#mentally r-worded to quote her but obviously

[unreality-monster]

You know, it started as suspicion and hypochondria but now i'm like convinced i'm actually autistic and constantly masking and experiencing burnout and severe social anxiety as a result of it and now i kind of want to see a psychologist

[serial-serializednovelreader]

Nova’s Notes - Dracula Daily - May 25 + 26

The Suitor Squad speaks!!! Ahhh love them <3

Checking in with my favorite wet cat man, Seward is….not doing too well. Let’s listen to his podcast, shall we?

“Ebb tide in appetite to-day. Cannot eat, cannot rest, so diary instead. Since my rebuff of yesterday I have a sort of empty feeling; nothing in the world seems of sufficient importance to be worth the doing…”

Awwww John :(((( to quote Zuko, “That’s rough, buddy.”

Notice how he speaks here. Of course, beside the obvious abruptness and the fall in his appetite today, he also uses the word “rebuff” to describe Lucy’s rejection. Not to Merriam-Webster you, but I wanted to give a quick definition of rebuff because it actually surprised me when I read it:

“an abrupt or ungracious refusal or rejection of an offer, request, or friendly gesture.”

As expected, John is taking this pretty hard because to call Lucy’s rejection of him “abrupt” or “ungracious” is just…untrue? To be fair, we only had Lucy’s side of the story, but that just doesn’t sound like Lucy. I mean, she literally *cried* at the thought of causing him pain!! I’m not trying to police his words here — obviously, it’s his mental breakdown diary and he gets to choose the language — but it does show that he’s not taking this half so well as Quincey (probably) is, and Lucy totally read the vibes right when she worried about him walking away from this broken-hearted. Bro is in the trenches here.

Soooooo he turns to his work at the asylum for help. He really needs to get some better coping mechanisms, but at least we get to meet Renfield!

“In my manner of doing it there was, I now see, something of cruelty. I seemed to wish to keep him to the point of his madness—a thing which I avoid with the patients as I would the mouth of hell. [paragraph break] (Mem., under what circumstances would I not avoid the pit of hell?) Omnia Romæ venalia sunt. Hell has its price! verb. sap”

One thing I love about Dracula is that all of these characters have their own little quirks when talking. Stoker does a fairly good job of giving each character a unique “voice���, which I appreciate. Jonathan writes in a fairly meticulous way with long paragraphs of describing landscapes (plus, “lizard fashion”, of course). Mina writes in much the same way, but different. She seems to break into a more playful style of writing, as you can see with her “???” and “two-pages-to-the-week-with-Sunday-squeezed-in-a-corner-diaries”. Lucy, of course, probably has the most unique voice so far because her letters seem to be written impulsively. In one sentence, she laments how miserable Seward and Quincey are and in the next she celebrates how perfectly happy she is. It’s an active and emotional stream of consciousness we get to see unfold in her letters and — I’ll bet — in the way she talks.

Seward is a new voice and he already is showing a few quirks here. It’s interesting to see how this voice changes since we know he’s actually *speaking* these words, not just writing them down. Unethical behavior with Renfield aside (stop baiting the patients Seward!!!!), notice how he makes a mem. for a rhetorical question.

I find this fascinating because Jonathan does this mem., or memorandum, when he wants to remember something — such as recipes for Mina. But Seward does it when he wants to self-depreciate his own phrasing. Unless, he’s seriously asking the question to remember for later, which he might honestly be due to his next sentences (and in that case, oooooh buddy you’re going to be regretting asking that in a few months). He hits us with a Latin phrase which translates to (from what I could find), “All Rome is for sale” and then ANOTHER ONE which means “a word to the wise” or “enough said”.

What can we garner from this? Other than liking Latin, John likes self-deprecation and also philosophical thoughts about hell, or at least the metaphor of it — and that’s what he wants to save for later. Very interesting!!!

Describing Renfield (who’s 59, huh), I like how he touches on selfish vs. unselfish influences and how that affects humans. I find it interesting that, contrary to popular belief, being unselfish is what Seward would consider to be more dangerous — though it makes sense from his logic.

A selfish person would keep themselves close and be cautious about putting themselves in too much danger. After all, your life is not worth much if you put it at risk and that’s even more true in an asylum. Using “armor” and a “centripetal force” with self as the “fixed point” as metaphors for this kind of behavior is fascinating.

Meanwhile, someone “unselfish” or to put it a different way, acting under the influence of someone else for some unnamed reason (duty, love, etc.) will likely stop at nothing to achieve that goal once they’re put on it. It’s also dangerous to another person because they might not know what that goal is — and might end up being collateral damage as a result. Seward is keen to find out what Renfield’s reasoning is because he doesn’t want to be that collateral damage (and because he’s a curious, semi-unethical doctor buutttt). I like how he adds that only a series of accidents can balance this kind of centripetal force. Thanks for the metaphorical science lessons, Seward!

On to Quincey, my beloved. <333 His letter is to Arthur!

“We've told yarns by the camp-fire in the prairies; and dressed one another's wounds after trying a landing at the Marquesas; and drunk healths on the shore of Titicaca.”

So from the opening lines, we can gather that Quincey and Arthur (and yes, Seward too) have been globetrotting together! Because Titicaca is in South America and the Marquesas happens to be a collective of islands in the Southern Pacific Ocean. Quincey later refers to Seward as their “old pal at the Korea” which *could* mean Korea the country, or as this forum comment section speculates, could also mean the Korea Strait.

It’s super sweet that while Quincey and John want to drown their sorrows in wine, Quincey doesn’t hesitate to invite Arthur to celebrate his engagement to the love of his life as well as theirs oof!

It does seem like Quincey didn’t know before that Arthur was the one Lucy was in love with, because he seemed to speak vaguely to Lucy that he “must be a good fellow if you loved him” and “he’ll have to deal with me if he doesn’t know his happiness”. But, to me, it seems a little too much like what you would say to your friend if you didn’t know the other person. I’m getting a generic “he’ll date you if he knows what’s good for him” vibe.

My guess? Arthur probably wrote to Quincey saying “I’m engaged!!! To Lucy!!!” because they do all know each other and are friends, but maybe Arthur hadn’t wanted to share his feelings with the boy group just yet (he seems like a private person, since Lucy couldn’t get a read on his feelings) or wanted to keep it a surprise until he knew for sure his feelings were reciprocated. Of course, once Quincey received this letter, he put together that “ohhhh Art was my rival the whole time” and probably slapped his knee about the whole thing. It doesn’t stop him from inviting him to the next gathering, though!

The other theory I have is that all three of them knew they loved Lucy and each amicably agreed to still be friends, no matter who she chose (if she chose any of them). It would definitely make sense since Quincey talks about him and Seward “mingling their weeps” as if Arthur would know what he means by that. Additionally, it would make sense, since they all know each other pretty well and likely would know if they all were in love with the same woman, right? That could be why Seward and Quincey were so quick to ask if there was someone else — I mean, yes, that’s always the obvious ask when your proposal fails — but this could add another layer of meaning to their asking.

As for Quincey’s generic approach, that could be explained by him not knowing whether it was Seward or Arthur that Lucy loved (or, perhaps, an unknown third person) and he didn’t want to ask Lucy who it was in that moment, figuring he would find out later if it was indeed one of his friends.

No matter the theory, this letter says a lot about Quincey’s character! He’s obviously a good and honest man for not hesitating to invite his friend to the gathering, even when that friend is engaged to the woman he’s in love with as well. There’s not a lot more to be said about this that hasn’t already been said — but yeah, Quincey is definitely in my top 3 favorite Dracula characters and this is part of why.

Finally, Art’s letter to Quincey!

“Count me in every time. I bear messages which will make both your ears tingle.”

As this is a telegram, he has to make this short and sweet. But make your ears tingle??? Art???? Lol, I’m presuming this is about the proposal or about some other hot gossip (if it’s explained later, I genuinely forgot — again, it’s been two years since I’ve read the book and I keep feeling more and more like a first time reader).

Either way, I hope this is the year we stop calling Arthur boring (if we haven’t already), because he already doesn’t sound boring from just this message and it’s in telegram format.

He sounds like a guy you’d like to party with. “Count me in every time”, “make your ears tingle”? Sounds like a party guy to me! And obviously, he had to be fun-loving and resourceful enough to Quincey if they’ve traveled the world together (and, maybe have seen combat? — not quite clear on that one).

I’ll definitely be keeping a close eye on Arthur this read around. Since I was among the people that called him boring in 2022, I want to see if there’s more to him than meets the eye!

[yabai-korra]

Rhysand's "problematic" behavior towards Feyre in ACOTAR

I have just finished reading A Court of Thorns and Roses. I have been in book fandom for a while so I've heard criticism towards this particular relationship and author, so here I am debunking/explaining why that criticism isn't justified. Not saying you can't dislike the book obviously, but a lot of bad things said about this came from a place of ignorance and not reading in between the lines nor with full attention.

Now, if you're a passionate anti with no chance for changing your opinion, please do turn around and look at posts about something you enjoy :) Let's all stay in line and be civil, I am merely going to explain something a lot of people seemed to have missed in this book.

Words in blue are quotes.

First of all, lemme say that I totally understand why someone would think this book is "problematic", it seemed that way to me as well at first but when you read carefully and in between the lines it's not problematic, dark yes, hence why it's new adult and not young adult, but not problematic.

Rhys definitely does bad things to Feyre and comes off as an asshole at first, which is why I hated him, but if you approach it more carefully you'll see that there is a lot more beneath the surface.

Feyre has two moods while Under the Mountain - depressed and angry at Rhys. Rhys, as he states himself, is on Feyre's side, because he, much like everyone, hates Amarantha and wants Feyre to succeed in freeing them.

Something I haven't noticed immediately is how Feyre is sinking deeper and deeper into depression and some dark corner of her mind, and every time she bounces back is with Rhysand. He makes her angry, because that is the only emotion he is capable to provoke in her and the only one that would keep her from falling apart. Being lovey-dovey or friendly or sad, as we have seen Tam and Lucian were with her, didn't help, it just made her more depressed.

By keeping her angry he is keeping her alive: "It took me a long while to realize that Rhysand, whether he knew it or not, had effectively kept me from shattering completely."

To be fair I gotta add that it wasn't his only way of keeping her alive; he healed her arm, did one of the tasks for her to keep her from being roasted, and led her to the correct answer on her second trial.

Also, something really important, he forcefully kissed her. When I read that I was furious and wanted to kick him honestly and I am not excusing him whatsoever, and imo he could have been a little more gentle, but he did that in order for Amarantha to believe it was him who kissed her, not Tamlin who was kissing her before. If Amarantha saw Feyre and Tamlin together, which is something Rhys interrupted, she would have gone wild because she is obsessed with Tamlin. Not only did Rhys save both of them (and Lucien, for that matter, because Amarantha kept pushing him in Tamlin's place) through his shady method I in no way approve of, immediately after his mood shifts. He knows Amarantha for 50 years, and he knew he'd take the punishment for kissing Feyre, which was, sadly the thing Amarantha is doing to him all the time, r*pe, which was obviously worse than usual because he was in a very mental state afterward: His tunic was unbuttoned at the top, and he ran a hand through his blue-black hair before he wordlessly slumped against the wall across from me and slid to the floor. “What do you want?” I demanded. “A moment of peace and quiet,” he snapped, rubbing his temples. I paused. “From what?” He massaged his pale skin, making the corners of his eyes go up and down, out and in. He sighed. “From this mess.” I sat up farther on my pallet of hay. I’d never seen him so candid. “That damned bitch is running me ragged,” he went on, and dropped his hands from his temples to lean his head against the wall. “You hate me. Imagine how you’d feel if I made you serve in my bedroom. I’m High Lord of the Night Court—not her harlot.”

Again, I am not excusing his actions because it was not okay, but he took r*pe as a punishment for the forcful kiss so Feyre and Tamlin wouldn't get something worse, which was probably death. He, once again, did a bad thing to prevent a horrible thing, but this time suffered himself as well. I personally, as a reader, can get over that, if you can't that's totally fine.

"If he hadn’t been kissing me, if he hadn’t shown up and interrupted us, I would have gone out into that throne room covered in smudged paint. And everyone—especially Amarantha—would have known what I’d been up to. It wouldn’t have taken much to figure out whom I’d been with, especially not once they saw the paint on Tamlin. I didn’t want to consider what the punishment might have been."

Feyre herself at one point starts looking forward to seeing Rhys and going to the parties with him and drinking glamoured wine, because it is the only rest her tortured mind can get: "A permanent darkness settled over me, and I began to look forward to the moment when Rhysand gave me that goblet of faerie wine and I could lose myself for a few hours. I stopped contemplating Amarantha’s riddle—it was impossible. Especially for an illiterate, ignorant human. Thinking of Tamlin made everything worse."

All he is doing, whether good or bad, is to help her succeed. I am not saying his actions are to be excused, but they are definitely reasoned. He isn't an asshole for the sake of being an asshole. His way of helping Feyre was a messed up one, but it was the only way. He was doing bad things (while also keeping certain boundaries) to prevent a horrible thing, which would be Feyre mentally shattering.

Feyre herself is in a similar situation at the end of the book, the only way to free everyone from Amarantha was to finish the final trial, which was to kill three (actually two) faeries. Murder is obviously wrong and something that can't be excused (except for Amarantha she deserved it), but taking two lives to save thousands was the only reasonable thing to do, and that's why Feyre did it even though she was disgusted by the deed. The same thing happened with Rhys, it just wasn't as clear and simple.

"Regardless of his motives or his methods, Rhysand was keeping me alive. And had done so even before I set foot Under the Mountain."

It is definitely DARK, and definitely not something that could be applied to a real-life situation.

I hope it helped clear that up, I'm not saying you should like Rhys or the series, I personally do enjoy a more dark and complicated story and characters, I hope if you're not a fan that you have plenty of other books to enjoy :)

[where-theres-smoak-2]

Oh man I was scrambling trough tumblr tag and I saw this LB quote about Aleksander: "The Darkling is beautiful, I wanted to create a leader who was charismatic, appealing, a dictator you could imagine yourself following, an antagonist you couldn't just dismiss. [...] The Darkling is beautiful and broken and had a rough childhood, but he's also a brutal, manipulative monster with no regard for human life. He's dangerous because he's seductive, because he evokes sympathy.

…I just don’t even know when to start with this? Can she come off as anymore ignorant and offensive by trying to sound so woke. I mean “beautiful and broken”?! Are you kidding me?!

(Book Spoilers. Trigger Warning: Trauma and Mental Health)

Hmm well I'm not sure you could really sum it up as a 'rough childhood' more like a rough life filled with alot of trauma that has left him isolated and struggling to form human connections. Also I'm not sure I like the term monster for someone who is made the way they are through trauma and also the line about him having no regard for human life is just false he has lines he wont cross which is why he didn't harm the grisha children in book 3 and he was never going to because he values their lives. To be honest though I had some issues with the way LB dealt with trauma and mental health in the books. Not just with Aleks either but with Sergei too, actually I found the way she treated Sergei and his mental health in the last book rather appalling. Sergei is established as being severely traumatised by losing Marie to the point where he struggles to function properly. I think out of all the characters in the trilogy he's depicted as having the worst trauma, all the other characters have bad dreams and what not but Sergei really does find it debilitating and he struggles with day to day tasks like eating, sleeping and even just walking/travelling takes its toll on him. But Alina's attitude towards Sergei at times was troubling. To be clear though I'm not blaming the character for this as it was just the way she was written but she seems to consider Sergei weak and his mental health a hindrance. Here are some extracts from R&R the first is right after Sergei accidently revealed Genya's real name to Nikolai:

I shot to my feet. “What happened?”

“Sergei let her real name slip. He seems to be taking to heights about as well as he took to caves.” I released a growl of frustration. Genya had played a key role in the Darkling’s plot to depose the King. I’d tried to be patient with Sergei, but now he’d put her in danger and jeopardised our position with Nikolai.

Sergei was nowhere to be found. Probably a good thing, since I didn’t have time to give him the pummelling he deserved.

And like I understand that this must have been a frustrating situation but Alina knows that Sergei is struggling with his trauma and that he didn't mean to cause anyone any harm. I can understand her frustration but I really don't like the line about the 'pummelling he deserves'. I just don't like the suggestion that a person who is clearly suffering from a mental health issue deserves to be punished for making a mistake because of his trauma. Here's another instance where Alina is annoyed at Sergei:

Sergei had slowed us during our fight with the militia. He was unstable. I could apologise, offer useless words, but I didn’t know how to help him, and it didn’t change the fact that we were at war. Sergei had become a liability.

Again I get the frustration but again I have issues with the suggestion that because they are at war Sergei should just pull it together. Or even this image that's being painted that people who have mental health issues are just a burden on those around them. People in real life who suffer with similar mental health issues like depression and anxiety often worry about feeling like a burden to their loved ones so this could be really triggering for them. Then there is this from Baghra:

“We came to find you. What’s the matter with that boy?”

“He’s had a hard time of it,” I said, leading them away from the tank room.

“Who hasn’t?”

“He saw the girl he loved gutted by your son and held her while she died.”

“Suffering is cheap as clay and twice as common. What matters is what each man makes of it."

This one really troubled me because its like LB is saying that you can control your own trauma or decide how the trauma is going to effect you. It's again this suggestion that Sergei is weak because he struggled with his trauma more than others did. But the part that actually kind of disgusted me when I read it and I actually had to stop reading the book for a bit because of how much it upset me is how the characters talk about Sergei after his death. Alina had sent Sergei away because she felt he had become a liability and he then went back to the darkling and told them all the information he had on Alina and co. This move was obviously one born of his trauma and was made out of desperation. On several occasions Sergei has said he is struggling with feeling safe and no matter how hard he tries he never feels safe. Alina even tells us that Sergei had gone back to the darkling looking for reassurance and safety which really makes sense, this man grew up at the LP the one place where grisha could be safe, he grew up under the protection of the darkling. Then he chose to stand with Alina and went through the trauma and grief of losing the woman he loved horrifically in an attack against the LP which was his original safe place. He then never feels safe again so it would make sense for him to go back to what previously had made him feel safe, the LP and the Darkling. But this is what the other characters say about Sergei after he is killed by the darkling:

I sat beside him, unsure what to say. I remembered sitting like this with Sergei in the tank room, searching for words of comfort and failing. Had he been scheming then, manipulating me? His fear had certainly seemed real.

Abruptly, Zoya said, “I should have known Sergei couldn’t be trusted. He was always a weakling.”

Though that seemed unfair, I let it pass.

“Oncat never liked him,” Harshaw added.

Genya fed a branch to the fire. “Do you think he was planning it all along?”

“I’ve been wondering that,” I admitted. “I thought he’d be better once we got out of the White Cathedral and the tunnels, but he almost seemed worse, more anxious.”

Abruptly, Adrik snarled, “I’m glad Sergei’s dead. I’m just sorry I didn’t get to wring his neck myself.”

Steel is earned. Adrik had that steel, and so did Nadia. She’d proven it again in our flight from the Elbjen. A part of me had wondered what Tamar saw in her. But Nadia had been in some of the worst fighting at the Little Palace. She’d lost her best friend and the life she’d always known. Yet she hadn’t fallen apart like Sergei or chosen life underground like Maxim. Through all of it, she’d stayed steady.

And yes again I understand why they feel betrayed but they knew that Sergei was struggling and instead of understanding that Alina is accusing him of manipulating her and Zoya is saying he couldn't be trusted and that he was a weakling. To be honest it kind of reminds me of the way people talk about the darkling. Instead of recognising their trauma and trying to understand they jump straight to well they were a bad, untrustworthy person who was manipulating me.

Then there is the last part where Alina is thinking about how Adrik and Nadia are strong because although they faced trauma they were able to keep going and keep fighting but not Sergei, Sergei was crippled by his grief and his trauma and this means he was weak. Maybe its because I have struggled with crippling mental health issues myself where I couldn't even get out of bed let alone do anything else but I just found this implication that Sergei was weak really offensive to those who do struggle that way. People deal with trauma in different ways and whilst some people can fight through it and will just have a keep calm and carry on attitude others can't, others just fall apart, but that doesn't make them weak. I also don't think this 'just carry on and push through it' attitude towards mental health issues is necessarily a healthy message. If you need help then you should ask for it and be able to have access to it. LB could have used this as an opportunity to show a character who is severely traumatised getting support and help to work through his trauma and heal. But I feel like nobody really helped Sergei and any comfort or support he got seemed to be grudgingly given and there was more of an attitude of I'll try to help you because your issues are a hindrance to me than because any of the characters actually cared about him and wanted to help him.

Sergei and the Darkling were both characters that were 'beautiful and broken' but neither one of them was given the support or help they needed. Instead they were painted as either weak or as a monster. So what kind of message does this send to readers who also struggle with trauma and mental health conditions?

[comingoutofthecauldron]

Sometimes I'm like broooo how did leigh make such good books with soc and ck with such good characters and plots and wordbuilding but she had made a (very entertaining) trilogy but with so many grating 2D characters and sometimes the plot was just ... not it

Like soc and ck obviously have their flaws too but not to the same extent as the trilogy

Like did you feel leigh was very unnecessarily sympathetic to the darkling and treated Nikolai as a mostly good character in the text even though he did sooooo many shitty things

And that zoya was treated (unknowingly) with a lot of misogyny in the narrative which has caused many people in the fandom to hate her

And alarking and nikolina were romanticised in the books and in the fandom far too much

???

YES OKAY so this is a Big Thing for me. very controversially, i prefer tgt to soc solely because i find it much more enjoyable to read. HOWEVER, there's no denying that leigh's writing definitely improved from tgt to soc, i agree.

while i think that leigh clearly portrayed the darkling as a villain (she didn't tamper down his crimes or make them seem less horrific), i agree that the narrative was definitely (arguably too) sympathetic towards him. i could use a lot of examples for this, but none work quite so well as:

“Once more,” he said. “Speak my name once more.” He was ancient, I knew that. But in this moment he was just a boy – brilliant, blessed with too much power, burdened by eternity.

“Aleksander.”

His eyes fluttered shut. “Don’t let me be alone,” he murmured. And then he was gone.

leigh's choice to have alina, one of the people who suffered most at the darkling's hands, sympathise with him and even grant him his last wish, was a bad one. this man is a thousand year old p*dophilic mass murdering sex trafficker and she had the nerve to describe him as "just a boy" and "brilliant [...] blessed [...] burdened". of course you can argue that this is the residue of his grooming of alina, but i just think that after all the shit he'd done by this point, after a whole book of alina talking about how manipulated she felt and how much she hated him, these few words offer him clemency from the narrative that he does not deserve. all he did to earn alina's kindness (not forgiveness, to be fair to leigh) was die.

and yes, nikolai was hero worshipped by the text for absolutely no reason. even though we see both alina and mal put up a lot of resistance to him + the shit he pulls (punching him, criticizing him etc), the narrative basically shoves their eventual "pity" and "admiration" for nikolai down the readers' throats.

“[...] Nikolai might never have made it out of the Grand Palace.” It hurt me to say it, but I forced myself to speak the words. “He could be dead.”

and

The too-clever fox. Even once he’d abandoned his disguise as Sturmhond, that’s who Nikolai had been to me, always thinking, always scheming.

and

[to nikolai] “I’m just happy you’re alive,” I said, hastily blinking my eyes clear.

imo this sympathy + romanticisation is much worse and much more prominent throughout the latter half of s&s and the whole of r&r than the sympathy with the darkling, purely because the bad things nikolai does are essentially never acknowledged. there is (unsurprisingly ig) no talk of his imperialism, no talk of his pursuing alina when she's a minor, no talk of his racist remarks and generally very little talk of him being an asshole (particularly to mal).

moreover, i agree that nikolina + darklina were too romanticized by the text. i have a very complicated relationship with leigh's portrayal of alarkling, because a lot of alina's earlier feelings and sympathy for the darkling stem from his grooming and manipulation of her, which i think this quote from the start of r&r shows pretty well:

Even now, after everything he’d done, I wanted to believe the Darkling, to find some way to forgive him.

but then we get the whole mental house call thing that alina + the darkling do, in which they can visit each other and no one else can see the other. that was a mistake narratively. the ability to do this implies a sort of deeper bond, and even though the darkling then uses this bond to show alina the corpse of the only mother figure she'd ever known, it still carries almost romantic connotations with it throughout the rest of the book(s) for some reason. this dynamic is similar to a lot of "soulmate bonds" in mainstream ya (namely sjm's mating bonds), which helps to explain why so many people ship darklina; it is written & coded the same as the majority of (abusive) ya relationships, so readers pick up on this as a sign of romance rather than some attempt at narrative foils or something (bc in reality zoya is alina's foil). this isn't even mentioning the repetition of alina's desire to forgive the darkling and her confusion over her "feelings" for him, which once again just reinforces darklina as a viable ship in a lot of readers' minds.

as for nikolina, as a less prevalent ship in the series it gets less attention in the fandom. most often, i see people turn to nikolina because they don't like malina or the darkling, or because they wanted alina to become queen (to which i remind everyone that alina never wanted to be queen). at first i was alright with leigh's portrayal of them because alina punches nikolai + is angry with him for kissing her non-consensually etc, which is the closest the narrative ever comes to condemning him for his actions. but later on alina seems to forget all this and considers marrying nikolai, even joking with him a little when he proposes:

[during nikolai's marriage proposal]

“Stop that,” I said, still grinning.

“What?”

“Saying the right thing.”

there is zero acknowledgement of how predatory nikolai is, and instead the narrative goes on to sympathise with nikolai and have alina feel guilty for rejecting him. imo alina's characterization (her initial disdain for nikolai, which was much more in character) was sacrificed to raise up nikolai, and also show him to be a plausible and "likable" love interest for zoyalai, which is where leigh obviously intended for nikolai to end up (zoya is even mentioned during nikolai's proposal).

finally - yes, zoya in tgt is basically a manifestation of leigh's internalised misogyny. from alina's initial slut-shamey disdain for her, to leigh weaponising her against malina (repeated sexual encounters with mal), to zoya being seen as evil & a bitch by the other female characters just because she's powerful + isn't "nice", zoya's character was assassinated before it even had chance to materialize. even though zoya was also a victim of the darkling and is, as i mentioned before, alina's narrative foil, alina has very little sympathy for her and assumes that she's an evil bitch. tbf, this gets better with each book, but even in r&r there's a lot of tension between zoya and the other characters because she's seen as unlikable and difficult. i can't speak to her characterization in kos or soc, because i haven't read one and don't really remember the other, but i have heard that it improved from tgt to kos.

anyways this has been a long ass rant and i'm very sorry to anyone who scrolls past it on their dash. fuck the darkling, fuck nikolai lantsov, and stan malyen oretsev

[fate-hates-faraday]

Dress-Up

Wherein Thomas has more influence over the Sides than he realizes.

(Warnings: uhhhhhh dodging questions? Could be gaslighting if you stretch the definition. Reference to forced silence for like two sentences. Minor angst)

-

“Until next time, guys, gals, and nonbinary pals. Peace out!”

Thomas smiled as he turned off the camera. His Sides had already left, and, honestly, it had been a fairly productive and positive conversation. All he had to do now was prepare the video for uploading.

“Thomas.”

Thomas was not ashamed to admit he’d jumped at the unexpected voice. He turned to see Deceit stepping out from the shadows beside Patton’s space.

Ah. His Sides, excluding Deceit, had already left.

“Hey - I thought you sunk out a while ago?” It was more the unexpected voice than Deceit himself that had startled him. After all, Deceit had been attending their discussions a lot more lately. Even when he admitted he held no stake in the topic, he would hang around and only occasionally interject. Sometimes, when discussion got too overwhelming, Deceit would briefly silence everyone and ask Thomas who was allowed to talk first (”...how about everyone?! Deceit!”). Despite his concern for Deceit’s methods, he appreciated the sentiment and it had proven helpful for the especially tense moments. Somewhere along the way, Thomas had realized that, while he didn’t enjoy deceit, he had come to accept Deceit and that idea didn’t scare him at all.

“I had considered it.” Deceit was actually in his living room right now, he had to focus on that. The Side was conspicuously studying his fingernails through his gloves. “I wanted a moment of relative privacy, however, and post-recording seemed ideal.”

“I - I guess, yeah.” He could almost feel the others settling in to relax, barely attentive to Thomas himself. The two of them would be left alone. Why did Deceit want them to be left alone? Only idle curiosity accompanied the question much to his surprise. “What’s up?”

“I wished to talk.” Deceit paused. “It is important you specifically knew that and not at all a stall tactic.” Ah. Thomas waved Deceit over and, without the invisible walls made by the camera, Deceit was able to follow Thomas to the couch. He refused to sit though, even when Thomas patted the space beside him.

“Alright. So now I know.” Was he helping Deceit get more time to be comfortable with whatever he was planning? Was he subtly calling him out? Thomas wasn’t sure himself. Deceit had a habit of seeing the worst in others so, in case he’d assumed the latter, Thomas added, “So, uh, pretty curious what you want to talk about. Just take your time - we both know I have nothing planned for the rest of the day except watching The Office.” At that, Deceit snorted.

“I am quite aware.” The tone was harsh, but the human corner of his lip was upturned in a smile. He glanced around. He took a deep breath. He scratched behind his ear. He dropped his gaze to the carpet. He exhaled, the air coming out in a soft hiss.

Deceit’s nervous. Now, Thomas’ curiosity morphed into concern. While Patton and Roman especially hid their insecurities and uncertainties, Deceit always projected confidence that whatever he had to say was important and he deserved to be heard. What could leave him hemming and hawing? Thomas himself debated whether or not to speak up when Deceit fully looked away.

“On reflection, it’s hardly worth the breath required to speak it.” Deceit’s voice had grown hard with an edge of condescension, and Thomas’ gut tightened. It wasn’t the tone, though. He could tell: Deceit was actively lying to himself and to Thomas. “I have better things to tend to. Enjoy your show.” Deceit began to sink, and Thomas reached out, stumbling from his seat. The action seemed to catch his Side’s attention and he rose back up, hands raised. In defense, in surrender, or in case Thomas actually fell, it wasn’t clear. Thomas took a moment to regain his balance, feeling Deceit’s incredulous gaze on him. Yes, yes, he was being weird.

“Look, if you think it’s important, I do too. That’s how this works. If you’re not ready, that’s okay, but I can tell it’s important.” Deceit scowled.

“I am quite ready, thank you.” Oh. That sort of backfired, didn’t it. Deceit seemed to realize the trick he’d played on himself and rubbed underneath his human eye. He took another breath and, this time, began talking. “Well. I have been considering that, as of late, you seem to be ... viewing me differently.”

“I mean, I guess so.”

“You recognize that our appearances, in a large part, dictated by your personal views.” Thomas cringed at that.

“I - I never really thought about that.” He looked at Deceit, gaze resting on the scales that marred his face. The implication settled in and tinged his next words with horror. “Am I - that’s why-?”

“-you see me as a ‘slimy boy’? Correct.” Deceit didn’t sound as bitter as Thomas expected, but he swore something cold tinged the words. “That said, as your views seem to have changed-” Thomas swore he didn’t blink; Deceit simply transformed that fast. Gone were the scales, the slit pupil, even the capelet and yellow gloves. Deceit’s clothes now more resembled what he had worn in the courtroom, the yellow shirt’s hue turned pastel and long white gloves covering his hands. He tilted the bowler hat back to better expose his face and the pale patchiness on its left side. Both human eyes met Thomas’, and his lips curled up in a small smile. “Well, it appears now my true appearance can change as well.”

Thomas couldn’t respond verbally, only able to step back to better view the new look. He had never seen a Side change so drastically while still being, well, himself. It was as if Deceit had left altogether - wait, he hadn’t, right?

“Deceit?”

“Who’s she? Never heard of her.” The familiar retort confirmed that at least.

“Right, right. Just wasn’t expecting this.” He had to take another moment to study Deceit, who seemed to be relaxing under his gaze.

“What can I say?” Deceit twirled, showing off the new look, and Thomas caught sight of coattails as he did. Relief relaxed his shoulders. That was a weird reaction. Relief? “I’ve heard surprise is the greatest gift you can give someone. It was something like that. I think Remus remembers the full expression.” 

“Huh. Wouldn’t expect Remus to know that.”

“Yes, well, he’s picked up all sorts of quotes about surprises and shock. They help him think more ... coherently.” Was that implying Remus could be worse? Yikes. Thomas decided to not think about it, lest he summon the Side accidentally.

“Got it. So,” Thomas said, gesturing at Deceit, “this is you?”

“I thought we just established I am me.”

“I mean, your true form.”

“That’s one way to describe it.” Deceit was checking a pocket on the suit jacket and pulled out a couple of black markers. “Oh, I was wondering where I’d left those.” Thomas nodded in thought. He had to admit, he liked Deceit’s new appearance. It just seemed more open and inviting and, though he could be imagining it, seemed to make Deceit himself more open. So what was bugging him about it? Why did it seem... dis-relieving? “Well, Thomas,” he said, pocketing the markers again, “since you seem to approve, I won’t be going anywhere - I’m obviously still needed here, you see.” Deceit clasped his hands together. Wait. Deceit began to sink out once more. Wait, wait.

“Wait a minute.” Thomas rubbed at his eyes. He thought he saw a flash of frustration cross Deceit’s face as he rose back up, but his expression was neutral when Thomas looked again. “Just, I need a moment. Hang on.” Thomas stepped back until he fell upon his couch. Deceit made no move to follow. “What do you mean, ‘I seem to approve’?”

“I would think it means exactly what it sounds like. I know that you know what words mean.”

“That’s not an answer.” Thomas mentally rewound their conversation as he kept talking. “I - you never actually answered my questions. They sounded like answers, but they really weren’t.”

“Hm. It sounds like Virgil’s acting up. I know he seemed fine when he left, but-”

“Deceit. This isn’t Virgil. We know that.” Thomas made eye contact with Deceit. “I just - is this really you?”

“I can hardly imagine anyone who’d want to imitate me.”

“That’s not-” Thomas groaned. “Deceit, is - is this what you want to look like, or is it what I want you to look like?” It hadn’t been the most eloquent phrasing, but it seemed to make his point.

He received no answer.

Deceit seemed unwilling to break eye contact, keeping his face emotionless, but that was a sort of answer in and of itself. Thomas felt his shoulders sag.

“...do you like it?”

“Of course.”

“Because I like it?” Again, Thomas received no response. He broke eye contact to lower his face into his hands. “Crud.” He sighed. “Is.... what is this?”

“It certainly wasn’t a waste of time and energy” Deceit's voice took on a sharp edge. Oh boy. “It’s not like it hasn’t been repeatedly made obvious how repellent you’ve found virtually every aspect of my appearance.” It sounded like Deceit had taken a few steps away. “Besides, why is it any different than, say, the others changing their appearances? Because I ever-so-clearly recall you questioning their changes like this.”

“Because they wanted to. They didn’t change because I wanted them to, or they thought I wanted them to.” He looked up and, as expected, Deceit was adamantly refusing to look his way, arms crossed over his chest. “So I’m not a big fan of snakes or bright yellow. I’m also not a big fan of spiders, and Virgil decorates his room in them. He’s even got a pet tarantula, I think. And it makes him happy. You know the things I want deep down, right?” Deceit seemed to be looking at the floor now. “Then you know what I really want is for every part of me to be happy. I don’t want you squishing yourself into something you don’t like because you think it’ll make me happy. I was kinda hoping none of us had to do that anymore.” Thomas let the words hang in the air as he watched Deceit for a response. Finally, Deceit scratched behind his ear and spoke.

“Just so we’re clear: if you don’t accept now, then I won’t lock in and this will be the last time you see anything like this from me, voluntarily.”

“Alright.”

“I do mean it. You’ll be stuck with a half-snake Side for the rest of your days.”

“I know.”

Again, Deceit’s appearance changed as he turned to face Thomas again. Thomas blinked as he realized Deceit hadn’t quite reverted to his previous form: most noteworthy, his capelet had taken on a slight purple tinge and his visible scales were now a warm shade of yellow with viridian speckling - almost like freckles, Thomas decided.

“Consider this your last chance.”

“Deceit, I wouldn’t want to imagine you any other way.”

The human corner of Deceit’s lips twitched upwards in an asymmetrical smile.

“Well, Thomas, as you insist.” Deceit then seemed to notice the slight changes and took a moment to examine himself, tugging at the capelet and peeking underneath his gloves before ending with a mildly confused ‘huh’. Thomas shrugged, grinning.

“Well, you did say I influence how you look. Do you like it?”

“...I lo- like it, maybe. I suppose I can learn to like it.” He looked back to Thomas. Thomas had to focus to notice the slight signs of unease and wondered for their reason. “I suppose then I should be going - I mean, I plan to stick around.” Then it clicked: Deceit had thought he was doing him a favor, only to realize he’d just stressed him out more. No wonder he now almost seemed pressured to sink out. Before Deceit could vanish, Thomas spoke up for the third time.

“Uh, hang on.”

“I swear, you can be-”

“Wanna watch The Office with me?” Thomas again patted the empty space beside him. Deceit blinked.

“You do know we are at least somewhat aware of what goes on out here. I hardly need-”

“I know, but I wouldn’t mind some good company while I watch.” Thomas worked very hard to bite down a laugh as the human side of Deceit’s face blushed. “So, you in?”

“...I suppose I can take the time out of my very busy schedule for an episode or two.” Finally, Deceit closed the gap between them and sat down next to Thomas.

“So - are we gonna start from the first one and go in order, or skip around to the best ones?”

“....let’s skip around.”

[finn-wolfhard]

I need me some quality content and this is the best place for it. Could I get some being Steve's sister and dating Robin? (If that already exists somewhere then please direct me to it bc this idea is like crack to me) Thanks!!

Yo! I've just gotten back into Tumblr since quarantine has given me an abundance of time. I can guess that you ended up getting this elsewhere, anon, but for the folk who also want to read about wlw Robin B and Big Bro Steve - this ones for you! 

Enjoy x

I Do 

“Turn that shit down! GOD! I feel I’m listening to them in concert.” Steve was screaming from downstairs for me to turn my music down and before I could move an inch to do so, he barged through the door. “Look, I don’t want another complaint from Mrs. Fritz next door. Can you please turn it down. I promised mom and dad that the roof would still be on this place by the time they got home. I’m heading to work. The money for delivery is on the table. Just try not to get yourself into bother, OK?” 

“Yeah, sure, sorry Steve. What time will you be home?” our parents are both out of town on business and so Steve has been appointed man of the house. Last time we were left alone, Mrs. Fritz called the police on us, placing a noise complaint. It was just me playing my radio a little bit too loud in my room. My bedroom window is right next to her living room. 

“I’ll be home around 8. Do you want to wait till I’m home to order pizza?”

“Sure thing, dude” I answered, giving him a thumbs up and a grin.

“You’re a goof. I’ll see you at 8.”

Steve and I’s relationship is reasonably good for the average brother and sister. He’s a year older than me and has the same interests. Such as; Hair, Pizza, our looks, and girls. I’ve known I’ve been into girls since I was a little kid but dad would kill me if I ever brought a girl home. Mom would be a little more understanding, yet still against the idea - and I don’t even know how Steve would react if he found out. I think he’s the only person I’d be fully comfortable telling, but I don't want to risk it going the complete opposite way.

I hear the door slam and decide to get out of my pajamas and actually DO something today. The schools broke up for summer last week and all I’ve been doing is reading, listening to music, and waiting for my best friend Jennifer to get home from vacation and tell me all about it. She’s due home in three days. I finally muster up enough self-motivation to move from my cozy, pink bed to the bathroom. The cold tiles under my feet wake me up and I stare at myself in the mirror for a bit. I had managed to grow a little spot just below my hairline (which I quickly treated with zit cream) but that was about as far as the flaws went. I usually take good care of myself; drinking enough, taking my vitamins, brushing my teeth after every meal. I do care about my looks and I shouldn’t be ashamed of that. It helps gets me a lot of attention in school, and I’ve never been an outcast. I guess having Steve as a big brother does contribute to the high school fame, but I don’t let it get to me much. I'm just glad I’ve gotten through high-school without being bullied at least once. I looked at my scraggly hair. I had just had a perm done two weeks ago and it seemed to be holding up pretty well. I scrunched my hair to make it look nice and messed it up a bit to give it volume. 

In the kitchen, there was the money on the table, like Steve said, and a note next to it. 

Save me a slice! Steve :)

He must’ve written the note then realized that a slice won't suffice after a long shift at his dorky Scoops Ahoy! job, and asked me to wait up for him. It's a shame people don’t get to see this side of Steve and I. I know how we come across to other people. I’ve heard the odd remark here and there about how he’s a player and I’m a priss. It mostly comes from the social outcasts in the school, the ones who aren’t in our friend circles, and don’t get to see what we’re really like. Even then, our school personalities are a bit of a performance to uphold our popularity. Only Steve knows my real self and vice verses, and we both understand why it has to be like that. Its an unspoken rule type thing. 

I open the fridge and get some milk for cereal. I pour a bowl of Fruity Pebbles. Fred smiles at me from the box as I grab the phone off the wall and dial Amanda’s number. 

“Hey Mands, you want to go to the mall today”

“y/n! Hi! That sounds great. I need a new outfit for my date with Justin on Friday.”

“Cool, so, 12? That sound ok?”

We agreed on 12:30 (since she had to take her dog on a walk) and she suggested we meet outside the Gap. Soon enough, 12:30 rolls around and I see Amanda smiling wildly at me, where she said she'd be, outside the Gap. She sweeps me into a warm hug and we gush about how much we’ve missed each other since school broke up. 

“Ok, so I need to go to Claires to get some earrings.” I agree to help her find a pair that would, quote “make Justin harder than math.” I don’t really understand how a pair of earrings could do this to a guy, or even if guys pay attention to earrings at all, but I was open to being proved wrong. We start making our way to the stairs when Amanda realizes she’s suddenly craving ice cream. I put it down to the fact that there were Scoops Ahoy! Adverts on every trash can (I’m unsure if that is a sign or not). We make a detour to Steve’s work and I make a plan to pull a few strings to get a free cone or two. We enter the ice cream parlor and… Steve isn’t there. Instead, a girl with short blonde hair is serving the queue of customers. 

I squint at her, trying to remember her name. Rosie? No, that's not it. It begins with an R for definite. Its to do with an animal… a R-R-Robin! Her name is Robin. And she’s…pretty? Like, really pretty. And not very girly? I can’t tell since she’s wearing a silly uniform… but god, is she pretty. 

As I’m staring at her, a slew of slurs come racing into my mind. Slurs I panicked were being shouted at me down the halls but never were. They were always aimed…at her. At Robin. Words beginning with D and F that make my blood boil. Chip, A boy in my own friend group, muttering “Stay away from my sister, homo!” In class. I put a hand up to my mouth to hide a gasp. This girl was outed, by someone she thought was her friend from band, in Hawkins - which isn’t known for being the most accommodating and accepting town.

Amanda and I reach the front of the queue and I find myself unable to look directly at the girl serving me. 

“Hi! Welcome to Scoops Ahoy! What can I get you today?” She seemed overly enthusiastic for some reason. 

“Hi, is Steve here?” I say, breaking the awkwardness I had built up in my own mind. She looked away, disheartened? I couldn’t tell. 

“Steve, your sisters here” then she whispered something that sounded like “you can leave your little nerd friend to figure it out for a bit” but I wasn’t really sure. 

Steve appeared from around the corner.

“what do you want, squirt?” 

“2 sundaes please” I replied, smiling.

“that will be five dollars pleas-“

“STEVE! Can’t you gift your baby sister with a sundae for once?” I cut him off, appalled that he’s making me pay, but still keeping it lighthearted. 

“…fine. But only this ONE TIME” he shot back. I winked at him, thanked him, and waited for him to finish our sundaes. He brought them over and sat with us. 

“Who’s that girl?” I instantly questioned, trying not to sound too interested but failing miserably.

“Oh, that's Robin Buckley. She’s in your year at school, don’t you know her?” I do know her. But I don’t want to admit that yet, I want to play it cool.

“I think I’ve seen her around yeah, I’ve just never had a good look at her before. I think she’s in my social studies class?” I look to Amanda to ask this question but Amanda is already nodding by this point. Steve looks unconvinced. 

“well, I invited her for pizza tonight,” he said, not wanting to ask ‘is that ok?’ In front of Amanda to keep up his macho ‘I’m Steve Harrington’ persona. I glance over at Robin. By this time, she’s known as lovely Robin in my head. Not that I could help it, along with the butterflies in my stomach or the extreme excitement that she was going to be having dinner. With me. In my house. Tonight!… What am I doing? Get a grip of yourself! You’re not out - as if that is ever going to happen anyways - and Robin was coming for Steve. Of course she was. I mentally roll my eyes. Just my luck.

The rest of the day goes by pretty quickly. Amanda gets her outfit and ‘math’ earrings - which I still don’t understand - and I get a few cute t-shirts and skirts thanks to my allowance mom gave me before she went away. By the time I get home, it is 4 pm which means I have precisely 4 hours to get myself ready for tonight. I go to my room, read for a bit, then put my makeup on in my vanity mirror. I don’t want to mess this up, but then again, why am I caring so much?. I eventually get myself sorted and wait for 8 pm to roll around. At 7:45 I phone Hal’s Pizza Shop and order 2 pepperoni pizzas and 1 plain Margherita. I came to the decision that If Robin is vegetarian then she can have the just cheese, but if not, I’ll take it.  

I hear Steve’s key in the lock and he shouts to me from downstairs.

“Hey that's me back, y/n, did you order the pizza?” 

“Sure did!” I came to the top of the stairs and looked down at the front door. Robin was staring up at me and I couldn’t help staring at her back. Steve obviously missed this whole exchange of tension.

“Good! Because I’m starving. I’m gonna put a video on, anyone down for watching Indiana Jones?” He mimics a whipping sound and runs off to the living room, leaving Robin and me to awkwardly start a conversation. 

“So, you work with Steve. I’ll apologize on your employer's behalf.” I laugh, eventually. Robin looked relieved that I had said something, and even more so that it was a joke. 

“It's not as bad as you would think, he brings in loads of customers with that ‘magnificent hair’” she replies, making fun of Steve’s obsession with his, admittedly, perfect mane. 

“I’ve seen you about school before, sorry I’ve never talked to you before,” I said. I really meant it, she seems cool. And kinda hot? But that wasn’t important to me…

“Yeah, I guess our groups don’t tend to mix as much. I'm surprised you even know my name” she looks at her feet. She knows I know about the slurs and bullying, I can tell. Just then, there's a ring at the door and Steve reappears, running to get the door that we are standing 2 inches away from. 

After sitting, eating, chatting, and laughing our way through Indiana Jones, I realise Steve has fallen asleep beside me. So does Robin. We both snicker at him and then collectively tuck him in with the blankets on the back of the sofa. We sit in silence for a minute. 

“Robin. I want to say I'm sorry for all the stuff you get called at school. It's not cool and especially from my group-“

“it's fine” she cuts me off. She seems distant though. 

“I don’t think you understand what it does to me hearing people shout words like that at someone. It's inhuman,” Robin looks at me over her cup of hot chocolate Steve made us halfway through the movie. She looks on the verge of tears. “I mean, I don’t know how I would cope with that if people knew I was one too.” I look away from her confused stare in embarrassment. Robin is the first person I tell this massive secret to and I've only been in her company for the past 3 hours? But it felt right. It felt too right, almost.

Robin picks herself up from her space in the armchair and comes to sit on the arm of the sofa. She doesn’t hesitate to put her arm around my shoulders and squeeze me in for a side hug. I hadn’t realized that I had started to cry and I wipe my eyes and nose with the back of my hand. 

“I’m so sorry they said those things to you” I whispered while silently sobbing.

“Don’t worry about it, y/n, I have pretty thick skin when it comes to bullying. I've been in band for the past 3 years,” I look at her and let out a small laugh. The smile fades from her lips and a serious look takes over her face. “You don’t need to feel ashamed. Or embarrassed. I’m honored you told me, I know how much trust that takes. Thank you.” 

We sit embracing for a couple of minutes and I try to defuse the tension. “You know, I think you’re pretty hot.” She laughs, and I can feel the heat radiating off of her. She’s blushing. 

“You’re not too bad yourself, Harrington,” she gives me a small smile. “I think you’re the prettiest girl in our year.” Now it was my turn to blush. I’m not sure if she’s saying this out of courtesy, sympathy, or if she really means it. 

“You don't have to say that” I roll my eyes and let out an embarrassed giggle. 

“I do.” She whispers back, the darkness multiplying the tension by 10. After a while of nervous silence, not sure what to say next, Robin asks you a question.

“I hope I’m not out of line for saying this, and you can one hundred percent say no,” I looked at her, questioningly, “but why don’t we go out sometime? We can go to the park or we can go to the cinema. Your choice… if you want-if you want to.” She was visibly nervous. In the pitch black, with only the dim glow from the paused movie TV static lighting up the room, I agreed to go on a date with her (”I’d like that”). We both can tell the other is excited but can also tell the other is exhausted. Robin moves back over to the armchair, which was just big enough for a teenage girl to curl up in, and I curl up to my sound asleep brother. It takes a while to finally get to sleep, but I can’t help my mind doing laps, thinking about my future date with Robin Buckley. 

[itsnina-bitch]

The podcast part 1

Summary: Bucky and Nat start a podcast on murder mysteries

Warnings: mentions of murder, I don’t even know if this is considered angst, fluff, the f word once or twice, this is my first fanfic so I hope you enjoy it!

(R/P)= random person

It started when Steve and Bucky started listening to a podcast on the 2000s and everything they missed

Not only did they listen to them EVERYWHERE it was about literally everything

Like EVERYTHING

Including murder mysteries

Which weren’t always correct

And that annoyed Bucky, mostly because he knew that HYDRA was the one to blame, not some brainwashed person

Sometimes Natasha would join them, mostly to point out the many mistakes

To quote Steve “Why don’t you two create your own podcast?”

He was mostly kidding

But they thought it was a pretty good idea

So the two most dangerous ex-assassins decided to correct them

That’s how “Murders explained” was born

They’re first episode was a bit awkward

Who am I kidding

It was extremely awkward

But after a few episodes and a few coffees together they started to understand each other better

Their past with the red room and HYDRA, stories of their past and script writing

Though Bucky didn’t remember his past with her, there was something really familiar about her

But Nat couldn’t say her memory of him is crystal clear either

It became blurry, and she was ok with him not remembering

She wasn’t sure if she even wanted him to

But “Murders explained” was still going strong

Nat wrote most the scripts with some advice from him and Bucky tried to find people who could give them the extra information

Once, they got Clint to help them

It didn’t go very well

He spent half the episode saying that he shipped them and the other half asking questions

Though once they got a HYDRA fugitive to give them and the audience information of how HYDRA goes unnoticed when they commit crimes

It was one of their most successful episodes

But the number one most viewed was a 12 second one

“So today we’ll talk about (R/P)’s murder. We think it was-“

“It was me”

And then the end music started playing after Bucky

The next episode was Bucky and Nat clearing up their past and how they were trained to be a living weapon and how HYDRA and the red room where involved

It was a pretty emotional episode, but their voices kept the same tone and you couldn’t tell they where traumatized by the experiences

After they finished recording, they just stared at each other without saying a word

It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence

They just stayed still grateful that somebody understood them

Eventually Tony called them to eat

Most of the avengers where talking about missions, ideas, projects and all of that kind of stuff

But they remained quiet

Until they just stared at each other

As if they were having a mental conversation

Clint was the first to notice something was happening; he made a mental note to ask what had happened

Steve eventually caught up, and tried to include them in the conversation, which didn’t really help

After what felt like hours the dinner was over

Clint immediately ask what was going on

He didn’t know of the past she and Bucky shared together

Clint thought it was just a one-time thing

She responded with “We where just thinking of ideas for the next episode”

“How, telepathy?”

He didn’t believe her for one second, but he didn’t push it

Steve also asked his best friend if he was ok

“Do I know her? She just looks so familiar...”

Bucky asked, but he didn’t have an answer

Later that night, Nat could sleep

It wasn’t too big of a deal, so she decided to go to the kitchen to eat something

When she got there, she was sure she was alone

“Tea?”

Said a voice behind her

Bucky and Clint where the only avengers that could sneak up on her without her noticing

“What are you doing here?”

“You didn’t answer my question”

She turned to him and nodded

He felt her stare on him as he prepared tea, but he didn’t mind

“So you’re just gonna keep starring at me?”

Natasha couldn’t deny he wasn’t hot and a complete sweetheart

“Shut up Barnes” she said turning to the frige

Both of them weren’t sleepy, so they decided on watching a movie in the living room while drinking their camomile tea

Through out the movie she realized he was staring at her

“So are you liking the movie?”

Without looking away from her, he asked “why does it feel like I’ve met you before?”

Natasha knew one day this would happen, especially now that they were really close friends

She stiffend up at the questions, but she tried to sound casual

“We’ve met in a mission before”

“No, something else. You look so familiar”

“James, are you sure?”

Now it was his turn to freeze

Nobody called him James, not even Steve; he was sure nobody knew his full name

Now a familiar looking girl who has a similar past to his called him his real name

Once she realized what she’d done, it was too late

“Natalia?” Bucky asked shocked

Nat got up immediately but he grabbed her arm, not allowing her to move

“My name is Natasha, now if you will excuse me I have to go”

And she left

The next morning they didn’t talk to each other

They continued their normal life

Since a new episode launched every Monday and Nat had a 3 day mission Bucky would have to record an episode alone

To make matters worse he also had to record it live, like they usually did

He talked as naturally, as if she was there, until he was rudely interrupted by Steve and Sam who didn’t know he was recording

“Hey buck, what happened with you and Nat? You two have drifted apart since last week”

He wanted to scream for the to shut up, but he was live

“Steve’s right. You two lovebirds aren’t together as much as before”

“Sam, me and Natasha weren’t in a relationship, and I am live.”

Sam and Steve left the room after the death glare Bucky shot at them

Meanwhile, Natasha was in a quinjet with Tony and Clint, who were listening to Bucky’s live podcast

She was still mad at him, but he was still curious to what he’d be talking about

Nat watched in horror as the comments started theorizing what had happened to them

And the grin on Clint’s face

“Soooooo, you and Barnes?”

“Shut up Stark”

When they arrived at their destination, she couldn’t focus.

It was an easy mission, but because of the many locations all over the globe it would take long

“What’s going on Nat? Did something actually happen between you and Barnes? Because I can kill him for you”

Clint knew something was going on, but this time he’d find out

3 days later, they still weren’t talking

Bucky wanted to talk to Nat and apologize, but every time he was around she’d disappear

Until one day he caught her in the kitchen at 2:00 am

Luckily, she didn’t run away, but when she realized he was there she asked what was he doing

“Nat, please tell me what’s going on”

She looked at him blankly

“Look, I’m sorry but I am starting to remember you. I don’t know why but I feel like I’ve known you for decades. I am sorry if this is to much to ask Natalia, but did we know each other?”

So she told him

How they went from teacher & student to lover & lover

How his punishment was to forget and hers was to remember

She only didn’t tell him about the night they spent together making love to each other in dead silence

He wasn’t surprised but he definitely had a growing admiration for her, of how she still remembered him but didn’t say anything because she didn’t want to ruin their friendship

As she was about to leave, they heard a sound from the vents

“Fuck you Barton”

Clint obviously heard that

“Gee, thanks Nat”

Even after the explanation, Bucky still couldn’t sleep

He kept remembering scenes from his past

Natalia

He knew that he had a relationship with a redheaded girl, identical to Natasha, but it didn’t hit him that they were the same person

Until now

Now even if he attempted to have a relationship she would think it is because of the relationship they had in the past

Not because of his actual feelings towards her

The next morning Nat was prepared to start writing the script for the next podcast

And murder Clint

Well both

Bucky wanted to help her write the script

“So... how do we clear up that we weren’t in a relationship?”

“Well, we kinda were”

“Yeah I know Nat, I remember a few parts of it”

“So why did you ask?”

“To make sure”

“What if you don’t” Clint rudely interrupted “keep the audience guessing”

“First thing James and I know what to do, and secondly just because you heard our conversation last night doesn’t mean you get an opinion on our relationship”

After that Clint left, but his idea was kind of good

A few hours and cups of coffee later they finally finished their script, not mentioning anything about their relationship

Friendly or romantic

It was their secret, not the internet’s

During dinner at the compound, they were more in a conversation mood than a week back

But Tony wouldn’t leave them alone about their most recent podcast

The one where Steve and Sam interrupted

Until Thor suddenly appeared with hundreds of people, a rip-off of the avengers called the “revengers”, no eye, no family (except for Loki) and short hair

Tony ended up buying a smal village and send the Asgardians there whilst Loki and this girl named Valkyrie stayed in the guest room

The avengers where hesitant towards letting Loki in

But Thor said he was good now

He and Bruce have their own rooms

Anyway, the next day they had to finish the podcast so Nat and Bucky left dinner early and went to bed

The following day they where going to edit and add the final touches to their script

Except that that wasn’t what they did all day

Normally Nat worked on a few S.H.I.E.L.D files, trained and sometimes she had missions

She had just finished a meeting and was on her way to spar with whoever was currently at the gym

Usually she did so with Clint because of their similar fighting style but she tried to train with everyone

Bucky was currently was doing cardio

He was alone there since most avengers where either on a mission or helping Thor out with his people

“Wanna train?

Hey guys (or person who’s gender is unknown what ever makes you comfortable)! I already mentioned this but again this is my first fic so please give me suggestions. And a few questions; is this writing format good? Is it too long or too short? Any idea for the next part? Btw this will be a 2-3 part mini-series, but I could always write another of these but longer

[onisiondrama]

I skipped ahead with my video summaries for his Speaks channel because I heard a lot of interesting things about this video and I wanted to watch it myself. After this I’ll go back to where I left off and continue to write summaries for videos I find interesting.

I want to note a week before this video he stopped making his Speaks videos fundraisers / for charity. (You can see the word Fundraiser under the videos if they are for charity.)

Comments and likes / dislikes are disabled for this video.

(Note: I’m not repeating stories he’s told before and just putting them in parenthesis. I have a lot more videos to go until I’m caught up so that would save me a lot of time. If he gives details I never heard from him before, I will type those.)

“hiatus” November 1, 2020 Speaks

He says this is probably the last OnisionSpeaks video ever. He’s jokingly said that in the past and have done a lot of “I quit” videos, but back then he was trolling. This is not a troll and you don’t have to believe it him. You’ll see it’s true when he no longer posts videos to this channel.

(Times the internet called the police and animal control on him stories, pizza delivery trolls.) He implies you guys are hypocrites because you call animal control over alleged abuse toward animals, but then you’ll pay for animals to be killed and sent to him when you would order meat lover’s pizzas to his house. Says they’ll be studying the psychology of the stupidity of the Anti-Onision community for years.

He says he’s going to have his word here because this is his last video on Speaks.

(Shiloh said she was going kill herself to frame him story.) He says we used a video he filmed of her ranting about how he ruined her life. All because he broke up with her. He says you may not know, but some people are really like that.

He compliments his lighting in this video.

You know he didn’t do anything Anti-O accuses him of because when animal control, CPS, and the police show up they all turn out to be a fraudulent cases. You guys harass, terrorize, and bully someone until you get your way. Says it’s ironic because you say he’s a horrible person yet you lie to the police, animal control, and CPS.

(Someone tried to get him swatted story.)

(Twitter MAP troll story.) He says pedophiles are disgusting and they should have their balls chopped off. Pedophiles are attracted to prepubescent children. There’s nothing attractive about prepubescent children. Someone can’t have a pedophilic relationship with a 12 year old without the 12 year old being a victim. They are nowhere near socially, mentally or physically developed enough for such an interaction. People obsess over this concept, which makes him think they are projecting, and they project that onto him. 

(Shiloh was taken away by the police story.) He tells his viewers to look up the police report. He says his name was Gregory Daniel at the time, he lived in the Tacoma, Washington area, and it was 2011. You might find a report for “boyfriend calls cops on girlfriend for threatening to kill herself and making it look like he did it and was hauled away by police.” He says if you look further back, you will see when he called the cops on Shiloh for other things and police concluded she needs to leave him alone because he was being harassed by her.

People say Onision should be in jail, but if you look at the history it doesn’t make sense. He dumped these people for committing crimes.

(People take pictures of his kids in public.) He says that’s how sick Anti-O freaks are. He’s trying to be a good father and protect the privacy of his children. He never tried to cash in on them or exploit them. [I guess minus all the clickbait videos he made to look like he was introducing them and the videos he made about their medical conditions. I don’t mean to nitpick, I just REALLY hate those videos.]

He has an Only Fans so there’s a pay wall so only adults can see his content. He says unless you steal someone’s credit card but that’s a while other issue and illegal on their part. Anti-O leak his OF content so now it’s available for kids. They’re the most pedophilic disgusting group he’s ever encountered.

Says CPS literally apologized to him for how degusting Anti-O groups are every time they showed up. You guys are like an evil cult.

He says CPS was called again.

He says he has a VPN, so he activates this thing and no one can trace his IP address. He says he used an IP blocker to access- [He laughs] “Most honest Youtuber here.” [This is his first time admitting this online, that’s why he’s stalling.] He used it to access “Ghetto Definitions” or “Street Definitions” [He means Urban Dictionary] “Onision” was ranked as “cuck” and the ones below it were nice. He wanted the nice definitions at the top so he used a VPN to vote for the good definitions to go to the top and it worked. They stayed at the top for a while. He says that was the first time he found out about IP blockers. He’s telling you this because he’s one of the most honest people you’ll ever encounter and lot of you are too stupid to know that. [Yep, pretending to be multiple people to manipulate a website that is based on voting is very honest.]

Says a lot of the people against him have admitted to being liars and he’s telling you he’s honest. That’s how stupid you guys are.

He made a poll asking if he or Hitler killed more people. You guys said Onision did, that’s how rational you are. Morons, cult of inbreds. [He was obviously looking for that outcome. That’s why he made that poll. He knows people will pick him because they think it’s funny and not because they are going off of historical facts. No one makes a serious poll asking if they killed more people than Hitler.]

He says “Ghetto Definitions” is now all filled with evil definitions that call him horrible things.

He says according to the CPS lady, someone reported Onision posted to Twitter that he was going to r-a-p-e and murder his family. He asks why would someone “r-a-p-e”? Murder? Go online and brag about it? He says it makes no sense. He says you’d mask your IP if you’re going to say something horrible online so it can’t be traced back to you. Says he’s never used a VPN to say something horrible, but doing that would be common sense.

This is why he’s quitting this channel. People can’t handle him having a controversial opinion or him kicking people out of his life for cheating and lying.

[He warned you about Shane, Social Repose, Blaire White, Shiloh stories] [Shiloh cheated and stole his money story] [Shiloh blog story]

He says Jaclyn Glenn and Blaire White are terrified of livestreaming with him. Blaire livestreamed with him 3 times and now she’s scared. He says one time she offered to livestream with him and he told her she needs to find a more productive way to spend her time. Shortly after she got canceled. She took the email he sent and said he’s trying to manipulate her. [I guess I missed the part where she was scared? They streamed three times and he rejected her recently for a stream?]

Blaire White is the one who started the witch hunt against him. She read off a news article that was bull crap. [It was not. You can read an archive of the article here.] She got canceled for admitting to taking hateful online rumors and using them in videos. He says she kind of canceled him in 2016, but he got re-cancelled later on. She was one of the leading voices against him when talking to Chris Hansen.

[Hansen is a fraud stories]

He says it’s one thing to go after him, but when you go after his family, we can’t do this anymore. You guys are fucking monsters so why would he grace you guys with his insight?

You guys have heroes like Jaclyn, Blaire, Repzion, Hansen and all these people who lie to you. They take your money and piss in your mouth and call it lemonade. The truth is right in front of you, screaming in your face and you only listen to Blaire and Repzion.

[He lists things he’s already mentioned about times he called people out and they wind up doing something shitty later on] He says you guys would blow up the car of the scientist who is trying to warn you the Earth is warming. You deserve a world that’s on fire because you don’t listen. You play dirty, attack people’s families, you try to get people swatted, you try to get their pets and children taken away, arrested, all because you disagreed with him or he dumped you.

He says he made a video about how he wouldn’t date anyone with BPD and Sarah came out and admitted to sexually extorting him.

The Anti-o cult has no morals. There was a guy with an orange shirt who was debating him in a livestream. They guy was warning a girl to watch out for Onision. She’s a fucking adult and he wasn’t interested in her. The orange shirt guy tried to reach out to the girl after the stream ended. It was actually orange shirt guy who wanted to fuck her and he was projecting.

He says he’s going to end the channel with one of his favorite quotes ever. [here we go] “You either die a FUCKING hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the CUNT ASS villain.”

[olivieblake]

hi olivie! how are you doing? i feel kind of bad for asking bc i know u do so much already, but i was wondering if you could do like a beginner’s guide to your stories? like what they are about and what you like most about them? im kind of new to your work, i’ve read clean, most of amortentia and a bit of paradox, but im already looking for what to read after if you can that’d be great, if not i understand! IM A HUGE FAN, KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!! (and stay safe these are crazy times lol)

hi anon, thank you! as for your request, if I could ask for some crowdsourcing help that would be great (reblog or reply with your personal opinion if you’d like) but here’s what I can sort of help with in something of a tag-like system of tropes/warnings

* marks the more popular fics. Oh, also all my stories end with happily ever afters (HEAs), but some are more explicitly tied up than others while others are more implied, which I noted

The Commoner’s Guide to Bedding a Royal*/The Princess’s Guide to Popular Statecraft: muggle AU, draco is basically prince william, hermione is a mashup of kate middleton and meghan markle, ensemble cast a la Friends where they do everything together, very Rom-Com™, also a bit of a family drama, some ups and downs but HEAs for everyone, super high word count, Romance with a capital R

Modern Romance: post-war potterverse, anonymous sex diaries, each diary is about a different character, you have to trust me on a bunch of uncommon minor pairings, each chapter varies in tone but there’s a lot of angst and sex, complex naming system (each diary has a different theme) which requires some thought, very Real in terms of reflecting actual relationships, generally uplifting/satisfying as each diary comes to a close

How Lady Vengeance Takes Her Tea: historical (Georgian/Regency era) with non-potterverse magic, political drama, enemies-to-lovers!dramione, VERY sarcastic king draco, feminist subplot, fairytale atmosphere with historical aesthetic, also there’s a demon involved, HEA with implications

Divination for Skeptics: post-war potterverse, twist on the classic soulmates AU, a VERY HIGH degree of absurdity, definitely a comedy of errors, hermione is on the spectrum and that annoys some people I guess, lots of feminism, simple plot, theo is in top form, solid brotp between hermione and padma, romantic speeches, fluffy/feel good HEA, Romance with a capital R

Paradox: 7th year AU that diverges from canon at the point when hermione is tortured in malfoy manor, parallel universes, very complex plot, alternate universe where the potters live which was fun for me personally, two separate hermiones and dracos, ends in dramione yes that dramione, HEA with implications

How to Win Friends and Influence People*: post-war potterverse, everyone is dealing with the fallout from the war, ENORMOUS ensemble cast, forced partnership, contract killer!draco and boxer!hermione (some people find that hard to believe but there’s an explanation) who combine to foil a series of political assassinations, a lot of OCs but some of them are surprisingly beloved, complex plot, secret society, high absurdity, definitely a comedy of errors although some angst and family drama, fluffy/feel good HEA, super high word count, Romance with a capital R

Youth: marauder era, canonically accurate which means the HEA has implications, follows the deterioration between severus and lily and explains how lily and james fall in love, tbh i dare you not to fall in love with james potter, ensemble cast, weirdly everyone’s favorites are the baby death eaters in the story, snape’s storyline is obviously dramatic but mostly it exists to explain everything we’re missing from canon

Lethal Combination: muggle AU (or IS it????) (hint: that’s the mystery), hogwarts is a university, theo is a professor’s son and harry is a summer intern, Call Me By Your Name summer vibes, deals with mental illness, HEA with implications

Nobility: historical (Tudors/Cousins’ War era) with non-potterverse magic, female protagonists fighting for the crown, forbidden romance, revenge, political drama, ambitious!hermione is out to rule the world, it isn’t a romance per se but it does have two separate romantic arcs, forbidden love!hansy, tomione that turns into enemies-to-lovers!dramione

Nightmares and Nocturnes: voldemort wins!AU, seven years after the battle of hogwarts, draco finds and nurses a psychologically traumatized hermione, retold fairytales, slightly complex format (unchronological/has time jumps), war fic, magical violence, everyone comes together to defeat voldemort, protective!draco, devoted bromance, minor character death/background deaths, more “literary” in that there’s a lot of effusive/poetic prose, Romance with a capital R

Ride or Die*: organized crime, muggle AU, biker!draco x doctor!hermione, drama, angst, a lot of draco quoting philosophy while beating people up or threatening them, tattooed!draco, some violence/fight scenes/background murder, partial ensemble cast, HEA for everyone, Romance with a capital R

Clean/Marked*: year 6 and onward AU, high angst and high drama, Romance with a capital R, forced partnership, war fic, magical violence, major character death that gets resolved, some people really love the ending some people really hate it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ all I can say is I wrote the fic I wanted to write while also filling the plot holes in canon, definitive HEA

Draught of Living Death: short stories, mostly dark themes or sexually explicit so HEA not guaranteed

Amortentia: short stories, always happy endings, always fluff

[adlexegam]

please tell me, am i in the wrong?

so basically i decided to join here cause i at least know my post wont get removed here. i tried posting my story on reddit’s AITA but my post kept getting removed because on their posts you cant post about abuse. so fuck it, here i am, hoping for someone other than my bf and myself to tell me im not wrong. context:i decided to invite my boyfriend over without telling my parents, i did it max 5 times. i was 16 at the time and he was 18. i got caught and my punishment was to get my phone taken away, my number cancelled, im no longer allowed to drive a car or get my license, im only allowed one friend, im not allowed my laptop anymore, im no longer allowed outside without constant supervision, cameras were installed in and out of the house, and just about every day since december of 2019 ive been getting told how disgusting i am for wanting to be with a n****r (my bf’s half puerto rican half white, i’m half hispanic and half white too), how if he was white he would have come to the front door and shook my parent’s hands and asked for permission to date their daughter, how im a dirty n****r lover who will get pregnant from him and have to slave away to take care of our half breed mistakes, how if i stay with him he’ll sell my body on the streets for money, how if i have sex with him ill get every std on the plant, all that 50′s bullshit. ive gotten pregnancy tested (im celibate), drug tested (mom claims she smelled weed in my room, so he’s a dirty n****r drug dealer apparently forcing me to do drugs, guess what i am against drugs since i know itll change my brain chemistry and i have weak lungs),and std tested (still celibate).  for the first few months after they found out i was allowed my laptop at home to do homework, and only allowed my phone during school. one day i got home and i got greeted to the fact that i no longer have a laptop and now have to use the house computer to do all my work at home. of course i got mad because for months ive been doing everything they wanted, and suddenly im being punished for being suspiciously good? my mom got on top of me and fought me to take off my backpack to take my airpods too, left my phone on the kitchen table. i grabbed my phone and locked myself in my room. she found out i took my phone, and once i unlocked the door i held my phone above my head so we can just talk. instead she got on top of me and started scratching me and all over my arms to get to my phone. i dropped it from the pain of the scratches on my arms. earlier that same day i was getting ready for school with my laptop open, camera taped over, looking for any school assignments i missed. my mom unlocked my door and saw my nude body getting ready with my laptop open, and just went back to the kitchen table and told my dad how much of a slut i am and how im posting my nude body on the internet. i quickly put on clothes and came up to her yelling how im just getting ready for school and how theres tape over the camera. i even told her to look at the laptop, the only thing open was google classroom. my dad got up and started yelling at me for being a slut and for talking back. for once i finally got tired of being yelled at, i finally stood up for myself. he punched me in the face and when my mom got in between to defend me (she caused the whole situation), his swings went back in on her stomach. i screamed dont hit my mother and tried to push her off him, he used the oppurtunity to grab my shoulder by my uniform and punch me in the shoulder. everything was a blur after that. my mother drove me to school and yelled how i shouldnt have been a whore on the internet. i fought back. before i got to school i yelled “please, just fuck off”. this is important later, because she used me saying that as the excuse for her getting on top of me and scratching me and ripping my backpack off my back. because i swore at her. it was okay. but here’s the important part. he hit me in front of the camera. i knew the police would ignore the emotional abuse ive been getting for my entire life. i got my physical evidence. finally, after 16 years, i had my evidence. i told my boyfriend what happened, and we agreed to meet after school the next day and call the police. i wanted to be emancipated, since my parents adamantly agreed that i (apparently) only wanted to be emancipated because my ‘poor street rat n****r boyfriend’ was manipulating me into it. ive been dreaming of this day since i was 8, when i realized what ive been told wasnt normal. they showed up on the corner of where i called. i told the policemen what happened to me the day before. they asked if i had any scars or bruises. i said no, he didnt punch me hard enough to get a bruise the next day, and my mother didnt scratch me hard enough to get scars. they knew what would happen if they gave me physical evidence. after i said that, the policeman interrogating me asked me something that will stay with me until the day i die. “he never really hit you, did he?” i began crying and saying yes! yes he did! i have video footage to prove it! we have cameras in the house! it happened right in front of the cameras! more questions ensued, and i was brought to the police station while my boyfriend waited at a local coffeeshop for me to finally be free from the abuse. at first i was scared, but the cops calmed me down. i told them everything. all my memories spilled from my mouth like water from the niagra falls. everything came rushing out, my fears, my forgotten memories i forced into my box of never to be remembered, the times before i feared for my life, the times i knew something wasnt right. i told them everything from the bottom of my heart. they listened and asked all the right questions.(if you want to know what happened to me and what i told them, ill post them in a future post if anyone cares)  one of the officers, the only one with melanin skin and a father to a beautiful girl, expressively felt sick from my stories, from my life. not even he could understand why, as a father, why any parent would find it right to do to me what they did. he was my favourite police officer, he was the kindest and the only one who really wanted me to feel comfortable. he talked to me on the level of a person, not a child. eventually cps came and he told me to tell her everything too. i did. she asked where i wanted to go if i got emancipated. i said to live with my boyfriend, his family is willing to take me in and once i get a job ill pay minimal rent so i can be free. she said ‘no, you cant live with a minor.’ i said he’s not a minor, he’s 18. she said ‘oh, then yeah you definetly cant live with him’ she said if i wanted to leave i would be put into a women’s shelter since i was too old to be adopted/put into foster care. she said i would be r*ped if i was put in there. she said i should just take it until im 18, then ill be fine. she said that there were no scars or bruises, so it wasnt that bad. (this part is blurry, the more i remember it the more the memories overlap, im sorry for any confusion) the police interrogated my parents. they believed every word they said. my mother used whitepages as a source to prove how my boyfriend lied about his name. my mother used our hours long calls to prove how im obviously being manipulated to lie. she said how im just a liar, as my father said, a pathological liar. they had no cause to me being a pathological liar, i was just born that way. i was lying to get into my manipulative boyfriend’s arms for my body to be used by him and his friends. i was obviously being manipulated, why would i want to leave my loving parents arms? i was obviously doing this just out of anger of getting my laptop and phone taken away, obviously. its not like they EVER did anything wrong to me, they were just teaching me to grow up a mature adult, ready for the world. they would never put their hands on me. the police never looked at the cameras. they never questioned me again. i was a liar. at home the child protective services lady said my room quote ‘ranked of weed’. i have never done weed. my boyfriend has never done weed in my room.  at the station they said they couldnt find a record of my boyfriend. i later found out that, even after he gave them his social security number, they still questioned his existence. at the station they told my parents they couldnt find his record (he has none, hes never committed a crime). at home a therapist came. to my knowledge, my boyfriend was never real (no record) and i would still have to be at home. i wanted to die. the therapist said she wanted to take me to a mental hospital. my mom was there and consented. my dad later came home, yelled at me in front of the therapist. she said im suicidal, with his consent she would call her supervisor to take me to the local mental hospital. he consented. while she called her supervisor from across the kitchen, he said: “she wants to kill herself? fuck if i care, she can drown herself in a river for all i care” i sat there shocked.  the mental hospital was a blur. once i got home i got my phone taken away too. my only communication would be from the 10+ year old computer we have in the kitchen. facing out so anyone that walks by can see what im doing. one of the cameras is watching me at all times, but is positioned so that it cant see what i am doing.  once i got home i used our kindle fire. i logged into discord on incognito mode. i asked him to send me his birth certificate. was he even real? was i even real? was our late nights of cuddling nothing? were the walks in the park nothing? were the ‘i love you’s nothing? did meeting his family from an hour long train ride mean nothing? were the chinese food dates nothing? were the confessions of our embarassing secrets nothing? were the times we had non-vaginal sex and laughed in the middle from how silly we were being mean nothing? were the times we had tiffs and talked it out mean nothing? did he save me from my ex-abusive partner just to use me? were the times we layed down next to each other with the only covering being my blanket, staring at each other in wonder of how lucky each of us were, was that nothing? when we spent hours telling each other our  entire life stories, was he lying? did the times he called my body the most beautiful thing he ever has seen, the times he’s said he didnt think he’d ever fall in love again from his ex, was that a lie? he sent his birth certificate. it was real. his birth date his name it was all real. he told me what happened to him. i told him what happened to me. he apologized for it going the way it did. i apologized for doubting him. child protective services sent a therapist me and my mother had to meet with weekly. 2 hours, 10 times. it lasted until the first weeks of quarantine. me and him are still in the same love we’ve has since before he found out how truly insane my parents are. the only reason we’ve ever gotten into fights is from how much he wants me to run away (before you say ‘ok maybe the parents were right, he sounds manipulative’, no, he only says that after every time something else happens at home and how he has to cope with the fact that im okay with being abused since its my normal. he wants me to run away from the abuse, not just so we can see each other again, so i wont be hurt anymore). he’s still the man i want to marry, the man i want to call mine and for him to call me his. we get scared the other might get tired of the waiting and just decide to leave for someone each other’s family would like. we talk through it. we know we can wait. i know i can take it until im 18. he knows he’ll be prepared to take me in once im 18. we know we can take the late nights awake, missing each other. we can take it because this isnt puppy love. this isnt purely passionate love. he wants me to be safe, and i want to finally be free. so you’re up to this point and you’re probably thinking one of three things: jesus christ can this lady capitalize anything?? or holy FUCK this is long it better be good or why did she title her post that? first of all, i do what a want nehenehenehneh second of all, whoever reads this needs the full context before i ask my question third of all, because of what happened a couple of days ago. a month ago my dad passed from covid-19. ive become the housewife while my mother has taken over the family business and my brother does the grass once a month. my mother still cooks, but i clean the dishes and fold laundry every day and vaccuum the whole house twice a week. a letter came in the other day stating how our child protective services case is now closed. they never found signs of physical abuse or neglect. my mother reminded me for the infinitieth time how stupid i am for getting manipulated. how much of a dirty n*****r lover i am. how i will never be anything without her. then she brought my father into this i started the situation, which made him depressed. he was depressed, so he couldnt fight off the virus. because he couldnt fight off the virus, he died. she blamed me for killing my father she blamed me for my father for deciding to go out every day without a mask for my father deciding to put in his eyedrops in an insanitary environment she blamed me  it was my fault i knew i was leaving when im 18 i knew i wanted to tell my mother at least a month before i left that i was leaving but now theres no going back once im 18, im gone im never turning back i will never be treated like this or talked down like this ever again but who will clean? who will vaccuum? who will make sure the house is organized? do i stay? can i even go? i just dont know anymore should i go? and well, what i started this post with, please tell me, am i in the wrong? for planning on leaving when im 18? to finish this post, i just want to say a few things. dont tell me to call the police or child protective services.i already did. they believed my abusive parents and told them how they can protect themselves against me, since i was the one who started all this. plus, look at the fucking news. no fucking wonder they believed my parents. my boyfriend looks hispanic and i look white. no fucking wonder they believed my parents. fuck cops. not all cops are bad, but no cop should fucking gun down people for their race. no person should be judged from some racist  person saying “oh im fearing for my life” and the person in question is black/a poc and is doing fucking nothing. they believed my fucking abusive parents because they threw my bf under the bus as bait and the police went for it. dont come after my family. all that will do is make everything worse for me. my mother can’t even look at a poc without claiming they’re related to my boyfriend and are going to follow her to kill her. dont do anything to me. just please answer my question. please just tell me if im in the right or if im in the wrong. i know this is abuse. i know whats happening to me is wrong. but i know i can take it. i know i can survive. i will survive and achieve my dream of becoming a doctor. i will be my own person. i am me

[infinitiesofbooks]

Me rambling about S3 and being an emotional mess

Okay, I have feelings and I need to talk about them. This is not a constructive analysis or anything this is just me talking about SOME of my favorite clips from season 3 of Skam France because it's the end and i'm emotional.

I knew this season would be awesome from the second I saw the trailer.It was genius and I still watch it sometimes because wow.I love that we saw the I saw you the first day of school scene. I love that we were all fooled into believing it was Lucas. Because he's the main and i also think because of the clothes, that's something Isak could wear. But little did we know they were making their own thing.

"T'es pas comme les autres" + adding to this the minute par minute talk

Skam is a very emotional show, with very emotional scenes but I didn't cry cry as much as everyone did. And it's okay obviously. I teared up, thought I was going to die because of the pain, internally sobbed during the whole season. (For me it's 50/50 or I cry a LOT or I just can't because I just have too many emotions and my body is just dying, but it doesn't diminish the pain oh no) But the only two times where I really really really cried were during T'es pas comme les autres and the minute par minute talk. For mpm, I was expecting it. This is my favorite quote of the Skam universe, I use it everyday and it really helped me dealing with mental illness. I knew hearing it in my native language would wreck me. I was tearing up during the whole clip but I just bursted into tears when Lucas said it.

But I was not expecting the "T'es pas comme les autres" clip. I remember watching it, sobbing, thinking what the hell is happening to me. It's a mixture of Lucille's speech, the piano music (i tear up everytime i listen to it) and the images of Eliott. this.was.too.much.for.me. But I love this clip with all of my heart, and I cry as much everytime I rewatch it but I love it.

The piano scene

This scene. This freaking scene. It's unique,it's beautiful, it's a masterpiece. I have a thing with piano, it always gets me emotional and it's my favorite instrument, and I listen to piano music every day.But.this. this was incredible. And it's a scene nobody expected and wow it had so much impact. I can't find the words about how much I love this scene. And I won't ever be able to forget the T'es Suprenant. I remember not being able to sleep after this scene because I couldn't get over it.

Intervention

This is one of my favorite clip. First the acting, Axel how how how? I also love how it's as much as a sad clip as an hopeful one. Yes, it's sad but Mika and Manon are here for Lucas, he finally has support, and it's the clip where things are changing , Lucas starts accepting himself in the next clip and it's beautiful. And also some things that were said in this clip hit me so strongly and I think about them everyday.

Viens on en parle pas

god. Manon coming to Lucas? Her crying ? Him conforting her? And then when he started to cry my heart broke. This was powerful and I'm so glad this clip exists.

Also I didn't talk about Le premier, Combien de Lucas dans l'Univers, the painting/fucking, french o helga natt,not because I don't love them, because I freaking do, they're in my top 10,or even 5 clips (especially combien de lucas, if I did a top 3 it would be here with the piano scene and T'es pas comme les autres (this clip did something to me okay?) and the parallel universe talk with the music behind always get me so so so so emotional and tearing up) but because I've already talk so much about them and said pretty much everything I wanted to say.

Special mentions to Eliott following Lucas on instagram. So many of the instas udpdates are pure gold, so so so many, but I don't think I freaked out more in my entire life than the day Eliott followed Lucas. I literaly went home walking because I had too many feelings and needed to calm down.

Also a little list of my fav things from watching S3

-Lucas & the girl squad. Every. Single. Interaction.

-the millions french words the international fandom is now saying (please don't use them in french class)

-moi c'est Eliott + I can still remember Maxence and his chocolates bars on his insta story being so excited about the clip

-Lucas stalking Eliott

-the whole foyer subplot

-P. O. L. A. R. I. S

I got so emotional over a gifset the other day with the first kiss and O helga natt with the polaris quote

And the fandom becoming astronomers

-Alexia being a bisexual queen

-the dubstep is still making me laugh especially Lucas listening to it and saying he's into it to Chloé

-the unsubtleness. cf : how would you draw me

-Lucas and the marks on his cheeks during the foyer party

-i have an unhealthy obsession with the call your girlfriend scene, seriously, how many times can i watch a clip before it gets weird? Also when the music change when Eliott looks up ahhhhh

-Pas forcément une meuf (and the whole I want to be in a relationship thing ), I have a tattoo appointment to put this on my forehead.

-The whole Grillé clip was gold

-I love Pecholand too, it's so funny to rewatch because ahhh we knew it. Also just Lucas's voice when he's changing the subject from Eliott to something else. Everytime I watch it, I have this feeling, you know, when someone or something is brought up and you start panicking a little inside and you try to stay calm and like nothing is affecting but you're still trying to change the subject. It's a very specific feeling and he NAILED it, the tone of his voice is exactly exactly this.

-The beginning of Phase de Latence (ending ?? What ending?? This clip ends when Lucas steps out of the classroom)

-Emma and her lava lamp. Emma, my love. I see so much of me and my friends in Emma, and the more we have the more I love her. She just seems so real to me.

-The Isak reference

-Arthur&Basile + Daphné + Yann + Imane reaction and talk after Lucas coming out

-the J'ai tué ma mère ref. I knew it. I wanted it. They delivered. Thank you.

-the reaction to the mural monday morning omg. I really thought they were going to repaint it after. But these idiots didn't and they didn't even try denying anything. And I would have bet Daphné would have killed them but I'm glad she loved it.

-Eliott + Imane

-The boy squad Fangirl™ Moment to Elu. I wanna tattoo their faces on my face.

-Them hanging out in the park. This felt so nostalgic to me. It's exactly how I spent my 1ère afternoons in high school, lying in the grass with my friends, reading, talking and it's some of my best memories.

-Elu shotgunning omg

-Emma Manon and Lucas drunk = incredible

-Basile speechs and supporting Boy Squad

-Lucas and his mom AND THE FREAKING PIANO WHEN HE WROTE THE TEXT

-Him defending the mural, Imane being a queen and then Daphné after too

-Leave a light on hahahaha

-the realness of J'ai pas besoin de toi (just wanted to say, i'm still singing Joyce Jonathan every time, just because of the title, not any signification)

-Lucas and Eliott being THAT annoying couple

-All the drawings

-Raccons and hedgehog

-the acting. I just can't see Axel and Maxence, no matter how hard I try (i just tried it for the sake of this point and I just can't, they don't exist when filming)

-David making me cry with his instagram posts

-every single update from instagram

-David changing his profil pics and the fandom loosing it

-the scarf™

-Just everything the cast did. I could make a whole separate post for that.

-Wednesdays

-All the times we were fooled

-THE FREAKING JE T'AIME I'M STILL NOT OVER IT

-Eliott counting the minutes he's been appart from Lucas in the last clip, that dork

I feel like i'm forgetting so so many things, but I can't write down everything, especially the fandom stuffs and how much we freaked out over everything, and all the debates and theories but this has been my favorite part

I'm so glad for this season, and it had been an incredible ride. I also think i would not be this attached to it if I didn't discuss the clips with everybody on tumblr everyday. Thank you. You all made this special.

I wanted to start tagging people but the list was getting way way way too long and I'm afraid to forget someone and also the less people see my rambling the better it is. But if we talked even once,or if we’re mutuals, or If I liked your posts or you liked mine, i love you. So i'm just gonna thank my two friends I talk everyday with.

@praecise we've been talking since the beginning of the season and I'm so glad i was on that ride with you, you're the best

@aspewofnonsense we started really talking only after but i'm so so glad we did and i can't wait to meet you in may

I'm a really nostalgic person and I hate endings, and even if it's also a beginning because you bet i'm gonna follow S4 with the same energy ( I was already so hyped just by seeing Imane at the end of the last clip) , it's the end of Lucas pov and I will forever miss him. And seeing everybody in the tag saying goodbye and thank you to our boy ahhhh. Watching this season was an unique experience and it was so special. But i can't believe this is over. This morning i was listening to music when Remember attacked me without my consent and i started full on sobbing. The whole day i felt almost sick because i knew it was the end, in my last class i was really really feeling bad i couldn't do anything. But after the clip i was sad but also so much happy. I'm so thankful for this season and for Lucas's story.

(Also after the last clip, i was sitting on the ground in the train watching the landscape through the windows as the sun was setting, thinking about everything ,poetic cinema right there)

This afternoon I was like I should be less dramatic. But fuck it, I like being 300% invested in this. Being inside a fandom is my favorite thing.

I feel like I could never say everything I want to say, but (i was listening to music and my song just say i just wanna say thank you as I was writing this yes that's exactly this song) I just wanna say thank you. <3

[bleachedjam]

Rambling on sexuality. Apparently you can't do a cut on mobile? Sorry then. Pretend there is one here and scroll past this.

I've always tried to find a label that fit me. I had never felt liked I liked anyone in the traditional sense. Girls and boys were on an even playing field for me. No one set me a flutter. There was no lust at first sight. But the way my peers discussed it made me feel...odd. Displaced? Like I was missing a joke everyone else got. So I faked it.

In elementary school, 5th grade, all the other girls picked a celebrity boy they had a crush on. I remember being confused how they decided. So I picked Aaron Carter, I think because I liked his song, "I want Candy". I mimicked what they said about their crushes, "he's so hot!" Another girl also liked Aaron Carter, but as I was a bit of an outcast we never discussed it. (His picture was on her binder.)

In middle school I tried to take up drawing. I had a sketch book I filled with drawings of both men and women. I gave the women large breasts and revealing shirts. My mother looked through my sketch book, and one night I heard her telling her friend, "all the breasts are so large, what if shes a lesbian?". And I considered it. What if I was? I had no idea. I felt the same way about men and women still. My friends were branching out and dating and talking about crushes on boys in school. I picked a boy I was friends with and pretended to like him. I even faked a journal entry and left it out so a friend would see.

In Jr. High I briefly dated a boy who was friends with a boy my friend was dating. He was crass and kind of a jerk. Someone asked me why I was dating him, because he, "looked and dressed weird". I tried to figure out which features were desirable, but all the guys my friends liked were so varied.

High school hit me hard. Something was wrong with me I was sure. I decided to just date whoever liked me. Less choices on my part. In October we held a Octoberfest carnival thing. My anime club, yes I was in anime club, had a booth were we sold churros. I met a guy a year older than me who ended up liking me. So I "liked" him. We dated until February. He rarely showered and never brushed his teeth. I always felt gross when we hung out. In February a friend admitted to liking me. I broke up with the other guy for obvious reasons and accepted when the new one asked me out.

Things seemed fine at the start but this guy would go on to mentally and verbally abuse me for 5 more years and torment me for a year after that. I confided in him how I never liked anyone and never had crushes the same way others did. This was the first of many things he would use against me. He convinced me to have sex with him, because once I did I'd like him and be attracted to him. And when that didn't work, well I'd already done it, so I had to keep doing it. Then when I doubted things and didn't like being with him, he'd play on my various insecurities. "You'll never really like someone, it will always be fake. Might as well stay with me." "No one will like you if you can't feel the same way back, your lucky to have me." "I'm the only guy you can ever get." And beyond that to, "No one else would want a depressed sack of fat like you. I'm doing you a favor." "There's so much wrong with you, how can you ever expect to do better?" "Your so ugly and fat I can't believe I stoop to your level." And worse and worse yet. It was a slow descent over almost 2 years, but when he had me where he wanted me, he started to cheat on me. I couldn't leave, I wanted to die. The years with him were the worst of my life. And I trace it all back to not understanding how to tell if I wanted to be with someone.

We graduated and he moved into my house. The abuse only got worse. I developed fibromyalgia and other chronic illness, believed to be from "trauma". His abuse escalated after that. I couldn't escape him. And why would I want to? No one would ever take a broken piece of shit like me. He was doing me a favor.

He ended up leaving me. I never had the strength to leave him. He left me for, in his words, "a healthy girl with no problems". For the next year or so he'd get drunk and contact me. Eventually I stopped all communication. I ended up getting a tattoo he had forbade me from getting. It was freeing.

I tried the online dating scene for awhile. I desperately didn't want to be alone. But I couldn't connect with anyone. People would send me messages and I'd see pictures but I never met up with anyone. No one ever stood out. I didn't know what or how to pick someone.

My sister had a friend from Canada she played games with online. I played with them a few times and he invited his work friend to play to. I won't say we hit it off. My sister and her friend logged off and then me and the other guy were left alone. We talked, he seemed nice. After a few months the two of them got invited down to our house for a gaming convention in the area. The friend and I had grown close and he decided he liked me. I knew this time, I did not like him.

But as it goes, that didn't matter. He came down, stayed at our house and asked me out. I said no. He pushed and guilt tripped me until I said yes. He stayed a week. Everything was a guilt trip. He bought me something so I owed him. He came all this way, so I owed him. I said yes, so I owed him. When he went back home I broke up with him. He staged and gave me a play by play of a suicide attempt. His tactics relied on guilt. I wasn't used to that, so it was hard for me to let go. I didn't want to hurt anyone. Eventually I finally got away from him.

During that time my other sister asked if she could invite a guy she worked with to play league of legends with us, as he was very good and we wanted to win an event or achievement or something. He played with us and we did it.

Him and I talked. I told him about the guy from Canada. The suicide attempt. Most recently he had gotten the bill from the ambulance I sent to his house and said I needed to pay it since it was my fault. I refused and tried to quit talking to him. The new guy and I got close. He was someone I would call my best friend. When the Canada guy started more drama, he asked if we could hang out in real life, because up until then we had only talked online.

We did. I went to his house. We got teriyaki and played Mario cart. Something about this guy was different. He was a best friend but something else. Like our hearts were talking. We connected on a different level, something I had never felt with another person before. On the way home I made a stupid joke about not believing he never had a girlfriend. He asked if I wanted to be his. I said yes.

I gave him a hug goodbye. I kissed him on the cheek. He tried to kiss me on the cheek too but I moved and he missed and we had our first kiss. Everything was right in ways I never felt before.

Today we're set to be married, living together and have an amazing daughter. I couldn't imagine life with anyone else. I can confidently say, he is the first person I've actually liked. Romantically for sure. Sexually? I still don't know how that works.

I throughly enjoy sex with him. I desire the intimacy and connection and obviously it feels good. But honestly, what the hell is sexually attraction? Because I enjoy it does that mean I'm attracted? I don't know. I've never looked at anyone and gotten any...sexual feelings from looking at them.

I enjoy drawn porn and porn comics from an aesthetic point. The art is beautiful. The human body is wonderful. But it doesn't do anything for me. I like the art, the shapes, the aesthetic of porn. But it doesn't make me feel anything or make me want to do anything.

To masturbate or have sex I have to focus on the sensations alone, or how my partner feels. I've never found porn that works for me. I don't get horny from visuals at all. Half the time I forget he does. I'll be changing and he makes a move and I'll just be confused as to what got him in the mood. I feel a disconnect between it all.

There was a while where I called myself asexual. Seemed close. But the more I tried to fit in with the community the more I felt odd. Not outcast, because the asexual community is amazing, but more like I was fitting an oval peg into a circle hole. Close, but not quite.

When I consider it, men and women are almost equal to me. I think I may be more drawn to women at least visually. If I hadn't met my fiance I would have loved to date a woman. I enjoy the female form more from a aesthetic stand point.

So lately I've been wondering if maybe I was pansexual. A friend of mine is pan and she posted a quote about being attracted to the person, not the body. It felt more right and more like me than anything I had seen from the asexual community. But at the same time, my sample size of people I've liked it only at one. So I have no idea.

I also wonder, does it matter? I'm going to be with the person I am with forever now. I don't need to find anyone else, so it doesn't matter which gender preference I have or don't have.

I guess with Pride month I've been thinking about it a lot. There is a lot of talk of, "fly your flag high and have pride!" But what if you don't have a flag?

I feel queer. That's about as far as I've gotten. I don't know if I'll ever find something past that or not. Right now queer feels fine, just unsure. I guess I'm somewhere between sexuality is fluid and still figuring myself out. Who even knows what attraction is.

So happy Pride month everyone.

[fantroll-purgatory]

World: Alternia

Name: Erenyx Erixck (Try saying that 3 times fast)

Age: 8 sweeps

Theme/Story: Since her hatching, Erenyx has been very intelligent. Unfortunately, she’s also batshit crazy. Erenyx gives off an aura of “not quite there”, often randomly staring off into the distance and generally acting weird. She’s very into hypnosis and mind control, trying to command lower blooded trolls with varying methods and success. 

Local Mod With Psychotic Symptoms Here: Please Stop Making Characters Whose Entire Gimmick Is “Not Being All There.” I hope this doesn’t come off as rude, but I want to teach you how to be a stronger writer. It’s not as scary or edgy as you think it is and it is 100% of the time more of a stressor for the person who has the condition than for anyone else. 

People who are most often stigmatized with the “““batshit crazy”““ label don’t want to harm others and experience significantly higher rates of violence directed towards than the general population because of stereotypes like these! Staring off into the distance and “acting weird” aren’t villainous traits. They’re just how people are sometimes. The “crazy genius” is a strung out trope that’s just shorthand so you can get away with not writing character motivation! We’re gonna dissect your girl like a frog specimen and take out her tender Character Traits to build her back better. Bionic frog. 

So to give you a stronger starting base here: If you want a troll to be a bad person, make them a bad person. It’s so much more interesting than them being randomly “crazy” and wacky. Make them malicious, and not because they’re ~not all there~. We’re gonna call New “Bionic Frog” Erenyx a bastard because she thinks she’s better than other people. She was born with strong psionics and she thinks that means she’s a cut above the rest, she thinks they should respect her and like her, and that’s why she wants to control others. 

(Cosigned as another mod with psychotic symptoms like… it’s not a great look. Also: Everyone on Alternia is terrible for the most part. It was DESIGNED that way in-universe. It’s a planet of hormonal teenagers who are encouraged to murder their friends and neighbors for kicks. You don’t need a “batshit crazy” smokescreen to just write a terrible fantroll. Vriska already exists, and she doesn’t have anything like that.)

Goals: Due to her, let’s say, interesting personality, Erenyx has no friends. So, she reasons, why not hypnotize lowbloods to become her friends? (I thiiiiink you misread my section on Goals: These are for you and us, not your fantroll’s ambitions (though nice information to have). I’m going to do this as a general review in lieu of anything specific.)

Strife Specibus: Yoyokind. It’s got a swirly pattern and spikes, naturally.

Fetch Modus: I never bother to think these up, it’s more trouble than it’s worth honestly. (Lowkey agree with you there- I’m horrendous with these. I do think something to help flesh out this spiral motif might be fun? Impressionism, maybe? Some late-Picasso looking art and she’s gotta find the items in it?)

She could also have to solve a maze or labyrinth to get out. Or you could go with something that plays on the Cobra angle and do a snake charmer joke with her playing a pungi. 

Blood Color: Gold

Symbol: Actually, I haven’t decided yet. I don’t know why, I just never get round to it.

You could probably rip a symmetric chunk for a pattern like this and have a pretty good gold symbol on your hands.

Handle: mesmerisingOptics [MO]

Quirk: Undecided

If she loves to seem purposefully confusing, you could mix up her words. Organize her sentences in a way that people usually don’t. The best example I can think of this is… I used to follow this RP blog a while back, amusedmuralist, and the way sentences are structured here is what I’m thinking. “Waste your lowly selves not the time allotted you.” 

A generally ‘better than thou’ attitude and insults/put downs can go a long way, too. 

Special Abilities: Various methods of hypnosis, most of which aren’t very good.

Lusus/Guardian: Cobra Lusus

I do like this a Lot but what about . Kaa. She could face the common troll problem of having a lusus that needs to eat other trolls, and she needs to trap them to feed her snakemom before her snakemom gets hungry and turns on her! 

Personality: As stated above, she’s not exactly the most sane troll on the block. Likes to dish out weird threats to innocent passerby and giggle to herself for no reason. Likes spirals. (This is barely even window dressing on a personality- you’ve made her theoretical, stereotypical mental illness her whole character. You’re overcommitting to a pretty bad gimmick, to be frank.) (To quote the EZ Gold Signs: “Gold Signs are interested in a wide variety of topics, so they tend to be Jacks-of-all-trade, and can have trouble dedicating themselves to just a single hobby or career. They have a tendency to be high-energy, and can stress people out, including themselves.” This may be a good place to start for a character like this.)

And as I’ve said above, she believes she’s a cut above the rest. She could be a little on the cruel or at least inconsiderate side, a better-than-you type. She could look down on other blood colors and the like. Another gold fact from the EZ is that golds love The Hustle, they like making bank. You could play on a manipulation and control angle and instead of relying on a bad mental illness stereotype, make her an extortionist playing mental health professional? Come to her Hypnosis Clinic, she’ll definitely help you get a good night’s sleep/work through your trauma/cut that chalk eating habit! [Fails to brainwash you] 

Interests: Hypnosis, obviously, and other methods of controlling people. Spirals, swirls, other similar things. (You say Spirals and my first thought is early game Uzumaki. Maybe she has an interest in strange art? Really underground, indie shit that the Highbloods would NEVER see as equal to their epic sculptures and Clowns and stuff.)

Actually, I want to step a layer deeper here. What are spirals traditionally associated with in homestuck? C h e r u b s. And what is there evidence of on Alternia? Giant Snake (Cherub) Corpses. And given that the purples worship the merciful messiahs, I’d be unsurprised if spirals actually featured rather heavily in Clown Church Religion. Erenyx could have an interest in art history on top of an interest in modern perplexing imagery. She could be interested in finding the deeper meanings. She could think that she, in all her GENIUS WISDOM, understands this art and the meaning behind it better than anyone else and that she’s unlocked some hidden truth that means she deserves to be in charge. 

It could also be a sparking point for her interest in hypnosis- maybe her psionics don’t actually lend themselves well to mindcontrol, but she’s trying to jack into whatever force allows purplebloods to Chucklevoodoo.  

Lunar Sway: See symbol.

She’s a prospitan if I’ve ever seen one. 

Title: See lunar sway. (I think if hypnosis is her game, she’s probably a Heart/Mind inversion player. Actively messing with people’s brains, passively messing with their souls and identities.)

Yeah, cheesy as it is, I’d rule her as thief of mind. Or witch. One of those. 

And design corner time: 

Hair: I cannot believe you gave me a spiral character and didn’t give her SWIRLS. I had to just embiggen the hair a little more. Big hair on alternia is associated with the Condesce and thus power, so having a big spirally mess of it? Screams Better Than You. 

Face: I adjusted her mouth’s position mildly and changed the glasses to cherub colors as a reference to that cherub comment I made up there, but you could change them out for any appropriate themeatic colors- she didn’t have any Accents before! 

Outfit: I changed her outline and sweater color to go for something lighter, so the hair would stand out from it better. I added a conceptual symbol for her! Golds don’t wear patterns, so her socks are solid yellow now. I also fixed up her shoes by bringing in tavros’ sandals to edit. You don’t need to draw out individual toes on a sprite form wearing shoes, or else the area gets visually complicated! 

Other than that I love this design a lot. 

[arosec123]

Concept Reflection 7 (Abigail Cox and Will Pinto)

Tough Guise -Abigail Cox

What was the main idea/s behind it?

The main idea behind Tough Guise was an attempt to answer why violent crimes are mostly committed by men (86% of domestic violence, 90% of murders, and 98% of mass shootings. The film looked into media and cultural influence and mainly discussed that boys are raised to act a certain way that makes them more likely to be violent.

What were some of the relevant concepts from class that you saw depicted in the movie?

One relevant concept from class that was depicted in the movie would be gender role. This concept of taking on certain attitudes, behaviors and activities to conform to your gender also relates to other concepts from class such as objectification of women and homophobia. For example, in the film the gender role for men to act dominant and powerful leads to an objectification and domination of women in dangerous scenes of movies, Tv shows, magazines and porn- making men think this objectification is okay. Homophobia is seen in the film when many men are quoted using the word “f*g” as a way to call their peers weak and “less of a man” when really, sexual orientation has nothing to do with your gender. If you are a gay man, you are still (obviously) a man, and no less than any other man.

What were some points that stood out for you or surprised you in the movie?

I would say the most shocking part of the movie was the video of the teenage boys bragging about r*ping and gang banging an unconscious girl. It was a highly disturbing show of what men think is okay, and how they can influence each other in groups.

Another shocking point was the lack of talk about how shootings and violence are a mental health or societal issue, not a men’s issue. However, as soon as a woman commits an act of violence the headlines make it about her gender. 

Did you agree with the perspective of society and gender/sexuality in the movie? To be clear, I am asking if you agree with the stance the filmmakers are taking in their respective documentaries--this is not a question of whether or not the information portrayed is accurate--the information presented is based on sound social science research from the time the films were released.  Why or why not?

I did agree with the perspective of society and gender/sexuality in the movie. Men have a serious violence issue that NEEDS to be addressed. Women and men can come from the same SES, ethnic background, and family background. They both have drug and mental health issues. Yet, the problem of violence is dominated by men. Men need to be taught to open up emotionally. Men need to be taught to treat women with respect. Taught by the media, by their parents, by their heroes, and by their peers. 

 **You must include some sort of photo or meme that pertains to one of the ideas discussed in this film. **

 Miss Representation - Will Pinto

The main idea behind Miss Representation was to show how mainstream media and culture undercuts women and does not portray them in positions of power or influence in America. It said that in American culture and media, a woman's power is not held in her ability to lead or make decisions, but in her youth, beauty, and sexuality. 

Relevant concepts that were depicted in Miss Representation that were also discussed in class is the sexualizeation and objectification of women. There were numerous interviews with a lot of variation between people (i.e. Nancy Polsis and teenage girls) so it showed how these women experienced it at different times, not only in their lives but also the time periods within the United States.   

A few points in the movie that stood out to me and surprised me were all the stats. I had no idea that America was 75th out of 193 countries in terms of women in legislation, or that there are only 7.4% of Fortune 500 companies with women as CEOs, and even that only 21% of directors are women. I knew beforehand that this has been a major issue around the world, but I did not know how far it reached or how bad it was. 

I agree with the perspective and stance the filmmakers are taking. It is obvious that women are overly sexualized in the media, for example any James Bond movie, or any horror film. There is so much information that backs every argument in this film.

What is the overarching theme between the two documentaries?

Both films show the influence of the media on the objectification and over sexualization of women. Women are seen for their youth and beauty, not their ability to lead and power to make decisions on their own. Both films show women as “trophies” for men to prove themselves.

[tomhollandarling]

Star What?

Summary: You and Peter soon become friends after you help him out a bit in English. (part 1 of an unfinished series) 

Masterlist

Part Two  Part Three

Word Count: 2332

Pairing: Peter Parker x Female Reader

A/N: Hey! So this is my first time ever writing Peter Parker and my first time publishing a part of a fic so I hope you all like it! (I hope it’s at least somewhat decent) I don’t know where this story is going but I’m just kinda writing with the flow. 

It was that time again. That dreadful, highly anticipated time again when the leaves started to change, routines began to fall in place and the streets and sidewalks that paralleled them grew thicker with rushed people. It wasn’t the weather that brought a downer, it was what was already beginning again. Halfway through September marked the second week of school for Peter Parker, a sophomore at Midtown High in Queens. He wasn’t the most popular teen, being in the robotics club and on the academic decathlon team, and Flash Thompson, the school bully, tried to pick on him as much as possible.

Aunt May opened the door to Peter’s room to find him still nestled under the blankets, a bare foot sticking out with a ray of sunshine pooling over his back. “You can’t solve your problems by hiding in bed all day.” She chided, dropping off a basket of laundry next to his cluttered desk, homework and notes from the day before scattered on top. She’d come in five minutes earlier to see if he was awake; he wasn’t. “Come on, you. School” Aunt May shook his shoulder, placing her hands on her narrow hips afterwards.

“Mmpfh,” was Peter’s response, turning away from her.

“Na-uh. Not today! Get up lazy bug. You have school and to school you are going!!” She stated. She waited a moment before adding, “I’ll let you pick dinner tonight.” She bribed in a sing-song voice.

He rubbed sleep out of his eyes, adjusting to the light, and stretched his arms upwards. “Thai?” He asked.

“If you get up right now, then yes, we can have Thai for dinner.” May responded, walking out of his room.

“From the place on 54th?” He half-yelled, sitting up, confirming his request before he made any drastic movement towards starting the day.

“You got it!” Peter started to untangle himself from the blankets nearly tripping over the basket of laundry.

-

The chime of a bell signaled the beginning of his day as Peter weaved through the hall of students to get to his English class. English wasn’t really his thing, but Peter did alright, managing a high B at the moment. He’d already missed a few points off an annotation assignment which brought him down to an 88. Peter sat towards the back of the classroom, trying to stay inside his own bubble and avoid social interaction: another subject he wasn’t too particularly fond of. He didn’t have that many friends, maybe two or three. Ned, being his closest. Sure Peter was friendly when you got to know him, but only a select few had chosen to do that. With Peter being as quiet as he was, most just left him to his thoughts, or as of right now, left him to stare out the window to his left.

The window framed one of the many bodegas of Queens: Miller’s Subs. A few weeks prior to the date, Spider-man, had stopped a poorly planned robbery. It wasn’t that hard, but it was an attempted robbery nonetheless. Two teens in masks tried to pass water guns as real ones. To their surprise, black spray paint was pretty obvious, but to the customers and store owner, the threat seemed real for a minute or two. They weren’t so worried about detail when lives could potentially be at stake. They just wanted to get out of trouble’s way.

“Woah? Was there a pool party? How come I wasn’t invited?” Spider-man had quipped, swinging in and knocking over one of the robbers and falsely admired the squirt gun, picking it up and spraying the teen in the face. “Shoot, I forgot to bring my swim trunks, mind if I borrow yours?” That earned him an angry groan from the tousled robber.

One of the masked teenagers tried to run towards the entrance to escape. Spider-man was much too quick though, webbing his ankle, causing him to trip and fall onto the tiled surface. “Hey, no running! You might slip!”

Peter smiled, reliving his heroic moment. If only he could be that confident without the mask.

“Mr. Parker? May I remind you that summer is over?” Mr. Scott lightly scolded. He was a small and stout man, donning some square glasses.

Hearing his name, Peter snapped his head towards the front of the class and tried to look somewhat engaged. “S-sorry, sir.” He apologized, flipping quickly through his textbook to find the right page.

“23.” You whispered from the desk just to his right. Peter, head down, gave a quick glance and embarrassed smile. “Thanks, uh..”

“Y/n.” You replied, tapping your pencil over a photocopied painting of Shakespeare from the textbook. You internally rolled your eyes. What was with every English teacher fawning over this guy? “Don’t worry about it.” You smiled. “I wasn’t really into the lesson either.”

Peter sighed in relief at your comment. “Glad I’m not the only one. I’m more into science really.”

“Don’t we have Chem together? 6th right?” You asked, jotting down what Mr. Scott was messily scrawling on the board. Wow for an English teacher, shouldn’t he have better handwriting? You let out a quiet breathy laugh.

He paused for a moment, mentally going over his schedule. “Y-yeah I think so. Wh-what’s so funny?” Peter asked nervously. Hopefully he didn’t say anything wrong?

Finishing copying down the quote, you registered what he’d asked, “Hm?” Your eyes slowly pulling away from your notebook. “Oh-I was just noticing how bad his handwriting is. I mean, he teaches English right?”

Peter glanced at the whiteboard, smiling, “Look there at the ‘afraid’. ” You prompted with your pencil towards the quote. The “r” was so slanted it looked like an “n” and the whole word drooped downwards. The both of you giggled as silently as you could, trying to keep up with what Mr. Eberle was taking an eternity to write.

“Man, he should teach History instead with how slow he’s going.” Peter mocked. Both of you giggled again at that, continuing to jot down the lecture.

—

Soon enough it was time for Chem: the sixth class of the day. Plopping down in your seat, you still had an earbud in. Blocking out hallway noises and nonsense with music was an essential way to get through the day. Spinning around on the high swivel chair to the beat, you repeated the action you had already done five times prior to 6th period: taken out your supplies, placed them on the table, and waited the time out until the end of the class.

Mr. Marlow casually strolled into the class and started the lesson with the daily warm up.

“Hey,” said a familiar voice, “can I-can I um, sit with you?” It was Peter.

You took out an earbud and noticed his presence, “Oh hey!” You greeted him again. “What did you just say? Sorry, I had my music playing.”

For some reason this made Peter flustered and red in the face. “I um, I asked, sit with, c-can I sit with um y-you?” He played with the hem of his blue sweater, tracing the stitch pattern and avoiding eye contact.

Letting out a light laugh, you patted the table top next to your left. The smooth, thick, black tables were meant to have two students each. “Sure! That’d be great. I think Marlow is giving us our first partner project today too. Michelle told me. She has Chem 3rd.”  

His cheeky face brightened up as he set his notebook on the desk, taking a seat next to you. “You know Michelle?”

“Yeah! She’s super nice. I’ve known her since middle school. She’s really quiet but as soon as you get to know her she cracks open.” Putting your hand up to the side of your mouth you added in a half-whisper, “I also have detention with her. Except she doesn’t have detention..like ever…she just goes there to draw and keep me company sometimes. You know her too?”

“Mmhm she sits with Ned and I at lunch”

Glimpsing to your left, you saw the cover of his spiral notebook. “Star Wars?” You observed.

“Star what?” He said, confused. Peter looked down at the cover of his notebook: the Star Wars logo. His cheeks flashed pink. “Oh! Yeah it’s my favorite series ever!” He was so enthusiastic at your simple comments that a few heads turned to see what the excitement was about.

Just then, one of your classmates came around and passed two papers out to each student: a rubric and the project rules with some questions to answer. “Thanks.” You smiled up at him.

“So, do you like Star Wars?” He fidgeted nervously with the metal spiral as Mr. Marlow started to explain the experiment.

Taking in a timid breath you said, “I’ve…well.”

Peter’s brows furrowed together as he scanned your face for an answer, his pencil eraser resting on his bottom lip, squishing it a bit. “You’ve what?” He pressed. Just now noticing the papers, he took both and skimmed them over, peeking back up at you for a response.

“Um, I’ve never seen it.” A short exhale followed with a nervous laugh. Ugh seriously, (Y/n), why would you compliment his notebook when you’ve never seen Star Wars?!

Shock took ahold of his soft face, his eyebrows raised “What?” He said flatly in a neutral voice, causing a few heads to turn.

“Yeah. I really want to though! Don’t get me wrong, I think it looks so cool! I just..I dont know. Never had the time I guess.”

“Okay, well that obviously has to change. How have you never? It’s seriously the best series to ever exist in the history of the universe. You’ve never? Wow, okay, I’m determined to make you watch it.” He rambled on.

“Woah woah! Don’t kidnap me Parker. I’ll find a way to watch it.” You snipped back and circled a few directions on the lab paper, grinning up at him. Your peers had started to make their way towards the materials cabinet, grabbing the required equipment along with a few chemical mixtures. “Oh! We better start.”

Laughing he replied, “Okay, but there is no getting out of watching it now. Partners?” He settled, skimming the list over, making a mental note of what to get.

“Sure, but don’t blame me when you mysteriously get whatever this is in your eyes.” you smirked, pointing at one of the materials with a toxic warning symbol.

Peter rolled his eyes dramatically and hopped off his seat to grab pipettes filled with different chemicals, two pairs of safety goggles, and a plastic sheet cover as you read the directions. He laid them all out on the table. The purpose of the lab was to combine different chemicals and note the reactions if there were any.

“Seems fairly simple.” You commented as you equipped the safety goggles and tied your hair up into a messy bun. Damn lab rules. “We’re supposed to put two drops of…” As you read the name of the chemical compound you swore your brain shut off. Okay what the actual fuck is this. “Um? 4HC2H3O2 + 5 NaOCl? Is that right?” You questioned, needing confirmation from Peter who was flipping through his notebook.

“Yeah yeah. That’s it. Just ignore the names for now; they can be a bit confusing. We just need to focus on what happens when we combine them.” Peter set his notebook aside and rummaged through the pile, finding both solutions. He handed you one. “Alright, so you have the first chemical so that needs to go down first.” He motioned you to start dropping the liquid on the plastic and you did so, making sure to carefully squeeze to not let too much out……success!

“Whew, okay I thought for a second there I was gonna mess it up.” You chuckled.

“You’re fine.” He emphasized, flashing you his teeth. Peter shoved up the sleeves of his blue knit sweater and concentrated on dropping the second chemical onto the drops you had placed just seconds before. Almost immediately after the two were combined, the silvery solution transformed to a darkened brownish red.

Admiring the chemical change, both of you wrote down your observations in the packet.

After about 15 minutes, the two of you had successfully completed the rest of the required solutions. Some had no change while others formed bubbles, one reaction turned a cloudy purple color, and another you had to expose to direct sunlight which turned it a dark brown. Overall, it was a pretty lucrative lab considering it was your first time taking Chem and Peter naturally excelled at the subject.

“Okay, so has everyone put away all the chemicals?” Mr. Marlow scanned the room for loose containers or pipettes. “Yes? Alright, good job on your first lab everyone! If you haven’t already, have one partner turn in their question sheet with both of your names on it. If your group didn’t finish on time, that’s fine. Just give it to me before the bell tomorrow. Also! Before you go, please please make sure you’ve wiped down the tables.”

“Shoot we forgot the questions.” You mentally kicked yourself, looking over the questions sheet that stared blankly back at you.

“Hey, it’s no big deal. Do you wanna come over after school and we could finish them? M-maybe? I-I don’t wanna pressure you or-or anything. I could always just do them on my own.” Peter blurted, messing with his sandy hair.

“Nonsense! We’ll finish it together. That wouldn’t be fair to have you do all the work. Here.” You gave him your phone so he could put his number in. “What time should I come over and where do you live?”

“Um, well I have this internship after school so I’m pretty busy for a bit but how about around 5? Would that work?” He gathered his supplies and shoved them in his backpack. You mirrored his actions. “I’ll text you my address.”

“Yeah, I think so. Okay, well cool! See you soon, Parker.”

A/N: So, yep! That’s the first part! Hopefully Ill figure out some plot for the next part. I really shouldn’t be blindly writing but I was in the zone haha. Hope you guys like it! ((also idk if the chemical combination or equation/reaction was correct at all I just googled some stuff because I needed at least something chemistry related)) 

Part Two  Part Three

Masterlist