#popular girl who believes she has to act a certain way in order to keep her position and hide her true feelings

[2ndstar-ontheright]

Chloe and Christine (or Madeline honestly) and hear me out, just hear me out for a moment,

as Carmilla and Laura.

[omghallucinations]

iland2/izna tarot reading

i'm just writing this down to keep track of and for fun so don't take it too serious!

what does the label/execs think of/plan to do with...

izna, group as a whole: they think that they are hard working and put a lot of effort in. they're going to re-tred old ideas--so their concept might follow in the footsteps of another group, basically they are not going to reinvent the wheel. i think they think the group has some potential for self sabotage--maybe they're worried about internal conflicts? i think they didn't have to change things up as much as they thought they would have to (ie, producer picks were just sixth and seventh in voting and weren't really big displacements). things still didn't go exactly how they wanted, still they're happy overall. they see a tonnnn of possibilities for the group and are very excited about them. they feel a little paternalistic towards them, maybe a little controlling--they want to keep them away from the public and public opinion right now.

concept: (1st card:the fool) youthful--friendship or love songs, unlucky in love songs (lovesick girls type?), sometimes a little bit spiteful or with some attitude/rebellious but still balanced or smooth. kind of sparkly or energetic songs? attitude plus emotion.

the members:

jungeun: (1st card: king of pentacles) money money money. she's their cash cow and the most important member to them financially/career-wise. she's a workhorse. at certain points they thought this might be a losing battle and felt things were unfair with her, or they knew they were making things unfair for her on purpose--and felt that they had to do that in order to get sympathy for her long term. they knew very quick she was a breakout star especially internationally. they were ruthless about it. i think a female executive spearheaded or influenced this strategy and it worked out way better than expected--"times a thousand", something like that.

jeemin: (1st card: 2 of pentacles) an even exchange. jeemin got something out of this (a secured debut), the show got something out of this (press and public attention)--it was a win win and both sides benefitted. they think she is a perfect fit for the group and love how much positive press she got them and positive view from the public. they also think strategically it was really good that she didn't win runext. this in itself is good press--they want people to juxtapose illit with izna and be like, wow what a better fit for jeemin, their concept is so much better, so much cooler, etc.

jiyoon: (1st card: 4 of wands) this is their girl. they're familiar with her as she was their trainee (both wakeone and black label), it's a comfortable relationship. they know she can be immature and can lash out like a child, though. honestly they were not going to risk the money they could make with this group if she didn't have a redemption arc and wouldn't put their necks out for her, even though they believe in her abilities. I think jiyoon found it jarring how they treated her coldly or not preferentially at times on the show--they had to detach emotionally in order to evaluate her. the label/execs thought she was a little too comfortable early on--you know like when you're at home and you feel really okay acting out or being a diva in your own space, that kind of vibe. jiyoon didn't realize that they were looking at group chemistry and people who could do teamwork well maybe even more than talent in some ways. this is a 7 year group and they didn't want issues. luckily jiyoon showed a lot of growth and they're happy/satisfied with her, although they still think she has some potential to be dramatic or harsh in the group sometimes.

koko: (1st card: page of pentacles) they have high expectations for her and think she could be a top earner/top performer. they are excited to develop her and they think her popularity is very promising. the timing seems weird here though--i don't know what about it, but it's off. maybe they didn't expect how popular she became so quickly or the way it all went down made them switch up their plans?

sarang: (1st card: page of cups reversed) they're a little impatient with her--they want her to be up to snuff right away. they're not 100% sold on her or maybe they lowkey wanted one of the other girls to have her spot and think it wasn't fair for sarang to get it. maybe they wanted saebi to move up a spot in voting so they could producer's pick someone else they wanted rather than having to secure the two members they needed to secure. sarang is an underdog--they aren't invested in her.

mai: (1st card: ace of swords reversed) they have some regrets about how this went down--maybe how the speeches/speech translations went? maybe they're worried about her getting bad press as just a visual/less deserving than fuko? i don't think they regret choosing mai, just something about this process. lowkey i think they wanted someone mature who will handle burdens within the group for them. they expect mai will do a lot of behind-the-scenes work with the group/will have a lot to deal with. as they see it no one else in the group has the personality to step up and deal with interpersonal conflicts in a calm but also assertive way.

saebi: they were gonna do anything to get her in. didn't matter if they had to add a spot to the group or whatever--they fought for her and want to spotlight her. they did not expect she wouldn't be in the group by votes--this was a dramatic shock and shifted their plans so they had to scramble (no clue whether the 7 member thing truly was a last minute change but regardless something did not proceed as planned). the internet did not do what they expected it would do. still saebi can go viral easily and they think her emotional reaction will make her more sympathetic and more popular.

overall i think they wanted fuko instead of sarang, but they wanted mai and saebi more than they wanted fuko--i think both of them fit the concept better--so their hands were tied. i don't think they wanted fuko for talent necessarily. i think they wanted fuko to soften jiyoon's edges/manage any internal conflicts or hurt feelings. they're kind of annoyed it all panned out this way because the drama is not what they wanted.

[idreamtofmanderleyagain]

Hot takes about Severus Snape are a wierdly decent glimpse into how a person with progressive values analyses things. Literally every time someone talks about Snape, it’s like this tiny window into how one-dimentionally people actually think.

Recently saw a twitter post that was a fantastic example. Here’s how it goes (paraphrasing):

Person A:“Snape is POC and Queer coded, that’s why you guy’s hate him uwu lol.”

Person B: “Actually I hate him because he was mean and abusive to children under his care uwu but go off I guess lol”

Both of these takes are designed to be dramatic and/or reactionary. They each use partial truths to paint very broad strokes. These are get-em-in-one-hit quips. This is virtue signalling, if you’ll excuse that loaded phrase. Nobody had a substantial conversation, but now everyone who sees their statement knows the high ground they took.

At least a hundred other people chimed in to add their own little quippy hot takes into play, none of which add anything significant, but clearly made everyone feel very highly of themselves.

So many layers of nuance and complex analysis is completely lost in this kind of discussion. On tumblr, you get more of this kind of bullshit, but you don’t have a word count limit, so you guys just spew endless mountains of weak overblown evidence backing up your bullshit arguments, none of which was really about engaging in a real conversation anyway.

Here’s the thing about Snape.

He is a childhood domestic abuse victim. His abuser is a muggle.

He becomes a student at a magical school that takes him away from his abuser and immediately instills in him the idea that being a part of this magical world is a badge of self-worth, empowerment, and provides safety and security - provided that he keeps in line.

There is a war is being waged in that world over his right to exist (he is a half blood).

He is a marginalized person within the context of the narrative, forced to constantly be in the same living space as the children of his own oppressors who are being groomed and recruited into a hate group militia (the pureblood slytherins). They are in turn trying to do the same to him.

He is marginalized person bullied by children who are also part of his oppressor group, but who have “more liberal” leanings and aren’t direct about why he’s being targeted (the mauraders are all purebloods, Sirius, who was the worst offender, was raised in a bigoted household, the same one that produced Bellatrix.).

He had a crush on a girl who is a muggleborn, and therefore she is considered even lesser than him and carries a stigma to those who associate with her. That girl was his only real friend. In his entire life.

For both Snape and Lily, allying themselves to a pureblood clique within their own houses would be a great way of shielding themselves from a measure of the bigotry they were probably facing. There would have been obvious pressure from those cliques to disconnect with one and other.

Every other person who associates with Snape in his adulthood carries some sort of sociopolitical or workplace (or hate cult) baggage with their association. Some of them will physically harm and/or kill him if he steps out of line. He hasn’t at any point had the right environment to heal and adjust from these childhood experiences. Even his relationship with Dumbledore is charged with constant baggage, including the purebloods who almost killed him during their bullying getting a slap on the wrist, the werewolf that almost killed him as a child being placed in an authority position over new children, etc. Dumbledore is canonically manipulative no matter his good qualities, and he has literally been manipulating Snape for years in order to cultivate a necessary asset in the war.

He is a person who is not in the stable mental state necessary to be teaching children, whom has been forced to teach children. While also playing the role of double agent against the hate group militia, the one that will literally torture you for mistakes or backtalk or just for fun. The one that will torture and kill him if he makes one wrong move.

Is the math clicking yet? From all of this, it’s not difficult to see how everything shitty about Snape was cultivated for him by his environment. Snape was not given great options. Snape made amazingly awful choices, and also some amazingly difficult, courageous ones. Snape was ultimately a human who had an extremely bad life, in which his options were incredibly grim and limited.

In fact, pretty much every point people make about how shitty Snape is as a person makes 100% logical sense as something that would emerge from how he was treated. Some if it he’s kind of right about, some of it is the inevitable reality of suffering, and some of it is part of the cycle of abuse and harm.

Even Snape’s emotional obsession with Lily makes logical sense when you have the perspective that he literally has no substantial positive experiences with other human beings that we know of, and he has an extreme, soul destroying guilt complex over her death. Calling him an Incel mysoginist nice guy projects a real-world political ideology and behavior that does not really apply to the context of what happened to him and her.

Even Snape’s specific little acts of cruelty to certain students is a reflection of his own life experiences. He identifies with Neville; more specifically, he identifies his own percieved emotional weaknesses in his childhood in Neville. There’s a very sad reason there why he feels the urge to be so harsh.

Snape very clearly hates himself, in a world where everyone else hates him, too. Imagine that, for a second. Imagine total internal and external hatred, an yearning for just a little bit of true connection. For years. Imagine then also trying to save that world, even if it’s motivated by guilt. Even if nobody ever knows you did it and you expect to die a miserable death alone.

There are more elements here to consider, including the way Rowling described his looks (there may be something in there re: ugliness and swarthy stereotyping). These are just the things that stand out the most prominently to me.

J.K. Rowling is clearly also not reliable as an imparter of moral or sociopolitical philosophies. I don’t feel that her grasp of minority experiences is a solid one, considering how she picks and chooses who is acceptable and who is a threat.

All of that said, this is a logically consistent character arc. Within the context of his narrative, Snape is a marginalized person with severe PTSD and emotional instability issues who has absolutely no room available to him for self-improvement or healing, and never really has. And yes, he’s also mean, and caustic, and verbally abusive to the students. He’s also a completey miserable, lonely person.

There are elements in his character arc that mirror real world experiences quite well. If nothing else, Rowling is enough of an emotional adult to recognise these kinds of things and portray something that feels authentic.

In my opinion, it’s not appropriate to whittle all this down by comparing him directly to the real world experiences of marginalized groups - at least if you are not a part of the group you are comparing him to. There have been many individuals who have compared his arc to their own personal experiences of marginalization, and that is valid. But generally speaking, comparing a white straight dude to people who are not that can often be pretty offensive. This is not a valuable way to discuss either subject.

Also, I believe that while it’s perfectly okay to not like Snape as a character, many of the people who act like Person B are carrying Harry’s childhood POV about Snape in their hearts well into their own adulthood. And if nothing else, Rowling was attempting to say something here about how our perspectives (should) grow and change as we emotionally mature.  She doesn’t have to be a good person herself to have expressed something true about the world in this instance, and since this story is a part of our popular culture, people have a right to feel whatever way they do about this story and it’s characters.

The complexity of this particular snapshot of fictionalized marginalization, and what it reveals about the human experience, cannot be reduced down to “he’s an abuser so he’s not worth anyone’s time/you are bad for liking him.”

And to be honest, I think that it reveals a lot about many of us in progressive spaces, particularly those of us who less marginalized but very loud about our values, that we refuse to engage with these complexities in leu of totally condemning him. Particularly because a lot of the elements I listed above are indeed reflected in real world examples of people who have experienced marginalization and thus had to deal with the resulting emotional damage, an mental illness, and behavior troubles, and bad decisions. Our inability to address the full scope of this may be a good reflection of how we are handling the complexity of real world examples.

Real people are not perfect angels in their victimhood. They are just humans who are victims, and we all have the capacity to be cruel and abusive in a world where we have been given cruelty and abuse. This is just a part of existing. If you cannot sympathise with that, or at least grasp it and aknowledge it and respect the people who are emotionally drawn to a character who refects that, then you may be telling on yourself to be honest.

To be honest, this is especially true if you hate Snape but just really, really love the Mauraduers. You have a right to those feelings, but if you are moralizing this and judging others for liking Snape, you’ve confessed to something about how you’ve mentally constructed your personal values in a way I don’t think you’ve fully grasped yet.

I have a hard time imagining a mindset where a story like Snape’s does not move one to empathy and vicarious grief, if I’m honest. I feel like some people really just cannot be bothered to imagine themselves in other people’s shoes, feeling what they feel and living like they live. I struggle to trust the social politics of people who show these kinds of colors, tbh.

But maybe that’s just me.

[cinnamonest]

Yandere Profile - Izuku Midoriya/Deku (BNHA/MHA)

I'm showing up in tags again yay! Time to repost this

Finally I am dishing out MHA content and kicking off with one of my favorite boys nice

TWs: Fem!Reader, Yandere, kidnapping, delusional mindsets, infantilization, mentions of violence/mutilation, mentions of murder, mentions of fake suicide, n//s//fw themes/mentions/brief content, mentions of virginity/sex shaming, dark content, mentions of a high school setting

TWs (n//s//fw section/below the cut): noncon, brief dealing with/mentions of past sex trauma, generally depraved/dark content, pain content, infantilization What are they generally like? Lucid, aware? Obsessive? How do they behave?

High key delusional. (I think everyone I've seen in the yan bnha community agrees on this lmao.) But really, he acts that way because he's not naturally that way - he has to make an active effort to lie to himself and to you in order to believe his delusions.

Obsessive. I mean, look at what this boy does to his heroes. You bet he has an entire notebook dedicated to your existence. It starts off simple, an entry regarding your quirk if you have one, or perhaps he feels compelled to write a simple entry about someone he met if you don't. Gradually it turns into a log of all his encounters with you, his observations of your day, his thoughts about you, a strict schedule of what you do. The things you do while he watches - you KNOW the boy is a stalker. He has a folder in his phone gallery of just quick snaps he's taken of you walking around, smiling, laughing, looking at your phone, lots of pictures from the back, sleeping at your desk, and a few more risky ones. The time he accidentally walked into the wrong shower room after a class and just happened to catch you getting out of the shower. Slightly blurry pictures through the window of the girls dorm of you getting dressed, laying in bed, sitting at your desk doing homework. Dark, barely visible images of your sleeping form just barely illuminated by moonlight. You really ought to lock those windows.

He's on the border where he's just comfortable enough to talk to you, but far too nervous to ever confess, or spend as much time with you as he'd like. Of course, preferably he could spend every waking moment by your side, but, he's aware enough to know you need space. He's fine with that. He's technically with you anyway, you just don't know it. And really, he likes stalking, genuinely. He likes the feeling of knowing you're unaware of his presence, the thrill of risk and the giddy satisfaction he gets knowing this is your candid, non-performing self, he can see what you're really, truly like when you think you're alone, and it's just so cute.

Particularly for a quirkless, civilian darling, or if darling's quirk has no combative purposes, he'll be much more protective. He's one to have the delusion that you're too fragile for the world, and that you're inevitably bound to get hurt, it's not safe out there. You're like a little kitten, one that's just a little too curious for her own good, doesn't know how big and bad the world is, how people who want to hurt her are out there. Kittens stay inside all day where they belong, safe to be the soft little housepets they are.

History/info stalker as well. He will find out everything about your past and you in general - memorize things like your height, birthday, grades, blood type, etc. Will also deep-dive through any social media you have, even managing to find anonymous ones, probably by sneaking through your phone as your sleep. He'll learn about your family, how well they treat you, gauges how hard they'll search for you. He'll want to know about any history you have regarding relationships and sex, too. He'll be disappointed to learn you've ever been with and done things with someone else, but that's ok. Everyone makes mistakes, and he can forgive that.

Massive savior complex. This goes double if he did save you from a situation -- he's literally your hero. And he expects that you should at least be grateful enough to acknowledge that. If your family or boyfriend or past boyfriends were abusive or unkind in any way, if you were generally struggling in school or work, if you had any sort of bad life, it will also emphasize this, and he feels he saved you from all of that, and is giving you a better life. And he'll remind you, frequently.

How likely are they to kidnap their darling? How quickly will they do so?

Inevitable, but he's a planner and he takes some time. He's smarter than he seems and he will formulate an extensive plan. If we're talking senior Izuku, well, he's limited, as he only has the dorms and his old apartment where his mother lives. He's likely to wait it out until post-graduation, wait until he gets his own place, which will now be as soon as possible. Whenever you plan to start university or hero work or whatever, well, you'll never actually make it there.

As for how, it depends on your trust. If he's managed to get close to you as he hopes to, at least to the point of friendship, he'll likely just invite you over, one last time before you go your separate ways in life. You walk right into your own imprisonment, not thinking anything is off when he locks the door behind you. If not, if he was never that close to you, or you turn down his offer, well, he'll just do it the old fashioned way. You're a naive little thing, and you'll inevitably be walking by yourself at night at some point for whatever reason, and he knows how to make chloroform. He may look small-ish, but he has a deceptive strength even without the use of OFA, you can't actually hope to overpower him. If he can't catch you out walking, well, once again, you really ought to lock those windows.

Now, a hero Deku, a few years into his 20s and quickly gaining popularity, that sees some poor little civilian getting hurt, he'll just use the excuse of taking you to get help. Clearly you've suffered a concussion, you're not in your right mind, and if you pick up on what's going on and try to call for help, he'll just say so to passersby. People have no reason to distrust him, he's a well-reputed, extremely popular hero, he would never harm someone. So when he says he's just taking you to get medical assistance, no one bats an eye.

How difficult is it to escape from them? How do they keep you restrained? How do they deal with attempted escape? 

Like some of my previous yans, he's one that will intentionally set up escape opportunities just to see how well your conditioning is going. Leave the door unlocked, but sit and wait outside. Make the bonds just a little bit too loose to see if you wiggle out of them. Leave things that could be used as lockpicks to see how smart you are. It's all a test, though, don't worry. He'll be waiting right outside to make sure you don't actually end up going out into the world and getting yourself hurt. He'll be disappointed in you, but don't worry, he's not too mad - it's just his way of knowing you don't understand yet.

Generally, it's tight security. He's one to invest in electronic security -- a shock collar, tracking anklets, cameras that sense motion, a bracelet that tracks your heartbeat, and all of which send him notifications to his phone if anything is out of the ordinary. The cameras he'll be able to watch a live stream of at any time - he's gotten to where he eats lunch alone in his office so that he can just kick back and watch you.

Now, he has something of an urge to show you off, he would love nothing more than for the world to see what a cute little wife he has, but he restrains this urge for your safety. He has a lot of enemies, and he can't have them knowing about his weakness, he can't stand the thought of you getting hurt because of him. So don't expect to even have anyone who knows about you to rely on.

As for attempts... Should you manage to get through all his measures, well, clearly that means they weren't enough. He's another yandere that, you probably shouldn't try unless you are one hundred percent certain you'll succeed, because if not you likely won't get another chance. Security measures will bump up, and he'd likely implant something in you - a tracking chip beneath the skin, deep enough you can't hope to cut it out. That way, even if you get out into the city, he can easily find you and save you again. If you seriously manage to escape for a while, he doesn't handle it well emotionally, to be honest, he might get pretty upset, but again, everyone makes mistakes, so if you apologize -- and you will, even if he has to resort to unpleasant measures to force one out of you -- he'll forgive you.

How easy are they to trick, deceive, or manipulate?

Izuku is significantly smarter than he seems, much like his strength. Despite his deluded nature, he still recognizes that, since she's too dumb to comprehend her own safety, she's likely to try and pull tricks to get back out of her cage. He's perceptive and can read facial expressions and tone of voice very well, so if you're a good liar there's about a 75% chance he'll pick up on it -- anything else and he definitely will.

He's likely to go along with it, just to expose your lies or plan in the end. He likes giving you the humiliation because it will hopefully make you even less likely to do it in the future.

How lenient are they? What privileges can you have, and what will you be denied?

Izuku goes out of his way to keep you well-entertained, but it's all very... infantilizing. For example, he gets you streaming services and the like, but puts parental content locks on everything so you basically can only consume extremely g-rated type of content. He doesn't want you watching anything violent, or dirty or vulgar, it's not suiting such an innocent little thing. He won't even let you watch the news, unless occasionally forcing you to watch something that he knows is being aired about him, in which case he wants you to see so you're reminded of how good he is. He'll also be able to see your search history, and know if you tried to look up anything he wouldn't approve of, especially things like lockpicking or "how to disable human shock collar," you know, that sorta thing. Or more... adult things, which are also blocked. Besides, you have him, you don't need that.

He'll let you cook, but only in his presence, can't have you getting hurt without him there to fix it. You'll probably start off restrained to a bedroom -- a very heavily safety-proofed one -- in the beginning, gradually earning the privilege of going to other rooms once you've proven you can be trusted.

He'll also really try to get you almost anything you want, really. Clothes, books, hobby supplies, anything he thinks will make you happy and adjust more easily. You can use this to your advantage, really, if you're willing to settle in for your new lifestyle.

What kind of rules do they have? What kind of punishment would they use?

Of course, besides the obvious no escaping, no outside contact, and no attacking him, he's actually still got a lot of behavioral rules. Much like the content he allows you to consume, he expects the same from you -- no cursing, no drinking, no vulgarity. No handling knives while he's gone, and he'll know if you do, from the motion-sensing cameras that will alert him of your presence in the kitchen. He's one to humiliate you. Specifically, if you've proven you can't behave at all, or tried to really fight him, he'll get you a nice big cage to live in until you have learned your lesson. The kind they make for big dogs, short enough to force you on all fours, complete with bedding, a padlock, and a water bowl for you to drink from. You'll stay there until you can understand what you did wrong and are ready to grovel at his feet about it. During that time, he'll also ignore anything you say, acting like you're not there.

How do they deal with rivals, or perceived rivals? Will they get rid of them? Will they kill them themselves, or find another way?

He can't risk anything that would damage his reputation and career, so murder is off the table. Unless, of course, it's not murder, but rather a sort of, how do they call it... suicide by hero. There was no other choice, really. It's sad to have a kill on his record, but people understand that sometimes these things happen.

This changes if someone has hurt you in any way -- in that case, he's not hesitating to actually kill someone. The thought of someone hurting his little treasure is infuriating, not only at them, but at himself for not coming into your life and saving you sooner. He'll be sure they know exactly why they're dying, that they spend their last moments begging for forgiveness for what they did to you.

How easy is it to make them mad? What does their anger look like?

Easier than you'd think. Izuku doesn't like his delusions being challenged since, again, he has to put in effort to believe them in the first place. If you're being bratty and having tantrums he won't let it slide - even the slightest step out of line is dealt with to ensure you'll at least hesitate before doing it again. If you are the bratty type and blatantly go out of your way to defy him and his rules to his face, it's ground for immediate and pretty intense punishment. His anger is terrifying in its own way. He's beaming, grinning from ear to ear, talking to you so sweetly, but with just the most subtle underlying tone that lets you know he's furious. It's a warning voice, telling you to fix your attitude or else. He doesn't cease the babytalk or petnames when he's mad, it actually gets worse, it helps him contain his fury. But when you hear him say sweetheart in that quiet, sweet, but low voice you've come to recognize and immediately become afraid, he's pretty pleased when it reaches a point where that alone can shut you up. He believes there's a healthy degree of fear that pets should have of their masters.

The easiest and fastest way to set him off by far, though, even more than being mean or disobedient, is silent treatment. That sets him off unlike anything else, and is most likely to make him snap to actual, unrestrained anger, finally showing his true rage and snarling at you, grabbing you by the throat and lifting you off the ground. It will only last a few moments, though, before he comes back to his senses and lets go, apologizing, telling you he hates doing that, but you really seem to try to make him mad, sometimes.

So they see you as above them, beneath them, or equal to them?

He kinda bounces back and forth. He's a bit of a worshipper, telling you how beautiful and amazing you are and how he doesn't deserve you, really no one does, you're angelic, nearly a goddess - but at the same time, you're also his little kitten. A pet to be controlled because you don't know what's good for you. Kept away from a world hellbent on harming you. When you agree with him or do what he wants, it's the former. When you disagree with him, it's the latter, and he talks down to you like you're a child.

How determined are they for you to love them? How hard will they try to make it happen? Or are they content just having you?

He'll try until the day he dies. And try he does, very much so, always buying you gifts, telling you sweet things, reassuring you how much he loves you. Even if you show no sign of ever giving in, that doesn't deter him, ever the optimist. It can become infuriating... and maddening, slowly driving you to the brink of insanity. When it comes down to you trying to break him of his delusions versus him trying to break you into them... he will win, you will crack first. No matter how stubborn you think you may be, rest assured, he's even moreso.

Bonus: Is there anything that makes them unique, in comparison to other yanderes?

I have a unique little headcanon... he hints to someone about your existence, and will select someone as a back-up caretaker. See, he's worried about the possibility of being killed in his heroism, and what would happen to his poor little kitten then? It might be weeks before someone enters his apartment, and they would never understand -- they would think he did something wrong, they would try to recondition you to the world, sure they'd have good intentions, but they wouldn't realize they're making things worse for you. So, he gets a very trusted friend, someone he knows would understand and... perhaps whom he gets the feeling has a bit of the same tendencies as himself, and more or less tells them that if something should happen to him, they need to go to his place, because something very important to him is there. As jealous as the thought of someone else having you makes him, he can't bear the thought of you being released back into the world... and you're still in the denial phase, so you still act like he's a bad guy and all that, so you might tarnish his name and legacy with lies. He can't have that. So, after careful consideration, he picks someone to take over as your caretaker, should something happen. He would rather know you're in the capable hands of someone he trusts than left to starve in his apartment or thrown out into the world, even if it means someone else having you.

Maybe an odd choice, but I could see him going for Shoto on that one. His personality may be very different from his own, and he may not be as close to him as some others, but he senses they have the same... tendencies and inclinations (am I implying he's definitely a yandere too? Yes), and be trusts him to care for you but also be able to handle and tame you. And honestly? He's one person he knows without a doubt will actually prefer to follow through and have you rather than disregarding his wishes - anyone else, and he's got a little doubt they might just not understand the situation, not understand your unique case, and take you to the police or God forbid, just release you back into the world. He leaves a little note with you (making sure to detail how you can be hard to handle, be patient with her, ok?) and tells you that should anyone with this physical description (I mean, it's a pretty unique description, not too many people look like Shoto), ever come and tell you that he's gone, give them the note, and be nice to your new owner, he's sure he'll love you too. But never forget, he loved you more.

General perverseness: how sexual of a person are they? What’s their drive like? How touchy do they get? Do they have any reservations about sexuality?

Horny lil thing. His stalking tendencies result in a lot of perverted shit -- stealing your clothes, jerking off to all those pictures of you he's taken, putting hidden microphones in your room so he can hear when you're touching yourself. He's got a high drive, and jerks off quite a bit. Watching you in class often leads to his thoughts racing, and you notice he gets up to use the bathroom pretty frequently during class.

Prior to abduction, he's not brave enough to be touchy, although he will use his innocent demeanor to try and get a nice full-front hug every now and then that seems to last just a bit too long for comfort. After abduction, though? He makes up for all the touching he's wanted to do since he first saw you, wrapping arms around you all the time. When you're cooking he'll come up behind you and just wrap his arms around you, standing there and just enjoying feeling you. At night he's always very cuddle and wants to snuggle on the sofa or have you in his lap in some way. He also gets very grope-y beyond that point, frequently reaching up to cup your chest in his hands, squeezing your ass or thighs, or just spooning and grinding a hard-on against your ass.

How forceful are they? Do they care about your willingness?

Too far into the delusions to care. Granted he understands why you are so resistant, why you fight so hard - you're just scared, but don't worry, it will only hurt just a little bit. Or you're insecure - he'll tell you lots of sweet things, he would just hate for you to not know how much he worships you, you know.

Or maybe you're just prudish, or traumatized. Repeated resistance with time and failure to quickly give in leads him to this conclusion, he becomes convinced that maybe you were raised in a sex-negative environment, a too-conservative household, and you were taught to think such a thing was wrong. Maybe you had some kind of negative experience in the past. If you confess to either of these being true, that just solidifies in his mind that that's the sole reason you're so resistant. He'll adjust based on whatever the issue is - are you one of the "until marriage" people? Well it's not official, but he'll try to prove to you that you're basically married, even make a fake contract for you to sign, buy you a cute white dress and a cake and basically say this is no different from being truly married, after all, the government approval is a modern convention and in the past people were married just by vows.

Is it trauma? Well, as said before, he's reluctant to murder, but if that turns out to be the case, that knowledge is enough to push him over the edge, and he'll be sure to make them regret it while they die - he'll even be sweet enough to take a picture, show you how much they rightfully suffered, and he'll be so so sweet, reassuring you he's not like them, kissing your forehead even as he's ignoring your little cries to stop and sinking deep into you.

Just a prude? That's ok. He'll teach you otherwise, rid you of that mindset -- all the more reason to ignore your struggles and pleas, because once you feel good enough, you'll stop resisting. Once you understand how good sex is and how nice he can make you feel, he's confident he can turn you into his own little cock-hungry slut. And managing to do so -- making you cum despite how prudish you are -- gives him a massive ego boost. Especially if you did have past partners, because clearly they weren't doing their job well, since you're so frigid. He'll make you tell him how much better he is than anyone else from before.

He's not a patient man, he's far too eager and really there's nothing you can do to stop sex from happening like... probably within the first hour of your new life together. He's been waiting such a long time, you know. If you happened to be a civilian in the situation mentioned previously, and you didn't know each other beforehand, he might give you, say, 24 hours to adjust, but again, he's not patient.

What sort of kinks or fetishes do they have, or would they fill?

Oral fixation

Just. He likes eating you out. A lot. Even if you don't. Even if he has to restrain you, holding you down so you can't squirm away. He likes the taste and the way it makes you squirm and writhe and whimper. He loves blowjobs, too. Just. Suck him off and he's wrapped around your finger, but be warned, he lacks self control in this area and will definitely end up grabbing your hair and just jerking your head like a fleshlight, forcing you to deep-throat him until he can cum down your throat.

Infantilization/Lingerie, corruption/defilement

Specifically the cute kind. He likes things like the kitty keyhole lingerie, thigh highs, schoolgirl uniforms, that sort of thing. Innocent looking, cutesy, lots of soft pinks and pastel colors. He never really ceases treating you like a dumb baby, even with sex, cooing at you and making you whimper, softly reassuring you everything is ok, and he'll make you feel good. He likes the innocence, even if you're not (convinces himself any past boyfriends "don't count" for whatever reason), and gets off to the idea that he's corrupting that innocence, ruining you, making you his and his alone. His little toy to play with and break and ruin, make sure you're so trained to his body and voice that no one else could ever make you feel as good as him. As aforementioned, he likes the idea of taking a little prude and turning you into a little cumslut that begs and whimpers for him. It's an ego, pride thing for him.

Petplay/D/S dynamic/Worship

Just. Kitten. It's good. He's super into the cat ears and tail, finding cute ears that perfectly match your hair color, and a little tail plug that makes you whimper when he slides it inside of you. Definitely calls you "kitten," or "kitty," and importantly, makes sure you call him your master. And good pets love their masters, worship them the way they deserve to be worshipped for taking care of you, feeding you, doing everything for you. Masters are their pets' whole world, and he will be to you, too. Also buys a collar, a nice thick one with a leash he can use to make you walk around on all fours, or use to yank you back onto him when you're getting fucked on your hands and knees.

Cockwarming

Unfortunately, the part of hero work they don't talk about as much is the paperwork. There's quite a bit, actually, and studying for license renewals. He's got a kinda short attention span and he needs some stimulation to keep him focused. Which is how you end up sitting in his lap at his desk, panties down on your ankles, holding perfectly still with him deep inside of you. He tells you not to move -- you'll distract him too much. Eventually, though, it can get to be too much, so he just ends up fucking up into you right there, but after he's done he'll stay inside, gradually getting hard again and repeating the process.

How do they feel about pregnancy or babies? Do they want them?

He likes the idea in theory, but ultimately decides against it for a couple of reasons. See, his little kitten is so... difficult, and he fears you might teach them to resent him. More importantly, people would wonder -- if he's got kids, where's the mom? He can't afford to have people snooping about that. Finally, much like with you, he fears that his enemies might kidnap his kids, or hurt them somehow to hurt him. If darling is especially well-behaved, once she's finally broken in and understands his way of seeing things and becomes more agreeable, there's a chance he'd consider it, but the concern over their safety would likely still stop him.

What kind of (nsfw) punishments would they use?

Definitely spanking and impact pain. He's gonna invest in it, too. Leather straps and hard rubber paddles -- probably gets one of the ones that have a little shaped hole or raised part that puts a nice little design imprint on your flesh. Likes making you count for the added humiliation, or making you choose a number of swats that you feel is appropriate for what you did -- but of course, if you go too low under what he had in mind, he'll go with his number and add extra, being sure to let you know you get more for underestimating what you deserve.

Speaking of the monitoring from cameras and all that above, he also has a firm rule that you can't touch yourself. And he'll know -- the bracelet you have alerts him to any increase in heart rate, and he can look into the cameras and see what you're doing. If you're trying to be sneaky, it's still obvious when your heart is racing while you're locked in a bathroom, or the little movements he can make out from under the covers. It also warrants punishment. You want orgasms that bad? Have some. Too many. He'll make you cum over and over, to the point it's horribly painful and sensitive, tying you firmly so you can't move an inch and can't get away from his fingers, tongue, vibrator, or whatever else he chooses. Keep going until you're sobbing and gasping for air, apologizing and crying that you won't do it again.

What body parts of their darling do they like the most?

Thigh boy. He likes using them as a pillow, feeling them wrapped around his head when he's eating you out, running his hands up and down the soft flesh. He's also fond of leaving little bite marks and hickeys all up the inside of your thighs -- not that anyone else sees, but it's just a little reminder to you of who you belong to.

[mcheang]

Lila doesn't know that Marinette's parents own the bakery and thinks that she's just an employee. So, she tries getting Mari fired by acting like a Karen, complaining about the service, etc. Or, she just tells the Tom and Sabine about how Mari is a bully at school and other lies. Unbeknownst to Lila, one of her classmates or someone from school overhears and records what Lila said. Tom and Sabine either reveal that they're Mari's parents or she learns at school.

Nickname

I’m not gonna use the phrase “Karen”. It’s kind of sad that this name can also be an insult. I always liked the name ever since watching Mermaid Melody.

Everyone knows Chloé refers to Marinette as “Dupain-Cheng”. But how does Lila learn about it?

One morning, Lila saw Chloé lounging at her desk when Marinette rushed in, surprisingly on time for once.

Chloé held out her hand imperiously. “Dupain-Cheng.”

Marinette huffed. “I have a name you know.” And she handed over a T&S box of macarons.

Chloé: your point?

Lila turned to Nathaniel. “Does Marinette work at a bakery or something?”

Nathaniel: You’ve never been to Tom and Sabine’s patisserie before? You’ve gotta go today. They are the best patisserie in Paris!

Lila raised a brow. “Wow, Marinette must be quite the baker to have gotten hired.”

Nathaniel shrugged. “Well, she’s still learning but Marinette comes from a long line of bakers. She’ll probably be a professional by the time we graduate.”

Lila hid her scowl. She had not forgotten her promise of war to Marinette. And what better way to start then by sabotaging her job? After all, Lila had only just returned and while the class was under her spell, they won’t be so easy to turn on their old friend just yet. A professional bakery on the other hand...

Lila visited the bakery after school, when she was certain no one from class would be visiting it.

Down there, Lila wasn’t that impressed by the space, though the decor was colourful and elegant.

She ordered a macaron. After having a nibble of the admittedly scrumptious macaron, Lila made a face.

Tom: oh, is something wrong?

Lila: oh, it’s just that this is my first time in Paris and I was looking forward to trying the pastries here. I’m a popular food blogger you see. I travel overseas for holidays and recommend what to try and what to avoid on my blog. My fans were so excited to see my food recommendations, one of which was the macarons. But after this, I’m disappointed.

A waiting customer in line heard what Lila said and started filming her. Lila didn’t mind.

Tom was worried. “I’m sorry to hear that. Normally our customers love our macarons. Perhaps it’s because you are not used to french cuisine?”

Lila but back a retort, and instead sighed. “I gave this place a try after Marinette recommended it.”

Tom: our Marinette?

Lila: yes, she kept pushing me to come visit your patisserie. Even after I said yes, she kept badgering me and even the teacher reprimanded us!

Tom raised a brow. “That doesn’t sound like Marinette.”

Lila: she also promised me a free box of macarons if I visited. But now I’m not so sure. I’m afraid this is a definite place-to-avoid for my blog.

Tom was now suspicious of this girl. Marinette never pushed for reviewers to visit their place. She never needed to. Their bakery was doing splendidly. And it’s not like Marinette to just surprise them with a strange blogger without leaving a warning message.

Lila was hoping her representation of Marinette would paint her as a horrible employee. And she wanted some free macarons too from a boss hoping to salvage his company’s reputation.

But Tom just crossed his arms and gave a cold smile. “I’m sorry you didn’t like our macarons. But you still have to pay for the macaron you just ate.”

Lila frowned at the man. “So rude. I should at least have gotten a refund for the horrid taste.”

Tom’s face turned stern. “If you refuse to pay, I will call the police.”

Lila rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a drama queen.” She handed over a bill. “Here.”

Lila stormed out, too upset to even enjoy the macaron in her hand.

When Marinette and Alya came inside, Tom called them over. “Marinette, is there a food blogger in your school.”

Marinette blinked. “Not that I know of. Alya?”

Alya shrugged, “Sorry. I don’t watch those.”

Tom: a girl came by today saying you had offered her a free box of macarons in exchange for her visiting. She also claimed to be a food blogger.

Alya: must have been a scammer.

Marinette: but how did she know my name? From the sound of it, she probably never came here before.

Tom: she had brown hair.

Alya: that’s it?

Tom scratched his head. “I’m not good at remembering people. But that’s the beauty of security cameras!”

Tom led them to the back where he showed the girls the Lila drama.

Marinette growled. “Lila!”

Alya: what the hell? You never go near her if you can help it, always claiming she’s a ...liar...oh.

Marinette: yeah.

Alya: well, I can see why you hate her so much now if this is her true personality. What a snob. Even Chloé doesn’t act like that.

Tom: so you do know her.

Marinette: Lila’s a new girl who likes to make up grand stories about herself and has somehow convinced our friends to buy her lunch.

Alya counted off her fingers. “Forgotten wallet, sprained wrist, allergic to the cheap menu items, donated all her allowance to charity...”

Marinette: which one did you pay for?

Alya: when she told me she was robbed. Ugh. That liar is going down!

Marinette: but Adrien thinks we should take the high road.

Alya: Adrien’s rich. We’re not! I’m busting her right now! Mr Dupain, may I film this scene?

Tom: sure. I have to get back to the counter to help Sabine.

But as Alya spread the footage to the class, another clip was being shared rapidly among Parisians.

The girls opened their messages to see a video link.

WHO IS THIS GIRL TO CRITICISE OUR BELOVED PATISSERIE?

It was the same scene, but shot from another angle.

The waiting customer was a fan of the patisserie and a regular customer. She was not pleased at hearing a supposedly famous blogger giving the shop a bad review from just one nibble. and Marinette was such a sweetheart, the customer didn’t believe the drivel that came out of Lila’s mouth. And so she posted this clip, calling Lila out on her rude behavior, and asking if anyone knows this so-called famous food blogger.

Alya eagerly replied.

This clip became so widely spread that it even made the evening news, told by Nadja Chmack, who had even interviewed Mrs Rossi and told her what Alya and other commenters have said.

Mrs Rossi was too stunned to give a comment and had retreated to her office.

Ironic that the diplomat had such a mob-rousing daughter.

Mrs Rossi’s public humiliation was perfect for akuma bait. She basically spent her time looking for Lila to confront her but was defeated before Lila even knew what was going on.

Mrs Rossi apologized to the heroes for doubting their ability.

When Lila came home, she was surprised to see her mother waiting for her. Were they actually having dinner together?

Not exactly. Mrs Rossi tore into Lila for her horrendous behavior and outrageous lies.

And because Mrs Rossi was in the spotlight for negligent parenting, she went for extreme measures. From now on, Mrs Rossi would call the school every day, once in the morning to see if Lila had arrived, and every evening to see her progress report. Lila’s allowance would be cut off since she had been cheating her classmates for lunch money. Lila would also be seeing a professional therapist regarding her behavior.

Lila was shocked and furious she had been exposed to Paris as a fraud. She was hoping for an akuma, but Mrs Rossi had realized her lecture would cause upset emotion so she had asked the heroes to keep an eye out while she lectured her daughter. Ladybug caught the approaching akuma quite easily. Chat Noir’s night vision helped.

Lila tries to claim she felt lonely but Mrs Rossi retorted that was no excuse for her behavior. Then Lila tried to blame her mother for neglecting her and forcing her to keep leaving behind any new friends she makes just because of her diplomat job.

Mrs Rossi paused at that. It was true.

“Fine. I’ll concede on that point.”

Lila brightened up until her mother continued. “You’ll be finishing one last semester here before I send you home to live with my parents. They’ll give you undivided attention (monitoring) and you’ll have friends for the long-run (which means if Lila gets caught for lying, she will face the consequences instead of moving away)”

Lila: you’re abandoning me again?!

Mrs Rossi: I’m going to leave you in capable hands. And it’s not like I don’t want to spend time with you, Lila. But someone has to keep a roof over our heads and pay the bills.

When Lila returned to school the next day, she scowled right back at the glares that came her way. Upon entering class, Chloé called out, “Look, it’s the famous blogger. Oh, wait, no, never mind. It’s just some bragging nobody.”

Adrien stayed silent. Alya had chewed him out for his advice and warned him he was on shaky ground. Yeah, Nino wasn’t happy with him either but defended his bro was unaware of the cafeteria activity since he was always at home for lunch.

When Lila sat down, Nathaniel drawled next to her. “Oh, did I mention Lie-la, that the patisserie you asked about is Marinette’s family business?”

Lila’s fingernails had splinters under them.

[minor-solemnity]

To be a Seer pt.4

Tag List: @jinxqsu @naps-and-lemons @riddles-wifey @mainlynonsense @cakesarecute @crumpets-are-better-with-jam

When you enter the classroom you’re not even surprised to see that Riddle is already waiting for you at your usual table. He smiles at you congenially, and even stands up as you approach, pulling out your chair for you to sit. One thing that you’ve learnt from spending as much time with him as you have been is that Riddle’s manners are impeccable. It’s not half as endearing now that you know what hiding underneath his affable exterior.

You learn that girl is Annabel Wheatley. A third-year Hufflepuff student who, according to the chattering of your peers, is kind, quiet, and loves Care of Magical Creatures more than anything. The rumours surrounding her petrification spread like wildfire throughout the school, people who’ve never spoken to you before start stopping you in the hallway to ask if it’s true that you had seen the person who did it? if her body had really been hanging from the ceiling? if Tom Riddle had really run all the way from the sixth floor in order to protect you from the monster lurking in the school? You tell everyone who asks the truth. You don’t know who did it, Annabel had been sitting at her desk, Tom Riddle had not run anywhere to protect you from anything.

No one seems to believe this last correction. And you’re not sure you can really blame them; in the weeks following the attack, Riddle has taken to escorting you to and from class, acting for all the world to see, as your protector. He politely asks anyone who goes near you to leave you alone - “Can’t you see that this is incredibly hard for her? Do I need to start handing out detentions?” - to anyone who doesn’t know better, Riddle is a worried boyfriend who can’t stand to see his beloved so upset. Even Lizzie and Lucas seem sceptical.

“You must admit, it’s awfully strange that he’s suddenly showing you so much interest,” Lizzie says one evening in the common room as you’re attempting to study for an upcoming Ancient Runes test. “At the very least, he’s hardly hiding that he quite clearly likes you.” You shoot her a withering glare and Lucas laughs from where he’s lounging on the settee.

“I have no idea why he’s following me around all the time,” You say loudly, and promptly blush when a few curious housemates turn to face you. Neither Lucas nor Lizzie look at all like they believe you and you sigh, staring glumly at the textbook in front of you. “I honestly think he might just be worried?” You try to inject as much honesty as you can into your voice, hoping that this new tact will convince them. “It was… It was really disturbing seeing her.” Your voice grows quiet and Lizzie’s expression morphs into one of concern and you think you can detect a little bit of guilt too. Should you feel bad for manipulating your friends like this? You probably should. But you don’t. “And he was the only one around, you know? I don’t think I reacted that well.” That at least is partly true, it’s just that your poor reaction had nothing to do with Annabel and everything to do with Riddle.

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Lucas clears his throat and the subject is dropped.

***

Lizzie’s sick (or at least, she’s claiming to be) and so you’re on your own as you make your way to Divination. Riddle’s also absent and you’d not realised how used to his presence you’d become until he’s no longer walking with you to lessons. The solitary walk from breakfast to Divination gives you time to think about everything you know about the petrifications and a certain Tom Riddle. The most obvious, and the thing you are most concerned about, is that Riddle very clearly has something to do with the petrifications. Even without your visions, his attitude in the classroom whilst you’d waited for Dippet and Dumbledore to arrive would have been enough to make you suspicious, let alone the fact that he barely lets you out of his sight these days.

But regardless of any of that, you had Seen him. You’ve been Seeing him for weeks and it’s always the same: a boy splintering apart into seven pieces, distorting and mutating into something grotesque and unearthly. There’s no convincing you otherwise that Riddle and the boy in the smoke aren’t one and the same.

It’s your moral duty to tell someone, of course. You should be banging on Dippet’s door right this instance instead of making your way to Divination. You should be screaming it in the corridors. You should be doing a lot of things. And it’s not as though you’re happy that muggle-borns are being attacked. It’s just that… you’re stuck between doing what you know is right and following your own damned curiosity. And there is part of you that is unwilling to divulge to anyone what you know because that would entail telling them how you know. It’s selfish and dangerous and you hate yourself for it a little bit, but the thought of admitting what you’ve Seen is enough to make your chest constrict and your palms grow clammy.

When you enter the classroom you’re not even surprised to see that Riddle is already waiting for you at your usual table. He smiles at you congenially, and even stands up as you approach, pulling out your chair for you to sit. One thing that you’ve learnt from spending as much time with him as you have been is that Riddle’s manners are impeccable. It’s not half as endearing now that you know what hiding underneath his affable exterior. “Good morning,” He says pleasantly, “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to meet you after breakfast this morning, I had a few things I needed to take care of.” He leans forward as he says this, smiles conspiratorially at you like he’s letting you in on a secret. You have a horrible feeling that he’s testing you.

“That’s okay,” You say slowly, watching him carefully as you begin to unpack your things. “I’m sure that you must be busy this year, with all that’s happening. It would be selfish of me to keep you to myself all the time.” His smile widens and he nods.

“That’s very understanding of you. I must say, juggling schoolwork, prefect duties, and extracurriculars has been a lot more of a balancing act than I anticipated,” He pauses and the look he sends your way is entirely too knowing for your liking. “Still, I’m sure I don’t need to explain that to you.” You frown and anxiety begins to set in. The way Tom is talking to you makes you think that he knows about your visions, but that’s impossible. You’ve been so careful to make sure that no one knows. Not even Lizzie and Lucas. So how could he have found out? Unless he’s just baiting you? Trying to make you think he knows more than he does?

Not knowing what else to do, you simply smile and turn your attention to the front of the class where Professor Levintus begins the lesson with a small lecture on predeterminism and the role of destiny in Divination. Immediately, you perk up, scribbling notes on the lecture with a fervour that you’ve not felt since the petrifications started. You’ve always believed that the things you See are inevitable. That, once you’ve Seen them, your visions will come to pass no matter what you do. You’ve always believed this and so you’ve never once tried to stop them. Never once tried to change the future.

You think maybe you might want to see if you can.

“Sir,” You call, raising your hand. Levintus pauses in the middle of his sentence looking over at you, startled. “Forgive me for interrupting, but you mentioned that many consider the Sight to be absolute. Is that a fact or just a popular theory?” You try to keep your voice even; interested but academic. Out of the corner of your eye, Riddle sits up a little straighter, his attention focused entirely on you.

“Well, it’s certainly a popular theory. Many would argue that because all known instances of true foretelling have come to pass that it’s the only viable hypothesis we have at the moment.” Levintus explains. He looks like he’s about to move on with the lesson, but you still have questions.

“Surely, the keyword is ‘known’, though? There might be hundreds of foretellings that haven’t come to pass because the Seer acted to make sure they didn’t? Or prophecies that were never heard and therefore never acted out?” A hint of hysteria leaks into your voice and more students turn to look at you. Whilst it’s not exactly a secret that you take Divination more seriously than most, you’re not known for talking in class.

“That’s certainly a possibility, which is why I use the term theory. Is there a reason that you’re so interested?” Levintus smiles and cocks his head, “Do we have our very own Seer sitting among us, I wonder?” The rest of the class laughs, and, despite the way your heart does an uncomfortable flip in your chest, you force yourself to join in. The only person who isn’t laughing is Riddle who watches you with a small smile. You tell yourself that you don’t find it flattering.

***

You finish your rounds for the night and wave goodbye to the Hufflepuff prefect before heading straight to the Prefect’s bathroom. You’ve been given next weeks rota for patrols and aren’t surprised to see that you’ve been paired with Riddle. You haven’t been paired with him since the first week of fifth year, after which he’d only been partnered with other Slytherins but apparently times are changing.

You slip inside the bathroom and quickly set about filling the tub. You light incense and pour perfumed oils into the water. You smoke a cigarette and then light another one immediately after. These aren’t to help you See, but rather because you’ve been feeling on edge since Divination that morning. The next thing you do is pull out the small ornate dagger that you’d bought from Borgin and Burks the previous summer. You set it down carefully on the ledge of the bath as you sink into the warm water.

Driromancy is something you’ve studied but never attempted before. You’ve always found the idea faintly unsettling. Now though, you’re desperate for answers, and blood divination is said to be one of the most potent forms of divination. Blood magic is personal; it draws its power from the most essential parts of the user, and practitioners of driromancy are said to have highly intense and personal divinations. It is for exactly these reasons why you’re even considering it in the first place. Riddle has been haunting your dreams for months, he’s in the smoke you exhale, and that connects you to him somehow. In many ways, you know him better than he knows himself and you can’t shake the feeling that there has to be a reason for it. That there has to be a reason that of all the Seers in the world, it’s you that has been gifted the warning of his future.

You eye the dagger with a mix of anticipation and foreboding as the perfumed steam begins to work its magic and your mind calms and stills. You’re not sure how long you soak, allowing the water to soften your skin, but eventually, you feel the familiar tug at the edges of your mind, the gentle pull of the Other waiting for you to open your Inner Eye and See.

It doesn’t take much. A few drops on the tiles next to you, dark red against the white marble. You track the speed at which the droplets fall, the viscosity, and the patterns they land in. The slow, steady drip suggests someone determined, resourceful, and independently minded; the thin, watery viscosity indicates an uncertain future or a change of heart; the pattern that forms on the marble is a constellation - the hydra, representing a monster that cannot die.

You stare at the drops of blood for longer than you can tell, feeling strangely relieved by what they’ve told you. A future in flux is certainly better than a future set in stone. Especially, if the future is what you think it might be. It still leaves you with the question of how to change it. Riddle is, of course, the answer. Your futures are somehow tied together, however tangentially that might be, you just hope that his past actions aren’t indicative of how he might treat you should he find out.

The water has completely cooled, and you shiver as you clamber out of the bath and begin to dry yourself off. A quick vanishing charm and you’re ready to leave. You manage to take one step out of the corridor when you hear a soft hum coming from the shadows. Riddle steps into view and smiles down at you. In the dim candlelight of the corridor, he looks like a gothic prince. How did… How did he know you were here? Or was it just a coincidence?

Is anything a coincidence when it comes to you and Riddle?

He takes in your still-damp hair, your slightly wild eyes, the hitch in your breathing as he draws closer. “It’s a little late to be out, isn’t it? And hardly safe,” He says, and he’s close enough that you can see the way his eyelashes cast shadows along his cheeks. “I’d hate for something to happen to you when I’ve been trying so hard to prevent that.”

“Last I checked, prefects aren’t beholden to the same rules as other students,” You say and your voice is steady where your heart is not. He hums again and you’re struck by how pleasant the sound is, by the way his upper curls and his expression softens slightly. “I promise I’m being careful - though, I might ask the same of you, you know. Sneaking around the castle when you weren’t even on patrol tonight.” Without really meaning to, your tone takes on a slight teasing quality, gentle and sweet in the quiet hallway. You think you might be flirting with him which is… well, it’s an interesting development at any rate. Though perhaps, not one you should be surprised by; you’ve been spending enough time with Riddle to have grown somewhat comfortable in his presence (which is a somewhat unsettling realisation in and of itself) and you can’t deny he’s got a handsome face.

He laughs and the sound is beautiful. “I can assure you, no harm will come to me tonight.” No, you don’t expect it will. He offers you his arm, “It’s getting late though, and your common room is on the way to mine; allow me to escort you, seeing as I couldn’t this morning.” You know the exact moment that Riddle notices the shallow cut on your palm. He hums again, though this time, it isn’t from amusement but rather, you think with a small stab of anxiety, understanding. Like he’s putting the pieces together in his mind and is reaching a conclusion. Your hand hovers uncertainly in the air before you lay it gently against the crook of his elbow and he starts to walk you back.

Some distant part of you recognises that you’re in the middle of crossing a threshold, that you’re willingly walking into dangerous territory arm in arm with Riddle. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t a little bit curious about where you’ll end up.

(part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5)

[melrosing]

It is so weird watching the show and seeing how much they lionized/whitewashed Cersei, Tyrion, and Tywin while dragging Jaime through the mud. It’s so weird because by removing Jaime’s actual love story and growth, removing Tyrion’s darker impulses, skipping the fallout from Tysha reveal, eliminating fAegon & Stoneheart, elevating Cersei’s role in the story, they basically left nothing for either of the Lannister brothers to do besides stand around, make speeches or go on pointless side quests.

Yeah, I’ve been wanting to go into the whitewashing of certain Lannisters for a while because it’s so plainly a thing they’re doing, but I can’t quite put my finger on why? Because I think the reasons kind of vary depending on which Lannister you’re looking at.

Like in Tyrion’s case I think it’s pretty straightforward: he’s a fan favourite, the good guy on the bad side - I think the popularity Tyrion had at the time (dude was iconic whilst early GOT was airing) was something D&D were unwilling to compromise, and they felt GRRM’s shades of grey would do just that. So they made the bizarre choice to leave him completely stagnant, just sounding a little more tired as the show went on. I mean, they were so desperate to keep Good Man Tyrion that they made Shae’s murder an act of self-defence (...and then never really raised it again because turns out fans still weren’t really okay with it either way).

Tywin and Cersei is... a weirder case? Like D&D’ve full on come out and said they consider Tywin ‘lawful neutral’ (Tywin? The guy who ordered the gang rape of a child purely to hurt his own?? Are you sure about that???), and I think it’s obvious they think of Cersei somewhere along the same lines, but with a whole lot more gendered ‘but she’s just a girl! just a lady! just a mum!’ thrown in. D&D wrote all these kind of nurturing moments for both, where they try and make out that all the extremes the Lanns go to, they do for the love of one another - and I think they think they’re doing something clever like ‘humanising the bad guys’ with that. But in Tywin’s case it’s senseless considering what this man has done in their own show, never mind the books... and in Cersei’s case it results in a fuck load of misogynistic bs that I ranted about the other week.

Thing is, I think they do extend this to Jaime, in a strange way. I’ve heard people say they think Jaime in the books is meaner and crueler than Show Jaime, to which I just have to ask ‘where?’ because Book Jaime has a sharper tongue, sure, but Show Jaime has a way higher crime count, along with no clear desire to actually improve himself (Brienne is the one who has to keep reminding him to do it). I think these additional crimes are included to keep Jaime on Cersei’s moral level if I’m absolutely honest, because D&D do genuinely believe they’re only as bad as each other (à la ‘she’s hateful and so am I’). 

And yet at the same time, this Jaime kind of acts soft when he’s not doing Cersei’s bidding, so the audience goes ‘oh, he’s not so bad!’ Even though... he’s not so good, either. But what ‘Soft Jaime’ does is bring ‘softness’ to House Lannister. Because this isn’t really supposed to humanise him, it’s supposed to humanise them. It’s used to make the family behind the atrocities look like ‘just normal people fighting for their family, albeit on the wrong side of things’. He’s used to make Cersei more sympathetic, because through Jaime we get to see this vulnerable, motherly Cersei that D&D came up with. He’s used to make Tywin seem like a more fatherly figure, too i.e. through the reading lessons, the father-son chats, plus Jaime actually managing to get teary-eyed over the guy’s death in S7 lmao, none of that’s in the books but it’s in the show. 

The second Jaime departs from KL, Team Lannister becomes entirely unsympathetic (and no, D&D, the baby isn’t helping), so he’s sent straight back to bring some of that back, because D&D do believe that somewhere deep down, the Lannister cause is about love and family (it isn’t), and they needed the twins’ soft basement death to communicate that. Cersei by herself is a villain fighting for the throne and for power (book Cersei, in short), but Cersei combined with Jaime is ‘just parents trying to protect baby uwu’. Look! Sympathetic villains! For your consideration! 

So ultimately Soft Jaime is there primarily to provide a sympathetic lens for the bad guys i.e. his dad and sis, because see what Jaime sees! Cersei’s just a lovely mum, Tywin’s just a strict but otherwise loving dad, and hey, they all love each other even if they’ve got funny ways of showing it! (congrats on missing the point of the Lannisters completely!! congrats on missing how GRRM actually uses Jaime to show how cruel and unpleasant Tywin and Cersei really are, even to the person they supposedly love most!!!)

What does it all mean?? no fucking idea, I think D&D were just very taken with the idea of ‘grey characters’ but had no clue what it means to explore the darker shades - in their mind, it’s about finding a justifiable reason for everything their villains do, and trying to make them out to be otherwise almost decent. Why is this such a big thing with the Lannisters and not... Ramsay or Euron or something? Probably just because the Lannisters were popular and the actors were amongst the strongest in the cast and so they devoted their best character writing to them, only unfortunately their best character writing is um... shit!!!

tl;dr honest to god can’t summarise this, just purging my brain of some thoughts that I hope at least distantly relate to your message

[carmichealroyals]

CHARACTER INSPIRATION // C H A L L E N G E

Rules: Write up a blurb or make a visual collage of the people or characters (from books, TV shows, movies, etc.) that inspired your OC, either visually, personality wise, or just a general vibe.

I was tagged by this by so many lovely pals -- @thelockwoodroyals, @wa-royal-tea AND @ourwillowcreekroyals !!! I only feel bad that it took me so long but I wanted it to be as perfect as it could be while taking time to fiddle with Photoshop more (thank you @royaldevilliers for answering my silly questions). Below the cut are the descriptions for the personality types and tropes for each of the main three kids of this next generation! 

Not sure who’s done this yet, so if you see this and you want to do it, this is me telling you to do it!

CHARLOTTE:

The Protagonist:  Protagonists are natural-born leaders, full of passion and charisma. Forming around two percent of the population, they are oftentimes our politicians, our coaches and our teachers, reaching out and inspiring others to achieve and to do good in the world. With a natural confidence that begets influence, Protagonists take a great deal of pride and joy in guiding others to work together to improve themselves and their community.

Spirited Young Lady:  She is the girl who bends the rules just a little. Oh, she can dance a country dance or pour tea with the best of them, but she may also be a good walker or horseback rider. She may be the most intelligent girl in the story, and she is almost certainly the wittiest and the most outspoken, sometimes earning her the title of spitfire. She may be talented in more practical ways, as well: if given the opportunity, she may turn out to be a wise investor, and she may harbor talent for music, writing, or art that goes beyond drawing room entertainment and might become a means of financial independence if necessary. In rare cases, she may even solve a murder. Though she occasionally runs into some trouble, especially if she fails to obey the powers that be, she usually comes through in the end.

Deadpan Snarker: A character prone to gnomic, sarcastic, sometimes bitter, occasionally whimsical asides.The Deadpan Snarker exists to deflate pomposity, point out the unlikelihood of certain plans, and deliver funny lines. Typically the most cynical supporting character. In most cases, it is implied that the snarker would make a good leader, strategist, or consultant given their ability to instantly see the flaws in a constructed plan. More often than not, their innate snarkiness is the only thing preventing the other characters from comprehending this for themselves.

Politically Active Princess:  The Politically Active Princess is a princess that takes active interest in and plays an active role in politics. Naive courtiers and commoners alike might view her only as a figurehead, but in truth, she discreetly uses her position and guile in order to achieve her ends. Skilled in diplomacy, she will usually attempt to solve conflicts via conversation or bargaining, rather than combat. Her defining trait is her involvement in politics or diplomatic matters, without letting herself serve only as a bargaining chip.

Inspired by: Mia Thermopolis (The Princess Diaries); Lorelai Gilmore (Gilmore Girls); Vex’ahlia (Critical Role); Jenny Lee (Call the Midwife)

PETER: 

The Architect:  It can be lonely at the top. As one of the rarest personality types – and one of the most capable – Architects (INTJs) know this all too well. Rational and quick-witted, Architects may struggle to find people who can keep up with their nonstop analysis of everything around them.

The Dog Bites Back:  Unlike the Bastard Understudy and The Starscream, this character attacks as a crime of opportunity. There is no danger that he will take over the villain's place in the grand scheme of things. There is, however, a possibility that he will menace the others as a True Final Boss. The backstabber often ends up dead, but this is usually not Redemption Equals Death because their motive is not noble. Innocent victims who turn on the villain typically do it only for revenge, while evil victims prove that they were fine with all of the Big Bad's crimes except the one committed against them.

Middle Child Syndrome: Everyone loves the oldest child because the parents can rely on them, they watch out for their siblings, and they're so confidently attractive. The Youngest Child Wins because they're the "baby". But what does that leave the one in the middle? That's essentially the definition of Middle Child Syndrome, in which a child automatically may become The Unfavorite or the rebellious Black Sheep, specifically because they are the easiest child to overlook. They're not old enough to be given the responsibilities and privileges of the oldest, and the youngest child took their spot as the spoiled and doted-on "baby" of the family. This tends to be more of an issue when there are three children rather than four or more. Oftentimes in media, the middle child ends up becoming more of the Deadpan Snarker or the quirky one for this reason.

The Un-Favorite: Where there's an Alpha wolf, there's got to be a Beta. When there is a first banana, there is a second banana. This is the person in the family who can't get a break. For example, this is the child who's the big let-down to their parents, the daughter that was supposed to be a son (or vice-versa), the child the parents had by accident when they'd already decided they didn't need another mouth to feed, the adoptive, foster, or stepchild that came before the parents had a biological child, the illegitimate child conceived by infidelity on the part of one of the parents (if not even worse). But all in all, this is basically the kid who is always getting the short-end of the stick. In some extreme cases, this may cause Rich Sibling, Poor Sibling, especially if one sibling is forced into service to the other. A regular line that may be entailed with this is a variant of, "Honestly, [name], why can't you be more like [favorite's name]?"

Inspired by: Edith Crawley (Downton Abbey); Fiyero (Wicked: The Musical); Logan Huntzberger (Gilmore Girls); Rafael Solano (Jane the Virgin)

PEGGY: 

The Mediator:  Idealistic and empathetic, Mediators long for deep, soulful relationships, and they feel called to help others. But because this personality type makes up such a small portion of the population, Mediators may sometimes feel lonely or invisible, adrift in a world that doesn’t seem to appreciate the traits that make them unique.

The Baby of the Bunch: Being the youngest of your group typically comes with some perks and challenges. On one side you're probably the cutest, have a pass to act immature, people like taking care of you, and you can embrace your fun side, knowing that the elders are there to handle the serious stuff. And if there's anything you're naïve about, you have plenty of others to give you the realest unfiltered advice without the generational gap and detachment that your parents or the Old Master have. On the other end, sometimes people don't take you seriously. There you're kinda stuck because no matter how old you get, you'll always be "the baby" in their eyes.

Indifferent Beauty: A character who is attractive, aware of their effect on other people, but doesn't care or at least doesn't value their physical attractiveness over their other traits. Often, this character is a consummate professional who is well aware of the fact that they could use their "assets" to get what they want by other means, but feels that it would be unprofessional or beneath their dignity, and is instead focused on proving that they can compete purely on skill, often to the exclusion of romantic opportunities. While such characters are not averse to dressing in sexy outfits, they don't plan on relying on or even exploiting their sex appeal - but the camera will often do that for them. Other characters' indifference is not due to regarding relying on appearance to be beneath their dignity, but rather that they consider it to be unimportant.

Spoiled Sweet:  The Spoiled Sweet character is a naive, spoiled, rich or comfortably upper-class or upper-middle-class girl, who has everything they could ever want, but instead of being mean, she is as nice as can be to everyone. While still spoiled, slightly naive, perhaps shallow, maybe even a bit selfish at times, when it comes right down to it, she is a loyal friend and doesn't use her money or popularity as an excuse to treat everyone like garbage — though the trope Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense is in play, especially since a particularly common sticking point is that characters of this type often believe their friends and other loved ones deserve to live just as well as they do.

Inspired by: Rory Gilmore (Gilmore Girls); Beth March (Little Women); Pike Trickfoot (Critical Role); Peggy Schuyler (Hamilton: An American Musical)

[im-whatchamccallit]

Their Idol Girlfriend is Given a Nation’s Title//ATEEZ

(A/N: I’m currently in love with WayV’s new video and haven’t figured out how to function normally after it. Ty)

Hongjoong

Hongjoong was proud of you for being the “Nation’s Pick”, seeing it as a well-deserved opportunity due to your talent and growth. You would be responsible for presenting the country to the entire world for future tourist and, instead of worrying about you traveling and being too busy to spend time with him, his main concern would be if you were ready for the upcoming task.

Hongjoong would listen to the speeches you’d have to do for certain events, staying up with you to research the other countries you’d be visiting, rehearsing greetings in those languages to make sure you seemed inviting and genuine. It almost felt like you were a trainee again.

Only after you felt fully prepared would Hongjoong grow upset at his future separation from you, going from his normal professional-minded self to his normal clingy-boyfriend self, cursing that the Korean Tourism Organization would choose you of all people, But how couldn’t they? You were known worldwide at this point, were great with the public, and very well spoken. Now he just curses you for being too perfect.

Seonghwa

Having the title of “Nation’s Thief” was amusing to both you and Seonghwa, he just let it go to his head a bit more.

With Ateez steady popularity, and many fancams of him being shared worldwide over millions of times, it was only natural that Seonghwa would become something of a bachelor in his home country. The moment the public learned that you, a fellow idol, were his girlfriend, the playful name of ‘thief’ was thrown around in interviews and online. You never took it to heart which allowed Seonghwa to bask in the purity of it all. Seonghwa would spam his social media with photos of you and him, captioning them with jokes of your title, more specifically about if any other “thieves” wanted to steal him away (only for you to make him change the caption because, joking or not, you both know people would take him up on that offer).

Yunho

The title of “Nation’s Fairy” left you in disbelief, and even more so Yunho. Why? Because the almost secret videos of your contemporary dance recitals from your youth were released, causing the media, your fans, non-fans, and various other celebrities to take into account how graceful and agile you truly are.

Ever since you debuted as an idol, your dances were mostly modern and hip-hop, a complete 180 from your childhood, but you were just as elegant. And, once Yunho discovered the reason behind the sudden title, he was not as shocked as before.

Yunho always knew you were a great dancer, watching you and taking in your every move and technique, amazed at how fluid they were, he was just surprised people noticed it now. Overall, his initial shock would disappear and he would continue to appreciate you as is, even asking when you’ll do more contemporary dances in the future, at this point secretly expecting more than what your idol self has shown.

Yeosang

It was undeniable that you were the nation’s sweetheart, you were adorable and kind hearted, everything about you screaming innocence. So it was always fun for Yeosang to tease you about the not so innocent things you’d do. When you let out a swear because you dropped something, or even grab a beer before settling in to watch a movie for the night, or even just kissing him once he initiated it, he’d always say in that almost sing-songy voice,

“What if the world knew our nation’s sweetheart acted like this?”

The title wouldn’t effect either of you much, Yeosang not seeing the true impact it has on you or your career. Sure, you sometimes had to pretend you were the purest thing on planet earth, but you didn’t mind being seen as cute and lovable. Yeosang would be fine with the sudden burst of attention you got and wouldn’t feel any different about the situation, even when you two were spotted together, Yeosang’s soft appearance nearly giving him his own title as the nation’s prince. So maybe it’s a win-win.

San

San was proud when you finally received the title of “Nation’s Girl Group”. He remembers it like it was yesterday, when you burst into their dorm and screamed “You won’t believe this!”

San would be a bit disappointed that with the title came a complete shift in your relationship, you two barely seeing one another. All preplanned dates would be cancelled because of last minute interviews, you’d be touring heavily and requested to model or make a cameo on some movie or drama, and your only form of contact would be minutes long FaceTime calls of you apologizing for not seeing him as much. But San would remind you both that once Ateez became the nation’s boy group, he’d be busy but will always make time for you, so he appreciates you doing the same now.

To put your separation worries to rest, San would suggest making it a competition, seeing how long you’d stay the nation’s girl group before Ateez makes it as the nation’s boy group. Of course, he felt awful betting on if you’d be able to maintain your title, but you and he had a strong competitive drive either way, and he thought it’d be a good way to encourage you to work harder, which is all he ever ask of you to do with your career and vice versa.

Mingi

Being the nation’s “little sister” was something you weren’t too fond of, and Mingi knew that, learning to avoid those words and topic when alone with you, but he obviously found himself gravitating towards the title more after finally seeing what the general public has all these years.

Mingi would go back to all your performances from your childhood when you first began singing, all the interviews you did acting so cutely that it made everyone’s hearts swoon, even to recent interviews where you would respond to any questions and comments in a shy manner. You truly were someone worth protecting, no wonder the nation saw you the way they did.

Nonetheless, Mingi would try to push aside the protectiveness that came with bestowing you with the title, reminding himself you aren’t the same little girl the world come to know you as, you were an adult that sometimes swore and sometimes drank a little too much just because you were of age and could, you could drive, you paid bills and owned your own home, and you would cry from hard days and curl up into a ball to sleep. You were an adult human, something you secretly hoped people would realize for years, but reluctantly kept up your squeaky clean public image, and what more could Mingi do than comply with your wishes?

Wooyoung

Wooyoung was a bit confused on how you didn’t let the title of “Nation’s First Love” go to your head, he knows he’d let the vanity consume him. Yet you were so humble.

Wooyoung felt the title was very fitting, the day he met you his heart nearly burst out of his chest and that was from your looks alone. But when you spoke to him, and he finally got to know you, your personality was enough to make him want to propose to you then and there. Wooyoung wouldn’t be too jealous at the attention you’d get from the media and general public, not even people gawking on the streets bothered him, his biggest concern would be if you were so perfect because you were pressured to be.

“It’s just the life of an idol; we only show enough of our true selves to connect with fans, but leave our truest selves for the days we need to remember who we really are.”

He always joked you were a fake philosopher when you said things like this, but learned to take that specific phrase to heart. You were an idol-actress with a fanbase that loved you and vice versa. You were always smiling for cameras and talking about your career as if it weren’t a big deal. All just to come home and wear sweats while eating instant ramen on the floor like you did as a kid.

Wooyoung found comfort in the fact that while you wooed everyone in your day to day life effortlessly, but that he was the only one that knew the actual you.

Jongho

Nation’s Mother’s Friend’s Daughter. It was honestly the last thing Jongho thought anyone would call you, yet here you were, shy and awkward at the fact you were blessed with such a title. He didn’t get it at first, wondering what exactly it meant and what would bring the public to this conclusion, but the media always seemed to give him examples.

“She’s an idol, but makes time to visit hospitals to keep the elderly and children company! I’d love to see more idols like her!”

“I just heard she made a huge donation without even alerting the media! She’s really a kind soul!”

“Did you know she’s pursuing a law degree? She’s so incredible!”

Granted, you never really liked for people to compare themselves to you, especially when it came to your fellow idols, but you humbly rejecting the praise only seemed to make it happen more. Although Jongho never saw it as a bad thing, and other idols never took it to heart, he still wanted to ease the unnecessary guilt you felt with having your title. He didn’t know how, but you both going out to eat after a day of shopping, you ordering something small like always, gave him the idea to order beer and chicken, as much as you could both possibly consume within an hour. You were always praised for being so in shape and healthy, never eating “fatty foods”, that he allowed you the opportunity to make one “mistake”, something harmless that would make you feel human. And after the first sip of the alcoholic beverage, and the world not suddenly collapsing around you, you truly did.

[bagheerita]

So I just finished Empire of Gold and need to gush about The Daevabad Trilogy for a minute.

(I try to be vague, but that's exactly when I up and hit you with low-key SPOILERS, so be aware.)

My rambling is only barely organized into the format of randomly selected topics in order to provide a vague outline for my outflowing of affection for each book.

CITY OF BRASS

Favorite character: Definitely Nahri. I love a woman who isn't afraid to go after what she wants, and boy howdy do I love me a pragmatist. AND do I love me a girl who can keep her head on her shoulders even when she's in-lust with man. As much as she is truly falling in love with Dara, she never forgets the way he looked at her when he thought she was shafit and his relief when Ghassan said she wasn't. She would have married him if he had offered I think, but she was smart enough to make him take the first step to cross the gap that his prejudice had put between them.

Most impressive thing: The way the author uses her narrator to tell a story that the narrative character doesn't always fully understand. This mostly comes through Ali's chapters at this point cause he's a little naive, but it's really skillfully done.

 KINGDOM OF COPPER

Least favorite thing: There are some moments that just felt... weirdly written. There's three big ones that come to mind...

At the beginning- the way the writing describes the environment. I'm paraphrasing because it's been a week since I read it and I don’t remember details, but it's like "the only sound in the graveyard was the distant sound of cats fighting" then, five minutes later "The only sound was the sound of coins jingling in her basket."  Like, where were those coins five minutes ago?! Also, why does an experienced thief put coins in a jingly basket that is easy to steal or drop instead of hiding them on her person??? (That's super nitpicky, but it was the first chapter, so I noticed it more.)

The second big moment that annoyed me was... okay so Dara learns that Muntadhir is bisexual through mind-reading powers that he's never previously demonstrated? I mean, there are enough clues about how he does it, and it makes sense to the character's history that he can sense peoples’ desires, but it felt weird that this is the only time we really see him use this power- here, as the inciting incident to the third act, where so much of the plot revolves around it. Dara already knew that Ghassan was planning to force Nahri to marry Muntadhir, they'd already talked about this, so I'm not sure what about Muntadhir being in a relationship with a man, as opposed to the multiple women he’s slept with this week, was enough to make this prospect so immediately repugnant that Dara goes absolutely stupid about it and incites the climax of the book.

Then there's the epilogue that basically just exists to point out what we already learned about Muntadhir and Jamshid. I thought that was kind of unnecessary, as no one in this epilogue scene, including the reader, doesn't already know about this relationship. Though the epilogue does also contain what I think was supposed to be foreshadowing, but which sent me off on a weird mental tangent where I spent most of the second book thinking Jamshid was the reincarnation of Rustam...

Favorite character: Muntadhir, hands down. There is one scene in particular, where he sasses Dara while dying of poison that is just my favorite scene in the entire book. I mean, I think part of my enjoyment was that I had been worried that he was about to be a victim of the Bury Your Gays trope, so when he shows back up still not dead I was so relieved to see him I literally squeeeed, and then he's bragging to Dara about something I explicitly know didn't happen, just actively involved in assassinating his own character because he has nothing else he can give to save his brother at that point except trying to distract Dara by enraging him... omg, do I love me some brotherly feels- my second favorite scene was the three siblings in a closet plotting a coup.

Least favorite thing: Dara lying to himself and justifying Manizheh's actions for the entire book. I get that the fact that he was lied to and betrayed by the people in power that he should have been able to trust is a big part of his arc, but I was not excited to have his POV added to this book just to have him and everyone around him spout off more prejudiced victim narrative bullshit every time I flipped to his chapters, like I wasn't getting enough of that from practically every other character in the story.

Most impressive thing: The author draws some really great parallels and contrasts between the 3 main characters and their journeys that I absolutely love. In chapter 2, Nahri says something like "Where's your sense of adventure?" to her new friend and then literally in the next chapter Ali says "Have you no sense of inquisitiveness?" to his new friend. (I don't like to call ships that early in the story, but I was like- these two are fated to be best friends if not something more.)  A bit later in the story, Dara is presented with a choice: to do the easy thing or to do the Right thing, and he chooses the easy path even though he knows that it's wrong. After this, Ali is presented with a choice: to do the easy thing or the Right thing, and he does the Right thing, even though he knows that it ultimately probably won't help. I just really love that this story always feels like every narrative POV and every chapter fully develops the character and contributes to the world. 

I also really love the twists and turns that Ali and Nahri’s relationship has taken over these first two books. They really have grown as individuals, and have believed the best and worst of each other, and understand each other in a way that is a great foundation for a truly lasting friendship (which is, of course, the best bedrock for building a more intimate relationship).

 EMPIRE OF GOLD

Favorite character: Sobek. I have a soft spot for unrepentant murderers who have a soft spot for the people they find interesting.

Least favorite thing: It ended? I know this book was long enough to be an entire trilogy on its own, but I would have loved more at the end from the side characters. Like, I want 100 more pages just about Jamshid and Muntadhir. I was explicit confirmation of what Zaynab and Aquisa are up to, and a sequel trilogy about their adventures. I want more about Fiza and what her plans are for the future. I want orchard shenanigans with Mishmish. I want more about Sudha and her family. I want more about Nahri conning everyone into making a functional government, and I want more about the trials of everyone in the city learning to not hate and judge as a first reflex. Just MORE!

Most impressive thing: Overall I was just impressed with this entire book. If I had to pick one thing, I would probably say I was most impressed, and pleasantly surprised, by Dara's ending. By this point in the story, I was certain that Dara had transgressed every transgression that it was possible to transgress, and lied to himself the entire way, only deciding upon the Right course of action when it was exactly 2 minutes too late, so I was prepared for him to find Redemption in Death. But once again I was pleasantly surprised at this story's refusal to follow popular story tropes, when it instead granted him true freedom as he perhaps had never known in his life, and the ability to choose who he would live that life in service of- choosing to help those who, like him, had been victims of the ifrit. 

I want more stories like this, about characters who are unforgivable, but who are forgiven- not by people or by those they have wronged, but by the narrative itself. Who are able and allowed to rededicate their lives to something, choosing to see their own actions and commit to helping people instead of just blindly following.

 OVERALL

Favorite character: I want to say Nahri, though I also really appreciate Ali and his quiet growth from being naive and kind of annoying to a man who is finally comfortable with and understands himself. But I think I’m going to have to choose Jamshid. I really like characters who are honest with themselves about their motivations, and I really admire his willingness to be open to change, to having his entire world and beliefs be turned upside down and try to go with the new way of being instead of holding on to the past, to confess his sins and be honest with Nahri, to believe in the people he knows rather than in what others say about them when Manizheh tries to manipulate him, to have been through everything he's been through and still retain a sense of humor and a generally upbeat personality.

The author does a good job of presenting all of the characters as fully rounded people so that there isn't really a character that I find poorly written. I definitely disagree with a lot of characters, and dislike them as individual people, and Manizheh comes the closest to being someone I truly hate, but you can see the paths that brought these people to be who they are. There are some great lines- where I think it's Nahri who notes that Ghassan's father make him like he was by his abuse, as he had twisted Manizheh  up with his own abuse, and that Muntadhir could have easily become just like his father. All people have the potential inside of them to be good or to be evil, and they are formed by the circumstances of their lives, the choices they make, and the power they give to the relationships they have.  I also loved that, once she learns the truth about her parents, Nahri notes how much of herself she gets from her Egyptian mother, just as much as she got her Nahid heritage from Rustam, and that it's a part of her that she can be proud of and celebrate.

 Most impressive thing: I don't like "realistic" fantasy, where lots of people die, because that tends to be an excuse for the book to just be really depressing. This story really surprised me by being realistic but in a way that was still full of hope. Sometimes people are terrible, or they are broken by the world and can no longer see anything beyond their pain, and a lot of the time the institutions we have created are terrible and are built on terrible things. But there is still always a need for people who do the right thing, who stand up for those who are being treated unfairly, who are willing to make sacrifices to break down the "us" and "them" that divides people. Who are willing to see change not as something to be feared but as a beautiful potential.

Least MOST favorite thing:  As Chakraborty herself notes in her afterward:  "There are days when it feels silly and selfish to spend my days crafting tales of monsters and magic. But I still believe, desperately, in the power of stories. If you take any message from this trilogy, I hope it is to choose what's right even when it seems hopeless - especially when it seems hopeless. Stand for justice, be a light, and remember what it is we were promised by the One who knows better.

“With every hardship comes ease."

I also believe in the power of stories, and I’m so excited to have been able to experience this one.  <3

[silyabeeodess]

FusionFall Headcanons: Mandy

Despite her own agenda, Mandy has never been one to simply let evil run rampant.  Earth is still her home, and any danger someone like Fuse poses to it is just as much a threat to herself.  With a steely determination matched only by her wit, she’ll make certain that Planet Fusion’s days are numbered.  

Several episodes/movies of GAOBAM like “Billy and Mandy’s Big Boogey Adventure” highlight Mandy’s ultimate goal for world domination and just how dangerously close she can get to it--a trait that carries over in FusionFall through her plans to create an army of her own during Mojo Jojo’s guide missions.  The main reasons she stops other villains rather than helps them is because she wants to be the main one in control with any sort of takeover done on her terms.  Meanwhile, episodes like “Scary Poppins”  would indicate that Mandy already has a large amount of power/influence in at least Endsville, but chooses not to use it as much as she could. Given that there’s little holding her back in this scenario, she might be weighing all of the potential risks such as the large number of heroes that would stand against her and that she personally may lack the strength to maintain her control were she to gain it.  Basically, she’s taking smaller steps that would fly under most people’s notice and bidding her time for the right moment to act.

Nevertheless, as villainous as Mandy can be, she has acted out of seemingly selfless desires before, her friendship with Billy being the most obvious.  True, Billy would make a decent pawn for her, but she’s also had to clean up a lot of his messes and has been shown to genuinely care for his well-being.  It was her plan that saved his pet hamster, Mr. Snuggles, when the two first met Grim.  She gives advice to Jeff the Spider and treats him well.  Even thought she’s not a fan of Christmas and didn’t believe in Santa until she saw him, her first plan was to go after the Head Vampire to save him and the holiday.  She even tried being kind to Mindy when she first moved to Endsville out of sympathy--before ultimately getting annoyed and telling her to shut up.  This fits her status as more of an antihero than true villain.      

Three traits Mandy seems to value most are intelligence, loyalty, and honesty:

She has respect for those who can match her wits even if they’re not always on her side.  We see this a small bit in “The Cracks of Fuse” when, after the player destroys her Hypnotic Charm, she compliments them before warning them that they “won’t be so lucky” in the future.  

She takes betrayal very seriously and it has been shown to hurt her deeply, as it did with Pandora in “Pandora’s Lunch Box.”  Her reactions to it seem to depend on the relationship the traitor has with her and their reasoning beyond the betrayal.  Mandy genuinely saw Pandora as a friend and hated being used, even if the result would’ve been convenient for her, so she had no issue locking Pandora away.  She threatened to destroy Billy in the GAOBAM/KND crossover special when he stood against her.  Meanwhile, the player in “The Cracks of Fuse” has more of a working relationship with Mandy and betrays her by Dexter’s orders in order to save people.  The closer you are to her and the more deep the betrayal, the worse she’ll retaliate.  If you stick by her side, she shows gratitude if only in passing comments.  This would also align with her deep love for her dog, Saliva, an animal known for its loyalty. 

As for honesty, don’t get me wrong, Mandy isn’t above deceiving others to get what she wants.  At the same time though, she often makes her intentions very clear.  If she hates someone, she hates them openly.  She makes her goals and boundaries known to all.  Furthermore, she’ll respect an agreement if she makes one--such as giving the player a reward at the end of “The Cracks of Fuse” despite her anger toward them.  Her hatred toward Mindy may also partially stem from this, given the latter’s behavior as a stereotypical popular girl/bully with a “fake” personality.    

Other than what I’ve said above, this bullet is pretty much based entirely on my own speculations and investment in a certain trope in a lot of current webcomics, so take with it what you will.  Even as an infant, Mandy has been shown to rarely, if ever, smile with a dark outlook on life. She’s also extremely intelligent for her age.  Fitting her personality and the supernatural themes in GAOBAM, I headcanon that Mandy might be an individual who reincarnated with her memories--likely on a subconscious level--from a terrible, previous life rather than moved on to the afterlife.  It’s probably the most extreme claim I could make for her and you all who’ve been following these posts know that I rarely come up with them without some canon basis, but it’s one that I just can’t easily shake the longer the idea sits in my mind.  She’s cynical of the world because she recognizes it as an awful place with awful people--and never would’ve had an infant’s naivety if she somehow already possessed early knowledge about the harsh realities in life.  As a result, she wants to be in a position of power at all times so she doesn’t become anyone’s victim.  She keeps her distance from others, yet cares about loyalty so much, because at some point in that past-life she would have already faced a cruel betrayal. This would feed into an insecurity/unwillingness to form real attachments, along with feelings of superiority.  Even if she would despise personally having an overly nice, happy-go-lucky nature, she doesn’t actively go after individuals who are themselves that way like Jeff: This fits a respect of genuine kindness/innocence while also recognizing it as a potential danger in a cruel world.  She would be more optimistic as a very young child, but with tempered expectations because of being given a second chance at life. However, her worst feelings would still continue to sink in as she grew and recognized everyday annoyances/evils others her age wouldn’t pay much attention to. Billy would only be able to draw so closely to her due to reaching out to her when they were so little and never giving up on that friendship, forcing her to accept him in her life.  Think of a more ambitious Six from Little Nightmares.  

Outside of the Mojo guide missions, most of Mandy’s own depict her as being an extremely effective Fusion Fighter if seemingly a little detached. There’s a strict approach to the way she directs the player, and she doesn’t let distractions or her own desires get in the way of her immediate work.  Due to the amount of knowledge she has on both Fuse and supernatural artifacts for these missions, one of her main roles in the war is likely research.

Her time spent with Grim already allowed her to learn a lot about the supernatural; however, she has also studied under/with Hex some since arriving at Devil’s Bluff.  At first, he admired her ambition and interest in magic. Once he realized how much of a threat and potential rival she could be though, Hex started being more careful with what he told her, treating her with caution.  Mandy is aware of this, and as such will try gathering information he would keep secret from her through other people. As of now, she’s unable to summon magic herself without the help of others or the use of objects despite the vast amount of knowledge she’s gathered.

The mission “Hands Off” hints that Mandy didn’t join the nano project solely to help with the war effort, as she slips up by referring to her allies as “slaves” when explaining the decrease/lack of nanos would make them weak.  Extending this to her nanos themselves, it’s likely she joined the with the intention of using them as a sort of personal army once the war is over.  Since they would think and act like her, she imagined the only thing she’d have to worry about is some of them possibly sharing her ambitions and trying to usurp her, and that she could easily outsmart the small doubles should the need arise.  Others would align with her goals and know they’d be in good standing if they followed her commands.  However, she didn’t count on just how much their IE Donor’s influence would also affect their creation.  Her plans haven’t really changed, but any Mandy nano with a strong bond to their IE Donor is a lost cause to her.    

[dwellordream]

“Middle-class girls who no longer spent their days as their mothers’ apprentices in domestic maintenance and manufacture were not left to their own devices. Just as their mothers’ responsibilities reoriented from home industries to the rearing of children, girls’ own primary goals shifted from the manufacture of cloth and the preserving of foodstuffs to the culturing of themselves. Self-culture was a broad-based project in the nineteenth century which was central to the emergence of a middle class. 

In the increasingly fluid and unpredictable climate that accompanied the emergence of a market economy, young men and women were urged to form regular habits of restraint and self-control as their best protection against future disasters. A self-regulating man could chart an even course for his family; a self-cultured and refined woman could safeguard her family’s standing whatever economic circumstances should befall her. Self-culture was especially critical for girls for whom freedom from domestic labor left a good bit of free time during their impressionable years. 

The advice writer William Thayer, who at midcentury had worried that for some girls the result might be ‘‘a study in how to kill time,’’ offered an alternative: ‘‘What an opportunity for mental culture and religious improvement!’’ Thayer’s proposed means to these ends was significant. He proposed that girls accomplish their goals through reading, ideally a hundred pages a day. The elevation of reading to a central and defining aspect of bourgeois girls’ lives helped to define a specifically Victorian adolescence. 

Many girls followed Thayer’s advice and read for several hours a day, often supplementing their reading with the writing of letters or the keeping of a journal and diary. Reading and writing, the twin activities of literacy, became the vehicles to self-culture and the central activities of many privileged Victorian girls’ lives. They reinforced each other abundantly, as girls read and then wrote about what they read—time profitably filled twice over. 

Although Victorians came to debate the influence of various kinds of sensational reading material and the health of the practice of writing gushing prose, the activities of literacy had much to recommend them to adults over other occupations. As pastimes which took place in the imagination, they had a provisional quality which allowed for the displacement of desires for drama. In the best of circumstances, the cautionary tales of Victorian moralists and even the passionate dramas of romance would be processed through a girl’s writing and help her to grow into an understanding woman of character, restraint, and refinement. 

Many middle-class girls read voraciously—their reading often limited only by supply. The diaries and journals they left contain lists of books read over the course of a year and descriptions of time spent in reading over the course of a day. The advice writer Heloise Hersey estimated in 1901 that in the years between age twelve and twenty-one, ‘‘the average young gentlewoman reads a novel more than an hour a day. Thus she gives one and one-third years of solid working days to this occupation.’’ 

It was common for reading, scattered through the day, often accompanied by writing, to be the single most time-consuming activity mentioned in girls’ diaries. One girl reported reading in four different books through the course of a day, and sometimes reading straight through (over the course of several days) such massive volumes as George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda, and Dickens’s Oliver Twist. Another noted that on July 14, 1864, ‘‘I believe that I have not read a bit today—such a singular thing that I must record it.’’

Girls read by the window, in the hammock, on the horsecars, as well as in the parlor. Not all of girls’ reading was for the same purpose, of course. Some of it was dutiful and dull; some of it was romantic and dangerous; some of it was inspirational. But it is clear that in comparison both with the eighteenth and the late twentieth centuries, nineteenth-century Victorian girls of a certain class came to spend much of their lives—and perhaps also do much of their living—on and through the written word. 

The dominance of the Victorian culture of reading and writing was sufficient that even girls who had other substantial chores often used their curtailed discretionary time engaged in literacy. Thus Hannah Davis, who at the age of twelve in 1851 appeared to be living out as ‘‘help’’ in Ohio, reported one day’s activity: ‘‘I got up eat my breakfast washed the dishes and read till noon then washed the dishes after dinner and read till supper eat supper washed the dishes and went to read a while then Milton Elvira Sarah and me told some tales and went to bed.’’ 

Of course, we know about these reading regimens only because they were accompanied by writing regimens. Like reading, writing was a plastic medium which filled various needs and purposes. As witnessed by numerous late Victorian portraits, girls frequently spent hours at desks, composing poetry, writing letters, pasting scrapbooks, keeping diaries or journals. The youth magazine St. Nicholas received a poem from one girl not yet ten and cautioned her, ‘‘Don’t write verses yet, cleverly as you do them for one of your age. There is time enough for that’’—time which would come when she reached her teens. 

This time came not only for girls in the city, who could not ‘‘frolic’’ in the open air, as the little poet was advised to, but for rural girls as well. Like Mark Twain’s Emmeline Grangerford, who lived on the banks of the Mississippi and wrote mournful poetry that she kept in a scrapbook, actual girls from the hinterlands, too, kept diaries and wrote poetry, and intermingled their descriptions of household chores with locks of hair, autograph albums, and florid poetry. 

Writing was sometimes a solitary act, as we envision it today, but it often had an important social component. Girls formed clubs to write stories together, wrote poetry for each other, and often described writing their diaries together. Writing was not simply an activity for moments of solitude and silence, but one which compelled attention even among friends and in company. This ‘‘crescendo of verbal activity’’—a fascination with both the power and the possibilities of literacy—played a variety of roles for girls in the process of becoming women.

In particular, girls’ writing was an arena of contest between parents and daughters. Girls came to use their writing, especially their writing of diaries, not as an escape from the Victorian family, but as a way of discovering self within it. Girls wrote in a variety of genres and hands, often composing notes and letters to friends within the same city. They were particularly encouraged to occupy themselves by keeping accounts of their lives in the form of diaries. Diaries filled a variety of functions for the girl diarist. 

Arising from an empiricist desire to record events accurately, diaries served to store a range of information, from financial accounts to observations about the wind and the weather. Private writing had religious roots as well, in the spiritual autobiography or conversion narrative of earlier days. Parents encouraged diary writing for their daughters as a means of spiritual reflection and to promote good character and virtue. Parents had always encouraged virtuous conduct among their offspring, of course, but in eighteenth-century New England, sustained good behavior was secondary to a conversion experience as the mark of a good Christian. 

Unlike tales of conversion, however, which recounted the one-time odyssey of the soul to God, the nineteenth-century diary made religious virtue a daily affair to be demonstrated through repeated good deeds and regular habits. With the disestablishment of the church and the dislocations occasioned by urbanization and industrialization, internalized character and steady habits assumed new importance. This function of the diary is captured by the term used by the modern theorist Michel Foucault to describe the ritual practice of the Catholic confessional: parents hoped that girls’ diaries would be ‘‘disciplines of the self,’’ which would encourage them in their pursuit of a reliable and steady goodness.

Parents and advice givers suggested journals for girls and boys, but the conventional wisdom was that girls took to writing and diary keeping more naturally. Agnes Repplier, who wrote a piece on ‘‘The Deathless Diary’’ for an 1897 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, repeated this common assumption: ‘‘Even little girls, as we have seen, have taken kindly enough to the daily task of translating themselves into pages of pen and ink; but little boys have been wont to consider this a lamentable waste of time. . . . As a rule, a lad commits himself to a diary, as to any other piece of work, only because it has been forced upon him by the voice of authority.’’ 

Repplier had good reason to know about the affinity between girlhood and writing. As a convent schoolgirl in the 1860s, she was one of a band of friends who were ‘‘addicted’’ to poetry and spent long hours copying it into blank books. There were structural reasons for the popularity of diary keeping among girls, as we have seen. The affluence of middle-class urban families marginalized daughters’ work within the household, yet the constraints of propriety at midcentury discouraged outside employment. Advisers encouraged girls to devote themselves to the development of order in all features of their lives. 

Once one’s room was cleaned, there was one’s own life to systematize. In 1878, when the children’s magazine St. Nicholas published a piece on keeping a journal, it gave as the first reason that it taught habits of order and regularity. Because the purpose of a journal was to train a girl in orderliness, clearly the entries themselves ought to be orderly and reflect an ordered life. Ideally, therefore, a diarist wrote daily, and often drafted her entries first before copying them into her diary. The diary was to be a credit to a girl’s accomplishments, and those included her penmanship. 

The diary entry, like the constitutional walk, was usually a ritualized part of the day; often the girl wrote it in the bedroom immediately before retiring. It was considered less stressful than schoolwork by both parents and their daughters. The St. Nicholas adviser, W. S. Jerome, suggested a routine recording of the weather, letters received or written, money paid or received, the day of beginning or leaving school, visits, books read, all set down in the correct order of time. The end result would be a useful family history. As he wrote, ‘‘Perhaps, some evening when the family are sitting and talking together, some one will ask, ‘What kind of weather did we have last winter?’ or ‘When was the picnic you were speaking of?’ and the journal is referred to.’’

Clearly, the journals Jerome had in mind were semipublic family records rather than personal confessions. They were also designed for self-grooming along prescribed lines rather than experimentation. Of course there was another, romantic use of the diary more familiar to modern Americans. Jean-Jacques Rousseau borrowed from Catholic ritual the title of his revolutionary Confessions, which were designed less to appease an angry God than to explore an individual life history. As such they represented less a ‘‘discipline of the self ’’ than a ‘‘technique of the self,’’ in Foucault’s terminology. 

Rousseau’s romantic exercise in self-construction provided one model for the nineteenth-century diary, but it was not one that most parents had in mind for their daughters. Although they often encouraged their daughters to use diaries for self-exploration, they remained ambivalent about girls’ rights to a self separate from family duties and responsibilities. The advice literature describing the practice of diary keeping rushed to close off romantic possibilities. It was better for a girl to have no diary at all than to have one which encouraged fantasy and ambition and distracted a girl from her domestic priorities.”

- Jane H. Hunter, “Writing and Self-Culture: The Contest Over the Meaning of Literacy.” in How Young Ladies Became Girls: The Victorian Origins of American Girlhood

[sultanaesma]

DENIZ BAYSAL, 24, ESMA SULTAN. ❝ ⤚⟶ EUROPE, 1458. THANKS IS GIVEN BY THE SULTANA , ESME SULTAN FROM OTTOMAN EMPIRE. THEY ARE AT BEST AMIABLE, AND AT THEIR WORST WEAK-WILLED. WHILST ABROAD, THEIR AMBITION IS TO INTEGRATE INTO EUROPEAN CULTURE. SHE SEEM/S TO REMIND EVERYONE OF DENIZ BAYSAL & CAREFUL CLEASING OF THE HANDS AND FEET IN PREPARATION FOR PRAYER, GLIMMERS OF GEMS WITHIN MIDNIGHT-DARK HAIR, ELABORATE ARABIC SCRIPT WRITTEN IN GRACEFUL PENMANSHIP. ❞

FULL NAME : esma sultan of the ottoman empire

TITLES :  sultana

BIRTHPLACE : constantinople, anatolia

AGE : 24

LANGUAGES :

native : arabic, ottoman turkish

high proficiency : persian

intermediate : latin, french

learning : german

DYNASTY / HOUSE: osman

MOTHER & FATHER : sultan iskender and haseki sultan nehir

SPOUSE : n/a

ISSUE : n/a

SIBLINGS : murad, mihrimah, hiranur’s daughter (half), branimira’s son (half)

OTHER : engaged to the prince of austria

ZODIAC : cancer

RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION : muslim

ORIENTATION : biromantic

PERSONALITY TYPE : infp

VICES : sloth, pride

VIRTUES : patience, charity

FACECLAIM : deniz baysal

HEIGHT : 5'7

RECOGNISABLE FEATURES : wide smile, strong brow

REPUTATION IN FLORENCE : graceful, witty and kind, a person who easily extends the hand of friendship to others and is known for their sweet and patient countenance

WANTED CONNECTIONS : female friendships of all kinds and creeds, relationships with other characters with a high degree of piety, regardless of their faith, perhaps somebody who doesn’t like her to explore how she would react to this happening, relationships with somebody politically inclined who can take advantage of her naivety.

App Bits

Esma knows too much, and that has long been her problem in life. She knows much, but says nothing, keeping her mouth occupied with pretty smiles and honeyed words rather than speaking her mind. This passive countenance has led to two situations that she isn't entirely pleased with, the first being her elder brother's claim. Whilst Esma does not scorn or dislike Murad, she is aware of the instability that comes with a position in the Ottoman court - especially the most prestigious of all, that of the sultan. She worries for him, should he ever succeed their father, believing his ailments render him unsuitable for the role, unable to see the snakes in the grass, and more than that, worries that he will be unable to maintain the glorious victories their father has achieved over the years. The second is a far more personal matter. Esma is truly dedicated to the Ottoman Empire, willing to serve however she can, however, she isn't certain that renouncing her faith in order to take her place in the Holy Roman Empire is the best way to do so. A devout woman, she greatly fears the day she will have to wed, and does not want any children she bears to grow up outside of the Islamic religion. She isn't used to speaking her mind, keeping her opinions veiled behind what she thinks others want to hear, but time is rapidly running out, and with the walls closing in, she must find her tongue or else lose her chance to shape her own destiny. 

The model of an Ottoman princess, Esma is beautiful, and known to be a kind and popular figure. The grace she exudes does not come naturally to her, though, but is the result of years of careful work and tutoring to cultivate her outer façade - though she does not see this as an act on her part, rather than a deep desire to better herself. A selfless woman, everything she does is in service of her father's rule, and her devotion to her faith, the two most important things in her life. Academic and intelligent, her wit quickly earns the friendship of others, though her inherent sweetness helps to maintain those friendships, and she never uses her humour against others. However, Esma is a coward, unable to voice her true feelings for fear of having others think ill of her. She can flawlessly speak what she believes others want to hear from her, but bites her tongue when it comes to her own opinions - particularly if those opinions are set to rock the boat. Indecisive, and perhaps a little shallow, she can easily be won over by well-placed words and pretty things, and can be a little naïve to the machinations of others, leaving her vulnerable to be used as a pawn by other's scheming. Though she is aware of such plots occurring, she is not as bright as she believes she is, and struggles to see such things when aimed at her, or when coming from somebody she has already put her easily-earned trust in.

Esma has often dreamed of being married since childhood, idealising the view of her future husband in her head. As a young girl, she could often be found playing with dolls, imagining the day when they would be replaced by her own sweet babes in her arms. As she’s grown older, the desire for matrimony and motherhood has only intensified, but Esma never imagined she would be marrying into a European country. In her mind, the only option was ever a Muslim prince, or at worst, a worthy man from her own country. The idea of conversion is terrifying to the young Sultana, who despite her vast knowledge of the world, knows little of Catholicism, and fears what awaits her in the afterlife should she turn her back on the religion she has devoted her life to. Similarly, the idea of raising her children in a different faith fills her with revulsion. She does not see the path ahead of her, as consort to an Austrian Prince, as anything but a tool from which the sultan can expand his power, and whilst she is usually more than eager to aid in bettering the empire by however she can, she sees this move less as betterment and more as a means of control by European factions. Thus, she quietly works to convince her family to support her in ending the relationship as subtly as she can for fear of worsening international relations.

  Esma is a gifted writer and meticulous diary keeper. As a woman who keeps so much hidden away inside, locked away for herself and herself alone, she finds writing her thoughts and feelings down to be the sole way in which she can fully express herself, a therapeutic endeavour that helps her maintain her placid countenance. She fears what would happen if anybody were to find and read her writings, especially with so much weighing on her mind. Recently, she has taken to developing her own code, so that anybody who stumbles across her diaries would find nothing they could possibly hope to decipher, and the thoughts within her mind remain as private as possible

[path-of-my-childhood]

Taylor Swift : "My Life Had Totally Gone Out Of Control"

By: Benjamin Locoge for Paris Match Date: June 15th 2019

She is the biggest pop star in the United States at the moment. And she is no longer afraid to engage politically.

"I did not forget that you came to see me in Nashville when I was still in country music and when few people were interested in me.” 

Taylor Swift greets us with charm on Saturday, May 25th. For the past three years, the 29-year-old has broken all records in the music industry, from album sales, concert tickets to YouTube views. She's in Paris to talk about her new single, the first one from her upcoming album. But what she is most ready for is to tell her story and return to her exceptional career. With disarming simplicity.

"Me!", your new single, is a departure from the songs of your last album "reputation". Are you coming back to something more pop, more accessible? Absolutely. With this song, I wanted to give a glimpse into my new music. My previous album was a real departure in my career in terms of image and sound. I was in a different mood musically and personally. I am now coming back with something much more accessible so that my audience can understand this new direction.

What has happened in the last three years? "Reputation" was a dark and complicated record because I was going through a dark and complicated time. [She laughs.] I assure you, the next will be much brighter, even though it’s still emotionally complex. But I feel like I've been through a storm. So many inexplicable things happened in my life... I didn’t give interviews for three years just so that I didn’t have to answer questions about intimate things that I discussed in my songs. I was simply not able to do it at the time.

Why do you think that is? I have always written songs to express myself. The thing that has changed though is that there is now this frantic quest for more clicks on the Internet that results in words being taken out of context, misinterpreted and being repeated over and over. My life had totally gone out of control. The only way to regain control and stop it from spiraling out was to no longer appear in the tabloids and to shut up. And the only way to keep expressing myself was to do it only in songs. I was afraid that speaking to the media would end in headlines with three exclamation points... I wanted my life and my career to go in a different direction.

Yet since you started fifteen years ago, you have always had control over your career. For a long time, I did not know how to protect myself from paparazzi. Today, I know exactly how to go unnoticed, I have almost become like a secret agent who knows how to blend in the crowd. [She laughs]. But I never forgot who I am as a musician and a songwriter. If that is the only information the public has about me, that's fine. Whenever I’m photographed in certain clothes, or with my group of friends, or with a guy - I become an object of curiosity in a way that has nothing to do with my craft and profession. We live in a world where the number of clicks that you bring has become a measurement of popularity and fame. So, to draw interest only to my job, I had to only show what I do.

Do you think you are strategic? Absolutely. But even now, people don’t like to see women as business people or as being strategic. However, to build a career, you have to have at least some vision and ability to think long-term about what you are going to offer to the public. Otherwise, you can be swept away after couple of years. From my very first steps in music, I said that I wanted to do this job in fifteen years. I'm always here. I never gave up, even when I was tired, even when I was sick, I never canceled a concert.

Has this been at the expense of your privacy? I do sometimes wonder if I ever really existed outside of music. But when you think about it for a moment, where does the feeling of fulfillment come from? Social networks? I don’t think so. Newspaper headlines? Opinions about the clothes you wear? No. And if you're looking for some form of approval in all of these things, you'll soon be disappointed. I really do think I have managed to reconcile both, career and private life, despite all that we have just mentioned.

So where do you get that feeling of satisfaction? From my friends, people around me and from my family. I'm not an actress, I do not play serious roles that give me depth. I sing about the girl that I am, I express my emotions and tell my stories. I do not really distinguish between who I am in private and who I am as a person known to public. The only way to not go crazy is to not read all the articles about me. Not because I'm afraid of it, but simply to avoid questioning everything. A good article will make me think that my music is very much appreciated. But if a negative article comes out the next day, it will make me tremble. I do not need that anymore. I can instead spend a lot of time with my loved ones, those are the moments that the public doesn’t see. And it's nice to have those moments when no one talks about me. Because my life is the subject of so many comments...

Most of the articles about you usually talk about the records you keep breaking. That is very nice to hear. But I am very aware that what is happening is only a moment in my career. All of this will eventually slow down again. Have I reached my peak yet? I don't know. But that's what makes my job exciting. And if I only made music for the sake of numbers, I would probably be very unhappy.

Last year, you took a stand for the Democratic Party in the mid-term elections. Are you satisfied with the result? I was very happy to see how many of my fans responded. You know, politics is a world that did not interest me. We, the younger generation, need to be trained and educated on things as simple as "how to register to vote". I realized that our political system was very complex and that we needed to know it in order to make our voices heard. So, yes, I am delighted to have been able to get young people to vote for the first time.

You also spoke about some laws... Yes, because it is very important that the Equality Act [that’s currently being debated] is passed by the Congress and then by the Senate. These issues might be new to me, but as a citizen I believe these issues must be part of the public debate and supported by our administration.

Then, you are okay with being a voice of a new generation? Yes, of course. If my popularity allows me to bring attention to certain issues, it is my duty to do so. I did do it. And I am confident that I will continue to it. Because, frankly, the current political situation in the United States really seems to be going in the wrong direction...

After the attacks in Paris, Manchester and Las Vegas, you've talked about your fear of going on tour again. What made you decide to still do it? To give up is like handing a victory to the world of terrorism. And that is exactly what I did not want to do.

[masterthespianduchovny]

Steve, Bucky, and Peggy: The Love Triangle that Isn’t

There is a popular narrative among a certain crowd that Steggy only happened so Steve isn’t perceived as gay or having feelings for Bucky. And maaaaaybe this is true, but honestly, I don’t agree.

Peggy was supposed to be the great love of Steve’s life that never got to happen due to circumstance. And then comes along Sharon who is supposed to be his great next love. But, what happened is that not that many people were interested and, funny enough, more were drawn to Steve’s reaction about Peggy—him visiting her and her later dying than they actually have a fuck about Staron or whatever the ships name is.

Coincidentally, this is the SAME movie that Bucky as winter soldier is reintroduced in. The movie where they try to establish a new romantic relationship for Cap and have us met the new Bucky, which the former isn’t Bucky.

What happened is this: fans essentially completely rejected Sharon and salivated for Bucky and this devotion Steve had towards him. It was a shipper’s dream the way Steve behaved. BUT, Steve and Bucky was never on the menu and it was never teased canonically.

I cannot say if the actors or those connected to the MCU queerbaited fans, but actors and connected employees have the habit of trying to be supportive of fans and ships by entertaining things they aren’t necessarily invested in or care about all that much. Some of that is because they appreciate the fans enthusiasm and the other part is it being apart of the job to have enthusiastic fans.

It reminds me how how John Boyega supported two/three ships on Star Wars, but it wasn’t necessarily because he was a shipper himself. The only actor in the current series who seems like an actual shopper is the one who plays Poe.

So, after they got rid of Sharon in the third cap “movie”, they had to figure out what to do about his love interest. Again, the only significant and canonical one people gravitated to was Peggy, but she was dead. BUT, there was also a consistent thread about Cap’s feelings for her. Almost every movie that desires cap prominently has some small scene or moment that references her.

So, for people to act like Peggy was Sharon is dishonest. Or how they want to act like Peggy was some random girl. Peggy met Steve before he was cap—I know, I know, Bucky did too—but, this is important because it sets up their relationship about how she cared for him and took him seriously as a person even then. Her feelings grew romantic as did his, but their feelings was based on friendship and their mutual respect for one another. Peggy also helped Steve to defy orders to do what he felt was right, so they share values as well. I believe all this happened over a span of two years.

When she is in the hospital Steve regularly visits her and is distraught when she dies. His behavior is a call back to that old fashioned romanticized love in which one half of a spouse is loyal, dedicated, and (always) by their beside. Despite Steve still having g his youth and presumably young, interested women clamoring for him, he is devoted to Peggy and takes time out of his week to visit her. When she dies, he’s even her pallbearer.

This behavior is more than “a connection to the past.” I guess since it’s muted and not fighting to save someone you care about at all cost, it doesn’t read a love or romantic.

But, it’s clearly established that Steve’s love has never faded and even though he has young women interested in him, he’d rather sit by the side of his 90 year old (former) love.

We even see him carrying a locket with her picture in it as well. The MCU has gone out of its way to show how very real Steve’s feelings are.

Enter in Bucky.

When we first meet Bucky, we see he’s the best friend of Steve. The charming ladies man who exudes confidence. He looks out for Steve, esp because Steve likes to get up for trouble when standing up for his values. Yet, neither Steve nor Bucky are particularly attached to one another—meaning to subtext of homoeroticism that speaks to deeper feelings known or unknown.

We could argue that Steve’s feelings became prominences, but not known to him, when he saw Bucky again, but I’ll continue to lay out for my reasoning for not believing that.

Winter soldier sets for the foundation of how captain American went from a loyal patriot to questioning and distrusting his government. Despite his camaraderie with the avengers, he still feels alone and like a man out of time. He leans on his patriotism to get him through this totally unique and indescribable experience. But, I’m the second movie, he’s on the run from that very same government and is finding out about their secrets and lies.

During this time he runs into Bucky, his best friend who he thought died.

We must keep in mind that Cap’s two direct connections to the past in this moment are both Peggy and Bucky. We see his loyalty to Peggy due to reasons I mentioned, but there is another factor going on with Bucky: it’s him, but it’s NOT him.

It was completely disorienting for Cap to see a man who was supposed to be dead and in his 90s looking youthful and a unrelenting killer. There was no way they was the Bucky Cap knew. Cap has to get to the bottom of what happened to Bucky and, later, avenge his friend. His autonomy and agency was violated, he was experimented on, and brought back to life to be a trained killer.

Of course Steve feels that deeply, especially because he underwent a similar experiment, but willingly and retained his agency and independence. But, it’s also about corrupting the past for Steve. The way the government manipulates and pushes things forth for the agenda. There’s levels to this.

Then, when Bucky saved Steve, and then disappeared, Steve was largely fine, but concerned about Bucky. And why wouldn’t he be? Bucky almost killed him, saved him, and then left—he doesn’t know how Bucky is dealing and coping with what happened to him. How could he know?

Steve fighting and protecting Bucky in his third movie and, eventually, fighting against Tony is about how we shouldn’t punish an exploited person for something that were manipulated into doing. And how they’re being used as patsy’s to shift blame. Bucky was a victim in the second and third movie. Bucky needed someone to stand up for and advocate for him, which only Steve did.

I mean, did Bucky deserve to die for something he had no choice over? Or imprisoned?

That doesn’t mean that they couldn’t have been two men in love, but once Cap knows he’s safe and protected—meaning, he’s allowed to make a “full” mental and emotional recovery without further exploitation—Cap doesn’t worry or obsess over Bucky. Bucky was on the way to regaining agency and independence and that’s all that cap wanted.

Once Bucky looks happy and healthy when they see each other again, cap goes to treated him like he did in first avenger.

And I fill that this must be pointed out: some friends do go above and beyond for people who 1. Have mental illnesses, no systems in place to assist them, and no advocates other than them 2. Someone who has been harmed/manipulated/exploited, is triggered, and potentially down spiraling. 3. PTSD.

Steve is being a damn good friend and advocate to/for Bucky.

With that being said, some don’t feel that stucky was going to be canon, but that the MCU went out of its way to prove Steve was straight. As a reminder, the Steve and Peggy thread has been CONSISTENT since day one. Since Sharon failed, they wanted to find a love interest for Steve’s endgame, no pun intended. Personally, I think that they went Natasha/Steve because Natasha/Bruce doesn’t work. I understand Natasha and Steve has a great friendship for the “why can’t men and women be friends” crowd, but Natasha also has other male friends, sooo....

To use Star Wars as an example again, this isn’t Poe and Keri Russell’s character who exists solely to prove Poe is STRAIGHT.

Peggy was never created to be someone who existed to prove Steve’s sexuality, but she was someone he was in love with and never stopped loving. She was someone that we knew Steve loved deeply and could never get over.

I know people feel that Steve going back undermines his values both in the comics and the series, which I fee is valid. But, honestly, Steve has spent a good chunk of protecting others and putting his life on the line. We see many of the other avengers be in relationships, have families, and overall fulling lives and Steve just has the avengers.

Which isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, but he’s allowed to want more than that. His life shouldn’t be dictated by if he can be of service to others.

Steve didn’t “abandon” anyone. Most of the avengers are adults who don’t need Steve. He may have been the leader, but anyone in the group can be the leader. There are other heroes.

And Bucky doesn’t need him.

Bucky understand all that cap went through and sacrificed. He doesn’t need cap to always near and hold his hand. That’s not how friendships work. That’s not how families work or, at least, healthy ones.

I’m fine with people who ship stucky, but this animosity against Steggy and Peggy is ridiculous. No movie or show owes you an open ending so you can ship who you want. From what I can recall, there was no canonical queerbaiting (I believe Chris Evans supported both ships, but I think Steggy more). And Peggy isn’t some random woman or a woman he knew for three seconds, she was important to him and their relationship meaningful to him for the rest of his life.

[kuroopaisen]

@kacchand (i couldn't tag your main but i wanted to make sure you saw this fdlkjfdlkj) 

hello dear! i’m sorry it took me so long to respond to this dflskjfdlkfdj i decided to answer your ask in a text post so i can link my thoughts to yours more easily! also, i know i'm going to Ramble, so i wanted to be able to keep it under a cut sdlkfjd

Hi rowan!! I've just finished the final chapter of aot and I just wanted to ask your opinion on it!

(SPOILERS THAT DEPICT MY UNDERSTANDING OF THE STORY'S MEANING AHEAD. READ ONLY IF YOU'VE FINISHED THE CHAPTER)

(FR )

(THERE'S STILL TIME TO BACK OUT)

(DO IT NOW. SPOILER ALERT)

I'd also like to ask a follow up question about it, because it seems that I've come to a different concl. from many of my friends and I'm feeling dumb abt how i feel w it.

first of all (and i say this as sincerely as possible, and if i'm coming off as condesending please let me know hh), please don't feel dumb because you've come to a different conclusion :(

we all read media at different levels (i’ve been told it’s ‘not that deep’ before fdljkfsdlkj) and identify different aspects in it, so the fact that you've had a different experience to some of your friends is absolutely not a reflection on your intelligence. and if anyone's making you feel that way, drop their @. i just want to talk :) furthermore, you’re not wrong for responding to something emotionally, especially if it really... makes you uncomfortable, you know? 

i'm from the PH & I've put off determining whether i'm comfy w the manga til the last chap,,,, but is it wrong that I can't shake the feeling that it's a justification of japanese expansionism and genocide? ik this manga has always been in the grey area, and that's what I love abt it! It often shows that no choice they make is absolutely good or bad, and does such a good job at showing you how each complex character came to that understanding (role of environment, etc...) but this last chapter felt too positive abt the rumbling? Like it was justified because paradis was able to advance and there wasn't much choice? idk.

that's totally valid! some of the best think pieces on the show i read mentioned that the concern with the narrative is less "is isayama a nazi sympathiser?" (he most likely isn't), but if he's a imperial japan apologist. and...

well, let's just say that my father is british, and when i was trying to say that colonisation was bad, using british india as an example, he said "well, we gave them railroads." it's... it's uncomfortable and gross and i think it encapsulates how countries with imperial pasts tend to talk about them; even if they don't officially endorse it, there's often a lot of talk about how "well colonialism was good for this country, actually--"

and if the manga felt like it was justifying japanese expansionism, then chances are it had elements that very much did point towards that. i've had a lot of trouble grappling with reiner, annie and bertolt, because they've existed in this grey area of 'victim of oppression' and 'war criminal'; and their existence raises the question of "do people who commit war crimes simply do what needs to be done?" and by victimising them it... it plays into the whole nuremberg defense of "i was just following orders". it's making you feel bad for the people committing said war crimes (and similarly with eren, and all the awful things he's done). but i'll get more into this point later dsfkjfd

i haven't read the last chapter yet (and don't worry about spoilers! i've been approaching aot from a very... specific perspective anyway, so i actually don't mind spoilers -- i read a bunch of analyses of the series before i'd even watched it hh), but... i think if it came off as too positive about, you know... an awful thing that happened, then it absolutely makes sense that you'd feel uncomfortable?

the modernisation narrative in general is one that always skeeves me out. it's one japanese imperialists use to justify the invasion of korea (and even those infamous tweets from the one account purported to be isayama talk about how the population of korea boomed under japanese imperial occupation, which... stop.)

it's also commonly invoked in cases of development. certain members of society (usually the poor), just 'had' to die for the good of the future. who gives a damn if they consent to that? they have to.

similarly, the 'we had no choice' narrative. that's... a concerning one that crops up time and again with history apologists, the argument that "oh if x country hadn't done y, then someone else would've!" or that acts of aggression were done as pre-emptive self-defence, which is so... ugh. i just. i just hate it.

It also feels really weird w the ymir and the whole loving fritz thing. i wish we got to see more of her thought process and what conclusion she came to that led her to destroying the power of the titans.

i... hate this so much. i get that abuse is complicated and victims often have multifaceted feelings towards their abusers, but... most people would focus on that in their story? the story would be about that? but instead, it's just... a thing in the history of the world and that's... icky.

also having the genesis of the titans come from a slave girl in love with her captor... there's many levels of ick to it and i highly doubt it was handled with the appropriate level of grace and sensitivity.

honestly, this might be one of the things that pissed me off the most because of how... contradictory her backstory was with That One Chapter (you know, instead of ymir crying because she wants to be free or because she’s been trapped she........ wants to see mikasa kiss eren’s decapitated head? i guess? what the fuck?) 

idk...I just think that context is sometimes everything. and i understand that media can portray incorrect things,,,, and that isayama likely didn't intend for it to become a global sensation, but i guess i'm just uncomfortable w the right wing nazis getting a comfort book ahaha.

i totally get that! even if attack on titan is meant to be anti-fascists, the fact of the matter is... a lot of fascists love it. and relate to it. which is... alarming. especially given just how popular aot is worldwide.

it’s hard because before the ending, attack on titan did feel like it was more grey; i remember saying that i wouldn’t know how to feel about it until the ending because the story was either saying “the military is corrupt and war is hell”, or it was saying “the military is corrupt and war is hell, but it is necessary.” 

still sorting out my thoughts, but yeah. I think i'm having a hard time understanding what they really accomplished with the rumbling and how they gave eren a sudden lelouch role and a lot of how they made it out to be a happy thing? perhaps I'm too biased to see it fully but to me it gives a "woah. eren was a hero. he saved us from destruction. those people needed to die for us to achieve this temporary peace and new start". i suppose the rumbling gave them a levelled playing ground?

OH MY GOOOOOD okay. i haven't finished code geass. but i really don't like lelouch. i mean... i think i just don't like characters that sacrifice other people for a purported 'greater good' (i could write an Essay about how much i hate erwin smith looking at him is enough to send me into an unhinged rage), but where i'm up to in the anime, i don't like the direction they're going with eren? i mean, i've never liked eren, but... that whole "martyr for the eldians" is just. ew. especially when you see several eldian characters disagree and resist him. 

why does this one guy get to make choices for everyone else? because he’s sPeCiAL? fuck off 

sorry for not being coherent. maybe i'm basing this too much on feelings ahaha. trust aot to finish it's scandalous run with a scandalous end.

no omg you're being perfectly coherent :( also, if anyone's making you feel bad or stupid for how you experience media, they’re... definitely not as smart as they think they are fdslskjfdlk. 

i'm of that mind that, while media consumption is in part an intellectual exercise, it is inherently very emotional; narrative media tries to make us feel as much as it makes us think. that’s what stories are for, you know? intellectual analysis is well and good but what’s the point of a story if it doesn’t make you feel anything?

that's to say, i don't believe there's such thing as basing your opinion too much on feelings :') especially since it's your personal experience with a piece of media; you don't owe anyone 'objectivity' (which is always a farce when it comes to this sort of thing) or 'logical analysis', because nobody's got any right to criticise you for engaging with media the 'wrong way'.

tl;dr I feel like the mood was too celebratory abt the rumbling, and didn't entail enough on the tragedy so much that it felt like a justification for genocide and expansionism. how do you feel abt it's ending and the message it leaves? is isayama responsible to give a morally correct answer to the cycle of hatred? you're not obligated to answer! and sorry for the rambling.

hhh yeah i guess that’s the thing at the end of the day... is isayama responsible for giving a “morally correct” answer? no, but the way the ending plays out is very telling. 

like armin thanking eren? mikasa’s e n t i r e character boiling down to being in love with a mass murderer no matter how poorly he’s treated her? and one could argue that kind of ending is supposed to be unsettling, supposed to hint that the cycle will just continue, but...

framing is everything. and it’s framed like a Good, Emotional Thing, Aren’t We So Grateful Eren Did All Those Awful Things 

YI think I would've been fine if we got to see more of Eren's or Yif you have a different perspective on how eren is being portrayed please do share! I just felt really yucky watching armin say "thanks for murdering all those people for us" with love,,, I suppose he was trying to make eren feel better. ach maybe I'm just overreacting. idk. im dumb ahaha . i'll send this in anyway cuz I'd love to hear your take!

HHHHHHH i just hate eren and i never got him. i felt bad for him in the beginning, but he's always been too... violent for me. there was a very short period of time in season 2 where i felt bad for him, but otherwise it’s just been... ugh. the main three have always been the weakest part of the series imo, so it’s really not surprising they’re part of the reason the ending was so. bad. 

and... well, that one infamous quote pretty much sums up my issue with armin. he's supposed to be the 'intelligent' one, but he's hopelessly devoted to a homicidal maniac with whom he has a very artificial, unbelievable bond with.

at the end of the day, the "thank you for becoming our monster" thing just makes it seem like attack on titan's core message is "war is horrible, but it is necessary." it feels like it's justifying massacre. and while fiction is fiction, and sometimes it's as simple as that, i think something as politically loaded as attack on titan needs to be looked at with a critical lens when discussing what it’s trying to say or what it means. 

do i think it makes someone a Bad Person for liking aot or being attached to it in some way? no, because that’s dumb, and what media someone likes =/= their Moral Goodness TM. ofc trends are a thing and certain pieces of media appeal to certain types of people, but it’s a false equivalency that misses the point. 

but by that same breath, nobody is wrong or stupid or has Less Valid Opinions just because what they took away from it makes them uncomfortable. 

i’m sorry this is So Long i have so many thoughts about this dskljfslkj 

but at the end of the day, 

levi sexy