#one tried to tackle gender roles that's how lost i was

[locatislunaticolupin]

Day Four: Don't Look Now

Written for day four of @remadoramicrofics. 528 words. Also available on Ao3.

“Don’t look now,” Edda said, “but your parents are snogging”.

Teddy, being five, said “No, they aren’t”, because there’s nothing worse than your old, gross parents being loving in public, and proceeded to make sure to loudly express his distaste when he swung around and saw them, in fact, snogging. That, at least, made them laugh, which meant they were no longer snogging.

“Why do you two gotta be gross?!” he loudly proclaimed again when Dora caught him from behind, swinging him and kissing him in that noisy, obnoxious way she saved only for embarrassing him in front of his friends.

“Edda doesn’t think it’s gross, do you, Edda?”

Edda, being seven, said, “It’s very gross, Miss Lupin”.

Dora brought a hand to her chest and gasped loudly enough that a few adults in Edda’s mom’s garden party turned their heads.

“How very dare you. Are you telling me you wouldn’t kiss your husband and son if they were as handsome and sweet as mine?” she declared very dramatically. Edda stifled her giggles when Teddy, still in his mama’s arms, groaned as loud as he could, as if he could hide Dora’s voice behind his. He almost got her to drop him when he went dead weight.

“No, I don’t think I would, miss Lupin. I don’t find them particularly handsome nor particularly sweet, after all”.

Dora gasped again from where she was now almost bent in half holding Teddy’s weight, but then seemed to think it over, finger tapping her cheek.

“I am too good for these goofs, aren’t I?”

A second later, her husband tickled her neck and Dora shrieked. Teddy shrieked when his mom almost dropped him (which she didn’t, she hugged him tighter while twisting away and he screamed again because too tight, mama). Edda, who’d seen Remus coming and who’d also seen the finger he’d raised to his lips, guffawed.

After the party, after leftovers were shoved into their hands and promises of seeing each other soon, isn’t that football game soon?, were made, the Lupins walked home. And they would have spent that time together anyway, but there was something special about the long dirt road, the pink and yellow and orange and purple sky, the chirp of the crickets, the starlings’ and chaffinches’ last flights home, the smell of a summer day gone by. They were quiet, this time, letting time well-spent settle in their bones.

Dora and Remus leaned on each other, swaying, hands weaved together and steps out of sync. Teddy was their little satellite, running ahead or behind his parents and exploring the flowers and bees on the ditches’ banks, the funny rocks on the road. He scared flocks of birds, mooed back at the cows, and swung a long branch around. Sometimes, he looked back at his parents, looked at their hands (knew there was something there warm and safe, something calloused and gentle and strong) and he ran to them, and they caught him (because they always, always did), and they walked home together, their three long shadows stretching to the horizon, melting into one, until Teddy ran off again, being five and happy and careless.

[miss0atae]

Random Thoughts about Love Sick 2024 (EP 6): Misunderstandings and Teenagers' expectations of love.

Today, we got the beach episode you expect from any Thai BL . In between we also saw how other characters are coping with the difficulties and fun time you can get during teen-hood. The episodes are quite long so you get to see many things, but I feel it wouldn't work any other way because there is a very large cast for this series. It's the only way to give enough screen-time to everyone (I'll be more than ready for Perfect 10 Liners this way).

This episode wasn't really centered around Phun and Noh even if they got several scenes together. What I mean is that nothing really changed for them in this episode. They are still stuck in the same stage where they both admit they care for the other one, but they can't do anything about that. Phun is still with Aim because he also care for her and he still gets jealous when he see Noh interacting with other people who he know could flirt with him (Yuri or Earn). Noh is also experimenting jealousy because he saw Aim admitting her feelings for someone else and he doesn't know what it could change for her relationship with Phun. It will get messy I think, but I hope in the end they will learn what they really want.

Talking about Aim, I felt quite sad for her in this episode. She crafted this trip at the beach to be able to see Li/Lee, but nothing changed. She told her again that she likes her, but something happened in the past and we don't have enough information. Li/Lee isn't with Aim and Aim is still hurt by this fact. I hope they will get to really talk in the coming episode (ending up together at the end of the series would be great too). She is also pressured by her mom to keep doing her influencer's job and she doesn't seem to find a real joy of doing this. The series shows also how some people feel free to voice their negative/unwanted opinion of influencers out loud and doesn't really respect them as human being. Aim is quite young and we know this type of fame can be damaging. She must also be struggling with her identity/orientation.

Even if the series is mostly showing queer relationship, I liked how they also decided to tackle on the pressure women can have in heterosexual relationship. I think it was interesting to see how Yuri felt like she had to "do it" with Noh. It also showed how men can be as lost as women in this type of situation. I don't know enough about this to really talk about it properly. I would say the series tried to show bias around gender role and how hurtful it can be.

I also want to add that Noh saw Aim and Li/Lee's conversation and he filmed it. I wish he didn't do it. It never ends well. I think he will probably talk about that with Grace because he is lost and he needs someone to help him understand. Obviously he can't really talk about it with Phun. In addition, he may not feel like talking to Ohm because it would need for him to explain his complicated relationship with Phun. I just hope he won't do something stupid like post the video online. It doesn't look like something he would do, but we never know. I still want to trust him because I really appreciate him as a character. However, no human is perfect. He wouldn't be an interesting character if he didn't have weakness.

Of course, we also get to see more about Ohm and Mick. I wonder why Ohm is so harsh to Mick. He is supposed to be his mentor, but I feel like he doesn't exactly know how he should act. I agree that "you should know yourself the best", but it seems a bit laughable that a teenager would say that and doesn't give room for "learning". Even adults don't know who they really are and it takes more time for some people to really discover it. He was acting like if Mick can't run and fail at doing this simple task, he would fail in every other situations in his life. I doubt Ohm knows himself so well. He is still young and things in life will probably impact his views and change them. Maybe he is just faking it like we all do and it's just teenager's bravado.

I also already talked about how I felt like Per and Mawin had a weird relationship dynamic. In the previous episode, it was like they were already together, but couldn't be out, but now it seems like Per is doing something for Mawin's family and he must not "go soft" on him. My guess is that Mawin's family knows he has feelings for men and mostly for Per, but they don't accept it. I don't know what they expect from Per, but I think it's a little too much to ask a teenager to do anything about it. In the previous episode they were really cute to each other and this time Per rejected Mawin and asked him to go home. I hope the next episodes will give us more clues about what is going on.

Finally, we have Phong/Pong and Ngor. I don't know why, but I really like them. They have the least screen time among all the other characters, but there is something compelling about their story. I can't wait to see more of them.

Finally, at the end of the episode, Earn is here again. He wasn't at the beach so we didn't see him a lot, but now we're back at the school and Earn is still set on flirting with Noh and winning his heart. It also probably mean we'll see more of Pete too.

I already can't wait for next episode!

[1shirt2shirtredshirtdeadshirt]

Star Trek TOS’s Finale, The Turnabout Intruder 03X24: Just Sexist, or More Than Meets The Eye?

Bear with me here, most folks immediately condemn Star Trek TOS’s final episode and conclusion as it’s most embarrassing, cringe worthy and sexist of the original series episodes. I’m not here to disagree with some of those sentiments, either.

But hear me out: I have another perspective on this episode to offer, if anyone is interested in exploring another take on it with me.

Read on if you’re interested!

I always felt that this episode was kind of clever in that Gene pushed to have women on the bridge and in command roles originally and was denied. It could even be seen as an allusion to how Una, Number One played by Majel Barrett, was intended to be second in command but denied that right.

It was shot down, largely by other women on the viewing panel who responded negatively to how "aggressive" or "assertive" Una was.

Basically, production shot down Gene's wish to portray a woman in a command role despite it being one of the first ideas Roddenberry pushed. Apparently there was the feeling of "well we are in the future and yet we are forced to portray women as if they are in the 60s, how does that work out?"

I always wondered if The Turnabout Intruder was a very cheeky way of slapping back at production for forcing the shutting down of women in command roles in Starfleet.

Perhaps not and I read into it too much, but it seems a snide, shady way of trying to explain this absolutely absurd rule they forced upon Gene and the crew on-screen. People were going to notice women did not have a balance of power due to this rule, so in a way, I always thought of this episode as a clever way to address it and criticize how stupid that looks in practice. It highlights how utterly unfair it was that production tied Gene and the crew of TOS's hands whenever they tried to push to give women prominent, strong roles.

As a woman, I felt a sear of almost indignant camaraderie when Janice ranted about how unfair and ridiculous the rules were -- the same kind of rules that oppressed my mother and her sisters as they grew up in the 60s. Sure she was absolutely unhinged and insane, but what she lived through and the unfairness of it all eroded away at her until it ate her up. That was the genuine, real-world fate of so many ambitious women of that time period. I know as an ambitious woman myself, I too might have lost my mind at the injustice of it all as Janice did.

In a way, I felt like the episode tackled an extremely uncomfortable topic which was pervasive in the 60s and socio-culturally relevant at that time. Women living in that time largely didn't have power or control over their identities or futures, and many of them, like Janice, were furious about their ambitions and opportunities being stifled due to gender alone.

It also highlighted another powerfully controversial gender topic: The belittling of men who are on the receiving end of abuse from women. We see Jim being laughed at, his manhood and authority questioned for being "bested" by a woman. It shows how society likes to mock and laugh at men or the suggestion that they could be abused by women.

We get to see a rare, vulnerable portrayal of domestic abuse and terrorism perpetrated against a man that we all know, admire and recognize as a beacon of strength, competence and intelligence. Even with all his strength, courage and power, Jim is overpowered, assaulted, victimized, gaslit, and nearly murdered by an ex lover. To me, this was a story that direly needed to be talked about somewhere. I think very few pieces of media were allowing men to be portrayed in such a vulnerable position at that time, especially one portrayed as typically macho and strong as Jim; it was an episode that made some interesting observations and criticisms of how we ultimately hurt and diminish one another with gender roles and stereotypes. In this episode, both Janice and Jim suffered for it.

To even hear Kirk proclaiming loudly as a man in a position of power about the unfairness of it all -- to me, that was a testament to the absurdity of that mindset held in the 60s towards women: They were called "hysterical", drugged, subdued, belittled, made to feel like their hobbies and lives were trivial or unimportant, told they were weak, and beaten into submission. They were unfairly institutionalized for "hysteria" and depression brought about by the restrictiveness of their lives due to their gender. Women were often chained to their marriages and homes, often stunted by gender alone in the workforce, not due to their abilities as an employee. And they needed the support of men in order to get out of the oppressive situation they were strong-armed into. 

To hear a man displayed in a position of power speak out in defiance against that unfairness when women were seldom permitted a voice of their own in the media at that time. Jim paralleled those men of the 60s who spoke out against injustice and inequality when they saw it.

That was a rare and direly needed sentiment at that time, even if by today's standards the episodes content seems dated and misguided. 

Even when his ex-partner was cruel, violent and did not even perhaps deserve his empathy, Jim made a point of highlighting that Janice might have had a rich and fulfilling life as a valuable captain in the fleet had the rules not done her life's work such a callous and unfair injustice. 

Both Jim and Janice ultimately suffered for this Starfleet rule; and as an interesting parallel, the original series itself suffered due to this production rule. 

The episode looks sexist now, maybe even then -- but back then it dared to touch on several controversial gender topics and socio-cultural elephants in the room that very few had the gall or interest in tackling on a public platform at that time.

I’m not saying the episode isn’t inherently sexist or misogynist in nature, but I am saying that there is more to offer here than what is glaringly obvious at surface level. 

[aspoonofsugar]

I saw your Blake/Weiss post and I absolutely loved it! Tho i think the attempted themes fall flat somewhat, because atlas’ classism didn’t destroy it, Salem destroyed it, she used the classism to help her but if Salem hadn’t shown up atlas would continue to be classist and would be non the worse for it

I’m also not sure I share your optimistic that the people of atlas at large will follow Weiss’ footsteps lol! Jacques was a prick to his dying breath, so was madam, I’m not expecting any better from Henry marigold

Hello anon(s),

I am glad you enjoyed my meta even if you disagree!

Before answering your questions, though, I think a premise is necessary. RWBY is a story whose main theme is neither classism nor racism, but this:

Ozpin: But perhaps victory is in the simpler things that you’ve long forgotten. Things that require a smaller, more honest soul.

At its root RWBY is an adult (young adult?) fairy tale, that tries to answer this question. What would win in human hearts between hope and fear? It explores how humans can be both heroes and monsters:

Pyrrha: It's not about why; it's about knowing. Understanding dark and light helps us manifest our Aura. Everyone has some of both.

It aknowledges humanity’s worst traits, but in the end it shows and celebrates its best ones.

This is RWBY in a nutshell and it is totally fine if people are not interested or want a story that explores social issues like classism, racism, disability and gender more in depth. That is fair. What is not fair imo is expecting a story, which is crystal clear in its tone, plot and purpose to suddenly become a satire or to magically give the perfect answer to worldwide problems that are still far away from being solved irl.

This doesn’t mean the way RWBY tackles certain issues can’t be critized of course. Still, one should aknowledge the kind of story RWBY is aka that of a bunch of teenagers fighting a thousand year old witch that symbolically represents fear, hatred, grief and every negative emotions humans have.

This is the main conflict. It is not fighting for Faunus Freedom or Solving Classism. Those are subplots and secondary themes that tie into the main conflict with Salem and make the central thematic question of the story richer...

Will humans choose to be heroes or monsters?

Let’s now see your questions/considerations.

Atlas’ classism didn’t destroy it, Salem destroyed it, she used the classism to help her but if Salem hadn’t shown up atlas would continue to be classist and would be non the worse for it

I mean, this is literally how stories work

1) Salem is not a real person, but a character in a story and characters in stories (especially fairy tales) have symbolic roles and meanings. Salem embodies everything negative about humans and makes use of those same bad traits to further her plans.

It is clearly stated in story:

Ruby: But that’s how Salem got this far - by dividing us. We have to stick together.

Oscar: No. What Salem wants is to turn us against each other. Just like this. Jaune has a point. We can work separately and still be united.

If humanity were able to overcome fear, distrust and hate, Salem would not be a real threath. Honestly, if humanity were united, they could just give her the relics, call the Gods and solve it once and for all. The problem is that they aren’t. Hence Salem has a fighting chance of destroying the world together with herself.

2) Stories work through conflicts. Characters are put into situations that test them and if they overcome their flaws, then they succeed, while if they do not they fail.

The Atlas Arc works in the same way. Sure, Salem appears with the Grimms, but Atlas loses the war specifically because of its shortcomings. Atlas has isolated itself, alienated the other kingdoms and weakened Mantle. If they had acted differently, they would not have lost the war.

For example, if the conflict between Mantle and Atlas had been less severe a lot of problems (if not all problems) in volume 7 would have been avoided. If Ironwood had not decided to sacrifice Mantle, there would have been 0 internal conflict, which would have led to a more cohesive and eventually more successful strategy.

In short, Atlas as a whole is tested through Salem and the Kingdom is destroyed because it could not overcome its own flaws in time. Even the destiny of Atlas and Mantle people is highly karmic.

The majority of the people of both Atlas and Mantle are slaves to the same toxic mentality:

Drunk Mann: We try and help the other Kingdoms, and this is what happens? I say let ‘em rot!

Disgruntled Grandmother: Do we really gotta shack up with those animals down in the slums? I’d feel a lot safer being up in Atlas.

They aim to be on top and disreguard those below them... well, guess what? Now they are literally below everyone else in Remnant. They have nothing and can only ask for hospitality to the poorest Kingdom. A Kingdom they look down to and have exploited in the past. They can only hope that Vacuans do not share their same Atlesian mentality :P

Finally, it is not really Salem the one that wins the final fight, but Cinder.  She is the one that defeats both Ironwood and the heroes endangering and killing civilians in the finale:

Well, Cinder is nothing, but a product of Atlesian society. She is an abused child that was taught that in order to have the right to exist she should aim to be on top. She embodies Atlas’s point of view. Look up and stomp on those that are down. Well, it is this forgotten child of Atlas the one that starts Ironwood’s spiral. It is her that manipulates the general into leaving his people behind and it is her the one that gleefully watches Atlas falling by the end.

So, yeah, symbolically Atlas loses to a monster the Kingdom itself created.

I’m also not sure I share your optimistic that the people of atlas at large will follow Weiss’ footsteps lol! Jacques was a prick to his dying breath, so was madam, I’m not expecting any better from Henry marigold

Obviously, not all people of Atlas would change for the better, just like not all the Faunus would let go for their hate for humans and vice versa. Still, once again, RWBY is a story and stories have key characters playing key roles that can lead to a change of the world.

This is an advantage stories have over the real world :’’’)

For example, isn’t it convenient in Atla that there is an exiled Fire Nation Prince, who is not so bad and is perfectly positioned to become the new Fire Lord taking away the problem of what to do with the Fire Nation once the war is over :P ?

Well, RWBY is the same. Remnant is a world which is clearly going through a huge trasformation. A whole Kingdom fell, which clearly will give space for new countries and people in power to rise (cough cough Menagerie for example :P).

So, it clearly does not matter if Henry Marigold changes or not LOL what is he even gonna do? He has no privilege anymore. He is a nobody in a desert with no resources nor abilities. He can only hope on someone else’s help. This is true for all the people of Atlas.

They fell, but survived. Now, they are gonna be challenged once again. Will they overcome their flaw or will they not?

Will humanity choose to be heroes and to survive together or to be monsters and to die together?

What is Blake’s new approach to the White Feng? Is it just to help humans hoping it somehow fixes sistemic oppression?

The White Feng canonically is no longer a thing or if it is, it is waaaay weaker than before. Many of its most violent members were arrested at Haven and later on Adam kills many others.

Right now, there is a new pacifist Faunus movement led by Ghira that has already gotten results:

Blake: Saving Haven had a huge impact on how Faunus are seen in Mistral. Now it’s up to you all to take the progress and keep running with it.

Ilia: Right. The White Fang may have been a failure, but with your father starting up a new movement, I’ve got more faith than ever before.

So, in story Blake’s actions at Haven have already helped in narrowing the Faunus/Human divide. Is everything fixed? Nope. Will everything be fixed by the end? Probably nope, but since the world is clearly getting through a crisis and a huge war, a new order is bound to appear by the end.

And I am expecting this new order to be or at least to have the potential to be better than the old one.

Obviously, this new order or this chance of a new order won’t be reached through protestors, but it will be a consequence of the conflict with Salem:

I don't wanna hear your absolution; Hope you're ready for a revolution. Welcome to a world of new solutions. Welcome to a world of bloody evolution. In time, your heart will open minds, A story will be told, And victory is in a simple soul.

No matter what both Faunus and Atlesians think. Things simply can’t go back to the way they were. They can either spiral out of control and in this case humanity is doomed or they can go slightly better if humans stand together.

In short, anon, I think that what you want is the story of a minority that fights against a corrupted society and changes it. Or the story of a corrupted society that has to face a resistence born because their oppression is too much (the Hunger Games). That is a wonderful story, but it is not RWBY. The 1000 year old witch kind of takes the stage in terms of conflict and characters’ priority. Blake obviously still cares about Faunus, but she wants to first save the world before fixing it. Similarly, Weiss dislikes Atlas’s ideology, but she still thinks that leaving the people of a whole Kingdom to die is wrong and acts to save them.

Their specific arcs are more metaphorical representations of what is going on with the world itself rather than strictly tied or meant to fix those issues. Obviously both girls will have a role in fixing or at least making things better, but surely not alone and still in the context of their conflict with Salem.

Now, it may seem that imo there is nothing to criticize about how RWBY treats these issues, but this isn’t true. I think the theme of racism kind of falls flat because they were too passionate and ambitious when it comes to Blake’s arc and tried to fit in too many things :’’’) The result is a little bit too much simplistic imo. Even if still thematically coherent.

That said, I think the intent of showing the transformation of a universe through a larger conflict by using the development of 2 girls’ is lovely and very clear in its execution.

Thank you for the asks!

[shurelyasreverie]

Uh uh! How about a injured/hurt reader x ahri? Like reader is a tanuki and usually shy and has a crush on her and Ahri knows that but she likes to play a bit with readers feelings but one day someone/something's is trying to attack Ahri and reader jumps into action to protect her (nearly death experience) And at that point she realized that she could lost the reader.....God what did I write there 😅. It can be a oneshot or Headcanon....what you think suits better! Reader can be female but it's also ok if it's gender neutral.

I really hope that's not too much.. or too specific!

Thanks for the request, anon! I'll let you decide the race of the reader (I don't exactly get the tanuki concept and I'm not sure how I feel about writing non-humanoid readers) but I hope you enjoy!

Ahri x Injured!Reader: True Feelings

You've always let Ahri string you along with her antics, but is there a chance Ahri loves you as much as you love her?

Word Count: 2166

T/W: Mild violence, death

In the fresh morning, you walked through the forest. Greeting the many animals and spirits that you passed, they would acknowledge you pleasantly in return. Finding a deer, you smiled as you patted their head. Settling in a clearing in the forest, the animals and spirits came to surround you. Such a pleasant start to the day, how could it get any better than this?

“Pet.”

Your hand stopped moving as the animals turned to look behind you, some of them immediately fleeing from the scene. Heart racing, you turned to look behind you. There, standing in all her glory despite being in the shadows.

“Ahri...”

“I need your help again,” Ahri stated and you swallowed.

“Of course,” you nodded. She smirked, already turning her back to you and you followed her. After taking a step, the deer took your sleeve by its teeth, sending you a warning look and a message of caution before you continued your way. As you walked out of the clearing, the animals and spirits cleared as well.

Catching up to Ahri, she pouted.

“What took you so long to come to my side, pet?”

“The entities of the forest are anxious,” you frowned. “You've made quite a name for yourself among the mortals, Ahri, and not a good name, either. Hunters are looking for you.”

“Let them,” she sighed in exasperation.

“Can't you stop what you're doing? Surely there's an alternative.”

Ahri sent you a stern look and you immediately averted your gaze. “You know I simply can't do that. We are similar but you should remember I'm not like you.”

Both of you were connected to the forests but what truly made you two stick together was your common ground in your lack of memories. You have no idea where you're from or where you originated. Any family you had must've abandoned you. However you found understanding in the forest. How the forest spirits danced along with you, at the natural cycle of life as the woodland creatures lovingly fostered their young. You understood your place and made this your home. The many creatures accepted you, you were now one with the forest.

But Ahri didn't. For whatever reason, she didn't see the life and love that surrounded her. Had she not felt any love when the icefoxes took her in? No, all she saw here was power. Magic that she learnt to manipulate to ease her prey into a fake sense of security before devouring their essence. It was only through their essence she could gain the moving emotions that you gained through the forest.

You hid in the shadows, looking away as you overheard Ahri sweet talk an isolated man by the edge of a local village. Complimenting his figure, using a seductive, sickly sweet tone in her voice as she worked her magic, you quelled your feelings of jealousy. Ahri never spoke to you like that, unless she was purely joking, laughing in your face every time you were charmed.

You then heard her attack and you grimaced, closing your eyes. Turning your back to her as she absorbed the man's essence and memories, you kept guard to make sure there were no onlookers. That was your role, you had been doing this arrangement with her for so long. But why? Why would you ever agree to letting her take the lives of so many innocent mortals?

“Pet, it was the most remarkable thing,” Ahri gushed as she appeared by your side. Taking your sleeve in eagerness, her fingers wrapped around yours, leaning into you excitedly. As you walked back into the depths of the forest, Ahri had a hop in her step. “He was so happy despite such a humble life. How I felt his mood elate whenever he saw his wife or kids. As much as I loathe taking such lives... it's so addictive...”

Ah... that was why. As you watched her smile softly, in a daze as she went back to memories that weren't even her own. Seeing such happiness on her face was why you always followed her.

You love her.

It felt special, being the only one that could follow her around. At first, you were almost certain that she was going to strike at you when you turned your back, absorbing your life source and memories but she never did. Instead, she found your use elsewhere, as a bodyguard who she managed to wrap around her little finger. You knew it, but you couldn't help it. Even if you didn't approve of what she did, if it's to see that smile... you'd do it all.

“You're quiet, pet,” Ahri observed with a smirk. “Come, amuse me. What's on your mind?”

“You should embrace the forest, Ahri. Maybe then you wouldn't have to feed on innocent souls.”

“Why must you always bring this up?” Ahri's ears twitched and her smirk immediately disappeared. “You know my answer, I tried and I failed. The spirits don't accept me like they accept you.”

“I just want you to be happy-”

“And? The memories of mortals make me feel the most ecstasy than just living each day here. If it's my happiness you're truly caring for, then you should approve of this.”

“That happiness is temporary. There is a happiness that is more, one that you can make yourself-”

“Know your place, pet,” Ahri seethed, her eyes narrowing. You held your head down in submission, your heart cracking as your face burned. You willed yourself not to cry as Ahri walked on ahead.

You heard Ahri deeply inhale and then exhale, her composure recovering. “Now, pet. Where shall we spend the rest of the day?”

Your mouth instinctively opened but you froze. Looking around, you noticed how desolate the forest had become. Where were the spirits? Where were the animals? Even the little animals that would scurry around the forest floor had disappeared. And then you saw it among the bushes. The malicious glint of metal.

A hunter was here.

An arrow was aimed straight for Ahri's heart. You yelled and she whirled around as the hunter emerged from the foliage, standing at full height as he released the arrow. You lunged, tackling her to the ground as the arrow flew towards her. As you hit the ground, Ahri got back to her feet, releasing her magic on the hunter. He fell to the ground. Ahri heard him choke out his final words. “Cursed fox...”

You let out a breath of relief but immediately grimaced as you felt a sharp pain in your chest. The shock was wearing off as you looked down, an arrow embedded between your ribs. Your torso felt warm as your clothes stained red, before eventually feeling numb.

You blinked to try and maintain focus as Ahri fell to her knees by your side. Your eyebrows furrowed, you had never seen her look so anxious before. Eyes wide, she searched your body, locking on your wound as she started to shake her head furiously.

“No, no, no, no,” she said to herself repeatedly. Too afraid to take the arrow out of you, she changed her position to at least give you comfort. She laid your head on her lap as she caressed your cheek. “Why?”

“Why, what?” you croaked.

“Surely there's a healing mage nearby,” she muttered, already trying to lift up your torso but you stopped her.

“We won't make it in time,” you admitted.

“Doesn't mean we can't try,” Ahri argued, only stopping when you coughed up blood. Her eyes looked like they'll almost pop out of their sockets. Tears welling in her eyes as her face contorted in melancholy. She used her fingers to gently wipe away some blood from your mouth. “Why would you do that?”

“Isn't it obvious?” You mustered a soft smile. “You already know that I love you.”

Your hand slowly reached up to try and touch her face. But you lacked the strength to make it, Ahri caught your hand and pressed her cheek to it. Her tears started to flow, they felt warm on your fingers. “How? I... I treated you so terribly... I've... I've used you...”

“I know a good soul when I see one,” you whispered, your voice was now unreliable as you choked through every word. “I'll be watching you up there.”

“Don't say that,” Ahri snapped, now sobbing into your hand. “Please, stay with me, (Y/N).”

You blinked for a second, almost failing to register what she said before your facial muscles relaxed into an easy smile. “You used my name...”

Ahri nodded hurriedly at your small burst of strength, your smile widening.

“I'm so... happy...”

Your final words were said with a sigh before your eyes closed, face falling. Ahri's tears stopped temporarily as she watched you for a few seconds. Softly calling out your name, you didn't stir. Then her tears came tenfold.

She let her tears fall on your face, pulling the arrow out of you and hurling it to the ground in disgust. The arrow that had taken your life... she'd rather it took her instead. Watching you for a few seconds, she tentatively brought her arms around your torso, pulling you into an embrace. She pulled your head into the crook of her neck as she cried into your hair. She didn't even do this when you were breathing... she had no right to hold you now. But now, she wanted to do all she didn't before. Why was she constantly pushing and pulling, keeping you on edge? Why did she never tell you...?

Looking up, Ahri's bloodshot eyes noticed a deer peeping out from the leaves. Ahri swallowed. She had never gotten along with the many forest spirits, she even felt a disconnect with the icefoxes that raised her. But they loved you... she knew that... would that be enough?

“Help me,” Ahri whispered and the deer tilted it's head. “If not me, then help (Y/N). Please. They're not-”

She couldn't finish her sentence. The deer slowly walked into the clearing, approaching Ahri. Leaning down to you, the deer sniffed and nudged your body with it's head. Ahri's grip on you tightened, refusing to let you go. Behind the deer, the animals and spirits started to emerge out into the clearing. Standing in a small crowd away from her, they were motionless, seemingly paying homage to you as some dipped their heads in respect.

“What are you standing round for?” Ahri screamed as her blood started to boil. Her grip on you only tightening in anguish. “Help (Y/N)! You care for them don't you?! They don't deserve this... you know that...”

The green orb of a forest spirit drifted to Ahri and her face hardened. Trying to swallow her pride and nerves, she gently lay you down in front of the orb. “Please... I'll give anything. Just let them breathe again.”

The emerald orb started to swell in size, glowing brighter and brighter until it was too blinding for Ahri to watch directly. Looking away, a flash of green light made her wince. Opening her eyes again, she immediately looked down to you.

You were breathing.

It was slow but shallow. Ahri lifted your bloodied shirt to see a fresh scar where your wound had been. Ahri regarded the forest spirit, now her tears being of joy.

“Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm sorry for doubting or ever misunderstanding you, I-”

You stirred. Groaning under the light as you tried to open your eyes. Your gaze settled on Ahri who cast a shadow over you, heart immediately hurting as you noticed her dishevelled appearance. Wiping the tears off of her face with your thumb, you furrowed your eyebrows in confusion.

“I... what happened? I thought I...” you looked down to see your bloodied clothes, but you felt no wound.

“The spirits of the forest love you,” Ahri whispered. “I daresay, almost as much as I do.”

You almost drew your hand back in shock but Ahri only smiled bitterly. “It's quite surprising, isn't it? Don't worry... I understand now.”

“Understand what?”

“The memories of so many mortals... how they feel so much fondness whenever they gaze at their partners. I understand it now.”

Careful with your torso, she slowly helped you up to your feet. She giggled at your furrowed eyebrows, jokingly pushing them up with her fingers. You shook your head. Did your temporary death really mean that much to her? Your heart soared.

“I can see you still doubt me,” Ahri held that teasing lilt in her voice again. Turning her back to you, she looked at you over her shoulder, offering you a hand. “How about I show you my true feeling instead?”

Taking her hand, you let her lead you deeper into the forest.

[nomoregoldfish]

I Promised You The Moon rant

Just binged it and this was from the episode by episode reaction/discussion with my partner in crime @glossyboy.

First of all, Oab stole the show, singlehandedly, which he's not supposed to. I don't think anyone expected it including himself. In the very top post when I searched his name on tumblr, he said this lol

But the truth is he played one hell of "villain" that required a very nuanced performance and he delivered it in a believable and graceful manner. Jai became the catalyst of the entire season and his rather complicated relationship with Teh was the highlight of part 2.

EP 1

From the very beginning it's clear that part 2 is very much a Teh's story rather than a balanced story about two young people's journey as a couple in the next chapter of their lives. It makes me uncomfortable they made Oh-aew clingy and pessimistic without giving him any character development.

The best part is probably the opening scene where they went paper-rock-scissors to decide who's gonna buy condoms. It felt authentic, the expectation, the hesitation, the mischievous act, all fits their characters well. Other times ep 1 was more like two adult kids playing house, literally in an empty giant ass upper middle class apartment.

EP 2

It's great that they poked the femininity vs. masculinity issue through Oh-aew, but stopped right there at the surface. Missed a perfect opportunity to go head-to-head with the controversial topic, start a debate, crush the stigma of femininity, bring something new, be a real game changer of the BL genre, and most importantly give Oh-aew some concrete character development. Part 1 showed us a gay character that's very comfortable with his sexuality and femininity, that's almost revolutionary in Asia, not as a comic relief but a leading role. Oh-aew questioned his own sexual identity once in that bra wearing scene, it's straight out of comfort zone, BOLD, and transgressive. So I expected more from part 2.

That's it? And they're already sophomores? Can't believe Oh-aew's character has been marginalized like this. It's pathetic.

But I love the brutally honest conversation at the end where Teh vented his rage and despair regarding his frustration of acting. He was acting like a dick because he's disappointed, and scared. Teh again was not afraid of showing vulnerability, making the reconciliation very realistic and touching.

EP 3

Dare I say I freaking love ep 3! The unresolved (partially sexual, but not entirely) tension between Teh and Jai was over the roof! And the built-up to their kiss was very authentic, which paled Teh and Oh-aew's much sidelined storyline, including the long anticipated sex scene (still can't believe it happened right after Jai explicitly instructed Teh to do it after the two spent a whole night bonding, like wow! Totally TRANSGRESSIVE and to some extent, kinky.) Teh looked up to the senior, idolized him, wanted to be good for him and make him proud, thirsted for the validation from him, which was mixed with affections. The workshop diary was a brilliant idea to let them open up to each other and eventually bring them close. This was what a meaningful arc of a story looked like. By contrast, there isn't a single moment between Oh-aew and Teh in part 2 that made me go "Damn it's soooooo hot!"

I know Jai/Teh wasn't the endgame but I appreciate the storyline so much. It's a very bold move considering it broke the over-glorified "one true love in one's life" fantasy of its target audience, mostly young cis women. The popular narrative of "you can only love one person through your life/one true love" in romance fictions/chick flicks was totally smashed. And it wasn't written just to stir up things between Teh and Oh-aew, it wasn't a silly fling. Instead, it's meaningful, complicated, natural, and realistic, delivered by nuanced and excellent acting from two young actors. It's hilarious that fans hate Jai with a passion and call him names.

And big news, Jai is bi?! Bravo! He's radiating bi vibes since his first appearance.

I kind of gave up at this point, the season wouldn't do Oh-aew any justice. Like my partner in crime pointed out, the costume design literally threw some "incongruous female fashion pieces" on Oh-aew, made him dye his hair red, without...making any actual point of his personality or his character development. Wardrobe was supposed to make a point in storytelling. Yes, PP wearing pink is cute, and? There's nothing else for Oh-aew. Unfortunately he's reduced to this sulky, crying, and wronged partner in a failing relationship.

EP 4

Oab again was killing it. The tension between Jai and Teh...from the rehearsal in front of Oh-aew to the dressing room pep talk, was incredibly intense and hot AF.

Was it a manipulative relationship after all? Oab was so good at conveying a character with many faces. Jai's a mentor to Teh, also a good friend, their relationship was genuine. He's also ambitious with his own goals, he used, challenged, provoked Teh in a way that benefited them both. It made sense the title of part 2, I Promised You The Moon, was from Jai's script. He promised Teh what the junior wanted the most, a bright future in acting. Teh's unconventional and unspoken feelings for Jai was the best part of the entire season in terms of creative writing, it's complicated, fragile, delicate and completely heartbreaking.

The after talk in the hallway was so well-written. It's funny (Teh joking about playwrights always write about their EXs is gold), intimate yet meticulously controlled, no one lashed out or wept. Both knew what they signed up for and Jai particularly made it clear about his motive and the purpose of the "special workshop" beforehand (or right away.) Yet it's no one's fault that Teh got carried away. He's younger, he's immature, he's more into it, it's totally natural. It's so romantic when Teh's singing karaoke in the bar with Oh-aew, yet he couldn't help but desperately staring at Jai on the floor, knowing he and the man who just turned him down were never gonna happen, they were done, but he's still madly attracted to him and his talent. He fancied Jai, at least the idea of Jai, a playwright, a director, someone knew him better than himself. That hurt beautifully.

EP 5

Teh/Oh-aew endgame at this point was pretty meaningless. Oh-aew as a leading character never got any solid character development over a span of four years. What happened between Jai and Teh wasn't just "cheating", though they surely made it look that way, like Teh's empty promise of "I won't see him again after the show ends". No matter how Oh-aew and Teh eventually reconciled, there's no emotional connection, no sparkle anymore between the couple.

But I knew for a fact they had to. Otherwise it's too much of a risk financially for the series. The creators had to take the easy way out like most traditional romances—one of the most contrived and formulaic trope where the male leading character made a mistake (usually cheating) and realized he's wrong, he deeply hurt the female leading character (Oh-aew was merely a girl substitute in part 2), then he completely changed for hell knew what reasons, started doing every nicest thing in the world to try to "win" the female character back. It has been feeding the emotionally-deprived cis female readers/audience who are frustrated with heterosexual relationship irl for decades. The formula that made romance outsell other genres of fictions combined in the 60s and 70s still sells today, under the name of boys' love. It's pathetic to see Oh-aew confess to Bas that he always "lost" to Teh. Love shouldn't be some kind of game or competition, there isn't winner or loser in love. Love is spontaneous. Oh-aew didn't lose because Teh developed feelings for someone else, and he didn't win when Teh begged him for reconciliation. People change, people move on.

And as predicted, they went for it. The ending was so absurd and tedious.

Overall, Jai's probably the hardest villain to play, he needed to be REALLY GOOD to be "the bad guy", to make his role conceivable. Oab absolutely nailed it with his talent and experience. He's not even my type or extremely good looking yet I'm 100% SOLD. I immediately re-watched the scene of him kissing Teh back hungrily at the end of ep 3 like I used to re-watch Teh/Oh-aew's steamy make out session at the end of episode 3 part 1. Coincidence?

I like some parts of both seasons for the same reason, each challenged and tried to break some outdated/contrived narratives in the BL genre. Part 1 took on the sexuality taboo by showing two same sex characters sexually attracted to each other, no more "I'm not into boys, I just happened to fall for someone of the same gender" or "pure love" bullshit. By staying true to the characters' sexuality and actually showing it with explicit, intense (and beautifully shot) scenes, the gay characters were normalized. They weren't just pure and innocent, no one was. And it created two of most unconventional gay characters in Asian pop culture, Oh-aew, a beautiful boy who's very comfortable with his own sexuality and femininity, not passive at all, taking initiative to pursue what he wanted; and Teh, a sensitive, caring and vulnerable boy who cried a lot, he's confused but also sweet and brave.

Part 2 tackled the "You can only love one person through your life" trope with a very nuanced story of "cheating". Yet neither carried out what they started. Part 1 fell short of a revolutionary piece that stayed true to "adolescent sexual turmoil", dismissing bisexuality and becoming a typical unrealistic BL fantasy in the end. And Part 2, ugh, forced a "happy ending" that almost no one digs. I understand it's extremely difficult and risky to disrupt the established norms of a genre. But sometimes being transgressive and progressive could be the same thing. A story, an artwork, has to challenge something in order to create something new and compelling.

[dr-imagines-modfuyuhiko]

Main Games’ Protags + Love Interests

Cuddle HCs

Cute concept cause I’m touch deprived... fuck covid :)

Category: Fluff HCs (with a little angst at Chiaki and Kaede’s parts)

Specifics: Gender of reader not mentioned, Ultimate not mentioned, mentions periods throughout the timeline

Warnings: none

And yes I’m putting Shuichi after Kaede, he is the original love interest in V3

Makoto

Soft babey

He’s definitely the small spoon most of the time, even if you’re shorter than him

He’s slightly insecure that you’re the one holding him instead of the other way around

But you always reassure him it’s cute to see him pull your arms tighter around him

To which he becomes a blushy mess

Other times he’ll lay his body over yours in a protective manner, shielding you from any harm that may come your way

Also because he loves snuggling into your chest but he won’t ever admit that out loud

Play with his hair

Just please

It’s the fluffiest thing in the world, even when he cuts it shorter

It also just relaxes him

Say he’s gotten worked up or stressed due to a class trial or something at the Future Foundation

He’s automatically going to you for you to hold him and pet his hair

It’s become almost an instinct for him to look for you

There was one time after a class trial that you almost got voted out but he was able to prove your innocence

He didn’t let go of you for the rest of the night, he insisted you stay in his room

Though he didn’t tell you why exactly he was so skiddish, you figured no one would target you just for that, he just didn’t want to lose you

So that night the roles were reversed, he was the one holding you to his chest and hugging you like a teddy bear

Mention how adorable he was being and he’ll be hiding his face in his hands

He’s not against cuddling in front of people

He actually loves that he can show you off in more subtle ways like holding your hand or keeping you at his side while walking

Overall, he just wants to keep you close as much as possible without overstepping boundaries

—————

Kyoko

Cuddling whom???

When you first ask her to cuddle with you she is just confused

You can bet she hasn’t had anyone cuddle her since she was 5

So the first time you two cuddled, she was rather stiff, it took her a few more tries at it before she was able to fully relax

She’s almost always on guard, so you guys only really have full on cuddle sessions when she’s 100% sure nothing is gonna come to hurt you

She’s a big spoon

Don’t ask me why, she just gives me that energy

She wants to keep you safe, and what better way than to just hold you close

She doesn’t exactly have a favorite position, but if she had to choose, she’d probably say when she’s sitting up and you’re leaning against her chest from the front

It lets her get paperwork done while being close to you, so a win-win

The first time you ask to hold her hands she’s a little puzzled

You want to hold her hand??? Like without the gloves on???

Don’t people usually get uncomfortable with that kinda stuff???

You reassure her you don’t care, that you just want to hold her hand

She’ll let you do whatever you’d like so long as you’re comfortable with it

In public, it’s less she doesn’t want to hold you close, more she’s just concerned someone will make the connection and target you

But if you’re around people who wouldn’t do such a thing, (mainly Makoto and Aoi) she’ll be happy to keep an arm around you

When you were walking the halls in the killing game and you two were alone, she’d take her glove off so you could hold her hand

She knows you feel safer when you do

I do have a personal headcannon that she can barely feel anything in her hands and upper wrist, so she won’t even notice when you squeeze her hand most times

But once she sees you do it, she’ll subtly squeeze your hand back as a silent way to calm you down or say everything will be okay

Oh and remember when she kept her door open overnight when Alter Ego was found?

Yeah you didn’t get any cuddles and could barely sleep because you had grown so accustomed to it

But you knew she kept you away so you wouldn’t get hurt, knowing she could defend herself easily if need be

Nothing changes much once you two are in the outside world, in fact the only thing that changes is that she becomes more comfortable holding you close in dangerous situations to keep you safe

—————

Hajime

Asshole babey needs his cuddles

Like Kyoko, he was a bit stiff when you two had your first full-on cuddle session 

He just had no idea where to put his hands, or how to hold his arms, are his legs supposed to go around or under yours, is his breathing pattern bothering you???

Because of this, you tend to be the initiator and more dominant one while cuddling him

He tries to be big spoon but your hair gets in his face and he much prefers seeing your face to know if he’s doing a good job or not 

So your main cuddling positions are you laying on his chest and facing each other while holding hands

Forehead kisses for days

He loves showing affection just doesn’t know how most of the time, so forehead kisses when cuddling is his main way of communicating he loves you

When around others, the idea of cuddling doesn’t even enter his mind, he just won’t think of it

This causes you to be the first to initiate it in the beginning

When you first started going out, he would jump and sometimes scream from being startled if you tried to hold his hand or hug him in front of everyone

After a few months he just grew a 6th sense- he just knew when you were about to grab onto him

In public, he’ll hold your hand so tight it’s as if he thinks it’s the last time he’ll ever be able to do so

But he doesn’t actually realize he’s doing that until you point it out

Don’t touch him when he’s stressed, he will freak out (the funhouse was absolute hell for you)

However, when Hajime is tired he’s hunting you down, he’s getting cuddles and you’re not stopping him no matter where you are

You’re in bed? He’ll flop onto your chest and bury his head there

You’re talking with friends? He’s gonna hug your waist and lean his head on your head/shoulder/back (depending on your height)

You’re reading at your desk? He leans down over you to get a kiss then hugs your neck until you’re done and can cuddle him properly

Once Izuru and Hajime merge, he’ll still go to you when he’s tired and won’t complain when you hold onto him, but he won’t initiate anything otherwise

—————

Chiaki

Sleepy gamer girl!!

You two were definitely cuddling even before you got together, she’d just lean her head on your shoulder while playing games then fall asleep

Sometimes she’ll fall asleep in the middle of a game when cuddling you, so you’ll just take her game and play it yourself

You never do as well as her obviously

When you guys do start dating, the cuddling will only increase

She’ll sit in your lap, lean into your chest, honestly she’ll be all over you

Her favorite cuddle position is one of two things depending on if she’s playing a game or not

If she is, she prefers to lean into your chest from the front between your legs while you wrap your arms around her waist

If she isn’t, she loves laying stomach down on your chest as you run your hands through her hair, it gives her a relaxed feeling as well as easier access to sleepily kiss you

At night (or really any time you lay together) she’ll fall asleep on you and you’ll just stay awake for a while petting her hair

Once she wakes up, she’ll look up and smile, kissing you softly as a greeting rather than speaking

If she falls asleep while standing up and you go to give her something to lean on, her body will let her give into you as you guide her to a soft surface to rest on

She honestly doesn’t care about PDA, if either of you want cuddles, you’ll get cuddles

She just doesn’t give two shits if anyone judges

Legit, if someone says something, she’ll ignore them either 1.) to piss them off or 2.) she just didn’t hear them

If she’s feeling frustrated, she might snap at them before turning back to you and snuggling you further

When she dies and you become a remnant with the rest of your class, you’ll keep yourself away from everyone physically to extend your need and want for her touch again

You’ll even stay away from Junko when she attempts to speak with you about your lost girlfriend, much to her despaired delight

Junko definitely keeps you close to her due to how close you were with Chiaki

Once Junko dies, Izuru is the one to keep you close, often questioning you about Chiaki- which only brings you more despair so you answer him with detail

After she dies in the neo-world program, Hajime will often visit your cottage and hold you when you begin to yearn for her cuddles again

Even after you all get out of the NWP, he’ll continue to do this for you, as he understands and misses Chiaki almost as much as you do

—————

Kaede

What can I say, she will tackle you for cuddles

If she wants to cuddle you, it’s happening, there’s no stopping it (unless you tell her you’re uncomfortable, that’s the only way it’s not happening)

Praises you while she holds you, just all the time

If you praise her back however, she’ll turn into a blushy mess, burying her face in your shoulder or arm

Her favorite cuddle position is probably when one of you holds the other to your chest and pet their hair

It doesn’t matter who’s in which spot though

She also loves when you sit next to her when she’s playing the piano and just lean on her shoulder while closing your eyes and relaxing

Or when you come up from behind her while she’s playing and rest your chin on her head with your arms around her

She just has so many cuddle positions she loves it’s hard for her to choose which is best

If you’re around others, she’ll just hold your hand or link pinkies

She doesn’t want to make you embarrassed in front of other people, even if you assure her you won’t be embarrassed, she’s gonna hold off until you’re alone or with fewer people

There are definitely times where you two will be walking around the school and hear someone coming so you back away from each other for a minute

Though if you see that it’s just Shuichi, you’ll casually just make your way back to each other

Shuichi finds it kinda cute and would want to do that if he got an s/o

Shuichi sometimes feels like a third wheel but you guys will just pull him into a hug, tell him he’s not, and continue on your way

Sometimes you three will form a chain (with Kaede in the middle) and either Shuichi or you calmly leads Kaede to where you need to go, or Kaede will pull all of you excitedly along

Usually she pulls you guys to her lab to play piano for you

When Sexy Avacado Rantaro is killed, she keeps you closer to her than usual

You figure it’s just because she’s scared or wants to protect you, so you don’t think much of it

But once you find out what actually happened, you feel almost stupid for not realizing it

How had you not noticed your girlfriend not being there for a few minutes after the alarm went off???

You two had been so close both emotionally and physically, how did you not notice her hand leaving yours???

Your silent breakdown was interrupted by her embrace, you couldn’t help but lean into it more than you ever had

But just before you could give her your final goodbye, a chain snapped around her neck and pulled her from your grip

Throughout the entire execution, Shuichi was the one to hold your hand and lead you back to your room afterwards

Once there, he reminded you of Kaede’s last words: to stay strong, find the mastermind, and get the hell out of there

From that point forward, you and Shuichi almost never separated

You had to protect her best friend

He had to protect her s/o

But of course, there were times you’d go to Kaede’s lab just to play a short song she taught you

And this time, Shuichi was the one to sit next to you and lean on your shoulder

Kaede in DR heaven is proud of y’all

—————

Shuichi

Shy baby boi

You’re definitely gonna have to ease him into cuddling as opposed to just jumping on him

The most “physical affection” he’s gotten before the game was a girl clinging to him after he solved her case

He was so uncomfortable

So be sure to take it slow for his sake, just please, he wants to be a good boyfriend and cuddle you but at first he doesn’t know if he’ll enjoy it

Once he’s more comfortable with you, he’ll attempt to initiate it more- only in private though

Like Kyoko and Hajime, he’s stiff at first, the reason being a combination of the two

He’s both inexperienced and doesn’t know how to relax fully, so it’ll often end up with you holding him

I wanna say big spoon considering I’ve said all the boys were small spoon, but come on... baby boy is small spoon

He tried being big spoon but he wasn’t super comfortable, his arm was numb and he moves around too much to stay still and hold you for a while

So instead, he’ll often have his head on your shoulder and bury it in your neck while his arm lays across your stomach

Loves when you have your head on top of his and you give his head kisses

Won’t ever tell you vocally though

In front of others he won’t do anything unless one of two things happens

1.) you start it- whether that be grabbing his hand or putting his arm around you or leaning on him, anything

2.) if he’s fed up with Kokichi’s (or sometimes Kaito’s when they first met) bullshit about saying he’s too shy to start anything about him not being a man enough to woo you

His face is burning when he’s the first one to wrap around you no matter what though

After a while, he becomes a bit of a cuddle bug

He still won’t start anything in public but he will silently ask you to hold his hand or hug his waist

After Kaede’s execution, the two of you would be on his bed nearly every night, his head either in your lap while you were sitting up or on your chest when you laid down

Give him head pets, it comforts him, just please

After training nights with Kaito, Shuichi would come back to you all sweaty and looking for cuddles to soothe his muscles

With how tired he always was, it was rather adorable

And yes, yes Maki is making fun of you two while Kaito usually gives Shuichi a look like “go get em”

Kaede in DR heaven is once again, so proud of you two when you escape

[tlbodine]

A Horror History of Werewolves

As far as horror icons are concerned, werewolves are among the oldest of all monsters. References to man-to-wolf transformations show up as early as the Epic of Gilgamesh, making them pretty much as old as storytelling itself. And, unlike many other movie monsters, werewolves trace their folkloric roots to a time when people truly believed in and feared these creatures. 

But for a creature with such a storied past, the modern werewolf has quite the crisis of identity. Thanks to an absolute deluge of romance novels featuring sometimes-furry love interests, the contemporary idea of “werewolf” is decidedly de-fanged. So how did we get here? Where did they come from, where are they going, and can werewolves ever be terrifying again? 

Werewolves in Folklore and Legend 

Ancient Greece was full of werewolf stories. Herodotus wrote of a nomadic tribe from Scythia (part of modern-day Russia) who changed into wolves for a portion of the year. This was most likely a response to the Proto-Indo-European societies living in that region at the time -- a group whose warrior class would sometimes don animal pelts and were said to call on the spirit of animals to aid them in battle (the concept of the berserker has the same roots -- just bears rather than wolves).

In Arcadia, there was a local legend about King Lycaon, who was turned to a wolf as punishment for serving human meat to Zeus (exact details of the event vary between accounts, but cannibalism and crimes-against-the-gods are a common theme). Pliny the Elder wrote of werewolves as well, explaining that those who make a sacrifice to Zeus Lycaeus would be turned to wolves but could resume human form years later if they abstained from eating human meat in that time.

By the time we reach the Medieval period in Europe, werewolf stories were widespread and frequently associated with witchcraft. Lycanthropy could be either a curse laid upon someone or a transformation undergone by someone practicing witchcraft, but either way was bad news in the eyes of the church. For several centuries, witch-hunts would aggressively seek out anyone suspected of transforming into a wolf.

One particularly well-known werewolf trial was for Peter Stumpp in 1589. Stumpp, known as "The Werewolf of Bedburg," confessed to killing and eating fourteen children and two pregnant women while in the form of a wolf after donning a belt given to him by the Devil. Granted, this confession came on the tail-end of extensive public torture, so it may not be precisely reliable. His daughter and mistress were also executed in a public and brutal way during the same trial.

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? 

The thing you have to understand when studying folklore is that, for many centuries, wolves were the apex predator of Europe. While wolf attacks on humans have been exceedingly rare in North America, wolves in Europe have historically been much bolder -- or, at least, there are more numerous reports of man-eating wolves in those regions. Between 1362 and 1918, roughly 7,600 people were reportedly killed by wolves in France alone, which may have some bearing on the local werewolf tradition of the loup-garou.

For people living in rural areas, subsisting as farmers or hunters, wolves posed a genuine existential threat. Large, intelligent, utilizing teamwork and more than capable of outwitting the average human, wolves are a compelling villain. Which is probably why they show up so frequently in fairytales, from Little Red Riding Hood to Peter and the Wolf to The Three Little Pigs.

Early Werewolf Fiction 

Vampires have Dracula and zombies have I Am Legend, but there really is no clear singular book to point to as the "First Great Werewolf Novel." Perhaps by the time the novel was really taking off as an artform, werewolves had lost some of their appeal. After all, widespread literacy and reading-for-pleasure went hand-in-hand with advancements in civilization. For city-dwellers in Victorian England, for example, the threat of a wolf eating you alive probably seemed quite remote.

Don't get me wrong -- there were some Gothic novels featuring werewolves, like Sutherland Menzies' Hugues, The Wer-Wolf, or G.W.M. Reynolds' Wagner the Wehr-Wolf, or even The Wolf Leader by Alexandre Dumas. But these are not books that have entered the popular conscience by any means. I doubt most people have ever heard of them, much less read them.

No -- I would argue that the closest thing we have, thematically, to a Great Werewolf Novel is in fact The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Written in 1886, the Gothic novella tells the story of a scientist who, wanting to engage in certain unnamed vices without detection, created a serum that would allow him to transform into another person. That alter-ego, Mr. Hyde, was selfish, violent, and ultimately uncontrollable -- and after taking over the body on its own terms and committing a murder or two, the only way to stop Hyde’s re-emergence was suicide. 

Although not about werewolves, per se, Jekyll & Hyde touches on many themes that we'll see come up time and again in werewolf media up through the present day: toxic masculinity, the dual nature of man, leading a double life, and the ultimate tragedy of allowing one's base instincts/animal nature to run wild. Against a backdrop of Victorian sexual repression and a rapidly shifting concept of humanity's relationship to nature, it makes sense that these themes would resonate deeply (and find a new home in werewolf media).

It is also worth mentioning Guy Endore's The Werewolf of Paris, published in 1933. Set against the backdrop of the Franco-Prussian war and subsequent military battles, the book utilizes a werewolf as a plot device for exploring political turmoil. A #1 bestseller in its day, the book was a big influence on the sci-fi and mystery pulp scene of the 1940s and 50s, and is still considered one of the best werewolf novels of its ilk.

From Silver Bullets to Silver Screens 

What werewolf representation lacks in novels, it makes up for in film. Werewolves have been a surprisingly enduring feature of film from its early days, due perhaps to just how much fun transformation sequences are to film. From camera tricks to makeup crews and animatronics design, werewolf movies create a lot of unique opportunities for special effects -- and for early film audiences especially (who were not yet jaded to movie magic), these on-screen metamorphoses must have elicited true awe. 

The Wolf Man (1941) really kicked off the trend. Featuring Lon Chaney Jr. as the titular wolf-man, the film was cutting-edge for its time in the special effects department. The creature design is the most memorable thing about the film, which has an otherwise forgettable plot -- but it captured viewer attention enough to bring Chaney back many times over for sequels and Universal Monster mash-ups. 

The Wolf Man and 1944's Cry of the Werewolf draw on that problematic Hollywood staple, "The Gypsy Curse(tm)" for their world-building. Fortunately, werewolf media would drift away from that trope pretty quickly; curses lost their appeal, but “bite as mode of transmission” would remain an essential part of werewolf mythos. 

In 1957, I Was a Teenage Werewolf was released as a classic double-header drive-in flick that's nevertheless worth a watch for its parallels between werewolfism and male aggression (a theme we'll see come up again and again). Guy Endore's novel got the Hammer Film treatment for 1961's The Curse of the Werewolf, but it wasn't until the 1970s when werewolf media really exploded: The Beast Must Die, The Legend of the Wolf Woman, The Fury of the Wolfman, Scream of the Wolf, Werewolves on Wheels and many more besides.

Hmmm, werewolves exploding in popularity around the same time as women's liberation was dramatically redefining gender roles and threatening the cultural concept of masculinity? Nah, must be a coincidence.

The 1980s brought with it even more werewolf movies, including some of the best-known in the genre: The Howling (1981), Teen Wolf (1985), An American Werewolf in London (1981), and The Company of Wolves (1984). Differing widely in their tone and treatment of werewolf canon, the films would establish more of a spiderweb than a linear taxonomy.

That spilled over into the 1990s as well. The Howling franchise went deep, with at least seven films that I can think of. Wolf, a 1994 release starring Jack Nicholson is especially worth a watch for its themes of dark romantic horror. 

By the 2000s, we get a proper grab-bag of werewolf options. There is of course the Underworld series, with its overwrought "vampires vs lycans" world-building. There's also Skin Walkers, which tries very hard to be Underworld (and fails miserably at even that low bar). But there's also Dog Soldiers and Ginger Snaps, arguably two of the finest werewolf movies of all time -- albeit in extremely different ways and for very different reasons.

Dog Soldiers is a straightforward monster movie pitting soldiers against ravenous werewolves. The wolves could just as easily have been subbed out with vampires or zombies -- there is nothing uniquely wolfish about them on a thematic level -- but the creature design is unique and the film itself is mastefully made and entertaining.

Ginger Snaps is the first werewolf movie I can think of that tackles lycanthropy from a female point of view. Although The Company of Wolves has a strong feminist angle, it is still very much a film about male sexuality and aggression. Ginger Snaps, on the other hand, likens werewolfism to female puberty -- a comparison that frankly makes a lot of sense.

The Werewolf as Sex Object 

There are quite literally thousands of werewolf romance novels on the market, with more coming in each day. But the origins of this trend are a bit fuzzier to make out (no pun intended). 

Everyone can mostly agree that Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire was the turning-point for sympathetic vampires -- and paranormal romance as a whole. But where do werewolves enter the mix? Possibly with Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter books, which feature the titular character in a relationship with a werewolf (and some vampires, and were-leopards, and...many other things). With the first book released in 1993, the Anita Blake series seems to pre-date similar books in its ilk. 

Blood and Chocolate (1997) by Annette Curtis Klause delivers a YA-focused version of the classic “I’m a werewolf in high school crushing on a mortal boy”; that same year, Buffy the Vampire Slayer hit the small screen, and although the primary focus was vampires, there is a main werewolf character (and romancing him around the challenges of his wolfishness is a big plot point for the characters involved). And Buffy, of course, paved the way for Twilight in 2005. From there, werewolves were poised to become a staple of the ever-more-popular urban fantasy/paranormal romance genre. 

“Sexy werewolf” as a trope may have its roots in other traditions like the beastly bridegroom (eg, Beauty and the Beast) and the demon lover (eg, Labyrinth), which we can talk about another time. But there’s one other ingredient in this recipe that needs to be discussed. And, oh yes, we’re going there. 

Alpha/Beta/Omegaverse 

By now you might be familiar with the concept of the Omegaverse thanks to the illuminating Lindsay Ellis video on the topic (and the current ongoing lawsuit). If not, well, just watch the video. It’ll be easier than trying to explain it all. (Warning for NSFW topics). 

But the tl;dr is that A/B/O or Omegaverse is a genre of (generally erotic) romance utilizing the classical understanding of wolf pack hierarchy. Never mind that science has long since disproven the stratification of authority in wolf packs; the popular conscious is still intrigued by the concept of a society where some people are powerful alphas and some people are timid omegas and that’s just The Way Things Are. 

What’s interesting about the Omegaverse in regards to werewolf fiction is that, as near as I’ve been able to discover, it’s actually a case of convergent evolution. A/B/O as a genre seems to trace its roots to Star Trek fanfiction in the 1960s, where Kirk/Spock couplings popularized ideas like heat cycles. From there, the trope seems to weave its way through various fandoms, exploding in popularity in the Supernatural fandom. 

What seems to have happened is that the confluence of A/B/O kink dynamics merging with urban fantasy werewolf social structure set off a popular niche for werewolf romance to truly thrive. 

It’s important to remember that, throughout folklore, werewolves were not viewed as being part of werewolf societies. Werewolves were humans who achieved wolf form through a curse or witchcraft, causing them to transform into murderous monsters -- but there was no “werewolf pack,” and certainly no social hierarchy involving werewolf alphas exerting their dominance over weaker pack members. That element is a purely modern one rooted as much in our misunderstanding of wolf pack dynamics as in our very human desire for power hierarchies. 

So Where Do We Go From Here? 

I don’t think sexy werewolf stories are going anywhere anytime soon. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no room left in horror for werewolves to resume their monstrous roots. 

Thematically, werewolves have done a lot of heavy lifting over the centuries. They hold up a mirror to humanity to represent our own animal nature. They embody themes of toxic masculinity, aggression, primal sexuality, and the struggle of the id and ego. Werewolf attack as sexual violence is an obvious but powerful metaphor for trauma, leaving the victim transformed. Werewolves as predators hiding in plain sight among civilization have never been more relevant than in our #MeToo moment of history. 

Can werewolves still be frightening? Absolutely. 

As long as human nature remains conflicted, there will always be room at the table for man-beasts and horrifying transfigurations. 

--

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[psychologyserviceannoucement]

I've Done Therapy Before and It Didn't Work

Therapy is a hard thing to go through. It’s success is dependent upon both the participation of a professional and the individual. It requires discussing and evaluating a lot of personal information that can be hard to tolerate, let alone put active work into. While therapy is a proven effective treatment for a variety of mental health conditions, the reality is that it often takes people multiple attempts to actually reap the benefit of it. That may seem like an oxymoron, but there are a few reasons why someone’s first go at therapy may not work out and why it’s still worth giving a second shot.

If you’ve ever gone through therapy before then I wanna give you props for putting yourself out there to begin with. It’s uncomfortable and vulnerable, but I appreciate that you gave it a shot. Moreover, I extend my sympathies that your efforts didn’t end up being rewarded. I can understand if that experience has kind of turned you off to the idea of therapy or if it’s made you doubt the effectiveness of it all together. After all, there aren’t many other medical procedures that have this same problem. If you go to a doctor to get a bone set, you generally expect it to work without a second attempt. It’s not a very flattering look to say the least. Even still, despite how negative those experiences may be, I believe it is important to consider why things didn't work out before. Because when I say that people often need more than one attempt at therapy, that doesn’t just mean that it didn’t work. It also means that it did work later on. So it naturally brings us to question about what made the difference between the first try and the third.

One of the biggest reasons people give up on therapy is because of the timing. When people are struggling, they can become desperate for any sort of relief. However, therapy as a treatment takes time. Without going into too much detail about how therapy works (see here for a longer discussion), the process is essentially attempting to work with a part of your health that cannot be observed through traditional methods. Instead of conducting tests or making measurements, therapists have to rely on a far slower way to gather information, talking about symptoms a lot. Even after they are able to identify potential factors contributing to the problem at hand, enacting solutions can also take time. Correcting maladaptive thinking patterns, for instance, can be an extended process of convincing a patient that the pattern exists, that it should be changed, and helping them make that change. That’s already going to take a few sessions to accomplish. Lifestyle changes similarly take some weeks to show the effects of. And that’s assuming the first attempted solution proves correct. As such, the typically recommended period of time suggested before you may start to see results from therapy is 3-4 months or 12-18 sessions. And that’s a long period of time, especially for some more severe conditions. It’s very common for people to get frustrated with the process because they are being asked to do a lot of work even though they aren’t feeling better yet. In fact, a large percentage of patients quit therapy well before it has the chance to show it’s effectiveness. So although the effort you put into treatment before was likely difficult and shouldn’t be diminished, it’s possible that things simply needed more time before they could work. On the other hand, by the second or third attempt people are more likely to stick with therapy longer. They also have the benefit of their previous experiences helping them to progress more quickly. So if you’re willing to try therapy again it might be a little easier than the first time.

Another obstacle people encounter is finding a therapist that fits. I often describe individual therapists as akin to a primary care physician, a general knowledge health professional that’s able to tackle a wide diversity of problems. However, while they may have a surface level understanding on many topics, any specific therapist is not going to have a deep knowledge of all of them. Just like other kinds of doctors, individual therapists specialize in different fields and are going to have gaps in their information. These gaps sometimes prove problematic if a therapist is attempting to treat someone with a condition they are not familiar with or cannot relate to. They have a lot of skills and tools that are universally applicable to any problem, but they may not always use them effectively. And that barrier to understanding can appear for a number of reasons. Sometimes it’s a lack of personal, academic, or professional experience. Sometimes it’s a difference in cultural background: religion, race, sexuality, gender, or so one. Sometimes they have certain core beliefs that are in contrast with yours. Some therapists are very strict and direct. Some prefer a more patient-focused approach where they have a more passive role. Not every therapist is a good fit for everyone. It’s entirely possible that the first person you saw just wasn’t the right person for the job. If you were dissatisfied with your previous therapist, I would encourage you to seek out one that specializes in the specific issues you are struggling with. Alternatively, you can seek someone with a similar background to you. I would go so far as to recommend interviewing them to see if they have views and personality traits that would compliment your treatment.

The last obstacle I would like to discuss is a bit more personal. I’d like not to come across as if I am blaming anyone for their negative experiences or accusing them of not trying hard enough. However, it is sometimes the case that someone may attend therapy sessions without truly giving treatment a shot. The thing about therapy is that it looks silly from the outside and there are still a lot of people who are hesitant to accept it’s validity. That is perfectly understandable. I do not expect everyone to put the same value in therapeutic techniques that I do. Unfortunately though, therapy depends on patient participation. Therapists can help you identify necessary changes in thinking patterns and lifestyle, but only if you allow them access to the information they need to understand you. Moreover, it is entirely up to the individual to actually enact the changes recommended. As such, entering treatment without an open mind that is ready and willing to adhere to the treatment can often become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you go to treatment, fully believing that it won’t work and letting that belief drive your actions, then it certainly will not. And that’s not to say that everything will work perfectly if you try hard enough. It will still be a process. Sometimes you will put your best effort into something and it still won’t work out. However, the only way to know one way or another is to try it thoroughly. I understand that those who are seeking mental health treatment are oftentimes not in a place where they are able to be very hopeful or optimistic. That’s ok. I’m not asking you to believe with all your heart that you certainly will get better soon. But I am asking you to consider if you really did give it your best shot the first time around.

At least those are some of the bigger reasons why people have trouble with their first attempt at therapy. It’s possible they apply to you, but I don’t know much about your specific experience. I can provide as many explanations as possible, but I can’t account for everything because sometimes things just happen. The truth of recovery is that it’s work, but it’s not like climbing up a mountain. Recovery is more like being lost in a forest. It can take a lot of persistence.  You can’t take three steps in one direction and decide that you’ll never find your way out.. You have to walk pretty far in one direction before you can really find out whether something is there or not. If that attempt didn’t work out, you’ll need to change directions and try a different way. It would be much easier if there was a simple path to follow, but it's simply something you’ll have to work on for a bit. Granted, things aren’t always a struggle. There is a way out. The forest doesn’t go on forever. It does stop eventually and there might be signs to help along the way to point to where that might be. You have your therapist as a guide to help you along and the longer you walk, the better you’ll get at navigating. I’m sorry if you feel stuck, or you’re tired of fighting, or you’re frustrated that nothing seems to be working. But hope is not lost. Statistically, you can still and likely will get better. Perhaps it shouldn’t take this much for you to get to that point, but it is still within your reach. Recovery is very much worth the work that it takes to get to it. So despite the obstacles, I hope that you continue to pursue treatment and put as much as you can into it so that you can find what’s effective and make therapy work for you, even if it takes a few tries.

For more information on mental health topics, check out our Index

[chandlerrosen]

♔ — uneasy is the head that wears the crown — ♔ 

introducing: chandler rosen as [ the tomboy ]

name: judith chandler rosen - has been going by chandler since she was six years olds, do not call her judith, i don’t think anyone even knows her name is judith at this point

age & date of birth: twenty-one, april 14, 1998 

gender & pronouns: demigirl, she/they

sexuality: bisexual

fc: diana silvers

character parallels: eve polastri [ killing eve ]; queen anne [ the favourite ]; jo march [ little women ]; jenny mellor [ an education ]; hamlet [ hamlet ]; camille preaker [ sharp objects ]; catherine earnshaw [ wuthering heights ]; scarlett o’hara [ gone with the wind ]; arya stark [ a song of ice and fire ]; donna hayward [ twin peaks ]; willow rosenberg [ buffy the vampire slayer ] 

♔ — life’s but a walking shadow a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. | background — ♔

born in the upper-middle class suburbs of pittsburgh, pennsylvania to two parents who cared not about chandler the person, but rather chandler the reflection of them. they never laid a hand on her, gave her every comfort she could ask for, but they were/are too self-absorbed to really love her like a parent should love their child. 

her mother, aging beauty she was, and former stage starlet in an off-off-broadway production of cat on a hot tin roof, pushed chandler into taking acting classes, first enrolling her at the tender age of four. her feelings wavered towards acting but it wasn’t until her sophomore year of high school, in a production of a midsummer night’s dream, where she feel in love with it. and all because of a girl. 

her name was emily, and chandler thought she pulled the sun in the sky, hell thought she was the sun in the sky. emily was cast as hermia, chandler as demetrius. how fitting — demetrius doesn’t get the girl, and neither did she. nothing bad happened, chandler was just nervous and didn’t know how to show her emotions. sad. 

her role as demetrius started her long journey into tackling male roles, and only male roles, for the simple reason that her high school theatre department didn’t have enough boys to fill all of the required roles. and then she got good at it, and frankly, her mother did not care what role she got as long as it was a prominent one. 

chandler didn’t want to go to alderidge, not really. she liked that it was on the other side of the country, far out of her mother’s grasp, and she liked that it was a smaller, older school. she wanted to study literature, or philosophy, but her mother, of course, pushed her into acting, and only the best of the best would do. so they compromised — at least at alderidge, she could study shakespeare. and then, she got a full ride, and it was the only school she could afford to go to. how serendipitous. 

somewhere around her senior year of high school, her dad got into a lot of financial trouble, but they tried to keep it away from chandler. however, that plan doesn’t quite work when chandler’s mother views her more as a confidante, a vessel to fill her head with poisonous ideas about her husband, rather than a daughter. so chandler knew all about how her father got them into this mess, how he would ruin their lives, hence why she went to alderidge. and also why she never swayed from male roles, because she needed to keep her scholarship and stay in orson’s good graces (which as we all know, she was mayhaps a little too good at doing). 

so now we speak of it. the affair. torrid, passionate, all-consuming. it started one night, she stayed at rehearsals late, going over her lines, and she had gotten a text earlier in the day from her mother, letting her know that the house is in foreclosure. so it rattled her, made her kinda mess up at rehearsals. something unlike her, chandler is a perfectionist, and makes sure she knows all of her lines, so orson knew something was up. 

she didn’t realize he was still there, she thought he had gone home with everyone else. but he didn’t. and with some prodding and kind eyes, chandler poured her heart out to him, and he told her he took her seriously, and she fell in love.

chandler really thought her and orson were in love, were the exception to the rule. she’s a bit dramatic, yes, it comes with the territory. she wanted an all-encompassing, consuming, passionate love, like romeo and juliet. he never manipulated her, forced her to do anything she didn’t want to. except the lying. to her friends, her girlfriend, her peers. of course, he didn’t force her to stay with the scene-stealer, that decision fell to her. she wanted to have her cake and eat it too, but then her cake died.

she lost not one, but two people she was in love with: orson, obviously, and the scene-stealer. she’s going to go through all five stages of grief, maybe at once. she’s an actor, she feels things more strongly than anyone else, and there’s a lot to feel: she’s grieving the loss of a man she should have never been with in the first place, refuses to acknowledge that she should have never been with him, lost someone else she loved because of her actions and lied to them about it, and could potentially get kicked out of school because of this affair. mental!

♔ — stars, hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires | personality — ♔

before orson’s death, chandler was very mild-mannered, very chill, confident but not cocky. definitely tried to give everyone a chance, and very much wanted to make friends! 

now, however, she is like tony hawk: off the rails. angry at the world, will yell at anyone who looks at her funny, will probably punch anyone who says a bad word about orson, her relationship with him, her involvement in his death (there is none but rumors do be spreading), etc. 

used to be way too trusting! literally if you showed her affection in any way, she trusted you (obviously, a mistake in many situations), because she was literally so desperate for attention.

can be like a little bit pretentious in her tastes, but she just wants to talk about literature and gush over books and philosophy and stuff. not like a know-it-all, though if she knows something, she’ll say it. 

weird obsession with being right all the time. this goes with what i said above, but she needs to be right (like factually, and i guess morally too but we all know she isn’t lmao). had been learning to bite her tongue and choose her battles wisely.

perfectionist, is terrified of disappointing anyone, will cry. will, however, also demand that you recognize her when she fixed it.

a weird combination of a petulant child and stoic philosopher. so basically an aries.

[skruttet]

Gay Analysis of the Opening Scene of Moominvalley

Buckle up, lads.

Let’s start off with what Marika Makaroff and Steve Box had to say about this scene in the Creators’ Comments video:

Steve: The first thing you see feels a little bit sugary and...

Marika: Pinky clouds, just pinky clouds and everything

Steve: Yeah, saturated and Disney-like or something, for younger children, and straight to the cliché of- ‘cause I think the cloud flight is quite well-known and, you know, very cutesy.

[...]

Marika: And I think that, the whole theme, that first you think that “well, this is a... this might be a kind of nice animation drama”, but then you understand that there are deeper meanings in there.

I personally think that they intentionally made the opening scene fairytale-like and cutesy as an almost parody of what some viewers may expect the series to be like; they’re showing us what we expect from the series (especially if we expect it to be like the 90s series), then they’re subverting that expectation by revealing it to be a dream that Moomintroll is rudely and abruptly awoken from.

At this point early point (the earliest point, even) in the series, Moomintroll has not gone through any character development yet, and we know the series is about him growing up; therefore, in this scene, he is in many ways still a child. The pink clouds are reminiscent of the 90s anime in which he is quite literally a child; in his dream, he is living in the innocent, happy-go-lucky world of his childhood; a fantasy that does not truly reflect the reality in which he lives and must face throughout the series after he wakes up.

Here’s where the queer part of this analysis comes in: in this fairytale-like dream world, one of the aforementioned expectations would be that Moomintroll is in a romantic relationship with his female friend Snorkmaiden - and, ah yes, right on queue, she appears, casting a shadow on him in the process (I’ll let you decide if there’s something in that). 

The episode then sets up how their relationship will play out in a lot of the future episodes, with Snorkmaiden being the one to usually initiate any romantic advances, as she seductively encourages him to join her on the cloud (to tip this to the “moomintroll is bi” side of things, you could say that the fact that this is happening in his dream shows that he is to some extent attracted to girls and to Snorkmaiden, but if you’re on the “moomintroll is gay” camp, you could argue that this is just how she presents herself to him in real life and so his mind is just replicating that).

Our hero is hesitant and reluctant to her advances, pointing at himself in question as if to stall, then when he prepares himself to jump, he looks scared to death.

Despite this, he takes the leap of faith and lands rather clumsily onto the cloud, Snorkmaiden once again being the initiator in clinging onto his arm. As a more positive look at their relationship, this could be a reflection of how she pushes Moomintroll throughout the series to tackle dangerous situations head-on, therefore helping him in his process of growing up.

...However, a lot of the times when she does that, it isn’t quite what he needs. Whenever she pushes him, or he attempts to lead the way/protect her, they are just desperately trying to fit into the heteronormative roles of Hero and His Damsel, and it usually leads to Snorkmaiden ironically having to save Moomintroll. In the Hattifattener episode, she tells him that he must go rescue Little My alone; because he is afraid of doing so, he stalls, so much so that Little My returns to them on her own and saves him the trip. They would’ve had a much better chance at finding her sooner if they had both gone out together, but because they stubbornly stuck to fulfilling their traditional gender roles, they only succeeded in annoying each other. In the Park Keeper episode, Moomintroll grabs Snorkmaiden’s hand and leads her into the woods to look for Little My, saying he knows the forest like the back of his paw. He does not, and causes them to get lost. He tries to ask some forest people if they saw My, but this proves futile and it is Snrokmaiden who suggests that they build a bonfire; this plan goes more smoothly yet she gives him the credit, calling him “my clever Moomintroll”. In Ghost Story, Moomintroll plays the role of the brave hero yet again, but ends up just scaring and then angering Snorkmaiden, who puts the ghost on the windowsill, inadvertently sending her love to his doom, and she ends up saving him. (In contrast, Snufkin helps Moomintroll get through a scary unfamiliar situation in the Groke episode by guiding him through it and being there with him to save and support him when needed, yet still letting him get the hang of it on his own, and the two have fun together in the process).

You could argue the same negative consequence happens in this dream, where Snorkmaiden encourages him to ride the cloud which eventually disappears from beneath him, though I don’t think it’s quite the same. Regardless, Moomintroll initially does not look happy, but rather worried as Snorkmaiden whisks him away:

Luckily, he’s cheered up in the next shot, enjoying the view seemingly more than he is enjoying Snorkmaiden; the two glance at each other, though whilst Snorkmaiden holds the gaze, Moomintroll quickly looks away and at his parents on the ground, pointing them out so that she stops looking at him. I personally see this as another little shred of evidence that Snrokmaiden is much more invested in their relationship than he is, and he may not in fact return her romantic feelings for him (or at least those that she thinks she has for him).

Snorkmaiden waves at mamma and pappa and Moomintroll follows suit, which I’m honestly not quite sure what to make of. I don’t know why he doesn’t just immediately wave back to his parents and instead only does so when he sees Snorkmaiden doing it. Maybe he’s just enjoying the moment.

Moomintroll then looks quite joyful to be on the cloud, until a hole appears in it and then Snorkmaiden turns into clouds herself, waving goodbye to him before poofing out of existence. The cloud he’s riding quickly does the same and he falls before waking up. This is quite literally a wake-up call: Moomintroll needs to wake up from the sugar-coated fantasy of his past & what’s expected of him and face the real world. The fact that Snorkmaiden is a part of this world shows to me that she is no longer what’s best for him, at least not as a romantic partner, and he needs to move on; much like how he needs to become less dependent upon his parents, who are also a part of this dream.

This ties into the larger theme of his struggle between family & freedom, or childhood & adulthood, or dependency & independency, with Snorkmaiden being a representation (or a part) of the former, and Snufkin of the latter.

My bi ass of course believes he should leave the safety and comfort of a heteronormative life to pursue the true desires of his heart - and, yes, it’ll be scary, but one must sometimes face their fears head-on in their pursuit of lasting happiness; interestingly, Moomintroll has already faced the Groke once, and we know that she’ll be returning in the future. Who knows what he’ll learn about himself.

[marshmallow--3]

Imagine - celebrating Mothering Sunday with Emmett and Jacob Frye.

TW: pregnancy, children, marriage

A few things I want to apologise for in advance:

If you feel there's gender roles here of a female nurturer & a male breadwinner. That's not my intention, the Reader does everything with her child because she wants to, not because she's expected to. And Jacob does do his share, it's just not shown in this particular story. He goes away during the day because y'know he's a gang leader and he has a city to check up on, so that's why it has that "Father is going to work and coming home when dinner is ready" feel. Again, no negative intentions.

If the mention of children and pregnancy upsets you in any way, or if it suggests that all the Reader exists for is making Jacob's babies, or that life only has meaning if you have children. I promise that's not the intention, but it's a Mother's Day piece, so she kind of has to be a mother.

***

"Now, lad, what do we say when we open that door?"

Jacob smooths down the creases in his son's shirt, crouched to the four-year-old's height as he preens his appearance.

"We say, um we say, 'Happy Birfday!'"

"No, Emmett. We say 'Happy Mothering Sunday.'"

The child blinks, bamboozled. He eyes up the breakfast and flowers that are typically reserved for his mother's birthday.

"Happy Birfday," he maintains.

Jacob sighs. Having been at it for the past twenty minutes, he surrenders with a chuckle and a pinch at his son's ruddy cheek. Passing Emmett the bouquet of flowers, definitely not trusting the child with a tray full of fine China; barely trusting himself with it, if he's honest, he knocks on the bedroom door and nudges it open, retrieving the tray of food and following Emmett close behind.

"Happy Birfday, Mummy!"

You stretch in bed with a yawn, just managing to shuffle into an upright position as you cradle the bump at your stomach. You raise your eyebrow at your husband quizzically, whose expression simply reads don't ask, I tried.

Emmett crawls onto the bed and passes you the beautiful bouquet of yellow tulips; you smile sincerely as they're your firm favourite, not just for their bold colour or exquisite honey smell, but for their meaning too - there's sunshine in your smile. It was the first thing Jacob noticed about you when you two first met, and he never fails to bring it up whenever possible.

You gush your thanks, taking the flowers from your son and resting them in one arm as your other is instantly tackled with cuddles. He kisses your cheek once then presses his cheek against your bump, greeting his unborn sibling.

"Happy 'Birthday', I suppose, love," Jacob chuckles, approaching you with breakfast.

The salty smell of poached kippers tantalises your nostrils, making you inwardly urge your partner to cross the room quicker so you can tuck in. Accompanying the fish is a few slices of buttered bread and a shiny apple, a mug of fruit juice at the side, none of which particularly appeal to your queer tastebuds now you're with child. But you're thankful Jacob supposed as much, as there's a mountain of fish compared to the few slices of bread.

In the early hours of the afternoon, Jacob kisses you both on the cheek and leaves for duty. Usually it's without a timeframe of when he'd be back, but he promises to be back around dinner time.

Emmett crawls onto your lap and curls around your bump, getting comfortable for the story he picked out for you to read, The Princess and the Goblin. You had began reading it to him a few nights ago, and are approaching the end of the book. One scene is admittedly terrifying, and the way he drapes his arm around your bump and buries his face in your side has you questioning if he'd like you to stop.

Shaking his head, he declares, "I'm not frightened, Mummy. But the baby might be."

Chuckling, you pat your hand over his, realising his action was one of protection as opposed to fear.

Upon reading the final word, you close the book with a deep breath and glance down at your son to gauge his response. His face is swimming with emotion, opening his mouth and closing it soon after, rendered speechless by the ending of the story.

You gently press him closer, rocking him in your arms as you ask him what he'd like to do next.

"Another!"

"Another? What would you like to read next?"

His face scrunches up in contemplation, before answering, "Your book."

"My-- oh."

You don't know how he found out about that.

For the past few months, you've been working on a picture book to gift to him on his fifth birthday, the age his Assassin education would formally begin. Colluding with Henry Green, a good friend, in-law and uncle to your offspring, you whittled the history of the Brotherhood down to the basic facts so that it might be comprehended by a child. Your skills as an artist helped make it even more accessible, decorating the pages with watercolour paintings of famous figures and eagles, one of the symbols of the Assassins.

Emmett waits patiently for your answer. Realising there's no point in hiding it since he already knows about it, and reasoning he's almost five years old anyway, you agree and fish it out from its hiding spot in a nearby bookshelf.

Returning to your previous position, you open the book and begin reading a page about an Italian brother, "Ezio Auditore."

"Essio?"

"Ezio, darling."

"So that's Essio," his finger points lightly at the sketch of the hooded man with olive skin, skimming across the page to another drawing of his beret-sporting friend.

"Who's that?"

"That's Leonardo da Vinci."

He whoas and absorbs the information you relay to him, his eyes as wide as saucers. He sits in silence for a while as you read, before fidgeting in your lap and looking up at you.

"Mummy?" You hum in response, turning the page to a hidden blade. "Can I be like Daddy some day?"

You pause, mulling over the best way to word it. It's a topic that has cropped up often between you and Jacob, and you eventually came to an agreement that it will ultimately be Emmett's choice once he's old enough to make such a huge decision.

"You can be whatever you want to be, darling. If you want to do what Daddy does, then you can. But you must know that no one is forcing you."

He seems satisfied with your answer, staring into space with a pensive gleam in his eyes.

The final grains of sand trickle down the hourglass on the table next to you, indicating it's time to finish prepping dinner. Dismissing your son for play with a gentle nudge on his shoulder, you rise and busy yourself in the kitchen.

Having inherited your creativity, Emmett sets his eyes on fixing up his very own gauntlet, scrambling through his drawers for the right materials. Finding a wooden ruler, he measures it next to his forearm and grins, tying it to his arm with several socks. The end of the ruler just sticks out past his wrist, which he flexes, testing the security of the ties.

Scanning the room for his first target, his eyes land on a teddy bear propped up on his pillows.

"Prepare to die, Teddy!"

Stone-faced, he charges at the stuffed toy and pokes its squishy belly with the tip of his pseudo-blade, his composure soon breaking as he erupts into a fit of giggles.

Emmett continues for a time, leaping and pretending to eliminate his toys, until the familiar clip-clop of hoofs halt outside the house. Peering out of the window to catch sight of his father dismounting the horse-drawn carriage, he rejoices at his safe return, bounding down the stairs and waiting eagerly in the hall with his gauntleted arm behind his back.

Opening the door, Jacob beams at the welcoming party, carefully pulling him in for a hug. He feels something press against his stomach, the vibration of his son snickering before pulling away to flaunt his hidden blade.

"You're dead now!"

Jacob clutches his gut where he was poked, his jaw dropping as his eyes grow wide. Coughing melodramatically, he slumps on the floor and fakes groans of pain, exclaiming just how much agony he's in. Emmett stands over him, his childlike chortles contagious.

Jacob adopts a weak voice, spluttering, "You may have taken my life... But you will never have my dinner!"

"Daddy, no! Don't leave me alone with Mummy!"

"Charming!" You scoff playfully, having watched the scene unfold from the doorway. Both boys look up at you, your arms crossed and your eyebrows raised.

"Come along, now, children." You stress the final word while smiling sweetly at Jacob, a veritable child in disguise if ever you met one. "Dinner's nearly ready."

After a delicious beef dinner, admittedly not as exquisite as usual with the cook at home for the day, Emmett excuses himself, tugging on his father's sleeve and silently giving him a look which has him exiting the room with him. Glancing at his plate, you're surprised to see he's eaten all his vegetables, pondering what he's up to disappearing so abruptly. Your brooding is cut short when he reappears, carrying a sponge cake in his steady hands.

You're lost for words, suspiciously eyeing up Jacob as he lays dessert plates down on the table with a cake server, helping your son lift the cake onto the table too.

"Did Daddy make this with you?"

Emmett bursts out laughing, perhaps aware even at his young age of how preposterous that idea is. Jacob pouts, feeling somewhat picked on.

"No, Auntie and Uncle helped me."

You tilt your head, absorbing the details of the cake and smiling at the indulgently sweet smell of vanilla and jam filling your nostrils with every inhale. Though you originally found yourself craving nothing but salt since you first came to learn of your expectancy, your stomach has seemingly just changed teams, growling and demanding all the sugar it can get. Powdered sugar has been sieved over the top of the cake, most likely through a stencil as the crystals form the shape of flowers in a ring.

You make a mental note to thank your dear in-laws later, quite eager for now to tuck in and sate your sugar-hungry stomach.

The staff return a few hours later, a fresh glow noticeable in their cheeks. Clearly the day off has done them the world of good, though they're quite eager to return to their work. Your maid even offers to bathe Emmett and let you relax for the evening, but you politely decline her offer, happy to oversee his bedtime routine yourself.

After fighting with him over the removal of his gauntlet, he's soon bathed, dressed and tucked in to bed. You sit at his side, stroking his hair and singing him to sleep, pressing your lips against his forehead upon hearing the pace of his breathing change. Rising, you linger at the doorway, thankful for such a good and sweet child. He's out like a light, letting you close the door behind you and turn to face your husband.

Jacob smiles and holds his arms out, wrapping them around you once you've closed the gap, resting your cheek on his shoulder. He enjoys the peace of holding you for a few beats before breaking the silence, telling you to meet him in the bedroom for his gift.

"More gifts? Jacob, darling, you've spoiled me enough for one day."

He falls silent.

You lift your head to face him, noting his dark eyes and seductive expression.

"Oh..." You mumble, blushing from the naïvety of missing his euphemism. "That kind of present."

He winks now that you've caught on.

"Yep," he whispers against your ear, his whiskers scratching the side of your cheek. His voice is low and purring, "That kind of present."

@sassenach-on-the-rocks @katbernoulli @winterwriter8845 @thank-god-its-fryeday @yourchepazworld @iceboundstar @the-purple-rook @lcvingvincent @balladofthesadcat @assassins-and-hidden-blades @ladye11e

If you spot any mistakes, feedback is always welcome ♥️

[sweetfogarty]

In the Pursuit of Justice || Chapter One

Summary: After taking theatre classes after school for months, Midge Klump is delighted to be cast, albeit by a technical default, as Carrie White in the Riverdale High production of Carrie: The Musical. On debut night, Midge is murdered in cold blood and a witch hunt ensues to find the killer and bring him to justice. Fangs Fogarty finds himself in the crosshairs of this witch hunt, which culminates in him being arrested and charged as Midge’s killer.

Robin Allard, a public defender, is assigned to his case and together they fight the uphill battle to try and prove his innocence in court, finding skeletons in each other’s closets along the way. Robin may believe that Fangs is innocent, but will 12 jurors think the same? And will Fangs Fogarty be found guilty or not guilty of the murder of Midge Klump?

Rating: Mature

Word count: 9.2K

Chapter warnings: Violence, reference to character death, blood (minor), systemic racism, anxiety.

MASTERLIST 

Fangs ambled out of Riverdale High, carrying his scripts and twirling the keys to his motorcycle around his finger as he eyed the bike which was sitting alone in the darkened school car park, the well-maintained body catching the light slightly.

Under a streetlight a few meters from the double doors of the school stood Midge Klump on the phone, wrapping her leather jacket a little tighter as a particularly cold gust of wind sent a chill up her spine and raised goose bumps on her bare legs. She looked tiny stood by herself, her petite frame illuminated by the light, but otherwise surrounded by the eerie darkness of the Riverdale night.

“Okay Moose, don’t worry, I’ll find another way home- tell Huxley I hope he feels better soon,” Midge spoke sweetly, her smile faltering as her gaze dropped to her shoes. “Love you too, bye.”

Fangs quirked an eyebrow from over at his bike as he watched Midge sit on the steps outside the school, twiddling her thumbs as a deep sigh rumbled from her chest. He fiddled with his helmet, pausing to look between the bike and Midge. She’d left rehearsals with everyone 25 minutes ago whilst Kevin left Fangs to pack away, so it was odd for her to still be here, especially as Moose was usually her ride home.

Normally, Fangs would be on his bike and on his way home by now, weaving through the streets of Riverdale without a care, heading home to Sunnyside and his Mum, and then maybe later he’d go to the Wyrm with Sweet Pea, Toni and Jughead for a game of pool and some drinks. But something about Midge sat by herself under the streetlights in the dark had him hesitating, especially when there was a serial killer on the loose. She would be the ideal target- a petite, dainty girl sitting by herself in the dark with no one around to help her.

She’d already been through it once before, when the Black Hood had come out of nowhere and attacked her whilst she was with Moose, shooting point-blank into the car they were cozied up in, with a murderous look in his eyes. They’d both survived, but part of their innocence was lost that day. Fangs didn’t want to be the reason that she became another addition the the death toll.

He slung his helmet over his handle and approached Midge, not quite sure what he would say to her, but hoping that he could be useful.

“Hey, Midge,” he started, drawing her attention from her phone. A sweet and friendly smile enveloped her face, making him more at ease almost instantly as he realised she wasn’t worried by him approaching her in the dark. His Serpent status had a habit of hindering his attempts to be kind, but Midge’s non-judgmental attitude had him feeing relaxed and somewhat appreciated. “What’re you still doing here? I thought you would be home by now.”

Midge let out a breath of a laugh, stuffing her phone into her back pocket as she looked up at Fangs, taking him in. “Moose is at Riverdale General with Huxley, apparently he landed funny after a tackle and hurt his back pretty bad so he’s getting an x-ray. Moose was my ride home and my parents aren’t picking up their phones. I’d usually walk but we finished late today and it’s dark- I don’t really like walking in the dark by myself after… you know.”

Midge shifted uncomfortably, knitting her fingers together in her lap, as she momentarily flashed back to looking into the barrel of the Black Hood’s gun. She didn’t need to explain what she was referencing, alluding to it was enough. It had been the talk of the school for the time she was off recovering, but it was an unspoken rule to not discuss it unless Midge instigated the conversation explicitly. For a while she’d experienced survivor’s guilt- Moose had taken all the bullets for her and she’d miraculously come out unscathed, and as much as she put on a brave face for her friends, she often felt like the walls were closing in on her. Nightmares were frequent and flashbacks inevitable.

“I would offer you a ride, but I’ve only got one helmet,” Fangs tried to break the tension, motioning behind him towards his bike that still sat lonely in the far corner of the carpark. “But I can walk with you if you want, so that you’re not alone?”

Midge hesitated, looking between the Serpent and his ride. “What about your bike?”

“I’ll come back and get it after, or I’ll make Sweet Pea give me a ride in tomorrow.”

Midge laughed shyly, grabbing her bag from next to her and slinging it over her shoulder before extending her hand out to Fangs from the step she was sat on. “Okay, sure. Give me a hand to get up, will you?”

The start of the walk home was quiet as the pair wandered the Northside streets of Riverdale. Fangs had been to the Northside before plenty of times, but he’d never stopped to look at his surroundings in so much detail. This walk really hit home for him the privileged lives that Northsiders lived, compared to what the Southsiders had. Here, the roads were quiet, there were no blinking and broken streetlights, there was no litter on the floor, hedges and lawns were trimmed, the houses were immaculately painted. Everything was perfect. The Northside represented the picturesque neighbourhood that any family would want to raise their children in.

The Southside, by comparison, could not have been more different. Buildings were left baron or filled with squatters, the town was decorated with graffiti of every variety on every street, the drug trade was no secret and there were more trailers than houses on that side of town.

Fangs wondered how his life might have been different if he’d been born into some kind of privilege.

Living on the Southside had its perks and although he made the best of the situation, there was no denying that it had its drawbacks at times. People took double looks at him as he walked around clad in leather, shop keepers watched him extra carefully when he went to get milk for his Mum, he had to work twice as hard as Northsiders he knew he was better than to equal them because people constantly doubted him.

Northsiders looked down on the Southside. But in spite of that privilege they had, there was nothing the kids of the Northside loved more than having fun with Southside culture. They’d attend drag races, stroll into Southside bars, graffiti Southside territory, having their fun and then never accepting the consequences that befell normal Southsiders. Northsiders were loud in their laughter, but silent in the Southside suffering.

All except Midge.

Fangs and Midge rounded a corner, walking past the Sheriff’s Station, the tall building imposing an eerie shadow over the already darkened path.

“How are you finding your new role?” Fangs asked, casting a glance her way as her face scrunched up even at the thought of Carrie.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m so excited to be Carrie- it feels like all my hard work has paid off. I just feel really behind the rest of the cast and I don’t want to let anyone down,” she replied, looking up at Fangs briefly before dropping her gaze to the floor. “I’ve been trying to run lines, but Moose is busy with football between rehearsals, so I’ve just been trying to get through the rehearsals without looking like a total flop.” Midge gave Fangs a short shrug, pulling up her backpack that had slipped down her shoulder a bit.

“I’ve got the spare time to run lines with you, if you’d like?”

Midge let out a loud bark of laughter, looking up at Fangs with a smile that met her eyes and lit up her whole face. “First you walk me home, and now you’re offering to run lines with me- some would say you’re trying to court me, Mr Fogarty.”

Fangs’ face dropped into an expression of worry, his brows immediately knitted together and eyes widened, only causing Midge to double over as an even louder roll of laughter roared out of her.

“Oh my god, you should see your face,” she started, barely catching a breath as she clutched her sides, tears of glee prickling her eyes. “I was only joking, I know you’re gay. I was gonna set Kevin up with you actually.”

Fangs’ attention snapped towards Midge, his eyes wider now than they were before, making his forehead crease slightly. “Uh, I’m not actually fully gay- I just like who I like, whatever gender they may be,” he bumped shoulders with Midge, shaking his head. “And after that ‘courting’ shit, I retract my earlier offer. You can keep practicing by yourself now.”

“No, please, I’d really appreciate the help,” Midge tried to stifle her laughter, a lopsided smile settling on her face instead. “Wow, and to think I thought you were gay all this time. You’re a lady-killer too.”

Fangs rolled his eyes playfully, shaking his head as an inkling of a smile quirked the ends of his lips. “You need to stop talking before I leave you to walk the rest of the way by yourself.”

Midge feigned offence in response, placing her hand over her heart and dropping her mouth open before her signature grin settled back on her face. “I’d actually be offended if we weren’t literally four houses away from mine. Thanks for walking me home Fangs, it means a lot. I’d really like to run lines with you if you were seriously offering?”

“Yeah totally, Tuesdays and Thursdays after school work for me, we can do either day or both if you want.”

The pair came to a steady stop outside of Midge’s house. It was exactly what he thought it would be- picture perfect and quaint. There were no cars on the driveway and all the lights were off aside from the porch light. A ginger cat sat expectantly on her porch step, meowing as it set eyes on Midge. Fangs scratched the back of his neck nervously.

“Tuesdays and Thursdays sounds perfect. Thank you again Fangs, I’ll see you tomorrow!” Midge fished for her keys in her pocket and waved as she set off up the driveway towards the cat, who meowed even louder as she approached, a loud purr rumbling through it as it brushed up against her leg.

“See you then Midge,” Fangs waved her off, waiting until she was safely inside before he set off back towards Riverdale High to grab his bike.

Part of him felt excited to spend more time with the Vixen tomorrow running lines. It was an odd sensation to be excited about being around a Northsider after years of associating them with being the enemy, but Midge was nothing like an enemy to him and he found himself forcing away a small, content smile as he thought about their future rehearsals.

----

The Sheriff’s Station is a cornerstone of Riverdale.

The red-bricked monster sits on the corner of the town’s main crossroad and stands as a reminder that the rule of law will be enforced; that is, that no man is ever above the law. For some residents it is a beacon of safety and of justice, a symbol of protection for them in a town that as of recent had been plagued by nothing but darkness. And for the other half of the town it is nothing short of a nightmare which has taken the form of an institution. They do not view it as a sign of protection, but as the hunting ground for a police force that has done nothing but terrorise their kind for generations.

One year ago, the Sheriff’s Station was quieter. The town was quieter. The only people frequenting the Station were the police staff and the public attorneys – arrests were infrequent, usually only being made up of speeding charges and public disturbances. But over the last year Riverdale had descended into a chaos of sorts. Gang violence had increased, drug use had spread across both sides of the tracks and a murderous venom had seeped into every vein of the town; starting with the death of high school football star Jason Blossom and culminating in the murder of River Vixen, Midge Klump.

The Station was built in 1939 and in all its years it had never been as overwhelmed as it had been over the those few months.

Midge Klump was a town sweetheart who met an untimely fate. Compassionate and youthful, she had been cast as Carrie White in Riverdale High’s production of Carrie: The Musical and was making her debut when she was found murdered in cold blood. Her death became symbolic in Riverdale; enough was enough. The town didn’t want to have to worry about the safety of their kids anymore.

After the initial plume of dust settled, a witch hunt began to find killer and bring him or her to justice. The town was ruthless, working alongside the police to leave no stone unturned. As the hunt continued, the crosshairs closed in on Midge’s classmate, Fangs Fogarty, and the Sheriff pulled the trigger with no remorse, arresting him on school grounds and dragging him into the Station by the scruff of his collar with no intention of letting him leave.

Across the road from the Station, public defender Robin Allard threw her car into a parking space, gathering her folders into both of her arms before shutting the passenger seat with her hip. She’d received a call from the reception clerk that an unrepresented teenager had been taken into custody and was in interview with Riverdale’s Sheriff, Michael Minetta. Minetta was new and so Robin hadn’t had the chance to personally meet him yet, but from what she’d heard from Sierra McCoy, a legal acquaintance within Riverdale, he was ruthless. 

It was Robin’s job to protect Fangs Fogarty from the merciless swing of the Prosecution’s scythe and so it was of paramount importance that she got to her client as soon as possible to enforce his constitutional rights and to make sure that he didn’t seal his own fate before she even got a chance to help him.

“Where is he?” Robin boomed as she burst through the looming double doors of the Station, startling the receptionist who had been tapping away absentmindedly with her pen on the desk. Robin heaved a heavy sigh as she dropped her folders onto the reception desk, waiting for a reply from the brunette before she noticed her confused expression. “Come on Gwen, you rang me 40 minutes ago. Where’s my new client, Fogarty?”

Gwen’s face lit up in realisation as she turned to her keyboard and mumbled a quiet ahh yes, typing frantically and opening a few folders on the screen. “He’s down the hall with Sheriff Minetta, but I’ve got to sign you in before you can see him.”

Robin’s heels tapped a staccato rhythm as she waited impatiently for the police clerk to sign her in as a visitor to the station. She knew that her client was in danger every second longer this simple administrative task took and she was growing increasingly frustrated with the delay. Nothing ever seemed simple in Riverdale in all the years she’d worked there and despite all the town’s recent murders, the station was still as slow as ever at these mundane tasks.

All the while this was taking place, Fangs Fogarty was barely managing to keep his head above water in the interview room. The Sheriff had been waiting for an excuse to bring him in for questioning, and possession of a bladed article on school property was the perfect excuse. An excuse which also further implicated him in Midge Klump’s murder.

“You were in Midge Klump’s dressing room doing what exactly?” Sheriff Minetta asked, his voice tearing through the room and bouncing off the walls like broken glass, trapping the high schooler who sat opposite him. This was his territory and he wasn’t going to let Fogarty out of that room until he had what he wanted from him. Minetta stood at the end of the table, his hands splay against the wood, looking down at his suspect with venomous eyes, willing him to give in and confess.

“We were just talking,” Fangs choked out in response. He knew he was being cornered and he had no idea how to get himself out of this situation. He felt like he was drowning in this interview room and that the Sheriff was taunting him with a life raft. “I didn’t kill her!”

Minetta sensed blood in the water and his lips quirked into an evil smile as he realised that this was his chance to finally pin Fogarty down and make him squirm. “Didn’t you? With this knife you had on your person?”

Robin stormed down the hallway, hoping that she wasn’t too late. She’d rushed to the station as quickly as she could when she heard that she had a new client who was currently in interview with the town’s Sheriff, but she didn’t know if they had already managed to extract a confession from him. Down the hall she could hear Minetta’s raised voice and so she began to run towards his interview room as fast as her heels would allow her.

Robin grabbed the handle in desperation and without knocking threw the door open. “Don’t say another word,” she instructed sharply at Fangs, giving him a small nod of encouragement before turning her attention swiftly to the Sheriff. “I’ll be representing Mr Fogarty from here on out and I’d appreciate it if you stopped harassing my client.”

A tide of relief washed over Fangs and he felt all the colour flood back into his face. His eyes flickered between the two other figures in the room who seemed to be staring each other down in a display of authority. Sheriff Minetta stood half a foot taller than Robin, but her attitude more than made up for that in this situation.

Minetta tore his eyes away from Robin and he looked towards Fangs, his eyebrows settling angrily on his face as he prepared to leave. “You don’t know how lucky you are, this conversation is not finished.”

Robin took a step to the left, stopping Minetta in his tracks as he let out a deep sigh and bit his tongue. “I don’t know who you’ve been dealing with before now Sheriff Minetta, but you will not talk to my client under any circumstances if I’m not present, or I will report you for violating Mr Fogarty’s Sixth Amendment right to assistance of counsel. I hope I’ve made myself clear.”

Robin set her folders on the desk Fangs was sat at, huffing as she did so, quickly shutting the door behind the Sheriff once he’d left. She straightened her dress out, fanning herself to alleviate the sweat from her frantic journey to this very room from her flat one town over. She took a seat across from Fangs and sent him an empathetic smile. He looked dishevelled. Being arrested on school premises is something that would be enough to rattle any student at Riverdale High and even more so when the whole town was looking to hammer the nails in his coffin and had already branded him a murderer.

“Now we don’t have much time, but are you okay?” Robin asked, scribbling a few words on her battered notepad. “It seems Minetta really sprung this situation on you, huh?”

Fangs let out a shallow breath of a laugh, the first laugh he’d had in the four days since Midge had been killed. Those four days had taken him to rock bottom. He was used to looking over his shoulder, but an entire town denouncing him as a killer had him using every energy reserve in his body to keep himself from crumbling. “I’m as okay as an accused murder can be, I guess.”

“Good. What did you tell Sheriff Minetta?” Robin had no intention of concerning herself with small talk beyond checking that he was okay. It was in times like this where she knew clients could really use an offer of compassion even as small as asking about their mental state, but she was acutely aware that they were working on borrowed time.

“That I didn’t kill her.” Fangs searched Robin’s face for a hint of anything to reaffirm that he’d done the right thing, and the way that relief washed over her alleviated the constricting sensation that was tightening around his throat.

Robin gave him a small nod with a smile, muttering a ‘good’ as she sat back in her seat. “That’s great, I was worried that he would have managed to crack you before I got here. Good job Mr Fogarty-“

“Fangs. You can call me Fangs,” he interrupted, a sincere smile creeping onto his worn and tired face. His smile looked out of place on a face that looked like his did; gaunt and tired.  

“Okay, Fangs,” Robin emphasised, shaking her head slightly with a small grin. “I’m Robin Allard. I’m your publicly appointed defence attorney because you currently don’t have any other representation. Obviously, you’re more than entitled to seek alternative legal representation, in which case they will be your acting attorney in my place, or if for some reason you can’t or don’t want another attorney, I’ll act for you whilst this situation continues.”

Fangs sent Robin a confused look, leaning forward into the table. “Are you serious? After what you just did to Minetta after not even meeting me? I’m sticking with you.”

Robin gave Fangs a curt nod as a breathy laugh escaped her, scribbling in messy cursive in her notepad.

Upon her arrival into the station, Gwen had given Robin a copy of Fangs’ arrest report. Her eyes scanned over it quickly as she picked out all the key parts of information. She shook her head as she read over it, realising what Minetta’s game was- he had no reason to arrest Fangs for questioning about Midge’s death, so he’d had to find something else to use as his excuse for hauling him in.

“In terms of why you’ve been arrested, that’s for carrying a bladed weapon on school premises. The Sheriff has 24 hours maximum to hold you from the time you were processed here, so he has to release you by 9:43am tomorrow at the latest. Riverdale laws prohibit people carrying knives with a blade of four inches or more so provided yours had a blade of less than four inches, you should be released with a caution,” Fangs nodded along eagerly to Robin’s digest of his report and her knowledge on the law at hand. He was trying to make a mental note of everything she was saying in case he needed to quote her against the police staff later. “Have you had your phone call yet?”

Fangs shook his head, fiddling with his rings nervously. “No not yet, I asked for it but they said later.”

“Okay well when you go back to your cell, I’ll ask them to give you your phone call. My advice is to call your family. You don’t need to waste it on sorting anything legal, that’s my job, so call your family and let them know you’re fine. And when you get released you call me, okay? I’ll leave my contact details for you at reception, we’ll arrange a meeting once you’re released,” Robin’s head snapped to the door when there was a knock. “Look our time is up because this wasn’t a prior arranged meeting between us, but call your family now, call me when you get out and keep your head down okay? Until they find another suspect you’re still top of the list.”

Fangs and Robin stood as Sheriff Minetta re-entered the room ready to escort the teen back into his cell. Fangs could feel his heart in his throat as it dawned on him that he was about to be alone again and a nervous sweat began to break out all over his body.

“Before you put him back in the cell, he hasn’t had his phone call. He’s entitled to it within the next-“ Robin stopped to check her watch. “35 minutes, so now’s probably a good time before you put him away again and then have to get him back out.”

Sheriff Minetta huffed and shook his head, stopping and turning Fangs towards the telephone sitting lonely on a bare wall. “Go on then, Fogarty, you can take your phone call now.”

Fangs practically lurched at the beacon of hope that was the station telephone. His mind went blank for a few moments before his Mum’s number flooded into his brain and he frantically pressed the buttons, whispering repeated come on’s as it rang. After what seemed like a lifetime, the line picked up and his Mum’s voice rang through the receiver with an overwhelming cast of concern.

“Mum?” Fangs spoke, his voice catching in his throat as he realised the severity of the situation he was in. “I know Jughead’s probably told you everything and I’m okay. But this situation? It’s bad...”

----

It had been 16 hours since Fangs has been arrested and he was finally being released, although his release wasn’t quite what he’d hoped it would be.

He and his fellow Serpents were trapped in the Sheriff’s Office, surrounded by protesters who were out for blood and wanted to tear Fangs limb from limb. Fangs stood by himself by the telephone, his hands shaking as a deep dread settled into the pit of his stomach and he realised the likelihood of him getting out of this building alive was slipping away. Around him the Serpents were frantically trying to figure out a way to get out, but all he could hear was a high-pitched ringing sound in his ears.

“We can’t take Fangs out the front, we have to take the side entrance,” Jughead spoke frenziedly at Sheriff Minetta as he approached, rattled by the angry mob outside. The beanie-clad Jones had never imagined he’d find himself in a situation remotely like this and he hoped the town’s Sheriff would be able to give him some reassurance.

“Crowd’s out there too- pick your poison Serpent,” Minetta replied nonchalantly, a shrug rolling easily off of his shoulders. Minetta didn’t care about the Serpents- when they got out of his station, they were no longer his problem and the quicker they were gone, the better. Jughead had been naive to think Minetta would help them, even accidentally.

Silence enveloped the room, making the sounds of the angry crowd seem even more ferocious now that they could all really hear them. The jeering, shouting, banging on the windows- it filled them all with fear for their lives.

Sweet Pea became particularly unsettled, ringing his hands together as nerves took over his body. “What do we do man?” he questioned, voice low and full of dread.

As if at once, Fangs’ attention snapped back to reality and there was only one thing on his mind that escaped his lips before he even had the chance to register what he was saying. “I don’t wanna die,” he fretted, his voice breaking.

His words made the Serpents’ hearts sink. Jughead closed his eyes in a moment of composure before he turned back around to the group who were relying on him for guidance. He knew he had to put on a brave face for them right now, even if he didn’t know what to do. He could have never imagined that this could ever happen in Riverdale, especially to his friends.

“Hey, you’re not going to. Look at me, okay?” he clasped Fangs’ face as he spoke, noticing how his eyes were full of tears and how he was trying desperately to swallow back any chance that he was going to cry. Fangs gave him a shallow nod and a whimper, knowing that his life was in the hands of his friends. Jughead moved his left hand, settling it on Sweet Pea’s shoulder to bring the group into a close circle of trust. “We stand together so that none of us falls. In unity there is strength.”

The group pulled together, their hands splay over each other’s backs as their heads touched as a symbol of togetherness. That may well be their last moment as a group of four, and so they needed to make it count and to make it something to remember. This was what it meant to be a Serpent. It was their last stand. “In unity there is strength!”

The small group of Serpents banded together, forming a protective shield around Fangs. In that moment, they were willing to give their lives for him. It was them against the world.

As the Station doors burst open the pack of Serpents surged forward, shoulder to shoulder, pushing their way through the crowds of angry townsfolk. Older Serpents joined the younger members at the front, elbowing and pushing people out the way to make room for their convoy.  There were people everywhere, angry fists and picket signs being forced into the air in protest of Fangs’ release. People spat. Booed. Hurled insults like murderer, Vixen Killer, dead man. Fangs Fogarty was not innocent until proven guilty, the citizens of Riverdale had already assigned their judgment and that was that he deserved nothing more than an empty cell and a life of misery.

That night Riverdale could not have been further removed from its reputation as ‘the town with pep’. The bodies packed together radiated nothing short of disgust for a teenager who hadn’t even been formally charged. Their disdain had been led almost singlehandedly by one woman who had repeatedly posted inflammatory articles about the inhabitants of the Southside - Alice Cooper. Although she previously identified as a proud member of the Southside and of the Serpents, she repeatedly used the Riverdale Register as a vehicle to criminalise an entire population article by article, branding them as second-class members of the town. Despite her prickly personality, Alice Cooper was a respected Northside citizen, and so her words carried weight with her affluent kinsfolk who ate up her pieces on the Southsiders, word by word. It would be fair to suggest that for most of those who were at the riots, their scathing hatred of Fangs Fogarty was in part due to the rhetoric Alice Cooper had spewed, especially in posting an ambiguous video of him with Midge in her dressing room shortly before her demise.

Although they had a tough exterior, on the inside the Serpents were scared for their lives, and for Fangs’. They were used to abuse and used to being classed as outcasts because they were born on the wrong side of town; a lot of them knew no different. But this was unlike anything they’d ever experienced- no one had ever wished death on them. And yet here they were, desperately trying to push their way towards the light to save themselves from a fate like Midge’s.

From the right a protester charged at Sweet Pea, trying to get through the barricade to Fangs, practically frothing at the mouth in anticipation of getting his hands on the young Serpent. Sweet Pea shouldered him in the face, contemplating stopping to throw a punch at the entitled stranger, but he knew that if he left Fangs’ side for even a second, he’d be torn apart by the mob. Sweet Pea could not be a weak link in Fangs’ only source of protection, otherwise he’d never forgive himself for what could happen to his best friend. They needed each other and Sweet Pea wasn’t going to let the mob get to him without a fight.

From inside the human shield every single one of Fangs’ senses had dulled. The shouting had faded into a ringing in his ear, his hands felt like static, his vision was blurred and all he could smell and taste was smoke. But deep down beneath his obscured senses he was scared. Scared that he would never go back home to his Mum, scared that his friends would grow up without him, scared that his family would have to plan his funeral before his life had really even started. His legs had turned to jelly and the only thing keeping him moving was his pack of Serpents willing him forward towards salvation.

When the Serpents broke through the last of the protesters, they were exhausted. Many had scratches and bruises up their arms, FP sporting a particularly nasty scratch across his right cheek that had already began to weep, dotted with blood. The group panted and heaved, checking Fangs over before piling onto their motorbikes ready to go back to Sunnyside Trailer Park, the only place they felt safe in their town.

Fangs clambered onto the back of Sweet Pea’s bike, his breath quaking and hands shaking as he held on ready for the ride back to the Southside. Sweet Pea glanced back, looking at his paled friend before he gave him a look of reassurance. They often exchanged looks, but this one was different. It was panic, relief, brotherly love, hope and anguish all wrapped up into one, brooding exchange. Sweet Pea turned his attention back to the road and revved his engine, pulling away and racing home to get Fangs out of this situation and back to his family.

The ride home was quick, although for Fangs it felt like hours. The roads were littered with broken glass and cars on fire, windows were boarded up and covered in spray paint, the product of sheer anger at him. Riverdale resembled chaos. The convoy of bikes passed Pop’s and the neon sign which usually washed the town in a warm red glow, radiated a glow that was menacing and hell-like. Fangs wanted nothing more than to go back a week, to a time when he could sit in a booth with his friends and gorge on burgers without the fear of someone throwing a brick through a window at him. Those days seemed so long ago now, almost like they’d never even happened.

By comparison to the scene outside of the Sheriff’s Office, Sunnyside seemed like paradise. It was quiet, familiar, safe. Within an instant Fangs’ Mum, Maria, erupted from his trailer, the rumble of the bikes signifying that the group had returned. She stood in her slippers and dressing gown, the cold night air nipping at her skin. Fangs’ head snapped towards her figure, tears lining his eyes as his feet carried him towards her.

Their embrace settled Fangs’ stomach and unsteady hands as he clutched at her like his life depended on it. “My boy,” she breathed quietly, relief washing over her. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

Fangs couldn’t muster any words in response, knowing that if he tried to say anything all that would come out would be a choked sob, and so instead he just stood holding her trying to regain some courage. Everything he did was for her and yet in this moment he felt like he couldn’t do anything at all other than be in her arms.

The familiar rumble of a motorcycle broke the silence of the moment and FP stepped off of his bike, his brows knitted in concern. He shook out his hair before approaching Fangs, slapping him on the back with a fatherly smile. He’d stayed behind to make sure the boys got away smoothly and to assess the situation after they’d left. Damage control, he’d called it.

“I’m glad you’re okay, kid,” he began, ruffling Fangs’ hair and sending a nod of approval to his Mum for getting him home safely. “But don’t get too comfortable. There’s a group of protesters from the station on their way here, led by your Bulldog pals from school.”

Fangs’ heart dropped. He’d brought protestors to the heart of the Southside community. The Northside was a mess, broken and battered by the protesters who had ruined their own half of the town- God knows what they would do to the Southside where they had no regard for the people or the property. Profanities and curses were littered from the mouths of the other Serpents, with Sweet Pea’s hands closing into tight fists. The Northsiders had taken everything out from underneath them, made their daily lives that bit worse, and yet they wanted to come to Serpents territory and pick a fight? All of the Serpents knew that that could get ugly.

“Topaz,” Fangs shouted, gaining the attention of not only the pink haired girl, but the rest of the group. “You need to take my Mum somewhere safe, she can’t be here when they get here.”

Protests came from both women who wanted to stay and protect their homes, but Fangs wouldn’t take no for an answer, thinking only of protecting them from whatever was about to happen on their home soil. If things were going to get as ugly as he knew they could, he didn’t want either of them to be collateral damage, especially at the hands of Northsiders who were out for his blood.

“Tones, I’m asking you as my friend, please take her somewhere away from here- to Pop’s or something where I know she’ll be safe,” he turned his attention to his Maria, addressing her eye to eye, his voice dropping to a soft plead. “I know you want to stay but if anything were to happen to you, I would never forgive myself. If I go with you, they’re gonna tear this whole place apart to find me and I can’t let these guys lose everything they’ve got because I ran away from fate. Please Mum, I’ll be okay. But right now, I need you to be okay too and I can only be sure of that if you go with Toni.”

Maria’s eyes filled with tears and as she dropped her head into a small nod, pulling her son into a tight hug, internally willing him to just survive. Truth be told, she didn’t want to leave him, or for him to leave her, but the look in his eyes as he begged her to go was too much for her. She placed a kiss on the crown of his head and held him by the shoulders as she took one last look at him. “Call me as soon as you can, I’ll be waiting ready to come home to you.”

It wasn’t long before the women had whisked themselves off into the night in hopes of finding somewhere safer out of the chaos. The reality of what was about to ensue settled on the remaining Serpents. They had a whole community here of people who already had so little, and yet the entitled folk from the other side of the town were about to descend upon them like locusts and try to take even more.

FP went door to door, waking up as many families as he could. He knew the mob was close- he’d passed them not five minutes ago and they were half way to the trailer park. He knew he wouldn’t be able to wake everyone before they got there if he was doing it by himself. He shouted to the other Serpents to start banging on doors, knocking until they opened up and groggy snakes appeared in the doorway, scratching their heads and yawning, blissfully unaware of what was about to happen.

“They’re coming,” FP announced, his voice full of disgust as he began to pace around. “The Northsiders are coming for Fangs, and they’re coming here to our homes to get him. Now we all swore an oath to look after our own and to stand together- obviously we are going to fight to protect you and everything that you all have, but if you want to come out here and stand by our sides, it would be an honour to show these Northsiders off of our property with you all.”

By now the Serpents could hear the hum of the mob in the distance and they were beginning to become antsy. They didn’t know what their Northside rivals were hoping to achieve by coming to their front doorstep, but things were not going to end well if they overstayed their welcome.

As the other Serpents were mentally preparing themselves for the worst-case scenario of an all-out war, Fangs was beginning to panic. All of this was because he’d got himself caught up with Midge, and now the entire town was coming for him. He wanted to defend himself, but he knew one wrong move would incriminate him even more. Everything he did from this point on had to be done with the upmost precision and thought behind it.

The Serpents slithered to the boundary of Sunnyside as the mob approached, Bulldogs leading the pack in their letterman armour, Reggie Mantle taking pride of place at the head of the group with a nasty scowl on his face.

“What do you want boys?” FP called out as the group stopped a few feet from them, chests puffed out with a look of danger dancing across their faces. He wanted to defuse the situation and move them on without an issue, but he knew that if the other Serpents could sense blood in the water, they would strike.

“We want him,” Reggie spat back, his eyes narrowing on Fangs who was stood towards the back of the pack, hoping not to be seen.

“No can do, boy’s innocent. That’s not up for negotiation. Now go home to your parents before I have to call them to come and collect you.”

“He killed my girlfriend,” Moose sneered, using anger to cover how utterly broken he was by the situation. Midge was the single best thing that had happened to him, and in a few short days he would be burying her. The pair were the ‘it’ couple of Riverdale and it had all been snatched from him in one fell swoop. Inside he was reeling, but outside he looked like a bull ready to charge at a red flag.

“Moose, I know Midge is gone and I can’t begin to think about how you’re feeling, but do you really think she’d want to see you doing this when no one’s even been charged?” Jughead chimed in, stepping forward to try and reason with the boy who he could clearly see was struggling. He knew that deep down Moose was only here because Reggie told him that it would make him feel better, not because it was the right thing to do.

“Get her name out of your mouth, snake,” Reggie bit back, taking a step towards Jughead as his brows furrowed in anger and his hands balled into fists.

“Shut the hell up Mantle and take a step back,” Sweet Pea ordered firmly, putting an instinctive protective arm in front of Jughead as he internally begged Reggie to give him an excuse to break in his new brass knuckles with the Bulldog’s jaw. Sweet Pea had never seen eye to eye with Jughead. The son of FP Jones had swanned in and assumed a position of importance without even proving himself and that irked the inky teen, but he knew better than to let personal issues rear their head in a situation where they had to act like a pack.

“Or what?” Reggie spat back, shrugging and looking towards his Bulldog companions in solidarity.

“Or I’ll put you down, mutt,” Sweet Pea had a razor sharp and calculated voice, his eyes narrowing as he clenched and unclenched his fists. He finally stood at full height, looking down his nose at the group of hostile Northsiders with a grimace of disgust.

Reggie’s face contorted into a something grotesquely furious and he almost threw the first punch, instead barely holding himself back. He wanted the Serpents to make the first move so that he could justify his actions as self-defence. He’d spent far too many nights talking to Sheriff Keller about his behaviour and had finally worked out that if he provoked them into fighting, he might get let off with a caution and no phone call home to his parents.

But it was Moose Mason who made the first move, charging into a teenage Serpent fist first. He wondered if fighting would help him to feel anything other than empty and like a part of him had died with Midge on that stage.

The two sides clashed together almost instantaneously after that. Sweet Pea wound his arm back and swung with all his might, barely catching Reggie’s left cheek as the Bulldog jerked his head back, just out of the way of the brass-clad fist. Sweet Pea may have had strength on his side, but Reggie was quicker and nimbler. Reggie pounded at Sweet Pea’s stomach, winding him, before a junior Serpent charged at him and knocked him into the dirt of the inroad into Sunnyside. Sweet Pea gave his junior a quick nod of thanks before embedding the steel toe cap of his boot as hard into Reggie’s stomach as he could, eliciting a choked groan from him as his body shunted at the impact.

Jughead got himself between Moose and a Serpent, grabbing the torn-up Bulldog by the scruff of his collar to try and reason with him. Moose grimaced at Jughead, pushing him off of him with all of his frustration-brooding strength. The beanie wearing teen stumbled back, barely stopping himself from falling into the dirt.

As he managed to recover from the shove, a Bulldog he recognised as Huxley approached him, wringing his fists ready to fight. Jughead backed up, trying to persuade him that this wasn’t a good idea and soon he found himself in a corner with nowhere to go.

���I’ve always wanted to do this,” Huxley started, taking a step towards Jughead and closing the space as he cracked his knuckles, his voice and face equally menacing. “But you’ve always had someone to protect you. Not now though, and I’m gonna enjoy this.”

As Huxley wound his arm back, a pristine blade came against his throat and a petite arm wrapped around the top of his head, holding him still as burgundy nails dug into the skin of his forehead and yanked his head back, exposing the soft flesh of his neck. Relief washed over Jughead has he saw his sister Jubilee pressing her switch blade harder against the fullback’s throat with a look of danger in her eyes, daring him to move even an inch.

“You get the fuck out of here, now,” Jubilee murmured harshly into his ear, eliciting a panicked nod from the football player. “If I ever see you here, or near Jughead again, you won’t be walking away next time. Am I understood?”

Huxley frantically shouted yes, his voice a panicked beg, and reluctantly Jubilee let him go, pushing him out of the trailer park as she clenched her grip on her knife a little tighter. She and Jughead exchanged a brief look of thanks, no time to stop and talk. Had Jubilee not been there, Jughead wasn’t sure how he would have ended up, but he knew it wouldn’t have been pretty. 

The pair scanned the chaos in front of them, seeing Serpents old and young fighting Northsiders, some of whom they knew and some they didn’t. Jughead ran towards the Serpents who he could see were hurt, ready to help get them away from the clash and towards the first aid trailers, and Jubilee went fist first into a group of women who she knew her fellow male Serpents wouldn’t fight with, ready to give them a reason to never come back to the Southside.

Fangs couldn’t believe what was happening. It was as if in the blink of an eye, hell had descended upon him. Around him, Serpents and protesters alike were hobbling away with broken noses, blood pouring from their faces. Some had been so badly winded that they couldn’t move or had slashed and bruised. Others were still going, including Sweet Pea, who Fangs couldn’t take his eyes off of. Sweet Pea was tearing through Bulldogs and Northsiders like there was no tomorrow, having finished with Reggie Mantle. He was throwing fists wildly, daring anyone to challenge him. The giant Serpent looked like a wreck. His fists were covered in a mixture of Northsider blood and his own from where the brass knuckles had cut him from the force of his own fists, and he was already sporting matching black eyes.

“Fangs!” FP shouted, bloodied and bruised as he took a punch to the gut from an older protester. “Go, hide!”

Fangs turned on his feet and ran deep into Sunnyside through the fighters and towards his own trailer. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Hot Dog cowering next to an armchair, sounds of terrified whining coming from him, and another pang of guilt flooded his body. He stopped in his tracks and whistled for the shaggy dog, willing him to come to him so that he could get him out of this battle zone before he got hurt.

To the left of Hot Dog, he spotted Kevin stood idly watching the interaction as he grasped a golf club, not really sure what do with himself. Fangs shot him a pleading look, hoping that he wouldn’t rat him out to the others he’d come with. Kevin contemplated his position momentarily before turning his head away, acting as if he’d never seen the wanted Serpent. Fangs picked up the terrified dog who was now at his feet, carrying on his frantic run towards his trailer. 

Once inside he locked the front door, putting Hot Dog under his bed and shutting his bedroom door as he sank to the floor in his living room with his head between his hands, exhaling shaky breaths, waiting for the fight to end. His head was spinning wildly, bones rattling and his chest felt impossibly tight, like his ribs were going to break any second. He was on the cusp of a panic attack, but he was trying with all his strength to keep it together for a little longer.

It wasn’t long before a violent banging started at the door. Someone must have seen him.

“Get out here Vixen killer!” A battered Reggie Mantle spluttered, only just recovering from being winded by the toe of Sweet Pea’s boot. “Either you get out here or I come in. You’ve got 10 seconds!”

Fangs began to panic, looking frantically for something to protect Hot Dog and himself with. But before he could find anything a brick crashed through his trailer window, shattered glass flying everywhere, nicking at his skin as he tried to shield his eyes. For a moment, he was thankful he’d shut the door and that Hot Dog was okay, but the relief he felt didn’t last long when he saw the end of Kevin’s 7-iron being used by Reggie to bash out the remaining glass so that he could get into the trailer through the window.

This it is, Fangs thought. He said a silent prayer for his Mum, hoping that after whatever was about to happen to him, she would be okay. He hoped the Serpents would look after her and that she’d have a good life. He hoped he’d been everything she’d wished for in a son and that he didn’t let her down. He hoped that even if he died at the hands of the Bulldogs right now, that she knew he was innocent.

His prayers were interrupted by a sound of salvation, the shrill siren of the Sheriff’s cruiser. A single warning gunshot rang out silencing the crowds and halting the fighting.

“Disperse!” Tom Keller shouted, causing most of the protesters to retreat away from the trailer park, a few lagging behind due to their injuries. Reggie quickly ducked away from the trailer, staggering back towards the Northside, hoping to not get caught by Tom or his own parents.

After a few moments, Fangs cautiously unlocked the door, cracking it and peaking his head out to see that the only people left were Serpents and the Kellers. He left Hot Dog in his room, not wanting him to cut his paws on the glass and went outside to see the damage. Fences had been kicked down, there was broken glass everywhere, the trailer park looked unrecognisable and most importantly it was littered with Serpents who were nursing injuries ranging from bruises and minor cuts, all the way to fractured eye sockets and major gashes.  

“Tom,” FP sighed with relief, slapping his old friend on the back. “Didn’t you resign?”

The older Keller let out a hoarse laugh, running a hand through his hair. “I did, but I haven’t given back the cruiser yet. But I’m glad I didn’t because it looks like you guys needed some help over here and I didn’t see anyone else coming to give you that help.”

There was a low chorus of ‘thank you’s from the Serpents, old and young, who were all thankful that the night’s debacle was over. Generally, the Serpents didn’t like fighting, but they would if they needed to defend themselves and their honour. Tonight’s riot night fight, however, had been the worst fight many of the Serpents had ever taken part in, and they, for once, were thankful to hear the wail of the cruiser.

----

The next morning the Serpents were up, cleaning the mess from last night.

Sweet Pea was sporting two black eyes and matching bruised knuckles with deep, bandaged cuts, his ribs sore from Reggie’s punches to the gut, painted with bruises varying in colour. Jughead had escaped unscathed thanks to Jubilee, however his father wasn’t so lucky as FP wore a badly split and swollen lip, two black eyes and a scratch across his face with pride.

When Toni and Maria arrived back at the trailer park, they both felt thankful that Fangs had insisted on sending them away for the night. The state of the trailer park and of the Serpents themselves told them exactly how bad thing had gotten and it was worse than either of them could have imagined.

Maria had been inside cleaning up the glass from her smashed window when the familiar uniformed devil stepped into the trailer park, his eyes narrowing on Fangs as a smug smirk enveloped his face. He had him, finally.

“Fangs Fogarty,” Sheriff Minetta started, pulling his handcuffs from his belt upon his approach. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Midge Klump. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense.”

[mrnerdteacher]

The Way Splatoon Addresses “Othering” is Noteworthy and Inspiring

WARNING: This post contains spoilers for the Octo Expansion

Right from the outset, Splatoon was a series that was destined to be considered “fringe.” It was on a console very few people played. It was an online multiplayer game with no in-game chat. It lacked blood, or even bullets. It was a new IP, in a style no one had ever seen before. And despite its devoted following and growing popularity, my little brother, a Call of Duty lifer, refuses to touch it.

It should come as no surprise then, that a colorful (some might even say “fabulous”) game like this became a safe space for the LGBTQ community. Once the series really took off with the success of the Nintendo Switch, Inkopolis became a haven for young kids to come out of the closet and those questioning their gender identity to explore roles outside the expectations their real lives may have for them.

And sure, there has been some pushback. Some players just want to see posts about the game, and are clearly made uncomfortable or even annoyed by people openly speaking their truth and claiming ownership over a shared game space. But due to Nintendo’s dogged refusal to let people communicate with other players, bullying is kept at an absolute minimum. You can’t even see how many “Yeah’s” a post gets, and the only way to downvote is to report something for violating the terms of use. The only posts that get “seen” are the ones most people like, so the result is a truly democratic social media platform in which bullies are not just silenced but eventually turned invisible by a more compassionate playerbase.

However, all of this is a reflection of the players, and that is only one half of a game’s community. The game developers themselves have tackled the concept of “fringe” culture with its recently released Octo Expansion, and their approach was fascinating and brave.

As the DLC was released, Pearl commented on all the people hanging out in Inkopolis Square sporting “weird new haircuts.” Marina was visibly uncomfortable, because she (and the players) know that these are in fact Octolings (just like Marina). Is Pearl truly race blind, or is she refusing to acknowledge the arrival of the new immigrants into her city? If you know the backstory, it would be no surprise if some in Inkopolis reacted negatively to their arrival.

As most of you know, Octarians are a race of creature that fought against the Inklings for dominance in the first Great Turf War, and after their defeat were banished (or retreated?) deep underground. DJ Octavio tries over and over again to steal the great zapfish as a resource for his people, as they are running out of power and his society is literally crumbling as a result. Despite this somewhat sympathetic backstory, Octolings have always been one-note villains. They are the Nazis in “Dunkirk”: faceless, imposing, and nothing but a threat.

The Octo Expansion changes all that by letting you play as Agent 8, who was freed from her oppressor’s brainwashing by the soul-cleansing power of Squid Sisters rock. The Octo Expansion follows her/his fight for freedom, as a strange voice over a telephone tasks her with completing “tests” to find four holy relics known as “thangs.” Only then will Agent 8 be allowed to enter “the promised land”, which we all assume to be Inkopolis. By collecting little collectible erasers, Agent 8 reclaims her lost memories, and we learn that she is a sensitive, poetic person with anxiety about being accepted and meeting her idols. Plenty of shooter series have allowed you to play as the enemy (Halo, Killzone, etc), but few made me care about them as much as the Octo Expansion.

Throughout the course of the game you are able to read entries from an online chat room. Here, Pearl learns that Marina is not only an Octoling, but a former engineering prodigy for the enemy. Marina is anxious how Pearl and society at large will treat her when they learn of her past and her true identity, invoking the feelings of “coming out” that many Splatoon fans struggled with irl.

However, Pearl not only doesn’t care that her best friend is an “other”, but is actively excited to be exposed to the Octoling culture! She doesn’t just tolerate differences, she celebrates them. That Pearl is also a “white girl” from a wealthy family just makes her compassion more endearing, especially when we learn that she initially lost fans by teaming up with an “exotic girl” like Marina, and that she didn’t care in the slightest. Their friendship truly transcends all labels, and that’s amazing. Even Captain Cuttlefish, the salty old war veteran who openly distrusts Octolings, comes around and finds friendship with Agent 8 and Marina through their shared love of music.

Cut to the end of the game, in which we learn that the sinister telephone is actually an AI built by an ancient human scientist. His goal is to literally blend different species together (gross) to create one genetically perfect race to inherit the Earth. However, his goal of ethnic cleansing is replaced by ambitions of genocide when he learns that Octolings and Squidkids are warring tribes, despite being nearly identical in terms of DNA. Marina and Agent 8, two Octolings and former enemies of Inkopolis, are pivotal in the battle to save the city, and when the DLC ends, all signs point to them returning to an accepting, peaceful world without borders.

But is that really how the player base would feel? Splatoon 2 bravely put the compassion of its community to the test with a global splatfest: Squid vs Octopus. Tensions were high going into this one, because it felt personal in a way that “Pulp vs No Pulp” never could. In fact, according to Splatfest Law, one race would be considered legally superior. Yikes.

But then the actual Splatfest rolled around, and the lobbies were chock full of the most compassionate posts promoting peace and harmony between races. The love that permeated this competitive game space was nothing short of inspiring.

No one seemed to care who won; we all just liked playing together. And in the end, the Squidkids reigned supreme (despite team Octopus being more popular), but nobody gloated. No one was salty. Life, and the Splatoon community, went back to normal.

https://twitter.com/TwotoneStrauss/status/1020710444258881537/video/1

Octolings are here to stay, and for all that represents, I think that’s just lovely.

[whilereadingandwalking]

Six Underrated Feminist Books

These are books that I adore. And don’t get me wrong—I know you’re sitting there going, Virginia Woolf? Toni Morrison? Underrated? But these are four classics that I feel don’t get as much attention as they should plus two newer releases that I plug whenever I have the opportunity. Hooray for excellent female authors! 

(Note: Many of these books, although not all, grapple with the dystopian experience of being a woman, and have content warnings for things including but not limited to sexual assault, a mass shooting, and violence against women. Please message me if you would like to know the full content warnings of a text, and I can accommodate the best I can.)

Orlando by Virginia Woolf Remember when Woolf wrote a book about non-binary, gender rebellion that was also a satire revealing how gender roles were rooted in society’s treatment of women rather than any inherent biology all the way back in 1928? Remember when during the surrealist moment that Orlando transitions into a woman in her sleep, Woolf consciously and explicitly transitions in the text from ‘he’ to ‘they’ to ‘she’ pronouns? Not enough people do...but they should.

The Female Man by Joanna Russ Back in the 1970s, feminist science fiction was its own genre, later pushed out or rebranded to accommodate the white male takeover of sci fi. Joanna Russ was one of feminist sci fi’s goddesses. I read this book in my 1970s Feminist Sci Fi class in college (which was exactly as cool as it sounds like it was). It’s a strange book that asks more questions than it answers, but it investigates the myriad versions of sexist dystopia and tries to think about what a feminist utopia could look like.

Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy This was my favorite read from my 1970s Feminist Sci Fi class. Piercy was not playing around with this one. It pictures a future utopia through the mind of a older, mentally ill woman of color, contrasting it first with her present (cast as a dystopia) as well as with a possible parallel future that is a dystopia extending from her present circumstances. This dystopia is immensely readable while somehow tackling everything. 

Paradise by Toni Morrison This is my favorite Morrison, and the one I had her sign in November. A group of women have formed their own, matriarchal society in a house just out of town. But their freedom and the way they live ‘threatens’ the structure of the patriarchal town down the road. It’s a twisting and turning tale that I never wanted to end. (TW: It begins and ends with violence against women.)

Things We Lost in the Fire: Stories by Mariana Enríquez  This short story collection left me sleepless for a week, but it was worth it. Enríquez’s stories are gothic horror surrealist tales that are truly scary, but the true root of their power is that they all pull from real-life horrors such as poverty, homelessness, verbal abuse, gaslighting, and more. The stories are translated from the Spanish. 

The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne Valente When a woman in a comic has her career pushed aside, suffers a violent death or assault, or has her story put on the back burner, in order to privilege the story of a male hero, that character is “refrigerated.” Here, Valente tells the stories of the women who have been weakened, assaulted, killed, or left behind in order to give a male hero his glory or tragic backstory. This one will be especially poignant for people familiar with DC and Marvel storylines. 

[lastgenpodcast]

The Incredibles - A Women Centered Film, Written by a Man

Fourteen years ago, a superhero movie was released and has been one of the best family superhero movies to date - The Incredibles.  While the film is very much centered on Mr. Incredible's journey, there is also an element in the film that may be overlooked- that of female roles.  Despite being written by a man and coming out in 2004, The Incredibles is very much a woman-centric film. Let’s dig in a bit.

One of the main issues this movie tackles is gender equality and it does this better than most animated movies.  At the start of the movie we see Mrs. Incredible, aka Elastigirl, as a superhero in her own right. The movie demonstrates that it is possible for her keep her own identity even while wearing additional hats as a wife and mother - she never allows those hats to overtake who she was in the opening of the film- they simply add to who she is. This can be a tough thing for women, as it is so easy to put your family’s needs before your own (even down to the simple act of not putting makeup on to leave the house because the kids/the schedule won’t allow you to).  We see that Mrs. Incredible keeps the family together - the kids are taken care of, the house is unpacked and cleaned, and she even tries to make sure her husband is involved in the kids’ lives. You get the impression that if Mrs. Incredible were out of the picture, the family would crumble into chaos (which makes the premise for Incredibles 2 very interesting). She is the epitome of the strength that Mr. Incredible is so fearful of not having enough of, which makes his fear of losing his family or having them injured so crippling to his actions.  Mrs. Incredible only has one moment of vulnerability, which she is quickly snapped out of by her friend Edna Mode (a true girlfriend indeed). While the situation of tracking down her husband (and having her children stow away on the plane heading into danger) would typically be one to send many of us into a panic attack with anxiety up the wazoo, she is calm and collected. The writers don’t put her into the “typical” woman mold - thankfully.  Instead, she is shown that she was, in fact, stronger than her husband - demonstrating that physical strength will not always be enough.

The movie also addresses other themes facing girls/women, including being confident in yourself, as we learn from Violet.  She is like many females, especially young teens, who don’t necessarily like who they are and/or are not comfortable with who they are because they don’t fit a certain mold (the pretty popular type). Of course once she accepts who she is, she excels as both a superhero, a sister, a daughter, and even a teenager (date with Tony). While this is not necessarily a theme only for the modern age, it is quite appropriate for the modern female.  It seems that only recently have girls been encouraged to be themselves, whether this pertains to body shape/appearance or being comfortable pursuing a career or a family. Violet is shown that it is important to love herself and embrace her “flaws” as these are not necessarily things to hide, but things to embrace. Once she allows herself to do this, she is free to just be herself, which is more than good enough.

Additionally, the movie has your typical woman side-kick in Mirage, but she does not stay in that "typical" role for very long. While she initially does what Syndrome wants, at the first turn where he shows his true colors, she is willing to give up on him and side with The Incredibles.  The film does not let this woman become another dumb female, made stupid by her feelings towards a man in power. This small, simple role shows the greater depths of how a female character can be better written and better handled. 

So as you can see, while The Incredibles has many themes, many of them that are focused on strong women embracing themselves and their choices - which is very interesting as this movie was written by a man.  This same man is the force behind the sequel. Interestingly, the sequel also has many female leads and themes centered around these female characters. I want to briefly discuss The Incredibles 2 here- I’ll try to avoid major spoilers but if you haven’t seen it, you should do that first. 

The Incredibles 2 begins where the first one left off, so the audience doesn’t have to spend time playing catch up in our characters’ lives- which also means that the characters haven’t had time to grow/change without the viewer knowing. This movie, as shown in previews, focuses on Mrs. Incredible, or as she is more frequently called throughout the movie - Elastigirl - and her own dealings of being a working mother. While the movie plays on many parenting tropes, we see how things were handled quite well by Mrs. Incredible.  Now, I’m sure I will hear the comment that, well, she didn’t have to deal with Jack Jack’s emerging powers as well.  However, she was able to handle Dash’s school issues (a bit more since he was a more of a troublemaker in the first movie), Violet’s constant insecurity, and Jack Jack, who was younger, thus needing more attention. She also had to contend with the issue of her husband’s possible infidelity/secretive nature.  I think it’s fair to say that both parents had their stay-at-home parenting job equally as difficult; yet, Mrs. Incredible never seemed as ruined as Mr. Incredible does in this movie.  Once again we are shown Mrs. Incredible’s extraordinary inner strength- in the first movie, it was her ability to handle the switch from superhero to stay at home mom; now it’s from stay at home mom back to superhero, but one with a family to think of and worry about while she is out on her missions. The movie once again emphasizes how well Mrs. Incredible can handle multiple responsibilities.

Another component to this movie is Edna Mode. She embodies those women who focus on career over family - something she clearly indicates is her own decision. However, we are also given the glimpse into her life where she is able to have her chance to babysit Jack Jack. Despite having little-to-no maternal instincts, she is able to succeed in both competently taking care of the baby, as well as designing a very unique supersuit for him (in one night as she emphasizes). Here we are given the character who is able to enjoy her career life, as well as some of the mothering that is inherent in every woman. She is not simply a character for quippy phrases and humor - she is an example of how a woman can pursue her career without feeling that she lost something because she decided not to become a mother.

We can't discuss this movie without going back to Violet. Just a moment before this movie, she had grown so much and developed into a, somewhat, confident teenager. Yet, much of that is tossed into the wind once the second movie starts and she is back to being this awkward girl trying to find her place in the world. What makes Violet's character great is that she does not revert back to being the shy wall-flower, but now has to grow even more. I find she is one of the most relatable characters because she has so much thrown at her, yet she does not back down and retreat. She continues to stand up and face the world, as crazy as it is. Perhaps this is because of who her mother is and the qualities she has learned from watching Helen throughout her life.

Speaking of watching Helen, we also get introduced to another female character Voyd. And while we don't get to know much about her beyond her superpowers, we do get the glimpse into what happens when females have strong, powerful females to look up to. Voyd was in a similar situation as Violet- she has powers but cannot use them for fear of being called out as a super.  Having Elastigirl once again come forward and show how great being a super can be gives Voyd the confidence to be her true self. I feel like this character is there not only for women, but for anyone out there who is uncomfortable in their own skin and only becomes confident once they see someone else like them become successful and loved. Again, not something solely for the females in the audience, but something they can connect with very deeply. 

Overall, these movies are superb. I think the closer you look at them, the more it becomes spectacular that they are able to say so much about society, particularly about women, despite the fact that they were both written by a man.  Fourteen years is quite a long time for a sequel, but it was worth the wait as we are able to continue this journey with our favorite superheroes - especially our favorite super mom.