#the reason I read so much of your writing is it provokes a unique emotional response in me

[girlcumdrunk]

This one disturbed me a bit less than I was expecting. Something so calm and clinical about it… upsetting, to be sure, and yet something about it lacks a gorey finale to make it truly shock me. Which I suppose is the point, the victim wanted that cathartic ending and was denied it, but given the ending reveals the dom had left an hour before this sort of feels more like closing a book than ripping it apart.

This is the most personally horrifying thing I've ever written

Every week you got closer

Sometimes beating it for hours, breaking it piece by piece, twisting it's neck until it cried put in pain. But never beyond breaking.

Sometimes choking it, hands on it's throat or taping it's mouth and nose shut or pushing it's head under water until the bubbles stopped. But it always woke up after.

Sometimes cutting, long and deep, intentionally hitting bigger veins and arteries so it'd bleed buckets. But it felt your needle in it's skin sewing it together, a straw between it's lips forcing it to drink and replenish it's fluids.

Without fail the moment it could move and talk again it would beg you to finish it off. It would plead with you to finally take it's life. To give it the beautiful brutal end that it craves so badly.

Saying no was the cruelest thing you could ever do to it, or so it thought.

"Is it ready to die today?" You ask casually one morning. It's too well trained to gasp but it drops to it's knees, hands palm up on it's knees, head bowed. It doesn't see you smirk.

You lead it by the hair to the play room, conspicuously coated in plastic, a plastic mattress sits before a metal table covered with tools. Saws, hammers, ice picks, everything you might want to kill someone. You put it, kneeling, on the mattress. You close it's eyes and instruct it to stay.

You prepare it's death

The first injection takes it by surprise, a thick needle into it's spine, it's body goes limp in moments and it slumps to the side.

You adjust it's body, laying on it's back, legs together, arms crossed over it's cheat.

"Mistress?" This breach of protocol although small by many standards speaks volumes about it's mounting panic. It can't feel anything from the neck down.

"This" you hold up a metal syringe "is your death, it's a poison that will kill you, painlessly, over the next hour or two"

It's eyes fly wide

"No, mistress, please no not like this please!"

You inert the syringe into it's upper arm where it can see and slowly press the plungwr

There are tears in it's eyes already

"Please no please mistress, has it not been good enough? Has it not pleased you? Has it broken a rule? I promise mistress it will do anything you say please no" by now it's choking back sobs

Before you close the door on it you then off the lights plunging it into perfect darkness

Over the next two hours it screams, it begs, it cries, it calls for help, it tries to bargain with you for the antidote, it even tries to threaten.

And then or dies

You went out to breakfast two hours before

[birds-galore]

Hi, I was wondering, what do birds do around your home and how do they interact with you? I feel like we know so much about other animals as pets but not birds.

This is a great question! I really wish more information about birds existed in the cultural ether, especially because so many birds are surrendered to rescues by people who didn't know what to expect. I am going to talk more generally about birds as pets, (long answer incoming), with specifics about my own birds at the end:

Birds are a very diverse group of pets. Unlike dogs and cats, pet birds comprise many different species (not breeds) that exhibit their own behaviors and personalities. This includes everything from pigeons to macaws to songbirds, originating from different regions all around the world. Alongside owning and fostering multiple bird species, I also write bios for my local rescue and create educational materials, so I know a lot about the daily challenges and joys of owning birds as companion animals. While it's true that no two dogs or cats are the same, it's even truer that no two birds are alike.

Based on my volunteer work and personal experience, here are the primary factors that influence daily life with a bird: species, tameness, flightedness, personality.

More info under the cut for those interested -- plus information about my life with personal and foster birds!

SPECIES: Some species, like finches, aren't super interactive or hands-on with humans. Other species are highly social and can become tightly bonded with owners. Cockatiels often bond with one person, for instance, and can be quite clingy. Some species, like Quakers, can be very territorial around their cage but are often friendly and goofy outside the cage. All species have their own unique vocalizations and body language. Birds like cockatoos and African Greys are talented talkers and can have a rich vocabulary. Other species (and female birds) are less likely to talk. Behavior, diet, and cage requirements vary drastically between species.

TAMENESS: This refers to how comfortable a bird is with human handling. Many birds we get at my rescue are not hand-tame, meaning they won't step up onto an outstretched hand and might even bite if threatened. We do rehabilitative fostering, which means we teach birds to trust human contact and companionship. Hand tame birds will step up and hang out with their owners. Some (but not all) will even request head scratches --though this also depends on personality. Trusting, trained, and hand-tamed birds can be taught tricks. Birds are very discerning animals, and they are picky about who they choose to trust. They are more likely to trust people who respect their boundaries and read their nonverbal cues.

FLIGHTEDNESS: This refers to whether a bird is a capable or active flyer. Not all birds are skilled at flying, or even want to fly. Some owners will clip feathers to prevent birds from flying, usually for safety reasons (though this is controversial practice among certain circles.) Flighted birds have more autonomy when outside the cage, exploring, stretching their wings, and perching in high up places. Even fully flighted birds in a bird-proofed home still need a cage to sleep in and feel secure.

PERSONALITY: Some birds are clowns, others are sassy. You get meek, brave, prissy, adventurous, gregarious, docile, reserved, etc... Bird personalities are every bit as complicated and diverse as human personalities. Some birds enjoy scratches and show affection by snuggling against their owner's neck, chin, or hands. Other birds don't want to be touched and will bite or hiss if provoked. Likewise, some will want to spend every waking moment with their owner, while others will be more independent. Birds are highly intelligent. They can learn to understand words, hand gestures, and environmental cues. As flock animals, they also have social and emotional intelligence.

Now that I've gotten the general facts out of the way, here are some details about my own feathered friends:

Pixel the cockatiel: She's the main bird on this blog, because she's also my most interactive companion. Pixel is a fully hand tame cockatiel, meaning she will step up onto my hand and hang out on my shoulder. She has a big flight cage full of colorful toys with confetti shredders and woodblocks for stimulation, plus rope boings, noisemakers, and popsicle sticks (she's spoiled). I buy her new toys often and cycle them so she won't get bored. I cover her cage at night to regulate her hormonal cycles and prevent egg laying (birds need about 10 hours of darkness every night.) I uncover her in the mornings and feed her breakfast (a mix of nutriberries and Zupreem pellets, supplemented with fresh veggies for lunch and dinner). Once she is finished, she will often fly to my head or shoulder and hang out with me while I work at my desk. She loves distracting me by chewing on my earrings, grabbing my pencils, and walking on my keyboard. Lately I've been letting her play with my grandmother's button collection. She will toss them around and make a mess! She also looooves head scratches and will gently peck my hand and bow her head to request more. She gets frustrated when I'm too preoccupied to give her attention. She takes naps in the late morning, sometimes on my lap or shoulder, and occasionally on the back of my desk chair.

On slower days, we have training sessions. I've taught her how to spread her wings, spin around, and wave her foot/make a little fist. Since Pixel is fully flighted, we also do flight training to ensure she remains healthy and coordinated. She will fly to my shoulder or hand from across the room. This kind of training is important in case Pixel somehow escapes outside, so she will know to fly back to me. I also plan on microchipping her soon.

Because birds are prey animals, they can get spooked easily. When Pixel is scared she will take off and fly around my house (this probably happens once a day, or a few times a week minimum). While she's a skilled flyer, this can be dangerous around mirrors and windows. She has several spots throughout the house where she knows to land, but it's important not to make sudden threatening movements or loud noises around birds to prevent them from getting spooked or losing trust.

When I'm away, I put on music for Pixel so she won't feel lonely -- usually a mixture of piano and birdsong, but sometimes aviary videos. When I get back home, she contact calls (AKA “screams”) because she wants to be with me. Contact calls are vocalizations that cockatiels make to locate flock members (AKA me). I let her out of her cage and she will ride around on my shoulder while I do chores or prepare food. We eat dinner together. She has a little stand with food dishes that I keep next to the table. I put her to bed around 7:30-8:00. When I climb into bed a few hours later, I will say “good night!” and she will answer with the softest, sweetest little “bweeep?” It melts my heart every time. Weekly, I will clean her cage and give her a spray bath, and every 3 or 4 months I take her to the vet for a nail trim.

She's quiet compared to some bird species, but she does squawk if I leave the room when she wants to be near me. I've also been socializing her with other people. When I first got her as a foster, she was terrified of my dad, the maintenance man, friends. But now she will perform tricks for my friends and family, and even step up on their shoulders if coaxed with treats. I've also traveled with her multiple times, both to the vet and on longer road trips. She's pretty adaptable and becoming better every day. She will climb into a bird backpack, and I have a smaller travel cage for her.

I had a childhood cockatiel named Kiiro, and I've been a bird-sitter for tiels at the rescue. They all have their own personalities and opinions. Some are more social with other birds, and some prefer human company. Pixel was my first foster bird and now she's an amazing family member. I'm so grateful that fate brought us together.

Jitterbug the canary: Jitterbug is the love of my life, and the first pet bird I got as an adult. I've had him for about 4 years now. He's a tiny, happy boy -- not hand tame. I don't let him out to fly, since he gets spooked easily and he's a clumsy flyer, but he lives in a HUGE bird mansion (even bigger than Pixel's cage) which I position next to a window. Male canaries are great singers. I usually don't cover him at night, so I wake up when he starts singing around 7:30/8:00am. His songs sound like laser beams. In the mornings I get him fresh food and water. I also clip spinach to the side of his cage which he eats with gusto. He takes little birdbaths throughout the day, splashing in his water dish. He likes watching videos, especially live birdfeeder webcams (I call them his "soap operas"). I put him to bed at sunset. He's super low maintenance and enjoys compliments.

Mr. Kazoo the zebra finch: My foster Mr. Kazoo is an elderly zebra finch, now partially hand tame. My routine with him is similar to Jitterbug, except I also give him a vitamin supplement in his water. He will hop onto my hand for millet, and he's vocally responsive to humans. If it were up to him, we would beep back-and-forth all day. He also builds tiny nests in a coconut hanging toy, using little sprigs of confetti and paper. The cutest little dude.

Parakeets (Bob and Helen): Throughout the spring and early summer, I fostered a pair of parakeets who had been found outdoors in a birdhouse. Most likely they had been released or abandoned by previous owners. These two were not hand tame, (they would bite when I tried to interact), but they were fully flighted and would zip together around my apartment. I gave them time to exercise outside of their cage a few times a week. They were a cute, chatty little couple. Much messier than any of my other birds though.

General notes on living with birds: It's easy to romanticize life with birds (it's really great), but I also want to note some of the quirks and inconveniences.

Molting is crazy. Be prepared to have feathers everywhere once or twice a year (depending on the species).

Seeds will be all over your floor. (I hope you like vacuuming).

Keep tissues or toilet paper handy for the poop. Most species will poop about every 20-30 minutes.

Birds can be loud. I have auditory sensitivity, but I've gotten used to them.

Avian vets are sometimes hard to find and expensive. Birds also hide illness, so you have to be attentive to catch health issues early.

Birds can live a looong time. Some species can live as long as us. Make sure you are financially and emotionally ready for the commitment.

Not all birds enjoy human company, and they do things on their own terms.

Birds like getting into trouble, chewing on things, stealing shiny objects, breaking necklaces, etc. Pixel once threw 3 consecutive pieces of jewelry into the sink drain while I was preparing for a formal event. Due to their intelligence, they will misbehave if they aren't getting enough attention or stimulation.

I know this was a long response, but I hope it was entertaining and clarifying! I wish information about daily life with birds were more readily available. It's a joy coexisting with them :)

[glenrocklibraryteens]

Book List - Top 10 of 2022

Writers & Lovers by Lily King We follow the extremely relatable Casey Peabody as she navigates two types of grief: the loss of a mother and the loss of a relationship via breakup. The book is fast paced and takes place on the outskirts of Boston. I am recommending this book because it was one of the books I read the quickest! It was very interesting and I have heard that Toni Collete is set to direct its movie rendition!

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever This book tells the twisted story of Paul and Julian - two Pitt students who bring out the worst in each other. Their relationship is confusing, but fascinating. I don’t want to spoil too much about this book but this psychological thriller will have you on the edge of your seat!

The Secret History by Donna Tartt A new student at a small but selective college in Vermont finds himself in a twisted bunch of Ancient Greek culture and literature students. Their relationships have ulterior motives. It is extremely intellectual and thought provoking with a murder mystery at the center of it. 

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley This book, as I’m sure many of you know, tells the story of Dr. Victor Frankenstein and his creation, The Monster. I would encourage you all to read this classic because modern renditions have strayed far from the original story, and it is actually quite deep. It is a hard read, but worth it!

Black Swans by Eve Babitz It is difficult to give a good and representative summary of this book because it is a collection of short stories. If you love writers like Joan Didion or Sylvia Plath you will love this. Eve Babitz shares her experiences in the golden age of Hollywood. Babitz picks apart the most basic human tendencies and emotions in a way I’ve never read before!

On Writing by Stephen King It is also hard to summarize this book because it is a memoir on King and his writing advice. Even if you don’t love writing I would recommend this book to get an insight into King’s psyche and life because it is very interesting. 

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini  This was a school read, but I would recommend it heavily for your own leisure reading! Amir, the main character, takes us through 40 years of his life, beginning in war-torn Afghanistan and ending in San Francisco. He deals with PTSD and an unimaginable amount of guilt. It offers a very interesting perspective on war refugee children. 

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus This is a heavy read both material wise and writing style. However it is a very popularly cited book in the field of philosophy, if you are interested in that sort of thing. To give you an idea of the content the book covered: Sisyphus is a man punished by the gods with the task of rolling a large stone ball up a hill, just to have it roll all the way back down over and over. It seems like a sad fate, but Camus argues that one should take pleasure in the Sisyphean tasks in life.  

Never Let Me Go (reread!) by Kazuo Ishiguru This novel is a unique take on scientific fiction. It seems to be a domestic fiction novel, until the main character comes to the jarring realization that the kids raised in the boarding school she attends are being used for parts. Ishiguru is a fantastic sci-fi writer and this work is a demonstration of that! I highly recommend it as the book is so much more than just a sci-fi. There are real, meaningful relationships within it that are the main priority of the piece. 

Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion Maria leaves her broken home to become an actress in New York. It is there where she meets Ivan, a manipulative man who uses Maria. She is drawn back to the west coast through a series of unfortunate events and falls in love again, but the relationship is difficult to understand. I would recommend this book for reasons similar to Babitz’ novel. Didion’s jaded telling of an old Hollywood story is entertaining and thought provoking, which is unique from many works similar to it. 

[ddarker-dreams]

Scamper. Yan Kazuha x Reader

Warnings: Yandere themes, unhealthy relationships, very brief implied not SFW.  Word count: 1.1k. Note: my first time writing a one-shot for kazuha! i had a bit of difficulty characterizing him since he’s so... Chill, but i gave it my best shot. 

“So you were here then.”

You freeze where you stand and spot a tuft of white hair in your peripheral vision.

He walks as if he’s on a cloud, not so much as breaking the twigs beneath his feet, each footstep eerily silent. The waterskin in your grasp almost falls into the river from how lax your hands have gone. You catch his shadow as it approaches, enveloping your kneeling over form. Kazuha has not bothered to reach for his blade. There’s no sense of bloodlust, or tangible emotion of any kind, really, and that somehow serves to stir more dread inside your gut.

Is running even worth the energy it’d exert? He’s made clear to you that your best efforts are eclipsed by his natural senses tenfold. There’s no corner of this land where you could run, no nook or cranny too concealed for his keen eyes and ears. You’re certain he hears how your breath hitches in anticipation. For a moment, you entertain the absurd thought that the beat of your heart was audible to him as well.

If he told you he could hear it, you’d be inclined to believe him.

“You’re injured,” Kazuha points out, leaning by your side to run his fingertips over your forearm. “Here, allow me.”

Kazuha has always been a unique case in the time you’ve known him.

As children, he boasted this particular aura, as if he was wise beyond his years. He didn’t revel in his vast knowledge or flaunt it for all to see and admire. Instead, anyone who spoke to him was just bound to pick up on it, the prudent edge to his words and dutifulness apparent. This may have earned the respect of adults, but other kids his age found his company too stifling. That is, all save for you.

You admired his serene personality. It wouldn’t have been a stretch to say you looked up to him, at one point, in what feels like lifetimes ago. Whatever respect that he had accumulated with you was systematically chipped away at by reality.

Would you not have currently been on the run if you ignored him like the other children your age did? This pitiful attempt could barely be labeled an escape, so you neglect to use the word entirely. Right from the beginning, you could never make any meaningful progress, not when he possessed those supernatural abilities. Nature was a scroll to him, unraveled with ease and every letter read to paint a picture of his and your surroundings.

Maybe that’s why this act of defiance hadn’t earned his ire. He never viewed it as a threat to begin with.

You flinch, forcing your arm free from his admittedly genteel grasp, and muster a venomous glare. “Don’t touch me!”

“It could get infected,” he reasons, to which you purse your lips. The audacity of him to treat you like a sensitive doll, rather than a victim, sends searing revulsion down your throat. “I… am aware that you’re upset, yet that doesn’t mean—”  

That unintentionally callous comment is enough to tip you over the edge. You act before your brain can catch up, a flurry of movements cascading at once. The back of your hand connects with his face, which still doesn’t provoke so much as a slight reaction, the only indication that you did what you did being the redness on his cheek.

Then you wait. For him to blow up at you, curse you for your perceived disrespect, for any inclination that a human soul was residing beneath his flesh. That would further cement you were in the right. You crave the vindication like a dehydrated man in the desert longs for water, searching for an outcome that will never be reality. 

Kazuha would always allow you to act out to a certain point.

For a while, you’d lie awake at night beneath a blanket of twinkling stars, both of you bare after an unwanted tryst. Why is it you were kept on such a loose leash? You’d seen Kazuha’s superior combat ability too many times to count, whether it was cutting down bandits who threatened you or honing his ability at the early hours of the morning. It wasn’t like you’d be able to put up much of a fight if he one day decided you were more trouble than you were worth.

So why…? Why did he still play house with you, like you were a willing participant, offering a cruel illusion of autonomy?

“I hate you.”

There’s a hint of something in his crimson eyes, yet it’s a haunting apparition that disappears in a wisp. The rushing of the stream in front of you, the call of birds fluttering from tree limb to the next, the wind rustling nearby fauna and your hair in the process. So many sounds, each indicative of the nature Kazuha so dearly adores. It makes you nauseous. That in a landscape that stretches into eternity, you can’t find an ounce of freedom.

Not as long as he’s around, anyway.

“We should get back to camp. It’ll be easier for me to treat you there.”

For someone who hears so well, it’s like the ability ceases to exist when you speak words he doesn’t care for.

“It’s not like you’d leave me alone if I asked,” you stand, wiping your still damp palms on your shirt. He mimics your action and rises to his full height as well. Judging from the position of the sun in the sky, you give a rough guess that it’d been three hours since you “slipped” through his fingers. Your intuition tells you that he was on your trail the entire time. Maybe waiting for you to wear yourself out, or maybe wanting to prove a point by stalking you from afar. Who’s to say for certain with this enigma of a man.

“Is it so wrong for me to care about the wellbeing of the one I love?” Kazuha asks, finally speaking to you rather than at you for the first time in this confrontation. The nostrils of your nose flare, and for a second, you entertain the thought of attacking him again. You dismiss the idea after glancing at his sheathed sword. If you were to use your full strength, he’d have no choice but to restrain you, and that’s a humiliation you weren’t willing to endure today.

He grabs ahold of your drooping sleeve and tugs you along. The intimate act reminds you of when you were younger, when the days didn’t have a bitter tinge to them, and when you gazed at Kazuha in awe rather than in disgust. It must be a subconscious gesture on his behalf, a way to pretend things were as they used to be.

You can only pray that one day, he’ll awaken from his delusion, and recognize you’ll never reciprocate an ounce of the affection he claims to hold for you.

[theodora3022]

Playing tricks with the trickster

Summary: Failed escape attempt from yandere Childe. He lets you play your cards, even playing along, just for his own amusement.

Notes: My first genshin piece yay... I had a sweet and terrible dream of me running from Childe in the woods. Also some inspiration was drawn from @cinnamonest‘s this post, one big virtual hug to her! I hope I did Childe justice, what can I say I love manipulative smiling boys. It has become a pattern as I dash from one fandom to another. This is had turned out to be longer then I expected...Ginger boy demands my time and energy too much omg. Mind the warnings, although there is nothing extreme in this.

Fun fact, I was looping to Nintendo game by Alessia Cara when writing this down. I believe it fits the theme of this fic quite well.

Tagging: @akutaguagua a great friend who patiently beta-read this mess of a horror dream and gave me lots of kind praises! 

(Offical art belongs to miHoYo! This is a cover page of this video, if there is any issues, contact me and I will remove it at once)

Warnings: Implied past abduction,dub-con touching, mild degradation, drugging(not on reader), implied non-con/dub-con at the end, this is not healthy love and I do not condone this irl.

It has been nearly a month since the youngest Fatui Harbinger had “taken you in”. After a few tries, you were too horrified by the punishments to continuously fight him. You learned on the first day that Childe’s smiling, the friendly mask would come off towards you. Your behaviour would decide if that is a curse or a “blessing”.

So you had quieted down, struggling to restrain yourself from yelling or screaming, carefully not to provoke his anger. Despite being compliant to his orders, you never truly showed him any affection either. Sure, you would sit on his lap if he asked, but you never initiated anything intimate with him. No matter how much Tartaglia spoiled you with clothes, books, jewelry or other luxuries, he is still the one who holds the commanding end of your shackles. It’s the best not to get used to all of that when your sight is set on the door.

Although he has taken your freedom away, you are not kept in a windowless room. On the contrary, you have too many outings now. Wherever he goes, you have to be present in a 2m radius, including meetings. Being a Harbinger is no easy job, so he prefers not having to worry about your safetly during buisness hours. The best way to do that is never let you out of his sight.

“Love, no one should witness our little problems. Well, no one alive that is.” Of course you wouldn’t want to put innocent people's lives at stake. You never dared to act out when you two are in public, and no one would bat an eye if a Fatui had taken a lover. 

You had taken an emotionless approach towards him. If Childe wants a kiss on the cheek, you’ll give him a quick light peck. If he wants breakfast, you’ll go make some pancakes with the topping he likes. Luckily, Childe had not done anything too extreme yet. If cuddling to sleep does not count as extreme that is. The only time you slipped up is when he suddenly hugs you from behind when you’re cooking.  

You thought maybe, just maybe, by being as boring and dull as you could, this bastard might just get tired of you and let you go. Childe only loves the fun of it right? Or maybe it could lower his guard.

Oh, how naive you are. You should have known better than to underestimate a Fatui harbinger. See, this is exactly why he needs to keep you around. Yes, unfortunately for you, Childe loves you, so very much. Speaking to him with a monotone voice isn’t going to alter that fact.

You have been devoid of emotions as of late. While Childe does appreciate fewer screams for the sake of his eardrums, this schemer can sense you are up to something. Perhaps this is the peace before your “storm”(he thought of it more like a drizzle)

You want to play a game? Okay, why not? Childe cannot wait to see what tricks you got on those sleeves. Are you ever getting away? Does an amateur ever win when they play a game with a professional trickster? Never.

Still, nothing bites like a cornered rat. You are no airhead, and he is fully aware of that. Just not as cunning and observent as him, that’s all.

The way you just kept your emotions sealed up is impressive, even to someone like him. Even when he got hansy, you did not flinch and just stared at the corner. Childe can only catch faint glimpses of anger when you thought he wasn’t looking.

Hm, when are you pulling your trigger? Tonight, or tomorrow night? Not that Childe is impatient, anything from you is worth waiting. But he would need to dismiss his patrolling underlings in the nearby woods beforehand. No extras would be allowed to disturb this game.

There is no chance during the day, a somewhat mutual understanding for you two. Night time in comparison, is a different story. 

Anyone’s sleeping hours is their most vulnerable time of the day, Childe is no exception. You do not plan to harm him, not that you don’t want to. But you are willing to swallow the pent up frustration towards him if you would never see his face again after this. Maybe beating up some slimes would help with the release?

You somehow managed to slip a mixture of herbs into his tea. Since he would buy cooking ingredients for you from time to time, you had requested a bunch of herbs along with the ingredients of a sleep inducing medicine you remembered. Although Childe does all he can to keep you near him, there are inevitable hours that he needs to be somewhere without you. He cannot jeopardize your safety with troublesome monsters. On a side note, he loves showing you off to anyone, his colleagues, acquaintances, business partners, anyone he does not deem a threat.

Enough time for you to make those herbs into powder and cover it up with a few spoons of milk. Tea with milk has become quite popular in Liyue as of late. Childe has grown to love them, so you have learned how to mix it up. He always let you handle his food and drinks, saying that he “trusts you”. What you do not know is this is one of the openings he exposed on purpose. It’s not like you can aquire anything deadly under his suffocating supervision.

Your plan will work, or so you think. Childe will not wake up when you wiggle out of his grasp, because dreamland will keep him occupied. All you need is a glider and a usable sword from Liyue and you’ll get your life back. Bottling up extreme emotions has certainly taken a toll on your mind, but it will be worth it if that is the prerequisite of being free.

Something about this being so easy sits ill with you. Have you really been with the youngest Fatui Harbinger this whole time? But that was brushed off your shoulders by the sheer excitement of regaining your long lost freedom. You know Liyue is in walking distance, all you need to do is cross these woods and-

The moment you dive into the forest, you think you heard an amused chuckle. 

That smooth voice terrifies you to no end, the same voice you took orders from for the past month.

Oh, how Childe loves seeing you happy. It’s priceless, both literally and figuratively. No matter how many things he buys you, you had not shown him even one small smile. Enjoy your sweet freedom, because it ain’t going to last. You certainly will know your place after this right? If not you are just dumber then he give you credit for.

That glow of relief in your eyes is worth every last bit of this intense dizzying feeling to Childe. To make sure your plan go through, he had drunk the tea without hesitation, quick enough to catch the momentarily excitement you expressed. He knows the game is on, therefore he had given the night patrol guards the entire evening off. Forcing himself to stay concious by digging his nails into his palms, Childe followed you into the woods.

Your potion is quite strong. Excellent, you’ll have to give him the recipe for informational purposes later. Especially how you managed to achieve such effects with a few herbs you had. He never took you to be anything less than a smart girl, but this has exceeded his expectations. Where’s the fun in a game without challenges?

How you storm through the forest wearing that cute terrified expression looks so endearing, it’s surely not his fault if he wants to enjoy this sight to be longer right.

So, each time you feel the slightest at ease due to whatever reason, expect Childe to make some sound to send you running like your life depends on it again. The sadistic man is hunting you down playfully, like a cat chasing a stray mouse to the inevitable corner.

You know he is toying with you. There is nothing you can do to make him shut up though.

“Love, you had scratched your leg. Must hurts by the looks of it.”

“Liyue is that way, you know.”

“Are you tired? If you want to jog in the middle of the night, you should have called me to come along!”

How can he say those things nonchalantly while you are trying to escape from him?  Here he is, daunting you with that signature smile he wears so very often. That is when reality slaps you right in the face. No matter how hard you plan, no matter how fast you run, there is no getting rid of him.

When your stamina runs out, a simple pull and push on your left wrist is enough to let you fall onto the ground panting. Even now, you still refuse to beg for mercy. You would take the cold grounds to the warmth of Childe’s embrace anyday. 

“Aw, burnt out already? Pathetic. Looks like we need to work on your stamina more. But this is not the place for exercise.”

“Look at me.” His slender but forceful fingers tilt your head up, making you look into those ocean blue orbs. There is anger present in his eyes, but those emotions are more a mixture of delight and that. His smile had also been replaced by a mocking smirk. “You, trying to leave me? Your sense of humor is...well, let’s just call it unique. Lucky for you, you amused me nonetheless.”

“I know what you’re thinking. How I’m a selfish jerk and you hate me. Why be so ungrateful? You get to live in luxury thanks to me, you know. I am selfish, yes, but look how stupid you are. I know you added something extra in my evening tea, my beloved.”

“Come now, we are going to do some exercises suited for a night like this once we’re back home. It is our one month milestone, after all. You had already given me your gift, it is only fair for you that I do the same.”

Childe is not making a sarcastic remark. The thrill of that chase was the best fun he had in months. And you are going to love his gift too, maybe not right away, but surely sometimes after. 

You have to mentally prepare yourself for the worst as he dragged you back to the prison, hopefully you’ll still be able to walk properly after whatever Childe got in store.

[loveletterstowriting]

Writing a Perfect Love Interest

Dear Writers,

I know I have been MIA for a while...I even missed the one year anniversary of this blog...But first, I just wanted to open up and say thank you to everyone who’s been leaving notes on my posts and leaving nice comments! Thank you!! This blog has grown so much in the past year and it’s thanks to you guys :) Everyone reading this is super awesome, by the way. Now, let’s get on to the advice! Are you in that situation where you hate that leather-jacket-wearing-18yo-bad-boy but...you’re writing him? If so, here’s some advice for when writing a perfect love interest! (A perfect love interest, not the perfect love interest because there is not just one lol)

Cliches aren’t that bad. Really. There’s a reason why so many wattpad stories feature the “bad boy” and the “nerdy girl” or the “playboy”. They’re enjoyable and, when written well, can even come across as unique and engaging and thought-provoking. It’s 100% okay to take an archetype and mold it into a more unique character. The way you do that is through making them more real. Give them motivations, back stories (that are NOT far-fetched), inside jokes, friends, family, flaws, their own thought process. My point is, while I do not encourage anyone to write the stereotypical wattpad bad boy, it can be used as a good jumping off point.

More than one personality trait, please. Please. I’m begging you. People do not have only one or two defining personality traits. They have multiple that come into play in different situations. Yeah, someone might be rude in general but not always. They might be extremely kind to a stranger that helped them but rude to the people they see everyday. They might be quiet in general, but when they meet the right person, they completely open up. They might actually be more talkative to strangers than to fellow classmates or coworkers. My point is, people do not exhibit the same personality traits all the time. Some traits come and go with emotion, and sometimes even change with the situation. **Do this for all your characters, not just your love interest, thank you very much.**

Attraction. When writing the love interest, you have to know your MC like the back of your hand. From the MC’s pov, what is it that makes this other person so special? Why are they attracted to them? There’s going to be initial attraction (a shared hobby, looks, etc.) but what is sustaining that attraction? What is keeping it going? What makes your MC want to actually pursue a relationship with that person? Maybe they both love music, and so they become friends, but then the MC realizes s/he’s extremely smart, funny, kind, etc. 

Don’t reveal too much at once. Like stated in the above bullet point, the MC needs to know enough about the love interest to really like them. But we don’t want the MC to know everything about them!! Let the love interest slowly reveal things to the MC on his/her own time. Let the MC gradually discover things about them that they would have never guessed, or maybe that they would have guessed and those things just make them fall in love even more. 

NO TOXICITY PLZ. Last but not least--you’d think this would be a given--your love interest better see your MC as their own person. Don’t get me wrong, the love interest can be disrespectful, spiteful, rude, arrogant, close-minded and all these other things. But if they don’t see your MC as someone with their own needs, wants, and ideas, then that’s straight up toxic and we don’t do that here. Again, don’t get me wrong, your love interest can be complex and flawed and still be redeemable.

That’s all I’ve got for you today, guys. Sorry if you could tell that my thoughts were all over the place haha. I wasn’t planning on posting today; I just sat down and wrote something random. I hope you enjoyed reading and happy writing :)

Love, 

Ava

P.S. - Do you want a step-by-step plan on how to write a book?? I’m thinking of doing a series for that so let me know your thoughts and what advice you want to see!

[apriorisea]

Ok I’m seriously convinced you’re secretly one of the members...(Joonie is that u???) loool but for real, you write their personalities so well. So not a request, but a question?? Their “concepts” aside (like, “golden maknae etc”)... key personality traits & flaws for each of the boys? Like “passionate, sensitive, a perfectionist, or overly self-critical, etc” Which member(s) is hardest to write?Hope this made sense, I’m just super interested in your take on this :)

--First off, you’re so nice!!! Thank you so much:) And also, thank you for this question! I love things like this---even though it’s obviously all just my personal speculation 😅I listed my thoughts down below, but I would love to hear any thoughts (whether in agreement or disagreement!) anyone else might have!  As for which member is hardest to write, for me I typically struggle a little more with Taehyung and Hoseok. For Taehyung, I think it’s probably because our personalities are pretty opposite (again, HUGE grain of salt, since I don’t *actually* know any of them in real life, so I’m just going off the little info we have), so it takes me a little longer to write his stuff. For Hoseok, I think it’s because there is so much more to him than meets the eye and his personality is difficult for me to pin down sometimes. 

Again, thanks so much for your sweet words and thought-provoking requestion (it’s a word now)! I hope you find my take interesting! 💕💜

Seokjin: 

Conscientious - I think Kim Seokjin is very, VERY aware of his role in any given setting. He knows what’s expected of him and how to do it without bending any of his personal boundaries/rules.

Private - I firmly believe that we will never know the true personality of our Mr. Worldwide Handsome. I think he decided early on that to survive in this life, he was going to have to separate his stage persona from his personal life---and he guards this separation fiercely. This is also one of the qualities I admire the most about him: his unwavering commitment to keeping pieces of himself just for him. My personal opinion is that he is the member that gave up the most of a “normal” life and, while he did so knowing the consequences of this choice, he’s found ways to “rebel” and keep his own autonomy (think: responding to fans in a very “blunt” manner [Marry me? No.], cutting/coloring his hair against company wishes, refusing to give-in to fan-service he is uncomfortable with  [thinking specifically of that one time the host tried to get him to kiss Taehyung and he just started yelling over them when they tried to insist], his penchant for avoiding overly ~revealing~ outfits, etc etc).

Professional - I mean, just a continuation of both of the points above. He always knows when the cameras are watching and how he should act accordingly. But---and this is important---I am in NO WAY saying he’s being fake or disingenuous. The Jin we see on stage, in MVs, RunBTS, and even Bon Voyage/In The Soop is the real Jin---it’s just not all of him. He chose the Idol Life as his career, as a profession, so he would never be caught violating the terms that he himself has set to fulfill his responsibilities. What little we know of his family leads me to believe that he was groomed from a young age how to navigate high society and the professional world; now it’s just a slightly different world and society he floats through. 

Responsible - He takes the job of eldest brother very seriously. Though the baby in much of his younger life, as soon as he got 6 little brothers he stepped effortlessly into his new role. Making them food, driving them to school, helping them feel at home in a new place, providing silent but tangible support... My personal favorite is the way he willingly makes a fool of himself to relax the others, to help them calm down during stressful situations and break the ice. 

Good memory - I want to be careful how I explain this, because I don’t want it to come out wrong. I think Kim Seokjin has a very good memory. If you were decent to him and his brothers during the hard times, he’ll remember that going forward. If you were cruel to or dismissive of him as a young exchange student abroad, he’ll never forget. However, I also think he’s cunning enough that you would never be able to tell which category you fall under unless he wants you to know. 

Hard-worker - I mean, just the endless amounts of anecdotes we have about him practicing his vocals and choreography all night long should be enough evidence for this point, but I still sometimes feel like he doesn’t get enough credit. We all know the story of how he got placed in BTS, but I don’t think people appreciate how damn hard he has worked to grow into this life. He was a college student, set on a completely different life with completely different expectations, scooped off the street and told to learn to sing and dance and look. at. him. now. Listen to that vocal range, look at the Black Swan choreography or the way he seamlessly joined the dance break of ON---he has worked HARD and I don’t think we should forget about this. Just because something doesn’t come easy to you, if you’re not naturally gifted, it doesn’t mean you can’t work to achieve it. 

Basically I just love Kim Seokjin with my whole heart.

Yoongi:

Empathetic -  This word is the beginning and end of how I would describe his entire being. I think Min Yoongi is a very empathetic person. He sits back and observes, and he’s aware of everything. You know when you first get into BTS, there’s always the stories of him being the “scariest” member or the “toughest” or the quietest (especially in the earlier days of BTS, because can we just talk about how much happier he has been this last year-year.5?? How much more himself he is at all times? How much more comfortable??? We love to see it.) But I think his quiet watchfulness just gets frequently mistaken for scary or tough. In addition, his empathy allows him to connect with others in a special way, to acknowledge them and build them up (thinking of that one V-Live or whatever where Jungkook says something kind of under his breath---something about a past life?---and Yoongi not only hears him but turns to him and explicitly validates his feelings and thoughts, OR the times when he tells Jimin that he really likes his singing voice).  

Protective - He doesn’t like unkindness in any way, shape, or form. He doesn’t tolerate cruelty or bullying. And let’s not forget: he sees everything. Every slight, every intentional dismissal, every dig or jab, every “diss track” lyrics. Every single injustice. Now, he can stand up for himself (when he deems it appropriate, because I also think he’s pretty good at picking battles), but his true force comes out when those he loves are belittled/threatened/disrespected. He is fiercely protective of those he loves. 

Emotionally Intelligent - Obviously, I think he’s also just intelligent-intelligent, but I want to focus on this aspect for a moment, because I think this is a quality that gets overlooked in people in general. He is aware of the importance of emotions, both his own and other people’s. It’s in the way he recognized that he and Taehyung were polar opposites and made a concentrated effort to understand him better. It’s in the way he unabashedly announces that they hold hands when they’re arguing. It’s in the way that he insists that there is more to life than school, grades, others’ expectations. It’s also in the way he knows exactly how to make the others laugh, the way one of his sharp-witted comments or physical-comedy bits can break a tension or diffuse the moment. It’s all over every single one of his songs. It’s in the way he calmly handles challenges and has a unique relationship with each of his brothers according to their needs. He treats his relationships---with the members, the fans, staff, friends, family, whoever---with care and respect and maturity. 

Compassionate (read also: Cinnamon Roll) - Yoongi understands darkness because he has experienced it himself, and he will do whatever he can to make sure no on else suffers in the same way. He takes care of the people in his life, usually by doing little things or quiet things (think: the reason they call him the “dad” of BTS). He’s not afraid to correct people when they’re wrong, but he always manages to do it kindly. He’s also a complete pushover for the ones he loves: think of how he each member of the maknae line has a different but special relationship with him, think of how Jungkook can basically crawl all over him and hit him and annoy him and bother him and he never bats an eye, think of the way he showed up with chicken because he didn’t want Hoseok to be alone, think of the way he goes fishing with Jin because he knows his big bro loves it so much, think of the way he never ever yells at anyone when he’s angry, think of the way he softens his tone when explaining things. Cinnamon. Roll. 

Straight-forward - He’s blessed with the ability to be blunt but not cruel. I actually personally really hate the word “blunt” because, in my experience, it usually comes into play when someone is explaining that their rude, offensive, and ignorant comment *isn’t* rude, offensive, or ignorant---they’re “just a blunt person.” But I think Yoongi is someone who is actually able to be straight-forward (a much better term than the dreaded b-word) without slipping into carelessness. He says things how they are, but, using his emotional awareness and intelligence, he’s able to say it calmly and kindly. If you’ve messed up, he’s going to tell you you messed up---but he’s also going to help you figure out the next steps and volunteer to walk with you while you take them. He’s going to call out bad behavior---but always remind you that he loves you no matter what. He’s going to critique the song you wrote---but it’s going to be 90% positive comments and 10% suggestions of what could be better/smoother/more understandable. I also feel like he is someone who expects the same in return: he hates liars and has a low tolerance for bullshit. 

Basically I just love Min Yoongi with my whole heart.

Hoseok: 

Duality - Now, I don’t mean duality in the way you can compare his precious ray-of-sunshine moments to the times he absolutely blows everyone away on stage (though this is obviously a thing). I’m referring more to the way he can be both ray of sunshine and serious-business all at the same time. Like Jin, I think Hoseok chose an Idol persona (though I think his decision was prompted more by a desire to be uplifting and cheerful and our hope) and exists comfortably within those parameters. However, unlike Jin, I think Hoseok doesn’t mind if people see the other side sometimes, too. He’s not afraid to set down the bubbly-Hobi persona, even if cameras are rolling. He’s not afraid to be emotional,  whether that’s over-the-top happiness, or genuine overwhelmed tears. He can wear a flower around his face and make cute noises and then the next second he can snap at the maknae to not fool around near a pool so he doesn’t get his clothes all wet. It’s not an act either way, he’s just both. 

Good judgment - Obviously, we know that Jung Hoseok is a hard-worker. We know he’s dedicated his life to his craft, first with dancing and then with rapping. He can be an intimidating dance captain, someone who takes it seriously and pushes everyone to be the very best they can be. His work ethic is insane, and he never accepts less than his best---but, in comparison to others on this list, I think he is able to critique himself fairly and kindly. While he demands perfection, he doesn’t tear himself apart to find it. I think he has the ability to assess something or someone and come away with a fairly unbiased opinion. 

Comfortable - This is hard to describe in just a word, but I think he has a way of making people feel at ease in his presence. Even as one of the biggest superstars on the planet right now, you get the sense that he never wants to make people feel uncomfortable or intimidated or uneasy. Something about his mannerisms, his bright smile, his personableness, make him seem approachable. I think it’s also why Namjoon’s been known to say that BTS couldn’t exist without Hoseok, why Yoongi values his friendship so much, why Jungkook is constantly snuggling him. My personal opinion is that he was instrumental in bridging the gap that sometimes might have occurred between Namjoon and Yoongi in the early days; his comfortable presence eased some of the tension that (I’m guessing) may have naturally arisen between two of the greatest young rappers in the game when they were first working together. Hoseok just wants everyone to feel comfortable and at ease around him.

Kind - I think Jung Hoseok is just a genuinely kind human being. I think he is trusting and loyal, but also just the sort of person who will make it his mission to make you smile on a bad day. Just the fact that he chose to make his stage persona someone who is full of hope and happiness speaks volumes. Knowing his own personal struggles, he extrapolates this knowledge to guess how others could feel, and throws himself into the role of positive, happy, sunshiney, hope. It’s his kindness that motivates this behavior. 

High standards - This goes along with his good judgment, but I think Hoseok expects a certain level of competence from everyone around him, in whatever capacity they’re working. Again, this goes along with his desire to have the entire group work on a bit of choreo until it’s right. I think that, because he pushes himself to be the best and fulfill expectations, he looks for this same dedication in others (what comes to mind is that moment in some interview where Namjoon is struggling a little [cos English is the WORST, ugh] so Hoseok looks over at the interpreter like “what exactly are you doing, do your job, help him translate”). 

Basically I just love Jung Hoseok with my whole heart. 

Namjoon: 

Unbelievably intelligent - I know this one isn’t exactly shocking, but I still feel like it needs to be mentioned first and appreciated more. Namjoon is crazy intelligent, academically speaking. He thrives on the pursuit of knowledge, on contemplating and discussing higher concepts, on learning new things that feed his curiosity and his soul. While I also think this crazy-high intellect can sometimes hinder his ability to connect emotionally with people, it’s also this exact quality that makes him so well suited for the role he has been thrust into---not just in the group, but in the world. 

Nerdy - Bicycling, bonsai trees, reading, tiny creatures, art exhibits. He is unabashedly and desperately passionate about the things he likes. He isn’t afraid to love something just because he loves it. He goes all-in on things that he’s interested in, whether they’re “cool” or not. His curiosity pushes him forward, needling him to learn everything he can about things he’s passionate about. He sinks himself into these hobbies wholly (think: carrying a book or two with him everywhere so he can get some reading in, visiting as many art museums and exhibits as possible on days off, making cutesy noises at stingrays and scooping teeny-tiny crabs out of the sand to tell them how beautiful they are).

Macro-focused - He strikes me very much as the sort of person who loves to talk about concepts and ideas and philosophies in great terms. He loves clever wordplay, he likes to reflect on his place in the universe, he wants to discuss the complexities of life and human nature. His quick-mind devours these topics, and I can imagine he could sit for hours with you debating philosophy and discussing art. On the flip side, though, I think he isn’t so good with minutiae---and by “minutiae” I mean everything from being more aware of his physical surroundings to dealing with personal things. For example, I think he’s brilliant when he discusses happiness and hardship and joy and pain and love and humanity in the songs he writes...... but he’s not exactly the first person you would go to if you were having a tough or emotional personal time. Don’t get me wrong: obviously he cares about the people in his life, he cares about people in general---but sometimes all you need is a hug and pat on the back to encourage you and Namjoon would instead launch into the greater implications and consequences of human nature in an attempt to help you feel better.

Logical - I know this seems like a given, but while I think others on this list are more emotionally-intelligent, I think logic is one of Namjoon’s greatest strengths. For example: if another member is crying or upset, Jimin would notice they’re upset and immediately go and hug them and wipe their tears away; Namjoon would notice they’re upset and immediately look for the source of the problem. Once identified, he’d take the next steps to rectifying the problem, because logic dictates that if the problem gets solved, then the other member would be happier. If there was nothing to rectify, he’d attempt to comfort them with cold, hard facts. (I’m thinking about that time when Jungkook got upset because he felt like he messed up his performances, and Jimin immediately hugs him and comforts him and tells him he was great, while Namjoon assesses the situation and starts talking about how he himself actually, objectively messed up, so there’s no logical reason for Jungkook to be upset right now.) He dreams and enjoys literature and the arts---but when it comes to handling practical, inter-personal issues, he’s much more comfortable with logic. 

Vibes - I really didn’t have a good word to describe this thought of mine, so let me just get right into explaining: I think Namjoon is, generally speaking, one of the smartest people---if not the smartest person---in the room. He’s aware of this fact without being arrogant about it, but it is the truth. Because of this, I think he’s frequently called on to explain things, to expound on them, to teach or interpret or decipher. I think he enjoys this role, because he loves talking about things he’s passionate about (see above: nerdy) but sometimes...sometimes I think he just desperately wants someone he can vibe with. Someone who can match his level intellectually. Someone whom he doesn’t have to teach. I think he is over-the-moon ecstatic when he meets someone he can vibe with in any way---whether that’s intelligence-related or passion/hobby-related. I don’t know, I just sometimes feel like he chooses to spend his personal time with people who can match him in some way, whom he can vibe with.

Basically I just love Kim Namjoon with my whole heart.

Jimin:

Caring - For me, Park Jimin starts and ends with this characteristic. He cares. A lot. About a lot of things. He cares about his brothers, he cares about his family, he cares about his friends, he cares about ARMY, he cares about music, he cares about his dancing, he cares about fashion, he cares about how he’s perceived, he cares about doing his very best, he cares about the future generations, he cares about those who are less fortunate than him, he just cares so much. Along with Yoongi, I think he is incredibly empathetic. How many times do we see him basically sprint across a room or a sandy beach or a campsite or a stage to get to an upset member? He reads people’s emotions and has a natural instinct to take care of them. Like anything, though, I think his biggest strength can also be a great weakness: sometimes he cares too much. How many times has he worked until his body is covered with pain patches, until his feet bled, until he almost passed out? All the weight he lost, because he cared about his appearance? How hard he worked at being “hardcore, manly” Jimin, because that’s what he thought people cared about most? All the times he cried after a tiny mistake, because he cared about being perfect, because he cared about others’ perception of him? Park Jimin cares so/too much and it’s one of the most defining things about his personality. 

Social Intelligence/눈치 - One thing I love the most is how he has such a unique relationship with each one of his brothers. Now, obviously, every single combo in Bangtan is different and unique and special. But I love watching Jimin’s relationships with the others so much, because he’s so aware of what they need. Truthfully, I think Jimin is hyper aware of others in general. If you’re trying to sneaky-cry at a crowded party, Jimin is the type of person who would somehow appear at your side, ready to help you feel better. His empathy and sensitivity allow him to assess what each individual needs the most from him and act accordingly. He knows Taehyung should never be left alone when upset, knows that if Jungkook is actually crying then something is very wrong, knows that Leader RM sometimes needs to just be his one-year-older hyung Namjoon, knows exactly how far he can push Yoongi’s buttons, knows to laugh at Jin’s dad-jokes (especially when they’re for the benefit of the group), and knows that Hoseok needs to be reminded how much cohesiveness he provides the group in general. 

Self-Critical - All right, I feel like this one might be a little controversial, so hear me out. Like I mentioned earlier, he cares a lot, and part of that translates into caring about himself---caring about his achievements, his performance, his appearance. It’s partly the classical dancer in him and partly just his personality. He wants to do and be his best always. But.... I do think that he has learned to be much kinder to himself over the years. Gone are the days of starving himself to get rid of his cheeks, the tearful breakdowns after a single missed step in a performance, the acting outside of his true personality because he thinks that’s what he’s supposed to be. I think we now very much see a Jimin who has come into his own, who has accepted himself for who he is (including his flaws), who has embraced every part of him. This doesn’t mean that I think he never has to fight the nagging voice in his head, or struggle with insecurities, or swallow down the urge to berate himself after a less-than-perfect performance---he still expects the best out of himself, still wants to be the best. I just think he’s found a way to critique himself without absolutely tearing himself apart. 

Cunning - Yet another word that looks and sounds derogatory, but isn’t really in this context. Like a lot of other empathetic, sensitive, socially-intelligent people, knowing exactly what people need and are feeling also allows him to know weaknesses. Weaknesses he would never exploit---unless he wanted to. I actually don’t think we see much of him using others’ weaknesses against them, but in my opinion, this quality is linked to two of his other quirks: 1) his talent and complete lack of guilt for cheating at games and 2) his penchant for pettiness. I don’t really know how to explain my thought-process here---not well, anyway. But I feel like Jimin is so tuned into the important things (so concerned about the important things) that little things, like cheating at a game, don’t matter to him much. And, if he can use his usually sweet and helpful and hard-working, honest self to get away with it, even better. On the flip side, I don’t think he enjoys or endures confrontation as much or as well as, say, Yoongi might---so he expresses himself in a quieter, underhanded way. (The moment that’s coming to mind is that one time they were at an American event and he commented, in Korean, about how unorganized things seem to be.) Jimin is the sweetest, most sensitive, empathetic little cinnamon roll---until it’s time to win a game, or until he’s feeling a little prickly and petty. 

Basically I just love Park Jimin with my whole heart.

Taehyung: 

Individualistic - Kim Taehyung knows who he is. He knows what he likes, what he wants, what he thinks. He is going to wear whatever he wants, paint whatever he wants, say whatever he wants, and do whatever he wants. He’s a person who seems to have figured out a long time ago what makes him happy and how to be his true self around others no matter what---and this something I greatly envy. If he wants to learn the violin, he’s gonna buy a violin and play some scratchy Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on a hotel balcony---because that’s what he wants to do. If he wants to write a song, it’s going to be in his style, the way he likes it. If he wants a really cool, avant-garde piece of artsy clothing, he’s going to spray-paint it himself. If he has an opinion on something, it’s highly likely that he’s spent quite a bit of time forming this opinion---but once that’s his opinion, that’s his opinion. That’s what he thinks, there’s no need to listen to others or change. I think this quality, this ability to be himself so  freely and earnestly, is both one of the reasons he’s able to make friends so easily and be beloved so quickly (see: “Bangtan’s True Baby” and “Wooga Squad darling”); and one of the reasons others (including the other members, by their own admission) can’t understand him well at first. I think it has brought many good things to his life, but has also played a significant part in some of the struggles that he has had. He’s precious, but also very easily misunderstood.

Not Very Outward-Sensing - Notice I very purposefully don’t go anywhere near the words “self-absorbed” or “self-centered”---because he’s not. On the contrary, I think Taehyung feels very deeply for the people in his life (see below: Emotional), but his ability to care for them is sometimes inhibited by his lack of outward-sensing. If Jimin is the king of 눈치/social awareness, then Taehyung is the absolute opposite (which is why it is unendingly intriguing to me that two of his closest relationships in BTS---he and Jimin, he and Yoongi---are comprised of one person who lacks this awareness [Tae] and one person who has all the awareness [Jimin, Yoongi]). He would never hurt someone’s feelings on purpose, but quite often he’s just not paying a whole lot of attention to what other people might be feeling or experiencing. He’s not concerned about walking on eggshells, because he feels that as long as his intentions are good, nobody can be too hurt or too uncomfortable with him or his behavior (A great example of this is the infamous Spring Day Dance Debate from “Burn the Stage.” In Taehyung’s mind, he saw something that should be changed and needed to be addressed, so he called it out. It never in a million years would occur to him that the way he phrased it or the way he kept harping on it could be a source of irritation or discomfort to Jin. To him, it was a very black-and-white, clear-cut situation: something was wrong, he had an idea of how it should be fixed, therefore nothing bad could/should come of him speaking his mind in the pursuit of this perfect solution he created). He seems like the sort of person who, after accidentally hurting your feelings, would sympathize with your hurt and want to make it better, but focus more on the fact that he didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, so it’s not really his fault. 

Emotional - I think he is very in-touch with his emotions, which can be both a good thing and a bad thing. For example, if he’s upset, he wants everyone to know and acknowledge that he’s upset. He doesn’t like feeling ignored or passed over, and where others might let it slide, he’s not afraid to speak up about it (I’m thinking about the time there was a question directed specifically to Yoongi about being from Daegu and Taehyung immediately pointed out that he was also from Daegu, and kind of pouted a little until it was acknowledged). Also, although it’s never been said explicitly, I think he is one of the members who potentially struggles with depression. He can take things very personally and to heart. But this is likely because he has such a big heart. He loves unabashedly and he’s very vocal about who he loves---think of all the times he’s said and posted comments along the lines of “Please love all seven” and “Please love each of us equally.” He also can be very protective (thinking of that one Weverse post where he lowkey chewed somebody out for posting an unflattering photo of one of the others) and blunt when defending those he loves. I mean, he created a whole new word just to express how much he loves ARMY! When he’s sad, he cries. When he’s happy, he giggles. When he’s angry, he expresses it. When he’s disappointed, he doesn’t hide it. To me, he is a near-perfect example of someone who wears their heart on their sleeves. 

Contradictory - One of his most endearing qualities. He is not very outward-focused---but he bought a pair of gloves because he remembered that Jimin offhandedly mentioned that he needed some. He doesn’t read other people easily---but he (so far) is also pretty darn good at completing accurate Vibe-Checks for those who come in contact with BTS. He doesn’t always see as much as the others might---but he also notices certain things they might miss. The beauty of his being is that he can be both things at the same time and not seem out of place.

Basically I just love Kim Taehyung with my whole heart.

Jungkook: 

Confident Yet Perfectionistic - Now listen: when I say confident, I don’t mean that he never struggles with insecurities. I mean confident in the way that his whole life (at least his whole Idol life) he had 6 older brothers who encouraged him to try and do anything he wanted---and then supported him no matter the outcome. Being raised in an environment like that, where you’re encouraged to try things, where you have people who love you constantly praising your efforts and providing a safe space for you to fail, you gain a certain amount of confidence in your abilities, in yourself. I think this is actually a big part of the Golden Maknae moniker: yes, I think he is the type of person to whom things may come quite easily and who is naturally skilled in several areas---but it’s also a little easier to conquer new things when you have years of encouraged-successes under your belt. He has gained a confidence in himself over years of trying and working his tail off and eventually succeeding; he knows he can do anything if he works at it enough because he’s always been able to do everything he works at. Where the perfectionistic aspect kicks in especially is this: there are a lot of people who have a natural affinity for lots of things. There are lots of people who can pick up something new and be decent right away (I honestly think Taehyung is another person like this, someone who can pick new things up pretty easily)---the difference is that Jeon Jungkook is the type of person who takes that natural affinity and runs with it. He’s not satisfied with just being good at something; if it’s something he really wants to do, he throws his whole heart and soul and self into it. In my opinion, this sets him apart from people who could be considered “Jack of All Trades, Master of None.” He trusts his process and uses it to be the very best he can be in whatever he does.

Introverted -  Obviously he’s not the only introverted member of Bangtan, but I do think that his specific life experiences require a little more discussion on this topic than the others. By his own admission, his childhood ended really early. He didn’t focus much on school because he was focused on his career; he never got to have the typical high school experiences most of the others had. At an incredibly young age he was thrust into a totally different life that required being in the spotlight---and while this definitely brought unique challenges, he loves his life as a musician and performer. I think out of all BTS, Jungkook especially lives for performing. He lights up on stage and is at his absolute happiest when performing (and performing well). And yet none of this changes the fact that he is absolutely an introvert, someone who needs to recharge with just a little alone time. Alone time. Not easy to achieve when you live in the same tiny dorm with 6 other boys. Not easy to achieve when you are constantly surrounded by brothers, staff, instructors, producers, cameras, and fans.  

Maknae - I can’t explain this well, I know I can’t, but it just is such a huge part of him that I feel like I need to try. In so many ways, Jungkook is a typical baby of the family. It’s evident in the way that he unabashedly idolizes his Rap-Mon-hyung. In the way he constantly cuddles and sniffs and snuggles Hoseok. In the way he’s not afraid to pester Yoongi or tease Seokjin. He also seems like someone who is much more of a fixer than a listener; meaning, if you go to him with a problem, he’s going to be focused on how he can fix the situation, not on just listening and sympathizing/empathizing with you, a trait that I feel comes easily to babies of families (not that *all* youngest children have this, mind you) because they’re typically not the ones confided in, so if something is brought to them they want to help make it right (massive generalization, I know, don’t kill me). As discussed above, he’s also confident in himself because he’s been raised with older siblings who have always told him “yes, you can.” He’s just Baby in all the ways that stick with a person even as they grow older. 

Trusting - Jungkook strikes me as the sort of person who trusts fairly easily---and, more importantly, unshakably. He has no problem admitting to millions of ARMY that he ripped his pants on stage or V-Living while drunk (I don’t care what he says, babyboy was at least a little buzzed) because he trusts us. He could easily follow Namjoon (or any of his brothers) to the ends of the earth. He takes every opportunity to speak earnestly and wholeheartedly about how much he genuinely loves ARMY, because he trusts that that love will be returned. 

Basically I just love Jeon Jungkook with my whole heart. 

[bellasweetwriting]

Fix His Broken Heart

Jess Mariano x f.reader

(not my gif)

masterlist

request: Hiii, i want a jess fic🥺 theres not enough jess mariano fics here, how about after rory goes to visit him at truncheon he meets the reader and she helps him move on from rory and he falls in love with reader. 💞💞

requested by: @beautiful-thinking

note: I’m a big literati shipper so this was hard but also fun to write I really love this

warnings: movie references, drinking, gilmore girls s2,s3 and s6 spoilers, some fancy vocabulary, Logan hate

word count: 1,7k

reading time: 7 min

And he saw her walk away to his arms. She found comfort in another guy. She moved one.

He hated himself for realizing that after all these years of knowing this person, still, it isn't enough. He and Rory evolved separately, they don't have the same goals or the same resources. As much as they try, it seemed like destiny didn't want their paths to cross one another.

He realized that he lost her as soon as she walked out of that door. She was gone. What now?

He'll probably see her again at Luke and Lorelai's wedding; hell, he'll even see Logan there also. The way he despited that guy. He cheated on her, and still, there she was, madly in love with him.

Logan is better than him in Rory's eyes, and he couldn't do anything to change that. He was a forgotten part of her story, an item locked inside a box that she opens when she feels lost. She probably doesn' think of him anymore like she used to.

But he thinks of her at least once a day. When he walks through the bookstore and notices the new edition of Dawn Powell's My Home Is Far Away, or when his friends bring coffee and offer to him, reminding him of her slight coffee addiction. Who's he kidding? There's nothing "slight" about Rory Gilmore's coffee addiction, it's concerning.

Any little thing reminded him of her and the fact that now he's sure she doesn't think of him anymore... saddens him.

Everyone was celebrating the success of the event that day, while Jess drowned his sorrows in a cold beer, also glancing over the girls that walked past him.

"I should warn you that if you are planning to Kurt Cobain on my bar, don't." That expression provoked an immediate reaction on Jess's face. "Not a fan of dark humor?"

"Not when it comes from the mouth of a stranger, not," he replied, making the girl chuckle. "Do you always attend your costumers like that, Rick Blaine?" Asked Jess naming the main character of Casablanca, who happened to owned a bar/restaurant in the 1940s.

"Rick Blaine? Don't tell me you are one of those guys who listen to The Clash on repeat and think they are better than the rest of the world because they know references from black and white movies and have read at least one book by Bukowski in the last three months." Jess drank from his beer, making the girl opened her mouth widely. "Oh, God, you are! A living Danielle Steel novel main character drinking alone in my bar." He laughed.

"I used to be that guy," Jess corrected her. "I've changed."

"A girl?"

"A breakup with a girl, to be fairer. I work at a little bookstore called Truncheon. We are all independent writers, and to give you some credit, some of us do look like Danielle Steel's characters. Not that I have read anything by her, though."

Jess wasn't like that. He didn't tell people he doesn't know about himself or his personal life, but for some reason, probably the effects of the alcohol in that beer were making him loosen up a bit with this complete stranger. Yeah, a significant event has happened in his life. The girl he thought he was going to be with forever decided to be with someone else rather than him, and he hasn't thought of anyone else romantically. He's so used to being alone, so used to not having anyone to actually talk to, that, maybe, liberating his internal thoughts and regrets with someone he isn't going to see again is probably for the best.

Not a therapist or a friend, just, someone external who isn't going to dig dipper in his subconscious to understand his situation and actions or someone who is involved in the story; someone who just―listens.

"You read one, you read them all." She commented. "Independent writers, huh? Have you published anything I have written?"

"Probably not," he said with that typical modesty he has earned through the pass of the years. "I just have one book out, is a self-published, so..." She nodded. "I actually did a little road trip, trying to make independent bookstores like mine to put them in the store. Probably, by the end of the month, I'll have twenty bucks and a sticker that says: «keep trying, champ.»"

"How poetic," the barista murmured, and both chuckle.

"Do you have a copy of your book?" She asked, and he nodded, giving it to her. "The Subsect, by Jess Mariano. Truncheon Books," she read before turning it around and reading the back cover. "«A self-published, prominent and dark-humored coming of age short novel following the unique life of J., a seventeen-year-old with no place to call home.» That's dark. How much for it?"

"Twenty bucks and a sticker," she chuckled, "or, a free beer."

"Sounds like a fair deal, Jess Mariano." He smiled at the mention of his name. "I'm Y/N."

"Nice to meet you, Y/N." She placed the book inside her apron with a tiny smile. "So you work here."

"Oh, you said that because of the apron and the fact that I'm behind the counter? No, I'm just a big fan of... college bars in Philadelphia." The sarcasm in Y/N's voice made Jess grin. "My brother owns the place. He lets me live upstairs while I go to college, and I pay rent by working here. The books you see behind me are mine. I study on my break."

"What are you studying?"

"English. I want to be a screenplay writer." He sighed before shaking his head. "What?"

"A film writer? Why?"

"I love films. I love watching them, reviewing them, analyzing them. I want to write masterpieces. What's wrong with that? At least I'm not writing coming of age short novels."

"It's not a coming of age novel, that's just the hideous synopsis that my poet friends come up with for the book. It's actually a lot deeper than that."

"The only way of finding that out is reading it, right?"

"Right."

Both looked at each other for a few seconds before she asked for his glass to refill that free beer she offered him.

"How about... if I come tomorrow, take you out, and you buy me that beer? How about that?" Y/N chuckle before agreeing.  He didn't believe it actually worked. He had tried to ask girls out in the last two years, but they've always said that they weren't interested. But there was something different and intriguing about Y/N that had caught the young writer's attention. "At what time do you finish class?"

"Pick me up at eight here, I'll wait."

"Cool."

"Cool."

...............................................................................................................................

He was nervous.

A date. Jess has never even been on one before. Not even with Rory. He never took Rory on a date like a dinner or a movie before they started going out. He used to tease her, and she fell for him, God knows why.

He took Rory on dates when they were dating, although if you count the car ride as a date. No, it wasn't a date. She was Dean's girlfriend at the time, and he crashed her car.

Why did she even like him? He crashed her car for God's sake. If he was Rory, he would have hated himself.

He hated himself already.

It wasn't like in books. Girls are complicated, and the male writers he is so used to reading about usually don't talk about dates and how to get a girl; the girl is already in love with the main character.

She did mention Danielle Steel. Did she read that kind of dramas, like Nicholas Sparks and John Green, where the characters just die in each other's arms like a shoddy Shakespeare tragedy imitation? Did she like that? He didn't know how to be a "romance" kind of guy. He still used the "bully her because you like her" technique, and maybe that's the only part of him that hasn't changed with the years.

He still didn't know how to communicate and express himself. He still wasn't used to talking about his emotions or being in a healthy relationship where there's no such thing as privacy. He wasn't born to assist to cotillions and balls, wear tuxes like James Bond and use fancy words gentleman-like, such as "Farewell," "Luxury," "Eloquent," and "Hope you had a marvelous evening, thanks for joining us in our humble and splendid gathering."

But that was Rory's world. Probably Logan used words like that without even knowing the meaning of them.

He quickly noticed that thinking about his ex-girlfriend before a date wasn't a good sign.

Maybe he should stand her up? No, that is an old Jess move. He is a changed man, he doesn't treat girls like that anymore. He is better, he is more mature, he wants to achieve something, actually becoming a better and selfless person who thinks about the consequences before acting. He wasn't going to stand Y/N up.

By a quarter past eight, he was standing on the bar's entrance, making eye contact with the barista from the previous day. Y/N smiled at him before saying goodbye to the guy next to her, grabbing her purse and walking towards Jess.

"Thought you wouldn't show up, Romeo."

"Can't believe you took me for a coward."

"In my defense, I saw you drinking your problems away yesterday." He nodded before putting her coat on her shoulders for her, making Y/N smile. "What a gentleman."

"There are so many things you don't know about me. You would surprise yourself."

"Oh, let me guess: you've never been on a date before."

"What? Why would you say that?"

"Well, because we are walking instead of driving."

"I have a dark past with cars and girls. You wouldn't want me to be behind the wheel while you are inside the car after you hear it, believe me."

"Good to know." Both laughed as they walked under the streetlights of Philadelphia. "I've never been on a date either," she admitted, taking him by surprise, but not as much to make a comment about it.

Jess has never felt more comfortable. Next to her, he felt like he was free of judgments. Starting a new story, blank page, blank notebook. He felt safe, and he hasn't felt safe in another person's arms in such a long time.

This was good for him. To finally... move on.

And who better than her to fix his broken heart.

[whatissleepeven]

Write (Obey Me!)

(This is the first thing I promised would come out on my other post "Soon" (yes, I saw the comments, and yes, I laughed for five minutes straight at it. You know who you are, and so this is in part to you).)

.

Why do we read?

Satan sighs as he pushes yet another finished novel off to the side. Akutagawa's Portrait of Hell never ceases to confuse him, although he commends the expertise the author had with his use of words; he created a vivid world and molded the reader's mind into a unique perspective that provoked introspection with every page read.

In all honesty, he's reading up on human literature so that he can talk to you about what he thought of it. Levi had let the name of this particular story slip a day ago, tears in his eyes as he raved about some anime he thought Satan would like due to its interpretation of authors. It piqued his interest at the time (he and Levi work at the library, so the otaku knows quite a few things about literature), but now that he's finished it, he can't help but feel...unsatisfied.

Disappointed.

"I'll move onto the next author, I suppose." The blonde tsks as he picks up a soft pink book-- the color of sakuras, soft pink petals which he only briefly remembered seeing a couple decades back in the Human Realm. He recalls Levi clasping a hand down onto his shoulder around a couple of hours ago, telling him with a straight face that he'd "immensely appreciate Sakaguchi's works" before leaving him alone in the library.

So here he is, about to follow his brother’s advice.

The chair makes a soft skrrt of protest against the carpet as he pulls it out, taking a seat and making himself comfortable once more. After taking a glance at the clock, Satan wagers that he could squeeze this book in before he has to return to the House of Lamentation and make dinner.

“It’s not often I indulge in Japanese novels by the bulk...” He muses as he flips to the first page, falling silent as he absorbed the words.

Interesting...so Sakaguchi speaks of the corruption of man, and how turning from good to bad or bad to good is still, at it's core, corruption. He muses as he turns to the seventy-second page half an hour later, his curiosity pushing him to search for the next word in near anticipation. And since it's still corruption, he suggests that it's the moral lens humanity put on corruption that leaves them blind to this fact. Humans are such strange creatures...

"Enjoying your latest book, Satan?"

Satan doesn't spare Solomon so much as a glance as his eyes flick from line-to-line, giving the sorcerer a polite nod.

"Levi suggested this one to me. I've been needing something else to read, and I must say that this book is intriguing."

Solomon rests his arms on the table, a smile spreading on his face as his gaze trailed over to the neat stack of books on Satan's right. "I knew you liked to read, but never could I imagine that it was to this extent."

Satan turns to the next page. He was getting close to the end now, and he would be lying is he said that he wasn't itching to know what happens next.

The wife is having him kill for her...I wonder what he will do?

"You know what they say," he replies without missing a beat, "Knowledge is power."

Solomon hums. "Is that so?"

He's close. He's oh so close. Just a few more pages and he'd finish the story, and then he can entertain Solomon for a little bit before returning to the House. The former bandit confronted his wife under the sakura blossoms he feared so much; his blade gleamed in the sunlight as his wife stared at him -

- And Solomon plucks the book from his hands, putting it back on the stack.

Satan's mind blanks for a blissful two seconds before he registers what the fuck just happened. The familiar bubbling heat in his abdomen rises as he shoots Solomon a glare.

"I had a few more pages left," He snaps. "I was going to finish, and then we could talk."

Solomon keeps the smile even as he leans back, not once intimidated by Satan's irritation. "And where's the fun in that?"

Oh, he'll show him fun. Satan has a low growl going in the back of his throat at this point, and all it would take is one more push from the sorcerer to send him over the edge.

"Choose your next words carefully." The blonde says quietly, nails digging into the palms of his hands in a weak attempt at self control. Nothing sets Satan off faster than messing with his books, and everything leading up to his venture into the library with Levi isn't something he can classify as a "good day".

Solomon picks up a different book in his stack. No Longer Human. The smile turns teasing, but something flickers behind his eyes that Satan can't decipher due to being in a state of near-eruption.

"Wouldn't it be better to not know the ending to this story?"

Satan is still agitated, but a spark of curiosity briefly dampens the feeling. "What?"

"Why do we read?" The sorcerer asks instead, turning the book over in his hands. The air crackles with energy as Solomon levitates the book, slowly twirling it in midair. "As an avid reader, I'm sure you must have the answer."

Satan narrows his eyes at the double meaning in Solomon's tone. "We read to gain knowledge," he says cautiously, although he allows a half-smile to appear on his face. If this is turning into a discussion about literature, then he can shove aside his irritation at being interrupted for now. "And, in turn, that knowledge prompts reflection into one's self. Afterwards, the new information can be quickly applied to the world."

Solomon lowers the book, but it doesn't quite touch the tabletop. "You're correct, but you're not right."

Satan furrows his brow. "What?" He says incredulously, his smile quickly turning into a frown. "That doesn't make sense. How can something be correct but not be right?"

Solomon grins. "I've heard from our human friend that you are the House's Number One Detective; I have faith that you'll figure it out soon enough. Now, you didn't answer my first question: Wouldn't it be better to not know the ending to this story?"

Satan makes a mental note to double check the definitions of correct and right later as he shifts in his seat, placing his elbows on the table to get more comfortable. "The ending is inevitable. It gives closure and is definite. Once created and published for others to see, it can't be changed no matter how much the masses beg for it."

Solomon sighs, giving a quick flick of his fingers to raise the book a couple inches further from the table. He gives Satan a terse nod of agreement. "But would it be better to not know of its existence? The story could go on forever with no ending."

Satan pauses. He...hadn't thought of that before, actually. Even so... "If that were to happen, then the story itself would lose its charm."

Solomon raises an eyebrow, leaning forward a bit. "Why?"

Satan knows he's getting baited into realizing something, but the initial irritation hasn't completely worn off so he can't (at the very least) even glimpse at the sorcerer's elaborate trap. "Because it would get mundane. The reader would begin to get lost in the story for so long that they lose sight of what makes it unique, and thus it loses its charm. All things come to an end at some point."

Solomon nods, putting his hand to his chin in thought. "And what exactly makes a story so unique?"

Satan hums as he mulls it over. He's beginning to enjoy this discussion, he realizes, and he's becoming less irritated and more intrigued to see where Solomon will take it next. "Perspective?" He offers.

No Longer Human is creeping above their heads, floating between them. "You're getting warmer."

Satan puts a finger to his bottom lip in thought. A lightbulb suddenly goes off in his mind, leading him to calmly lift his head.

"The author's. It's the author's perspective that makes the story unique."

Solomon smiles, pleased at his answer. The piece of literature is doing lazy circuits above them now, silver motes of energy trailing behind it like Tinkerbell's Pixie Dust. "Precisely. A story is crafted by the author's own hands, a combination of their innermost thoughts, dreams, emotions, and inspirations; they are the tellers of their own story, if you'd like to think of it as that.

"Switching gears now. Do you remember the second question I asked you?"

"Why do we read, if I remember correctly?"

Solomon drums his free hand on the tabletop. "So? What is your answer?"

Satan is about to reply with what he said earlier, but something inside him stops himself from uttering the words. Solomon led him through those topics, through this discussion in general for a reason.

If he looks back on their conversation, then -

It's just like Solomon said. Soon enough, I figured it out.

"We read because we want to understand the author."

Solomon's answering grin is softer, and if Satan had stared long enough then he would have come to recognize the sadness that tinged it.

"You are absolutely right."

Satan nods. "I understand it now, but I'm wondering why you brought this up with me in the first place."

"You are the Avatar of Wrath, born from Lucifer himself." The words made the demon still, a frown settling on his face as his eyes narrow once more at the sorcerer across from him.

"...Yes, I am."

Solomon hovers the book in front of their faces, pushing it closer to Satan. "Once I heard our mutual friend comment on your reading habits, it wasn't hard to put two and two together. You read to gain a better grasp of yourself, using the works of other authors for self-discovery."

Satan hears the tone in Solomon's voice and opens his mouth to retort, but the human beats him to it. "And before you say anything, that's not a bad thing; if a piece of literature makes you think and reflect, then it's doing its job. I just think that there's another option available to you that you don't know about."

Satan's frown eases just a tiny bit, and it's all Solomon needs to press forward. He stands up, catching the levitating book as it suddenly drops and stacking it on top of the pile.

"Instead of asking why do we read, what we should really be asking ourselves is why do we write."

Satan lets the words sink in, his frown turning contemplative as he stares at the tabletop in thought.

Reading is equivalent to reflection, and writing is equivalent to projection...I see. However, why does Solomon think that it can help m-

...

- Oh.

Oh.

Satan is the Avatar of Wrath, and as such when he was birthed he was only filled with pure rage. He is also the only one out of his brothers who was born a demon, who had to deal with being constantly compared to Lucifer, who was drowning in his shadow.

Books helped to stave off that rage. They let him discover himself, and they let him feel something other than the anger that boiled within him.

You were the first one to tell him to live his life for himself.

But no amount of books in the world can help me make my brothers understand this crippling weight. Where does Lucifer end, and where do I begin? Is there even a "me" in the first place? Or am I nothing more than discarded, unwanted residue?

I can never tell them this out loud; I'd rather die before that happens.

If I jot down my thoughts, however...

- Ah, so that's what Solomon was getting at.

Solomon pushes his chair in, walking towards the doorway as he gives a startled Satan one small wave of goodbye. Before he can fully make his exit he stops, his hand resting against the doorframe.

"You mentioned earlier how all things come to an end at some point. It's precisely this constraint that pushes humans to write." The sorcerer says as he smiles over his shoulder at him. It's back to normal, and briefly Satan wonders if he merely imagined his softened expression minutes prior.

"What will motivate a demon to write, I wonder?"

Within moments he was gone. Satan blinks, turning his gaze to the neat stack of books as if truly seeing them for the first time.

"Why do we write, huh..." He murmurs, not once looking at the clock as he picks up the stack and makes his own swift exit.

After Satan gets home and cooks dinner, he sits himself down at his desk with a pen and paper in hand as he begins to write.

For the first time since you uttered those fateful words to him, he feels free.

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

Why do we write?

We write because our works carry our hearts and souls within them.

We write because it leads us on a path of self-discovery.

We write because what cannot be uttered, can instead be written.

...

We write because we hope this cruel world of ours will understand us just a little bit better.

.

.

.

(Dedicated to my friend @deanobeanoqueero. We haven't talked much these past few days, but please know that I appreciate your encouragement, patience, and kindness. Believe in yourself and your writing, and know that those who love you for who you are have your back!! 💜

And to all content creators...your passion fuels each other and your respective communities. You all are so so brave for making headcanons, fics, multi-chaptered stories, art, and ask blogs for the fandoms you love because you want to share your excitement and joy with others.

You are loved, you are appreciated, and if it ever becomes too much to keep creating content at the pace you always have been...please please please, take a break. Your health comes before other people's demands, and if they don't agree with that then they're clearly in the wrong place.

You create content because it's something that you enjoy. Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise!! 💖)

[strawberryybird]

a handy basic compliment builder

IDK about y’all but i’ve been reading 20x the fic I was a month ago, mostly at 2am when i can’t sleep and i’m holding my phone on a 45° angle to keep the screen from turning. and because i’m reading ungodly amounts of fic after the sun sets, I forget to comment, and I like being able to comment coherent compliments. So! I made a comment builder. 

I struggle for 85 reasons in a trench coat to comment on fics - it’s something i find really hard! genuinely really hard! One of the pertinent reasons being I’m dyslexic, and I can read a fic, love it, and then read other comments and realise I’ve accidentally read a very different version of the fic than they all did. So I keep my comments short, vague in my love and specific in what i love, and overtly positive! This isn’t a rigid structure to be followed at all times! This is my own personal style, that I thought I would share! by all means, adapt it to your own style! :)

Welcome to my ‘Victoria Sponge Compliment’ method! It, like a victoria sponge cake, has 4 main parts: ‘Adjective of Positivity’, ‘Favourite Thing’, ‘Why I Liked That Thing’, and ‘Thank you’. 

(I write this to be fic-commenting specific, but replace the some of the language like ‘dialogue’ to ‘colour choice’ and you’ve got yourself a handy-dandy art compliment method too!)

1. The Cake: Adjective of Positivity: what adjective will I use to encapsulate the likely emotional roller-coaster the fic sent me on? With longfic, angst and assorted serious topics, I tend to stick to more formal adjectives, but with comedy, I end up leaning more towards informal words. but that’s a me problem. here’s a handy list:

great, amazing, brilliant, fantastic, ‘so so good’, awesome, ‘my heart can’t take it!’ excellent, ‘every second was enjoyable’, delightful, enchanting, ‘OH the Emotions! I loved it!’

The point of this isn’t to reduce the amount of love you feel, it’s really just to start off the comment in a really positive way. I’ve read some old exchanged between reader and author where the reader doesn’t actually say they Liked the fic until halfway down a comment chain! so i like to be upfront with my love! 

2. The Jam: A Favourite Thing: character/quote/scene/emotion provoked

You liked all of it? absolutely say so in as many iterations as you please! You liked a couple of things really strongly? Pick them out and say so! the author probably loved writing them!

Maybe it’s a poignant quote that made you stand up and walk around the house before opening back up the fic? the way Ferdinand’s speech was phrased just so perfectly? the way the mutual pining unraveled like string? the part where you laughed harder than you have all day? The hilarious 2 lines of dialogue you’ve been repeating to yourself for the last week?

i like to just pick the one thing at first, quantify it, and compliment it. that leads the way to add More Awesome Things i liked in the fic!!

3. The Cream: say WHY you liked it!!

now this is the part I struggle with most! because there’s so much to say! So I go as specific as I can:  Rather than comment on Everything in the fic, I say why I liked The Jam^ above. Pick the one thing, and go from there.

Maybe it fell completely in line with how you see Ferdinand’s character, and you loved seeing your interpretation corroborated in the author’s work? Maybe the mutual pining made it really entertaining? Maybe it shone new light on characters for you, and now you love them dearly? Maybe the humour was top notch and you laughed the most you have in a week, or maybe the angst was exactly what you needed to read that day?

Maybe the descriptions of the settings were so visceral? Maybe you loved the detail, it made it feel so real? Maybe you discovered a new format, or structure, and you loved how unique it was? Maybe you liked the references to classical works? Maybe you loved the humourous narrative voice? 

Was the yearning tangible? Did your heart skip a metaphorical beat? Did you shed a tear? Was it cathartic? Did it bring you joy? Did it brighten your day? Did you accidentally spend your evening reading the whole thing, and now suddenly it’s 3am and you didn’t mean to cry about fictional people, but here you are?? (a mood), those emotions it made you feel – that’s worth saying!

My approach to this part tends to end up being about ‘This made me Feel Emotions and i Loved that.’ and that’s fine! 

4. Cake Again: say thank you!! :)

‘Thank you for sharing your work’, ‘i’m so glad i got to read this today’, ‘this was so much fun to read, thank you!’, ‘thank you so so much op!!’, ‘brilliant way to spend my afternoon!’ ‘your work brightened my day!’ ‘this made me so happy to read! thank you!’

you can indeed add a note about future work! I tend to favour things like: ‘thank you for all the work so far, looking forward to seeing what happens next!’, “i’m so invested in this fic lmao, see you in the next chapter!’ or something else if the author doesn’t explicitly say ‘don’t ask me for updates’. I want to be extra-polite about it, and emphasis how much I liked the work that exists already!

But this doesn’t include con-crit, or have any space to give negative or constructive feedback! why? Now that’s a whole separate post. In brief, I don’t like to give con-crit when it isn’t explicitly asked for. there’s many posts out there debating this exact thing, and this isn’t a post about that. this is for building simple, basic compliments. You’ll also notice that it’s all positive feedback. That’s because I don’t comment on fic I don’t like.. that’s not exactly the energy I want to have in the world. use this victoria sponge metaphor for good, ya know?

You’ll notice this is incredibly basic, and something more akin to the essay paragraph structure my teachers spent 3 years battling to get me to write with. That’s both correct and intentional. This is the best balance I’ve been able to strike between coming off heartfelt and genuine, and short enough that I can write and send it in less than 120 seconds before my fear and lack of energy get the better of me. There’s nothing wrong with ‘I loved this, thank you!’, but sometimes I want to brave the fear of commenting and, overall, say thank you. That’s what it all comes down to because, as a writer, someone telling me how many emotions my work gave them is an indescribably wonderful feeling. and I want to share that joy! and also I really wanted to use a cake metaphor.

Finally, if you’re unfamiliar, the Long Live Feedback project on tumblr is an Excellent resource, and I encourage everyone to poke around and have a look at the wonderful work they do! also the blog ao3commentoftheday is an excellent blog who discusses comments, commenting convention, and all round fic writing!

Happy Commenting, enjoy the cake, and thanks for reading!

[linkspooky]

Shigaraki’s Self Perception

So a lot of people are taking Shigaraki’s flashback for his word, and using it as proof that Shigaraki was a genuinely destructive child who wished for or even enjoyed his family’s destruction. While yes there are cases of abused children who are pushed to a breaking point and resort to murder to escape their abusive situations, I think it’s important to address Shigaraki’s flashback with nuance for what is clearly an emotionally confused and traumatizing situation. 

People forget that for a long time this has been the narrative set for Shigaraki. That he’s only capable of destruction, and that he must have wanted it to be that way to have been born with such a quirk. It’s a narrative that other people (Chisaki, All for One, Redestro) attempt to force onto Shigaraki, but also one Shigaraki has accepted for himself. 

Narrative identity. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The theory of narrative identity postulates that individuals form an identity by integrating their life experiences into an internalized, evolving story of the self that provides the individual with a sense of unity and purpose in life.

Basically, it’s interpreting a series of events connected to each other as if they are flowing in a story. It’s basically the way you see the story of your life, Shigaraki is a unique case where he defines himself as a villain and an antagonist. Shigaraki fully embraces the fact that he’s a negative, and destructive person in ways most people would avoid. However, as stories are made up fiction just because they are Shigaraki’s perceptions does not make them 1:1 with reality. Shigaraki’s narrative is a false one he’s embraced, and understanding that can help us understand how Shigaraki sees the world. 

1. Tenko Shimura is not an Omniscient Narrator

A common mistake that people make in writing and reading child characters is that they assume that they have the same thinking and reasoning capacity as adults. This is because most people cannot remember being teenagers, let alone children. A lot of people assume children are intentionally choosing to be bad or unreasonable, when really they just cannot reason or communicate the same way that adults can and the adults aren’t trying to bridge the gap in any significant capacity. 

And it’s clear that Horikoshi is writing these child characters with the intention to actually portray them as children as accurately as he can, because he even mentions this directly in the text of the narration. That kids think differently than most adults expect them too. 

So before going into Tenko’s perceptions of the events of the last two chapters, let’s briefly touch upon child psychology. Jean Piaget’s stages of development, is a psychological a study of cognitive development that divides a child’s brain developing into four stages sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. 

Tenko is about five years old at the time of his most formative trauma, which puts him in the preoperatonal stage. While children begin to speak, think and interact with the world Piaget noted they do not yet think logically the same way adults do. 

Piaget noted that children in this stage do not yet understand concrete logic, cannot mentally manipulate information, and are unable to take the point of view of other people, which he termed egocentrism. [x]

Because they do not understand concrete logic yet, children instead depend on perception of the environment around them. That’s why children are influenced so much in their formative years by the houses they grow up in, because they simply don’t have the capacity for thinking things through with internal logic yet. 

From the age of about 4 years until 7 most children go through the Intuitive period. This is characterized by egocentric, perception-dominated and intuitive thought which is prone to errors in classification (Lefrancois, 1995). 

So let’s touch on these two concepts perception-dominated and egocentrism briefly before I use them to explain how Shimura Tenko sees the world. 

Egocentrism is the inability to understand that other people have different perspectives, thoughts, feelings and mental states. There’s a difference between an adult being egocentric and simply not caring to understand other people as three dimmensional individually operating entities with their own thoughts and feelings, and children lacking that capability because their brains are literally not developed enough to perceive it. This is something proven with literal experiments, a child cannot imagine a mountain from another person’s point of view on the opposite side of the mountain because they can only imagine seeing the mountain from the angle they are currently standing at. 

A child is led to believe that everyone thinks as they do, and that the whole world shares their feelings and desires. Therefore the child assumes automatically that they are the omnipotent narrator, because everybody thinks the same way they do. This is perception-dominated they define the world entirely by what they observe in their own perception, without reasoning through it. 

Let’s just use a quick example. Let’s say you are an adult and somebody tells you that you’re bad at math. As an adult you can think of evidence inside your own head to compare what somebody else tells you to be the truth, against your own personal truth and experiences. Well, I got an A in calculus so I don’t think I’m bad at math therefore that person must be saying something false. You reason through this conclusion by comparing it against your own self image and you also understand the difference between how other people perceive you and how you perceive yourself. For children it’s not nearly as distinct, and their perception is much more messy and lacking in this ability to think through and reason. If a child is continually told something, because all of their views are based off of perception rather than evidence based reasoning and logic a child will come to believe it. 

"Realism" is the child's notion that their own perspective is objective and absolute. The child thinks from one perspective and regards this reality as absolute.

So, children will make the mistake of assuming there is an absolute reality out of something that is their own personal perception. Just as a quick example, let’s say that they go to greet the mail man, and the mail man doesn’t say hi back. A child will jump to the assumption (the mail man hates me now because he’s ignoring me) based off of what is only their own personal perception. Whereas an adult might consider, oh the mail man is tired today, or maybe they didn’t hear me, because they consider the perceptions of other people as well. 

So you cannot trust Shimura Tenko’s assessment of his own memories, not because they’ve been manipulated in some way, but because the narrative of them has been manipulated and Shigaraki does not even allow himself the nuance that he was just a child, and children think differently from adults. 

So Shimura Tenko, is at the same time more perceptive of his environment than the adults realize, but also less perceptive than we as the readers give him credit. Kids are sneakier than you expect, but also more simple. He’s perceptive in the fact that he understands that there is something wrong in the household, and that he is being unfairly blamed and made the scapegoat and the other adults are not really doing anything about it.

Tenko however, does not understand basically anything about the nuance of abuse or even what the adults are thinking. All he knows is what he perceives of what the adults are thinking. He only understands his own emotions, and his own reactions to how other people treat him. 

Which is why Shimura views the way the adults treat him as rejection. We know that it’s mainly the father of the household trying to control everybody, and the mother, and two in-laws for their own reasons don’t stand up to him the way that they should for reasons we are not quite given, but I assume it has to do with Kotaro being the patriarch of the household and probably bringing in most of the money and defining the rules. 

Shimura does not understand any of this, he feels tension from the environment and feels that he is being persecuted but cannot understand the reason behind his persecution. 

He probably does not even understand that Nana blamed him for sneaking into the study because she was too afraid that she would get hit, because Tenko cannot perceive people’s internal emotions he can only read their outside actions. 

So Tenko is in a situation where he is abused, and rather than either standing up to the abuser, everyone else in his family who Tenko understands to be otherwise very kind and gentle people to him, seem to be siding with the abuser, the person hurting him rather than him. As they tell him to stop crying rather than trying to stop the person making him cry. That sends a message that he was wrong for crying in the first place. They give justification for the way the abuser acts instead of stopping the abuse, therefore saying that Tenko is being rightly punished for provoking the abuser. 

Tenko’s perception is then that Tenko himself is the bad child, and that he really is the one causing all the trouble in the household and he deserves to be punished. This is an assumption a lot of abused children make. That it’s their fault they are the one being abused.

Tenko believes that the adults were right, that he was a bad child and that was why they always took his father’s side, rather than trying to defend him. He then takes the leap of assuming that he must have been bad from the beginning and secretly have wanted what was obviously a freak accident. 

This is narrative justifying what is otherwise a situation that Tenko had little to no control over. It’s like saying that a city was destroyed by an earth quake because god was punishing them for being sinful. It’s using bias and retrospect, to retroactively give cause and purpose to what was otherwise a random tragedy. 

This is not only what Shigaraki has been told all his life but also what he believes. That he wants to be this way, that he wants to destroy things. That he was this rotten all along. 

This is future Shigaraki narrating his own bias on his past memories, and it’s clearly and deliberately different from the series of events we are so graphically shown, which is Tenko panicking and apologizing with clearly no idea with what is happening. 

A lot of people are asking why we were shown this in such graphic detail when we literally already know what happened to his family and were told several times. Well, here is why. Manga and comics are a storytelling medium that use sequential art and text, the art is contradicting the text and this is purposeful. 

Even the one person Tenko might have intentionally killed here is what happened. 

Tenko begs his father for help, because despite being on the receiving end of the abuse Tenko still perceives that they are family. Remember Tenko has always blamed himself for provoking Kotaro, not Kotaro for taking out his own personal issues on his son. 

While his son is crying and begging for help, rather than try to calm him down Kotaro’s first action is to literally try to stab him with a garden tool. 

And then, and only then do we see Shimura move from asking for help to attacking the person in front of him. It is self defense at that point. Not only does Tenko literally have no idea what’s going on because of his childlike perceptions, he only understands that someone is trying to kill him, and that his father who he’s begging for help isn’t going to help him. I wouldn’t even say it’s lashing out the way Shigaraki describes it, like he purposefully killed him with cold blooded hatred and intent to murder because his father attacked him and tried to kill him first.

And here we get narrative again. “I must have wanted this to happen” and “this only happened because I was a bad child and a curse on this household” Tenko takes all the blame on himself for destroying things, when several things were out of his control. It’s literally a reckoning three generations ago of bad and selfish decisions made by adults and forced onto him. Of Nana’s decision to abandon her child. Of Kotaro’s decision on how to run his household and take his issues out on a literal child rather than try to face his own pain. But Tenko does not understand that and in an attempt to give reason and agency to random trauma he takes the blame on himself instead. Because blaming yourself makes you feel less powerless in a way. 

Tenko never wants to be a crying victim begging for help again because the most traumatizing moment in his life was knowing that nobody would help him when he needed it. So he absolutely refuses to see himself as a victim in anyway, and not only that but the environment around Shigaraki has been telling him over and over again this is the case. 

Like, Shigaraki clearly did not commit genuine cold blooded murder on his father. Even though it was literally a case of self defense not only does Shigaraki apologize to his father’s hand years later, over and over again, but he also carries Kotaro’s hand directly on his face. It’s exactly the opposite, Shigaraki feels so much guilt over what happened that he literally not only repeats his father’s worse punishment on him (a slap to the face) symbolically but he’s still apologizing to him. 

This is something that Shigaraki’s environment, but also All For One tries to convince him of again and again. That he is an unfeeling and hollow person. That he must have been a bad and destructive child to control his household like this. 

It’s also something that Shigaraki embraces about himself as a coping mechanism. That he really must enjoy all this destruction. That he must have wanted to be this way for things to turn out this way. That he really is not capable of being anything else. 

It’s how Shigaraki has survived until this point, but it’s a mindset that ultimately harms him in the end. Shigaraki cannot grasp a future, he cannot grasp an end goal. He defines himself as someone who only intends entirely to destroy and keep lashing out, but he’s so reckless that he has literally zero self value in himself and barely protects himself when he’s fighting. 

In other words he’s going to end up like Deku. He’s just going to break himself in needless self destruction if he keeps on this path. Not because of what Re-destro says that Shigaraki has to justify his actions and become some kind of weird terrorist who believes in his cause with cult like dedication but rather Shigaraki is still letting other people completely define how he is. In order to gain self esteem, and self worth, he has to take the next step in defining himself and what he wants and that means rejecting what other people define him as fully. 

This is something All For One intentionally did, he raised Shigaraki to exist to hate All Might and carry on All for One’s Legacy. Of course All for One would influence him not to develop any desires of his own besides existing to do what All for One intends of him. And the number one way to stop that is to stunt Shigaraki to the point that he cannot define himself, and his own wants and needs as an individual. 

But, Shigaraki in his interactions of the league has obviously developed into his own person with his own way of doing things outside of All for One’s intentions for him, my argument is not that Shigaraki is entirely manipulated by All for One and has no free will but rather that Shigaraki perceives himself as only existing that way and needs to change his perception to truly reach the next step in his development as an individual.

Okay, and one last note to the people pointing out that Shigaraki is laughing in response to this situation and therefore some part of him must be genuinely enjoying this. 

People don’t seem to understand trauma response unless it’s presented in the most conventional way possible, ie someone crying and begging for help. Sometimes people laugh when they’re going insane rather than cry, it’s just a different way of coping. 

2. Eri 

We were also shown how children see and justify their own abuse with Eri, who is around the exact same age as Shigaraki. People might argue that Eri’s abuse was more extreme, but one it’s not a compettition, and two Shigaraki was kidnapped by All for One afterwards and grew up in a mad scientist’s basement. To cap this off let me show you that Eri had the exact same limited perception of reality that Tenko did. 

If somebody else tried to save her, and Chisaki killed them Eri automatically understood that it was her fault that Chisaki killed them. Because she cannot perceive Chisaki as an individual who intends harm towards her, she only understands her own perception of reality and her own ego. 

Eri genuinely believes what Chisaki tells her, because children base their entire reality out of what they perceive around them. She has no kind of logic that can question it, and until somebody else tells her otherwise she accepts what Chisaki says is true. That she’s to blame, that she’s the one forcing him to act this way. 

Tenko and Eri are both raised in environments where they are never made safe or protected. Tenko’s father literally tries to murder him when Tenko is begging for his help. Chisaki aims for her on purpose and says he can just rebuild her. They view themselves as expendable, because that is how they were treated and in general exhibit low self regard. 

So we show them exhibit the same symptoms. The both of them not wanting to be saved. The both of them taking personal blame for the harm that others cause around them. 

As Chisaki said, it is easier to take the pain on yourself, then to accept the idea that bad things just sometimes happen, because people are bad, or sometimes for no reason at all as freak accidents. It’s actually way easier for Eri to genuinely believe that she is cursed because she takes agency in that, then to realize all the adults in her life have failed her because then she is reduced to a crying child. Children who are victims of abuse use narrative as a way of grasping at agency in any way they can. 

And, Eri genuinely cannot perceive anything than the reality that she knows until other people come into her life and show her another way. She genuinely believes the same way Tenko did that on some level to have developed such a quirk she must have wanted it. 

She doesn’t believe that it’s a kindhearted quirk until someone tells her it. 

People want to intentionally misunderstand this because Tenko does not present himself as a traditional victim. He’s not a crying girl begging for help, and telling others not to get hurt for her sake the same way Eri was, even though Eri displays the exact same unhealthy ways of thinking that Tenko did. 

So Tenko’s narrations cannot be taken as objective, because they are just not. Tenko uses narrative the same way other characters do, he just uses the opposite narrative of others he chooses to see himself as villain in his own fate rather than victim.

[teaveetamer]

My Issues With TFioS (and Other Elements of John Green)

Alright I’m just going to preface this with two things.

It’s been about six years since I’ve read the entire thing through, so my points are probably not going to be as detailed or precise as they were when I first read it.

If you enjoyed the book, identify with the fanbase, or like John Green in any capacity... Great! You might want to skip this one. This is definitely not the post for you. I’m going to put all of my more controversial thoughts under the cut so if you don’t want to see them you can just move on.

I brought up the book in that other post because I felt it had relevance to the discussion of “authors using characters as a mouthpiece”, but that’s only a small part of my issue with the book itself. I suppose I could have used a fanfiction example, since there’s more than enough fodder there, but I brought up The Fault in our Stars specifically because I feel comfortable criticizing a book in a way that I don’t feel comfortable criticizing fan works. John Green is a public figure that produced a paid product, made money, and does this professionally, while most fanfic authors are amateurs that provide free entertainment and just do it for fun.

Now with that said, we move on to the meat of the post.

Some Background

Perhaps this is not a little known fact, but I absolutely adore love stories. I don’t have incredibly high standards for them by any means, and in fact I actively enjoy them even when they aren’t the deepest, most thought provoking pieces. Someone got me a copy of Red, White, and Royal Blue for my birthday this year and I read the entire thing cover to cover in a day (and I seriously recommend if you’re looking for a pretty easy read with a lot of gay).

The only thing I love more than love stories? Tragic love stories, of course. If anyone has followed my fanfiction or main blog for any amount of time then you know that I love a little bit of tragedy. Usually with a happy ending, but not always. So when one of my friends shoved (and I mean literally shoved) The Fault in Our Stars  into my hands and billed it as a “tragic but heartwarming love story” I thought it would be perfect for me.

I was sixteen at the time, the target age demographic, and I was always looking for books with smart, well written teen characters. At this point in my life I’d never heard of John Green or his fanbase before. I tell you this because I disliked the book as I read it, but I think John Green and his fanbase are a major factor in why I disliked it so much I’m willing to sit down and write a blog post about it six years later. Granted, that’s not all on the book, but it is a factor.

Needless to say, I was not all that impressed by it. At some points I was downright infuriated, really.

My Issues With the Book

In summary, it feels very meh and overly pretentious. After about two chapters I just wanted to put it down, and the only reason I pushed through is because my friend insisted that it got better. She said it was funny, relatable, and intelligent, but I found it to be none of these things.

The impression I got was that the author, whoever he was, fancied himself terribly clever and he wanted everyone to know it. You know the type, the kinds of people that go around and assure everyone of how smart they are? It feels like it was made for haughty teens to brag about how intelligent they were because they read a “deep” book.  The book itself, despite being a surface level of “witty”, didn’t really have anything to say. In the end it reads like a thirty-something year old man bragging about how smart he is and waxing philosophical about the nature of life (and... Breakfast food..?) and using a fictional teenage girl to do it.

That’s why I brought up the “mouthpiece” thing. I didn’t want to read a book about a thirty-something dressing up his thoughts as a teenage girl. I wanted to read a book about a teenage girl.

Speaking of Hazel Grace… I don’t know if this is a common experience, but can anyone else tell when a man writes a female character? I find that I usually can. Men have a particular voice when they write, and especially when they write women. Every single page hammered me over the head with the fact that this was a man who was trying (and, in my opinion, failing miserably) to write a relatable teenage girl. And, in my opinion, he parroted a lot of very upsetting, dangerous mentalities for young women.

There were quite a few “I’m not like other girls, and not just because of the cancer!” moments (a mentality that I find wholly problematic coming from other women, let alone a man writing for a woman) that just had me rolling my eyes straight out of their sockets. She doesn’t care about shoes, see! She reads books! Isn’t that awesome and unique? Because, apparently, women are not allowed to do both.

These problematic mentalities extend into the book’s romance plot, too. Augustus is, frankly, one of the creepiest motherfuckers I’ve ever had the displeasure to read about. Not only is his aggressive creepiness portrayed as romantic, but Hazel reacts exactly how men wish women would react to their advances. Unfortunately I don’t have a copy of the book in front of me so you won’t get much in the way of direct quotes, but some examples include:

He stares at her, completely unblinking, for the duration of their cancer kids support group meeting… before they’ve even so much as spoken a word to each other. Which also features this gem of a quote: "A nonhot boy stares at you relentlessly and it is, at best, awkward and, at worst, a form of assault. But a hot boy . . . well." which just perpetuates the disgusting misconception that women are okay with being creeped on as long as a guy is attractive. Spoiler alert: We fucking aren’t.

He repeatedly refers to Hazel as “Hazel Grace”, despite her introducing herself as “Hazel” and asking him to just call her “Hazel”. And not only does he ask for her full name, he demands she give it to him. This rings all kinds of alarm bells for me, because you know who else does that kind of shit? Christian Grey. And it’s manipulative, disrespectful, and downright rude. It is essentially saying “I hear your desires, but I would prefer to address you how I want to address you, not how you would like to be addressed, because my ego is more important than your comfort”.

Hazel is perfectly fine with getting into a complete stranger’s car and spending time at his house mere minutes after meeting with him and after all of the questionable shit he just pulled.

Continuing this book’s litany of problems with women, let’s talk about Isaac’s (ex)girlfriend. The book treats their breakup as this massive betrayal, then even goes on to justify vandalizing her property because of it.

I’m sorry, but no.

You, as an autonomous human being, have the right to end a relationship with someone else whenever, wherever, and for whatever reasons you designate, regardless of previously expressed emotions or promises. How and when she did it was not the most ideal, but she’s an emotionally immature teenager, and there’s never going to be a good time to do something like this. What was she supposed to do, keep pity dating him because she felt sorry for him? Wait until someone invented technology to cure blindness? Assuming she did actually break up with him because of his disability… Are her reasons shitty? Sure. But she’s allowed to have them.

And you know what? He’s allowed to be mad about it. His anger might be completely understandable, if not totally justified. But you know what else? That does not give him the right to take revenge on her by vandalizing her property.

I would have no problem with this scene if it were honest about what it was: a bunch of teenagers with under-developed frontal lobes that are angry and feeling vindictive. But it’s not that. It’s depicted as not only completely justified, but heroic. I’m sorry, no. You are never heroic for harassing another human being.

And Augustus’s dumb little speech to her mom is such garbage. You really expect me to believe that a grown woman was so pwned by some jerk teenager’s super witty justification for destroying her property that she just went inside and, idk, watched TV? Didn’t call the police to report the crime that he and his friends were actively committing against her? Bullshit.

Speaking of bullshit, that scene is pretty egregious, but that doesn’t even begin to cover my issues with this book’s pretentious dialogue. If you told me that they ran every word in this book through Thesaurus.com then I would believe you without hesitation. The one hook, the draw, the thing that kept me reading was supposed to be the relatable characters, but they just aren’t relatable. They’re not realistic in the slightest. Seriously, go read any line of this book out loud and tell me how ridiculous you feel. I kept expecting Augustus to pull off his skinsuit and reveal that he was secretly a robot trying to imitate human speech the entire time.

I’m not sure how far I can go into this point without giving you direct quotes, but half the stuff that comes out of these characters mouths is pseudo-intellectual nonsense. “Put the killing thing between your teeth so it can’t kill you”?

It’s not a metaphor.

Putting an unlit cigarette in your mouth is still stupid. I guess it won’t give you lung cancer, but really? It’s still not a great idea.

Augustus has to go buy these cigarettes, which means he’s actively going out and giving money to an industry that has been funding pseudoscience and suppressing health initiatives that would prevent people from suffering what he did (i.e. fucking cancer).

Here’s a clue: Tobacco companies don’t actually care about what you do with the cigarettes. Their transaction stops as soon as you put the money in their hands. I could purchase a hundred packs and throw them in the garbage, and the only thing they know is that they got about $600 from me. Way to “stick it to the man”, asshole. You’re not clever.

With the exception of the Isaac’s-girlfriend thing, all of that is in chapters 1-4, by the way. This book turned me off so thoroughly that early.

So by the time the Amsterdam trip rolled around I was already not enjoying this book, but then this thing happened and it was just the final nail in the coffin for me. You probably know what I’m talking about already, but if you don’t… The Anne Frank Museum kiss.

I honestly cannot even articulate how incredibly tasteless and disrespectful I find the entire thing, and not only does that happen, but it’s followed by an r/ThatHappened “and then everybody stood up and clapped!” Seriously?

There are smarter, more well-versed people than me that have covered this topic, so I’ll leave the analysis for why that’s all kinds of wrong to them.

Those are really my big gripes, though there’s a few smaller ones (like Augustus throwing a pre-funeral like are you a psychopath? Why would you put the people you love through that???) that I’m not going to touch on because they weren’t all that instrumental in putting me off. Instead I’ll move on to the external factors.

The Fanbase

So I finished the book, a little miffed at having just wasted my time, and immediately told my friend that I didn’t like it much, and that I would be returning her copy the next day. Feeling pretty meh-to-slightly-negative about it, but whatever, it happens.

I was essentially met with “wow I can’t believe you didn’t get it.” and “Oh well maybe you’ll finally understand how deep it is when you’re older” from my friend. Which is really just one step away from the wow can’t you read?! BS that I’ve been seeing more and more frequently these days. So immediately I was pissed. All that aside, I was sixteen, the target age demographic? If I didn’t ‘get it’ then John Green was doing a pretty piss poor job of conveying what it is.

So I went online seeking something. Either validation that I wasn’t wrong and that I didn’t miss the point, the book just wasn’t great, or an explanation of what this it was that I’d missed. And let me tell you... Spotting a negative opinion of this book was like looking for a unicorn. There were a few, and many of them were met with the same kind of thing I had experienced. Vitriol, insistence that they were stupid or that they didn’t get it (again, with no explanation of what it was), and, apparently, a lot of harassment and threats.

I discovered that John Green’s target audience had a tendency to be… A bit obsessive. Lots of young, impressionable teenagers that were willing to jump on an opposing opinion with zealous outrage. If I had any interest in pursuing any of John Green’s other works or John Green as an internet personality any further, then it died in that moment. Absolutely nothing turns me off like a rabid, spiteful fanbase.

Now by this point I was already in the rabbit hole, and I began encountering a lot of criticisms of John Green and the things he’s said and done in the past. I did not like what I found.

John Green Himself

To be extremely blunt, the guy put such a bad taste in my mouth that it retroactively soured my opinion of The Fault in Our Stars even more. Since this is a post about my opinions on the book, I’m only going to be discussing things that affected my view at the time I read it. These are all things that happened six years ago, and I have no idea what this man has been up to or what he’s said about any of these topics since.

Let’s just get this out of the way… John Green writes the same book over and over. There’s always a quirky, nerdy white boy that is invariably cisgendered, and almost always straight. He is always an outcast with only a few friends, though apparently never directly bullied. He always meets an edgy girl that he falls in love with the idea of. Usually there is a road trip somewhere in there too.

The Fault in our Stars admittedly doesn’t follow the exact same framework, but it’s close enough in a lot of ways. Instead of the Quirky, Too-Smart-For-His-Own-Good cisboi being the PoV character, it’s the love interest (Hazel also fits this description, albeit a female version). Hazel and Augustus are both still outcasts. Hazel is attracted to Augustus because he’s Deep and Edgy and A Little Larger Than Life. The road trip is a flight to Amsterdam.

Looking at the man... Yeah the entire premise starts to come off as some weird self-insert fanfiction. I can feel the “I was a quirky, bullied teen and I wish this is how my high school life had been!” energy coming through absolutely every pore and every molecule of ink. Every character reads like John Green. John Green has written book after book and the main character always appears to be John Green in a slightly different teenage skinsuit.

And that’s fine, I guess. A little lazy, but I guess it’s working for him since he’s making hella bank? It’s certainly not enough to put me off the guy, just not something I’m interested in reading, and not something I find compelling.

What put me off for good were some of his comments. Dude skeeves me the fuck out. I’ll just go over some of the highlights I found at the time, and why they upset me so much when I heard them.

“Nerd girls are the world's most underutilized romantic resource.”

As a nerdy girl that has been stalked and harassed by men because I’m “good girlfriend material” (aka I like video games and traditionally masculine stuff and I’m pretty! I must be a unicorn!), this statement is disgusting.

I don’t care if it was a joke. I don’t care if he wasn’t being serious. This is the kind of shit that men think is a compliment because they think it makes “quirky” girls feel “unique” and “special”, but that “complement” is also an insult. You know why? Because it makes female interests all about how men perceive their sexual or romantic viability.

John Green’s penchant for writing “special” and “unique” girls (while simultaneously shaming “typical” girls, but I’ll get to that in the next point) and depicting them as the ideal woman just reaffirms my feelings about this quote. I think, on some level, John Green has no idea why this is such a bad take. And that’s not even getting into the fact that he called human beings resources. Women are not objects that exist to be a plot device or for your gratification. Fuck right off with that shit.

“She was incredibly hot, in that popular-girl-with-bleached-teeth-and-anorexia kind of way, which was Colin’s least favourite way of being hot”

This is just one quote of many that shames people with eating disorders and weight problems (on both ends of the spectrum, “too fat” and “too skinny”. Another fun one being: “there’s the weird culturally-constructed definition of hot, which means ‘that individual is malnourished, and has probably had plastic bags inserted into her breasts.’")

Know what this line is? It’s called “negging”, and it’s a popular tactic of incels because it works. You make someone seek your approval by intentionally giving them backhanded compliments to undermine their self esteem. The idea is that the more you insult them, the harder they’ll work to try and impress you. It doesn’t work on everyone, but you know who it does tend to work on? Insecure younger people (usually girls). You know who John Green’s target audience is? Insecure teenage girls.

As for the actual substance of the quote… I hate it. He’s shaming a woman for the choices she makes over her appearance. Which are, fun fact, none of his damn business. Also the idea that “skinny” and “anorexic” somehow need to go hand in hand is just wrong, insulting women for a mental health disorder they have no control over is offensive, and using a serious mental health disorder (did you know that anorexia is the most deadly mental health condition?) as an insult is disgusting.

Coming back to my earlier point about shaming “normal” girls, this quote is just the tip of the iceberg. He repeatedly shames women in his books for looking or behaving “typically”, while quirky girls are lauded as the ideal. Quirky girls are “weird and interesting” and normal girls are “boring”. If this was intended as a compliment, it’s a shitty one. If you have to shame one group to make another feel better, it is not a compliment. You are lowering all women when you pull that shit. You teach them that in order to feel good about themselves another group has to be made to feel worse.

And hey, maybe the pretty girl likes her teeth bleached because it makes her feel confident? Why can’t bleached teeth girl and anime t-shirt girl both be beautiful and unique and confident in their own right? Why is it “powerful” for anime t-shirt girl to wear her nerdy clothes, but scorn-worthy for bleached teeth girl to like bleaching her teeth?

What John Green is doing is simply replacing one ideal (skinny pretty girl) with another (quirky cute girl), and then he pretends like his version is somehow “woke” because it’s not based on physical appearance (though all of the women in his books are also physically attractive. Hmmm. Guess “nerd girls” are only “viable resources” when they aren’t hard to look at?).

And trust me, I’ve been down this path. I’ve been taken in by guys who try to make me feel ~special~ by putting down other women, and it leads to absolutely nothing good. It doesn’t make you feel better. It just makes you feel angry and resentful, and that’s not a place you want to be in. In fact, this was a mentality I had recently escaped from around the time I picked up this book. Seeing someone with as much influence as John Green parroting this specific brand of toxic shit to exactly the audience that would be most likely to feed into it? I was never going to be able to like the guy, sorry.

I know some people are able to “separate the art from the artist”, and I might have been willing to do that had the book actually been good… but it wasn’t. So in the end the book just looked worse for all of the author’s shortcomings.

So yeah, in summary: The book was mediocre at best, the author pushed all of my angry feminist buttons, and elements of the fanbase were annoying, condescending, and spiteful. I didn’t like the book in the first place due to the myriad of problems plaguing it, but everything else just made it look so much worse in hindsight.

Anyways, this probably got kind of ranty, but it was cathartic and I did make this blog to vent about dumb stuff. I think this qualifies.

[terramythos]

TerraMythos' 2020 Reading Challenge - Book 3 of 26

Title: Shriek: An Afterword (Ambergris #2) (2006)

Author: Jeff VanderMeer

Genre/Tags: Weird, Memoir, Historical (like... in a fictional world lol), Horror, Fantasy, War, Mushroompunk (yeah), Postmodern, Female Protagonist, Disabled Protagonist, First Person, Unreliable Narrator.

Rating: 7/10

Date Began: 1/19/2020

Date Finished: 1/29/2020

Shriek: An Afterword is a pseudo-memoir by a woman named Janice Shriek about the troubled lives and relationships of her and her brother Duncan Shriek in the strange, fungus-riddled city of Ambergris. While Janice believes Duncan is dead, he's apparently found her manuscript and makes extensive edits and commentary throughout the story. (This is indicated in parenthetical sentences, like this one.) 

The closer I get to the end, the closer I get to the beginning. Memories waft up out of the ether, out of nothing. They attach themselves to me like the green light, like the fungi that continue to colonize my typewriter. I had to stop for a while -- my fingers ached and, even after all that I have seen, the fungi unnerved me. I spent the time flexing and unflexing my fingers, pacing back and forth. I also spent it going through a box of my father’s old papers -- nothing I haven’t read through a hundred times before... On top, Duncan had placed the dried-up starfish, its skeleton brittle with age. (I kept it there as a reminder to myself. After your letter to me -- which, while reading this account, I sometimes think was written by an entirely different side of your personality -- I wanted to remember that no matter how isolated I might feel, separated from others by secret knowledge, I was still connected. It didn’t help much, though -- it reminded me of how different I had become.) 

To qualify my rating, I have to be honest. This book is officially separated into two parts, and I found Part I -- which makes up about 60% of the novel -- pretty boring. On the other hand, Part II is brilliant, and everything coalesces beautifully in this second act. Is it worth it? I thought it was, but I understand anyone who tries and gives up. 

Even though Shriek is technically a standalone, I would strongly recommend you read City of Saints and Madmen (#1) first. Both Duncan and Janice are key characters in two of those stories (The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergris and The Transformation of Martin Lake, respectively), and there are references and connections all over the place. I’m not sure if Shriek does a great job introducing Ambergris to new readers, so people starting here will be pretty lost without reading the first book.

Just to clear the air, I really liked this book... overall. As I said, the first half-or-so of the book was pretty rough, but the second half redeems it in a lot of ways, even justifying certain writing/plot decisions that didn’t gel with me at first. However “it gets good eventually” is not really an excuse for the rough first half. Hence the mediocre rating. I was close to giving this book a 6/10, but I found that I appreciated the first half much more by the time I got to the ending, so that bumped it up a little. Maybe I’ll enjoy this book more on a reread when I can see the patterns and know where they’re leading ahead of time. 

Before I dive into my issues with it, I’d like to discuss the strong points of this novel. 

At a base level, VanderMeer is a great writer. He has a mastery of the English language that always delights me when I read his stuff. So even when I struggled to like this story in the first half, his wordplay and prose were entertaining and thought-provoking. 

I loved the format. The story basically has two protagonists, since you see things from Janice’s point of view and then Duncan’s interpretations-- but it’s in a very postmodern way, not just a perspective switch like most novels do. Duncan’s commentary often brings much needed humor or heartbreak, depending on the situation. 

In particular, any scene in which Janice and Duncan interact directly is brilliant. Janice recalls a scene, but her memory is faulty (like anyone’s), so sometimes she forgets what they talked about, or interpreted an interaction in a certain way. Then Duncan dives in with his own commentary, supplying information Janice didn’t include or forgot, or correcting something she said, or offering an alternate interpretation... these scenes were fascinating to read and some of my favorite parts of the novel. 

There’s a lot of fun revelations and Easter eggs for people who read City of Saints and Madmen. In particular: 

My favorite story in the first book was The Cage, which is a work of fiction  within the universe of Ambergris by a man named Sirin. In particular there is a very creepy and distinct monster that plays a pivotal role in the story. However, since it’s technically fiction within fiction, that monster and the events didn’t really happen in canon... right? Imagine my surprise in this book when Janice encounters and describes a very similar monster. This struck me as odd, until I got to epilogue/afterword at the end... written by Sirin, and everything clicked. He got the idea for his “fictional” monster from Janice’s account in this story. He doesn’t state this outright, but it’s the only explanation that makes sense. I loved that. It was like putting a puzzle together and it would have been so easy to miss. And there’s the extra horror that something like that really exists in this world. There was other stuff like this but this one stood out to me, and I’m sure there’s other things I missed. 

This mostly concerns the second half, but the war sequences and memories are horrific and brilliant. It's very World War II-esque with a unique twist to it (the awful fungal bio weapons one of the sides uses). In particular, the war is introduced with a chapter about a ceasefire opera staged in the broken city... without spoiling it, it’s an excellent and intriguing self-contained story. 

And the horror chapter about the Festival, which is conspicuously absent in the rest of the story? Just so goddamn good. VanderMeer strikes just the right chord with me when it comes to horror. It’s always fresh and intensely creepy. 

If you told me this during the first half, I wouldn’t believe you -- but I ended up loving the characters and finding most of their relationships fascinating. This is a heartbreaking story and it really hit home by the end. 

With that lofty praise, what’s my issue with Part I? The simplest way I can put it is that the struggles Duncan and Janice face are so mundane. They would maybe be interesting in a generic work of fiction, but here they felt out of place. For example, Janice’s arc concerns her rise to fame, which leads to success, which leads to lavish parties and orgies, which leads to excesses and a drug addiction, which leads to a suicide attempt, which leads to rehab, which leads to a diminished life of poverty. Yes, these can be interesting and harrowing problems in the right context, but the strongest point of these books is the setting, and there was nothing that tied these events to Ambergris. You could easily go through and change the character/place names and it wouldn’t seem off. 

Duncan is a little more interesting in this regard, because his is a story of obsession. In particular, he’s obsessed with the gray caps (strange humanoid mushroom creatures that haunt the pages of these books), and it takes over his life until he becomes totally discredited as a historian. But even he falls into this trap when he becomes a college professor and has an affair with one of his much younger students (Yikes! Though it is treated as creepy within the story, at least). That takes over most of his character’s emotional core from that point. 

Said student -- Mary Sabon -- is a core antagonist in the story. Janice in particular obsesses over her and her personal vendetta against her, and honestly even with the second part I was never really sold on this or cared about it all that much, so I was disappointed it took up so much of the story. 

All of this would be one thing, but there’s all sorts of tantalizing hints about more interesting things. The gray caps probably have some ulterior motive that no one knows! There’s this crazy eldritch Machine hidden underground! Duncan is sort of turning into a mushroom! But these are only teased before the story pivots back to something comparatively uninteresting. Rather than encouraging me with the cool foreshadowing, it just got grating because it meant there were more interesting events and stories going on that I didn’t get to see for some arbitrary reason. Janice also rambles and goes back and forth quite a bit. This is clearly intentional (after all, you learn in the end this is a mostly unedited draft -- at least in the fiction of the story), but even so, it can be hard to follow at times. 

Part II justifies a lot of this because these hints do pay off. You DO get to see a lot of the interesting stuff in detail at this later point of the story, and it’s not always what you expect. There’s overt and subtle dramatic irony and contrast between what characters go through in the first half versus the stranger, more profound traumas of the second half. You learn Janice is suffering from some severe PTSD and it explains a lot of the manic style in the first half. But again, is it worth 245-ish mediocre (to me) pages? I think that probably depends on the reader. I had a problem with it-- but clearly a lot of people don’t, based on reviews I’ve skimmed. Many put the book down and don’t finish it, but that’s true for any book. Hell, lots of people preferred the first half, so who knows. 

Ultimately, I’m glad I read this book. For me it really does come together in an amazing way toward the end, and I found myself really caring about Janice and Duncan. If you read City of Saints and Madmen and want more of the characters and the world, then definitely give this a try. But it is a pretty niche book as these things go, so I can’t recommend it to everyone. 

Anyway, I’ve come this far -- so I’m going to read Finch, the final (for now?) installment in this universe. 

[dawnfelagund]

So I just listened to your presentation about the Tolkien fandom - which is really good btw, very informative - and the point that transformational fanfiction is mostly female got me thinking (mainly bc in my experience fanfiction in general seems more female, I have knowingly read only three authors who identified as male). Do you think that's bc most fandoms have a distinct lack of fem characters, so fem writers have an incentive to write transformational fics that male writers don't?

Oh my, oh my this is such a good question that I fear I will not answer it as well as it deserves. But I’ll try!

(Here is the presentation mentioned in the ask, for anyone who wants context. Both video and text are available at the link.)

Why transformational fandom trends female is complicated and has been the subject of much discussion/debate since the advent of fanfic studies back in the early ‘90s. Early scholarship focused on women using fanfic to expand the original texts so that the better reflected the women/author’s own experiences, especially where emotions and relationships were concerned. From Jenkins’ Textual Poachers (1991):

Fans want not simply internal consistency but also what Ien Ang has described as “emotional realism.” Ang (1985) suggests that Dallas fans viewed the program not as “empirically” true to real-world experiences of upper-class Texans but rather as “emotionally” true to the viewers’ personal lives…. (107)

Female readers entered directly into the fictional world, focusing less on the extratextual process of its writing than on the relationships and events. … The female reader saw her own “tacit inferences” as a legitimate part of the story …. Moreover, male readers tended to maintain the narrative’s pre-existing focus on a central protagonist, while female readers expressed a greater eagerness to explore a broader ranger of social relationships …. (108-9, citing David Bleich [1986])

Camille Bacon-Smith, author of Enterprising Women (also 1991) writes:

Fanwriters, like soap opera fans, want to see characters change and evolve, have families, and rise to the challenge of internal and external crises in a nonlinear, dense tapestry of experience. Whether because of innate qualities or socialization, women perceive their lives in this way, and they like to see that structure reproduced in their literature. The writing experience becomes one of participation in the lives of the characters. (64)

Jenkins and Bacon-Smith really established fanfic studies as we know it, so I include these ideas to show how foundational they are and, I believe, underlie more recent resistant/reparative motives. Underlying this early assumption is that mainstream media and literature doesn’t represent the experiences of women, so we have to create it ourselves. Hence what we’d now call transformational fandom: the shifting of authority onto the fanwriter to rework a fictional universe according to her own experience of reality. I think this holds true in Tolkienfic fandom, although it is more complex than the theories above (rooted in media, not book, fandom) suggest, in that my research shows that Tolkienfic authors engage in much more negotiation with canon details and (most importantly) Tolkien’s authority. In other words, they care about how to create that “emotional realism” but within the confines of the canon, which many would take to include Tolkien’s views, unstated in the texts, on the canon and even his moral prerogatives.

My sense is that there is a definite connection between the early ideas of women creating fanworks to see their realities and experiences represented in the fictional universes they love and the present-day idea of fanfiction as a form of resistant reading. (Here, I am perfectly willing to have my hand smacked by people better versed in fan studies history if I’m mangling or missing key pieces of the relationship between these two schools of thought. Just speak up.) Because part of the experience of being a woman is opening a history book and not seeing the lives of women represented or going to a film where women usually make up a minority of the cast (and are often cast into stereotyped roles). Part of our experience as Tolkien fans is coming to terms with our love of a book (LotR) where, to borrow the wince-inducing stat cited by Una McCormick, there are more named horses than women. (The Silmarillion fares better in terms of named women but still isn’t great, as I have argued elsewhere, in providing those named women with roles and agency equal to that of the men.)

(Here I’m going to focus on the Tolkienfic fandom. I know your question was broader than that, but I study the Tolkienfic fandom, and as a fan, I’m monofandom myself, so I’m hesitant to speak about the norms and practices in other fandoms, nor am I as familiar with their scholarship. Others with insights about other present-day fandoms, please do add on.)

Una McCormick has a fabulous essay in Perilous and Fair that positions Tolkienfic as a form of what she calls “reparative reading”:

The complexity of such reading and writing practices and the ambivalence of the creative labor involved in making repairs upon such texts have driven some women readers to find a presence for themselves in The Lord of the Rings through writing fanfiction as a creative-critical response to Tolkien’s text. By weaving female characters into the familiar narrative, or else focusing upon marginalized characters such as nurses, servants, and non-combatants, these authors write themselves–or those like themselves–into the events of the War of the Ring. (310)

Una is a fanfic writer herself and a Tolkien scholar, and her work is unique in this sense, because she is intimately familiar with the Tolkienfic community as a participant and also because she has written one of the rare fanfic studies pieces focusing exclusively on our fandom. However–and I don’t think Una would disagree–reparative reading is just a part of Tolkienfic fandom, so I don’t think it fully explains the “transformational is female” trend. It is certainly part of it. My survey data shows a strong interest among Tolkienfic authors; 78% agree that “Writing fan fiction lets me explore the perspectives of female characters.” (80% of readers “like reading fan fiction about female characters.”)

What is interesting is that there is not a big difference in how women and men respond to the statement “Writing fan fiction allows me to explore the perspectives of femalecharacters.” 78% of women agreed; 73% of men agreed. Where there is a significant difference: 90% of nonbinary survey participants agreed with this survey item. (It’s worth noting that the sample of men was small. Less than 4% of survey participants identified as male.)

I also feel that I have to note that, historically, Tolkienfic fandom has had contingents hostile to including women characters in Tolkien-based fanfiction. Many who started in the fandom when I did (mid-2000s) will remember when “OFC = Mary Sue” (itself a term that I find sexist since the number of scrawny, nerdy dudes who become superheroes in comics attests that adding a dose of Awesome to a whopping pile of Ordinary is not inherently deserving of derision), and many people avoided writing women characters because they were a flame magnet. Key to this piece of history, too, is that, in my experience, the detractors and bullies of creators who wrote about women? Were, like the rest of the Tolkienfic fandom, a majority women. This was not guys trying to preserve a boys-only treehouse in the canon; this was women policing other women’s production of fanfiction, often using the canon itself as a tool to do so.

It’s also worth noting that changes in fandom perception of women characters has been due to the concerted effort of fans to draw attention to sexism in the canon and in the fandom and to celebrate fanworks that feature strong women characters. @vefanyar‘s concept of the textual ghost is the prime example in my mind, in that she not only drew attention to the problems in the canon–simply scrolling through her Textual Ghost Project is a visually provoking experience–but the potential for fanworks creators to address those problems in the reparative way that Una McCormick identifies. @vefanyar, among others, has paired this work with the canon with a concerted, years-long effort to encourage and celebrate fanworks about Tolkien’s women, creating a climate where, finally, it feels like writing about women comes with more rewards than risks.

So. To conclude. I think that the scholarship, my data, and my own experience as a Tolkienfic author/archive owner points to an answer to “Why is transformational fandom overwhelmingly female?” in the context of Tolkienfic fandom, as: It’s complicated. Yes, some of us are working to address the inequality both in the number and quality of female characters in the canon. But as my presentation states, this is just a partial picture because Tolkienfic fandom is not fully transformational, and women are attracted to this fandom for reasons that have nothing to do with establishing gender parity in the canon. I earlier held up the stats of 78% of authors (and 80% of readers) enjoying fanfiction about women to suggest that there is an interest in telling women’s stories in the fandom, but I’d also say that the one in five not interested (or not sure if they’re interested) in stories about women aren’t insignificant. This is still a sizable contingent of the fandom, a majority of whom are women. The desire to produce transformational fanworks runs deep in women fans and may hearken back to Jenkins’ and Bacon-Smith’s broader ideas about women’s experiences, may suggest a difference in how girls/women are socialized, may reflect barriers to entering more affirmationally oriented fan communities, or may come down to something else (like the social/community aspect of fandom) entirely.

[snicketsleuth]

Slackin’ with the Sleuth: reviewing Netflix’s “The Penultimate Peril”

One of the difficulties befalling any adaptation of "A Series of Unfortunate Events" is that you're actually putting three stories on screen: there's the conflict between Olaf and the Baudelaire orphans, then there are the obscure, offscreen manipulations of V.F.D. in the background, and finally there's Lemony's own past which is only alluded to through brief glimpses in his narration. We saw that the Netflix series, particularly in Season 2, sometimes extended the V.F.D. subplots at the expanse of the main Baudelaire story. Fortunately, the long pay-off of Lemony's elusive past is considerably more well-handled as it comes to a close in Netflix's version of "The Penultimate Peril". Let's analyze the writers' best effort under the cut.

The chronology of "A Series Of Unfortunate Events" is, to put it simply, a mess. Part of it is the consequence of Lemony's deliberately opaque style which makes it difficult to determine which characters he's really talking about, or when and where each event of his past is supposed to happen. The datation of Olaf's parents' murder, for example, has been a topic of contention for years amongst fans. Streamlining the entire sequence of his life into something more straightforward is far from a bad idea for this adaptation. "A Series Of Unfortunate Events" wasn't written to be read, but rather to be re-read. Understanding the bigger logic of the books' subplots is a reward for the more careful, compulsive readers. It's essentially marketed to bookworms and people whose idea of fun consists in literary commentary. But while readers alays have the opportunity to put down their book and search for earlier passages in order to understand his ramblings, the framework of a Netflix television show doesn't really lend itself to that. While it's always possible to binge-watch and rewatch, searching for individual scenes is more of a chore. In order for viewers to even engage with Lemony's complicated backstory, a more accessible timeline was essential. From the reactions of several watchers who have not read the books, the Netflix show is succesful in this attempt. Most show-only fans agree that the late-series are interesting and make mostly sense. Their experience is definitely less frustrating than the readers' post-series backlash a few years prior.

The opera house sequence is the series' most ambitious scene yet. It combines a great number of separate events into one: there's the obvious murder of Olaf's parents, of course, but also the theft of Esme Squalor's sugar bowl, Kit's romance with Olaf, Esmé' and Olaf's start of darkness, Lemony's decision to flee after being framed and his break-up with Beatrice. All of which happened at different in the books' timeline. It's a simplification but it's a highly effective one (as show writer Joe Tracz explained (Link), Bertrand was left out of the scene as it already had too many characters).

Ambiguity and unknowability are essential themes in the original series, but this vagueness came at a cost, namely that of character development. Even if these mysteries are mostly treated as jokes and McGuffins, the fact remains that many important characters (Olaf, Kit, Dewey, Esme, Lemony, etc.) make their decisions based on the answers to these mysteries. So it's difficult to empathize with them when we can't understand them. The chase for the sugar bowl is absurd, and therefore their actions are absurd. This, we think, is the real reason why the end of the series displeased so many fans. Not because it left us with mysteries, but because some of these unsolved mysteries actively removed us and disengaged us from the narrative. Why should we care about Lemony's tragic devotion to the woman he loved when we don't event know why the break-up happened? What are we even supposed to think about Esme's character when she won't reveal why the sugar bowl is important to her? How can we make our own opinion of the Baudelaire parents when we don't really know why they killed, or hat kind of persons ther victims were?

The Netflix series elegantly solves these issues in short scenes. There's still enough ambiguity here; Esme's personality can be interpreted in different ways, for example. On one hand, fans could say she's a shallow, materialistic woman who genuinely refuses to let go of a sugar bowl on the basis that it's hers, hers, hers. On the other hand, one could say the sugar bowl is just a totem, a symbol: what Esme is truly mad about is that people dismissed her as an idiot who couldn't take care of the sugar bowl properly, that her friends distrusted her and betrayed her, and that Beatrice/Lemony despised her enough to try murdering her. Same goes for Beatrice: sure, the death of Olaf's father was a tragic accident, but she still tried to kill another person. She can't reasonably be called innocent. So in that respect the writers gave the characters enough reality to flesh them out while preserving the moral ambiguity of their backstory. On that aspect, we do have to admit that the series is truly superior to the books. It's just as thought-provoking, but also more humane.

Less succesful is the writers' decision to give a resolution to the mystery of the sugar bowl. This is not a mystery which particularly needed solving, because it's not rooted in the characters' actions and motivations. All we really need to know is that the sugar bowl is "the most important thing in the world", and that's it. People want it for different reasons which are theirs and theirs alone: once you possess "the most important thing in the world", all your dreams can come true. As we've seen, the character who wants it the most is Esmé, and understanding her motivations does not necessirally require us to know what's inside it. Fear of abandonment, feelings of betrayal and pettiness are enough to explain her obsession. It's not the sugar bowl, it's what it meant to her.

More irritatingly, I very much doubt that the answer given in the series came from Daniel Handler himself. We have to remember he was "fired" from the staff of writers on Season 3, something he was oddly nonchalant about. This is strange considering he's spoken at length about his (understandable) bitterness after being fired from the writing staff of the 2004 Paramount movie. It's becoming clearer and clearer that somehow the decision suited his own purposes.

My own hypothesis is that Daniel Handler actively wanted to detach himself from Season 3 and that the "firing" was more of a mutual decision. We can only surmise what happened, but it's very probable that the other writers wanted to solve certain mysteries he preferred to leave ambiguous. The fact is that, if the author had wanted to give a clear-cut answer to the sugar bowl mystery in the books, he would have. He had a choice between resolution and ambiguity, and he made it. Though he revealed that he had his own opinion on what the sugar bowl really was, and that "one fan a year" usually finds the "real" solution, the mystery was written in a deliberately ambiguous way which allowed a multitude of answers. The author enjoys fans ho find the "real" solution and fans who come up with their own unique, personal ideas equally. It's his idea of fun, because literary analysis should be fun, and if there's one thing he enjoys, it's literary analysis. He doesn't want the conversation to end. So although he'd be willing to recognize that he kind of messed up by not developing some characters enough, it's extremely unlikely to us that he would write an obvious answer to something that he himself aknowledges as a MGuffin. Hence his decision to leave the writing staff after Season 2, as a way to disengage himself from whatever the writers wanted to include, and to preserve the intended ambiguity of the books' ending. It was also a tactful way of not throwing his fellow writers under the bus, as he respected their personal intention to solve the mystery. A clear case "I'm not going to stop you, just please leave me out of it and we can remain friends".

[Update: Liam R. Findlay from 667 Dark Avenue mesage board talked with show writer Joe Tracz (Link) and confirms that Daniel Handler never told the other writers if their solution was the correct one. It's a reliable source, though by no means official]

[Update: Here’s an interview where series showrunner Sonnenfeld clarifies that the solution given in the show was not confirmed by Handler (Link)]

The question remains: did the writers ask Daniel Handler what the sugar bowl contained, and did he even answer? We personnally doubt it. The canon of the series has been entirely reworked at this point. It's faithful to the books when it comes to themes, emotional resonance, political messages... but it's UNBASHEDLY unfaithful when it comes to plotting. Take Jacquelyn, who's revealed to be the infamous Duchess of Winnipeg. Now, in the books, the first name of the Duchess of Winnipeg is an unsolved mystery. Did the series solve it? No, because fans of the books know that canonically Jacquelyn was only created for the Netflix show and that the first name of the Duchess starts with an "R." It's show-canon, not book-canon. By that standard, we shouldn't trust the show to give us any supplementary information on the books. The show did not solve the sugar bowl mystery any more than it solved the mystery of the Duchess' first name.

On top of that, the explanation given in the show is not even that good from a purely internal perspective. If Beatrice wanted access to the hybrid, why couldn't she just steal some sugar from the bowl then give it back to Esme? If Kit had a cup of tea seasoned with the hybrid at the opera house, shouldn't she have been immune to the mushroom when she arrived on the island? Knowing Esme had tried to immunize her, what did she have to lose by drinking it? And if Beatrice succesfully managed to replicate the hybrid, why is the capture of the sugar bowl still so important? Its content could have been replicated by everyone! The idea that the sugar bowl contains an antidote to the Medusoid Mycelium is a popular hypothesis amongst fans, but a very flawed one. It's of course possible that Daniel Handler committed bad writing and that his own solution to the mystery is full of plotholes. But it sounds more likely that the Netflix writers just looked at a page of popular fan theories and just picked the one they liked the most. What tips it off for us is that supporters of this theory usually posit that the sugar bowl contains a bitter apple core hich was used to replicate the hybrid... while the show writers complicated things by saying it contained sugar made from the apples. This sounds more like another fan theory which proposes that the sugar bowl is a decoy used to deceive the other side of the Schism and that it only contains bland, normal sugar. So what we're dealing with here is probably the awkward combination of two popular fan theories which don't really make sense when taken together. Why would the writers choose to do that? My personal guess is that Handler truly didn't tell them and that they tried to combine the two most popular fan theories in order to please a maximum number of people. It's not a case of show canon extending book canon, it's fanservice. Not that fanservice is necessiraly bad, but you have to aknowledge it at what it is. We just wish the writers had integrated it a little better within the canon of the show's universe. It's possible they argued about which theory was better, just like the fans. And instead of a Schism, they had to settle for a compromise.

Speaking of compromises, the Netflix writers also decided to stop all pretense concerning the identity of the mysterious taxi driver. It's probably a good call, as they had already shown Lemony's face throughout the entire series. It's too difficult to engage viewers for hours of content if the "voice" of the series is faceless. An actor like Patrick Warburton was desperately needed to elevate the deadpan narration of Lemony Snicket. The grounbreaking, surreal nature of the encounter is intact as we get to see fictional protagonists (the Baudelaire orphans) suddenly interact with their equally-fictional author (Lemony). But this time, the writers make up for the loss of ambiguity by bringing something more to the table as replacement. We get to see a young, unaware version of Lemony speak with his sister Kit, and later Justice Strauss. These scenes include some of the series' best writing and will produce a lot of waterworks for sure. It's the perfect way to explain why Lemony decided to dedicate his life to the Baudelaire chronicles: it emerges diegetically from the onscreen plot itself. Justice Strauss passing down the torch of chronicling the Baudelaire orphans' lives to Lemony makes perfect sense: if there's someone who tried to shed some truth and justice on the Baudelaire case, it's her.

But as we approach the end of the Netflix series, we must look at it as a whole: was the denouement of this penultimate episode sufficient for the emotional pay-off of “The End”? More on the next review.

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, CHARLIE! You’ve been accepted for the role of GONERIL. Admin Jen: You have no idea how happy we are that you’ll be bringing us Verona’s favorite firebrand, Charlie! Like you pointed out, it’s easy to write Grace off as just that -- a whirlwind of chaos and spite with nothing more to her other than that, but you’ve definitely succeeded in bringing her out of the shadow of that impression and exploring everything else that makes her shine. There is so much more to her than meets the eye, and your diligence and care when it comes to portraying that left us completely thrilled to have her flourish in your hands. We’re so glad to have you back, and we can’t wait to see what more you have in store for Grace! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

Out of Character

Alias | Charlie

Age | 22

Preferred Pronouns | she/her

Activity Level | 5-6/10. I’m a law student and working 20 hours per week. So it’s safe to say that my rl can be pretty stressful. In addition, I like to take my time with my replies so that I can actually be satisfied with how they turned out. I’ve found in the past that it’s the easiest and most efficient for me to do replies as inspiration strikes and queue them to post every 2-3 days which I plan to do as well. However, I’m available every day almost all day long on Tumblr and Discord to chat and plot. 

Timezone | CET

How did you find the rp?  | Originally, through Jen, but this time because I’ve been a part of the group before.

Current/Past RP Accounts | may I introduce you to  https://ofbellos.tumblr.com/ and https://ofdupont.tumblr.com/

IN CHARACTER

Character | Grace Daly aka Goneril. 

What drew you to this character? | Goneril is a character I’ve been intrigued by ever since I first stumbled across the rp. Back then, she was still a taken character so I’ve never really bothered thinking about whether I’d apply for her or not and when she was reopened, I had my fair share of characters that were keeping me busy. 

Somehow this fascination I have with her has never fully gone away, though. There’s something about her, her passion, her fierceness, how unwilling she is to be anybody but herself (and to hell with everybody who has a problem with that, quite literally, you'll probably end up dead if you insult her) that just really intrigues me. I feel like it’s easy to assume that Grace is downright crazy or doesn’t think at all about the consequences her actions might have, that she might not even have the mental capability of doing so. But while she’s definitely lead by her emotions and doesn’t fully know how to control her temper (and mostly doesn’t even want to), she doesn’t act without thinking about the consequences beforehand, very often, she acts a certain way despite having thought about it before. The ‘problem’ is that, in most cases, she simply doesn’t give a damn. She lives to provoke, to toy with the line of right and wrong and to run right through the wall that exists on that line for most people simply because she enjoys it. A part of her is eager to see just how far she can go simply because the search excites her. It’s most of the time not really about the other person (except for the times somebody managed to piss her off, which, admittedly, is not the hardest thing to do) but mostly about herself and what she wants to do. Everything else is secondary.  And quite frankly, there’s nothing that she hates more than being bored. She lives for the thrill, be it the thrill caused by a good old bar fight, killing somebody with your bare hands, a steaming hot fuck or a simple argument. And the power of winning the things listed before. In some way, everything’s a fight for her and the big thrill of life is in that fight and winning it. After all, Grace Daly is nothing if not a winner. Losing isn’t an option. However, despite what you might think at the first (or even second) glance, she’s not just all fun and games. There’s this blazing hot desire burning inside her to conquer and rule her own kingdom. I’m gonna stop right here because I’m gonna be exploring this aspect further in the future plot section. However, I definitely see these various facets Grace has to offer that are so unique to her in my eyes and I really want to explore those in greater detail. Grace is bold, loud, unapologetic, reckless and untamable all wrapped up in one fiery ball of chaos and she’s definitely a force to be reckoned with, not just despite but because of how unpredictable she is. It might have not gotten her where she wants to go so far, but that certainly doesn’t mean that there isn’t a certain kind of power in it.

She’s so unlike any other character I’ve ever truly played before and that’s one of the many reasons why I actually thought long and hard about whether to apply for her or not. She’ll be quite the challenge for me, I’m not ashamed to admit that, but part of the reason why I’m still so into rping after all these years is the desire to challenge myself and hopefully become a better writer in the end. Grace Daly will without a hint of a doubt be a challenge for me, but I’m so ready for that. Also, her uniqueness compared to other characters I’ve played - even characters I’ve already written here in DV - makes it possible for me to explore other plots, connections, and interactions I haven’t gotten to explore before which really excited me as well.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? | 

I’ve added some future plot points that are more ideas than already thought out plots which I’ve called ‘ideas’ instead of ‘plots’. For a better understanding and cohesiveness, I’ve mixed them together so that they fit contentwise, I hope it isn’t too confusing. If it is, I want to apologize in advance. 

PLOT 01

The Daly Sisters own a huge space of my heart when it comes to this rp. There dynamic is so unlike any other in the rp and, quite frankly, I cannot wait to sink my claws into that. I’d really love a family face-off, especially between Regina and Grace. After all, one of the reasons why Grace joined the Montagues in the first place - even if she’d never admit it out loud - is the fact that little, boring Regina got promoted to Captain by Cosimo after spending only a blink of an eye with the Capulets. She never earned her name the way Grace did, she did nothing to deserve it. And you can be dead sure that once word got out that Regina has been promoted to the position of a hitman - and sooner or later Grace would have found out, nothing stays secret in Verona forever -, she’d have been fuming. It’s just another promotion she doesn’t deserve. And here Grace is working her ass off - Grace Daly style, obviously - and has nothing to see for it. Actually, fuming would be a nice word. So yeah, I feel like a sisterly confrontation is overdue in Grace’s eyes. If you can’t ignore an annoying bug, you have to squash it to finally get rid of it. And Regina Daly is a bug Grace has been dying to step on for quite some while now. She tried to ignore her when she was younger, forget all about her existence in the first place, but apparently, that’s not an option anymore. So yes, I can totally see a sisterly face-off happen in the near future because sneaky scheming and planning to get rid of somebody isn’t really Grace’s style. She tends to rely on sheer brutality and cruelty and wouldn’t it be quite poetic to have one last fight to finally set an end to this argument (idk if you can even call it that cause I’m pretty sure Regina doesn’t give a damn about Grace)? Grace at least would love the poetry of it.

IDEA 01

This idea is related to the first plot in some way. It’s pretty established in her bio that Grace has never been willing to give her two younger sisters the time of day and would like to forget that she’s ever shared a home, not to mention blood ties with them. However, I want to explore just how deep this disinterest goes. I know for a fact that she wouldn’t shy away from killing Regina in cold blood. However, what about Catherine? Is there some small inkling in the dark hole that is her heart that does care for her? I’m not sure, but I want to find out. At the same time, I also want to explore if there’s actually a person (apart from herself) that she cares for or rather cares enough about enough to sacrifice? I don’t know if there’s a positive answer to that question, even though Grace is only human, after all, and it’s in the human nature to want to be connected to other people, but I just want to explore this question further.  

IDEA 02

If I cannot bend Heaven, I’ll raise Hell. Even though you wouldn’t necessarily suspect it, Grace is ambitious as they come. Blame it on her parents for always treasuring her like grace from God, telling her she can everything she sets her dark eyes on, but she’s always known that she’ll be a queen an empress one day. And she won’t stop at anything to get her way. So far, she’s had very little success, though. After all, despite having been involved with the mob for years now, she’s still nothing more than a soldier, a little pawn in the game of others.  While I’m not sure if she’d make a good ruler (in fact, I know the opposite is the case), she’s definitely a conqueror. Or has the potential to be once she figures out how to make the best use of the anger, passion, and fire that runs through her veins. She’s smart enough to figure it out. After all, as it’s already said in her bio “Every move she made was calculated, every strike meticulously aimed”. She definitely has the mental capacities for it. I think her biggest problem is that she needs to learn how to control her emotions and not have them influence her moves and the goal of her plans as they do now. However, learning is hard (read: almost impossible) when you’re as self-conceited as Grace is. I want to explore that struggle further, this dissonance of ambition & desire and her temper & boisterousness. 

PLOT 02 a

This plot is related to the second idea. 

If you can’t learn how to balance out your own strengths, you either need to accept that you might never reach your goal or team up with somebody who can provide what you’re lacking. The first one is clearly no option and the second one is not exactly the first thing that comes to your mind considering we’re talking about Grace either. After all, Grace isn’t really much of a team player either for she’s too selfish for that, not to mention too unpredictable, unreliable and many other things. However, I want her to seak out a partnership nonetheless. This is not to say that she’ll suddenly turn into a team-player or people person all of a sudden - hell no. No, it’d be a play really. It’d mostly be an idea born out of an alcoholic haze, nothing that serious at first. It’d be with somebody, who’s about just as desperate as she is to get to the top, and a partnership that is already doomed for a start because she plans to get rid of them as soon as the situation improves for her. She sure as hell doesn’t plan for one second to share the spotlight, they’ll just be a tool in some way. Not because she’d be manipulating them into thinking that she sees it as a real partnership, she’s no schemer, after all. No, they’d get into this with both eyes open and be ambitious enough to do it nonetheless, probably even thinking to cut her loose the first chance they get as well.  

PLOT 02 b

As it’s kind of a second part of the second plot, I wanted to split those up.

I could totally see the previously mentioned partnership turn into something of a cat and mouse kinda game. It’d actually be quite intriguing to see somebody to challenge her directly and on a personal level for a change because while the whole thing would still be somewhat mob-related, it’d be more focused on the power they’ve gathered together and that both of them wants the biggest piece of. Or rather the only piece without having to share it with the other person. It’d need to be somebody who’d be her equal, who could handle themselves around her, but then again, if they couldn’t, this partnership would have never seen the light of day in the first place. I want Grace to face a challenge/challenger she can’t get rid of that easily. I want her having to face them again and again, simply because they’re both too stubborn to die and to give up what they’ve earned. 

PLOT 03

This plot goes a little hand in hand with the previous plot, but I felt it still deserved a plot point on it’s own as it’s related to her connection with Ivan Rahal in particular.

Whereas Grace is chaos come to live and craves power above all, Ivan is a master chess player who craves chaos and destruction above all. It’s an unlike combination and yet one, that causes fear and terror among Verona’s citizens unlike any other for their united in their darkness and their thirst for blood. I feel like there’s so much Grace could learn from him and his talent for strategy. She wouldn’t ever ask for help nor would she want to change, after all, she’s perfect the way she is. Nonetheless, I want her to observe Ivan more closely, to study the way he thinks and does things, to get a feel for how he operates. I highly doubt she’d be able to employ these tactics for her own goals simply because she’s disciplined enough for that, but I feel like it’d be a valuable lesson for her nonetheless? 

PLOT 04

I feel like it’s only a question until her treacherous past truly catches up to her. After all, so far, she’s gotten away with turning her back on the Capulets to join the enemy’s ranks pretty easily. I mean she’s still alive and relatively unharmed which is more than most people could say in the same situation. Of course, she’s under the Montagues’ protection, but even that doesn’t have the same weight in every part of Verona. Knowing Grace’s recklessness and her tendency to live dangerously, she doesn’t shy away from Capulet territory. Probably even provokes them when she feels like it simply because she can (and because it makes her feel powerful). So it’s only a question of time until she gets into a situation where she has to pay for what she’s done. Unlike Grace, I’m not narcissistic enough to assume that she’s the Capulets’ main agenda, however, especially in combination with the connection with Vivianne provided in her bio (so I could def see Vivianne playing a role in that one way or another, maybe even assigning somebody to take care of her? Maybe even Regina which would kind of fit together nicely with Plot 01), I do think that this is still a topic worth exploring. After all, the Capulets won’t just forgive and forget. 

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | Yes. With her recklessness and ability to piss off the people around her, I feel like it’s only a question of time until Grace is killed, not a question of if. 

IN DEPTH.

mentions of graphic violence tw

Carelessly she flicks the cigarette against her chair, her lips curled up into an amused smirk and her long legs draped on the table in front of her. Grace Daly has never been one to give a damn about the rules of properness and she sure as isn’t going to start now just because everybody around her does it. Just because, apparently, there some things you simply “have” to do, especially when being in a lion’s den. Idioti. No, following the rules is something reserved for sheep, people who aren’t bold enough to make decisions for themselves. And Grace Daly is most certainly not a sheep nor is she scared of anything or anybody. Fear? She laughs in the face of fear. It’s not like she’s stupid. Even though it doesn’t look like it, she’s perfectly aware of how dangerous this situation can be for her. How she might not make it out of here alive. The sheer thrill of it causes the adrenalin to rush through her veins, the smirk on her lips to grow just a little more intense. Other people might sit on the edge of their seats, all fidgety and nervous. Not just because of the fact that she’s currently meeting who’s supposed to enemy nr. one, but also because this meeting alone is enough to paint her as a traitor in the eyes of some people. But not Grace. Oh hell no. No, it takes more to get under her skin. Besides, it’s not like she asked for this meeting. No, Damiano Montague reached out to her, invited her. And well, who was she to refuse, even if meeting with him for any other reason to put a bullet between his eyes might be enough reason to some to try put a bullet between her eyes? Turning down the invitation would have been plain stupid. However, not for the reason most people might believe. No, it wasn’t fear that made her accept the invitation, It was sheer ambition. Fuck rules of decency and properness, fuck the rules of the mob if they’re getting in the way of what she wants. After all, when has she ever not taken what she wanted the instant she wanted it, no matter what it takes? Her teeth and ambitions are bared now more than ever, after having her potential ignored in favor of her younger, colorless sister. If it takes a swim to the other side, to change that situation, it’d be stupid to turn down the opportunity. 

Her head slightly tilted to the right, her dark eyes are focused on the man in front of her, eying him attentively. It’s quite ironic really how he looks nothing like Cosimo Capulet and exactly like him at the same time. There’s this air of confidence - arrogance really - surrounding him, the charisma of somebody who’s used to getting what he wants, who’s demanding it really. It takes only one look at him to know he doesn’t take well to being turned down. Not that she gives a damn. If he doesn’t offer her a deal she’s interested tonight, Grace won’t feel obligated in any way. Hell, if things don’t go the way she wants (and quite frankly, expects) them to, she might just try to ram or throw the knife she always has with her, hidden in her left boot, into his trachea. If she returns to the other side of the Adige with Damiano Montague’s blood on her hands - literally -, they just have to promote her to Captain at least. Better even, kiss her ass for quite some while. The smirk already gracing her lips grows just a little bit bigger at the thought of his face slowly losing all its color, the desperate death rattle of a dying man, maybe even some pleas for mercy. Somehow this turn of events would be almost just as nice as what she actually came here to do. So whatever is going to happen next, she knows she’ll come out of this little meeting with one sort of advantage in her hands. So much for Grace Daly being incapable of having a plan b.

Without taking her eyes of the mob boss in front of her - direct eye contact is important, after all, to assert dominance and to show that she isn’t the slightest bit afraid of him-, she stubs the cigarette on the wooden table, not giving a damn whether it’d leave a burn mark or not. After all, it’s not her table, is it? “Va bene, vecchio mio, how about you go ahead and make your offer?”, she says, her lips curled into a wolfish grin, “I don’t have all day, after all. Got some disloyal couriers I need to care of.”  Oh, the irony talking about disloyalty and treachery while she’s currently committing treason herself. It’s not wasted on her, that’s for sure, quite the opposite, really, it’s highly appreciated. The thought that the Capulets have no idea what might be coming for them, made this little meeting all so sweeter. Would serve them right for ignoring her potential.

___

murder tw

Leaning against the door frame, her arms crossed before her chest, she just stands there for a moment, her eyes focused on Ivan, the corners of her mouth curled up into a lazy half-smirk. “Looks like you have the luck of having the best partner possible today”, she says as she pushes herself away from the frame and heads towards him. From everybody else, these words would have been meant as a joke and yet, even though there’s a slightly amused, teasing intonation to them, she’s dead honest. She might not have been a part of the Capulets for as long as other members, but Grace still knows she’s better than a lot of them. At his slightly amused “and I assume that special one is supposed to be you”, she gives him a little smirk and shrugs her shoulders just slightly. “What can I say? It’s not arrogant if it’s true.” Not that she’d care either way. Caring about what other people think of you is something reserved for pathetic people who aren’t sure of themselves. And she most certainly doesn’t belong in that category. “Sei pronto?” The little smirk still present on her lips, she puts the hand on the gun on her left hip. As a little extra backup, there’s a knife safely stored in the right back pocket of her jeans, hidden by her leather jacket. “Sí.” She’s ready in every possible meaning, eager to, hopefully, get her hands on some real action. Sure, this mission isn’t supposed to turn violent. It’s only planned as some sort of check-up meets interrogation to find out if the rumors are true and they’ve really gone behind their back and are dealing with the enemy. But then again, you could never know how they’d react to this checkup, right? And a girl could still hope, after all. 

Slowly but self-assured they head straight towards the building that, their silhouettes one with the shadows of the containers. Every now and signal horns of approaching container ships disturb the silence, but apart from that, there’s complete silence. It’s quite peaceful, actually, she can’t help but notice and at the irony, the hint of a smile sneaks onto her lips. It’s so peaceful that nobody would expect the attack that is going to happen within a few minutes. Which, frankly, makes it even more fun. There’s nothing quite like taking something wholesome and peaceful and turning it upside down. Judging from the information they got, it’s gonna be a relatively easy job from the information they got. Three people top, most likely only lightly armed. They aren’t expecting an interrogation not to mention an attack any time soon, it’ll be like taking candy from a child.

After exchanging another glance with Ivan, she kicks the door open. “Ciao, stronzi.”Charming as ever, she flashes a wolfish grin at them. If they wanted somebody who’s all polite and diplomatic, they wouldn’t have paired Ivan up with her and so she sees no need to be anybody but her usual, charming self. However, for now, she lets Ivan take charge of the conversation. It’s more his style anyway. She prefers to stand there leaning against the door - these fuckers better don’t assume they could get past her - and casually playing with her knife as not that subtle thread while she attentively observes the interaction, ready to jump into action at any howsoever small, wrong movement. 

It doesn’t take long, only a few questions to realize that their source was right, these bastardi are trying to cheat them out of their profit. They realize almost as quickly that their cover has blown as Ivan and she do and pull their guns. Too bad it’s only almost. Without thinking about twice, Grace throws her knife, aiming right at the left guy’s forehead. Ivan reacts just as quickly, taking out the other guy with one unerring shot. Everything happened so quickly, that it takes her a moment to fully process what just happened. Completely collected on the outside, she stares at the dead body in front of her with some morbid curiosity. Even though she’s already seen her fair share of dead bodies ever since having joined the Capulets, it’s the first time she’s responsible for one. It’s an intriguing feeling, really. A part of her is well aware of she should feel at least some sort of regret or guilt. And yet, there’s nothing of that crap on her mind. The only thing she feels is excitement and satisfaction. It felt good to bury that knife between his eyes before he could even fully realize what was about to happen, it still does, to be honest. Slowly she steps closer to the corpse and pulls the knife out of it without flinching. She’s never been afraid of blood and she most certainly isn’t going to start that now. If anything there’s something quite satisfying about seeing your work in all its unholy glory. Is this what it feels like to be God? This rush of power of having just ended one life simply because you chose to do so? For a moment longer, her eyes are focused on the body, eying it almost thoughtfully, before she turns back around to Ivan. “Well, this didn’t exactly turn out as planned”, she says, the hint of a smile in the corners of her mouth betraying her words. “Too bad we didn’t get to question them further before blowing their brains out, though. The info whether they decided to cheat on us all of a sudden on their own or were instigated by somebody else wouldn’t have been the worst to have.” It’s not like she particularly cares about the answer, what this answer could have gotten her recognition wise is the much more interesting question. Ah well, what’s done is done. She shrugs slightly as she wipes the blood of the knife on her jeans before putting it back into the back pocket. “Let’s go check out if we can find some more information on what these idiots were up to. Maybe they were stupid enough to store some important documents here that give us a better idea of how far this whole little boycott goes and if other business partners of us are involved.” Eliminating two traitors might be useful and a nice accomplishment, but it’s not enough for her. No, she seeks something more impressive to bring back to the headquarters. After all ‘nice’ accomplishments, didn’t exactly allow you to climb higher on the mob’s hierarchy, won’t get her the recognition she deserves and craves.

___

 Everett Craven - Emissary. Easton Craven - Captain. And darling Regina promoted as well.  Even hours later, her fingers grab the glass of Scotch in her hands more firmly, the knuckles from the pressure she exerts, the rest of her body just as tense. Honestly, if this was one big fucking joke it wasn’t remotely funny. And despite her rather unique, wicked sense of humor she could usually see a joke for what it is. Although it had to be one - it’d be the only explanation that made some sort of sense -, she knows it’s not. It’s the fucking reality that everybody, who so much as breaths, gets a fucking promotion. Hell, even on the Montague side, promotions are a dime a dozen and everybody gets one. A dry, sarcastic laugh dies in her throat before she can get it out. Everybody but her that is. It seems like no matter what she does, it’s just not good enough. Like she’s nothing but a slightly tamed but rabid dog you can’t fully control but the perfect tool for threatening and intimidating your enemies. The one you send out to do all the dirty, bloody, disgusting work nobody else is willing to get their hands dirty on. She takes a sip of her drink, the burning sensation of the liquor running down her throat is a welcome distraction and yet, it isn’t nearly enough to burn away the frustration. And she does what they want like the good dog she, apparently, is. Does jobs nobody else would want to do if they don’t have a choice, just to prove her worth. Follows orders, even though somebody like Henry Zhang - the thought of her Captain is enough to roll her eyes - really couldn’t handle her under any other circumstances. Plays nice with men like Faron Vasilev just to get in his good graces and have him speak out for her. Even now she can still smell his cologne, the air of arrogance and entitlement surrounding men like him. It tastes sour in the back of her mouth, her. Maybe she should have tried sleeping with him while she still had the chance, seemed to have worked out perfectly for that puta Calina, after all. She even plasters a (more or less) friendly smile she plasters on her face every time Damiano walks past her and keeps her mouth shut, even when they talk bullshit. Her stomach twists and turns. They could drop dead this instant for all she cares and yet, she still plays nice. 

And for what? A small part of her mind that is still capable of thinking straight knows that she might just haven’t been a part of the Montagues long enough to earn the position of Captain. Castora has been a Montague for longer than her, it’s true. But Damiano wanted her. With one loud, shrieking noise, a glass breaks into a million shards as Grace throws it against the wall, not giving a damn if its ember content ruins the wall. He invited her personally into the fold and she deigned to accept that invitation. And yet, she’s still left with nothing. Maybe she really should have slit his throat right there during that meeting that promised to be a turning point. Frowning just slightly, her lips curled up into a sneer, the drops of liquor on the wall turning into crimson red bloodstains in her mind. She could have painted the walls red with mighty Damiano’s blood. She should have. That at least ought to have earned her a promotion with the Capulets. And yet, she’d resisted, had believed the stronzo’s golden lies of how they could achieve something great together, of how he could offer her more than Cosimo ever could. She’d known that he couldn’t make her Captain right away, that wasn’t how things worked. Anybody, who’d promoted somebody who’d only just been accepted into the fold (not to mention from the opposing side) was plain stupid, Grace understood that. But hasn’t she waited long enough now? Isn’t it time for her patience and hard work to finally be rewarded? And instead, she simply gets overlooked again. 

It’s not the first time she’s been overlooked, she should be used to it by now. She used to be the center of their parents’ universe, until her younger sisters - it’s an insult really, not a term of endearment -, took it away from her. After all, ever since darling Cat came into the world with her blonde locks and angelic nature, their father would choose the younger over her, dote on her instead of always on her like he used to. Memories of a little Cat, innocence come to life, run through her mind and she scowls. Her sweetness tastes like acid on her tongue, always has. And Regina took away the recognition and respect of the Capulets. The thought of her passionless, disinterested attitude alone is enough for her body to tense up and yearn for something else to punch bloody. How can somebody be so bland and yet so successful? Grace has always been fire and action and still, no matter how intense and destructive her fire, Regina’s hollowness seems to swallow it whole. If she ever felt a small flicker of sisterly love it’s long gone, she should have killed both long ago. Should have drowned them both like you did with unwanted puppies and kittens. Being overlooked is certainly nothing new so she really should be used to it by now. And yet, it hurts all the same, the sting of rejection, of not being good enough or enough, really. Whatever she does, she always gets overlooked for somebody else. For somebody who doesn’t want it nearly as much as she does. Who wouldn’t be as a great fit for the position as she would. She knows she can do better than all of them, why won’t anybody see it? Why won’t anybody see her for the potential that she has to offer?

For a time, it seemed like Damiano Montague saw it, saw her. That he would value her like the Capulets never did. And now she knows how wrong she’s been. Red painted lips twist into a sneer as she forgoes the thought of getting another glass and grabs the bottle instead. One sip, then another. She could empty the whole bottle, drink herself into oblivion and the liquor still couldn’t wash away the all-consuming feeling of humiliation cutting through her intestines like a hot burning iron. How utterly stupid she’d been. If she’s completely honest, it hurts almost just as much as the disappointment and rejection that she’s partially to blame for her misery. She should have been smart enough to see through Damiano’s empty promises. Eyes focused on the wall in front of her, she glares a hole. One rapid breath, another, her body tensing with every single one - then she punches it, only barely noticing the dull pain quickly spreading from the via the arm to her shoulder or the sting of the bloody, torn open knuckles. She should have at least thought in greater detail about how her chances at a promotion, at validation, are, if she stayed with the Capulets. After all, if colorless, hollow Regina managed to get two promotions, it should be out of the question that she would have made it to Captain during that time. She needs to believe she would have. Her stomach slumps at the mere prospect of not having made the cut either way. No, everything else is unacceptable. And yet, despite priding herself on her cleverness, she allowed herself to be blinded her own and ambition. It’d felt so good to be seen, to have your potential and talent acknowledged, to be recognized for what difference you could make if you changed the teams, that she’d gladly taken the opportunity offered to her on a silver platter. The Capulets never valued her, so why should she burden herself with them if somebody else could offer her the opportunity to finally rise to the station she knows she deserves? Her eyes fixed on the mess she just created - the shards, her bleeding knuckles, the ruined wall - she can’t hold back cynical laughter any longer. It’s too much of a representation of the rest of her life. After all,  as it now turns out, neither do the Montagues really see and value her. She desperately wants to say that it’s their loss, that it’ll be their own ruin. And it probably will be. But if she’s completely honest, right now, it is her loss. She’s the one who has to deal with the humiliation of having switched sides for nothing. To have made a traitor of herself for nothing. To have started again from scratch basically for absolutely nothing. 

Extras:

A Mockblog can be found here. Pls ignore the ugliness, I couldn’t be bothered to make it fancy as I’d only use it to reblog stuff from if I should get accepted anyway.

You can find a pinterest board here.

MB Type: ESTP-A - The Entrepreneur

Eneagram Type: Type 8 - The Challenger (81%)                            Type 3 - The Achiever (61%)

Moral Alignment: Chaotic Evil

The Four Temperaments: Choleric

Archetypes: Rebel (56%) - The Wild Woman, The Criminal & The Rebel                      Explorer (22%) - The Adventurer & The Explorer                      Royal (22%) - The Excecutive, The Bully & The Greenvy