#perfectly satisfied with his own horrific actions

[mooncrestedwaters]

Rafayel Partner/BF/Husband Headcanon's

🫧Notes; Back on my bullshit

I did some headcanons for just Rafayel on his own and decided to add some on what I think he'd be like in a relationship

Should I do some smutty ones later on? 🤔

🦪 Being Rafayel's partner means you need to be his muse in tow. Get ready for sitting still for hours on end as he paints you until he's satisfied

🦪 You will invade every aspect of his thoughts, morning, noon and night and he has to practically LEASH himself to not text or call you because "Hey y/n, I saw a flower, it's your favorite!", "hey y/n, what's your thoughts on (insert random obscure topic here)?", "Hey y/n would you still love me if I were a worm?", "hey y/n, lets mix random things in a blender and drink it!"

🦪 Despite his bubbly nature and eagerness to pester you and not give you a moments rest, he is horrifically shy around you.

🦪 One miniscule touch and he's acting like he's been deprived of water for decades and you're the prettiest oasis

🦪 He'll practically rub his cheek against your hand, one hand secured tightly around your wrist to keep it in place and the other around your waist keeping you flush up against him as he begs for you to pay him an attention

🦪 "Y/NNNNNNNNN~! COME GIVE ME ATTENTION!" x1000

🦪 Play with his hair and he becomes goo, melts into you like putty and his eyes become misty with how much he enjoys it

🦪 Likes to treat you as his personal dress-up dolly, especially adorning you in any colours that match himself or the sea he loves just as much as you

🦪 He's not stupidly possessive....but he is with you and shows it in a multitude of ways;

- Buying your perfume, he knows what scents you like and for damn sure what smells best on you

- He knows your measurements and can pick out your size perfectly to flatter you

- Gives you jewelry with his colours/initial on them

- Does your make-up and hair because he wants his personal artist touch displayed on you

🦪 Sucker for matching things, will roll his eyes about it but he has a special shelf for all your matching things and has to make sure your matching mugs are used at the same time with you (or he will get pouty, like how dare you use matching mugs no. 56 without him)

🦪 His phone background is you, he puts on his socials that he's taken with your initial and a '🔒' beside it

🦪 Gods spare the poor soul who inquires or asks about you;

First, he'll be suspicious, sussing out the other party to make sure your safety is protected and then the moment he has verified the person isn't a threat the loving gushing words come out like a dam broken and he literally cannot shut the fuck up about you

🦪 Even when you first started dating he'd refer to you as his 'Wife/Husband'

🦪 Has a notes folder with everything about you, from your favorite colour to what your allergies are

🦪 God forbid he sees you cry. His first priority is to comfort and coddle you in his arms, tightly squeezing you in his arms and brushing you hair with his fingers

If he finds out the reason why you're upset is because of someones actions towards you then that person will hear about it and be paid a special visit

🦪 Best at massages and more than happy to give them

🦪 Part of the pretty hands club, art creating art fr

🦪 In public spaces he needs to have some form of skinship or to be as close to y/n as possible (he will pout and sulk if not)

🦪 Loves to paint y/n while they're asleep

🦪 Has gotten huffy and painted whatever colour was one his brush on y/n (cue play fighting of throwing paint at each other)

🦪 Hates to cook, will cook is y/n asks for it

🦪 Best partner for when y/n is sick/has that time of the month;

He knows ALL of your favorite snacks, what brand medicine/sanitary pads you use and what gifts to get you to cheer you up

🦪 Love languages is Words of Affirmation, Gift Giving and Quality Time

🦪 Favorite date nights are when he can be creative or use his hands to make something;

- Date night where you paint together

- Date nights building lego together (he calls it childish yet keeps buying the sets)

- Date night where you cook together

🦪 When you're sad, one of his ways to cheer you up is to turn on 2000s pop hits and give y/n a private show

- Backstreet Boys? Nope, Rafayel has dressed himself in all white and serenades you

- NSYNC? Nope, Rafayel put two minute noodles on his head as you cackle

- Britney Spears? Nah, it's Rafayel Bitch (You still have pictures of him in a pleated mini skirt and his short hair with two miniscule twin tails)

He takes the brunt of the embarrassment to see your face streaked with tears of joy instead of tears of grief

🦪 Banter Banter Banter, doesn't fucking stop until he gets worked up enough, grabs your cheeks with one hand and kisses you passionately

🦪 Y/N: Oh, thats cute!

Rafayel: *opens wallet*

🦪 Has shown up to your work with flowers and gifts before (Tara won't let you live it down)

🦪 Nicknames for you are;

- Princess/Prince

- My Muse

- Little Fishy

- Darling

- Pretty Baby

- Gorgeous Girl/Boy

🦪 Did a whole exhibit with paintings he made because of you and refused to sell any of them

To him, the world gets to see you but will never own a part of you

[toastedcatbread]

I'm sorry, but I don't really find "At the Altar" to be very sexy or cute at all. I've been thinking for weeks how to phrase that doesn't sound like outright bashing, so I'll do my best. First of all, Cloud becoming blessed without even realizing it (lacking CONSENT), can't remember if he was even a child, and then Sephiroth coming around to collect his 'due' in sexual favors is just coersive and cringy. And later, Sephiroth outright killing everyone in his village because reasons??? and Cloud's all like, "Oh ALL RiGHT but don't you do it again~" is just?? mindboggling? Cloud would do anything for his people, for the ones he cares about, and sparing just a few isn't doing Cloud any favors. He'd want to save everyone he could, even if they weren't his biggest fans. There's a huge imbalance of power here that doesn't jive with 'loving, consenting relationships'. Cloud is subjected to painful, unrealistic sex because he has no CHOICE; and therefore, Sephiroth can't just fuck the living bejesus out of Cloud and woops, that's how love happens. It's unbelievable, it's really kind of rapey, and it really isn't for me. For a reader, I approached this story "Porn Without Plot", and that's fine, but there is some semblance of plot here, though it's so poorly presented that it's painful to read and it rarely deviates from, 'Sephiroth does something bad, but it all goes away because Cloud just loves getting dicked until he can't see straight' and because he's such a subserviant individual - which, canonically, he isn't. He wants to live for himself, in the end, find his own identity. I really hope you consider wrapping up the story soon, because even as I can't stand it, I'm hoping that somehow, really hope, that Cloud realizes how much he's been manipulated and gets away from Seph, because this is not the basis of a healthy relationship, at all, and it frightens and upsets me to my very core.

Sefikura, as a whole, has never been healthy or cute or wholesome. In canon, it's presented as a manipulative, dark, gritty, and horrendously co-dependent in a way no one can call healthy.

Listen, anon, you're entitled to your opinion on At the Altar just as anyone else is. I didn't write the story to explore any deep plot or dynamic. It's not meant to be fun or cute. It's really just a fantasy theme that I'm writing to practice writing sex, which I personally find difficult.

However, you're bleeding "real world" into fantasy at this point. No one today would disagree that, should something like this happen in real life, it would be horrific. Of COURSE, Cloud isn't subservient in canon, especially not to Sephiroth. Of COURSE he's trying to find his own identity in canon. They don't have gods or blessings or offerings in the actual FF7 storyline. In this world where humans identify themselves as "followers", things are different. Cloud is different. It's an AU and, at some point, it will deviate from "normal" Cloud's actions.

Stop comparing fanfiction with canon or real life. AUs exist as a genre and people write them to explore outside the box of canon. You don't have to like it, nor do you have to read it. I understand that you may like some of my other works, or maybe you don't, but I'm not really writing for clout or popularity in the fandom. If it's not to your taste, I'm sure there's plenty of other works out there that can scratch that itch for you.

If I'm perfectly honest, there's thousands, maybe millions of people reading on AO3. How in the world is anyone supposed to write something that satisfies every single reader anyway? It's impossible. So I don't aim for that. It write for various reasons and At the Altar just happens to be me practicing porn. It's not meant to be realistic or true to canon.

[bookcub]

Lizzie Bennet Diaries and Fire Island Character Comparisons (2/3)

Mr. Bingley

onto our mr. bingley's. honestly charlie is cute but boring and quite dumb, whereas bings naivety is explained as a lack of confidence in his judgment and too trusting of the people closest to him. charlie fell flat, despite his great chemistry with howie. bing was indecisive because he was searching for himself and wasn't able to trust his own judgment, giving him more depth. charlie felt rather shallow. and i totally judge him for having a vapid, racist boyfriend. i understood bing while i found most of charlies choices infuriating and dumbfounding. charlie is probably my biggest issue with the movie, character wise that is.

Mr. Collins

both mr collins were vastly different, lbd's collins being misguided and annoying but more sympathetic, like an energetic and overenthusiastic puppy. seeing charlotte handle him is rewarding, a working relationship that was imbalanced and becomes more functional is an interesting arc for both characters, helping enrich charlotte's story. fire island's mr collins (aka the *cringe* rice queen) is just horrible and he is there to show us howie isnt in a good place and leads to a beautifully heartbreaking scene between howie and noah. fi mr collins is there to emphasize the racism of the setting and dehumanizes both noah and howie, while lbd mr collins has more of an arc and more well meaning. he is acknowledging both lizzie and charlottes skills by his business proposal. their function is completely different, and deliver vastly different messages and interpretations of mr collins. therefore, it does not feel fair to compare them as they execution is so vastly different and meant to be interpreted in vastly different ways.

Mr. Wickham

both george and dex served their purpose of initial charm and eventual horribleness. the key differences were in their relationships with lydia and luke. i found the climax of dex's demise more satisfying because we saw will and noah confront him. it was a triumphant moment in the narrative and as a watcher. but the emotional weight of georges betrayal hit harder because there was more build up to the betrayal and the fall out of lydias relationship with him. seeing lydia fall in love with wickham and seeing him use and manipulate her. .. . watching lydia breakdown still wrecks me after all this time. but again, the web series had more time to develop the characters and relationships than the movie. ultimately, i prefer lbd's george as he had a few moments to show how he manipulated the narrative and because of his ultimate betrayal and horrific treatment of lydia. he is a charming and despicable villain, reminding viewers that abusers can be appear nice but actually be harmful and destructive.

Caroline Bingley

both cooper and caroline are a merging of caroline bingley and anne de bourgh from the book, which is very good meshing of characters. it wouldn't make as much sense to add in another character in either situation and also sheds light on their antagonistic motivations. cooper is much more one note than caroline, but again this is due to the time constraints of the story. cooper felt more consistent than caroline and we saw more of his actions of actively sabotaging charlie and howie's relationship. caroline wins out slightly for me but cooper fits his role perfectly in fire island.

Georgiana Darcy

unfortunately there was no gigi equivalent besides a mention in fire island, an acceptable change but it would have been nice to meet more of wills friends and see another close relationship of his. a notable change is how the wickam's character is displayed in lbd and fire island. in lbd, his actions are not revealed as lizzie is respecting gigi's privacy but does share how his relationship with darcy unfolded. in fire island, no information besides a vague warning about dex is given from will to noah. again, with more time (and series!) gigi from lbd is a clear winner to me, although i feel an additional character could have added to overcrowding in fire island

hopefully i will get to our mr. darcies and lizzys in the near future!!

[sunderedstar]

things that I can't stop thinking about - the fact that the Aequitas trials probably convicted a bunch of innocent people en mass.

like don't get me wrong! I'm sure there were plenty of war crimes to go around! just look at the truth of the Wreckers. but when you examine how the tech behind Aequitas works, you need to remember that the person who invented and coded it...was Mesothulas.

and Mesothulas was never - subconsciously or otherwise - interested in the war or justice or anything like that. just look at his body of work: positive reinforcement prisons, spark extraction, Aequitas and Impetus, the anti-coercion device attached to Aequitas that demanded a willingly donated spark to unlock it, spark-concealing biodisguises, and ultimately his masterwork, his greatest success - Ostaros, an "artificial" life form.

I put quotes around artificial because Springer is real in every way that matters. Mesothulas used side projects for Prowl as a way to calculate and analyze emotion, and he successfully applied what he learned about the nature of the spark/soul to create new life.

and if you ask Tyrest, guilt is a key part of separates a person from a machine. his comparison is fundamentally flawed - Ten, as later established, is definitely a person and also a Legislator. but that's a) another meta entirely and b) part of the unreliability we establish in Tyrest as a judge.

so when Prowl asked for something to calculate guilt, Mestholas was probably more than happy to oblige. Perceptor explains that Aequitas uses algorithms to calculate guilt here:

based on Aequitas's calculations and the trials, Tyrest became convinced that the cold constructed mechs were inherently evil because somehow (borderline impossibly) every single defendant was cold constructed.

but then, word of Rung is that it's not nearly as clear cut as that. at the forcefield on the space bridge gate, something similar to Aequitas tech:

it detects guilt, but "not necessarily evidence of criminality." self-reproach. anguish. a guilty conscience. hell, someone who is just not happy with themselves might bounce right off. I don't think it's a coincidence that Rung's explanation for how guilt/emotion based technology works is juxtaposed with Tyrest's utter certainty that Aequitas was an infallible condemnation of the cold constructed bots he helped create.

I argue that severe enough PTSD and self hatred and survivor's guilt would all have been enough to trigger a guilty verdict from Aequitas. "I saw a member of my unit shoot a civilian, and I was five minutes old and so shocked. I didn't stop them in time, and it's haunted me ever since." bam, guilty.

I think it's far less likely that every cold con stuck into Aequitas was really guilty, and far more likely that all of them - especially the warborn MTOs, almost to a mech - were traumatized by being thrown into a horrific war from the moment they were born. they were defrosted and told to shoot or get shot, and it left indelible scars on their psyche from the second they became conscious. depression, despair...where would a machine like Aequitas have drawn the line? a lot of it may have just come down to how the person viewed themselves and their actions. none of them were at peace with themselves or what they'd done.

"Why is the computer so big?" Verity asks. probably because Mesothulas wanted to analyze motivation and guilt and feed all that incalculable data on the soul into the creation of Ostaros. what would he care if the machine he created to do it gave false positives all over the place because Cybertronians have a baseline collective PTSD as a species? for Mesothulas, it was only ever about making Prowl happy and creating new things, new ideas.

[relaxxattack]

Opinions on quackity?

Personally I think he deserves to kill but I understand that others disagree

let’s see if i can remember what i wanted to say about him earlier. (this is abt /ROLEPLAY)

first of all, i currently see him as a “bad guy doing bad things” (simplified). he very much targeted and manipulated most of the las nevadas crew into joining him, and he’s been point-blank torturing a guy for like months.

normally, for literally any villain character, i want then to get their comeuppance. because that’s what they���ve earned, narratively, and that’s how you make a satisfying story (although ofc it’s not always perfectly like that and stories can break expectations and perceptions and yada yada).

dream getting put in the prison is one of my favorite moments in all of dsmp. after all of those absolutely horrific acts he committed, having him get stuck in a trap of his own design? BEAUTIFUL. SPECTACULAR. i love that!

quackity, on the other hand, can’t really get ‘what’s coming to him’. why? because he’s never Won anything in the first place.

c!quackity does Nothing but lose. i can’t think of a single narrative win he’s gotten, ever, in the entire story.

even worse, quackity is a victim himself. he’s a man who’s done nothing but lose and get traumatized and is DESPERATELY trying to claw his way to the top so he and others can’t be hurt anymore. and yet he still loses and loses.

narratively, quackity is a bad guy who deserves to lose the thing he’s gotten in a bad way: that thing being las nevadas.

at the very same time, quackity is one of the inherently weaker dsmp members (the minority class, sort of?) who has literally no other way to get to the top other then what he’s doing now. we’ve watched this good man try again and again to help himself the Good Way. and after he got burned enough, he’s finally starting to get somewhere— by using the Bad Way.

is it fair to take away the ONLY THING he’s managed to make for himself? to take away this victim’s only solace when he’s already had EVERYTHING ELSE taken from him?

for these reasons, i really have no idea what to think of quackity. i disagree with all of his recent actions, but unlike dream who’s life has only taken a turn for the worse recently, quackity’s life has been nothing but bad. nothing but horror after horror. i can clearly see and understand how c!quackity got to where he is, and i feel bad for him because it makes sense.

but i can’t excuse any of what he’s doing now.

so, i guess i’m just waiting to see what happens next. how the story ends. i think something that could possibly work would be to remove quackity and dream from each other, and possibly have quackity have a conflict with the las nevadas crew that forces him to come to his senses (i also just want more ln crew content)

i’m not some sort of Story Expert though, so. it’s just how i see him at the moment (but i’m very open to alternative interpretations).

[khaotic-kitsunes]

Kitten

No judgement! It’s not that bad of a kink anyways? I’ve written for...many things since starting tumblr blogs, so you’re fine. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the scenario, it’s the best I could come up with, so feel free to come scream at me if you like it!

Hope you enjoy it!

🥃 AO3 🥃 || ✉️My Askbox✉️ || 💬Discord💬

Cheeky Kitsune 🦊💋

.

 Hitoshi raised an eyebrow silently as he stepped into the house that he shared with you, your delectably sweet scent invading his senses almost immediately; hitting him like a sledgehammer and alerting him to the fact that your heat had started early.

 He should have expected it in all honesty, even though he had taken an early day so that he could come home to be there for you when it started; but no, his adorable little Omega simply had to go into an early heat.

 “Kitten, I’m home” Hitoshi called out to you, scanning the house for your presence as he shut the front door, looking for any sign at all of his needy girlfriend; or even her nest. Either one would be fine, so long as he knew where you were.

 Hitoshi made his way through the house slowly, following after your scent as best he could since it was coming from everywhere; coming to a stop when he reached the doorway to your shared bedroom. He wasn’t surprised to find the literal mountain of blankets and pillows on the bed, nor was he even mildly shocked to see more than a few of his favourite clothes stuffed into your nest; anything with his scent, you seemed to have grabbed and he would be lying if he ever said that the mere sight of it didn’t have his cock throbbing in anticipation of what was soon to come. An Omega in heat; sometimes he forgot how lucky he truly was.

 .

 “Kitten, wake up.”

 .

 You whined out softly in protest at the familiar voice demanding you to be awake, instead further burying your face into the soft pillows that made up a majority of your nest; it had taken you a horrific amount of time just to fall asleep, you didn’t appreciate being dragged away from that blissful slumber.

 Especially with the dreams that you had been thoroughly enjoying; leave it to your heat to induce some of the best wet dreams that you had ever had.

 “I won’t say it again Kitten.” You groaned at the deep rumble that sounded out from behind you, a yelp spilling free from your lips when something slapped against your arse unforgivingly; forcing you into a painfully awake state, something you wouldn’t be able to get out of again without the help of your Alpha soothing your heat.

 “There…was that so hard, beautiful?” Hitoshi chuckled faintly as you made your way out of your nest, shooting him an unhappy glare while one of your hands rubbed at the still-stinging flesh of your butt; as much as you loved it when he decided to spank you, it wasn’t something you enjoyed as a wake-up call.

 “Okay, I’m sorry. Maybe it was a little hard…but I was under the impression that you liked it that way” He smiled faintly as he moved to pin you down on the bed on your stomach, making sure that you were somewhat in your nest while grinding his painful erection up against you firmly; making you gasp out in a pleasant kind of surprise. You could almost forgive him for the rude awakening at this point.

 “I…I do like it” You mumbled out softly, mewling when Hitoshi started to rut up against your dripping folds firmly, your slick spreading over the front of his pants within seconds; coating what you hoped wasn’t his hero outfit in a thick amount of your juices. If he had been silly enough to wear his pro-hero costume home, then he was going to smell like an Omega in heat for a long time to come; not the best idea when he was a pro-hero that fought against a surprising number of Alpha villains.

 “Do you also like the feel of my dick up against you? Because it certainly smells like you do Kitten…feels like it too. You’re nice and wet, ready for daddy’s cock. Aren’t you?” Hitoshi questioned as he bit along the sensitive skin of your neck, biting over your bonding mark while his hands moved along your arms slowly; pinning them down to the bed so that you couldn’t move until he wanted you to.

 “If I say yes…will you knot me?” You bit your lip as you spoke softly, turning your head as best you could to look back at the Alpha you called your own; Hitoshi didn’t seem to be teasing you like normal, he was being far more direct and it made you wonder if his rut was due soon. Either that, or your heat had induced it early, which had happened on previous occasions; so, it wasn’t an impossible theory.

 “Oh? You don’t sound very interested Kitten, maybe you don’t deserve my knot” He smiled devilishly as he spoke quietly, releasing his hold on you so that he could move away to strip himself of his civilian clothes; annoyed at how they clung to him, it was almost suffocating.

 You didn’t dare move though, well aware that he wanted you to remain as you were; the perfect position for you to be in and a favourite of his, it allowed him to lose himself to his instincts better than any other position. A fact that you weren’t going to complain about.

 “But daddy…” You trailed off, your cheeks heating up in embarrassment when Hitoshi looked at you with a carnal hunger in his eyes; a sign that his rut was most definitely in effect and that you had whined out the perfect phrase to catch his attention. Even if it was by accident.

 “Daddy, please? I’m so empty right now…I need a knot, I need your knot daddy, please? Please knot me?” You whimpered out your demand softly, wiggling your hips invitingly for the hungry Alpha as he made his way back onto the bed, settling himself behind you with the tip of his aching cock rubbing up against your folds.

 “You need a knot? My knot? Are you sure about that kitten?” He narrowed his eyes as he spoke, leaning over you to bite at the scent gland behind your ear, carefully scenting you as his Omega while grinding his erection up against you roughly; pulling soft, needy gasps from your lips. His favourite sound.

 “Because, to me, it sounds like you just want something to fill you…and that could be anyone’s knot. Isn’t that right Kitten?” He growled out the question quietly, his hands moving to your own and holding them against the mattress firmly; refusing to allow you the opportunity to move from your current position.

 “No! No daddy, that isn’t…your knot is the only one that I need!” You whined out loudly, biting your lip as you tried your best not to moan from his rough treatment; you knew that it would only anger him more if you moaned now. You needed to make sure that he was satisfied that his knot was the only one that could help you with the heat that was bothering you currently.

 “Really? Alright…but you better not be lying to me Kitten” He warned you with a low growl, biting down on your scent gland firmly while thrusting his hips forwards and burying himself deep inside of your more than welcoming body; his low groan making you mewl out in a mix of pleasure and pride, knowing that you were the reason he was groaning.

 “Really, I promise. Your knot is the only one that makes me feel this good daddy” You moaned out softly, burying your face into the mattress below while his hips began to move at a harsh pace; each thrust pushing his thick knot up against your folds teasingly. Apparently, he didn’t want to fill you up just yet, not until the very end; usually he would fuck you knot and all until he could no longer remove it from your body, but today seemed to be different.

 “I guess you’ve earnt this then Kitten” Hitoshi paused, growling out in pleasure as he continued to fuck you senseless, his grip on your hands tightening whenever your walls clenched down around his throbbing cock.

 You couldn’t believe how good it felt to have him fuck you like this, even if it had been a while since the last time you two got the chance to be so intimate with one another. Work had taken up a majority of his time, but even so, it felt different than usual; more satisfying.

 “Such a good Omega…look at how well you’re taking my cock” You mewled at his soft praise, moaning out his name and grinding your hips back against his own; though your moans soon transformed into wordless whimpers and whines, your mind losing its ability to form solid sentences, or even words due to the pleasure that was currently overwhelming you.

 .

 “That’s it, take daddy’s cock. Just like that Kitten…it’s like you were made for my dick!”

 .

 You whimpered out into the mattress with each savage thrust of Hitoshi’s hips, unable to properly describe the way he filled you up so perfectly; instead, only able to make broken sounds that would spur on his movements. You had been so unlucky today with your heat starting the moment Hitoshi had left for work, it had meant you spent the whole day trying to bear with the heat alone; but it was also because of that, that having him fuck you felt so good.

 Easily satisfying all of the cravings that had built up during the day, even the ones that had formed in your dreams.

 “You feel that Kitten?” Hitoshi’s voice cut through your thoughts as he pushed deeper inside of you, grinding up against you from behind and allowing you to feel the way his knot had begun to swell up; signalling his quickly approaching release and leaving you to whimper out at his cruel actions, teasing you with such a thick, pulsing knot.

 “That’s what you’re doing to me. I’ve barely been home ten minutes and I’m already about to knot you for the first time today, I’m aching for you Kitten and I hope you can keep up with me” He growled out in pleasure, mere moments before burying his knot into you, pushing it as deep as he possibly could; filling you with his hot, thick seed.

 The overwhelming sense of being full pushed you over the edge in an instant, ripping his name from your lips in the form of a needy scream while your own orgasm rocked through your body, making your toes curl as you trembled beneath him from the intensity of it.

 “Fuck…you took it so well Kitten, you took my knot like a good little Omega. Good girl.”

[sokkastyles]

firelxdykatara

Part of what is so incredibly frustrating about Aang’s arc in book 3 (or lack thereof) is the fact that his culture--despite being ostensibly wiped from the face of the planet, and we’ll set aside for the moment how little sense that makes in general, nevermind from a narrative standpoint--has hints of depth that are never explored. @inkmyname touched on it when pointing out that Aang is very selective about which parts of his own culture he interacts with and attempts to preserve

(which he cherrypicks several times over the course of the series, by the way…)

Because while it is absolutely true that AN culture is horrifically underdeveloped, part of that is because the single solitary living Air Nomad is never allowed to actually engage with, question, learn about, and understand his own culture. This is where Guru Pathik never appearing again after Aang leaves in book 2 (to ignore his own culture’s teachings and attempt to hold on to a selfish attachment he was told he would need to willingly give up in order to achieve true enlightenment and master the Avatar State, I might add) becomes a serious issue--because here was an actual, living, breathing adult with an adult’s understanding of an extinct culture, and he just... vanished from the narrative completely, the moment Aang decided that his feelings for Katara were more important than the adhering to the teachings of his people.

Which means that, yet again, what we were left with was a child’s very basic understanding of his own people. He could parrot aphorisms and wise proverbs he was taught by the monks, but he could exhibit no true understanding of them. He could maintain a vegetarian diet (at great strain to Katara, who had to make sure to cook things Aang would be willing to eat, despite having grown up in a climate where not eating meat would mean starving to death) and profess that he cherished all living creatures, but he could not examine when pacifism may not be the right choice--he could not acknowledge that even his precious monks would take lives if they had to. If other lives were on the line. (See: the fact that he never once seems to realize that Monk Gyatso’s corpse being surrounded by a bunch of skeletons in Fire Nation armor means that Monk Gyatso killed living breathing human beings in an attempt to defend his own people. I do not think he would have hesitated if an entire city-state were directly in the line of fire, no pun intended.)

If you took any twelve-year-old and froze them in a time capsule and woke them up a century later, they may be able to remember some proverbs, a verse or two from some religious text, a few general rules governing social behavior... but they would not be able to reconstruct their entire culture based only on their fallible childhood memories and a few recovered artifacts.

And it is explicit, in the text of the show, that Aang is perfectly willing to discard the teachings of his people when they conflict with something he wants. His people’s teachings say that he should release his attachment to the girl he likes--he evidently misinterprets this to mean he must forgo all connection to her (which is never so much as implied, and if the tenets of Buddhism were to actually be adhered to, giving up his attachment to her wouldn’t even mean that he couldn’t still love her and that a relationship would be out of the question if she loved him in return--merely that his selfish attachment to her needed to go, because he was not entitled to her feelings. this was a lesson he desperately needed to learn, rather than being rewarded for his selfish behavior by having Katara realize at the literal last second that oh, yeah, she really DID have feelings for him), and refuses on the grounds that... he wanted to date this girl who had never once shown romantic interest in him. Because that’s certainly worth throwing his own people’s teachings about spirituality and enlightenment right in the trash.

So the argument that killing Ozai would have killed the last remnants of his culture, and so he needed to find a pacifistic solution in order to preserve them, already doesn’t hold water--because Aang showed very little concern for preserving his people’s beliefs, or anyone else’s (he’s actually... pretty disrespectful of other cultural practices at numerous points in the show and is never really taken to task for it, by the narrative or any of the characters), at any other point in the show. And something that this particular segment of the fandom always loves to claim is that in saying that I’m saying that I wanted a kid to murk a dude on screen in a Y7 show--but that isn’t it at all. None of this is to say that Aang should have killed Ozai (although whether he was allowed to remain alive should have been up to a tribunal of EK and WT citizens, not just the Avatar, but that’s another discussion entirely)--but it is to say that Aang being able to take a third option was not handled well, either from a story perspective or a character one.

What we should have gotten--and what Book 3 seemed to be primed for--is a season long arc of Aang finally mastering the Avatar State and completing his character arc. The foundation was there, the potential beats were lined up, the earlier hints (such as an entire episode dedicated to showing both Aang and the audience that sometimes the object of your affections doesn’t like you back, and that’s ok, because if you love them you should want them to be happy, and if we just ignore the last twenty seconds that completely undermines the entire message [particularly in light of the epilogue] then we’re golden) there to provide some structure for the remainder of his arc.

Instead, what we wound up with were a bunch of useless filler episodes leading up to the failed invasion (which had some gems, like The Puppetmaster and Sokka’s Master, but when weighed against episodes like The Headband and Nightmares and Daydreams, it’s hard to say if they were worth the cost), and then Zuko’s journey into the gaang’s good graces crammed into the last few episodes before the finale. It isn’t until the episode before the finale that Aang even admits to anyone that he can’t enter the Avatar State, and it isn’t until the finale that this is actually ‘resolved’--by a pointy rock showing up at the exact right place to, i guess, jar his chakras loose. Because that’s how it works.

The result is a season that has some of the best single episodes in the series, while having the most disjointed plot, the worst pacing, and the least satisfying finale out of all three seasons. In HP fandom vernacular with which I remain intimately familiar, AtLA may have won the game, but season three absolutely did not catch the snitch. And I haven’t even gotten into the fact that Aang’s moral dilemma over needing to kill Ozai should have come up much earlier in the narrative--prior to the eclipse invasion at least, if not even sooner than that, but I still cannot fathom what Aang planned to do to the man if he actually got to him before the eclipse ended and he was powerless--because this post is already long enough.

The upshot of it all is, though, that Aang’s arc is deeply unsatisfying for a lot of people because it relies on contrivances in order for him to even survive the battle he was supposedly training the entire series for. And he was handed every victory he actually achieved, particularly in that final battle, rather than earning them via his own choices.

He didn’t choose to seek out the lionturtle--it kidnapped him. He didn’t choose to regain the Avatar State--he was thrown against a well-placed rock and it was reactivated automatically. (I know I frequently engage in percussive maintenance myself, but come on.) He did choose to ignore Katara’s words and body language and kiss her anyway--and he was then rewarded with a relationship without so much as apologizing to her for his actions. (And, notably, Katara was given no space on screen to work through her own feelings--it was just assumed that they were there, and she had them for Aang, and it was just a matter of him being persistent enough that she realized it. Which is very much not the message we should be sending the children to whom this show was aimed and marketed.)

I really can’t find anything in Aang’s arc, as presented in the show (rather than the idealized version a lot of Aang stans seem to have constructed for themselves), that is meant to be some sort of ‘ideal’, either from an irl perspective or from a story one. And it remains a constant source of frustration, because all the tools were there, all the potential was there--it’s just that none of it was ever realized by the narrative.

@firelxdykatara I want to reply to this in a different post because I don’t want to continue arguing on OP’s post anymore. The thing is that it does seem like there was an attempt made to build this conflict up, but it was just...forgotten. Which is especially weird when we talk about the parallels between Aang and Zuko, because there are several places where Aang’s internal struggle is paralleled with Zuko’s. And this is part of what makes Aang’s arc not hold up to Zuko’s, unfortunately.

One of the things that should have been explored about the Air Nomads is the fact that they actually did Aang quite badly by telling him that he was the Avatar too early, and that seemed like it was an important plot point and part of Aang’s internal struggle...until it wasn’t. A lot of people say that Aang’s desire to avoid conflict and be a kid is an Air Nomad trait, and it kinda is, but from what we saw in the flashback, we know that not all Air Nomads were like this, and Aang’s relationship with Gyatso - which I REALLY wanted to be explored more - was actually contrasted with the rigid ways of the other monks. We saw this in Aang and Gyatso playing pranks and in how Gyatso tried to shelter Aang and let him be a kid a little longer, which he should have been able to do. Aang ran away because the Air Nomads were trying to take him away from Gyatso! This is a pretty standard coming of age plot, growing up and realizing that not every adult is good and right all the time and has your best interests in mind (Zuko also learns this in his flashback, in much more violent way). And Aang was so angry and hurt and betrayed when he recounted it in “The Storm,” and it’s a direct parallel to the way Zuko’s father betrayed him. What happened to that? What happened to that anger? What happened to “how could they do that to me?!”

But there’s no follow up to this. I think they could have done more with the Guru Pathik character possibly in order to fix this, like maybe showing Aang being resistant to learning from him because of those lingering negative feelings. But then, Pathik himself is one of the weakest parts of the story, and is little more than a racist caricature. That’s part of the problem.

Similarly Aang trying to reconcile his unhealthy attachment to Katara and his love for Katara was part of his internal struggle...until it wasn’t. And once again it’s paralleled with Zuko’s arc. Like, the episode where that conflict is introduced, “The Avatar State,” is the same episode where Zuko chooses to go with Azula back to the Fire Nation and chooses his unhealthy attachment to his father instead of Iroh. This conflict runs through that season (again paralleling Zuko’s arc) and is brought up again in the finale for book 2, and the resolution is even hinted at:

Aang: Well, I met with this guru who was supposed to help me master the Avatar State and control this great power, but to do it, I had to let go of someone I love. And I just couldn't.

Iroh: Perfection and power are overrated. I think you were very wise to choose happiness and love.

Aang: What happens if we can't save anyone and beat Azula? Without the Avatar State, what if I'm not powerful enough?

Iroh: I don't know the answer. Sometimes, life is like this dark tunnel. You can't always see the light at the end of the tunnel, but if you just keep moving, you will come to a better place.

There we have it! Aang didn’t need to give up his love for Katara, nor did he need to exchange her for power. It’s a false dichotomy. The show is really good at setting up false dichotomies only to break them down in other places, but with the Avatar state arc they just...don’t quite manage it. It seems like they were trying to set it up, too, by paralleling Aang’s fall at Ba Sing Se with Zuko making the wrong choice, but there’s no follow-through.

Instead of Aang experiencing a conflict with his cultural identity, suddenly the Air Nomads become these idealized figures who are always right in book 3, primarily so he can lecture Katara and Zuko on the evils of revenge. If this is Aang trying to hold on to the last vestiges of his culture and not wanting to acknowledge how his last interaction with the monks was a negative one, the story needs to show that! THAT would be an interesting character conflict! But instead they drop that story entirely and make it about whether Aang is going to kill Ozai, because Aang is so good and wise and everybody else suddenly wants him to kill for some reason. Which of course he isn’t going to do, because it’s a nickelodeon show. It’s not just that the lionturtle is a deus ex machina, it’s that it’s a solution to a problem that never felt like a real problem and was put in place of actual real character conflict.

And although I’m not a huge fan of Kataang, this absolutely could have been done WITHOUT sacrificing Kataang. When the narrative suggested that he needed to give up Katara to become the Avatar, when Aang went into the Avatar state and said “I’m sorry, Katara,” I actually shouted NO at my screen. Because Aang should NOT have to give up love in order to become a hero, and that’s not what the Buddhist idea of getting rid of earthly attachments means, anyway. It means getting rid of unhealthy attachments, and as you said, that was shown in Aang’s behavior towards Katara. And it seemed like the writers were working towards Aang having a realization that his behavior towards Katara was unhealthy, that if he loved her he needed to actually have a real conversation with her about her feelings and give her space to say no (even if she says yes in the end), and that never happened.

There’s also a reason Iroh has this conversation with Aang in book 2. If we want an example of someone who has achieved a spiritual balance in their life, and given up earthly attachments in favor of living simply, Iroh is that character, and he’s a much better example than a westernized Guru caricature or a twelve year old spouting pithy aphorisms about revenge, because Iroh’s wisdom comes from experience. And Iroh’s advice is that sometimes life is like a dark tunnel, and that you need to go through the dark to get to the light. Iroh also admits that he doesn’t know the answer, because like all truly wise people, he is wise enough to know that he knows nothing. That’s why Aang having spiritual knowledge handed to him so that he can avoid having to make a decision feels like a cop-out. The show didn’t even tell us until the last second that what the knowledge was was energybending, because the writers KNEW it was a cop-out.

And the choice between power and love? Is not even made. Aang still gets to have a super special power bestowed upon him and beats Ozai because he learns how to bend energy, the most powerful and special form of bending of them all, guys. It’s actually super frustrating because the writers CAN resolve this in a meaningful way. They do it with Zuko, who also has super special powers bestowed upon him in the climax of the story, but in the end it’s not power, it’s his frienship with Katara and his willingness to sacrifice for her that saves him. Wasn’t Aang supposed to be making a similar choice about Katara? Hmmmmmmmm.

[introvertguide]

Star Wars: The Franchise

Back in the mid 70s around Modesto, California, it is doubtful that George Lucas could have imagined that his idea for a space opera would become the second highest grossing movie franchise of all time. There has been some questionable content, however, since the groundbreaking original, and the returns have not been as great. There were also some one-offs that a lot of the younger fans might not be aware of. For my own sanity and organization, here is a listing of all feature length movies in the franchise:

Star Wars IV: A New Hope (1977) -

Definitely the most successful film (heck, one of the most successful films of all time) that made almost a billion dollars at the box office worldwide...in the 80s. Amazing. The story mimics the hero's journey as described by Joseph Campbell, giving it basically the most satisfying story imaginable. Nobody except for friend of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, thought it would be as successful as it was. This kind of popularity meant there was going to be some sequels and, since George Lucas was the man behind the whole thing, only one man was about to get tasked with future success.

Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) -

This was a TV movie that was made to cash in on the massive popularity of the first movie while the second one was in production. It is terrible. I generally try to hold back judgement and point out subjective opinions, but I think I can say that this made-for-TV movie is objectively bad. It is the equivalent of a variety show, a format which was popular at the time, and it was awful. It is widely considered to be one of the worst visual productions of all time. Just to give a hint of its awfulness, the movie follows the adventures of Chewbacca's Wookie family and they only speak in growls with no interpretation or subtitles. Laughably awful.

The Empire Strikes Back (1980) -

Arguably the best of the films as far as story and plot, this film was actually directed by Irvin Kershner with a George Lucas story adapted to the screen by Lawrence Kasdan. This film is legitimately fantastic and not just new and fun. It is so well written and directed with the famous reveal between Luke and Darth Vader. It also is incredibly downbeat at the end that perfectly sets up the next film. I personally think this is the best example of fine film in the franchise, although it doesn't have as much big action and no giant space laser. Well worth watching and makes the third film a must see.

Return of the Jedi (1983) -

Well, not as good as the first two, but still pretty darn good. This film introduced the Ewoks and the Endor moon battle. Many fans thought that the introduction of living teddy bears was a mistake that distract from the story. What really made the film, apparently, was the whole sequence at the beginning that takes place at Jabba the Hut's palace and involves Princess Leia in a metal bikini. We also find out that Luke and Leia are twins, so that kiss in the second film suddenly becomes kind of awkward. This becomes kind of a theme from here on out: should we disavow canon or put in throwaway lines and scenes to cover things that were mentioned in previous movies. It plagues the prequels.

The Ewok Adventure (1984) -

I get a lot of garbage about it, but I love these movies because I grew up with them. They are not that great and the copy that I saw over and over had ads from the early 80s throughout. Heavy nostalgia. Also, some of the Ewoks were played by established actors from what is now called Episode VI, Warwick Davis as Wicket and Tony Cox as Widdle. It was a lot of fun, but definitely a higher budgeted TV movie. It did become so successful that it got a theater release as Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure. This naming style stuck around for the spin off films that were made in the late 2010s.

Ewoks: The Battle for Endor (1985) -

Hot dang, they made a second one with Wilford Brimley! Both of the Ewok films were thought up by George Lucas and sold to ABC. Both films were also given special Emmy awards for special effects. I can't fault either Ewok film as far as visuals since both got the ILM treatment. I have stated that I liked both of these movies more than some of the prequels, and I stand by that.

The Phantom Menace (1999) -

The next three films followed the first three episodes in the Star Wars saga and are now generally known as the prequels. They are also pretty widely hated. One reason for that was the introduction of young Anikan Skywalker (eventual Darth Vader) and his growing attachment to Lord Palpatine (Darth Sidious). The problem with the prequels is that it was a path leading to a result that had been established over 20 years ago in the first film. They also introduced a character named Jar-Jar Binks who was just awful. There was a great pod racing scene and an epic Sith vs. Jedi battle that really were the highlights of the film. The music was also pretty epic, but the film was otherwise not that great. It was completely made under the helm of George Lucas and fans were suddenly starting to wonder if he was the genius they had thought him to be. What I consider to be the best YouTube deep dive movie review of all time, a group called Red Letter Media made a seven part review that explains why the movie was such a problem. You can watch the first part and it will auto load all seven here:

(1) Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Review (Part 1 of 7) - YouTube

Attack of the Clones (2002) -

Alright, here is where things really start to go down hill. There is a fine actor by the name of Hayden Christiansen that is just awful in this film. He is given nothing to do for the most part. He is supposed to be this amazing Jedi general, but he spends most of his time walking around speaking in a very monotone voice. He does have some fun piloting scenes, but he is written as such a whiny brat. There are two epic battles (the coliseum and Dooku vs. Yoda) and we get to see a bounty hunter in action. It does seem like a lot of fan service glued together by boring politics and horrifically bad acting.

Revenge of the Sith (2005) -

This is widely considered the worst of the prequel movies and generally laughable at some points. There is supposed to be an epic lava battle at the end, but it is just a bunch of screaming about a failed bromance. We get to see the end of the characters in the prequel and set up the original movies...that were now almost 30 years old. It was unsatisfying and not even slightly worth the wait. It was at this time that George Lucas said that there would never be a seventh episode that would follow the original trilogy.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) -

There was a very compelling series of Star Wars shorts in 2003 made by Genndy Tartakovsky that did very well. George Lucas saw this and decided that a lot of the most interesting Star Wars events had occurred during the time between the prequels and the original series. Lucasfilm put out an animated movie to test the waters and it was so successful that 7 seasons of great animated adventures were made to show the epic battles that were supposed to take place between the second and third episode. I honestly believe that this was the very best space action of the entire franchise.

The Force Awakens (2015) -

George Lucas sold the Star Wars franchise over to Disney and fans got a new movie that was never supposed to happen. Once Disney came on board, the brand became much more prolific. Until the pandemic, there were plans to put out a Star Wars movie every year for a decade. The first was episode seven and was made by J.J. Abrams. It was similar to the first film (episode IV) in so many ways that fans started to think it was just a remake. It even had a lot of the characters from the original trilogy. It was much better received by fans following the prequels and introduced a storyline that was not already spoiled by previous movies. There was a lot of unnecessary fan service for those who loved the original trilogy. This makes since because it involved Lawrence Kasdan, who helped with the screenplay for episode five and six from the original trilogy.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) -

A full big budget release of a Star Wars movie that wasn't one of the episodes was an interesting idea. It was an entire movie to explain a throwaway line from the original 1977 movie. I lot of people died to get some plans for the big weapon in the first film and people wanted to know exactly how that happened. Actually they didn't. But Disney thought it was a good idea and it seemed like it would make a lot of money (it did). It gave the producers a chance to make a movie with new characters and only mentions of the famous story (this was important because the other actors where making the next episode).

The Last Jedi (2017) -

This was an interesting change of pace from the rest of the films because it seemed to drop the idea of the "chosen one" and say that anyone could be a Jedi. It is basically one giant escape story and is closer to Mad Max in space than it is to the other Star Wars films. It was given in full by Disney to Rian Johnson and it shows. This was the first episode film that had nothing in common with any of the production group from the original trilogy. No Kasdan, no Kirschner, no Lucas, all Disney. It was not very well received.

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) -

The worst performing of any of the Star Wars live action feature length films, this was the story of Han Solo. That's it. There is not a lot of history about the character and he is so cool, fans needed to have a stand alone movie about his youth. That's a lie, Disney wanted a movie to come out between episode eight and nine. This was the best that the suits could come up with and it definitely made money, but it is lame.

The Rise of Skywalker (2019) -

Well, the movie completely helmed by Rian Johnson was not popular enough so there was a total retcon situation and this film basically picked up where episode seven left off. It was the same team from episode seven (since that film was so much more popular) and they made a final film that wraps up with a bow. Sort of. There was definitely room in the film world for more Star Wars movies to be made (it is owned by Disney) and I really don't believe it is finished as a franchise.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just in case there are people who were nervous that this was the end of the franchise, there is currently a stand alone film called Rogue Squadron that is supposed to come out in 2023. Thank goodness. There was also the popular Mandalorian series on Disney +. But the franchise has been making huge films for almost 45 years now, so maybe it is time to stop. We have the MCU that has made almost twice as much money as the Star Wars universe, so most movie goers have picked their setting that they want to see. Maybe there could be a crossover (I am kidding, please no) and it would be the most watched film of all time.

[bensakindofmagic]

Chapter Twenty Two

A/N: hey hey hey. long time no see. life has been fucking me up the literal asshole. i have so much work to do. dunno when the next chapter will be. it will be at some point though. promise.

Warnings: swears, mentions of sex (nothing frisky tho)

w/c: 3.6k+

Chapter Twenty Two

You hadn’t exactly had high expectations when it came to living in LA. You knew the rumours — the people were superficial, the traffic was horrific, there was a distinct lack of culture — but you had to admit you were still disappointed. Nothing was particularly wrong with the place, but something about it just didn’t suit you. The studio had paid for an incredible apartment for you and it was beautiful but big and echoey, and you rattled around in it on your own. The days were long, and by the time you’d navigated the evening traffic, you got home late at night and had little time of your own. It was a blessing at first, because it kept you occupied enough to be able to forget Ben some of the time. When the thought of him drifted into your head, sitting curled up with Frankie on the sofa and you were hit with a sickening desire to sit down next to him and rest your head on his shoulder, you always had something to concentrate on that would take your mind off it. But after a while those thoughts became more frequent and you resented having to bat them away. What you really wanted was to wallow in them for a while; you wanted to feel the pain and the loss and the heartbreak, to grieve for the life you had lost. You wanted to think about Ben and cry uncontrollably, and wish he was still yours. You needed to process it, and then maybe you could start moving on. That being said, the thought of moving on terrified you, but you were tired of living like a shell of your former self.

It would have been okay if the job was better, if it felt worth it. You wanted so desperately to be vindicated in your choice to go but the work was kind of soul destroying. You were sure the actors were all lovely people, but the production was so big that you had barely spoken to them. You knew you’d been extraordinarily lucky with BoRhap, to have bonded the way you did, but you were still surprised with how little interest the cast took in you — you were effectively a glorified coffee girl. And because your job was mainly with the actors, you didn’t spend all that much time with the other crew members and didn’t bond with them either. Basically, you just felt horrifically lonely, which only reminded you how much you missed Ben.

A few weeks in you started to bond a little with some of the other girls in the crew. They were all junior, with you the most senior of the group, so it felt pretty safe. They were interested to hear about BoRhap, and what it had been like working with Rami and the boys. They seemed so starstruck just hearing you talk about him, you forgot that he was famous; to you he was just a wonderful friend.

“You know, I think he’s gonna win the Oscar,” said Tracy, a very sweet midwestern girl who always seemed like she was just excited to be alive.

“He definitely should, whether he will is another question,” Janie reasoned. She was a little older, and had the most experience but had never wanted to be anything more than a runner — she loved it, and her husband was some big-shot businessman so she didn’t need to worry about the peanuts she got paid.

“Do you reckon you’ll get to go?” asked Laura, an Irish girl and the youngest of the group.

You shook your head a little dejectedly, “No, probably not. I don’t see why they’d invite me.”

“That’s such a bummer! It sounds like you were really close with the guys,” Tracy said, genuinely put out for you.

“I still am. Well, mostly.” The thought of Ben left a bitter taste on your tongue. You hadn’t spoken to him since you got to the States.

Laura leaned in, “That sounds ominous. Go on.”

You sighed, “It’s not that dramatic really, I was dating one of them.”

“Not that dramatic?! That’s huge!” Laura shrieked.

Janie grinned, “Which one?”

“Ben,” you said slowly, tasting the word on your tongue again. It had been so long since you’d said his name out loud. “Ben Hardy, he played the drummer.”

“Oh my god he’s so gorgeous.” You could practically see the hearts in Tracy’s eyes and you chuckled.

“Wait, what do you mean, was?” Janie frowned.

“Be broke up, a few weeks ago actually, when I came to the States. I’m here for three years, we couldn’t commit to a long-distance relationship for that long.”

“Yikes, that sucks.”

Laura asked, “Was it not that serious then?”

“No, I think it was. We loved each other. But we’d done long distance before while I was doing a job, and it sucked. We hated being apart for so long and that was only a few months. I thought it was better just to get a clean break.”

“Ouch, I’m sorry gal.”

“Yeah, it’s rough but I think it’s for the best.” I think.

“You still love him, don’t you?” Janie queried gently.

You nodded, and then coughed, trying to dislodge the lump in your throat.

“Babe, you need to get over him!” Tracy laughed, quickly diffusing the solemn tension that clung to you.

“Ha, easier said than done,” you deadpanned.

“Nah, you just need to get under someone else.”

They set you up with one of Tracy’s friends in the city. The thought of going on a date with anyone other than Ben was a little nauseating, but before you really had a chance to say no it had all been arranged. Anyway, you thought you might as well — at least you could pass the evening with another human being. You never knew, it might be fun. What was there to lose?

You sat on your sofa waiting for your date to knock on the door, trying not to think back to the last time you’d been on a first date. Sure, it had been a little awkward with Ben at first, but it turned into a wonderful evening. But god, if it was awkward with Ben — a guy you knew well, fancied a ridiculous amount, and had already kissed — what kind of hell would it be with a man you didn’t know.

It won’t be that bad, just keep an open mind.

You reminded yourself of what Sav had said when you talked to her about it: there’s no pressure, it’s just a bit of fun.

The knock came at the door. He was a few minutes early. You took a deep breath, smoothed down your hair, and went to open it.

“Hi, you must be Y/N. Good to meet you, I’m Daniel.”

You were a little taken aback, but you smiled. He was better looking than the picture Tracy showed you had suggested. Tall, well dressed in a light blue button up and a jacket, with chocolately brown hair and eyes to match, adorned with flecks of hazel. His features were angular, a little sharp, but he had a kind look about him. You were suitably satisfied.

“Nice to meet you Daniel,” you smiled, hoping your face didn’t betray the internal struggle going on in your head over whether to shake his hand or go in for a hug. He solved that debate though by leaning in and placing a kiss on each cheek.

“That’s the European way, right? Two kisses? I wasn’t sure if it was three,” he joked, brimming with confidence.

“Three is French, we do two in England,” you playfully explained, pulling the door closed behind you. “You’ve clearly done your research.”

He grinned, “I wanted to make a good impression."

He took you out for dinner — classic, easy, not too much chance of something going disastrously wrong — to a Michelin starred restaurant. It was lovely, very upmarket, if a little soulless. You would have preferred somewhere a bit more artisan, somewhere with character and an interesting story behind it, but you weren’t complaining. The food was gorgeous and the company was good. Daniel was funny, he made you laugh often, and was a good conversationalist. Every time you feared you might be running out of things to say he asked you another interesting question to keep you on your toes.

It was fun, but it felt rather like meeting up with a friend. You were missing that elusive spark that people always talk about. But you weren’t going to dismiss him because of that, it wouldn’t always happen straight away. Just because it happened with Ben, didn’t mean it would be the same with the next guy.

Stop thinking about Ben.

“So, let me ask you, Y/N,” Daniel paused to take a sip of his wine, “How’s a beautiful woman like you still single?”

“What’s wrong with being single?” you simpered, mimicking his action and eying him over the rim of your glass.

“Nothing at all! I’m just surprised that no one’s snapped you up yet.”

“If someone’s interested in me doesn’t mean they just get to date me, I have to like them too,” you said as you cocked your eyebrow.

“Hm, yeah but you must get the cream of the crop after you. No one’s take your fancy yet?”

You pushed your mouth into a small smile and said, “I’ve only been in LA for a little over a month.”

“That’s plenty of time.”

For fuck’s sake, why is he pushing this so much? Maybe he could sense your reticence and that had piqued his interest. Maybe he wanted to be sure there was nothing wrong with you. Maybe he was just digging for your baggage.

Well he’s going to fucking get it then.

“I actually broke up with my boyfriend just before I came, so I’m keen not to rush into anything.”

You didn’t tell him how much you loved Ben, still, or that you hadn’t actually wanted to break up with him at all, or that you were still completely heartbroken about it. All Daniel needed to know was that you didn’t want a relationship with him. That this evening would lead to something else.

He nodded slowly and the look he gave you made clear that he understood you perfectly.

It was a perfectly enjoyable evening but by the end you were both very much aware that it wasn’t going anywhere. But still, he wouldn’t allow you to split the bill despite your insistence. He told it was ‘his treat’ and you understood fully that he was inviting you to reward him for his generosity. You ran your tongue over your lip. You didn’t owe him a thing, but you surveyed him none the less. He was a good-looking guy, you enjoyed his company, so when he offered to walk you home you allowed it. And when leaned in to kiss you at your front door, you let him. His lips were smaller than Ben’s, his mouth somehow more intrusive. It felt strange, wrong somehow. But you couldn’t allow yourself to think that Ben was the only man who could kiss you right, so you cast the thought from your mind and let your hands trail up to his neck. He took the opportunity to deepen the kiss and slipped his hands onto your hips. His touch was light, tentative, and you craved the intensity that you used to feel with Ben. One touch of his hand, gripping your hip with strong fingers, veins protruding deliciously, and you’d quiver beneath him. Daniel was... soft. Not in a bad way necessarily, you were sure some people loved that — you loved it when Ben was gentle with you. He’d caress your skin sometimes, leaving tender kisses all over your body; it made you shiver. You sighed at the memory, but felt Daniel smirk into your mouth, thinking it was him.

Stop thinking about Ben, you admonished.

You pulled away and looked at the man before you. His mouth was pulled into a small smile, leaning into you hopefully. He definitely wanted this. With a distinct tendency towards oh fuck it, you asked, “Would you like to come in?”

He grinned and followed you inside.

You didn’t even offer him a drink; you both knew what was happening. His mouth was on you again, kissing your neck, hands roaming. Green eyes, deep and rich with desire, flashed through your mind. You batted them away but were still surprised to see brown irises staring back at you when you opened your eyes. You swallowed hard, your mouth suddenly arid.

“Shall we take this upstairs?” he hinted, his voice suddenly dropping an octave in an exaggeratedly sultry tone. He was clearly trying to be sexy but you had to bite your lip to stop yourself laughing, hoping you could pass it off as coy.

You nodded and lead him upstairs. He ripped his shirt off and began to make his way towards you. His hands quickly found your hips, then your bum, and he was behind you, reaching round to unbutton your jeans. His breath was hot on your neck, fanning you uncomfortably. You usually loved when you could feel Ben’s breath on your skin, making you tingle with anticipation; it meant his mouth was close.

Ben.

You almost moaned his name. Your whole body went tense and Daniel felt it instantly. His hands froze, fingers tucked slightly beneath your shirt, grazing your stomach. You fought the urge to slap them away.

I don’t want this.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I don’t want this.”

“Oh,” he faltered, clumsily retracting himself from you. “I’m sorry, I thought you did.”

The guilt tugged at you instantly, but you just didn’t want to sleep with him. You wanted Ben, and some other guy, no matter how attractive or charming, wasn’t going to change that. You ached for him in your soul, the kind of ache that a quick shag wouldn’t soothe.

“So did I, but I changed my mind. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to lead you on.”

He was kind about it, he didn’t try to push you, despite the disappointment that was evident on his face. You offered him a drink, which he refused, and said he should get home. Your life became quiet again when he left. It was late, you needed to be up for work in a matter of hours, but your mind was reeling and your heart was racing. You made a cuppa and thought of Ben; the curve of his jaw, the crease of his mouth when he laughed, the glint in his eye when he was up to mischief. You thought of the way he made you smile just with a touch, and the way he always managed to calm you when you were stressed, talking you down or stroking your hair. The more you thought of him, the more you spiralled, crying softly into a pillow. You coughed and spluttered and agonised. You were desperate to call him, to hear his voice.

You cracked, clutching at your phone. Your fingers shook as much as your breathing as you called him, still the first number in your favourites.

“Y/N?”

Relief flooded you, instantly abating the tension in your muscles, soothing you. You released a shaky breath you hadn’t realised you’d been holding.

“Hey Ben,” you whispered, barely able to keep your voice steady.

Ben instantly recognised that you’d been crying and dropped his voice to a gentle, warming tone. “What’s happened, love? Are you okay?”

You sniffed, “I’m fine, I just... I just miss you.”

You could practically hear him running a hand through his hair and you internally groaned, thinking about when you used to lose your fingers in those golden locks.

He sighed, distant through the phone line but in another way too, “I miss you too.”

“I wish you were here, holding me.” You didn’t bother trying to disguise the weakness in your voice or the bubble in your throat.

“I know, baby. It’s okay,” he purred as your crying intensified. “I’m here.”

“No you’re not.”

He fell silent. You knew it wasn’t fair of you to do this to him, you were the one who left.

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled. “I shouldn’t have called you.”

“It’s okay, don’t—don’t hang up.”

He sounded so desperate it cracked your heart open and spilled the contents into your lap. You felt like you were going to be sick.

“H-how are you? How’s the job going?”

You couldn’t bring yourself to tell him that it was increasingly feeling like a huge mistake. “It’s okay. Taking a bit to settle in, it’s very different from what I’ve done before.”

“Are you happy?”

Then came your turn to bite your tongue. You ventured, “I’m fine.”

It stung, lying to him, especially when he could see right through you.

You chit chatted for a bit, telling him about the girls you had begun to make friends with, and he in turn relayed some of his training to you for his new film - you warmed at the thought of him learning parkour, picturing the frown between his eyes as he tried a move again and again until he got it right. You seemed to settle, nuzzling into the cushions and wrapping yourself in a blanket to feel some semblance of his embrace. It barely held a candle to him but with his gentle voice in your ear like the ocean waves on a dusky shore, you could make yourself believe he was with you.

“Uh, I think I should go,” he said far too soon.

“Right, sure.”

“Just... look after yourself, Y/N, okay?”

You hummed a yes.

“Promise me?” he said, his tone taking on a greater gravity.

“I promise, Benny.”

At work the next day you could tell the girls were disappointed that you didn’t have a juicy story to tell them about the previous night’s antics, and all relationship talk went conspicuously quiet after that. You plodded along in your work, without the motivation to go above and beyond for those around you. You felt yourself getting complacent, and resented all the effort you put in that went unnoticed. You hated that the director still didn’t know your name, you hated that the cast hadn’t bothered to say more than two words to you. You hated the eternal sunshine that mocked your misery, and the dumb supermarkets with thousands of kinds of health foods and none of your favourite comfort foods. You hated how lonely you felt, and hated thinking about everything you’d given up to be where you were.

“Well, you could come home darling?”

“I signed a contract, Savvy. Anyway, I can’t just come crawling back.”

“Jesus Christ Y/N, I know you’re stubborn but this is next level. I am not going to let you make yourself miserable for three years just because you’re too damn proud to admit you made a mistake.”

You felt small, meek, “I have a job to do, I can’t let everyone down.”

“By the sounds of it they can manage perfectly well without you.”

“Um, ow?”

“Well, they clearly aren’t valuing you the way they should, so as far as I’m concerned, they let you down.” She sighed, clearly worried she had been too hard on you. “You don’t owe them anything love. This is your life.”

“I just... I’m scared.”

Sav’s voice went soft, soft like the soothing tones of a mother. “Of what, babe?”

“I’m scared that Ben will be mad, or resent me for leaving. I’m scared that it’s too late and I’ve already lost the life I had.”

“It’s not too late. I bet he’s miserable without you.”

“God,” you scoffed, “You make it sound like we’re 15.”

She mumbled, “Well if you didn’t act so damn childish about it—”

“Anyway, I went for a reason, you know that. I promised myself I would put my career first!”

“And you did! You tried, you didn’t like it. There’s no shame in that. Now you know and you can come home without regrets. I will not allow you to throw three years of your life away — and the love of your life, for that matter.”

You ventured, voice weak, “What if he’s not?”

“What?”

“What if he’s not the love of my life. What if I go back to him and it falls apart, and I abandoned this job for nothing?”

“How are you even worried about that? Y/N, it’s obvious how much you adore him.”

“Well I thought I adored Matteo and look how that turned out.”

“This is different, Y/N, and you know it.”

“I was infatuated with Matteo-”

“Exactly!” she interrupted, “You were infatuated, it was a glorified crush.”

Ouch. That bit to the bone. “My job won’t up and leave me one day.”

“Nor will Ben! For fuck’s sake, have some faith in him. You love each other.”

You knew she was right — of course you did — but there was a gnawing in your gut that made you falter. Some residue of fear laced you like poison; your head told you to stick to your principles even while your heart bled for Ben. Usually you trusted your gut, which is why you were hesitant: something in the pit of your stomach told you that it wouldn’t be as easy as running right back into his arms.

“I promised myself I’d never choose a man over the job.” It was a weak excuse but you made it all the same, the last hurdle you needed Sav to help you overcome before you booked yourself a one-way flight back to London.

“Darling, it’s not about choosing between a man and the job, it’s this man. It’s Ben. You can’t throw that away.”

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[thelazyhermits]

Haunting Memories

Here’s that Fortune angst I promised. I hope y’all enjoy it! XD

Once again, you’re back in the fighting ring. This time you’re up against a large man with a mutant Quirk that gives him the appearance and abilities of a rhinoceros. 

That means he’s not only strong but incredibly thick-skinned. To say you’re nervous about this match would be a complete understatement. 

While you are definitely faster than him and will be able to predict his movements thanks to your Quirk, that can only get you so far. Just like with some of your past opponents, the only chance you have of winning is by wearing him out to the point that he can no longer move. Although, something tells you that this feat will be much harder with this particular opponent.

Most likely, it’s because you could tell he was being serious when he was taunting you yesterday about defeating you. He claimed that your usual cheap tricks wouldn’t work on him and that no matter what you throw his way he will be the victor.

Of course, that wasn’t the first time you heard words like that from an opponent. However, unlike previous opponents, this man has the power to back up his words. His past matches were proof of that.

In addition to claiming that he’d be the victor, your opponent said he’d beat you down until you couldn’t move anymore. According to him, the pain you’ll experience at his hands is going to be worse than anything you’ve ever experienced. 

So, you think your nervousness is perfectly understandable. You do not want to experience whatever kind of pain the rhino Quirk user has in store for you.

That’s why you’ll have to push yourself to your limits to ensure that doesn’t happen. No matter what it takes, you will not allow your opponent to prevail. 

It’s at that moment the sound of a bell ringing reaches your ears. However, rather than signal the start of the match, the bell becomes a harbinger for a much more horrific nightmare. 

All you can do is stare with large, horror-filled eyes as your opponent literally explodes, covering the surrounding area with blood and gore. Naturally, due to your close proximity to the explosion, you get covered in blood.

Dimly, you’re aware of the screams coming from the crowd as you slowly look down to examine your trembling, blood-covered hands. You don’t know how long you remain in that position, too shocked to do anything else.

You’re eventually drawn out of your stupor by a hauntingly familiar voice. “Ah~ As expected of my beloved Prophet, you even look beautiful covered in blood. Although, I think that it’s a waste that you’re covered in the blood of a fool so far below you, don’t you agree?”

Immediately, your gaze moves to focus on the speaker who’s standing right outside the fighting ring, and you see bright, acid green eyes staring back at you and a large grin that sends shivers down your spine. Pure terror washes over you as your heart beats rapidly in your chest. 

The only thing you want to do now is run, but you can’t. Your body remains frozen in place, so unfortunately for you, there’s only one thing you can do in this situation.

You scream.

Your eyes fly open as you jolt into a sitting position. Immediately, one of your hands flies to cover your mouth to prevent yourself from releasing the scream building up in your throat.

Shivers rack your body as your heart pounds a mile a minute. Tears spring to your eyes and quickly cascade down your cheeks before you can even think to stop them.

Rather than try to fight back against the surge of emotions that’s overwhelming you, you just give in to it and spend the next several minutes crying into your knees after pulling them to your chest. Miraculously, you manage to avoid making a lot of noise since the last thing you want is to wake Eri and have her see you in such a pitiful state. 

Even though there’s nothing you want more than to forget about that horrible nightmare, you can’t stop yourself from thinking about it. As much as you’d like to write it off as just a bad dream, you know that it’s a memory from your life as a cage fighter.

Somehow, you ended up in a match where your opponent suddenly died due to exploding. Unfortunately for you, you can’t remember how that explosion occurred. Obviously, you didn’t do it, and it couldn’t have been the fault of the rhino Quirk user.

So, whose fault was it?

Immediately, your thoughts turn to the person with acid green eyes that seemed like they could look right through you. As soon as you do that, your trembling increases, which is definitely not a good sign since this is the kind of reaction you had after you had that vision of Mumei following the USJ attack.

Deciding it would be in your best interest to stop thinking about the memory, you do your best to clear your mind as you slowly move to climb out of your bed. You know there’s no way you’ll be able to go to sleep on your own after such a horrible nightmare, so that means a trip to Aizawa’s apartment is in order.

So, that’s exactly where you head. However, before you can, you have to make a stop at your bathroom since you suddenly have the overwhelming urge to wash your hands.

For some reason, even though you know it was just a memory, your hands still feel like they’re covered in blood, and you desperately want to get rid of that horrible sensation.

As a result, you end up spending several minutes roughly washing your hands in a desperate attempt to get them “clean”. Even when your hands start turning red, you don’t stop washing them until the sticky sensation you feel finally fades.

Once you’re finally satisfied, you leave your room and take a moment to stop by Eri’s room, wanting to make sure she’s still sleeping in her room. Once you’re sure she’s fine, you take the elevator to go downstairs. 

Much to your surprise, shortly after you exit the elevator, you notice that the lights in the kitchen are on. Either someone forgot to turn the lights off before heading to bed, or one of your students is up despite it being the middle of the night.

While a part of you wants to see if someone else is awake, you’re also reluctant since you know you must look like a mess considering all the crying you did earlier, even though you did wash your face while you were taking care of your hands. 

Just as you’re thinking you should just head straight to Aizawa’s apartment before anyone can see you, a pajama-clad Todoroki appears in the kitchen doorway.

Once you see him, you immediately realize what’s going on. The stoic boy has a penchant for sneaking sweets in the middle of the night, so he’s obviously going after the fruit tarts you made earlier today.

The thought of Todoroki pilfering fruit tarts causes the corners of your lips to quirk upwards. Leave it to your student to put a smile on your face without even trying. 

As you’re thinking that, Todoroki moves to approach you. Rather than make a comment defending his actions like he usually does when he gets caught in the act of stealing sweets, the taller boy remains strangely quiet for some reason.

It’s when he comes to a stop before you that you realize why. Now that he’s closer, you can make out the clear concern in his eyes and the small frown resting on his lips. “Are you alright, Sensei?”

Your first impulse is to tell him that you’re fine, but that would be a lie. And you’re sure that he’d know that. While the last thing you want to do is lie to your student, you also don’t want to tell him about your nightmare since that would mean reliving it which is the last thing you want to do.

Of course, your brain has to choose that moment to betray you by bringing scenes from that nightmare to the forefront of your mind. When that happens, tears immediately prick your eyes as your breath hitches.

Todoroki’s eyes widen slightly after seeing your reaction. However, rather than question you about it, the stoic boy moves closer to you before outstretching his arms.

He doesn’t move to hug you since he’s not sure if that’s what you want right now, but he wants you to know that the offer is available to you. It’s obvious from his soft expression and the worried gleam in his eyes that he just wants to help you in any way he can.

As much as you hate the idea of him seeing you in such a pitiful state, his offer is too tempting to resist. When more horrible memories flash in your mind, you quickly move to embrace the younger boy, hugging him as tightly as you can as you bury your face in his shoulder.

Immediately, his arms wrap around you and hold you close. Remaining silent, Todoroki uses one of his hands to gently stroke your back in hopes of providing more comfort to you. 

For awhile, the two of you remain in that position. Eventually, after you calm down and feel less like crying, you break the silence. “Thank you, Todoroki. I really needed that.”

His arms give you a gentle squeeze. “I’m glad I could help. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

A small smile forms on your lips as you pull away from him so you can meet his gaze. “No, it’s alright. You don’t have to do anything else. I’m sure after your midnight snack run that you’d like to head to bed and get some more sleep rather than stay up with me.”

Rather than release his hold on you like you expect, Todoroki tightens his grip on you, catching you off guard. Your surprise only grows when you see the small pout he’s now sporting. “So, you’re going to see Aizawa-sensei instead?”

Once your shock fades, the meaning behind his words register, causing your heart to melt. To think he’d actually get jealous of the fact that you always go to Aizawa for comfort when you have nightmares. 

The corners of your lips lift higher as you move to softly tussle his two-toned locks. “It’s not because I prefer him over you. I just don’t want to bother you with my problems. It doesn’t seem right for a teacher to burden her students, especially over something as trivial as a nightmare.”

Todoroki frowns, “Anything that upsets you this much isn’t trivial, and you’re not burdening me. You always help me when I have problems, so it’s only right I do the same. That’s what people do when they care about someone, right?”

Warmth blossoms in your chest at his words. “That’s true.”

With a sigh, you press your forehead against his shoulder. “In that case, could you keep me company for a while? I don’t really feel like sleeping right now.”

He softly pats your back. “Of course. Would you like to sit down on the couch, or do you want to do some stress baking?”

An amused huff passes your lips at his question. “You know me so well. I could definitely benefit from some stress baking.”

After the two of you finally pull apart, Todoroki pulls out his phone, catching you by surprise since you weren’t expecting him to have it on hand. Maybe he likes to browse the internet while he snacks. “I’ll invite the others, so they can join us. I’m sure they wouldn’t want to be left out.”

Before you can tell him that that’s not necessary since you don’t want to wake any of the sleeping students, you notice that he’s sending the message to a group chat called “Y/N-sensei Protection Squad”, and you can’t help but snort in response. “Protection Squad, huh? Who all is in that group?”

Once he hits the send button, Todoroki replies, “Everyone in the class is a part of the squad, but this particular group chat is just for the members who are familiar with your past.”

Your eyes grow large. “Wait a minute. Then, that means…”

Shortly after those words leave your mouth, Bakugou, Midoriya, and Kirishima come storming out of the staircase near the elevators. While the latter two are wearing worried expressions, the former is scowling and looks like he’s ready to fight, making you wonder what exactly Todoroki typed in his message since you never got around to reading it due to being distracted by the group chat name.

Midoriya and Kirishima immediately run over to you while Bakugou observes his surroundings as if searching for an enemy he needs to fight. After giving you a quick once over, Midoriya frowns worriedly. “Are you okay, Sensei? Todoroki-kun said you needed our help. Did something happen?”

Kirishima dons a similar expression. “He said it was an emergency so it must be really bad. Whatever it is, we’ll do everything we can to help! You can count on us, Sensei!”

As expected of the sunshine children, the two boys do not disappoint. Unable to help yourself, you pull them both into a hug, making Midoriya flush while the redhead quickly moves to reciprocate the embrace. “I’m alright. I just had a nightmare and didn’t want to go back to sleep. Todoroki thought having more company would help me. I’m sorry for worrying you.”

While they both sigh in relief after hearing that you’re okay, Bakugou glares at Todoroki. “You bastard....Don’t go saying it’s a fucking emergency when it isn’t! You wanna die?!”

The stoic boy just tilts his head. “It’s not like I lied. Just see for yourself.”

His words puzzle you, but before you can question Todoroki about them, Bakugou suddenly stomps toward you, catching you by surprise. As you release your hold on Midoriya and Kirishima, the blond comes to a stop in front of you and studies your face for the next several seconds.

When he finally pulls his gaze away from you, Bakugou turns to look at Todoroki again. “I’ll let you live to see tomorrow. Be grateful, you bastard.”

Stoic expression never faltering, Todoroki just blinks, “Thanks.”

As you snort at the exchange, Kirishima grins at you. “So, what do you wanna do, Sensei? Make a pillow fort?”

At the words “pillow fort”, Todoroki’s eyes brighten. “Yes.”

Bakugou scowls, “What you want doesn’t fucking matter, Half-and-Half. This is about Sensei, remember?”

A smile forms on your lips. “A pillow fort sounds like a great idea, but first, I’d like to do a little stress baking. Any requests?”

Immediately, Todoroki and Kirishima reel off what they like while Midoriya shyly mentions a dessert he hasn’t had in awhile. Bakugou just rolls his eyes before saying that he refuses to bake anything super sweet.

In the end, you decide to make multiple desserts, so everyone will be happy. Not only that, it ensures that you’ll be able to keep yourself busy for awhile, meaning you’ll be able to avoid thinking about your horrible nightmare.

It’s not just the baking itself that keeps you distracted, however. The whole time you’re in the kitchen, the students take turns keeping you engaged in fun conversations. 

Kirishima tells you about a movie he went to see recently with Tetsutetsu that, according to him, was the definition of manliness. Midoriya brings up what he’s recently added to his hero notebook and how he’d like your opinion on some of the observations he made regarding his classmates.

Every now and then, Todoroki chimes in with a pun or a meme, making you laugh every time. While he mostly remains silent except for the times he snaps at the others for making careless mistakes with their baking, Bakugou does eventually start talking to you about his training regimen which he’s considering adding onto and wants your input on much to your surprise.

Considering how much fun you’re having with your students, it’s like your nightmare didn’t even happen. While your eyes and hands are still red, it would be hard for anyone to think anything is wrong after seeing the large smile you’re now sporting.

Just goes to show that no foe is a match for your students, not even the haunting memories of a past best left forgotten. 

[themosleyreview]

The Mosley Review: The New Mutants

I'm all for multiple layers in a story. Your central plot is a horrific event that catapults a character’s journey into self discovery. That right there is the most compelling part of this film and I dug it. It may be cliche, but it works for a reason. From that point on you can explore the tone. You can go from a coming of age story that is full of heartfelt moments or you can twist it and take it down a horror/thriller road that works perfectly in a teenage story. Another avenue you can take is of mystery and a down right action film that these types of films are known for. All of what I just described surrounds the central plot of this film, but weighs it down because of its uncertainty of what it wants to be. I loved the horror aspect of the film and it was a chance to really explore something new in the X-Men film franchise. I wish it stayed that way, but in the end you get the same old stale ending that tries to wrap up the themes introduced prior while delivering an action heavy ending. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to see each characters' powers on full display, but it detracted from what could've been a darker and more fun version of the X-Mansion.  

The cast in the film are stellar across the board. Blu Hunt was great as Dani Moonstar and I liked her journey of self discovery. Her intense story is the catalyst of the film and she delivered the characters' stress and intrigue with ease. Maisie Williams is always a class act and I liked her as Rahne. Her backstory was the most interesting and traumatic as her religious beliefs are tied to the discovery of her powers. Her Scottish accent was good in most of the film, but you can tell where she dropped it at times. It’s not an easy accent to pull off. Her chemistry with Dani was nice and brought out the lighter moments of the story. Charlie Heaton was really good as Sam. Charlie is really good at portraying the type of characters that have some form of shame or fear when it comes to being apart of something. I liked Sam and his willingness to help and to face his past. Henry Zaga was good as Bobby and I liked that he quickly turned from your stereotypical "player" to someone more vulnerable and brave at times. Anya Taylor-Joy is always a powerhouse on screen and she was no different as Illyana. Even though she had a very tough and mean exterior, she shows her true colors by the end. She was a hell of a fighter and I would love to see more of her someday. Alice Braga was excellent as the head of the medical facility, Dr. Cecilia Reyes. She always delivers in her performances and she was charismatic and powerful in many scenes.

The score by Mark Snow was eerie, dream like and intense at the right moments. Its a great horror/thriller score on its own. There are many references that hardcore X-Men fans will catch and they're fun. I loved the tie into one of the best X-Men films in the franchise and it was very satisfying. There are many films that get stuck in limbo before they're released and this film was locked in limbo for so long that it became a running joke. Now that it is finally released, I'm happy that it got the release it deserved. As I stated before, this film has all these great story elements, but it just really needed to focus on one. The film would’ve benefited more from diving into the horror aspects instead of being an amalgamation of action, thriller and young adult. Director Josh Boone did a good job with the film and for a swan song to the Fox X-Men film universe, it wasn't bad. I would recommend checking this film out for a decent time at the theater, but keep your expectations low.  

[whumping-every-day]

Vampire Whump: New Beginnings

Or, Vampire Whump Part Five! 

This time, we meet our reluctant caregiver, and our poor vampire gets something of a break. Sort of. -shifty eyes- 

Content Warnings for this one: Brief mouth/face gore, pain, dehumanizing language, comfort and reluctant caretaker, changing POV, fear, disassociation, given away, mention of experimentation, description of something awful happening to someone’s vocal chords, brief animal death (pig). 

Tagging @learningtowhump @whumpingmydarlings @shameless-whumper @pepperonyscience @robinshouseofwhump

Masterlist

--

Eventually, to keep the vampire from finally turning into dust, they have to feed it properly. They lock the creature in the small stone room again, and then throw a piglet in with it. The vampire is not proud of what it does, nor of how long it takes to do it.

Pig blood will not heal it. It won’t mend the charred flesh, or the misshaped bones, and it will not restore its voice, which it has lost after the hunters had reached down its throat with a silver knife and twisted. They had put the muzzle back on immediately after, of course, ignoring how the creature was gagging and choking on its own blood.

Pig blood will not heal it, but it will keep it from escaping the hunter’s grasp. And that is all the hunters want.

The vampire does not know how long it has been kept there, and it can’t even contemplate the concept. Time has no meaning, aside from the moving of the sun. Everything else stays the same, and it is only the brand of pain that changes.  The creature wants to beg. It wants to die. But the sun rises, and burns, and falls, and the hunters take it down and subject it to their newest torments. And in the morning, they put it back up again. At no point do they seem to hear the creature’s screams and muffled pleas, and eventually, they find a way to keep it silent altogether.

The next time the creature is dropped in the same cold, stone room, it is familiar. They take it down for feeding only when the vampire starts to crumble and disintegrate at the edges, and they always seem to catch it in time.

But this time, the bowl of blood is filled to the brim, instead of a few scant inches in the bottom. It is a break from routine, more blood than it’s ever been given at once, and the vampire understands by now that changes will only lead to more suffering. But it is left alone with the blood, and the hunters only kick it around a little bit before they leave and bar the door.

In the resulting silence, the vampire is numb. There is no confusion anymore, no conscious thought or effort to make sense of the hunter’s actions. Just dazed acceptance. But the blood is close, and the vampire is so, so hurt. Old injuries have healed wrong, and new ones have been dealt; crawling over to the bowl is an exercise in pain.

They haven’t removed the muzzle, not for weeks… or months. There is no way to tell. But the vampire can’t remember the last time it could touch its face without it. It’s easier, by now, to get the blood into its mouth through the muzzle, with all the practice it’s had.

By the time it’s done drinking, the vampire’s stomach feels full for the first time in living memory. It’s still pigs blood, but the quantity is new. The creature gasps and shudders as it works its way through its system, attempting to heal some of its internal injuries. It doesn’t get very far – pig’s blood never will - but when the vampire stops trembling and whimpering on the floor, it’s in a little less pain than before.

It’s a mercy, and the vampire knows it will pay for it, in some way. It just doesn’t know how.

When morning comes, the creature is convinced of the worst. Whatever the hunters have in store for it, whatever new torture, it will be truly horrific. What it is not expecting is the sound of new footsteps.

“This is your vampire?” The voice is horrified, and surprised. The vampire is familiar with that, and it lies still in its chains, far too traumatized to sob or cry. But while the tone is disgusted, it’s also incredulous. This is a voice that wants something.

“Unfortunately.” It’s one of the oldest hunters in the small town’s militia; Garret. The vampire remembers his voice, and its eyes go a little more dazed at the sound, already trying to escape from its own body.

The new voice draws closer, and the boots fall heavy on the ground. They’re riding boots, iron spurs at the heels, and the vampire’s breath speeds up as they draw to a stop by its face.

“Has it tried to bite?” Somehow, it sounds as though the man already knows the answer.  

“Well – no.” Garret, again, and the hunter crosses his arms. “These are more… preventative measures.”

“I see.” The new voice is undeniably disapproving. The stranger crouches down, kneeling over the vampire’s brutalized body. The vampire starts to quiver, but there’s no movement, no sound. “And these preventative measures, did they also include breaking its knees? And legs? And-” There’s a short pause, and the creature can feel the eyes that scan up and down it. “And its wrists? That muzzle is made of iron. Jesus fucking Christ.” The stranger is not pleased, and the vampire squeezes its eyes shut as the man stands.

“Our methods work.” It’s Garret, again. “You know better than anyone how to subdue these things.”

“I do know how.” It’s short, terse. “I also know overkill when I see it. So if we still have a deal…”

There’s a pause, then Garret sighs. “Yeah. We have a deal. My boys are bored of this thing. Besides, if you’re researching how to better kill these animals… then you should have a test subject.”

“I appreciate it.” It’s still tense, even as the stranger shrugs his travelling pack off and drops it to his feet. “I’m going to need a minute to prep him for travel. If you don’t mind.”

“Of course. Keep the muzzle. It’s very effective.”

“Yeah, I bet.” There’s silence, then the door opens and closes. The vampire flinches as the wooden beam thunks into place from outside. Then the stranger approaches again, and the creature’s body begins to quake in response, even as it stays deathly silent.

There is only silence for a few long, agonizing moments. Then a heavy sigh, and the man crouches down again. “Honestly,” the man mutters. The creature’s eyes stay fixed dully on nothing, blank and distant. The man isn’t talking to it. They are never talking to it. The man sighs again. “There’s no way to do this without it hurting.” The man reaches out, and the creature slips further away from reality, giving only a panicked gasp as it is turned over.

“Holy christ.” The vampire wheezes on its back, its ribs aching fiercely, but doesn’t so much as twitch. The hunter is staring, and in the dim light his hair is the same color as golden straw. There’s a thick scar running across the left side of his face, and the man’s eyes are sad. Perhaps in the beginning, the creature would have wondered at that sadness. But it doesn’t wonder about anything, anymore.

The hunter seems to realize that he won’t get a response, and he shakes his head quickly before dragging his pack closer. “Alright,” he mutters to himself. “Same plan. The plan hasn’t changed.” His eyes track the state of the vampire’s injuries for a long moment, cataloging and assessing, before motion.

“You, still.” The vampire can tell the moment that the hunter starts speaking to it, instead of to the room. It’s a command, an instruction, and the creature immediately freezes, save for the minute trembling. The stranger’s hands appear in its line of vision, and the vampire squeezes its eyes shut, not wanting to see.

There’s a faint click, and the shackles loosen. It’s immediate relief; the bones underneath have been broken and rebroken so many times that the skin underneath is swollen and fevered, and there is puss and blood weeping from where the metal has dug into skin. The vampire lets out a low, wounded moan as the cuffs are unlatched, the only sound it can still make with its damaged throat. There’s a pustules stench, and the shackles come free with a wet sound.

“Jesus christ. Jeeesus christ.” The vampire barely even registers the sound of the stranger’s voice as the shackles are dropped. The pain is only sending the creature deeper into disassociation, floating somewhere high above its body. “Okay. Alright.” The hunter holds his nose for a moment, visibly bracing himself. “I do regret that I have to do this,” he murmurs. But the next time he moves, it’s with purpose.

The ankle shackles are also removed, then the thick metal collar, and the hunter hesitates at the muzzle. The vampire stares back blankly, only partially present in its own head.

“I can’t have you biting me,” the man murmurs. “But there’s no way I’m leaving that thing on…” He trails off, and makes a grab for his pack. The vampire has no consciousness, no thoughts, but it remembers the command that was given. Still. Be still. So it doesn’t move, barely even dares to breath, in the distant, impossible hope that perhaps being perfectly obedient would earn it leniency.

The man reaches for the straps holding the muzzle in place, but he stops, stares down at the vampire. The creature feels ice in its stomach at the look his eye. “If you try to bite me,” he says slowly, “I will put a stake in your chest. Do you understand?” The threat is the only thing that’s made sense since the man had stepped inside. The vampire trembles and nods, too frightened to even breathe. “Okay. Good.��� Normally threats are backed up with pain, and it feels like missing a step when instead the man is satisfied. “Still,” he reminds, and the vampire squeezes its eyes shut again and holds its breath.

The creature tries to hold still, it really does. But when the hunter starts to pull on the muzzle, it can only gurgle and thrash, and then immediately pass out. The muzzle is stuck, half burnt into its face, and eventually the hunter can only apologize, get a good grip on it, and yank. It takes the vampire a solid ten minutes to come back to. It can’t see past the stinging, but it can smell blood.

“Easy,” the man mutters. He’s got the bowl out, and a knife in his left hand. The knife glints in the dim light, makes the creature’s bladder heavy with terror, but the hunter is already bleeding… into the bowl? The vampire stares, then blinks, then blinks again. The picture doesn’t make sense.

“They fucked you up pretty bad, huh.” It’s the hunter again, and when grey eyes turn back to the wounded creature at his feet, they are gentler than expected. “You know, I always thought this kind of thing was barbaric excess. I’ve killed enough vampires on my own, but I don’t…” His brow creases, shaking his head. “I don’t like to play with my food, you know? They shoulda just staked you.” The vampire flinches, and the man balks, then frowns deeper. “Not that I’m going to… Ugh.” He groans, rubs a hand over his face, before straightening again. “Look. This is all you need to know. My name is Callum Devorak, and you are coming with me. If you can behave yourself, you will not be hurt. Do you think you can do that? No biting, no scratching, no fighting.”

It sounds… too easy. It sounds impossible. The vampire can barely move, can barely even breath, but it nods again, even more frantically than the first time. It knows there is no escape. It would do anything, anything at all, to make its torment a little less.

“Okay.” The hunter, Callum, looks vaguely uncomfortable. A few moments later, and he shakes his bleeding hand off over the bowl, moving to bandage the shallow slice. The vampire is hyper-aware of the bowl’s content; this is real blood, something that could actually ease its suffering.

When his hand is cleaned up, Callum picks the bowl up and moved to help the vampire sit up. The creature panics and wheezes when the hunter approaches, making a short, frightened sound low in its chest. “Easy, easy.” The hunter is out of his depth, but he is gentle when he lifts the bowl to the vampire’s lips, his other hand coming up to steady the back of its head. “Open up. There you go.”

The vampire can’t even lift its own hands. It’s defenseless, completely vulnerable, but instead of causing it further harm, the hunter is feeding it. Its lips are malformed from the muzzle, but it tries its best to open its mouth, begging for any scraps the hunter feels like offering.

It’s the second full bowl of blood it’s had in the last day, and by the middle point, the vampire is nearly drugged with it. There’s a quiet snap as its hip clicks back into place, and the vampire jerks and gasps, breathing heavily with pain. Callum seems to understand what’s happening, and he takes the bowl away while the creature’s body stitches back together, and waits patiently until it can breathe again. His hand stays curled around the vampire’s nape, cradling the back of its skull.

“That’s it, good,” he murmurs. “Just a bit more.”

When it swallows down the last drop, the vampire has to take a minute to adjust to the sudden presence of blood in its system. It has crumpled to its side at some point while it heals, and the hunter lets it happen. The creature has been starved for so long, that being fed feels strange. Agony has become the norm. This amount of blood won’t entirely heal it, but it’s enough that the vampire feels its knees starting to knit back together. Its throat itches, then burns, and the vampire chokes and scrabbles at its neck in a panic.

“Whoa, whoa! Easy, hang on.” There’s hands on it, then, warm and broad, settling on its emaciated shoulder. The vampire jerks and heaves, and those hands only squeeze softly, stroking along its bare flank, like a person might try to stroke a skittish horse. “I know it hurts,” Callum murmurs. “Your body is repairing old damage. Try to breathe.”

It’s the gentlest it’s been spoken to in as long as it can remember, and the vampire can only choke and twitch and cling to the words. Eventually, the stinging, searing pain in its throat abates, and the next time the vampire tries to whimper, its throat can make sound again.

“There we go.” Callum gives the creature one last little pat, and it’s startling, but also uncommonly gentle. The vampire can only stare up at him in utter bewilderment. What sort of hunter was this? “Now, I need you to hold still again.” The man pulls out a bundle of rope, and the vampire lets its head fall back to the stone floor. The pain of healing has only just faded, and there is much more left to go. But it’s in less pain than it has been in – ever. As long as the creature can remember. As long as it’s been here. It is perfectly still as the hunter turns it over, and it lays limp while the man brings its arms behind its back and binds them in place. The rope is firm, but not tight; it doesn’t burn against the creature’s skin, doesn’t scald the way iron would. It is still, and obedient, and it is not hurt.

It feels an awful lot like mercy.

Its ankles are not tied, and the unusual freedom of motion is unsettling. Once its arms are bound, the hunter rustles around his pack, and returns with a new muzzle. It’s leather, with a metal bit for its mouth, and it’s rounder than the old one. The vampire whimpers softly, already anticipating the pain of having it fastened on top of old wounds. But when Callum raises it, frowning, the vampire just opens its mouth to accept it. It’s leather, it thinks as it waits. It won’t burn. The man is kind.

But Callum only stares at the creature for a long moment, before sighing. The muzzle falls back to his lap. “No, you don’t need this, do you.” It’s not a question, but the vampire desperately wants to agree. It doesn’t need it, it’ll be good, it’ll follow any order the man gives if it means no more sun, no more iron…

The muzzle is put back in the hunter’s pack, and the vampire’s mouth is left free. The creature almost feels naked without the harsh metal eating into its face.

“Now, I’m sorry, but this part does need to happen.” The vampire’s eyes flick up fearfully, and hesitate on the burlap fabric in the hunter’s hands. A blanket? A bag? Callum is watching, and he sighs softly at the naked terror in the creature’s eyes. “I have to take you outside,” he explains softly, trying to reassure. The fabric is, after all, intended to keep the creature from burning. Instead, the vampire reacts like it’s been shot.

Its back hits the stone wall with a hollow thump, and the vampire cowers. It’s making a primitive keening sound, somewhere between a ragged sob and a scream, and its eyes are lost and glazed again. Outside. Outside. Sun. Torment and agony. It had tried to be good, it tried, it couldn’t take any more of the sun, please please no—

From his position a few feet away, Callum can only watch as the creature crumples in on itself. It’s begging, little broken, half bitten-off pleas, just a series of no and please don’t. They’re not even complete words, just an abortive attempt.

“Hey, hey, easy!” Callum can’t even deny it, the sight is… disturbing. Everything about this is disturbing. “I’m not going to burn you, kid, c’mon. Can you just – just listen to me. I’m not going to hurt you-” But the vampire is gone again. It’s rocking against the stone wall, hyperventilating and crying, and Callum jumps when something knocks against the outside door.

“Yo, Devorak! Are you done in there yet?” It’s Garret, and Callum doesn’t know how he’d forgotten about the other hunters. He’d forgotten they were on a time limit. “How long does it take to prep a leech for transit?” 

“Just a minute,” Callum calls back. “I’m almost done.”

There’s grumbling from outside the door, but the footsteps move away, giving Callum his space. The man hisses through his teeth, watching the vampire quiver. “Okay,” he mutters. “Okay. Kid, I’m sorry about this.”

He can’t afford to wait for the creature to calm down. So Callum picks up the burlap fabric and the rope, and gets in real close. The vampire wails and twists its face away, and all Callum can make out is its emaciated rib cage and the horrible scars running the length of its side. The hunter reaches out and firmly guides the creature down onto its belly, and the vampire folds, whimpering the whole way. Once it’s flat, Callum sets the fabric down beside it, and then, firmly but gently, rolls it over. The vampire isn’t resisting, but it’s scared out of its mind, almost literally. Its pleas aren’t making sense anymore.

“Okay, okay, easy,” Callum mutters, over and over, as he carefully turns the creature one more time, wrapping it in the coarse fabric. Once the vampire is covered, Callum lashes a rope around it, starting at the top and ending at the ankles. It won’t be comfortable, but it will keep the sun off.

The blood he had fed the creature should have healed its broken ribs… at least, Callum hopes so. Otherwise, he’s going to feel very bad about the next step. He drapes a last layer of black cloth over the covered vampire, completely obstructing the creature’s view of the outside. Then, Callum leans down to pick it up.

When Garret pulls open the door, it’s to Callum with the bound vampire slung over his shoulder, quiet and unresisting. For a moment, Callum looks into the eyes of the man who had allowed the vampire’s torture, and feels something murderous in his heart. Callum is a hunter. Callum has done terrible things. Hell, his plans for the vampire hadn’t been altruistic either, when he’d first asked to take it. But now, after the things he’d seen… “You people are fucking animals.”

Callum shoulders past Garret, and the older man gives way with an indignant shout. “Hey! You’re no fucking angel yourself, Devorak. You know damn well what these creatures deserve.” Callum’s grip only tightens where he’s holding the vampire’s legs, keeping it from sliding off. Just keep walking. Keep walking.

“It’ll turn on you, if you let it.” Callum’s horse is waiting right where he left her, and he pats her muzzle gently, slings the reigns over her neck.

“I won’t let it.” It’s not quite what he wants to say, and Callum settles the vampire across his saddle as carefully as he can. The bound creature hasn’t moved, and if not for the audibly labored, panicked breathing, Callum would have thought it had passed out.

Garret has followed him out, and the man crosses his arms, watching the younger hunter swing up into the saddle. “You’d better not get soft on that thing,” he warns, and Callum’s grip tightens on the reigns.

“You don’t have to worry about it, either way.” Callum places a hand on the rope-bound bundle in front of him, and it’s far more protective than he would have liked.

Garret only watches, quirking an eyebrow. “Okay, man. Whatever you say. But I warned ya.”

A muscle ticks in Callum’s jaw, and his stare is ice as he nudges his mount into motion. He doesn’t respond to Garret. Doesn’t think he can, not politely. Instead, he gains some distance from the stone building, and he glances back as the main square, and the gallows, disappear behind them. It feels strange. It feels like a new beginning.

Callum gives the frightened vampire the gentlest little pat, letting his hand rest on the creature’s back through the layers of fabric. “Don’t worry, bud,” he murmurs. “They’re not going to hurt you anymore. No one is going to hurt you anymore.” Even if Callum had meant to. Callum is a scientist before he’s a hunter; he likes to learn things, and he likes to experiment. He’d wanted a test subject, so he could learn more… but nothing could have prepared him for the sight that greeted him in that little room. And nothing he could do, or not do, was going to fix what had happened.

But at the end of the day… there is one thing Callum can do about it, and that’s to keep the poor thing from any further harm. If nothing else, he can do that. So he rides, and leaves a hand soft and warm on the creature’s back, and slowly, eventually, the trembling eases.

It’s a three-day journey back home, and Callum doesn’t know what he’s going to do with the vampire when they get there. But he’s got some time to figure it out.

--

Previous  Next

[harcourtholmesii]

Fragmented (Chapter IV)

(WARNINGS: Destruction Of Property, Referenced/Implied Sensory Deprivation, Harsh Wording, Blood, Intimacy)

STRANGE CASE OF DOCTOR JEKYLL AND MISTER HYDE

It was warm.

 How odd.

 It was never warm here. It was never even cold. Was it ever anything?

 There was the rustle of bed sheets, the feeling of rough cloth and satin beneath his fingertips. What was this? Where was he?

 His world was still black, no way up or down, but he could feel himself no longer adrift in a vast ocean. He was no longer weightless, in fact, attempting to raise his limbs, he felt something hard come down onto his cheek. His arm had fallen slack. How?

 A burning sensation ebbed out from the point of impact, and slowly, he went to raise his arm again, feeling his hand lay flat on his face. He tried to gently soothe his bruising, feeling his eyes scrunch up. Oh. That was why he was still blind.

 He still didn’t get it.

 He hadn’t needed to open his eyes before. The eyes were always open for him. He couldn’t be certain as to how long it had been, but the last time he had been ‘awake’ he could remember seeing his face. He hadn’t changed a bit. It was strange, considering the time before he had seen what had become of him.

 Seeing himself in that chipped mirror, pale white skin with those evil eyes and manic grin, it was no wonder why he had been forced to split. He could only assume this was his negative half everything bad about him and everything to avoid according to Morality. The over the top costume, the white streak in his fringe and the smell of something dying…

 Wait.

 With effort, he turned his head, sniffing at the sheets and holding back a wretch. What on Earth possessed his… ‘offspring’ to sleep in such a state? He felt his eyes crack open, slowly but surely, revealing the ceiling high above his head, a dark grey in contrast to the pitch black walls surrounding him. The bed he was laying on was huge, but more akin to a nest with the mess of blankets, pillows and towels surrounding him. He cringed to think as to why the towels were there.

 However, his mind turned back to his current… predicament? No. This was good. A good thing. Previously he had only been able to see and hear things through the eyes of his ‘host’, and then he had been able to do small gestures and actions. But now he could sit up. Now he could put his feet on the floor and wal-

 Okay.

 Maybe no walking just yet.

 He felt the excruciating pain of his chin hitting the floor, his body a limp sack of flesh and bones, unable to move with the ease it should have. Guess he just had to get used to it. After all, maybe he could finally talk to someone! Maybe he wouldn’t have his messages or words ignored by his ‘host’.

 It was hard to pull himself to his feet. In fact, trying to manoeuvre them under his weight just caused him to tumble back onto his arse. It was undignified, but for now, he would have to get used to moving. Maybe just start by crawling. On hands and knees, he moved forward carefully, trying his best to keep his head up so he could see where he was going. With how heavy everything seemed to be, it was bizarre. He was so used to drifting about in nothing everything hurt and everything was a trial.

 It was some time before he had crawled his way over to the desk; a large, mahogany obstruction with dozens of papers strewn about. Using his hand, he pushed away papers to uncover more and more, from drawings of horrific locales, to paintings he was pretty certain were made from blood. The smell of iron supported his theory.

 What the Hell was wrong with him?

 It made sense, though, that he would end up in the Dark side of the Mindscape. There was no way a… creature like this would be accepted by Thomas. And understandably so. This was disgusting and all things nightmarish. He felt burning bile rise in the back of his throat, swallowing it down and clasping a piece of ‘artwork’ in his hands shakily. It took him a moment, feeling a twinge in the back of his mind. It was soft, almost inaudible, but there was the slightest voice somewhere deep in his skull. He ignored it.

 It was a satisfying sound, the paper tearing perfectly down the middle and falling to the floor. It was delightful. He grabbed another page and tore through it once again. He felt a smile etch its way across his face, his lips pulling taut over his unusually sharp teeth.

 Rip.

 Tear.

 Cut.

 Lacerate.

 Slash.

 He continued until there were no papers left in one piece, and then continued further, pulling them apart into white threads of confetti. The smell of blood and paint was still in the air, but he cared little for it. The feeling of pulling something apart caused a sort of joy to stir in his heart.

 “Remus?”

 He felt his ears burning, turning his head in time to see him standing in the doorway, eye wide with concern. Just the way he remembered him. That smile that had stretched its way across his face, fell into something much kinder. Something softer. Yellow eyes pierced his own, and with a sense of urgency, he pushed himself to his feet. He felt his world take a sharp dive and right as he was falling to the floor he felt three pairs of arms around his waist and shoulders, preventing him from hitting the carpet.

 “Are you alright?”

 God… That voice, not directed at his ‘host’ but at him. A heat swelled deep within his chest, something he had not felt in at least two decades. He turned his eyes up to Deceit’s, their noses near touching from how close the two of them were. He swallowed thickly around a stone, hoping to force it down so that he might speak. He opened his mouth, hearing only a slight wisp of air escape his lungs. Damn it!

 “Why would you do that to your work? You love your drawings.” His voice was right by his ear, calm and as smooth as ever. Come on… Stupid vocal chords… Work!

 “I…” There! That was something!

 “Remus?”

 He shook his head in response, raising his hands to wrap them over Deceit’s shoulders, trying to heft himself up and closer to the other. Deceit pulled back, helping him into a proper standing position. He awkwardly placed his feet, toes pointed inwards, trying to stand.

 “No…”

 “No?”

 “Not Remus.” Deceit’s eyes searched his features, trying to understand him and what he was saying. It probably didn’t make much sense but he was trying here. It took him a lot to even say that!

 “W-What are you talking about?”

 …

 “I’m Romulus.”

 Those eyes widened in response, recognition passing through Deceit as he shook. No way. Not again. Remus had to be having one of his episodes again. It couldn’t be…

 “I’ve missed you so.” He felt himself fall forward, this time of his own will, back into Deceit’s arms, pushing forward into his space. There was a connection. He felt how he had begun to drift, but it was not the same weightless abyss he knew. No. It was warm and welcoming. This was an old feeling. One he had missed more than anything else. And it seemed the same for Deceit.

 His lips were just as soft as Romulus remembered.

[ninasfireescape]

The ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ review no one asked for

I wanted to enjoy it. I really did.

I was one of the people who didn’t dislike The Last Jedi. Sure, I didn’t love it. When I watched it, I thought it was too long and had made certain characters choices I wasn’t too happy with, but overall it was enjoyable and left me feeling satisfied. It was not as good as The Force Awakens however and hearing JJ Abrams was returning, I thought he might be able to restore the final episode to its former glory.

That indeed seemed like the case for the first hour. The gang were back together, it was quick-paced, I had an emotional investment in what was going on (and it seemed like they were taking the Finnrey route I wanted them too). I couldn’t exactly follow every plot specific but does that really matter in Star Wars when it’s so exciting? The bit on Star Killer base was genuinely inspired, I was laughing away at once again what terrible shots the stormtroopers were and at Hux being the spy. Every scene with Lando in was gold.

It was just after they got to the water planet that things started to go wrong. I’m not sure quite what it was exactly that made it so disappointing from this point onwards. Perhaps the gang splitting up or the rather horrifically done Leia death scene. I know they didn’t really have much choice with what footage they had but having watched each member of the original trio died, this death was devoid of emotion and predictable. And she died to make Kylo Ren hesitate for one moment. What a waste!

Then the pointless force ghosts! Seeing Luke was nice but it felt like he was just there to add clunky explanation since the plot made so little sense at this point. And when Han appeared, I actually laughed. It was so inconsistent with the tone of the film and he appeared all while Kylo Ren was standing in the middle of a stormy sea that he could fall into at any moment, right in the most climactic section of the film, just to have a conversation with the son who killed him! It was the most outrageous example of a fan service cameo that just didn’t assimilate with the rest of the film.

I don’t actually have a problem with Rey Palpatine. If anything, I thought it was really cool she was a Palpatine. I really didn’t want her to be a Skywalker because I felt it would be predictable and repetitive. Her being a Palpatine also sends the message to young viewers that blood relations don’t make a family which I think is very important for children to hear. Honestly, the only problem I have with it is that it means some poor lady had sex with Palpatine. I agree that it was a ridiculous retcon of The Last Jedi but then I didn’t like the reveal about her parents in TLJ anyway because of how it was executed. Another thing that bothers me about it is the utter lack of information we get about Villanelle Rey’s mother. Already we don’t know much about her father other than that he’s Palpatine’s son but with her mother, we get nothing. With Rey having wondered about who her parents were for so long, surely it would make sense for her to want to know more about her mother and maybe even take her surname in place of ‘Palpatine’. I also firmly believe Rey’s mother should have been played by Hayley Atwell because she looks so much like Daisy Ridley. And while Jodie Comer is an amazing actress, I think 1. She deserves a bigger role in the Star Wars franchise and 2. Her casting as Rey’s mother exemplifies Hollywood’s fear of casting older actresses as mothers. A twenty six year old as a mother!?

About Zurii, I always appreciate new female characters in Star Wars and I thought she had a great design. However, it is blatantly clear what her purpose in the film was. It was to stop people calling Poe gay, inserting a female character for one scene (she barely spoke in her other scenes so I’m not counting those) with no backstory of her own, just to prove he is attracted to women. Well, first of all, he can be bi, secondly, that’s not going to stop people shipping Finnpoe at all. I didn’t clock until afterwards when I saw people talking about it online, but it was super problematic to make Poe a former drug dealer. Sure, the only Latino character in this trilogy. Also, it in general complicates the little we know about Poe’s backstory so far.

With Rose, all our worst fears were confirmed. She just wasn’t there. She appeared in a couple of scenes and had some lines but you’d think she was no more than another miscellaneous rebel, no more significant a role than Billie Lourd’s character. Did they really give into the white fanboy pressure? How could they erase Rose when she was such a good character? She was tough and fought strongly for her beliefs, but she was also compassionate, sensitive. Now, I never particularly shipped Finn and Rose in TLJ. I thought it seemed a bit of a rushed romance and Finn didn’t seem that invested in the kiss they shared. However, you can’t just pretend they didn’t kiss in the last film. They interacted a few times but there was no sense of any bond between them. Where there relationship stood was unclear. Were they now a couple or had they had an offscreen conversation where they decided they were better off as friends? Who knows?

And now onto the worst part of the film: Kylo Ren and more specifically that kiss. Gross. Okay, to be clear, I wasn’t entirely opposed to a redemption arc for Kylo Ren. Sure, it would be predictable, but it’s not like Kylo Ren’s crimes are any worse than those of Darth Vader and he was still capable of redemption. I liked Kylo Ren as a villain. He perfectly depicted that type of whiny, entitled white man who we see so commonly in real life, but again, he could have achieved some redemption if it were implemented correctly. What we got in the film was not this. He was still committing genocide at the start and carried out one good deed which was saving the woman he had a crush on. For this one good act, he was entirely forgiven and somehow all of the genocide wasn’t his fault. And he got rewarded with the woman! If anything, I’d call that act selfish since he only wanted to save the woman he liked. Adam Driver did the best he could with it but everything about it was awful. And it was out of character for Rey to kiss him and forgive him. She stabbed him little more than half an hour earlier! At the end of the last film, she slammed a door in his face. It makes no sense to me how she could suddenly be so invested in him becoming a better person. There’s also the fact that wasn’t included in the films that Rey and Kylo Ren are related (aunt and nephew to be exact). I wasn’t aware this was Game of Thrones! And according to Wookiepedia, Rey was 18 at the start of the films and is now 20 whereas Kylo Ren is now 30. A ten year age different would be fine if Rey were older but at this point, the age gap is uncomfortable and very borderline.

If they’re going to make the claim that it wasn’t actually Kylo Ren who was doing the evil deeds but some dark force corrupting him, they should have explained how the mechanism works. At least in the prequels, we got some sense of Anakin slowly being corrupted. To me, it reads like in some horror films when the abusive characters are found to have been possessed by demons or something. It trivializes abuse which is something very real, acting instead as if no abusers can actually be responsible for their actions and it is the cause of some supernatural force instead. I suppose the kiss doesn’t have to mean anything. After all, Leia and Luke kissed in the original trilogy and Finn and Rose kissed and apparently that meant nothing.

I firmly believe the series intended a Finn and Rey romance. Lest we forget The Force Awakens, Finn awkwardly asking Rey if she had a boyfriend. That was clear coding for him having a crush on her. In that film, the two developed such a strong bond, and they have so much more chemistry than Rey and Kylo Ren ever had. All the scenes with Rey and Finn (and Poe) were full of light and emotion. The scene at the end where the three of them hugged was honestly the high point of the film. Now, when I left the cinema, what was plaguing my mind the most was that throughout the film, Finn had a secret he wanted to tell Rey. It was first suggested when they thought they were going to die in the quicksand. “Wait, Rey, I never told you!” It had to be that he loved her. What else could it be? Supposedly, it was that he was force sensitive. I don’t believe that for one second. If he needed to tell her that, why couldn’t Poe be included? And why did he never get the chance to tell her? It was a build-up I got invested in with no payoff. It must have been that he loved her. So, if that was the case, that leaves us with two options. Either there was a Finnrey subplot that got cut but they forgot to cut these scenes out (or simply couldn’t be bothered to), or they thought it would be funny to have the black supposed male lead chasing after the white female lead who didn’t love him back because she was instead in love with the genocidal white villain. I ship Finnrey so much and find the second option so horrific but I wouldn’t put it past the writers. Finn played such a significant role in the first half of the film, as he should since he’s meant to be the male lead in the series, but after that, he was dangerously underutilized. At least the ending where no one ends up with each other is compliant with my headcanon that Rey, Finn and Poe (and I don’t mind Rose being in the mix too) all end up married to each other and adopt a bunch of porgs.

And lastly, the lesbian scene. Pathetic. We don’t know the character names and I can’t even find out who the actresses were that played them. Okay, they kissed which is a pretty big deal (even though kisses apparently mean nothing in Star Wars) and it’s certainly a step forward from the Avengers: Endgame ‘’’’representation’’’’, but it’s still rather useless considering the big deal JJ Abrams made about how there would be representation.

[thevividgreenmoss]

How Laugier knows what these victims go through is anyone’s guess. Still, what sets his depiction of a split-personality, revanchist killing machine apart from his forebears is that he almost immediately reveals to the viewer that Lucie is the one still hurting herself. Lucie’s manifested guilt is not entirely the driving mechanism behind the film: what eventually takes precedence is uncovering who the monsters are that created it and why they did it.

The fact that Laugier has a perfectly normal family act as the perpetrators of the film’s gruesome activities serves firstly as a dig at Craven’s Last House. The wily and utterly audacious Frenchman effectively shames the fittingly named American for stopping as short as he did in pointing the finger of blame at a small suburban couple who, having just lost their daughter to a gang of thugs, decide to creatively slaughter her executioners. Laugier upends that film’s self-satisfied, pseudo-ambiguous conclusion by suggesting that perhaps these milquetoast, child-rearing folk had a reason for hurting other people that goes beyond their family tree, a reason that is infinitely more sinister because it serves a curiosity that has no ties to the domestic or even the mundane. These people torture others because they want to vicariously experience their “other”ness, to see what it’s like to have a person cross over to “the other side” and come back to tell them how green the grass is. This is where I really start to go out on a limb, so bear with me.

...Though it may look obvious or intentional, during this process of bloodletting, the skin color of the only martyr left alive gets a little darker after a couple of beatings (there’s no logical explanation for this as the martyr in question is never shown to be hurt with anything except her captors’ fists and boots). The martyrs are beaten without a word from their jailers, as if to show that the act of beating another person cannot possibly be called an “advanced interrogation tactic.” These girls must first be completely alienated and once they’ve been physically and emotionally broken down, they have their “other”ness and all other traces of their identity forcibly ripped away from them. This means literally losing their skin, the flesh ripped away to reveal glistening tendons and muscles. Any possible sign of their race or gender is thus completely removed, turning them into so much unidentifiable flesh. First the martyr becomes an “other,” then they become nothing. There is no possibility of “getting off” here, just a hyper-real representation of the horror of physical suffering. This is the kind of movie that justifies its daunting provocation with scant but revealing dialogue like,“People no longer envisage suffering, young lady.” Martyrs has an intelligence and a dogged determination to do and to say what its predecessors could or would not.

https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/martyrs-2008/

In one pivotal scene Anna discovers a victim, chained in a cellar dungeon beneath a family home. She’s a terrifying sight: her eyes covered with a metal visor which has been nailed into her skull and her emaciated body covered in scars and scratches.

Our first instinct is to shy away – to shun this horrific, yelping creature, who has been brutalised into something less-than human, and is all the more frightening for it. And yet, just as we’re poised for a nasty shock or attack, Anna reaches for the woman’s hand, presumably offering her the first kind, truly human contact she has received for years.

In a film filled with savagery and horror, it’s a moment that shocks to the core: a reminder that unexpected tenderness can be as viscerally, skin-shiveringly affecting as torture.

...Like the worst real-world monsters (Josef Mengele is the obvious example), the movie’s torturers, whose true motivation is revealed in the final act, are also convinced that they’re doing the right thing. They see themselves as experimenters, explorers, brave pioneers – and, disturbingly, Martyrs manages to temporarily put its audience into their blood-stained shoes. Even as we wince for the film’s victims, we find ourselves simultaneously desperate to know what their abusers will uncover.

Ultimately, horror movies can frighten us in lots of different ways, combining their inherent darkness with sly humour, adrenalin-fuelled scares, or with painterly splashes of gore. But Martyrs is a rare creation: a 21st-century film that subtly elicits all the sorrow of the preceding century, imbues its scenes of torture with a sense of vivid, heart-breaking pity, and forces us to really feel.  Is it painful to watch? Very much so. But worth the suffering? Absolutely.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/what-to-watch/martyrs-2008-pascal-laugier/

Most of the conversation people have about Martyrs concerns its final 30 minutes or so, and for good reason: That’s when the film shifts gears and heads into the torture sequences that have given it such notoriety. (And definitively trumped the most harrowing moments in other French extreme horror movies like High Tension, Frontier(s), and Inside.) What they forget is that the first hour is completely gripping and suspenseful in an entirely different and infinitely more palatable way. Yes, it’s bloody and disturbing in its own right, but it’s also genuinely charged and full of arresting ambiguity, far from the clinical sickness that follows in the third act. Torture isn’t in the foreground yet, but informs the action, as a once-abused child grows up to exact a revenge that may be just or may be the product of a haunted and irretrievably damaged mind.

...In the final act, which is as bloodless and clinical as the first two-thirds were propulsive and emotional, Laugier seeks not just to reveal humankind’s capacity for cruelty and exploitation, but its capacity for suffering as well. The explicitness of Anna’s torture and “martyrdom”—a demonstration of female strength and resilience that’s meant as a (suspect) type of feminism—isn’t quite like that in so-called “torture porn” movie. It’s not mediated by gimmicky machines like those in Saw franchise or carried out in the spirit of psychosis or vengeance, as in Wolf Creekor The Devil’s Rejects. It has more in common with real, institutional forms of torture and human experimentation, and is conducted with an emotional distance that’s infinitely more disturbing and terrible. We simply watch Anna get broken down—systematically, inexplicably:

...And so on, until she’s so completely pliant that she doesn’t wince or fight or feel fear any more. Then it’s on to “Stage Four,” which is so horrific it isn’t worth describing. All of these sessions are handled in brief, methodical chunk, followed by a cut to black. They have the effect of breaking down the audience, too, because we eventually come to the realization that Anna—though strong and resilient in the classic “Final Girl” way—has about as much chance of extricating herself from this situation as detainees not named Harold and Kumar have of escaping Guantanamo Bay. Being robbed of that narrative expectation is incredibly deflating, even soul-crushing, and I think Laugier means it to be. On some level, Martyrs feels like a comment on other films of its kind, because it shuts down any notion that pleasure could be derived from watching it. It feels like the death of extreme horror—or at least takes the subgenre as far as it can conceivably go.

https://film.avclub.com/martyrs-1798223075

@lobotomybarbie

[spectrehqs]

congratulations ! welcome to spectrehqs ashcroft university. under the cut is a list of acceptances for all skeletons. thank you so much for applying & i’m so excited to start writing with you. please take a look at our checklist and send your account within the next twenty-four hours.

ANTONY: liam d’antona written by jason. 

in a sea of applications, there’s something special about one that really sucks you in the way yours did, i really got whisked away. starting with the end and beginning a mystery that would have me hooked for the entirety of your app. lush with detail, i would sometimes forget about the sheer mystery of liam’s acceptance at ashcroft until you drew me back to it. in the midst of laying the seeds of his secret, you painted a picture of a character colorful, interesting and romantic, rife with nods to classic literature and film. even the side characters of the story, his grandparents and father, felt real and alive. i literally wrote myself this note halfway through – “i’m completely on the edge of my seat about why he doesn’t want to get in? it’s killing me.” and then by the end, “I’M SCREAMING.” a natural progression, of course. i loved the juxtaposition of both sides of the page in his letters – his drunk letter vs. his sober letter, and his voice was so endearing and real that by the end of your application, i felt like i knew liam but i also knew TOO much because it was so vulnerable. this application was like diving into a great book and i can’t wait to read more of your writing. 

BRUTUS: christopher ‘kit’ stanley written by hayley. 

i was immediately struck by the juxtaposition you presented – the romanticism of kit’s name, home, and family, contrasted with their line of work and attitude. honestly, your sentence structure in that first paragraph really hit me hard and it set a great precedent for the rest of kit’s story. my jaw literally dropped when i read PENSHURST PLACE but i’m so glad you really went there with this character, going all the way to the top with the opulence and hitting home when it comes to what both ashcroft and the imperium society is all about. if you were worried about writing a controversial character, then stop, because kit exemplifies that in a way that is both relatable and painful. the way you wrote his introduction to lysander PAINED me because when i reached that point in the story, it was so satisfying to see such a lonely boy find such a heartwarming friendship, and it quickly becomes obvious how loyal lysander is to kit, how much he cares for him. the cherry on top is kit’s resentment toward octavia and how his relationship splintered with lysander as a result – leading to our ultimate climax. then when you casually dropped that big fucking secret in so casually at the end...the comment i wrote for myself? “GASP.” because damn, what else can i say? you’re on fire. i can’t wait to see how that unfolds. it’s a bad time to make enemies.

CLEOPATRA: iskra gill written by lara. 

this was not the cleopatra i expected at all – in a good way. iskra would like to be unexpected anyway, i think, she’s that kind of girl. her relationship with her family intrigues me most because it is not one of loyalty, and the way she watches her brother crash and burn ( no pun intended ) after being overlooked for her whole life is a moment that i found myself cheering for as the reader ? iskra is a character that worked herself up from the top to the bottom and then back up to the top again, and has lived several lifetimes for someone so young. her secret at first did not strike me as unique – several apps across the board expressed a secret, harbored love for the elusive octavia, but yours was the one i chose because of that realness, that raw understanding that comes with an unrequited love, and how that transitioned into her affair with titus. i also adored your ‘list’ of secrets, which really served to humanize her in so many ways, and the bachelor in paradise detail ? i was laughing through tears. her last fucking text, and all of the final text messages you wrote. words cannot express. if i wasn’t sold already, your fucking LETTER DRAFTS, all of them, heartbreaking and lovely, i felt like i gained a real and full understanding for iskra’s relationship with octavia and how utterly isolated she must feel now. i can’t wait to see every single one of these elements in play on the dash !

CORDELIA: norah bardot written by nica. 

interestingly enough, norah is a character that not only exemplifies the skeleton, but also shakespeare’s interpretation of cordelia: this soft innocence, good-hearted nature that comes with cordelia, but also a realness. compared to every other character, norah is different because her story is not rife with hatred, anger, or the tragedy of a broken home. norah’s is full of love and compassion – and all the ways that isn’t enough. the tiny details, like the soup kitchen and the way you described her mother’s comments, really made me feel the difference in relationship cordelia has with each parent. this line really sticks with me – “you wouldn’t know rebellion, you couldn’t afford to. naive innocence brushed across your forehead, branding you different.” i can’t think of better words and i won’t try. i am scared to accept a character like norah, of course, her gentle kindness and trusting nature are things that are about to get her eaten alive, but isn’t that the fun of it? you also captured her sheer genius as well, which the juxtaposition of that genius and also that naivety is *chefs kiss* – you get her and your interpretation was so well articulated. i am so fucking excited to write with you and read more of what you come up with.  

HAMLET: thalia lukas written by brooke. 

i can feel thalia’s rage and perhaps that runs in the family; rage for her father for how he treated them; rage for her mother for how she left; rage for society for what they did to her brother. thalia doesn’t come across any of her good qualities on her own, they come from lysander, which i found interesting, and i loved how you characterized her as this hopelessly ambitious person to the point of greed and dishonesty. i think you’ve created this sort of desperation in her that’s as strong and dangerous as any sort of violence and that’s what intrigued me at the start: where is this going? what disaster is thalia going to incur next? i also am so deeply drawn to and excited by thalia’s DISLIKE of octavia because ‘if octavia was a beautiful, blossomed rose, thalia was a thorny shrub.’ – all of her actions leading up to the disaster seem to justify all of thalia’s reactions afterward as well, and what we’re left with is a strong, passionate, disorderly mess that so exemplifies thalia, and every way you describe seems to just scream the outsider-ness that i was looking for and i love that she just doesn’t give a FUCK about octavia’s piece of mind – she’s looking for her own. i literally can’t wait to watch her clash with the rest of the muses we have on board here.

LADY MACBETH: valentine vega written by kiwi. 

i won’t get into how hard of a decision this was, you already know. what i will get into is how hard it was to read this application, it was dark and gritty and just the right amount of unsettling. and upsetting. certain aspects of it were so hard to read that i did have to take a break ( i think you can guess exactly where ), but when it comes down to it, valentine fits into this plot seamlessly, and while you can’t blame her for her past, you can blame her for the present; and it really made me think about the fact that her crime was not just what she did to octavia, but what she did to lysander ( which is actually worse than what she did to octavia in val’s story, in my opinion. ) i love an app that can give me a new perspective on my own fucking plot. i remember getting to the second half of your application and a LIGHTBULB dawning over my head when i realized the connection between the first half of her story and the second half, and i would have to agree with you that octavia certainly did not know the entirety of the situation at hand. but using one murder to cover up another...the skeletons are stacking up, and i love how you took the initiative to explain the blackmail in a way that also involves val – it’s nearly impossible not to sympathize with her when you look at it solely from her side. i love how perfectly composed she seems now and the juxtaposition between both contrasting letters you wrote, the one that seems proper and poised and the other that seems completely unhinged, which i sense is the direction you’re going. i am excited to watch such a poised character fall from grace, but i will feel for her at the same time – which is precisely why this works. 

MACBETH: dante campana written by pepper. 

i was hooked from this line: at first, he did. your characterization for macbeth was just so unexpected because to begin with, dante is such a bright person with such a big heart! he is the warm one in a family of cold hearts! i wrote this comment halfway through reading, at the part where he unintentionally starts a nonprofit: “i'm halfway through wondering how tf dante killed anybody? doesn’t make sense.” and yet, you made it make sense. through his relationship with his sister – and the jaw-dropping, horrific event that culminated in her loss, we learn so much about dante and see a changed person. i’ve been thinking a lot about the line where he learns from his family, “if you wanted love, you had to earn it,” and i think that already sets up a lot for his motivations later in his life story, when he commits such an atrocious act. and i think that’s the pull of dante; he doesn’t seem like a killer. not to me, not to anyone. all the police would have to do is GOOGLE him in order to write him off as being completely incapable. he’s a hero, and yet...the progression into villain is tragic, shocking, and morally ambiguous, just the way we like it. there are so many things about him that make him ‘good,’ but yet can we really call him that? i don’t think so, no, and i love this play on the grey areas, and the ways we don’t see the killer under our own noses because of the way they are perceived. thank you so much for crafting such an intriguing, interesting backstory, and i can’t wait to see how dante reacts under all of this new pressure. i trust you will write it beautifully.

OPHELIA: theresa rigby written by nora. 

my first comment: “u knew exactly what you were doing with this beautifully crafted symbolism, huh?” BUT I LOVED IT, the water baby symbolism was just the homage to ophelia i didn’t know i needed. i got strong sharp objects vibes throughout your application, and it’s hard not to associate theresa with death, but she owns it so completely and i can’t stop thinking about the image of her scribbling frantically in the pages of a diary. there’s something slightly unhinged about everything she does, but it’s hard to blame her – you can see every reason behind her actions in the layers of her upbringing. not to mention that you have such a gift for writing metaphors and comparisons that really bring the concepts you have in mind to life ! the cheesegrater one literally made me gasp, i could relate so deeply, and your entire app is filled with small nuggets of purely good writing just like that. such a treat to read. i also had to laugh at lady macbeth being her favorite shakespeare heroine, the way that’s what resonates with theresa and why, and the way that theresa lives her life is so HUMAN to me, and she completely endeared herself when she clumsily tried to quote Ginsberg bidding her friends goodbye. she’s ethereal, dreamlike, but theresa is also real, and that’s what i loved about your application so much. i was so excited by this application and i am even more excited to see more of theresa, because i know she’ll make me laugh, cry, and everything in between. 

OTHELLO: christian bösch written by em. 

it was the long haul to get an application for this skeleton but so, so worth it. i’m obsessed with your take, from how his history with his sister seamlessly transitions into his relationship with lady macbeth, how you’ve entwined christian so deeply in the octavia/lysander drama on his own, adding layers to his motivation for caving to lady macbeth’s whims. christian himself has many layers, and i wrote on your app, “i have no decision to make here. why do i keep reading this app again and again?” because it was just so fucking good, one of those things you read where you forget about everything else cause you’re lost in it for a moment. also, insanely impressed at the ways you dove into connection ideas with every skeleton, drawing similarities and differences between them and it meant a lot to me how much you clearly went through all the details. also, i loved the little bits of dialogue sprinkled throughout the background, i felt like i got a great sense of christian’s voice long before i reached the letter, and by the end you really empathize with his struggle. you can understand WHY it was so easy for lady macbeth to manipulate him in so many ways, and i didn’t even start talking about max ––– there’s just so much good shit to unpack here, i love it, and i can’t wait to continue peeling back the layers. as you can expect, christian will be faced with some major choices soon. only development will see where that takes him. i’m excited.

ROMEO: william “wolfie” preston written by samantha. 

oh, wowie wow. a very hard choice, but you hit it so far out of the park it’s in another galaxy. reading wolfie’s story was like reading a beautiful tragedy, starting with his parents first words when he was born and on to every expectation they placed on him afterward. i feel like romeo was one of those skeletons that had the most laid out for it due to octavia, but you took every little detail, embellished, AND ran with it, which i loved. my favorite part of your app was actually where you wrote about wolfie seeing octavia’s ghost and the first things he said to her – you described their relationship already, but that dialogue back and forth really hit home for me and made me completely understand the weight of their relationship. and why wolfie is just so devastated by what happened that it’s completely changed him as a person. loss can really do that to you, huh? i also really appreciated the way you also incorporated oberon into the story, something i didn’t really see! the way he craves validation from the head of school/the society the same way he craves it from his parents was really hard-hitting and i loved being able to get some insight into that dynamic as well. your app was infused with so many little details and i felt like you also really brought octavia to life, with her names for statues and all. i also died a little at the scene you described at his football game, my heart SUNK for wolfie, because it’s hard to watch him try so hard again. and again. and again. the letter itself was beautiful as well and i appreciated your scene setting, which not only put his words into perspective, but did more to make wolfie seem more real. sure, he’s a golden boy, but he’s also a person, and i’m excited to watch how the events of this plot show all the cracks in his foundation. he’s changed and he’s changing and i’m excited for more.

TITUS: august reyn written by moosh. 

i could not accept a titus that didn’t break my heart. and august broke my heart more times than i can count now, pretty much with every single fucking bullet point. i love the little contradictions; how he hates rich kids but he is one, doesn’t yell during fights but does during debates...i think the thing about august is he is cocky, charming, and at times aggressive, but he also has this sort of interesting moral code that motivates how he treats people and acts on the field; how he SCREAMS at the ref but is patient with his teammates? iconic. i feel like i got more upset over his grandmother’s passing than i did about octavia’s, which says a lot, but don’t think it passed me by how the two people who have really cared for august are no longer around. the moment in his life where he really fights back at his bully and learns the power of WEALTH was so impactful to me, and i think it characterizes many of his actions, prior and post. also the batman comparison was on point, of course. the way his relationship with his dad develops is heartbreaking, but even more heartbreaking is the fact that he loses a support system when things are at their worst. essentially, my heart snaps for august again and again, and reading about his development post-death was raw and hard, like i was reading something i shouldn’t be. i just want august to get a fucking win but i already know i’m going to put him through the ringer, sos sorry in advance. also huge props for roping him into the scandal surrounding octavia’s death in that way, i can’t wait to incorporate that into the plot overall.