#she’s such a catholic white woman it’s hilarious

[juniorfor2]

It’s funny how many people loved it when Alicent Hightower was made a “victim” in the show, because it validated all their hatred for the Targaryens - specifically Rhaenyra/‘immodest’ women - but immediately turned on hotd when they realized just what type of victim she was.

[anarchy-n-glitter]

Bring the Pain

SUMMARY: Chucky and Daphne talk things out after he shows up in her living room unannounced. He tells her he's dying and needs her help.

WORDS: 3,649

(PREVIOUS CHAPTER HERE)

CHAPTER 2

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Chucky couldn’t help but be a bit disappointed by her reaction. 

“It’s been years and that’s how you greet me?” He gawked, feigning hurt and bringing a stubby, plastic hand to his plush chest. The way he blinked and moved so slowly unnerved her. “You made it hard to find you, by the way.”

“Maybe that’s cause I didn’t want you finding me?” She took another good look at the living doll. “You look like shit.” She remarked coldly, placing the iron doorstop on the ivory end table beside the loveseat. She watched the doll wearily as he began to comb his hand through his thinning hair. 

“Hey quit shedding on my chair! I want my place to look decent.” 

Chucky looked around slowly, holding back a laugh.

“Oh, don’t worry doll, I’ll keep the place spiffy. My hair would go great next to last week’s dirty dishes on the counter!” He howled. “Wait, wait… maybe it’ll look nice in the dirty laundry corner!” He continued to cackle obnoxiously loud, slapping his tiny knee and kicking his feet. Daphne rolled her eyes, despite the tears that seemed to flood them at the sound of his laugh again. He continued on, listing everything gross about her apartment, pointing out everything she had begun to feel insecure about lately. His laughter died down finally with a wheeze and a small coughing fit that had the woman furrowing her brow. 

“Anyway, disgusting fucking apartment aside,” he groaned, struggling to get to his tiny feet as his plastic body made popping noises she never thought she’d hear from a doll.  His sky blue eyes met her emerald ones and for the first time in 35 years she felt a spark. 

A spark with a doll? Be so for real Daphne. 

“Me looking like shit is exactly why I’m here.” Chucky gestured awkwardly to his barely two-foot tall self. “I’m dyin’, Daph.” She bit the inside of her lip. Hard. 

He had to be lying, there was no way a slimy bastard like Chucky was dying. Daphne glared at him, trying so hard to find where he would be lying. In the brighter light of the lamp she could see he was far worse off than she originally thought. Crows' feet bordered his sunken eyes and wrinkles were apparent on his forehead. In the dull, thinning forest of auburn were small strips of wispy white. He looked like he aged 15 years, which was actually better than she expected.

“I mean, you’re aging.” Daphne stated simply, shrugging. She couldn’t say why he was aging, she wasn’t as well versed in this voodoo stuff as he was, but she couldn’t say for sure that he was dying. For all she knew, this was just another one of his fucked up manipulation tactics. 

“No shit, captain obvious.” He growled. “I went to see some witch doctor-” He stopped abruptly at the sound of her giggling. Rolling his eyes, he continued: “And he said Damballa is pissed because of an exorcism.” Daphne tilted her head curiously.

“An exorcism?”

“Yeah, these asshole kids tried to expel certain parties from a certain doll. Well, certain parties are not pleased.” Oh, oh, this was too good. 

“So because of that Damballa think’s you’ve abandoned him?” The doll nodded. Daphne held back another laugh. “And you want me to risk pissing him off more to help you?” 

“Well, yeah.” Chucky stated simply. He gestured to her. “I mean, come on Daph, you look great! It’s clear you’re doin’ somethin’ right.” 

Daphne looked away to hide the way her cheeks grew red at his compliment. “Duh, that’s cause I stay away from catholics.” 

“Those kids were not catholic!”

“Even worse.” She answered as she walked into the kitchen. She heard the thud! of Chucky jumping off the chair onto the hardwood floor and the hilarious patter of his tiny feet shortly after. Somehow, despite the change in his stature and circumstance, he felt like nothing changed. Daphne still had a sharp tongue and the banter with her really got him going.

Whether that was good or bad depended… and in this context it worked him up in a bad way. 

“You shouldn’t walk away from me when we’re talking, babe. It’s rude.” An amused smile crossed Daphne’s dark lips. 

“Or what? You’re gonna kick my shins till I die?” She knew she was playing with fire, but she didn’t necessarily care. She’d love to see what he’d do.  She knelt down in front of the homicidal doll, a wide smile on her face. 

“You are treading on some thin fucking ice, doll.” He warned in a tone that used to send shivers down her back. Depending on the context it was either from fear or arousal, but now she tried not to laugh. She saw the anger boiling inside him, the frown on his cherub-like face, and it made it all the funnier. 

“Chuck, I’m not afraid of you.” Daphne stated simply, pinching at his plastic cheeks. I never have been. “If I’m being honest, I don’t know how anyone is.” She stood up straight and went back to the sink, trying her best to tidy up after he pointed out every little thing wrong with her apartment. 

Things had really gone downhill since Tess died.

Daphne scrubbed away at the dishes, one by one and placed the slightly cleaner glassware on the counter above the dishwasher. She opened the dishwasher and glanced inside, realizing she never unloaded the damn thing from the last time she ran it… which was two whole weeks ago. She shook her head as she collected the clean dishes and placed them in the cabinets, nearly forgetting the murderous doll was still wandering about her apartment.

Chucky was a lot harder to keep track of now.

She had finally gotten the dishwasher cleared when she felt a sharp, burning pain in her back. All she could do was freeze for a moment, choking on her words as her nerves were set aflame. That little fucker had climbed on her back and was feverishly stabbing her in the back - what else was new?

“Fuck!” Daphne flung him onto the counter and stood up straight, feeling the warmth of her blood trickle down her back. A shaking hand reached behind her and pulled the knife from its place, and she dizzily examined the blade. This knife was from the dishwasher! She thought to herself in a haze. Chuck, you’re in for it now.

Slowly, like all wounds, the slashes in her back began to mend on their own. Skin and muscle joining together, melting into one, as blood gushed down her back. It hurt like hell and Daphne had to grit her teeth to not scream. She found that this little party trick didn’t quite have the same effect on people if she showed them it hurt. The doll that laid on her counter slowly began to sit up, watching Daphne closely. She huffed indignantly as she palmed her back again, finding holes in her favorite leather top. 

“You ruined my favorite shirt, you little shit!” Daphne threw the knife toward the living room, not caring where it landed. Chucky looked up at her in awe, a wicked smile coming to his face finally. 

“That amulet does a lot more than just keep you young, doesn’t it?” His question came off more like a statement. He knew now, he didn’t need her to say anything. It was annoying knowing that he couldn’t threaten her when she got on his nerves now, but it did explain why she so comfortably laughed in his face. 

It reminded him of Tiffany, though she eventually paid for not taking him seriously. 

Daphne straightened up, looking all too smug for someone who was just stabbed. “No shit, captain obvious.” She spat his words back at him. Chucky howled with laughter.

“I missed you, Daph.” He finally said, wiping tears from his eyes. Daphne paused, watching him wearily and wrapping her arms around herself. She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. She swallowed.

“I missed you too.” Daphne whispered, self conscious. 

“Finish doin’ the dishes and come talk. I got a favor to ask of ya.” And with that, the doll slid off of the counter and scurried off to the living room. 

⛋⛋⛋⛋⛋

The words from his plastic lips felt surreal. A plan, an insane plan, one that only he could come up with and think he could get away with. Six souls; six sacrifices, that was the prescribed solution to Chuck’s problem according to the doctor he saw. The only problem with that seemed to be that Chuck had already taken six lives… actually it may have been more than six, he said he’d lost count. 

Cloudy blue eyes stared up at her, unblinking, as she tried to determine the best course of action. 

“So let me get this straight,” Daphne began, exasperated. “Your first set of sacrifices failed so your grand idea is to go to the White House and try again?”

The doll nodded eagerly, and in his gruffer-than-usual tone he answered: “Yeah, see? You get it.” No, she really didn’t.

“Just like that, huh?” She asked sarcastically, her arms still crossed over her chest. “What makes you think it’ll even work? What if Damballa’s really pissed at you?” There was something more to her tone this time. It could almost be mistaken for tenderness. 

Daph was a changed woman, that much Chucky knew, but he had to wonder how much of his old flame still burned under her icy exterior. 

“He wants something big, Daph. What else is bigger than-”

“It’s delusional.” She cut him off. “Yeah, you could get away with it, but you’re asking me to go with you. I’ll get caught, then what? You keep going and I rot in jail? You get to discard me again like it’s nothin’?” 

So that’s what this was about.

“I have a plan.” Chucky muttered, and despite his epiphany he was still finding it hard not to be irritated with Daphne’s refusal. 

“Oh great! You have a plan!”

“Just get me there!” He finally shouted. The doll took a moment, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. “And if you really don’t want to stick around you don’t have to.”

Daphne took a moment to think over his words. She still wasn’t sure if he was being honest, after all, it was really easy for him to say she can leave when she wants. Unfortunately for him, she knew Chuck like the back of her hand. Of course, several things had changed over the years clearly, and if he truly was dying…

He did go out of his way to find her. He clearly needed her help desperately. Part of her feared that abandonment, that familiar feeling that came with being used and disposed of. Maybe it would be different, given that he was a doll as of right now and the reason him leaving hurt so much the first time was because she felt he used her body and left her when it was convenient. Technically he was still using her body but in a completely different way - this was more like doing a friend a favor. 

Daphne’s emerald stare narrowed.

“And where’s Tiff in all this?” There it was. The doll grimaced. 

“That’s a long story.” 

“When’s it not?” Daphne scoffed. She listened intently as Chucky explained the last twenty-ish years. He went into detail, explaining how Tiffany found him after his dismembering, how she wanted him to marry her and how that absolutely wasn’t in the cards at the time. He talked about how he electrocuted her in the bathtub, then the soul transferring, and the cross country road trip that somehow ended with a knocked up doll and a surprise resurrection from their gender fluid kid. 

Somehow, Daphne felt herself growing jealous. 

It was a weird feeling that left her all kinds of confused, but when she thought of the last twenty years for herself she felt… hollow. She wanted to rekindle some sort of love, feel the same burning passion she felt with Chuck with someone else. The closest she had gotten was when she was the third in a throuple out in Santa Carla, which even that didn’t last. She didn’t like staying up all night and sleeping all day. 

Then of course there was Tess. 

“Anyway, she swapped bodies with Jennifer Tilly and took the kids, but then we got back together and she helped me terrorize the Pierce’s one last time. Shipped me right to their house. I ended up sending Sarah’s kid to the nuthouse and from there I possessed her.” He stopped for a second, his brow furrowing, forehead wrinkling. “Then that fuckin’ exorcism happened.”

Daphne was still taken back at the mention of Sarah Pierce. That was a name she hadn’t heard in a while, and man was she pissed when she heard about it the first time. He wasn’t even the one to tell her… it was Tiff. 

He shook his head. “Anyway, Tiff broke me outta the nuthouse and helped me build an army of, well, me. I said something, she got pissed off and took my head off, and well here we are. I haven’t spoken to her in a year or so. I did hold her at gunpoint when I was Nica not too long ago but that didn’t last long.” 

“Sounds about right.” Was all she could muster. That hollow feeling in her chest came back and weighed heavily on her. She felt the lump in her throat as her mind repeated the same thing over and over again: you will never be the first choice.

There was a part of her that fought it though, the more naive part of her mind that somehow survived through it all. He probably stuck around with her cause it was convenient, it said, she was the one to find him and bring him back. Daphne sighed. You made it hard to find you, remember?

She wanted to snap back at the invisible voice, to tell it that he didn’t even try before all this, but with the risk of looking insane and vulnerable in front of Chucky she chose not to.

They sat in silence while she pondered the possibilities, the logistics of it all, and she could feel his blue eyes on her even when she turned her back. Luckily she knew as long as she had her amulet there were no risks of her being killed and waking up in a doll like Tiff, and she missed Chucky as much as she hated to admit it… maybe a road trip would be fun? 

The strawberry blonde looked back at the doll. 

“Fine. I’ll take you.” She said finally, and a large smile broke out on the doll’s face. 

“Yes! I promise, doll, you won’t regret this.” He hopped off of the couch, standing at his full 3 foot height. “It’ll be just like old times, Daphne and Chucky.” 

⛋⛋⛋⛋⛋

She was being led somewhere downtown, her hand held tightly in the warm grip of her boyfriend as they made their way down sprawling sidewalks. She was in her cutest date outfit, face done up in dark makeup and platinum hair in two ponytails. Her large boots made it hard for her to keep up with him. 

It was fall, and in her short skirt she was freezing her ass off, but she’d never say anything. She wanted to look cute for him. 

Grey skies hung over their heads, making the tall buildings of Chicago look much darker than they usually did. It wasn’t like Eddie to take her out in the middle of the day, but he said he wanted to show her something. She had lied to her parents, saying she was going to the mall with Miranda, and she found the act of sneaking around like that thrilling. She only hoped Miranda wouldn’t call the house and spoil everything. 

He led her to an old apartment building, up a few flights of stairs, and to an old, splintered door. He knocked twice and waited for what felt like an eternity. There was a sound on the other side of the door like someone was undoing a few locks, and then they were greeted by the face of a woman with platinum blonde hair. It matched Daphne’s own hair. The woman’s dark eyes scanned over both of them, and just as Eddie went to step forward she slammed the door in his face. 

Daphne furrowed her brow in confusion, thinking maybe they were at the wrong apartment offhandedly as her eyes wandered from the door to the rundown halls of the building. The beige paint on the walls was peeling and the carpet they stood on was covered in stains. It looked like it hadn’t been vacuumed in ages, and the bearding had been thinned so much it was almost down to the mat. Somewhere in the distance she could hear a baby crying. 

The woman reappeared with an irritated expression. 

“Eddie, get in here.” Her voice was high pitched and almost whisper-like, but Daphne could hear the annoyance in her tone. Eddie stepped forward, Daphne’s hand still tightly in his. The woman shook her head. “No, she stays outside.” 

The duo looked at each other, but all Eddie could do was shrug. 

“Sorry.” He said, letting go of her hand. “Gimme a second, ‘kay? I promise you won’t be out here all day.” And with that he disappeared behind the old door. 

Daphne suddenly felt all too exposed in that hallway. She had no idea where she was, or who was in the building, and there she was standing in front of this door which likewise had people she didn’t know inside. She figured these were friends of Eddie’s, but the way the woman looked at her, the way she wasn’t immediately let inside… it filled her with an uneasy feeling.

Years later she would look back on this moment and she would beg herself to leave - to listen to that feeling and get as far away as possible. There was a darkness behind that door and she knew all too well that it would swallow her if she stayed where she was.

But she did stay. 

After a few minutes she sighed and sat down beside the door, bringing her knees to her chest so she could rest her head. She was tired, a late night before all of this really wasn’t a great idea. She could see the chipped, black nail polish on her nails and began to absentmindedly pick at it, hoping she could remove a majority of it and repaint them later. 

A few more minutes ticked by slowly before Eddie peeked his head out from the doorway, looking down at her with that boyish charm that attracted her in the first place. “Hey Daph, you can come in now.”

She let him lead her through the door into the dimly lit apartment. The walls were a turquoise color with white trim that was turning an odd shade of yellow. The lamps in the living room gave off a soft orange hue that made the place seem a lot cozier than its tenants. Now she could see the woman in full, and she wore a simple black dress with a red, cropped leather jacket. She was standing beside a man with long, dark hair, and his back was turned to them.

“So, yeah, this is Daphne.” Daph gave a small, shy wave. Eddie turned back to her. “Daph, this is Tiffany and-” 

The man finally turned around, his blue eyes meeting Daphne’s green and suddenly she felt as if she couldn’t breathe. His hair was curly, and it spilled almost perfectly over his shoulders. He wore a plain, white t-shirt that was tucked neatly into his black slacks. She found herself taken by his sharp jawline and perfectly sculpted cheekbones. He walked over slowly, hands in his pockets. 

“This is Charles. He goes by Chucky now.” She wished she never met him - truly she did. Yet, that day she found herself swooning over him. He hardly said a word to her the entire time, merely watching her with intense eyes as she listened to Eddie and sometimes Tiffany. 

Charles sat across from her in an armchair, and beside him on the arm of the chair was Tiffany. Daphne, at first, found Tiffany to be nice enough. She was outgoing and complemented Daph’s outfit, and she seemed enthralled with Eddie’s story of how he met Daph. The younger woman couldn’t help but notice he left out her age. 

Sure, her birthday was in a few weeks, but that didn’t change the fact that she was seventeen now. 

Eddie stopped rambling for a moment, looking at an almost zoned out Charles. “You okay over there?” He asked finally, snapping the older man out of it. 

“Yeah, yeah.” Charles began, his voice gruff. It nearly sent shivers down Daphne’s spine. “I was just thinkin’ Daphne would look great with red hair.” 

Tiffany’s eyes lit up. 

“Wait, Chucky, you’re so right!” She exclaimed. She hopped onto her feet and traipsed over to Daphne, taking her blonde, curly locks into her hands. “I can dye this for you if you want.” 

Daphne never broke eye contact with Charles. There was a look in his eye, something unreadable. It looked like he was encouraging her to say yes. She stumbled over her words. 

“Y-yeah. Sure. I’d like that.” She ripped her gaze away from him and met eyes with Tiffany, smiling awkwardly at her. 

She had no idea what she was getting herself into. She wished she left the hallway when she had the chance.

[absolutelyfibulas]

It's the Dutchpinions On Red/Pink post!

Under a cut due to length, this is the result of me struggling to sleep at 3am, and wondering about the potential red/pink pairs possible in post-2000s Sentai.

Behold, my incredibly incorrect (but also completely right and infallible) bad takes!

(Warning: There's spoilers all over the place, because it was kind of hard to avoid in certain cases.)

Timeranger

Canon red/pink and total asspull. They already had Domon and Honami for the star-crossed Can’t Be Together tragic pairing, and Tatsuya/Yuuri seemed to just manifest out of nothingness. It’s like the writers realised they’d forgotten to have the sole woman on the team fulfil what we ALL KNOW THAT SOLE WOMAN’S PURPOSE IS and threw a dart at a wheel of the remaining guys.

Rating: Ugh.

Gaoranger 

Being an inoffensively forgettable series I don’t remember much about the team and their dynamics. I do remember that they have white instead of pink, and that white is way too young for red. 

Rating: No pair up, good call.

Hurricaneger

Doesn’t have a pink, unless you consider Ikkou’s colour pink-adjacent enough to count. In which case it’s a top notch match up. Those boys are in homosexual love. 

If we’re counting “woman on team” as the pink, then it’s Nanami, and I think she and Yousuke would murder each other if they tried dating. So they lose points for that.

Rating: A+ for potential gay. B- for potential murder.

Abaranger

I don’t like pairing any of the adult men in their twenties with the girl still in high school. Obviously red and pink aren’t a thing here, but my point still stands for the canon blue/pink they huffed paint and decided to go with post-canon.

Rating: 

Dekaranger

The red/pink here wouldn’t be awful, I don’t think? But Ban is too Like That, and Umeko has a sweet canon thing with green. They managed to make a complementary colour contrast combo work in a whole other way.

Rating: Not the worst. Which isn’t exactly an endorsement.

Magiranger

Not applicable for obvious reasons. Does get bonus points for the canon last minute pairing being so hilariously stupid (complete with magical shotgun wedding overseen by a catholic cat) that I can’t even hate it.

Rating: Houka’s bi and Tsubasa’s gay and that’s all that matters.

Boukenger

Another canon red/pink. This is one that I personally was completely blindsided by, but have had mutuals tell me that it was built up over time so I have to take their word for it. I actually thought if anyone was getting paired up it’d be yellow/black, which would have been weird on its own given they’re more like siblings. 

I suspect I was just too distracted by pink being an autistic gun lesbian to even remotely consider her having any romantic plot with a dude, and I sure as hell don’t remember her interacting with red for anything non-work related at any given point. God knows what they talk about on that rocket. 

Rating: This is the sentai version of that movie where Jennifer Lawrence is trapped on a starship with Crisp Rat.

Gekiranger

Jan legally can’t date anyone, and there’s no pink. So let’s instead take a minute to think about Mele/Rio, the canon pairing who miraculously made me like a pairing that uses a trope I cannot stand.

Rating: I know they’re off having the most Addams Family Goth romance in the afterlife. I feel it in my bones.

Go-Onger

Everyone on this team is homosexual. The only way red/pink is happening is if Gunpei persuades Hant to engage in roleplay.

Rating: They literally have an entire episode about Sousuke’s tragic summer romance with Kento Handa.

Shinkenger

We did it. We found the milquiest of toasts. He’s a boy, she’s a girl. The only other girl option is 15, so red/pink it is. 

Rating: I don’t think Takeru knows what a girl is.

Goseiger

Another inoffensively forgettable series. I do remember that the red and pink in this are kind of sweet? Like they’re not canon, but I wouldn’t hate it if they were. They actually get to be friends onscreen and are both Cute Chipper 20yos, so sure, go ahead.

Rating: Eh, 's fine.

Gokaiger

I have to admit I never really thought about Marvellous/Ahim romantically at any given point. They’re friends, they’re bros, they have the Sweet Princess Meets Snarky Pirate thing going for them. Not really my bag but sure why not. That said...

As a last minute pairing they would have been annoying as fuck.

Rating: Luka gets REALLY salty for like three months after they get together and no one’s brave enough to bring it up.

Go-Busters

No pink, but also the only girl on the team is Yoko. Refer back to my Abaranger “20yo men dating girls in high school” notes, and consider that they’re siblings, Your Honour.

Rating:

Kyoryuger

Canon red/pink, and the last minuteiest of last minute pair ups. I have legit no idea why they decided they needed a romance in this show. It’s perfectly okay without it and even as someone who doesn’t particularly ship it, Nossan/Candelira is very cute! They didn’t need to add another romance!

Daigo spends the whole thing about as interested in Amy as a concrete brick, and Amy seemed way more concerned with Yayoi in a Not Heterosexual way. 

Rating: Whatever the writers were on, I want no part of it.

ToQger

I don’t really think about shipping for this one (again, for obvious reasons), but I wouldn’t be particularly bothered by the red/pink here having a similar puppy love crush situation to blue/yellow. I’m just not really interested.

Rating: They have better things to do. Like drink apple juice.

Ninninger

Another team rendered Not Applicable. I mean technically it would be legal but it’s. Y’know. Still weird.

Rating: You stop that.

Zyuohger

White instead of pink again. I think these two repel the idea of romance between them so strongly that if they’d got them together the universe would have suffered a minor meltdown and just erased the franchise from existence.

Rating: ????

Kyuuranger

Lucky and Raptor would be a wild pairing, if only for how out of left field it would be. Morbidly fascinating, if nothing else.

Rating:

Lupat

Pairing either red with Tsukasa would be punishable at the Hague.

Rating: 

Ryusoulger

My opinion is going to be biased by the fact I didn’t really buy the team as being particularly close anyway; this series’ red/pink would be…fine. In the way breathing nitrogen with my oxygen is fine. I didn’t ask for it, I don’t particularly want it, but also it’s not going to kill me instantaneously. These two do at least have an onscreen history of friendship, and aren’t hideously ill-matched. 

Rating:

[arthurianashipbracket]

dinadan from a 1894 issue of catholic world and gawain by frank t. merrill, book cover of the lettres gothiques édition of cligès

[ID 1: illustration of dinadan in full armour leaning on one of his legs. next to it is an illustration of gawain on gringolet holding a standard, looking towards an arch where guinevere and arthur stand watching him. /end ID 1 ID 2: a book cover of cligès with a white cover which displays a woman lying in bed while a man watches over her. /end ID 2]

dinadan and gawain are just so hilarious. they hate each other. they are each other. they both recognise themselves in each other and hate that so that they don't have to hate themselves for it. incredible.

soredamors is the sister of gawain, and falls in love with alexander when he visits arthur's court. the two pine over each other for a while until guinevere decides that enough is enough and sets them up. they marry and soredamors gives birth to cligès before they all return to greece. they are very cute, they spend ages questioning whether they're in love, their love juxtaposed with a war, soredamors' little debates with herself (as taken from the submitter: 'i am really fond of soredamors' little internal monologue agonizing about whether she should call alexander her sweet friend or not, it's so real and cute to me (also guinevere then comes in and calls him friend easily iirc, which. like. love's overthinking)')

[storkmuffin]

men writing about women's lives is really hilarious (derogatory). in a non fiction history book about the opium war, the author describes a white woman raised in Canton who at 18 married a 20something misionary who was so disliked back home he wrote 200 letters his first year in China and got 2 letters back, was alone and separated from her new husband for months at a time, and then gave birth to a boy who lived exactly 24 hours but was refused burial at the Catholic Portuguese cemetery, forcing his parents to have to dig a little grave and bury him on a hill ALL ALONE and then the writer goes-

[she] had already exhibited a propensity for depression but now she almost went over the edge.

Sir? SIR?!?!?

[indiphyr]

Here are some underrated sapphic shows that should get more recognition

Vida:

2 sisters reunite after their mother's death to take over a bar in their home town. When they get there they discovered that their mother had been married to a woman for the last five years, and now they have to share share the bar with her. There's added tension because the mother threw her oldest daughter out of the house when she was a teenager because found out about her bisexuality

Teenage Bounty Hunters

Two twin sisters accidentally become involved in the Bounty Hunters business when they crash their fathers car. We see them navigate their lives between being average teenagers going to catholic school and their jobs as Bounty Hunters

Everything's Gonna Be Okay

An older brother with daddy issues has to adopt his 2 half-sisters when their father dies of cancer. This show is hilarious and has so much representation (autistim, gay, sapphic, asexual, biromantic, polyamorous, poc, ect.)

Motherland Fort Salem

Instead of witches being killed during the witch trials in the United States, they got recruited into the military where they, and their future daughters must fight for the country from when they turn 18 years

Little Fires Everywhere

This show is perfection! Little Fires Everywhere follows two families in the 90s. One of the families is a privileged white family while the other is a low-working class black family. The show follows the families as they get more and more involved in each other's lives and as the tension rise between them due to microagressions and an adoption storyline

We Are Lady Parts

We Are Lady Parts follows an all muslim riot grrrl/punk band as their band first get started. We see how their friendships evolve,and there aren't any Muslim stereotypes in the show, as far as I could tell

One Day At A Time

ODAAT follows a Cuban-American family as they go through life. The show includes important topics such as racism, gender inequality, homophobia and so much more. There is a sapphic relationship with a lesbian and a nonbinary person, and they're really cute together

Wonder Egg Priority (tw suicide and self harm)

A group of girls have all had someone close to them commit suicide, and the main characters tries to get the deceased back to life. In the meantime they develop a close friendship

Everything Sucks!

Everything Sucks! takes place in the 90s and revolves around two high school clubs, the tech club and the theater club, as they film an alien movie together. One of the main characters is a chaotic lesbian

The Wilds (tw SA, blood, death)

A group of teenage girls thinks they're going on a relaxing trip to Hawaii when they're involved in a plane crash, and are stranded on a deserted island. What they don't know is that the plane crash wasn't an accident and the girls are now involved in an experiment

The Sex Lives Of College Girls (SA, teacher-student "relationship")

This show follows four roommates as they navigate their first year of college. It deals with many relatable topics, and it's both funny and serious

[genderless-girl]

I used to think “Black Girl Magic” was corny. Here’s why it’s not.

Being a black girl means having a complicated relationship with hair. I remember being a young girl going to an all white Irish Catholic school, and obsessing over how different my classmates hair was. Not in a “black child meets white person for the first time” way..lol. But in a more caring way. The girls would wash their hair everyday because it would get greasy, something I never understood because my grandmother would always tell me all my hair needed was “grease and water..”. 

It confused me how they never had to sit down for hours every week in between their mothers, aunties, TT, grandmothers..etc legs and endure the most humbling form of discipline ever. 

My mom has really straight hair, so she never was able to do my hair the way I wanted. And honestly, a part of me still resents her for that. The styles I wanted were too “ghetto” in her mind. Which was hilarious to me since she is a black woman. 

I say all of this to congratulate myself for knowing how to do my own hair.

Box braids, faux locs, crochet, quick weave, Fulani, freestyle, cornrows, silk press...I can do it all. Imagine how amazing my ancestors must have been..to be able to pass down a secret language that helped us survive..and express ourselves through strategic finger movements.

That’s why Black Girl Magic is so real. 

-C 

[language-sanctuary]

Hispanic Dark Academia Literary Recs

I am studying Hispanic Literature at uni (take a shot every time I don’t mention that) and it has been very frustrating to see that only European or American (as in the US, saying “American” pisses me off because I am American too even though I live in Mexico. America is a continent, surprise) get recommended. Here are some books, I guess, along with links!

El vampiro de la colonia Roma by Luis Zapata (my translation: The Vampire from the Roma Neighborhood): one of the first Mexican gay books. The mentioned “colonia Roma” refers to a very famous neighborhood in Mexico City. 

La tumba by José Agustín (The Tomb): About an upper class teen. One of Mexico’s most famous novelists, and he was considered a member of the Onda generation (basically the Beat generation but Latinoamerican). 

La sombra del viento by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (The Shadow of the Wind): One of my favorite books, set after the Civil Spanish War. I could not describe how amazing this man’s writing style is. Link to the Goodreads page

Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo: Considered by many the best Mexican novel. This novel started (among others) the literary movement known as “magical realism”, to which Gabriel García Márquez and Elena Garro contributed. Link to a PDF

Aura by Carlos Fuentes: A young man is employed to help a widow sort through her dead husband’s files, and falls in love with the widow’s niece, but everything gets darker once he’s introduced in that mysterious world. A very chilling and beautiful novella, full of erotism and Catholic themes. Definitely a fave of mine. Link to a PDF

Anything by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: How to introduce this woman. Juana was one of the first female writers in México when it was still under Spanish power. She became a nun to get educated and was known for being rebellious. Also, she was a lesbian (”allegedly”, but you can fight me, the same people that say she was straight also say Sappho was straight and Achilles and Patroclus were just friends), a child prodigy and one of Mexico’s first feminist icons. She was also a fucking savage, the things she said about men were hilarious and always very subtle. She literally has a poem called “You Foolish Men”, shaming men who slept with prostitutes but shamed women for their sexuality. Still relevant. Link to her poems

Anything by Alejandra Pizarnik: I don’t know as much about her as I know about the other people on this list because she was Argentinian but she’s one of the most renowned female Latino American poets, and can be compared to Sylvia Plath. Link to eleven of her poems (translated). 

Anything by Alfonsina Storni: Same with Pizarnik, I haven’t read much but she’s also one of the most famous feminist poets from Latino America. Link to translated poems 

Anything by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer: Bécquer is considered one of the most famous Spanish poets from the 19th century. I personally find his poetry incredible.  Link to his most famous poems 

NOTE: I know in recent years the word “hispanic” has come to mean “Latino American person living in the US” specially on US-centric websites, but the word itself means “from/related to Spain or Spanish”.  I am hispanic not because I am Mexican or because I am a POC, but because my native language is Spanish, so some of these books are from Spanish (white) authors. I intend to do a post about this on the future. 

[manifestoonmoralmanlove]

What will be in my bag? Pre-ordered Manga. Straight and Lez edition.

Here’s a list of English-released manga I’ve currently got on pre-order, and manga series I ordered before but won’t be continuing with the series.

As a note: Some of these titles have been released but I have not received them yet due to a issues with covid backlog effected how things are released.  I personally find that if you pre-order it tends to get you manga quicker.  It seems there is more pressure to keep up with the new release schedule than chip away at the backlog.

I’m starting with the stuff I’ve already read some of and confirmed enjoyment, then stuff I’m shooting in the dark for, and finally series I have tried recently and have discontinued.

Heteros

My Androgynous Boyfriend

Story & Art by: Tamekou      Publisher: Seven Seas

It is rare for straight shit to end up in my library but My Androgynous boyfriend is an exception that will surprise no-one since it’s pretty queer adjacent.  This story is mostly a couple being lovey-dovey between jokes about sexuality and gender but (so far) isn’t problematic at all.  The female lead is quite enjoyable as she’s well-balanced and has agency throughout. There’s even ace representation! It’s very low-stakes, wholesome, and sweet so far. (Volume 3 is set to release in November.)

My Excitement Level: The gentle about to sink into a bubble bath variety

Yuri/Lesbian

Even Though We’re Adults

Story & Art by: Takako Shimura  Publisher: Seven Seas

Takako is also the creator of Sweet Blue Flowers and Wandering son.  I have dipped by toe in to both those series.  I overall find their writing kinda meandering and tepid (might just be me) but technically pretty solid.  I am hopeful for this series since it features adults....if the title didn’t make it obvious.  I was intrigued by the one character being married but the man finding out about the affair quickly and reacting more realistically and interestingly than the average male love interest in a Yuri.  I also found myself relating at bit to Akari’s angst about being unlucky with relationships with women.  I also do enjoy the artwork! This one is the most likely of my followed series to be dropped at some point. (Volume 2 of this manga was set to release in June this year.)

My Excitement Level: Cautious Optimism

For more click the jump!

Kase-san and Yamada

Story & Art by: Hiromi Takashima  Publisher: Seven Seas

This is a series I keep going back to.  While it is the very typical low-stakes bubbly, cutesy School age Yuri...it is a very good version of that.  Just warm bubble bath vibes. (Volume 7 is set to release in February of next year.  I think it was originally supposed to be released this May but was bumped back.)

My Excitement Level: The gentle about to sink into a bubble bath variety

NOW ONTO THE SERIES I HAVEN’T READ BUT I’M TAKING A CHANCE ON!

Adachi and Shimaura

Art: Moke Yuzuhara Story: Hitoma Iruma  Publisher: Yen Press

This, as I understand it, is a slow-burn romance about two delinquent girls.  I have heard good things about the novel and the anime series!  However I prefer manga to novels and don’t have a funimation account so I went to snag it in manga form. (Volume 1 was set to release in February this year and 2 in September)

My Excitement Level: Cautious Optimism

The Girl I want is so handsome!

Story & Art by:Yuama     Publisher: Seven Seas

The premise is a young lady has a crush on a handsome older girl who’s oblivious to her advances.  When she tries to confess she instead gets roped into being the club manager of the basketball team that her crush is a part of.  So it feels like it may end up cycling through 2 jokes and be so deep in the stereotypical manga bullshit you can easily-predict its beats volumes in advance. HOWEVER that is also a premise that is similar to Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun which is legitimately a hilarious series. Also I fucking love butch/stud/masc-presenting women/AFAB people.  So I’m willing to risk “The same Anime bullshit” for good jokes and a cute lezzy romance with a beautiful butch.  (Volume 1 is set to release of December of this year.)

My Excitement Level: Pretty nervous actually.  I hope it works out!

Monologue Woven for You

Story & Art by: Syu Yasaka     Publisher: Seven Seas

A woman gives up on a career in theater gets tangled in a relationship with a woman passionately pursuing theater.  Since it is set between college age women, and appears to be about more personal and mature themes I am interested. (Volume 1 I BELIEVE is supposed to be released in February of next year.)

My Excitement Level: Cautious Optimism

Mizuno and Chayama (No page yet so far as I can tell.)

Story & Art by: Yuhta Nishio     Publisher: Yen Press

Two daughters of feuding families meet in secret.  This is by the same author of After Hours.  I read a bit of After Hours and found it fine but boring since it seemed without conflict.  Conflict doesn’t seem to be in short supply with a story like this!  While I enjoy the sugary-sweet high school lesbian romances...those are not in short-supply. So I am always hungry for something darker, meatier, more mature. (Volume 1 is set to release next February) 

My Excitement Level: Cautious Optimism

5 Seconds Before The Witch Falls In Love

Story & Art by:  Zeniko Sumiya     Publisher: Seven Seas

It appears to be a playful fantasy about a Witch and Witch-hunter who’s antagonism turns romantic.  This may end up one note and stupid...but I’m always hear for queer romances set in high-fantasy and I haven’t read a Yuri where rivals turns to lovers. (Volume 1 is set to release next February)  

My Excitement Level: Low-key

Catch These Hands! (No page yet so far as I can tell.)

Story & Art by: Murata     Publisher: Yen Press 

A former delinquent runs into her high school rival.  After losing a fight to her she agrees to her terms...her terms being to go out on a date with her.  I mean the title alone makes me want to pick it up!  It may run afoul of bad anime humor, but I’m hoping with the fact that it’s full of gay adult delinquents that it’ll be a little different.  (Volume 1 is set to release next February)  

My Excitement Level: Medium-key

Series I have discontinued:

I’m in love with the Villainess

Art by: Aonoshimo  Story by:  Inori   Publisher: Seven Seas

A woman gets reborn into her favorite Otome game but she wants to romance the villiain!  I had heard a ton of great things about the novel but I picked up the manga version. (If the novel is totally different I can’t speak to it.)  For me, the writing is ham-handed, the jokes flop 90% of the time, and the fact the lead’s only personality trait seems to be ~obsessed with a bully~ really dampens this title.  Her advances are so aggressive and unwanted I honestly started feeling bad for a spoiled rich bully.  I will say it’s saving grace is the fact that the lead is masochistically into the villainess’ tsundere abusiveness. For me I hate tsundere romances if framed like, “I like you DESPITE your insults.” It is only tolerable if it’s instead, “I like you cause you tell it like it is. I’m a dirty little pig. Please step on this bad little piggy!”

Our Teachers are Dating

Story & Art by: Pikachi Ohi      Publisher: Seven Seas

Well one reason I stopped the series is that cover you see up there.  The sex in this series is fade to black but FOR SOME REASON the 3rd cover has them both butt naked.  But on a less superficial note, the story is about two teachers who start dating.  And while cute at points, I was just underwhelmed.  I think a part of it, is the fact that this behaves like a stereotypical high school romance...and while set in a high school...these are grown ass women not 15 year olds.  So I have less patience with the, “Gosh when will I get to kiss my girlfriend?” bullshit.  I mean, I would hesitate to call it bad...but it’s just not a good version of it’s brand of bullshit.

Breath of Flowers

Story & Art by: Caly                       Publisher: Tokyopop

Absolute train-wreck, this is hands down the worst Yuri I have ever bought.  The story is nonsensical and all over the place.  There is a love rival who’s trying to break the two of them up so she can get with Gwyn...but then switches mid-gear to put in a lot of effort to bring them together intentionally...but she also still wants to hook up with Gwyn...it’s very ????????????  The main conflict of Gwyn is hiding their gender so they can play basketball on the boy’s team (not well explained) is built up hugely and resolved with a hand flick.  There is a melodramatic moment where a school nurse says more or less, “GIVE IT UP YOU’LL NEVER BE A BOY!” And it’s like “OH SHIT! The fact that Gwyn is on the basketball team is cause he’s a transboy trying to live life as a boy! Oh gosh it makes so much more sense now!”  But the author seems to not even know that trans people exist cause the story bumbles along as if that scene never happened.  The closest we get is at the end Gwyn is like, “Look I’m learning to do make-up on myself to make you happy lawl!” Which is I GUESS supposed to be, “NO NO DON’T WORRY ALL OF GWYN’S GENDER STUFF WAS JUST THERE TO MAKE THE MAIN CHARACTER SEXUALLY CONFUSED WHEN SHE DISCOVERS GWYN’S TRUE GENDER!  HER TRUE GENDER IS 100% CIS WOMAN CAUSE SHE DID MAKE-UP ONCE! IT’S FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE!” Like whaaaaaaaaat?  And it ends on a very random scene which doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the story.  Ugh just very bad do not interact!

A White Rose in Bloom

Story & Art by: Asumiko Nakamura    Publisher: Seven Seas

At an all girls catholic school a young woman falls for a mysterious foreign student.  I grabbed this cause it’s gay and I overall like Asumiko Nakamura’s work (she also does Doukyusei, double mints, and others.)  However I was just not grabbed with this title.  I just felt like I wasn’t getting what was making the MC pants on head obsessed with Steph.  Also the lead’s mother tells her that she’s getting divorced and therefore will no longer have money to pay for the university and she’s framed like a super bad person for this.  Like I get why the MC (a teenager) would think that something like that is THE END OF THE WORLD! But I remember them really framing the mom like a selfish bitch for this...when like...it’s well established that her mom and dad’s relationship has been toxic for YEARS and that they TRIED SO HARD to fix it.  OH WELL!  This might be good but it just didn’t grab me in the 1st volume.

I’ll make a post on the BL titles later! Take care and Stay Rotten!

[pynkhues]

Hi ! I just wanted to say that I love your writing and I wanted to ask how you go about doing research for all your au's. Thanks!

Hi! Thank you so much, anon! And what a fun question! I could talk about researching all day, haha. My undergraduate degree is actually in history too, so research is something that’s sort of fundamental to my education in a lot of ways. 

To talk about researching is kind of hard though, because while the steps are more or less the same, the approach is really different depending on what it is that I’m writing. For instance, the answer’s pretty different if I’m writing a modern day au where I can shorthand certain things because my readers know what I’m talking about vs an historical au where I really have to think pretty deeply about everything if I want to submerge a reader in a storyworld. 

So I thought it might be fun to answer this question using my two biggest au’s as sorts of case studies! This is probably an extremely nerdy answer, I don’t know, haha, and it talks about both researching and incoporating research into the creative process while writing, so I hope that’s okay! 

Generally speaking, all my writing starts with a question: 

What’s the story that I want to tell? 

This is always a process that tends to vary for me, but I rarely actively ask the question to myself prior to getting ready to write it? Usually it ends up as me sort of thinking over a concept then getting to a point where I know I’m going to write it, and it’s only when I really start to think seriously about that that I ask myself that question. 

In both of these cases, it was pretty typical for me, haha: 

And well, then we get to the next question.

What background do I need to know to be able to tell that story? 

While this question might seem AU specific, it’s something that’s actually a step in everything I write. I was working on the second part of the Christmas fic today, which is technically canon divergent, but has made me think a lot about Beth and Rio’s canon cultural backgrounds. 

I’ve always liked the headcanon that Beth and Annie are Jewish, but disconnected from their heritage (Marks is a traditionally Jewish surname, Annie’s used some yiddish slang before), and Rio’s obviously Latino, but of Mexican heritage if we apply Manny’s background, and wears rosary beads on the show which indicate that he’s Catholic. I wanted to embrace both of those things, so I’ve tried to thread them through the story where it’s appropriate to do so. For instance, there's a scene of a Las Posadas celebration at Sainte Anne de Detroit which required a LOT of research on my part and hopefully reads well! 

The point is that those things felt important to me to include in a Christmas fic about Beth and Rio in the C&C ‘verse because the entire series is about their lives entwining and getting to know each other fully. I want to include detail that feels specific to what we know about them and embraces and (with any luck) deepens our connection to the characters in my fic. 

What I’m getting to in a really roundabout way is that once I have a story idea, I start to think about what I’m going to have to understand if I’m going to do the story justice.

In the case of the pornstar and pirate aus, this couldn’t look more different: 

Annnnnd so on, haha. 

As you can see, sometimes that background research is really clear and straight forward, as it was with the pornstar AU. I looked up how it worked, and because I knew that I wanted it to steer clear of the seedy and toxic parts of porn, I basically researched ideal environments and best practice, put those in place, and then focused on how to get Beth from her suburban home into a legitimate studio. 

The pirate AU was extremely different and much more of a mutable process. Without a clear sense of the era from the get-go, I had a much wider scope to explore when and where the story could take place, and when I realised that dating the story would inevitable force me to contend with parts of history I might not want to (i.e. the lead up to The Civil War), it let me re-shape a world around an era, but not feel entirely beholden to it. 

In that sense, the research process for both of them involved me choosing fantasy over reality – I negated certain realities to focus on the things I wanted to write (I highly doubt you will find a porn set anywhere near as ethical as Thank You Ma’am after all) – but if I can’t do that in fanfic, where can I? The aim still is for there to be enough that is real that you feel grounded in the story even if I’ve taken certain creative liberties for the sake of telling the story I want to tell.

That’s the beauty of research. Once you know enough about it, you can make informed choices about what you use to shape your storyworld, and make it feel authentic even as you’re fictionalising it.

The point of that though is that this background research is so fundamental to the DNA of the story itself, that it can’t even begin to exist without it.

Loose plotting

It’s usually around this point that I’ll put together a loose plot. This is generally pretty thin, but I’ll start to put pieces into a bit of an order. 

The pornstar au is, again, a really easy example of this. Three parts felt right for it, the shooting of the porno itself was always going to be in the final part, which gave me two chapters to get Beth there. I knew she was going to submit herself through an amateur talent callout which I’d discovered in my background research, so the question of it was more around why would someone like her sign up? Canon plot points help – Beth needs money! Fantasy kicks in again, haha – because she and Dean are finally divorcing.

On the other hand, the pirate au is pretty much unrecognisable from it’s first loose plot.

In it, I’d pencilled in Beth travelling on a ship with Dean and the children, pirates boarding, and Rio kidnapping Beth as collateral to help him escape. 

My loose plots change a lot and usually grow in detail, evolve and change shape as I start to ask myself why, and there are a lot of reasons why the pirate au changed so much, but I’ll get to that a bit later. 

The point is, once I have a loose plot, I’ll usually throw some more words down, see what I’ve got, and then get to the part of the research process I like to call: 

Question time

With background research done and a loose plot and some draft scenes written, I hit a much more specific part of the research process where I don’t need to know broadstroke background detail, I need to know the answers to really specific stuff. I usually write a list and try to do it all at once so that the writing process isn’t too much stop-start. I bullet point the answers in my creative doc then too, so the information is right there when I need it.

Again, the questions I asked of the pornstar au and pirate au were pretty different (although there were a few similarities, haha). Some of the questions I asked were: 

This is actually a case where the pirate au was, in a lot of ways, easier. History is well documented and fact checked after all, but current porn industry standards are, y’know. Not quite as transparent, haha. I’ve mentioned it before, but I actually started to fill out an amateur porn application (with a false identity of course, haha), so that I could see the full form and get a genuine sense of the questions they ask, which is hilarious, annnd brings us to sources. 

Sources

In researching, there are definitely things I’ll just Google, but I also like to utilise sources pretty widely. In particular, Google’s not really going to give you a great sense of what - say - the life of a pornstar’s like, but there are some great podcast series where performers talk about their lives in their own words. Similarly, Google searches are great for the cliffnotes of an answer, but don’t hold a candle to era-made drawings, letters and newspaper clippings. 

For the two, I’d probably say my sources looked something like this: 

How do the answers to these questions affect the story that I want to tell? 

Annnd of course, the answers to these questions frequently end up re-shaping and re-framing my story, both directly and indirectly. Originally for instance, I wasn’t going to have condoms at all in the pirate au, because I naively assumed they wouldn’t be invented yet in a loose 1800s-set fic, only to discover that some version of a condom has been around since Ancient Rome (it was made using the bladders of animals! Gross!). 

Other times it’s indirect. The idea for instance in the pirate au to have Beth realise the houses that the men had robbed through certain items they were wearing came really from looking a lot at antique store sites and image archives and seeing how much was custom made for families and individuals. That in turn made me think how for someone who’s ability to think on her feet and observe are her strengths, that could really come into play as a plot point. 

Re-Plotting and Writing

It’s usually around this point that everything comes together and I start to really map out a fic in a firmer, more meaningful way, and also just throw myself into the writing of it. I generally feel like I’ve got the tools at this point in the process, and start to talk to the story in a bit more of an informed way. 

It’s also really where I start asking myself why? and what does this mean for the next scenes? a lot. 

Jumping back to the original pirate au plot, this was really where it pivoted as drastically as it did. There were too many tropes in that premise that I didn’t like. I didn’t like that Beth had no agency in the act that connected her to Rio, I didn’t like the trope of the MOC kidnapping a ‘helpless’ white woman, I didn’t like that Beth would be taken from her children by force and how that would impact any connection her and Rio formed and ensure that a major part of the story would have to be devoted to Beth trying to get back to them.

Immediately that made it a case where Beth had to choose to go with Rio, but why would she leave her family? And why would Rio let this upperclass lady onboard his ship? So she snuck on. So she had to, because Dean lost everything again. Okay, but would Beth just leave the kids with Dean after he’d done that? No way, not with the implications of the time, so who would she leave them with? Annie or Ruby - no, I want Ruby on the pirate adventure. Annie. But what on earth could put Annie in a secure enough position that Beth would willingly entrust her children to her? 

Thus the subplot of Greg wanting to legitimise Ben was born! Which I doubly liked, because it kind of mirrors canon, haha. 

In that case, the research really helped me flesh out a story world that let me explore character storylines in a way that I wouldn’t always do, which is insanely fun to me, haha, so I forever am left hoping it’s fun to read too. 

But yes! In a nutshell, that’s my research process. :-) 

[dreamofragtime]

I think S5e02 “Sorrow songs” is definitely one of my favourite episodes ever! This episode gives soooo much! There would be so many things to say about it, I could write / talk for days...but don’t worry I won’t 😂

First of all, this has been a very difficult week for me (and my family) and this episode was like a balm for my soul. I’d like to start with a couple of thoughts about the case (I know I rarely do, not because I don’t find them interesting, on the contrary I like mysteries and intrigue, but simply because on. my ramblings here usually I’m more focused on Jean and Lucien...am I to blame for that?😉) I don’t know if it is because of the emotional state I’ve been in, or because being a daughter, a mother and a wife myself...but I found it so very moving and poignant. I was so sad for that poor husband and little boy...and everything happened for a stupid misunderstanding, a lack of communication and Elizabeth’s assumptions that if her husband wasn’t willing to try for another baby, that surely meant he was having an affair. That made me think, honestly, about how easy it can be to misjudge even those we fancy ourselves to know better than anyone else...it’s so true, sometimes.

Well, that’s enough with the sadness! I think it’s best if we proceed with our lovebirds, shall we?😊

The first thing I noticed was that Lucien’s hair was still perfectly in place when he appears in scene to answer the phone and Jean comes down almost immediately (also no more hair net for her and I forgot to say I love her hair and selection of clothes in these first 2 episodes of season 5)....those two were up late 😄 I know it!

Second and that was a huge surprise PATRICK SHIPS IT!!!! I mean...first he sees Jean’s wearing a ring when she brings the tea tray and, well being the smartest person in the room she notices (obviously Lucien doesn’t...men!) and she flees the room to take it off. I felt bad for her because she was uncomfortable and embarrassed and she’s been through so much already, she doesn’t need to feel as if she’s doing something “wrong”...not about this. And then Patrick hinting not very subtly at people you’ve known all your life having secrets but of course Lucien still doesn’t get it. The next scene between Patrick and Jean actually made me cry, for what he says...because it reminded me of something someone told me a very long time ago!

Now I have a question for you, do they reveal why Jean is not wearing Genevieve’s ring? Or did I miss anything?

Then what do we have? Ahh yesssss....we have the scene I’ve seen hundreds of gifs about but never knew anything about!

I must confess I rewatched it 3 or 4 times because it was so glorious...what a kiss!!! Everything is perfect! Lucien entering the kitchen and Jean making hot cocoa (that was so sweet and homey) and he who is obviously interested in something else entirely than the cocoa, despite her robe. She responds passionately to the kiss, too but I get it...the Catholic sense of sin and guilt is there...she pushes him away (those hands tho...) even if you ask me she seems happy.He asks her to join him for something stronger perhaps (really Lucien what were you thinking? 😄) and Lucien’s face “now I really ruined my chance” is worth one million pounds. What happens next was another big surprise, I thought we had been gifted enough with the kiss, but noooo...Jean in her room looking at her reflection in the mirror. I found this another very emotional moment. It’s obvious she’s asking herself so many questions, after what’s just transpired between the two of them in the kitchen. When the time comes would Lucien find her attractive? It’s obviously been a long time since she’s been with a man and they’ve been dancing around each other for so long, and they’ve waited for so long to be together, will she be confident enough to show him how much she loves him with everything that she has, with everything that she is? And what about him? How will their first night together be? But then she takes all the strength she has and she goes for it! She takes the (probably new) white night dress from the drawer and she wears it, she even put make up on her face...I found it so sweet and Jean so very determined it really brought tears to my eyes...she’s such a wonderful woman! But then Rose sees her and she smiles because she’s understood everything and she doesn’t judge her, on the contrary I think Rose is happy for them but it’s too late and Jean loses her nerve and probably even thinks that was some sign from God, that they should wait until they’re married and the next morning she goes into confession...and I’m not even disappointed because she was so in character here.

The day after, when they are interrogating Tomas he says something about his relationship with Nadia...that he would have waited for her to be ready, that he would have never hurt her, well that really could easily apply to what happened the night before with Lucien and Jean. He respects her and he doesn’t push her if she doesn’t want!

The pine bark scene was probably the most hilarious thing I’ve ever seen and Lucien asking Jean if it works for the menopause and she just arches her eyebrows 😂😂😂 and when he drinks it...well Jean lock your door very tight tonight because if it has an effect on Lucien you should definitely be worried 🤣🤣🤣

And here we are...last scene. Another wonderful gift (I don’t know if I should be worried because it’s too much happiness in one go 🤞🏻) Lucien being a lovesick puppy with those big shiny eyes looking at her because she’s the most wonderful woman in the entire universe and he also recites old Romani songs (stop being so cute please) and our amazing Jean telling him she’s glad he has the amulet to look after him when they are not together 😭 and can we talk about the candlelight dance? Is there anything more romantic than the way he takes her hand, the way he holds her, the way they look at one another and that slow swaying together?

[jadedragoness]

Review: Peace Talks

First Read Through Reaction

Now staring off, knowing that the book was essentially part one of two did mean that I went in expecting that there would be plot lines that wouldn’t be resolved. I did NOT expect that nearly zero of the plot lines would be resolved, at all. Yikes. Now, I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy it. I did. But it felt like there were 50 to 60 pages missing that should have been in the story to at least wrap up minor plot lines before heading into ‘Battle Ground’.

Warning: Full of Spoilers

Such the arrival of the Outsiders those Cornerhounds. Um… Outsiders and at no point that Harry wonder why in the hell they were called to Chicago? Or why they were targeting him and Ebenezer. Seriously, unless the author totally forgot we know that Outsiders can only be called by mortals. So human wizards brought them. So was it someone in the ‘Black Council’ or was it the Formor, since we know from previous stories that they grab humans and mind-whammy them and also modify them. And we know that they’ve been pretty focused on grabbing minor practioners for a couple of years now.

Hell, even just knowing why Thomas attacked the svartalf King would have been good to know in the book even if we don’t find out who it was yet.

That being said lets start of with things I didn’t like.

Thing Which I Wasn’t All that Pleased About:

1. Butters in that threesome relationship.

Now, let me explain, it’s not because its a poly relationship. I don’t even twitch over how Justine and Thomas include others in the sexual part of their relationship. It’s because I kept wondering if Marci was even into dudes. As far as I knew she was only into girls. And now she’s suddenly bi?

What the hell?

I think my reaction has a lot to do with how skewed the sexual orientation gradient in shown among Named characters. You have straight men. Straight women. Bi women who are shown to be blatantly into men and women…and that’s it, now.

No lesbian women with zero interest in men. No bi men. No gay men. No asexual characters. No trans characters. No gender fluid people.

I know that this due to the author’s eye and while it hasn’t irritated me much in the past as we keep getting more and more books with more newly introduced characters the lack is becoming more and more glaring to me. Especially, as I have drifted into reading other series that manage to be way more inclusive about this sort of thing in great and amazing ways *sighs happily over Rivers of London series*. And I don’t just mean in passing with random nameless scenery people that never talk which have popped up in the Dresden Files but with actual characters that have names, dialogue and contribute to the series.

So it really, really annoys me that Marci went from being the only lesbian who is a named character to joining the horde of bi women in the DF verse.

Okay, so its not really a Butters issue to much as a grumble about the spectrum of gender and sexually needing better representation.

*grumbles* Step up your game, Butcher.

I will add that I’m head-canoning that actually the relationship here is Butters with Andi, Andi with Butter and Marci, and Marci with Andi. That pretty much with Butters running around being the new Knight Andi didn’t like how her boyfriend wasn’t paying attention and gave Butters the ultimatum of letting Marci in as Andi’s girlfriend or they broke up.

… yeah, I’m totally liking that spin way, way better.

2. That Marcone took forever to show up! ARGH! I love him ok.

Considering how early he was name dropped in the story the amount of time it took him to show up… Jim Butcher is a damn Marcone-tease. *glares hotly in author’s direction*

3. I don’t like it that Murphy is so hurt. I don’t hate it. I think I’m just uneasy about the future implications.

Having reread the entire series before reading ‘Peace Talks’ I fully expected some lingering injury but not to that level. I’m actually worried about her chances of surviving any upcoming battle, and not just in Battle Ground. There’s even more danger coming down the pipeline in future books and she won’t let herself stay ‘safe’ when she could be watching Harry’s back… so its a worrying problem.

Now if she died I have no doubt that her being recruited to be a Valkerie is an option. But then I remembered how those warrior women go out into the world with ‘clients’ and of the two we’ve seen they’ve been attached to ‘monsters’ aka Lara and Marcone.

Unless, the payment isn’t cash and she can be attached to Harry. *hums in thought*

But then I have to wonder how much Murphy would accept that role. She’s also a pretty devout Catholic as this book reminded us so that is also something that would make her say no to the offer.

4. That the younger Wardens who had so looked up to Harry being so damned suspicious… ow. That hurt. I may have teared up and sniffled into a tissue thinking about it. And then sobbed because so much of it came from Carlos… Carlos! The man went into the Deeps with Harry! Ouch.

5. Rudolph… that roach.

Ugh, I’ve had the disturbing thought that now that magic and the supernatural on the path to being exposed to all of humanity, scared humanity too, that will end up with a resurgence of a new Inquisition and the killing of anything eldritch. And you know that Rudolph would definitely be in it. *shudders in disgust* Creep.

BTW I totally don’t believe that Rudolph answers to Marcone. It doesn’t make sense as to why he was so pushy go get Harry during ‘Changes’. I had thought he was answering to the Red Court but with them being taken out of the picture… now I wonder if he isn’t answerable to the Black Council.

Things I Did Not Expect:

1. Damn… when Ebenezer sent that spell through Harry and ‘killing’ I was so shocked even though I was pretty sure there was a twist coming. Mostly because of what it says about Ebenezer.

Ebenezer actions killed Harry.

Sure it was a fake body that brought no harm to the real Harry. But if Harry hadn’t thought ahead? If he hadn’t used his brain to ask Molly to create a fake? Eb would have killed his own grandson.

Sure it was an accident but it could so easy have resulted in a dead Harry. I was crying so hard I wondered if my eyeballs were loosening in their sockets. Argh.

2. Bonea…. Harry your naming skills are simply weird. I’m so glad that Susan named Maggie.

Although Bonnie is a pretty great nickname.

Thinks I Found Utterly Hilarious

1. The line about the best offense being a T-Rex? Gold. Pure gold.

2. When Harry figured out there are angels in the hilt of the Swords of the Cross and Butter’s immediate reaction of horror because he’d accidentally laundered the hilt, giving it a ride in a washing machine.

OMG! I had the instant image of a miniature angel screaming and growing dizzy when going through the spin cycle.

I know that makes no sense but that’s where my mind went, okay.

3. The conjuritis. Omg, it’s so gross with all the ectoplasm leaking from Harry’s nose but it’s sooooo funny. Also the way he kept getting the ‘aren’t you too old for this’ from Ebenezer and then Lara made me giggle even harder.

Then I thought: dude, it’s like chicken pox, something you got as a kid but if you never had it you get it when exposed later in life. So one of his kids has it. Probably Maggie too.

4. When Sanya pretended to have his hand lopped off. I straightened up and was so worried Sanya had lost a hand. Then when I realized he was pretending to freak out Butters and Harry I admit to laughing way too hard. Got me too.’

Also there’s no way that Sanya was actually defeated there. He’s younger and better trained then Butters, I don’t care how light (Heh) the new sword is. He definitely threw that fight to test his hunch.

5. Murphy’s inability to handle being flirted on with a red-headed warrior woman. Sooooo funny. I mean, Murphy could have said a number of things such as ‘I’m exclusive.’ or ‘I’m not interested in women.’ But she just floundered. Heh heh.

6. I continue to find it completely hilarious that Lara, a couple of centuries old vampire, seems to keep learning a lot of power moves from Marcone.

Such as: having trained fighters that are NOT food, well… mostly. Having those mines installed in the walls. And now hiring a Valkerie of her very own.

I keep thinking, yeah, there’s no way she’d win in a fight against Marcone because there’ s no way that Marcone has let slip all of his tricks.

Things I Really, Really Liked:

1. Marcone. Everything Marcone. *heart-eyes*

And then he proves why he’s so damned scary by standing up to the Titan. Then to the ghouls. Then after proving his bad-ass quotient if off the charts he gets everyone organized to fight.

Yeeessss… It proves to me that when it comes to protecting Chicago he is actually the best person after Harry. Hell, in some ways he’s better than Harry. Now, I’m not saying he’s a white knight or anything like that. Just that he has the intelligence, the ruthlessness, the will, the power and the men to provide the most protection to the city’s mortal denizens. At least when there’s a war raging with multiple enemies who will be attacking at various points.

And oh, I can’t wait to see how he’s going to get revenge for the death of his people. Omg, he’s going to kill the Formor so hard. *goes starry eyed thinking about more Marcone*

But why did he have to appear so late in the book?! *wails in a heart-rending fashion*

There better be a ton more Marcone in the next book! *makes desperate gimme gimme hands*

No, I don’t have a Marcone addiction… I can stop anytime I want to. *sneaks off to mainline some “Even Hand” straight into the brain*

2. The return of Goodman Grey! Oh, I hope he’s around a lot! I’ve really grown to like him.

<b>Things Which Blew My Mind or Were Just Freaking Awesome: </b>

1. Dad!Harry is actually the most amazing Harry. Forget the magic flinging and the fire storms… this is the best Harry.

Just the way he takes care of his kids…. *turns to mush like ectoplasm*

2. Murphy and Harry are finally together! Yay! Yay! Hip hip hooray!

Now, I’m a rather shameless Marcone/Dresden fic writer, but as I never ever expect this to be canon I’m content to write it as fanfic for my own sense of delight. However when it comes to canon I’m full on board with the Karrin and Harry relationship. Be it friendship or romantic, I think its great.

3. Marcone… that is all.

Random Speculation

1. I find myself wondering about Ebenezer’s rage against vampires. And my brain muttered this theory: Maybe Harry’s grandmother was killed by White Court vampires.

Whoa.

It would explain the vitrolic rage.

And if Lara was involved it would also explain her flash of shame.

We don’t know anything about Harry’s grandmother, not even her name. So… that’s a thought.

2. River Shoulders teaching Harry.

Oh man, oh man, I hope Harry learns shape-shifting.

And thinking about it I had to wonder if the animal-shifting had anything to do with knowing the animal in question which of course made me think…

Harry should learn to shape-shift into a T-Rex.

He already knows how one is put together and the mind of one. And he knows that it’s possible to add extra mass to a shift from the Nevernever in the form of ectoplasm… so

Harrysarous Rex, baby…. I may have to write a fic with this premise.

3. Oh, if it’s possible to make a ectoplasmic body can Harry learn to make one for Bonea? After all Maggie would probably really enjoy getting to play with her little sister that way. Even if Harry can’t do it all the time and it wouldn’t last longer than a day. That would be delightful.

4. Okay, not this is more head-canon than speculation but… considering how hard Harry has been made to be analogous to Merlin I can’t help but wonder if Marcone is suppose to be Arthur’s analogue. So wielding Amorrachius *coughs*Excalibur*coughs* would make sense.

…it’s not just my Marcone-love talking dammit.

Speaking of Merlin, I’m convinced that he’s behind this whole ‘starborn’ thing. Seriously, otherwise its way too convenient that a wizard with that power is born every 666 years. It smacks of a spell.

And if that’s the case it also feeds into my pet theory that the whole reason we have Outsides at the Gates is because Merlin was the schmuck who drew them to our reality in the first place. And everything surrounding the war with the Outsiders are his attempts to try to fix what he broke.

*lost in pondering thoughts*

Things I Have Questions About

1. Did Harry forget he has The Ways Map from his mother? I would have thought he would have figured out a way (heh) to get to the island somehow. He was on it for so long I thought for sure he’d spend time exploring it. Also we knew from ‘Skin Game’ that even tiny factors can change where the Way goes in the Nevernever. I doubt the ENTIRE island has Ways that lead to a bad place. Especially for Harry now that he’s the Warden.

2. Also why didn’t Harry get Lea to help him? After all unless she’s moved it since ‘Changes’ her garden is still on the other side of the sub-basement.

3. What did Lara use that first favor from Mab on? *eyes her suspiciously*

4. Where are the Za Lord’s Guard? *wondering about what been happening with Lacuna and Toot-toot*

5. If Harry gets kicked out of the White Council (good riddance, since they haven’t exactly been all that helpful lately) can he get enough signatures to be added as a member of the Accords in his own right? After all being Warden of Demonreach has got to mean a lot to the older members.

Then he wouldn’t be reliant on Mab’s protection.

I can’t help but hope this proves to be the case, especially if in ‘Battle Ground’ Harry ends up taking down that Titan. Because he needs as much protection and influence he can gather if he’s no longer White Council to protect himself, his people and his kids. Especially if he eventually gets rid of that Winter Knight mantle like I hope he does.

6. How in the hell (pardon the pun) did evil demon Sasquatch survive being turned to mush by Hade’s Ice Gate? Or the shades that were part of the security system that almost got Harry?

*frowns* The only reason I can think of would be the coin of Ursiel being the factor. I doubt a Fallen Angel is allowed to stick around in the Greek realm of the afterlife.

7. WHERE IS BOB?! Seriously, if Butters doesn’t give him back...

[netflixandgrill-blog]

40 Days and 40 Nights and 9 Reasons It Sucked

Josh Hartnett works for a burgeoning “dot-com” (we know, 2002, hilarious) in San Francisco and he has a big problem: every beautiful woman he so much as bumps into on the street wants to immediately go to bed with him. How will he ever find true love if he keeps giving in to their sexual advances? Well, like anyone with this completely relatable problem would do, he consults the Catholic Church for some healthy advice on sex. After talking to a priest (who happens to be his brother) in a confessional, he decides to go the entirety of Lent—40 days and 40 nights—without sex, intimate contact, or...ahem...self-gratification. The rub? (Pun intended.) He then meets the girl of his dreams (she has a name but we just call her Manic Pixie Dream Girl). Also, for added pressure, his office has a betting pool on when he will cave, and so they try to tempt him to give up his celibacy at every turn. We would like to say hilarity ensues, but as the church has taught us, even the smallest lie is a sin.

1. The Only People Who Could Possibly Relate to This Premise Are Single People During a Pandemic

The problem: we are not single. Also, a second problem: our brains work. 

2. Josh Hartnett’s Horniness Defies the Laws of Human Biology

Poor Josh Hartnett is so horny that, for the last two of his 40 days he has a perma-boner and is shaking like a heroin addict at a methadone clinic. So horny that, on the last day of the challenge, he hallucinates that he is floating through a sea of (really unattractive) boobs in a fevered psychotic break from reality, like Ewan McGregor seeing the dead baby on the ceiling in Trainspotting. So horny that, in the aforementioned psychotic break, he doesn’t even realize that his ex-girlfriend is mounting him in an effort to sabotage the 40-day challenge at the 11th hour. He imagines that he’s at the laundromat or some shit while his ex-girlfriend gets on top of him and has sex with him to completion before he comes to (pun intended) and realizes what has happened. And all of us watching are supposed to go, “Yeah, that tracks. I remember not getting laid for the entirety of high school and it was exactly like that.”

3. His Ex-Girlfriend Sexually Assaults Him and Yet He Still Has to Apologize For It

Speaking of the aforementioned scene with the ex-gf, we are still beside ourselves that during Josh’s fever dream (where he’s basically unconscious and tied to the bed), his ex-girlfriend legit rapes him, and no one in the movie—including Josh Hartnett—even suggests, “Hey, that kind of wasn’t cool.” His new love interest, Manic Pixie Dream Girl, walks in on it and swears Josh off forever and he spends the last 15 minutes of the movie apologizing and trying to win her back, when the misunderstanding could have been solved with the following 4 lines:

MPDG: You slept with your ex-girlfriend!

Josh Hartnett: No, actually, I was sexually assaulted.

MPDG: Oh my God, I’m so sorry that happened to you.

Josh Hartnett: Thank you for understanding. Let’s get a panini.

<Roll credits>

4. They Could Have Cast the Female Characters as Blow-Up Dolls, Because the Women are Just Props in This Movie

All the women, except for Manic Pixie Dream Girl, are completely interchangeable. So much so that it takes next to nothing to set her apart in Josh Hartnett’s eyes. “This girl is so quirky! She dances by herself wearing headphones at the laundromat! How quirky!” Other women are beautiful and ready to sleep with him at any moment, but this girl is different. 

In fact, this must be Donald Trump’s favorite movie because it’s a world where women are just there to seduce men, and the fact that men can’t control themselves sexually is completely justified. And also because there are no black people. For real, like, none. It’s just a world full of white guys who all look exactly the same, and one Asian guy (the Rolling Stone dude from Almost Famous) thrown in for “diversity”. That’s it.

5. Josh Harrnett is REALLY Bad at First Dates

Their first date was worse than our first date, and we drunkenly sat drinking water out of Tupperware. JK, that was a great 1st date. Ours, not theirs. For their first date, Josh Hartnett took Manic Pixie Dream Girl to the most romantic place on earth, the bus. They literally just rode the city bus for what must have been like 4 hours. Not to mention the fact that they live in San Francisco and the bus managed to drive by every tourist spot on this fictional city bus route, as if it were a trolley tour. HEY there’s an idea, why didn’t he take her on a romantic trolley tour? You know what this movie needed? One rewrite. Just one. 

6. Josh’s Workplace Makes Frat Houses Look Like a 1930’s Ladies Sewing Circle

Where is the HR office at Josh’s dot-com office? Did they outsource it to India or decide to convert it into a marshmallow pit wrestling ring? We’re guessing one of those scenarios took place seeing as how Josh’s boss talks to the women in the office like it’s last call at a meat market bar, looks up the women’s skirts when they aren’t looking, fingers dried apricots like they are ladies’ sexual organ, and performs cunnilingus on said dried apricots. But it’s all given a pass because he is such a sexual being and just can’t help himself. Josh’s coworkers also attempt to drug him with Viagra in order to thwart the 40 day/40 night challenge but end up accidentally drugging the World’s Horniest Boss instead, who subsequently masturbates in the office bathroom for the rest of the day, which everyone thinks is HILARIOUS. No wonder the dot-com bubble burst.

7. The Entire Conflict of the Movie Could Have Been Circumvented with One Simple Conversation. 

Josh Hartnett was like halfway through the 40 days already when he meets Manic Pixie Dream Girl, so the central conflict of the film could have been solved with the following 5 lines:

Her: Wanna come back to my place?

He: Actually I gave up sex for Lent. I have 20 more days. 

Her: So, as two people who just started dating, if we have the completely normal amount of one date per week, it’ll be like 2 or 3 more dates before we can have sex?

He: Yeah.

Her: Cool.

<roll credits>

8. This Isn’t the Longest Movie Ever, But It Feels Like It 

At one point we turned to each other and exclaimed, “How can there still be 30 MINUTES LEFT?????” This is like the “Layla” of movies, in that you think it’s done, but it just keeps going.  But unlike “Layla”, which goes from something awesome to another something awesome with a little break in the middle, this movie just goes from suck to suck with no break. 

9. They Had a Sex Scene Where They Use Only Flowers and Neither of Them Even Makes One “De-Flowered” Joke

Josh Hartnett brings Manic Pixie Dream Girl flowers to make up for the fact that he’s not sticking her good. So, naturally, instead of thanking him for the gesture, she makes a big deal out of the fact that she and Josh haven’t kissed yet (kissing is part of the “no sex for lent” shebang) after like TWO DATES. She says that the kiss is the only way you can tell if there’s a real connection between two people--she heard it in a Motown song once, so it has to be true. So instead of kissing they get creative and begin to “touch” each other using the flowers Josh had brought. Josh then proceeds to make her orgasm by just using a flower petal and gently blowing on her nether regions. “Wait, would this actually work?” Heidi asked Mike during that scene. But Mike had already hurried off to the bedroom with an asthma inhaler and a dream.

In conclusion, we’ll never watch 40 Days and 40 Nights again. Except during Lent, as our penance. 

[madokamagicasecrets]

I just witnessed the dumbest person in the fandom in a YouTube comment section. They were trying to argue that homura was straight and anyone who thought otherwise was a pervert and this fool just kept digging his cis-het white male hole deeper and deeper and my GOD was it hilarious

I’ve seen the same kind of thing with “Madoka Magica is sexist!!!!!” people, lol. 

You can go ahead and hit them with my trans headcanon, if you wanna mess with them more.

The reason I think she’s trans is because of her insecurity and physical frailty. I think she was insecure because she was raised catholic in an orphanage and was scared of being adopted. Top surgery knocks you out for a while, so her heart surgery could be a cover for it. Plus, since she’s so shy around Madoka it could be because she’s worried she won’t be accepted as a woman! Hit ‘em with that, lol. 

[miss-butter]

Things I Thought That Were Not COVID (August - January)

~ Cheryl's eyes, Megan's feet, Megan's hands, Mom's back, Natalie's heart, Fud. 

~ How in Foxes: 

"What are you thinking about?" 

"Annie."

 "What about Annie?"

 "Just about Annie." 

~ All the reasons Donnie is the superior Wahlberg. 

~ Donna Summer. 

~ Getting Chase a Special Plate for Christmas! 

~ 6955 

~ Getting Mom a mini bundt pan for Christmas 

~ "That's not the truth, Ellen" 

~ Billy Corgan truly hand wrote Marilyn Manson a letter literally begging him to break up with Rose McGowan and he did! 

~ The lyrics to "hoax" 

~ don't respond, don't look, don't touch, move west, move into a long blackness 

~ as my relationship with Her shrinks my relationship with my sister grows deeper, richer. 

~ when I get what I want I never want it again 

~ I'm going to dye my hair a deeply unflattering blonde the way I always wanted to as a teenager. I want to look like Nancy Spungen, Debbie Harry. I finally know how to put makeup on, I know what to do, I know how to look like who I want to be. 

~ the air that came in through my kitchen window smelled like a perfect season, and the trees beyond the air were a mosaic of yellow, orange, no red. It reminded me of catholic school, of spring, of losing all sense of time. 

~ Looking at trees in sunlight, or the lake in the evening with nobody around always scares me in an exciting and happy way, because it reminds me there are places wholly untouched by humans. That exist unobserved by almost any living thing. I think I don't like seeing them because I too am often unobserved. It's like looking in a mirror. 

~  the tree outside my window, dripping with leaves a deep deep golden yellow, rustling, shimmering against the schooldays blue of the sky in the pink-gold afternoon fade. It's a gift for me from someone, somewhere, that I get to see it every day in the place that makes me happiest. It's a gift. 

~ when I have trouble falling asleep in a bed all by myself I do the thing that scares most people, and let one hand hang over the edge and dangle alone in the dark. Then I imagine a dark, sometimes human sometimes not, hand made of velvety shadows and blood come out from under the bed and hold my own. This is a fun activity, and it helps me get to sleep faster. 

~allie mack of sex cult fame plays the girl in the bathroom cutting herself during that episode of 7th Heaven I Think About A Lot 

~ I often get asked questions that I then don't get an opportunity to answer 

~ when I find out someone is lying to me I want to dig my fingers into their face and pull very hard. 

~ ALL of Dead Poets Society but esp that scene where Neil's dad finds him dead and he's just yelling "NEIL?? N E I L!". Such an inexplicable and unintentionally hilarious choice. 

~How James from James vs. Cinema just refers to Timothee Chalamet as "sasuke" 

~ I thought about myself of the not too distant past: little baby hairs, pale morphing body, hole running straight through the pelvis. I think if she saw me now we might fight, but when I turned to leave she'd say "take me with you". I hope this self will feel that way for the future, too. 

~ "Don't get my seat all wet." 

~ the night of the end of the election I spent with my sister. Just the two of us, and my niece and nephew. I gave up hope that we could do things like that together a long time ago. But we did, and we danced to Selena in her living room and did the washing machine and she loaned me booty shorts. I shouldn't try to hold on so hard. 

~ when I spell my full name to myself I come alive and can't believe my life is my life and that all people carry with them this horrible sad knowingness about their own nature that blooms when your cheeks are hot and three pains burn and stab and tighten up before exploding outward 

~tonight my apartment smells warm and oniony, like a home, the home it was when natalie stayed here and we ate pizza and saw my family and went bar hopping and I took sam into my heart and ate the meal I chose to be My Last Meal (truffle and breaded oysters, roasted carrots, filet mignon, creme brulee, a vodka martini) and then we went back to my apartment and laid in bed and watched most of a film before passing out. She woke up at 4am and crawled into my bed to wake me up and tell me she was leaving and for a while we laid under the same cover and talked before I put my slippers and winter coat on and walked her to her cab. I cry thinking about it now. 

~ when I fell in love (in Love love) for the first time I walked home every night and every day listening to Going to California, thinking about how Robert Plant wrote it about An Idea that came from the flesh and blood of a living, breathing Woman. A Woman who lives on the West coast still, but who he doesn't really speak to anymore. Even then hearing the pure reverence and wonder in that song, and knowing it was no less transitory, hurt my heart deep deep in its candy-depth. I heard it tonight again, and smiled wide. 

~ I feel big, thick velvet curtains being drawn over my mind. "Now we will have a period of stillness” echoes in the theatre of my head. "Now we movie into a long blackness." I go as still as a lake in winter, like glass. Blank as a white sky. 

~ what makes something a "capade" and what makes something a "palooza"? 

[instrument-of-war]

Some aesthetics and other notes for RJ-LM

Jehan- New Romantic style. Try to keep it a bit more casual.

Overall a dark academic look to the group. They are law students and med students from at least the middle class.

Very casual for Feuilly. He is just a tradesman and not in a great place financially.

Occasionally show them more casual. They would wear hoodies and hats and what have you because it’s comfy.

Marius needs a goth-style look but like very casual.

Cosette needs a style that is feminine and goth but not too over the top. Valjean does let her wear this in public after all. Think like hippie witch goth but it’s not pagan it’s catholic.

Eponine needs to look even more worse for wear than Feuilly. She can have whatever clothes, but they are not new and her personal health isn’t the best because they are essentially squatting. Same for Azelma if she gets in this.

Gavroche is definitely wearing a shirt that is too big for him and maybe some kind of shorts that are very obviously just pants that got too small so he cut them. Think floppy sole converse.

We definitely want to give a like almost stoner style look to Grantaire. And because the musical has messed up our perceptions so badly, we need to include green.

Same with Enjolras, we have to have some red and we also have to give a more tough look to him. Think punk meets dark academic.

Bahorel needs a darker red. Maybe a muscle shirt because that just feels so right.

Joly is a med student and is the biggest hypochondriac so I feel like that would be reflected. Think more fashionable clothes that would still be comfy because I might have the flu and what if I got sick I need to be comfortable.

Courfeyrac is probably the preppiest dude but not in a stuck up way. More so in like a frat bro way.

Combeferre is a true academic that probably is just here between shifts at his pediatric hospital so what ever he is wearing can go from casual to hospital just like that.

Bossuet would just be a mess. His clothes would either be like bad pun t-shirts or clothes that would be super nice if it wasn’t for the fact that they have stains that can’t come out or holes that he didn’t notice.

Valjean just dresses like every other dad. So if we see him we just don’t see him standing out.

Javert is a bitch

If we see the thénardiers then they should just look like the most white trash family you have ever seen.

Also when we see LeCabuc make him look like how the undercover policemen at protests look. The colored armbands and protective vests.

The person that Enjolras kills at the barricade needs to look a LOT like him or her.

Les Amis need to be more diverse! Little privileged white pots would not be fighting this fight. Show me women, show me people of color, show me disability, show me queer. These are the people fighting because they are the people who have their rights taken away because of the system we live in. That being said some exceptions do exist,

Courfeyrac needs to be male because it makes more sense that Marius would stay with him if he is male.

Any characters with first names stay the gender that they are because I’m not changing names.

The worst type of discrimination is towards people of color, so in a weird turn I think Enjolras needs to be white. This fight doesn’t affect him/her as much as it does the others, but he/she is still fighting it.

Now that I’m thinking about it I think that Bossuet needs to be male too or else they would need to be played by a woman with alopecia because he is bald.

And Joly and Bossuet need to be the same gender because that adds the ambiguity of what is happening with them living together.

Also Grantaire needs to be the same gender as Enjolras because we need that homoerotic subtext.

Edit: my mind has been changed. Grantaire can be either but the most important thing is that they can play the part right. It’s all about the yearning and the subtext but also like, smoking week and drinking and getting loud.

So that leaves me with this:

Enjolras 🚺

Combeferre 🚺

Courfeyrac 🚹

Feuilly 🚺🚹

Prouvaire 🚹

Bossuet 🚹

Bahorel 🚹🚺

Joly🚹

Grantaire🚺

Marius🚹

Cosette🚺

Eponine🚺

Gavroche 🚹

Feuilly and Bahorel can be either. I think male Bahorel is more in character, but female Bahorel is hilarious and I’d honestly be afraid of her. Feuilly would be more tragic as a female, but I don’t think tragic is exactly what we want for Feuilly. We want more empowering.

Now that I’m typing it out I think I would prefer Male Feuilly and Female Bahorel but really whatever happens happens. It would be nice if one of them was female because we need more girls, but whatever.

Also, female Enjolras is good energy. White Enjolras is some kind of energy. Plus, we could go one of two ways with Female Enjolras. 1.) Flip the script and make her very masculine as opposed to being male and being very feminine. Or 2.) when she is not about to fight people in the streets, she is like a super girly girl and we get that juxtaposition.

I like 1.) better but I’m biased. Also she needs to have hair long enough to blow in the wind. Hair should be blonde. Eyes should be blue but if they aren’t that’s not the end of the world.

Marius should have black curly hair that is not too long.

Cosette should have medium to light brown hair NOT Blonde.

Eponine should be a redhead and so should the other thénardiers. Gavroche can be more strawberry blonde though.

Joly should have a cane. We can figure out a reason later but that is an important thing for literally no reason.

Also with the current fan interpretation and with the style, I feel like Jehan would definitely wear makeup.

We can figure out what on earth Grantaire’s red waistcoat will be in this later. I’m thinking like a red leather jacket or some other red article if clothing that Enjolras is currently wearing so it’s like « I’m wearing it because see I’m like you. I’m all revolutionary » but like he’s still wearing a stupid stoner hat.