#season 2 is upon us and you want to act WORSE than teenagers

[lovelykhaleesiii]

this fandom is a joke. let’s just ignore the actual genuine reasons we came here in the first place & just scream and point the finger at each other. yeah… such a forward step in humanity.

[haliyam]

interim (iii)

zeke x reader/oc

summary: You return to Liberio not long after the Warriors arrive home from their failed mission in Paradis and discover that things have changed. (Or they will, and maybe a little more with Zeke than you expect.) [Season 4 and manga spoilers ahead]

AO3 link | Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4

Hello! This came out longer than I meant it to be, but I enjoyed writing it. I admit that the chapter couuuld have gone without the middle bits, and I trimmed out a lot already, but this is purely self-indulgent fanfic and I love writing about the Warriors/the candidates, so I hope you enjoy it too.

Reminder that the Reader/OC is a cis-female Eldian character with a set background/surname, but please feel free to set the substitution for the Reader to your chosen First Name using the InteractiveFics browser extension if you’re reading through the browser! So on the browser extension that would be: Lucy = Your chosen First Name.

Chapter 3

If Zeke is going to shut his door in your face as soon as you try to enter, he gives no indication of it. Eyes to the ceiling, fingers barely grasping his doorknob, he doesn’t even look at you as you take one step closer, then two, only urging you to hurry up with a flick of his fingers. As if anyone else is still awake. With nothing for it, you step inside.

Zeke’s room is lit a warm yellow from the lamps standing next to his desk and sitting at his bedside table. It hasn’t changed much, save that he’s replaced his old bed with a much larger one. That makes sense, even though you hadn’t imagined he could get any taller as a child. The only other addition apart from his much fuller bookshelf is a pack of cigarettes on his desk. 

You can’t help but pick it up. “You smoke now?”

Closing his door behind him, he snatches the pack from your hands and walks past you, tossing it back by his desk lamp on the way. “Problem?”

You shrug. You’re surprised, but you suppose that sort of thing doesn’t really matter when you’re a Titan shifter. 

He pulls out the chair by his desk and takes a seat, crossing his arms at you with a brow quirked. Somehow, he manages to be intimidating in his pajamas—though that could very well be your guilt. “You wanted to talk,” he says. “So talk.”

The indifference in his voice makes your throat catch, but you steel yourself. “I���m sorry,” you say, one hand scratching at the other’s wrist. It seems your courage fell apart at his door. “I’m sorry I didn’t write for the last five years.”

“Why?”

“Because—because I should have.” You wrap your arms around yourself, tucking your hands under your elbows. “We were friends. You and Pieck were—are,” you hope, “my closest friends, and… and I left you hanging like that. Even knowing every year that the others hadn’t returned, how worried you must have all been… I didn’t write. I’m sorry.”

“No,” Zeke says slowly, irritated. His lip curls, and you feel nauseous. “Why did you stop writing back?”

Your nails dig involuntarily into your arms. “I was a stupid little teenager. I was upset.”

He scoffs, like he can’t bear the sight of you. “What did that have to do with me? ...With us?”

You swallow, eyes downcast, though they briefly flicker to his. “Am I secure here?”

Zeke glares at you. “Of course you are.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

His gaze softens just a little before the walls shoot back up. “Yeah.”

You nod. And then, after a long moment, you reluctantly begin. “Willy sent me to boarding school once I caught up with the necessary schoolwork. It was… well, you know. Boarding school was an entirely different world.” He does know - you had written them until the end of your first year. “And then summer came. Willy wanted me to spend it with them at home, and I did. The first week or so. But he had business to attend to, as always, and Mila invited me to her tour for the Foundation instead. Willy thought it would be nice for us to bond, and I thought…” You gnaw on the inside of your lower lip in embarrassment. “I thought she was finally giving me a chance.”

“Lucy,” Zeke murmurs. You can’t tell if it’s pity or disappointment, and you don’t want to know. You’re staring at his lamp, as if doing so long enough will burn out the memory from your mind.

“We visited Marley’s new southern nations at first. It was strange to be treated so well again.”

Zeke shifts in his chair. He has his cigarette pack in his hands now, fingers idly folding and unfolding the lid. “What did you expect? You’re Lucy Tybur.”

“I meant by Mila.” When he falls silent, you continue. “And then we visited Ulodana.”

Your eyes meet at that name. No reminder needed for that—Ulodana was the first country to which the regime deployed its new Warriors only months after they inherited their Titans. By then the rest of the unit had been informed of your true identity, and it was the brass’s idea to bring you along as a spectator. Imagine what more the motherland might achieve if the War Hammer were to join the fight, then-Commander Bruning had whispered to you, the mushroom cloud of Bertholdt’s transformation setting your eyes alight. 

“The nations in the south had had time to recover. Grow accustomed to Marleyan rule. But Ulodana was still... bleeding. For the most part, we stayed in the cities which had already begun to rebuild; ones with budding military bases and an increasing Marleyan population. But Mila insisted on bringing us further from the coast—places you and I had last seen as smoking rubble. The people there were… They were still so afraid. Many of them…”

You gulp, pressing your lips between your teeth to regain your composure as you remember the survivors. You can still see them, hear them, smell them. Feel their hands in yours. Mila had pulled you aside and scolded you when you first shed tears before them, saying it was not you who had a reason to cry. And she had been right.

“So many of them were Eldians; others non-Eldians too poor to join the earlier evacuations. They still saw us coming that day, and with no aid forthcoming, they thought the Foundation had returned to deliver the finishing blow. They were terrified, Zeke.” His fingers fall still around the pack as you say his name, but he wears no expression, only studying yours even when he reveals nothing. Even Mr. Ksaver had been unable to read him when he was like this, so you know better than to try. 

“Mila spoke with the people there, comforted them. It was jarring to see her so kind, but she was. And even then, it was hard. They aren’t exactly the regime’s priority, and the promise, even the swift arrival of aid with the Foundation’s help, could only do so much.”

Zeke’s gaze stretches far beyond the walls of his room, but he brings it back to you when you pause. “So,” he concludes, “you hated us for doing that to them.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is that simple. You saw what Lady Tybur wanted you to see.”

Appalled by the lack of sympathy in his voice, you square your shoulders at him. “Mila didn’t conjure those victims out of thin air, Zeke!”

“That’s right, Lucy.” Zeke rises out of his chair back to his full height, reminding you that he only lets you glare down at him. “The Warriors destroyed their military, their cities, and their homes. And if there were civilians who were too slow, Bertholdt and I destroyed them, too. The ones you saw just weren’t lucky enough to die.”

He advances toward you as he speaks, stopping near enough to barely graze your chin with his chest, and it takes all of the girl from back then to stand your ground. But you can only bear so much, and the sound of the boy you once trusted entirely so remorseless as a man has restrained grief ringing in your ears. “Don’t say it like that.”

“How should I say it?” Zeke asks closely, head tilted toward you. Even with the reflection of his lamp shining into his glasses, his eyes, half-lidded with what must be disinterest, bear no light in them. “Should I be crying like you, acting like you know what it was like?”

“I’m not crying.” You fix another glare at him, but it doesn’t last long. Your vision is blurry and your cheeks are wet with runaway guilt, and you wipe them with the back of your hand. “I’m sorry, all right?” you raise your voice, speaking forcefully through your shaking voice. 

“I… I thought I’d seen everything here in Liberio, but that place was hell. And Mila said to me… She said it was greed back in Marley that kept things this way. The regime’s… but ours, too. To free the Eldians in the Marleyan internment zones, you… we... made things worse for everyone else in the world. I ate it up. I couldn’t bear to face those people knowing I had been a part of that, no matter our promise. It was easier to turn against the idea of you.”

Zeke is no longer looking at you. You feel like the earth swallowing you whole would feel better than the pressure crumpling at your chest, but there’s no way to go but forward. 

“So I did. Held onto that for months and had nightmares about Ulodana for twice as long. By the time I realized how pathetic, how stupid I was… I was too ashamed to write back.” 

The steel that has constituted Zeke’s bearing since your arrival has withdrawn. He seems exhausted, resigned as he sets his eyes upon you again. You watch each other for what feels like eternity, in the place where you first became friends, both trying to feel out whether a sliver of that bond between clean hands still remains between the two of you now. 

Whatever it is he decides, he asks, “If you knew better... why didn’t you visit? We all heard about Lord Tybur making trips here over the years. He never stopped sending his gratitude to my grandparents and Mr. Finger, either.”

You huff, not at him but at the thought of your older brother, even as you sniffle. “Willy wouldn’t let me. I became… too willful.”

 Zeke raises his brows at that.

“When I figured out Mila’s true intentions, I realized just how much the Tyburs were at fault. They hid it all from me when father died, but… I learned everything. Our relationship with the regime most of all.” 

You’re grateful when he doesn’t ask you to elaborate, because despite everything, you don’t want to tell him the whole truth about the Tyburs. If there’s anything that might make him hate you for good, it might just be that. You know that certainly did it for you in spite of Lara’s good intentions.

“We knew. My ancestors knew about Fritz’s vow and still refused to speak out for Eldians, didn’t protest the development of the Warrior program when it happened. I mean—” Your hands rake through your hair, stopping only when they’re caught in the end of the half-ponytail you’ve been wearing. “Child soldiers? We always knew Marley was vicious, but we—Marley—sent children to Paradis on a recon mission, alone! I didn’t realize it until I saw my niece. She’s eight now. A baby. At that age we were slogging through the mud, learning to assemble weapons, to kill! What kind of monsters would allow…” 

Your hands slide down your face and cover your mouth as your head shakes on its own. You’ve said this all before, to Willy, to Lara, to Pieck, and you’re exhausted. You both know the answer to that question, anyway. 

“The Tybur family doesn’t get involved except to play the benevolent Eldians to the world’s devils, all to soften Marley’s image to the world. It doesn’t care that Eldians abroad are even worse off than we are here because of our Titans. It doesn’t care that Marley draws that debt on Eldia’s name,” you murmur, voice fluttering with emotion again, “not its own. Willy didn’t appreciate how angry I was and wanted to keep me at the estate until I could calm down.”

You only realize you’ve been rambling when all you hear is the cracking of your knuckles beneath your thumbs at your sides and the low hum of the lamps around you. Biting your tongue, you venture a glance up at Zeke, who has his back to you on his way back to the desk, hand in his hair. You don’t know if it’s worse than seeing what he must think.

“But I really am sorry,” you take a step, another after him when he doesn’t turn to look. “You all deserved more. I… I understand if...”

Zeke whirls just before you touch the hem of his shirt, seized instead by a thought. “Why let you choose to study here, then? Magath’s summons?”

At this point, you practically leap at the chance to respond, hands raised slightly. “No. It was Lara. She convinced him to let me, when she saw how much I’d studied. Actually studied, you know,” you chuckle, nervously when he acknowledges it with only a tilt of his head. “And by then I had learned enough of Mila’s game to pretend I had given up.”

“Oh.”

You barely just catch the disappointment in his tone.

“And I missed you,” you scramble to add, obviously. “I missed you all so much. I swore to be on my best behavior just so I could come back.”

A hint of warmth fills Zeke’s deep blues, but he glances away with a familiar eyeroll. “Good save.”

You frown. “I mean it. I just didn’t know it had to be said. You were my first friends. I didn’t exactly make many in boarding school. They were too different.”

“So you were just lonely.”

“Not just lonely,” you say, prepared to launch into another passionate speech about how much you ached to see your friends again, how much of your pride you sacrificed to pester Willy to let you go with the promise of Liberio’s impressive own medical program, when you catch the slight amusement tugging at Zeke’s mouth. “You—are you—” you sputter, embarrassment seeping in cold, before you manage to close your mouth. “You… are awful.”

Zeke smirks. “Even if I forgive you?”

It’s infectious, and you have to resist the urge to both laugh and cry at the very concept of his forgiveness. Eyes wide, you watch him carefully. “Do you?”

He crosses his arms again, sitting back against his chair. “I can put you through more hoops, if you’d like.”

“No!” you gasp, the heat of indignation taking over the chagrin, only to sigh when you realize you’ve given yourself away. “Well, I wouldn’t blame you. You have all the right to be angry.”

“...I was a pretty angry teenager too,” Zeke shrugs. “Then a spoiled little girl had to come and keep disturbing me because if she couldn’t get any sleep, then neither could I.”

Your jaw drops. “That is not how that went. Besides,” you raise your head, every inch the Tybur, even as you slowly make your way to the edge of his bed and take a seat, “that girl was the reason you have any friends at all. I… I bet you missed her.”

“Sure. Now where did you put her?” The full familiarity in his voice has you smiling now, or maybe it’s the grin he openly wears. “Only figured out it was you when I realized there could only be three Eldian runts Magath would ever care to acknowledge.”

You stare at him for a beat and then make to push yourself off the bed. “Anyway, I’m going to sleep now that I’ve apologized.”

“Aw, come on,” Zeke laughs, reaching for your arm, and you squint at him as you dramatically tear it from his grasp. Still, you fling yourself back upon the edge. He leaves his desk to occupy the space next to you, one knee drawn up over his sheets. “Honestly? I was more surprised they’d let anyone in Magath’s office with such a messy armband.” He reaches over and adjusts the pale one wrapped around your arm, pulling out the edges folded in. “You know you don’t need to wear this at home, right?”

For some reason, your breath catches as the heat of his fingers gently press through the cloth of your sleeve. You recover with a cough and a quick oops. “Force of habit. That was the one thing boarding school was stricter about than the military.” You smile at him, leaning away from his touch. “Thanks.”

Zeke suddenly withdraws his hands, now watching you instead of the sleeve. “...Yeah. Just make sure you check it before you leave the house tomorrow,” he says sternly. Not a tone you’ve ever heard from him in private.

Regarding him strangely, and desperate to bring you both back from this alien tension between you, you sit up straight and stiffly raise your hand to your shoulder in salute. “Yes, Warchief.”

Zeke responds with a blank look in his eye, mostly, save the tinge of humor kindled by the upward tug of your lips. You can tell he’s about to kick you out of his room.

“I’m kidding.” You lower your arm, sensing the return of that comfortable familiarity. “I haven’t congratulated you on your official promotion, either.” 

His mirth fades. “Do you hate me for it?”

“No. No,” you stress, as though he has no reason to ask. “You’ve done what you’ve had to.”

After a long inhale, Zeke sighs as he nods. This time, it is he who fills the silence. “Uh—I’m sorry again about your father. So he was the...”

“Yeah.”

He gives you a once-over, as if to search for Titan marks. “Are you…?”

“No, I’m not.”

The slight bitterness in your voice draws Zeke’s gaze back to yours. You shrug before he can say any more of it and try to put it out of your mind. Those are, after all, matters for the Tybur estate. You’re here now, and Zeke has forgiven you. In spite of everything else, the thought makes you giddy with relief, and you rear your head toward him with a smile. 

“So… is there anything you want to tell me?”

Zeke wonders who might have been chosen to inherit the War Hammer instead of its most obvious candidate, but mostly he’s glad it isn’t you. It’s a selfish thought he keeps to himself, but the idea of you living past your twenty-sixth year is one that does not fill him with dread.

Thirty-nine. He’s thinking about how you’ll live to be thirty-nine when your voice interrupts what he imagines you might look like by then. Your tone says you’re fishing for something, so he opens his mouth, meeting your gaze to tell you you’re not quite as much taller than Pieck as you think (he has one joke), nor is subtlety your strong suit, when the whole of you seems to come at him all at once. Your now messy hair, crinkled eyes, that expression he used to find both funny and irritating on your mouth—except the obnoxious grin that subsumes it as he lets the silence pass is suddenly... adorable. 

Huh?

Sitting back, Zeke abruptly presses his palm to your face and promptly pushes it away. “Don’t press your luck, Blanchard.”

You smack his hand off, face flushed as you cry out, “Rude!”

He’s already laughing, using your indignation to overcome the urge to gulp down the breath caught in his throat when you suddenly lean back on his bed and raise your foot. You kick it into his side with a strength he absolutely remembers, sending his ribs knocking against his footboard with a groan. “Ow! You—get out of here and let me sleep already!”

You smile to yourself as you lower your legs to the floor, feet searching for your house slippers. “I chose not to go for your face, you know.”

“Are you seriously studying to be a doctor?” Zeke mutters, rubbing at his side. “You haven’t changed at all.” 

You chuckle through a yawn, hand over your mouth as you ease yourself to your feet. “Okay.”

He rights himself quickly when you’re crossing his room toward his door already. “Lucy, wait.”

You stop, lean against his desk with a small smile like it’s your room. “Hmm?”

Zeke pretends to shake his head at your audacity, letting you grin a little longer before he asks, “Do you want to meet the new Warriors tomorrow?” You blink, and he starts to regret the question. “I just figured—”

“I’d like that.” You open your mouth, ostensibly to say more, when both of you hear movement from down the hall. Footsteps by the stairs. “I should go. See you tomorrow.”

He waves, content to watch you hurriedly leave his room. When he hears the door to yours open and click shut, he goes himself and catches his grandmother still sleepily making her way out into the low lit corridor. Her hands are searching for the stairway light switch.

“Grandma?” he asks, coming over to set a supportive hand along her upper back. “Why are you up so late?”

“Zeke,” she smiles in greeting, yawning. “I was just going to get some water.”

“Let me. I’ll get new glasses for you and grandpa, so go back inside.” When his grandmother thanks him, he heads for the stairs, bounding down the steps with sudden enthusiasm. 

Your words will stay with him long after you’ve forgotten them, and perhaps not for the better—but for the moment, Zeke feels inexplicably light. 

--

So do you when you awake the next morning. Of course you’re still sorry for all you did, or didn’t, do, and you know you deserved all the guilt, the anxiety, being on tenterhooks about your friendships for all that you left Zeke and Pieck hanging. But now that their forgiveness is a certainty, you feel utterly content. Now you can start making it up to them. 

Then again, you are so pleased that you could lie in bed all morning and hardly feel guilty. 

But you have miles to go, so you roll out of your blankets and get yourself ready for the day. Briefly, you wonder if Zeke has gone ahead again, but you find the answer you wanted as you open the door to the dining room downstairs. 

He’s chewing on a piece of bread as he waves at you, the last bite in his hand. “Morning. Breakfast?”

He really has forgiven you, and everything can go back to the way it was. “Morning,” you beam, though you decline as you pass him on the way to the kitchen. “No thank you. I ate too much last night.” You pour yourself some water instead. “Did you have some of the blueberry pie?” 

“Yeah. The Galliards always make quality stuff.” He dusts his uniform off as he stands and heads for the sink with his plate. “Though I could tell who cut it because she left the side with the slightly burnt crust in.”

“It’s crispy, and you know that’s my favorite part,” you huff, leaning against the counter next to him and handing him your empty glass. “That was part of my apology.”

Zeke grins, eyes to his task. “Yeah, yeah.”

You refrain from elbowing him and move to start cleaning his crumbs off the table and the floor. “Where are Mr. and Mrs. Yeager?”

“Market day. Oh—bring a book. We can drop in on the candidates come lunchtime.” He glances over his shoulder. “Or did you have other plans today?” 

“I wanted to pass by the university and find the general book list for the first years, but after the line I went through yesterday... I’m not in the mood. I’ll bring a book.”

“Good.”

The two of you head out once the dining room and the kitchen are spotless. The sky is overcast this morning, so the zone takes its time waking up for the day, even with others already on their way to work. 

It starts to properly stir on your way to the gate. The view of the zone coming to life is something you once enjoyed watching on break days, especially compared to the lonely silence of the estate and eventually to the rigid rush of boarding school, but you don’t get to see all that much today—Zeke purposely avoids the larger avenue coming to the gate and leads you through side streets and alleys instead. Something about avoiding the morning rush. 

You don’t mind. You’re still waking up, too.

--

Eldians have no real hope of rising through military ranks, save those sacrificed among the Warrior unit, so Zeke’s office is quite impressive. He has his own mahogany desk, an entire bookshelf packed with volumes, yet more books and maps stacked against the wall, and his own gramophone. Not to mention the view outside the window behind his desk. He even has a cabinet to the side for his own alcohol, tea, or coffee—the latter of which he offers to you once you two arrive.

“Coffee, please,” you say, on one of the pillowed seats surrounding the coffee table at the center of the room. Sitting back, you throw an arm over the backrest to peer at the bookshelf behind you. “That’s quite a selection. I can’t believe you have your own office now.” You grin, turning back to watch him quietly preparing you a cup. “Zeke?”

“Coming right up.”

His response seems a little muted. When you question him with a tilt of your head, he jerks his in the direction of the gramophone.

Ah, you mouth. Even the Warchief can’t have his own office without being tapped. Par for the course when there are Eldians about, you imagine. That explains why the guards at the front gate delayed you with meandering conversation as soon as Zeke mentioned taking you to his office.

“So what kind of work do you do anyway, Warchief?” you continue far too seriously, absentmindedly flipping through your book for your marker. 

“You know that’s top secret, Miss Blanchard,” says Zeke, who of course plays into it. “Unless you’d like to join the ranks again. You’re certainly welcome to.”

You sigh. You never win when you try him like this. “Commander Magath told you?”

Zeke chuckles, walking your coffee over. “He mentioned hoping you might still be interested in our line of work.”

“Was he mad?” Regardless of your feelings about the regime, you have always remained conflicted about your former drill instructor. There was a time you were certain he wanted you dead, and you won’t forget what he and Commander Bruning put the rest through even more than yourself, but there were flashes of kindness you saw from him that you’ve never witnessed from any other Marleyan as Lucy Blanchard. You still don’t know how to feel about him.

Zeke snorts at such a childish question, pulling out several folders from his desk drawer as he takes his seat. “Should I ask him?”

“Of course not!” 

He chuckles in response, and then starts to ignore you completely for his work. Grumbling incoherently at him from behind your tilted cup for good measure, you turn to your book and begin to read.

--

Your coffee is long finished next to a similarly empty glass of water by the time you start yawning. You’ve read the same page thrice now, and that’s when you know you need to get off your ass and take a little walk around the room. 

Zeke yawns as you start a cross-arm stretch by the door. “You’re so noisy.”

“The nerve of this man, inviting me to his office and then complaining when I breathe.”

He smiles. “Breathe more quietly, then.” Slamming the folder he was reading shut, he follows you to his feet and pulls at his sleeve to check his watch. “Almost lunch time. Want to go check on the candidates?”

Your deadpan stare at his earlier remark remains until you feel just how empty your stomach is. Skipping breakfast was not your best idea, but you prefer it that way before you have to see the poor children who will one day replace your friends. “All right.”

The two of you wind your way through the complex and out to the courtyard, where the sun remains blessedly hidden as you watch the children at the far end doing their loaded running for the day. You hear them more than you see them, panting as they do their best to earn the honor of that red armband on Zeke’s sleeve.

Zeke catches your doleful expression and lets out an exaggerated sigh. “I do not miss those days.”

You grimace at him. “My body hurts just remembering them.”

“Don’t remind me. I was dead last in my class before I built any endurance.” 

You don’t comment on the real story behind that. The children are coming closer to your side of the courtyard, though they don’t appear to notice you, and Zeke points them out: Udo, a boy with glasses whose family moved to Liberio from Marley’s new southern territories; Zofia, a girl with a heavy fringe who reminds you strangely of Annie; Falco, a blond boy who—Zeke cuts himself off when the last candidate pushes past them all with a yell. That one is Gabi Braun, Reiner’s younger cousin. 

“Cousin? Extended families aren’t made honorary Marleyans?”

“I was a special case, for obvious reasons,” Zeke answers your real question. “And yeah. Otherwise there would be too many of us, right?”

You frown, starting to fall into deep thought again when a familiar bark makes you nearly jump out of your skin.

“Hey! No Eldian civilians allowed on base!” 

An older man is jogging over, almost comically shaking his fist at you. It’s as he comes up to the building that he notices Zeke on your other side, and now he peers more closely at your face, head cocked forward. 

“You—” he starts. The years have been kinder to him than to Commander Magath, so there is no mistaking him. As his footsteps slow, his posture shifts from indignation to surprise, and then finally settles on diffidence. “Is that you, Miss Ty—”

“Blanchard,” Zeke coughs.

“Miss Blanchard?” he finishes.

“Instructor Marras.” Among the three who assisted Magath with Warrior training, he was probably the most bearable, if only because he left you to your own devices. He was much kinder when he discovered your true name, which was a shame. “What a pleasure.”

“We didn’t think we’d ever see you again around here,” he smiles widely, briefly acknowledging Zeke. “What brings you back around this end of Marley?”

“This and that,” you say, not quite in the mood to get into it when you can see the children still running. As though he’s read your mind, Zeke steps up next to you and signals toward them. “Isn’t it about time for lunch?”

Marras follows his gesture. “Ah. They got a little mouthy since I’ve been going easy on them, so training has been extended. But,” he says, attention back to his visitors, “you rarely come to check in on the new candidates, and you visit us even less, Lucy!”

Waving at you to wait just a moment, he barks at the children to come over. They’re even smaller than you imagined up close, just like your niece Fine, panting as they clutch their replica rifles for dear life. They do their best to salute Marras, but very obviously find it difficult to keep their composure when they see Zeke. 

“It’s the Beast Titan,” Udo yelps.

“His name is Zeke Yeager, dummy,” Gabi nudges him with what she must think is a whisper.

Zeke raises his hand in a bland wave, “Hey, kids,” but you can’t help your delighted chuckle. Fine is a very reserved little girl compared to these excitable children. Wide with effort and at a real Warrior’s arrival, their eyes all dart to you, and Gabi’s in particular squint at your armband. “I thought civilians weren’t allowed in HQ?”

“And I don’t remember asking if you had questions, candidate,” Marras snaps in his Instructor Voice. The children straighten up at once.

“Sir, sorry, Sir!” Udo and Gabi yell out. Zofia and Falco quietly exchange glances.

“Hello. I’m Lucy,” you cut in with a smile. “I was a Warrior candidate in my time, just like you.”

You can all tell that they’re itching to ask why your armband is grey instead of yellow like Porco’s was until recently, but Marras doesn’t let them. You find yourself grateful to him for once. “It’s thanks to Zeke and Miss Blanchard here that you’ll get an early lunch in spite of all that yapping earlier. So thank them, get changed, and get your sorry asses to the mess hall.”

“Thank you, Zeke! Thank you, Miss Blanchard!” They mix up whose name goes first between the four of them, but Marras doesn’t bother with a correction and nods. The children salute, all of them a mixture of suitably chastised and utterly relieved. 

“Dismissed!”

Nodding and offering you and Zeke grateful little smiles that make your heart melt, the four walk as quickly as they can to storage to deposit their load. Gabi nudges Zofia on the way, challenging her to a race, and the boys bump each other to catch up while Zofia chooses to keep her own pace, simply shaking her head.

Marras sighs, hand over his stomach. “I should get going myself.”

Zeke agrees, “Don’t let us keep you.”

“All right. But you should drop by more often, Miss Blanchard,” says Marras. “I’m sure the Commander would be pleased to see you. He worries. About all of you,” he adds, nodding toward Zeke.

Neither of you replies to that when Marras departs. In fact, you pretend not to have heard it as you both stare into the courtyard. “They seem like sweet children,” you start after a while, “though I don’t remember being that boisterous.”

Zeke breaks the mood with the most disgusting snort as he bursts into laughter. “You? Sure, Lucy. All right.”

You peer up at him, refusing to dignify such a violent reaction with one of your own, even if it does please you to see him laugh so much around you again. “You know what I mean. Maybe I was insolent, but I wasn’t boisterous.”

“Maybe, is it? Well, all I know is I’d grown out of all that by the time you and Pieck were selected.”

“Apparently not enough, Yeager, if you think Marley pays you to tour civilians around HQ.”

You and Zeke whirl in perfect sync to raise your right hands at that imposing voice, except you manage to swing yours right over your ear to pretend you were tucking stray hair behind it just in time to meet Commander Magath’s lifted brow. Behind him stand a surprised Porco and another Warrior candidate, much older than the eight-year olds you just met.

You clear your throat at once, hand falling to your side. “About yesterday, Sir...” 

Magath nods at Zeke in acknowledgment before waving at you. “Don’t mention it, Blanchard. It’s a choice for a reason, and really it was supposed to be the briefing.”

That’s as much of an apology as you’ll get around the others, so you nod. “I understand, Sir.” You lean a little on your right side, trying to steal a peek around the corner. “So Pieck has already gone?”

“Not that you need to know, but yes.”

You try not to flinch at the reprimand. Force of habit. “And Braun, Sir?”

Now Magath peers at you. “His debriefing ends today, if you want to see him that badly. Yeager, I’ll leave that to you since she’s your guest.”

“Yes, Sir.”

With a nod of dismissal at all of you, he continues down across the courtyard, leaving Porco and the candidate behind.

Porco glances between you and Zeke. “Friends again, huh?”

Zeke stares at him. “Problem?”

You don’t know it, but that’s Zeke’s Warchief Voice, one Porco has never heard outside of training. He immediately shrugs. “Just curious.”

“All right. Lucy, we might as well have lunch first before you go see Reiner.”

You nod, and gesture unsurely at the two before you. “Would… you like to join us?” 

“I’m good. Got errands to run for the Commander since Pieck is out and you’re too good for chores,” says Porco, gambling a glare at Zeke in jest. When Zeke chuckles, he sighs. “See you around.” Giving the quiet candidate next to him a light smack on the shoulder, he heads back the way they came.

By now the Warrior candidate looks very confused but also very familiar to you. Luckily Zeke has decided that it’s finally time to introduce you, a former Warrior candidate yourself—and then the boy, who cannot be older than fifteen. “This is Colt Grice. Falco’s older brother, and the new Beast Titan candidate.”

“Oh.” It feels like a weight has settled in your stomach when you realize that it is about time they selected the candidate meant to inherit from Zeke, who received the Beast Titan around a year ahead of the rest. Seeing the children just made you… complacent, think that there was more time. “I guess it makes sense that they chose someone a little older, too.” You smile, slightly guilty about his obvious unease after your reaction. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Colt.”

“No, it’s my pleasure, Miss Blanchard,” he says politely, shaking your hand.

“You can call me Lucy,” you insist, and then jab a thumb over your shoulder. “The children left for the mess hall, by the way.”

Zeke raises a hand to correct you. “Colt doesn’t need to know that. He’s not made to babysit them like I was.”

“Really?” you ask Colt, who nods in affirmation. “But that was half the fun.”

“She means half the torture,” Zeke says to Colt, who chuckles nervously at his superior. “No, I figured he could take on other responsibilities. Like letting the barracks know that Reiner’ll be having visitors after lunch, and then meeting us at the mess hall. Right?”

“Yes, Sir,” says Colt, clearly eager to please. He gives you another smile before he runs off.

“Falco’s older brother,” you repeat, when the boy is out of earshot. “This isn’t like Marcel and Porco. Why is Falco in the program?”

Zeke clicks his tongue. “The Grices are nephews of one of my parents’ co-conspirators. They need to prove their loyalty, for their family’s sake.”

“After all these years. Poor things.” Not that you’re surprised. Marley has a long memory, however false. “Did you have a hand in choosing him?”

“Wouldn’t that make the brass suspicious? It was the commander’s choice alone.”

“Huh.”

“They’re good kids, Colt especially. Now come on—” he nudges you forward with his elbow as he passes you, “you should eat before you see Reiner or you’ll lose your appetite for good.”

“...That bad?”

Walking ahead of you, Zeke only shrugs. You don’t know if that should worry or comfort you, so you follow suit.

--

Reiner is in his own room in the barracks, resting, when you visit him. He’s just finished eating his lunch when you arrive, and your shock at seeing him is a perfect reflection of his at seeing you. You last looked upon him as a boy, and though you know he only turns eighteen this year, he is now, most undoubtedly, a man. Almost everything about him is unfamiliar to you. His height, for one, his broad build, the slight stubble he’s neglected to shave for the past few days. His demeanor as he stares at you.

You thought Pieck spoke of growing up in general when she compared the two of you having become completely different, but it’s only now that you understand what she meant. Long ago, try as you might to deny it, the two of you were, with Porco, the most boisterous Warrior candidates in your generation. You left no challenge, even your superiors at first, unanswered; Reiner was certain, no matter his rank among you, that he would inherit before the Paradis operation; and Porco was quick to remind you how stupid and ridiculous you both were. 

But that was many years ago. Porco failed but has remained mostly himself, and you failed and realized the sham that is Tybur pride. Between the three of you, only Reiner achieved his dream—and yet you are more similar with one another than with Porco. Even amid his utter shock, the shame in his gaze as he meets yours, though unfamiliar on Reiner to your eyes, is one you’ve intimately known for some time now.

“Lucy?”

“Reiner,” you greet.

Reiner smiles in spite of himself. You do too. You were never close, but if nothing else, you were still Warrior candidates together. “You’ve... grown.” His voice is deep now, just like Zeke’s, but his is… gentle. Another unexpected development.

“That’s an overstatement, compared to you,” you chuckle. He smiles just a little wider, almost shy, but only for a beat. He remembers swiftly enough when he is, just like you.

“How are you, Reiner?” you can’t help but ask. Wrong question. You quickly follow it up with, “I’m glad your debriefing has ended. You deserve to rest at home, with your family.”

“I…” He appears to disagree, lowering his head at once. For one heartbreaking moment, you wonder if you see a shimmer beneath his lashes, but he only seems curious when he blinks up at you again. “Thanks, Lucy.” His voice is steady. Maybe you were imagining things. “I can’t believe I haven’t seen you since you were called home.”

You don’t complain about the change in subject. “Yeah… I always wished I could have seen you all off,” you murmur, even if part of you is glad you didn’t have to witness Pieck’s sorrow firsthand. Seeing it in Reiner at the mention of the operation, though, you add, “Oh, actually—I just got back a couple days ago, not too long after the rest of you. I’m enrolling in the medical program at Liberio University.”

“Oh?” He considers your words. “So you didn’t…”

That is the question of the century about you, isn’t it? At least among the Warriors. But then who else really knows who you are? “No.”

“Ah.” Reiner nods, more times than is really necessary. You know he doesn’t know whether to congratulate you or to apologize. “The medical program, though. That’s… unexpected.”

“Why does everyone say that?” you laugh. “Is it really so strange for me?”

“Uh—no,” he replies with an apologetic rush. You realize just how much you dislike it in his tone. Zeke says you were always last to say sorry, if you did at all. The same went for Reiner. Where is that obnoxious little boy you knew? “It’s better that way. You’ll do great.”

“I hope to,” you admit, but this visit isn’t supposed to be about you. “Anyway, Reiner… I just wanted to see how you were doing. I missed you all, and I’m really glad you’re back home.”

He’s too slow to conceal his surprise this time, or the way he blinks away coming tears. He always was a bit of a crybaby. To a child who desired to live up to her family name, that was a weakness. To a woman who knows better, you wish you could have told him it was all right. “We… I missed you all, too. It was…” he swallows. “I...”

The truth is you were a crybaby too, just not in front of the others, but you can’t help it when you hear the tremble in his voice, so grown and yet still the same. The first familiar thing of his that you’ve witnessed. Flicking a knuckle at your nose, you nod when he trails off. “You don’t have to say anything. Pieck told me the little she could.”

“Yeah?” he asks innocently enough. And then his voice shifts into something just a little tougher. Maybe harder. “What did Zeke say?”

“Zeke? We didn’t really…” It comes to you as you say it. “...talk about it.”

Of course you didn’t. You were busy talking about you, and he quite literally pushed you away when you tried to ask. But that doesn’t seem to be what Reiner is searching for in the first place. Not with that look on his face—another familiar expression, but not because you know it from your own heart. It’s familiar because you saw it just last night.  

“Should I be crying like you, acting like you know what it was like?”

Zeke’s eyes as he said those words were recalling a memory you can never understand, you know now, because it’s the same with Reiner. Whatever he went through in Paradis for years will only ever be a tale to you. Your shared memories ended before you turned thirteen. 

Still, the resentment that you saw in Zeke remains in Reiner’s golden eyes; only this time you don’t believe it’s meant for you.

You reach out to him, clearly elsewhere as his fists clench over his knees, but stop when your hand rests on the edge of his bed. “Reiner?”

“Sorry,” he blurts out when he returns to his senses. Somehow, he seems more tired than he already did. 

“That’s all right. I should let you rest.” When he nods, shoulders still slumped in apology, you put on a reassuring smile. You understand Reiner even less than you did before, but somehow he also feels more like a kindred spirit than you remember. “When you’re well enough to return, maybe we can have lunch with Pieck.”

Reiner visibly hesitates, but he nods in the end. “Yeah. That sounds nice.”

You bid each other goodbye, though you tell Reiner to stay seated when he tries to walk you to the door. When you close it behind you, glancing around, you assume Colt has been sent on another errand. Only Zeke now awaits you along the wall outside, one hand in his pocket as he smokes a cigarette, gaze once again far beyond the buildings ahead. 

When he isn’t playing up his irreverence to deflect or get on somebody else’s nerves, Zeke has always been aloof in public. In that way he hasn’t really changed, but you realize now that you were a fool to think things could just go back to normal between the two of you. Not that they haven’t, on the face of it; he seems perfectly happy to return to your old dynamic, and maybe all this strangeness is just in your head, or a natural consequence of growing up. 

Seeing Reiner, though… you realize maybe you were a little too hasty trying to go back. Just like you, just like Reiner, Zeke must have changed. You wonder how; wonder what he could have done, apart from suggesting the debriefing, that would make a now gentle Reiner wear such resentment. You have some idea, but you brush it aside before you can dwell on it. 

“If you want to try smoking,” Zeke chuckles, “all you have to do is ask.”

You blink, cheeks tingling with embarrassment and a sheepish smile when you realize he’s caught you staring. He holds the smoke out for you, but you wave his hand away. “No thanks.”

“So?” He pushes himself off the wall, putting the cigarette out under his shoe. “What do you think?”

You fall into step with him and take a deep breath. “I think maybe he just needs more time to rest. Grieve properly.”

“Generous evaluation.”

“I think it’s more… it’s not my place to say.” 

Zeke regards you with an indecipherable look, but it disappears as soon as you try to capture it. He only shrugs. “Okay. I need to get back to work. Want to stay, or will you be going home?”

You pretend to give it some thought. “I can stick around your office a little longer.”

“Good. Just try to keep it down.”

He chuckles at your eyeroll and starts to head back to the offices with you in tow. You stare at his back as he turns a corner ahead of you until he glances over his shoulder, ensuring you’re still with him. You give him a smile, brows raising with a question he answers with a shake of his head. But he’s smiling too, the one you got to know past that wall of apathy, and you know that he can’t possibly have changed all that much.

Zeke is still your best friend—the only one who knew everything about you, and the one who trusted only you with everything about him. You’re sure of it. 

/////

I mean, obviously, aside from Mr. Ksaver. Do I think Zeke was the guy whose only friends were younger kids he was forced to interact with for his own survival? Yes. His best friend in canon and the only important person he trusted in his childhood/adolescence was his father stand-in, and even if as he grew up I'm sure he became more sociable (and likeable/'admirable' to Marleyan Eldians as a Warrior), Zeke's existence is a lonely one in my eyes because of the way he viewed life and the lives of others. There would have had to be certain circumstances to gain his absolute trust I think, so feel special, Reader/Lucy. Haha. I swear I love Zeke even if I see him as this sad and lonely bastard.

Also, I know it's not obvious, but I don't dislike Porco. I actually like him a lot (except when he's like -that- to Reiner) and he influenced/es Reader/Lucy more than he knows. And I know I didn't mention Bertholdt in this chapter but that would have been a sensitive topic for Reiner, so Reader/Lucy knows to avoid it for now. (I just wanted to make that disclaimer because I love Bertholdt and I miss him a lot.)

Thank you for reading! I would love to hear what you think so far.

[ordinaryschmuck]

What I thought about every episode of The Owl House Season 1 (Part 1/2)

Salutations random people on the internet who probably won't read this. I am an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons.

Hey, do you miss Gravity Falls?

...

Yeah, I know, dumb question. Which is why I have good news! Not only is there a new series that is just as good as Gravity Falls, but in some ways, it's even better. That new series would be none other than Disney Channel's latest hit: The Owl House.

The Owl House, slowly but surely, became my new obsession since Eda reacted to decapitation with an unconcerned, "I hate when that happens." I wrote fan-fiction, made fan-art, and even began to separately review new episodes. Unfortunately, I got in a little late in the reviewing game and only managed to analyze the last four episodes of season one. And like an idiot, I promised that I'll review the rest when they came out on Disney+. Seeing that all of the first season has finally come on a legal streaming service (which means WATCH IT RIGHT NOW!), it's time I finally saw through to that promise. However, I'm not going to over-analyze each episode because that would be insane. So instead, we're going to lightning round these suckers. Because it's my Tumblr, and I get to decide what I review and how the hell I review it...hooah.

Which means this is your last chance to avoid spoilers if you haven't seen The Owl House yet. Seriously, it's a great show, and you can catch up right now on Disney+. A week-long trial is more than enough time to watch the series, so DO IT! With that out of the way, let's get started with:

“A Lying Witch and a Warden”: This episode gets a lot of flack for having poor pacing and being too preachy with its message. And to that, I say...you're not wrong. Yeah, I wish I could be that person who can defend this episode against criticism like that, but these are understandable problems that just left this icky feeling in my tum-tum when watching. But that's only when looking at it as a regular old episode when in reality, people need to see it as a first episode. The first episode in any show needs to get viewers interested enough to continue watching by answering these five essential questions: What's the plot of the show? What's the tone? Who are the main characters? What's the world they live in? And what are the rules of the same world? "A Lying Witch and a Warden" does a great job of answering all of these questions. And if you stuck around until the season finale, then that means it did a great job of keeping you interested in sticking around as well. So seeing how it got its job done, albeit, with mixed results, I give this episode a B-.

“Witches Before Wizards”: Don't mind me. Just reveling in the fact that Luz escaped to a fantasy world to avoid Reality Check Camp, only to get a reality check anyway. Because that's what this episode is in a nutshell. Through the "quest" that Luz goes on, she learns two important lessons: One, don't trust strangers who offer you something nice and shiny (bonus points for Eda warning Luz to avoid men with sandals and then have Ategast wear sandals). And two, there is no such thing as having a predetermined destiny. I love the idea that Luz coming to the Isles was just a twist of fate, and everything that happens afterward is pure dumb luck. And that moment when Eda gave a speech about making your own path instead of waiting to become something special? That was the moment when I went from thinking this was going to be a fun show to thinking it's going to be a great show. So consider this episode a solid A in my book.

“I Was a Teenage Abomination”: How is it possible for an episode to get better and worse with time? Because here's the thing: This episode does a great job of showing how perfect Amity's development is. After one single season, it already feels jarring, seeing the way she acts in certain scenes. However, in that same respect, it's the same reason why this episode got worse. I didn't mind that Willow practically got away with cheating and vandalizing the school with her magic because she and Luz were basically trying to show up a two-dimensional bully. But knowing what we know in the future, it does seem unfair that Amity gets punished for their bad behavior and Willow got little consequences for it. Sure, Luz got banned and had to work at gaining Amity's trust, but what about Willow? Although, despite this complaint, I don't really hate this episode. It builds a believable connection between Luz and her friends, and the B-plot King and Eda show off their budding friendship. So while this episode is a C-, it's a somewhat enjoyable C-.

“The Intruder”: Is it weird for anyone else that King gets most of the blame in this episode? Yes, he took the potion, but Luz was the one who kept pushing him. This is why it never sat right with me seeing how everyone, including himself, blames King for this episode's incident. That being said, "The Intruder" is fantastic. Eda, as the Owl Beast, is legitimately threatening, and the way the episode treats Eda's curse like a chronic illness is actually kind of sweet. It teaches kids how this is something that just happens to people, and they're not any weaker because of it, as long as they take the right steps. Which is cool, and it's why this is another solid A episode for me. Sure King getting the blame bothers me, but it pales in comparison to everything else “The Intruder” does right.

“Covention”: If you want my personal opinion (obviously, seeing how you're reading this), "Covention" is the perfect episode to show a friend to get them into watching the The Owl House. Everything there is to love about the show is seen in just these twenty-two minutes. Eda being a chaotic good, Luz being a sweet and understanding character, some incredible/natural world-building, an actually decent B-plot, an epic fight scene, great comedy, and, my personal favorite, the building of Luz and Amity's relationship. In fact, this episode has the most quintessential moment between these two, that Dana Terrace herself took charge of making the animatic for it. A scene that is so perfect that you can do an analysis of these few minutes alone...which is what I did. Click here to read it! "Covention" gets an A+ in my book and might possibly be the best episode of the season. Maybe even the series!

“Hooty’s Moving Hassle”: There's not really a lot I can say about this episode. I don't hate it, but I'm not exactly in love with it. The interactions between Luz and her friends are adorable, and there are a few good jokes that kept me laughing. But the story is kind of bland, and I just find Eda's sudden obsession with Hexes Hold'em kind of odd. Especially since a card game is what nearly defeated the "undefeatable" Owl Lady. If it wasn't for the nice reveal of Willow's and Amity's friendship (which comes into play in a far better episode), I'd say that you could skip this one on future rewatches. Because this is a C grade episode that just doesn't grab me as well as others.

“Lost in Language”: Ah, yes. The episode that made dozens of fans jump aboard the Lumity ship...unless you're like me, and you've been shipping these two since the show's theme song (And I don't know why, either. It's just the second I saw Amity my first thought was, "Oh, honey. You're gonna fall in love with the main character, aren't you?" AND I WAS F**KING RIGHT!). But jokes about shipping aside, "Lost in Language" is a fantastic episode. It has a great lesson about how people are more complex than their first impressions (Or to not judge a book by its cover, if you wanna stay on theme). Edric and Emira seem like a chaotic duo who cause mischief all for good fun. But Luz, as well as the audience, learns that Ed and Em are kinda the worst (they get better in future episodes, but still). Then there's Amity, who hasn't had the best first impressions in the last few episodes. We got glimpses of a good person here and there, but for the most part, that's all they were. Glimpses. Then there's this episode, which gives us more than a small look, but some actual insight into who Amity really is. Better yet, who she wants to be. It's something that I appreciate about The Owl House in that it wastes no time in developing Amity's character. So much so that I can forgive this episode for shoehorning a "Two idiots and a baby" plotline that does nothing but add maybe two minutes of padding. So yeah, it's an A+ for sure.

“Once Upon a Swap”: "Ugh! It's the body swap episode! How cliche and-" SHUT UP! Shut your mouth, and listen: Something being cliche does not always make it bad. Only when the cliche fails to tell an entertaining story does it have the right to work as a complaint. "Once Upon a Swap" may have a cliche premise, but it's still an enjoyable story (or stories) with great laughs and even some ok lessons. I can understand if you hate the episode because its premise is something you've seen a dozen times to the point where your sick of it. My most hated story idea is the "Character A saves Character B, and Character B becomes a life slave." If you have seen this story once, you've seen it a thousand times, and it's the same case with a "body swap" episode. But guess what: The Owl House is a kids' show. Kids'. Show. You can complain all you want about predictability, but kids are the type of viewers who will be new to this experience, despite if it's one that is done to death. Which is why this is solid B of an episode if you ask me.

“Something Ventured, Someone Framed”: Can people please stop shipping Gus with Mattholomule? Because that slimy, greasy, weaselly little son of A BASTARD BITCH WEASEL DOES NOT DESERVE LOVE IN WAY POSSIBLE!

...

But enough about how Mattholomule is the worst character ever, because "Something Ventured, Someone Framed" is a B+ in my opinion. Sure it shows the worst side of Gus and lets Satan's little herpe win in the end, but there is still quality to be had. We get insight into who Gus is as a character, on top of Eda swallowing her pride and cleaning the school so Luz can get into Hexide. Also, Eda's permanent record was the first time this show brought me to tears due to laughing so hard. So while I have to take points off for the inclusion of Mattholomule (I don't make the rules. I just live by them), this is still an episode I wouldn't mind revisiting.

“Escape of the Palisman”: I subscribe to this theory that Luz will one day have Eda's staff as her own. And episodes like this that strengthen the bond between Luz and Owlbert help confirm that theory. Luz's dedication to trying to make things right could just be part of her kind nature, but I like to believe that this is Dana and the crew trying to set up this possible outcome. As for what I think about the episode itself...it's ok. Again, Luz's dedication is nice to see, and King's adventure with Owl Beast Eda is somehow insanely adorable, but there's not really much to say other than that. So it's another B episode for me.

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

And that’s the end of part one! Part two has probably already been posted by the time you finish this, so you can go ahead and find that if you’re interested.

[justauthoring]

False Hope [Jimmy Darling] (1/2)

Prompt: If only you hadn’t fallen in love with the freak.

A/N: I just couldn’t help myself. I love this boy and even though i’m only half way through the season, I already know this boy deserves better then what he got. Anyways, I meant for this to only be one part but it got to be a lot longer then originally intended so... part two?

Please don’t plagiarize my work! Word Count: 1,919

“It’s late. I should be getting on home now.”

Jimmy holds fast the second you move to get up, fingers softly pressing into your hips as he tugs you back against himself. You don’t fight him, falling against him with a light giggle mix with a sigh as you let your head rest against his chest, your hand coming up to rest next to you.

“Stay here a while,” Jimmy murmurs, pressing a soft kiss against the top of your head. Your eyes flutter shut at the action, relishing in the moment briefly as his left hand rubs circles on your bare lower back. “It’s not safe for a lady like yourself to be walking home this late anyways.”

You roll your eyes at his comment, shifting slightly as you’re propped up on your elbows, able to meet Jimmy’s warm brown eyes easily and steadily. Your head comes to rest in either of your palms, smiling up at him softly as he leans his hand against his pillow comfortably, his curls brushing into his eyes slightly which causes him to blink them away once in a while. “The curfews been lifted, remember, darling? After you caught that maniac.”

Jimmy’s cheeks warm slightly, and he shakes his head, abashed. “I didn’t do nothing.” 

“You’re still a hero to me,” you shrug, moving your head to your left hand and allowing the right to draw soft circles in the middle of Jimmy’s chest where a small, light patch of dirty blonde hair resides. You lose yourself in the moment slightly, lost in your own thoughts as Jimmy watches you carefully, a soft smile on his lips as he takes in your beauty but his eyes concerned slightly at the frown that begins to curl on your lip.

Raising his hand, Jimmy’s careful to use his knuckles (still ashamed of his hands despite how many times he’s told you there ain’t anything to be ashamed of) to brush back some strands of your H/C hair out of your face. He dips his head slightly, enough that he can get a better look at you, the smile that had once occupied his lips fading as he frowns worriedly down at you. 

He doesn’t even have to ask to know what’s got you so worried.

“It’s your father isn’t it?”

Your flicker your eyes back up to his own at that. “Even after all these months, he still as cruel as ever. Half of the time I have to sneak off, or worse, he catches me and I have to fight to leave.”

“He don’t approve of me, do he?”

Biting your lip, you shake your head.

You catch it, just quick enough because Jimmy only does it for a faint second, but Jimmy’s eyes flicker down to his hands and as such, his hand that had once been cupping your cheek falls to his side with shame. Before he can though, you reach out to catch his hand, pulling his eyes sharply on your own as you press it against your lips, kissing his knuckles first before trailing up to the tips of his fingers. 

“He’s small-minded,” you say without a moments hesitation, keeping your eyes steady on Jimmy’s own. “He don’t see how wonderful you are, like I do. None of the people in this Godforsaken place do. But, Jimmy, there ain’t a damn thing he or anyone else can say to me that will change how I feel about you.” Pressing his hand against your cheek, you lower your voice to a whisper; “how much I love you.”

“But, maybe...” And Jimmy hesitates, clearly hating the words but unable to deny how he believes them to be true. “Your father’s right. You deserve someone more than a freak like me. Someone normal--”

“You’re not a freak.” You say firmly, promptly cutting off whatever other profanities and lies Jimmy was about to speak of himself. Setting your eyes, hard and determined but still filled with so much love, you squeeze Jimmy’s hand gently. “You’re Jimmy Darling. The man I love. The man who saved that woman and child from that maniac. The man that can sing like no other.” Letting out a soft laugh, your lips curve into a bright smile as you nuzzle into his touch. “That has never ever done anyone any wrong.”

Jimmy smiles, finally returning your grip as he pulls you close, pressing a kiss against your lips. It’s quick, but he pours every ounce of his gratitude into that kiss. He holds you tight and firmly and there isn’t an ounce of hesitance or doubt in him as he molds his lips against your own. And you return the kiss with just as much ferocity. Enough that you find yourself out of breath by the time either of you pull back.

“I wish I could just stay here with you forever.”

“Why don’t you.”

Jimmy’s words shock you. Yours had been a meaningless whisper -- it was something you truly did wish, but something you believed entirely impossible. You knew that your father would never let you leave, especially if he ever found out it was to be with Jimmy. You didn’t know how far your father would go to prove that, given that it was tough enough to even get out of the house for a few hours, but you didn’t want to test it either.

Jimmy easily understands.

“Well, why not?” He shrugs. “We may not have much, but we’re a family here. And i’m sure Elsa could find something for you to do around here. That way we wouldn’t have to hide, wouldn’t have to go days without seeing each other.”

“But, my father..,” you argue, shaking your head. “Even if I did manage to get out, he’d find us right away. He knows exactly where i’d go.”

“We’d deal with that when the time came but... we all love you here. We’d protect you.”

Jimmy words make you think. Moments ago, the entire idea had seemed impossible but you trusted Jimmy and you knew he meant his words. And the idea of being able to be with Jimmy, freely, was entirely to enticing and exciting and everything you’ve ever wanted to not even be tempted.

Cupping your cheek, Jimmy pulls your eyes on him; “pack your things tomorrow. Wait til your father leaves for work and then come here. Once you get here, we won’t let him touch you. I won’t let him touch you/”

You’re hesitant. You want to, but you fear your father and more so, his wrath.

Sensing this, Jimmy tightens his grip on you, just enough that it shows just how serious and determined he is. “I promise you.”

And when you look into his eyes, you see nothing but sincerity. 

“Okay,” you whisper, the crack of a smile growing onto your lips. “Let’s do it.”

-

Your father watched you constantly. When you were home, he always had at least an eye on you. It didn’t matter if it was actually him or one of his faithful servants that roamed the house consistently. There wasn’t anything you could do that he didn’t know about.

Until, you went to your room.

You don’t know why. You’ve never understood it. But, for as long as you can remember, your room has always been a place of solace. When you were a child, it was where you would break your dolls and throw tantrums. As a teenager, it’s where you would smoke and drink. It was where you broke every strict rule your father had ever put on your head in this prison.

A part of you knew that he he did know what went on behind the closed door of your bedroom. But he’d never stopped you, so you let your naivety get the best of you and believe that this fact alone would allow you to break free. Pack your things and leave when he did for work. His servants didn’t scare you, unlike he did, and they wouldn’t actually harm you. So, by the time he ever found out, you’d be long gone with Jimmy and him and the rest of his friends would protect you from any harm.

You’d acted like nothing was different. You packed quick, rapidly and you made sure to be out of your room by the time your father was leaving for work so you could kiss him on the cheek goodbye like you always had. 

You truly believed nothing had been out of the ordinary.

In the end, it was your naivety you cursed.

When you thought your father was long gone, you were in your room, gathering your things. Your heart raced with fear and anticipation but also excitement. The idea of finally being able to free had you bouncing with happiness and you couldn’t wait until you were back with Jimmy, safe in his grasp.

But the second you opened your bedroom door, all hopes of that happiness was crushed.

“F-Father!”

Your father, face red in anger, didn’t respond to your cry. Instead, he simply yanked the suitcase out of your hand and tossed it behind him, it thudding loudly against the wall before crashing against the ground, cracking open, your clothes and other necessities spilling across the floor. His actions caused you to flinch in fear, instinctively taking a step back, but your father snatched your wrist before you could make it very far.

“You really think i’d let my daughter run off with some freak?”

Feeling anger flood you at the cruel insult, your eyes flash. “He isn’t a freak! He’s--”

Before you can say anything more, there’s a sharp sting across your cheek and you find yourself falling back, landing on the ground with a harsh thud. A gasp rips through your throat in response and your wide eyes flicker up to meet the frightening ones of your father as he descends upon you.

He crouches before you and you feel your eyes water, moving to crawl back, but your father simply grabs your ankle, yanking you towards him with a simple tug. “I’ll show you,” he begins, voice gruff, “i’ll show you the kind of freak he is. The monster that boy is. I’ll help you learn, darling. I promise.”

Heart spiking, you let out a cry, slapping away the hand your father extends towards you away. His surprise allows you to yank your foot out of his grasp and scramble up to your feet, moving to race out of your door. Screw your belongings, you just need to get to Jimmy. He’ll protect you. He’ll keep you safe.

However, the second you make it to the door, two hands grab either of your arms.

“No! Let me go! Let me go!”

The servants holding you turning you, so that you can stare up at your father as you kick your feet wildly beneath you and tears stream pathetically down your cheeks. Your father simply stares down at you, his eyes emotionless, before he turns to the servant on your left.

“Throw her down in the basement.”

Your eyes widen at that. “What?” You cry, your struggling increasing tenfold as your heart drops with terror. “No, wait! Please! I’ll be good! I won’t go! Just please don’t put me down there!” 

Your father simply takes your chin his hands, tsking down at you. “Some isolating will do you good, baby. I promise.”

The next second, you find yourself being dragged backwards.

“NO! Please, daddy! No! Please!”

-

To be continued?

[qcpmedia]

“Birds of Prey”: A Crisis of Infinite Harleys

by Chris Clay

Ok-- let's get this part out of the way first: I love Harley Quinn.

Have done since her debut on Batman The Animated Series. My mother let my dad take me to see Tim Burton’s brilliant 1989 Batman film (I was 5 at the time) because she was under the assumption that Batman was always the high camp she remembered enjoying in the television show from her childhood. Thanks, Adam West! My journey into comics began shortly after learning to read with classical mythology, so I was totally prepared for all manner of tales about monsters, demons, serial killers, human traffickers, etc. Quickly becoming an avid comic reader, 10 year-old me was a DC & Marvel veteran who spent a lot of mental energy filling in the blanks on the softened-for-cartoons versions of Bats, Spidey & the X-Men. 

After years of seeing "versions" of my favorite supers onscreen, I thought this new character, originally the Joker's jester henchwoman, was a breath of fresh air. She seemed like the perfect fit for both the show and the Joker, the first real Manic Pixie Dreamgirl. She was funny but also scary, vulnerable and just overall awesome. Best of all? She didn’t seem nerfed for kids tv. She just seemed oddly... real. And she was contagious. That complex reality bled onto anyone she shared enough screen time with. She helped me to see Poison Ivy as the troubled yet brilliant and sensitive person the show had always hinted she was. Besides Catwoman, no other character tested Batman's rigid sense of right and wrong more beautifully. Even Joker seemed multifaceted when Harley was around. I cheered as loudly as anyone when she ditched that clown, and those Harley/Ivy episodes were some of the best the series had to offer.

OG Harley & subsequent versions over the years tended to show a woman that was preyed upon by a master manipulator who pushed her to the edge of sanity. To the edge, not over it. She was definitely traumatized, but the original portrayals never presented any extreme mental problems. Sure, she was codependent & had a temper. And shitty taste in men. Those traits in moderation are not craaaazy. That's just being human.

Harley continued to evolve over the years, shaped by many creators and performers across multiple mediums. Her look has changed, her status as villain or antihero has vacillated and her relationships have been presented more and more as on her terms rather than something foisted upon her by chance.

The characterization problems started in comics, but David Ayers' disappointing 2016 Suicide Squad film brought this lesser Harl to the masses, along with a version of her *ahem* more revealing New52 costume, seemingly metahuman durability & chalk white skin. I always loved the idea that Harleen had the ability to take her jester clothing & clown makeup off, sit around with an equally dressed-down Ivy and talk about who they really were, what made them tick. This new Harley (like her modern comics counterpart) was always "on", displaying very little of the soulful, mature character many of us comics & animation fans know and love. Despite that, she was definitely the highlight of the film, and there were flashes of brilliance that made me believe Margot Robbie could get to the fundamental truths of the character if given another chance. 

And that brings us rather neatly to Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn).

Harley Quinn, last seen in the aforementioned Suicide Squad, has just been dumped by the Joker & is forced to make her own way in Gotham City’s underworld. In short order, she meets Dinah Lance, Renee Montoya, Helena Bertinelli & Cassandra Cain. All of these ladies have, for various reasons, fallen onto the radar of neat-freak gangster Roman Sionis, played with scenery-scarfing delight by Ewan MacGregor. Forced to band together to survive, they eventually learn that despite their considerable individual talents, they're more formidable as a team.

For some reason I still can’t quite articulate, I remember being slightly underwhelmed when the cast was announced. I liked all of the actors... hell, each of them has had at least one role I absolutely loved them in-- but I still felt they were odd choices for their respective roles in this movie (more on that later). The trailer was where I got genuinely worried that Warner might be climbing back into the hole so many creators toiled to pull the DC film properties out of. 

However, as I said in the beginning, I love Harley Quinn. I was definitely going to see this movie. In Margot Robbie, I felt Harley had a champion on par with Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool or Hugh Jackman as Wolverine; an actor who would work tirelessly to get their character right, on the page & onscreen, however many tries it took. Plus she was saying some interesting things about what she thought the the film & the character should represent during the rollout (and I know the movie isn't the trailer), so I was at "cautious optimism" by the time I sat down to watch the film.

I was totally wrong about one thing: the cast is the best thing about the movie, and that’s not some backhanded compliment. K.K. Barrett's production design is great, colorful while not feeling cheap or phony, and Cathy Yan has a great eye for fun directing choices that keep things zipping along... but the cast is the real MVP. They’re actually great.

Jurnee Smollet-Bell is understated & surprisingly physical as tough-as-nails chanteuse Dinah Lance, a classic “woman trying to keep her head down in a bum situation”. She gave modern comic book moll vibes & I Stan. Rosie Perez's Renee Montoya brought a dose of realism to the candy-coated insanity swirling all around her while also giving Harley an entertaining foil for the first 2 acts. She has probably my favorite fight scene in the entire movie.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, the person I went into the movie thinking was the most grossly miscast, is hands down my favorite character in the film. She's equal parts ruthless & socially awkward, a take on Huntress that is somehow both anachronistic & perfectly in step with her comic counterpart. Even newcomer Ella Jay Basco brings a unique charm to what could have easily been an irksome reimagining of fan favorite Cass Cain as a sassy teenage pickpocket. MacGregor’s turn as Sionis is less a character than he is a symbol, acting as a stand-in for various brands of broken maleness, but the guy’s clearly having a blast and he has decent enough chemistry with the leads. Chris Messina as Victor Vsasz is an absolute snoozefest, a waste of both character and actor that I’ll give no more space or attention.

Now for the elephant in the room: Margot Robbie's Harley is my least favorite thing about the whole movie.

"But Chris..", I hear you yelling at your computational device, "...you said she was the lone bright spot of SS!"

True, but in a film with clever, unmuddied direction & other actors that actually display some semblance of emotion or charisma for more than one scene a piece, the bar has been raised this go round & Robbie's frantic mugging limbos under said bar by a mile. What’s worse is that she actively takes screen time that could be better spent fleshing out one of the other four characters. Only Huntress (who has probably the least screen time of any of the leads) actually has a backstory, but her origin is a large part of the plot. One could be forgiven for thinking the she wouldn’t have had one at all otherwise. We don’t really know anything about Cassandra Cain, Montoya is literally just Stock Cop, and you could make a whole movie out of how the hell Dinah ended up singing at Sionis’ club. And where the hell is the Joker?! Why is he letting Harley destabilize Gotham’s balance of power or letting Sionis threaten his ex-puddin’ while also claiming to be the the underworld’s top dog? Instead of answering these questions, we get a bunch of throwaway characters attacking the newly-emancipated Quinn and Suicide Squad flashbacks that look even uglier than before when placed side by side with the production design of this film. The fact that most of these characters are so thinly characterized yet still connect is a testament to the performances and chemistry of the central cast.

You get the feeling that a lot of this movie was Robbie as producer, exerting her ideas & energy onto a massive production that needed a lot of moving parts to line up in order to work. It's not easy to have everything riding on you, whether it’s the future of the DCEU, progressive representation of women in film or just your own movie stardom. I understand that and I sympathize. This frantic, flailing movie is the product of some 3 years of rewrites and pitching, shooting on and off for 9 months, plus all the promo stuff. Every interview that I've seen the cast do has basically been Robbie explaining things ad nauseam while Jurnee Smollet-Bell or Mary Elizabeth Winstead kind of quietly nod in agreement, with the exception of the recent season premiere of Hot Ones, where capsaicin finally allowed someone else get a word in edgewise. The real problem with that comes when you see the movie and realize she’s contextualizing so much of the film on other media outlets because the film itself doesn’t really seem to have the time or interest, leaving it’s star to try and explain what we actually see onscreen on the press tour. This leads to a situation akin to Final Fantasy XV, where the player needed heaps of supplemental content to understand what could and should have been included in the story proper. She just seems overworked, similar to when Ben Affleck wanted to perform the Herculean task of writing, directing & starring in the next solo Batman film. Maybe Margot & Harley both need a little break?

The internet is scrambling to diagnose why a well-reviewed movie starring a beloved character played by a popular actress is underperforming at the box office, citing everything from the trailer to the rating to the movie’s title, with many (including BoP creator Gerry Conway) blaming the lackluster box office on sexism, but I think there might be a simpler answer: this version is trying to pull from the entire history of Harley to create a singular characterization from sometimes disparate portrayals. It doesn’t help that Robbie’s Quinn exists in a universe that’s constantly shifting under her feet after every film.

Most comic characters are criticized for being inaccurate to the source material but Harley has arguably the opposite problem; almost a Crisis of Infinite Harleys, where Robbie and Warner Bros. want to stuff the best elements from every version of Harley into every movie she’s in. It’s supposed to be fan service but instead, often feels scattered and tiring. Not to mention the stuff these films just pluck straight out of thin air that don’t work...

The DC Universe version of the character chose to leave the Joker on her own terms and I thought that was a brilliant and socially relevant writing choice, so it was strange to then see the more mainstream (and arguably more popular) version of Harley be dragged out of Joker’s hideout, kicking and screaming. In a film who’s title was purposely made ridiculously long to accentuate the character’s supposed newfound self-sufficiency, For all of the things that do work well, Birds of Prey just doesn’t feel like what’s explicitly promised on the tin.

I still love Harley Quinn, and I still think Margot Robbie’s the right person for the job. No need to Pattinson her or anything... just put less on her plate and give the character and the movies she’s in a clear, singular direction. Pretty please, puddin’?

[oceanmotioned]

Harry Potter Games

About The Games

With current events being what they are, we are all in need of some serious distraction. In the interest of something to do, I’ve come up with some weekly headcanon challenges that people can participate in as actively or casually as they please.

The dates themselves are more like guidelines than rules - this is not meant to add pressure or stress to anyone’s day but provide a fun exercise to keep the dash busy and alive throughout the course of a tough time.

There are no rules to how many challenges you need to complete per week and nothing stopping you from completing week one during week four or, if you’re just not feeling a week’s theme, doing another week entirely. It’s all up to you to have fun at your pace!

Please reblog this challenge so that others can see it and participate in it, or link to it somewhere in your headcanon. The more this spreads ( especially in smaller communities ) the more activity it will hopefully inspire!

Due to how --- unintentionally long this turned out to be, I am using a read more to spare everyone a mile long adventure!

Week 1

[ April 07  -  April 18 ]

This week will be longer than the others in order to compensate for time spent spreading this around and for the fact the idea didn’t come to me on a Sunday. The theme for this week is origins & first experiences. 

April 07 - What was your character’s first sign of magic according to their parents? What’s the first act of magic they personally remember - is it the same one, or was there another signal or outburst that stands out to them?

April 08 - When they first received their school letter, what excited them most about the shopping list? The prospect of a wand or cauldron? The books or maybe new clothes? Why was this the thing that leaped out as the most exciting? ( Leave pets for tomorrow! ) 

April 09 - Upon starting school students may bring if they wish a cat, rat, owl or toad. What did your character most want as their school pet? Were they able to get what they wanted or did they have to compromise? If they compromised, did they get what they wanted at another time? If they got exactly what they wanted, did it work out the way that they hoped? Feel free to share some pet anecdotes and shenanigans while you’re at it!  

April 10 - Sorting time! Did your character have any expectation on them for what house they should be in? Family legacies or personal preferences? Did those pressures influence your character’s ceremony in any way? Or did they go in blind and hope for the best? 

April 11 - First ghostly encounter! Was your character prepared - did they know ghosts were real, had they ever met one before? Did they have particular expectations about ghosts? How were they met or disproved? 

April 12 - Upon receiving their time table, what class most excited your character? Did they feel the same after attending it for the first time? Did any classes take them by surprise - either to seem more or less interesting than expected? 

April 13 - First Quidditch match of the season! Did your character attend? Who did they root for - were they familiar with Quidditch at all or was it a whole new experience? What were their thoughts after watching a live match? Did they have aspirations to play themselves? What position did they like most?

April 14 - Your character has gone through their very first magical midterm and gotten their results. Do these scores reflect the trajectory they take through to their O.W.L.’s or did they fare better / worse in certain subjects and consequently decline / improve over time? Did they have a lot of pressure from home or was their expectations set entirely by their own metric? [ Don’t worry about O.W.L.’s and N.E.W.T.’s - they’re coming. ]

April 15 - First magical creature encounters! Share the most memorable encounters your character had with magical creatures during their educational period. Be it by taking a COMC course, having creatures introduced in other classes ( I, personally, would count a mandrake as a creature feature ) or something unprecedented and unique to your character’s school experience! 

April 16 - It’s time for O.W.L.’s - and by this point, your character likely has a firm idea of where they are strong and where they are struggling when it comes to course work. Career counseling directly references what scores are needed in various subjects for particular paths upon graduation - how did this affect changes to your character’s focus in classes? Did grades raise in areas where they had been left to float, were they on the right track, did they have to challenge themselves? In the end, what did all their efforts achieve? What were your character’s O.W.L. scores?

April 17 & 18 - First school dance! This is a worldbuilding opportunity as well as a headcanon one, so feel free to ignore it or go as big as you like by making a post detailing your character’s school’s take on dances and another detailing your character’s own first dance. Alternatively, just a post answering the questions is great too! In the event that school dances are an annual thing for older students, had your character been looking forward to theirs or done any planning? Were they excited, nervous or indifferent about the prospect of a party? Did they know who they wanted to go with - and were they able to go with that person?  Specifically for those who attended the Yule Ball, how excited was your character? Did they order a special outfit, or were they already prepared with their dress robes? Were they happy to attend or did they try to beg out of it?   Alternatively, Did your character know of dances being traditional events in other institutions? Did they like the fact their school experience didn’t include them? When was your character’s first experience with a big party event as a result of not having one at school? Did your character ever have a liking for parties? How did they discover that inclination or disinterest?  

Worldbuilding Notes!

Although canonly we only hear of one ball, school dances are something of a teenage right of passage in certain cultures, so it is entirely possible that there’s one every year for the older students attending certain schools. Hogwarts is in Scotland, so it is entirely possible that a school formal would be held in June for the elder classes which would be in keeping with their Muggle counterparts who host one for the S6 students ( Ages 17 - 18 ) Ilvermorny is in America, which means they may have en entire formal season between April - June and they may host dances for 15 - 16 and another for 17 - 18, or simply for the latter crowd. American traditions make end of year socials more like debutante balls, so it would be safe to assume Ilvermorny goes out with a bang every year and that it is a very exciting or stressful time for those who have seen it coming for years and now it’s here. Contrary to both of these however, is Beauxbatons. France doesn’t celebrate prom and has more of a focus on the Baccalauréat, a final exam that marks the end of one’s high school career. It has significantly more value in French society than American SAT’s have across the pond, so it is likely Beauxbatons keeps with that tradition and focuses more on a magical equivalent of that. Then again, it is a magical school with a giantess for a Headmistress so who knows!   It’s up to you to decide if your character’s school does dances, and how or when they do them. If you ultimately decide to avoid the party entirely, ( or your character is from a school unlikely to host dances ) there are questions above to cover that so please do not feel obligated to go on a party building journey! 

Week 2

[ April 19  -  April 25 ]

This week’s theme is seemingly insignificant details that other characters might pick up on and maybe use in threads as a way of demonstrating how well they know your character!  

April 19 - Your character likely has some preferences when it comes to drinking sociably. Do they go for butterbeer, firewhiskey, gigglewater, or a muggle vintage? Alternatively, how do they take their tea and coffee? 

April 20 - If someone were to have your character in mind when brewing or smelling Amortentia, what scents would most likely associate to them? 

April 21 - When your character dresses in the morning, do they have any signature items that might be notable? Always a wand holster on the left side, forever finding a way to incorporate house colors into an ensemble, notoriously missing the top button on their shirt, a family ring? If there isn’t a specific thing, what about your character’s style is memorable - how would you describe what they wear? Are they always formal, buttoned up and prim, or do they prefer a casual, even rumpled look? If someone were to see a Certain Profile on the street to immediately think of your muse, what would the profile be?

April 22 - Does your character have tattoos? Are they magical or muggle? The stillness of a muggle tattoo would be notable in a magical world! Are they a mix of both - a seemingly still tattoo that appears as one thing to certain people, and another to those who bear a similar signature? Body art world building - @ me directly because I would love to see it!

April 23 - What are your character’s top three most used  /  signature spells? These should be the spells your character has on default setting - they don’t think about them anymore, it’s all but conditioned response now. If someone thought about your character and how they cast spells, how would they detail those default spells? Are they cast lazily? Distractedly? In perfect form? With no form, yet perfect results due to consistent use?  

April 24 - When it comes to being magical, there is always something that stands out above the rest. If someone were to think of your character, what would be the first magical element they would think of? Transfiguration, Flying, or Charms? Potions or Herbology? Is your character famed for that element or just known to be good at it within their private circle? Why is that their area of expertise and association? 

April 25 - Now for some abstract thinking. If a character’s happiest memory involved your muse, and your muse directly influenced what that character’s patronus would be --- what is their patronus and why? What about that animal reflects your character? This can be as symbolic or abstract as you like, but if you’re struggling to think of animals and how they might correlate to your character’s personality or how someone might perceive your character’s personality, here are some resources that might help with the creative flow! A good idea is to look at multiple sources for the animal that jumps out at you, and build off that as one culture may look at that same animal very differently. Animals in Celtic Mythology | Native American Symbolism | Animals In Art

Week 3

[ April 26  -  May 02 ]

For this week, lets explore the psychological profile of your character by digging into all the things that really make them tick. Going forward, questions are going to be a little less detail oriented and more open ended! 

April 26 - What is your character’s boggart and why?

April 27 - What is your character’s stances on blood purity? Think about your character’s own blood status and upbringing, and how those factors would impact their worldview.

April 28 -  What is your character’s stance on the fact wizards have determined what species can be counted as intelligent? What are their stances on werewolf rights, vampire rights, or the rights of other creatures deemed to be intelligent?

April 29 - How would your character cope in the world if they were not able to use magic?   

April 30 - If a dementor were nearby or feeding on them, what are the three memories that would cause the most significant damage? 

May 01 - Your character has been threatened with Veritaserum. What three things do they most fear revealing?   

May 02 - They are standing before the Mirror of Erised. What do they see?

Week 4

[ May 03  -  May 09 ]

Jumping into lighter topics, for this week we’re going to look at happy memories to remind ourselves that no matter what hell canon ( or lets face it, we writers! ) has put our character through, they have had good times too! 

May 03 - What memory would they use to cast a patronus, if they were capable of one?

May 04 - Describe a time when your character was feeling down, and someone lifted them up - what did they do and why did it work? 

May 05 - Talk about the best prank they ever took part in, or remember observing.

May 06 - What is your character’s happiest memory involving a magical creature? Or an owl, or their pet - or someone else’s pet!

May 07 - Describe your character’s happiest memory involving flying - it doesn’t have to be on brooms, or related to Quidditch, or even of them flying. Just the best memory that in some way, involves flight. 

May 08 - Their happiest memory involving the news - be it delight at a ridiculous headline, vindication in a particular result or even just excitement for someone else’s success. 

May 09 - If someone else were to think of your character at their happiest, how old was your character and why was that time so joyful?

Week 5

[ May 10  -  May 16 ]

Bouncing off our happy memory high, characters who may be more withdrawn, depressed, grumpy or just plain unsociable might be feeling confident enough to give us a look into their accomplishments, goals, and insecurities - so let’s dig in while they’re still malleable!

May 10 - What would your character claim as their greatest accomplishment in the magical world? Would others agree, or say something different?

May 11 - What is one thing they would change about wizarding society if they could? Are they taking any active measures to bring this change about themselves? Why is it important to them? 

May 12 - Do they have any idols or heroes that they look up to and aspire to be like? Do they wish to emulate their house traits in their efforts to be their best selves? What does their best self look like to them?

May 13 - What is their biggest obstacle in achieving their goals?

May 14 - Everyone has weaker subjects - does your character experience ridicule for their struggles, internally or externally? What areas do they struggle most in? Wand work or theory? Incantations or brewing? 

May 15 - If your character were to invent a potion or spell, what need would it fill either for themselves, a friend, or the community as a whole? Why would that be their choice? Are they capable of it or working on it, or is it just a pipe dream? 

May 16 - Detail a time your character was undermined and how that impacted them. Do they no longer try, or do they just try harder?

Week 6

[ May 17  -  May 23 ]

For this week, we’re going to take a look at the relationships that impacted and molded our character into who they are today!

May 17 - Discuss someone who changed, influenced, or significantly impacted your character’s view on blood purity. 

May 18 - If your character could use a time turner to go back and say something different to someone, who would they go back to talk to and what moment would they be correcting? 

May 19 - Does your character have a rival? Who are they, and what caused the tension? 

May 20 - Who comes to mind first when your character is asked who is most important to them? Why does that person stand out so much?

May 21 - Discuss the mentors that challenged your character the most, the people they feel took the most interest in building them up, and how they feel about those people now versus how they felt of them then.

May 22 - If your character was told they could walk through the Veil at the Ministry and bring someone back from the dead, who would they restore and why? 

May 23 - Who are the people they most want to impress in life? 

Week 7

[ May 24  -  May 31 ]

An extra day to finish out the month and end the games with a bang! This week’s theme is wishes and dreams, which is an opportunity for muns to stick bait on a hook and fling it onto the dash for some more fun interactions! 

May 24 - A character you would most like to have yours interact with, and three ideas for start up interactions. 

May 25 - If your character was trapped and forced to work with (1) other person in order to get out, who do you think would be the most challenging and entertaining for your character to be stuck with? 

May 26 - Earlier on we discussed school dances - who would your character spend the most time with / want to go with? Or for adults / the more politically inclined, we discussed something your character would like to change in wizarding society - who would they recruit to the cause? 

May 27 - Due to a series of unfortunate events, your character is now the caretaker of a magical creature. Who do they rope in to help them care for it?

May 28 - 3 to 5 obscure / rare characters you would like to see and maybe a bit on why you think they would be interesting - a little blurb that might inspire another to pick them up! 

May 29 - 3 to 5 songs that you would love to build a thread around in some way, be it inspired by the vibes or the lyrics. 

May 30 - Make a list of 5 - 10 sentences guaranteed to get a visceral response from your character and invite your followers to send them in.  

May 31 - Tag 5 people --- I’m kidding. Take today off for self care, or post how your character self cares and pat yourself on the back for even reading this far! And absolutely treat yourself if you did even one of these <3 I hope this was at least a little fun for folks! 

[littlebell-defensesquad]

I Almost Do - Littlebell - For The People x Taylor Swift

Synopsis: In season 2 episode 7, Sandra Bell found herself having to choose between being loyal to her client and doing what is morally right and reporting something that will harm her client but may save someone’s life to the authorities. While her best friend (Allison Adams), trusted boss (Jill Carlan), and the guy the show wants us to ship her with (Ted 2.0) is standing in the next room, debating whether or not to go talk to her, she vanishes, leaving an iconic pack of florescent post-it note flags for Allison to find, who picked it up, and smiled, knowing that Sandra had made her decision and gone to the AUSA office. She went to consult Kate Littlejohn, her most worthy opponent, who she has indirectly admitted as “the best” (in her profession) once to Leonard Knox while in court earlier in the same season. But Allison was wrong and so were we, in that moment. She didn’t go United States Attorney’s office. She went to a park, set against the backdrop of a sparkly New York skyline, and had previously texted (presumably) Kate Littlejohn to meet her there, making sure to bring her a pretzel as a thank you. They have been in three cases together prior to this one. In the first, Kate told Sandra the story about the Capitol, revealing more about her life in one episode to her opponent than she had ever done to everyone else combined in all previous episodes combined. In the second, Sandra told her a story about sneaking into hotel pools with her dad when she was standing, as the two woman leaned on a hotel room balcony, in the middle of a sting operation. In the third, Sandra asked Kate for a favor, to prosecute a sitting judge, a favor Kate agreed to, and a trial she wins. (I would like it to be noted that Kate has hugged one person in this entire show and it’s Sandra after That Trial.) Right from the beginning, the two women are set up in a duality. Messy and organized. Idealistic and pragmatic. Defense and Prosecution. But rather than moving away from the other, they went the opposite way, getting closer and closer the more they fought to the death in courtrooms, in a slowly unraveling but undeniable revelation that they are far more alike than they are different. So, what happens when they collide again?

On her way back to the office after going to the store with Sandra so she could buy Clue, the receipt still in her hands, the blonde prosecutor sighs. That conversation took so much out of her. It was a honor to be trusted by the fiery public defender, her most worthy opponent, a legal genius undeterred by her raging emotions, but God it was exhausting. Knowing what to say was easy, sitting with Sandra in a park after sunset as the New York City lights twinkled in the towering skyline was something close to magic and an absolute breath of fresh air so different from the monochrome boxes of her office and the imposing grandiose of the Southern District Court of New York. What was difficult was imagining what Sandra was going through. It was worse than when Roger Gunn gave her that case she didn’t agree with but she would have taken anyway. It was worse by infinite degrees. This was not about doing one’s job. It was about one’s very moral compass, the philosophical foundation of who Sandra is. Kate would not want to be her right now under any circumstance.

She knew that the news finally reached her office when Leonard walked in and asked, “How did you convince her?”

She answered honestly. “I didn’t.” After a moment of hesitation, she elaborated, “We just ate a pretzel.” She could sense Leonard’s internal confusion. It made no sense out of context, but she wasn’t going to offer any. That was personal, private. It’s between her and Sandra, the same way the Capitol building is, the same way the DC story is, the same way hotel room balconies and taking an one-hour break is.

So, when she sat down with Leonard to build a lego, she was relieved when he didn’t choose the Capitol building. She almost didn’t offer it, but dishonesty is not one of her infinite talents.

They sat, building the tower, sunlight inevitably reflecting on its windows halfway across the world in Shanghai. As long as it wasn’t raining, of course. But regardless, it’s morning somewhere.

The entire time, her focus flickered away from the project, unlike normally when her concentration was so focused it was difficult to break her attention away from the little plastic pieces in her hands. It didn’t shift to Leonard, radiating warmth and comfort from behind her, working in sync with her to raise the ceiling of the towering skyscraper. She liked him, she even liked-liked him, but he wasn’t a distraction to her. She was almost unable to be distracted by romance, not when she was a teenager, and not even now.

No, she wasn’t thinking about Anya either, even though she is the exact same height Sandra would be if Sandra didn’t wear heels every day of her work life. (Kate would know. She did the math right after Sandra hugged her that first time and shockingly fitted perfectly into her shoulders. There was no way the fiery ball of golden brown hair was that tall.)

Although, maybe she should be thinking about Anya, more than she is. It’s not that she didn’t think about the ATF agent, or that she isn’t heartbroken over their breakup. It’s just that it wasn’t meant to be, and it hurt less because of the fact. Anya always liked her more. No matter how attracted Kate was to Anya, or how nice it was to wake up next to her every morning, or how how good of a kisser she was, it wasn’t right. It couldn’t be right. Anya would always love her more, and Anya deserved better than that. That’s not real love. It’s a chess game. They both deserved better.

And Leonard didn’t help. Leonard leaving made her realize that her heart wasn’t ready for, or deserving of, Anya. And she couldn’t be in a relationship with someone if her heart was that torn about someone else.

Not that that became anything. Leonard chose Texas. He would always choose Texas. She would always be his second choice. And Kate Littlejohn will not be anyone’s second choice.

No, Leonard isn’t right either. He is barely principled and only conveniently so. He is changing, and learning, and becoming more self-reflective and aware, but he is light years away. He would always do things that not only toe but bulldozer over the line, fall off the moral high ground, break the code of ethics. That’s not a person Kate could ever be in a relationship with, even if he is frustratingly attractive and clearly likes her and their chemistry is off the charts.

She could be his friend, his colleague, but not his girlfriend. Not until he gets to a place where he can be with her and not break apart when her light reflects on his every crack. Someday, he will find someone. Someday, he will find himself. But not today. And she isn’t that someone. Not today.

After Leonard leaves, Kate finds herself holding her phone in her hands, looking at it intensely, before deciding to put it down.

Do not be emotional, Kate Littlejohn. She thinks to herself. Do not let your emotions govern you. Do not act upon impulse. And no, Sandra doesn’t want to hear from you right now. You are the last person that she would want to speak to after she betrayed her client and still didn’t save a life. Because you knowingly told her she was allowed to be herself, allowed to follow her own intuitions of right and wrong, allowed to stop being the professional attorney she is one-hundred percent of the time.

Somewhere across the street, Sandra was on her office couch, in tears. Allison gave her a gentle rub, a gesture of comfort. In the doorway, before she left, she looked back and said, “I love you, Sandy. I’ll be home.” That helped. She needed that reminder that her best friend still loved her, supported her, and would be waiting for her when she is finally ready to leave her office. But she needed more. She needed different. She wanted someone else to analyze every move she made and her motives why, convince her through reason that she did the right thing when her every emotion and worst crippling fear was saying otherwise. She wished people would stop telling her that she did the right thing and start telling her that they know why she feels like she made the worst mistake of her career, and the second worst mistake of her life.

It’s not going to be Allison. And certainly not Ted. Maybe Jill will. Maybe. But even that’s unlikely. In such a moment of vulnerability, her boss wouldn’t say something to risk hurting her favorite employee, sending her deeper into her spiral.

She wished Kate would tell her exactly what she was feeling. She thought about calling her but stopped herself before she even reached out for her phone. Kate has no room for her loss. She knows Kate Littlejohn well enough to know she wouldn’t ever celebrate this victory, or any victory for that matter, with very few exceptions. But still, it is a victory for the prosecution. There is no air for Sandra’s despair. Not today. Not now.

Back in the AUSA’s office, it took everything in Kate not to call Sandra, and every time she doesn’t, she almost does.

[bakudomaster]

Hot In Cleveland

Greetings to literally no one! Hopefully that will change....

I’ve had this account for a while now and I’ve finally thought about what I want to use it for.

Starting today, this will be a literary analysis of some of the entertainment media I have consumed over the years. Why you ask? Hmmmm, that’ll be for a later post. I hope that you enjoy reading this!

WARNING: THESE POSTS WILL UNASHAMEDLY CONTAIN SPOILERS!

Today, we’ll begin with a sitcom that’s very close to my heart - Hot In Cleveland

[cue title music - ba ba ba baaaa... ba ba baaa... dwing dwing HEY!]

PREMISE

Hot in Cleveland first premiered in 2010 on TV Land as their first ever original production. Up until that point, the network was well known for airing reruns of previously ended shows, such as The Cosby Show and The Golden Girls. One of the producers of the show was Sean Hayes of Will & Grace fame.

The show revolves around three middle-aged women bound for Paris to forget their troubles of broken hearts and struggling careers when their plane makes a emergency landing in Cleveland, Ohio. Deciding to explore the city, they find it a more compassionate and welcoming than the glamorous, youth obsessed Los Angeles and decide to relocate there. When they rent a house, they find it comes with a decidedly snarky housekeeper.

CAST & CHARACTERS

Valerie Bertinelli as Melanie Moretti - a recently divorced one-time author, she has known very little beyond her roles as mother and wife. She tends to be very optimistic and romantic, often to the annoyance of her friends. Out of the younger trio, she takes the most to Cleveland and tries new things to broaden her horizons. She is the most compassionate out of the three, often being the glue that binds them together. Though she’s a very nice character to watch, she lacks true grit and comes off as a pushover at times. I don’t know much about Valerie’s work before the show, but she does do quite well, with her natural warmth and friendliness coming through.

Wendie Malick as Victoria Chase - an ambitious but ditzy soap opera actress, she has just had her show cancelled and falls into despair at not being in the public eye anymore. Self-centered and willing to do almost anything, Victoria is the least enthusiastic about moving to Cleveland due to the lack of botox and paparazzi among other things. Over time, she takes on various projects to try and revive her career, resulting in an Emmy & Oscar win. Wendie Malick is best known for her role on Just Shoot Me as well as her voice acting in various shows and movies, such as The Emperor’s New Groove and BoJack Horseman. She’s an absolute delight to watch here, completely immersing herself in the role and surrendering to Victoria’s insanity.

Jane Leeves as Rejoyla ‘Joy’ Scroggs - a beautician with a business that’s starting to fail, Joy’s real problem is being unlucky in love. From being abandoned by her teenage sweetheart when she fell pregnant by him, to being left at the altar on her wedding day, Joy’s endless parade of bad luck has left her cynical and just a tad yandere for any man who dares cross her (watch out boys...). She’s neutral to Cleveland, but secretly longs for romance and eventually settling down to start a family. Jane is best known for her work on Fraiser. She’s initially a bit frigid over the first two seasons but warms up to the role as she gains more prominence in the show over the later seasons.

Betty White as Elka Ostrovsky - an escapee from WWII Poland, she is a widow who lives in the house as a caretaker. Though she finds the LA trio’s obsession with glitz and glamour very strange, she quickly makes friends with them to varying degrees, often dispensing advice and acting as a voice of reason when the others get a bit too crazy or feel despondent. She is very proud of Cleveland, eventually becoming its mayor and is not averse to doing things outside of the law. Betty White has a career in television spanning over 80 years. She was initially only supposed to appear in the pilot episode but the audience response was quite positive so the producers upgraded her to series regular.

STRUCTURE, WRITING & DEVELOPMENT

The series plays out as a typical slice-of-life sitcom. The idea of older women living together and going through life isn’t new - think Golden Girls in the modern era and you pretty much have the gist of the show. However, is that such a bad thing? I think every TV era needs a show that focuses on the challenges one faces as the march of time proceeds; something that feels comfortable without pushing the boundaries too much and HiC was that for a generation who missed out on Betty White’s previous hit show. It wasn’t cerebral watching and it didn’t need to be.

In line with this, many of the plots are taken out from well known tropes that have developed over the years. Love triangles, a vapid rivalry in Hollywood, false pregnancies and lost loves returning all play part in the show’s six season run, edited and polished for character context. This is a big part of why the show felt so familiar to many viewers. Script structures followed one of three methods:

Characters A & B take part in subplot 1 whilst C & D take part in subplot 2 - this proves most effective for humor, balancing out the plot and giving each character something to work with

Characters A & B take part in subplot 1, C in subplot 2 and D in subplot 3 - this proves most effective for character development but can feel too scattered at times

Characters A, B, C & D take part in the main plot - this is most effective for plot lines, usually occurring at season premieres or finales

In terms of character development, the main trio of ladies find fulfillment in each other’s status. I’ll explain:

Melanie was an author but didn’t really have much experience in the working world, choosing instead to derive her satisfaction from being a mother and a wife. Now that her marriage is over and her kids are in college, she feels lost and doesn’t know what to do with herself. Over the course of the show, she has a series of meaningful relationships but develops the most in her career;becoming a column writer, a public relations assistant, a radio show host and a restaurant manager. This is what Victoria was trying to achieve at the beginning of the show.

Victoria is an out of work actress who has to resort to all sorts of tricks to get back into the public eye. Her approach is hit and miss, but she eventually goes on to win an Emmy and an Oscar, along with some work in critically acclaimed stage plays and a brief period as a news reporter. Despite this, she finds more satisfaction in her love life (despite being married EIGHT times!), eventually marrying her one true love at the end of the series. This is what Joy was trying to achieve at the start.

Joy is struggling as a beautician who looks for love in handsome men and one night stands, but never seems to catch a break. Her love life goes from bad to worse and her relationships fail due to a combination of her own issues with trust and the fact that the men she loves aren’t that great to begin with. She eventually puts her cynicism and stalking tendencies (I told you to watch out for her!) to good use, studying criminology and becoming a private detective. She also reconnects with her son that she gave up for adoption and gleefully accepts when she finds out that she’s a grandmother. Long story short, she’s looking for stability and finds it in the most unlikely man, becoming a wife and a mother at the end of the show. This is what Melanie was looking for at the start of the show.

Over the first three seasons, a heavy emphasis is placed on Elka due to the show trying to capitalize on Betty White’s resurgence in popularity at the time. This is in spite of the fact that Elka kind of feels like a lost puzzle piece. She doesn’t really fit in to the whole cohesiveness of the other three characters. This is changed in season 4, when the character of Mamie Sue (played by Georgia Engel, Betty’s costar from The Mary Tyler Moore Show) is promoted to a recurring character. It not only gives a nice chemistry to a previously ill fitting character, it creates a parallel with the LA trio: Mamie Sue is a combination of Victoria’s airheadedness and Melanie’s kindness to Joy’s cynicism found in Elka.

The show starts off quite shakily, despite its hype, but takes a turn for the better around the fourth season. The frivolous story lines from earlier episodes are eschewed for more long term plots with more emotional impact. Themes of loneliness, love at middle age and returning to correct past regrets are explored quite deeply. The show also loses some of the LA stereotypes as it goes on.

Some really big names are booked as guest stars, some notable ones being:

Susan Lucci as a parody of herself, being Victoria’s arch-nemesis

Joe Jonas as Will, Melanie’s son

Craig Ferguson as Simon, Joy’s first love and babydaddy

Jon Lovitz as Artie Firestone, an eccentric billionaire who takes an interest in Joy

Heather Locklear as Chloe, one of Melanie’s bosses at her PR job

The entire cast of The Mary Tyler Moore Show as G.L.O.B. (Gorgeous Ladies of Bowling)

Alan Dale as Sir Emmet Lawson, a renowned actor and Victoria’s sixth husband

Rick Springfield as a parody of himself

BULLSEYES & IMPROVEMENTS

What the show gets right:

Exploring the crossroads many women face at middle age, in terms of the main aspects of life: family, love & career

Great acting, especially in the later seasons

Wendie Malick - she deserved an Emmy nomination for her acting here

Jennifer Love Hewitt as Emmy, Victoria’s eldest daughter. Seriously, watch her episodes and tell me they aren’t funny

The general lack of pressure - you don’t need much attention to cycle in and out of the show, it’s easy watching

The consistency and plot development post season 3

What I think should be improved upon:

Melanie can be TOO nice, something that’s actually picked upon by other characters. Her cancer subplot was a nice opportunity to get some grit, but most of it was just by the way and not fully delved into

Victoria’s job as a news reporter was forgotten as soon as she landed a part in a Woody Allen movie. It would have been nice for her to be in that occupation a bit more or go back to it after her Oscar win and give her a chance to be on the other side of fame

Elka’s love life - every boyfriend seems to be a copy of the other and there are way too many of them

CULTURAL & PERSONAL IMPACT

This article from the A.V. Club goes into detail about the show and I have to say, I agree with it wholeheartedly agree. HiC was a reminder of what was before the more intellectual comedies came along. It shamelessly pandered to an older generation who wanted something familiar in an ever changing landscape. The fact that it didn’t take many risks in its approach was a risk in itself. It was clearly one that paid off, given the six season run. It wasn’t a darling of the critics, but it didn’t need to be. This was a show that could be watched to generate a few laughs without the need for in depth discussion with a coworker in the break room the next day.

A few years after the show’s cancellation, Valerie Bertinelli expressed her anger at TV Land for the decision, calling it sexist. I can’t really comment on that, given that I’m not too familiar with TV Land’s other work, but I will say that HiC did what it had to do. Six seasons in an age where you’re lucky to get more than three is amazing. The plot lines tied up quite nicely at the end and in the end, that’s all that everyone wanted.

Personally, I watched this show at two very difficult times in my life. The first was at college during my final year, when deadlines loomed and twisted my stomach in anxiety. The second was a few months ago when I had quit my job and needed something to distract me from the depression. On both occasions, this show has really made me laugh and fall in love with its simplicity. It’s undemanding and solid, just what I need to get through a trying period.

WHERE TO WATCH IT

Seasons 1 to 5 are available on Amazon Prime Video

Seasons 1 to 4 are available on Hunnyhaha’s channel on Youtube

If you’re in Southern Africa, the entire series are available on Showmax

[fortunatelylori]

NCW has recently made a couple of references to not judging. Once in regards to shot of him in the broken tower and then again in regards to his relationship with Cersei. "I think most people have at least been attracted to someone you shouldn’t be." Likening it to having a forbidden attraction to your bf's gf. Basically saying we don't get to chose who we're attracted to and it's based on circumstance. GRRM on one hand seems to normalize incest attractions (saying yes, it can happen)

but on the other denounces it as wrong and unnatural (demonstrated in reactions to Jaime and Cersei and the children of these relationships). So my take away, by normalizing the attraction and denouncing the actions he’s saying it’s ok to be attracted but you just can’t do anything. Is that what you take from that also? Jaime and Cersei are definitely foils for Jonsa so they have to be similar but do opposite. By NCW’s statements it really seems possible we see just how similar these foils are,

either by admission to each other or conversation with others (Sam, Davos or Brienne) who notice and they confirm. They love their sibling. Just like Jaime/Cersei. But unlike them realize they can’t act on it. There will be some element of the original outline where this will be used as angst before they find out the truth. Though unlike in the books I don’t imagine it will last more than an episode. I think it’s just used to establish the real nature of their feelings before reveal. Thoughts?

Hey, nonnie!

Incest is a very thorny subject. I’ve actually been interested in this topic for years, spent quite a while researching it and it’s always looked to me to be about the last social taboo our society still places on people. By that I mean that incest is such a hot topic that it can place people in jail that don’t really belong there: as in adult people engaging in consensual sex who do jail time because their sexual partner also happens to be their sibling/offspring etc. 

So it’s difficult to really ascertain what GRRM’s actual views on the subject are because our interpretation of the subject will always color our own views. Personally, my views on incest are fairly liberal in that I do think consensual incest between adults should be decriminalized. On the other hand, because of the genetic dangers of incest, particularly multi-generational incest, I also don’t think it’s a practice that society should encourage. So while I’m very strongly against the Targareyens practicing incest as norm, my views on the Jaime and Cersei relationship are not as strongly negative. 

My main problem with the Jaime/Cersei relationship isn’t even the incest. It’s the toxicity of the relationship, how they feed each other’s worse impulses and how the relationship ends up making both of them miserable and act out like monsters. In a previous post, I compared their relationship to the relationship of the main characters in Lunes de fiel by Pascal Bruckner: a relationship where both characters end up crippled and disfigured at each other’s hands because of the toxic, co-dependent behavior they both engage in. That’s kind of how I see the Jaime/Cersei relationship and why I believe that Jaime is the Valonqar. 

I’m not sure that GRRM’s message about Jaime/Cersei is that their biggest “sin” is having given in to their attraction. I tend to think it has more to do with the Lannister family dynamic and Tywin. All the Lannister children are traumatized and crippled emotionally by their father. They also lose their mother when they’re very young (Tyrion is just an infant) so they never get a positive parental figure that can actually teach them how to love properly. And I think that’s the biggest issue with all of them: they simply don’t know how to love in a healthy way and that leads to Jaime and Cersei’s sexual relationship, a relationship marked by an intense desire to control and posses, a dynamic of envy on Cersei’s part that causes her to want to keep Jaime tied to her in some way to make sure he never gets Casterly Rock and also that she can profit off of his “talents” with a sword, talents she desperately wants for herself. Jaime, on the other hand, allows himself never to develop as an individual and dedicate his life to Cersei’s goals and desires because, I think, he just finds it hard to figure out who he is and what he wants for himself. It’s also a way of avoiding responsibility, something that is highlighted by him pushing Bran out of a window: 

Jaime: The things I do for love. 

He uses his love for Cersei as an excuse that allows him to avoid taking responsibility for his actions, independent of how heinous they are.

Also, the Lannisters, under Tywin’s leadership, engage in their own brand of “exceptionalism”. It isn’t as institutionalized as the Targareyens but they still view themselves as above other people and great houses. Tywin goes to war to protect the family name when Tyrion is taken prisoner by Catelyn, even though he reviles his youngest son, because: 

Tywin: He’s a Lannister.  He might be the lowest of the low but he’s one of us. 

This message that Lannisters are simply better than everyone else is something all of Tywin’s children, including Tyrion, internalize and it’s something that might flatter their ego but it also isolates them from the rest of the world. 

So in essence, Tywin creates the perfect environment for incest to occur between Jaime and Cersei. 

One more thing I wanted to touch on from your ask is this: 

wrong and unnatural (demonstrated in reactions to Jaime and Cersei and the children of these relationships)

 Because of what we know about the genetic problems caused by incest, it’s easy to assume that Jofferey is the way he is because of Jaime and Cersei being siblings. But I’m not sure that’s the case. I actually think if genetics are truly at fault for Jofferey being a psychopath, that has more to do with who his grandfather and his mother are than the fact that he’s the product of incest. 

I don’t think this has been touched upon very often, but book Cersei is, herself, a sociopath. As a teenager she threw her friend down a well to her death, as an adult she watches the torture of an innocent man and through that process, convinces herself of his guilt even though she knew he was innocent when she threw him in the cell. 

For his part, Tywin engages in extreme forms of violence that he excuses as necessary acts of war. 

I’m not sure Jaime contributed that much to Jofferey’s condition.  

In conclusion, the way I see the foil dynamic between Jaime/Cersei and Jonsa is exclusively on a narrative level, where you have two siblings engaging in incest vs. two people who aren’t siblings who are afraid of engaging in incest. But aside from that narrative structure, I don’t actually think Jonsa and Jaime/Cersei have much in common in terms of their relationship or the reasons why they end up in those relationships. 

As for this: 

admission to each other or conversation with others (Sam, Davos or Brienne) who notice and they confirm.

A lot of people are discussing this issue, as in who will notice the Jonsa vibes, who will Jon/Sansa confess to, etc. That to me is superfluous and I’m not really interested in it. I’d much rather have Jon and Sansa confess their feelings to each other, than going around talking to other people about it. 

Of course that by virtue of the faux-incest structure, angst and a repression of feelings is part of the journey towards the reveal that Jon and Sansa are not actually brother and sister and as such are free to enjoy their love. However, I’m not really sure just how much of that we’ll be getting because the writers have been playing with the romantic undertones in their scenes for 2 seasons now so they might forego further angst and just jump straight to the reveal. I don’t think it’s really going to work that well because the way they wrote the scenes left a lot of room for ambiguity but I can see them doing that. 

We’ll just have to wait and see, I guess. 

Thanks for the ask! 

[fivewrites]

That’s Not How Child Abuse Works: Todoroki Enji Edition

Let’s talk about character design and child abuse in BNHA.

Let me be clear: Enji Todoroki is a bad person. Full stop. This is not a defense of him, or an excuse of his behaviours in any way. This is, however, an examination of the specific ways in which he is a bad person, and why I feel a fair portion of the fandom gets him and his relationship with Shoto Todoroki wrong.

So, who is Enji Todoroki?

Trigger warning for discussions of physical, emotional and sexual abuse, as well as domestic violence under the cut

Also, spoilers

Alright, let me start off with a preface. It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. This is not a strict do-and-do-not of writing. No one is stopping you from writing whatever you want. If you want to write rape as a plot device or cheap shock-value characterization for your villain, I literally cannot stop you. No one can stop you. Go ahead. 

As well, this post contains hypothesis and conjecture that are not proven as fact by the canonical text, but may or may not be inferred through examination. In no way am I trying to state that my assumptions or suggestions are true or canonical, they are merely that - suggestions on how to write realistic portrayals of familial abuse.

Thirdly, there is a very good resource out there for examining abusers. I have found the text Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft invaluable to understanding the patterns of abuse. You can read the whole PDF for free here.

Have fun and be creative, pals.

From what we know of the story, Enji Todoroki is the #2 hero in the world, and has been for quite some time. He is deeply jealous and insecure about this. About the fact that he has never, and probably will never take the number one spot away from All Might. And so, at some point in his life, Enji came up with a plan. He was going to have a son who would do it for him.

Flash forward a bit; Enji paid off the family of Shoto’s mother in order to marry her and have access to her quirk. He was going to produce what would be, in his mind, a perfect heir. (This is bad. He is a bad person for doing this. Full stop.) Enji had several children before Shoto, whom he considers to be “failures” and presumably has little to no relationship with them. However, Shoto’s mother was eventually able to bear a child hybridized with both their powerful quirks. Happy with the result, Enji has since taken it upon himself to form Shoto into his perfect heir.

Enji has done this through abusive means of control and dominance, and in doing so has created a highly toxic relationship between himself, his wife and his son. Much of the problems in the Todoroki household are because of Enji’s actions. He is an abuser. But what kind of abuser he is is not random, and the abusive acts he performs are not random, either.

So who is Enji Todoroki?

Simply put, he’s a Stage Mom. He’s an asshole, abusive, controlling stage mom who treats his son more like a Pokemon than a person.

He is the kind of parent that will drag Shoto out of bed for practice, force him to eat and study, control every minute of his schedule and make sure this kid is going to become, by any means necessary, the man he could never be. That is Enji’s logic. He wants Shoto to succeed where he failed, by any means necessary. 

However, Enji has a logical plan for his son. All of his abusive actions have a purpose. He’s not going to meet his desired goals by harming Shoto to the point of total physical and emotional destruction. He would only be sabotaging himself.

What does Enji Todoroki want?

Power - Enji wants to be the number one hero instead of All Might. Barring that, he wants his son to be #1 in his stead Respect - from his family, and the general public, Enji wants to be seen in a positive light Control - Enji wants to be in control of himself, his family, his work and his destiny Legacy - Enji wants to extend his power beyond just himself, into his children so they continue projecting his power even after he dies

What is Enji Todoroki afraid of?

Losing power - physically and professionally, Enji cannot handle being seen as a weak man, or have Shoto be seen as a weak son. Losing respect - Enji needs his family and the public to treat him as the man he sees himself as Losing control - Enji cannot allow his son or anyone else to disobey him and prevent him from realizing his goals Losing legacy - If Shoto does not become who he wants, Enji will have wasted a huge portion of his life and resources on a failed project

Enji, being a logical and sane* person is going to pursue actions that lead him towards his desired goals. He is also going to avoid actions that will cause him to lose his desired goals.

(*Sane in this case simply meaning “capable of rational thought”. Not moral or ethical thought. Sane people can choose to lie, steal, murder, rape, etc. They are deliberately choosing bad choices, but they are still sane.)

At this point, I would also highly recommend reading the section in Bancroft’s book on the types of abusers in chapter 4, page 219. You can decide for yourself which one (or several) Enji fits under.

Knowing Enji’s goals and mindset, here are a few common tropes I see in Todoroki fic and why I feel they’re not all that logically plausible

Enji beats Shoto within an inch of his life

Simply put, Enji has no reason to do this. Enji sees his son as an extension of himself and his own accomplishments. Shoto is, to him, a prize pig. Physically brutalizing Shoto would be Enji brutalizing himself.

Remember, Enji has an image that he wants to project to the outside world. He is a public figure. A celebrity. He wants the public to see him, and by extension his family, as powerful, united, untouchable and also a traditionally conservative Japanese family. 

The media and public would likely become suspect of Enji’s power and likability if they saw his son consistently covered in bruises. Or worse (for Enji) they might assume that Shoto has been losing a bunch of fights and is a weak hero. Enji absolutely would not want the world to think this, and would not let his perfect son be seen as weak or defeated.

While it is reasonable to assume that Enji might use corporal punishment for misbehaviour, there is no reason to assume that he assaults Shoto to the point of hospitalization or death.

It is also reasonable to assume that Enji overtrains Shoto, and pushes him beyond his physical limits in pursuit of shaping him into the perfect warrior. We saw him train Shoto until he vomits as a child. However, this still follows Enji’s logical purpose of making him “better”. It is unlikely that he would physically attack Shoto for frivolous reasons, like his own amusement or anger. It would undercut his goal of turning Shoto into a miniature version of himself.

Enji starves Shoto

Again, there is no reason for Enji to do this. He wants to project to the world that he is strong, and by extension, his family is strong. Starving Shoto would seriously harm Enji’s plans for him.

Shoto would struggle physically and mentally in school, and Enji wants a top performer

Shoto wouldn’t develop properly physically, and Enji wants a big, strong son to prove he is a big, strong father

Enji wants to project to the world that he is powerful and in control. If the public saw Shoto as small and shrimpy, they would seriously question his strength and authority as a patriarch. What, this powerful man is so broke he can’t afford food for his son?

Now, as an asshole stage mom who tries to control his son’s life, it would probably make more sense to put Shoto on an extreme health food diet in order to improve his performance. But outright starvation? It doesn’t make sense.

Besides. Have you seen this 5’9” 155-pounds-of-muscle kid? He is not starving.

Enji locks Shoto in his room for extended periods

Maybe when Shoto was younger and misbehaved? It’s not an unlikely punishment by an abusive parent, especially for a younger child, but Shoto is a teenager now. And, as we can see in the current story, Shoto has fairly free movement, both inside the household and out. 

He regularly visits his mother in the hospital, is out long after dark in the hideout raid arc, and basically goes wherever he wants whenever he wants. At 15, Shoto isn’t being locked up anywhere by his father. He is a dutiful and obedient son and Enji doesn’t seem to worry about him running away from home.

Another point to consider is that a lot of this freedom is still predicated on Shoto’s conditional obedience to Enji overall. Enji allows Shoto freedom because he believes that Shoto is following in his footsteps, even if he deems his son “rebellious” at times. If Enji decided that Shoto was at risk of running away or betraying him, his punishments may become much more severe.

See: Why He Stays section below

This is also why Shoto’s rebellious compromise in the first two seasons is an incredibly clever survival mechanism. He is, technically, still following his father’s plan for him. However, by choosing to ignore his fire side, he is still disobeying his father. But his father cannot reasonably punish him for that since Shoto is still a top-ranking student and a powerful quirk user overall. It’s a brilliant power-play when all the power rests in Enji’s hands.

Enji verbally abuses Shoto to make him feel bad about himself

Yes and No? It’s likely that Enji does say a lot of really terrible things to his son. The way he speaks in the manga and anime suggest a man who has very little respect for those he considers to be beneath him, and only begruding respect for those who are above him.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Enji insults or even threatens Shoto. But he does it for a purpose. As stated above, Enji wants to maintain control and power, and to continue his legacy through Shoto.

He doesn’t want Shoto to feel weak or degraded or to become a pushover in life. He wants Shoto to become strong and impenetrable, a perfect recreation of toxic masculinity. If Shoto were to break down crying from insults, Enji would have failed in creating Shoto into someone who is hard and emotionless. Therefore extreme verbal abuse to the point where Shoto is crying is less likely than just casual bullying.

Shoto is untouchable and has never, ever been touched or hugged

His mother loved him. When Shoto was a young child, we see her in the anime hugging and cuddling her son. So that’s out.

In the present, Shoto lives with other people than just his father. In the anime, we see that Fuyumi still lives at home, and cares about what Shoto does, as shown when he goes to visit his mother in the hospital. I find it highly unlikely that siblings in a reasonably amicable relationship never, ever hug, even if they are generally busy in their separate lives.

It is unclear if Shoto still lives with his brothers, or the older woman who was taking care of them in the flashback panel of the manga, but again, it would be stange if these people, who are presumably not abusive, never, ever touched Shoto in any affectionate way ever. Shoto isn’t cursed.

While it is reasonable to assume that Enji is an old-school patriarch who doesn’t show much, if any, physical affection to his son, he still gives him some attention, and provides Shoto with everything he needs to be a successful hero. (whether Shoto wants to follow this path or not is another story. Fortunately, Shoto does)

Enji likely still trains with Shoto, sparring with him and showing him fighting technique. He may not hug his son, but he doesn’t ignore him. He might even pat him on the back if Shoto does something that Enji approves of, such as boosting the family profile in public. 

We saw at the sports festival how proud Enji was of Shoto using his fire half. Yes, it was a selfish pride, and Enji was really more congratulating himself than his son, but we saw that Enji doesn’t just hate Shoto for the sake of it. 

Is Shoto touch-starved? Possibly. He has probably seen less physical affection than someone with loving parents like Izuku or Ochako, but I doubt it is so extreme to the point of him breaking down into tears because he’s never had a tender hug.

Any form of sexual abuse

No. Look, I get it, Enji is an asshole and we hate him. I won’t deny this. But you can be an asshole and not be a child molester. And it is, quite frankly, lazy writing to take a character whom you want to show is an Evil Bastard™ and just write him off as “child rapist”. Because that’s not who Enji is. Enji Todoroki is a lot of things. He’s a bad person. But he is not someone who molests his own son.

Now, if you want to talk about marital rape, there is certainly enough evidence to believe that Enji’s relationship with Shoto’s mother was non-consensual, and probably violent. I will not argue this point. But Enji feeling entitled to women’s bodies and using Shoto’s mother to produce the perfect child still doesn’t make him a child molestor. These are two very separate forms of Evil Bastardry.

Enji’s pattern of abuse follows a logical train of thought. It’s not ethical, and it’s not kind, but it does make logical sense for his character. What doesn’t make sense is him trying to create a perfect superhero offspring, and then seriously damaging that child with sexual abuse. That’s not Enji’s purpose or plan. Enji used Shoto’s mother to produce Shoto. He has no reason to attack Shoto in this way, beyond “hurr hurr I’m evil”. It would sabotage Shoto’s chances at becoming the national hero that Enji desires

Ways to accurately examine and portray the abuse that happens in the Todoroki household

Because, absolutely, there is abuse. And it is serious. Just because Shoto isn’t being locked up or starved or beaten doesn’t mean he is not being abused or hasn’t been abused in the past. But the abuse needs to follow Enji’s logical train of thought. He has a very specific goal in mind, and he is willing to do anything to accomplish that goal, even if it means everyone in his life suffering for it.

This following section contains my own opinions regarding portrayal of domestic abuse and violence. It is not a set of must-follow rules, merely suggestions based on personal and professional experience.

Physical abuse

Physical striking as a form of specific discipline for misbehaviour make sense, but not random, extreme violence

Enji wants Shoto to be obedient, but also strong. He would not be not above using violence to control his son, but it would need to be in connection to direct misbehaviour, and relative to the infraction Shoto has committed.

Abusers, despite what they claim, generally do not “lose it” or not understand their own strength. They know what they are doing and how hard they can hit. A professional fighter like Enji especially knows how hard he can hit a person and what damage he can cause. Any damage done to Shoto would be deliberate, and Enji would have to deal with the consequences of extreme violence.

Shoto cannot continue to train under Enji if he is constantly dealing with serious injuries and needing hospitalization to recover.

Overtraining Shoto and ignoring his physical and verbal needs for rest

This is actually more emotional and psychological abuse than physical, because it shows Enji cares about his own trajectory for Shoto more than Shoto himself. 

And again, the physical abuse needs to follow the logical sense of making Shoto better in Enji’s eyes. For example, he’s not going to make Shoto scrub all the floors in their house, because he takes pride in his creation and likely believes Shoto would be above such menial tasks.

Controlling Shoto’s diet

While I don’t think it’s logical for Enji to starve Shoto, It would be more reasonable for him to develop Orthorexia, a condition similar to anorexia where someone is obsessed with health and purity of foods. He would make sure Shoto is eating entirely healthy food that he approves of, while prohibiting anything he sees as unhealthy, like sugar or candy.

Controlling Shoto’s rest schedule

Same with food, in his household, Enji probably controls when Shoto trains and sleeps. However, by 15, Shoto is probably used to this and sees it as completely normal and not abusive. Human beings are amazing at normalizing the worst things.

Controlling Shoto’s study and free time

In order to min/max his Pokemon son’s fighting stats, Enji probably wouldn’t let Shoto waste his time with things children do like “hobbies” or “fun”.

Not allowing him to play with his siblings

Not allowing him to play with friends outside the family

Not allowing him to pursue anything that isn’t about becoming a hero, such as art or video games. Part of Shoto’s awkwardness is likely because he’s not terribly up to speed with pop culture references, seeing as how he likely has very little time to consume these things that Enji would see as frivolous

Using any and all free time Shoto has to train him into becoming a hero

Verbal Abuse

When abusers use their words, they use them very specifically. While they may make excuses like “I didn’t mean it” or “I didn’t know what I was saying at the time” this is a lie. They know what they are saying and they know why it hurts. They specifically want to instill fear or shame in their target in order to keep control over them. When giving Enji Todoroki dialogue, it is important to remember what his (fucked up) goals and values are, and how he is trying to achieve those (fucked up) goals and values.

Instead of just calling Shoto names randomly, Enji would likely make everything about himself.

“You’re no son of mine”

“Why can’t you be more like me?”

“You’re my son, Shoto, act like it.”

Enji would likely try to shape Shoto’s world view to be extremely similar to his own, giving Shoto biased information, no matter its accuracy

“Your mother was a weak woman who didn’t raise you correctly”

“All Might is a fool and you’d be a fool to admire him”

“Those kids at school are just trying to drag you down. Don’t spend time with them.”

Praise and affection would be given in relation to how Enji personally feels and how Shoto is living up to his father’s demands

“You’re becoming the man I knew you could be”

“I’ve worked so hard to create you”

“You’re strong, like me”

Psychological Abuse

This is probably the biggest factor in Enji’s abuse, far more than anything physical he does to Shoto. And while writers may think physical acts such as beating and starvation make for good story, I would argue that these more subtle acts in the relationship are more realistic, and can prove far more damaging in the long run.

Enji treats Shoto like an object, not a person.

This is the biggest single factor of abuse, and is the core of their relationship’s toxicity. Enji does not see Shoto as his own person with his own thoughts, opinions or desires. He sees Shoto as a miniature extension of himself that he can use and control in order to be more successful as a hero, and eventually take the number one spot from All Might.

Enji does not allow Shoto the freedom to grow and develop as his own person, and pursue any interests beyond those interests of himself.

Enji only supports his son’s confidence in relation to him becoming a hero.

Shoto has been denied a normal childhood and normal development in pursuit of his father’s goals

Shoto can see his friends at school hang out and talk and laugh and watch movies and play video games and be kids. Shoto was likely not allowed to do any of that and he can feel incredibly isolated, lonely and bitter about not being able to relate to his peers

Shoto can have confidence issues, even when he is #1

Enji has built a kind of fragile confidence in Shoto. He needs his son to be #1 all the time. #2 just isn’t good enough. Many child prodigies have spoken out about how parental pressure crushed their self-esteem and destroyed whatever passion they had for their chosen subject (art, music, dance, sports, being a hero)

Being raised in an environment of constant pressure and criticism can lead a person to develop a highly critical self-image and OCD tendencies. They constantly feel “never good enough” because to the parent they looked up to, they never were. There was always something that needed improvement.

Enji is living through his child

Because Shoto has been denied his own childhood, he is being used, physically and psychologically, by his father as a way to live out his own unfulfilled dreams of success. This is incredibly damaging for Shoto because he cannot feel like a whole person in and of himself. Children who are used b their parents in this way often feel like a kind of mask that the parent wears, rather than a child who is loved and nurtured.

Children who are used by their parents also tend to have a poor or underdeveloped sense of self-image, and Shoto may have difficulty separating his own choices and desires from that of his father.

Unable to mature emotionally

Because Enji controls so much of his son’s life, Shoto is unable to grow emotionally and unable to make important decisions for himself, from picking out his own clothes, to saying no to peer pressure

Shoto will probably have difficulty forming intimate relationships (romantic or platonic) because he has very little reference of how to behave in a non-abusive way.

He may unconsciously replicate his father’s abusive behaviours with a partner

Even if Shoto can recognise abusive behaviours and not want to replicate them, he would struggle because he does not know what else to do

Potential psychological things Enji might do

Ignoring / Discouraging Shoto from pursuing anything Enji does not approve of

“Hey dad, look, I drew a bird!” “That’s nice son, how many criminals have you fought today?”

Forgetting important milestones like birthdays or good grades

Enji is self-absorbed with his own goals and does not take interest in his son’s personal life beyond how it would benefit him, personally. Shoto has grown up feeling like he owes his father and his family success and that a lot is riding on him to be the best. Shoto does not get a reward for getting perfect grades, he gets a “This is what I expect of you.”

Imbalance of power amongst siblings

One very common tactic amongs abusers is splitting the power dynamic of the household in order to maintain and control power for themselves

Abusers will often pick a “golden child” that they place all of their expectations upon, and then compare all other children to that child.

“Fuyumi, why can’t you be more like Shoto? He’s doing great and you’re doing terrible.”

This builds resentment between siblings and prevents them from allying with each other against the abuser.

It places the “golden child” in a difficult position of conditional acceptance between allying with the abusive parent, or allying with the rest of the family and risk losing their ascended position.

(See Azula from ATLA: Azula’s power came from the fact that she was “not a failure like Zuko” and saw favour in her father’s eyes only when compared to the child he did not like)

Refusing to acknowledge the relationship Shoto had with his mother, or misrepresenting it to the public

Enji knew that Shoto loved his mother, and saw her psychological breakdown / attack on Shoto as her own failing, and not related to his own abusive behaviour. Even when abusers absolutely know they are in the wrong, they do not take responsibility for their actions, and find ways to shift blame to someone or something else so that they are never forced to change their behaviour. This would build huge resentment in Shoto if his father never acknowledged that his mother’s breakdown was his fault

To the public, Enji still wants to project that powerful, traditional family ideal. He probably either didn’t say anything to the media and they don’t know that Shoto’s mother is gone, or he lied, making it again sound like her breakdown was some sort of freak accident and not a direct result of his abuse.

Why does he stay?

Why does any abuse survivor stay? Why not just run away and go live with Midoriya or Aizawa? The simple answer is, it’s safer to stay than to leave.

The truth about abuse is that there is no easy solution. There is no adoption rescue. Even calling the Japanese equivalent of child protective services is not an instant fix, and cases can take months, if not years to resolve.

For Shoto to be taken away from his family, Enji would have to prove he is unfit as a parent in the court of law. Unfortunately, courts very often side with the parent. If Enji is not starving, beating up or molesting his child, the court system would likely justify his custody of his child. Being a terrible asshole is not enough of a reason to be taken away from your parent, in a legal sense

If Shoto leaves, who becomes the target for blame?

In abusive relationships, there is often a protector, a sort of shock-absorber, who mediates the abuse. This may be the spouse / wife, or an older sibling protecting the younger ones. If Shoto leaves, his other siblings, including Fuyumi may be at much greater risk for Enji’s retribution. Abusers are often at heir most violent and unpredictable when their victim is trying to break away and leave

Shoto does not love his father, but he does grudgingly respect his skill

Shoto has his own goals. He wants to be a powerful hero, just as Midoriya and Bakugou do. And, in Shoto’s mind, his father is part of that goal. Shoto willingly chose his father’s agency to intern with, because he acknowledges that Enji is still an accomplished professional, even though his methods and attitude are shitty and abusive.

Is Shoto brainwashed / gaslit / controlled? Probably not insignificantly. If Shoto had been raised in a different environment, he may not feel compelled to apply to his father’s agency, but his choice shows that he is still actively attached to his family and not yet ready to leave.

Shoto may have an inheritance, or other resources at risk if he disobeys

Abusers often use financial control as a way of keeping their victims in line and unable to escape. If Shoto were to run away, he might very likely have no financial way to support himself, and may even have to drop out of an expensive school like UA, preventing him from achieving his goals of becoming a hero.

Enji has a lot of friends and resources

Enji, as a professional hero, has been working within the justice department for decades. He probably knows a lot of police officers, DAs, prosecutors, judges, etc. It is well known that cops are willing to commit crimes in order to protect one another within the system. If Enji’s son tries to accuse his father of child abuse, he is facing a hugely biased system where his father could influence or bribe the outcome. 

And as we know with his mother, Enji is not above corruption or bribery. Shoto is at great risk if he goes to the cops.

In Shoto’s case, the best solution in his mind seems to be to “bear it out” and wait until he comes of age in order to leave, rather that running away or getting the courts involved. This is not an uncommon strategy for many abused children. Whether or not it is the best one, no one can say. One can only hope that Shoto has the strength to make it through until he ages into legal adulthood and is able to move on from his abusive situation.

Other considerations: Dabi

If you a believe in the theory that Dabi is actually an older Todoroki child, there are other factors to take into consideration with Enji’s behaviour.

If Dabi was Enji’s first attempt at creating an heir, and Enji lost him, this means that Enji has already spent considerable time and resources on his plan to create the perfect son.

If he has already failed once, Enji might possibly not be as extremely harsh on Shoto if he believes that Shoto might run away or turn against him

Enji could see his failure with Dabi and try to correct his “mistakes” with the way he is raising Shoto.

Enji may still be in his prime, but not for long. He is aging, and probably doesn’t have much more chance for success to raise a child from birth if he is not successful with Shoto. Shoto is pretty much his final big investment, and after losing Dabi, Enji is going to take every precaution to make sure Shoto turns out the way he wants, for better or worse.

In conclusion

I feel like a stronger take on the abuse that Shoto survives is one that takes his father’s goals and neurosis into account, rather than just relying on the shock of extreme physical behaviour in order to draw empathy out of the reader. Shoto’s situation is bad, but it’s also sadly common and relatable in our world. Portraying Shoto’s abuse as more realistic is better writing than putting him in an easily solvable fantasy world here he is hit or molested and then adopted by a rescuer. 

Part of the reason I wrote this is because I see a lot of extreme examples of physical abuse in fiction and fanfiction, but few that go into or validate the subtleties of psychological abuse. Rather, these dangerous behaviours are often obscured or treated as tolerable or even romantic. I often walk away from a story feeling like the only “valid” abuse is that of the extreme kind.

But I want to press to readers and writers: subtle abuse is abuse. You don’t need to be beaten or starved or raped to be abused, to speak up, to pronounce that relationship as toxic and try your best to leave. It can be incredibly difficult, feeling trapped in a family that suffers from the generational trauma of abuse, and I can only give those of you who are living and surviving in these situations my deepest empathy and support.

http://www.thehotline.org/ https://ncadv.org/resources http://makeitourbusiness.ca/resources/internet-resources-for-domestic-violence

[sanrionharbor-blog]

Thoughts on Sansa S8 Endgame

Speculations galore! Long post ahoy!

Let’s run through every possibility I can think of for the end of show-Sansa’s story (and yes, there will be many more possibilities besides these because GOT is layers upon layers, man, I’m still new to the fandom, and there’s probably a lot I’ve missed).

At the very least, let’s do this categorically.

Dead, Alive, or a Fate Worse Than Death?

1. I’d bet money that Sansa survives the whole dang thing

2. But if she does die…it could be A) Sacrifice to save Arya, Jon, and/or Bran, B) in a possible collapse of Winterfell, C) after ensuring the demise of Cersei or a similar threat, D) something worthy of a song

3. Crack Theory: Sansa Becomes the Night Queen?

Shipping...

1. Let’s start with the most popular ship: Jonsa. While I’m not personally a Jonsa fan, I neither hate it nor see it as a complete impossibility. And while I’m not personally a Jonerys fan, I neither hate it nor see it as a no-brainer. Jonsa makes sense practically (uniting Targ and Stark, North & South; they already trust one another; cousin marriage isn’t considered incest in-universe, etc.), though I’m not entirely convinced if the show goes this direction that it would be the most romantic ship ever. The best I see is that it has vibes similar to Ned/Cat when they were first married to one another; they didn’t love each other romantically at first, but it would come with time. As for political!Jon Theory making this ship possible, while I wouldn’t completely put it past the GOT universe to make Jon that cold, it honestly doesn’t jive with what I think is at the core of Jon: which is a hardscrabble sort of nobility, decency, honesty. I mean, if he was politcal!Jon, wouldn’t he have come up with a smoother way to handle Cersei in their first meeting? Anyhoot, the ship isn’t hateful. I think the biggest obstacles are the fact that, even though they are technically cousins, they were raised as brother and sister. You don’t just erase that. This is somewhat “remedied” by the fact that they were never close and Sansa pretty much treated him as a whole-lot-less-than-a-brother for most of their childhood. But GOT has never shown incestuous relationships (again, I don’t really consider historically based cousin relationships as incestuous, but it is a close family bond never-the-less) as a good thing. At all. The Targ’s went mad; Dany’s brother was creepy as fudge; UMM Jaime x Cersei dear Lord; Craster and his Merry Brood, etc. (But this mainly just spells doom for Jonerys, IMHO). So, as with anything in GOT--it’s possible, it’s also not possible, there’s undertones, but there’s undertones for the complete opposite thing happening, etc. Lastly, as for the “romantic framing” of S7, I think it falls under that same maybe/maybe-not. I LOVE Jon and Sansa’s dynamic, even if I don’t see it as romantic, even if does or does not end up romantic. It is certainly one thing: intimate. And the framing (forehead kiss, bittersweet reunion, worrying for one another’s safety) supports that at the very least. If they don’t end up romantically, Jon is the last real strong male relative that Sansa has. That’s not to diss Bran, but D&D have made him a remote magical old man stuck in a teenager’s body. In some ways, he’s dead to Sansa too (as Meera said, “You died in that cave.”). The poetry, the irony, is that the people Sansa had the most problems with in her family (Arya and Jon) are all that Sansa has left now (yes, yes, I love Bran, but again he’s acting more like a solo unit than a family unit at this point)--and she realizes how much they’ve always meant to her. Jon, and Arya for that matter, are different sides of Sansa, just as she is a different side for each of them. The parallels are lovely, and this ship could very well set sail.

2. My personal favorite: Sanrion (Sansa x Tyrion, Tyrion x Sansa, whatever the preferred parlance is). Yes, I’m biased, so this entry will be the longest--BUT, let’s remove my shipper goggles. This, to me, is just as possible as Jonsa. That is, I don’t see it as guaranteed at all, but there’s plenty to read from the text. Let’s get the trouble spots out of the way: 1) the build-up has been few and far in-between since S4 (though they did throw us a bone in S7). 2) the 50/50 chance of Tyrion dying in S8 (no, I’m not basing this on “leaks,” interviews, or what-not--I’m just using this as a baseline guess, given that this is GOT and given that Tyrion is at the center of a very dangerous web of relationships), 3) the show possibly not wanting to ask a twentysomething actress and a nearly 50-year-old actor to act out anything deliberately romantic (however, I don’t expect an on-screen ship to be anything but unconventionally romantic--I very much see it being done with subtle dialogue, color theory, ambiguous looks, an epilogue, etc), and 4) Tyrion may or may not be in love with Daenerys. None of these trouble spots spells doom for me. The greatest “doom” is simply Sansa ending up alone (thematically possible) or with someone else (also thematically possible). Let’s break down counter-points to the trouble spots, then I’ll list my reasons why this ship could sail. 1) Almost all relationships in GOT are troubled and/or unconventional, built up over one season, hidden underneath layers of symbolism, or suffer from the fact that one or both partners are either dead or seperated (by this same token, Sansa’s other popular ships, Jonsa and Sansan, also suffer the same dearth of “development” or copious screen time. Arguably, Jonsa’s foundations were mostly built over the later seasons), 2) yeah, Tyrion could die (and I would be heartbroken but not blindsided) or Tyrion could live (but I would bet money that Sansa lives through the whole thing), 3) the show already put them through the most awkward phase of their “relationship” (i.e., their wedding night, though it was toned down compared to the books) and they can still sell this relationship in any number of ways (again, dialogue, color theory, looks, just holding hands again geez Louise), 4) Tyrion’s “love” for Daenerys is incredibly debatable and may only be used as fuel for a soap opera plot that I really hope doesn’t happen, but even the director of the S7 finale said Tyrion’s main concern was political and Dinklage proposed the idea that Tyrion only “think he’s in love” with Dany, that what most people feel for Dany is awe (I’m neither a Dany fan or hater, but it’s hard to deny that she’s shocking, enthralling, powerful, attractive, a force, for lack of a better term). Now, on to the practical/thematical reasons why I think this ship would work. Let’s use letters for this, haha. A) Fairy Tale parallels/Turning Tropes Upside Down: It’s easy to read inversions of fairy tale archetypes into Sansa’s storyline, as that is what her character is naturally drawn to: songs, princesses, true love, beauty. So far in the story she has learned that looks can be deceiving; life is not a song (though I wouldn’t be surprised if GRRM turns this on its head again, and Sansa simply learns that all great tales involve sorrow and darkness as well as joy and light--i.e., bittersweet vs. simply sweet); people are not black and white (Tyrion shows her that the Lannisters aren’t necessarily all evil and Littlefinger shows her that allies, even someone who loved her mother, are not necessarily all good); etc. Just some of the fairy tales/tropes that play into Sansa’s personal storyline and the subtext of Sansa x Tyrion include: Beauty and the Beast, Psyche and Cupid, Hades and Persephone, The Princess in the Tower archetype, and many, many more (I’ll meta about it one of these days--and there are already many excellent posts under the Sansa tag that expound on these). B) The Queen Elizabeth Theory: So Sansa has parallels with two remarkable historical Queen Elizabeths: Elizabeth of York and Queen Elizabeth I.  Since this has been said by so many before, here’s a quote and link to the article as summary: “The show is based off the War of the Roses, the real-life family feud between the Lancasters and Yorks that ended with the two broods combining their houses. Since the storyline happening at the end of season seven is extremely similar to this moment in history, we can infer that GoT will follow that path...” Link  C) Character Actions Written Especially For the Show: Just to name a few: GRRM purposely changed a moment in the books to where Sansa hands Tyrion a cup instead of him having to crawl underneath a table to do so; Tyrion remains loyal to his wedding vows (and this is probably inspired by his trauma for having killed his father and lover as well) even when it was very possible that Sansa had left him high-and-dry and the marriage was, in Tyrion’s own words, a “sham marriage”; Sansa and Tyrion both stick up for one another’s character, etc., and D) Also, aren’t they technically married? :-p [There’s a lot more, but again, I’ll save that for a future meta]

3. Sansan: While there may end up being a slight possibility in the books, I don’t think show-Sansa and show-Sandor are heading in this direction. However, the same fairytale motifs play into play here: Beauty and the Beast, Hades and Persephone, etc. Also, bridge4 over on Youtube has a fabulous analysis of the “unKiss” over on his channel, which I think could pop up in some shape or form in S8. Here’s the  link

4. Sansa Alone: Also supports the Queen Elizabeth theory. Specifically, Elizabeth I “the Virgin Queen.” This would a different form of poetry/irony: Sansa, the one who wanted most to be a queen consort and be married to a handsome king and have babies, ends up as a queen (full-stop) but leverages her power as a single lady. Not my favorite ending for Sansa, as I’m Teh Unabashed Romantic, but it’s plausible, thematic, pragmatic. Only time will tell!

The Fate of the North, Night King, Direwolf Theorizing

Just spitballing various takes:

1. The war is “won” (as in mankind survives), but Winterfell or possibly the entire North is compromised. As in, perhaps they have to trade the North to the Winter King at the promise he won’t invade the rest of Westeros. Or Winterfell explodes, so the North and all of Westeros is saved but the Starks lose their home

2. The Starks deliberately blow up Winterfell, for any number of reasons. Perhaps a bunch of wights or what-nots ended up there. Perhaps the dead in the Crypts were resurrected, and this was the only way to neutralize that threat. Or something deeper and darker lurks in the Crypts, something worse than the Night King. In fact….

3. Maybe the true enemy ends up being something awoken within the Crypts of Winterfell, and the Night King is not what he seems….

4. The old gods play an unexpected role

5. The godswood is burned or ends up in splinters or is used to create a new throne (ending the age of iron, fire, blood and making this a “time for wolves”)

6. Sansa’s direwolf Lady is resurrected (of course, poor Lady is headless…) and manages to wound Cersei (if she gets her arse up north, which seems unlikely) before Cersei’s killed by whoever the heck the Valonquar is

7. Speaking of, could Ghost be the Valonquar? I mean, he was the runt, the littlest brother of the brood. Eh, dunno. I just don’t expect the Valonquar to be anything close to what we think he/she/it/them is.

8. I like the idea of parts of the ocean being permanently frozen over because of something the Night King does. Dunno why. I don’t think there’s any foreshadowing to that in the show; it just sounds cool, and represents a permanent consequence to the land. Because I do not expect there to be zero consequence for the landscape of Westeros itself. The Greyjoy’s are already kinda sorta doomed (with eunuch Theon being the last male of that line, unless Euron’s got a kid somewhere and he ends up surviving to take the throne and not be a dick about it), so it’d be a bit of tragic poetry if their islands, their seas were frozen and lifeless but thanks to their efforts the rest of Westeros is safe and their people will have to make a life on land

9. One or both remaining dragons are frozen for all timez

10. Sansa becomes Queen in the North or Queen of the Seven Kingdoms (is there really an in-between?)

Bonus

Lastly, here’s just an observation on an important part of Sansa’s storyline and character development: Arya Stark. I believe Sansa and Arya adopted different pieces of the original storylines in GRRM’s book proposal outline--not that I put much stock in the outline. Sansa was created, at first, to add tension to the Stark family. GRRM says he was surprised by Sansa’s developments; he also says he empathizes with whichever character he is currently writing, so I think he just naturally found things that he liked in Sansa that made her more than a complication device. Because his original vision included Arya as the sole Stark daughter, I wouldn’t be surprised if Sansa and Arya aren’t the result of this once singular character being developed into two very different ways. The archetypal Amazon Wild Child and the Princess in the Tower. Two sides of the same coin--or, in Ned’s words, Sansa is the sun to Arya’s moon and vice-versa. For this reason, I don’t put it past Sansa to continue developing her personal brand of Brave Northern Lady and Arya developing her personal brand of Brave Northern Lady. Because that is what they both are: brave, northern, ladies. Will Sansa find herself at the center of a love triangle? I really, really hope not, but at this point if it is gonna happen I find it much more likely with Sansa than with Arya.

[filmista]

🎀 Female Characters And Performances I l❤️ve 🎞

1. Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster, The Silence Of The Lambs)

-Starling, when I told that sheriff we shouldn't talk in front of a woman, that really burned you, didn't it? It was just smoke, Starling. I had to get rid of him.

-It matters, Mr. Crawford. Cops look at you to see how to act. It matters.

Why?:

She is perhaps my all-time favorite female character and of the first ones, that I think of when I hear the phrase “strong women” in reference to films. She doesn’t go around kicking literal ass but she takes pride what she does. 

She is driven and passionate about her work and even with obstacles, she believes in herself. Which isn’t to say that she isn’t vulnerable or scared at times, she is. But rather than beat herself up about it or suppress she eventually learns to overcome it. Or rather work around it and draws strength from it and in the end shows that real strength isn’t not feeling fear, it isn’t being emotionless or numb it is continuing in spite of it. 

2. Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl) 

“It’s a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless Automat of characters.” ― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

Why?:

Because she is one of the most complex female characters in modern literature and cinema. It’s incredibly easy to write her off as a female psychopath or a crazy bitch. While I don’t doubt that she might have mental problems, the film also shows us what might have caused some of her problems (the relationship with her parents, the pressure of living up to being Amazing Amy).

All of this aside, she’s just an incredibly fun and interesting character to watch. No matter what you might think of her morally. 

There’s a phrase in the book that goes if I remember correctly something like this: “Amy likes to play god when she’s not happy. Old Testament God.” And yes, she’s incredibly pissed off for a large part of the film and does loads of scary, crazy shit throughout the film... all motivated by her absolutely astounding smartness and cunningness. 

Personally, I wouldn’t say I agree with everything Amy does (I would be crazy if I did) but I do understand where some of her anger comes from and I even sympathize with her in a few instances in the film.

Point is though there should be more of these difficult, morally complex women in film. Sadly sometimes when women are unlikeable or difficult in a film we tend to as an audience dismiss them as “a crazy bitch”, or worse sometimes equate the actress behind the character to her on-screen persona. 

3. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver, Alien)

“Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away?”

Why?:

Instead of naming the obvious reasons which are her stubbornness and overall badassery, determination and courage. What I love about her is the fact that she’s not really always likable, she’s quite moody and cranky and even plain bitchy sometimes. 

She speaks her mind even when that doesn’t always make her popular with those around her. A not always likable female lead isn’t so unusual nowadays but Ripley really was one of the first ones in a big blockbuster. And she’s a cat lady.

Also if I ever get a cat again, I want to name it Jonesy or if it’s a black one Salem. 

4. Shelly Johnson (Mädchen Amick, Twin Peaks) 

“I’m a waitress in a diner. I’ve never been compared to a goddess before.”

Why?:

Okay, first of all, I’ll admit to having a small crush on Shelly (like probably many a Twin Peaks fan) but she’s more than just a sexy waitress. We all know she married an absolute piece of shit of a man, and when we see her at home she is almost always silent and completely submissive out of fear.

But then we see her at the diner, and she transforms: she’s charismatic, flirty, bubbly and just insanely loveable overall. What I think makes her a great character though is that there are also hints at rougher and darker edges.

In Episode 4 of season 1, after Laura’s funeral (after Leland falls into the coffin and sobs hysterically, which yes I thought was quite hysterical) we see her making fun of Leland in the diner in front of a group of admiring old men. There’s an interesting side to her that seems to want to bully almost, perhaps as a way to get what she is experiencing at home out of her system. 

5. Mademoiselle De Poitiers ( Helen Morse, Picnic At Hanging Rock) 

-Ah! Now I know.

-What do you know?

I know that Miranda is a Botticelli angel.

Why?:

Because she is for her time (which was not always easy for women) an incredibly sunny, optimistic and kind person. While everyone is telling the girls at the school off or being strict with them she treats them with respect and shows an interest in their “teenage world”. 

While she might seem like a conventional and quite traditional female character, I adore that she seems like she genuinely enjoys her feminity. You look at her and see a woman who you can tell simply loves and revels in flirting and romance and it’s incredibly charming performance to watch. 

6. Laura (Gene Tierney, Laura) 

“You forced me to give you my word. I never have been and I never will be bound by anything I don't do of my own free will.”

Why?: 

I think it’s a remarkable film for its time. Laura is portrayed (once she appears) as an incredibly charismatic, alluring and smart woman that values her privacy and independence and as loving and being successful in her career. 

The twist though is that for a seemingly very strong woman she has a very toxic friendship with a male friend who’s extremely jealous and possessive of her. He has ruined countless of her romantic relationships because no man is ever good enough for his Laura. 

Finally, she dumps him as she realizes his manipulation and stays with the man she’d fallen in love with, which might seem like a conventional ending but I love how Laura, in the end, takes control of her own happiness and by extension her life. 

7. Vanessa Lutz (Reese Witherspoon, Freeway)

I know there’s a lot of sick guys that get hard… thinkin’ about messin’ women up. Hell, that’s all you ever see on TV. But when a guy goes and does that for real like you were plannin’ on doin’ – I was just trying to scare you. You had your turn to talk! I think it’s only fair to let me get my two cents in. You’re absolutely right. Sorry. Please, go on. But when a guy goes and hurts someone who never hurt them… that makes him a criminal first and a sick guy second. It’s like being sick has to take second place to being crooked.

Why?:

Reese Witherspoon’s plentiful and colorful swearing, as well as her unapologetic aggressiveness. She’s a trashy and violent female character, and I always find it incredibly interesting to take a look at female characters that are perpetrators of violence and what motivated them. 

An interesting thing is also that she is supposedly a morally despicable, white trash and uneducated character but actually has a better understanding of and less twisted sense of morality than any of the characters that are supposedly well adjusted, refined and educated people. Some of her blunt, often shocking comments hit the nail on the head on several problems in American and general society. 

8. Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren, The Birds)

“I thought you knew! I want to go through life jumping into fountains naked, good night!”

Why?: 

She’s my all-time favorite Hitchcock heroine. What I love about her particularly as a character is her spontaneity, her assertiveness, sass, and humor but above all her perseverance and genuine strength (though she’s occasionally prone to the dramatic sighing or shrieking women just sometimes did in older films ).

A delight for me in the film is that it turns a common romantic trope around: she is the one that first sets her sights on the man and consequently chases and gets with him.

She also consistently stands up for herself, point in case: the scene in the diner in which a local accuses her of causing the bird’s irrational and unexplainable behavior. I really believe she’s one of Hitchcock's most underestimated heroines and in my opinion also written with a depth that proves he was not a misogynist as is so often believed.

9. Wendy (Shelley Duvall, The Shining)

“You son of a bitch! You did this to him, didn't you! How could you! How could you!”

Why?:

While controversial just like Tippi Hedren’s performance in The Birds, I absolutely love Shelley Duvall’s work in The Shining and I think her performance is often very wrongly looked down upon. 

Personally, I always thought film Wendy was stronger than book Wendy her performance is often dismissed as hysterical, over the top and she’s also called a dumb character very frequently. 

In contrast to Nicholson’s performance though she’s pretty calm. What I love about the performance is the very subtle and slow changes in her attitude. People often find her a weak character, because she stays with her abusive husband I don’t think however that it is that unrealistic.

People in real life sometimes also tend to stay in these relationships until something drastic happens that forces them to really evaluate the situation. Her husband has moments where he convincingly plays at pretending to be the “nice and good husband” and so she chooses to buy it. 

However once in the hotel, as Jack becomes increasingly mad she realizes her husband was never a good man, to begin with, and that she has reason to be very, very afraid of him and Duvall absolutely illustrates that fear brilliantly. At this point, instead of walking on eggshells as she did initially she realizes she and her son must simply get away from that man if they are to live. 

I see how some people might not like her a character, it does feel like she screams a lot sometimes, but I find it incredible that even in her fear she still soldiers for herself and her child. 

10. Ana (Isabelle Adjani, Possession)

“We are all the same. Different words, different bodies, different versions. Like insects! Meat!”

Why?:

Very simply put, Adjani’s utterly crazy and unhinged performance. It’s also a fantastic depiction of a slow and finally full blown descend into madness. What I love most of all is that while it may easy to dismiss her as a “psycho, hysteric” kind of female character she is not completely that there’s more nuance to it. 

The film shows that the unhappiness in her marriage and the hints of abuse in it played a huge role as well. A showcase of the fact that love can sometimes truly drive us mad and make us lose ourselves. 

Some fictional ladies that didn’t quite make this particular list, but might make appearances on another one: 

Thelma  (Geena Davis, Thelma & Louise)

-It’s not like I killed anybody, for God’s sake!

-Thelma!

Grace (Brie Larson, Short Term 12)

-Grace, you are a line staff. It's not your job to interpret tears. That's what our trained therapists are here for.

-Then your trained therapists don't know shit.

Celine (Julie Delpy, Before Trilogy)  

“I always feel this pressure of being a strong and independent icon of womanhood, and without making it look like my whole life is revolving around some guy. But loving someone, and being loved means so much to me. We always make fun of it and stuff. But isn’t everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more?”

[wazafam]

The Hawaii Five-0 reboot lasted for a decade, and introduced plenty of memorable villains with it. Fans certainly remember Wo Fat, who was Steve's ultimate enemy in the series, as well as recurring villains Dr. Madison Gray and Frank Delano, for instance. However, some villains, while only making a single appearance, certainly left their mark given their evil schemes and the crimes they committed, or how they affected the members of Five-0.

RELATED: Hawaii Five-0: Season 1-10 Finales, Ranked (According To IMDb) 

Dr. Olivia Victor definitely irked Steve, and Gabriel Waincroft was no picnic for anyone, especially Chin. That said, out of the many, many villains that Five-0 faced, there are some that just stand out more than others.

10 Kelly

For a teenager, Kelly was a brilliant and terrifying evil genius. Wanting to collect on her father's life insurance policy, she arranges a heinous scheme to pull it off. She targets former criminal Tommy, and manipulates him into a relationship, and further gets him to believe that her father is abusing her.

Believing he's saving her, she further coerces him to kill her father, and later, Tommy himself is killed by the police thanks to Kelly tricking the officers into thinking Tommy was a threat. She was clearly dangerous, and as Kono pointed out, it's a good thing Five-0 stopped her when they did before she could cause more harm.

9 Seth Tilton

Seth Tilton was obsessed with satanic rituals, and in the Season 3 Halloween episode, he abducted two people, one of which he killed, to complete his ritual. He was clearly dangerous, and as Five-0 discovers, had had issues since he was a kid.

Not only that, but his grandmother, portrayed to be sweet and harmless, was anything but, and clearly shared in her grandson's capability of committing murder, as she killed an officer. This was one Halloween that Five-0 would certainly never forget, confronted with a real-life horror.

8 Ian Wright

Musician and former Disney star Nick Jonas played a very different character in Ian Wright, a hacker with no remorse for his actions and who was always looking to make big money. He initially popped up on Five-0's radar for unpaid parking tickets, but that was the least of his criminal offenses.

RELATED: Hawaii Five-0: (The Original Show): 10 Facts You Didn't Know About The Main Characters 

He also later kidnapped Grover's daughter. He met a premature death thanks to Wo Fat, who shot him dead and freed Grover's daughter, sending her off to give a message to Steve.

7 Dr. Madison Gray

Season 7 introduced serial killer Dr. Madison Gray, who tormented Five-0 and former FBI criminal profiler Alicia Brown. She was clever, intelligent, manipulative, and certainly cunning. She plays mind games with Alicia and torches Steve's truck and disappears.

However, she reappears later on in the season, this time claiming to be Lauren Parker, but of course, no one believes her. Still, it doesn't stop her from convincing Alicia to break her out of jail, or taking her to see Alicia's daughter, who Alicia believed to be dead. Madison ultimately confronts Alicia in her home, wanting to turn her into a killer, and she succeeds, as Alicia fires the gun and reports Madison's murder.

6 Victor Hesse

Before Wo Fat, there was Victor Hesse (played by James Marsters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame). Steve had long been after Victor Hesse and his brother, Anton, from his time in the Navy, according to the series' pilot.

Unfortunately, Victor wished to exchange Anton for Steve's father, whom he was holding hostage in Hawaii while Steve was in South Korea with Anton in the pilot episode. Everything went haywire when both Anton and Steve's father were killed, and thus began Steve's mission of returning to Hawaii, heading the Five-0 task force, and intending to exact revenge on Hesse. Hesse was a memorable arch-nemesis for Steve, and later met a deadly end thanks to Wo Fat.

5 Wo Fat

Wo Fat was undoubtedly the most memorable villain in Hawaii Five-0's entirety, both in the original series and in the reboot. He was Steve's worst enemy, and he was responsible for all kinds of terrible crimes, including murder, and he even framed Steve for the murder of the Governor of Hawaii in Season 1 of the reboot.

RELATED: 15 Secrets Behind Hawaii Five-0 You Had No Idea About 

Wo Fat's wife came back to get revenge on Steve for killing her husband in the reboot's final season. He inflicted plenty of pain on Steve, physically and emotionally, and he was certainly evil. Audiences were as glad as Steve when Wo Fat was finally killed, by Steve himself, ending Wo Fat's reign of terror.

4 Frank Delano

William Baldwin, brother of Alec Baldwin, portrayed former cop Frank Delano; the character was found to be dirty and subsequently fired from the HPD. He then created an organization made up of other dirty cops and participated in all kinds of illegal activities, but he went way too far when he decided to mess with Five-0 personally.

Frank manipulated Chin into freeing him from prison in the Season 2 finale by forcing him to choose between saving his cousin, Kono, or his wife, Malia. Chin tried to save them both, but unfortunately, Malia didn't survive. Chin eventually killed Delano and avenged his wife, though he still had the loss of his wife to work through.

3 Gabriel Waincroft

Frank Delano was a pretty brutal villain, especially for Chin, but Gabriel was even worse. He murdered Chin's father in cold blood, and he chose the life of a criminal, committing all kinds of terrible acts. He was the brother of Malia, Chin's beloved wife, but he couldn't have been more opposite from his sister.

However, upon getting shot, Gabriel apologizes to Chin for murdering his father, and implores him to look after his daughter, Sara, not long before he dies. Chin does take in Sara and love her like his own, showing that on some level, he did forgive his brother-in-law.

2 Sang Min

Sang Min made his first appearance in the pilot episode of Hawaii Five-0 as a human trafficker, busted by Five-0 while they were tracking down Victor Hesse. Since then, he turned from villain to ally for the Five-0 task force, offering them information and helping them out from time to time, though he usually has ulterior motives, such as when he helped Chin in prison, and used the opportunity to escape prison himself.

RELATED: The 10 Best Episodes Of Hawaii Five-0, According To IMDb 

He often hits on Kono, and while cunning and obnoxious, he's also hilarious and has certainly grown on the Five-0 task force.

1 Dr. Olivia Victor

Dr. Olivia Victor made only one appearance in Season 3, but it was memorable considering just how much she got under Steve's skin, especially since she knew exactly how to push his buttons. From moment one, he was convinced that she was guilty of killing her patient, and he refused to let it go, no matter how many obstacles she threw his way.

Even his team had their doubts at one point. However, the Five-0 team discovered she wasn't running a therapy practice, but a prostitution ring, and Steve was certainly happy to catch her at the airport before she could disappear for good, ultimately being the one to outsmart her instead of the other way around.

NEXT: Hawaii Five-0: 10 Of McGarrett's Most Reckless Acts 

Hawaii Five-0's 10 Best Villains, Ranked | ScreenRant from https://ift.tt/38XSFvo

[kansetsukiss]

Winter 2018: First Impressions

The new year always comes with a bout of unwarranted confidence and energy, and what better way to spend it, I thought, than by keeping entirely up to date with the new anime season. (I say “entirely,” though I have clearly omitted several shounen / fantasy shows out of respectful disinterest, and Citrus, for reasons that may evolve into their own post.) Here are the first impressions of the season’s first episodes. I’ll be checking back in halfway through and at the end of the season to chart each show’s progress. Saa, hajimaruzamasu yo!

Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-san

Though they’ve since been deleted, the first episode of Koizumi-san encouraged two extremely negative reviews to surface on MAL. Why anyone would submit a formal review after one episode is beyond me (get a tumblr blog, you herbs), but why this of all shows should warrant such backlash also confounds me. Yes, it’s silly - it follows goofy lesbian Oosawa Yuu as she follows her crush, the enigmatic Koizumi, from one ramen eatery to another, while Koizumi rebuffs her flirtations and educates her on various ramen cooking styles. It should be pretty fucking clear from this set-up that we’re not in for a thematically dense thrill-ride - why is this Cute Girls Doing Cute Things show apparently that much worse than others with equally pointless premises? All this said, I’m certainly wondering if the show can expand on its small roster of characters and settings to fill a full cour. Stranger things have happened. I’ll be following along, if only to hear more of Ayaneru’s darling voice acting, dreamy sigh.

Yuru Camp∆

(Don’t forget that delta!) This season’s iyashikei delivers exactly what was promised on the package, resulting in not much to say about it at all. I’m not sure the ambience here is quite luscious enough to warrant this many slow shots (cf. Studio Ghibli, Mushishi), but I was never bored, and it looks like we’ll be heading to more slice-of-life settings soon enough anyways. It’s quiet, thoroughly nice, even somewhat educational. Healing as it may be, it’s also definitely a Cute Girls show, and yes, the girls so far are very good. Fingers crossed we get some yuri with that yuru…

Sanrio Danshi

Ahh, a familiar conflict: a mega-corporation creates / sponsors art that supports progressive politics, but is also using the medium to shamelessly promote their products - cf. Pepsi, Heineken, etc. This time it’s Sanrio fighting restrictive gender stereotypes: why can’t boys be into cute animal mascots too? It’s a sweet message, but the irony of it coming directly from the merchandiser is hefty. Sanrio Boys makes an inoffensive first impression - the titular boys are entirely generic in design and expression, distinguished mostly by their mascot kyara of choice (disappointingly, my lovely Cinnamaroll has been claimed by a boofy-looking doofus). It’s shallow and ironically enjoyable, as most teen-girl-oriented media inevitably is, alas. Here lies another mystifying contradiction: a clearly low-effort show featuring an ensemble cast of five handsome but emotionally vulnerable boys is so clearly aimed at girls, so how is their boys-can-have-feelings-too message even going to land with its supposed target audience? Are the boys themselves just another marketable Sanrio product for girls?? Christ.

Violet Evergarden

Speaking of mega-corporations, Netflix is still on track to subsume all art and artists by 2020 - but hey, they’re putting out some good stuff. Violet Evergarden is a decisive question mark. I’m partial to both its main tropes of “post-war melancholy” and “emotionless person learns to feel again,” but they can intersect respectively with “leaning heavy on the Feels” and “literal objectification of women.” Violet’s emptiness doesn’t make for a compelling main character - it’s strange to see KyoAni’s unparalleled expressivity lavished upon an unexpressive character - and it’s hard to say whether her traumatic past will justify this, or just fall flat. I’m cautiously optimistic for now, and if it all does go south, I’ll always have Sora no Woto to give me the good stuff. (Special shout-out to both all-too-brief timelapse shots. KyoAni, you magnificent bastards.)

Sora yori mo Tooi Basho

I think it’s understandable that I would enter into this with trepidation - it seemed somewhere between a sports anime and a Cute Girls Etc., both of which can stretch to ridiculous settings. But it seems, in a weird way, fairly grounded. Well, I mean, for a show about high school girls travelling to Antarctica. I’m really hoping they’re not just on their way by episode 2 - Shirase’s struggle with the depressive realism of her ludicrous dream is ripe for exploring in itself. Both the main characters are wonderful; Shirase’s design indicated another taciturn raven-haired maiden (cf. Kousaka Reina), but she’s wonderfully expressive, and I’m always happy to hear Kana Hanazawa doing any voice other than Default Kana Hanazawa. Overall, it’s very nicely animated and paced, quietly comic, and almost definitely going to trip over its absurd premise by the time I next check up on it, but I suspect it will still be a fun, if silly, ride.

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card

OH MY GOD. I’ve only been living in a post-Sakura world for about 2 years, and this was still a quasi-religious experience; I can’t imagine how this would feel to the fans who grew up on the show. Everything about this is fucking fantastic. I’m losing the ability to criticise. I’m dangerously close to “I can’t even”-ing. The production is perfect, the sakura petals are abundant, there’s a fucking oboe solo stripped-back rendition of Platinum when Syaoran appears, the fucking ED is so beautifully animated. I’m sorry, I’m doki-doki-ing all over the place. This is the by far my favourite of the season so far. Not even Meilin’s absence can sour this for me. (Okay, maybe a little, if I really think about it :c)

Pop Team Epic

Hmmm. This was preceded by its reputation, evenly regarded by my Twitter feed as “a shitpost in anime form” and “excellent lesbian representation.” Given how dense my watchlist already is, I’m pleased to say I absolutely don’t care about this. It conveys the same humour as short-form absurdities like Teekyuu or Plastic Nee-san, but mostly leans on shallow pop-culture references and crudeness. The face that it’s a full-length show - let alone the fact that the first episode is the same half-length episode played twice - is exasperating. As a fan of Wonder Showzen and the Eric Andre Show, I see the appeal of the style, but it definitely falls short of both such marks. (And though I know this is unfair, it’s a little hard to get into something so well-received by 4chan dipshits.)

Darling in the FranXX

There’s a sexual harassment joke roughly 4 minutes into the first episode - nowhere near Bakemonogatari’s record, and not damning in and of itself, but it unfortunately does reflect the overall tone. This feels like a weird teenage rebellion by Studio Trigger, defying their parent by making their own Evangelion, with blackjack!, and hookers!, and absolutely none of the subtlety or character exploration that made Eva great. Zero Two is a deafening klaxon of fanservice masquerading as a sexually autonomous character - I wanted to believe otherwise, but her fucking robot has nice boobs, and even gets its own panty shot. The robot, which is powered by making out, mind you. I’m not one to hold low-brow shows to higher standards - I will call a fanservice-y spade a spade - but I expected more out of Trigger at this point, especially on the heels of extremely wholesome Little Witch Academia series. Even the mediocre Kiznaiver had loftier goals. I’ll keep tabs on this one - if nothing else, Trigger’s animation style and an excellent OST will sweeten a bitter pill. 

Mitchiri Neko

Hard pass. If you’re gonna watch a banal, cutesy, 3-minute runtime cat show - like, if you really need that - watch Bananya.

[anditjustmadeherkind]

Normal has always been the watchword: character growth, resistance to change, and 'Veronica Mars'.

Comment to author of meta on the following link:

http://cadhla.livejournal.com/969717.html

Normal has always been the watchword: character growth, resistance to change, and 'Veronica Mars'.Today's essay contains references to and spoilers for all of season one of 'Veronica Mars', as well as the first part of season two, focusing primarily on 'Normal Is the Watchword' and 'Driver's Ed'. There are no spoilers for unaired episodes of 'Veronica Mars', or spoiler-based speculation on where the series is going, although there is some thematic speculation relating to and tied into the way Rob Thomas tends to treat character growth and resistance to change. 1. Are you content with where this story ends? / There was a time when all of us were friends. You can call the end of the first season of 'Veronica Mars' a lot of things -- shocking, satisfying, jarring, unfair, visceral, too much, not enough -- but you can't really call it a happy ending. Veronica got what she thought she always wanted; she uncovered Lilly's killer, and saw to it that justice would be done, her father's name would be cleared, and her life could return to something resembling what it was before -- in short, to a state she could call 'normal'. We see Veronica's isolation throughout the season, along with her association of the loss of everything from her life-with-Lilly to the solving of Lilly's murder. Find out who killed Lilly Kane, and her father can have his position in the community back. People will stop blaming her for backing him. Possibly, the mystery of why Duncan left her will finally be resolved. In short, finding out who killed Lilly will actually restore Lilly: find her killer, and Lilly comes home. This isn't an uncommon sort of reaction in someone grieving deeply for a loved one, especially not when that loved one died under unusual or extreme circumstances. 'Lazarus, come forth' becomes a very tempting phrase. If you find the hit and run driver who killed your son, everything will be repaired. If you find the flaw in the fabric of the world that allowed this impossible thing to happen, God may take it back. A great number of public service organizations have been founded on the irrational, unspoken belief that if something can be rendered impossible, it will somehow be retroactively repaired; it will be taken back. The first season of 'Veronica Mars' is, in a way, a year-long attempt on Veronica's part to get Lilly Kane back where she belongs, and thus get herself back where she belongs. Prove that it shouldn't have happened, and perhaps the universe will finally repair itself. There are two major issues with this plan. First, and most glaringly, the dead don't come back just because you say the magic words and unmake the accident. (Not unless you're in a Stephen King novel, and sometimes, dead is better.) So the subconcious 'I can fix everything that has been broken' that was very likely a motivator is something that can never, unfortunately, play out. Second, and more insidiously, the reason that they say 'you can't go home again' is that it's true, because things change and are changed by the forces that act upon them. Through the very act of trying to fix what has been broken, Veronica has changed. Before Lilly's death, the loss of her mother, the loss of Duncan, and the effective loss of her innocence, Veronica was a very different person -- something pointed out not only by the living, but by Lilly herself, both through flashbacks and through dream sequences. Veronica becomes more Lilly-like through her actions, but always lacks both the thoughtlessness and the willingness to play with the hearts of the people around her that Lilly displayed. If anything, Veronica has managed to become a synthesis of the two, taking on many of the best -- and worst -- aspects of both personalities. Can you see the reasonably meek, demure Veronica Mars who played lily-maid to Lilly Kane pulling off some of the setups our current Veronica has gone for? Before she was forced to learn to be Lilly, such actions simply weren't taken. (Please note that I am not canonizing Veronica, who has, as I noted above, also taken on many of the negative aspects of both personalities -- while she lacks Lilly's thoughtlessness, she does have a strong degree of 'I matter, because I am doing right, and you do not, because you're in my way' self-righteousness that can arguably be attributed either to the influence of our dear Miss Kane, or to her own natural inclinations, inherited from her father. In this world, after all, nature tends to trump nurture. Veronica is flawed, yes, but that is not the topic we are addressing today.) So Veronica's 'home', symbolized in the form of Lilly Kane, is gone forever, and cannot be reclaimed, no matter how much she might wish that it were otherwise; furthermore, Veronica herself has been so transformed by her time away from home that, even were she to somehow go back, she would be unable to stay. Consider, if you would, the case of one Miss Dorothy Gale, a little Kansas girl who -- when she was swept away from home by a force of nature as sudden and unexpected as the death of a beloved friend -- wanted nothing more than to go back, to go home again. And, if we leave her after a single story, she achieves what she claims to want; she gets back to Kansas. If, however, we return for the later books in the series, we find that Dorothy has been so transformed by her time in Oz, by what she's seen and done and been forced to do, that Kansas can't contain her anymore. Eventually, after several attempts to normalcy, she gives up, and returns to Oz forever. Veronica, like Dorothy, has been to see the Wizard, and has been transformed by the things she's seen, done, and caused to happen. She can go back to Kansas if she likes, embrace the monochrome as much as she wants, but the only chance she had at getting her normal life and a normal ending wasn't a chance at all; it was closing the book after the first story, and that's not so much 'the end' as 'I refuse to let the rest of the tale unfold'. For Veronica, the state of 'normal' has changed. She just doesn't know it yet. 2. Come and be normal with me. For Veronica, in a pre-Lilly's-death world, normal was at least partially defined by a certain level of playing the follower. She followed Lilly with devotion, and while she wasn't slavishly devoted to her desires (she refused the velvet dress, after all, until it became a symbolic part of her transformation into a more Lilly-like role), she was more inclined to take the easy road, and obey. She followed Duncan with all the passivity of a stereotypical teenage girl indulging in her first love. (I am aware that not all teenage girls are sheep just because they have boyfriends, having been a deeply stubborn teenager; Veronica, however, seemed to believe that being in love with Duncan meant being a character out of a stereotypical YA romance novel, all doves and flowers and flowing draperies.) She followed orders from the adults around her, and had very little reason to exercise a moral code, even though she clearly had one. She was, in short, exactly the sort of girl who hangs with the popular crowd in every high school, but is forgotten ten minutes after graduation, because they were just hangers-on. It thus makes sense that a return to normalcy would involve a return to a more passive role, at least for someone whose standards for 'normal' were originally set the way Veronica's were. Her trading Logan for Duncan isn't just a matter of 'one of them is being batshit crazy and the other one is actively wooing me'; it's trading the active for the passive. How did Logan win her? By punching a man, by racing to her defense in forum after forum, by actively attempting to keep her from harm, and by initiating acts of physical affection. How did Duncan win her? Through passivity. He comes to the coffee shop, he presents himself as harmless, he gives her gifts, and he slowly nudges the world around to where their actual reunion is an anti-climax. By picking Duncan, Veronica picked both a return to the past, and a return to the passive. Life with Logan may not be any better or any worse, but it would be undeniably active, and finding Lilly's killer means that she has the right to turn her back on the future, at least in her own eyes, at least for now. Duncan's relatively heartless-seeming exchange of Meg for Veronica can be directly rooted into this same syndrome. Meg was, after all, in many ways his substitute for pre-Lilly's death (shortened from here on out as 'pre-LD', because I'm lazy) Veronica: she was popular, pretty, not from one of the better-to-do families in town, on the pep squad, and reasonably willing to be a follower instead of a leader. Her evident devotion to Duncan was enough to allow her to fill the Veronica role to at least enough of an extent to make it worth trying. When Veronica seemed to be returning to 'his' Veronica, however, the urge to return to a more peaceful time made her seem like the more appropriate choice, and so he fled back to her, looking for a girl that no longer existed. His discomfort with this exchange becomes evident fairly quickly, as Veronica is rather clearly playing a part that she's no longer any good at, but too much has been disrupted in his life; too many pieces have been knocked out, and won't be coming back, no matter what he does. Giving up Veronica, even after the disturbing changes that have been made in her by the past year, would be too much like giving up on Lilly completely. Let me note that I am not questioning whether Duncan and Veronica love each other, or whether they did love each other at one time: it is quite possible to love someone based entirely on a person that they no longer are. I don't think that Duncan has changed all that much; really, I think the emotional stasis that he's forced himself into is a great deal of the problem. Duncan is a constant state of 'is', with no option for change, because he won't allow it. Duncan is in love with Veronica. Never mind that she's become a stranger; he knows that he is in love with her, and he can't let that be false, because to allow it to be false would be to admit that he's different now, and that's the last thing he wants to do. So he remains in love with someone he can't fully comprehend, and things just keep getting worse between them. Veronica, meanwhile, is someone who is in love with Duncan Kane, and moreover, can see fairly clearly that he really hasn't changed. Ergo, since she's back to normal, back to her pre-LD life, and she hasn't changed, she must still be in love with Duncan. It's not negotiable. Logan is also suffering from this urge to return to the norm, although to lesser degree than the others. Veronica is, after all, a Lilly cognate by the end of season one, and while I do feel that Logan, having witnessed this change with clearer eyes than either Duncan or Veronica herself, is genuinely in love with who Veronica is, the fact that she doesn't know that person means that their relationship is fairly doomed, and that much of Logan's attraction, at least initially, is very likely founded on her similarities to Lilly. Unlike the others involved in this little circuit, however, he's more aware of it, and thus has more of a shot at still loving Veronica once she's found out who she is...and once he learns that fact for himself. 3. Once you become a Queen Bee, you can't go back to being a worker. Oddly, it's the character of Jackie that throws the changes in Veronica into the sharpest, and most undeniable, light. Jackie is, after all, arrogant, bitchy, pushy, and utterly convinced that she's going to get her own way in all things. She's an alpha female, very much like Lilly was, and it's only the undeniable affection felt towards Lilly by most of the cast that saved her from being as unlikable a character as many have found Jackie. (Well, that, and the fact that we really see Lilly only at her best, through flashbacks. We never actually see Lilly being as heartless as her position in the local social structure would have sometimes -- often, even -- forced her to be.) Given Veronica's pre-LD position in the social structure, she should have welcomed Jackie with open arms, and gladly changed positions to follow her. That is, after all, what she's claiming to want. Only she doesn't do it. While protesting that she's just another drone in the great hive of Neptune High, Veronica sets herself up to face off against Jackie as only another Queen Bee would dare to do, questioning her choices, undermining her embryonic authority within the circle that, under natural circumstances, she would eventually come to rule. Veronica is, in short, resenting a new Queen coming to town -- not just because Jackie would be taking Lilly's place in the social structure, but because Veronica, on some level, has lost the ability to follow. The changes she has made in herself run too deeply, and her rejection of Jackie shows that her vaunted normalcy is really just a veneer slapped over the surface of the 'true' Veronica. Veronica's apparent selfishness is also supported by this contradiction. In her pre-LD life, she would have had Lilly to check and balance her -- basically, to tell her 'no' and set firm limitations. With Lilly gone, all those limitations were lifted in a way that didn't seem all that bad; they had been lifted by Lilly, in leaving, and because they had been lifted, she could do what was required to get Lilly back. Solving the mystery would, in some way, return the limitations, because it was going to make everything exactly the way that it used to be. Only it didn't quite work out that way; Lilly didn't return, and the only person actually setting limits on her -- Keith -- is someone whose limits she spent the last year learning to ignore. Duncan doesn't expect Veronica to need limits, because he always associated with her in tandem with Lilly, who limited her naturally. Wallace and Mac have never been in a position to put those limits down. The two characters most likely to act as a functional limiting factor on Veronica, given the social constraints that already exist, are Weevil and Logan. Weevil because he's outside the social hierarchy, and has no qualms about questioning her actions or blind acceptance of 'the way things are'; Logan because, despite his own dependence on the past, he has previously lived with and been in a position to place some limitations upon a full-blown Lilly. Even in her Queen Bee state, Veronica's selfishness and tendency to demand her own way has nothing on the behaviours we've seen from and heard attributed to the late, lamented Lilly Kane. People have questioned the reasons for including Jackie, a character who didn't really seem to have a role, in the cast. I say that her role was a very simple one. Just as Meg represented Veronica's original, innocent state, Jackie represented the darker parts of being Lilly, and of following a Lilly. Veronica, for all her protests of normalcy, can't be fully devoted to either of them. She can neither become Meg, nor embrace Jackie. The world has moved on, and the only people trying to pretend that it hasn't are Veronica, and Duncan. They're the ones trying to freeze themselves in time and space, and are thus, inevitably, the ones that are going to fail. 4. Where do we go from here? The lie of normalcy -- the illusion the normal is the ideal, and is something that can be achieved just by trying hard enough -- is one that, like all lies in the world of Neptune, is inevitably doomed to failure. We can see the cracks forming well before we hit the climactic events of 'Driver's Ed'; they're present every time someone reminds Veronica that for the past year, she wasn't normal, and every time we see her trying to force herself back into a role that she has, quite frankly, outgrown. For the moment, however, it remains a necessary role, because lies only die in Neptune when you prove that they're not the truth. If Veronica walked away from 'normal' right here and right now, before proving to herself that it no longer worked, she'd never get over it, just like Duncan couldn't get over her without getting her back, and no one could get over Lilly without closure. Right here and now, Veronica is in an abusive relationship, and the name of her partner is 'The Status Quo'. But just like the death of a loved one can deify them and make them impossible to move beyond, the way she lost her original, normal state has been romanticized to such a degree that the only way to say 'y'know, maybe it's better off gone' is to get back together, play through the emotional abuse, and finally come to the breakup on her own terms. The breakup is coming. It's coming fast, and it's coming hard, because Veronica is starting to understand the limits of her chosen place in society. It's not going to take that much more to make her realize that while she doesn't have to be Lilly, the Veronica she's pretending to be died, quietly, in her sleep, at some point over the last year. And really, that's for the best.

[marshmallow-the-vampire-slayer]

MTVS Epic Rewatch #160

BTVS 6x10 Wrecked

Stray Thoughts

1) To me, “Wrecked” is “Dead Man’s Party”/”Empty Places” levels of uncomfortable to watch. It’s worse than a train wreck because you’re not morbidly compelled to watch in spite of yourself. I had to will myself to watch this, that’s how dreadful it was for me. Even more so because I find it hard to buy the parallels the writers were so eager to draw between Willow’s and Buffy’s predicament. Yes, Buffy and Willow are far removed from the characters we grew to love in the early seasons. Willow is hooked on magic, smug and reckless. Buffy is depressed, detached and apathetic. The difference is, Willow has found herself on a path she chose for herself (the writers suddenly deciding to equate magic with drugs does not negate the fact that Willow came to magic of her own volition and that the show had not treated magic as a drug prior to this season...), while Buffy is trying to deal with the wreckage of a situation that was thrust upon her without her consent (by none other than Willow...) Moreover, Willow’s abuse of magic and recklessness have tangible repercussions on those around her. It’s not even that her friends might suffer collateral damage, she had been actively using magic to manipulate and abuse them. Buffy’s “drug”, on the other hand, is Spike. While her relationship with him was definitely unhealthy, she wasn’t hurting anyone other than probably herself and Spike (although that’s not the reason why by the end of the episode she chose to stay away from him - sparing his feelings wasn’t her priority, she was trying to protect her friends ¿?) I think there’s a big difference between “My friends won’t like/will disapprove of what I’m doing with my life [the person I’m banging]” and “I am emotionally and physically hurting my friends with what I’m doing with my life [abusing magic]”

So, while I can understand why Buffy is reluctant to continue her affair with Spike (and tbh even as a Spuffy shipper I wish she would’ve drawn the line here), her sleeping with Spike is hardly equivalent to Willow’s abuse of magic in terms of the consequences for those around them. 

Okay, long introduction over. I just had to get that off my chest before it had been nagging at me since I finished the episode. 

2) 

BUFFY: When... When did the building fall down? SPIKE: I don't know. Must have been sometime between the first time and the, uh...

3) 

SPIKE: I just don't see why you have to run off so quick. Thought we could...

BUFFY: Not gonna happen. Last night was the end of this freak show.

SPIKE: Don't say that.

BUFFY: What did you think was gonna happen? What, we're gonna read the newspaper together, play footsie under the rubble?

Buffy wasn’t really tactful, but she was making a good point. 

4) Of course, even if she didn’t picture babies and a house in the suburbs with Spike, she does enjoy fooling around with him. And I get it, girl. It doesn’t last too long, though, because Spike being Spike he had to be all gross and...

SPIKE: I knew. I knew the only thing better than killing a slayer would be f... BUFFY: What?!

That sets her off, and she quickly dismisses his theory that she’s a vampire groupie by setting Angel apart from him and calling Spike “convenient”. 

And while that’s true, I don’t think it was only about “convenience”. If she only needed to have sex with someone, she could’ve tried and find someone else. Someone she wasn’t supposedly disgusted by. Or a dildo, which is far less problematic and occasionally far more efficient, lbr. And while Spike was convenient in the sense that A) he was there, and B) he was following her around like a puppy and declaring his love at every turn, Buffy wouldn’t have slept with him if she hadn’t been attracted/turned-on by him, you know?

5) OMG, Tara reverts to stuttering when Willow shows up with Amy, that’s how much it hurt her to think that Willow was already dating someone else. 

And then Willow tries to set her straight by explaining it was Amy the Rat but instead of making things better, she makes everything a million times worse because that’s how Tara knows she hasn’t quit doing magic. And if there was something more hurtful than Willow dating someone, it was Willow doing magic in spite of the fact that was the reason Tara had left her. I think Tara definitely feels like Willow cared more about magic than she did about her, you know?

6) 

DAWN: You should rest. You're beat from monster-wrestling all night.

7) I know I’ve called Willow lazy before, but in all fairness, I would totally use magic to try and shut the curtains while I’m curled up in bed. Except Willow was all drained out of magic because of the previous night. See? That’s what happens when you go on a magic-binge: there’s none left for the important stuff like shutting the curtains without leaving the warm of your bed.

8) I believe this theory 100%

XANDER: Anya has a theory. She thinks that Martha Stewart froze that guy. ANYA: Don't be ridiculous. Martha Stewart isn't a demon. She's a witch. XANDER: Please, she... Really? ANYA: Of course. Nobody could do that much decoupage without calling on the powers of darkness.

9) See 1) above. Buffy tries to defend Willow because she’s seeing herself reflected in Xander’s and Anya’s comments, but the difference is, Willow’s actions were hurting others (as well as herself.)

BUFFY: She's just... helping Amy through a transition. XANDER: And making herself a playmate to do magic with. Someone who won't monitor her like Tara. BUFFY: No, Willow's a grown-up. You know, maybe she doesn't need to be monitored. You know, she's going through something, but we're not her. I mean ... m-maybe she has reasons for acting this way. And, so what if she crossed a line? You know, we all do stuff. Stupid stuff. But, then we learn. And, and we learn, and, and we don't do it again. Okay, so, you know, who are we to get all judgey?

XANDER: Not judgey, Buff. Just, observey. ANYA: Yeah, all we're saying is, she's acting different. You know, she's not herself.

10) Considering Amy had been a rat for over three years, that means she had been visiting Rack while she was a teenager... which is super creepy for all sorts of reasons but especially the one below...

11) If you read the whole Rack scenes in terms of the magic=drugs metaphor, Amy and Willow were basically prostituting themselves for drugs/magic...

RACK: Amy said. Amy said I could help you. But did Amy say how you could help me?

WILLOW: No, I-I have some money, a-a bit-

RACK: Not money.

WILLOW: Well, I could help you with your computer, I'm really handy-

RACK: Just relax, I'm not gonna hurt you. You gotta give a little to get a little, right?

AMY: It's okay. It's over fast.

RACK: That's right. I'm just gonna take a little tour.

Yikes, show. Y I K E S.

12) This scene is Trainspotting levels of creepy/scary...

13) This is so sad...

14) I love the running joke about how slaying makes you hungry... and horny...

DAWN: I'll leave a note for Buffy on the refrigerator. That's the first place she goes after patrolling. She's such a pig after she kills things.

15) This show is usually so good when it comes to writing metaphors into the narrative. I mean, the metaphors are not exactly subtle (like Angel losing his soul and ditching Buffy after having sex with her...) but they aren’t heavy-handed either. Except for the magic=drugs metaphor. I usually pride myself in saying that BTVS is a show that doesn’t underestimate its viewers’ intelligence, but let’s be real, the writers must’ve thought we were a bunch of dimwits if they thought they had to go this far to hammer the metaphor into us. I mean...

16) Oh, Dawnie! There’s nothing wrong with a meat party in your mouth, as long as you are of age and consent to it ;)

WILLOW: So, the burger was good? You liked it? DAWN: Are you kidding? It was like a meat party in my mouth. Okay, now I'm just a kid, and even *I* know that came out wrong.

17) Willow starts asking Dawn questions about Tara, like if she was sad or if she had mentioned Willow in their conversation. (which was kind of shitty in itself - I mean, you shouldn’t bring a 15-year-old girl into your relationship drama, you know? even if said girl has shown approval of your relationship and wants you to get back together with your ex...) And in my mind I was like: “Oh, okay, so this must be when she makes the decision to go to Rack’s, because talking about Tara triggered her and she needed the palliative.” Like, I could almost understand why she needed the magic/drugs. But then Dawn notices they have been walking down the wrong path for a while, which means that Willow was set on visiting Rack - and dragging Dawn along - before bringing Tara up. So, uncool all around. 

18) 

DAWN: Well, what about the movie? It starts at nine.

WILLOW: We'll make it. I, I'll just be a minute. And it doesn't matter if we miss the trailers.

DAWN: I like the trailers.

So do I, Dawn :(

19) OH MY GOD, SHOW, WE GET IT! MAGIC = DRUGS!! 

20) I’m both Buffy and Spike, tbh.

BUFFY: Last night... was the most perverse... degrading experience of my life. SPIKE: Yeah. Me too.

21) Even as Buffy continues to claim she’s disgusted by Spike and herself for agreeing to have sex with him, she’s really not as adamant as she used to be when actual feelings - his or her own - were brought up in their conversations. Like, when he tells her that she knows he loves her, she doesn’t refute this statement as she would’ve done before (”you’re in love with pain” “you don’t know what feelings are”.) Moreover, when Spike argues that their night together made her feel something, she quietly tells him: “Not love” instead of dismissing the idea of feeling something for him altogether. 

22) So, the super witch runs into ther magic-created monster, and she can’t do shit to fend him off? It’s the meek 15-year-old girl who has to do it.

And like 5 seconds after being scared shittless, she’s playing Mario Kart with the car she hijacked and laughing it off, not paying attention to the girl sitting next to her who is rightfully terrified and screaming in fear?

See? This is what I mean when I say Willow thought she was almighty. She honestly believed she could do no wrong. Even in a situation in which has clearly fucked up, she still believes she’s going to get her way. And yes, I get she was highor whatever, but this still was Willow only heightened.

23) ugh this scene is so difficult to watch, but damn did she have it coming...

(the screenshot makes it look kind of hilarious, though, but it’s so uncomfortable to watch)

24) But then Willow breaks down and it’s hard not to feel for her because we can tell she’s truly sorry. And this is why I love Buffy so damn much...

In spite of what Willow had put Dawn through and in spite of her own anger at her friend, Buffy still understands that Willow needs her, and so she casts her own feelings aside and finds it in her to comfort and help her. This is why she’s a hero - her never-ending forgiveness and selflessness.

25) Okay, this is why I believe Willow didn’t need a trigger (Tara’s death) to go dark...

WILLOW: I don't know. The magic, I... I thought I had it under control, and then... I didn't. (...) But I mean... if you could be... you know, plain old Willow or super Willow, who would you be? (...)

BUFFY: Will, there's nothing wrong with you. You don't need magic to be special.

WILLOW: Don't I? I mean, Buffy, who was I? Just... some girl. Tara didn't even know that girl.

Tell me if this doesn’t have “supervillain origin story” written all over it. 

26) “It’s over.”

Easier said than done, isn’t it?