts to adjust his jeans. She’s eating cake. He should not in any way be thinking about how her lips wrap around the fork.

It’s two in the morning. His thoughts are not his own.

He’s really getting old if two in the morning feels this late to him, but it’s that time of the night where the world is muted in a way. Either every noise is cause for alarm or nothing quite seems real, a place between sleep and awake where there could be something new at every turn.

Where there could be a new set of green eyes that aren’t actually new and a silhouette he hasn’t yet learned to trace and where things might actually work out for him for once.

If only, if only.

“I don’t know,” Emma sighs after about a minute of silence. “Maybe I’d want to work with foster kids, tell them that it gets better even when it doesn’t. Maybe I’d like to be a cop like you or David or Graham. I always say I would never, but I think it could be interesting. Maybe I could do something a little less emotional and be a freaking party planner or be an Instagram Influencer and promote, like, charities instead of one-hundred-dollar lipstick. I don’t know. I don’t…I’ve never thought about it because nothing has ever felt like a possibility.”

“You know, some people will see how young you were on this record and see that it’s non-violent, and they will give you an opportunity because it’s been a decade. You could try to get your record expunged or even sealed since I’m assuming it’s not. And then when you decide that you want to quit modeling for every wedding dress designer and boutique in New England, you can find something else you love.”

“Can I be a professional birthday cake eater?”

Killian leans his head back with laughter. “I’ll look into that for you. I’m sure there’s something like that.”

“That would be the dream.” Emma huffs and turns her head to hide her smile. “Are you scared the same thing is going to happen to you? That happened to Liam?”

He swallows as his heart races that little bit quicker. He wasn’t expecting that. He’s never expected that despite thinking the question himself almost daily. “Aye. I know the risks. I know the possibility. But if there’s one thing you need to know about me, Swan, it’s that I’m a survivor.”

“Good.”

They both end up eating two more slices of cake, something he regrets no later than fifteen minutes after putting his plate down, but he soon forgets it all as they sleepily watch a movie, the flickering of the television lights now the only thing illuminating the room and casting Emma in a subtle glow. He should get up and go home. It wouldn’t take much, no longer than ten minutes, but with the heat of Emma’s body radiating toward him and little strands of her hair tickling his skin, he can’t find the motivation to be anywhere but here.

Bloody hell.

They’ve spent the night together once before, but he got up and left before she could wake up. That feels like a lifetime ago, and he doesn’t think he’d make the mistake of walking away again.

“Killian?”

“Yeah, love?”

Emma leans forward so he gets a glance of her bare back, her sweater having shifted even more. “Do you think you’d ever change your mind about not wanting to get married?”

Tonight is full of all of the questions, he guesses. All he hopes is that she doesn’t regret this in the morning.

“I imagine if I met the right person, maybe. I’ve never been completely opposed to marriage or falling in love again. I think, maybe, I simply needed reminding that I could.”

If he fell in love again.

If he trusted again.

If he felt the way he’s feeling right now where his stomach can’t seem to settle and his mind is pretty much the same.

She blinks at him, her mouth parted and the smallest bit of yellow icing on the corner of her lips. Without thinking, he reaches forward and thumbs it away as little sparks of electricity move from his fingertip up his arm and eventually down his spine, joining in on his unsettled stomach and the nerves that can’t seem to settle. It would be so easy to lean forward and kiss her. How many times has he thought that? Tonight and this week and over the past few months. The night they met they couldn’t keep their hands – or their mouths to be honest – off each other, but now, every touch burns him alive.

There’s so much at stake, so much to lose, and he never thought this woman would be anything more than one night.

He never thought she might be the one to remind him that not everything about love is terrible. He’s not there yet, but he could be.

It’s all in the possibility.

“Yeah,” Emma sighs, falling back to the couch so her shoulder hits his and the outside of her thigh brushes his thigh. He can feel the heat of her skin through his jeans even more now, and he’s thankful that she was the one to move first and stop their staring contest. “I guess I can understand that.”

-/-

There’s a bang of a door and Killian startles awake.

He blinks, looking around at the blurred furniture only to realize this is Emma’s apartment. Shit. He fell asleep.

Shit. He’s got to be at training in…he looks down at his phone on the coffee table.

Fuck.

He’s got to be at training for his exams in twenty minutes.

Quickly, he grabs his phone, sticking it in the pocket of his jeans, hitting there to make sure he has his wallet and his keys, and his mind is in such a panic that he doesn’t notice that Emma hasn’t moved from her spot by the door until he’s standing in front of her trying to walk out.

His breath has got to be horrible right now.

“Emma, sweetheart, I’ve got to – wait, what’s wrong?”

She blinks up at him, her green eyes bright even with the smudged and flecked mascara underneath her eyes, and he’s so entranced by her that all he wants, even now, is to lean down and softly brush her lips over and feel the gloriousness of her mouth once more. That feeling has only been in dreams for so long, but it was real once, even if the circumstances were different.

“N-nothing,” she stutters, backing up to the door. “It’s just that, um, I went and got my mail because I hadn’t in a few days, and our annulment papers came in. We’re officially no longer married.”

-/-

-/-

@xemmaloveskillianx​ @therealstartraveller776​ @stahlop @shardminds @carpedzem @captainsjedi  @galaxyzxstark @thejollyroger-writer @kmomof4 @tiganasummertree @xellewoods @idristardis @karenfrommisthaven @shireness-says @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @a-faekindagirl @ultimiflos @jamif @dreameronarooftop15 @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke  @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @teamhook @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @superchocovian @ultraluckycatnd @cs-forlife @andiirivera @qualitycoffeethings @jonirobinson64 @mariakov81 @spartanguard @snowbellewells  @onepunintendid​ @bluewildcatfanatic​

[mamthew]

My full review of Persona 5: Scramble. Some mostly minor spoilers scattered throughout, though I try to flag them in advance.

When Persona 5: Scramble was announced, my expectations were fairly low. As it was yet another Warriors spinoff of a better-known series, I expected Hyrule Warriors but with Persona characters. I thought we’d get the P5 crew, maybe even a few from P3 or P4, maybe a villain or two, mindlessly tearing through thousands of enemies in essentially interchangeable levels, justified by a threadbare, 6-hour story. The demo, then, blew me away. It was just…the beginning of a sequel to Persona 5, maintaining the locations, presentation, and characters of the original game, but with a beat ‘em up battle system. I began thinking of Scramble as a direct sequel to literally my favorite game of all time, including everything a sequel might entail. 

Having played through almost all of Persona 5: Strikers (I have started but not bothered seriously attempting New Game+ in Merciless difficulty), the game we ended up getting was halfway between those, I think. They managed to recreate the presentation of P5 impeccably, with gorgeous menus, beautiful battle effects, entertaining scene transitions, etc. However, the half of the game that isn’t dungeon-crawling is deceptively scant. The story centers around a road trip across Japan, but each city isn’t nearly as realized as P5’s Tokyo, with only about 3 rooms apiece, and some of the later ones not even getting a hub at all. The hubs really only exist to have shops, with none of the time management, minigames, or relationship building in a mainline Persona game. Still, it’s the only Persona spinoff I’ve played that has a real-life component at all, so I found it refreshing to get to wander Sendai, Okinawa, Osaka, and other towns in a game I’d initially not expected to have any towns at all.

The dungeons are where this game shines, though. They’re actual Persona 5-style dungeons, made occasionally even more dynamic with the addition of platforming and sidescrolling sections reminiscent of Nier Automata. The battle system uses the bones of the system in every warriors game, but slowly builds on it with more and more complexity until it’s not only a unique system, but is honestly one of the more engaging action battle systems I’ve played in a minute, in which you’re constantly trying to time dodges just right for extra hits, which can then open the option to either get in an extra hit with your character, which heals some SP, or switch to another character for an extra hit with them, which increases the rate at which the special gauge increases. As Joker, you have an array of Personas you can switch between on the fly, shifting your moveset, your stats, and your strategy as you go. Each of the other characters has their own gimmick that makes them unique and fun to play and sets them apart from Joker, who otherwise would have access to all their elemental attacks and stat spreads. Strategically placed objects around dungeons can be used to pull off special moves in battles, as well, letting you jump up to chandeliers and drop them on enemies or dive off of walls and tackle enemies. The battle system takes a little too long to actually become complex, but once it actually reaches that point it’s really rewarding. The bosses, too, are fun, with designs deserving of the Persona name and strategies that make full use of the environments. You can even replay them at different difficulty levels as the game goes on. I’ve never played a Koei Tecmo game with this much polish, and the battle system makes me hope the Warriors team goes to try an actual Platinum-style character action game. I think they’d knock it out of the park.

I’m a little split on the story of this game. The bones of the story are good. The characters are all written perfectly, and seeing them interact again was enough that I actually teared up a bit when I first booted up the game. I enjoy the new characters, and they work well with the party. The pacing is solid and it has a good emotional core. The villains are decent for the most part, and the ending is pretty satisfying. Several of the villains directly correlate to specific party members, too, which gives us further insight into those party members, and lets us watch as they see themselves in someone else and recognize where that other person broke off from their path. The game is in part about trauma and the ways it drives individuals to lash out at a world they’ve always believed to be cold and unforgiving, which could be a powerful message if done well. In this game, though, it’s not done very well at all. The ultimate message – if this game could be said to have one – is that individuals without support networks are driven by trauma to make bad decisions. That’s not…necessarily untrue, but it’s not…necessarily true, either. This message is probably at its worst when the game gets into inadvertently ableist territory with a character near the end, who -spoilers until the end of the paragraph- tries to essentially enslave mankind because her dissociation due to trauma convinces her that she has no emotions and therefore the species as a whole should have no emotions either. It’s…frankly a really gross bookend on a game that, until that point, had managed to avoid most of the issues with male gaze and homophobia that the original game had.

Every message in this game, though, is too individual-focused to function as a real message or social commentary. It even undercuts the sharp themes in the original by showing people in similar positions of power as the original villains just…choosing not to fall to corruption and consequently avoiding all of the problems that would arise from their power discrepancy. For a spoilery example until the end of the paragraph, the villain in Persona 5 who’s a CEO is a villain because his need to make profit drives him to exploit his workers, paying them less and working them more. The villain in Strikers who’s a CEO is a villain because his father was abusive and that led him to think people must be controlled. One is a real-world problem applicable to any CEO. The other is a story that exists only in the fictional realm.

This wouldn’t be such a glaring issue if Persona games – and especially Persona 5 – weren’t known for their social commentary. That’s not limited to the main games, either. Persona 4 Dancing was a rhythm game with a story about parasocial relationships and the pressures they place on public figures. Strikers ostensibly touches on parasocial relationships, but doesn’t…really have anything to say about them.

The game does try to make a statement sometimes, but everything it tries to say is disjointed, at odds with the previous game, or inapplicable to real life. The villains’ deeds don’t really have much similarity to each other, either, unlike in 5, and it’s stated outright that several of them would not hold any power at all without the supernatural world, which both prevents their stories from saying anything about the real world, and flies in the face of the purpose of Persona as a series. The supernatural worlds in Persona games are the collective unconscious, which means that the worlds are used to give the characters and the player visual representations of abstract concepts. The Palaces in Persona 5 are not the sources of the villains’ power; that comes from regular old societal hierarchies. The characters in Persona 4 were experiencing their inner turmoil before they were sucked into the TV world, and the midnight channel only made manifest what was already there and unseen. Conversely, the first two villains in Strikers are only in the public eye because they use supernatural means to make people like them. That the supernatural means involve smart phones doesn’t say anything about technology, because that’s not how technology actually works. In a follow-up to a game that was as furious at the world and desperate for change as Persona 5 was, it’s a glaring departure for the characters to just…befriend “the good cop,” or -spoilers again- push the mayor who’s based on Margaret Fucking Thatcher to run again but do things the “right way” this time.

That being said, I’m not actually that upset with this game. I have a lot to say about its missteps because I have a lot to say about Persona 5, but the gameplay is legitimately fun, and I do really love seeing the characters again. I’m more bemused than upset with the game’s fumbling of…the thing that made me fall in love with Persona 5 to begin with. Part of that is because the game is still so solid and fun, and the characters are written so well that I can overlook the issues. Even deeper, though, is that the last few years has radicalized so many people that the statements made in Persona 5 are simply…more visible in the mainstream than they were when it released. Late show hosts rage about the exploitation of waged workers. Video game streamers remark on the cruel arbitrariness of the current system. Shows about cops are being pushed to justify their existence to an increasingly disillusioned public. I think if Persona 5 released today, it wouldn’t have the same impact it did in 2017. To my mind, the game no longer carries the responsibility it once did. So this game is fun and doesn’t really matter, and that’s actually okay.

But if Persona 6 isn’t a return to form, I’ll take it back.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

MMT in the NYT

Happy book birthday to Stephanie Kelton on the publication of her long-awaited "The Deficit Myth," a book that could NOT be more timely in this moment of massive structural unemployment and trillions of free money for the wealthiest among us.

https://stephaniekelton.com/book/

Kelton is one of the leading proponents of Modern Monetary Theory, which describes how money actually works, as a series of accounting flows, and makes some profound observations about the implications of understanding how government spending actually works.

I've written about Kelton's work before:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/14/everybody-poops/#deficit-myth

But here's the shortest possible summary I can give:

Money ISSUERS (sovereign states) have a different relationship to money and debt than money USERS (everyone else: people, companies, local governments).

Governments don't spend our taxes. Governments spend new money into existence and tax some of it back out of existence. Governments get new money from the same place Starbucks gets new gift-card codes: by typing entries into spreadsheets.

Governments aren't "monetarily constrained." If something is for sale in a currency the government prints, it can buy it. Governments are constrained by resources - that is, which things are for sale in its currency: labor, resources, manufacturing capacity.

Government "debts" aren't like household debts. If governments owe debts in their own currency, they can pay by creating more currency (it's different when the debts are in another currency: Venezuela can't pay US dollar debts by printing Venezuelan bolivars).

Government debts are where our money comes from. Governments spend money into existence: if they "balance their budgets" then they tax all that money back out again. That's why austerity ALWAYS leads to economic contraction - governments are taxing away too much money.

There's one other source of money, of course: bank loans. Banks have governments charters to loan money that they don't actually have on hand (contrary to what you've been taught, banks don't loan out their deposits).

When there's not enough government money in circulation, people seek bank loans to fill the gap. Unlike federal debts, bank loans turn a profit for bank investors. The more austerity, the more bank loans, the more profits for the finance sector (at everyone else's expense).

So talk of "fiscal responsibility" from business groups is just a pretence for creating the conditions in which they earn interest every time someone needs money that the government has withdrawn from the economy and has to pay financiers for it instead.

You can tell that business leaders don't really care about deficits: that's why they cheered the 2008 bailout, the 2018 tax bill, and the trillions that Congress has gifted to America's largest corporations since the crisis.

As Kelton pointed out in her recent interview with Marketplace, these firms know that deficits aren't necessarily inflationary - inflation is when there's more money than there are things for sale in that currency.

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/make-me-smart-with-kai-and-molly/maybe-modern-monetary-theory-is-an-answer-to-the-covid-19-economic-crisis/

The pro-oligarch squad opposes government spending that makes everyday people better off because it makes it harder to coerce them into predatory loans and unfair working conditions - not because of inflation.

After all, today, 25-35% of our workers have no market for their labor - the private sector doesn't want that work. The feds could spend the money into existence to give each one of those workers meaningful employment doing care work and environmental remediation.

Forget the (laudable) goals of #FightFor15: the true US "minimum wage" is $0/hour, which is what the people who can't find work earn for their labor. A federal jobs guarantee would put a true floor under the price of labor in America.

Kelton writes superbly about this, with a flair that is rare among economists. To celebrate her book's publication, she's published an op-ed in the New York Times: "Why I’m Not Worried About America’s Trillion-Dollar Deficits."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/opinion/us-deficit-coronavirus.html

Like many of us, Kelton initially agreed with Margaret Thatcher's 1983 speech: "the state has no source of money other than the money people earn themselves. If the state wishes to spend more, it can only do so by borrowing your savings or by taxing you more."

But after Kelton read Warren Mosler's "Soft Currency Economics," and discussed it with him in person, she had a profound realization about the true nature of money - and the needless cruelty and waste of austerity.

Her first published paper, 2016's "Do Taxes and Bonds Finance Government Spending?," was a landmark attempt to bring Mosler's ideas to academic economics.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00213624.2000.11506296

Four years later, we're living in an MMT world, with Congress engaged in multitrillion dollar spending without any Pelosian "payfors" in sight.

Kelton: "Every economy faces a speed limit, regulated by the availability of its real productive resources — the state of technology and the quantity and quality of its land, workers, factories, machines and other materials. If any government tries to spend too much into an economy that’s running at full speed, inflation will accelerate. So there are limits. However, the limits are not in our government’s ability to spend money or to sustain large deficits. What MMT does is distinguish the real limits from wrongheaded, self-imposed constraints."

[stahlop]

Once Upon a Time 3x07 “Dark Hollow” Review

Reviews 1x01 1x02 1x03 1x04 1x05 1x06 1x07 1x08 1x09 1x10 1x11 1x12 1x13 1x14 1x15 1x16 1x17 1x18 1x19 1x20 1x21 1x22 2x01 2x02 2x03 2x04 2x05 2x06 2x07 2x08 2x09 2x10 2x11 2x12 2x13 2x14 2x15 2x16 2x17 2x18 2x19 2x20 2x21 2x22 3x01 3x02 3x03 3x04 3x05 3x06

Well, we officially have a love triangle going on, although Emma seems to want no part of it. Ariel and Belle make quite the plucky duo. And who would have guessed that Peter Pan was keeping John and Michael Darling alive for his own nefarious plan? On the plus side, Rumple now has ammo to capture Pan, thus ensuring he can come home to Belle.

Summary: Neal tells the group how he used the coconut to get off of Neverland the first time, which leads himself, Hook, and Emma into Dark Hollow to capture a shadow. Ariel and Belle search for Pandora’s Box for Ariel to bring back to Neverland, but are held up by an unlikely pair.

Opening: Clock Tower

New Characters: 

John and Michael Darling: We really don’t find out too much about them. Basically, Pan has kidnapped their sister, Wendy, presumably allowed them to grow up enough to be able to do things for him, and now they need to get and destroy Pandora’s Box in order to get Wendy back. They are obviously very loyal to Wendy, and blame themselves for her predicament. Fortunately, Belle convinces them (after setting a coal cart on them), that they are the winning side and they can beat Pan with Pandora’s Box.

Character Observations:

Henry: He is convinced that Pan is hiding his family from him. Henry wants to know where Pan goes when he disappears from camp if it’s not to see his family hidden somewhere. Henry tells Pan he’s going to find out what it is. Oh, Henry. The first rule of trying to find out if someone’s hiding something, is not to tell them that you think they’re hiding something. Pan sends Felix to get ‘supplies’ and so Henry follows him, in the least stealthy way possible. He’s practically breathing down Felix’s neck he’s so close. He even does the classic step on a twig and hide move so Felix doesn’t catch him. Henry eventually finds the tree house(?) that Pan has put Wendy into (Felix drops a bag of apples in front of the ladder). He wonders why she’s so far away from camp and she tells him that she’s sick and Pan doesn’t want anyone else to catch it. Wendy also tells him she’s sick because the magic of Neverland is fading. Then she tells him how much he looks like his father, and that she knew him when he was a boy. Wendy then tells him he needs to leave so he doesn’t get sick and he promises to come back for her. He ‘runs’ into Pan on the way back to camp and confronts him about Wendy. Pan pretends he hid Wendy from him because he didn’t want Henry to know that because magic is dying, so is a young girl. Henry buys this hook, line, and sinker, and now wants to know how he can help save magic. Pan tells him it’s not how but where and leads him to Skull Rock, where the heart of the truest believer will be their salvation. Pan feeds into Henry’s wannabe hero complex by telling him saving magic will require heroism and sacrifice, and if Henry doesn’t realize that by sacrifice that means him, then I don’t know if he’s worth saving.

Belle: She’s obviously upset about Rumple leaving and going to sacrifice himself, even if it is for his grandson. Archie, the Blue Fairy, and the dwarfs see that she is upset and discover that Rumple left her with a cloaking spell to protect the spell. It’s the first spell she’s ever cast so she’s nervous. Blue Fairy tells her she needs to believe in herself (do spells not work if you don’t believe in them?), and it looks like it won’t work for a hot second, but then it does, and a huge cloaking dome encapsulates Storybrooke. Five days and four rejected cheeseburgers later, Archie is trying to psychoanalyze Belle in Granny’s (with his first question being ‘You miss him, don’t you?’ Well, duh!) Belle is upset because Rumple has gone off to his death and she feels like she can’t do anything to help him. Archie reminds her that she helped put up the cloaking spell, but pouring a potion over rocks apparently isn’t that big of a deal in her eyes. Archie tells her that she’s protecting the town from outsiders, but she thinks that was just a distraction because he doesn’t really need her. Which is when Leroy brings Ariel over with the news that Rumple needs her. Ariel hands her the sand dollar Rumple gave her and Belle is confused about what she’s supposed to do with it. She finally figures out that it holds a message from Rumple that gives clues as to how to find Pandora’s Box. Belle’s just excited that Rumple wants her help. I have to roll my eyes over this whole thing. The Belle that we saw in the Enchanted Forest knew her worth. She used books and her smarts to find the Yaoguai and figure out that he was the enchanted Prince Phillip in The Outsider. Yet here she has self-doubt because the man she loves didn’t take him with her to find his grandson? And she only gets her mojo back because he needs her? Ugh! Belle finally figures out that placing the chipped tea cup in it’s normal place in the cupboard activates a secret panel on the floor which is where he keeps Pandora’s Box. Which is, of course, when John and Michael come in with their guns, tie up Belle and Ariel , and take the box. Belle tries to convince them that they don’t know who they’re working for, but they are quite aware that Pan is their boss and that Greg and Tamara were patsies for their plan, which confuses her even more. They leave with the box. Belle laments about how every time she tries to be a hero she fails (I’m sure Prince Phillip would disagree). Belle figures out that they can get out of the ropes if Ariel gets her fins back, and somehow this words (not sure how considering they were mainly tied up around their chests, but okay). Belle figures out the men went to the mines to destroy the box with one of the dwarfs' pick axes. Belle tries to play on their sympathies by telling them that people they care about will die if they destroy the box, but they tell her they have the same issue if they don’t destroy the box. At least Belle is smart enough to send a coal cart careening their way to stop them from destroying the box.  Belle finally convinces them that Rumple will be able to stop Pan, thus freeing their sister, and that’s when we find out, officially, that they are John and Michael Darling. Belle says goodbye to Ariel at the shore and is happy that Rumple will be able to defeat Pan and come home to her.

Neal/Emma/Hook: Oh look, the love triangle no one asked for. Anyway, Neal informs them that he escaped with Pan’s Shadow, but Emma doesn’t think they’ll be able to get it because they can’t get near Pan. Hook informs her his shadow is an entity unto itself, so they don’t actually need to get anywhere near Pan. Neal is actually thankful that Hook is going with them to find the shadow, since he knows the island just as well as Neal. Emma asks Mary Margaret when she’s going to forgive David since she’s still giving him the cold shoulder. Emma understands where David is coming from, not wanting to jeopardize the mission with his problems. Mary Margaret tells her to be careful with Neal and Hook since they both have feelings for her. Emma doesn’t want to deal with that. All she cares about is Henry. The trio head back to Neal’s cave to find the coconut. Emma goes to find where it’s hidden and Hook has a really awkward conversation with Neal about his and Emma’s kiss, assuming that Emma had told him. Neal tries to play it off as Emma being too focused on getting their son back (and also throwing in his face the fact that they have a son together), but you can see the hurt in his eyes that Emma kissed Hook and didn’t tell him, especially after he told her he’d fight for them. Emma brings the coconut to them and Neal says it’s not a star map but a way to trap Pan’s Shadow. Neal tells them they have to go to Dark Hollow. Hook looks frightened, Emma wonders why it couldn’t have a happier name. Hook tells her that it’s basically where the Shadows live and all light is snuffed out. They get to a particularly dense piece of jungle and Emma takes out Neal’s cutlass that Hook gave her in The Heart of the Truest Believer, almost slicing Hook who is behind her. Neal thinks she found it in the cave, but she tells him Hook gave it to her. Hook says he thought Emma might want something to remember him by, but Neal reminds him that he’s there now and goes off to hack the jungle brush. Emma wants to know what that was all about and he tells her he accidentally told Neal about their kiss. Emma wants to know why he would assume she’d told him, and Hook thought that maybe it meant something to her. Poor Hook. He’s really looking for some validation that it wasn’t a one time thing. She tells him that it meant a lot that he told them Neal was alive. He tells her it was a test from Pan, to see if he’d choose an old friend over the woman they both wanted. She’s impressed because he’s a pirate. For the first time, Hook looks upset over being called a pirate, or that Emma only sees him as one. He tells her that when he wins her heart, and he will win her heart, it won’t involve any trickery. It will be because she wants him. And I’m just going to cry in the corner now, because that is the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard. Emma takes a minute to catch her breath over that confession, and tells him that it’s not a contest. Hook tells her she’ll have to choose and she says she only has to choose how to save her son. Hook tells her she’ll get him back because he’s never seen her fail, and Emma is just glowing from all the faith he has in her, because, let’s face it, no one, especially Neal, has ever had this much faith in her. Neal interrupts their little moment when he’s finally found Dark Hollow. Neal explains that they’ll light the candle in the coconut and the Shadows will be drawn to it. Once in the coconut, they put the lid on and they have a trapped Shadow. Neal tries to light the candle with a Zippo, but it’s too windy. Hook gets impatient and tries to steal the lighter, and then he and Neal start fighting over it like children. Yep, that’s definitely the way to impress Emma. Even Emma calls them out over it. They lose the lighter in the scuffle and then the Shadows come and take the men and try to rip out their shadows. Emma is hunched in a corner of some logs freaking the eff out. Eventually she remembers that she has magic, and after a few false starts, manages to light the candle and catch Pan’s Shadow. She is very impressed with herself. Neal wants to know how she managed to do it and is not happy that Regina is teaching Emma magic. Emma has now gone from impressed to stunned. I find it pretty ironic that Neal left the Enchanted Forest to get away from magic, and now the girl he’s fighting for has it. Emma is pissed off at both Neal and Hook for their behavior. Hook feels the need to tell her that it wasn’t the lighter they were fighting over and she just looks at him like he’s the biggest idiot in the world. She tells them the only person she is choosing is Henry (this always reminds me of the 90210 moment where Kelly chooses herself, rather than choose between Brandon or Dylan). At least both Hook and Neal look properly chagrined. When they get to Tink’s place, Neal comes in like the conquering hero, like he did all the work when all he did was almost get himself killed. Neal and Tink have a lot of chemistry going on there. Maybe he can forget Emma and get with Tink instead. Problem solved. Anyway, Hook angrily states that they did it, and wonders if Tink will now help them (you can tell he’s angry because he’s popping all the letters when he speaks). Tink finally agrees to work with them now that they have an exit plan. Neal apologizes again to Emma and agrees that they need to put Henry first. 

Mary Margaret/David: Mary Margaret is not speaking to David and he’s not happy about it, but he knows he’s in the dog house, so he doesn’t push it. While the love triangle goes off to find Pan’s Shadow, Mary Margaret and David head to Tink’s tree house to let her know about the plan. David tried to get her to talk to him, but she’s not ready. He tries to defend his decision not to tell her, but she just keeps heading to Tink’s. David changes tactics by pointing out the nice places in the jungle that he could build a hut. Mary Margaret just gets annoyed by that. She just continues on. David actually calls her Snow to get her attention, and eventually tells her that she needs to say something, anything. That gets Mary Margaret going. She wants to know why she needs to say something when he didn’t say a word to her about his being poisoned. He wanted to find a cure and then he wouldn’t have to say anything and worry anyone. Mary Margaret points out that he was cured and he still didn’t say anything. David finally tells her he was scared. Mary Margaret thinks he was scared that she wouldn’t stay with him, but David was actually scared that she would. He didn’t want to force her to stay with him. Mary Margaret says love means staying together, but David says it also means sacrifice. Mary Margaret says she’ll happily stay and dodge poison arrows and Lost Boys with him, as long as they’re together.  She tells him he didn’t believe in them, and he needs to believe. David apologizes. And this is a really sweet scene between these two. It’s no wonder they’re married in real life. They pull off being a married couple so well. It seems these two lovebirds have finally made up.

Regina/Rumple: Rumple has drawn some kind of map to get Ariel to Storybrooke. She says she would have to cross several realms, but she can do it. He enchants a sand dollar for her to give to Belle with instructions. Ariel asks Regina where she’ll find Eric, but Regina tells her she needs to bring the box first, and then she’ll tell her that information. She tells Ariel incentives are important. Ugh! She’s a grown mermaid, not a kid Henry’s age. That was very condescending. Ariel wonders how she’ll know Regina will uphold her end of the bargain, and Regina says she’ll just have to trust her. Considering what Regina did to her last time, I’m surprised Ariel took the deal. Regina and Rumple discuss whether Rumple truly believes Belle will come through for them. Regina realizes Rumple truly loves Belle. She seems shocked that he could love someone. Rumple takes her tone to mean she’s jealous. Regina scoffs at being jealous of Belle, but Rumple accuses her of being jealous that he has someone and she doesn’t. Luckily, Ariel arrives before Regina can either ruminate on her feelings or send a fireball at him. Rumple seems shocked that they actually managed to get the box to him. Regina magicks Ariel’s bracelet so she can have legs whenever she wants. Ariel tells them about Wendy and the Darlings and that Belle wants them to try and rescue Wendy. Regina doesn’t want to stray from the mission to save Henry, but Ariel reminds her that without her and Belle, they wouldn’t have the box to save Henry. Rumple says they’ll do their best and Regina isn’t happy about another side mission interfering with her trying to save her son. Rumple tells Ariel to tell Belle he loves her and will see her again. Regina looks like she isn’t too sure about that last part.

Pan/Wendy: Pan basically manipulates Henry into believing magic is dying and he’s the only one who can save it by making Wendy lie about being sick because of magic dying. Wendy doesn’t like lying to Henry (especially since he’s Bae’s son). Pan finally has Henry right where he wants him.

Questions:

Did Rumple give Belle a spell or a potion? Or was it instructions as to what to do with the potion? Because a spell usually involves some chanting or saying of instructions, and all Belle did was pour the potion into the vein of fairy dust.

Is Rumple drawing a portal map to Storybrooke? How would he know how the mermaid portals work?

Does Ariel normally live in Neverland waters? How does Pan know when she leaves? Is it because she was sitting on the rock?

Ok, seriously, how does Pan communicate with people not in Neverland?

When did Rumple ‘record’ the sand dollar message for Belle? Or is it just a magic message?

When did Rumple have time to set up the hiding of Pandora’s Box and the teacup to activate it? Did he think that Belle would be the only person to have access to it, or was it just a sweet reminder for himself?

Why is it so light in Dark Hollow? When the lanterns went out it didn’t change the lighting level at all.

Why is the Shadow attracted to light? In Second Star to the Right Bae used a match to scare the Shadow into dropping him in the water. 

What are the holes for in the coconut? To let the shadow breathe?

How the hell does Belle walk in the mines in 6 inch stiletto heels? I get that they didn’t have a lot of time, but she couldn’t have found a pair of flats or some boots?

Why is Belle always so confused when villains have personal stakes in the game? She had no idea about Milah’s true death in The Outsider with Hook, and now she’s completely stunned that Pan is forcing the Darlings to help him because he has their sister.

How has Pan kept the Darling boys alive all this time? Were they in Neverland until the time was right for them to ‘grow up’?

Why did Pan take Wendy? What purpose does she serve him? He obviously doesn’t care for her like in the books and movies.

Does Wendy really think Henry looks like Bae, or did she just tell him that to help believe?

Observations:

It has been five days since Emma and crew went to Neverland.

I don’t know why, but Belle’s blue nailpolish bugs me. It doesn’t seem in character for her to have blue nailpoilsh.

There’s a teddy bear keychain hanging from the dash of the Darling’s car.

What luck that the Darlings just happened to be trying to get into Storybrooke at the exact time that Belle was casting the cloaking spell.

The Darling’s license plate is from Minnesota.

Ariel’s bracelet is only enchanted for 24 hours.

Pan senses when Ariel leaves Neverland.

There’s a No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service policy at Granny’s.

Emma and crew rescued Neal from the Echo Caves the day before according to David.

Pandora’s Box contains the World’s Greatest Evil.

Emma only yells Hook’s name when the Shadows take him and Neal.

I’m going to assume that it took longer to rip Hook and Neal’s shadows from their bodies because they’re from the Enchanted Forest, whereas when they just ripped Greg’s from his body in a few seconds, it was because he was from The Land Without Magic.

John uses Happy’s axe when he attempts to destroy Pandora’s Box.

Wendy looks pretty good considering she’s been in a box for over a century.

It looks like Pan finally has his plan moving into place, now that he has Henry believing, Emma is not playing into the love triangle at the moment, and both David and Mary Margaret will be staying in Neverland once this is all over. Rumple now has Pandora’s Box, so let’s hope he is able to use it and actually defeat Pan.

Please leave comments and reblog! Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future reviews.

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[thestraggletag]

Public Affairs, a Starbucks Series Fic

Summary: Nick and Belle’s relationship is still fresh and new and they both agree the best course of action is keep it private, at least for a while. And Nick is completely fine with that. Totally.

Set a few months after Addiction.

Anon prompted: starbucks prompt: gold sees a colleague of belle taking light office flirting too far

Rating: PG (brief mentions of sex)

Nick hadn’t much minded that Belle was dedicating a lot of her waking hours to her new role as Mallory Ficent’s PA. It was a position to die for (as well as a possible cause of death according to the rumour mill) and Belle had worked hard during her internship to get it. In the interest of avoiding any future misunderstanding she’d disclosed their relationship with her employer. To her credit Mal was of the strong opinion that Belle was her own woman and that who she dated mattered not as long as she was capable of separating business from pleasure. The few times they’d seen each other in public she’d given him a passing withering stare, but nothing more.

Even so he always more than welcomed whatever time alone they could squirrel away for themselves, and it so happened that Belle had texted him about one such opening. A whole weekend to themselves starting Friday afternoon after a business event at Uni Global, one he was also attending. They would discreetly leave together and head to his penthouse for a weekend of old movies, decadent food and drink and unrealistic amounts of sex.

He had made all the necessary preparations. He’d purchased some gelatto from Grom- Gianduia and Fiordilatte, Belle’s favourites, and Tiramisú for him- had added a few promising movies to his Netflix list, had stocked up on eggs and smoked salmon for their breakfast and had acquired a vast array of undergarments and nightgowns from La Perla for when he inevitably lost his patience with Belle’s underthings in the heat of the moment.

The event itself was more of a networking affair than anything else, and it required little of his attention. He was at a stage in life where people wanted to make his acquaintance and not the other way around. His job was to stand and seem approachable or not depending on who was trying to have a word with him. It wasn’t a complete waste of time; hands were shook, vague promises were made and interesting information was exchanged, but nothing that required all of his attention. Which meant, of course, that every now and then his eyes could scan the room and rest upon Mal’s hard-working PA, demurely dressed in a grey Valentino fit-and-flare dress she’d found on sale at Bergdorf Goodman. It was plain but it fit her well and she’d paired it with a red belt and shoes for a little bit of flair. As a PA a lot of her clothes were supposed to be understated, but Mal did not mind if she spiced it up a bit. Nick wagered she liked it. Belle’s backbone was, without a doubt, one of the most attractive parts of her.

She was flitting about the room, making sure everything went as seamlessly as possible, and checking in on Mal every now and then, no doubt ready to estrincate her from mediocre company the moment the older woman gave her some sort of prearranged sign. He often did the same himself. Fidgeting with his pocket square brought Mary Margaret running over with a vague reference to “something that required his immediate attention” every time. Woman had the eyes of a hawk, never missed the signal, which is probably one of the main reasons why he kept her around and paid her so well.

He kept his distance, content with admiring her from afar as she checked in with the catering staff. Every now and then she’d smile his way and that was enough for him. They had agreed that they wouldn’t seek each other out. They weren’t about to hide their relationship but there was no need to advertise it either. A smooth, slow transition into the public eye seemed best.

He frowned when he got a glimpse of Keith Nott, Mal’s Junior VP of Accounting, leaning over a little too much in front of Belle, pointing at the pomegranate pin above her left breast before actually extending a meaty hand to touch it. He had gifted it to her, a souvenir from his two-day trip to Granada. He had bought a lot of things as a way to cope with missing her, and though she hadn’t accepted some of his more extravagant purchases she’d fallen in love with the pomegranate pin at first sight. It irked him to see the buck’s meaty, uncoordinated hands touching it almost as much as it infuriated him to see any parts of Mr Nott anywhere near Belle.

He’d seen him circling her before, like an ungainly vulture. But he’d let it slide because the idiot had at least minded his manners. But as the event had progressed that had become less and less the case. Mr Nott was a new legacy hire, as it were, the firstborn son of one of the big shareholders under Mal. His title was just that, and his main function was to network and schmooze, because the Dragonlady had made it clear there would be no growth opportunities for him within the company. But being young and new it seemed he had gotten carried away with the complimentary champagne going around, a rookie mistake. He would almost feel sorry for him is his new lack of inhibitions hadn’t led him to corner Mal’s PA near the sweets table, using his ridiculously tall stature to loom over her in an almost threatening manner.

They had agreed to keep a low profile, he reminded himself as he strolled over, his grip on the gold handle of his cane tightening when he saw fucking Keith curl a lock of Belle’s hair around his fingers and pull, the gesture likely meant to be playful and suggesting but looking rather painful as he pulled a little hard when Belle tried to take a step back. He bet the lad was not drunk enough to have missed the fact that his would-be conquest was unlikely to wish to call attention to herself, lest she risk the event, so she could hardly tell him off or raise a fuss. Neither could she leave the premises before Mal gave her the okay to do so. Captured prey, as it were. The preference of pampered, spoiled predators. Lucky for Nick he was the big cat around, and no one messed with him or his.

“Everything looks wonderful, sweetheart.”

There was no need to raise his voice, or make a spectacle. He kept his tone soft, an accented burr that usually meant people bent over backwards to try and catch everything he said, lest they inconvenience him. He slipped his free arm around Belle’s waist and kissed the side of her head, catching the faint orange blossom smell of her perfume. She was wearing the scent he liked best on her, the demi-bespoke Fleur Narcotique they had picked together last fall.

“Thanks darling.”

She relaxed against him, warm and soft and completely at ease and he breathed a sigh of relief. It had been a gamble, to be so open without having discussed it, but he’d read her unease well. And, after all, it was all inevitable. Might as well get people used to it sooner rather than later. And it was amusing, really, to see the welp lose all his ill-deserved cockiness and turn white as a sheet. Nick didn’t need to glance towards were Nott Senior was to know the old man was mimicking his son in complexion. Funny how the man hadn’t even batted an eye when it looked like all his young progeny was doing was harassing a woman who could not tell him loudly to go fuck himself.

Keith seemed to pull himself together as much as he possibly could, straightening up and offering his hand.

“Keith Nott, Mr Gold, it’s a pleasure.”

Nick took a step forward, letting the tip of his cane dig deep into one of the man’s Oxfords. He took the offered hand, squeezing hard and smiling sharply.

“I’m sure it is. And I see you’ve met my girlfriend.”

He thought saying the term out loud would make him feel foolish or old, but it didn’t. Though it felt like it wasn’t enough to encompass all that Belle meant to him it filled him with pride nevertheless.

“Yeah, I-”

“And you’ve been following her around. Cornering her in places. Leaning menacingly into her space and the like. Hardly appropriate behaviour in polite society.”

The idiot was starting to sweat, and he was sure he had the eyes and ears of everyone in the room. The threat had been delivered, the message received. No need to prolong the encounter. He snapped his fingers in the general direction of one of Mal’s other VPs, this one a dark-haired Englishman that has been hand picked by the dragon herself. Smart as a whip, and Belle often spoke well of him. Came from humble origins, if his unrefined accent was anything to go by.

“Mr Ravenwood, I believe our friend here has drunk rather a little too much and finds himself indisposed. It would be better for everyone involved if he was escorted out as discreetly as possible.”

There was no way to do anything discreetly, not with everyone staring at them, but it was certainly possible for the company to save a bit of face. Dylan, to his credit, handled the situation with aplomb and, dare he say it, a little bit of relish, taking the taller man firmly by both arms and making it seem like they were engaged in lighthearted conversation as he dragged him away. No wonder he was Mal’s little pet. Kid had potential. No doubt he’d be able to use the incident and a few others to unseat the young Nott in no time. Perhaps he could lend a bit of a helping hand in there.

“Belle, dear, everything’s gone splendidly. I think you’ve more than earned a bit of a head start on your weekend plans. Leave any last-minute instructions with Dylan and then you and I presume Nick can go enjoy yourselves.”

Mal had appeared out of nowhere and he wondered for a moment how it was possible for a 5’9’’ woman wearing ten inch heels to appear without making a sound or being seen. The smile she directed at Belle seemed genuine and reassuring, which put the younger woman at ease. It wasn’t until she was out of their view that she dropped it.

“What the fuck, Nick?”

“I don’t know what you mean?”

“I mean the macho posturing that’s gonna be the fucking talk of the town for a week, instead of the project I just unveiled.”

He bristled at her affronted tone.

“Well, I couldn’t very well let a fucking boy green between the ears manhandle Belle. It’s not my fault that you let it go on for as long as it did.” When he saw she was about to defend herself he cut her off. “Oh, I can imagine what this was about. You wanting to get rid of the little idiot, and him causing a scene when Belle was finally forced to slap him or otherwise put him in his place would’ve given you a nice bit of ammo. And Belle, bless her soul, wouldn’t have batted an eye at being used like that. Doesn’t mean I have to like it or tolerate it.”

She scoffed, but she looked like she grudgingly agreed with him. She snatched a vodka Martini from a passing waiter, not ready to give up the fight.

“We need to meet and hash this out properly. Go and enjoy your little weekend of sin as much as your old age allows you to but come Monday we’ll sit down and come up with an arrangement. Do’s and don’ts of sharing Belle’s time and attention.”

“A contract? What an ingenious thought.”

He tried not to let his glee show. Contracts were his purview, his stock and trade. There was no way he’d ever negotiate a bad contract. Mal was going to regret ever coming up with the idea.

[ablogthatishenceforthmine]

My Top 10 Favorite Boardwalk Empire Characters in Order

1. Jimmy Darmody

My baby boy... who I immediately fell in love with in the pilot. The emotional kid, who’s looking to prove himself. I always like young, emotional hotheads. And Jimmy has so many interesting things about him; his relationship to Gilian, to Nucky, to Angela, to Al, to Richard, to the war. He is such a tragic character, and has a fittingly tragic ending. He was just lost and had no idea what he was doing.  A perfect, smart, and strategic secondhand man, but didn’t have what it takes to be a boss. 

2. Arnold Rothstein

Every scene he is in is a delight. He is badass, smart, and (almost) always in control. He is both eccentric and terrifying. He is electric when he is on screen, commanding attention. He has amazing quotes, saying some of the smartest things in the whole series. Just what a joy to watch.

3. Charlie ‘Lucky’ Luciano

oh man.... what to say about Charlie. I love every iteration of him. The hot-headed, arrogant man we first meet. Who is never content, always trying to do more and be more, branching off from his bosses, constantly disobeying them. Until he gets fed up with being kicked around, and he learns to see the flaws of his father figures and the other bosses. And he learns from them; their strengths, their weaknesses, their achievements, and their mistakes. And then he becomes cold, and calculating, and highly intelligent in the 5th season. And improves on everyone who came before him, looking forward and coming up with a new way to do things. Everyone underestimated him, and as Nucky says that makes them “dumber than [they] knew” (absolutely in love with that line.) He brought people together, and tore down ideas about who were “his people.” He wasn’t about that tribalism. He was also one of the snarkiest motherfuckers ever. And I love his smart mouth and complete irreverence, especially in the earlier seasons. Also he is pretttttty easy on the eyes, and looks so god damn good in deep blue suits, and he has no right to.

4. Richard Harrow

My heart literally aches everytime he’s on screen. Somehow, even though he probably has the highest body count, he is the most sympathetic character in the show. He is so openly vulnerable, which is such a great contrast to the other characters. I just always wanted him to be happy. Also, he is one of the only (if not the only) character who does not get into the mob for money and status. He get involved because of love and friendship. He is empty and lonely and he is good at killing people so the mob is a natural fit. Even though he doesn’t really have a place there; he just had a place with Jimmy.

5. Eli Thompson

I know this is an unpopular/unusual choice, but I love Eli. He is a fascinating character. I love his inferiority complex. He resents, and is envious of Nucky, but he can’t do what Nucky does. There is a reason for his inferiority complex. Nucky is smarter and more talented than him. Eli hates being in Nucky’s shadow, but doesn’t have what it takes to leave it. Eli is not that smart or that brave. He is not really anything special. And this juxtaposition of an inferiority complex, and actually being inferior is fascinating to me. However, there are many ways, that Eli is superior to Nucky; namely, in his family. Eli is much better at personal relationships than Nucky. Until season 5, he had a good relationship with his wife and family, and never cheated on his wife, in juxtaposition to almost every other male character, until season 5 that is. And his trajectory is both tragic and inevitable. In the end, his punishment, unlike Nucky, is not death, but the loss of the one thing he ever had over Nucky: his family. 

6. Chalky White

Heartache and Sass. That is what Chalky brings. He is also a refutation to people who says “you can’t have black people in period films/ shows that aren’t service people or slaves and be realistic.” Despite it being the 20s, Chalky is in a position of power. At the same time, the show does not erase the racism of the time, and Chalky’s blackness and America’s racism are central to his character. In the pilot, after Jimmy tells Nucky that he wants to make something of himself, Nucky replies, “This is America, ain’t it... Who the fucks stopping you.” But as Chalky character shows, for many Americans, there are a lot stopping them. Chalky is not afforded the mobility that Nucky ascribes to America. He  is a gangster, but the show illustrates how his mobility and ability to rise to power is severely restricted because of his race. Thus showing, that all black people in period films/shows don’t have to either be absent or servants for the text to be realistic, and can in fact, even be in positions that popular culture don’t believe they could have ever been in. In fact, there were black gangsters during this time period. It is fascinating and enjoyable seeing Chalky try to operate in this world, taking power when he can. Whenever he has leverage (i.e. Nucky desperately needed help), he used it. And he was allowed to be morally complex like the other characters, killing people, and being driven by greed and status (and often putting himself and his own advancement over the advancement of his community).

7. Al Capone

I did not expect the Capone we got... in the best possible way. Similar to Charlie, it was amazing to see his evolution, and how he grew into the person he became. I don’t know if it’s accurate, but I love how he starts as one of the most loyal, and respectful of the right-hand men on the show. Surprisingly, his rise of power was non-violent, and he just took over when his boss retired. Then, he becomes the person that today’s public sees him as: powerful, erratic, violent, and unpredictable. Stephen Graham’s performance is just amazing: one of the best, if not, the best in the show. He perfectly plays all parts and iterations of Capone, and make them all seamlessly and coherently blend into each other. He nails the humor and fun aspects of the character, and absolutely kills the emotional moments, such as him talking to his son before going to jail in the series finale. He was always such a joy to watch, I especially enjoyed the scenes between him and Van Alden. Their dynamic was just gold.

8. Meyer Lanksy

It took me a while for my affection to grow for him. I overlooked him in the earlier seasons, but in the later seasons, and after I finished the show, and couldn’t stop thinking about it, I began to like his character more than I had. He is smart and carefully considers his moves. He is patient and great at reading a situation and discerning the role he should play in it. He, like Charlie, was underestimated by everyone around him. He can be unassuming and quiet, and that's one of the things that makes him dangerous. Meyer often feels like the one adult in a world full of kids, and that’s amazing. His friendship and partnership with Charlie is a highlight of the show. In a show filled with doublecrossing and people fucking each other over, it’s nice to have two people who can completely trust each other, and generally care for the other.

9. Billie Kent

Sweet summer child. She has the best smile and brightens up every scene she is in. Extremely charismatic and likeable. And the show never makes the mistake of making her too pure. She knows who Nucky is and doesn’t care. I wish we saw more of her. I wish she wasn’t fridged. 

10. Margaret Schroeder

She quite a while to grow on me. I especially grew fond of her in the later seasons, which unfortunately is when they started to use her wayyyy les. She is smart and witty. And even if I didn’t always like her overall storylines, she has some great moments.

[gunmaestro]

My Problems with Bungou Stray Dogs.

I want to preface this by saying that Bungou Stray Dogs is my favorite animanga. I’m not trying to tell Asagiri how to write the story and I’m not saying these things make it a bad concept--I just wanted to share my criticisms about the show and manga. These things absolutely don’t ruin it for me, and most of them are about the anime only anyway. Note that this list will NOT include the Tanizaki siblings although I do have a problem with their relationship because I’m focusing mostly on storytelling and character analysis. But without further ado, I’ll get into my first criticism. This one, my biggest problem with the series, will be above the cut, but the rest will be under it for length.

Dazai Osamu.

Given that Dazai as an author is a very significant presence in Japan, it’s understandable that he would play a large role in a series based largely upon Japanese authors. The fact that he has a large role is not the reason I dislike him--in fact, he’s been getting a lot less screentime in the manga recently. The reason I view Dazai as a problem with Bungou Stray Dogs is because of his mental prowess which borders on omnipotence.

It shouldn’t come to a surprise that Dazai would play a role in every major arc, given that he’s a main character and all. However, it’s very frustrating and almost boring to have arc after arc resolved because of Dazai. It’s even more frustrating when it’s implied that everything our protagonists do has already been specifically calculated by Dazai, as if their actions are not their own. Having an overpowered character like him makes the narrative seem boring.

At the time of this being written, the manga is in the middle of its arc with the Hunting Dogs and the Decay of Angels. I’m not sure if this is just me, but because of the characters (Ango, Atsushi, Dazai himself) admitting that Dazai had planned for certain events all along, I feel almost no stakes for the arc as a whole. It’s very hard to feel suspense whilst getting constant reminders that everything bad happening is all according to Dazai’s plan. I won’t even bother going into the dick measuring contest between him and Fyodor, either, because I’m sure we all know how that sort of thing can get annoying very quickly in stories.

Dazai being the super genius he is also weakens other characters around him. A striking example of this is Edogawa Ranpo, a character whom I have no problems with at all, speaking in terms of characterization. Ranpo’s entire character hinges on the fact that he is a brilliant detective and the smartest person in the agency--and to people like gifted kids, he’s a very relatable character. It greatly diminishes the quality of Ranpo’s character to introduce the idea that there are characters who know more than him; though Dazai has admitted to not being as smart as Ranpo, the narrative does not reflect this statement. Ranpo as a character works because there is grounds to his bragging--take away his status as the smartest in the series and he becomes nothing.

Similarly, Dazai negatively impacts the characters of Atsushi and Akutagawa. They’re two very interesting characters, but part of the reason they seem to fall flat to me is that they only ever act together when forced into it by Dazai. In fact, it feels like every single character on the side of good in this story would be helpless without Dazai there to guide them--and that makes them far less impactful characters.

Unresolved Plotlines and Bad Math.

Maybe I’m being nitpicky, and I didn’t mind this at first, but there are a lot of cliffhangers and inconsistencies throughout the story. Examples of the latter are easy to come by--Kunikida was initially stated to be a math teacher before joining the ADA, despite being only 22 at the present time in canon. Fitzgerald’s daughter would have been at most 14 at present assuming she was born when Fitzgerald was 18, which is hardly old enough for her to be sent to a boarding school in ANOTHER COUNTRY. These are small, but they somewhat decrease the quality of the story when questioned.

The unresolved plotlines and cliffhangers have a much bigger impact on the story during a time where it is still being released one chapter a month. John Steinbeck’s return has not yet come after two full arcs, despite it being teased by his appearance during Fitzgerald’s return. Going back further, we’ve seen astonishingly little of Agatha Christie--even though she was introduced around the same time as Fyodor.

In smaller cases, there’s the fact that we didn’t get to see what happened with Yosano, we don’t know where Akutagawa is at this point in the narrative, and we weren’t told what happened with the truck containing Margaret. These are small things that won’t be as annoying to read back on once they’re resolved, but having a story set up where everything is left open after every chapter is very disengaging for readers who just want to know what’s going on.

The Anime.

I know what I said at the beginning. The truth is, though, that there’s so much about the anime adaptation that bothers me that I have to summarize it by just saying the anime as a whole bothers me. I’m also aware that it’s very uncommon for mangas to get a perfect, spot-on anime adaptation.. but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a problem with it.

Here’s a speedround of things I don’t enjoy about the anime.

The art style. I’m sure we’re all very tired of the fish-eye lenses, and the weird smiles they’ve incorporated from Dead Apple. This being said, there are times when it looks good, but that doesn’t help the fact that I actually physically cringe whenever there’s a character who’s afraid or overly cocky making a facial expression that reflects this emotion.

The focus on certain characters (Dazai). I’m among the group of people that wanted untold stories to be animated this season instead of Fifteen, because it would have fit better with the plot of the season. The fact that the anime chose Fifteen was a good decision for drawing more attention to the show, since the fans of Chuuya and Dazai are in the majority, but it fits very poorly with the rest of the season. In fact, sorry for the spoiler, but Dazai and Chuuya aren’t even shown interacting in the main season, whereas Fukuzawa plays a major role in the cannibalism arc and Ranpo was visibly shown to have an important connection with him.

The tone. There’s not much to say, here. The anime takes everything very seriously, and one of my favorite parts of the manga are its humorous lines.

The humor. Speaking of humorous lines, they’re always said in a very obnovious way in the anime that makes it seem like they’re trying too hard. This is an opinion rather than an analysis.

The left-out details. Though the conversation between Fyodor and Agatha was not very important to the plot and nor was Steinbeck’s removed appearance in season 3, they both served as teasers for future arcs, and removing them shouldn’t have been completely necessary. 

The changes to characters. The Guild is a particular victim of this particular point. Whereas the characters in this organization don’t come off as a completely serious group of people in the manga, they sure do in the anime. Logically, I can understand why this would be done--they’re the arc’s antagonists, and they’re more intimidating if they aren’t funny. But it completely changes some of their characters if you remove certain aspects of their personality.

The Fandom.

It goes without saying that no fandom is perfect, and a lot of them aren’t even good. The Bungou Stray Dogs fandom comprises mostly of s/skk fans, which is unsurprising, but what makes me compelled to put the fandom on a list of my problems with the show itself is how much they completely warp the characters of Dazai and Chuuya.

I know I have a whole section explaining why I think Dazai is a major flaw of the series, but despite that I actually do find his character interesting, if a bit annoying with how big his presence is. I dislike the fandom’s interpretation of him, specifically the way he interacts with Chuuya. Did he not blow up Chuuya’s car? Did he not let Chuuya suffer for a few more seconds just because he thought it was funny? Did he not make Chuuya embarrass himself for no reason other than his own enjoyment? It’s very disheartening to see him portrayed as someone who would never betray Chuuya’s trust and who is completely devoted to Chuuya.

Speaking of Chuuya, he’s probably the fandom’s biggest offense in terms of making a character unlikable. In my particular case, the way the fandom treats him has driven me away from his character, which I actually do like. Because of how often I’ve seen the fandom treat him like nothing more than a blushing tsundere whose feelings for Dazai are soooo obvious, I’m impacted by these interpretations when I read the manga.

To Conclude + A List of Things I Don’t Mind

No, I don’t think the series is bad and I don’t think these listed things make it bad, but I’d be lying if I said they didn’t bother me. But since I’ve been nothing but negative, here’s a few things that bother most people but don’t bother me at all.

Mori Ougai. I don’t condone his behavior or “preferences”, but I do not believe he is a problem for the show. He is not supposed to be a good character and, as we see with his behavior towards Yosano, his actions are not portrayed as good. There is nothing wrong with the villain of a series being a p*dophile as long as it is not treated as something positive, which it is not.

Tachihara + The Hunting Dogs. This is a spoiler for the more recent chapters of the manga, but despite the lack of foreshadowing I am not bothered by Tachihara’s reveal as the fifth hunting dog. I also don’t care that the dogs are hunting the agency, because it makes sense, story-wise. The agency are technically international terrorists because of what was written in the book.

Lucy and her supposed crush. Romance is not the focus of the show and, likewise, Lucy’s “crush” on Atsushi is not put at the forefront of the plot. However, I have seen fans get annoyed by the fact that she seems to like him.

I’d like to thank everyone who read this for taking the time to do so. I’m not the most coherent with my thoughts and I’m bad at putting said thoughts into words, but I hope you liked the things I had to say.

[cordclias]

hey  baybees  !  i’m  maya  and  in  true  me  fashion  ,  i  am  late  bc  i  was  taking  a  nap  !  delia’s  a  new  muse  of  mine  so  excuse  me  for  being  a  whole  disorganized  mess  while  i  try  to  figure  her  out  🤙   i’ve  never  played  a  chara  like  this  so  i’m  tryna  dig  deep  into  myself  to  find  the  inner  asshole  that  i  know  is  there  ,  so  hopefully  i  do  a  good  job  and  make  ron  swanson  proud  !  also  i’m  the  biggest  hoe  for  plots  ,  i’ve  got  a  lil  plots  page  here  for  ideas  (  yes  it’s  very  basic  )  so  give  this  a  like  and  i’ll  hit  you  up  !

victoria pedretti. cisfemale. she/her. one. * / oh , i just saw cordelia d’amato coming out of apt. #1906 if you were looking for them! the twenty-three year old is a radio dj and i heard they’re a sagittarius which makes total sense. if you can’t find their room , just listen for dead of night by orville peck ; i heard they’re obsessed. \ * maya. 22. she/her. est 

STATISTICS  .

NAME :  cordelia  margaret  d’amato

NICKNAMES :   delia  ,  dee  ,  cory

AGE :  twenty - three

DATE  OF  BIRTH:  december 3rd ,  1996

ZODIAC :   sagittarius  

PLACE  OF  BIRTH / HOMETOWN :  queens  ,  new  york 

GENDER :  cisfemale

PRONOUNS :  she / her

ORIENTATION : bisexual / biromantic 

PARENTS :  nathan  d’amato  &  rosalie  scott

SIBLINGS :  vincent  d’amato

CAREER :  radio  dj

PHYSICAL  TRAITS :  straight  long  hair  constantly  bouncing  between  blonde  and  brunette,  gray  -  blue  eyes  ,  slim  build  ,  5′4″   

TRAITS :  chaotic  ,  apathetic  ,  charming  ,  impulsive  ,  confident  ,  loyal  ,  tempestuous  ,  entertaining  ,  perceptive  ,  clever  ,  witty  ,  sharp  ,  adaptable  ,  capricious

MUSE  PARALLELS  :  kathryn  merteuil  (  cruel  intentions  )  ,  jennifer  check  (  jennifer’s  body  )  ,  nick  miller  (  new  girl  )  ,  theo  crain  (  haunting  of  hill  house  )  ,  madison  montgomery  (  ahs  :  coven  )  ,  ron  swanson  &  april  ludgate (  parks  &  rec  )

BACKGROUND  .

cordelia  was  born  into  a  tumultuous  and  poor  nyc  family  --  her  dad  a  construction  worker  and  her  mom  a  hair  stylist

and  the  shortage  of  money  didn’t  help  with  her  dad’s  temper  ,  his  fiery  personality  causing  a  lot  of  problems  for  the  d’amatos  since  the  beginning

he  wasn’t  abusive  ,  just  loud  and  commanding  and  scary  ,  and  her  mom  was  more  invested  in  finishing  off  her  wine  bottles  than  parenting  ,  which  led  to  a  very  stressful  household  for  delia  and  her  brother

three  years  older  than  her  ,  delia’s  brother  took  it  upon  himself  to  take  the  brunt  of  their  dad’s  anger  ,  and  with  their  dad’s  attention  taken  away  ,  delia  was  largely  ignored  for  her  childhood

the  only  time  she  and  her  brother  felt  safe  in  their  shabby  little  apartment  was  when  they  were  in  his  room  listening  to  music  .  it  was  his  mission  to  teach  her  all  the  classics  :  metallica  ,  ac/dc  ,  led  zeppelin  ,  pink  floyd  ,  etc  .  

her  love  of  music  came  from  her  brother  ,  and  because  of  him  she  learned  how  to  play  the  guitar  ,  drums  ,  piano  ,  and  bass  all  before  she  was  18

her  brother  didn’t  have  the  grades  or  athletic  talent  for  a  scholarship  so  he  went  straight  into  the  work  force  after  graduating  high  school  ,  and  when  he  was  able  to  afford  a  one  bedroom  apartment  ,  little  16  year  old  delia  moved  out  of  her  parent’s  house  and  made  his  couch  her  new  bedroom

delia  also  decided  to  skip  the  college route  and  immediately  got  a  shitty  waitress  job  along  with  an  internship  at  the  radio  station  when  she  was  18

she  moved  into  the  flats  once  she  was  sure  she  could  afford  it  ,  but  she  picked  an  apartment  with  a  roommate  just  because  she  has  never  lived  alone  and  doesn’t  know  how  she  would  handle  it

it  took  a  few  years  and  a  lot  of  perseverance  ,  but  at  the  age  of  21  she  officially  became  a  radio  dj  on  an  alternative  station  and  somehow  managed  to  become  one  of  the  listener's  favorites  ,  probably  because  she  finds  the  most  random  topics  to  rant  about  and  has  no  filter  whatsoever

and  after  every  paycheck  ,  whatever  extra  money  she  has  goes  to  helping  her  brother  get  through  art  school

PERSONALITY  .

so  i  know  her  character  inspos  aren’t  the  best  of  people  ,  but  i  promise  delia  isn’t  just  some  mean  bitch  character  ,  she  just  has  some  mean  bitch  qualities

like  she’s  very  blunt  and  pretty  apathetic  at  times  ,  totally  the  type  to  sleep  with  someone’s  bf  and  not  feel  bad  about  it  ,  and  has  definitely  done  some  illegal  stuff  just  because  she  feels  like  it

her  parents  ignored  her  ,  she  acted  out  ,  the  usual

i  hc  that  she  spent  most  of  her  high  school  years  hanging  around  with  the  “  bad  crowd  ”  and  subsequently  learned  how  to  hotwire  cars  and  pickpocket  

she’s  also  very  impulsive  and  reckless  --  for  as  smart  as  she  is  ,  she  does  a  lot  of  dumb  shit  

unlike  some  of  her  character  inspos  ,  she  isn’t  into  material  shit  and  honestly  wears  the  same  pair  of  jeans  every  day  and  most  of  her  shirts  are  band  t’s  that  are  hand  me  downs  from  her  brother

she  is  very  charming  when  she  wants  to  be  ,  usually  when  she  wants  something  ,  but  she  doesn’t  just  go  around  manipulating  people

she  just  isn’t  a  people  person  so  tbh  she  doesn’t  try  to  be  nice  unless  she  has  to  be

she  believes  that  honesty  is  the  best  policy  ,  even  if  it’s  gonna  hurt  someone’s  feelings  ,  which  is  why  she  is  the  way  that  she  is

but  she’s  a  surprisingly  great  friend  ,  like  she’s  loyal  as  hell  ,  will  definitely  help  you  hide  a  dead  body  ,  and  since  she  doesn’t  care  about  money  she’s  the  type  to  book  an  impromptu  vacation  on  her  dime  and  take  along  her  besties

she’s  100%  not  a  talk  behind  your  back  regina  george  type  of  friend  ,  this  bitch  will  go  to  war  for  the  ppl  she  cares  about

she  does  have  a  temper  but  it’s  one  of  those  things  where  she  doesn’t  show  she’s  pissed  until  you  think  she’s  forgotten  about  it  and  have  your  guard  down  .  like  i  imagine  that  she  was  bullied  by  some  girl  in  high  school  and  then  in  the  yearbook  there  were  pics  of  this  girl  making  out  with  a  teacher  or  smth

she’s  got  a  very  dry  and  sarcastic  sense  of  humor  ,  like  it’s  hard  to  tell  if  she’s  joking  or  if  she’s  being  serious  .  honestly  most  of  the  time  you  should  just  assume  she’s  joking  unless  she’s  actually  mad  or  smth  ,  which  is  also  why  she  seems  like  a  dick  most  of  the  time

so  ...  you  don’t  wanna  be  on  her  bad  side  ig  ??

okay  that’s  all  i’ve  got  !   ik  this  is  crazy  long  and  i’m  super  sorry  for  that  ,  idk  where  all  this  muse  came  from  but  i  am  hella  excited  to  play  this  asshole  ,  idk  what  that  says  about  me  .  😈  also  if  u  don’t  like  messaging  on  tumblr  ,  pls  hit  me  up  on  discord  @ 𝒊𝒔 𝒎𝒂𝒚𝒐𝒏𝒏𝒂𝒊𝒔𝒆 𝒂𝒏 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕#6396  !