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whinlatter · 1 year ago

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sirius and ginny: a meta (part 1)

“Excuse me, but I care what happens to Sirius as much as you do!” said Ginny, her jaw set so that her resemblance to Fred and George was suddenly striking.’

are you a very brave, very reckless, very hot self-destructive rebel with a treacherous sibling and a flair for christmas decoration, harbouring complex feelings about your mother, close ties to crookshanks the cat and spend your days plagued by the memory of your worst mistakes and dark past? do you find yourself constantly being begged to stay in a state of protective confinement to save your life by a young man with a lightning scar, bad hair and crippling abandonment issues? if so, congratulations! you might be one of harry potter's chosen family members, sirius black and ginevra molly weasley!

basically - i want to talk about sirius and ginny. these are two characters who don’t share a lot of scenes in canon but who, i think, have some clear (if overlooked) parallels: stubborn, fiercely protective of harry, self-sacrificing, admired, principled, haunted (in different ways) by traumatic pasts and betrayals, with complicated relationships with their families and entirely uncomplicated devoted relationships with someone else’s cat. their narrative arcs are successive, with ginny ascending in significance in the series during sirius’ period of decline and ultimate death. and ultimately, they’re also the two people who become, over the course of the canon series, family to a protagonist desperately seeking to build one. sirius and ginny are the two people harry in canon most worries about, wants to protect, and thinks of as someone who embodies the promise of family and home.

sirius and ginny aren’t mirror images of each other. ofc, ginny also has parallels with the only other family members harry claims in the series, lily and james (i mean, especially james - she’s literally a cocky funny flirtatious chaser with a years-long debilitating mega crush who can also catch a snitch like a champ. come on now). it’s also clear in canon that sirius means more to ginny as a hero/role model/ally against her mother than ginny ever means to sirius. nevertheless, the text puts in work to let the reader know we should think about these characters together as somehow aligned. from the beginning of ootp, there are clues and signals in the text that foreshadow ginny’s emergence as someone important to harry, and that subtly let the reader know that the baton of being harry’s ‘person’ is about to be passed from sirius to ginny, two kindred spirits, after sirius’ death. so that's what this meta is about! (consider this my 700th attempt to show that, as the popular fandom complaint/all of reddit still insist, ginny as a character, and especially the harry/ginny romance, did not ‘come out of nowhere’.)

the following meta is part one of two (and yet it's still too long! sorry about it). o in this part, i look at the period from the end of goblet of fire thru the start of half blood prince, exploring how the text sets up the sirius and ginny parallels as a way of foreshadowing ginny’s emergence as harry’s main love interest and place as a family substitute. the second part (tbc) will be what the memory of sirius does for harry’s view of his relationship with ginny, and the kind of positive - and negative - ways this shapes harry’s ideas about love and what family do for each other. i wrote this meta as a way of thinking through some characterisation choices for my current WIP, beasts. if you're following along with that fic, this meta can be seen as a companion piece especially to my thinking behind chapters ten and eleven, so hope proves helpful for some of my thinking behind the sirius and ginny friendship that appears in that project. it's also dedicated to @ashesandhackles, queen of metas, who has reminded me to post this meta precisely 9 million times because she is a long-suffering saint.

ok - sirius and ginny. let’s goooooo!

sirius and ginny before ootp

before OotP, ginny is absent from any plot connected to sirius. ginny doesn’t know the truth about sirius’ innocence, nor does she know that harry, her brother and her friend are in regular contact with sirius and that harry now as a surrogate father/big brother figure to confide in and seek comfort in. in fact, in one of ginny’s few appearances in GoF, the narration is unusually insistent that the reader knows how little ginny knows about sirius:

“And have you heard from — ?” Ron began, but at a look from Hermione he fell silent. Harry knew Ron had been about to ask about Sirius. Ron and Hermione had been so deeply involved in helping Sirius escape from the Ministry of Magic that they were almost as concerned about Harry’s godfather as he was. However, discussing him in front of Ginny was a bad idea. Nobody but themselves and Professor Dumbledore knew about how Sirius had escaped, or believed in his innocence. “I think they’ve stopped arguing,” said Hermione, to cover the awkward moment, because Ginny was looking curiously from Ron to Harry. “Shall we go down and help your mum with dinner?”

the only other tiny crumb of sirius and ginny we get is the news that the owl sirius bought in PoA and gifted to ron as a replacement pet for scabbers has been embraced and named by ginny. sirius gifting a tiny little spitfire of an owl that annoys ron? it's giving foreshadowing, your honour.

the reader, though, knows who sirius is to harry by GoF. throughout this book, for the first time in the series, harry has a person he can claim as something like a family: someone to worry about, someone who cares about him,who can advise, guide and mentor him, as well as offer him support and consolation in difficult times (‘someone like a parent…’) although sirius has not been able to offer harry a stable alternative home to the dursleys due to his status as a wanted man, he’s still filling a role that previously had been vacant in the series: he’s harry’s person, the surrogate parent chosen for him by james and lily. he’s close by, either by the floo or eventually living (at great personal cost) as padfoot in hogsmeade, and he’s present emotionally for harry in ways that prove incredibly meaningful to his young godson. in times of great of distress, sirius is there for harry to meet emotional needs that ron and hermione (understandably, no shade to them) can’t always meet. the floo scene early on in GoF, during harry’s row with ron, is a particularly good example of this:

“Never mind me, how are you?” said Sirius seriously. “I’m —” For a second, Harry tried to say “fine” — but he couldn’t do it. …Before he could stop himself, he was talking more than he’d talked in days — about how no one believed he hadn’t entered the tournament of his own free will, how Rita Skeeter had lied about him in the Daily Prophet, how he couldn’t walk down a corridor without being sneered at — and about Ron, Ron not believing him, Ron’s jealousy . . . Sirius looked at him, eyes full of concern… He had let Harry talk himself into silence without interruption’.

harry derives enormous comfort from sirius’ presence in his life during GoF. he writes to sirius, he repeatedly turns to him for advice, he worries for him more than he does any other person. sirius fulfils harry’s desire to be kept abreast of important information about voldemort and death eaters, doesn’t sugarcoat news for harry, and makes him feel important, cared for and understood. (harry even shows off to sirius telling him about how much of a slay the first task was. ugh). by the time of the third task, sirius is sending harry daily owls, a constant flow of reassurance and concern (‘He reminded Harry in every letter that whatever might be going on outside the walls of Hogwarts was not Harry’s responsibility, nor was it within his power to influence it. If Voldemort is really getting stronger again, he wrote, my priority is to ensure your safety.’) when harry returns from the graveyard at the novel’s end, it’s sirius who races to his side to advocate for him and offer him both words of comfort and physical affection as he processes the traumatic series of events that constitute the climax of the book’s plot. (my personal favourite part is where harry says ‘wormtail cut me with a knife’ and the text says sirius made a ‘vehement exclamation’, which i can only assume is children’s book speak for ‘fucking hell’.) harry goes to bed: sirius stays with him, a literal guard dog as he recuperates. after the most traumatic events of the series to date, the reader is at least consoled that harry potter has a person now, someone he loves for him to worry about and to worry for him, who catches him on the other side of traumatic events and makes them that bit much more bearable.

sirius and ginny during ootp

with sirius' role in harry's life established in GoF, OotP begins with harry, cooped up and restless at privet drive, angry with ron, hermione, sirius, and dumbledore for abandoning him at privet drive and keeping him in the dark. harry arrives at grimmauld place to find an anxious ron and hermione, with whom harry is angry and frustrated for having left him out of their summer hangs and having neglected him, by his assessment, in surrey. it’s the most conflict we’ve seen in the trio in terms of harry vs ron and hermione, and sets up one of the important themes of the book, which is harry no longer being solely emotionally fulfilled by the people he is closest to, including his two surrogate parents best mates but also his godfather. when he encounters sirius for the first time after the order meeting, he finds him surly, bitter, and depressed, furious that he is confined to his childhood home, and (understandably) much less able or willing to offer harry much in the way of comfort, apology or cheering words (‘Harry, who had expected a better welcome, noted how hard and bitter Sirius’s voice sounded.’) in this sense, the book opens with harry disappointed and/or more distant from all the people on whom he most depends and is usually closest to, and that there therefore is already an absence of a certain kind of emotional support in harry’s life that the plot demands be filled.

fresh off the back of harry’s row with ron and hermione is ginny’s reintroduction to the reader. after years of being so shy in harry’s presence she was often nearly mute, the reader finds that ginny is not only now speaking, but that her presence turns out to be remarkably refreshing. from her opening scene where ginny enters harry’s bedroom at grimmauld place, the reader discovers the new ginny is confident, up to no good, in cahoots with her most troublemaking brothers trying to intercept the order meeting, enterprising in her mischief (and very happy to lie to her mother’s face about it). she’s thoroughly unfazed by harry’s great display of rage that has just startled and upset ron and hermione. (side note: in both ootp and hbp, ginny’s opening scene is her entering harry’s bedroom, which is the kind of foreshadowing i personally find delicious). everyone else is behaving pretty much as they have been up to this point, but it’s ginny who is showcasing behaviours new to the reader, a signal that she might be about to play a different role in the series than she has done up to this point.

cut to the dinner scene. sirius and ginny are in the room together for the first time. sirius is moody: though he’s still able to laugh, enjoying displays of mischief and humour (the twins and the knife), he’s more bitter than harry and the reader have seen him since PoA. it’s an important scene for lots of reasons (not least the sirius v molly beef), but it’s also one where sirius and ginny are repeatedly drawn into mental association in the reader’s mind. it’s also a great scene because the behaviour of crookshanks the cat literally serves to foreshadow the behaviour of harry james potter in ways that are frankly extremely fun.

so! the sirius and ginny hints start small. from the start of the scene, ginny is amused by mundungus the crook (a man, we will learn, so disdained by her mother):

“Some’n say m’ name?” Mundungus mumbled sleepily. “I ’gree with Sirius. . . .” He raised a very grubby hand in the air as though voting, his droopy, bloodshot eyes unfocused. Ginny giggled. “The meeting’s over, Dung,” said Sirius, as they all sat down around him at the table. “Harry’s arrived.”

sirius and harry, sat at the end of the table, are both greeted by crookshanks, sirius’ old accomplice from PoA:

'Harry felt something brush against his knees and started, but it was only Crookshanks, Hermione’s bandy-legged ginger cat, who wound himself once around Harry’s legs, purring, then jumped onto Sirius’s lap and curled up. Sirius scratched him absentmindedly behind the ears as he turned, still grim-faced, to Harry…

when fred and george’s levitation goes awry, flinging a knife at sirius (now that’s how you foreshadow a death), crookshanks bolts:

‘Harry and Sirius were both laughing… Crookshanks had given an angry hiss and shot off under the dresser, from whence his large yellow eyes glowed in the darkness…’

during the meal, ginny’s with hermione, having a laugh with tonks, a character harry has just met but whom he has already decided to both admire and like. after the meal, when harry’s cheered up a bit and had his crumble (the man loves dessert), crookshanks finally emerges from his hiding place, having been coaxed out from his sulk by - you guessed it - one g. m. weasley:

‘…Ginny, who had lured Crookshanks out from under the dresser, was sitting cross-legged on the floor, rolling butterbeer corks for him to chase.’

a grouchy character, initially drawn to sirius, but prone to lashing out and locking himself away, only to be lured back out into comfort and safety by ginny weasley? wow………. radical

after dinner, the argument between sirius and molly kicks off. sirius is arguing hard for harry’s right to know, though he makes no attempt to advocate for any of the other weasleys or for hermione. ginny’s noticeably singled out in her reaction to this scene, the text highlighting that she is particularly struck by this conflict as if it is of particular personal resonance, including someone standing up to her famously overprotective mother for once:

‘Ron, Hermione, Fred, and George’s heads turned from Sirius to Mrs. Weasley as though following a tennis rally. Ginny was kneeling amid a pile of abandoned butterbeer corks, watching the conversation with her mouth slightly open. Lupin’s eyes were fixed on Sirius.’

of course, molly loses the argument: harry gets to stay for juicy order deets (‘Sirius was right, he was not a child.’) after the row, ginny is the only person forbidden from hearing information about the order’s activities. suddenly, the roles are switched: it’s ginny who’s now furious and bitter to be kept out of the action:

‘“Fine!” shouted Mrs. Weasley. “Fine! Ginny — BED!” Ginny did not go quietly. They could hear her raging and storming at her mother all the way up the stairs, and when she reached the hall Mrs. Black’s earsplitting shrieks were added to the din. Lupin hurried off to the portrait to restore calm. It was only after he had returned, closing the kitchen door behind him and taking his seat at the table again, that Sirius spoke. “Okay, Harry . . . what do you want to know?”’

it’s not just the parallels of confinement between harry, sirius and ginny that are so revealing, it’s also the dual maternal conflicts. ginny loud raging at her own mother sets off the howling relic of sirius’, serving to underline two characters who continue to grapple with maternal relationships that are complex and full of conflict, though by no means solely negative (sirius i see you sleeping in your mother’s bedroom babe. don’t think i think your relationship with walburga is just one of straight hate ok). when ginny later gets knocked down the stairs by fred and george, there’s more direct mrs weasley/walburga parallels, with the two of them literally shouting over each other during the ordeal lol. as such, the readers see that the conflicts being set up for sirius’ character in this book - frustration at confinement, conflict with a mother figure, drawn to more reckless and arguably irresponsible characters (mundungus, the twins) and courses of action - are also conflicts subtly playing out with the new ginny we’re meeting, too.

as the rest of the summer at grimmauld wears on, there are more examples of sirius and ginny foreshadowing. the scenes where the two characters interact serve to place ginny and sirius firmly in the same camp of people harry admires and has fun with, the troublemakers and the rebels. over the prefects issue, ginny not only is sat chatting with the troublemaking adults harry likes most, but actively draws sirius into conversation on the issue, likely knowing the answer will comfort harry, but also showing a curiosity and interest in sirius that suggests she admires him:

“I was never a prefect myself,” said Tonks brightly from behind Harry as everybody moved toward the table to help themselves to food. Her hair was tomato-red and waist length today; she looked like Ginny’s older sister. “My Head of House said I lacked certain necessary qualities.” “Like what?” said Ginny, who was choosing a baked potato. “Like the ability to behave myself,” said Tonks. Ginny laughed; Hermione looked as though she did not know whether to smile or not and compromised by taking an extra large gulp of butterbeer and choking on it. “What about you, Sirius?” Ginny asked, thumping Hermione on the back. Sirius, who was right beside Harry, let out his usual barklike laugh…’

ginny’s choice to try and draw sirius into the conversation bears fruit: sirius confirms james was never a prefect, and harry’s sour mood is suddenly lifted. (‘All at once the party seemed much more enjoyable; he loaded up his plate, feeling unusually fond of everyone in the room.’) ginny is thus beginning to provide harry with subtle comfort and reassurance, especially as sirius, struggling with his own confinement, is taking a less active role in trying to cheer harry up. what i also like is that we have evidence of how ginny views sirius - she’s curious about him and his past, she clearly thinks he and the other new rebellious adults are cool as shit, and she’s drawn increasingly away from her mother’s cautious overprotective approach towards these resistance fighters who prioritise the fight over safety. (it is noticeable to me that ginny does not become a prefect in HBP, suggesting sirius' example proved instructive).

we see more small parallels between sirius and ginny during the cleaning scenes. the battle against grimmauld place is an important symbol of one of the important themes of OotP as a book: a battle over past traumas and their persistent and unwieldy symptoms that are seemingly never-ending. while it’s harry’s experiences that, of course, take centre stage, sirius’, too, loom omnipresent throughout the text. it’s significant, then, that ginny’s own past gets brought up for the first time in three books here, albeit briefly:

'They found an unpleasant-looking silver instrument, something like a many-legged pair of tweezers, which scuttled up Harry’s arm like a spider when he picked it up, and attempted to puncture his skin; Sirius seized it and smashed it with a heavy book entitled Nature’s Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy. There was a musical box that emitted a faintly sinister, tinkling tune when wound, and they all found themselves becoming curiously weak and sleepy until Ginny had the sense to slam the lid shut…'

in this moment, we see sirius and ginny singled in the larger group as quick-thinking, shrewd characters, with a good instincts and common sense (if a bit of a tendency to get scrappy). their respective dark pasts are subtly alluded to. sirius whacks a spider trying to attack harry with a book that might as well be entitled my big book of family trauma. ginny, meanwhile, steps in when everybody present starts to be enchanted by a mysterious object luring them into danger by whacking it shut (gee i wonder why!) given this is the book that will see ginny mention the events of CoS for the first time in errrrr three years, it’s significant that the text is careful to draw ginny into this broader theme that unites sirius and harry, the constant reminders of traumatic pasts at every turn. we also see here the revelation that regulus black was a death eater. coming after news of percy weasley’s betrayal, sirius’ bitter dismissal of his younger brother deliberately mirrors ginny and the other weasleys’ attitude towards percy, this sense of pureblood families split over wizarding politics, often fatally.

while harry fears his expulsion from hogwarts prior his hearing, he continues to fantasise about coming to live with sirius at grimmauld, and about being with a family member and finding an alternative home to hogwarts. sirius, as hermione astutely observes, tries to manage harry’s expectations and not to get his own hopes up: still, when harry is exonerated, sirius is visibly depressed, showing the beginnings of an emotional dependency on harry that harry feels great guilt over.when leaving grimmauld for the start of the school year, sirius, as padfoot, accompanies harry to king’s cross: unlike in GoF, though, he is spotted, and harry begins to worry much more actively about sirius’ vulnerability to capture, about his recklessness and about his judgement. concerned for sirius, and absent ron and hermione, who are in the prefects carriage, the person who stays with harry and offers him company is ginny. she sacrifices her own train journey (presumably with her own boyfriend) to find a carriage with harry and make sure he’s not lonely, bringing him to neville and luna and sorting him out after his embarassing cho run-in. it’s not a coincidence that once again we see ginny here taking care of harry crookshanks:

'“Where’s Crookshanks?” “Ginny’s got him,” said Harry. “There she is. . . .” Ginny had just emerged from the crowd, clutching a squirming Crookshanks. “Thanks,” said Hermione, relieving Ginny of the cat. “Come on, let’s get a carriage together before they all fill up. . . '

once harry’s back at school, having left sirius behind to languish miserably in london, we see he's more isolated and alone than ever. he’s tormented by umbridge, endlessly (though often unfairly) frustrated with ron and hermione, ghosted by dumbledore, yet absent the more stable, reassuring sirius he came to know in GoF, unable to write candidly to him and faced with a much less well sirius in the opportunities they do have to speak face-to-face. as sirius’ mental health declines as he is shut up at grimmauld, his ability to support harry and comfort him starts to falter, and he becomes a much more uneven source of advice and support, particularly during his car crash floo appearance, where he’s much ruder than he has previously been (cutting off, ignoring their pleas for him to be more cautious, the infamous ‘the risk would have made it fun for james’ moment). this new sirius, clearly struggling, is much more happy to do up guilt trip to his godson than we have seen him to up this point (‘I’ll write to tell you a time I can make it back into the fire, then, shall I? If you can stand to risk it?’ - you petty little shit, padfoot). all of this serves to increase harry’s anxiety about sirius’ wellbeing and reinforce harry’s sense of emotional isolation. even sirius’ encouragement on the DA is, as hermione points out, partly bound up in more selfish motivations (‘I think he’s really frustrated at how little he can do where he is… so I think he’s keen to kind of… egg us on.’)

ginny’s largely absent in this section of the novel. in the brief moments she does appear, it’s to inject humour (eg. her impressions at the DA meeting) and in little reminders that she now has a boyfriend, no longer harbours romantic feelings for harry, making sure the reader continues to hold her mentally apart from harry. harry, meanwhile, misguidedly tries to seek out a relationship with cho chang, who is showing clear signs of her own emotional distress and inability to meet harry’s emotional needs given her own grief. still, among this, there’s still room for some small subtle sirius/ginny parallels. once the DA plot picks up, we have another little sign that ginny weasley and sirius black think somewhat alike:

“Yeah, the D.A.’s good,” said Ginny. “Only let’s make it stand for Dumbledore’s Army because that’s the Ministry’s worst fear, isn’t it?”

“Trained in combat?” repeated Harry incredulously. “What does he think we’re doing here, forming some sort of wizard army? “That’s exactly what he thinks you’re doing,” said Sirius, “or rather, that’s exactly what he’s afraid Dumbledore’s doing — forming his own private army, with which he will be able to take on the Ministry of Magic.”

with harry's isolation and need for more emotional support established in this first term, christmas at grimmauld offers more opportunity to subtly develop the sirius and ginny parallels, as well as to highlight ginny’s ability to fill the gaps left by sirius’ decline. after the attack on arthur weasley, the group arrive back at grimmauld:

‘Sirius was hurrying toward them all, looking anxious. He was unshaven and still in his day clothes; there was also a slightly Mundungus-like whiff of stale drink about him. “What’s going on?” he said, stretching out a hand to help Ginny up. “Phineas Nigellus said Arthur’s been badly injured —”

could this be sirius literally lifting ginny up into plot significance? why yes it could

ofc the weasleys then argue with sirius about their right to go see their father. despite his own frustrations at being trapped at grimmauld, sirius proves the voice of reason and rational decision making against both ginny and the twins’ hotheadedness (ginny asks to borrow cloaks to go to the hospital: sirius: ‘Hang on, you can’t go tearing off to St. Mungo’s!’) crucially, though, when sirius points out that there are bigger things at stake - the work of the order and the resistance movement - it’s ginny who listens:

“Your father knew what he was getting into, and he won’t thank you for messing things up for the Order!” said Sirius angrily in his turn. “This is how it is — this is why you’re not in the Order — you don’t understand — there are things worth dying for!” “Easy for you to say, stuck here!” bellowed Fred. “I don’t see you risking your neck!” The little colour remaining in Sirius’s face drained from it. He looked for a moment as though he would quite like to hit Fred, but when he spoke, it was in a voice of determined calm. “I know it’s hard, but we’ve all got to act as though we don’t know anything yet. We’ve got to stay put, at least until we hear from your mother, all right?” Fred and George still looked mutinous. Ginny, however, took a few steps over to the nearest chair and sank into it. Harry looked at Ron, who made a funny movement somewhere between a nod and shrug, and they sat down too. The twins glared at Sirius for another minute, then took seats on either side of Ginny. “That’s right,” said Sirius encouragingly, “come on, let’s all . . . let’s all have a drink while we’re waiting…’

there’s a lot going on here: ginny’s willingness to follow sirius’ orders, but also her willingness to accept an argument based on some idea of the greater good before any of her brothers. she and sirius are aligned here, and it’s her decision to accept sirius’ reasoning that proves the catalyst for her brothers to follow. we see here how ginny has come to see sirius: someone she looks up to and admires, an adult whose judgement she trusts and whose worldview she subscribes to. (as a character prone to hero worship - see her view of her big brother bill - i think this is noteworthy, and is behind a lot of my characterisation choices for ginny towards sirius in beasts). but we also see that ginny agrees with sirius' worldview. there are some things worth dying for, and self-sacrifice is part of that.

when harry goes to sirius for reassurance about witnessing arthur’s attack, he finds sirius unable to properly console him and convince him that he was not to blame for arthur’s attack. the reader gets the impression of sirius withholding information from harry (‘He could only see a sliver of Sirius’s face; the rest was in darkness’), and the scene ends with sirius clapping harry on the shoulder and leaving him ‘standing alone in the dark’. while sirius throws himself into christmas preparations, obviously delighted to have company, harry shrinks from the cheer and isolates himself. in the end, ofc, the only person that manages to pull harry out of his dark, brooding thoughts is ginny. the text is careful to note she’s sitting beside him on the tube back from st mungo’s, when he looks very unwell. then, in the ‘lucky you’ scene, she showcases some of the same skills harry first came to appreciate in sirius in GoF. she tells it to him straight: she’s sympathetic, but not overly gushing, and she reminds him of her own intensely frightening experience which she endured alone, something harry can relate to, even if the experience of possession is not. it’s an important scene for lots of reasons, but it’s also, crucially, the intervention that causes harry’s mood to lift, and he gets to enjoy a christmas with his godfather, the thing he had most wanted in the run-up to christmas, and which becomes the only holiday period harry and sirius ever spend together:

‘I’m not the weapon after all, thought Harry. His heart swelled with happiness and relief, and he felt like joining in as they heard Sirius tramping past their door toward Buckbeak’s room, singing “God Rest Ye Merry, Hippogriffs” at the top of his voice.’

of course, once christmas is over, sirius slips back into a depressed, gloomy state. harry wants a better goodbye than he gives him, merely giving him a quick one armed hug (there’s a real theme throughout harry and sirius’ relationship of very sparing physical contact on sirius’ part, which is obviously a hole in harry's life ginny will fill in - er - a big way). back at school, harry returns to umbridge’s increasingly draconian rule, maks a disastrous attempt at forging a relationship with cho, and continues to feel lonely, paranoid, and angry. unable to speak to sirius properly via letter or floo - and unwilling to open the present sirius has given him to communicate directly with him, the two-way mirror - harry is increasingly sullen, a mood that only worsens after seeing snape's worst memory.

the easter egg scene is obviously important for hinny for lots of different reasons. but here i just want to highlight how the scene serves to show ginny as both the conduit to sirius for harry, and someone whose behaviour echoes that of sirius in GoF when harry first began to open up to and seek comfort in him. harry is distressed by his now complicated feelings both towards the father he previously revered and towards sirius, who seemed to encourage james’ bullying behaviour. ginny hands harry a chocolate easter egg covered in snitches: chocolate, a canonical source of comfort against dark thoughts, and an egg that reminds him of the love of parent. the act makes him suddenly emotional, though he at first denies he’s upset. ginny presses carefully and sensitively, asking the right questions to get him to confess the source of his worry, waiting for harry to take his time to speak - all behaviours that echo sirius’ own effective listening techniques. ginny’s acquaintance with sirius, and knowledge of how significant he is to harry, is important here, too, and a subtle sign to the reader that he trusts ginny with knowledge about sirius after a long time of having her in the dark about his godfather. the reader leaves the scene having seen ginny breakthrough to harry emotionally in a way for the second time in the novel, in a way no other character has done (‘he felt a bit more hopeful…’)

of course, the course of action ginny has set in motion is itself risky and reckless (‘anything is possible if you’ve got enough nerve’ is very marauders as a philosophy). the decision to go ahead with the plan the twins come up with is one harry sees as a decision on whether to be more like james and sirius - a risk taker - or to abandon the hero worship for the marauders he has lived with for so long. in the end, of course, it’s a win for the reckless troublemakers: he chooses to go ahead with the plan the twins have crafted and that ginny has set in motion, and to speak to sirius.

and yet. sirius is still alive - there is not need for ginny yet. for the remainder of the book, ginny has to beg to be included in the trio's plans and to be allowed to be a part of the plot to rescue sirius. she’s is often in conflict with harry, showing a lot of sirius’ bitterness at attempts at containment and to keep her out of the fighting. she grates against harry’s insistence that she is too young and inexperienced, and having to remind the trio that she, too, has come to care about sirius and wants to see him safe:

“I’ve got a broom!” said Ginny. “Yeah, but you’re not coming,” said Ron angrily. “Excuse me, but I care what happens to Sirius as much as you do!” said Ginny, her jaw set so that her resemblance to Fred and George was suddenly striking.

of course, it all ends in tragedy: sirius, desperate to go to harry’s aid and absolutely gunning for a fight after months of confinement, is killed, leaving harry alone. there a subtle clues that something has shifted in ginny’s relationship to harry and the trio in the scenes after sirius’ death, including ginny positioned as the mirror image to harry in the hospital:

‘Harry was sitting on the end of Ron’s bed and they were both listening to Hermione read the front page of the Sunday Prophet. Ginny, whose ankle had been mended in a trice by Madam Pomfrey, was curled up at the foot of Hermione’s bed…’

despite this, in the immediate aftermath of sirius’ death, harry is extremely alone. he is unable to work out what he needs (‘Whenever he was in company he wanted to get away, and whenever he was alone he wanted company.’) he tries to go to hagrid’s, but regrets it (‘He was starting to wish he was alone again’), leaving after hagrid reminds him of sirius’ core traits, an inability to stay out of the fight when he believes in the cause:

“But still, Harry . . . he was never one ter sit around at home an�� let other people do the fightin’. He couldn’ have lived with himself if he hadn’ gone ter help —”

unlike at the end of GoF, harry is isolated by his grief and the revelation of the prophecy's contents by the end of this book. he goes alone to a secluded corner of the lakeshore, ‘sheltered from the gaze of passersby behind a tangle of shrubs’, and ‘[stares] out over the gleaming water’, and cries alone. there is no sirius or other person to catch him and console him in his grief. his person has died, and there’s a gap in his life again, just waiting to be filled:

‘Wanting to impress Cho seemed to belong to a past that was no longer quite connected with him. So much of what he had wanted before Sirius’s death felt that way these days. . . . The week that had elapsed since he had last seen Sirius seemed to have lasted much, much longer: It stretched across two universes, the one with Sirius in it, and the one without.’

ginny and sirius parallels in HBP and DH

after sirius’ death, the parallels between sirius and ginny become more important as ginny moves into the centre frame as a character. at the start of HBP, harry arrives at the burrow and discusses his grief over sirius’ death with dumbledore in the burrow broom shed, acknowledging how profoundly the loss of a family member who cares singularly about him is affecting him. ('He felt stupid for admitting it, but the fact that he had had someone outside Hogwarts who cared what happened to him, almost like a parent, had been one of the best things about discovering his godfather . . . and now the post owls would never bring him that comfort again. . . .' beasts readers: there's a reason harry clings to letters!) of course, having reminded the reader of the gap in harry’s life that now needs to be filled, harry goes to sleep, the active reflection on his grief for sirius put to one side so the novel's plot can get underway. he'll go to bed mourning sirius and wake up in a sunlit bedroom. of course, ginny will walk into this bedroom too, only now things will be different: harry potter is back to the search for a loved one, for a family, and he's about to realise ginny is the one he wants to fill it. thus the start of the plot of ginny stepping into the role vacated by sirius beginneth.

so much of who ginny is in HBP is reminiscent of sirius. she frequently leaps into battle as harry’s protector (‘You’re taking orders from something someone wrote in a book?’, ‘Give it a rest, Hermione’), she’s scrappy (RIP zacharias smith), she’s funny and laughs easily in a way that less recalls sirius in the time harry knew him than sirius as harry sees him as a young man, in photographs or memories. she's the one who commits to the insane christmas decorations, determined to cheer everyone up over the festive period as sirius did the year before. she even enjoys the widespread admiration and lust of her peers, a trait that directly recalls sirius being eyed up by his peers in snape's memory. by the novel’s end, after dumbledore’s death, it will be ginny who goes to harry’s side after the climax of the plot and catch him in his grief just as sirius did in GoF, this time over dumbledore’s death:

‘He did not want to leave Dumbledore’s side, he did not want to move anywhere. Hagrid’s hand on his shoulder was trembling. Then another voice said, “Harry, come on.’ A much smaller and warmer hand had enclosed his and was pulling him upward. He obeyed its pressure without really thinking about it.’

their breakup has sirius all over it. taking place at the lakeshore, the place where harry wept alone over sirius a year prior, harry draws on the circumstances of sirius’ demise as a reason he must break up with ginny (‘Voldemort uses people his enemies are close to.’) the breakup does little to shift what ginny has become in harry’s mind, though, and he spends all of DH thinking of her as he once thought of sirius: the person whose safety he most craves, the person he misses, someone he claims as his, and whom he associates with (now banished) hopes of a home and a family:

“It’s not a problem,” said Harry, sickened by the pain in his head. “It’s your family, ’course you’re worried. I’d feel the same way.” He thought of Ginny. “I do feel the same way.”

of course, echoes of sirius will also come into play during open war. it’s now ginny, not sirius, who is the one left behind for her own protection: in the run-up to the battle, harry finds himself once again faced with the prospect of confining his loved one for their safety, despite their desperation to fight and do the right thing. but these are thoughts for part 2…….

#meta #sirius black #ginny weasley #it's not NOT an aged up sinevra ship agenda #hp meta #hp analysis #hinny #marauders #black family #beasts

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doubleddenden · 1 year ago

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The topic of Palworld is pretty charged, but often times I see people be shamed for liking it because the CEO tweeted stuff about NFTs and the company using AI art in a separate game. Acting as if that's the most damning thing ever for a gaming company in an industry filled with similar people.

Make no mistake, I dislike both AI art and nfts, but do you realize how many gaming companies have involvement with that?

To begin with, Pokémon used AI art in a promotional piece for Pokémon Go in September, and nobody gave a shit because uwu Pikachu. The Pokémon Company also put a job listing some months back seeking an expert in NFTs. That's not quite damning evidence, but if I were a betting man, no "NFT expert" will willingly say "yeah nfts suck are bad for the environment, man, I'll take my paycheck and fuck off now." There's also a strong argument to be made that Pokémon has stolen ideas from fakemon artists (Finizen and Palafin, Scovillain, Dipplin, etc) and other franchises (kaiju movies, Dragon Quest, Megaman, final fantasy, western cartoons and food mascots, etc), a dubious legal statement that claims they own all fan art from the remixes and fakemon made on youtube to the pikachu your kid drew at breakfast; they have yet to apologize for the state of Scarlet and Violet while charging full price to millions of paying customers for a clearly unfinished and barely functioning game (which i did enjoy, but you can't tell me it was finished baking when it struggles not to shit itself just to run), and a bunch of other things people shit on Palworld for, but A. It's Pokémon so people don't care and think it's fine, and B. That's not the point of this post.

You know who else does NFTs and AI art? (Yes I heard Muscle Man from Regular Show in my head just now, too, moving along)

Square Enix sold several of their IPs for NFTs and claims to have used AI art "a minimum amount" in Foam Stars, yet I see nobody yelling for boycotts of Final Fantasy 14, 16, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest, Life is Strange, etc etc etc.

Sony has invested in both, they want to implement AI into gaming, and has a patent for nfts to be used in games and consoles, yet there's no movement to throw out your playstations.

Bandai Namco- you know, that company with a hand in pretty much most anime games on the market and popular games such as the Dark Souls games? They have a game called RYU that's essentially a virtual pet game that uses the blockchain, and its AI driven, among other projects. Yet there's no outcry to stop playing the many, MANY games they brand with. This also includes quite a few Nintendo games (btw they just partnered together to form a special studio quite recently) like Smash Wii U/3ds and New Pokémon Snap. Nobody gives a shit though.

Android, Microsoft, Google, Apple- I don't even need to explain those, they have whole teams dedicated to both. Even popular VPN companies accept crypto.

I'm just saying an awful lot of you guys that scream and shit bloody murder about Palworld's company being involved with that shit are either the biggest "It's okay when my favs do it" type of hypocrites, or you're sorely ignorant to just how evil and greedy most corporations are. You'll be hard pressed to find a game company with popular AND fun games that DOESN'T have some interest in either, let alone movie and show studios. That's the awful reality we live in.

You have 2 options

1. You basically stop doing anything involving most modern tech, including throwing out your pc and smart phone. You could probably live a comfortable life with tech circa 2010, but you have to be aware that any thing you buy may go towards a cause you don't like.

2. You accept that people can enjoy a product while not necessarily agreeing with the CEO of said product. Most CEOs tend to be jackasses anyway, that's kind of the shared trait they all have. You can also discourage companies from using them while understanding it is everywhere.

Palworld at the end of the day is just a toy, that's it. From the looks of it, it's not even actually hurting anyone, and it seems like the company at least treats their employees pretty decently- at least according to a few things I've seen here and there that seems rather progressive for a Japanese studio (with room for doubt obviously, it's a company after all and as we've established, they're all evil). At the least its not like when people supported Hogwarts Legacy and directly put money into JKR's wallet so she can openly hurt more Trans women. In fact, the only people seemingly hurt in all of this Palworld drama are obsessed Pokémon stans that can't accept a parody, or the Pokémon Company themselves, who rightly deserve some punching up tbh.

You can just say you dislike the game, that's fine, I totally get that. Even though I personally think The Pokémon Company deserves a few nut shots after the way they've treated fans these last few years with the state of their games (and you know, stealing ideas from fans without credit), I can see why someone would be turned away from a parody that's literally meant to be Pokémon with guns. I can totally understand all of that, personally I'd prefer if the game was MORE like Pokémon with turn based combat.

But if you're going to defend Pokémon because you think its perfectly innocent because of Wooloo or something like that, just be sure you're aware you're defending the World's Richest Franchise and their own attempts at AI and NFTs while calling out an indie company (a real one thats learning as they go, not the fake "We're totally indie" franchise that hasn't been indie since gen 3) for having a ceo that also seems interested in the same stuff. And remember, you don't become number 1 without hurting people somehow (we could dig up receipts about certain partners Pokémon has teamed up with, such as Tencent with Unite, but I'd rather not right now.)

Just saying. I don't think you're an irredeemable person for still liking Pikachu, cuz I do too believe it or not. I've been a life long fan and still have fun with the games despite the clear scummy business practices towards their paying customers. Just maybe extend that courtesy to the millions of players just trying to have fun in this awful, putrid, shithole planet that just keeps getting worse and worse with each passing day.

Plus... you know, think about it. Do you think Pokémon would ever get around to making a gunless Palworld? Probably not. Do you think Palworld would exist if The Pokémon Company and Nintendo were the slightest bit chill about Pokémon fan projects like SEGA is with Sonic? Also probably not. From what I've read, the devs just wanted to make a fun game that happens to mostly be ARK with Pokémon adjacent monsters. That's not really a bad thing, all things considered, and it seems like the worst they've done is reference official Pokémon when making their own models.

Palworld being successful is actually beneficial to Pokémon fans, as well. It'll never really truly compete, but it has outsold Legends Arceus in terms of units sold (not as much financially because Palworld was only $30 plus a sale recently, but still impressive), and it is enough that Game Freak is aware of its existence. Let Palworld light a fire under their ass, and maybe GF will actually finish their next game before releasing it for full price (and no, we're not bringing up the tired imaginary ball and chain game devs, game freak owns 1/3rd lf the franchise and can easily take methods to get more dev time, they just haven't because money). Just saying, at least the Paldevs were honest enough to sell it in early access for half the price.

#palworld

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heartbreakgrill · 1 year ago

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stiles stilinski: breakable heaven; pt. 7, “i’m drunk in the back of the car and i cried like a baby coming home from the bar. said, ‘I'm fine,’ but it wasn't true.”

a/n: sad, but gets hopeful! one more part after this, i think :)

“i’m glad i never ended up having a party at my house.”

danny fell into step beside y/n, their shoes scuffing against the sidewalk. they had to park all the way down the street from jack’s house because there were so many other people here. because it was so late at night, the air in beacon hills was cool. y/n hugged her arms around herself, wishing she hadn’t worn a tank top beneath her jacket. her breath came out like a fog as she spoke.

danny made a face at the thought, “too much work. imagine the clean up.”

“yeah, no thanks,” she shivered.

the music coming from the house ahead of them got louder as they neared it. some popular radio song reverberated in their ears. y/n felt her heart beat in her throat, thumping along to the bass. danny lit up once they reached the door, excited to drink, dance.

he always was the party type. he had so much fun moving to the music, losing himself in the crowd.

on the other hand, there was y/n, who didn’t normally drink at parties. she was a go-to for being the designated driver, choosing to watch out for her friends and play with whatever animal the owner of the house had sniffing around.

tonight, however, she wanted to let loose. needed to, more so.there was nothing better after a heartbreak than getting messy-drunk at a high school party.

it had been a week. a whole week since her and stiles’ fall out. a week since she’d seen his face. sure, she saw his figure in the hallways sometimes, but she would run the other way. he’d start to chase her down, but danny was usually close by and he’d shoot stiles a glaring look. it turned him away. he’d texted her nonstop, called her about a million times. but, after the fourth day, when he realized she just wouldn’t be responding, he stopped. all lines of communication fell out. any hope of fixing what was broken was squashed out.

when y/n thought about it too much, she felt sick. nausea tumbled through her stomach. her head became fuzzy. stupid, naive girl, she’d think to herself. it’s all your fault. so, every single time her mind started to wander, she’d shove her nose into her homework, pick up a shift at work, get so high out of her mind that reality felt like a television show.

tonight, her choice of thought erasure was getting wasted at a high school party.

y/n squeezed her hand around danny’s bicep once they walked in. in response, he kept her close to his side as they wormed through jack’s house, in search of their friend group. eventually, they found leo, megan, jack, and a few others. they were in the kitchen, standing around the island counter. glasses were scattered around the house already, though the party had just started barely an hour or so ago. the group cheered when y/n and danny came through the door, holding up some of the red solo cups.

megan came to y/n’s side, her tipsy stature morphing her usually quiet attitude into something more sentimental. she clutched onto y/n’s arm. she touched y/n’s cheek and gushed over the curls swinging over her shoulders. “i loooove the hair, girl. you look so pretty with it like that. you’re always pretty, though. oh, my god, you know we haven’t hung out in forever and it makes me so sad. please, please say we’ll hang out soon.”

y/n giggled at megan’s state, wrapping a securely protective arm around megan’s waist. “i promise, okay?”

y/n was the first to admit that she’d been so caught up with boys over the last few months. she hadn’t exactly pushed away her friends, but she hadn’t prioritized them, either. she was in her head with her own issues, and didn’t make the time others. it made her feel a little guilty. but, before that feeling could snowball into the depressive heartbreak she’d been plagued with, megan continued.

“what’s new with you? what have you been up to? i hope you’re not still sad about sam. you should know you’re so much fucking better than him. you deserve so much fucking better than him. he’s such a whore. fuck him.”

“no, i’m over that,” y/n said, confidently waving megan off through a giggle. and she was telling the truth. “i’ve just been…hanging out. ya know. working.” her gaze became distant, words slow as stiles’ face flashes through her memories. y/n didn’t say what she had been really doing. it was embarrassing to admit that she’d gotten herself into another shitty situation with a guy.

though, megan squinted her eyes, analyzing her friend’s words. she knew, “oh, no. oh, no, no, no. fucking stilinksi. i fucking knew once danny told us- okay. listen- you don’t even have to say anything, kay? tonight, we’re just gonna have fun. here, jack, pour us some shots!”

y/n couldn’t help but grin in response. there wasn’t time to imagine stiles- to envision his lips ghosting the curve of her skin, to try to remember what it felt like when he’d draw out movement from her body. because, next thing she knew, megan was shoving two to three red solo shot cups into y/n’s hand- all in a row. and y/n didn’t let herself hesitate. she swallowed them easily, ignoring the burn in her throat, her heart, her chest, and head.

jack cracked a smirnoff open for her. danny caught y/n’s eyes as she took a sip and gave her a thumbs up. when she waved him off, he winked, then wandered his way into the living room, where people were dancing. he’d mentioned something about ethan being there. y/n looped her arm through megan’s, pointed in that direction. megan nodded excitedly and pulled them to the makeshift dance floor.

they danced for what felt like hours but, really, was only maybe forty five minutes. jack and leo, avid partiers, continued shoving shots into their friend’s hands, traveling between the bar in the kitchen and the dance floor. y/n losing track of time turned into her losing track of how much she was drinking. one smirnoff turned into numerous empty glasses that she’d abandon on the coffee table beside her.

she had to take her jacket off after a while, sweating too much in the jean material. y/n tossed it, absentmindedly, on the couch. she probably wouldn’t remember it there later. she’d probably have jack in a frenzy, texting everyone tomorrow about random articles of clothing in his living room. she’d probably lose the 20 stuffed into the pocket to some wandering hands. but it didn’t matter.

nothing really mattered. not when her favorite song played, not when megan spun her around, when danny would yell lyrics into her face and ruffle her hair. y/n just kept throwing her head back, giggling like a mad woman.

it didn’t matter. it did not matter to her. the entire, fucked up situation with stiles. it didn’t matter that he had used her, that he had been seeing lydia the whole time. it did not matter that he had kept so many secrets from her. it did not matter that she broke her own rules, that she let him get beneath her skin, that she fell in love with hi

it did not really matter if she loved him.

y/n turned on her heel, dancing around in circles with megan, both girls holding each other’s hands like they were schoolgirls. her hair whipped over her shoulders, in waves behind her back. her eyes couldn’t focus on the blurred, bright lights passing her vision as they spun. the bodies surrounding them turned into smudges against her vision. she couldn’t tell who was who.

but she thought she saw stiles standing in the doorway to the kitchen, clear as day.

y/n stalled in her tracks. she nearly fell over from how quickly she stopped. megan bumped into her shoulder, grabbed y/n’s arm to steady herself.

y/n couldn’t breathe. she squinted her eyes, rubbed at them, smudging her mascara.

her sight cleared and there was nobody there.

megan laughed loudly in y/n’s ear, tugging on her arm, “why’d you stop?! keep going! spin, spin!”

y/n took a deep, shuddering breath, staring at the spot where she had pictured stiles. “i need air,” she mumbled.

megan yelled, “what are you saying?”

y/n pulled her arm out of megan’s, “i’m going outside,” she barely looked at her friend. this is why she didn’t like to drink.

y/n stumbled through the house, being shoved left and right by the sweaty, dancing teenagers suffocating her. she didn’t know when she’d started crying, but her face was slick was tears. she wiped her hands across her cheeks, smearing more mascara and eyeliner, blackening her palms. she couldn’t focus her thoughts, nor did she feel like herself. this is why she didn’t like to drink. because she wasn’t logical, she was out of control.

y/n found the side door, the one that led to jack’s garage, and slammed it shut behind her. once she reached the garage floor, she slowly lowered herself to the bottom step, hugged her knees to her chest. she didn’t know if she was having a panic attack or a full mental breakdown. but she couldn’t breathe. and she just wanted to be sober so she could figure out her shit.

y/n pressed a hand to her chest, hoping the pressure would do something: ground her, snap her back to reality. all she could do was sob, rock back and forth like a baby. as she did so, her phone fell out of her back pocket. somehow, her camera roll was open on the screen. staring up at her. a picture of stiles and winnie was there, taunting her.

y/n didn’t have any inhibitions, too far gone to know what crossed the line of boundaries she’d made when she was sober. so, she picked up her phone, her hands shaking.

and she hit the little telephone next to his contact. she stared at the picture as it rung.

she needed him. she needed him to hold her, bare-naked under his bedsheets, warm against his chest. needed him to rake his fingers through her hair and to kiss her forehead, call her baby again. even just say her name. she’d even pretend, like she did a dozen times, just for him, that she didn’t notice his lips linger there. she’d pretend it never happened.

anything for him. if he wanted her and lydia- that was fine. he could have her. she was his, completely, fully. all of his. every inch of her skin that he had laid eyes, that he had touched his with fingertips, every inch of skin that he had nipped at with his teeth- it was his.

he picked up immediately.

“y/n? oh, my god, i’m so fucking- i’m so sorry. i don’t know what i did-“

“stiles,” she cut him off, voice barely above a whisper.

his tone instantly softened. a soothing one replaced his usually hectic vocal demeanor, “oh, baby.” he knew, from just the smallest whimper barely uttered between her lips, he knew that she didn’t want to fight. she didn’t call to argue. she didn’t call to make up, either. she just called to hear him, to talk to him. she needed him.

she’d never know how much he needed her, too.

his voice, breathy in her ear, sent a shiver down her spine. y/n sniffled, knuckles white on the hand which held her phone. her head lolled down, chin hiding into her chest.

“what’s wrong?” he asked.

y/n chewed on her lip for a moment, willing it to stop wobbling, “i mis-“ she stopped herself, jamming a different word onto what she was saying to cover it up, “i mistake. i-um, didn’t mean to call you.

it took him a second to reply, “oh. ok.” he knew it wasn’t true, but he didn’t know what else to say. he didn’t want to press her into a conversation she didn’t want to have. but he didn’t want to end the call. he wanted to be whatever she needed in this moment.

they sat there in silence for a good two minutes, not even the sound of their own ragged, anticipatory breaths making any noise in the other’s ear. y/n’s hand was shaking. she loosened her tight grip on her knees and stretched her legs out in front of her. the shift in position helped her breath a little bit better.

she sniffled again, tilted her head back. as she stared at the ceiling, she suddenly laughed. “i didn’t make a fucking mistake, stiles. god, i meant to call you.”

“oh, good,” his tone remained still and flat. he was focused on reading her words. there was meaning between the lines that he couldn’t read. and she was acting strange. he was decoding everything.

“i mean to call you because every single second that i’m not with you, i feel like i’m going to die!” she exclaimed, tossing her other hand in the air.

stiles rubbed his lips together, brows furrowed, “i’m glad that you called.” he, also, felt like he was going to die without her. but, he didn’t know if he should tell.

if only stiles knew that if he would have just told her, honestly, how he felt, as soon as he felt it, months ago, this entire situation could have been avoided. alas, it was a lesson he was still learning.

“good,” y/n huffed. hearing him calmed her down. knowing he was there coaxed her off the edge of anxiety. now, her drunken self took back over her body. and drunk y/n wanted to dance, “okay. i’m going back to the party-“

“party?” stiles interrupted her, his concerned tone back. she was annoyed that he cared where she was at. he didn’t have any right to that feeling- though, also, it made her feel good, that jealousy, that toxicity.

drunk y/n was feeling a lot.

she nodded, though he couldn’t see her, stating matter of factly, “party. i’m at a party, stiles. i’m drunk, and i’m having a blast. well, i was having a blast until you popped into my mind. god, do you know how badly i want to punch you in the face? i just wanna give you, like, a knuckle sandwich, ya know? maybe being hit will make you figure your shit out. okay, whatever. like i was saying before you so rudely interrupted me, i’m going back to the party. i’m going to go dance with my friends-“

stiles had just left the animal clinic, where he, lydia, allison, and scott had met to discuss plans to combat the killer still in beacon hills. chills were lingering on his skin, thinking about all of the photographs stolen from the station, picturing dead students cut at the throat. every time they’d pull another out of the beige manila folder, y/n’s face would appear in his head, attached to a battered, beaten corpse. he’d been worried sick about her the last week, especially since the murderous rampages had slowly spread, closer to home. and, they were more vicious as every day passed. he’d be lying if he said that he didn’t stay outside her house every night, parked in his jeep down the road, barely able to sleep.

her, drunk at a party, was the last situation stiles needed her to be in. it was dangerous. he didn’t want to show up to a crime scene with her corpse lying within a body bag. he couldn’t lose her.

of course, she didn’t know that that was a possible ending to her night. everyone knew about the serial killer, but average citizens of beacon hills didn’t really seem concern themselves with something that seemed so out of reach. teenagers, especially, were naive and vulnerable to things like that.

“who’s with you?” he interceded her words, again. y/n groaned in response and went to complain about how he always did shit like that. but, he spoke again, more firmly this time, “y/n, who’s with you?”

“my friends, just danny, megan, jack, leo. a bunch of other people i don’t know,” she listed off, staring into space. “why do you care?”

“where is it?” stiles demanded. sure, he didn’t have claws, fangs, or anything that would stop a literal supernatural serial killer besides a beat-up baseball ball and his annoying attitude which would eventually drive the creature even more insane. but, he needed to be there. heather had died at a party. the ending scene of a slasher film always happened at a party. parties were breeding grounds for death, as if they were the tenth circle of dante’s inferno or something.

y/n, danny, leo, megan- they were all sitting ducks. targets for something really bad yet to happen.

so, he needed to be there. convince her to leave, if he could. if she wouldn’t leave, he’d stay. he’d stay for her.

anything for her.

y/n hung up on the phone once he said he was on the way. she’d scoffed and said, “yeah, fucking right. danny will beat the shit out of you.”

the beeping tone of a hung up line hit stiles like a truck. he still didn’t quite understand what he had done. if he did, he’d had fixed it by now. he was always good at fixing things. maybe he didn’t have glowing red eyes, or the ability to predict death, but he always was able to fix the jeep. he pulled his dad out of his alcoholic pit after his mom’s death. he was a problem solver. he was good at it.

but, he didn’t what was broken.

tonight, he intended to find out. he didn’t care if danny beat the shit out of him, or if y/n wouldn’t listen. he’d wait for her to open her ears to his incessant bickering, holding an ice pack to whatever bruises danny had left. he knew she’d break eventually.

if she really was done with him, if she really didn’t want to hear him out, why else had she called him?

–

stiles broke about a billion traffic laws. but he managed to get there, quickly, in one piece.

he couldn’t locate y/n anywhere inside the house, but did find all of her friends dancing in the living room. had they been there the whole time? did they even know y/n was on her own? probably not. you’d think, with a serial killer on the loose, they’d care more about each other’s safety.

his jaw dropped at the sight of them, carelessly floating through the crowd while one of their friends was drunk and alone, in some dark corner of this house. it pissed him off, as did all of the people pushing against him, alcohol sloshing over the rims of their cups and onto his shoes, the smell of sweat, and the sight of teenagers making out against walls, doors, other couples.

he had always hated people, but parties reminded him just how much of that hatred existed within his chest.

stiles checked the upstairs bedrooms, bathrooms, called her name out, down the basement steps, peeked into the empty garage, and even looked inside a pantry in case she’d stuffed herself somewhere like that.

stiles was grateful to, eventually, find her, outside, on the edge of the pool. her sneakers and socks were flung into the yard behind her. she swung her bare feet in the chlorinated water, completely soaking the bottoms of her jeans. y/n’s palms were planted on the concrete beside her thighs, her head thrown back, eyes closed as she swayed to the music. she didn’t seem to have a care in the world.

stiles huffed when he saw her, the deep, worried breath rattling in his chest. “y/n,” he said, hoping to garner her attention. his hands flung about him, as they normally did when he spoke.

she didn’t seem to care that he was there, but she definitely heard him. he knew she had because he watched y/n’s shoulders flinch, ever so slightly, at the sound of her own name.

stiles squatted down beside her, curling a soft hand around her bicep, “y/n, hey-“

she pulled her arm away, as if his hand was made of lava. “go away, stiles.” his hand stilled in the air where she’d pushed it, fingers flexing at the rejection.

stiles then pressed the hand to his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut with frustration, impatience. “y/n, please-“

she looked up at him, jaw slack from her drunken state. her eyes looked darkened, the deadly stare enhanced by her ruined makeup. “what the fuck do you want?”

stiles met her eyes. his face softened, concern overwhelmingly her features. just seeing her face, though it was a wreck- it sent goosebumps across his skin. she was so fucking pretty, even though she’d been crying. why had she been crying?

“i want to talk to you-“

“go away,” she waved him off. y/n then pulled her legs from the pool, dripping water all over the concrete. stiles’ eyes moved down her body, ensuring she was in one piece. he noticed the goosebumps all over her bare arms. she was freezing cold.

he stood with her, following her quick feet. “where’s your jacket?” stiles began to pull off his zip up jacket while she grabbed her shoes. he reached out for her arm again. his fingertips on her shoulder felt like a zap of electricity.

y/n flinched away again. she whipped her head back towards him, a deep frown enlisted on her features, “fuck off, stiles! don’t even try pretend like you care about that shit right now! seriously, go the fuck home! i told you not to come!”

stiles took a step away from her. he wished he knew what he had done so fucking badly. he wanted to kiss her eyelids. he wanted to clean off her makeup, wrap her up in his bedsheets, rub circles into her back until she fell asleep, soundly in his hood.

but, all of that couldn’t really be at the forefront of his mind right now. it couldn’t matter. he was here to protect, whether she wanted him there or not. and, she very obviously did not want him at this party. well, too damn bad. he pushed the thoughts aside.

“i’m not going anywhere,” stiles threw his hands up, as if to challenge her. if she wanted him gone, she’d have to drag him out of there. he continued to follow her. she found a chair and sat down in order to put her shoes on. he continued, “look, i don’t know what i did, but you don’t even understand what’s happening in this town. i have to protect-“

“bro, get the fuck away from her!”

stiles felt a pressure against his chest as someone’s abnormally strong had pushed him away from y/n’s presence. she looked up from her shoe laces that she was struggling to tie, brows furrowing at the sound of stiles’ grunt. she watched as stiles stumbled over his feet. he straightened up, quick, and met the eye of his assailant.

“oh, fuck off, dude,” stiles tilted his head to the side, slowly shaking it in annoyance. his jaw clenched, fists flexed at his sides. he took an intimidating step forward.

y/n glanced between stiles and sam owens, taking a deep, shuddering breath. sam puffed out his chest, towering over stiles by a couple of inches. although he was buffer, taller, a couple years older, he didn’t seem nearly as threatening as stiles did. the devilish qualities to his features seemed to heighten themselves in defiance to sam’s presence.

the black haired boy glared his eyes at sam, pupils blown out out with a stormy darkness. she knew it was wrong, but seeing him so angry at sam- y/n couldn’t help but admit that it made her stomach twirl.

they’d never really had the sam talk, at least she hadn’t told him every single thing. she’d mentioned sam, once, when she and stiles were talking about something else. it was offhanded, when she brought him up. danny, however, had spilled his guts to stiles about the short situationship y/n and that “douchebag” had been in all summer.

and stiles was pissed the fuck off. he knew about sam’s girlfriend at college. he knew sam had used y/n for sex over the summer. he knew that sam had told her he loved her right before breaking up with her.

oh, was stiles angry.

that was, after all, his girl now. and nobody was gonna fuck with stiles’ girl. nobody was gonna fuck with stiles.

he stepped forward, now nearly chest to chest with sam, who replied, “who the fuck are you? y/n told you to leave! want me to show you the door, kid?”

“who the fuck am i? watch your mouth, dickhead. you have no fucking business here-“

y/n quickly stood, wary hands before herself, “stiles, it’s not worth it, i promise.” she stalled his words, but stiles wouldn’t even look over at her. his dark eyes bore a hole through sam, and she knew he was probably going to hit him.

y/n, who was now feeling quite sobered up, glanced to the house. she knew that if they started fighting, stiles would get his ass handed to him. sam was a wrestler in college, the best in his weight class. he was a fucking state champion.

so, she needed to get to danny, who was definitely stronger than stiles, at least. he’d probably be able to keep them apart long enough for her to calm stiles down.

but, she didn’t have any time, because sam was mouthing stiles off again. and stiles really was the best at banter. so, he was getting himself into a lot of trouble.

“you put your fucking hands on her, and she told you to stop. makes it my goddamn business-“

“oh, my god, shut the fuck up!” stiles rolled his eyes at sam. he opened his mouth to shoot off some other sarcastic remark when sam reared back a fist and clipped the side of stiles’ face. stiles nearly fall back on the concrete alongside the pool, but he caught himself. having a werewolf as a best friend had taught him a thing or two. so, he was ready to fight.

stiles hit sam in return, most likely breaking his hand- definitely breaking his hand, he knew it. but the punch tossed sam onto the lounge chair behind him. it surprised both stiles and y/n, who had to jump out of the way. she nearly getting taken out by sam’s thrown body.

stiles met her eye and the sight of her, standing there, scared, softened him. he reached for her, closing the distance between then within two long strides. he set his hands on her biceps, ignoring the throbbing pain in his left one. blood dripped from his cracked knuckles, bleeding onto her skin. she clutched onto his elbows in response, any anger for him washed away by fear and worry.

“shit, are you okay? i’m so-“

before he could continue, y/n was shoved to the ground. she scraped her palms, cut her elbow open, and busted her tailbone, hard, on the concrete. she thought she hit her chin, too, but she couldn’t really tell, because y/n’s vision blurred from the fall.

sam tackled stiles to the ground with another punch. they landed in the grass, and went at each other. it took y/n a second to clear her pained head, but she managed to push herself up on her feet. some of their classmates continued partying around them, most just ignoring the fight. but a small crowd gathered to watch it, like it was something exciting, something fun to do. the bystanders made y/n feel sick. nobody was doing anything.

she didn’t even take a second to look at stiles, knowing that seeing him like that would stall her in her tracks. instead, she turned towards jack’s house, danny’s name screeching out of her throat.

she ran inside, feeling like she was pushing through thick, slow jello. she continued to yell out his name. luckily, she found him, on the dance floor still. ethan was there, too. good- he could help.

ethan was already meeting her, setting a kind hand on her arm. “what’s wrong?” his eyes glazed over, and he looked to the side, as though he could hear the fight. he ran outside.

danny shoved through the crowd, towards her. he caught her chin in his hand examining her wounds, “what the fuck happened? what’s going on?”

y/n, breathing heavily, sobbing again, stumbled out, “sam and stiles!”

danny pushed aside as he fell into a run. y/n followed, though the burning of her cuts and scrapes became more intense on her nerves. she seethed a breath between her teeth, stumbling over her feet, but pushed on.

ethan had shoved sam to the grass, though he was getting back up, again. danny immediately lunged in between them before sam could get to stiles. danny sent a harsh punch to sam’s gut, forcing him backwards again. danny then grabbed stiles by the shirt, helped him become balanced on his feet, before danny pushed him away, too. ethan came back in, grabbing stiles around the chest to hold him back, though stiles fought against the tight hold. sam somehow got up, again, clutching his stomach, and jumped towards stiles. danny punched him again and shook out his fist after. the look on his face was annoyed, but also, somehow, vengeful. he had been waiting all summer, all of fall, to punch this motherfucker.

“fuck you guys!” sam spat at danny and stiles from his knees, more blood trailing down his already slick chin.

stiles grunted, fighting against ethan’s hold. “you’re a piece of fucking shit! pussy ass bitch-“

“shut the fuck up-“ sam cut him off, then added, “i don’t even give a fuck about that bitch!“

danny shook his head at the words spitting from sam’s mouth. stiles looked angrier, if at all possible. ethan’s hold loosened on him, shocked by the insults sam threw at y/n. ethan did care for her, too, even if he barely knew her. she was everything to danny.

all three boys were seething with anger. sam had called her a bitch, and they did not like that.

sam simply smirked up at them, his words and expression challenging them. he went to wipe his mouth with his sleeve, but he didn’t get a chance to even take another breath because danny had lunged after him again.

ethan let go of stiles, purposefully, and the boy followed suit. ethan, a little more controlled- even though the situation pissed him off, too- grabbed danny, but not before allowing him to get a few punches in.

y/n ran forward and tried to grab stiles’ arm. she failed, and instead tripped over his shoe. she tumbled into the grass. she quickly pulled herself up, again. when she looked for stiles, she saw him being restricted again, this time by scott’s arm. she didn’t know when he had arrived, but she was glad for the extra help.

it made her heart swell that all of these men cared about her so much to fight sam like they were, but it really needed to end already. it shouldn’t have even gotten out of hand in the first place. she was nauseous, hurting in all of the places she’d been wounded, and extremely tired from the alcohol still coursing through her system.

y/n stood up. scott was rushing out words to his friend, “hey! stiles! stiles, cmon, dude! calm down! stiles!”

“stiles!” y/n called. she crouched down in front of him, reaching for his face.

stiles finally met her eyes and a steady rhythm graciously caught his breath. she cupped his jaw in her delicate fingers. his blood smeared across his face, all over her hands.

a few tears ran down his face, falling into her palms. she didn’t know why he was crying, if it was because of his injuries or his anger. but she wiped them away with her thumbs.

“it’s okay, baby,” she whispered, for only him to hear. “i’m okay, it’s okay. please, just calm down.”

scott, who had let go of stiles, turned to sam, who was standing up from the ground. scott was charismatic, and could usually easily demand people. he put out a cautious hand towards sam, “leave it, buddy. just leave it, trust me,” scott warned him.

stiles slumped forward, on his knees. y/n squatted, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. she used all of her strength to stand them up, brushing the sweaty, bloody hair from his face. sam watched her tenderness as she cared for stiles, feeling a surge of jealousy. sam knew he didn’t want her. he knew he had willingly given her up. but, that didn’t mean he wanted anybody else to get to have her.

so, just when it seemed like it was over, sam scoffed, “yeah, you’re right. i’ll leave it. she’s not worth it. she’s just an easy fuck and a cheap ass date-“

now, scott was angry. he roared, and y/n thought she saw his eyes flash a bright red. he went after sam, just to shut his stupid fucking mouth. he swept past y/n and stiles, who clutched onto her waistline protectively. he tried to duck them out of the way, but his foot skidded over the concrete, and they tripped towards the water.

she yelped, clutching onto his neck, as they fell into the pool. the water enveloped them, but tore them from one another. y/n kicked her feet sporadically, shocked by the cold, by the alarming fall they’d taken. she grabbed for stiles’ shirt and gratefully felt his hands fluttering for her hips.

she blew out a lot of bubbles, struggling to hold her breath from all of the shock. stiles tugged her tightly against him, again, and swam them to the surface. y/n wrapped her legs around his waist and clutched onto his shoulders. she was shaking, with fear, with pain, from the cold water nipping at her skin. it was all so much all at once that she just laughed.

stiles stared at her as she tossed her head back, giggling like a maniac. he furrowed hit brows, jutted his chin out, “what are you laughing about?”

y/n barely met his eye, continuing to laugh at the fucked up situation. “this is just so stupid!”

he remembered she was drunk and tapped her hip, “okay, let’s get you out of here-“

“it’s stupid, stiles!” she slapped a hand down onto his shoulder. “you’re stupid! that fight was fucking stupid! sam’s stupid! this night is stupid! i’m stupid!”

“why am i- why are you stupid?” he didn’t want to make it all about him. she was clearly grappling with something, something she needed to talk out.

she couldn’t continue to push everything away, including him. “i’m stupid! i let you and that stupid boy fuck up everything! i let it happen not once, but twice! what is it- fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me? i’m a fool! you and sam are, like- oh, my god, im just stupid. and that was so fucking stupid- you and sam fighting over me! you guys fought over me, but both of you are the reason im so fucked up in the first place! it’s your guys’ fault and you just had some stupid pissing contest-!”

“me and sam?” stiles sounded out his words carefully, working through her rambles in his fuzzy head.

the night she’d ran out of his house, in a craze, a mess because of his phone blowing up- what had triggered that?

who had called stiles that night? who had been blowing up his phone? was it-

it was lydia.

lydia, the girl everyone at beacon hills high knew he’d had a major crush on for, like basically, ever.

y/n must have looked at his phone. she must have put together, based off of the texts he’d been sent, based off all of the context clues laying right in front of him, that he and lydia were together.

meanwhile, am had had a girlfriend the entire time he and y/n had gone out. every day, he’d see his girlfriend. then, usually on the weekends, when it was dark, he’d bring y/n out like a toy.

y/n thought stiles was just like sam. y/n thought stiles was using her.

she had no clue that she was everything and the sun to him. she had no clue that he needed her like water, that he craved her like wine. she didn’t know that he spent every night rereading their texts, analyzing their conversations, going over their interactions, decoding everything to find a way for her to love him despite her hurt, despite what they agreed on.

she was used to being broken by people who claimed to love her, and stiles was just another part of that system.

so, he needed to tell. right now.

stiles gripped onto her hips, shaking her body just once so she’d meet his eyes. “listen-“

“no, just- get me out-“

“y/n, you beautiful, gorgeous, sweet woman- just listen to me! okay? just listen!” stiles demanded, “i’m not with lydia, alright? i’ve never been with her. i don’t want her- i’m in-“

“stiles!” scott called his name from above, standing at the edge of the pool. his eyes still glowed red, his face was still morphed into that of a wolf. scott’s chest puffed out, in, heavily, with deep, ragged breaths.

stiles knew something was wrong based off of his friend’s demeanor.

“we have to get to the school. lydia’s in trouble.”

stiles looked to y/n, who’s face had lit up from the possibility of stiles’ words. her expression morphed into confusion. he wanted to say something, to say sorry. but, he couldn’t. he couldn’t focus.

so, y/n took her turn to speak, graciously replying with, “stiles, i know there’s so much that you’re still hiding from me-“ she glanced up at scott, who tilted his head with shame, “so, i’m coming with you. if you want me to trust you, i have to come with you. i have to know.”

stiles knew she was right.

so he drug her, head first, into the world of the supernatural.

#derek x stiles #stiles stilinksi fanfiction #stiles stilinksi imagine #stiles stilinksi x reader #stiles stilinski #stiles x lydia #stiles x reader #teen wolf #teen wolf stiles #teen wolf x reader

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enteringdullsville · 1 year ago

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‘24 was alright, but it’s definitely the Action to ‘23’s Island; stuck having to continue a tough act to follow.

I know I’m skipping Pahkitew Island (and to a lesser extent World Tour) to get to this, but I have a lot of ideas for what I want (but don’t at all expect) for a third season.

First the elephants in the room, the newbies. Assuming season three is full length, 18 contestants is seems like a good cast size. Nick, labeled “The Know-It-All”, is like an unholy cross between Sierra and Dave: He’s seen every episode of this show fifteen times…and he’s already regretting attending. He’s actually an online critic who made the vital mistake of pissing off Chris in front of millions of his (Nick’s) viewers, prompting Chris to personally reach out to invite him onto the show. The fact Nick’s an in-universe character means he’s a lot more fair to the contestants than most fans and critics would be, but he’s still incredibly caustic to everyone with a pulse (and also Scary Girl). Felicity, labeled “The Gamer Junky” combines Sam’s interests and Lindsay’s demeanor…which I guess is just Kitty. More or less the pain magnet for the first half of the season (Damien takes over partway through), Felicity’s a moderately famous streamer with a rapier wit and is almost as athletic and coordinated as Tyler. She’s more straightforwardly a fan of the show, that’s why Chris picked her, but given that her team is a ticking time bomb, she’s gonna hafta work fast.

The teams consist of the Hiding Snakes (Nick, Damien, Julia, MK, Wayne, Raj, Priya, Millie, and Caleb) and the Feral Kittens (Felicity, Nichelle, Bowie, Emma, Zee, Chase, Ripper, Axel, and Lauren).

Episode 1. The cast is dragged kicking and screaming back to wherever the season takes place. Wawanakwa again? The abandoned movie lot? Boney Island? Who knows, but they don’t have to worry about it, since the challenge is solely for the new duo to pick their teams by collecting golden statuettes of the cast. Maybe it is an Action Sequel.

Episode 2. Nick and Felicity both have their work cut out for them. In one corner is Nick, who has to put up with Julia/MK vs Priya and also everyone on his team not named Wayne. On the other corner is Felicity, who has the misfortune of being caught up in a popularity contest: now that Ripper and Axel are dating, Chase feels he and Zee have been left in the dust (Zee has no clue what’s happening), leaving Chase and Axel to bicker endlessly throughout the challenge. Meanwhile, Emma’s finally taking her opportunity to patch things up with Bowie, who himself is more preoccupied with Scary Girl, who’s taking her loss last season about as well as Courtney did in Island. The absurdity of Ripper being forced to play the voice of reason is not lost on him, but it doesn’t save him from elimination by Felicity, Nichelle, Emma, and Bowie to make the arguing stop. I didn’t want to eliminate him so soon, but he made it halfway through two seasons, so it had to be done.

Episode 3. So it turns out sending the one guy keeping Axel in check and Chase from accidentally killing everything packing was not Felicity’s best idea. Feli and Niche bond over poor game decisions (and the fact the latter’s career is starting to pick back up helps too), while Emma and Bowie are now on speaking terms again. Speaking of which, Emma tries to sic Lauren on Chase (he’s voted her off twice now), giving a recap of all the reckless and insane stuff he’s done. Gotta get rid of your distractions while you can. Unfortunately for Ms. People Person, Lauren was nicknamed “Reckless and Insane Girl” before signing up and the two surprisingly hit it off. MEANWHILE BACK AT THE LAB Nick picks up where Bowie left off and commandeers Julia and MK’s cheating skills for the team, much to Priya’s chagrin. Caleb grows worried about Priya’s mental state, but Millie, determined not to screw herself over again, goes with everything she says without question. In the end, Zee goes home, still hopelessly confused about why everyone’s fighting, but at least avoiding any major social gaffes. It’s a good thing he and Ripper merged twice, otherwise I’d really feel like scum.

Episode 4. This one’s a breather, but we don’t have to tell them that. Nick for the first time is divided over his role as a contestant and as a critic. As a contestant, he knows it’s best to keep Julia, Priya, Wayne, and Caleb as close to him as possible (and pats himself on the back for acing the team picking challenge), but as a critic he doesn’t particularly want to keep them around, especially Julia and Priya who pulled a Gweathuncanoey and have stuck around for two seasons in their entirety. He also kinda wants MK and Julia to become an item. On the flip side, since Emma introduced Chase to his demented new bestie, he’s gotten even more crazy himself and spends the entire challenge locked in a dare contest with Nichelle. Emma and Bowie watch on in amusement to take the latter’s mind off of being separated from Raj, while Axel reminisces about simpler times when she was an early boot. Caleb and Millie continue their power quartet with Damien (who has taken it upon himself to start lugging a first aid kit every he goes) and Priya, whose fuse grows shorter than Eva’s.

Episode 5. Caleb should probably know better than to make deals behind Priya’s back by this point, but it’s her own fault for sharing the Bow’s taste in men. Since the final four of the previous season (and also Damien) are all on the same team, Lauren makes her first strategistical move now that she knows the group’s biggest fears. MK proves to be a tougher nut to crack, however, building on the two’s interactions in the 24 finale. Axel and Chase have entered “Cold War” territory and are both trying to gather allies. Emma and Bowie are a given (although the latter can’t promise anything), and Chase has Scary, but Felicity and Nichelle are anyone’s game. Not that it really matters though, since that deal I mentioned was for The Boys (TM) to vote Caleb out, since he doesn’t want to hold Priya back anymore. Priya is crushed, Julia is laughing hysterically, and Damien’s salty that nobody voted him off when he was literally asking for it. I didn’t want to give him the Gwen/Ezekiel treatment where he’s the lowest member of two teams, especially since it means he’s 16th again, but here we are. Curse my impartiality!

Episode 6. Knowing Priya’s going to stick around as long as she has allies, Julia and MK start gunning for Millie, hoping she slips up eventually. Nick, however, secretly chooses to plot against the duo, even though MK is his favorite character from this season, because honestly, who would you pick as an ally? Meanwhile, the Kitty Kold War’s come to a boiling point with Nichelle and Felicity’s votes up for grabs. Bowie’s been on Team Axel, but after suffering a migraine all day decides to join the two wildcards. In the end however, Wayne genuinely asks Axel and Chase why they’re even arguing to begin with. Realizing that Ripper’s already gone by this point, they decide to cooperate this one time…a decision that sends poor Wayne right to the losers’ circle. I wanted to see how long I could keep the Hockey Bros around before I had to eliminate the one who lasted longer last season. At least he still has his sick awesome two buses.

Episode 7. Did somebody say “reward challenge”? With the teams even for the first time since the second episode, the two have to wrangle up old contestants scattered across the lot (I decided this will be the Action reboot), and appropriately it’s the three most frustrating contestants to track down: Shawn for the Kittens (much to zombie slayer Axel’s delight), Dawn for the Snakes (much to tiny Tsundere MK’s horror), and for a bonus, Ezekiel (who Chris has “procrastinated a bit” on retrieving). This one’s more or less an excuse for character growth, so that’s why I’m describing the challenge in a little more detail. Anywho, Dawn, Shawn, and the one whose name doesn’t rhyme are all caught, the Kittens winning. And MK’s secrets are totally safe and not revealed to the public at all. In other news, Dawn and Shawn both want off the lot immediately after finding out Scary Girl’s still on it.

Episode 8. (Sotto Voce) I’m gonna have to eliminate a girl sooner or later. Anywho, the Cold War arc has finally cooled down since even Axel can’t stay mad forever and Chase is too narcissistic to hold a grudge. With the merge coming up, Felicity requests Nichelle train her since her leadership skills can only get her so far at this point. Priya and Millie are taking the opportunity to relax since Julia and MK are still awkward about the secret crush I totally lied about earlier. Maybe they’ll get together, maybe they won’t…but Nick ensures they totally do, if only because he refuses to let his OTP sink…at least not before he takes the opportunity to eliminate MK, who’s both a bigger social threat and less of a physical aid at the moment. I think she’s made it far enough for me not to have to explain her elimination in detail.

Episode 9. With Julia out of allies, she’s gotta either guarantee her team wins, bribe Chris into throwing in another immunity idol, or make one of her teammates look less desirable than her. In unrelated news, Raj is still missing Wayne after I cruelly tore the two apart. Axel’s now in on Nichelle and Felicity’s alliance, meaning Emma and Bowie have to get in their good books before Scary Girl (she’s still plenty mad at him) does what Fang does best. Try as the noble Priyanka and Millicent may, Julia manages to play up Raj’s misery to get Nick and Damien (in a moment of weakness) to vote him off. For whom Raj himself voted, I didn’t think too hard about, but the Snakes are sucking for a team with four different finalists on it. Oh, and Bowie is pissed. TOTAL DRAMA BOMB!

Episode 10. In the final pre merge episode, not much occurs. That dang moon from All-Stars is making Lauren act strange, even by her own standards, and not in a productive way. Bowie throws caution into the wind and goes all out in trying to make sure Julia goes home (don’t have to tell them twice), making Emma realize how tiring it is to have to play damage control to someone else’s revenge schemes. Nichelle takes charge, refusing to get eliminated before the merge again, while Chase gets everything on film. By this point, Millie’s competent enough to single-handedly win this for her team, and also by this point, Scary’s freaked enough people to get voted out. Of course, this isn’t the last we’ll see of her…because she ran off before Chef could apprehend her.

We now interrupt this program to bring you this picture of Team Victory I drew for a follow up to my iconic TDWT/Jellystone animatic. I wasn’t feeling like making a whole video, but I kept the boarded first shot anyway.

Episode 11. Chris has dissolved the teams for one purpose: catch Scary Girl before she tries to reenact the events of Scarlett Fever. To make a long freaking story short, they apprehend her…and Chris decides to go the Dakota route and give her a promotion…to tertiary third host…meaning she has the means to cause even more mayhem. And no, Chase, that doesn’t mean you get to submit challenge ideas.

Episode 12. It’s Scary’s first day on the new job, but Chris insists she “sTaRt SmAlL”. The girls’ alliance approaches Nick, partially to build their numbers but also because Felicity feels it’s only fair she at least tries to build a friendship with the other rookie player. He agrees, but only if he can bring Damien (his best friend on the island and his second favorite character). Bowie and Emma take their chance to get rid of two birds with one stone, since Priya and Julia now have nothing stopping them from maiming each other. And maim, maim, maim they do, since (as you could probably guess by how I highlighted their names), they both get sent packing! Did I deliberately hold off on voting them out solely so they’d reach the merge a third time? Yes. Did I do this because having them be proper enemies instead of rivals like in 23 was entertaining? Yes. Did I also do this to piss off the people complaining they (read: mostly Priya) had too much screen time? YES! Do I love making this fan base cry? You tell me.

Episode 13. Against his alliance’s better judgment, Nick tries to edge Bowie back into active villainy, realizing too late he’s prioritized competent gameplay over plot by getting rid of the main conflict. Unbeknownst to him, Millie has her sights on him, correctly viewing his alleged alliance as suspicious, not to mention him turning against MK a few episodes back. Damien suffers from a terrible disease called “having Scary Girl in your general vicinity”, and to add figurative insult to literal injury has to deal with Chase trying to befriend him at her request. Luckily for everyone, it’s a reward challenge for the final eight.

Episode 14. Nick may have awakened a monster. Trying to stir up drama again, he decides it’s a great idea to set Lauren on Emma, claiming A: that it’s the best way to get his attention, and B: that only she gets to cause him harm. Feeling genuine emotions of protection for the first time in her life, she does all she can to make Emma suffer (even though the latter genuinely doesn’t care what Chase does at this point and is willing to be polite if he doesn’t pull anything). Millie and Bowie put aside their differences to stake out Nick, but of course Bowie has other plans. The girls’ alliance continues to serve and oh would you look at that, Emma’s gone because she’s canonically rich anyway and Scary’s not gonna let up while she’s still on the island. I could’ve made her elimination not Chase related. But I didn’t. Emma deserves better, but this is Total Drama, where we don’t even remotely give a crap.

Episode 15. Bowie’s out of allies and Scary’s still after him, so now he really needs to keep Millie close, and what better way is there than to break up an alliance? Nick’s more than a little suspicious about Millie’s sudden investment about everything he does, prompting Bowie to claim she’s in love with him and can’t communicate it. Nick is doubtful, but the idea behind planted in his mind causes him to catch feelings. Damien, being Nick’s confidant and feeling guilty about how he indirectly screwed Priya and Caleb (and also Zee) last season concerning their romance arc, tries to steer him away from her. Axel and Scary bond a little when they trick out the Sling of Shame, and by that I of course mean they accidentally break it in half. Chris already sold the Drone of Despair, so let’s call this one a draw.

Episode 16. Bowie, now fully back in the groove of things, tries to drive a wedge between Nick and the rest of his alliance, while Nick has some delicious angst over what he should do about his budding feelings, knowing full well that Bowie’s lying to him but failing to realize Millie wants him gone. Felicity pops up for the first time in a while, which in Island would mean she’s going home next (let’s imagine she won immunity last episode) but here means the girls’ alliance goes through its first rough patch when Axel, who’s long since taken over as leader, tests Felicity’s resolve. Unfortunately for Axel, Millie, Bowie, Damien, and Nick view her signature brand of tough love out of context and drop her like Ripper’s parents dropped him.

Episode 17. Ten episodes left and a lucky number seven contestants remain. Chris tells the kids (or are they 18 by now?) upfront that today’s a reward challenge, the prize being a FaceTime with the eliminated contestants. Millie, still wanting answers, and Bowie, wanting to see Raj again, immediately dissolve their alliance. Everyone tries (except Chase, who had a phone the entire time and got to keep it three seasons in a row by not being as obvious as Julia was), but Millie comes out on top, ultimately learning about Nick’s alliance…and his crush. She has the decency to let Raj and Wayne say hi to Bowie. Chase learns something, too…

Episode 18. Nick decides Bowie’s more trouble than he’s worth, but rather than just telling everyone to vote him off (which he predictably finds overused), he decides to play a game of “show, but don’t tell”. So using that as the episode title. He immediately decides to play this on hard mode with the two remaining contestants who have the least amount of beef with him: the fangirl Felicity and the airheaded Chase. Surprisingly, this actually works and Bowie gets sent home, Nick realizing he doesn’t have to rely on others to make drama for him. Millie sees what he’s doing but is confused about his slightly convoluted methods, not helped by Nick’s complete and utter failure to explain himself, by this point completely smitten. Damien notices that Nick’s popularity is fading and decides to lie low for a bit rather than betray him or risk being associated with him.

Episode 19. Reward challenge time? With only Millie, Felicity, Nichelle, Chase, Damien, and himself left, Nick seriously considers playing the main villain. Chase is the odd man out, lacking any sort of alliance and still having sort of a target on his back, but he doesn’t seem too concerned. Millie struggles to approach Nick without breaking his heart, since while he isn’t really her ally, he hasn’t really done much to wrong her. After all, he’s a better partner than opponent.

Episode 20. Every villain has their nemesis, and Nick was not expecting it to be Chase of all people, but Chase outs him before Millie can. Damien sticks by Nick (in silence of course, because he’s still friends with Nichelle and to a lesser extent Felicity), but Millie’s conflicted. Nonetheless, Nichelle and Felicity start gunning for him, breaking up the alliance, and they would’ve gotten away with it too, if Chris didn’t remember sudden death challenges exist. Millie has the misfortune of finishing last and is sent home, but not before she decides to just ask him out, figuring she doesn’t have anything to lose at this point.

Episode 21. Notice a pattern? It’s another reward challenge! Scary Girl’s been in a rut lately, and the challenges have grown dull, so Chris has brought in many of TD’s most terrifying beasts, mutants included back on to spice things up a bit. Even the Dakotazoid returns, half the size she was before but now sporting wings for some reason. I guess mutations evolve. Chase chooses now to start caring about other people, but because it’s Chase it’s doomed to backfire horribly, given that it gives Lauren a wonderfully wicked idea…

Episode 22. …that involves locking people in closets. Specifically Chris and Chef. Scary Girl’s the host today and she’s back and more terrifying than ever. Nick, Nichelle, Felicity, and Chase put aside their differences (not that Felicity ever had issues with any of them) when the challenge becomes “Stop Lauren”. Aaaand now I realize Scarlett Fever was probably recycled from the scrapped episode where Dakota hosted the show after locking Chris and Chef in a closet herself. Anywho, Chase is fired on the spot for starting this whole mess…right before Scary kisses him, resigns, hops on the sling with him, declaring him her “boyfriend for eternity”. Chase has only half a second to process what the freshwater frick just happened before getting flung away.

Episode 23. Can you tell I’m getting tired? Only four remain, split between two alliances who used to be part of a greater one. Nick assures the others it’s nothing personal before things can start. Things happen, hijinks ensue, interns are mauled, but it’s ultimately Nichelle who crosses the finish line last. Better 4th than 12th or 14th. On that note, now we all know Felicity’s gonna be a finalist.

Episode 24. Nick and Damien part ways somewhat amicably, Nick knowing it was bound to happen eventually.

Episode 25. One final breather episode: this one’s just a big pre finale party! Really, the only thing the contestants need to worry about are Chase diving into the cake, Wayne and Raj freezing the pool, and Julia and MK doing their darnedest to bring the mood down.

Episode 26. A simple, no frills finale…is what I’d say if Chris hadn’t brought back every finalist the show has had (including Ezekiel, ostensibly because he got the TDWT prize money, but mostly to squeeze some mayhem in before Zeke’s first therapy meeting), in particular Priya, Bowie, Millie, Wayne, Julia, and Caleb. Damien vs Felicity vs Nick, battle of the nerds! Three go in…one comes out.

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diangelofan · 5 months ago

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An Unexpected Friendship

I guess most people in this fandom wouldn't probably celebrate Percy Weasley's birthday, but I really like him (despite being such a stick in the mud sometimes). So (belatedly) here's some Percy and Oliver friendship!

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September 1st, 1987

“Are you sure you don’t want to sit with us on the train ride to Hogwarts?” “Yeah, Perce, it’ll be fun! We’ll introduce you to our mates!”, Bill and Charlie Weasley stared back at their younger brother expectantly.

“I am sure. I wanted to get up to speed with my reading”, Percy raised his arms to show his heavy volume of Hogwarts: A History, “I would like to have finished it by the time we arrive at the castle.”

Maybe he should have gone with his brothers’ proposition. They, being the popular and “cool” older brothers they were, would probably never ask him to sit with them again. His two younger brothers, twins Fred and George, always made fun of him for being “such a huge bore” (thank Merlin, there were still two years before they came to Hogwarts as well; Percy shuddered just thinking about all the trouble those two would get into).

But he hadn’t lie when he said he wanted to finished his book. He had stopped at the chapter dedicated to the Ghosts of Hogwarts and it was quite fascinating…

“Okay, Perce. Enjoy the ride!” “Yeah, who knows, maybe you’ll make some friends of your own!” And with those words, Percy’s older brothers closed the door of his compartment closed, waving as they went. Percy waited till he could no longer hear their loud footsteps and voices before submerging himself in his reading.

Friends, sure, I’ll make some, Percy thought bitterly. He had never been able to form a friendship with the twins, who were the closest to his age (Molly homeschooled all her kids, so he had never spent much time with children his age), and, instead they always found something to mock him about. But, sure, maybe he would make friends.

The pass of time became irrelevant, as Percy sat and read for what could have been many minutes or hours. He had long since finished the Ghost Chapter and was nearing the end of a chapter titled The Chamber of Secrets (probably all just some legend, but interesting nevertheless), when he heard a knock on the door, followed by a small head peeking into his compartment.

“I am sorry, but all the other compartments I’ve been to were full. Could I sit here?” The other boy was also wearing plain black robes, like Percy, meaning he was another first year. Percy would have preferred to stay alone for the ride, but it seemed too mean to just deny the other first-year boy’s request when his compartment had more than enough space for the two of them.

“Okay. However, I am reading, so if you could please remain silent, it would be highly appreciated.” There you go with the “pompous” vocabulary, thought Percy, now the boy is going to look at you weirdly. It had happened before during dinner time. Percy would make a comment on the topic of conversation and he would only received confused glances back. A consequence of reading too many classic novels, textbooks and dictionaries, probably… oh well…

To the red haired boy’s surprise, the other boy just nodded and smiled, taking a book from his satchel: “That’s fine. It gives me the chance to reread my favourite book Quidditch Through the Ages for the second time today.”

And thus, the two boys spent most of the train ride in this manner, sitting quietly beside each other while reading their respective books. It was quite enjoyable, in Percy’s opinion.

It must have been a couple hours later when Percy’s reading was interrupting again (he was just one chapter short of finishing) by a tiny cough and a nervous voice stating: “I finished my book… It was quite interesting! Even though, I’ve read it almost like a million times before, I always get so surprised when reading about the origins Quidditch and how it all started! It’s truly fascinating…! I love-! …Sorry, I realize I am rambling like a fool… I just wanted to introduce myself: I am Oliver Wood and I am first year, which I think you are as well… right?”

Oliver’s face had quickly passed through different emotions during his small speech: from nervousness, to excitement, to joy, to embarrassment, and then back to being nervous. While Percy’s first idea had been to quickly answer with his name and continue reading quietly, something in the other’s boys words had really resonated with him. That excitement which what he read had incited in him, as well as the embarrassment when realizing he was rambling about a very niche and bookish topic, was something that Percy had experienced a couple of times before. He knew how it felt to have his “boring” interests dismissed (even if that had not being the person’s intention at all) and he refused to do it to somebody else if he could help it. Afterall, he could read the remaining chapter before going to bed that night.

Thus, he closed his book and smiled, answering the other boy’s question: “Nice to meet you, Oliver. My name is Percy Weasley and, yes, I am also a first year.”

“Oh, great! Finally someone I can commiserate with! I am sooooo nervous about Hogwarts… though it’s also all really exciting!”, exclaimed Oliver.

And that’s how the two boys spent the rest of their ride to their new school. They talked about their families (Percy going into a rant about the troubles the twins could get into with their little pranks, while Oliver told him how his parents had spent weeks telling him stories about their time at Hogwarts in anticipation for the event), what house they would be in (both mentioned that it was very probable it would be Gryffindor as that was where most of their family members had ended up in), and the things that most excited them about Hogwarts (for Percy, it was learning about magic in all those new different ways, while for Oliver, as the huge Quidditch enthusiast he seemed to be, it was watching and, starting in his second year hopefully, playing at the Interhouse Quidditch Cup).

Percy didn’t know Oliver’s opinion, but when both boys got together into one of the little boats that would transport them to the castle, the red-haired boy thought to himself: Well, this seems like the start of an unexpected friendship. Maybe his brothers had been right, after all, and he had nothing to worry about in the friends department. Yeah, just maybe…

#percy weasley #percy/oliver #oliver wood #perciver #perciver fanfiction #my fanfic #hp fanfic #hp fanfiction #fanfiction #one shot #percy weasley deserves more love

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marunalu · 8 months ago

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I saw many people people now who claim that DFO disproved because AFO doesn't show any affection to his son.

Also they claimed that Dekus dad could be a hero in America and he was sent to Japan now so we will see him.

What do you think about that?

Dfo is debunked as soon as the manga ends and we have the 100% confirmation that there isnt any connection between hisashi and afo. Not sooner not later. What a lot of people dont seem to grasp is that dfo is in the first place not about afo loving izuku. Dfo is about the theory that afo is izukus biological father. He can be his father without loving him. There are millions of parents out there in the real world who sadly give a wet fuck about their children. Afo loving his family is just one of multible interpretations and hopes people have for the theory. There are a lot of dfo fans out there who never believed afo cared for izuku. Dfo is about afo being izukus father and not if he loves him or not. Fans have just different headcanons how it could turn out.

I said it already in the past. I dont believe that izukus father is a hero working in america. America is the country with the most heroes worldwide, so WHY should a japanese hero work for a different hero government then his own and most importantly not even come home ONCE or mentioned ONCE by his hero obsessed son in the whole story? Not even when he was about to get killed by muscular? Why should hisashi not come home for christmas, new year, izukus and inkos birthday etc. If he is just a hero working outside of japan (which makes no sense anyway). And WHY should hori refuse to talk about hisashi if he is just a hero working in an other country who has no importance to either the plot nor to izukus character? If hisashi is a hero working in america and NOW comes back after the war is already won by the japanese heroes this would be the biggest asspull hori could come up with. The only way I could see hisashi as a hero is if he is also connected to afo. We know that afos presence is huge WORLDWIDE! It was stated he has his hands in almost EVERY country! And we saw that he is quite "popular" in america.

I have seen a few people talk about how hori will use some deux ex machine to bring tomura back to life and that he is just scaring people with the most horrible and dissapointing outcome he could come up with. I dont trust hori enough to pull something like that off, but on the other side he is the man who brought bakugou back from the dead in the most ridiculus and stupid way possible so who knows what he is ready to come up with.

But to come back to the main point: dfo is only then debunked when we got the last chapter of the manga and its to 100% confirmed hisashi isnt afo. Because we are talking about a man who can change his appearance, change his dna, can have any quirk he wants, is known for planning ahead should the 10 different plans of the other 25 different plans he planned for 15 different scenarios fail and who spends time with a mad doctor who was not only in posession of a clone quirk, but also is able to make copys of every quirk he gets his fingers on.

The only advice I can give dfo fans is to wait and not to read any anti dfo posts and get worried for maybe no reason. Just wait till the manga is done and THEN you can complain as much as you want!

#bnha #bnha spoiler #bnha all for one #bnha dad for one

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mariacallous · 5 months ago

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Now that the Democratic National Convention is over, the next major battleground in the 2024 election is the media.

The Harris-Walz campaign needs to be ready.

Although former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has struggled to respond to the new Democratic ticket, Republicans will likely get in line with a unified media strategy. The message they will seek to promote is that Democrats are running the most radical, leftist candidates in U.S. history.

In recent elections, Democrats have had difficulty with the new turbocharged, fast-moving and unfiltered media landscape. In 2016, Trump beat former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, harping on the investigation into her emails. In 2020, President Joe Biden defeated Trump, but under unusual pandemic circumstances that put much of the conventional campaign processes on hold. As campaign conditions returned to normal this year, things did not go as well for Biden. One televised debate, noted New York Times columnist James Poniewozik, brought his candidacy to an end: “There was simply a horrendous TV outing—less than two hours that changed history.” But even before Biden stepped onstage, his poll numbers were lagging after a conservative media onslaught about his age and alleged corruption.

To sustain the energy that boosted Vice President Kamala Harris through the convention in Chicago, Harris’s campaign needs to devise an effective media strategy tailored to the current era. To do so, her team should look back to 1992, when then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton’s savvy war room figured out how Democrats could thrive in another new age—of cable television, investigative journalism, and state-of-the-art political advertising. While the news media has evolved significantly in terms of form and content since Clinton won the presidency, Harris will need to achieve a mastery similar to that of Clinton’s historic campaign team.

The early 1990s seem like simpler times. In January 1994, NBC Today Show’s Bryant Gumbel asked his cohost Katie Couric: “What is the internet anyway?” Email was a novelty. Surfing was done in the ocean. Cable news played by the traditional rules of objective reporting. Smartphones were in development, and cell phones remained a luxury. Social media meant going to the movies with friends.

Yet the 1992 presidential campaign—which pitted Clinton, then-incumbent President George H.W. Bush, and independent candidate Ross Perot against each other in a race for the White House—took place across a media landscape that had changed dramatically since the 1960s. Cable had created a 24-hour news cycle where stories came out quickly. These stations, as well as the increasingly popular one-hour network news zine-style shows (Nightline, for example), depended on a healthy audience share for their livelihood, in contrast to the public service ethos of the half-hour nightly news programs from earlier times. This shift meant that sensationalism became a hot commodity. Investigative journalism born from Watergate had given rise to a generation of reporters who were constantly on the hunt for wrongdoing. Moreover, conservative talk radio had exploded after the Federal Communications Commission abandoned the fairness doctrine in 1987. Syndicated hosts such as Rush Limbaugh commanded between millions of listeners on over 600 stations. Daily tabloid newspapers and comedic shows, too, were having a greater impact on politics.

And in advertising, the “Morning in America” campaign that helped then-incumbent President Ronald Reagan win reelection in 1984 set a new standard for sophisticated production techniques. Television spots became like short films, capable of seducing and devastating all at once.

Starting with the 1980 election, and as a party felt to be on the outs from the mainstream culture, the GOP saw an opportunity to shape the national conversation through an aggressive media strategy that defined the way the public perceived its opponents and itself. As they built a new conservative majority, Republicans made huge investments which very often paid off.

In 1980 and 1984, Reagan’s campaign team managed its message to transform the one-time conservative extremist into the nation’s savior. Then, in 1988, Bush pulled together one of the most brutal campaigns of modern history under the direction of South Carolina campaign consultant Lee Atwater. Atwater tore down all the guardrails as to what was permissible, institutionalizing an anything-goes philosophy. Playing on themes of patriotism, religious nationalism, and a racial backlash, Bush and Atwater redefined the promising Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis—an intelligent technocratic reformer—into a heartless left-wing radical who looked terrible in a tank.

In 1992, from its perch in Little Rock, Arkansas, Clinton’s inner circle was determined not to repeat these experiences. It had been hardened during the primaries when its candidate barely survived a sex scandal involving Arkansas state employee Gennifer Flowers. James “the Ragin’ Cajun” Carville had guided Clinton through the crisis and emerged as the central figure behind the “comeback kid.” In a scene captured in the 1993 documentary The War Room, which provides the best look into this critical campaign, Carville warned his staff that Democrats needed to step up or conservatives such as Fox News chairman Roger Ailes would destroy them. With Carville leading the way, Clinton’s war room also included George Stephanopoulos (communications), Paul Begala (chief strategist), Stanley Greenberg (polling), and Mandy Grunwald (advertising).

Several principles guided Carville’s army. Speed was essential. In the cable era, sitting out of stories was no longer an option. Being patient could leave a candidate in the dust. The war room deployed a rapid response style that left no charge unanswered for long and aimed to provide counterarguments before allegations could set in the public mind. When reporters raised an accusation, Clinton’s team rejected the claims with resolve and force. At the same time, whenever Carville and Stephanopoulos got hold of any potentially damaging information about Bush or Perot, they released it to the media immediately rather than trying to think up the best spin.

Tired of the defensive and despondent outlook of Democrats following the political bloodbath in 1988, Clinton’s war room insisted that Democrats needed to play offense. “Why can’t we attack George Bush?” the documentary shows Carville asking his team. The film portrays an effort that fizzled as the team tried to stir a story about Bush having campaign material made overseas rather than in the United States. Nor was it shy about ripping into the weaknesses of Bush’s record.

In doing so, the Clinton war room also elevated clarity into an artform. Carville’s team grasped how long and complicated arguments did not fly in an age of soundbites. They famously drew on a board: “the economy, stupid.” There were two other punchy slogans to guide them: “Change versus more of the same” and “don’t forget health care.” That reminder to staffers was also an example of how to convey a message with simplicity. According to the Los Angeles Times, the crew in Little Rock “share[d] a belief in the primacy of ‘the message’ as the driving force in a presidential campaign, downplaying the importance of such traditional political tools as precinct organizations, registration drives and Election Day turnout efforts.”

The team also worked to sell the message through the realm of popular culture, traditionally dismissed as undignified. Clinton appeared on the Arsenio Hall Show and MTV, in People, and more. The campaign blitzed talk show hosts with information that made Bush look like an out-of-touch well-to-do who only cared about foreign policy while constantly reminding them of Clinton’s humble origins.

In November 1992, Clinton won with 370 Electoral College votes. Four years later, he defeated Sen. Robert Dole and was reelected.

Subsequent Democrats could not replicate his success. In 2000 and 2004, respectively, Vice President Al Gore and Sen. John Kerry failed to be as effective on the media stage. Decorated Vietnam veteran Kerry, for instance, was shell-shocked when then-incumbent President George W. Bush’s campaign tagged him as a flip-flopping politician and an independent group invented the concept of “swift-boating” by throwing out false accusations to discredit his military record. Political consultant Chris LaCivita, who is currently co-managing Trump’s campaign, was one of the people who produced the spot for the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” smear campaign.

Barack Obama reset Democratic campaign strategy in 2008. David Axelrod and his band of campaign operatives updated Carville’s model, demonstrating how effective use of social media tools such as Facebook, well-produced television spots with Reagan-like narratives, and not responding to the daily noise from the internet and cable television could provide a recipe for victory. Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, were no match.

Of course, the media campaign was a complement, not an alternative, to an aggressive turnout strategy that focused on driving up total votes in all 50 states.

The media challenges in 2024 have expanded again, even as the old ones remain relevant. One of the most grueling challenges facing Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will be to survive the onslaught of disinformation, deepfakes, and openly partisan news that will hit them from all sides in the months to come. The recent hack by Iran, which Trump claims targeted his campaign, is a reminder that foreign interference will also be a problem.

Harris also needs to compete successfully in what New York Times columnist Ezra Klein has called the “attention field.” News moves at a fast speed and those who consume political news tend to move on very quickly. Attention spans are not easy to maintain. An effective campaign has to figure out how to keep the media focused on its candidate and message for substantial periods of time.

Between now and Election Day, Harris will be facing an opponent who has proven to be effective at working the media. Trump has repeatedly demonstrated an instinctive feel for the rhythm and dynamics of the news cycle. As president, he capitalized on the interconnected relationship between social media, cable news, online newspapers, and podcasts to dominate the national conversation and harden perceptions about opponents. He handled televised debates like a reality show, using body movements, facial expressions, controversial comments, and vicious insults. Most recently, he capitalized on an attempted assassination, standing up with blood dripping down his ear, surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents, defiantly pumping his fist in the air and yelling: “Fight! Fight! Fight!” It was as if he could see how the event looked on a television screen.

Thus far, Harris’s team has been extremely effective on this playing field. It has staged the rollout methodically to generate good feeling, excitement, and constant media attention. Harris’s memes have caught fire on social media. Harris appears to have selected Walz as her running mate in part because of how adroit he has proven to be in this playing field despite being 60 years old. By uttering one word, “weird,” Walz remade the messaging of his entire party. When Republicans lobbed their initial attacks against Walz’s military record, the social media army hit back hard, although some commentators believe it needs to hit back harder.

The fight is only beginning. Democrats should not fool themselves into thinking Trump will simply lay down his gloves and walk away. When backed into a corner, Trump traditionally becomes more brutal.

But as Clinton’s war room demonstrated in the 1992 election, a savvy Democratic campaign updated to suit the modern media environment can take down the fiercest opposition and pave a road that leads to the White House.

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mechaneo · 10 days ago

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"Why do people hate Snapcube now? She's such a precious uwuwuuu and did nothing wrong!"

Snapcube's fandubs have spiraled out of control and have completely taken over Sonic discussion, not just for the internet, but for the general public as well

Every time someone wants to talk about SA2, 06, Shadow 05 or the Riders games, or even the characters of Eggman, Black Doom and Mephiles, they get bombarded with annoying mofos spamming the jokes over and over and you can't even use the excuses "Then get off the internet", "Just ignore them", because:

We can't ignore them, even if you mute certain words, that's how much they get spammed

People spam these jokes in public as well, meaning even though we've gotten to a point where people don't unanimously hate Sonic anymore, people like me still gotta hide the fact I like Sonic in public

Not only that, but these jokes have been spammed for 6 fucking years

The Snapcube Dubs have also reached a point where they've become more popular than the actual Sonic franchise, these videos get hundred millions views, not a single actual Sonic vid gets this many, and it's not just the dubs themselves, any video about the Snapcube dubs gets way more attention than actual Sonic stuff, they're so popular that they're listed on the Sonic Wikipedia page for fan animation content, when they're not even animated, what's worse is that actual fan animations like Nazo Unleashed aren't even listed, they're also become popular where they've gotten multiple articles written about about them, along with hundreds of reaction videos, which goes to show people would rather watch these than actually play Sonic games

They's also reached a point where the general public unironically thinks that the Snapcube Dubs are either canon or invented stuff from the games, they've also contributed to more mischaracterization discourse, specifically Silver

Snapcube fans also have this weird worship obsession towards the dubs, treating them like the second coming of christ, along with having a parasocial Dream Stan like obsession with Snapcube herself, they also get irrationally mad whenever someone doesn't find these jokes funny, screeching "You hate fun and whimsy!" or making accusations of misogynistic, transphobia or homophobia, not even actual Sonic fans go to these lengths

Snapcube fans also have an obsession with making the Dubs canon, even going to the lengths of harassing the official Sonic VAs and getting mad when some of them refuse

Recently when Sonic Movie 3 came out, Snapcube herself made a tweet stating there were no references to the dubs in the movie, yet her fanbase keep insisting that there are references to her dub

Oh and you've been hearing me right, majority of Snapcube fans aren't even Sonic fans, many have even admitted to it, meanwhile on the opposite end, Snapcube Fans think only watching her Dubs makes them Sonic Fans, even seeing it as a flex, thinking they don't need to play the Sonic games to be actual fans, or any Official Sonic content in that regard

"BUT IT ISN'T PENNY'S FAULT! IT'S HER FANS!"

Then why hasn't she done anything about it?

"SHE CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT HER FANS!"

It's literally not that hard to to make a statement that her Dubs aren't official or that the stuff her fan's doing is wrong

But considering Snapcube's other dramas, like getting offended over Persona 4 and the first Sonic Movie, and the fact she pushes Silver's current mischaracterization and unironically described Sonic's character as "Be Gay, Do Crime", I don't think she cares, from what I've seen, all that matters to her is that more queer people surround Sonic discussion

#sonic the hedgehog #Snapcube #Snapcube Fandubs #sonic adventure 2 #Sonic 06 #Shadow 05 #Sonic Riders #Black Doom #mephiles the dark #Eggman

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 2 months ago

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Matt Davies :: Shirk. http://Newsday.com/matt

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 24, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Nov 25, 2024

Since the night of the November 5, election, Trump and his allies have insisted that he won what Trump called “an unprecedented and powerful mandate.” But as the numbers have continued to come in, it’s clear that such a declaration is both an attempt to encourage donations— fundraising emails refer to Trump’s “LANDSLIDE VICTORY”—and an attempt to create the illusion of power to push his agenda.

The reality is that Trump’s margin over Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris will likely end up around 1.5 points. According to James M. Lindsay, writing for the Council of Foreign Relations, it is the fifth smallest since 1900, which covers 32 presidential races. Exit polls showed that Trump’s favorability rating was just 48% and that more voters chose someone other than Trump. And, as Lindsay points out, Trump fell 4 million votes short of President Joe Biden in 2020.

Political science professor Lynn Vavreck of the University of California, Los Angeles, told Peter Baker of the New York Times: “If the definition of landslide is you win both the popular vote and Electoral College vote, that’s a new definition” On the other hand, she added, “Nobody gains any kind of influence by going out and saying, ‘I barely won, and now I want to do these big things.’”

Trump’s allies are indeed setting out to do big things, and they are big things that are unpopular.

Trump ran away from Project 2025 during the campaign because it was so unpopular. He denied he knew anything about it, calling it “ridiculous and abysmal,” and on September 16 the leader of Trump’s transition team, Howard Lutnick, said there were “Absolutely zero. No connection. Zero” ties between the team and Project 2025. Now, though, Trump has done an about-face and has said he will nominate at least five people associated with Project 2025 to his administration.

Those nominees include Russell Vought, one of the project's key authors, who calls for dramatically increasing the powers of the president; Tom Homan, who as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) oversaw the separation of children from their parents; John Ratcliffe, whom the Senate refused in 2019 to confirm as Director of National Intelligence because he had no experience in intelligence; Brendan Carr, whom Trump wants to put at the head of the Federal Communications Commission and who is already trying to silence critics by warning he will punish broadcasters who Trump feels have been unfair to him; and Stephen Miller, the fervently anti-immigrant ideologue.

Project 2025 calls for the creation of an extraordinarily strong president who will gut the civil service and replace its nonpartisan officials with those who are loyal to the president. It calls for filling the military and the Department of Justice with those loyal to the president. And then, the project plans that with his new power, the president will impose Christian nationalism on the United States of America, ending immigration, and curtailing rights for LGBTQ+ individuals as well as women and racial and ethnic minorities.

Project 2025 was unpopular when people learned about it.

And then there is the threat of dramatic cuts to the U.S. government, suggested by the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, headed by billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. They are calling for cuts of $2 trillion to the items in the national budget that provide a safety net for ordinary Americans at the same time that Trump is promising additional tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. Musk, meanwhile, is posturing as if he is the actual president, threatening on Saturday, for example: “Those who break the law will be arrested and that includes mayors.”

On Meet the Press today, current representative and senator-elect Adam Schiff (D-CA) reacted to the “dictator talk,” with which Trump is threatening his political opponents, pointing out that "[t]he American people…voted on the basis of the economy—they wanted change to the economy—they weren’t voting for dictatorship. So I think he is going to misread his mandate if that’s what he thinks voters chose him for.”

That Trump and his team are trying desperately to portray a marginal victory as a landslide in order to put an extremist unpopular agenda into place suggests another dynamic at work.

For all Trump’s claims of power, he is a 78-year-old man who is declining mentally and who neither commands a majority of voters nor has shown signs of being able to transfer his voters to a leader in waiting.

Trump’s team deployed Vice President–elect J.D. Vance to the Senate to drum up votes for the confirmation of Florida representative Matt Gaetz to become the United States attorney general. But Vance has only been in the Senate since 2022 and is not noticeably popular. He—and therefore Trump—was unable to find the votes the wildly unqualified Gaetz needed for confirmation, forcing him to withdraw his name from consideration.

The next day, Gaetz began to advertise on Cameo, an app that allows patrons to commission a personalized video for fans, asking a minimum of $550.00 for a recording. Gaetz went from United States representative to Trump’s nominee for U.S. attorney general to making videos for Cameo in a little over a week.

It is a truism in studying politics that it’s far more important to follow power than it is to follow people. Right now, there is a lot of power sloshing around in Washington, D.C.

Trump is trying to convince the country that he has scooped up all that power. But in fact, he has won reelection by less than 50% of the vote, and his vice president is not popular. The policies Trump is embracing are so unpopular that he himself ran away from them when he was campaigning. And now he has proposed filling his administration with a number of highly unqualified figures who, knowing the only reason they have been elevated is that they are loyal to Trump, will go along with his worst instincts. With that baggage, it is not clear he will be able to cement enough power to bring his plans to life.

If power remains loose, it could get scooped up by cabinet officials, as it was during a similarly chaotic period in the 1920s. In that era, voters elected to the presidency former newspaperman and Republican backbencher Warren G. Harding of Ohio, who promised to return the country to “normalcy” after eight years of the presidency of Democrat Woodrow Wilson and the nation’s engagement in World War I. That election really was a landslide, with Harding and his running mate, Calvin Coolidge, winning more than 60% of the popular vote in 1920.

But Harding was badly out of his depth in the presidency and spent his time with cronies playing bridge and drinking upstairs at the White House—despite Prohibition—while corrupt members of his administration grabbed all they could.

With such a void in the executive branch, power could have flowed to Congress. But after twenty years of opposing first Theodore Roosevelt, and then William Howard Taft, and then Woodrow Wilson, Congress had become adept at opposing presidents but had split into factions that made it unable to transition to using power, rather than opposing its use.

And so power in that era flowed to members of Harding’s Cabinet, primarily to Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon and Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, who put into place a fervently pro-business government that continued after Harding’s untimely death into the presidency of Calvin Coolidge, who made little effort to recover the power Harding had abandoned. After Hoover became president and their system fell to ruin in the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took their lost power and used it to create a new type of government.

In this moment, Trump’s people are working hard to convince Americans that they have gathered up all the power in Washington, D.C., but that power is actually still sloshing around. Trump is trying to force through the Senate a number of unqualified and dangerous nominees for high-level positions, threatening Republican senators that if they don’t bow to him, Elon Musk will fund primary challengers, or suggesting he will push them into recess so he can appoint his nominees without their constitutionally-mandated advice and consent.

But Trump and his people do not, in fact, have a mandate. Trump is old and weak, and power is up for grabs. It is possible that MAGA Republicans will, in the end, force Republican senators into their camp, permitting Trump and his cronies to do whatever they wish.

It is also possible that Republican senators will themselves take back for Congress the power that has lately concentrated in presidents, check the most dangerous and unpopular of Trump’s plans, and begin the process of restoring the balance of the three branches of government.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Matt Davies #Heather Cox Richardson #unqualifed and dangerous #Republican Senators #background check #Warren G. Harding #the American Presidency #American History #history #dictator talk

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