#this entire drawing is a cope in general let me be even more cringe

[cowchickenbeefpork]

Narrows Lee with the fuck ass Bob my beloved

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #371

“some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses”

What is one song you feel as though you sing particularly well, if any? Probably none, lol. What was the last lengthy task you completed? I love these unique questions I've had lately, but damn, are a lot of my answers "I don't know," lol. What type of photography do you enjoy looking at? Do you take any photos yourself, and if so, what types of things do you prefer to photograph? I love floral and wildlife photography. Landscapes, too, and I have a great fondness for boudoir for reasons I've mentioned in previous surveys. I like taking nature pictures, mainly. Have you ever gone out for the Black Friday shopping rush? Did you enjoy it, or not so much? Or, what’s the busiest shopping day you’ve ever experienced? Hell no, that's a hard pass. I'm sure the busiest shopping experience I've had was like at the mall or something around Christmas, idk. Do you enjoy reading diaries or stories you wrote from when you were younger, or does it embarrass you? If you’ve kept them, was there a particular reason for hanging on to them so long? NO. I DON'T. BECAUSE I CRINGE INTO ANOTHER DIMENSION. I keep a lot of it for memory's sake, but goddamn, is it always embarrassing. What would you say was your first true hobby? What about your most recently developed one? Um... the first thing I really remember is video games. I played Spyro like, a LOT, along with other childhood games. I was just really into gaming at a young age. Is there one thing that throws off your mood more than others, whether it be lack of sleep, lack of food, heat/cold, etc., and when was the last time you felt especially cranky? THE HEAT. I become so irritable. I was needlessly cranky a few days ago for whatever reason. What kinds of things are you likely to complain about? My legs hurting, more than anything. Also being hot. Do you like to put any extra effort into your food in terms of presentation, or do you prefer to just put it on a plate and eat it as it is, no frills? Ha, no. It's not gonna look fancy in my stomach, so whatever. Have you ever dated someone who had kids? No, and I very much doubt I ever would. Are there any candles in the room with you? No. Does the last person you kissed have tattoos? No, but I tell her all the time that dainty nature tattoos would be THE most beautiful on her. When was the last time someone called you pretty? I think when I last updated my Facebook profile picture. Do you like the color pink? It's my favorite! Does your cell phone have a case on it? What color? It came with this thin purple one. What was the last song you had on repeat? "Moon Baby" by Godsmack. Ever kissed someone your parents hated? No. Your most recent ex says he/she hates you, you say? I wouldn't *say* anything, I'd break down sobbing. Would you feel hurt if your last ex was in a relationship? No. Have you ever had to choose between two people? Yes: Jason and Juan. Juan and I dated for less than a day not all that long before Jason and I got together, and Juan was pretty upset. He was nooot a fan of Jason due to a shared ex-girlfriend. Jason, meanwhile, just didn't care. What is the saddest thing that has happened to you? What about the happiest? I think the saddest thing has to be my breakup, especially when you know just how madly in love I was with him and had endless trust that he would never leave, and then he was gone in a flash one night. The happiest is, in turn, my recovery from said split. I found strength in myself and felt hope for once as I learned coping mechanics and got a psychiatrist that was worth a shit in my partial hospitalization program. What was the last new drink you discovered that was delicious? *shrug* Do you have a YouTube channel? Yes. I don't make videos anymore, though. Were you happy as a teenager? God no, my depression was awful. What do you do for your mom on Mother’s Day? Sigh. Not enough. I just tell her happy Mother's Day, give her a hug, and try to be an extra good daughter. Do you know anyone who follows a raw vegan diet and lifestyle? No. Can you go see a doctor alone or do you like to take someone with you? I can do it alone (but only have once), but I like to bring my mom with me still. Would you have sex with someone of the same gender as you? I'm bi, so. Have you ever had a concussion? One or two, I can't remember. How many dresses do you own? Zero. Do you know anyone who has a pet gecko? Yeah, my friend Summer has a darling leopard gecko. I want oneeeeee. They look so damn derpy and adorable, and their chill demeanor is something I really like in pets. Would you ever go bear hunting? No. Absolutely never. Do you prefer drawing or painting? Any particular reason why? Drawing, for sure. At least you can erase stuff, and paint is just so messy. Do you like raisins? NO THANKS MAN. Do you remember your locker combinations from high school? Nope. Do you forget to flip the page of your calendar at the start of each month? I don't have a calendar. Are you racist to any race? Nope. Have you ever intentionally hurt an animal? I've given cats and dogs a small pop on the rear, but nothing more than that. I hate doing even that, but with the language barrier and all, sometimes it's the only way to get your point across. Do you own any autographed memorabilia? No. Have you ever dated a twin? No. Oreos or Chips Ahoy? Oreos. Have you ever considered being a cop? Yeah, no thank you. What’s your favorite superhero movie? Maybe Logan. I thought it was very emotional and just overall a good movie. Name somebody you know who deserves a better life than they have: MY MOM. Name something that you’re good at but don’t like: uhhhhhhhh Name something that you’re bad at but DO like: Dancing, maybe. Which is worse: Stale chips or flat soda? Stale chips, for sure. It's certainly not my preference, but I can drink flat soda. Who’s the hottest guy and hottest girl out there? M-Mark Fischbach. :') Girl... let's seeeeee... maybe Alissa White-Gluz from Arch Enemy. GodDAMN what a WOMAN. ❤_❤ Do you ever trip over your pets? Yes, because he just looooves to follow me at my feet. What’s your relationship like with your exes? Aaron, Juan, Jason, and Tyler: nonexistent. Sara and Girt: great. What was the last thing you turned down doing? Going to my nephew's t-ball game. I always feel bad when I say no when Mom asks if I wanna go... but at least the kids know I just don't handle the heat well. Are you a party animal? Faaaaar from it, my friend. Who are you the biggest fan of? m-m-m-mMARKIPLIER You’re DJ for the night - first track to get everyone going? Uhhhh maybe "Party Hard" by Andrew W.K.? Have you ever been hit on by a pushy person? I think Juan was kinda pushy, but not to an uncomfortable degree. He respected what I felt. What accent do you find attractive? Most attractive, British. But I also really like Scottish and Irish. Also French accents in women I tend to find very beautiful-sounding. Have you ever had feelings for a friend's partner? Yes. What’s your favorite thing to do that doesn’t cost much? Drive around take pictures, maybe? Let's, uh, ignore the whole gas crisis in this answer. When in danger are you more fight or flight? Flight. Do you feel self conscious about a certain body part? *gestures to entire body* Have you been accused of being manipulative? Yes. Have you ever considered violence to solve your problem? No. Are you romantic? I personally think so. If you are a smoker, how long does a pack typically last you? If you aren’t a smoker, does anybody you are close to smoke, & if so, are you against the fact that they’re a smoker? I don't smoke. To answer the next part, yes, like my dad and stepmom. I wish they would stop so badly, like it's literally going to kill them both. Do you have more subscribers or more people that you are subscribed to? On YouTube? I'm definitely subscribed to waaay more people. Is there anything that has been drilled into your brain since you were young & you finally decided to stop listening to? How did it feel once you decided to listen to yourself over what you were told? Yes: "finish your plate." Teaching your kid to eat beyond their comfort can be very destructive, and I'm glad I never stuck to that once Mom stopped enforcing it. If you are currently in a relationship, what is one thing that seems to be unique or different about your relationship with this person, compared to other relationships in general? If you are currently single, is this more of a choice or is it more just the way things are going, not really something you chose? If you are neither “single” or officially in a relationship, what are your feelings on your current situation? I'm single, and it's just how it is. I know realistically I wouldn't tell what felt like the right person no, but it really is probably better that I stay single and keep figuring my shit out. Think of somebody famous that you have a lot of respect for. What is something that you really admire them for? To name just one thing I admire in Mark, his relentless "I'm going to do this no matter what" attitude is very inspirational to me. He lets like... n-o-t-h-i-n-g get in his way. If somebody were to leave a harsh comment on a survey you took, judging you on one of your opinions, how would you react? I'd get pretty self-conscious, just because I in general take judgment quite poorly. I obsess over "what if they're right, and you're just an idiot?". Are there any other sites you use to find surveys to take? What sites do you use? I mainly use Tumblr and LiveJournal, but in times of great desperation, I'll use Bzoink and just google surveys as well, haha. Have you sent or received any friend requests on Facebook lately? Not sent, but I got one from someone I had no mutual friends with the other day. Safe to say I declined it. Can you recall the last time you turned down an offer, of any kind? Uhhhhh no. Which fruit would you say you eat the most often? Apples. What was your pet’s last vet visit concerning? Roman has been to the vet once to get neutered (and I think shots?). I took Venus many years ago because I thought she had a respiratory infection. Thank god, she didn't. Which animals do you tend to go check out first at pet stores? The reptiles, snakes in particular. Have you ever been a victim of a house fire? No. What’s the longest you’ve ever had to wait before being seated at a restaurant? Like, over an hour. Have you ever had a cavity before? How about a root canal? A tooth pulled? Braces? Cavities and braces, yes. What is your favorite zoo animal that you would like to set free? Probably polar bears. Like especially here, it gets so hot in the summer, and the poor things sometimes only have a bit of snow in the shade. Like... they can't be very happy. Especially when you see those videos of them playing in snow, and then you think about situations like our zoo here... ugh. What kinds of artifacts fascinate you? I really think old figurines built with like clay and stuff are cool. But all artifacts I find to be very intriguing. It's so interesting to see that the desire to create has always been with us as a species. Is there anyone that you’ve visited in jail? No.

[ruminativerabbi]

What I Saw on Mulberry Street

At first, I was slightly amused by the whole brouhaha that followed the announcement last week by the estate of Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss, that it would stop republishing and selling six of the famous author’s books, including such classics as And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo, On Beyond Zebra, and McElligot’s Pool.  I know all these books; they were classics of children’s literature so long ago that I remember reading them when I actually was a child and enjoying them immensely. We all did. Dr. Seuss was part of the children’s canon back then: read by all, touted endlessly by librarians and teachers, and considered controversial—as far as I recall—by none. Just the opposite, actually: if there was one children’s author from back then whose whimsy was deemed charming and fully acceptable, it would certainly have been Dr. Seuss.

But times have changed. And there is no question that illustrations in all the books in question feature caricatures of various minority groups, particularly Asians (depicted with slanty lines for eyes, pigtails, and conical coolie-style hats) and Black people (shown shirtless, shoeless, and wearing grass skirts). On the other hand, Dr. Seuss himself was a powerful enemy of fascism who published more than 400 wartime cartoons savaging Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese leadership. And some of his books were thinly veiled anti-fascist parables: it is widely understood, for example, that Yertle the Turtle (1958) was meant as a direct attack on fascism (apparently dictatorial Yertle originally sported a Hitler-style moustache) and that Horton Hears a Who (1954) was meant as a kind of encouraging parable about the American occupation of Japan. More to the point for Jewish readers is that The Sneetches (1961), a book that the estate will continue to publish, is a focused, double-barreled attack on racism and anti-Semitism and was understood that way from the time it was published. Nor was this imputed meaning—the author himself was widely quoted at the time as saying formally, that The Sneetches “was inspired by my opposition to anti-Semitism.”

So we are left with an interesting dilemma. Geisel, a life-long Lutheran who actually suffered a bit of anti-Semitic discrimination in college when he was mistaken by some bigoted classmates for a Jew, was a proud anti-fascist, a virulent opponent of racism and anti-Semitism, and a true American patriot. And he published some books that featured images which feel—at least by today’s standards—racist or at the very least inappropriate for books pitched at impressionable children. The managers of his estate solved their problem the easy way by deciding simply not to republish six of the man’s books, thus ending the controversy by eliminating the problem. An alternate approach, of course, would have been to re-edit the books, eliminate the offensive imagery, and bring out versions that feature the original text with illustrations tailored more precisely to suit modern sensitivity. And speaking specifically as a Jewish American, the fact that there aren’t any Stürmer-style caricatures of hook-nosed Jews holding huge bags of money in these books shouldn’t be a factor in our evaluation of the evidence: if anything, the thought of Black parents cringing when they come across racist caricatures of Africans should be more than resonant with Jewish parents able to imagine being in exactly the same position and feeling exactly the same level of hurt and outrage. And that brings me to the question that feels to me to be at the heart of the matter: should works deemed utterly non-offensive in their day be altered, either slightly or dramatically, to suit evolving standards with respect to race, religion, ethnicity, gender, etc.? It’s an interesting question, one that goes to the heart of the question of what literature actually is and what role it could or should play in society.

There are, of course, lots of examples of books that have been successfully revised to suit modern tastes. Agatha Christie’s book And Then There Were None was originally published in the U.K. as Ten Little Negroes (and the third word on the cover was specifically not “Negroes”). That was deemed offensive here, so the publisher just made up a different title. (The English publishers eventually did the same and brought the book out under the marginally less offensive title Ten Little Indians.) In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a favorite of my own children years ago, Roald Dahl originally depicted the Oompa-Loompas who worked in the factory as African pygmies and the depiction was basically of them as slaves and certainly not as dignified, salaried employees. A century earlier, Dickens himself was prevailed upon to tone down Fagan’s Jewishness in Oliver Twist, which he did by halfheartedly removing some of the references to Fagan’s ethnicity. Of course, when the author himself makes the revisions we are having an entirely different discussion: surely the actual authors of books should feel free make whatever changes they wish to their own work. The question is whether the world should “fix” published works to make them suit issues that were on no one’s radar, or hardly anyone’s radar, when the book was written and published.

Some readers will recall that one of my pandemic coping exercises last spring was embarking on a re-read of Mark Twain, a favorite author of my younger years. I was surprised how well many of his books stood the test of time, but I found myself most engaged of all by my re-read of Huckleberry Finn. Widely and entirely reasonably acclaimed as an American classic, the book is basically about the relationship of Huck and Jim, who is almost invariably referred to as Negro Jim. (Again, that’s not the word that appears in the book.) Of course, Mark Twain was writing about Missouri life in the 1830s and he himself was from Missouri and a child of that era. So he certainly knew how people spoke and I’m entirely sure that that word was in common use to reference Black people. Today, that word is anathema to all and is considered unusable in normal discourse, written or oral. But what about the book itself? Should it be “fixed” by having the dialogue altered specifically to reflect a dialect of English spoken in those days by no one at all? Or should the book itself be dropped from high school or even college reading lists as something too offensive to allow, let alone to require, young people to read? Huckleberry Finn is an interesting book for many different reasons, not least of all because Jim, a slave, is depicted sympathetically as a man of character, virtue, and strong moral values—a fact made all the more poignant by the fact that he is depicted as almost wholly uneducated. Indeed, Jim is a grown man with a wife and family, while Huck is a boy of thirteen or fourteen and the clear implication is that while the white world has failed utterly to make Huck into a decent adolescent, Black Jim, an uneducated slave, is quite able to bring him to the threshold of decency by showing him how to behave in an upright manner. So the book is hardly anti-Black. Just the opposite is far more true: in many ways, Jim, not Huck, is the hero of the book. And yet the constant use of that word is beyond jarring. Editions have been published for use in school that simply omit the word or change it. Is that a rational compromise? Or does that kind of bowdlerization deprive the book of its essential honesty, of its ability to depict a society as it truly was and not as moderns vaguely wish it had been? It’s not that easy to say.

When I was deeply involved in the research that led me to publish my translation of the Psalms, I became aware—slightly to my naïve amazement—of the existence of Christian editions of the Psalms from which all references to internecine strife, violent clashes between opposing groups in old Jerusalem, the corruption that led at least some poets to condemn the Temple priesthood, and the deep alienation from God with which at least some psalmists struggled—that the psalms depicting all of that challenging stuff had been nicely excised from the book so as to create a book of “nice” poems. (This parallels a Christian edition of the Old Testament I once saw from which the entire book of Leviticus had been omitted, presumably lest readers be offended by the notion that animal sacrifice and the safeguarding of ritual purity were essential elements of the covenant between God and Israel.) Those editions of the Psalms struck me as ridiculous and precisely because the resultant book was specifically nothing like the original work and gave a totally incorrect impression of the original work. But would one of the Dr. Seuss books under discussion really have been substantially altered by some of the drawings of black or Asian people replaced with more respectful images?

My feeling is that the Dr. Seuss affair is indicative of a larger issue in society. Obviously, changing a few drawings in a book is not such a big deal and is something that I’m sure happens without fanfare in the world of publishing all the time. But this specific issue seems to have struck such a chord with so many precisely because Dr. Seuss is deemed, not entirely incorrectly, as representative of a simpler world—by which term people generally mean one in which it wasn’t deemed necessary to care what smaller groups in society felt or thought. We’ve come a long way since then, and rightly so. The Seuss estate could certainly have felt justified in commissioning some new drawing to avoid going against modern feelings about ethnic or racial stereotyping. The books themselves would have been substantially the same. Once that line is crossed, however, and the book no longer is the same as it was—“fixing” the language in Huckleberry Finn, for example, or eliminating Shylock’s Jewishness from the play or Othello’s blackness—that is missing almost entirely the reason literature exists in the first place: to stir up emotion, to challenge readers’ preconceptions, and to educate—in the literal sense of the world: to draw the reader forward to a new level of understanding of the world of the author…and of the reader as well.

[seasaltmemories]

haru, ann, makoto, yusuke, and ryuji?

All are under the Cut:

Haru

How I feel about this character:

I like her! While I do agree that the fact she is recruited right when things kick into gear is kinda frustrating, I think she has a lot of great little moments that are overlooked, she is charming and cute

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

I am up for anything, but nothing stuck out in the game itself

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

Her friendship with Morgana and the entire Beauty Thief stuff is great

My unpopular opinion about this character:

I’m actually glad that her recruitment was nonstandard, it shook up the usual ‘oh person who is not supposed to be there wander in the Metaverse and turns out there is a persona user” while it doesn’t last for long, there are questions of if she could be Black Mask, and in general it makes it feel like the world doesn’t just revolve around what Joker sees on screen, the fact she is closer to other ppl than Joker (at least at first) is interesting

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

A conversation with Akechi about the whole father murder thing would be great, I know she is a pretty private person, and if it happened it would likely be without Joker, but the fact she still tries to be polite to him while being upfront about not forgiving him is an interesting dynamic

my OTP:

None

my cross over ship:

Um how about she and Rinea from FE Echoes hook up?

a headcanon fact:

She definitely becomes an old rich cat lady living her best life, partner or no

Ann

How I feel about this character:

I love her! I think her presence after her arc is understated but a great part of the team, I just think she is a fun character I like to watch

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

Shiho, I might also be down for a quick, low stakes hook-up with Yusuke

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

Her and Joker’s confidant is really nice

My unpopular opinion about this character:

I like her confidant, like yeah the model stuff isn’t the deepest but it only gets brought up a few times and we still have the rest of it being her kinda having to deal with the guilt of not being there for a friend even though things were kinda out of her control

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

I guess I wish her relationship with her body and sexuality was made a little more clear, the writing around that is an example of the game both wanting to appeal to fantasies and real life issues, from what i gathered she was fine with being sexy when she was the one who chose to do it, so it would have been nice if more of the fan-service stuff had her kinda initiating stuff

my OTP:

Her and Shiho

my cross over ship:

I could see her and Hilda von Goneril being fun

a headcanon fact:

I don’t think she continues staying a model for long, and over time kinda takes an unofficial mother figure role of looking out for newbies to make sure they aren’t being exploiting and using her influence to get creeps from getting more jobs

Makoto

How I feel about this character:

A fave, I think the game does a great job of balancing out her unlikable moments with being able to understand where she is coming from, and that tension in general made me like her all the more once I started coming around to her

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

Joker

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

Her and Sae were a great pair of sisters

My unpopular opinion about this character:

Again I also really liked her confidant, like Ann I think the Eiko stuff was very minor in the long run, and considering her strong sense of justice it made sense for hers to take place through an active investigation of sorts rather than her having a pity party for herself and spilling her past

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

My bias might be showing again but I am curious about her relationship with Akechi, I doubt they were close but it feels realistic that she would know he was basically Sae’s intern, and while I doubt they interacted much one on one outside that one scene where he calls her nothing but a goody two shoes, I wouldn’t mind exploring it more

my OTP:

Joker

my cross over ship:

Hmm her and Utena Tenjou would be a great mix of “high intellect low wisdom” and beating up gross dudes

a headcanon fact:

I think she never loses her rebellious streak and ends up in like advocacy work against government corruption

Yusuke

How I feel about this character:

He’s nice, I do like his interesting relationship with Madarame, and think it has some of the most nuance in the game

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

Nothing really serious besides like I said that low-stakes hook-up with Ann

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

As I mentioned while not a good relationship, I still think his connection with Madarame is his most interesting

My unpopular opinion about this character:

Maybe my own sheltered weirdo art kid is showing, but he really isn’t as out-there as ppl claim, I was expecting a hammy off the walls character from what fandom showed, but if anything his is really quiet, withdrawn and again most of his eccentricities is just him having been really sheltered his whole life and having to adjust to living on his own, like in the grand scheme of things, buying lobsters just to draw them is something I could see ppl in my life doing and maybe joking about for two or three days before being completely forgotten

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

I think he is the phantom thief that fades into the background the most, and I wish he had a bit more relevancy for the rest of the game, which is harder to do bc he isn’t the most social or touchy-feely outside of art, I wish I got a great sense of camaraderie at least from his reasons for sticking around besides “friends” feels very weak

my OTP:

Not really any

my cross over ship:

I could see something between him and Namine being sweet

a headcanon fact:

I don’t know the exact flavor, but I think he is misdiagnosed  neurodivergant and likely never really figures it out except maybe by the time he is middle age and has a stable life bc he and others around him write off the symptoms as the result of his weird upbringing and artsy nature

Ryuji

How I feel about this character:

He’s a character I don’t I could stand if he was real, but the game writing and framing does make me like him and his friendship with Joker comes off as very genuine

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

I am up for anything, but nothing stuck out in the game itself

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

Again him and Joker

My unpopular opinion about this character:

Lol I feel like I pissed off a lot of ppl by saying I couldn’t stand him if he was real, but really he is like the eptimone of teenage rage, like he has good reasons to be angry but he doesn’t really know how to cope with it in the right ways, like no offense but walking up to somebody and just asking “hey are you being abused” isn’t all that helpful to a victim and other little things that in a less power-fantasy narrative could go really wrong, I don’t think presenting those flaws is bad, and I don’t think he is a bad character, but as someone who has also had to carefully manage my anger, it hits me in a very “remembers bad memory and cringes way”

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

Look I know teenagers can be horny and I am not against ever showing that, but i guess as a grown woman I could have done without all the “lets score some babes” talk

my OTP:

None

my cross over ship:

Doug from Rune Factory 4 could probably vibe with him but i think they’d both cool each other down

a headcanon fact:

Probably also when he is older, things are stable, and he finds a therapist he doesn’t feel patronized by, he does end up finding the experience meaningful

[admutual]

any hayley or steve childhood headcanons hell add stan if thats ok!!

oo !!

hayley ones:

hayley was always bringing weird animals inside and trying to convince stan and francine to let her keep them. multiple instances of her running inside, covered in dirt, and holding a garter snake begging ‘please please can we keep her??’ while steve screams in terror.

that hc i mentioned of francine always standing up for the other kids ,, hayley inherited that trait. my god she was The Most protective kid during her school years, she absolutely refused to let anyone get walked over when she knew they didn’t deserve it.

hayley was a wolf girl growing up,, change my mind. and black wolves were always her fave.

hayley definitely read animorphs growing up. those books shaped her and her fave character was cassie,,, also once she got more comfortable with living with roger she bullied him for not looking as cool as an andalite or a hork-bajir.

hayley went through an emo phase during her middle and high school years. she tried really hard to get an emo fringe, she was always blasting mcr and the used and three days grace, and her first job was at a hot topic.

hayley and stan were obviously tight-knit buds back in the day. like ,, she’d set up tea parties for them in the backyard, going out to movies was almost a weekly activity for the two of them, they were always planning picnics together,, they were really close. also every time they went to familyland together, hayley was always trying to drag him along with her to the more Extreme rides. francine kept telling her she’d go since she knew stan wasn’t the biggest fan of those rides like she was, but hayley kept insisting and it’d always end with stan near traumatized. big cia man goes on scary missions daily but he can’t handle a little roller coaster.

hayley’s hair was . pretty often a Mess when she was young. it was staticky, always sticking up at some angle, she often got too excited that she never took the time to comb out her hair in the mornings. plus it’s always been a habit of hers to play with her hair whenever she gets too excited or nervous, so even if she got it all straightened out it’d still turn into a mess by the end of the day.

hayley was always covered in scrapes and bruises. there was never a day where she didn’t have a bandaid somewhere.

she was a really tall kid during elementary school. she was almost always the tallest kid in her class. around high school everyone outgrew her though and now she’s . really short compared to most people her age, but yeah when she was little . Tall Girl (2019).

hayley skateboarded in middle school, and she was really damn good at it. she got in loads of trouble for skateboarding on school property and she thought she was the coolest kid for doing it.

stan and francine tried really hard not to curse around hayley when she was little (once steve came around they gave up trying), but occasionally something would slip out and hayley would always parrot it. stan looking at a bill and muttering ‘shit’ and then in the living room hearing what is obviously a toddler screaming ‘SHIT’

hayley, like steve, was always kinda lonely during her school years. steve eventually found friends in snot, barry, toshi, and roger too once he moved in, but hayley never really learned proper social skills as she was often pushed away for being the loud rowdy ‘annoying’ kid, and they always viewed her attempts to try to get close to others as too ‘desperate’. she has found friends in her adulthood, but yeah during her childhood she mostly just stuck around her family.

hayley was That Kid who would always use those fake clip-on earrings you’d get from claires, as well as cutting up the spiral from her notebook to use as a fake lip piercing, and she’d spend all day trying to convince her classmates ‘yeah no it’s real’

hayley liked stealing her dad’s camera and using it to film fake vlogs. they have multiple reels that go from cute family videos, to hayley making lps vids and fake cooking tutorials.

hayley drew a lot growing up and francine still has dozens of her drawings magneted to the fridge. hayley’s always cringing and asking her to take them down, but tbh francine’s never going to.

hayley’s always loved being outside at night. occasionally she’d sneak steve out with her to play in the backyard and it’d always lead to them in the treehouse, and stan catching them because they kept shining their flashlight against their bedroom window.

steve ones:

steve’s definitely adhd, autistic, and dyslexic. (the latter’s literally canon, and the two former ones are hcs that to me feel so obvious that i’m always a little hesitant calling it a hc). i really like imagining his parents being really patient with him in this area, even stan learned to be more composed and gentle with him when it came to this, and the two of them helping him find ways to cope. francine especially enjoyed nights helping him read.

steve’s interest in birds has been with him for pretty much his entire life, i like to imagine it’s always been his biggest special interest. also i’ve noticed there’s random scenes where stan’s displayed a bit of an interest or at least an appreciation of birds, so i kinda like to imagine stan used to take steve to the park for birdwatching trips when he was young before steve started going with roger. sometimes francine and hayley would tag along, but mostly it was just stan taking steve out and listening to him ramble about all the birds he’s spotting,, every time steve had a bad day stan’s immediate solution was to take him to the park.

when roger first moved in, he and steve were inseparable. steve was obsessed with learning everything about him and his species and his home planet, while roger saw steve as the one safe person to be around (francine, hayley, and klaus were still anxious towards him while stan was too strict and controlling for him). for a good few months until he started bonding with the rest of the fam roger would get really mopey whenever steve would go to school or leave to hang with his other friends, and the second steve walked through that door roger would excitedly hug him and try to lead him off to go do something together.

@a-d-lesbian got me into the hc that steve’s a theater kid and like ,, i’m always thinking about steve getting a tiny little background role in a 6th grade christmas show that they were required to do as a class, and he just loses his mind. he convinces stan and francine to let him invite the grandparents, he has francine film every scene he’s in where he just . Stands There. and then after the show when they get home he makes them all rewatch them all because he’s really damn proud of himself.

steve’s fave books growing up were always xenofiction. stuff like warrior cats and guardians of ga’hoole and redwall. he loved that shit. like i’m just imagining him trying to get his friends to larp warrior cats but none of them read it so they don’t know what he wants them to do, and he keeps assigning them warrior cat sonas and calling them by warrior cat names at school,, and he keeps calling god ‘starclan’ (which makes stan. Mad). am i projecting? that’s a secret, i’ll never tell.

steve was absolutely the Anime Kid in middle school. the amount of times he got yelled at for naruto running in the hallways was far too much. and his faves were fruits basket, nichijou, and k-on.

i’m so obviously projecting with my steve hcs here but i’m not gonna stop and i’m gonna say steve’s a trans guy. i know it makes no sense in canon, but canon’s dead it’s mine now. anyways he’s known since around the time he started middle school, and stan and francine love him and support him and i don’t have much else to say without getting Too Projecting, but yeah steve’s trans.

steve was pretty socially anxious growing up. he did get better as he grew older obv, but when he was little he was A Mess in school.

steve loved making flower crowns when he was little. he learned how to in his 2nd grade art class and just obsessed over it for a good few years and he was always making them for the fam. francine, stan, and hayley didn’t mind, they thought it was cute. i can see hayley learning to make them too and the two of them exchanging crowns,, and francine probably learned how to make some too during her college years and steve would always get really excited whenever she tried making some with him. poor roger though, once he moved in, steve took him as his new model and roger was forced to suffer through sitting in the hot sun while steve covered him in flowers.

steve never stopped singing. oh my god, stan loves him but he eventually reached a point where he started hiding their disney movies because steve would always loudly sing along and he just wanted some peace and quiet to work.

i like to imagine klaus has a sibling-esque relationship with pretty much the entire fam, but especially with steve. he was always pretty protective of him despite not really being able to do anything if he got hurt, and klaus was always there to talk to whenever steve needed it.

steve’s always liked to help francine bake. originally it was just so he could claim the mixer of batter before hayley could, but he quickly got really invested and he still loves helping out.

and in general for the both of them:

steve was the type of kid who bonked his head against the table a little and would spend the rest of the night crying while francine comforted him,, while hayley was the type of kid who could fly down the stairs and leave an actual dent in the wall and she’d still jump up assuring everyone ‘i’m okay!!’

hayley and steve used to play pokemon together growing up. hayley was more casually into it while steve was more obsessed (i like to imagine it was a special interest of his growing up). nowadays hayley doesn’t play it too often, but every now and then some big news will happen like new starters getting revealed, and steve will show her and hayley still can’t help but get at least a bit excited each time.

francine tried to do cute little family halloween costumes a few years. the idea of them doing an addams family group costume is precious.

francine always took them out for christmas photos every year. just dozens of photos of the four of them in the tackiest sweaters. they don’t do it as often anymore (or at least they don’t take as many photos outside of a few while they’re setting up the tree) but they still have framed photos of them that they set on the fireplace mantle every year.

listen …….. there were definitely multiple instances when they were really little of stan coming home from work ,, and steve and hayley excitedly tackling him,,,, and stan dramatically acting like he’s being attacked and losing ,,,

despite roger being a Dick, he was super protective of the two of them back in the day. either of them come home from school with a bruise, and roger’s already planning out an elaborate revenge scheme.

as for stan ,,

i’m adopting @stancine’s hc to say he was definitely a country boy. i kinda like to imagine his uncle on his mother’s side lived on a farm, and stan was really close to him growing up and it just sorta became monthly to take weekend trips to see him.

stan loved horses. he was definitely a Horse Kid, and his fave breeds are clydesdales and friesians.

sheep too!! one of his favorite yearly activities is during the springtime when his uncle helps him out with shearing the sheep.

also stan loved camping. he loved going out on walks through the woods and he especially loved fishing, but the second the sun went down he cowered in the back of the tent next to his mom because he was terrified of the noises coming from outside.

stan was a really quiet kid growing up. he sucked at properly standing up for himself, that’s kinda the reason he’s so harsh on steve for accepting mistreatment because he knows how hard it is and he doesn’t want his son to go through the same shit he did.

mother’s day was always one of his favorite holidays. he’d be obsessed with planning the whole day around trying to make it perfect for betty. making her breakfast in bed and saving up his allowance to buy her a gift, and he’d always make elaborate art projects for her every year.

stan . tried to learn how to ride a motorcycle in high school. it was this random obsession he got for no reason where he just really wanted one, but he always panicked whenever he got the chance to try one out. never even got his permit because he was so scared.

stan had a lot of pent-up anger as a kid that he never even recognized as anger until he got older. because of that he often broke his toys on accident because something wasn’t working correctly, and sometimes he’d snap at teachers on accident. obv he still had a problem with it but at least now he knows what’s going on and can at least try to work on dealing with it.

betty used to read to stan at night when he was really young. they didn’t have many books around so it was just stan listening to her read the same four dr. seuss books over and over. he didn’t mind though.

stan’s always loved writing and a good chunk of his free time was writing little short stories. he took a creative writing class in high school and he almost immediately became the teacher’s pet.

stan was a pretty lonely socially inept kid and i like to think growing up he tried getting a lot of his ‘advice’ on how to interact with others through television. one time he tried to get a girl’s attention by doing the ‘throwing pebbles at their window’ trope, but he fucked up and got too big a stone and threw it too hard, and just shattered this poor girl’s window. and stan spent the rest of the night crying in his room before caving and turning himself in.

i can see him being really into superheroes when he was younger. just him bounding around the house with a blanket for a cape, acting out random scenes he read out of the latest issue he bought.

stan was obv a dog kid. he’d often find himself going to the adoption shelter near his house just to see the dogs there whenever he was feeling down. and his fave breeds were golden retrievers, pit bulls, and shelties.

god i have tons more for all of them but i’m gonna stop because this is already long enough as it is.

[prodigalsonheadcanons]

Okay, so I absolutely love how you write your headcanons! But would it be possible if you could do number 1 with Malcom asking the question to Gil? "Do you remember your name? The day?" I think that's what it was called...

You’re so sweet! I’m so glad you like them! I would love to write that for you! ♡

1.  “Can you hear me? Do you know what day it is? Your name?”

Before Gil could do anything, a harsh grip dug itself into his shoulder, and he was wrenched around to be on his back. He only had a split moment to see their suspect’s face, bloody from their fight and filled with unimaginable rage and hatred, before the man’s fist made painful contact with his jaw. His head was thrown with the force. He struggled to fight back, or at least try and get his attacker off of him. But they had the upper hand, and they weren’t planning on losing it anytime soon. The very second he was bringing his head back center, they were throwing another punch. And then another.

He tried to push them off, to shield his face, to do anything, but he couldn’t. The man rained down blow after blow without pause, and with every punch, Gil’s mind grew fuzzier. The pain was growing to be overwhelming. Blackness was edging his vision, in the split moments he had to open his eyes in the first place. By the sixth punch, his body had gone completely lax, against his will. By the eighth, he was growing numb. By the ninth, there was no grimace or flinch on his face— that was relaxing as well, just as unwillingly. By the tenth, he was almost unconscious. Barely there. Right on the border of being offered respite— a horrible kind of respite…but respite all the same. He felt himself start to fade.

But right before the numbness could swallow him up and drag him down completely, there was a gunshot. The weight that had been holding him down was gone. There was yelling, but he was too out of it to understand whatever it was that was being shouted. His head was slack to one side, frozen in its spot from the last punch that had been delivered. His eyes were still closed; they were too heavy to pry open. At first.

The yelling continued. But now there was a change. There was yelling that was much louder than all the others. Much closer. Much more panicked. The words were gradually leaking back into focus. “…-il! Gil, look— …-e, op—…-r eyes!” His forehead creased, the simple action causing another, sharper, band of agony to wrap around his skull. He started to open his eyes, little by little bit. He was disoriented. Everything was smeared and warped. But it was gradually beginning to come back into focus. The yelling got clearer, and so did the image in front of him. “Gil! Gil l— …me, look at me, Gil!” He blinked rapidly, struggling to drag himself back into awareness.

Eventually, he managed it.

Malcolm was on his hands and knees. Behind him, JT was putting handcuffs on their suspect, blood trickling down from their shoulder. Dani was helping him, but Malcolm wasn’t even glancing in their direction. He was staring down at him. His eyes were huge. When he realized that Gil was finally coming back to his senses, he was spurred on. “Gil!” The man grimaced again, and again, pain exploded behind his eyes. He could feel how hot and sticky his face was, with blood. “Gil! Can you hear me?” He couldn’t reply yet; he was still struggling against all the pain and nausea. Malcolm was becoming more urgent. “Gil! Gil, look at me— do you know what day it is? Your name?”

He let out a shaking breath. He tried to move, but the slightest shift, and his pain was taking his breath away. He opened his mouth, but it took a second for him to be able to form words. His jaw screamed in agony with the tiniest motion. His voice ended up coming out thick and sluggish. His eyes started to close again. “’m…he…” He couldn’t get it out. Not yet.

“Hey! Hey!” Malcolm ended up screaming. Gil flinched, and again, there was that lash of pain. But he opened his eyes, much faster this time. He was starting to come around. All that meant, though, was that he was becoming painfully – very painfully – aware of everything, again. He was aware of every injury, and all the blood. His entire face felt like it was on fire, and his head was pounding. 

But while he became aware of all of the pain, he became aware of Malcolm, too.

His eyes were huge and blazing with panic. The longer Gil didn’t respond, the more terrified he grew. He inched even closer, leaned down even more. “Gil! Answer me!” His hands were shaking. Violently. His voice cracked when he pressed: “Tell me what day it is!”

He had to grimace again. But at least this time, he could manage to reply. “It’s…Thursday…” he breathed.

He expected Malcolm to relax just a little bit. Or at least start to calm down. But he didn’t. His eyes stayed wild and stricken. His hands just shook more. “What’s your name!? Tell me your name!”

“Gil Arroyo.” His voice was getting clearer. Everything was spinning less. He could bear the pain.

Malcolm lashed out, grabbing his wrist. In his obvious panic, he ended up yanking too hard on accident. Gil cried out from the tug, but Malcolm was too focused. He was breathing fast— every inhale was sharp and hitched. He scrambled to find his pulse and take it. “What year is it?” he pressed. Gil frowned. He opened his mouth, but Malcolm was already repeating himself in a snap, even though there had only been a three-second window for him to answer. And that was a generous estimate of three seconds. “Gil, what year is it!?”

“It’s 2019.” He could feel how difficult it was for him just to keep a grip on him, thanks to how much his hand was trembling. Still, he kept trying, though, staring down at his watch like he was a deer and it was an oncoming car. “Malcolm…Malcolm, you don’t need to—”

“Your pulse is 116,” he breathed, his voice shaking just as much as his hands were when he put his arm down. He yanked his phone out of his pocket and, without warning, turned his flashlight on and shined it directly in his eyes. Gil cried out again, immediately reaching up to get it away. Malcolm’s grip was so unstable, it was slapped right out of his hand. He scrambled to grab it again. “Gil, I need to see your pupil reactivity, you need to let me shine a light in your eyes! I need to see if your—!”

“Malcolm…I’m fine…” he manages.

Malcolm was shaking his head before he could even finish. “No— no you’re not fine you’re not fine.” He was speaking so quickly, there was hardly any space between his words. He was trying to keep himself together but Gil froze when he realized that there was a harshness to his eyes. That the light was glinting off of them, and giving away the fact they were filled with water. “You’re not fine you could have a concussion you could have a skull fracture you could have damaged your brainstem your autonomic functioning could be impaired if we don’t—”

“Malcolm…”

He kept talking right over him, probably not even noticing he’d spoken in the first place. He was grabbing his phone again, shining the light in his eyes again, and ignoring Gil’s grimace as he kept rambling. “—act soon the trauma could cause brain hemorrhage or hematoma your brain could be swelling and every second it just gets worse and your brain can’t cope with increased pressure there’s only a certain—”

“Malcolm.”

“—amount of pressure your skull can accommodate once it tries to adjust it’ll start reducing the amount of circulating blood and that can lead to insufficient circulation—”

“Malcolm!”

“—so we need to get you to the hospital we need to get help and make sure you’re okay we need to get a CT scan and an MRI we need to make sure you’re helped before it’s too late and there’s irreversible tissue death or you have a stroke and have to—”

“Malcolm!” Gil raised his voice into a yell, abrasive only in the attempt to get him to listen. He probably wouldn’t have. He probably would have kept on rambling, had Gil not reached out and grabbed his arm. His grasp was tight and Malcolm was immediately choking into silence. His stare was blank and his mouth half-open. Gil looked at him steadily. “Malcolm…” Malcolm’s shoulders slouched. His tears were seconds away from falling; you would have to be blind not to notice. Gil went soft. “Malcolm, I’m fine.”

Malcolm took in a sharp breath and shook his head. He tried to protest. “No— you’re not, we need to get you to the hospital, Dani said she would call an ambulance, you need to— you need to count backward from 100 for me, you need to show that you still have cognitive—”

“Malcolm.” Malcolm flinched, his head ducked low. “Malcolm, look at me. Hey.” When he did, and when he opened his eyes, Gil could see the change in him. The panic was beginning to ebb away, but all that was left was everything he knew Malcolm hated to show. There was worry and concern, but even more prominent than that, there was fear. Palpable, strong fear. Gil was taken aback when he saw the sheer magnitude of it. It took him a moment to be able to speak. His hand stayed on his arm, but it was much gentler now. So was his voice when he insisted: “I’m okay.”

Malcolm searched his face. Suddenly, there was nothing but vulnerability, to see. “You don’t know that…” His words were so flimsy, they could be crumpled up like paper. “You could…have a hemorrhage, or a stroke, or—”

“Hey, hey…”  He smiled. Under all the blood and lacerations, Gil smiled for him, and that, coupled with how tender he sounded, was the final straw. Malcolm closed his eyes tightly, and Gil’s heart twisted when he saw a tear trace down the side of his face. “Kid…” He cringed even more, and another tear escaped. His lower lip trembled violently. Gil squeezed his arm a little more, only to reassure him. “I’m fine. Everything is going to be fine.”

Another tear escaped, and he quickly wiped it away. Gil didn’t draw attention to it. Malcolm swallowed hard. He looked at all his injuries and all the blood. He remembered how horrified he’d felt the second he’d seen the man beating him. When he’d realized that Gil hadn’t been fighting back, because he couldn’t. The horror had burned so fiercely, it was still with him. Still causing his heart to pound, still causing his hands to shake. “You— could’ve…” He barely croaked this out.

“I know,” Gil murmured. Malcolm’s lips trembled again, but Gil’s smile stayed. “But I didn’t. You got here in time. I’m gonna be fine.”

There was a long stretch of silence. Another tear fell down Malcolm’s face but this time he didn’t bother to wipe it away. There was extreme sorrow and fear in his eyes, but there was also extreme uncertainty. He opened his mouth, and closed it. He took in a breath, but it went nowhere. He grimaced and closed his eyes. Struggled to force out: “I…Gil, I can’t…I can’t…lose…” He looked frustrated and overwhelmed.

But Gil knew. 

His chest warmed. His smile softened. “I know. You won’t.” Malcolm looked at him, almost desperately. “Trust me…” Gil added. “You’re not gonna be able to get rid of me that easy, kid.”

Malcolm sniffed. At first, he did nothing. But then he cracked, and smiled too. He wiped his eyes. The smile he gave in return was weak. The happiness was there, though. And so was the relief, however minimal and hesitant. Relief not only in the fact that he was okay, but at the fact that he’d understood. That Malcolm didn’t actually have to say it, because he knew he was horrible with that kind of stuff. From down the road, they heard the ambulance making its way to them. They’d go to the hospital and they’d do all the scans, and tests. They would get his wounds cleaned and stitched up. They would make sure everything was absolutely fine.

But for now, they just waited. Neither of them speaking because neither of them had to.

They stayed together. Refusing to part, just like they would likely refuse to part for the trip to the hospital.

Gil didn’t move his arm. He stayed holding onto Malcolm.

Malcolm didn’t pull away.

[orionsangel86]

13x12 - Episode Review - What is Fifth Base Anyway?

So the people at Google must have been confused when they discovered the number of searches for “fifth base” drastically went up overnight… Steve Yokey you cheeky bugger I love you! (Show of hands everyone who did this? Go on, admit it!)

This episode was really good. One of the stronger ones of an already very strong bunch as season 13 continues to exceed in quality. It had jokes, it had deep emotional revelations, it had Cas once again using his SuperPower of sassing the fuck out of things to get what he wants. Yeah it was pretty awesome! So let’s delve into the main points.

The Red Herring Love Spell

We were all expecting this to be an episode similar to 12x11 based on how it was marketed to us. Dean is under a love spell! It’s up to Sam and Rowena to save him! That seemed to be the gist of the PR team’s focus. As ever, PR is not Showrunning and this turned out to be one giant red herring.

The love spell lasted all of five minutes. So why bother? WHY was a love spell even PART of this plot?! Seriously? Someone tell me how this episode couldn’t have followed the EXACT same narrative with the sisters using some other spell to force people to do things for them? The fact is, that love spell was pointless for the plot but excellent for getting people thinking about LOVE. Specifically, Dean Winchester and LOVE, or at least, what love should be, and what it most definitely is not.

Aside from the fact that the clunky music whenever the love spell was invoked made me cringe, I thoroughly enjoyed how innocent it all seemed. Dean got to play Prince Charming to the princess and provide her with a gift of her choosing. I think it says something about Dean that the love spell encouraged this fairy tale vibe specifically for him, when for Dale at the start it was all about him playing protector and hero through violence and theft. I just thought it was an interesting statement about Dean’s wishes and desires compared to other men. Though I gotta admit, the gift giving, goofiness and oh I dunno, protecting his lover from a gun? It all seemed rather familiar to me… Hmmm…

I mean who else has Dean previously entrusted with powerful one off weapons?

Who else has Dean had to recently protect from a pointed gun much to his own horror rather than the recipient who is unlikely to be harmed by a regular gun anyway?

Who else makes Dean goofy and pull these silly delighted faces?

*looks into the camera like on the Office*

Yeah, but see these are not really examples of true love, even though they are all things done with Cas. What IS true love in season 13 is something that subtextually KEEPs getting referred to in EVERY EPISODE. That in 13x01 – 13x05 Dean was deeply lost in grief. Deeply mourning over the loss of Cas – someone who he is truly in love with. Love makes you do crazy things? Yeah, and as Billy said in 13x05 (Yokey’s last episode FYI) Dean wanted to die. Cas’s death had brought him to that level. The fact that now it is SAM who is feeling low, feeling powerless because of the loss of Mary and Jack, and Dean is able to remain focussed and have HOPE that they will save them, continues to be astonishingly hypocritical of Dean given where he was when Cas was dead. But it does keep drawing our attention to that fact, and for that I love it.

Bonus point for “I think you may be right, I think its time we go ahead and call Cas…” … “I’m in love” because Yokey could have written Sam saying ANYTHING at that point but he chose to remind the audience about Cas at that exact moment… as Dean announces he is in love, because the two are connected (and because it then wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to assume that Sam’s initial reaction is “Oh… so you finally admit it?”)

(FYI this crappy gif is my own. Don’t judge. It’s the first I’ve ever made.)

Sam’s mild amusement here just fits the “oh so you finally admit it? We can call Cas and start the wedding preparations?” interpretation and NO ONE can stop me seeing it that way! :D

Bonus Point two for the mentions of “Soulmates” (which relate to Angels in the show) and “Cosmic” (which again, tends to relate to angels and Cas).

Bonus point three that this is an episodes marketed as Dean being in love! LOOK AT ALL THIS HETEROSEXUALITY! It seems to scream at our general audiences, and yet, as always in SPN, if the GA are seeking heterosexuality, they are to be disappointed. They got a 5 minute mini love spell plot and Dean once again is without even a hint of an actual true female romantic partner. Nope, sorry heteros seeking a woman for Dean. You won’t find that here!

Basically, it’s not too much of a stretch to interpret this entire love spell mini plot as exposition for the TRUTH regarding Dean and “true love”. Because we all know it. It’s right there in the subtext. I just wish they’d make it text already.

Review continues under the cut as per usual...

Addressing Long unspoken Trauma – FINALLY

Officially my favourite part of the episode (unofficially my second fave part after “fifth base”), the conversations between Sam and Rowena about their trauma at the hands of Lucifer had me welling up. This is the first time in SPN history that Sam has actually opened up to ANYONE about his Lucifer trauma. Read that again. Be amazed that it has taken this long. Send Dabb and Yokey a fruit basket for this.

One thing season 13 has been excellent at doing, is making things textual that were previously only implied. This seems to be a continued trend following on from the reveal in 12x22 that Dean is effectively Sam’s parent (A fact meta writers have been talking about for YEARS.)

I don’t really have much to say about it actually, because it’s all just THERE in the text. It has left me kind of speechless.

SAM: Its not gonna change anything, you’re still gonna feel helpless. What Lucifer did to you…

ROWENA: I told you I don’t… before he crushed my skull, Lucifer showed me his face. His true face. I’m scared Sam. All the time.

SAM: I’ve seen it too. What he really looks like behind… behind whatever vessel… yeah it still keeps me up at night.

ROWENA: How do you deal with it?

SAM: I guess I don’t deal with it, not really. I mean I…Ive pushed it down, and the world kept almost ending and so I keep pushing it down and I dunno… I don’t really talk about it, not even with Dean, I mean I could… he would listen but, it’s not something I really know how to share.

…..

SAM: Even if you do get the book, and even if you get your power back. It won’t matter. You won’t ever be able to change what happened, you won’t be able to change how helpless you felt, or how helpless you feel. You’re still gonna get scared. That feeling, that feeling never goes away.

ROWENA: Never?

SAM: Never.

…

Honestly it’s perfect. Yokey has decided that enough is enough. We need to discuss this. We need to talk about the fact that our main characters have a shit load of trauma. It’s about GODDAMN TIME.

(x)

I just want to scream about the shots for a second though because god bless Amanda Tapping for being so excellent at capturing emotions. I am starting to think she is one of the best directors for it. The intimate long close ups on the actors faces as they open about this stuff, it just works. The soft music in the back ground pulls no focus away from the gravity of Sam’s words. It’s intense, and harrowing and kudos to Jared here because I think he must have been ITCHING for a moment like this for Sam for YEARS (and for god sake someone ask him about this scene at a con instead of more bloody prank questions PLEASE.)

I also love that it’s Rowena who Sam opens up to about this stuff, because she has that in common with him. I know that it can be argued that Cas has also experienced trauma at the hands of Lucifer, but since Cas is an angel it’s not the same. I doubt Lucifer’s true face would affect Cas, since Cas is already an angel with the ability to see and cope with seeing things that human minds struggle to comprehend.

I think Rowena and Sam is our new Dean and Crowley. They are enemies, but they have a mutual respect for one another and I see this as a really good thing both for Sam and Rowena. Because Crowley was changed thanks to his bond with Dean (love for Dean), he was able to find redemption in that. Rowena could also now find redemption, especially considering her newly powered up status. For Sam I think it was a smart choice to give Rowena the pages at the end. It wasn’t just about the bond they formed over shared trauma, it was Sam knowing that Rowena is right, that Lucifer will always find a way back, and Sam knows that eventually he will have to face him again, and he needs all the help and power he can get, so a powered up Rowena is a powerful ally to have against the creature that tortured and broke both their spirits.

Am I shipping them? No, not really. I still think Rowena is a villain. I never shipped Drowley, though I acknowledge it’s existence in the show as basically a hairsbreadth away from canon. (it’s technically just as close to canon if not more so than Destiel and strongly implied that they hooked up in various episodes). But if the show did go there with Sam and Rowena I wouldn’t mind it as such. I just don’t think it would be endgame. But sure, it could work for a while. I see them more like frenemies with mutual interests. Besides, I’m a Saileen girl all the way and will continue to hope for Eileen’s resurrection this season.

Narrative Mirrors – Witches and Winchesters

Ah narrative mirrors, don’t we love them? I especially love them when they highlight the Winchester family dynamics and just how screwed up they all are. Our witchy sisters fall extremely easily into this category. Jamie and Jenny or “J2” as I now plan to call them (I see what you did there Yokey). So J2 are motivated to do whatever it takes to bring back mum. Whatever it takes even though they are hardly competent witches and only seem to have one spell mastered – the love spell. The older sister uses her charm to encourage the victims to do whatever they wish for, whilst the younger sister is the smarter of the two, more skilled in magic (I wonder who they are supposed to represent?)

They have one purpose, and will stop at nothing until that purpose is fulfilled:

JAMIE: I’m sorry, I know I’m the big sister and I’m supposed to be the strong one or whatever.

JENNY: Yeah?

JAMIE: I just really miss her.

JENNY: I do too.

JAMIE: I know, and I like, really believe in us

JENNY: Jamie, I just want her back so bad

JAMIE: And we’re going to get her back, even if we have to cast every spell in this book and curse the souls of like a million people to make it happen.

Doesn’t this sound rather familiar? Like from 13x09:

DEAN: You were right, about mom you were right, this whole time we should have been looking for her

SAM: I was just hoping, I didn’t know. And anyway it doesn’t matter, now that we do know.

DEAN: We find her, no matter what it takes.

Which always made me kinda uncomfortable. There is a reason that Billy didn’t want Dean knowing their mum was still alive. Because Billy knows that the Winchesters would break the Universe to bring her back. “House of Cards” she called it. What’s the betting that thanks to Sam and Dean this “house of cards” is going to come tumbling down just as Billy predicted? Because I would put money on it.

At the end of the episode, we realise that Sam and Dean are in exactly the same place as J2. Jamie – the older sister, trying to support and reassure her younger sister, the one who “wants mom back so badly”. Jamie, unlike her sister, is totally focused on completing their task, whereas Jenny has her doubts. Just like Sam and Dean. We know that Dean is back to “We’ll figure it out” and “you and me” even though Sam is NOT on board with this, but like Jenny, Sam will follow Dean into a hornets nest if it means doing what they set out to do and save mum.

The girls mum came back wrong though, a zombie. When Mary was first resurrected she certainly wasn’t what the boys expected either, and now she is lost again, whose to say just what state she will be in when she is finally freed? Perhaps the message for the boys here is to actually let her go? As in, let go of the memory of Mary that they had sat on a pedestal (Dean in particular) and start to accept the woman their mother actually is, and let her do her thing, because otherwise it may kill them all.

And isn’t this moment just a perfect visual representation of the toxic co-dependency that is the Winchester brothers? Stab stab stab. One of them even has a hammer… LOL.

(Yup its another one of my crappy gifs.)

The Sassiest Angel in the Garrison

Oh Cas, I have missed your beautiful face…

(x)

(Dipper agrees with me)

Now I think everyone knows by now that I hate Lucifer. As in, I find the character extremely irritating and just want him off our screens dead and buried, and that Mark P can go annoy some other shows audience. The ONLY thing that makes watching Lucifer remotely bearable for me, is Castiel - wonderful, perfect, funny, grumpy, brilliant Castiel, sassing the fuck out of him. Bearing in mind all their scenes but one took place behind bars, I was as always captivated by Cas and the brilliant genius he is.

So far in season 13, Castiel hasn’t actually spent much time using his powers, his grace, to actually get anything done. What he has done, is be incredibly smart and used that tactician brain of his to talk himself out of any situation. Everything Castiel does has a purpose. He is generally a creature of few words (except when it comes to Dean) and therefore, whenever he does speak, it is usually with a great deal of thought. (There was a brilliant meta on the word “assbutt” and how it is the worst insult he could possibly throw at Lucifer and yet everyone still ridicules him for it. Don’t knock the word assbutt. Cas knew exactly what he was doing!)

And so Cas isn’t just being a sassy little bitch in this episode. He’s being a sassy little bitch with purpose. Lucifer may be powered down, but he still has power. Cas knows this. Cas knows that the best way to get Lucifer activating what little power he has is to make him angry. So what does Cas do? He sass’s him, over and over. Pissing him off until eventually, it works.

“Turns out rage is a good motivator”

Such a badass. Bye bye little Dipper.

This is why you should never underestimate Castiel. He will always get the better of you. He will always come out on top in the end.

“This is me, learning from my mistakes” he says whilst stabbing Lucifer at the end of the episode. I thoroughly enjoyed that moment of course, even if we know already it doesn’t stick. Since Lucifer is alive next episode. *sigh*.

Lucifer has been continuously hinting all episode that he want’s Cas’s grace. It seems possible due to pics from next week, that he may actually get what he seeks.

Cas has blood on his collar, which he doesn’t have at the end of 13x12. So is Cas about to become human again? Or at least graceless? It’s possible. @tinkdw​ wrote this post about it (yes I stole her screencap). We were discussing this in our group chat yesterday and thanks to the themes that would come from another human!Cas story I can certainly get behind it, even if I hate the idea that it isn’t his choice yet again. This time, having Lucifer steal his grace seems worse than the first time. But as I mentioned above, Castiel has already shown several times this season that his grace is in no way where his strengths lie. I just hope that it is still his choice in the end to give it up, or not regain it, however that story may pan out.

But yeah maybe prepare ourselves for a human Cas whose grace was stolen by Lucifer plot? I mean if it doesn’t happen great, but if it does... don’t say we didn’t warn ya okay? I know how sensitive we all get about Cas stuff - this is literally the first any of us had thought of this. Besides, he’ll still be amazing even if Lucifer does take his grace, He’ll get in a few more stabs before the end. No doubt.

Other Awesome Stuff

The “fifth base” scene. Yeah this was certainly risqué of Yokey. I was screaming about this to Tink in the chatty bubbles, trust a gay writer to throw in a gay joke aimed at our currently in the closet bisexual lead character and have him act all awkward like he doesn’t know what it is… *glances at Sam* What? Nope, I’ve never… There’s NO SUCH THING AS FIFTH BASE. Sure Jan. Just as I scoff at the idea of Dean not knowing basic French, the idea that Dean DOESN’T know what fifth base is, is absurd. These are purposely input into this episode to raise our eyebrows and DOUBT them.

Baring in mind the way Rowena asks that question “Did THEY get to fifth base?” not “Did YOU get to fifth base” strongly implies actually that Rowena was asking if Dean was pegged. Let’s get that clear. Once again, we have a bottom!dean joke in the subtext of the show. (At some point we need to round up EVERY reference to Dean’s ass and compare it to the other characters just to make this point.)

Oh gosh I haven’t even got to “What’s by is by” yet. The top result in google for this supposed saying is a destiel fanfic written as coda for this episode. There is NOTHING else. It doesn’t exist. What is Yokey playing at exactly? Bygones be bygones maybe? But she had to say it like that? After a reference to anal? To DEAN? Yeah I know everyone is probably already yelling about this on tumblr but still. This is a very huge WTF from me to Yokey that he would ever think we WOULDN’T pick up on this. He did it on purpose. It has a reason, just like everything else. The reason being “Dean is Bi”.

......

(x)

The final scene with Rowena is spectacular. It’s also oddly erotic but maybe that’s just me. Rowena is finally unbound, powerful, free, and probably quite deadly. Here’s hoping she raises a hell of a storm. I have always loved Rowena’s character so for me this idea of her being “unbound” and basically immortal is really interesting. I just hope this paves the way to her helping the Winchesters defeat the big bads to come. Because I see her becoming more of an ally as time goes by. I hope she continues to have a big part to play in the story, and after this final scene I am practically sure she will. 

....

Castiel speaking about Jack like he’s a proud parent gives me life. He truly loves the kid. It’s beautiful.

....

Why does Lucifer attract so many dick jokes nowadays? I’m actually almost getting tired of them. For shits and giggles I’m gonna accept it at face value that Lucifer, unlike Crowley, is not well endowed. It makes sense. The tantrums, the violence. Little man syndrome. Pfft.

I’m also going to take it at face value that Cas is most likely huge. Yeah, that smirk is telling.

We all know he’s a big boy. ;-)

.... 

Hats off to Brenda. The biggest star of the episode. Never failed to make me laugh every time I watched.

You go Brenda. You were awesome.

Overall

Solid episode with lots of great moments. Now all I need is Cas to find the boys and get really pissy with them when he realises they didn’t ONCE figure out that Colonel Sanders was impersonating him. I mean sure, Dean has super low self esteem and was clearly grumpy with Cas at the start of the episode for only really checking in with Sam, not coming home after taking off, clearly CHOOSING the road over being at home with HIM... But that doesn’t excuse him being blind to Asmodeus’s impersonation. Bring on next week. I hope Dean grovels.

[dishonoredrpg]

Congratulations, MINI! You’ve been accepted for the role of THE HIEROPHANT with the faceclaim of ANNA SHAFFER. Wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Reading this through from start to finish, and sipping at my coffee -- I felt genuinely at peace. I knew right from the start you pinned down The Hierophant’s character, right from the very first sentence: “When you are brought into this world, a screaming and writhing ball of fury, your mother wails over and over: “I’m burning. I’m burning. I’m burning.”” Boom. Immediately hooked, no hesitation, no doubt. What followed was an in-depth dissection of human anger and rage and what happens when you let a pot boil over. I am fully prepared to let Kithri burn all of Tyrholm down when the time is right. In fact, I welcome the flames.

Please review the CHECKLIST and send your blog in within 24 hours.

OOC INFORMATION:

Name: Hey there! I go by Mini. Pronouns: She/Her/Hers. Age: I am 24! Timezone/Activity Level: I live in New York, so my time zone is EST. I work full time, but my hours are steady and I have evenings/weekends free. One of the things that excites me about this group is the promise of it being writing-heavy, and so in order to produce quality replies I would say that I will certainly be able to get posts up a few days during the week. I am also almost always at least mobile on Discord, and I am really committed to character development — I am frequently around to talk plotting or headcanons. Overall, I just intend to be an active presence! Anything Else: Nope!

IN CHARACTER INFORMATION:

Skeleton: The Hierophant. Name: Kithri Barwin (Pronunciation: ki as in “kiss,” -three, bar-win) Faceclaim: I did send in the message asking after a couple different possible FCs for this character, and I’d say of those that were approved, Anna Shaffer and Jodie Comer are my preferred FCs. I struggle to choose between the two, but I would say that Anna is my first choice, and Jodie is my second. When it comes to Anna Shaffer, I think that her look fits the vibe of the character in a big way. Generally, I almost feel like she fits into the world you’ve created better. I really love her and think she would suit the role nicely, my only hold up for her is that she looks so nice in all of her Witcher resources, and I’d like to have a FC that has range within their resources. But, I can also easily see her fitting the image I have in my head for the character. I’d have to boost her age a bit, probably 3 years — putting the character again at around 31. The thing that I like about Jodie, particularly in The White Princess (which would probably be the source I’d largely draw on for gifs), is that she does an excellent job of portraying this barely-contained rage in her face that I think translates very well to this role. Again, I’d have to boost up her age a bit for the appropriate range — I’d say I’d probably still play the character at around age 31, so 4 years older than Jodie. Really, I’d be happy with either one of them — whoever you see as being more of a fit! Age: 31 Details:

The first line of the skeleton, “you consider the day you celebrate your thirtieth year alive a victory over everything else,” immediately hooked me. What I get from this character is that every moment they live and breathe is something that they view as something that ought to be worthy of awe and admiration; and yet they are met with nothing more than a passing interest, and treated by many as a party trick. They are gifted and captivating, until they are no longer interesting to the people of the court. I also see the “arrogance” perceived in this character as being a huge coping mechanism — what choice do they have but to be proud of their power and the fact that they are living when no one else will recognize it? How can they not be proud, when they feel in their blood and bones that there is so much more power in them than is “appropriate” to display? And what is the point of this power, and the inevitable total consumption that it brings with it, if not to use it? Why do they have to look at their ever-growing scarification, and feel time ticking, if they receive nothing in return? I think for this character, the final straw was the utter dismissal of THE EMPEROR when they asked for the chance to fight at Koldam and show their true power. This was the final sign that neither Septimus nor his son would ever view them as having any more value than being court entertainment. Tyrholm and its King have given them nothing. And if they will not allow this character to embrace their power, then they will burn for it.

On a personal note, I can say that what really draws me to this character is a huge opportunity to play outside of my comfort zone and love doing it. I LOVE fantasy/medieval-type groups, and I tend to gravitate towards noble-class characters, or characters who are political animals. (I am a classic Margaery Tyrell applicant, basically.) But I am so in love with a character who is not only not invested in politics, but seems to almost entirely disregard it as being nothing more than a burden. I also love that they appear to increasingly wear their heart on their sleeve, and both emote and vocalize their disdain — I can only imagine what trouble they might find themselves in because of it. Furthermore, I can only imagine what trouble they might want to create.

And lastly, I did some research into THE HIEROPHANT tarot card. I am very interested in the idea of this card being the counterpart to THE HIGH PRIESTESS, which I’ll discuss further in the plot ideas section. The Hierophant traditionally represents traditional values and institutions, spiritual wisdom, and conformity. I view this character as being a clear representation of the card’s reversal, which represents personal beliefs, freedom, and challenging the status quo.  

BACKGROUND:

Below is Kithri’s backstory. This is my first attempt at writing second person POV for a bio, but I wanted to keep in the style of the skeleton!

i. ignition.

When you are brought into this world, a screaming and writhing ball of fury, your mother wails over and over: “I’m burning. I’m burning. I’m burning.” When you are brought to her breast to suckle, she shrieks and pushes you away and claims “it hurts.”  

Your mother cries for four days until her voice deadens to silence, and her teary eyes go unseeing. The midwives explain to your father that childbed sickness took her, and that it was the fever that burned her, but he does not believe them. He explains precisely two things to the women: one, that you are not his child, and two, that you murdered his wife. On the first, he is unquestioningly right. You do not carry his features, nor do you particularly look like your now-dead mother. Your face belongs to another man — who, your not-father does not know. It only matters that the memory of his wife has been tarnished, and the only piece of her that he might go on to have has not even done him the kindness of bearing her eyes or smile. On the second, the truth is complicated. You were unborn and your mother lived, then you came into the world and she died. Without you, she may have lived on. But is that murder? Your not-father assures you that it is.

He raises you, because he fears and loves the Undying God and knows that you must be his burden to achieve a blissful afterlife. He gives you his surname, even though to do so pains him. He allows you to call him father, even though he cringes every time you say it in your tiny, childish voice. You do all that you can to persuade him to love you, but it is all for naught. You are bad, and there is nothing you can do to be good. It becomes easier to lean into being bad, because then he at least has a reason to look at you. You are loud because it is the only way to avoid being ignored. You whine and cry and begin to throw tantrums until your not-father threatens to throttle you, or to toss your small body into the fireplace that you tend to gravitate to so often; as if it is the comforting skirts of an ever-absent matronly figure. It does not stop you. You beg to be seen, and will take whatever punishment comes with it.

One day, you are so angry and cry so much that it has no choice but to pour out of you: fire leaks from your burning fingertips and crawls up your throat from the black despair of your gut. For the first time, you see that your father does not simply hate you — he fears you. When it happens three more times — the fire finally unleashing itself from your mouth on the last occasion — you can hear your not-father crying to the Undying God for mercy as you pretend to sleep. Despite the tight squeeze of your eyes, you can feel the way the embers from the nearby fireplace pull towards you with something like a magnetic force  — inching closer and closer,  as if to give your fingers a soothing lick.

You are six years old when your father saddles the horse and tells you that the two of you will be going on a trip — a long journey from your home in Koldam to a place called Tyrholm that you know nothing about. You are misguidedly excited. The ride is long and arduous, but you enjoy the forced embrace of your father’s arms around you while you sit in front of him on the horse’s saddle. He mutters often how hot your skin is, but the comments rush over your small head. He brings you to a city much larger than the home you came from, and takes you to an inn where the people do not know you and give you ignorant, kind smiles. He whispers to the husband and wife who own the inn while you eat a hot meal, and later chastises you for your nosiness when you ask him what they spoke about. As you are drifting off to sleep, you think you hear your father remark with a sense of uncharacteristic pleasure: “we are a long way from home.”

When you wake the next morning, your not-father is gone.

ii. blaze.

Your father’s abandonment causes a tantrum unlike any you have had before, and in your grief you nearly burn down the inn that he has left you to. The woman who runs the now-damaged property coughs smoke from her lungs as she grabs you by your wild hair and promises to make you regret what you’ve done. Her husband is more empathetic, and wrestles you from the murderous woman’s arms as he attempts to soothe his wife: “she’ll be dead before long, sweetling — do not test the Undying God’s mercy by killing her yourself!”

The wife yells more at the husband, and the husband tries again to calm his wife, but all you hear is that you are dying, and the revelation leaves you feeling chilled for the first time in your life. With fear coursing through your veins, you run from the couple. You run even as the innkeeper attempts to take some of the gold coins your father had paid him to toss at your feet. You run even as the innkeeper’s wife screams for the guard. You run until exhaustion claims you, and you sleep that night in a cramped alleyway amongst the muck.

When you wake, you realize that you are truly alone. You do not know the way back to Koldam, and even if you did, you cannot simply walk back. You have no coin with which to purchase passage back to your home — and even if you did, you know with a too-mature sense of realism that nothing awaits you there. You are as good as an orphan, though perhaps that has been the case since the moment your mother breathed her last breath.

You survive on the streets in spite of the stink of death that clings to your skin. You steal to eat when the charity of strangers fails you, and sleep under porches and in hidden shadows. There are brief instances when merciful strangers allow you to sleep amongst their livestock, and even briefer occasions when a bleeding heart takes you under their roof for an evening. No one will hold on to you for long once they have an inkling of what you are. Slowly, you learn what that is. The inferni are the stuff of childhood nightmares, and now you are more horror than girl. For a long time, you strive to ignore the feeling of fire under your skin. For a long time, you wait to die. Despite this, you continue to live.

When the fire inside of you can no longer be denied, and when you are no longer convinced that every day you will die tomorrow, you start to play with the magic — just a little bit, and just to see. You watch as fire dances on your fingertips, and flows from your lips. You feel the way glowing torches and roaring fireplaces call out to you. Slowly, carefully, you find that you can bend the flames to your whim. You sense the innate control you have over the fire, even despite the cautious voice that whispers it controls you.

Over time, dying begins to feel an awful lot like growing power.

iii. wildfire.

You become the topic of whispers in Tyrholm, and you cannot deny that you like it. They whisper that you ought to be dead by now, and they whisper that you could burn a stable and all its horseflesh without blinking an eye. In all your years in the foreign city that has reluctantly become home, you have caused outright destruction only a handful of times, and nearly always by accident. There are few over the years who have cared enough to know your name, and your tendency to hide in plain sight means that you have evaded the notice of the guard.

You have never destroyed a stable with your burning hands, but when you hear the rumor, you know that you assuredly could. But what is true does not matter to the mundane civilians, who view your magic as something that can never be tamed. You have always craved attention, and you endeavor to feed off of their fear if it is all they will allow, but it does not taste nearly so sweet as the awe and reverence you not-so-secretly hope for. You think that if you could only show them all what mastery you have over the fire that flows from your body, they might realign themselves accordingly. Just as you did with yourself, you can slowly show them what you can do, and gradually reveal your power. Beyond the fears of conflagration, there is a beauty to what you can do; your very existence is something to behold, if they would only look your way.

If you cannot convince them to be wonderstruck by what you are capable of, you do not know what other options you have. You are uneducated and without a trade; too short-tempered to be a serving wench and too proud to be a whore. If they cannot see your beauty, whatever time you have left will comprise much of how you have lived so far: a street urchin on the brink of starvation, equal parts hungry and angry. Your very survival depends on a change of their hearts. You know that in order for them to be awed by you, you must act as if you are awed by yourself.

This forced arrogance is your downfall.

You bring too much attention to yourself too quickly, and the guardsmen that the innkeeper once threatened you with as a child finally arrive, albeit nearly twenty years later. You suspect at first that you will be brought to the cells and charged with disobeying the confusing laws on magic set forth by Septimus, but instead you are brought to Castle Tyrholm. Bizarrely, you are told that you will be brought before the King. You assume that this must be because he wants to deliver the punishment to you himself; to make an example out of you in front of his court. You expect to be thrust onto your knees before his throne, and instead find yourself ushered into the reception hall sometime after the King and his nobleblooded guests have eaten their fill. The occupants, Septimus included, stare at you. You stare back. A miserable beat passes, and then the King demands:

“Entertain us, mage.”

You waver for a moment, unsure of what to do, but decide ultimately that if your eternal fate is to die, you would rather do so showing them all some small piece of what you are capable of. You don’t approach the extent of your capabilities, but you allow a fraction of your true power to escape in a pretty dance of flames that causes gasps to erupt amongst the blue-blooded guests. When you tire yourself, you expect to see condemnation on the faces that surround you. The sound of applause is foreign, and you unabashedly revel in it.

You are offered a position at court that evening, and you do not hesitate in taking it. A part of you knows that it is not an offer, but a demand  — you are just too clouded by the heady haze of appreciation to mull over the consequences of that difference.

iv. inferno.

Six years elapse at the King’s court, and you have long-since known that it is not the hub of reverence you had hoped it could be. Not for your kind. Regretfully, it is not even a place where you feel at all accepted or appreciated for who you are. You are not exactly feared by the nobles who occupy the court, but it is not because what you are and what you are capable of does not frighten them. They view you as something wild that the King has broken; a dog on a very tight leash that does tricks for food and shelter. Their laughter is sometimes uncomfortable as they watch you perform your magic in the court, but they are nonetheless comfortable enough to laugh at all. Their applause is sometimes stilted when it is too clear that you are angry as you put on your little show, but they clap when Septimus claps anyway.

You would not dare bite the hand that feeds.

For all the scars that mar your body — the mark of death on your skin over and over again — you are still alive, which seems to impress nearly no one. The only magic that amazes is the work of the necromancers: they give the miracle of life, whereas the miracle of your life resonates with none but you. You are desperate to prove that you are so much more than the other inferni who have come before you, but you have no platform beyond court jester with which to do it. You feel an untapped power swirl in your gut. You grit your teeth and try — unsuccessfully — to ignore it.

When the King’s son prepares to lead the fight against Koldam, you ask — beg, really — for the chance to travel with him. You have no love for the son of Septimus, but you think it may be your only opportunity to show the full extent of your capabilities. Selfishly, secretly, you also have some desire to have revenge against the place where you were born. If your not-father is not dead, then he is old — but you nonetheless dream of him wearing a poor man’s armor while riding atop that same horse he’d taken you to Tyrholm on, burning in your flames.

When you are categorically denied and encouraged to return to your courtly duties, you understand that you will never be seen as you wish to be. You will never be on the same playing grounds as the Court Necromancer, who commands the respect of Septimus himself. There is no more hope to grasp at — there is nothing salvageable in the King’s court. Him and his kind will bid you to be their clown until your fire burns you from the inside out, and you finally die: a legend amongst inferni, and yet not at all remembered by those who beheld you.

At last, you realize the undeniable truth about what must be done. You decide then that if you have to burn up entertaining the nobles, you think it is only fair that they should burn too. For those who are left behind in the wake of your flames, you think your smoldering ghost will tell them the truth they have all so earnestly ignored —

—  a mage is not to be underestimated; an inferni least of all.

PLOT IDEAS:

The first four points I have listed are not so much general plotting ideas as they are specific expansions on the character connections the Hierophant has, with some general ideas I have about how I might develop that dynamic over the course of gameplay. The second four points I have are more general plot concepts that I would be happy to explore with whomever. I am also totally down for  doubling up — that is to say, any of the specific character connections can also fulfill the general plotting ideas.

THE HIEROPHANT AND THE HIGH PRIESTESS: As mentioned above, something that grabbed my interest in reading about the hierophant tarot card was the fact that it is the natural companion of the high priestess. Taking from the skeleton, I imagine that part of the reason Kithri finds necromancers uncomfortable to be around is because they are difficult to read, whereas she is expressive almost to the point of her own detriment. I also imagine that Kithri would experience a profound jealousy towards necromancers, given that they receive not just respect, but reverence. Given the role the High Priestess serves in the court, I believe that she would be the ultimate representation of everything that Kithri resents. I think challenging Kithri’s perception of what necromancers are and what the specific motivations of the High Priestess really are presents a good opportunity for character development. Depending on the route chosen by a prospective HP player, I can see Kithri finding herself manipulated into fighting the inevitable battle fully on the priestess’s terms, or perhaps finding an unexpected mentor. I also think this dynamic will put Kithri on an interesting journey into learning more about necromancers in general, and potentially finding some common ground through their shared — albeit differently expressed — magical capabilities. THE COURT JESTERS: After reading through the sample application for The Star, I immediately thought that Armel could have a really interesting dynamic with Kithri — and much to my excitement, Hierophant was included on the Star’s connections! I think that Kithri is really desperate for some sign of no-strings-attached kindness, or even a basic acceptance of who she is. Despite that desperation, she is heavily guarded and has a wall of defensive arrogance that would certainly shut people like Armel out. I think it’s interesting that the two essentially occupy the same position at court, and despite their different circumstances and upbringings, they’ve arrived at similar emotions and motivations when it comes to Septimus. I think it would be interesting to see Kithri start to learn trust and friendship — I think she could really benefit from having a confidante, especially as whispers of revolution spread. TO KOLDAM, WITH LOVE: I imagine that Kithri’s motivation for knowing what happened in Koldam is incredibly personally motivated. It was her home once, and though there isn’t anything about it that she looks back on fondly, there is nonetheless a lingering connection there. Although her prime motivation for coming along with the Emperor was having the opportunity to display her full abilities outside of the suffocating confines of the court, I think she also wanted an opportunity to have some revenge against her birthplace, which she likely wholly associates with “rejection.” I think the dissonance between the way the victory has been perceived and discussed by soldiers and the evident difference in the Emperor has clearly caught Kithri’s attention, and she feels as though she is owed some information on what really occurred in Koldam. I think this desire to know has the potential to push Kithri out of her typical tendency to be subjugated by the ruling class and brood. Seeing her in a position to gain the confidence to demand answers, even from a Prince, could certainly alter the way she is perceived by the nobles who view her as a trained monkey. THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY: I found it very interesting that despite the fact Kithri and The Fool are on a similar side politically, the character connection situates them as having more of an antagonistic dynamic. I would love to explore Kithri’s feelings on being treated by The Fool as some kind of threat to the order they have established at court — I almost think that rather than cowing her into submission, it might empower her to know that someone recognizes just what all she is capable of. I think that as an overarching plot, this character interaction could be a great way to demonstrate that just because there are people who want Septimus gone, it does not mean that they are all allied or have the same ultimate end goal. I think this character interaction would provide a great opportunity to further develop what Kithri really wants to happen in Tyrholm. Will she stay committed to the idea of burning down the throne room, and the noble class with it? Or will she be swayed into falling into a political agenda? POLITICAL PET: As Kithri interacts with other revolters, I think it would be interesting to explore how she fits in with their political agendas. Kithri is not a politician, and I think she does not put much stock into what comes after Septimus is no more. Personally, I think this lack of foresight is not her being short-sighted — she just knows that the chances of her living long enough to see what happens after she shows Tyrholm what she’s capable of are minimal. Why should she care about what happens after she’s dead and gone? She squarely falls into the burn it all down camp, which differs from many of the characters who seem more motivated to find a suitable candidate to replace Septimus. Will Kithri pose a problem as the plot develops, and a coup is planned? Or is there a possibility that one of the revolters can convince her that acting in accordance with their plans will also give her the justice that she seeks? I’d love to play it out. LOW BREEDS FROM LOWTOWN: After being abandoned by her father, Kithri spent her life prior to joining the court in the streets of Lowtown. I’d love the chance to further develop Kithri’s history in Tyrholm through interactions with other characters who have come from this humbler background as compared to the noble characters in the group. I imagine that Kithri would feel more of a natural kinship with people from Lowtown as compared to the noble class, though she ultimately has still felt rejected by and large. Individuals from Lowtown would be more likely to see a less harsh version of Kithri. Because she defines herself so wholly by the fact that she is an inferni, I think it could be cool to explore a more human side to her. BEAUTY IN HORROR: I would really love to explore the dynamics that Kithri has with the other inferni present at the court. I found it interesting that in the skeleton, it ends with: “you’ll prove you are not a hound to be leashed — no mage is. You’re a powerhouse, and they won’t forget it.” This to me suggests that Kithri is not simply disgusted with her own treatment at the court, but is overall angry by the way mages have been treated by Septimus. Despite the fact that she may not be on the same side as the other inferni at court, I nonetheless imagine that there might be some commonality amongst the handful of them present that is worth exploring. Do they avoid one another? Do they have respect for one another? Do they feel at all like they can confide in one another? Kithri wants some kind of acceptance or validation, and so I think she might be open to fostering relationships with others who might understand what it is to be inferni — even if the other inferni might not have her best intentions at heart. HONEY & WILDFIRE ARE BOTH THE COLOR OF GOLD: As a final plot point, I would love to explore some opportunity for Kithri to show kindness or general soft-heartedness. So much of her is consumed in anger and rage, but I think she is still capable of acts of tenderness and empathy. Beyond that, I think she still desires some kind of a connection. Her life has been defined by her early abandonment, and I think it would be great for her long-term character development to have interactions where her rough exterior is gradually broken through. Whether this be through a romantic encounter or intimate friendship is to be decided by plotting, and I would absolutely love either!

CHARACTER DEATH: If it makes sense plot-wise, and given the caveat that you would ask first, I’ll say that I’m willing to have Kithri killed off!

WRITING SAMPLE:

***I do acknowledge that depending on what FCs other applicants may use, Kithri may not be the oldest inferni in the group — but based off the age suggestions set for the inferni skeletons, and for the purposes of the writing sample, I’m writing as if she is the eldest inferni at court. I hope that is okay!***

For all the profound hatred Kithri had built up in her heart towards King Septimus and his court of tittering noble fools, there was always a blip during her little performance where the utter loathing  she had towards the King and his retinue briefly slipped away. In the moments immediately preceding her entry into the reception hall, she seethed with barely-contained rage: she was not a trained dog, and by the Undying God, she would not do their little dance for them again. Kithri would pace before the large ornamental doors, grit her teeth and clench her fists, and glower at anyone who dared to meet her gaze. Just before she was escorted into the rowdy room by an apprehensive guard, she would allow herself the fantasy of lighting the hall ablaze, and settle herself with the knowledge that she would make good on the reverie one day. As she stepped inside the hall, the candles which lit the spacious area all suddenly extinguished; and the air filled with the scent of smoke and the gasps of her audience.

It was in that darkness she’d created where a shift occurred in Kithri: the rage did not disappear, but instead retreated to the recesses of her consciousness whilst the forefront became consumed by the fire she worked to conjure. A mind which was usually overwrought by powerful emotion and nonstop thinking became hyper-focused on the flames that leapt from her hands and bent to her whim; and for the duration of her performance she allowed herself the momentary pleasure of reveling in what she could do. With what was just a fraction of her true power, she could amaze any and all who were lucky enough to be seated in the room — their delighted murmurs and shocked exclamations were not lost on Kithri’s ears, even as the crackling flames glowed purple-blue with extreme heat. She was reminded of a time when she believed that all it would take to earn love was to prove that there was beauty in her abilities.

The rancor never stayed away for very long.

When her display of magic ended — which did not so much reach a natural conclusion, but instead finished when Septimus opted to cut it off with a sudden burst of clapping — the mage was thrust back immediately to her bitter reality. The momentary empowerment fled, and she was left with only her hatred and resentments, which clung to her skin like a plague. On some nights, in the moments after she re-lit the candles that gave light to the hall, she found herself staring at the occupants of the room: perplexed to find that they looked discomforted by her presence, when she had been so sure that they had been enamored by her only moments earlier. On others, they continued with polite applause even after she had finished, but the return of her own disgust made it impossible to enjoy the noise. No matter their reaction, she almost always exited the hall with some immediacy following the show of magic — she could not bear to linger around Septimus and his ilk any longer than was strictly necessary.

With a stiff and perfunctory bow, the mage had started to make her way towards the doors from whence she’d came when one of the King’s perfumed courtiers leaned over towards him and remarked: “your mage looks terribly old for an inferni — I thought that they all died before reaching adulthood.”

Kithri could not see the King smirk from her vantage, but she was certain that she could hear it in his voice as he spoke. She paused before the doors, glaring at the wood as if it were responsible for her continued presence in the reception hall, rather than the King who spoke at her back.

“Most die young — mine is a rarity. She is not without her own damage, unfortunately...they do all destroy themselves in the end. Mage, come back here. Show us the scars you’ve collected.”

A chill ran down Kithri’s spine at the request, and she felt her stomach sink as she slowly turned on her heel and made her way back into the heart of the room. Coming to a halt in the middle of the space, she uttered in a tone too icy to be appropriate: “they are covered by my clothing, Your Grace.”

Guffawing, the King waved a dismissive hand at her, and bid: “undo the damn buttons, girl!” Septimus looked about at his retinue, and commented with a sneer: “talented with the flames, this one is, but a bit soft in the head.”

Despite the King’s command to partially undress and display the consequences of her craft, Kithri did nothing for a long moment. She did not trust her hands to move from her sides without flames erupting from her palms and consuming the King — and she was momentarily unable to convince herself of any strong reasoning as to why that was a poor idea. Her wandering eyes caught sight of Septimus’s son seated nearby his father, and she remembered. The young heir sought, for some reason, to cut himself in his father’s image — she would be dead on his orders only moments after Septimus burned. Her death may have been an inevitability, but Kithri refused to die on anything less than her own terms. When she at last unleashed her power, it would not just be Septimus who suffered for it.

Only after repeating an internal chant of in due time in due time in due time did she at last allow her trembling fingers to unclasp the buttons which cinched her sleeves taught against her skin. Pushing up the fabric, Kithri revealed her forearms. The flesh was mottled with scarring: some marks were white and smoothed over with age, while others were raised with an angry-red newness. Kithri could feel the heavy thrum of her heart in her chest as she saw courtiers lean up from their seats to have a better view of her destroyed skin, and inhaled sharply through her nose when the King callously demanded: “I want to see the neck — undo those buttons as well.”

Burning fingers mechanically moved towards her neck, and the forced expression of indifference on Kithri’s face began to tip towards a more telling anger as she pulled apart the fabric concealing her neck. Not unlike her arms, the mage’s neck was similarly covered in scars at all different stages of healing — some were still tender to the touch, so much so that she visibly grimaced as she turned her head and agitated the healing tissue. Similar to the oohs and aahs the mage had earned with her performance, the occupants of the hall ogled her disfigurement with equal intrigue. Kithri endured the forced humiliation for what felt like an eternity before she found that she could trust herself enough to speak, and lifted her eyes to meet the King’s gaze. In her peripheral, she could see the necromancer lingering close by Septimus — she knew that the ancient woman had been watching just as closely as all the others in the room, though Kithri suspected it was not her scars that interested the discomforting woman. She hoped against hope that the elder woman thought the same thing she did: all of this should be burnt to rubble.

“If that is all, Your Grace — might I be excused to my chambers?”

Seeming to have lost interest in his pet, Septimus grunted his affirmative response. Kithri all but ran from the room, and when the heavy doors shut behind her she allowed her expression to melt into one of complete and utter contempt. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the bard — Armel — looking at her. Whatever his expression carried, be it amusement or empathy, she took it to be a mockery.

“Go on, then,” she hissed. “Have a look! And dream something horrible about it tonight.”  

ANYTHING ELSE:

Here is a mock blog for Kithri. I’ve filled it with some inspirational posts that fit my understanding of the character. I also have headcanons and a playlist below.

i. headcanons. One of the only creatures in Castle Tyrholm that Kithri shows any outright affection to is Nuria, a nasty tabby cat that serves as a ratter in her quarters within the castle. The cat is missing an ear and is otherwise scarred from numerous fights with other felines and animals within the keep, and has a tendency to hiss and scratch most who come near it. Nuria is sweet with Kithri, which may be because the two are kindred spirits. Kithri uses a gentle hand with the cat, and feeds her table scraps she brings back from the dining hall. As a result of the frequent use of her magic, Kithri often has a smokey, scorched scent clinging to her. Her hair is frizzled at the ends from the extreme heat it is often near, and the majority of her clothes are singed around the wrists. Speaking of her clothing, Kithri often wears dresses and other garments that are long-sleeved and have a high neck. She is not ashamed of the scars she bears — or at least, if someone were to ask her if she was, she would vehemently deny it — but she does not believe that the effect of her magic on her body is anyone else’s business. Kithri has accepted that her scarring is an inevitability of her magic, but she does still suffer some pain from their development across her body. She dutifully applies healing salves to the afflicted areas nightly. She knows that it will not make the marks disappear, but it does afford her some relief from the tenderness and discomfort that comes with newly developed burns and scars. Not unlike the chill that comes from having a sunburn, Kithri often feels cooler than most despite the fact that her skin is warm — or even hot — to the touch. Kithri struggles with sleeping at night, which is largely attributed to racing thoughts and powerful emotions that she struggles to control. Because of this, she has a tendency to sleep during the day time — not for extended periods of time, but she is good for a daily nap or two. It helps that she has a limited interest in interacting with others at the court: she has no qualms with spending her day sleeping rather than out and about. Kithri identifies as bisexual, and has had sexual encounters with both men and women. Sex for Kithri is largely transactional: it is more about lust and release than emotional connection. There are very few sexual memories she looks back on with any sense of nostalgia or affection.

ii. playlist.

I have a playlist posted on Kithri’s mockblog, but I figured I would also just list out the tracks/relevant lyrics here for ease: Prologue: Firebird Suite: The Infernal Dance – Igor Stravinsky. i. Motherless Children – Steve Miller Band (Father do the best he can when the mother is gone, but there’s so many things he just don’t understand) ii. Arsonist’s Lullaby – Hozier (When I was a child, I'd sit for hours, staring into open flame. Something in it had a power, could barely tear my eyes away) iii. Bravado – Lorde (I’m faking glory, lick my lips toss my hair) iv. My blood – Ellie Goulding (And God knows I’m not dying but I breathe now) v. Let the Flames Begin – Paramore (I give it all my oxygen, to let the flames begin) vi. Already Dead – The Pretty Reckless (I’m cold, already dead) vii. Seven Devils – Florence and The Machine (I don’t want your money, I don’t want your crowd, see I have to burn your kingdom down) viii. The Wild One – Suzi Quatro (I’m a red-hot fox, I can take the knocks, I’m a hammer from hell. Honey, can’t you tell?) ix. Destruction – Joywave (Oh my god, there’s no one who can set me right. I’ve been sent to torch the palace down in broad daylight) x. Whore of Babylon – Zheani (I’m naked, dancing frustrated, the brighter flame has you faded) Epilogue: Concerto L’estate RV 315 (The Four Seasons: Summer.) – Antonio Vivaldi.

Thank you so much for reading through all of this. I appreciate your time, and hope for the opportunity to take part in what I think will be a really amazing group! If you opt for another applicant, I would love any feedback you have!

p.s. - i’m just gonna leave this display of Kithri Energy here:

[creativesage]

(via Coaching: The Best Mentors Think Like Michelangelo)

By W. Brad Johnson and David G. Smith

Michelangelo approached the craft of sculpting with the humble conviction that a unique and beautiful piece of art already existed within the stone, and his job was only to release it. We think the best mentors approach their art in the same way.

Social psychologists have already confirmed that in the best romantic relationships, partners sculpt one another in such a manner as to bring each person closer to their ideal self — the person they want to be. Termed the Michelangelo phenomenon, a skilled and thoughtful relationship partner becomes committed to first understanding and then reinforcing or drawing out another’s ideal form. But a skilled mentor can also affirm another’s ideal self — that unique, promising, but vulnerable form that might be hidden from view.

How exactly does a mentor develop a vision of the mentee’s ideal self? As it turns out, it’s all about the art of affirmation. Evidence reveals that two distinct components of mentor affirmation come into play. First comes perceptual affirmation. Excellent mentors are intentional about taking the time to truly “see” their mentees, understanding — and accepting — both their authentic real selves and their ideal selves and imagined career destinations. This takes time and patience. A mentor must earn trust, be accessible, and listen generously. Here is the key: Once a mentee’s ideal self becomes clear, the mentor must consistently endorse the mentee’s vision.

The second element involves behavioral affirmation, helping mentees to engage in behaviors aligned with their ideal selves. Having gained a window into whom a mentee dreams of becoming, a mentor opens doors and conjures the opportunities the mentee will require to get there. For example, when Franklin’s perceptions of and behavior toward Shawna are congruent with Shawna’s ideal, Franklin will sculpt toward her ideal: He will elicit behaviors and dispositions that are consistent with Shawna’s ideal self. Over the course of frequent interactions during which Franklin elicits her ideal self, Shawna will flourish, moving closer to what she would like to be.

It can be a challenge for mentors to use the Michelangelo approach when they’re mentoring someone of the opposite gender. This is especially true for male mentors and female mentees, which is a more common pairing than the reverse. The truth is that men are still more likely to hold senior leadership positions in most organizations, and thus make up most of the mentors.

Research on cross-gender mentoring reveals that women face more barriers in finding a mentor, and that even when they do, they may reap a narrower range of professional and psychological benefits. One reason for this may be that when it comes to key interpersonal skills such as listening, men sometimes struggle with the sort of active listening required to help a mentee gradually unearth her ideal self.

Can men truly channel Michelangelo and mentor women with the humility and patience described above? Our study of male-female mentorships at work suggests that the answer is yes, but only if men work hard at understanding some of the features of socialized masculinity that often interfere with good cross-gender mentorships.

First, almost all mentors have an inclination to clone themselves in their mentees. That is, they — often unconsciously — push mentees to pursue career trajectories and make life or career decisions that mirror their own. Although ego-gratifying for the mentor, cloning is about as far from genuine Michelangelo affirmation as one can get.

While this is true of both male and female mentors, in our experience it can be harder for male mentors to overcome because of the way men and women are socialized to listen, and the ways that women are (generally) more relationship-oriented, while men are (again, generally) more task-oriented. To avoid this instinctual cloning tendency, men have to work hard at really listening to the women they mentor, focusing on the relationship more than the specific task being discussed. Men also have more of a tendency to jump to fixes and solutions in conversations with a mentee rather than taking the time to listen, understand, and appreciate her perspective.

Men who aspire to Michelangelo-like mentorship for women can also get waylaid by troublesome gendered assumptions about mentees. We all fall prey to assumptions. If you are a man reading this, quickly complete the following sentence: She’s a woman, therefore, she must want _____, she must be planning to _____, and she probably has no interest in _____. If, upon reflection, some of your answers make you cringe, you are not alone. Even well-intended assumptions can backfire.

Consider the example that Robert Lightfoot, acting director of NASA, shared with us about how assumptions got him off track at one point:

I was really fortunate early in my career to have a “tipping point” experience in this area. I was on a selection committee. One of the other members of the committee was one of my own mentors, a woman. Very quickly, the committee reached consensus on a selectee. As we went around the table to discuss her, I made the comment: “This job requires a lot of travel, and she just had a baby. I don’t know, this would really be tough for her if she were hired.” Fortunately, my mentor looked across the table at me and said very clearly, “That’s not your decision to make! She knows she has to travel, she knows she just had a baby, don’t you make the decision for her.” That hit me like a ton of bricks.

Another crucial element on the path to affirming a mentee’s ideal vision of self and career is honest-to-goodness gender humility. This is the art of being self-aware and humble about everything you don’t know about women generally and about your mentee’s experience as a woman specifically. Authentic gender humility requires genuine curiosity about her unique experiences and concerns, transparency about the limits of your understanding, and the capacity for expressing empathy as she feels comfortable revealing her dreams for the future.

Here is a caveat. Should a mentee appear to be aiming too low or selling herself short, an engaged mentor will paint a more ambitious and inspiring vision of her potential, including previously uncontemplated possibilities. Great mentors are often given to crafting bold, even audacious pictures of where a mentee can go in their career. For instance, Sandy Stosz, a Coast Guard three-star admiral, recently told us:

[My mentors] gave me opportunities I hadn’t thought about. They gave me a chance to look beyond what I had as my vision, which was just becoming a sailor and commanding a ship one day. They helped me look at a bigger picture, not just the Coast Guard but the entire Department of Transportation. Those two men showed me that there’s more out there than just settling for going to sea, that there are special jobs and possibilities I hadn’t even considered.

In the end, a great mentor will honor the mentee’s ideal self and career dream (not the one he’s invested in or the one that mirrors his own career). Thoughtful sculptors use the tools of patient listening, Socratic questioning, unconditional acceptance, and generous affirmation to help draw forth the dream, name it out loud, and then set about championing mentees’ efforts to get there.

[Entire post — click on the title link to read it at Harvard Business Review.]

***

You’re working on your goals, and your team’s goals. We can help you spring into action and develop a real plan that you can implement in a smart way, so you’ll start seeing results immediately, before you feel discouraged. If you feel that you’ve already gone off-track, we can help you get your focus, courage, and motivation back.

At  Creative Sage™, we often coach and mentor individual clients, as well as work teams, in the areas of change management, building resilience, making personal, career or organizational transitions — including to retirement, or an “encore career” — and facilitating development of leadership, creativity and collaboration capabilities. We also work with clients on work/life balance, finding purpose and meaning, focus and productivity issues, and how to present themselves and their ideas more effectively in professional situations.

We guide and mentor executives, entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, artists, and creative professionals of all generations, to help them more effectively implement transition processes, and to become more resilient in adjusting to rapid changes in the workplace — including learning effective coping techniques for handling failure, as well as success. We work with on-site and virtual teams.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you would like to discuss your situation. You can also call us at 1-510-845-5510 in San Francisco / Silicon Valley. Let’s talk! An initial exploratory phone conversation is free. When you talk with me, I promise that I’ll always LISTEN to you with open ears, mind and heart, to help you clarify your own unique path to a higher vista of success.

              ~Cathryn Hrudicka, Founder, CEO and Chief Imagination Officer of Creative Sage™, Executive Coach, Consultant, and Mentor.

***

[raynbow-shimmer]

Even numbers for the OCs questions

Break, because the first one is a cringe fest and I want to hide it if I can. Also, I’m longwinded per the norm.

2. Have you created characters for a fandom? If so, which one/ones?

*sigh* About 99% of my OCs are designed for fandoms. It’s all I’ve ever known how to do. I didn’t even know people made characters for their own worlds until a few years ago (i really didn’t know other people had OCs that they were REALLY PASSIONATE ABOUT until a few years ago, tbh) But like, I just have a super long list of all these OCs from all these fandoms because I’ve just been racking them up for as long as I can remember. There are probably a lot I have forgotten over the years, but let me just list you a few of the fandoms. Get ready for some major cringe, because OCs and maladaptive daydreaming were some of my earliest coping mechanisms.

Sonic the Hedgehog

Power Rangers

Pokémon

Digimon

Beyblade

Obān Star Racer

Inuyasha

Naruto

Harry Potter

MLP

The Flash (though scoped to cover the entire flarrowverse :| )

Those are just the ones I can remember. Some of them were WAY more prominent than the others, and some of them I still mess around with every now and then. But most have been banished to the land of bad mary-sues created in middle school.

4. Have you created content featuring your character?

Yes. I used to doodle my OCs all the time in middle school, and I picked it up again for a stint in high school because I could draw ponies. I’m really good at ponies.

There was also a BAD attempt at writing fic in middle school. I showed it to my ‘friends’ who weren’t into fandoms and got RIDICULED, so that shut me down from writing for a long long time. But right now I have a novel-length OC-centric fic that surprisingly popular for what it is. Young flarrowverse fans will tolerate just about anything, I guess.

6. Has anyone else created content featuring your character?

YES, AND INITIALLY WITHOUT ASKING. Let me tell you it is some kinda wild feeling to have to play a game of ‘HOLD-UP-IS-THAT-MY-OC’ when reading someone else’s fic. Like, that was THE MOST confusing thing? I remember I fell off my stool and stopped breathing for a second because I was so flattered and confused at the same time. It’s interesting to see how people interpret my stoic, know-it-all of a character. They seem pretty flat to me, but apparently, they do indeed have feelings! (and surprisingly, they get along really well with kids, which is something I still vehemently deny to this day!)

8. What’s your favorite type of character to create/write for?

I love sciency/headstrong/passionate types. Most of my OCs are insanely skilled in what they do best. They know what’s right and they fight for it will all of their being. A lot of times they run themselves for hours and hours and hours, fighting off sleep so that they can work on what they love. Genius types I guess. 

Honeslty, that’s something I’ve been trying to do less of lately because a lot of my characters push into mary sue bounds because they’re just too good. Krys is an insane mechanical engineering genius, Megan can literally do about anything with ease, and Cyan spends most of her time screaming at herself while designing some of the most complicated flight patterns you’ll ever see. Those three NEVER sleep. So like, that is at the core of a lot of my characters. Just…genius level mastery. Because as someone who’s more of a ‘master of none’ type, that’s really desirable to me, so I find myself tossing it in before I really even know what I’m doing. Like I said though, trying to fix that at the moment.

My baby Crēo is a hot mess though, and I love her for it. Probably can’t even do what she needs to do, tbh. Words are HARD.

10. Have you created a character or type of character that you are now ashamed of?

Her name was Skye and that is all you need to know. *cringes*

12. Do you have a type of character you simply cannot or don’t want to create?

I’m really bad at…males? Ugh. I design characters that I can slip into with ease when daydreaming, so most of the time my males characters are really underdeveloped. I guess Blaze, Deigo, Adam, and Dex are my most developed males, and like…they barely have anything solid to them. And what they do have is always up for a moment’s change should the situation call for it. Yea, really lacking. Trying to fix that.

I also don’t like ignorant characters? Jerks? Just…most of my OCs are generally pretty ok. Leah looks pretty haughty, probably, but she’s a softy at her core. !!!ASHELY WAS A JERK!!! But she was also underdeveloped and a foil… uhhh yea. I’ve never really done an evil jerk per say. I prefer protagonists, not antagonists. 

14. Do you change your character based off of your own change in mindset?

OH MY GOD, YEA. Krys is literally like 18 years old at this point. I’ve had her since I was 4 or so. She’s a totally different character than she used to be. She’s more forceful and focused. She’s also slightly more...explosive. All my characters go through growth like that. A lot of them get more hardened as time goes on. On the same note, I’ve noticed that a lot of my OCs initially started out as very sheltered or defenseless and grew to be powerful types. Most of them can take care of themselves just fine now. I think that was just them growing up with me. The more I learn about and experience the world, the more I pour into my characters. I love seeing growth like that.

16. What’s an idea for a character you had, that never became more than an idea?

Molly Rogers. Tragic thing. Horrible backstory. She has a heart of gold though. Wanna-be writer running a small bookstore in the middle of nowhere, Deleware. She got sucked into an odd housing situation with one ex-KGB assassin. It was weird and I regret that I’ll never really have time to do her justice.

There’s also Aurora, whom I love. An empath. Artist type. I kinda developed her to take over as the narrator at a certain point in my main fic that I’ll never really get to because it’s outside the set time scope of the plot. However, I do name drop every now and again because multiverse and time travel. I do what I want.

OOOOOO, there’s also a character I’m trying to figure out right now. Kinda a friend to Crēo. All I can get is magic ribbon weapon. Like, THAT’S IT. That is literally all I have, aside from they must be really graceful when doing the fights. I just...really love the idea of ribbon weapons.

17 Questions About OCs

[hybridartifacts]

An Interview with Shervin Kiani, author of 'Sati and Doghu'

I gather you first started writing when you were 8 years old. What was it that first inspired you to first start writing, and what is it that inspires you to keep on writing now?

I was around seven years old when I was read Gordon Korman’s Macdonald Hall books at school.I remember the excitement of listening to a story being narrated with such joy and clarity, and I remember sitting with an audience of kids my age that werein rapt attention.  I was read to as a child, of course, but that was the first time I remember wanting to read the stories for myself, which was a big step because these were “big kid” chapter books.

And then I was fortunate enough the following year to get another teacher who was an even bigger bibliophile—who not only read a wider range of books with even greater relish but kept a large and eclectic selection of books for the class, everything from Superfudge to the The Vampire Lestat.  On Christmas, she even let us choose one to keep!  That’s really where my love of stories just burst right open. I had her for three years, grades four to six.  The more I read, the more I wanted to tell stories of my own, and in grade six I got the opportunity with a creative writing project.  I wrote and illustrated two full length stories, which my kind teacher then laminated and bound and sent to the school library where it was prominently displayed.  I was so proud, having achieved something like that all on my own!  I’ve been writing ever since, and that experience, that feeling of accomplishment and self-worth, is what drives me to keep going.

I created the cover for your book, 'Indigo Eyes' and was struck by the way you combined the familiar and the fantastical in it. The way you used the character of Peter, a child, to first introduce us to the story meant it felt like the magical was a part of the ordinary world, because he accepts it so readily. He is also close to the age you started writing. Is there a connection for you there?

It’s hard to look back at Indigo Eyes, my first book, and not cringe at all the flaws.  It tries to be too many things at once, and there are extreme characters and extreme scenes which I wouldn’t write any more, but they are products of the confusion and turmoil I was going through at the time, and earlier, during my University years.  So yes, there’s a connection, a lot of similarities I share with the major characters, for better or worse.  They are never whole representations of me, always refracted pieces.

With Peter, specifically, there was that latent potential which he needed to recognize and explore in order to grow—and that theme appeared again in Sati and Doghu.It’s a pretty standard archetype with a child protagonists that crops up again and again in fantasy stories.  Using a young protagonist…well, from that perspective magic and wonder can happen without restraint.  The reader who must see it through innocent eyes, accept and be awed by it through those eyes.  The Hobbit, The Golden Compass, At The Back of the North Wind, The Neverending Story…just to list a few great books.

You sent me a sketch for the cover to work from. Do you still draw and paint as well as write?

Actually it was a painting that I made originally to be used as the cover, but Storm wisely said to go with a professional, and your fabulous cover art was the result.  But yes, I do still draw and paint, and that all stems from that same early experience of writing and illustrating my own stories. In high school I was co-founder and –editor of the first and (possibly to this day) only literary magazinewhich unabashedly showcased my own art and writing.  I was rewarded at the end of my secondary education with an award in Visual Art, received at graduation, but I didn’t pursue it further.  I had these lofty and ultimately false ambitions of becoming a veterinarian and was discouraged from continuing with something I was told should be a “hobby” and nothing more; this included writing fiction too, of course. But once I realized that veterinary medicine wasn’t my calling—in fact, it was the appeal of James Herriot’s vet stories at the root of that ambition—I dedicated myself to writing and having my books published, and art did then become a hobby for me, a lovely pastime.

Which speaks the stronger to you creatively and why - pure fantasy or magical realism?

Hmm, that’s a difficult question to answer.  I grew up reading mostly pure fantasy. There was even a few years in my teens when I rejected anything but fantasy as a genre, until I clued into the fact that “fantasy” is a massive umbrella term that covered a lot of what in school was deemed as literature.  At the time, it was reasonable to read, study and learn from The Tempest, but the novels I was reading were just scoffed at as fantasy—sort of what Victorian writers of fantasy fiction must have experienced when their novels were classified under Children’s Fiction.  The same I found was true of horror fiction.  Hamlet, if you place it in these diminishing terms of genre, as I see it, is a gothic horror story.

Not to get into a diatribe here, but I’ve always disliked and rejected labels because of this.  When I tell people I’m a writer, the inevitable follow-up is, “What do you write?”  And no one is content with the desperately accurate reply, “Fiction.”  It must be labelled and categorized, which is how it’s marketed.  

Okay—sorry, it turned into a little diatribe anyway. Back to the question.  It wasn’t until University, where I took courses in Linguistics and World Literature, that I began to really expand my reading taste. And creatively speaking, it’s neither pure fantasy or magical realism, but a mixture of the two and many others that influence me.  I know it’s a frustrating answer, but I can’t be more concise than that.  Typically, I don’t read the sorts of books that I’m working on at the time.  Presently, for example, I’m working on the sequel to Sati and Doghu, an Arabian Nights-flavoured fantasy story, and I’m reading Capote’s Breakfast At Tiffany’s, Tusa’s The Nuremberg Trial, and Hammett’s The Big Knockover, to name but a few.

On the subject of the mundane verses the magical, you recently moved house. I find changing where I create my art can disrupt and even stall my creativity for a while until I settle in and find somewhere I feel comfortable working. Do you need a particular sort of space to write and has moving disrupted that or can you work anywhere?

In truth, it took me a while to adjust, too.  Moving is such a big stressor, and moving into your first house, as we did, is rather daunting.  I’m still trying to catch up after all these months.  I need a certain amount of physical- and head-space to work. It’s easy enough to get into that mental frame of mind…it’s just the procrastination that gets in the way. But the physical space is very important for me.  I need absolute solitude and quiet.  I’m fortunate enough to have that now, but there have been many periods in my life where I had to painstakingly block-out all the distractions around me.  I read long ago how Harlan Ellison did that in the army, writing after a grueling day of training.  For painting I can listen to music or audiobooks; but writing, like studying had been for me, must be done in privacy and silence.

How do you feel the mundane and the magical influence and affect your writing generally?

The magical is what I draw from the mundane.  I find it impossible to cope with life without an intense level of imaginative revision in my head.  I’m always daydreaming.  Even when I’m reading, I sometimes have to stop and let my mind finish wandering before I can continue.  I love levels and complexity in art.  I find I don’t often write straightforward fiction for that reason.  The fantastic lends itself to the .  

                                                                                                  What led you to write your new book, 'Sati and Doghu' and how would you describe the book?  Sati and Doghu was originally a novella I wrote quite a long time ago.  It was after Indigo Eyes, and I wanted to write something different, something a lot less extreme and for a wider audience. Indigo was always meant to be a cult novel, something to polarize readers and draw a strong reaction, even a negative one.  Sati and Doghu has an entirely different agenda.

The idea for the story came in a dream.  That’s very unusual for me, because my dreams are usually so distressing and convoluted. I remembered this one clearly the next morning, and I wrote it down, just a sentence or two.  Something like:  a boy and a coyote, running in the desert—where?  The boy was trying to escape something, but he was also being drawn to something else, somewhere else.  And I knew their names.  Sati and Doghu.  And that’s all I knew, and I wanted to find out more.  Then I left it.  And, as stories sometimes do, it just played out little by little in the back of my mind until I knew enough to put it on a page.  

I brought the story out originally in a short story collection, which I sent to Immanion Press.  My editor at the time, the author Sharon Sant, suggested I flesh it out into a book because she really wanted to know more of the story.It was the exact same suggestion my wife gave me years before, but I was onto another project and didn’t really want to devote so much more time into a novella.  Eventually however, I took the advice, and the rest is history.

I would describe Sati and Doghuas a magical adventure story, inspired by The Arabian Nights formula of nested stories, and about these young characters who are all breaking free of something destructive in their lives and finding their own way in the world.  The title makes it sound like a boy and dog story, but Sati’s relationship to Doghu is much more than that.  And you have to read it to find out what.

It is the first in a series. How do you feel about writing a series and how many books do you currently plan to write for it?

As Sati was a novella that was later expanded into a novel, I never really intended it to be part of a series.  I had a vague idea of events to come, so to speak, but I didn’t set any of this down. I like open-ended stories, stories that live on past the page.  It wasn’t until I began the revisions with my current editor at Prospective Press, Jason T. Graves, that I noticed all the loose ends.  And it wasn’t until Jason suggested a sequel that I even seriously considered it.  I’m working on the sequel now, but I had to put aside another book I was working on to do so, which I’m eager to get back to.  But who knows.  Some characters, like actors, have to and need to be center stage, and there’s always so much more to tell.

Get Sati and Doghu from: Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk Amazon.ca

My Review of ‘Sati and Doghu’ The book is an excellent read. I tend to be a bit wary of buying books online having found a fair few that were just badly written and failed to be engaging, but ‘Sati and Doghu’ is not one of those. It took a little while to get into it’s stride, but when it did I found the characters interesting and likeable and found I was hooked. The way their back-stories are interwoven works really well. Magic in the world is fascinating and original. You are not given heavy handed explanations of everything which can alas be a tendency with all too many fantasy books, instead you are given the  space to gradually build a deeper understanding of the setting and characters as the story unfolds. While it is marketed as Young Adult Fantasy it is actually very readable if you are older as well, partly I suspect because it does not try to lead you by the nose. Young Adult Fantasy as a genre has been producing some very good new writers with fresh voices and Shervin is definitely, for me, one of them. My only problem with it is that I will have to wait for the next book!

[shared-diaries-online]

Entry 14 - Gifts And Curses (Part 1)

December 25th, 2018

Dear “Diary,”

         Well, it’s Christmas, a day that can mean a bunch of different things to a bunch of different people. I hope you had a good day, regardless of its significance to you. Even if it means nothing, I hope you had a good day.

         I never quite know what to make of this day. First off, my problem with Thanksgiving extends over to this day. Second, there’s the whole “religion” part, which—in addition to being completely unhelpful when dealing with the first thing—creates a problem of its own. I was raised in a religious household, studied religion as a second major in college,  and started hanging around various other religious communities since I moved to the city. My mind is a swirl of broken and incompatible doctrine surrounding the holiday. And now that I’m eeking out something that makes sense, well, this holiday feels a bit emptier. And it shouldn’t. The atheist I dated three years ago still celebrated it. He just stripped away the religious element and kept the part about family and giving. I can see why he did that (it add a little bit of color to an otherwise gray world), but I can equally see why someone wouldn’t. Either way, I hope you enjoyed your Tuesday.

         And maybe I should give you some sort of gift for putting up with me both on this day and everyday. So… do you want to hear about the most beautiful woman who just happens to work in my office? I’ll get to the next part of Ada’s story too. So just scroll down if you don’t want to think about the present.

Most beautiful woman in the world who just happens to work in my office…

        She comes up from time to time, and I already told you all about the moment I first fell in love with her. It happened suddenly, abruptly, and at a bad time. To be more literal about it, it happened when I was coming back to the office from lunch and the light just happened to hit her silhouette just so. Even before then, I knew she was amazing. She has this warmth to her that can convince me—ever the pessimist—that the world isn’t a terrible place after all. She is goodness after all. She is grace and beauty. Those things you think the world has destroyed by now.

         I don’t remember the first time I heard her laugh. I think that might make a better story. Or, at least, it makes for the sort of story that warms the soul. But really, that was a while ago. Before I was in love with her and before my eager heart clutched every shred of an interaction we had. Not in an obsessive way…. But in an obsessive way that is a bit more understandable. I spend so much of my time post-her-presence analyzing every shred of our interactions for some sort of hidden message or sign, either an “I hate you”or an “I love you.” But I never find anything or anything I can’t immediately tear apart.

         And just as an added problem, if I’m too specific about anything, she’ll know I’m talking about her should she ever stumble upon this blog. And yeah, sometimes the bandaid just needs to be ripped off, but I’m not ready for that yet. I’m not ready to lose the ability to be in love with her from a distance if only because, well, in addition to being so beautiful and amazing, she’s the kind of the person who smile not only lights up her face but infects her entire body. Quite the sight, you can probably imagine. I just don’t want to give her a reason to not smile.

         Here’s the thing, though. I already dropped a big hint in saying that she had a gluten allergy. That can’t be undone, or it could be by some standards, but I’ll go ahead and assume the worst. Maybe… Maybe the best thing for me right now is to keep up the dance I’ve been engaged in for the past few months, where I show a bit more of myself than I should or where I draw a bit closer than I should. I wait for her to reject me, but she doesn’t. Sometimes, I swear, it’s like she’s moving closer.

         And if you are reading this, consider this the explanation I was willing to give you but that you never asksed for. That offer never had a time limit on it. And Alex, obviously, isn’t my real name, so don’t let that push you away.

       ***

         We’ve had a weekly catered lunch for a while. Sort of like a perk… It’s a way of looking good, I guess. In exchange, the hourly staff can’t work more than 35 hours a week. If, somehow, you end up doing it, then you will get paid whatever you’re owed, but before that can happen, your manager or even director will swoop in and take over for you. Yeah, they work obscene hours just for us to break even. Not all the time but enough. And we all just make peace with it and eat our half-hearted offered office perk.

         But she didn’t. The most beautiful woman who just happens to work in our office started at this job far earlier than I did. So she, like everyone else, took to the routine rather nicely. Everything just fell into place around me as nameless faces who would soon be asking me for favors poured into the conference room, stopping at the long plastic-meant-to-look-like-wood table and took what looked like their usual seats. Which is typical. Which is expected. But she broke the norm…

          She comes in slinging a lunch packed up nicely in a cloth sack. Her face is set in its usual expression as she takes a seat beside a dear friend. Although it is worth noting, that everyone was essentially her friend. And calmly, like it was something she had done a thousand times, she started to munch away at her lunch from home.

         Now, that shouldn’t have been an issue. If you’re confident enough when you’re doing something, then you aren’t going to catch a normal person’s eye, but I was incredibly self-conscious at this new job, trying to get my footing regarding what is this company’s “normal behavior” and outliers weren’t that great. Sure, if you don’t like what they serve then just bring your own and save a lot of people a lot of trouble. I mean, maybe you shouldn’t be too picky when it comes to a free lunch, but at least, she handled it well, I guess. She didn’t complain.

         I tried not to stare at her during the lunch, but anxiety might have led me to do the otherwise. Regardless, that became her defining characteristic in my mind. And a few weeks later, when we stuck in the elevator together, scrambling for a conversation, I blurted it out.

          “Is there something I should know about the lunches?” I half-heartedly joked. She raised an eyebrow in confusion. “You never eat them.”

         “Oh,” she stammered. “I… I have food allergies. That’s why I pack my lunch. It’s just easier that way.”

         She was clearly nervous, taken aback, I didn’t want her to be nervous. I didn’t want to make anyone feel anything close to the terrible-ness that is essentially my default state. So I tried to meet her with acknowledgement.

         “I understand,”

          “Oh,” she said. “You have food allergies too,”

         I thought back to Ada, to the ordeal she had pulled me into. And I cringed. “No,” I snapped. “But I kind understand.”

         With that, the conversation was essentially over. Even at the time, I knew it was wrong. She shouldn’t pay for Ada’s actions, even in pocket change, and there was no need to make my mistakes her problem. It just was what it was: something I spent the next few months regretting.

ADA

         If you aren’t familiar with theatre life, especially its high school manifestation, I’ll try to spare you any unnecessary details because this is already going to be a long story, but who knows what I can manage.

         Theatre people, in general, stick together. They are often very social, who have this giant thing in their lives that their compatriots understand and can empathize best with the related struggles. Also, theatre schedules can be weird at times. Or weird relative to the rest of the world. It’s differently not the standard 9 to 5, I’ll say that much.

         In high school, it’s the status of “social pariah” that really gets to you. If you have other activities, than the effect is mitigated somewhat, but I did, and the director of that program was not kind, I’ll tell you that much. Now. More later.

         We spent almost every single moment together. Before school, whatever minutes we could scrap together during classes, and after school. Not just during rehearsal, either. Moments of supposed freedom from those responsibilities were still spent together. Because free from work never meant free from the people we cared about. There were two exception: me (band was an intense time commitment) and Ada. While my reasons were pretty obvious and moaned about frequently whenever I was with my friends, Ada’s motivations were never so clear. Nothing about her life was. After we met her parents in the aftermath of that first performance, well, everything became more puzzling. At first, we thought they were just strict. But they were overwhelmingly supportive. They were even pushing her to go to dinner with us after the show, and we weren’t going to a nice place but ending up at a rather questionable diner. Like the kind where illegal things frequently happen in the parking lot. She was the one who said no. We all saw it.

         And we all took it personally. Ada became the outcast amongst outcasts, which could have been an accomplishment if it wasn’t so sad.

         In all honesty, I was one of the worst in terms of taking it personally and then coping poorly with that perceived affront. I never lashed out directly, but I poisoned the proverbial well against her. Really, it might have been all my fault. Because, sure, sometimes you don’t feel well enough to go out or you have other things to do. Life happens. These things happen. Those are mottoes I live by now, but it took me awhile to get the hang of it.

         It was the very next show that I fell in love with her, though, and that led me to take such a dramatic shift that my sins—while not erased from  my tainted soul—stopped mattering socially.

         It was opening night of the school musical. Her very first one. Ada was stunning, as always. Her untrained voice rose to the challenge of the score and transcended the realm of us mere mortals. She sounded angelic, she looked angelic, and I was the one manning the follow-spot on the catwalks overhead. I watched her, seeing the glow from overhead. Her hair returned the light so wonderfully…. She became the flame, and I, the doomed moth in this cliche, waiting for everything to come apart. After all, Ada didn’t want anything to do with the rest of us, but I wanted everything that was her.

         The aftershow happened just as it always had. Plans were made, Ada’s parents encouraged her to go, but with a sad smile, she declined. She carried her vase of flowers back to her dressing room, and the desperation in my soul pushed me forward. I followed her. Not sure why exactly…. After all, it was so long ago.

         I called after her. “Hey,” I said. She turned. Her hair fluttered, and my heart stopped, but I caught myself. “Don’t you want to come?”

         She didn’t answer.

         “I mean, we’d love it if you come. We don’t get to spend that much time toget— I mean, this is supposed to be a whole team bonding thing. You know, it’s like ‘the floor is lava,’ but instead, it’s ‘the floor is literally broken crack pipes.’”

         I thought I was going to lose her with that one, but she laughed. Sadness set in, especially in those otherwise sparkling blue eyes. “I’d love to go,” she whispered.

         “Then go,” I pushed.

         “I can’t,” she said again and started off again, quicker this time.

         But I followed her. I shouldn’t have, considering her dressing room was a personal space, but this was one my chance. Or so it felt like it. I needed to push this forward, to take this next step… Because I didn’t understand the whole process of it.

         She went to close the door, but I jammed my foot in. Fortunately, Ada was far too polite to ever slam a door.

         “Why?” I demanded, as if she owed me anything. It was that old bad behavior appearing again. I couldn’t help it; not a functioning person at the time.

         “I can’t… eat. With you guys,” she finally explained. “I have celiac disease. It’s complicated.”

         “I don’t understand.”

         Ada peeked her head out and looked around before she seized my arm, pulling me inside with one jerk. It took me a second to catch myself, but she kept talking.

         “It means I can’t eat anything with gluten,” she explained.

         “I don’t understand.”

         “Wheat, barley, soy sauce.”

         I stuttered at first. “Okay, but we aren’t going to an Asian restaurant. We’re going to a terrible diner.”

         “Everything has gluten.”

         “Fruit, fried eggs, bacon, I don’t— I don’t know. There has to be something. We can ask the waiter.”

         She shook her head. “I don’t want to cause problems.”

         “But I do,'“ I blurted out. “I’ll cause problems. And then we’ll tip the waiter, like forty percent, it will be fine.'“

         It was a lifeline for her. I was tossing her a rope. She didn’t say as much, but it was clear even in the moment. Her demeanor changed. Her petite body lifted as a weight came off of her shoulders. But she didn’t let herself fall into my offer just yet.

         So I sweetened the pot. “Look, I’ll tell the waiter I have this cadallac disease—”

         “Celiac disease…” she corrected.

         “And I’ll just ask them what doesn’t have gluten in it, the waiter will help me order, and then you can just say that what I’m having sounds amazing and you want it too. Then, like I said, we leave the waiter a great tip. Everyone wins.”

         She hesitated again.

         “And we get to spend time together. So super win there.”

         She smiled, and daring, I reached out for her hand. And to my amazement, she took it.

Digitally Yours,Alex

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