#shakespeare may be one of my obsessions lol

[slay00ryu]

could you explain how to write the kc li's? am having trouble writing ronin and such, and you are one of my friends so am requesting your help - ronins pretty princess

N "explaining" how they write the love interests :D

So for starters, I will do it in a form of small notes? I'm not that good at explaining and I will maybe try to show some examples. I had a hard time too so I can understand why it can be hard.

Also there's not really a one correct way to write them, you can always take artistic liberties so I will focus more on giving their personalities based on what we see in the game.

Spoilers for Killer Chat!

Ronin - The Devil's Butcher

Oh, Ronin, Ronin, Ronin.

He is actually the easiest one to write, for me at least.

Ronin has a strong sarcastic personality, he speaks in riddles and wants to fuck with the player's mind.

He's main goal when he's the person who you're trying to woo in the game is to corrupt you, so it's adviced to make the reader be in the middle of said corruption or be corrupted, when you're kissing him in his ending the reader is already corrupted enough to love him: "Oh, I love it when you're rotten and mine [...]" he tells you that you are his fallen angel so to speak.

Ronin hates monotony and boredom, so the reader has to be interesting for him, or he will get bored and either leave or kill them.

Oh yeah, killing the reader. Ronin sees us taking his life, or him taking ours as the most romantic thing ever. So would he see us murdering for him, we're killers, our hands are stained with blood and that's all for him. Isn't this romantic?

Ronin is possessive in a way, he won't show jealousy, he's ruined you why would you try to leave him for someone else? You're his, you and he are well aware of it. But it doesn't change the fact that he would mark you and keep you on your toes just to make sure that you wouldn't think about leaving him.

Our man is touch starved, maybe he won't cuddle with you for two hour straight, but he will poke you to annoy you, play with your hair, wrap an arm around your shoulders etc. Small touched are also a form of physical touch.

Of course, not everything has to be happy, Ronin also might experience dark times. Gender dysphoria might get its way into his head. He may think of Ther and be a little bit in despair because of it, but don't fret, you don't have to put that in EVERY fanfic.

Ronin as we all know loves to bastardise Shakespeare, or sometimes drop a line from the Bible for shits and giggles.

His brand is being the Devil so the reader could stroke his ego by calling him the Devil in some ways.

Ronin wouldn't want the reader to be completely obsessed with him, to the extend when they breathe and live for him. With no personality or interests. Not only would they be just plainly boring, he would probably be annoyed with and feel perhaps guilty for making them into this mess.

If the MC dies or breaks up with Ronin in bad blood, he would be in despair, maybe there wouldn't be any tears, but it would show. More murders, getting tense or angry when your name is mentioned etc.

V - The Vigilante

Ah, my favourite batman. Well that's one way to explain V. He is like him, but he actually kills the beasts that stain our world.

He has a strong moral code, of course there are some loose crews like the one time when the player actually told him not go sell Ronin to the police. So with his strong moral code, the reader has to be someone who will not kill people Ronin style, their murders have to be for a reason, or the reader may be someone who doesn't kill people and is "pure" in a sense.

He is a gentleman - the Brit in him i showing lol - so it is a good idea to write him as such. Gentle kisses on the back of readers hand, opening door of them etc.

V is an animal lover, but he would deny that of course, so it would be great if the reader was fond of animals too.

He would be protective of us, make sure to keep us safe from danger and keep a tab on the people who are in our life and seem too suspicious for his liking.

His love language is "acts of service" so maybe getting rid of someone dangerous for you, helping you with hard tasks or chores, he would do anything that would be help of you and wouldn't cross the lines of his morale.

He may appear cold and distant, but you can see his love in a soft and warm gaze, gentle smiles or small touches here and there. He's like a black cat basically.

V is supportive of the reader, with their hobbies or work. He would be ready to listen to the reader's yap about some ideas for a new book they want to write.

Misaki - The Assassin

Misaki, they are a silly goof most of the time. They would definitely use genz and gen alpha terms. Expect them to call the reader "Pookie" or something along the lines as their pet name.

Whenever they come to visit the reader or the reader visits them, they have a small gift prepared - their love language is gifts giving.

They are Asian so the reader shouldn't hate on their parents just because Misaki has to send them money to help them. Asian families are uh more complicated so mingling into that would be seen as crossing a line.

Misaki is anxious, they fear disappointing someone or get extremely stressed with their "jobs" so the reader should support them.

Misaki is open for anything, you want to become a cannibal? "Go for it babe, become the maneater!" They would be so hyper about it or maybe joke if the idea is too unhinged.

They are a very caring person, so if you are troubled they will go out of their way to help you, and be there for you.

It could take a while for them to open up 100%, but after opening themselves about their poor living situation and family issues, it definitely will be easier.

She seems like someone who would send you random memes or pics they took or found and say smh like 'it reminds me of you".

Maria de la Rosa - The Angel

Yes, the maneating perfectionist. She's married to her work, but the reader would be able to help her with this issue, like how they helped her with that motherfu- Finian! Just don't pressure her to change immediately, it takes time.

She loves quality time, it's very important to her. So just watch some movie with her, go on a date and be there with her. And maybe let her snuggle up to you when she needs it.

You have to accept Ronin as your supervisor and biggest enemy at the same time, if you fuck up something with Angel, she would let it slide, but Ronin? Hell no, that's his ex gf and bestie, if you hurt her, he will make sure that Angel get rid of you as a way to heal.

Angel would promote you on her social media, your book or your cafe? She left a honest - usually positive - opinion about it and her fans would just be your biggest donators.

Angel isn't possessive or obsessive, but she can be insecure. Are you okay with dating her when she has such a busy schedule? Are you fine with the paparazzi? Just be there for her and reassure her about everything.

She's the definition of "people pleaser". Her friend has a shitty menager? He's gone. Her fans didn't like her new video? She will never do something like that again, unless you convince her that it's really okay or that she should continue to do what she wants. She's stubborn that's for sure, but hey, small steps are important!

Ofc it's albit more complicated than this, most of the things I write are taken from my interpretation of the game, Rose's tumbrl posts or other fanfics, take inspo if you're unsure of something, or ask others for their opinions. :D

Hope it is helpful in some way T-T

Bye, love ya

-N<3

[starrrbakerrr]

“star-crossed lovers”

I have a thought that might have been discussed before, but Katniss and Peeta are referred to as “star-crossed lovers” by the Capitol. “Star-crossed lovers” was coined by Shakespeare in the prologue of his play Romeo and Juliet. When I think of star-crossed lovers my mind goes to the archetypal forbidden love of Romeo and Juliet, which mirrors the narrative the Capitol creates between Peeta and Katniss.

As we know, Romeo and Juliet is a text from centuries ago. We don’t know how far into the future Panem is – I always imagine at least 100 year in the future. We know very little of Panem’s history before the Dark Days, such as how long Panem has existed, but it’s safe to say at least 100 years.

I can’t find this quote for the life of me. I might have imagined it lol, but if I remember correctly, early in Mockingjay Plutarch tells Katniss about their plans for society after the rebellion. Plutarch says in “old history books” there’s something called ✨democracy✨ that they want to use. (side note: I remember Katniss saying something like “it led to where we are now” and that’s why I want to find it so badly lol)

So we know that the government of Panem are aware of the political history of the United States. But how would they know the term “star-crossed lovers”? District children are only taught their trade and Panem propaganda, so they wouldn’t know history before the Dark Days or what “star-crossed lovers” are. As for the Capitol citizens and children, they may have more freedom in education but I can’t imagine them knowing anything about North American society before Panem (they are even more susceptible to Panem propaganda), so how would they know about European literature? And we also know that Capitol citizens are more shallow and self-obsessed than they are intelligent so I can’t imagine them reading a book, much less Shakespeare.

It seems by the first Hunger Games novel all history of what existed before Panem has been destroyed except what little information the government had on the US. Sort of like the Nazis burning books and art - art, newspapers, books, monuments, and many artifacts are all gone. The progression of technology lasted, a lot Appalachian culture still exists in D12, the land somehow persisted, music/dance styles evolved, but it appears no one really is certain what American society was. And it seems that Panem exists in total isolation from other continents so it doesn’t make complete sense for Romeo and Juliet, a European text, to be passed down as oral history, thus for Panem to know what “star-crossed lovers” are.

I thought very far into this (probably more than it should be), but my only explanation is that Shakespeare is either ~timeless~ and the play still exists somehow, or maybe it’s a term that is still thrown around but no one really knows where it came from.

[douglas-rain]

Top Five Douglas Rain Recommendations From Yours Truly

You want to see more of Douglas Rain, but you're not sure where to start? Well, do I have the thing for you! As the internet's most preeminent Douglas Rain expert (except for Gerry Flahive I guess, but he's kind of slow at answering emails and more focused on other stuff these days. If he wants to reclaim the title, he can meet me in the parking lot <3), I've made you a handy little list of some of my personal favourite performances by DR that I think you should see and/or hear!

And by 'little' I mean 'I got way too into this, so it's pretty long now'. I put it under a cut; you're welcome.

In the interest of fairness, I've chosen one performance from each of his fields of work (namely: ON STAGE, RADIO WORK, DOCUMENTARY NARRATION, TELEVISION and FILM). Please know, however, that I can give reviews of basically everything in the masterpost, so if you're interested in hearing about any of them, feel free to shoot me an ask!

Without further ado, let's get into it...

-

ON STAGE: Henry V (1966)

Okay, this one's teeeechnically a TV movie, but it's adapted from Stratford's staged production, so I'm counting it. It's also a rare treat in that we get to see DR in colour! (Everybody say THANK YOU to David Rain, his son, for bullying the Festival into restoring this production and adding it to their online catalogue. I owe him my life.)

This is one of Shakespeare's histories, part of the Henriad (aka the collection of plays about the accomplishments of various English kings). Henry V, the main guy in this one, is actually the crowned version of Prince Hal from both parts of Henry IV, a role that DR had played previously at Stratford, so this is a fun bit of character continuity for him! The play centres around the king's invasion of France, with a lot of ruminating on hope and despair and duty and bravery. Harry - as he is affectionately referred to on occasion - is really going through it, and DR portrays him with such emotional intensity. He's proud, he's fierce, he's clever, he's a BITCH and I like him SO MUCH.

The book has been edited down slightly to fit into a two hour runtime for television, but beyond a few... very funny jumpcuts, it's not really noticeable at all. And while the sets are kept mostly simple, the costumes are gorgeous. I went in not expecting much (a mistake I keep making when approaching Shakespeare plays, for some reason lol), and was thoroughly entertained the whole way through!

It also contains the transcendentally funny line, "Tennis balls, my liege!" because Shakespeare was the most hysterical motherfucker on planet Earth. It makes sense in context, I promise.

Can be found on Stratfest@Home, the online streaming service of the Stratford Festival (there's a 7-day free trial period if you sign up). You may also check my masterpost of performances for a possible alternative, but shhh.

-

RADIO WORK: Fifth Business (1980)

I love this one; it's literally so fucking funny. This radio play is a dramatisation of the 1970 novel of the same name by Robertson Davies. Fifth Business recounts the life story of Dunstable "Dunstan" Ramsay, from his boyhood in an idyllic (on the surface only) Canadian village to his experiences in the First World War, his career as a teacher and all the loves and complications he runs into, and the formative experiences peppering his life where he's never quite the main character. He is instead 'fifth business' - neither hero nor villain, but still integral to resolving the play's plot. Ramsay is clever, sarcastic and a goddamn weirdo who's obsessed with saints for non-religious reasons. He dodged a snowball as a kid and the consequences of that haunt him throughout the entire book.

The radio drama features a whole cast of actors, including of course DR as the protagonist (who also narrates everything btw), doing an absolutely delightful job. Fellow Stratford actress Martha Henry, who also happened to be his wife at the time, is in it too!

The entire drama is delightful, honestly. I liveblogged my experience listening to it for the first time, and man there is some wild shit happening in this novel. The entire things is about three and a half hours, but it really doesn't feel that long.

Can be found (in eight parts) on YouTube or on Archive.org. (Or in a junkbox on a sidewalk in Toronto. I'm still baffled by that.)

-

DOCUMENTARY NARRATION: Universe (1960)

A classic. Documentaries make up a sizeable chunk of the masterpost (thanks to the NFB website and archive channels on YouTube), so there were more options in this category than in any of the others. But I decided to go with this particular gem of a documentary.

It's about - who would have guessed - the universe, featuring the most advanced scientific knowledge of planets and stars at the time. The special effects are also quite impressive - if you move around Space Odyssey circles, you may have heard that the visuals of this documentary were a major inspiration for 2001. Also, DR's narration in Universe is what brought him to Stanley Kubrick's attention. You can probably guess how that ended. (Gerry Flahive has some articles about the whole thing if you don't.)

Anyway, Universe is a beautiful and meditative look at our galaxy and the many things it contains, and DR's narration is absolutely lovely. It clocks in at just under half an hour, so not that big of a time commitment either.

Can be found on YouTube or on the NFB website.

-

TELEVISION: William Lyon Mackenzie: A Friend To His Country (1961)

It's so hard to find old Canadian TV shows anywhere online and I'm forever bitter about it. Our options here are incredibly limited as a result, so you're just going to have to accept that I'm recommending you a historical short film from 1961, alright? This is as difficult for me as it is for you.

Unsurprisingly, this movie is about William Lyon Mackenzie, who was... *checks Wikipedia* "a Scottish Canadian-American journalist and politician." Yes, DR is doing a Scottish accent in this role. Yes, I adore it. I know very little about Canadian history, so I can't exactly speak to the film's accuracy, but I found it charming and DR is doing a very good job. Most of the half hour runtime is spent on Mackenzie's various political struggles (some sort of failed revolution, I gather, followed by exile in the United States and some jailtime) and him trying to protect his family. His wife is played by Canadian actress Kate Reid in this movie, which I personally find very funny for... reasons. IYKYK.

Can be found on YouTube or on the NFB website.

-

FILM: OEDIPUS REX (1957)

I'm sort of cheating again, but the only other options in this category that I have access to are the two Space Odyssey movies, and they seemed like too basic of a choice. So have some more drama instead! This is also a filmed version of one of Stratford's plays, but released in theatres this time.

Oedipus Rex is a breezy 87 minutes and adapts the English translation by Yeats of the classic Greek tragedy by Sophocles, with a little added prologue to set the scene. It was directed by Tyrone Guthrie, who you might remember as the Big Man from The Stratford Adventure. Or from the fact that he was a pretty famous theatre guy. If you need a refresher on your Greek myths: Oedipus was the guy who was prophesised to kill his father and marry his mother. He got done dirty by Freud somewhere down the line.

DR plays the role of the Messenger, a minor part who recounts some of the most famous plot points of the tragedy of Oedipus, which they couldn't show onscreen/onstage. Granted, he's only in this one for like five minutes, but he really rocks up to crash the party wearing the coolest outfit in the entire show. And yes, everyone in this production is wearing Greek theatre masks, so you can't see his face. You get to hear his voice though - and watch his captivating body language!

Can be found on YouTube. Or you can probably buy it on DVD if you really want to; idk, I'm not the boss of you. (I've also clipped his scene if you really, really don't want to watch the whole play. I get it's a big ask. Really beautiful production though, seriously!)

[trisscar368]

Jonathan Harker is misquoting Hamlet.

“Up to now I never quite knew what Shakespeare meant when he made Hamlet say:—

"My tablets! quick, my tablets!

'Tis meet that I put it down," etc.,

for now, feeling as though my own brain were unhinged or as if the shock had come which must end in its undoing, I turn to my diary for repose. The habit of entering accurately must help to soothe me.”

The passage in question is from Act 1, scene 5 (line 107 to be precise).

Yea, from the table of my memory

I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,

All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,

That youth and observation copied there;

And thy commandment all alone shall live

Within the book and volume of my brain,

Unmix'd with baser matter: yes, by heaven!

O most pernicious woman!

O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!

My tables,--meet it is I set it down,

That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain

Hamlet here has just been confronted by the ghost of his father the King, and told that his mother the Queen helped his Uncle to kill his father. He’s had a very similar realization to dear Jonathan that something is deeply, unnaturally wrong. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark Transylvania, and the supernatural walks the earth.

Now prior to the play beginning, Hamlet was a student at Wittenberg, which is a university town in Germany (where Martin Luther and many reformers taught, and known as the home of one Doctor Johannes Faust). The tables he’s referencing are writing tables - a rather ingenious erasable notebook. The pages were covered in wax, and you could make notes with a metal stylus and then wipe the page clean with a wet sponge. When Hamlet was written there were no graphite pencils (pensils, which are mentioned prior to that era, were a type of paintbrush) and fountain pens wouldn’t be invented till the 1700s. If you were going to write something in ink you needed someplace to sit; a writing table was portable, like Jonathan’s journal. But they were expensive to make, and by the 1890s the technology was long forgotten. [x]

So dear Jonathan is misquoting a passage about memory and note taking, saying now he understands why taking writing things down is so important. But Jonathan doesn’t have the history to understand what those “tablets” actually were. That was lost when modern technology came about. And he doesn’t understand what Hamlet is doing.

It’s easy in context to understand that the reference is to school and note taking, but you must have the whole instead of just the one line to see the picture. Hamlet is replacing his prior life with this new knowledge and commandment (avenge me!), he is rewriting himself and starting down a dangerous path. He’s been exposed to a horror and it’s changed the genre of his life.

That is very accurate. Jonathan just doesn’t understand yet. Nor does he understand how applicable the passage is to the Count - one may smile, and smile, and still be a villain. All the politeness and courtesies Dracula extends hides something dangerous.

It’s very in theme with the novel - it’s not until Mina and Jonathan begin to gather all the letters and journals, putting together the context, that they understand what they’re dealing with. Something forgotten, something lost when the world modernized.

——

Now, there is a Doyleist reason that Jonathan is misquoting this passage - reportedly a friend of Stoker’s, Henry Irving, insisted on the line being said thus during his performances of Hamlet. Irving was rather well known for misquoting Shakespeare and his performances sound … colorful, to say the least. So there is at least one reference to a man who sounds very like a certain Count slapping on a mustache to pretend to be a carriage driver :D

[ritikajyala]

I really admire your work, they're beautifully written. I was wondering if you could recommend me some books and poems that you like or ones that inspire you

Thank you so much, I'm glad my work resonates with you♡

Here are few of my absolute favorite reads-

1. Leaves of grass by Walt Whitman

2. Call me by your name by Andre Aciman

3. The song of achilles by Madelline miller

4. To kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee

5. 1984 by George Orwell

6. We were liars by E. Lockhart

7. The Chalkman by C. J. Tudor

8. Crush by Richard Siken

9. And every morning the way home gets longer and longer by Frederick Backman

10. Pride and prejudice(obviously and all of Jane Austen)

11. The secret history by Donna Tartt

12. On earth we're briefly gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

13. The da Vinci code by Dan Brown

14. Atonement by Ian McEwan

15. The brutal art by Jesse Kellerman

16. Alias Grace by Margaret Attwood

17. Veronica decides to die by Paulo Coelho

18. Norwegian wood by Haruki Murakami

19. Coraline by Neil Gaiman

20. All works of Agatha Christie

21. All works of Edgar Allan Poe

22. We are all the same in the dark by Julia Heaberlin

23. All works of Khalil Gibran

24. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

25. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

26. All works of Rick Riordan

27. Wuthering heights by Emily Brontë

28. The hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo

29. All works of Oscar Wilde

30. All works of Arthur Conan Doyle

31. All works of Shakespeare but especially Macbeth and Othello

32. The childhood staples(Harry Potter, Hunger games, Maze runner, etc.)

33. The seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

34. Illiad and Odyssey by Homer

35. Normal people by Sally Rooney

36. Epic of Gilgamesh

37. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

38. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

39. The great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald

40. All works of Hanif Abdurraqib

41. All works of Mahmoud Darwish

42. Kafka's letters to Milena and letters to his father

43. F. A. I. T. H. on wattpad

44. All works of Adrienne Rich

45. I know why the caged bird sings by Maya Angelou

46. The perks of being a wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

47. They both die at the end by Adam Silvera

48. Ella minnow pea by Mark Dunn

49. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

50. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

I'm sorry the list is so long, once I started I just couldn't stop lol, I'm absolutely obsessed with books and discovering new writers and poets. I hope you find some good picks here.

[grandhotelabyss]

First of all, lol. Second, this reminds me of something I really do blame the CIA or at least the “deep state” for, in part anyway. 

The present right-wing turn in culture, such as it is, should have happened in about 2014. We should be past it by now. Even a decade ago, though, the leading institutions were becoming brittle, unable to think in three dimensions. They couldn’t accommodate themselves by coopting, aestheticizing, and thereby politically neutralizing so predictable an artistic shift away from the cloying tones of the New Sincerity and the Obama-to-Occupy era of mass youth movements that failed to deliver on their utopian promise. They were already concluding that any art not didactic was crypto-fascist, instead of the truer converse according to which autonomous art secures civil freedom and fortifies the free citizen’s intellect. Ironically, these soon-to-be “anti-fascists” thought about art the way Goebbels did, in a purely instrumental and identitarian way, whereas those aesthetes they stigmatized as fascist were echoing a host of liberal and leftist thinkers from Mill to Adorno. But to understand irony, you already have to be an aesthete.

By the time Trump was elected and the legacy media in collaboration with the deep state got involved, art didn’t stand a chance; so we had half a decade of rolling top-down moral panics where a culture should have been. New networks, therefore, began to be assembled on the outside and have by now accrued the so-called cultural capital that comes in a revolutionary culture like ours when you build transgressive alternatives to whatever is moralistic and platitudinous. 

But my point is that Lana del Rey’s persona in 2014, controversial at the time, was already more than halfway to the basic sentiment of the parody lyrics above. That’s why I wrote this essay in 2014 and why a mainstream lit journal was willing to publish it:

Recently, Lynn Stuart Parramore tried to explain “Why a Death-Obsessed Pop Siren Is Perfect for Late-Stage Capitalist America.” She was referring, of course, to Lana Del Rey. Parramore explains that the Ultraviolence chanteuse is only the latest heir to a long lineage of decadent femmes fatales that rise to cultural prominence at moments of perilous social transition or imminent collapse [...] Parramore’s thesis may not seem to have much to do with Ira Glass’s controversial assertion, tweeted after seeing a performance of King Lear, that, “Shakespeare sucks.” But when you consider that one of the late 19th century’s favorite sources of death-and-the-maiden imagery was the drowning Ophelia, weltering picturesquely among the strewn flowers of her fatal madness, the Shakespeare/Del Rey connection becomes more plausible. Just as Parramore (and others) criticize Lana Del Rey for social irresponsibility, for promoting an anti-feminist celebration of sadomasochistic sexuality and for embracing capitalist spectacle unto death, so the most persuasive and compelling attacks on Shakespeare have charged him with amoral aestheticism and a sensationalized skepticism about human potential.

These thoughts, perfectly within the parameters of the tradition, could not be developed in those spaces after that, so the natural ebb and flow of the zeitgeist was dammed up for almost a decade—which perhaps explains the torrent that now threatens to overwhelm current hegemonic left-liberalism.

[just-pineapple-responses]

Just curious, how many shower thought (response) blogs are there? I just dived into this side of tumblr (not gonna make any posts its fun to read though) and I'm already losing my mind

Well there is

The. Literal. Sun.

Plasma...

S p a c e

ALL HAIL THE LIGHT

The void. It shall consume ALL.

A typewriter incase anyone wants to write their will before they die

Also some ink, not related to the typewriter

Also some words, I wonder who'll use them

A hat with no maker and a maker with no hat

The pen is mightier than the sword. It just so happens that this one is evil. Luckily I can summon multiple

Anyone order some coffee?

Ooo, an author

The literal embodiment if of fanart

A fork, nom noms

B҉ r҉ o҉ k҉ e҉ n҉ 

Soap

Soap(for hair)

Toothpaste

🄵🄰🅄🄲🄴🅃

Towel

Bath mat

Washcloth

Bathtub

Bathwater

𝔹𝕒𝕥𝕙𝕓𝕠𝕞𝕓

Bubblebath!

One (1) bath boi

Some M͓̽o͓̽l͓̽d͓̽ (anybody got some strong disinfectant?)

Nvm, the mold has already caused a plague (gettit?) (although user misspelled it)

Nevermind, there's already a parasite here

Mirror

Door!!!

Some curtains

A denim jacket

Blackout

Rainbow

✨ Magic ✨

*Tree poses to assert dominance*

Coconut

(obviously me)

I think popeye dropped a tin of spinch and it became sentient?

Tost

Hummus. dip tost?

Criss Cross applesauce

Wibbly wobbly Wibbly wobbly jellyo

Mmmm océan s o u p

Some poison, a great addition for my soup

Smol bean

Potat

Shower magpie who I haven't seen in a while

Bird (brain)

Frog(×2:Electric Boogaloo)

An axolotl!

Ferret

*looks at smudged writing on hand. Squints. * a raccoon

Stinky bastard man (I just had to put the two next to each other)

Rat.

Becometh crab 🦀 (x2: Electric Boogaloo)

Nya~

Edgy Nya~

Tripod of dog

Brain

Nina i found one of your neurons (if you understand this reference, good job you)

A rotted brain, keep it away before it infects us all, I only have 2 braincells left

Did... Did someone drop their spinal cord?

The almighty binch

The titanic

Narrator

Water based introspection

Existential crisis

Dumbass

Also a pacifier (get it because they're also called dummies and their name is dummy)

A foolish thought to say a sorry sight join the shower community (as you can tell we did Shakespeare in English so many times i pretty much can recite everything lady macbeth said)

ADHD

Ominous

Anonymous

Anxious 🥺👉👈

Some edgy bastard

A person of culture I see (although obsessed with tweed for some reason)

1 Dapper boi

Sarcastic

nice

All smiles and sunshine

HAPPY! (why isn't there yellow 😔)

Affection (Derogatory) (I'm sorry I just felt like it)

~Petty~

Idiot

Disaster

Chaos and Order

Comebacks

'vanishing'

Defences

Threatened

Op is on drugs

All the F s

And F-general

Get out of the shower

Shower responses

Dry

The horny and the simp

Shower sins

Thower shoughts

I take quick showers

Shower thots

Last responder *countdown music*

You have shower thoughts?

Your shower thoughts are stupid

Wtf shower thoughts

Another shower responder

MORE

Just shower responses... responses

Response shower

NO SHOWER! only thought (×3)

Mmm, showery

Penny for your thoughts?

Hello darkness my old friend...

Llawyer

Beepbeep

Prussia

Haywire!!!

furry OwO

A Pigeon got in through the door, who left it open?

I'm feeling devious

You're looking glamorous, let's get mischievous, and polyamorous

Gay is stored in the ass

Gay

Trans

*opens door and walks through with you exaggeratedly* Fellas we got the whole LGBTQIA+ community right here

Enby

Hahaha gender go brrr

Lesbian

Lesbian-thot

Lust

Someone who thinks it funny to clown around

Joker (derogatory)

Haha straight

Dead inside

Some supervillain idk

News. Literally a shower news style responses

r

I cannot believe that I forgot Her Greatest Majesty, the Queen. All Hail Royal

Isaac newton?

M megamind?

Fiftieth

Crackhead

Some Phoenix Wright kinnie

What is a Dean Winchester and why does he have a tentacle fetish?

Well well well, if it ain't a homestuckian

Did someone kill/rob The Doctor or something, their TARDIS was left behind and its blocking my pretzels that I left in the shower

Mined crafts uwu

Well well well, if it ain't- *accidentally makes eye contact and is then killed by some unknown shadowy creature holding what seems to be some sort of cube of dirt*

GOTTA GO FAST

Mishamishamishamishamishamishamisha

Gen Z and ready to throw hands with OP

Not puki

Nom noms

Dip dap

Kensa

B͓̽u͓̽n͓̽g͓̽e͓̽r͓̽ ..........

Someone broke their space bar or something

It's time to d-d-d-d-d-dshower

The magical deity of sleepovers

DON'T FALL ASLEEP. NO MATTER WHAT THEY TELL YOU-

The muffin man genuinely left drury Lane for this

Txmblr

Moonlit nights on a winters day, stars glimmering gently

A child?

🟥

The fae. Just all of them. Every single one.

Crocus? (What on earth does that mean)

*sings* baba blacksheep have you any wool? Because if not you will be killed (this fits the tune perfectly. If not I have failed in everything)

The theatre itself is here... Somehow

Ahoy-hoy

boo

REEEE- *epic geometry dash gameplay to DanTDM's old intro music*

Yardale, not to be mistaken for riverdale and differs to lawn ale or front porch ale or even meter ale

I'll finish this list later

It's gonna be a long one folks

I'm including a ones that haven't spoken since ages ago because

Boy howdy there's new ones tell me who I'm missing now

Please stop thank you very much this is too many i keep having to add to this any new responder must kill a responder to continue the purge shall claim y'all as I will win i recently started watching Danganronpa

Seriously though everyone after mirror must have a battle royale it's too much i doubt all of you will even last longer than today also happy birthday me -dated:28th- do you even realise what sort of commitment you've made to sell pieces of your soul for entertainment and ability to make such epic retorts each and every post?! I sacrifice many souls DAILY to be throwing such bangers into this stuff y'know?

We have a tap guys we can finally wash our hands of all the blood of our enemies

Seriously though who left the door open I don't want a Pigeon pecking at me (the mishapocalypse got them lol)

So many responders so little time before the end of the world

If I'm missing someone please tell me very thank

There are not enough colours for me to assign a different one to each person 😔 also, wtf is on there twice on purpose

WorldHealthOrganisation IS MISSING (note: you may have a joke in place of name or under a category of names)

So there's lore without me?

ALL HAIL THE LIGHT *moth noises*

Okay now there's alternate timeline versions of responders for the benefit of myself they ain't going on the list bud

There is an incorrect role play blog quotes blog and I am crying. Not of laughter. Just wiuwhdhsjhshjxjabjsjdhdjsj

If any new people join I will go back to causing shower wars for the sake of killing you all I'm done I have snapped my laptop is updating 3 times in a row

I will commit crimes.

Does being a shower responder or role-playing seem encouraging to people to join this "community"? Because I'm pretty sure it's the latter

[we-are-indeed-villains]

Some things I wish I had known before getting sucked into the whole “dark academia” business:

I waited a very long time to start posting here because It just seemed necessary to wait a bit since DA exploded out of nowhere last year. I just couldn’t bring myself to write when I was so disgusted with the community. Now that it seems like we are out of fashion again (lol) I decided it could be worth giving this blog a try.

Also, almost everything I say here goes for pretty much any change in lifestyle, and these are just some general guidelines that I find particularly easy to follow, but do what works best for you!

1 - You DON’T have to spend all of your money to fit into this “aesthetic”.

The biggest problem with what is now called dark academia (but really, it has been a thing for such a long time) is that people put it in the same category as, for instance, VSCO girls or Indie (not that there is any problem with these aesthetics in specific, they are actually quite cute!). I know this sounds like rubbish, but DA really is a little bit more than that. The clothing/visual part of it may be important to some, but the way you choose to live your life and the hobbies you opt to engage with are crucial for everyone!

That being said, don’t spend a ridiculous amount of money on expensive linen shirts and fancy blazers. You don’t need a brand new pair of Oxfords or a 100% leather messenger bag to consider yourself DA. Start small, then make investments if you find it to be worth it. That brings us to our second point:

2 - Find your favourite aspect of the community.

I know it can be very overwhelming to adhere to any new style of living, but there are some easier ways to make a smoother transition (also, you don’t really want everyone to notice that you went from water to wine in one week, and then back to water after two more because you felt lost amidst all of those weird nerds you found on Tumblr, right?).

Begin with figuring out what part of the lifestyle you identify with the most. Is it the musical part? Classical dance? Are you into poetry? Books? History?

Once you have that done (I plan on doing posts on all of those topics and more, so stay tuned!), narrow it down until you find the very core of your interest. For example, I absolutely love literature, but what do I love about it? Is it the writing part? The reading part? Both? Do I have a favourite style? If the answer for the previous question is ‘no’, try to find one! There are so many amazing styles and eras to explore!

After determining what is/are your main interests, make sure to find time to fit them into your life. Buy more books, if possible. There are also public libraries with a great variety of literature to choose from! If you already do that, I encourage you to try getting out of your comfort zone and attempting something new. Why not experiment reading a different style of books? Or maybe getting into the more poetic part of literature?

3 - Get into it!

Have you found your main interest? Great! Now it may be time to actually get into the fashion aspect of the whole thing. Also, remember that, although it is not a requirement per say, being academically successful is something you may want to achieve, so put some effort into that as well.

I won’t get too much into the fashion rabbithole, but I may write something about it later. In the meantime, you can definitely find some great guides on different DA related blogs.

4 - Don’t adhere to all the negative habits that DA romanticizes.

We all know that mental illness and self destructive behaviors are heavily romanticised, and I will say this from the bottom of my heart: DO NOT LET YOUR MENTAL HEALTH SLIP BECAUSE OF SOME 15 YEAR OLD ON TUMBLR! Trust me, it is NOT worth it.

Cigarettes, alcohol, coffee, all-nighters, heavier drugs. All of that may seem cool and edgy from the outside (why people think that, I could not tell you), but it can also defeat the main purpose of DA and, even worse, ruin your physical and mental health for good. How are you going to stay ahead in school and go to Oxford if you are too busy partying and snorting coke? You will get a sore nose and a big hole in your pocket, that’s all.

Nihilism is another one. Note that I said “nihilism”, not "existentialism" (more on that coming in the future). If you enjoy pondering the reason for human existence and you question the religious beliefs that control our society, welcome to the club! But please, please, don’t let that get too much in your head. Existential depression is a very painful and difficult thing to deal with. It will take away any joy you may find and it is not in any way productive. If you have it, you will know what I mean. Thinking about it sometimes, writing poems, debating with friends, that’s all good, even encouraged, but don’t let it go to your head and become a problem. Not worth it.

Some extra things I would like to mention:

1 - Don’t force yourself into doing or enjoying anything. Sure, reading is good, but if it isn’t enjoyable there is no reason to become obsessed with it! DA should not be a burden.

2 - Stay away from the eurocentric ideals that come with the community. Racism is bad even if you want to live in the 1800s. There is simply no excuse to think that European culture is richer or more refined than any other. Remember that the only reason you think that is because some rich, old, white men decided to murder and opress millions of different people for pure egoism. Not really something to be proud of.

Also, if you are thinking “Yeah, whatever, but English culture is a lot nicer than Mexican, or Indian culture”, then you should probably reevaluate the reasons for your interest in DA.

3 - Don’t be mean to people just because you think it fits with your all-new pretentious and arrogant character. I don’t care if you want to be perceived as such, but it can be very bad in the long-run. Just be aware of that.

And most importantly, don’t let DA take away your personality! It’s okay to like video games and read gossip magazines every once in a while. It is also okay to be yourself. You don’t have to (and probably shouldn't) get rid of all the qualities that make you unique (yes, this is a cliche, but there is a reason why people say it all the time). Be silly, say dumb things and play minecraft with your friends all night, for godsakes!

“This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

(Hamlet - Polonius, act 1 scene 3)

-- Shakespeare, William

Memento Mori, dear villains.

[loisroo]

random rec’s from june!!

watched and willing to recommend:

killing eve (s4)-

overall, this show is pretty fucking good. dark, deadly, twisty, bloody, and two amazing women leads who are obsessed with each other to the point of ruin.

as for this season? it was my least favorite out of all of them.

I’m still dead sea levels of salty about the ending and the way they just didn’t put as much effort into the relationship between them. like they could have used the last three episodes to tell a super heartbreaking and bittersweet ending that would have just ended the show on such a good note but it fell super flat.

i think some of the writing could be better and the relationships fleshed out better but overall it’s just ass kicking assassins murdering everyone all the time.

also jodie comer is one of the best actresses i have ever seen!!! and sandra oh has always been a favorite of mine and she is just fucking breathtaking.

first bite-

so not the best show in the whole world but I like that the characters actually feel young in this. they act awkward around their crushes and they say really silly teenaged things, they focus on school and love a lot- not just the supernatural side of things and there are actual adults involved in the super dangerous things most of the time which doesn’t always happen. i feel like the romeo and juliet theme isn’t as terrible as i thought it would be (i just can’t with shakespeare) which may be because the wlw content but 🤷🏼‍♀️ also no one made a big deal about the fact that the two leads like each other but are both women— they are much more upset about the hunter/vampire thing, love seeing sexuality portrayed like it’s just a normal thing because it is.

the cgi isn’t the best and some of the plot and writing could have been better. it just felt like a new show with a low budget trying to be picked up and despite some of the flaws I enjoyed it. if they made a season two I would watch it.

also the bonus mom and son interaction at the end got me all in my feels, lort I even cried.

warrior nun-

so i actually really liked this. i passed over it multiple times on netflix because i was like ‘oh no not nuns...’ and despite me also being weird and loving weird things i just couldn’t pick it up. then i saw some cool ass gifs on tumblr that had badass women and women looking at each other lovingly — so I gave it a try.

there was a lot more comedy then I thought there was going to me and as a person who really values humor it made the whole show. the heavy and supernatural things weren’t overwhelming because of the funny and mundane things. cgi was okay— better then the untamed. lol

the plot could use some more attention to detail, like it wasn’t inconsistent and i had an inkling of who the bad guy might be at the beginning and i was half right so that was cool— i like that it kept me guessing. it just felt….incomplete. almost like they weren’t sure if they should go full throttle on relationship dynamics and didn’t want to make the storyline too confusing. i hope they really flush out the relationships and show all the emotions for season 2.

rewatch:

beyond evil —

okay, i know what you’re thinking, do you ever watch anything else? the answer is yes but this one is super special and i can’t stop rewatching it. this time i focused more on how joowon grew and his actions throughout the show but especially the later half of the show.

it was really interesting to just focus on him and how his mommy and daddy issues (said with affection) have shaped him. i tried to think more about his trauma, to understand his reactions and reservations. because at the beginning he’s super arrogant and annoying but still was a good person with the capacity to be even better. he was misguided, naive, stubborn, arrogant and so many other things but he wanted to good. he couldn’t ignore that he helped take someone’s life especially when he was literally seeing the aftermath it created.

as always i recommend this to everyone that even remotely talks about media around me.

still watching because of adhd:

my name

sense8

inspector koo

[wretchedvulgarian]

Howdy. So I took a class in non-Shakespearean renaissance drama last semester. We read seven plays and they’re iconic and deserve to be read so I’ve compiled them for y’all. bon appetit

Comedies

The Roaring Girl, Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker: Rebelling, crossdressing, and stabbing f*ckboys. The mc Moll is an icon and the play subverts contemporary expectations for men and women in the best way.

A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, Thomas Middleton: The amount of bawdy jokes in this play puts Will to shame. A prime example of citizen comedy (a play that mocks London citizens); there’s disapproving parents outwitted by a daughter and her love, a comically unfit suitor, and as I mentioned plenty of d*ck jokes. My personal favorite character is Tim who returns from Cambridge and like will now only speak Latin but he’s not good at it and it’s so funny.

The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Francis Beaumont: my beloved. A grocer and his wife at the theatre decide that they don’t want to watch another citizen comedy. They decide that they’re going to put on their own play in which a grocer, played by their apprentice Rafe, is the hero. So while the original citizen comedy is going on, there is also a chivalric romance and lots of interruptions from the citizen and his wife. Metadrama turned up to 11. And by the end everything has just descended into chaos, huge monty python energy. Oh and the play was written for an all boys theatre company which is so wild to me as a concept.

The Shoemaker’s Holiday, Thomas Dekker: Probably my second favorite play we read after The Knight. (Roughly) based on the life of shoemaker Simon Eyre who eventually becomes mayor of London. It’s very fun and celebratory. There are also some great side characters like Sibyl, a witty lady’s maid, and Ralph, a wounded veteran who just really loves his wife ;-;

Tragedies

The Duchess of Malfi, John Webster: Another play loosely based off actual events. The titular duchess secretly marries her steward against her brothers’ (the Cardinal and the duke Ferdinand) wishes. The couple has three children together before the duchess’s brothers find out with the aid of spy Bosola. Ferdinand and Bosola are both incredible villains, Ferdinand because his obsession with his sister’s sexuality and his descent into madness is both disturbing and fascinating, and Bosola because his moral ambiguity makes him somehow detestable and endearing. I feel that the villains in this play rival Iago in terms of their ripeness for psychological analysis lol.

The Tragedy of Mariam, Elizabeth Cary: This may not have been my favorite of the plays we read (that’s just my opinion it was my classmate’s favorite) but it’s worth reading because it’s one of the very few renaissance plays written by a woman. It was a closet drama, not written for public performance, in Senecan style. It’s about Herod (killing of the innocents Herod not crucifixion Herod) and his second wife Mariam. Even though it’s set in ancient Israel, it reveals renaissance concerns about femininity and expectations for women from woman’s perspective.

*we also read Arden of Faversham but I’m not including that because there’s evidence to suggest parts of it were written by Shakespeare*

So yea. I expect fanfic and fanart of these plays on my desk by next thursday. thank you.

[hanjo-love]

Hi. As a LH fan I'm really happy Isym made canon and at the same time hate him for making it in a way that not much of a people sees that. I hate Isym can't do romance in a normal way, but pushes that vow obsession soo hard I want to puke. Don't you think Isym may be afraid to do more obvious love line with Levi bc of a crazy erucrap fans?

Yesss anonie, bless Yams for doing his thing at the literal last minute haha I'm glad we got the canon confirmation and imo it was also perfectly in-character as well 👏🏻🙌🏻 What's more in-character for these 2 emotionally constipated dorks than to express their love the way they did? Hanjo by confessing to her best friend while thinking he's asleep and Levi confessing his requited love in a typical Levi-style, which only Hanjo can decipher lol ❤️

Don't get me wrong, but what is the fandom exactly expecting? Some super cheesy I love you quote a la Shakespeare? Oh heck to the NO. My dudes, look, even if they did that, people who have denied Levihan so far would keep denying them even after these confessions. Yams made everything perfectly in-character, but still visible and more than obvious for everyone to notice!

So in other words, I'm more than happy for what we got in terms of love and romance. Am I craving for more? Sure thing! But would I want to change the style? No way!

Honestly, I love Yams' style of showing love and romance in this cruel story. Nothing cheesy or super cringey, everything's as subtle as it can be, but still very powerful. Maybe the western fandom sees nothing special in a "let's run away and live together" confession, but this is a huge deal in the japanese culture. Y'all need to realize that for once! As the good old Eren once said: what's the most romantic thing to say to a person? - it's "let's live together"

Lol don't get me wrong again haha but I don't see the reason why a lot of fans hate Levi's own vow arc. Again, it's perfectly in-character for him. Y'all gotta accept the fact that Erwin was very special to him. He gave him a reason to fight and to live, which he didn't have before joining the SC. Also you gotta view the vow arc not as romantic, but as a huge burden for Levi and his very own character development. It was already hard for him to cope with the deaths of his comrades, but being responsible for their deaths is another story. And that's what Levi was going through in the TS. We know he wasn't responsible for Erwin's death or the deaths of the recruits, but he felt like he was! That was his mental state y'all. Just like Hanjo had to fight her inner demons by carrying Erwin's legacy as the commander. We can clearly see, how much this vow has affected Levi and how much it has clouded his memories. In fact, Erwin never made Levi promise anything! It was Levi's wish to do so. We also saw Erwin smiling in his last moments, but in Levi's clouded memories, Erwin was sad and disappointed of him. Folks, this man is suffering from severe depression and it shows!

But leaving all of that to the side, Levi's main goal has always been to save humanity and to prove his comrades deaths weren't in vain, basically to stand tall amongst his dead friends! That was one of his very first lines in the story, but people tend to forget that. It's not about Erwin, the vow, Hanjo, the kids or whatever! It was always about ALL of his comrades and ALL of humanity!

Levi is the true hero of the story and nobody can change my mind!

Thanks for the ask, dear anonie ❤️ pls enjoy the story as much as you can, without being too salty (I know it's hard, we all have things we'd like to change but hey it's Yams story, so let the man write whatever the heck he wants) we still have one more chapter to go and who knows, mad lad Yams might surprise us all once again haha

[itsclydebitches]

Voyager. Now that’s a kettle of fish. Obviously watch/enjoy whatever you wish, but I do recommend also checking out SFDebris’ reviews of the episodes (he’s the rwde of Voyager). He is a lot smarter and more eloquent than me.

Putting these two asks together since my thoughts on both are all jumbled! 

Now, I want to emphasize that I’ve only watched the first 16 episodes (Season One + Season 2 premiere), so idk if Voyager is going to go seriously downhill later on, but right now I do really like it. And not in a, “Lol yeah compared to the other crap on it’s good, I guess” way, but in a completely honest, “It has its flaws, but is overall a solid, compelling show with lovable characters” way. Out of curiosity I watched SFDebris’ review of “Phage,” though I’m afraid I didn’t agree with it. The only part were I was like, “Yeah okay” was pointing out that they had the Doctor using a keypad when he supposedly wasn’t solid, but that’s precisely the sort of continuity error that, in an otherwise strong show, I’m willing to shrug off. For all the major points, it sounds like SFDebris is concerned primarily with the show he wants Voyager to be, rather than the show Voyager actually is. Which I know sounds familiar--I’ve heard that criticism leveled at my own work: “You just want RWBY to be a totally different show”--but the difference is that Voyager is a part of an established franchise, following three other TV shows, an animated series, and a collection of films. It’s not an original show (like RWBY) that can take itself in any direction the story may need/claim to want (again, RWBY). It has a brand and those established characteristics seem to be bumping up against SFDebris’ critiques: 

Hating Neelix as a character - You’re supposed to hate him. Or at least find him frustrating (I don’t personally hate him) because that’s what all the characters are grappling with too. From Tuvok forced to have an awkward conversation while Neelix is in the bath to Janeway dealing with him taking over her dining room, Neelix’s conflict revolves around how others learn to accept him. Star Trek as a franchise is about “Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.” Voyager begins with the problem of how the trained Federation officers are supposed to work with the more violent Maquis. Difference doesn’t just create “Wow, you’re so amazing!” reactions, it also includes frustration, disagreement, and outright hostility. Creating an outsider character with a kind heart but incredibly overbearing personality is a great way to test the other characters’ convictions. Do they actually care about all life in the universe? Or do they only care about life when they personally find it palatable? Having Neelix around is a great reminder for them--and the viewer--that just because someone annoys you at times doesn’t mean they’re any less worthy of love, respect, and companionship. It also doesn’t mean they don’t have something to offer: he keeps the crew fed even if his cooking is horrible, he provides information about this area of space even if he sometimes gets it wrong, we roll our eyes at the “Morale Officer” stuff, but Neelix does provide much needed perspective for characters like Tuvok. If Neelix made fewer mistakes, stopped bugging the crew, became a “cooler” character for the audience to root for rather than be frustrated by... a lot of the point of his character would be lost. 

Frustration about discoveries not carrying over to the next episode - AKA, the crew finds inanely powerful, alien tech and then (presumably) never uses it again. This would indeed be a big problem in a serialized story (like RWBY) but Voyager maintains much of Star Trek’s original, episodic nature. Though we have continuity in the form of them inching towards home and evolving as characters, the world still resets to a certain point at the end of each episode. This is what allows Star Trek to explore so many different questions and have so many different adventures. If you demand that serialized continuity--this character needs to have an arc to deal with this traumatic experience, the crew has to follow the thread they just discovered, our Doctor needs to do something with the new tech they just found--then you lose the variety that Star Trek is known for. Instead of a new story each week (or, occasionally, across two weeks) you’ve got a single story spanning months. Neither form is better or worse than the other, it’s absolutely a preference, but there’s a very specific, structural, intentional reason why the characters “forget” about the things they’ve discovered and, at times, experienced. Unlike Ozpin forgetting that he has a nuke in his cane for seven volumes, or Ruby forgetting to use her eyes at crucial points, Star Trek deliberately sets things aside to ensure there’s room for new ideas and questions next episode. 

Janeway doesn’t kill the Vidiians to get Neelix his lungs back - No Starfleet captain would. At least, not during this period of Star Trek. Sisko has development in that regard (making morally gray choices), but that’s built into the heart of the show from the start: he’s on a station, not a starship, that is jointly run by the Federation and the Bajorans, and built by the Cardassians. The rules of the Federation always had a tenuous hold there and Sisko as a character always pushed the boundary of the Federations expectations (Q: “Picard never hit me!”) Janeway, in contrast, is 100% a Federation captain and, more importantly, has explicitly told her crew that they will be operating as a Federation vessel, despite being so far from home. That’s the conflict between the officers and the Maquis. That’s why Tuvok accepts the alien tech in “Prime Factors,” recognizing that Janeway can’t. That’s why Seska is a compelling antagonist, pressuring the crew to abandon their ideals for survival. The series (or at least that first season) revolves around questions about identity and whether they’re willing to give that identity up now that they’re out from under the Federation���s thumb. Overwhelmingly, they choose not to... which would make murdering the Vidiian a complete 180 for her character. We’re not necessarily supposed to agree with Janeway’s choice, we’re supposed to acknowledge that murdering another sentient being is not some simple choice to make, especially when you’re a leader devoted to a certain set of ideals. We’re supposed to recognize the challenges here (many of which SFDebris doesn’t acknowledge) like how you’re supposed to keep a prisoner for the next 75 years when you’re already struggling to feed and take care of the crew you have, or the fact that they claim to take organs from dead bodies and this was a rare time when they couldn’t. (It’s only in “Faces” that we learn this is complete BS and they actively kidnap people to work as slaves and then be harvested.) The frustration that Janeway doesn’t act here stems from wanting her to be a character who is, fundamentally, not a Star Trek captain. 

Granted, I only watched one review, but that’s what the whole thing felt like: wanting a series that’s not Star Trek. Something without a token, challenging character, without hand-wavy science, that’s more serialized, and doesn’t adhere to a “do no harm” code. (I just started “Initiations” and Chakotay asks a vessel to stand down three times, while actively being attacked, before finally retaliating and then he tries to reestablish communications and then he warns them about their engine and then he beams them aboard his shuttle. That’s what Star Trek (usually) is: that idealized love of life, even when that life is actively hostile). And like, that’s obviously fine! As you say, Flawartist, “watch/enjoy whatever you wish,” but just based on this one review I wonder if SFDebris just wants something other than Star Trek. 

I think one of the reasons why I feel passionately about this (beyond my love of context and recognizing when shows are actively trying to accomplish something specific) is that I went through this with DS9. For years I heard about how horrible the show was. It’s trash. It’s a mess. It’s not TNG, so don’t even bother. Or, if you do, be prepared for disappointment. There was this whole, strong rhetoric about how silly it all is--Star Trek is, by default, silly, so supposedly only the Shakespeare loving, archeology obsessed captain is sophisticated enough to save it--and then... I found nothing of the sort. I mean yeah, obviously Star Trek is silly as hell (that’s part of its charm), but DS9 was also a complex, nuanced look into everything from personal agency to the threat of genocide. There’s so much wonderful storytelling there... little of which made it into my cultural understanding of DS9. And now I’m seeing the same thing with Voyager. When I did some quick googling I was bombarded by articles saying how bad it is and now I have an ask comparing it to a show I don’t think has even a quarter of the heart the Star Trek franchise does. Which is is not AT ALL meant as a knock against you, anon. I’m just fascinated by this cultural summary of Star Trek: TOS is ridiculous but fun if you’re willing to ignore large swaths of it, TNG is a masterpiece and that’s that, DS9 is bad, Voyager is bad, and to be frank I haven’t heard much of anything about Enterprise. It’s weird! Because I watch these shows and I’m like, “Holy shit there’s so much good storytelling here.” Is it perfect? Not on your life, but it’s trying in a way that I can really appreciate. It’s Star Trek and Star Trek (at least at the time) meant something pretty specific. Criticisms about divisive characters or idealized forgiveness feel like walking out of a Fast and Furious film and going, “There was too much driving and silly combat. Why didn’t they just fix the situation in this easy way?” Because then we wouldn’t have a film about lots of driving and silly combat! If you make all the characters palatable, make Janeway harder, extend the impact of all the discoveries, remove the ridiculous science that doesn’t make any sense... then you don’t have Star Trek anymore. 

[richmond-rex]

For the ship bingo: Owen Tudor and Catherine de Valois?

I think someone else said it before me, but Catherine x Owen is the definition of delicious? I’m picky about this ship because Owen has been depicted in popular media either as a soppy cardboard character without an ounce of personality or as a rapist fuckboy — why?? (by the way, @nuingiliath has written a great story about them here, go read it in case you haven’t already! I recc it! 💕). 

I think Owen and Catherine are so intriguing as a couple, like, Catherine was the (dowager) queen of England? And Owen wasn’t even an English citizen? She really risked it all for our boi yet they hardly figure as one of the greatest love stories of the 15th century in the popular mind. From Ruth Mazo Karras’ Unmarriages: Women, Men, and Sexual Unions in the Middle Ages:

In partnerships between two people of different status, it was usually the woman who was of lower status, although this was less so in the case of formal unions, in which an elite daughter could be married to a promising young man. But being involved in a sexual relationship that was not considered a marriage could be deleterious to a woman’s reputation (more than to a man’s) ... a man’s honor in the Middle Ages could depend on a wide variety of things— his reputation for honesty, his physical and military prowess, his control over his household— but a woman’s depended only or mainly on her sexual reputation ... The two types of dishonor fed on each other, and it is not possible to say which came first, the sexual suspicion or the social disadvantage.

There are hardly any fics about them on ao3 — of course, it’s understandable because there hasn’t been a tv show about them like The White Queen, for example, and Shakespeare didn’t write about them. But still, I would prefer it to be this way than for them to be ruined by television (i-don’t-want-these-meme.jpg). Catherine de Valois has been so sexualised in history, and their relationship tends to be depicted in purely sexual terms — the story that Catherine would scream while having sex with Owen? Apocryphal and invented to make her, and by extension, her descendant Henry VIII, look bad at the time. People latch onto that because it seems they can’t conceive another reason why a woman would have a relationship with a man of a lower status than her. 

Do I believe it was a sexual relationship (box ticked)? Of course! They had children together lol, but I believe it was romantic as well. I’m not sure I believe in the concept of soulmates (I like more the idea that you choose and make your own soulmates) but it’s tragically endearing that Owen never married again? Marrying would add to his status and bring him money but he didn’t. It would take him almost 30 years to be involved with another person again and have another child. That’s considerable. I ticked the ‘unhealthily’ box much like @lady-plantagenet because I believe their relationship was somewhat intense? I mean, it had to be so to make her leave everything behind, but that means it may have been a bit unhealthy as well in terms of attachment/obsession with each other. I like it that it was complicated, tbh.

I’m obviously interested in the consequences of this ship, because, can you imagine being Henry VI? Yet to be sixteen and finding out your mother had married a Welsh squire and had given birth to other children, like, now you had siblings? It also put Edmund and Jasper in a unique position because they were considered to be royals/part of the royal family, which of course had ramifications for Henry VII (whom one poet called ‘the crown’s nephew’). I’m very invested in this ship but I’m not sure I would call it an OTP because sometimes I remember the definition of OTP is the one true pairing, and you all know who my one true pairing is ;)

Thank you for sending this ask! <3 🌹x

ask me about a ship | template

[yee-fxcking-haw]

What Happens Next?

A/N: This chapter is kind of short, so I hope you still enjoy it! The next chapter will definitely have a lot of smut and cheesy stuff in it so stay with me lol. If you want added to the taglist or if I was the worst and forgot to tag you please just message me and let me know!!

Summary: You and James finally have that long avoided talk.

Warnings: Violence, blood, mentions of mental illness, implications of sexual assault.

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four Playlist

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Part Five

Annie's Diner

James orders two chocolate milkshakes and plate of fries, thanking the waitress with a beautiful smile. Sitting in this diner with him feels absolutely surreal. It's obvious to you why you've refused to say a word to him since prom. He makes you weak. You feel yourself falling again, you're so easily swayed by him and you don't even want to fight it.

"Are you sure that's all you want to eat?" He asks, obviously trying to be careful with his words.

You just nod without a word. You keep your eyes glued to the table, pretending to be very intrigued by it. It kills you that this is almost awkward. You never dreamed that you and James would ever have a moment that would feel this unnatural.

"Doll?" He says, his voice has a questioning tone.

"I told you not to call me that." You say without looking up. You don't want to hear him call you that name ever again, he poisoned it when he used it for that other girl.

"What's her name?" You ask quietly, glancing up at him.

He sighs deeply, accepting the inevitable question.

"Elise, I never wanted to take her to prom." He explains.

"So you dumped for me somebody you didn't even like! That makes me feel so much better, thank you so much James." You say, filled with anger at his sorry ass explanation.

"She started the rumors about you, not me. As soon as she got into the gym that night she started spreading them." He blurts out, obviously desperate to convince you of his innocence.

"Honestly, I don't care who started the rumors. It almost makes it worse that you didn't. If you had, then you would at least be able to plead the case of clinging to your own lie, of not wanting to embarrass yourself by telling everyone that you were an asshole that made that shit up. Since somebody else started them, you had nothing to lose by telling everyone the truth. You didn't though, so that's what matters, not who started them, but the fact that you didn't stop them." You finish your little rant with a huge sigh.

Does he really think that he's going to get out of this by blaming somebody else? James just sits there, eyes wide. He looks so defeated already, like you just sucked all the life out of him. Maybe he's really starting to grasp just how much pain he's subjected you to.

"You're right, I didn't. Because I cared too much about what people thought and I was scared. I was stupid, and selfish, and it made me lose the best thing that's ever happened to me." He looks at you with pleading eyes.

"Save the Shakespeare bullshit, James. If I was the best thing you've ever had you wouldn't have thrown me away for somebody who meant nothing." You retort.

"I did not fucking throw you away. I did not dump you. I showed up expecting to meet you with Elliot and Henry, but then the girls were there like an ambush or something." He says, his voice laced with frustration.

"Listen to me, if I had turned Elise down right then and there, your life would have become a living hell." He says, lowering his voice like he's scared somebody will hear.

"Right, because she didn't do that anyway." You snap, words dripping with sarcasm.

"Do you remember that girl at the beginning of the year, the one that sang the national anthem at the football game?" He asks urgently.

You try to think back, you do remember her a little. She wasn't here for very long though, just long enough to sing the national anthem and then she left the school abruptly. She had the most beautiful black hair, that seems to be the only detail you can remember about her.

"Elise wanted to sing that, but the principal liked the way Wendy sang it." You begin to put the pieces together.

"When Elise found out that she wasn't going to sing it, she got very close to Wendy all of a sudden. She found out that she was pregnant because she was foolin' around with one of the football players." He explains.

"So she told the principal and got Wendy expelled." You fill in the rest.

"Where's Wendy now?" You ask.

"Last I heard she left town, she was about 6 months pregnant when she moved. Her and her parents just up and left one day." He says.

"Is that according to Elise?" You ask.

"That's according to Andrew, the guy that knocked her up." He states.

You sit quietly for a second, could one girl really hold that much power over a school? You think back to when you were called to the principal's office that Monday afternoon. You had plead your case honestly, but all the principal had to say was, "Evidence suggests otherwise". What the hell did that even mean? It sort of made sense now. Adults have never been good at taking people your age seriously. Especially if it's a grown man being asked to listen to a young woman. Unless of course, that young woman has something to offer him.

"So you were scared of what Elise might have done, then you saved your ass by pretending you didn't know me?" You ask, not really angry just trying to understand.

"I hate myself for it, but yes." He says.

"How did she even know you'd be there?" You ask, realizing how stupid the question is.

"Elliot told Annette, then Annette told Elise. You know how it goes." Annette is obviously one of the two girls that accompanied Elise that night.

"She was the one stalking me." He says.

"Stalking you?" You ask, your eyebrows shooting up in shock.

Just then the waitress shows up with your milkshakes and fries, sets them down quietly and asks if you need anything else. You say "no thank you" a little too quickly, trying to get back to the story James is telling as fast as you can.

"You've gotta be kidding me." You say, popping a fry in your mouth. Your anger is disappearing slowly, but you still cling to the fact that he hasn't made it right until now though.

"She was obsessed with me man." He says, sipping his shake.

"I caught her driving past my house, I even caught her looking in my bedroom window when I came home one night. I was scared what she might do to you if I didn't go along with what she wanted at prom." He seems genuinely stressed, visibly upset by how everything played out.

You just sit and listen, munching on your fries, occasionally drinking your shake. Every part of you wants to be mad at him, to yell at him for not making it right before now. He didn't even want to make it right really, he just happened to be at the dance hall tonight. By pure coincidence he saw Daniel dragging you out of there. Right? He couldn't have known you would be there tonight… unless.

"Molly?" You ask, realization suddenly hitting you like a bus.

He's not confused at all, his eyes just go wide.

"Molly set this up with you didn't she?" You say, voice growing in volume.

"She may have given me a call." He says calmly.

"Oh my God." You whisper.

"Doll, please-." You cut him off by staring daggers at him for using the nickname.

"Sorry, just please hear me out." He says cautiously.

"That's what I've been doing." You scoff.

He ignores your snark and keeps talking, taking it as some form of permission.

"I couldn't show any sign that I knew you at prom, for obvious reasons. I couldn't come talk to you after, I never found out where you live, I never got your phone number, I had no way of reaching you except for at school where you wouldn't even look at me. For good reason I know, but I just couldn't get to you." The words spill out of his mouth like he's running out of time.

"Then of course there was Elise, she was always breathing down my neck constantly. I tried to confront her one time, asked her what the hell her problem was. All she said was that I should watch it or she would get the principal involved. I can only guess that her rich ass parents were pumping money into the school, or maybe she was-"

"Or she was sleeping with the principal?" You interrupt to ask out of morbid curiosity, your eyebrows high and eyes wide.

"That's a possibility." James says.

"Either way, she had some kind of hold on him. Something that made it very difficult for him to combat anything she told him." He says.

"Jesus, this is like some twisted murder novel." You exclaim.

"Now I hate to use this line, but please believe me when I say this." He says with begging eyes.

"In a very messy way, I was trying to protect you. And when you wanted nothing to do with me, I couldn't force myself back into your life because that would just make you hate me more. I couldn't tell the school the truth because Elise would have dragged you down with me. If it had just been my own ass on the line I would have told everyone and their mother the truth, but I couldn't let her make things worse for you."

You both sit in silence, him waiting for a response, you waiting for him to go on.

"As soon as I could I found Molly and told her everything. She told me it would be hard to do, but that she was certain we could fix this."

"Traitor." You mutter, earning a chuckle from him.

"I had to wait. I'm not just saying this to sound dramatic, I was genuinely afraid of what Elise might do if she ever found out how I felt about you. Which are feelings I still have, by the way." He says quietly.

You just sit there, dumbfounded. He was being stalked, genuinely stalked. That's why he was so stiff that night, so unlike himself. Holy shit. James actually has a pretty good reason for what he did. It's not perfect by far, and you could sit here all night arguing about other options he may or may not have had. That would be a waste of time though. There's just one question burning in the back of your mind.

"Why didn't you ask Molly where I live, or what number to call?" You ask.

"I told you, I couldn't force myself into your life with you already so angry with me. While Elise could hurt me with words, I'm quite confident you could whoop my ass if I pushed you enough." He says, a teasing smile on his lips.

"I didn't want to ruin it doll, the most I could hope for was a night like tonight. I told you, I had to just wait. If I had pushed you or cornered you that would have been the last straw and you know it. I had to hold on to that hope that I had a sliver of a chance to…" He stops for a second, his face knits into a very pensive look.

"A chance to love you again." He finishes, seemingly content with the words he's found.

You hate how much sense it all makes. If Elise is really that batshit, he really had no other option than to just let everything play out until he could find a way to talk to you. A chance like tonight.

"That afternoon, it's irreplaceable. I know a lot of it happened really fast, and a lot of it was really intense." He says, the look in his eyes tells you he's thinking about the way you made love. Both of you were so reckless and full of passion. Your chest burns with desire, heart aching for his touch again.

"Well then what about now, James? Are we supposed to just be together and expect Elise to be over it just because we're not at school anymore? Is she still stalking you?" You ask.

"She's not here anymore. Her family moved to Florida, not before she broke one of the windows in my house for not calling her back though." He says and lets out a little laugh.

"Well shit." You say.

"So let me get everything straight. One of your friends let it slip to one of her friends that you would be at prom. She surprise attacked you and then you panicked and did your best to make it seem like you didn't know in an attempt to protect me. That wasn't good enough for her, so she started the rumors about me being your stalker for good measure?" You ask.

He nods silently.

"Then I was so pissed off that I wouldn't talk to you, for good reason in my mind. You couldn't expose the rumors as lies without painting an even bigger target on my back, so you just gave me my space, waited for Elise to not be a problem anymore, then conspired with my best friend to get me to the dance hall so you could finally have your chance to explain?"

Another quiet nod.

You chew your lip, it does all add up. You try to think of what you would have done in that situation. Of course you want to say you would never throw James under the bus, you would stand up for him and bravely profess your love, but human nature is a bitch. People panic and scramble to do what they think is best based on instinct. That's what James had done. You can't even be mad at him for not trying to get you alone to talk sooner, because you know you would have been too blinded with rage to do anything except flail your fists at him like you had earlier tonight.

"I am so fucking sorry doll." You don't even flinch at the name now.

"After I've said all of that, I need you to know that I know it's my fault. I should have told you about Elise that night on the roof, I should have warned you and kept you safe that way. I just didn't know how to really throw in the fact that I was being stalked without absolutely ruining everything. It was all so perfect, everything was perfect with you. It was all so new and overwhelming, I couldn't think straight. So when I saw you there, in those damn boots and that dress, I just fucking panicked. I only ever wanted to keep you safe, that's all I wanted. I just fucked it up. I really fucked it up." There are tears in his eyes now, he pulls his bottom lip into his mouth and breathes deeply in through his nose.

He's watching you with those beautiful eyes, waiting for you to say something, anything.

Then it hits you, there's something he still hasn't done. With Elise gone he has no reason to not tell everyone she made it all up.

"Then why haven't you told everyone the truth? That I never stalked you, that Elise did, that it was all a lie and-"

"I have, everyone I could get to listen, I told. I told them as soon as Elise left." He says.

It makes sense that you never heard of him doing so. You've avoided everyone from highschool since you graduated. That would definitely explain the lack of stares and whispering at the dance hall. Your presence no longer caused anxiety in everyone, because they knew the truth.

"Why didn't you ever call the police on her Buck?" You ask, slipping back into the habit of using his nickname. His shoulders relax a little bit when he hears it leave your lips.

"What good would that do? She's too young to go to jail, so the only other place they'd put her in is the asylum." He says, his voice very serious.

You start to feel very sorry for Elise. She has all that beauty, but she's so very sick. You understand how somebody could be that crazy over James, he's everything a girl could want. Your mind wanders to what all Elise must have been through in order to be so unstable. Your heart aches for the girl you only spoke to once. You had seen her around school a handful of times now that you think about it hard enough. Always smiling, always talking to somebody, always looking so pretty. Even after she ruined prom for both of you, even after she stalked him at his house and damaged his property, he didn't want to ruin her life.

"Her friends came and talked to me after she started driving by my house. Of course I asked them what was wrong with her, all they could say was that her parents were both too obsessed with their wealthy socialite lives to give her the time of day, so she became desperate for any attention she could get, to the point of getting involved with faculty. They told me her family was moving eventually and begged me to let them and Elise's parents deal with the situation. That way Elise wouldn't get herself into a bigger mess." He says the last part with a low serious voice, your jaw drops when you catch his implication.

"Good God." You gape at him.

"So they begged you to wait until she had moved to tell everyone the truth, so she wouldn't snap and get herself into legal trouble?" You ask, filling in the blanks, everything making sense now.

He nods, "She left two weeks after graduation. She came to my house and cried on my porch for two hours the morning they moved."

He seems like he feels guilty, like he wishes he had done more.

"There's a million things I could have done differently, and I'm so sorry for all the things I should have done. I'm sorry for not telling you everything right away, I'm sorry for being so fucking cold to you at prom, I-"

"James." You say, reaching across the table to grab his hand, he stills completely and looks at you like a deer in headlights.

"It's ok. It was all a shitshow, and you were doing the best you could. I understand now, I can see how you were just trying to protect everyone. It's ok." You tell him.

Every ounce of anger and pain has left your body. It all makes sense now. James did all that he could to keep everyone involved from hurting anymore than they already were. At his own expense, maybe his execution wasn't flawless, but he did everything he could to make it right. He's still doing everything he can. He's sitting here with you, begging you for another chance, owning up to all the ways he fucked up. Had he really though? You realize something you haven't yet, James may very well have the biggest heart of anyone you know. Filled with enough kindness to even want to protect a person who made his life hell.

"She's sick James, you didn't want to fuck her life up anymore than it already had been. I don't blame you for that, I don't blame you for how you handled it." You explain.

God this night has done a complete turn around. As soon as you saw him, you agreed to talking with him and you fully expected him to tell you that he and Elise had been together all along, that he had gotten caught up in the moment with you and that he was sorry for leading you on. You never imagined that James had been carrying this load all by himself the past few months. It's all absolutely insane, and incredibly difficult to wrap your mind around. You feel so much relief at the fact that James had never lied to you about his feelings, and a significant amount of guilt for never reaching out to him to give him a chance to explain.

"I'm sorry that I never even-"

"Doll, don't. You had every reason to cut me out of your life. You were trying to protect yourself." He says, he squeezes your hand for reassurance.

You feel like you should have trusted what you shared that afternoon instead of acting purely on emotion, then maybe you would have been able to heal quicker. Then you remember the sensitive timeline with Elise, she would have done everything in her power to ruin what you and James have if she had been around to see it. Everything that happened had to happen that way for the safety of everyone involved.

"I haven't stopped loving you. I can't, I know I can't. Which sounds absolutely fucking insane, but I just feel it. You're still the most incredible thing I've ever seen." He says.

You don't even feel like you're in the diner anymore, it feels like you've floated to the roof and you're suspended in the sky, high off of the feeling of being loved again.

"It's ok if you can't say it back, I know we've only really spent half of a day together, but I've been miserable without you and I can't see myself ever feeling this way about somebody else so, I know what I feel. I know that I love you." He says it like somebody's about to cover his mouth to stop him from telling you.

You open your mouth to tell him that you love him too, that everything is ok, that you guys are going to figure it out, but you freeze when you hear the bell of the door jingle then see a large man in uniform walk through the door. You feel your entire body tense up, anxiety welling in your chest as your throat closes and your palms begin to sweat.

"Oh shit." You say quietly.

It's fucking Daniel, how the hell did he find you? He's accompanied by the boy that danced with Molly, and one other stocky blond man.

"What?" He asks, bewildered he turns his head towards the door.

"Oh shit." He says, whipping his head back around to look at you with terrified eyes.

"What's the plan if he-" James starts to say, but he's cut off by a loud voice.

"Hey punk, that's my girl you're sitting with." Daniel states, slurring his words just a little at the end.

James' chest inflates and he gives you a stern look. Anger flashes in his eyes.

"James don't." You try to say it as harshly as you can, but he's already moving before you can get the words out.

Everyone in the diner is frozen, watching with dropped jaws and wide eyes. Even the wait staff has paused to observe, those behind the counter have halted their cooking so they can gawk. This stupid small town, everyone's always so desperate for drama.

"Oddly enough, I don't remember her ever agreeing to be your girl." James starts, rolling up his sleeves as he talks. Is this idiot really about to try and fight off three soldiers?

"-but you don't strike me as a man who cares too much about consent." He says, dropping his voice a little to stress the weighty implications of his words.

Daniel's fists ball up at his sides, his friends start to glance around the diner with anxious eyes.

"Boys, if there's to be a fight y'all better take it outside." One of the older waitresses says loudly, obviously sick and tired of all these young bucks bringing their nonsense into her diner.

"What a great idea ma'am. Shall we gentlemen?" James asks with all the confidence in the world. God he really is an idiot.

"James-" You start, but the men are already stomping through the door into the parking lot.

"Fucking hell." You huff, you throw money down on the table out of your clutch, inevitably taking out way too much for some shakes and a plate of fries.

"Keep the change!" You say with an urgent voice as you gather yourself and run towards the door.

The boys have circled around to the side of the building, horrible fluorescent lights illuminating the scene. They've got James completely surrounded, almost backing him into a wall already. You know you aren't going to be able to stop this, not with all the damn testosterone and adrenaline already pumping through all of them. The most you can do is make sure it's a fair fight.

"Alright look. If y'all are gonna fight, you're not going to do this bullshit where you just outnumber him so you can win." You nearly shout.

"This is between James and Daniel, you goons need to step off." You say it like you're a strict teacher telling them off for whispering in class. You can't fucking believe that you're playing referee for this idiotic dick measuring contest.

"Unless you're all cowards who don't feel like you could beat him unless the fight is unfair." You finish then cross your arms, your plan to challenge their masculinity obviously working.

"I could take this prick in my sleep." Daniel says, rolling up his sleeves with clumsy drunk hands, "Watch and learn boys." His two friends glance at each other then take the cue to step back and let this fight be his.

James gives you a quick look, the corner of his mouth twitching up into a cocky smirk. His eyes say thank you, while he rolls his shoulders back and brings his fists up while Daniel steps towards him. Your fool in shining armor runs a hand through his hair and winks at you, you assume to thank you for getting Daniel's cronies to back off. You internally curse him for looking so damn handsome.

"Was one hit not enough pal? You want some more?" James says, cocky as ever. Your stomach twists with nerves, he's pushing it. He and Daniel are about the same size. Daniel is maybe an inch or two taller, but James has more bulk to him. Of course you want to say James is going to win, but it could really go either way.

Daniel sneers at him then cracks his knuckles, taking a hulking step towards James. James opens his mouth to make another snarky remark, but is cut short by Daniel's fist landing right on his jaw. Right where you hit him earlier. It makes a horrible cracking sound and blood sprays out of his mouth. You gasp and have to fight the urge to run and stand between them, knowing that would only make James more bent on fighting for you.

He seems completely dazed by the impact, stumbling back while he holds his face. He pulls his right hand away to look at the blood pouring out of his mouth. Before you can even process it, Daniel lunges at James, knocking him to the ground. They both smack on the pavement with a grunt, Daniel has James pinned to the ground and he just starts swinging, hitting anywhere he can, much like you did earlier. Except Daniel is drawing blood. James has his arms up, acting like a cage over his face. They're taking most of the blows, but Daniel occasionally gets his fist through to hit his face again.

"Fucking do something!" You scream at his gawking friends. They both jump and look at each other, not having any idea what to do.

"Stop!" You scream, running over to where Daniel is still laying into James.

You know you won't stand a chance just using your fists, so all you can think to do is kick. Kick like hell. You run up to Daniel, you bring your upper body in tight then let your right leg swing forward, bringing your foot full force into Daniel's face. He howls and falls back off of James, who takes the opportunity to jump and scramble backwards.

"You fucking whore!" Daniel yells, standing up to stalk towards you. That's when his friends finally intervene, each grabbing an arm to hold him back.

"Call the police, somebody call the police!" A woman's voice yells from behind you. You look wildly around, unaware of the crowd that had gathered.

Daniel and his friends panic at those words, faces white as they scramble back towards their car. Daniel turns and spits at you, swearing under his breath while his friends drag him away.

You hear James groan and your heart freezes in your chest. He's lying flat on his back, hands holding his face.

"Oh God, James." You run to him and drop to your knees. There's blood coming from his nose and his mouth, and his left eye is already swelling. He lets out a breathy laugh, gazing at you with heavy eyelids.

"I'm alright doll, doesn't hurt half as bad as when you socked me." He says, lopsided smirk spreading across his lips.

"You fucking idiot. Bucky, what the hell were you thinking?" You ask, cradling his head, you wipe his hair off of his forehead and cup his jaw. He looks up at you with an earnest look in his bright blue eyes, they appear almost silver in this lighting.

"He said you were his girl." He says with a weak voice.

"So?!" You almost yell at him, but you catch yourself.

"You're my girl." He says simply, then he winces and screws his eyes shut. His face relaxes and his head goes limp and falls to the side. Your chest fills with terror.

"James? James!" You yell, shaking him while you do. You know he isn't dead, but he's still unconscious, and that's enough to panic you. You hear somebody yell about an ambulance, but all you can focus on is James. God, this is all your fault.

@b-o-n-e-daddy @lillsrecs @all-art-is-quite-useless @brownlee-22 @peace-love-hobbitness @pinknerdpanda @supernaturalwintersoldier @can-i-sin-right-now @pennyroyalcreep @jessyballet @calwitch @aurora-sweet @learisa

[serendipitybutterfly]

Is there a possibility that Jungkook has a twin flame and is currently on the process of ascension? I was just curious because I stumbled into a reading before and somehow it said that he is strongly connected to the divine world. Thank you in advance. :)

Interesting question...

Firstly, I'll start with 'strongly connected to the divine'... Well this is interesting when it comes to BTS...

From what I've picked up doing readings on them all... They actually all have strong spiritual potential. By that I mean, they all seem to have some kind of latent psychic / intuitive / heightened empathetic abilities... It's actually very interesting to me. They seem to be aware of this on different levels and sit all along the spectrum of whether or not they're interested or keen to explore it at this point lol...

So on one side you've got Kim 'I commune with my angels' Taehyung, with his powerful ancestral guardians walking with him, and Jeon 'maybe I should be a shaman' Jungkook, spilling the tea on the fact that he has precognitive dreams.... And on the other side of the spectrum you've got the likes of Namjoon who, while I'm almost certain has gotten to the point of being open minded enough to accept there are more things in heaven and earth than can be dreamt of in his philosophy *to casually quote Shakespeare like a nerd*, is more on the side of things he can logically reason out than what he can sense or intuit (even though he does also have that gift!). You've also got Yoongi, who is actually so sensitive I think he's even a little scared of it and deliberately has put that side of himself on the back burner to focus purely on the material world and what he wants to accomplish for now. Then there's Jimin, who can sense other people's emotions like a fine tuned device... But, I believe, doesn't like to think too deeply about such matters because they overcomplicate things in his mind and he feels it'd be detrimental to his mental health to dwell on such things (not unwise if you don't have the right guidance and teachers to help you).

Then you've got Hobi somewhere in the middle... I think he's, again, aware he has some kind of intuitive senses, that there's 'something more', but he doesn't have the foundation to guide in him in what it all means and how to tap into it... I think he's openminded to it though and would be willing to hear someone out... Say if someone offered him a tarot reading or astrology reading, I think he'd probably be fairly interested and want to learn more. But... May not actively seek out that information on his own at this point.

And then... Seokjin... Haha... Seokjin... Of all the members, I feel like Seokjin may have the closest thing to an actual defined religion or spiritual belief /philosophy that guides him. I have no idea what that is... But it's something he grew up with and also has continued to develop on his own. What that means is that he quietly does know he's connected to 'something' spiritual / divine and he intuitively allows that faith to guide him in his philosophy on life. But it's all in a very quiet understated way and I highly doubt he'll ever talk about this except in the vaguest terms at those random moments where he gets deep and shows his more serious side.

But you asked specifically about Jungkook... Well! What I've been seeing with Jungkook for a while (if you've read the readings I've done on him you'll see it) is that he has indeed been going through some kind of period of spiritual growth. He is aware of his spiritual gifts, actually believes in them, and did indeed begin to consciously work on developing them. This has been opening him up to the guidance of the Universe, his guides, his higher self... So yes, you could say he's going through a process of ascension. His gifts will become more powerful when he's older as his faith in them continues to grow from receiving more and more confirmation...

As for twin flames... I mean... Maybe? To be honest, while I do believe in the divine counterpart aspect of the twin flame... I think there's been a thing going on online where I see a lot of priviledging the twin flame connection over other kinds of soul mate connections and I don't think that's right. This also seems to involve romanticising some toxicity in these relationships like obsession, codependency, abandonment... Just... No.

That's not what you should be glorifying. I don't care if you feel like that person is your Twin Flame, if all the relationship does is make you feel bad about yourself then... Is that really what you want? Do you really want to see your divine counterpart as a person that treats you terribly? Or do you not think that by loving and respecting yourself to the highest degree first, you will attract the truest and highest love into your life who will also love you on that level and allow you to love them the same because they too are an evolved soul full of love...

Yes... As boring as it may sound, everyone, please... FOCUS ON LOVING YOURSELF FIRST!!! It really is the most important thing. When you have an incredible relationship with yourself, you are actually better able to enjoy incredible relationships with others. Sounds like something a boring great aunt might say, because it's absolutely true.

Anyway, this post has somehow become me ranting at you all to love yourselves... Besides the point. So Jungkook... In my future spouses reading on the members, you'll notice that for Jungkook I saw that he is already spiritually connected to his future spouse and that they dream about each other... That they will 'get' each other and have a fulfilling, healthy relationship... As far as I'm concerned... He will indeed meet a romantic soulmate in the future and that's who he'll marry. Could this also be a twin flame connection? Indeed it could.

Another aside... The reason I say 'romantic soulmate' is because actually, in life, we meet a lot of soulmates and not all are romantic... Some can be your bestfriends, some your family members, some teachers or mentors you meet along the way... The people who have huge impact on your personal growth and development, who help shape who you are, are very likely to be your soulmates. That is, members of the same soul group / family who help each other ascend spiritually.

So, for example, as far as I'm concerned, the members of BTS are all each other's soulmates (not just Jimin and Tae, although how great that they actually acknowledge their bond as such)... But that doesn't mean they don't have others and won't meet others in the future. There's lots of kinds of love in world and romantic love shouldn't be put on a pedestal above all others when there's so much we gain and learn from other connections.

Anyway... Sorry for this long meandering answer to your question... Hopefully it makes enough sense to follow... 😅💜

[pinkymoone]

Savage Garden 🌱 The Gradual Chaos 🌹LEE HYEON-SOOK

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD !!! PROCEED WITH CAUTION

If you’ve kept up with my past posts, I’m obsessed with this manhwa- author LEE Hyeon Sook :) Another excellent story about a bunch of pretty boys in rich-private school with a TON of drama (the way I like it) and that cliche “I’m a girl but I have to go to an all-boy’s school undercover” BUT (don’t click away lol) as the story rolls along there is a gradual state of disorder and chaos from all the drama that happens to violate moral law. LEE took a “shoujo” idea, and twisted it into something much darker. 

Rather than romance (although there is undoubtedly a romance between two brothers (Raymond/Euan Kensington) and the main girl, that goes undercover as a guy (Gabriel aka Jeremy) it leans more towards psychology. 

Let’s talk about the Chain of Being (most present in Shakespeare). “The Great Chain of Being is a hierarchical structure of all matter and life, thought by medieval Christianity to have been decreed by God. The chain begins with God and descends through angels, humans, animals, and plants, to minerals” (as defined by our trusty Wiki). Now from the beginning of this story, the Chain of Being is already broken. Our protagonist is a poor, orphaned girl who was to be sent to become a maid for the rest of her life. However, her friend Jeremy, who was to have the same fate (but as a laborer) actually turned out to be related to a nobleman. Things were looking up for him, while Gabriel was falling more and more into a pit of hopelessness because of her fate. Yet God seemed to have noticed her behavior, as her life took a turn when Jeremy ate a berry that was actually poisonous.

Which brings us to Gabriel enrolling in a super rich-boy school as Jeremy in a deal with his “mother” (whose not really Jeremy’s mother) to trick her husband into thinking that Jeremy was still alive until she tells Gabriel to stop. So it was a pretty “one-minute of glory” kind of opportunity, but Gabriel can now finally escape her fate in becoming a poor maid. She cheated the whole system of the Chain of Being. Yet cheating such a system leads to serious consequences for the future (You’ll see). 

With that, the juicy events of misunderstandings and relationships begin. Gabriel wasn’t actually involved in any until she became involved with Raymond and Euan. Although this story delved more into Raymond and Euan’s backstory, it just ultimately sums up to how Euan (older brother) wasn’t living the life he wanted, making Raymond carry all the burden of dealing with marriage and the troubles his older brother gets in to until he can’t run away from it no more. Raymond had his own share of problems that Euan was trying to keep as a secret and it turns out that Raymond killed his own mother. Their mother was broken from their father that ignored her and hung out with other girls, so Raymond being stressed with his mother’s behavior just saved her from the suffering after a gunshot. They’ve been through a lot... but Gabriel comes back with the several consequences of keeping up her facade.

A rich-boy friend of Gabriel, Arron, was actually dating a maid that turned out to be Gabriel’s friend back at the orphanage. With her friend that knew the true identity of Gabriel, she had to come clean. But it seemed her friend had bigger plans, blackmailing the ‘mother’ of Jeremy for money to escape with her true lover. But that plan didn’t succeed as the couple both committed suicide by eating those darn berries once again, breaking Gabriel’s heart and being in a state of danger now that the “mother” got the impression that Gabriel has revealed her real identity to everyone. Arron was absolutely in disarray, almost trying to kill Gabriel because he thought she was the reason his maid-girlfriend died, and she just seems to accept at this point. Why was she even living as Jeremy? It did very much seem that she was going to die at any point being someone that she wasn’t... however her friend, in shock at this acceptance, didn’t kill her. 

But. A hit-man is now after Gabriel, so not very much came out of that mercy. On top of that, she seems to be gathering all the rich boys and making them fall in love with her but the time has come to run away. These empty love triangles, in my opinion were left in that state on purpose to show that some things just over power love- like survival?! Come on she’s about to be assassinated! This theme can also be seen by Will, a side-character that had a whole deal going on as well, but he was born sick. Knowing when he would die, he carelessly threw himself on a maid, showing that love is just pointless at times.The danger of being in love in Gabriel’s situation also just seems to block that route as well. Jeremy’s “father” gave Gabriel a ticket to study abroad, and using that, she takes the opportunity to escape after almost getting shot down by the hit-man of the “mother”. Raymond saved her, found out that she was a girl, and was going to accompany her to the train so that she may escape death. But, guess what? Jeremy’s “father” found out that his son was actually Gabriel, and sent a hit-man to kill her as well. Euan couldn’t accept the fact that Raymond was going to be near death by accompanying Gabriel, so he tricked him and went to accompany her instead. Euan also had feelings for her since the beginning of the series... but he also knew Raymond liked her as well. 

Sigh...After all that. After Gabriel successfully escaped, Euan died. In fact, Jeremy’s “father” was responsible for his death that was so sudden. Then the author just ends with Raymond and Gabriel reuniting in the far future. 

Many absolutely despised this ending. Was it too rushed? Seemed very thoughtless? But I argue that they just haven’t really thought about it. Being undercover as a poor girl that made her way to the top of an all-boy’s school that seems like an area only reserved for gods can only go so smoothly. Rich boys are still human, and rather wouldn’t they be more unhappy with their lives? Being controlled by their parents, they can’t marry freely, escape from work that comes with money (like inheriting a business?), they can’t get involved with maids or “normal” people for reputation, and they have to be reserved to keep secret of all the scandals and crimes that goes behind the curtains of wealthiness. Getting involved with these rich people can get you into some spicy troubles because wealthy people have the power to control the Chain of Being in which they sit at the very top. Now... Why did Euan die such a pointless death? Well... he was already unhappy with his life from the start. He wasn’t a good brother, he wanted to escape from his parent’s control which could easily be seen by his careless involvement in gay affairs at such a prestigious school (he also had someone that he was to marry), and he fell in love with Gabriel even though Raymond liked her as well. The ending was all for his rest. He accompanied Gabriel instead of Raymond to finally be a big brother and protect his brother as well as Gabriel. Gabriel appeared in front of him as an actual girl before they went to go escape. Euan was just satisfied with that. Love with Gabriel was absolutely impossible with him, so all that he could do was to protect her ‘til the end right? Euan already derailed from the train of his life probably when he first met Gabriel on the ground as he was shot by his ex-lover (he survived due to Gabriel and most likely fell in love with her then because she was a being that was totally unrelated to everything he hated about his life and her innocent kindness showed). Raymond, who was protected from becoming like his older brother most likely because of being too occupied with his own problems (like his identity crisis of killing his own mother, that blinded him of everything that was going on in their rich society) So Euan’s death made sense, he was just a lonely failure that sat on the King’s throne, later to be killed for his actually normal behavior. Really goes to show how being rich, being in high society, doesn’t ensure eternal happiness.