#when you cheat on your significant other multiple times and lied to them about being pregnant they have every right to break up with you

[creepykuroneko]

Really hot fucken take, if you're going to act like a stupid bitch, then you deserve whatever bad things happen to you.

When you do everything within your power to ensure bad things happen, you don't get to cry about why do bad things only happen to you. You are not the victim. You reap what you sow.

[teddy06writes]

sum angst for sapnap x quackity x karl x reader if requests are open, i dont remember if they are, and if u feel up to it

sapnap x karl x quackity x reader + sleepy bois x sibling!reader

trigger warnings: yelling, swearing, character death

this is an in game au so be aware of that

premise: you’ve been on the inside, spying on Shlatt for pogtopia, you thought you had had him convinced that the spy was Tubbo (Who knew just about nothing about pogtopia) but during the festival Shlatt asks you to make a speech... after the festival, things begin to fall apart

(y/n/n)- your nickname

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

“And you’re sure about this? You’re positive that it’s him and not Quackity?” Shlatt asked.

The festival was in two days, Wilbur’s plan to blow Manburg was in place, and suddenly huge evidence of things you had berried was piling up. Your entire position as Pogopia’s spy was at risk.

“I’m positive Mr. President. I caught Tuboo poking around in some tunnels, trying to talk to TommyInnt just yesterday,” You lied straight through your teeth, “The log I found behind the files proves it.”

You held up the book, truly a work of your own notes, signed in you co workers hand.

Shlatt took it, quickly skimming through the pages, “Hmmm, this is significant evidence to condemn the kid. We’ll have to do something about.”

“Maybe we should exile him, like Wilbur and Tommy.” You suggested carefully.

He considered it for a moment, a wide jagged grin spreading across his face, “Or... we could execute him,” He seemed to take pleasure in your shock, “Publicly. We have been needing a slam finish for that festival.”

“Shlatt Tubbo is just a child!”

Shlatt glared down at you, “Sorry, what was that? It almost sounded like you were trying to go against the word of the president.”

The threat chilled you to the core, and you strained to stay calm, “With all due respect Mr. President, Tubbo is only 16, and there are other ways to deal with insurgents.”

“Insurgents? As in there's multiple now?” Alex strode into the room, wrapping an arm around your shoulders as you breathed a slight sigh of relief.

“Yes, your partner here has just informed me that our dear Tubbo is a traitor,” Shlatt slammed the journal onto the desk, ignoring the glare Alex gave him when you jumped, “He’s been spying on Manburg for Pogtopia.”

Alex reached for the book, flipping to the last page and reading allowed, “If there is ever a time to strike, it would be during the Manburg festival, though it is worth noting Wilbur’s plan of destroying L’Manburg should be put off as long as possible.”

“When I caught them in the tunnels under the city, they were talking about tnt,” You said, the shake in your voice all too real, as forced tears began to prick in your eyes, “Wilbur’s going to blow it up.”

Shlatt looked at you clearly searching for something, but giving up once you fully began to cry, turning to burry your face in your boyfriends shoulder.

The president sighed, annoyed, “Get them outta here Quackity, I can’t work when there's fucking crying in my office.”

“It’s probably just the stress, sir. I’ll get them home.” Alex carefully led you out of the white house, and you were grateful, unknowing how much of the emotion was real or not.

“Oh god! Is (y/n) okay?” Karl asked as soon as Alex had gotten you to where he was decorating party island.

“Yeah, they’ll uh- they’ll be alright. Shlatt, Manburg, stress, you know?” He eased you down to sit on one of the benches, and quickly Karl moved to sit and wrap his arms around you.

“Hey, I’ve gotta get back to work. I’ll see you guys tonight.” Alex quickly pecked at your cheek, and then Karl’s lips before heading back in the direction of the white house.

“What happened?” Karl asked softly once he had gone.

You sniffled, leaning into his embrace, “Work’s stuff. The festival’s getting stressful.”

“Yeah, well I’m helping Tubbo with the last of the decorating tomorrow,” He paused, “You’re missing Wilbur and Tommy aren’t you?”

You nodded, “I miss them and Techno and Phil. I miss home.”

Your duties as a spy didn’t entail much seeing your brothers, just taking down notes of what was going on in Manburg and leaving them in a remote chest for Wilbur to collect later.

“We all miss home. But think about it this way, if you hadn’t come here, you wouldn’t’ve found me, or Alex, or Nick,” Karl said, looking out at the rest of Manburg, “We wouldn’t have this place without you or your brothers, and even Shlatt can’t change that.”

You smiled a bit at that, “Thanks Karl.”

“And! You don’t have to worry about decorations for the festival cause I’m helping Tubbo with it tomorrow!”

Though it was meant to cheer you up you felt your heart sink lower, he and Nick still didn’t know, and wouldn’t about what would be planned for the festival, but hopefully Alex would understand the burden.

~~

“So why is there a festival?”

Nick had just arrived back in Manburg from a while’s stay in the SMP, and was very confused by the posters lining the streets.

“Shlatt wants to celebrate democracy, so he’s had Tubbo and I organize a festival.” You explained.

He cocked an eyebrow, “And what does Wilbur think of this?”

Nick was still the only one who’d found out about your allegiances to Pogtopia, only by mistake, when he’d caught you making the journey back from the cavern.

“Wilbur thinks it’s an opportunity,” You sighed, quickly scribbling down a new messege to the boys, “Techno think’s it’s a waste of time and energy, the anarchist energy’s been shining through more and more lately.”

“So who do you agree with?” He asked carefully.

“Neither, Wilbur’s gone manic, Techno is- well he’s Technoblade, and Tommy just goes along with what Wil says.” You tucked each note into an envelope, folding them between the pages of the newest set of notes.

You looked up to meet Nick’s eyes, “I’m worried about what Friday will bring. I’ve tried to throw Shlatt off my trail and it seems like it’s working I just-”

You broke off as Nick wrapped his arms around you, “Hey, it’ll be okay. And if he tries anything, I’ll be there to protect you,” He chuckled, “Hell, maybe it’ll be the only time your brothers and I agree.”

“Maybe.” You mumbled.

“Woah! Are you guys cuddling without us?” Karl feigned shock as he came into the living room with Alex.

“I would never!” You forced a laugh.

~~

“(y/n), come on, we’ve gotta go get ready to meet Shlatt.” Alex nudged you.

You sighed, starting to snuggle back into Nick’s grip, wishing the small amount of morning calm would last, “Do we have too?”

“Yeah, you know he won’t be happy if we’re late.”

You looked at Karl and Nick, still mostly asleep, and then back at him, quietly admitting, “I’m scared today could change everything.”

He sighed, immediately shifting back down into be, “I suppose we could stay a bit longer.”

Slowly, the other boys woke up, but the room remained in silence, as if everyone could feel the coming tension, as if even moving would shatter the peace of the day.

Carefully, Karl broke the silence, “We’re gonna be okay guys. The festival is gonna be awesome. Wilbur wouldn’t do anything to ruin it for (y/n).”

“If what they found out is true, you guys could all be at risk.” Alex murmured.

Nick sighed, “I don’t care who’s bad side I get on, it’s gonna be anything to keep you all safe.”

Each of you heard a different meaning behind his words, but still none of you spoke.

“Whatever happens today, we’ll make it through, the country, may not.” You said, voice wavering, but still with a note of finality.

~~

By midday the festival was in full swing, and surprising your older brother had actually shown up for the festivities.

“Strange seeing you here,” You laughed, nudging him, “A celebration of a government.”

“It’d be rude to turn down an invitation ta one a these,” He sighed, glancing around, “Where’s your boyfriends hanging around at, I haven’t threatened them yet today.”

You chuckled, “Q’s helping Shlatt with the last of the prep for the speeches. Sapnap’s supposedly trying to figure a way to cheat Fundy’s dunk tank and Karl’s over there.” You gestured to where he, Tubbo, Sam and Bad were running around at Party Island.

“mmm, hey, uh, your note the other day, you weren’t serious about framing the kid right?”

You sucked in a breath, tightening the grip on the sword at your side, “It was him or Al- Quackity, I couldn’t do that to him. Whatever they’re planning I’m going to stop them.”

Techno look back at the stage warily, “I’ll back you up if I can.”

Soon everyone was being called to take there seats in the audience as you, Tubbo, Alex, and Shlatt took to the stage.

“Well everyone!” Shlatt addressed the crowd, “Thank you for coming to this wonderful celebration of democracy! Things sure have gotten bet around here, I’m gonna give the mic to Tubbo, the main organizer of this event, for his speech.”

Tubbo grinned, shuffling his notecards as he took Shlatt’s spot in front of the microphone, “Hello everyone! I’m honestly so excited to be here right now!”

As Tubbo rambled on about Wilbur and Tommy’s banishment, you stood back, wishing you could’ve stood on the same side of the stage as Alex.

Looking out over the crowd gathered you tried not to let your gaze wander to Tommy and Wilbur, who you knew were perched on the top of a near by building.

“And uh yeah! To democracy!” Tubbo concluded.

You could almost here Alex chuckle as he started to turn to the chest on the side of the stage, ready to grab the materials to box the boy in.

“That was nice, hey, uh, (y/n), dear (y/n), my secretary of state, I uh, I hate to put you on the spot here, but uh, why don’t you come up and make a speech?” You blood ran cold at Shlatts words.

On the other side of the stage Alex froze as well, out in the crowd no one suspect anything, so you clasped your hands behind your back to hide the tremors and moved in front of the microphone.

“Well, uh hi guys! I honestly didn’t except to be up here making a speech today, so I’m not quite sure if this will even turn out coherent,” You laughed, out of the corner of your eye you noticed Tommy tensing, “I remember, soon after I followed my brothers to this land, we fought in a war. L’manburg’s war for independence was long and hard, and I often thought we would never see a better time, but standing here, it is very clear to me that this country has changed since the election.

“This country, since gaining it’s independence has changed my life, and it weighs on my heart that My L’manburg has a ruler such as Mr. JShlatt. We fought for this land, my brothers and I, and here we are today, with so much progress made! So, my friends, my colleges, here's to Our L’manburg!”

Everyone began to cheer, only to be cut off my Shlatt’s harsh laugh, “Oh, (y/n), it’s Manburg now remember? or did you forget while you were off conspiring with your brothers in Pogtopia?”

Tubbo pushed a still frozen Alex out of the way to grab the materials, beginning to box you in.

“S- shlatt?” You quickly turned on the emotion, turning frantically as they caged you in, “Shlatt what are you talking about?”

“Shlatt what the hell are you doing?” Alex asked.

“Oh, you didn't know? Your partners a traitor!” Shlatt laughed again.

Alex turned to you, now trapped between the throne and the mic stand, looking betrayed.

“I didn’t do anything! Shlatt! Please!” Though a few days before most of the emotion had been real, but now you were thankful for your acting skills, blubbering, “Alex! Alex look at me it wasn’t me! I didn’t do anything!”

Down in the stands Nick was halfway to standing, pushing Karl back down into his own seat.

“Or really? So that book wasn’t forged? That chest you used to pass messages? You tried to turn them against me!” Tubbo exclaimed.

“I didn’t- I- I would never betray my country!” You sobbed, forcing tears to leak from your eyes.

“Oh shut up,” Shlatt turned to the crowd, “Technoblade, front and center, get up here.”

Shakily Techno stood, quietly moving up to stand on the stage as Alex backed off the stage, looking between you and Shlatt with mixes of betrayal and shock.

“What uh, what you need me up here for Shlatt?”

“I want you to take care of them, make a public example.”

Techno coughed awkwardly, “You- you want me ta kill m’ sibling?”

“No!” You exclaimed, “Techno please...”

Shlatt glared at you, “Cut the crap (y/n)! We all know you aren’t actually this god damn emotional!”

Sapnap was fully in the isle now, sword drawn, and up on the roof You saw Wilbur clamping a hand over Tommy’s mouth to keep him to keep him from giving them away.

Sighing you wiped away the fake tears, “You have to admit, Shlatt, you believed me, you trusted me!”

Shlatt just rolled his eyes, “Techno get on it, snap too! I’ve got places to be.”

Techno slung his crossbow off his shoulder uncertainly, “(y/n)?”

All the fear from the morning came flooding back, but you shoved it down, leaning forward, to make eye contact with Shlatt, “You kill me now and nothing will change! This place will still go down hill and my brothers will still plot against you! All my secrets go down with me!”

“Shut your mouth and die already!”

Your nails dug into your palms, “Don’t make them watch Shlatt, have some mercy, if you want to kill me kill me, but don’t make my boys watch, don’t make Techno do it.”

“Get it over with!”

You leaned forward, gritting your teeth, “You heard the man, kill me.”

“(y/n), I can’t- you- yo- I-”

“Do it.” You hissed.

Time slowed, and Techno slowly raised the crossbow.

You looked out, past him, over the rolling fields of L’manburg, your home.

Niki out in the crowd wore a look of horror, hiding her face in Eret’s shoulder, who wore a simillar look for fear. Fundy wore a steely expression clearly close to breaking, Sam looked down right terrified, as Bad hid his eyes in his hands.

To your left Tubbo looked scared even though he’d put you in the cage, you were glad it was you and not him.

Shlatt wore his usual evil grin, pupil’s dilated.

Up on the roof, Tommy, your little brother looked horrified, Wilbur still holding him back with a neutral expression, Techno, now directly in front of you, was nearly in tears, your big brother, who swore to protect you, now being your end, it seemed almost poetic.

Behind him Nick was running up the isle, sword drawn, though you knew he’d be to late, Karl, lip quivering sat frozen, and Alex, his face still was filled with betrayal.

You looked up, took a deep breath and then time resumed, Techno pulled the trigger and everything went black.

{(y/n) went off with a bang}

~~

It was cold.

Dark.

You didn’t now where you were as you drifted through a world you barley recognized.

Where was this?

How did you get there?

Vaguely you remembered a festival, your brothers, plus your boyfriends, oh how you loved them.

Your friends had been there too.

You looked back down to see L’manburg, ‘home!’ you thought happily.

You drifted towards your house, a voice in the back of your brain wondering, ‘why am I not walking?’

“What the fuck was that?” A loud voice cut through the air.

‘Nicky!’ you thought happily, following the sound.

“What the hell do you mean?”

‘Alex!’

You entered the room, finding them standing on opposite side, Karl, huddled in the corner.

“You are so fucking stupid! You know that? You let them die! They’re fucking dead because of you!”

“They were a fucking traitor! They got what was coming to them!”

“They loved you!” Nick screamed back, “They loved you and me and Karl, and their brothers! And now there gone! Because of You and Fucking Shlatt!”

What were they talking about?

“They fucking betrayed us! They betrayed Manburg! You saw the fucking acting they did! How do you know they ever loved us!”

From the corner Karl sobbed, and instinctively you moved to comfort him, but instead you passed right through.

‘what the hell?’

You had no time to dwell however because Nick shouted, “Etheir way you let them die! They’d be here if you’d interfered!”

“But I didn’t wooupdy do! They were a traitor!”

“They were trying to save their home!”

“WELL MAYBE THEY SHOULD’VE CONSIDERED THAT I WAS TRYING TO BUILD IT UP!”

“You and Shlatt never did anything but tare this place to the ground.” It was only a whisper, but Nick’s words sent Alex spinning on his heel and heading out the door.

“Fuck you! Fuck you! I am aware that my best isn’t good enough! So fuck you!”

The door slammed, and Nick only blinked a moment before Karl quietly asked, “Why did you do that?”

“What?”

“Now he’s gone too!”

Karl’s voice made your heart shatter.

“You think that’s my fault?! Clearly he didn’t give a shit about us, or them, other wise he would’ve stopped Shlatt.”

“They said we’d be okay! But we’re not!” Karl sobbed.

“I can fucking see that! God damn Karl! What did you except?”

“I-”

Before he could finish the door was slamming again.

Karl leaned back against the wall, staring straight through you whispering, “Why did you have to go (y/n/n)? You only just brought us together! We only just figured it out.”

[p-redux]

Gloating about being an insider during a time of sadness is DISGUSTING

I'm not gloating, I'm posting INFO and FACTS like I always do...and showing restraint and discretion in not posting it sooner, and not posting the details, which I haven’t and won’t.

But you know what IS disgusting? Here’s a LONG list, and by no means, a comprehensive one, of what Extreme Shippers, Former Extreme Shippers, and Assorted Haters have done that is VERY DISGUSTING. I’ll write it stream of consciousness-like and not in order. Put your feet up and grab a tall drink. Here we go...

Click on Keep Reading

Extreme Shippers found Cait’s condo when she used to live in Los Angeles and sat outside for hours waiting to see if they saw her with Sam. ES blackmailed and coerced a minor, a 14 year old girl who was a super fan of Abbie’s sister, Charlotte Salt, into giving them info regarding Abbie and Sam. The girl was following Abbie’s locked Instagram account and could see the Sam related stuff Abbie was posting. ES won her trust, she gave them info about Abbie and Sam, they then told her if she didn’t screencap and give them the Sam related pics on Abbie’s IG account, they would tell Abbie and Charlotte that she had been giving them info. Sick doesn’t begin to describe it. ES tried to dox and did dox anyone and everyone who got in the way of their SamCait ship. Doxed, as in PUBLICLY posted, the names, addresses, pictures of their houses, professions, husbands’ and children’s names, employer names of ANYONE and EVERYONE who posted something to contradict the ship. They even posted pictures of their children. Again, messing with minors is a big no no, and usually a crime. ES created fake Ashley Madison accounts (that’s the website for married people who want to meet people to cheat on their spouses with) and pretended to be non-shippers’ husbands to try to make it seem like the husband was cheating. It got so bad, that in some cases, non-shippers had to get restraining orders, cease and desist orders, get the police, lawyers, and in TWO cases, the F B I involved. Yes, the F B I has come a knocking on a couple of Extreme Shipper’s doors because of their ILLEGAL actions. ES lured some of Sam’s girlfriends into believing they had their best interest at heart, gained their trust, and they PUBLICLY posted their PRIVATE messages. Luckily, in the case of one Sam’s ex, Abbie Salt, she later did confirm she and Sam dated, which totally negated everything that shipper had said Abbie told her.  ES directly BULLIED and HARASSED fans, Outlander cast, crew, journalists, reporters, family and friends of Sam and Cait. ES contacted people’s employers to try to get them fired...literally messed with people’s livelihoods. They tried to get the Outlander drivers fired because they started posting stuff against shippers AFTER shippers turned on them. ES waited outside Sam and Cait’s residences in whatever location they were in to try to “catch them together.” Taking pics at someone’s private residence is very different than getting pics or video in PUBLIC places. For years, ES have manipulated pictures, gifs, video to sell the SamCait LIE to their gullible shipper friends. They’ve made money off selling these lies. ES have ostracized and banished any shipper friends who acknowledged the ship wasn’t real. They sent their best friend to Tony’s bar in London to try to prove he and Cait weren’t together, and when she unwittingly found out they were, they then bullied her and kicked her out of shipperville. ES created multiple hate sock accounts for the SOLE purpose of CYBERBULLYING Sam’s girlfriends and dates. Any time Sam dates a woman, ES follow the same pattern. They contact the women’s employers, parents, siblings, other family members, friends, ex-boyfriends trying to malign the women. Some examples: They pretended to have gone to high school with Mackenzie Mauzy and spread lies that she had a bad reputation in high school. They spread lies that Gia was a paid escort. ES contacted social media outlets to spread LIES about Sam and Cait and their significant others. Contacted anyone associated with Cait and Tony’s wedding trying to intimidate them into saying there was no wedding. They posted the picture of a waiter at one of the Outlander premieres and tried to pass him off as Tony to prove Tony didn’t go with Cait. ES have continuously posted pics of Cait with her naturally poochy belly trying to prove that she’s been pregnant with Sam’s children for the last 7 years. ES publicly questioned her if she was pregnant. Sam haters and disgruntled ex-shippers have spread rumors that Sam is gay. Nothing wrong with being gay, but what is wrong is spreading LIES. ES have badmouthed Cait’s HUSBAND, Tony McGill saying he was: her assistant, gay, her gay assistant, a loser, broke, boring, ugly, her purse holder, etc. And trust me, what I’ve posted above is the SHORT list.

And that’s not even mentioning what they’ve done to ME. Ever since I committed the unforgivable sin of posting source info CONFIRMING Sam and Cait were never a couple, and Cait was dating Tony, way back in 2014, this is what SamCait Extreme Shippers have done to me. Tagged me endlessly when I had my Twitter account telling me things like “Die, b*tch,” “Die, c*nt,” “You should be gang rap*d,” “Drop a house on her,” “You’re worse than AIDS,” and those are the “nice” comments. They literally BULLIED me every day, all day for YEARS. They also created hate accounts on Twitter and Instagram to mock me, parody me, and post lies about me. They were convinced they’d found my real identity (based on circumstantial evidence, which I’ve countered and can counter with the actual truth), and proceeded to post THAT woman’s FULL NAME, city where she lived, profession, reported her to her licensing board, and created a fake Twitter account pretending to be her. She got a lawyer and was able to get everything taken down, but they basically tried to ruin her life. They’ve spread LIES about me being the one harassing THEM and managed to convince over 60 dopes with disposable incomes to give them money for a GoFundMe campaign where they hired a Private Investigator to try to find me. They started a witchhunt letter writing campaign, hashtagged it on Twitter, #takebackourfandom, or some such bullsh*t, tagged everyone in Outlander cast and crew “telling” on me and even sent letters and e-mails to Starz and Sony executives trying to...I don’t know what. Hahahaha. It’s so ridiculous, my brain is scrambling as I write this. They told their followers not to believe anything I say and that I’m evil personified. ALL of that and more because they couldn’t face the FACT that their SamCait ship NEVER EXISTED and I was the one that confirmed it. When I think about it, I can’t believe I lived through all that. But I stayed because I knew I had the TRUTH on my side and that eventually it would all come out, which of course it did. And because I’m a bad bitch who doesn’t scare easily.  EVERYTHING I’m referring to here is well DOCUMENTED with screencap proof. Or just ask anyone who’s been in the fandom long enough, they’ll attest that what I’m saying did actually happen, and that Extreme Shippers, Former Shippers, and Haters did do all of that.

So, Anon, when you come at me with “disgusting” things in this fandom, please refer to the above before you start pointing fingers at me. 

PS. “Anon,” I’ve got your Los Angeles/Anaheim Samsung Galaxy S10e IP address tagged. So, send me another hate Ask and you’ll get blocked. And don’t bother using a VPN...once the tag is on, it follows the user no matter what IP they use. Now you know. 

[pansyslut]

hi:) can i request an imagine where draco cheats on the reader and he doesn’t regret it cuz maybe he thinks he’s falling in love with the other person (the girl he cheathed y/n with)??idk if this makes sense :(

wait wait wait I HAVE A REQUEST ?? omg- guys this is a moment for celebration. it’s your lucky day because i’ll make this a long one. and yes that make perfect sense!! i’m so excited to write this especially because i don’t usually write angst but i think you’ll like it.

p.s. a small portion of this oneshot will have quote from a scene from greys anatomy. (2x24) i love that scene and i think it fit in well with the story.

and once again... don’t feel shy to send requests because i get so excited to hear what you guys want !

liar, liar, pants on fire

draco x reader

it had been three months. three months since you broke up with draco. three months since you found that skank in your bed.

people always say, “it will get better with time” , “the pain fades eventually”. they were wrong. what kind of bullshit is that? if anything, it hurts more.

you and draco had been together for over a year. it had started off with secret kisses, him showering you with gifts, sneaking out past curfew. even after being together for over a year it still felt like the honeymoon stage. you never fought. you never got on each other’s nerves. everything was perfect. or so you thought.

you had slipped out your bedroom when your roommate fell asleep and were making your way to dracos room. usually, you and draco would plan what nights you would spend together but you were craving his touch. he had been so distant lately. when your friends had brought up that it seemed you were spending a significant amount of less time together you brushed it off and said it was because he was stressed for the O.W.L.S.

you crept slowly in the halls and found your way to dracos door. knocking silently you waited. after the second knock, draco opened the door. as soon as you saw his face you knew something was wrong. he looked like a deer in headlights. he was obviously caught in the act of something but you hadn’t known how bad it actually was.

“dray?” you heard a female voice from behind him. you immediately froze, locking eyes with your boyfriend. he reached out to you but you snatched your hand back as you frantically shook your head.

you both stood there silently staring. until astoria walked up behind him. you instantly noticed she was in one of his shirts. on of his shirts you had gotten him.

you were never an aggressive or violent person. but in that moment- merlin in that moment you could have hexed her to death. and you would’ve done it with a smile on your face. and you possibly would’ve if it wasn’t for draco slamming his door in your face, knocking you out of your trance.

all those study groups. all those times he cancelled or had some fishy excuse or couldn’t explain where he was- it was because of her. it all made sense. how stupid, you had thought. how could you not have known. it was so clear. blatantly staring you in the face.

that was the last time you spoke to him. that was months ago and still that moment replayed in your head endlessly. multiple times you had wondered to yourself why. why were you not good enough? why didn’t he just break up with you? how many times had he lied to you before? how long had their affair been going on?

you needed to stop making excuses for him. yes, you loved him. but did he love you? you thought back to the many times you had said it to him and he had never said it back. then, you hadn’t thought anything of it. you knew draco wasn’t one to open up easily. you knew it would take a considerable amount of time before he would say those three words and you were okay with that.

he probably loved her. all those times you lay in his arms he was probably thinking of her. all those times he had cancelled plans on you he was probably with her telling her how much he loved her.

you also thought back to what you would’ve done differently. in the moment you found out of him cheating and what you would’ve done differently in the relationship.

i made it to easy for him. i’m too easy.

i wasn’t satisfying him or his needs.

i shouldn’t have been too clingy.

if i were pure blood, he would’ve never left me.

this is all my fault.

the next school year...

it had been months since draco and you had broken up. you still stand by saying it hurting just as much. it hurts like hell. but you have come to terms with it. you’ve come to the realization that is wasn’t your fault. no mater what you did or didn’t do right in the relationship, it isn’t an excuse to cheat. he was the one who lied. he was the one who wasn’t loyal.

news broke out of you and dracos split like wild fire. everyone knew. you were officially up for grabs. many boys had made their way up to you in hopes to take you out. time after time you had rejected them politely. until cedric digory.

you and cedric had been friends for years. you were always fond of his company. walking through the train, looking through the windows, you stop once you see him. “may i join you?”

ever since then you and cedric started spending more and more time together. you didn’t love him but you think you could grow to. you could love him in a different way than draco.

i mean they were durastically different. although draco had always been sweet to you, he was incredibly rude to anyone else. cedric was kind to everyone. and he always seemed to have a smile on his face.

you scolded yourself for comparing the two boys. it wasn’t the first time you caught yourself doing it and most definitely not the last.

it now coming up on your one month with cedric, and your class had ended early. so you were making your way out the empty slytherin common room to meet him outside on his class.

that was the first time you and draco had made eye contact since all those months ago. he had grown quite well at avoiding you. you both stand there quietly like statues until he santurs over to you and stopping only a foot away. he had this aggressive look written all over his face.

“y/n. good to see you’re well. i’ve seen you around with digory lately.” he says formally. “yes. me and cedric have been seeing each other. i haven’t seen you around with astoria? have you hit a bump?” you say plainly with your hands on your hips.

he scoffs and starts walking away but you decide to follow him. “it’s good to know about cedric. you really get around, huh?” he says still walking. you grab his arm and twist him around so you are face to face. “what did you just say to me?”

“it’s unforgivable.” unforgivable? it he serious?

“i don’t remember asking for your forgiveness.”

“so is digory just a faze? who’s next? i heard blaze likes to sleep around.” he says laughing at his own joke, turning once again to walk away.

you run in front of him and grab him by one of his forearms. “you don’t get to call me a whore. when i met you, i thought i had found the person i was going to spend the rest of my life with.” you say with tears now building up in your eyes, “so all the boys. and all the bars. and all the obvious daddy issues. who cared? because i was done. you left me. you chose astoria. i’m all glued back together now. i make no apologies for how i chose to repair what you broke. you don’t get to call me a whore.”

you stares at you with his eyes wide and his mouth gaping. “draco!” you both hear in the distance. you turn to see astoria herself, only a few meters away. “you should go. your girlfriends calling.” you say and walk off.

after all the times you had imagined that moment, you never thought of how invigorating it would make you feel. you left him speechless and it felt damn good.

that night...

you lie awake staring at the ceiling. you felt like you could actually breath. for months, you were living on stored air but now you could actually breath.

you hear a soft knock on your door. you look to the clock reading 1:42, wondering who would be up at this hour. you open to see draco malfoy himself. he has bags under his eyes which you hadn’t noticed before. he pushes past you and let’s himself into your room.

“you were right earlier. and you deserve an explanation.” he says. you nod so he goes on. “when we were together i had been cheating on you for three months before you had found out.” three months? no that can’t be. you would’ve realized.

“and- and i was planning on telling you. but it never felt like the right time.” he said pulling at his hair in frustration.

“the right time? the right time would’ve been before you had even cheated on me. the right time would’ve been three months before i had found out.” you say crossing your arms.

“yeah, you’re right. you’re right.” he says and starts to pace your room. draco had never been the type to admit he’s wrong before so you can imagine how much damage this is actually doing to him.

“i love her, y/n. at first i thought it was just infatuation and i was going to fuck her once and take the secret to my grave but- but y/n, i love her.”

you turn as he’s talking so he doesn’t see the tears fighting to come out. he continues to talk as you cry silently, turned away from him.

“i’m sorry, y/n. i really did care for you.” and then you hear your door shut. you turn to realize you are once again standing in your bedroom alone.

i really did care for you

but he never loved you. he loved her.

[wyofabdoms]

Undercover I Do - Chapter 12

Characters: Javier Peña x female reader

Summary: While on an undercover assignment posing as a married couple, you are attacked and nearly assaulted. Upon waking, all you remember about Javier Peña is what you remembering seeing from two photographs of the two of you posing as the happily married couple. As you struggle to regain your memories, Javi struggles with his own feelings for you.

Rating: Explicit

Chapter Warnings: Implied cheating, swearing, destruction of government property, Javi has road rage.

Word Count: 2077

Notes: Reeling from what you witnessed in the alley, you arrive at the office for your meeting with Dixon. And you take out some of your anger on Javi's unwitting empty office. But in the midst of your rage, you come across something interesting.

Let me know if you find any crazy mistakes. Feedback and comments greatly appreciated.

Be well!

Read on Ao3

*

The moment you set foot in the office bullpen, you know your initial bad feeling about this meeting is right. Everyone seems to be looking at you with a pained expression; as though they are all sympathetic to some plight that is still unbeknownst to you. You think maybe it’s just the memory loss and your temper flares, making you want to scream and lash out at all of them, down to the typist in the corner.

Then, Van Ness steps into your line of sight and says your name cautiously, looking at you with concern etched on his forehead.

“I’m here to meet with Dixon. She called me.” You grit your words out, willing him to just back off, not wanting him to ask you if you’re ok, knowing that if he does, you’ll start sobbing hysterically in front of all of these people in the middle of the United States DEA bullpen.

“Ah….yeah, well the Ambassador just showed up, she got caught up meeting with him. Shouldn’t take long. She wanted me to keep an eye out for you.” As he spoke, the younger man steered her towards an office and through the doorway. “You can wait in here until she’s finished, probably five, ten minutes.” Too late you realized the office you were being ushered into was Javier’s office. You thought better about throwing a fit and asking to wait somewhere else. If you did, he’d probably inquire as to why and then…well, it was probably best to just sit in your piece of trash husband’s office and wait.

He won’t be in for a while anyway, you think furiously. He’s too “preoccupied”. That thought brought the empty bottom feeling into your stomach again and was quickly replaced with boiling fury and rage at what you had witnessed. Van Ness seemed to sense your anger and quickly retreated, leaving you to pace Javi’s office angrily.

“What a piece of shit!” You growl under your breath and then proceed to call him every foul name you can think of in both English and Spanish. As you do so, you randomly kick furniture, upending a pile of cartons on an armchair and not caring one second about the headache it would cause him to reorganize it. As you pass the bookshelf, you punch a flag statue off a shelf and enjoy the satisfying crunch it made as it lands on the floor. That sound seems to drag more need to destroy. You tear the cushions up from the couch and rip them open, flailing the stuffing out of them, imagining it was your husband’s insides that you were ripping to pieces, as well as that “informant”! You grab a framed medal off the wall behind the couch, smashing the glass over the coffee table and marching over to his desk, ripping the medal out of its cushioned velvet bed and taking the sharp, pointed edge of the bottom of it to the back of his desk chair.

The tearing sound as the material was ripped open fills up the room like a freight train and gives you an extreme sense of satisfaction. You jab the sharp end of your makeshift weapon into the glossy, smooth surface of the desk and grit your teeth as you put all of your anger and weight into cutting a jagged line from one side of the desk to the other, knocking files that were spread out haphazardly on the floor. Your rage completely overtook you and you began to gouge all of the foul names you had previously been calling him into the surface of the desk until your hand began to ache from pressing so hard. The pain only makes you angrier and you fling the medal across the office, knocking a lamp off of the end table. The clatter and sound of the bulb smashing give you some momentary peace, but then the memory of that woman’s hand moving inside his pants resurfaces again, causing you to redouble your efforts and proceed in destroying every visible inch of his office.

How dare he? How...dare...he? How dare YOU, thinking anything less from the man that was your husband. A leopard doesn’t change its spots...what had you been thinking? WHAT could possibly have EVER made you agree to marry such a vile, disgusting slime ball of a man? You had begged him...BEGGED HIM...to fuck you only an hour before you found him in a shkeezy back alley with a cheap whore. Fuck him! If he would rather have his whores than you, then so be it. He could keep them. How long had he still been “working leads” after you’d gotten married? Did everyone outside in that bullpen know? How many of them still tittered over the water cooler about how many times Agent Peña visited the brothels in the city...how many of THEM out there had he fooled around with, too? Why stop at whores? How could he have convinced you so well. Convinced you to marry him, but then, all this time, convinced you to keep begging him, to keep trying to be with him. You had asked...you had asked him to his face if there was someone else. He had denied it and you had believed him. What a fool you’d been. No, there wasn’t someONE else. There was probably NUMEROUS others.

As suddenly as your rage had come upon you, it is just as suddenly replaced by an overwhelming sense of sadness; you feel your legs give out and you collapse to the floor amidst the upended furniture, crumpled balls of paper, broken glass and strewn file folders. Staring at the destruction around you for a moment, you feel the knife of betrayal prick your insides and your heart shatters to pieces.

You bury your face in your hands and begin to sob. After several minutes you draw a watery breath, then shake your head. Dixon was going to be out of her meeting any minute. She was going to find you in here sobbing hysterically amidst all of this.

Oh god! You look around at the mess you’ve made in Javi’s office. The sudden thought enters your mind that you’ve just successfully demolished a significant amount of government property. You frantically start collecting crumpled paper and straightening file folders within reach, trying to return the room to some semblance of order as quickly as possible.

As you reach for one particular folder, you catch sight of half a photograph sticking out that seems familiar. Your hand stops in mid-air.

It’s your wedding photo with Javi.

The same one that’s framed in your apartment. Your hand shakes as you reach for the photo, tears starting to stream from your eyes again at the sight of the now familiar photo. You both looked so happy, so in love with each other. What had happened? How could he be such a good liar?

You cry as you clutch the photo to your chest. Your marriage was over. A marriage that you hadn’t even really gotten a chance to be a part of because most of it was lost to the clouds of your missing memory. And though you didn’t want to admit it...as much as you wanted to hate him, you knew that deep down you were mostly sad because you loved Javier. And he had betrayed you. Had lied to you. But you loved him despite that. And now, knowing what you knew, you couldn’t stay married to him.

And that broke your heart.

You heaved another huge sigh and moved to place the photo back where you had found it….

...and paused again.

What was your wedding photo doing in a DEA case file folder?

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

Javier didn’t think he had ever driven so fast in his life. Even though he had made a valiant effort at breaking every single driving law in Columbia, it still seemed like an eternity before he braked in front of the DEA building. Today the universe had not been on his side. Despite driving as fast as he could, he seemed to hit nothing but red lights and streets full of bumper to bumper traffic. Crosswalks seemed to be more full than normal with mothers and baby carriages and kids on their way to school. Even when he had tried to take the few shortcuts he knew, he had stalled, running into construction or a blocked roadway where there had once been open passage.

In the end, it had taken him twice as long to get to work then it normally would have. He was furious when he arrived. Furious as himself mostly, but also willing to dole out a fair share to the traffic lights, pedestrians, sidewalk vendors and whoever tried to get in his way before he found out where his partner was.

He was certain she had seen them. He just knew it, deep in his gut. And he knew that he had to find her. To see her. To talk to her. He needed to talk to her before Dixon broke the news to her about her being sent home. He needed to hold her. To tell her….

Would he have the balls to actually tell her what he needed to tell her?

Thinking about that only served to remind him of what a coward he was. He knew he wouldn’t be able to tell her how he really felt. He hadn’t even been able to….SHOW her how he felt. He hadn’t been able to fuck her when she had begged him, when she had willingly offered herself to him on multiple occasions.

He wanted to throw up thinking about it. Thinking about saying those words to her. Thinking about how she was going to be sent home, that by tonight she wouldn’t be in his life anymore, that he was never going to know how it felt to hold her in his arms and whisper those words in her ear, wasn’t going to know how it felt to be inside of her, to know how she sounded and looked when she came undone from pleasure.

Yeah, he was a real fucking coward.

When he stormed into the bullpen, he knew something was wrong. Van Ness and Feistl both stood a short distance from his office, arms folded, heads cocked towards the closed door as though trying to detect any sound. They both had stricken looks on their faces, a mixture of fear and bewilderment, and neither man seemed quite sure what to do with themselves when Javier entered. One look at them and then a look at the closed office door told him that things had already started happening. His heart sank.

“Dixon?” He asked, nodding towards his office. Van Ness started, then stood up straight, shaking his head.

“No. She’s still in a meeting. She wanted me to have her wait in...” Without waiting for any further information, Javi plowed his way past them and wrenched open the door to his office.

He stopped short, eyes widening at the scene in front of him.

It looked like a bomb had exploded in his office. Furniture was upturned, pictures were smashed and hanging askew, file folders were thrown everywhere, the floor was covered in ripped and crumpled paper and...some kind of fluff...what was that? The couch cushions? He saw them ripped to shreds and thrown randomly around the room. Items had been smashed off the bookshelves and lamps were cracked and broken to pieces, leaving large chunks of glass strewn about the floor.

And there she sat in the midst of the chaos.

Her shoulders were hunched over. A file folder was open in her lap and she had clearly been reading several pages of the report found within. Your staged wedding photo was in one hand as she turned the pages of the report with the other. He could only stare at her and at the destruction surrounding her...and then it slowly dawned on him what she was reading.

At almost the exact same moment that he had the realization, she lifted her head from the file and looked up at him.

His heart broke.

Her face was red from crying, tear tracks staining her face, confusion and a thousand questions filling her eyes. Her voice was shaking and wobbly and sounded like a child’s: scared, lost...terrified of the truth.

“Javi?”

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8,  Chapter 9, Chapter 10,  Chapter 11, Chapter 13

[msotherworldly]

Writing Relationships

In my last writing advice post, I discussed how to create a subtle, but compelling, villain for a whodunit story. Though whodunnits are applied most to mysteries, they can feature in many genres. The topic of this post can, likewise, feature in multiple genres, despite having a whole genre dedicated to it - romance.

Even if you don’t plan to be the next Jane Austen, those tackling genres like fantasy, science fiction, or even horror can benefit from knowing how to write romantic plot lines which are both believable and exciting. How much romance you include comes down to your preferences as an author. Both Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are fantasy series which include romance, but Buffy in particular focuses on it (in fact, if you're writing a story for young adults or new adults, an emphasis on romance is recommended). 

The first rule to keep in mind when writing a romantic plot line is that there should be tension in the relationship. The characters involved should argue with one another; they should have differing opinions on varying matters; and they should experience the occasional falling outs. Such tensions can be highlighted especially at the start of the relationship, such as in an enemies to lovers story. If characters are nothing but cordial to one another, the relationship will feel flat (though there's a difference between characters disagreeing with one another, and one character being abusive towards his or her partner). 

The second rule is that characters should make mistakes, and then grow from them. A character might lie to her partner about what she’s doing. She might embarrass her partner at a party. She might fail to defend her partner from a vicious mother in law. In extreme cases, a character may even cheat on their partner. Whether the relationship recovers from something as drastic as cheating or not is up to the writer, though there should always be repercussions for characters who make especially bad mistakes. They should be called out for their behaviour and, if the relationship is salvaged, they should not only apologize, but grow as a person.

Thirdly, not all relationships should succeed. If you're writing a series, a character might cycle through three different relationships. Love triangles are a classic trope, where characters are forced to choose between two desirable partners, though relationships might also occur independently of one another, featuring their own ups and downs without outside interference. Characters might even break up for a lengthy period of time, date others, and then return to each other again. They may need space before they can give a relationship another chance. 

Relationships can end because of something as benign as characters lacking common interests, and as extreme as one partner having an affair. Having characters break up and date multiple partners over time not only makes your story less predictable, but more realistic. After all, it's rare for two people to meet in school, fall in love, and then never date anyone else. Even Harry Potter has its characters play the field before ending up with their ultimate significant others (Ron dates Lavender, Harry dates Cho, Hermione attends the Yule Ball with Krum, and Ginny dates a series of boys). 

In cases where one partner feels betrayed, redemption arcs can be used to redeem a relationship that might have failed. After fighting, the characters could experience a near death experience together; after betraying their partner, the other might atone by saving the other’s life; a character could rescue their ex from a life threatening situation; and someone who has lied to their partner could confess to their own insecurities and apologize. A character shouldn't just be forgiven. Something dramatic should happen to raise the possibility of a character being forgiven - one should save the other, or both characters should be thrust into a dangerous situation where they are forced to rely on one another. 

Characters might also talk out their issues to reconcile, but a happy relationship shouldn't come from one conversation. There should be several hard conversations before a relationship is restored; there may even be a few arguments before the characters can handle a few clipped conversations, and from there the heavy discussions where they consider giving it another go. This route is slower and less action packed, but a slow burn could be equally compelling (and more realistic) than a union saved by fighting zombies. (Having people make up as a result of a surprise zombie attack isn't necessarily bad; the route you choose will depend on not only your writing style, but the personality of your characters).

Yet another rule to keep in mind is that relationships shouldn't be toxic - there might be unhealthy aspects in a relationship that two people work through at first, and characters should make mistakes, but if a story features one partner being beaten by the other the relationship should end eventually (if you're writing a thriller, a horror story, or a dark fantasy, you may even have one character, after having endured so much abuse, kill the other).

If you're one of those sadistic writers who enjoys nurturing the hearts of your readers, and then stomping them into mulch, tragic deaths are also on the table. If one partner in a thriving relationship is killed, readers will feel the loss. Bonus points to you if the two lovebirds have just reconciled following a rough patch. If your characters finally get together again after a bad break up and are doing well, proceeding to kill one will leave the reader feeling all kinds of emotions. One shouldn't go killing characters at every turn; that would be depressing. However, if there are three or four relationships happening during a series and life threatening situations are typical, it might not be realistic for every single character to have a happily ever after. (If you're determined to be the next George R. R. Martin, then, by all means, let the deaths commence; just be sure your readers are invested in the relationships before you bring down the ax).

Finally, relationships should be happy. This isn't to say they have to be happy forever (especially if the characters eventually break up), but there should be a high point in the relationship. Readers should understand why the two characters are together. The couple should have shared hobbies; they should trust each other; they should regularly do activities together, like go bowling or hit the bar. While tension in relationships is vital, a relationship that is all argument and no fun isn't a relationship. Even if your couple bickers, they should also have cute moments where they hold each other, giggle over shared jokes, or ruffle each other’s hair. Let their actual friendship show through. After writing arguments between the pair, be sure to include “aww” inducing moments.

There are any number of tips I could give; while this isn't an exhaustive list for crafting enjoyable, and realistic, romantic pairings, keeping these tips in mind can help your romances to remain interesting, healthy, and believable. Partners should make mistakes, and then own up to them; characters should have other partners before settling with the one; those who mess up should redeem themselves, and find forgiveness through either dramatic action or hard conversations; and couples should have a friendship, laugh together, and otherwise be adorable on occasion. 

Whether you write regency romance, or stories where people date vampires and elves, knowing how to write an intriguing romance can elevate your story. It's not enough to have kissing and passion - relationships, at least well written ones, are more than that.

[psychedelic-ink]

New Beginnings 2020 

I have no idea what time it is where you are but currently we have entered the year 2021. So I wanted to talk a bit about what I’ve been through at the end of 2019 and my growth in 2021, maybe it’ll help you guys out if you’re in a pretty bad place right now. In the end I just wanted to share my story, I won’t go into much detail about the whole thing but I will try to give you a general idea of what happened to me. 

Also before reading further, I will be talking about cheating, gaslighting and self physical harm(not anything too serious tho), so if these things trigger you please don’t read any further. 

Basically, right before we entered 2020, I had a boyfriend which I ended up marrying simply so we could move out of the country together. That was all it was supposed to be, but due to his misogynistic views he immediately turned the arrangement into a “you’re the wife, cook,do dishes, clean the house” kind of setting. And even though I was thinking about why on earth should I bet the only one doing these things, I started to believe in what he said. He was working after all (he worked in 24 hour shifts) and for all the years we’ve been together (5 years) I was dependent on him, because I believed no one else would love me. This one had nothing to do with him, I just didn’t like myself. I also felt like I was protected because I had this idea that no one could stay stuff like “oh she’s ugly, or she’s fat, she’s alone anyway because she’s awful” because I had a boyfriend, it was somewhat a shield for me. 

During our so called marriage he made me feel like what I did was never good enough, there was always something wrong, my issues or the things that pissed me off weren’t important enough to listen and just silly stuff considered to him and I, at the moment, believed him. Instead of going out with me, he would always say how tired he was after his shift (this wasn’t every time but generally he was like this), he would go out with a friend which was a woman. I’m ashamed to say but I went into a jealous rage, basically having meltdowns and breakdowns whenever he went out with her, hitting myself or the things around me. Now I know that the reason I felt like this was because he never showed me the proper kind of love and I always wondered what it felt like to actually know that your significant other loves you. I would always joke about me knowing that he loved me was like believing in god. You didn’t know god was real or not but you believed anyway, and we always laughed about this. 

We moved into another house, he stopped hanging out with his work friend from before and started hanging out with another woman that he worked with. I met her, she seemed, normal, nice. One time I went to another city with my friend when I came back I saw a wine bottle we had, empty, and snacks. Stuff that I knew he wouldn’t do alone. I asked him, he told me that she was with him and they had dinner at our place. Of course I got mad but didn’t really have an outburst since I had started to go to therapy and was feeling much better then. I told him that he should’ve just told me even if I was not in the city, he agreed, of course and that was that. I did trust him, so I just figured my jealousy was just my problem that I had to deal with. 

Then came my birthday, another bad habit of mine, I care a lot about my birthdays. Since I put effort into surprising my friends and loved ones, I expect them to at least remember. It’s kind of shitty but it’s been something I cared about since I was a kid. And on the night of 23th of December (my birthday is on the 24th) he went out with her, I said nothing except that I wanted home by midnight so he would be with me when the clock hits 00.00, the day on my birthday he had work so he would be at work for 24 hours and I wouldn’t see him. He didn’t come home that night, I called him multiple times, and when he finally opened the phone he said that there were no cabs and that he had to stay at her place. I went insane, told him that I would consider that he was cheating on me if he did such a thing. As always he told me I was overreacting and hung up, not opening my phones later on. Of course on the day of my birthday, we fought but I ended up forgiving him and told him it was my fault. 

Then I went to visit my family before New Years. When I came back, he went out to visit a coworker (at the time I didn’t know that he went with her, I found out later on) and when he came home we had a huge fight, I said that maybe we should break up (something that I usually said during fights) and he said yes let’s breakup. It was out of the blue and I was so confused when he suddenly said that. I was heartbroken and while we went to sleep that night, I was convinced that I had to win him back. I would clean the house, lose weight and show him that yes I could change even more. I woke up and for some reason had the urge to check his phone, I took it and went to the toilet then I saw his messages with her. 

Messages saying that he didn’t want to be with someone who wasn’t putting the same effort as him, saying that he was going to break up with me and that he was afraid of my reaction, saying that he was relieved that it was going to happen. 

I was shocked, especially because when we broke up I asked him if he liked her, he lied and said no and that it just had to do with me and him. I straight up told him that I read his messages and that he should’ve just told me. I didn’t yell or do anything at the moment, I just asked if they kissed or did anything sexual. Apparently they only kissed. I cried like a freaking baby after that, my heart was broken and we had to continue living in the same house. He went out with her every goddamn day. On New Years I was lucky enough to have friends that knew about the situation and they called me over so I spent the night with them, I couldn’t really enjoy myself but I was happy as happy I could be. 

Like I said, due to school and other complications we had to continue to live together and I absolutely felt like shit. I blamed myself, hated myself, especially when I saw that he was going out with her everyday when he was always too tired to go out with me. Even if we were broken up he still tried to micro manage me going so far as basically shouting at me for buying almond milk (he didn’t let me when we were dating because it was expensive) 

But then...I started getting better. I moved back with my parents, I also had very supportive friends in my hometown, I started exploring stuff that I used to like but gave up. One of these was writing fanfiction and reading fanfiction. I wrote so much but then for some reason, we started dating and I just stopped. I wanted to pursue art but that also cost a lot so that was also out of the question and wouldn’t “make me social” . I started feeling better about myself, stopped biting my nails, meet new people here on tumblr, write and actually start to earn some money, pursue my dreams of being an animator and purchasing an ipad with the money I OWNED (he also told me that the other woman had “stable finances” like I was a student what did you expect) and now after a year, I look back and I feel truly happy. I’m happy with who I am, happy about my thoughts, happy about where I am. Of course I have doubts sometimes but generally I am happy to be doing the things I love. 

Basically what I want to say is that I am proud of myself. This year was shitty in many ways, sure. But for me it was a year of self growth and understanding who I am a little bit better. It does get better, even if it seems like it doesn’t. When I was living with him after the break up I thought that I would be alone forever, I was angry because I was convinced no one would fall for me. But that’s not true, I don’t have anyone right now but everything takes time. Hopefully, this year will also be a year of learning for me but I also know that I was lucky that my family and friends were very supportive so If you ever feel down, or if you’re feeling down right now don’t hesitate to talk to me, I would be happy to listen and try to help as much as I can. 

Happy New year everyone! Stay Safe!

[tea-at-221]

The TJLC Debacle: 3 years out from S4 and counting; the copyright mini-theory; so much salt I’m bloated; but in the end, there is peace (I love you Johnlockers)

Ugh, don't even talk to me about Mary.

Don't even talk to me about the way Mofftiss have said they're sick of responding to fans on the subject of Johnlock. Of how they've said they're "not telling anyone else what to think or write about them" (as if they could stop us; as if they even own Sherlock themselves. Do keep reading, because this point becomes much more relevant and in-jokey later on). Don't even mention how they've bitched and whined incessantly because--god forbid--fans got *really really* into their show and emotionally invested.

They're so eager to discount all the beautiful little moments they wrote as accidents. And Arwel, who planted all those props, continually demonstrates that he's on their side (a not-very in-depth-analysis of his Instagram account and the way he interacted with fans towards the beginning of the pandemic showed as much, but I think maybe he’s grown a bit wiser and quieter since at least in terms of Johnlock and all things elephant-related. I don’t know for sure because I stopped looking.)

Anyway--they'd actually prefer for us to celebrate our own intelligence, is I suppose a charitable way of looking at it: our ability to make connections between things in the show; our metas on symbolism; our insightful fanfic; etc., and denounce them as the bad writers that they ultimately are.

More under the cut.

(This post may be of interest to you especially if you came to the fandom a bit later: multiple links to things of relevance/quotes/explanations appear both within and at the end of this entry.)

Because what makes a writer good?

Well, an ability to make people feel an emotional connection to their work, for one. I know this is just my own perspective, but if not for Johnlock, all my emotion about the show would evaporate. There wouldn't be much else there. Other people might get something, but I wouldn’t. Is some of the writing witty and entertaining regardless of any inferred/implied Johnlock? Yeah but, eh, a lot of shows have some good writing and I just don’t give a damn about them.

What makes a writer good?

Not making promises to the reader/viewer that they'll never keep. Plot holes, leading dialogue ("There’s stuff you wanted to say...but didn’t say it.” “Yeah”) never followed through on, puns that are apparently, I suppose, unintentional (e.g. "'Previous' commander?" "I meant 'ex'").

Uh, not writing continual gay jokes that aren't actually pointing toward the inference that people are making them because there's actually something going on there under the surface. (How about just don't make those jokes ever.)

Not being, apparently, oblivious (? questionable) to the queerbaiting they're engaging in *as they’re writing it.*

Acting like their LGBT audience is in the wrong/the bad guy, instead of choosing to remain respectful in the face of dissent. Instead it's just, "we never wrote it that way" / "We never played it that way."

A lot of those other mildly witty shows don’t actually blatantly drag their most passionate fans face-down through the mud the writers themselves created. Imagine that.

I'm not even a fan of Martin Freeman anymore, for the way he handled the whole thing (getting angry, the comments he made about how the fans made Sherlock “not fun anymore”...apparently Martin’s packing up his crayons and going home?)...no offense to anyone who is still a fan of his. I don’t make it a habit to drag him. I do to some degree understand his frustration with having the whole situation taken out on him--he’s just an actor in the show--but I simply wish he’d remained as cool and professional about it as Benedict Cumberbatch instead of pointing at the fans. You’re pointing in the wrong direction, mate.

What also irks me at the end of the day is this: the subsection of people who legitimately responded badly to the TJLC/S4 debacle and went above and beyond to harass the writers and actors/actresses on social media are *few and far between*, but we've been lumped in with them by what feels like...everyone, Martin included. TJLCers/Johnlockers (not the same group, but often treated as such) have been made to look like a bunch of rambunctious, immature, demanding children time and time and again in the wake of S4.

They'd rather, what, suggest John was so in love with Mary? THAT was the relationship they wanted to uphold in that show as so significant and...what, a demonstration of how honorable it is to respect your heterosexual relationship despite, you know...ANYTHING?

Yeah sorry, I don’t believe in that. John’s text-based affair, whether a disappointment for some as to his supposed character, was a very human reaction and I kinda sorta feel like I would have reacted MUCH more strongly than that had I been John. But nope. He stayed with Mary and was *ashamed* of his wandering eye. Ashamed that maybe he wanted to be admired by someone. I can’t think of a scene, off the top of my head, where Mary ever interacted with John without belittling him in some way--if not with words, then with consistently patronizing glances.

The message here is that heterosexuality is not just acceptable, but VALUABLE, however it manifests--but god forbid anyone see a queer subtext. (Why are lgbt+ writers some of the very WORST offenders where this is concerned? And they defend it! Is this childhood nostalgia/Stockholm Syndrome of the very fondest variety or what? Gay angst is all they got if they got anything at all, so it’s still good enough as far as “representation” goes?)

They really want to tell the story of John as so emotionally/mentally fucked up that he surrounds himself with unstable people time and again. They never give any reason *why* he might do that (which they could have done even soooo subtly), or delve into his past--just, apparently it's okay to assume that Sherlock's comment about "she's like that because you chose her" is exactly that.

No. Sherlock and Mary are NOT the same. Not...*remotely*!

Mary is underhanded and evil. She lies. She manipulates. She schemes. Her “love” is based on selfishness, and her assumption that John is a simpleton and hers to mold. She's in it for herself.

Sherlock hides. He prevaricates. He feels. He loves John. He does fucked up things in the name of love, but always for the benefit of those he loves. When he screws up, which he obviously does, it’s painful to us as the audience because we see that it is painful for him when he recognizes and regrets it.

I have never seen Mary regret anything. Those crocodile tears at Christmas? More manipulation. Inconsistent with anything else we were shown about her as a character.

To even think for a SECOND that people could ship Mary and John and mentally condemn John for cheating on Mary AFTER SHE SHOT HIS BEST FRIEND...as if marriage is the be-all-end-all free pass in which every sin must be forgiven until the end of time...as if John broke any covenant with his wife beyond those she broke from the very moment she walked into his life *with an entire fake past.* Is just. Well. It's asking us to accept gaslighting as healthy, loving, normal, *preferable* behavior, so...given the source that message is coming from, it's all a bit meta.

THAT. Is insanity. Maybe Mofftiss are the sociopaths.

How these men could write characters they themselves understand so little (or tell us they understand so little because their emotional maturity has yet to surpass that of the average three-year-old’s), I will never know. I can only imagine that they have absorbed, by osmosis over their lives, real and nuanced human behavior...then churned it back out again in their writing unaware, a bit like psychopaths who teach themselves what "normal" people do so that they can pass as psychologically sound in regular society.

Remember, we *are* talking about men who do these sorts of things:

Moffat says that Sherlock is celibate and that people who claim he's misogynistic when he does things like make Irene Adler imply she's attracted to the detective (even though she's a lesbian) are, ironically, "deeply offensive" (despite lines like "look at us both" in Battersea. We aren't your therapists, Moffat--we don't care what you meant, we care what you said, and what you *said* was clear. *Implying* it does not let you off the hook).

Gatiss has proclaimed that "I find flirting with the homoeroticism in Sherlock much more interesting" than the idea of ever making a show addressing LGBT issues. (That link is to a reddit forum, and I can't find the original interview anymore, but I assure you I had seen the actual article myself ages back and can't find it online again now along with some of the Martin quotes I wanted to link to. And nevermind what Gatiss has done with LGBT shows/issues since--my focus here is on what he has said, versus what he and Moffat have since claimed regarding their queerbaiting.)

Here’s a transcript of this screenshot:

"...many people come up and say they didn't realise." Despite this lack of public awareness, being part of the gay community is clearly important to Gatiss: "The older I get the more I want to give something back. I mean, I keep meaning to do something." When asked if he'd be interested in making a series about gay issues his response was enlightening:

"No, I don't think I'd make a kind of gay programme. It's much more interesting when it's not about a single issue. And equally, I find flirting with the homoeroticism in Sherlock much more interesting. Of course this reflects the grand picture of everyone's strange make-up; there are good gay people and bad gay people. I wouldn't like to make an issue film around the culture of being gay."

Instead Gatiss' interest seems to lie in making a drama where sexuality is, if not mundane, part of the wider framework: "I'd quite like to do something about a quite happy, ordinary gay person who's just incidentally gay. For example, a three-part thriller for ITV where the lead character just happens to be gay; when they finally go home, say 45 minutes in, and they had a same sex partner. That to me would be genuinely progressive. It wouldn't be a three-part gay thriller for ITV. It would be that this character just happened to be gay."

--End article quote.

And instead, who is canonically gay in the series? Well, Irene Adler. The innkeepers at the Cross Keys. And perhaps most notably, the *villains*, because that's a helpful trope: Moriarty and Eurus are, in S4, both implied to be at least bisexual.

Any character should be able to be any sexuality, this is true. But can we have some main characters, the good guys, give some good representation? Can't we start making that the standard, rather than the villains and the background characters? Because so far, that is the exception and not the rule.

Writers need to be aware of the damage they are perpetuating. We are not quite in a world yet where any character should be able to be any sexuality but isn't, yet we have no problem with saying the villain is LGBT+ or looks different/functions differently than much of the viewing audience.

"Male friendship is important and valid, not everything has to be gay"--this is a popular point with casual heterosexual viewers (and, to my chagrin, some of my LGBT+ friends) who don't fully grasp what "queerbaiting" is, often even when it's pointed out to them.

The lens of heterosexuality is real. My first time through watching BBC Sherlock, I didn't see the Johnlock at all. I had to look for it and read about it. When I saw it, the lens was lifted for me, and it changed my life and the way I view things forever (and for the best).

But back to my point about how little Mofftiss seem to understand their own story/most ardent fans, and then on to my other theory: in S4 it must be that they dropped their “psychopaths emulating empathy” act and indulged in their own "insane wish fulfillment" by doing away with all of the meaning, continuity, and sense. Right?

So, here’s the alternate theory. One which is not, please remember, in their defense.

Remember that S4 is what Mofftiss are *happy* to have us believe is what they'd do with these characters, given the chance to do whatever they wanted. I repeat, in Moffat’s own words: “Insane wish fulfillment.”

Okay I get it, this pasta has been over-salted.

Without further delay: MY COPYRIGHT RESEARCH THEORY THAT EVEN I DON'T PUT MUCH STOCK IN AND WHICH DOESN’T MAKE UP FOR THEIR CRUELTY EVEN IF TRUE

Part of me also raises an eyebrow at S4 as perhaps an example of the effect of the Conan Doyle estate on any modern production in the US. While it’s true that all of Sherlock is part of public domain in the UK and has been for quite a long time, Gatiss and Moffat still talk about it being partially under copyright. Specifically, the last 10 stories. I’m supposing that this means that because Sherlock airs internationally, or due to whatever contract the BBC has with the Doyle estate, they are still limited by the copyright as to what they can “publish”.

The Doyle estate is known for being a pain in the ass when it comes to abiding by copyright law as everyone else knows and practices it. They’ve tried to argue, for example (in 2013 and, much more recently, with the advent of Enola Holmes), that because Holmes and Watson were not fully developed as their final selves until the conclusion of all 10 stories still under copyright, then perhaps the characters themselves should still be protected, basically, in full.

It’s true that certain elements of the remaining stories are still under copyright here in the US (Watson had more than one wife--uh huh, we have that to look forward to, Johnlockers; the Garridebs moment is still under copyright--yeah, I’m getting to that too; and Sherlock didn’t care much for dogs til later so that’s not allowed either, fuck off Redbeard), but the estate’s problem in 2013 seemed to be based around a fear that *gasp* some day--if not right now!--anyone could write a Sherlock Holmes story in any way they pleased, changing the characters however they wished to and giving those characters “multiple personalities.”

See the following excerpt from the Estate’s case:

“...at any given point in their fictional lives, the two men's characters depend on the Ten Stories. It is impossible to split the characters into public domain versions and complete versions.”

(Click for full transcript.)

Obviously, by this point, that’s been done in multiple iterations. So I dunno. Their argument was *more* than muddy to begin with--they just grasp at straws to stay in control, it seems.

But okay. Backing up: wasn’t there sort-of a Garridebs moment in S4?!?? you cry. Yep. But imagine this: the Conan Doyle estate taking Mofftiss to court to argue that they depicted the Garridebs moment--a moment still under copyright--in The Final Problem.

Did they, though? Did they really?

The fandom cried out about the ridiculousness--the utter disappointment--of that moment when it was shown. It was not what we would have expected/wanted. We didn’t see John injured, Sherlock reacting with tender outrage to the good doctor’s attacker.

Instead we saw some ludicrous BS that was as bad as the clown with the sword-gun-umbrella. More of that.

I think Martin probably found that it was easy to produce real tears when he thought about how fucking terrible the S4 scripts were.

Ahem. Yet, this all seems very Mofftiss-flavored in terms of humor.

I can all-too-easily imagine them saying, “HA. We’re going to show some of these supposedly copyrighted things--and if they take us to court, they’ll be laughed out of the room.” Could that explain some of the overall S4 fuckery?

Sherlock wasn’t supposed to like dogs til later stories, as previously mentioned-- is that why Redbeard pulled a “Cinderella’s carriage” and transformed into a pumpkin (Victor Trevor)? Hmm. Sigh.

It...doesn’t actually appear that the estate has any qualms about taking laughable stuff to court, I mean...*shrug.* They have the money to do it, and money is the name of the game, because you’ve got to pay for rights (cha-ching sounds).

Yep, it does seem that the estate is open to the copyrighted materials being made reality, but who knows for what price or with what caveats. The BBC isn’t, so far as I’ve ever heard, known for throwing money around. Early Doctor Who would be so much less entertaining if they’d had any sort of budget. (And in fact, more of the older episodes would exist, but apparently the BBC--in part to cut costs--reused some of their tapes.)

My bottom-line bitter is this: Mofftiss do like to amuse themselves. To please themselves and no one else, as they’ve shown time and again. Sure, they could do whatever they wanted with S4...and they did...but they were also cruel about it, and that’s what I’ll never forgive them--OR the BBC--for.

A lot of fans gave up after series 4. I was very nearly one of them. I was angry, like just about every other Johnlocker and/or TJLCer, but I was really truly heartbroken. I couldn’t look at fanfiction. My days were full of bitterness and I keenly felt the lack of the fandom outlet that had become so essential to my mental well-being. I didn't know how to overcome the disparity between TJLC and what the show actually was. I didn't know how to separate the things I loved so much from the shitty writers and the way the BBC handled things with their whole response letter (that atrocious, childish blanket response they sent to everyone who complained about S4, not just the Johnlockers/TJLCers. Related to your complaint or not, if you filed one post-S4, this was the response you got). I still boycott BBC shows/merchandise, just by the way.

I tried to link to the blanket response letter but the link didn’t want to work (it’s an old reddit post; I had difficulty finding a copy of the letter elsewhere though at one point it wasn’t so hard...Google is weird these days y’all...tell me it’s not just me) so here’s a screenshot:

Transcript:

“Thank you for contacting us about “Sherlock”.

The BBC and Hartswood Films have received feedback from some viewers who were disappointed there was not a romantic resolution to the relationship between Sherlcok and John in the finale of the latest season of “Sherlock”.

We are aware that the majority of this feedback uses the same text posted on websites and circulated on social media.

Through four series and thirteen episodes, Sherlock and John have never shown any romantic or sexual interest in each other. Furthermore, whenever the creators of “Sherlock” have been asked by fans if the relationship might develop in that direction, they have always made it clear that it would not.

Sherlock’s writers, cast and producers have long been firm and vocal supporters of LGBT rights.

The BBC does not accept the allegations leveled at “Sherlock” or its writers, and we wholeheartedly support the creative freedom of the writers to develop the story as they see fit.

We will of course register your disappointment.

Thank you for contacting us.

Kind Regards,

BBC Complaints Team

So how about that? *Did* they “register our disappointment”? We can actually check that. The BBC’s website has a monthly summary of complaints received. So what did they receive in January 2017, the month S4 aired?

Huh, what do you know. Sounds like that blanket response was exactly the “fuck you” it came across as.

But the show--the FANDOM--had filled a need in my life, and so I had to own that and make it mine, or just...let something in me die: something that felt like an actual vital organ. I had to decide that these characters mean something to me beyond what anyone else tells me they should. I had to accept my own perceptions as truth, as I do with everything else in my life. I had to overcome the idea of canon as law (BBC Sherlock isn't canon anyway; ACD is canon. BBC Sherlock is, in the end, badly written fanfiction--or--worse?--decent pre-slash fanfiction distorted by consistent lies and the hazing of the LGBT audience, topped with the dumpster fire of S4′s incoherent nonsense).

I had to take the good and throw away the bad, just like anyone else who chose to stay. The good bits of the show...dialogue, yes. Plot points, yes. These awful writers did write some good stuff sometimes.

They just broke all the unspoken rules of what not to do to your audience. And then did and said everything they could not to apologize, and to justify their own failings. Which, in the years since I began shipping queer ships beyond any others, I have unfortunately experienced more than once.

So, my vulnerability has been yeeted into the vacuum of broke-my-trustdom: no one can tell me what things should mean to me. I will decide.

I decide that all of the FUCKING AMAZING writing in the Sherlock fandom is a staple in my life that makes it worth living. And that that's okay. And takes precedence over anything the writers or anyone else associated with the show could ever say or do.

Johnlock can not be taken away. It doesn't belong to them. It never did, even if they brought us to it. It belongs to us. To the group of amazingly creative, brainy, empathetic, resourceful, vibrant, resilient people who make up this fandom.

So thank YOU, all of YOU, for giving me Sherlock, Johnlock, and TJLC.

I am SO SAD for those who never found a way to make peace with this fandom again. Let me just say that I understand that inability entirely.

I am fortunate that I found the ability in myself to cling to the joy (something it has taken my whole life to be able to do). I hope others will who haven’t yet but wish they could.

Let Mofftiss and whoever sides with them stay angry and bitter and vicious, always looking over their shoulders for anyone who dares to whisper about subtext.

I’m proud to be part of what they’re whispering so angrily about.

Thanks for sticking it out if you made it this far. I know this was very self-indulgent and rambly.

Articles of interest:

A Study in Queerbaiting (Or How Sherlock Got it All Wrong) by Marty Greyson

“We never played it like that.” - Martin on Johnlock

Henry Cavill on the Enola Holmes lawsuit

More on that--and by the way Sherlock isn’t allowed to like dogs

The way Sherlock creators told fans Sherlock & John aren’t gay is so rude

Especially for those new to the fandom who may not know the distinction between TJLC and Johnlockers and want to know more about TJLC's evolution/what it is/meta through the years

Moffat's view on asexuality, offensive to me in particular *as* an asexual person (same article where he claims he isn't misogynistic): "If he was asexual, there would be no tension in that, no fun in that – it's someone who abstains who's interesting."

Yet he says Sherlock isn't gay or straight and that he's trying to keep his brain pure which is a "very Victorian attitude"

(Nice historical research there, Moff--actually the Victorians were sex-positive).

Sherlock fans were robbed of the gay ending they deserved

Benedict Cumberbatch has lashed out at his Sherlock co-star Martin Freeman over his negative attitude towards fans

BBC complaints January 2017

Martin Freeman: 'Sherlock is gayest story ever'

From 2016: UNPOPULAR OPINION: "Sherlock" Isn't Sexist or Queerbaiting; It's Actually Trying to Stage a Revolution

Queer-baiting on the BBC's Sherlock: Addressing the Invalidation of Queer Identities through Online Fan Fiction Communities by Cassidy Sheehan

[panharmonium]

more rambling re: that last post (+ the merlin/will fic survey overview)

because i generally refrain from reading fic while i’m actively writing for a fandom, the only real ao3 reading i have done for merlin is my survey of the merlin/will ship tag.  and the only reason i undertook that survey in the first place is because while i was doing an introductory cruise of the various merlin tags during my first exploration of the fandom (after i finally finished S5 and was able to start looking into fandom dynamics without fearing spoilers), i noticed that a LOT of the fic tagged with this ship was also tagged merlin/arthur, and despite the fact that i personally am more interested in gen stuff, i started to get both suspicious and annoyed about what i was seeing.  but i also wanted to have the data to back up my annoyed feelings, so i made a little spreadsheet for myself and then just filled it in whenever i had time to kill and wanted something to do. 

the data, when i eventually finished, backed up my annoyance pretty much as well as i expected, which was disappointing, but not surprising.

to clarify - i’m not annoyed by the fact that will and merlin don’t have a whole lot of material in their ship tag.  will only showed up directly in one episode; i don’t expect him to be a popular subject.  what i AM annoyed by is the fact that there are actually more merlin/arthur fics in the merlin/will tag than there are fics that actually focus on...merlin/will.  by, like - an extreme margin.

(the rest of this is just me griping about fandom trends.  popping it under a cut so folks can just move on with their days if this isn’t relevant to their interests.)

The Numbers

two quick notes before i get into the nitty-gritty:

1) i originally did this survey a few months ago, but i updated it this week with fics that have been added since then, so the numbers are current.  

2) some of the data below would probably vary slightly depending on who was conducting the survey, so there’s a bit of wiggle room in either direction.  the criteria i had to use [aka what counts as just a ship ‘mention’ vs actual content] would be subject to reader interpretation, obviously, but even with that, i do feel that most stories fell into pretty clear categories.)

so, without further ado -

total # of fics in the ship tag: 145

number of fics that are inappropriately tagged (meaning either will himself or merlin/will as a ship does not actually appear [which is kind of bizarre, but which i saw happen surprisingly frequently], OR where there is only a brief reference to will or past!merlin/will and that’s the extent of their inclusion: 50

number of fics that are duplicates of works already in the tag (ie podfic), or (in one case) a meta podcast about the show: 5

so, that brings down our total number of fics with some sort of actual merlin/will content to 90.

of these 90 works, only 17 of them are actually focused on merlin/will.  

everything else in will’s ship tag, including the 54 works from the previously discussed "incorrectly tagged” category, is either a) fic where will is dumped, broken up with, or otherwise passed over in favor of arthur (and very occasionally gwaine, at least once mordred, once percival, once arthur and gwaine in a threesome, and once CENRED, which i’m sure will would be especially thrilled about), or b) fic where will is only included as a previous/ex relationship (again, almost always in lieu of arthur).  

moreover - of the 17 actual merlin/will fics, 7 still end with will dying or the relationship ending for reasons other than him being passed over for arthur.  an additional 4 are <1000 word PWP snippets, generally written for old LJ summer pornathons, one of which still somehow manages to be...you guessed it - all about arthur. 

in terms of actual one-shots/full fics where merlin/will is the endgame/non-dead pairing, there are only 6 stories.  

i repeat: will gets six earnest stories, IN HIS OWN SHIP TAG.  

i repeat once again: will, in a non-dead, endgame form, gets 4% of his own ship tag.

The Content

the in-fic trends are frustrating, if you actually like this character.

the asshole.  will is an abusive boyfriend.  he is a jealous ex. he’s a shitty friend.  he’s a stalker.  he’s manipulative.  he’s emotionally abusive.  he’s physically abusive.  he dumps merlin for someone else.  he cheats.  in one fic he’s so mad at merlin that he outs merlin’s magic to arthur.  in multiple fics, i watched him literally go off the rails and try to murder somebody.

the fuckbuddy. they’re just messing around, guys!  no, of course it’s not serious!  they just do this for fun!  of course there’s nothing to get in the way of arthur’s inevitable arrival!  no sirree!

the unrequited.  will is actually in it deep for merlin, but merlin doesn’t feel the same.  this does not, however, prevent merlin from using will for sex, companionship, comfort, distraction, etc - until arthur shows up, when will either steps aside in deference to merlin’s all-consuming passion for arthur or is dropped like a hot potato.

“not even will.”  that sentence.  over and over again.  merlin had never felt like this before, not even with will.  nobody had ever understood merlin like this, not even will.   even in fic when they were like.  married.  or engaged.  fanon arthur pendragon must be truly mind-blowing, y’all.

dead long-term relationship.  will was merlin’s husband/fiancé/long-term partner.  now he is Dead.  merlin getting together with arthur is what allows merlin to Heal.  (these stories sometimes contain some variation of “not even will,” as discussed above.)

lastly, in a related phenomenon:

who are you and what have you done with arthur pendragon???   i suppose in a way it’s nice to know that will isn’t the only one who gets the OOC treatment, but it is still really...something, to read fic where will is twisted into an unpleasant, abusive, canon non-compliant version of himself, and then to see arthur, on the very same page, transformed into a gentle, solicitous, kind, caring, equally canon non-compliant angel.  fanon!arthur is more worried about merlin’s well-being than literally anyone i have ever seen.  he is so invested in merlin’s emotional health.  he is so concerned about merlin’s boundaries.  he says things to merlin that no version of arthur pendragon has ever - EVER - in any universe, thought about saying to anybody.  he wants to hear all about merlin’s problems, and he’s all about taking it slow and making sure merlin feels comfortable and loved and worthy and safe (from all that horrible stuff done by that horrible other guy; that must’ve been so hard, merlin; ‘it’s okay, i’ve got you now’) - the man is utterly unrecognizable.  and you know what?  it’s okay!  it is fine to make your characters as OOC as you want.  it is fine to make them better/nicer than they were in the canon.  sometimes we all want that, right?  it’s fanfic!  have a ball.  i will never tell anyone to stop writing what they like, and i will NEVER interact negatively with a fic i don’t care for.  EVER.  do not do this, people - click the back button and move on with your life.   but i reserve the right to be annoyed, in my own space, about a persistent trend of will and arthur’s canon functions being flat-out reversed, in service of merlin/arthur.  not in the sense that canon!will is particularly gentle or sweet, because that’s not the case - but in the sense that will, in canon, is the one who actually cares about merlin’s best interests, whereas arthur is, quite frankly, the ass. a lovable ass (sometimes).  but an ass nonetheless, and one whose relationship with merlin is, from start to finish, an unhealthy, oppressive mess.

The Point

the point of me typing this up is not to say that what people choose to write is bad or wrong.  this is fanfic!  you can write whatever you want.  you can make characters as OOC as you want.  you can create as many AUs as you want.  i don’t mind fic authors writing stuff i don’t personally care for; someone else probably loves those stories!  and i am never going to interact negatively with anything i don’t personally enjoy - i am going to let people continue to have fun in their own ways, and i am going to grumble about my frustrations in my own space, and then i’m going to direct my energy into writing stuff i would personally like to read.

the point is just that i needed a brief second to complain, on my own blog, about my most familiar bbc merlin nemesis (otherwise known as ‘single-ship ubiquity’).  and what i mean by this is that it is REALLY FRUSTRATING that other little relationships are not even granted the tiniest concession of owning their own ship tags, in a fandom that is already so SATURATED with merlin/arthur content.  like - even if i’m generous and use the number 17 for the number of actual merlin/will fics in the tag, that still means 88% of will’s ship tag is actually fic about merlin falling in love with people who aren’t will (*cougharthur*).  eighty-eight percent!  of his own ship tag!  

(to put it another way - the ship tag isn’t supposed to be where you go to watch your character get repeatedly dumped or left behind for someone else, okay?  it’s supposed to be literally the opposite of that.)

will’s ship tag is already tiny.  and almost all of it belongs to arthur.  moreover, a significant chunk of it uses will as a convenient villain (completely contradicting every canon aspect of his characterization), when in the actual story will dies to protect arthur (who he doesn’t even like) and then lies to save merlin (at the expense of his own reputation, and despite the fact that he personally thinks merlin returning to camelot is a bad idea).  his behavior in canon is selfless, and wholly committed to merlin’s welfare, and yet in his ship tag he gets treated like trash.  

the kid can’t catch a break.  and it’s such a pervasive thing that even though i personally am primarily interested in merlin and will as friends (i am pretty romance-averse in general when it comes to media, and i have never written anything that isn’t gen, for any fandom, ever, in my life), i am also so indignant on will’s behalf that i’ve basically become invested in the well-being of this ship as a matter of principle.  it’s not my main thing, and it’s not necessarily how i view the canon-verse, but i am SO IRRITATED about how virtually all of will’s shipfic has been taken over by merthur (and about how maligned will is in his own tag) that i have actively committed myself to supporting merlin and will together in as many AUs as possible.  

(this is basically like when i trained myself to love allison argent after teen wolf killed her off.  i did that out of spite, y’all.  it’s the principle of the thing.)

so, y’know.  all i am saying is that i think will deserves his share of happy endings, and i think it would be nice to see fics where he is not just a stepping stone on the road to merthur or an unrecognizable parody of himself.

more importantly - EVERY merlin ship deserves to have a tag that isn’t completely swallowed by the local fandom behemoth.  merlin/arthur already owns three quarters of the archive.  a gargantuan oil tanker like that can afford to let the little rarepair canoes float down their own streams in peace.

[sol1056]

wuxia: a general yet probably too verbose introduction to the genre, pt2

and now we get to the actual conventions -- although more accurately, these are just the ones that I either noticed the strongest or had the most difficulty adjusting to, when I was first getting into wuxia. 

Not all stories have these elements, and of course in a genre as varied (and as old) as wuxia, there are twenty exceptions for every rule. What’s more, one story’s mild admonishment (”well, X is frowned on, but I guess if you’re just low-key about it”) can become the next story’s worst taboo (”omg you did X, you must be shunned! SHUNNNNNNNNNNed.”). 

Like any other living genre, authors will shift/tilt convention as needed to drive a story’s conflicts. 

btw, it’ll probably be a few days before I can do an introduction to MDZS, which should give time to @guzhuangheaven, @atthewaterside, @dramatic-gwynne, @the50-person, @drunkensword (and anyone else) to point out everything I misunderstood, over-emphasized, misinterpreted, or just plain missed. 

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

1. Hierarchy still matters. A student’s respect for their teacher, a child’s respect for their parents, younger siblings/students to elder. You’ll see this in how people are called (ie 3rd uncle, elder sister, 2nd brother), but this doesn’t mean everyone goes around dutiful and obedient. Err, wuxia is actually more of the opposite. I mean, a good story requires conflict between characters, and what better way than someone overturning (or at least appearing to overturn) the hierarchy?

In that vein, creating new relationships that take precedent over old relationships is anywhere from disrespectful to a full-on violation of natural law. As in, learning from someone other than your teacher, joining a new family in lieu of your birth family, running away to get married -- hell, just running away! -- are all potential sources of trouble. At the same time, wuxia has a really strong comedic streak (all the martial arts also make for great slapstick). Squabbling families with headstrong, misbehaving kids who break the rules, well, that’s a classic that can be played for melodrama, comedy, or both.

2. Swordsmanship is the pinnacle (or the most prevalent) of martial arts. The protagonist is either going to be (or end up) the best swordsman (or swordswoman) ever, or they’re going to use a weapon that’s unlike any other -- and if the latter, they’ll either be reviled for it, or lauded.

3. Despite the fact that swords are heavy and a real pain to carry around, characters carry their swords. All the time. Everywhere. In historical dramas, swords hang from belts, but not wuxia. Plus, characters will place swords on the table, across their lap, lean them against chairs, put them on the floor, and it doesn’t seem to map to whether they’re among allies or enemies, on guard or relaxing. The sword goes with them everywhere, and is always within reach. (And again, this general convention can go strict in some stories, like MDZS, where the failure to carry a sword is seen as a major breach of etiquette.)

4. The general term for ‘members of a sect’ or ‘people who study martial arts’ is ‘cultivators’. To cultivate is to grow something: cultivating [internal or spiritual] fields to gain a [skillset] harvest. Cultivation isn’t just going to the practice hall and swinging a sword three hundred times; meditation, study, even copying out texts are also ways to cultivate. 

5. Wuxia characters may also be called swordsmen/swordswomen, wandering heroes, or martial heroes. If the story pivots on getting into a sect (or achieving some rank in a sect), then the characters will be considered cultivators (of a given path). If they’re introduced as just swordsmen, that seems to indicate it’s a story where sect politics plays less of a role. Or both terms may be present, to differentiate between sect-members/students versus people who defected (or are self-taught). 

6. Wuxia as a genre is remarkably egalitarian. Expect women martial artists to throw down with (and hold their own against) male opponents. Learn to fear the older women in wuxia; they’re often the most dangerous. Not to say there aren’t damsels in distress in wuxia, just that there are usually as many female warrior characters, too.

If the story has multiple sect leaders, usually at least one is a woman -- and if not, one of the men is married to a woman that everyone knows is the truly powerful/skilled one. Near-equal cast percentages are common, too, both in the foreground (and not always for the sake of pairing off for romance), and in the background, when you catch shots of the rank-and-file sect members.

Basically, you can expect the average wuxia to pass the Bechdel test with flying colors. It may not always pass all the other gender tests, but conversations (and deep friendships) between female characters are usually on-screen (not just implied), and often a strong part of the storyline.

7. The super-hero-like skills -- leaping from or to an extreme height, tossing someone a great distance, getting thrown far and getting up again -- are a good map to things like gunslingers who can shoot a playing card at eighty paces blindfolded. Or Robin Hood getting a bullseye through the arrows of someone else’s bullseyes. Wuxia tends to expect even superlative skills at a beginner’s level (so you’ll see student-characters doing such), but it’s all just ways to say, these characters have studied the sword while the rest of us were waiting for the translation team to release the next episode.

8. Those skills are not magic, which occupies a different category. Whether shown or implied, wuxia’s ‘martial arts’ (if exaggerated and unrealistic) are still studied. When magic shows up, it’s often derided, because it’s a shortcut. There’s an insincerity, a kind of bad sportsmanship. The reaction in-story is much like real world reaction to athletes using performance-enhancing drugs. It’s cheating, and it’s disrespectful towards your opponents, that you refused to match their efforts with equal effort of your own.

9. Every story has its own definition of what is, or is not, ‘magic’ and thus a shortcut. Wuxia is usually pretty good about making clear what the story considers ‘orthodox’ or ‘right’: look for characters introduced as authoritative voices in the story’s world, and what they do is probably a good indication of accepted skills (that is, not-magic). Well, unless the character cackles a lot, in which case they’re probably an example of magic/unorthodox approaches.

9. Qi -- energy -- is the root of a character’s power (or lack thereof). Plenty of wuxia only reference this concept in passing, but some codify it into a necessity -- as in, some people have the ‘right’ kind of qi, and some do not. Or that it takes years to develop so the hero is permanently behind until they finally get to doing the work. Whether nature or nuture, this qi is how a cultivator can leap high bounds while the background farmer or merchant characters must scramble to find a ladder.

10. Over the years of television, ‘manipulating qi’ -- shoving energy at someone through the hands/feet, a sword, a musical instrument, something else -- has developed its own set of stylized movements. It’s a lot of arm-waving and finger twirling and whatnot (often circular). I think of it like riding an invisible bike to charge the generator; releasing it means the TV has the juice to kick on. Or the tazer can release, or whatever.

11. There are a bunch of virtues being promoted by wuxia, from a tangle of daoism, buddhism, and confucianism -- things like loyalty, sincerity, honesty, humility, respecting one’s parents (or teacher), benevolence, and justice (or righteousness). Plus a disregard for wealth or glory for personal gain.

The good (or enduring) wuxia stories seem to be the ones that find a way to make a virtue into a point of conflict -- as in, loyalty to what/who, questions of what it means to be righteous in this circumstance or that, and so on. The virtue is still at the heart of things, the conflict lies in how it’s interpreted or applied.

12. Wuxia predates Confucianism and Buddhism (and possibly Daoism), so it’s got a long history of cherrypicking to mix and match as it pleases. Some things you might see, and the influencing source:

horsetail whisks, used for purifying a space and removing evil influences, traditionally carried by Daoist priests as a sign of their rank. 

an emphasis on Yin and Yang as driving opposing energies (sometimes good and bad, sometimes required to be balanced), also a Daoist concept.

most mystical elements are also Daoist influence: like qigong (coordinated posture and movement to increase/improve health, spiritual strength, and martial prowess), alchemy, astrology, etc.

mudras (hand gestures, cf Naruto) are predominantly Buddhist, meant as a way to focus oneself. When these show up in wuxia, the origin is still ‘to focus oneself’ but being wuxia, the result is usually a burst of visible power.

if a story revolves around learning to forgive/forget and to have compassion (over vengeance), that’s the Buddhist influence showing.

if filial piety, the observance of rites, or questions of ethics/morality are significant themes, that’s probably confucianism’s influence.

The lines are way blurrier than I’m going into, here. After all, the three perspectives have competed and coexisted for hundreds of years. There’s a fair bit of cross-contamination, as it were. 

13. A lot of wuxia -- and I mean a lot of wuxia -- can be boiled down to coming-of-age stories: a young hero faces trials and tribulations on his (or her) way to finding a place in society. Sometimes it’s working their way up through the levels to claim the top spot; sometimes it’s being rejected from the school they wanted, and continuing to fight that fate until they’re accepted and demonstrate they deserve to be there.

This focus on younger heroes also means that wuxia is rife with idol dramas, where the majority of the cast are young/first-time actors, chosen for their looks and their similarity to the character (so as to not require too much of a stretch for them, acting-wise). On the other hand, this does often mean the pretty is almost overwhelming, since it’s looks and not long-time acting experience that set the bar.

14. Compared to other Chinese literary genres, wuxia is somewhat unique in its emphasis on individualism, but this isn’t to say you should expect full-throated american-style rugged individualism. I’d say it’s less about the individual breaking free of social rules, and more that the individual must find a way to interpret those social rules and forge a compromise between what they’re required to be vs who they want to be.

The best illustration I can think of is a parental dictate of “I want you to marry and have a family,” that sets off the story’s conflict. By the end of the story, the now-adult child realizes the message wasn’t meant literally so much as a way to say, “I want you to grow up, have a place in this world, surrounded by people who love you.” The error wasn’t in the parents’ blindness to the child’s needs, but in the child’s interpretation of the parental message. 

(Unlike historical or modern dramas, which often have a lot of daddy issues -- thanks, Confucius -- wuxia is relatively free of that. Child-parent conflict is common, but truly dysfunctional on the level of modern melodramas, not quite so much.)

15. The fights are balletic and acrobatic; they’re meant as an abstract representation of a fight. You want reality, go watch an HK or Korean action movie/show. Wuxia is where you go for the twirling, the leaps, the spins, all the kinds of moves that no decent fighter would ever do, ‘cause turning your back on the enemy gets you killed -- but wuxia isn’t about that, it’s about the cool visual factor.

16. Historically and aesthetically, the costumes are closest to the Ming dynasty  -- layered and belted ankle-length robes with long, flowing sleeves. Partly because the Ming dynasty seems to be a favorite setting (for whatever quality of actual time period a story even bothers to identify), but also (at least, my theory is) because those big sleeves make for dramatic gestures when swinging a sword.

17. There are newer wuxia that show some Game of Thrones influence (or, in the movie adaptations like The Four, some grimdark-slash-steampunk influences) but for the most part, wuxia is rather brightly-lit. My theory is that it was traditionally designed to be visible on (literally) smaller TVs, out in rural villages and whatnot. Frex, the darkest things get in wuxia, visually, is a day-for-night blue, since filming at night for real makes for an awful dark screen. 

This is changing -- I’ve seen a lot more wuxia that are genuinely filming at night -- but the same show may also do day-for-night just cause they’re on a tight schedule and can’t sit around until it’s dark again to shoot the next scene, so they make do. 

18. Older filming styles still dominate in wuxia, and the one you may notice the most is a particular move where the speaking character turns away from whomever they’re talking to, walks towards the camera, and speaks in the direction of the camera. It’s just not something people normally do, but it happens all the time in wuxia.

I think it comes from the days of only having one camera, so either you took the time to reshoot to get reactions (not really possible on shoestring budgets with tight deadlines), or you made sure the frame could include the speaker and the listeners. (Or it might be coming from the stage, where the actor must face the audience to be heard.)

The basic blocking, lighting, and so on sometimes reminds me of afternoon soap operas from the 80s, done with videotape rather than film. Not cheap so much as lower budget. 

19. If you want historical authenticity, this is the last place to look. The costumes will be flashy, especially for the hero and his love interest: layered and embroidered, with modern fabrics in bright, sometimes neon!, shades and combinations (Nicholas Tse, I see you).

Older wuxia, the characters rarely got dirty, a wound from a fight was represented by a streak of clearly-fake (and somewhat diluted) pink syrup, and plenty of times a character will go through an entire battle and not even be sweaty or dirty. (Game of Thrones is changing this, too, though -- I’m seeing more dishevelment, though it’s still relatively minor compared to post-battle LotR or GoT.)

20. You can tell the budget from two things: how many costumes and how many wigs. A lower-budget wuxia (or one made at rapid pace) means characters go to bed in their day-clothes, with headpieces still on. Wigs are expensive, and a quickly-made wuxia means you get one wig, and that’s what you’re always wearing, rather than a wig for sleeping and another for waking. Same goes for showing characters in their day-clothes versus what they’d wear for night, or when relaxing, or whatever. (Or having two versions of the same costume, one pre-battle and one post-battle.)

21. About that historical bit -- at least up to the Qing dynasty, Chinese men usually wore their hair in a top-knot once they reached adulthood. Wuxia’s aesthetic is for everyone -- including elderly men -- wearing their hair mostly down with only a small top-knot to pull back their bangs. This just isn’t how anyone wore their hair, but it’s a massive visual clue that the story takes place in the jianghu, where normal society’s rules don’t apply.

22. I think I mentioned the Ming dynasty -- not sure why, but it seems to be the most favorite target. (You’d think it’d be the Qing, since they were outsiders, but nope.) The literary precursors of wuxia had a strong streak of ‘the government is corrupt and/or full of idiots, we’re better off doing our own thing over here,’ which led to various dynasties cracking down on wuxia as a kind of rebel literature.

It’s kind of ironic that wuxia’s history of overturning the natural order confucian principles (that is, treating individualism as an equal virtue, and elevating commoners to hero-status for *gasp* leaving their place of birth to wander around and do good deeds) is what made wuxia immensely popular during the cultural revolution, when China was busy deconstructing (often violently) so much of its cultural past. Wuxia stood apart, as something that had been quietly deconstructing all along, and thus shot up in popularity for finally being in tune with the zeitgeist.  

(Wuxia in all its forms has always, perhaps unsurprisingly, been massively popular among the common classes. Wuxia is not, never has been, a high literary form; watching wuxia means you’re watching the latest iteration of an ancient yet truly pop-as-in-popular-as-in-common culture.)

I get the impression the chinese authorities have an uneasier relationship with historical dramas (which can walk a fine line of implying that imperial past as a good/positive), whereas wuxia’s place in the mythical jianghu diminishes its ability to threaten via social commentary. This isn’t to say wuxia isn’t in dialogue with the social and political environment in which it’s made; all literature is, by virtue of being of its time. It’s just a bit more coy about it, and its loudest political-type trait -- of dismissing the imperial system/capital as corrupt, evil, or otherwise contemptible -- fits with a desire to see the dynastic past as something to be discarded and/or dismissed, not emulated.  

23. Oh, and one last thing: wuxia is very, very, very chaste. A lot of the romantic relationships are almost entirely implied -- a lot of longing looks, maybe the exchange of a significant gift, I mean, we’re talking a genre that considers holding hands to be pretty daring. I’ve seen entire series where you know those two will end up together, but if you can’t read the visual cues, you’d think they were just close friends (if not socially-awkward acquaintances).

That said, when wuxia breaks that so-chaste rule, it’s like having a table dropped on you. There’s a drunken makeout scene in The Legends that had my jaw on the table because holy smokes, that was unexpected. Mad passionate wild abandonment just isn’t a thing in wuxia.

[ETA: don’t get me wrong, wuxia in general is hugely passionate. Just not on a sexual level; it’s on the emotional level that wuxia will go to eleven, repeatedly.]

...okay, that wasn’t even in the neighborhood of brief. hell, it wasn’t even in the same state as brief, but I did warn you. Wuxia’s a huge genre, after all. An entire book might still only scratch the surface, but hopefully this suffices as a general introduction.

[pynkhues]

Do you think Beth is going to actually divorce dean In S4?

That really feels like the million dollar question for s4, doesn’t it?

Honestly, I’m not sure. I’m kind of 50/50 on it, because I could really see it going either way at this point. I think there’s a really strong argument to be made that Beth and Dean might stay married for a long time, and I think there’s a pretty strong argument to be made too that the show shuffled the board in s3 in a way that made me think they were exploring a way they could keep Dean relevant to the story without Beth. 

So let’s talk a bit about the latter, because that’s more fun. 

Separation, Trauma, Reconciliation (Rinse, Repeat)

In a lot of ways, Beth and Dean have, for as long as the show has been on, been stuck in a self-perpetuating cycle. 

Something happens which incites a separation, a trauma happens to one or both of them, and that resulting trauma forces a reconciliation. 

We saw it in the early days of s1 - Beth finds out about Dean’s affair and him losing their money, she kicks him out, he has cancer (a lie, sure, but I’d still count it), and they reconcile (however tentatively). 

In 1.10, Beth finds out Dean’s lied about the cancer and the show heavily implies she’s going to cut him loose again, Rio shoots Dean, which forces a reconciliation while she nurses him back to health. 

This isn’t always so clean. Take the tail-end of s2 for instance where Beth and Dean were divorcing, but started to fall into old habits when they realised they couldn’t afford a second place, but the trauma then of Beth’s kidnapping and her shooting Rio, escalated the terms of that reconciliation drastically. 

The thing that’s worth noting about this cycle is the fact that no issues actually really get resolved. Beth and Dean don’t have realignments like the show has demonstrably done with both Annie, Greg and Nancy, Annie and Noah, and Ruby and Stan multiple times. Beth and Dean instead exist in an unhealthy cycle that means they’re perpetually lowering the bar for one another out of a need for stability, comfort or out of financial necessity. The fights they have don’t move them like they do other characters on this show, it paralyses them. Nothing gets resolved, they both just keep going. 

This is significant. It’s not a mistake of the writing – not to sound like a broken record, haha, but if it was, we’d see the same flaw in the fights within other character’s relationships, but we don’t. It’s routinely pretty specific to Beth and Dean, which means it’s a narrative choice. 

I actually think Christina articulated this really well in her BUILD interview, where she said that Beth and Dean have a broken love, and I don’t think either of them are capable of fixing it, because the betrayals are too deep, the history too immense, and the wounds too long left untended. 

The Story Silos

One of the narrative choices that the Good Girls writers also make is that they tend to silo stories. By that, I mean they do the writing equivalent of this: 

Silo’ing stories is totally fine, and it can often be a strength, particularly in shows which rely on keeping certain characters in the dark of certain other things (when it was at it’s very best, Game of Thrones did this pretty well). In the case of Good Girls though, it can have a varying degree of success. Sometimes it works really well – particularly in the case of when one of the girl’s is hiding something from the others – takes Beth’s relationship with Rhea in s3 for instance, or when Turner was trying to get Ruby to turn on Beth in s2. Sometimes it works less well though – a good example of which is Stan’s vague relationship with Beth and Annie, a strange thing, given he’s known them for at least 20 years. 

One of the ways this story silo’ing also creates challenges is that it makes a Beth and Dean divorce difficult. Not impossible at all! But difficult. 

A divorce between Beth and Dean would be restricted to the Beth silo of the narrative, and inevitably take up a lot of space within it. It’d pose a lot of questions – how do Beth and Dean disentangle when they are still so financially crippled they can’t buy a second apartment? What does it mean given Dean knows Beth’s been involved in crime and has previously taken her children away from her for that? What does the crime story look like when Beth can’t just leave the kids at home with Dean, and what ramifications does it have for how the show writes her kids in terms of blissfully oblivious? What does it mean for Beth, who’s frequently used Dean and the Boland name as a cover for her criminal business dealings? And perhaps one of the most important questions from the show’s point of view – how does the show keep Dean around in a way that gives Matthew Lillard something to do?  

It becomes a complicated discussion overall that has wide reaching ramifications for the overall story. 

That said, I do think we saw them starting to answer some of those questions in s3.

The Family Business

Season 3 did a few important things, but one of the most significant was that it very gently started exploring new storyworlds with Dean, Stan and Rio. We’d had a bit of this already; however, all of those expansions previously – Dean at Boland Motors, Stan at the police station, Rio at the diner with Turner – were still intrinsically linked to the girls. 

Through Four Star Pools & Spas, Sweet P’s, and Rio’s brief scenes with Turner, Rhea and Gil, the show started to tease out story worlds that weren’t quite as directly linked.

That said, all of these ultimately did still come full circle to feed into the girls’ storylines, which is at the crux of the show. Putting Sweet P’s and Rio aside though, the arc at Four Star Pool & Spa is super relevant to your question, and the future of Beth and Dean’s relationship, because that entire arc served two purposes:

1. It was designed to get us to the Boland Bubbles business front, and the next stage of the crime scheme.

2. It re-established Dean as a cheater.

Those are significant on this show, and both lead back to my previous two points. 

The Boland Bubbles front is particularly important because that storyline opens up with a Beth and Dean separation, it doesn’t close with it. At this stage, he doesn’t know that Rio’s involved, it’s in his name, not Beth’s, and he thinks he’s in charge of it. This storyline and location keeps Dean close to crime, thus it keeps him useful as a multi-faceted antagonist in Beth’s life, and it keeps the danger ramped up. It also gives him the opportunity for crossover with other characters, namely Rio, Mick, and Annie and Ruby. 

Even without a separation/divorce, it sets itself up for him to serve the story in new and interesting ways, but with a separation/divorce - like I said - it could be a landmine of exciting narrative and character tension across the board. It makes him useful to the overall story in a way that will survive a Beth and Dean divorce – something that without Boland Bubbles wasn’t really feasible. 

The second point of Four Star establishing Dean as a cheater and the creation of Boland Bubbles being intrinsically tied to Gayle implying to Beth that Dean lied about the extent of that cheating is fascinating to me, and really goes back to that first point. The writers were actively reminding us that none of Beth and Dean’s history has ever been resolved.

Like I said. 

They need each other, they lower the bar, and they keep going. 

That can’t happen forever, and for once, the show wasn’t handwaving it away. 

It underlined it. 

They seized that fresh betrayal, used it as a reminder of old, unresolved betrayals, and then specifically and directly tied it to a new crime plotline which keeps Dean relevant to the show outside of his and Beth’s relationship. That’s noteworthy!  

That’s not even going into Dean compulsively trying to sever the ties between Beth and Rio or telling Beth Rio was in love with her either! 

So - - 

Yes. 

I remain tentatively hopeful, haha.

[truelovevoltage]

Lies - Tetsuro Kuro

Kuroo Tetsuro, captain of Nekoma’s volleyball team was not only Y/N’s significant other but also their best friend. It took a while for the two of them to get together but it worked out in the end.

Y/N also happens to be in the girls volleyball team therefore it wasn’t easy finding a day for the two to go on a date. However, the two of them would walk home together and tell each other how their day went.

The captain used to be talkative and would always initiate the conversation with his significant other but lately he’s been very distant. Y/N didn’t really mind because she knew that they were preparing for Inter High. One Saturday Y/N asked her boyfriend if he wanted to accompany her to the mall but he quickly declined. “Sorry Y/N, we have practice today. Rain check?”

“Sure, you owe me ice cream on our next date.” She quickly got ready and headed out. It was unfortunate that Tetsuro couldn’t come with her but at least she got some break. Calm before the storm as some people may call it. Nothing really caught Y/N’s eye when she went shopping and decided to go to the book store instead to look at some new books that pique her interest after all reading a book could be another way to relax. She then went to the video game store and bought the new game. She was hoping she’d get to play with her best friend later and talk about her boy problems or ask Kozume Kenma her other male best friend if he wanted to play to keep their minds off for the upcoming tournament.

As we was leaving she bumped into the Libero on the team and waved. “Yaku! Practice is over already?”

“Huh? What are you talking about Y/N, we have a day off today. Kuroo was extremely happy about it too.” He answered. This didn’t make sense. Why did Tetsuro lie to her? What was he trying to accomplish by lying? What was his motive? “Y/N, is something wrong?”

“Hmm? Oh, no don’t worry about it. I was just thinking about the upcoming tournament.” She lied. After the two of them had a small chat, they said their goodbyes. She started to think about the worst case scenario. It not like it was their anniversary or anything, there’s no way Tetsuro would be doing a surprise date for her. Could it be that he found someone else? She could feel her hands trembling. Y/N wasn’t sure if they should confront Tetsuro about it or not.

She called her other best friend multiple times to seek comfort and advise but she wasn’t answering, she found it weird that she wasn’t answering and headed to her house instead. She rang the doorbell but it wasn’t her friend who answered the door but her Mom. Her mom invited her in and and said that her daughter should be back soon. Her friends Mom is such a sweet lady and treats Y/N like her own daughter.

Seconds turned into minutes, Y/N felt awkward in the house and excused herself. “Auntie I think I’m going to head back just tell Y/F/N that I dropped by.” Y/N smiled at her and left the house. The moment she opened the door she saw her best friend and boyfriend kissing. “Tet...suro?” She whispered. Y/N was in shock, she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The two people who she trusted the most went behind her back and betrayed her. “Y/N lis-” Y/F/N pleaded.

“So this is what you two have been up to. Who would’ve guess my two best friends would go behind my back like this.” Tears rolled down Y/N face. She was heartbroken. Tetsuro and Y/F/N was speechless, “Cat got your tongue?” She smirked at the two. She wiped her tears and move past them. Y/N had mixed emotions, she felt sick. She couldn’t even look at the two of them. “Y/N wait-” Tetsuro grabbed her wrist.

Y/N used the momentum of Tetsuro pulling her and slapped him real hard. “Save it, I don’t want to hear it.” The scene repeated in her and and ran away from the place as fast as she can. How could’ve this happened? When did Tetsuro fall out of love with Y/N? Why couldn’t he just break up with her rather than cheating on her?

There was only one person she could ask to accompany her, Kenma. Although he hated the idea of leaving his house, he couldn’t say no to a new game. When Kenma arrived he saw Y/N’s terrible state. This took him by surprise, he didn’t want to ask her any questions but he could tell that this had to do with his childhood friend.

As time passed by, Kenma would glance towards Y/N’s way and observe her a little. He knew that he wasn’t going to get anything by asking her therefore he’ll just wait until she speaks to him. Y/N felt her tears rolling down once more and couldn’t stop wiping them away. She then went on a full on sob which made Kenma pause their game.

“Tetsu-...Kuroo I mean. I caught him kissing Y/F/N, in front of her house.” She gripped the controller. Y/N explained everything she’s been feeling the past few days and she couldn’t help but feel hopeless. “Am I not enough for him? Did I do something wrong for him to do this to me?” She sobbed even more.

Kenma hated seeing one of his best friends like this. He was mad at his childhood friend for doing something like this. Kenma couldn’t believe he would even do such a thing.

Monday came around and they could tell that Y/N changed. She would smile at people but people could tell that her eyes were cloudy. Sure she was smiling but her smile did not reach her eyes, it doesn’t have the same sparkle that she used to have. Tetsuro didn’t know how to talk to her, he knew that he was at fault and he was ashamed of it. He just didn’t know how to fix it, Y/N wasn’t just his girlfriend, but his best friend as well. How stupid was he to make a mistake like that?

Y/N pretended like nothing happened during practice. Even though it hurts to see her ex best friend on the team, she needed to move on. Y/F/N fidgeted and trembled as Y/N passed by her. “Look, I don’t care if you and Kuroo are a thing. Don’t bring your personal life here, we’re all here to play volleyball and we’re here to win Inter High. If you mess this up for the team, I won’t forgive you.” Y/N whispered the last sentence. This sent shivers down Y/F/N’s spine because it had two meanings. One for stealing Y/N’s boyfriend and two, missing their chance to make it to nationals. Y/F/N’s knew how hard everyone was practicing.

The week was a living hell for Y/N. She didn’t know how she survived that week knowing that she was in the same class as the captain of the boys volleyball team. The classroom could feel the tension between the two. Normally the captain would be talking to his lovely girlfriend and the whole class was already used to the couple and were jealous. But the fact that they’re not even talking to each other made them uncomfortable. More uncomfortable than the two openly flirting with each other in the classroom that’d make the girls and boys in the class jealous of their relationship.

Y/N couldn’t wait until Friday because Friday was the day Kenma promised Y/N to continue the game that she bought last Saturday. Tetsuro wanted to speak to Y/N and explain himself plenty of times but didn’t know how to approach her or how to start the conversation with her.

It was now Friday night and Y/N waited for Kenma to finish practice since they finished theirs early. She didn’t want to bother the team by entering the gym therefore she waited outside. “L/N-san? What are you doing out here? Come inside!” Lev proclaimed. “Lev it’s okay I’m fine, I can wait out here.”

“Kuroo-san! Your girlfriend is here to pick you up!” Both Y/N and Tetsuro froze from their spot. Lev dragged Y/N in to the gymnasium. She just wanted to get swallowed up by the earth from this embarrassment. The two hasn’t spoke to each other since Y/N caught him kissing Y/F/N. They haven’t properly broke up and this is probably the best time to do it because it was hurting Y/N.

“Lev stop slacking off!” Yelled Yaku across the gym. Their coach could only just sigh at this scene and totally forgot the time. “That’s enough for today. You guys need to go home and get some rest, plus we don’t want to hold Y/N captive here.” Y/N politely smiled at the coach. The guys went into their clubroom while she waited out by the gates.

Y/N looked up at the stars while waiting. The night sky was gorgeous and she could only smile at how peaceful things were, but then it reminded her about the event that happened last weekend. She closed her eyes and thought about the happy times, she doesn’t want to look weak she didn’t want others to worry about her.

The other first and second years left and said their goodbyes. She just needed to wait for Kenma and hoped not to run into her ex boyfriend or soon to be ex boyfriend.

“Y/N, ready to go?” Asked Kenma. Y/N nodded her head and walked with Kenma.

“Wait Y/N, can we talk?” Kenma and Y/N looked at each other. Kenma gave the two some space to talk about even though it look like there was nothing that’ll fix their current problem.

“Y/N I am so sorry I hurt you. I promised you back then even before we dated that I’d protect you and I’d never hurt you and yet I did this. I am ashamed of myself and I didn’t know how to face you. I know I should’ve talk to you about it rather than hiding and being a coward...But I, I just wanted you to know that I still love you.”

Y/N scoffed. “You had the entire week to tell me, or even explain to me what I saw last Saturday. You know this entire week I thought to myself ‘was I not enough?’, ‘did he even love me?’, or ‘was he only using me to get to her?’ Those thoughts ran through my mind and wondered what I did wrong to deserve this. And love? I don’t thin you love me, because if you did this wouldn’t happen”

“No that’s not it! It was just a dumb mistake. I swear it didn’t mean anything. Y/N you’re very important to me and I’m stupid enough to take you for granted.”

“Then answer this for me Kuroo. Did you even think of me when you were with her?”

There was silence between the two. Tetsuro knew the answer to her question but no words came out. “Y-yes.” He choked out the words.

Y/N turned her back from Testuro. “Liar. If you thought about me, you wouldn’t have done that. This will be the last time you lie to me Kuroo.”

Tetsuro watched Y/N walk away from him. He wanted to chase after her. He really wanted to but he was afraid that, that will hurt her even more. Why did he have to hurt the one person that never left his side? What the hell went on with his head during this time? Was it the pressure from the upcoming tournament? Was it his future education? He doesn’t know what the reason is but he sure messed up big time. He didn’t just lose his best friend but his one true love.

[adhd-inkubus]

Remember Where you Come From

Almost everyone I know is bitter and venomous - or at the very least indifferent - when discussing ex-significant-others. No matter what happened, both sides decide the other side is evil, and disregard all positivity that they brought into each other’s lives. They choose to stand behind walls of indignation, blinding themselves to the fact that in 99.99% of failed relationships... everyone involved was there for a reason. They were all people, and they all have value to someone and - in a lot of cases - we do owe that person the recognition of what light they brought.

Look, I’m in the process of getting a divorce. It’s mercifully not messy. She and I don’t talk much because I cut her off for being toxic toward me - nether here nor there - unless we’re talking about our son. We’re civil. We behave. We still genuinely care for each other. And when I talk to friends and family, they’re blown away at the concept that we could be divorcing and there’s no war between us. ‘Oh man, she did X, you should totally put it all over facebook!’ That doesn’t do ANYTHING productive. ‘Holy shit, she said Y? Like, TO you? You should fight her for custody!.’ I don’t have to, because of the two of us only I am legally his guardian, but also, why would I do that just because she said something shitty? Where is this coming from? 

So many people end relationships having decided that the other person doesn’t qualify as a ‘person’ in their book, anymore. I’m not saying we should excuse any actions or words that come from them, but we have to understand that their emotions, limitations and experiences are all human. More than that, we poison ourselves and often our children by not recognizing the good someone has done for us, whether it be helping in a time of need or simply providing you the motivation to improve yourself and get out of a bad situation.

My first wife cost me everything I loved and everything I owned, and resulted in me losing my daughter for a decade. Drama ripples through her family and set off little lies she planted until the day she died. I spent a year in jail on a crime I had nothing to do with, and the only reason it didn’t turn into ten years is because she finally came clean at her trial. Over a decade later and my life is rough mainly due to the fact that my multiple degrees and job experience is useless as my A Felony arrest trips every back ground check EVER because I signed a plea agreement for a D felony. She accidentally almost killed my daughter as a baby.  --- But she helped me learn who I was, and how love was supposed to be, through demonstrating how it shouldn’t be. She gave me my daughter. She held me together when things were rough many times. She uprooted her life, abandoned her family, and left her congregation for me when I wouldn’t become a Jehovah’s Witness to be with her. She fought hard before he brain finally snapped, and she genuinely loved me.

My next major relationship was a young woman who thrived on taking risks. She cheated on me with more people than I could begin to count. She did every drug known to man with meth being a particular favorite, even up until she was 8 months pregnant with ‘our’ child. She stole from me, tried to burn my home down with me in it, stole my car, threatened future girlfriends, tried to get me arrested multiple times, and got a restraining order placed on me which resulted in me getting arrested the first time I took our son for an overnight visit. She was also there for me at my absolute lowest and was exactly what I needed at the time. She laid with me when I couldn’t sleep through the night without having night terrors. She might have been on her back with every other guy in town, but she always ALWAYS had my back until I told her I was done. She was smart enough not to fight me for custody. She was humble enough to admit that given her conditions, she shouldn’t care for a child. That’s big.

My soon to be ex wife did a lot of things that hurt me. I did a lot of things that hurt her, too. But we spent ten years together and she’s a damn good mother for two kids that didn’t have one. She was incapable of providing what I needed the last few years but the seven or so before that? Wonderful. She fought long and hard as a CNA to provide for our family when my entire world collapsed around me. When it got hard, she tucked her shoulder and pushed back. When I collapsed, she couldn’t handle it, but god damn it she dug her feet in and tried, doing what she thought was best (even if she was incredibly wrong.). And she loved me. She loves me. She doesn’t know how to love me like I need to be loved, but she loves me, and she was mature enough to understand that in order for either of us to be okay, we needed to be apart. She did some fucked up things... but all the messed up things she ever did amount to maybe two percent of my life with her. She was patient and kind and she wasn’t complex - I didn’t have to be on my guard and god I needed that. I needed to learn to trust again and I don’t know that anyone else could have gotten me back to the point of being able to trust a woman, the way she did.

There are many more in between, but these are the major examples. You are shaped by your experiences. It would be very easy for my wife and I to be enemies, and we both have valid reason to do so. However we took the time to step back, recognize why what was happening was happening, and apply solutions. She’s not my enemy. My exes used to be enemies but are no longer. I don’t have the energy to fight everyone. If someone had an impact on you that resulted in a net-positive, then you need to recognize that. Maybe not to them, but to yourself; understand where you come from, what shaped you, be proud of what you can, and use that to grow.

[theemichelleb]

Truths, Friends, and Relationships

Aaaaannnndddd scene!

You’re dating someone that you’re in love with and you’ve known for a substantially long time. Introduce them to your friends, they know your family, you’re thinking bout forever as we often do, and everything is truly beautiful and amazing. You’re on cloud nine and nothing can pop your bubble, or so you believe. One of your best friends, however, discovers some sort of truth about this person that you love and is now stuck between whether to tell you what has happened or let you continue and move forward in your happiness none the wiser. This person you believe to be your soulmate has done something absolutely horrifying, disrespecting you and your relationship.

What would you want your best friend to do? Tell you a truth that wrecks your entire fairytale or let you live in a lie? And if/when they tell you, how do you handle that situation?

I’ve been this friend tooooooo many times… I’m tired of it!

One of the absolutely hardest things to do is cause pain for someone you truly care about and love. I know too many people that would rather live in the gray area of unspoken truths to protect a well crafted reality, but please… don’t do me any favors and try to spare my feelings if you find yourself in this predicament. I think we as women accept too much when it comes to the idea of love and it’s foolish. I get the fairytale is the goal and what you’ve always wanted since you were little, but there are things more important than staying in something simply because time was invested.

I need to know who I’m dealing with to then decide if I want to move forward and continue on the path I’m on or let it go and find a new one. Don’t take on the burden of my future and my happiness because that’s NOT your weight to carry. I feel like I hear men complain bout how women always ask for the truth and then can’t handle it… valid point LOL, but don’t group me in that category. The truth is the absolute most valuable thing to me, be real, be brutal if you need to, and let me deal with my emotions and how I receive that on my own.

I am an advocate for honesty and having all sides of a situation to make a logical and well thought out decision. Hence my persistence in being honest with people when they choose to be with someone I do or don’t like. Not that your relationship is my business, let whomever you please make you happy by all means, but if you mean the world to me and I love you like family I want to see you be great and be the amazing King and/or Queen I know you are.

I’ve held in feelings from some of these situations for a long time, and to be honest I always wonder if I made the right decision. I’ve lost friends from realities that were just nasty and that sucks, but the lesson learned from that is they weren’t really friends.

I’ve had friends who’s significant other’s have approached me privately in some really foul ways, I’ve had friends date guys that I’ve discovered cheated on them, I’ve had to tell friends when their significant others lied to them in MAJOR ways, and I’ve even had situations where I was dating someone and their friend did some foul stuff towards me where I had to tell my significant other like ya mans is foul… deal with that!

After college I had a roommate situation that ended so terribly. Within that living situation we had typical issues that occur with friends that choose to live together. The eruption of the situation occurred when her boyfriend at the time chose to approach me privately in an inappropriate manner. Now, I’m here stuck on how to be gentle with a really offed up situation. She was literally my BEST FRIEND, no matter what may have been going on I still loved her very much and wanted what was best for her. So, I told her the truth. I didn’t give her all the details, I think certain things don’t need to be repeated once they’ve exited someone’s mouth but that’s just me.

Thinking back on the situation, I’m glad I did what I did because it cleared my conscience of a negative situation and pain that was weighing on my heart in ways it shouldn’t have, and honestly, if were her I’d want my best friend to be real with me… like you’re dating a fuckboy. Thanks for that info sis, let me work out my next steps kind of thing. I often think back to that relationship and wonder what I could have done to change the outcome and the truth is, there was nothing I could have done differently.

Something to always keep in mind when dealing with people is, the only person you can control is you. If you did your part to wash your hands of the shadiness and take yourself out of a bad situation, good.

I lost what I thought was a good friend, even a sister in certain ways to a situation I never asked to be in. I’m not sure how she feels about it, but seems like she’s happy with her decisions and that’s amazing! I’m here for doing what’s best for you to rock your happy high and proud. Which she definitely did, they’re now married, hopefully happily, and prayerfully with his eyes kept in their home. I mean, what do I know anyway? I’m extra single and I’m not even on marriage’s radar LOL.

I know this topic gets buzz a lot and there are so many different viewpoints on this, but how do you feel about it? If you were or if you have been in my position would you have told? If you were or if you have been in her position would would you have wanted me to? And on top of that what would that have meant for the friendship vs your romantic relationship? Drop comments below or on my IG post and lets start a convo!

No matter what anybody says, I think we as women need to protect one another with honesty. There’s already so much against us, we don’t need to be against each other as well. Like I said, I’ve been in this type of situation a few times, and every time I’ve been upfront and honest about it. I DON’T WANT NO SMOKE! Definitely don’t want anybody thinking I wanted to take something from them or provide information that could potentially ruin something they love.

And to be clear, when I say I’ve been in this position multiple times, I’ve also been in situations where I knew somebody cheated on a friend of mine and situations where I knew somebody lied to a friend of mine about something big. These issues are crazy, and if marriage is in the picture, TELL ME! I don’t have time for the nonsense lol.

I wish nothing but the best to them and their love, black love is DOPE no matter where it is as long as it’s true, seriously.

Be D.O.P.E.

[daresplaining]

Who are your favourite DD villains? Fisk, Bullseye and Mr Fear all sound brilliant from what I know of them, but are there any others with similarly iconic influence on Matt?

    There are! Daredevil comics aren’t known for their well-crafted villains to the extent that, say, Spider-Man or Batman comics are, but I really enjoy a lot of Matt’s rogues gallery. Fisk and Bullseye are probably the two biggest names, but there are many others who have had major impacts on his life, and the Marvel Universe in general, over the years. Here are some of the most notable DD villains, in my opinion:

Gladiator (Melvin Potter) is a major antagonist who, over the years has become arguably one of the most nuanced and interesting Daredevil characters. I wrote a longer post about him, way back when we thought we might actually get a Gladiator origin story in the Netflix show, but in general, a lot of his lasting appeal comes from the complexity of his character. When he was first introduced in Daredevil vol. 1 #18 he was a pretty standard Silver Age villain: a guy with semi-logical origin story, a funky costume, and a penchant for monologuing. Specifically, Melvin Potter was the owner of a costume store who was sick of being disrespected by his customers, and so decided to make a name for himself by attacking people with spinning blades. 

[ID: A panel from Lee’s Daredevil run. Daredevil is battling the Gladiator. Daredevil hoists himself up on a big crate to dodge one of the Gladiator’s spinning wrist blades.]

Matt: “He’s not fooling with those wrist blades… he’s fighting for real! But, why? I’m certain I’ve never met him before!”

Melvin: “You can’t keep dodging me forever! And the moment you slip, you shall have the honor of being my first victim!”

Daredevil vol. 1 #18 by Stan Lee, John Romita, and Sam Rosen

    Over the years, various writers have worked hard to add nuance to his character. Despite his fearsome appearance and goal of gaining respect, most early Gladiator stories involve Melvin being manipulated by stronger, smarter supervillains. Later, he becomes even more sympathetic: a dangerous killer who, at heart, is gentle and naive and hates when he loses control and hurts people. This creates an inherent discord in his character that adds an emotional hook to all of his stories. Matt tries to help him, and Melvin is grateful for Matt’s friendship and returns that favor when he can, but sometimes they end up having to fight each other. Essentially, Melvin’s story is the relentless tragedy of a man who wants to live a peaceful life but keeps falling victim to his own demons and the cruelty of the world around him. 

[ID: A page from Miller’s Daredevil run. Matt Murdock, in civvies (a tan suit and blue tie) confronts Melvin Potter, who is in a prison uniform and holding his Gladiator helmet.]

Matt: “Melvin, we’ve come so far. I know how much you want to be well… to go straight. We can help you, Betsy and I.”

Melvin: “I been trying, Matt. I been sitting in that courtroom, listening to them say those things about me, feeling my guts churn up, wanting to rip them all to pieces… They hate me. They all hate me… so I’m gonna hate them back!”

Matt: “I’m not letting you off that easy. If you want to become the Gladiator again, you’ll have to get past me.”

Melvin: “Past you?! Look at you– you’re just a skinny little blind guy! I’d break you in half! It’d be easy…”

Matt: “Is that what you want?”

Melvin: “Why not? I’m the Gladiator! The Gladiator! When I’m wearing my armor, I’m unbeatable, I’m…” 

[ID: Melvin throws the helmet and falls to his knees.]

Melvin: “I’m all alone. Help me… please…”

Daredevil vol. 1 #173 by Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, and Glynis Wein

    This complicated and heartwrenching characterization has helped Melvin to remain a fresh and popular antagonist (anti-hero, even) and a regular guest in Daredevil. He is one of several characters who complicates the hero/villain dichotomy, and thereby both emphasizes and challenges Matt’s own heroism. 

Typhoid Mary/Mary Walker is another one of the more famous Daredevil villains, and someone who has had a significant impact on Matt’s story over the years. I wrote a longer post on her as well. Female antagonists in particular seem to suffer from a variety of weaknesses in their depictions, and Typhoid– as a sexual character by nature, as well as someone who plays upon “crazy” villain tropes– has had her share of not great depictions over the years. However, at her core, she is a wonderfully compelling character and a dangerous villain who is literally multifaceted by design. Even moreso than Melvin Potter, Mary plays upon the concept of a good person who is powerless to prevent themself from doing violent things– in Mary’s case, through genuinely having multiple psyches inhabiting one body. She is in constant conflict with herself, as gentle Mary and bloodthirsty Typhoid battle for dominance. As much as she is an antagonist to Matt and the other heroes whose paths she crosses, she is her own arch-enemy. 

[ID: An excerpt from Nocenti’s Daredevil run. Typhoid Mary and Daredevil are both underwater, in the East River. Mary looked panicked partway through strangling Daredevil, and flees out of the water.]

Mary/Typhoid: “Don’t kill him! You! Shut up! I love him! Stop! Get out of my head! You can’t kill him! Get out of my head! Oh, god! Where am I? Why am I dressed like this? What have I done?!”

Matt: “Curious. That’s a completely different woman running away! What came over her?”

Daredevil vol. 1 #256 by Ann Nocenti, John Romita Jr., and Christie Scheele

    Matt’s dealings with Mary have brought about some of the more unheroic moments in his career. In Joe Kelly’s attempt to integrate the Man Without Fear-verse origin story into the 616 universe, he proposed that Matt nearly killed Mary on his first superhero outing. When Typhoid, in her introductory arc, is hired to seduce Matt, it works– he cheats on Karen with her. Later, when attempting to bring down the Kingpin’s empire, Matt removes Mary from the equation by sleeping with her to get her guard down and then forging documents to have her locked away in a psychiatric hospital. She hits all of his weak points: as Mary, she is a victim who needs rescuing… and an attractive one at that. As Typhoid, she is a dangerous enemy who must be stopped. In addition to her skill with weapons, she has all kinds of awesome psychic powers– including, most notably, pyrokinesis– and something about her physiology messes with Matt’s senses and makes her difficult to fight. She is a challenge on every level, and in many ways, Matt serves the same purpose for her– Mary (and, arguably, Typhoid as well) accidentally falls in love with him, representing a loss of power and control that she can’t stand. 

[ID: Excerpt from Nocenti’s Daredevil run. A series of panels alternating between Daredevil falling off a bridge and a tear sliding down Typhoid Mary’s cheek.]

Daredevil vol. 1 #260 by Ann Nocenti, John Romita Jr., and Christie Scheele

The Hand I love the Hand– which is to say, I love the Chaste, and part of why I love the Chaste is because I love their rivalry with the Hand. On some levels, the Hand are your standard Big Bad Secret Organization, but I also find them to be a lot of fun, and they have been a significant force in Daredevil comics since they were introduced. The Hand are key players in Miller’s updated version of Matt’s origin, which introduced Stick and gave him a purpose for training Matt. They also had a huge role in Elektra’s origin, since her attempt to singlehandedly bring them down from the inside led to her becoming an assassin. And of course, Matt’s role as leader of the Hand and temporary vessel for their patron demon, the Beast, was a defining moment in recent DD comics and a low point of Matt’s career. The Hand are dangerous because they are vast, and their high-ranking members have all kinds of cool powers, which I love. And there’s also a certain amount of weakness and dysfunction to the Hand that makes them appealing. They are a once-great organization relegated to being mercenaries-for-hire. Their low-ranking members are fairly weak– as Matt quips in Volume 1 #380, “a little harsh language and [they’re] up in smoke!” They were led by a Skrull (disguised as Elektra) for a while, and didn’t even notice. Arguably their most dangerous enemy, Master Izo, mostly just bothers them with Hand puns. 

[ID: A panel from Diggle’s Daredevil run. Daredevil, seen from the back, is standing in an empty room. The light from the sunset streams in through the windows. Izo is sitting behind him on the floor, drinking tea.]

Matt: “Look, you wanted me leading the Hand, you got it… but I never agreed to be your puppet.”    

Izo: “‘Hand puppet.’ Heh.”

Daredevil vol. 2 #503 by Andy Diggle, Roberto De La Torre, Marco Checchetto, and Matt Hollingsworth

    I also enjoy the way the Hand and the Chaste operate and Matt’s relationship with them. Matt isn’t an official member of the Chaste (like Elektra, he was rejected for being too emotional– which, in his case at least, is a fair assessment) but he still teams up with them on occasion, and the experience almost always puts him out of his depth in really entertaining ways. Matt is one of the Hand’s biggest enemies and one of the Chaste’s most useful allies, so he gets dragged into their business even when he doesn’t want to be involved. 

[ID: Excerpt from Daredevil: Ninja. A conversation between Daredevil and Stone in a series of face close-ups.]

Stone: “We need your help.”

Matt: “You should have asked me to come.”

Stone: “Would you have?”

Matt: “I hate this ninja crap. I hate it. Every single time it’s nothing but lies, half-truths, and misguided loyalties. Stay away from me and my life.”

Daredevil: Ninja #2 by Brian Michael Bendis, Rob Haynes, and David Self

    There are also two excellent (and, I’d say, influential) alternate universes in which Matt joins the Hand and thrives in their presence: What If? Daredevil vs. Elektra and Earth-65 (Spider-Gwen-verse). 

Lady Bullseye (Maki Matsumoto) And if we’re discussing the Hand and the Chaste, I have to mention Maki– undisputed head of the Bullseye Fan Club and another of my favorite Daredevil villains. She’s relatively new (she was introduced during Brubaker’s run) and so hasn’t had a particularly big long-term influence on Matt, but she is a great character with extensive connections to Daredevil history. One thing I love about her is the fact that while she modeled her look and identity on Bullseye, she isn’t treated as just female version of him, as her name might suggest. They actually have very little in common; she just chose to honor Bullseye because he played a role in her origin story by indirectly rescuing her from a human trafficking ring.

[ID: Panels from Brubaker’s Daredevil run. Bullseye is single-handedly beating up a bunch of gun-toting mobsters in a warehouse building. Maki Matsumoto watches him between the bars of a large cage.]   

Caption: “She remembers that so vividly. Remembers the joy she beheld that day from her cage. She had never seen anything so beautiful, she thought. Of course, she was nearly insane already by then. But then, like a miracle… freedom.”

[ID: Maki reaches between the bars of the cage and grabs a key from a dead mobster’s pocket. As she tries to escape, another mobster runs toward her.]

Man: “You– back in your cage, girl!”

Maki: “I think not.”

[ID: Without looking at him, she slices his throat with the key.]

Daredevil vol. 2 #111 by Ed Brubaker, Clay Mann, and Matt Hollingsworth

    Since then, Maki has teamed up with Bullseye– mostly notably, resurrecting and caring for him after his death in “Shadowland”– but more often, she operates on her own as an assassin. Like both Elektra and Matt, she was trained by the Hand and the Chaste without forming an official allegiance with either, and it seems her primary teacher was Master Izo– thus making her Matt and Elektra’s ninja aunt and/or sister in the Chaste Family Tree that definitely exists in my head and nowhere else. 

[ID: Excerpt from Brubaker’s Daredevil run. Lady Bullseye and Izo are standing on a Manhattan rooftop as the sky brightens behind them. Pigeons are flocking around them; Izo has one perched on his hand.]

Maki: “You said I would lead the Hand.”

Izo: “I said a lot of things when I was training you, girl… Said whatever I needed to say.”

Maki: “You’re as bad as them.”

Izo: “No. I didn’t put you in a cage and sell you to the Yakuza.”

Maki: “You still used me.”

Izo: “Yes, I did… but I’m not going to apologize.”

Maki: “Someday I’ll kill you for this. You know that, right?”

[ID: Izo leaps off the roof.]

Izo: “Yeah, well… get in line.”

Daredevil vol. 2 #500 by Ed Brubaker, Michael Lark, Stefano Gaudiano, Matt Hollingsworth, et al.

    Maki masterminds the destruction of Matt’s life that leads him to join the Hand. She is extremely smart (she passes herself off as a lawyer during Brubaker’s run and fools both Matt and Foggy; as far as anyone knows, she might actually have a law degree…?), an excellent fighter (arguably better than Matt, not quite as good as Elektra), an absolute badass, and an all-around great antagonist who deserves her own solo series (hint, hint, Marvel). 

Death-Stalker I’m not sure Death-Stalker counts as a major Daredevil villain, but he was used about once a week in late 70s Daredevil so he’s certainly been a recurring presence. I also just find him really cool, conceptually. One of the interesting things about Death-Stalker is that he started his existence as a completely different supervillain: the Exterminator, who is best known for “killing” Mike Murdock! The Exterminator had a weapon that could shift its victims out of sync with the time-stream. When Matt blows it up to fake Mike’s death, the Exterminator is caught in the blast, with shocking consequences: 

[ID: Excerpt from McKenzie’s Daredevil run. A series of flashback panels: the Exterminator (a kind of goofy-looking villain with a purple and white costume and blue antennae on the side of his mask) watching Daredevil pull a lever, then the Exterminator getting caught in an explosion and falling into a void.] 

Death-Stalker: “How many long and empty years has it been, Murdock? How many… since you so callously destroyed my awesome Time-Displacement Ray… catching me fully in the time-shattering explosion?! How long has it been since I was hurled through the fabric of time? But what you believed to be my death proved instead a macabre rebirth! I found myself in a timeless limbo! Unobserved, I could go anywhere! Do anything!”

Daredevil vol. 1 #158 by Roger McKenzie, Frank Miller, and George Roussos

    Thus, the Exterminator returns years later as Death-Stalker– a villain who can move freely through time and space, become intangible at will, and whose mere touch is lethal. This, combined with his new appearance (glowing eyes, bony hands, huge billowy cape…) makes for an excellent creepy character concept, and some of the Death Stalker issues feel more like horror stories than the typical Daredevil comic. 

[ID: Excerpt from Gerber’s Daredevil run. A tired Daredevil is making his way through a swamp. Death-Stalker appears behind him out of the fog and puts a skeletal white hand on his shoulder. Daredevil collapses.]

Matt: “H-he’s gone! Nothing but an empty cape! It’s not possible! It– where did he go?!”

Death-Stalker: “Here, Daredevil. I am here. Death is at your back.”

Matt: “Huh? Wha– No!! My… shoulder… your fingers… like ice–!”

Death-Stalker: “Like death, Daredevil. Like the grim, glacial embrace of the North Wind. No use to flee… you can’t outrun the wind.”

Caption: “For Daredevil, for this sightless adventurer, all the world is blackness, all the time. But now, a different kind of darkness envelopes him, a sort of oblivion he has never known before. He hears his heartbeat slow… feels his mind empty of all thought… feel his every nerve tingle, then go numb… and he knows that he is… dying. And that is all he knows when the darkness claims him and the Death-Stalker relaxes his grip.”

Daredevil vol. 1 #114 by Steve Gerber, Bob Brown, and Stan G.

    Sadly, though, I don’t feel he was ever used to his full skin-crawling potential, particularly considering how dangerous his power-set was. He was mostly just a nuisance who rarely got the upper hand, and he was killed in Daredevil #158 when he accidentally materialized through a tombstone during a fight with Matt. One of my favorite details about Death-Stalker isn’t Death-Stalker himself– it’s that his mother lived in a booby-trapped mansion and owned an army of exploding robotic children that she sicced on Matt to avenge her son’s death. But that’s a story for another post… 

Jester (Jonathan Powers) The Jester gets no respect, and it’s a shame because he’s both genuinely a great villain when he’s used well and highly entertaining when his 1960s goofiness is played up, and he manages to embody both of those characterizations with absolute panache. He has played a role in some fairly major Daredevil stories over the years and I’d consider him a staple DD villain. His origin story is pure Silver Age silliness: he was an actor who received bad reviews for his first major starring role, found his career heading downhill, and so decided to become a supervillain instead. This is pretty typical of motivations for villains of this time period (see the Gladiator’s origin story above, and Stilt-Man below), but even this aspect of his character has been put to good use. Daredevil #218 features a surprisingly touching story of the Jester stealing the chance to reprise that first starring role– and of Matt keeping the cops distracted (by pretending to be the Jester!) so that his enemy can finally live his dream. 

[ID: Excerpt from O’Neil’s Daredevil run. The Jester is dressed as Cyrano de Bergerac. He pulls off his false nose and bows dramatically to Daredevil and the cops who have come to take him in.]

Jester: “A moment ago you unmasked. Now I shall perform a similar gesture… I am your humble and obedient servant… the Jester! At your service!”

Matt: “You deserve the bow. You were magnificent.”

Jester: “Indeed! I trust the critics will change their tune.”

Daredevil vol. 1 #218 by Denny O’Neil, Sal Buscema, and Christie Scheele

    Throughout the issue, Matt draws comparisons between himself and the Jester: their shared mask-wearing and the experiences of disillusionment that shaped their lives– and while it certainly doesn’t give the Jester the emotional depth of certain other Daredevil villains, it’s a memorable connection. 

    But where the Jester is at his most dangerous is not as an actor looking for attention– it’s as a creator of chaos. The Jester is a master of illusions and media manipulation. In his introductory arc, he frames Daredevil for his murder and turns Matt into a wanted criminal. Later, he uses a campaign of false news reports and misinformation to sabotage Foggy’s run for District Attorney, turn the superhero community into targets, and throw the whole country into an uproar. Most recently, in Waid’s run, he manipulated TV footage to cause rioting in NYC in the wake of an unpopular and highly publicized court ruling. His plans don’t always succeed, but even then, the scope and effectiveness of the damage he causes makes him a truly formidable villain.

[ID: Excerpt from Waid’s Daredevil run. The Jester is sitting in front of computer monitors in a dark room, yelling into a microphone. In the next panel, we see random civilians in a cafe, watching “Mayor Jameson” (played by the Jester) on TV.]

Jester: “Listen to him. God, he’s so smug. No matter. This is a minor setback. Daredevil’s not the ultimate target, after all. The city’s the target, and it’ll burn. Voice synthesizer on… People of New York… this is Mayor Jameson! Effective immediately, I am rescinding all handgun regulations in Manhattan! Take up arms– for your own protection– and await further instructions!”

Daredevil vol. 3 #32 by Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, and Javier Rodriguez

The Owl (Leland Owlsley) The Owl has, unfortunately, been overshadowed by the Kingpin for most of his existence, and as such, hasn’t been given anywhere near the same amount of character development or nuance. They were created based on the same character concept: a high-powered mobster with a shadowy network of pawns who controls the city’s criminal underworld. 

[ID: A series of panels from Lee’s Daredevil run, showing a man in a long green coat and brimmed hat walking into an office building. His face is not shown; the people he passes looked at him with fear.]

Caption: “This is Wall Street, heart of New York’s Financial District, where fortunes are made and lost by the world’s greatest financial wizards! And, within the canyons of this street, we are about to find one certain man… a merciless man… a man with no friends… no loved ones… nothing to connect him with the human race, save the fact of his birth! Let us follow this man… let us study him as he walks into a towering office building, his heavy footsteps reverberating through the huge marble lobby! For we shall see much of this man on the pages that follow… He walks slowly, but with a sure, steady tread… looking neither to the right nor the left… ignoring those he passes and those who pass him! But he himself cannot readily be ignored by others! His very presence seems so fraught with evil, with menace, that his fellow humans shrink back from the mere sight of him! There are some who recognize him… who speak his name in whispers… for his wealth is said to be legendary, and his power almost beyond measure!”

Daredevil vol. 1 #3 by Stan Lee, Joe Orlando, and Sam Rosen

    Unfortunately, the Kingpin just ended up doing it better, and while there are a few Owl story arcs that I really like, I’ve never found him that interesting. However, he is hugely significant because he was the very first Daredevil supervillain, introduced all the way back in Daredevil #3! (In #1 Matt fights the mobsters who killed his father, and in #2 he fights Electro, who is a Spider-Man rogue.) Thus, he has had an impact on Matt’s life simply from having been around for so long. This also means there’s a huge range in his stories, verging from extremely ridiculous (he sometimes eats rats, and used to own an owl-shaped airplane. How cool is that?) to slightly more grounded. There is a great Owl story arc in which his bird-like body modifications start killing him, which gives his law-breaking more nuance, because he is doing it to look for a cure. Matt, upon discovering this, tries to help him. 

[ID: Excerpt from Chichester’s Daredevil run. Daredevil and the Owl are on a fire escape together. The Owl has metal cybernetic legs and has collapsed. Daredevil is comforting him.]

Matt: “You’re going to make it, hear me? You’re gonna–”

Owlsley: “You should’ve let me…”

Matt: “Unh-uh. You take my hand– you’re willing to take my hand– I don’t let go. You’ve got some long ways to go, mister… but you can count on me…”

Daredevil vol. 1 #303 by D.G. Chichester, M.C. Wyman, and Christie Scheele

    There’s also great point in Bendis’s run when the Owl, in a surprising demonstration of cleverness, hires a lawyer to sue Daredevil for breaking and entering. It doesn’t work, but it throws Matt off and is absolutely priceless. 

    The Owl has also had several children– two unnamed young kids who were introduced in Alias, and Jubula Pride, who was introduced in Daredevil Volume 4 and worked alongside Matt to rescue her father. Jubula’s brief-but-memorable appearance added a bit more depth to the Owl– allowing us to see him in the role of a parent as well as a villain. But mostly, over the years the Owl has remained one of the more insidious of New York’s mob bosses, always scheming to stay in power and fight his way out of the Kingpin’s shadow. And he’s been doing it for so long that he feels like an integral part of Daredevil comics. 

Turk Barrett He’s not a costumed supervillain or even much of a threat, but Turk has become an iconic Daredevil antagonist for both his sheer ineptitude and his plucky ability to stay alive. Of all of the recurring low-level mobster characters, he has the most engaging personality, and his dynamic with Matt is one of long-held friendly animosity. Daredevil isn’t the most dangerous person in Turk’s life, Turk isn’t the most dangerous person in Matt’s life, so they mostly just annoy each other. They’ve even been known to team up, when Turk thinks the odds of survival are in his favor. 

[ID: Excerpt from Daredevil: Love and War. Turk Barrett (dressed in a white shirt and blue pants) is mopping the inside of an elevator. The doors open, and Daredevil walks in. They ride the elevator together.] 

Matt: “Turk! You got the job!”

Turk: “No, man… this… I mean, I’m working undercover, man… I’m your backup!”

Matt: “I believe you, Turk.”

Turk: “Even know what level the doc’s on, man… So how’d you get in, Devil?”

Matt: “I flew in, Turk.”

Turk: “…Course. I knew that. ‘Spose the window locks weren’t much trouble…”

Matt: “Melted them with my heat vision.”

Daredevil: Love and War by Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz

    Turk is an underdog. He’s kind of a goof and he’s certainly a criminal, but he’s also a small fish in a big and dangerous pond, working in a career where most people eventually end up at the bottom of the East River in concrete shoes (or a taxi, as the case may be). He’s slippery and resourceful, he stays just harmless enough to keep himself out of danger, and you can’t help but root for him, even when he does dumb things like stealing Stilt-Man’s stilts or trying to kill Daredevil for the hundredth unsuccessful time. 

Stilt-Man (Wilbur Day), of course, requires no introduction. He is another personal favorite of mine, and a rare case of a goofy Silver Age villain surviving into the modern era while remaining exactly as goofy as he was when first introduced. The great appeal of Stilt-Man is, in fact, that he’s a bit of a joke, while at the same time being quite dangerous, in a comic book physics-kind of way.  

[ID: Excerpt from Lee’s run. Daredevil is battling Stilt-Man on a daytime city street.]

Wilbur: “Hah! You missed!! Have you forgotten so soon how easily I can change my height, thanks to my magnificent hydraulically-operated stilts?!!”

Matt: “Mebbe so! But I haven’t forgotten that I’m the gent who whumped you good last time fought! (Man! It sure is lucky I was here! If Stilt-Man ever managed to get the Leap-Frog safely away, what a team those two would make! But, I hear the boys in blue hauling that human jumping jack right now! Which means Stilty and I can go it alone!) Heads up, dad! It’s time for fun ‘n games again!”

Wilbur: “Hah! Didn’t expect me to seize your cable, did you? I should have warned you, little man– I’ve modified my protective armor in such a way as to double my strength! Which means I’m more than a match for your limited talents!!”

Daredevil vol. 1 #26 by Stan Lee, Gene Colan, and Artie Simek

    Part of the charm of this characterization is the fact that he’s a joke in-universe as well; most of his appearances in modern comics consist of Stilt-Man being made fun of and/or of the audience being reminded that he’s actually a threat. This creates a great balance in his depictions; the jokes are fun, the sight of various superheroes being beaten up (at least a little) by Stilt-Man is fun, and he remains an enjoyable, mostly lighthearted presence in a landscape that has become dominated by Dark, Serious, and Disturbing villains. 

[ID: Excerpt from Bendis’s Daredevil run. Matt is sitting at his desk in his darkened office, talking to Wilbur Day– a short, bald guy in a black jacket, with his arm in a sling.]

Wilbur: “Wilbur Day– I’m Stilt-Man. We’ve met four hundred times.”

Matt: “Stilt-Man– Huh. Oh, you mean that burglar guy Stilt-Man? Who wears the stilts and robs things?”

Wilbur: “Can we please just–”

Matt: “We’ve met when?”

Wilbur: “I–”

Matt: “Are you in some kind of legal trouble? Is that why you’re here?”

Wilbur: “Okay, fine.”

Daredevil vol. 2 #41 by Brian Michael Bendis, Alex Maleev, and Matt Hollingsworth

    Stilt-Man is just a short guy in a ridiculous outfit who wants to commit some crimes and get a little respect– and really, who can’t relate to that?  

Ikari (???) I’m mentioning Ikari not because he’s a long-established Daredevil villain– he’s not– but because I am fascinated by his potential. He’s a favorite of mine as much for what we don’t know as for what we do. In his introductory arc, we learn this: He was engineered/commissioned by Bullseye to kill Matt, his fighting abilities equal Matt’s, he has hypersenses, and (as a horrified Matt discovers later) he can also see.

Ikari: “Someone has, in fact, managed to re-create the toxic chemicals that blinded you, gave you enhanced senses. Someone whose hate for you keeps him alive. But he didn’t waste the process on weak, malnourished vagrants. He used it to baptize a warrior. A fighter trained to be every bit your equal in skill– and now, in power.” 

Daredevil vol. 3 #25 by Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, and Javier Rodriguez

    And that’s it. We don’t know who he is or where he came from, or what the consequences are of having that degree of sensory perception (presumably his vision is heightened too?). We don’t know what his personal goals or motivations are, since we’ve only ever seen him as a pawn– first of Bullseye and then, later, of the Kingpin. But the concept of his character as someone who shares Matt’s powers plus some– who is essentially, skills-wise, a criminal version of Matt– and all the mystery that surrounds him, is hugely compelling to me. 

[ID: Excerpt from Waid’s Daredevil run. Both Ikari and Daredevil are out on the street, being shot at by cops. As Daredevil hides behind a parked car, Ikari attacks the cops and cuts their guns in half with his blades.]

Matt: “The cops are hunting me under an open-fire command. Presuming they’ve been advised of Ikari’s prison break, I’m sure the same order applies to him. I wish it scared him. I wish anything did.”

Daredevil vol. 4 #17 by Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, and Matt Wilson

    In his last appearance he was killed by the Shroud, but his body was stolen, leaving the door open for him to maybe return sometime in the future and receive more development. I hope he does. 

[sarcasticace]

wait why is AME b2 so bad??

Under the cut because this gets long and kinda rant-y, sorry

 - The writers should’ve never implemented double elimination. It helped this season feel different, which was something this book needed to be successful, but it only made it feel like the new characters left way too soon. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like we hardly got to know most of them. I get that it was so there was never an odd number of contestants, but they could’ve done something like… winner is exempt every other challenge or something.

 - I am convinced the writers DID NOT know what to do with Ivy or Vince. Particularly Ivy. They kept switching between the 2D villain Adam-mancers love to petty hate to this really compelling (at least imo), complicated rival character.  They should have stuck with the later AND they should have paired Ivy with MC at least once, leading to addressing her betrayal from last season: letting players forgive Ivy and move on (and rekindle their romance if players did that last season) or remain bitter towards her. But mostly pairing MC and Ivy in a challenge for the drama. It boggles my mind that both Ivy and MC are in the same season, but no one bothered to pair them up. I vaguely remember it was one of the reasons S10 didn’t tank. I might be remembering some details wrong, but in-universe, didn’t fans tune it to see that sweet MC/Ivy drama? Any good showrunner would have taken advantage and milked the hell out of it by doing whatever they can to put the two in the same room. I guess Carson being portrayed as incompetent subverted that, but Carson is a fictional character so that doesn’t count. If the writers weren’t going to fully take advantage of the Ivy/MC dynamic, they should have cut Ivy from the book entirely.

 - The partners. This was such a brilliant idea, but omg did they fuck it up. Why did they ONLY pair MC with Slater, Vince, and Adam. I mean, of fucking course it’s Adam, but they should’ve made it so the contestants got new partners AFTER EVERY CHALLENGE. Not when Carson felt like it or something came up. And MC should never have been paired with Adam (or Mack and Derek for that matter). It should have been Ivy (for the above reason) and all the new characters especially if they were committed to the idea of double eliminations. That way players get to know the characters one-on-one before they’re gone. Obviously, Adam is gonna stick around till the end because he’s one of the LIs and he’s on the cover. Also because of the whole proposal setup. Making him one of MC’s partners is a waste of time when you have new characters that will be leaving way before him. Diamond scenes aren’t going anywhere. That’s where they’re putting LI character+romantic development nowadays. MC, Adam, Mack, and Derek seem to have formed a friends group. They interact the most and there are several entire chapters where those three (+Jen) are the only characters to appear. What’s the point? Just pull a Total Drama and bring back the old contestants in a season 10.2, but switch up the elimination order. Having said that, yes, we do get to interact a lot with Eden/Heath and Kiara, but not characters like Yvette and Rowan. Maybe it’s just me, but I felt like I knew more about Ryder, Lina, and Han in their short time than any of the new All-Stars. These are winners and VIPs of previous seasons. They should have something to offer! If the new characters mean nothing then why waste the assets. Take Yvette for example… she’s a mom and willing to use her kids to guilt people into not voting her off. Enough to make players dislike her, but besides that moments and a few single lines, she’s a throwaway characters. And to prove my point, PB didn’t even wait for AME2 to finish before recycling her character model for a minor patient character in Open Heart. I don’t care about PB reusing assets, but can they stop being THAT lazy for five minutes.

 - There’s the fact that they didn’t do anything creative with partners outside of the ones involving the MC. Particularly the ones for the LIs. Vince, for example, didn’t get paired with Adam AT ALL despite their history. Just like with MC/Ivy, why would any showrunner worth their salt not want to capitalize on the drama between Adam and Vince? Same goes for the actual writers of this book. Why even have Adam around if not to spice things up with Vince? 

 - And since we’re on the topic of Vince… why did he not have that big of a role? I mean, on one hand, I kinda like that he’s just a diva and annoying. I’ll give B2 that much, they subverted my expectation of Vince being the main villain of this book, but in all honestly… they should’ve went with that route. It would’ve been exciting if MC would have to ally with Ivy in order to defeat a worse contestant. Then I was expecting Slater to be the secret big bad and Vince would be a red herring, but again… nope. Vince is just a diva and Slater plays rough. Those aren’t bad things, but they were also disappointing… much like the entire book. I know they didn’t want to copy what they did in the last book, but having this book’s finale just include your friends/LI rather than having it you vs. your rival is kinda lackluster imo.

 - One last thing about Vince… he almost seriously injured Adam in one of the earlier chapters and it’s never brought up again. Ever! They could’ve included a scene later on, like B1 had with Zeke, where MC could decide whether to reveal they saw Vince mess with the controls and that��d sway the opinions of the jury house and affect whether or not they’d listen to him. But of course that’s not what happened. This is Choices so consequences are only every applied to the MC. 

 - This “dating Jen” drama should’ve been done in full back in B1, but only for players actually romancing Jen. No offence to the other LIs, but Jen was the most appealing. Having a forbidden romance with one of the producers? Narrowly avoiding getting caught and risking your chance of staying on the show? It’s way more interesting that Adam/Mackenzie all of a sudden falling for MC just because. We know PB has the coding power. They could’ve and should’ve done it If they’re gonna have multiple endings for RoD, of all books, then they should commit to a standard for their books and should’ve coded AME A LOT better. Hell, they should’ve just outlined the whole series better, but we ended up with… this.

 - Also they need to do something with Mack’s backstory… her family is poor? She wants the prize money to put her sister through college. And yet she ONLY ever sabotaged Ryder then fell in love with MC and did nothing dirty for the rest of both seasons. If they weren’t gonna make Ivy a complicated rival character, they should’ve just cut Ivy all together and given that storyline to Mack. This is mostly a B1 complaint, but it follows through to B2 because they don’t commit with Ivy and don’t do much  with Mack. They introduce her family, which was interesting, but idk she lost a lot of appeal for me in B1 when she fell head over heals for my MC for no reason. Mackenzie’s route had “slow burn” written all over it, but they neglected her. Either Mack should’ve been the rival LI or they should’ve cut her and made Adam fully customizable (like Hayden) then have Ivy fill the role of second female LI.

- Again with Mack… her complaining about cheating is really funny and kinda OOC. Like I mentioned before, she literally sabotaged Ryder because he was a jerk and she wanted to win. Did the writers forget about that? This was just one of several points that shows the writers did not care about their own story and characters. 

 - Also they needed to do something? … anything… with Derek. Poor man, he’s the only LI who gets how this show is played. He deserves better. I don’t talk about Derek much, but I honestly love this man. He’s just dull. He needs… anything. Give him anything. Like the only significant storyline they gave him, that I can remember, is his show-mance with Ivy and that was more Ivy’s storyline than his.

 - And Bianca being friend-zoned despite PB bringing her back. Really? PB must know a lot of fans like her. At the very least a lot of tumblr fans. Idk why they wouldn’t want to capitalize on that. Did they really think it wasn’t a good idea to give her a few diamond scenes? Did neglecting her again make them more money? So instead of giving Bianca… literally anything, they give Slater, a completely new character, a couple of diamond scenes and let players be a little flirty with him. 

 - Having Eden/Heath and Kiara getting into an accident was a good twist, I was genuinely worried about them, but I gotta laugh that it took them both out of the competition. I mean, it makes sense. They were seriously injured. Realistically, they wouldn’t be able to compete, but their elimination brought the final 6 to MC, the LIs, Vince, and Ivy/Slater. Determinant 5 of 6 contestants are from S10 and one has been in 3 seasons, 2 of which he quit. That’s so dumb. Like… were there ANY in-universe fans who saw this and thought this show was rigged? I mean, more than fans normally would about reality shows?

 - How did Mack, Adam, and Derek even get on this show? At first I thought MC was surrounded by celebrities. Bianca was a model, Han was an athlete, Ryder was a pop star, etc etc. I assumed everyone else were celebutantes or something and MC was the odd one out who got lucky when they stumbled across Whitney and Jen. But nah, Mack and Adam (and I think Derek too) are just college students who applied for the show to pay for tuition??? If they’re not famous or didn’t come from fame, why did Piper invite them to compete in the first place? What was so special about them that drew her attention. This is a minor complaint, but it’s just weird to see each of the LIs come from regular families like MC. Not that what we got was bad, but like… did they win a contest or something? What’s the deal? Idk if it’s in a diamond scene I didn’t pay for, but it really should be a free piece of characterization. It would’ve made me care more about the LIs and make them more memorable. 

 - Does anyone think the friendship/ally status does anything besides determine who votes for who at the end of the season? Why would they implement the friendship meter from ES if they don’t use it for alternate dialogue? Because they know most of the characters won’t be in the next book? Probably, but still. I can’t tell if Adam hating MC is any different then Adam being MC’s ally besides him voting for them at the end of S10, but even then, that doesn’t make sense because he has ample reason to not vote for Ivy. And yet he still votes for Ivy if he’s anything lower than ally. Again, mostly a b1 complaint.

 - Someone had a great idea (I forget who, but please message me) that the LIs should be an auto vote and for the rest, whether or not they vote for your should be based on a percentage. The higher the relationship status, the higher the chance. Friends being 75%, neutral being 50% or lower, dislike/hate somewhere around 20 -15%. As an idea.

And that’s the major ones, I’m sure there are more other people can tack on.